Ever After: A Father's True Story Read online

  “You don’t perhaps have some of this great German beer around, do you, Kate?”

  By luck, I have one bottle. I don’t drink beer myself. It isn’t cold because we haven’t plugged in the refrigerator yet, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He has a bottle-opener on the knife with his keys, and drinks it out of the bottle before I can find a glass. Just then, Wills comes running in. Bert lolls back and smiles.

  “Hi there, buster, what’s your name?”

  Wills, his mouth open, is taking in this hunk of a man. Bert has to be six-three and 200 pounds.

  “Wills, sir.”

  “Well, Wilzer, I’ve seen you shooting baskets down there in the gym. You like basketball?

  “Yeah, but I can’t get the ball up high enough to go through the basket. It’s too high.”

  “Sure you can. Next time I see you down there, I’ll show you how. You’ll be dropping in baskets like Magic Johnson.”

  I’ve prepared most of the dinner. I’ve borrowed some dishes and cutlery—so much for my bachelor life. I’ve let the spare-ribs simmer for three hours, basting them with my ersatz barbecue sauce. I’ve set the little table. Wills is as excited about having spare-ribs as Bert is. I haven’t done any real cooking in quite a while.

  Both Wills and Bert eat with such gusto that my hokey barbecue sauce is spread all over the kitchen. No cook can ever complain when people dig in like that, and I don’t.

  For me, Bert looks part grizzly bear, yet, strangely enough, it’s attractive. He’s physical, is deeply into sports; likes beer, chasing women, horsing around with the boys. He’s exactly the kind of man I’ve spent most of my life trying to avoid. I also recognize in him some of the things in my dad which drove me up a wall. I wonder what Mom would think of him: dismiss him probably as one of the unwashed peasants. But I admit his very simplicity gets to me. I know I’ll need to watch myself.

  For Wills, Bert is just some other kid to play with. Bert actually listens to him ramble on, and shows him about ten different silly things you can do with a knife, fork, and spoon, including drumming. They start drumming on the table, the glasses, the dishes, anything they can touch, while Bert sings or hums, “When the Saints Come Marching In.” That’s how a lot of the sauce is spread all over the place.

  In self-defense, I move over to the kitchen and begin taking things off the table. But all the time my eyes are glued on Bert and he knows it. He’s acting up. He knows when I look at his massive forearms or the hair squeezing up over his T-shirt. That’s right, he’s wearing a T-shirt at the table, a dirty, sweaty T-shirt. After all, he’s just moved a refrigerator. I’m giggling, thinking to myself: what would it be like, making love to a grizzly bear?

  I have the answer that night. After Wills is in bed, we begin chatting. He tells me about his home town in Oregon, a place called Falls City. His best friends are still his high-school buddies, especially the ones he played basketball with. He’s thirty-two, a year older than I am and has never been married, says he has no intention of getting married, at least not for a long time yet.

  He makes simple moves, the kind adolescent boys make, and I don’t resist. It’s been months since I’ve had a chance to be with a man.

  He doesn’t so much make love, as cuddle, and hold, wrap himself around me, all in slow motion, like one of those underwater love scenes. His hands are strong and gentle. He never hurries, doesn’t seem nervous at all. It’s as if making love is the most natural thing in the world, and all men and women who aren’t making love just then, at that moment, are really missing something. It’s a bit like making love with a real animal, maybe not a grizzly bear or a gorilla, but a powerful male. I don’t think I’ve felt so safe and comfortable with any man in my life.

  He giggles a lot. He hardly talks when we’re loving, but makes all kinds of quiet purring, growling, contented noises. We fall asleep after about two hours of fore-, center-, and after-play.

  In the morning, he’s up before I am, sitting in the little alcove-kitchen with Wills, playing cards; actually he’s performing card tricks while they both eat cornflakes raw—I mean dry. He’s made some coffee. Soon as he realizes I’m awake, he calls out to me.

  “Cuppa Java?”

  I nod. I’m still in bed. I wonder what Wills is thinking. I’ve always tried to keep the men in my life away from Wills because he still loves Danny so, and I don’t want to make him feel things are as bad between us as they really are.

  Bert ambles over to the kitchen stove and pours me a cup. He’s wearing a pair of boxer shorts. He doesn’t even have shoes on. He has wide feet that won’t sink in any mud, and a tattoo on his left ankle. He smiles down at me.

  “Hope you don’t mind my staying over. Little Wilzer was up and moving about before either of us, so I just slithered out of bed and joined him. I don’t think he’s noticed much.”

  This he says in what passes as a whisper for him. As I get to know Bert, I learn his idea of a whisper can be heard at fifty meters. But Wills is concentrating on the cards, trying to build a card house to match the one Bert’s made on the table.

  I sit up and drink the coffee. It’s been a long time since anyone’s brought me coffee in bed. My hair is a mess. I’m sure my make-up is smeared all over my face, but I know Bert doesn’t mind too much. He leans over and gives me a quick, light kiss. I’m astounded again at how such a big, seemingly clumsy man can be so gentle. He straightens up.

  “Well, I’d better get back to my place. My landlady watches me like a hawk. We don’t want to start any rumors before we even begin teaching. Old Lister, our beloved headmaster, would blow his crispy, blond top.”

  That’s how it starts. I expect him to move over to the next available woman but it doesn’t happen that way at all. We begin to go out a little even before school officially starts, just to the local Gasthauses, usually with Wills. I have a hard time keeping from calling him Wilzer myself. That gives some idea of the quiet power of Bert’s personality.

  Bert invites me to his place. I go, after Wills is asleep; the lady downstairs said she’d listen for him. I meet him at the Dampher Steg, my favorite place, a little gazebo near the docks for the local cruising boat. It’s a wonderful spot to wait for someone, with the swans and ducks and the sun setting over the lake.

  But, as the weeks go by, I rarely have to wait because Bert is usually there before me. He always has something special, a piece of German chocolate, or some wild flowers he’s picked, or a particularly beautiful stone he’s found by the side of the lake and shined up for me. He’s always whittling something, such as two links in a chain, or a heart with our names on it. It’s like a high-school romance, but so much more powerful because we’re older, old enough not to expect too much and to take it as it comes.

  He’s there, waiting for me, and we go to his place. He puts his finger to his lips and makes a big deal about sneaking up the back staircase. The landlady was adamant that he was to bring no women to his room. The Germans can be awfully uptight, especially the older ones. Bert says he almost didn’t take the place because of this “no women” business but couldn’t find anything better in his price range.

  It’s a real nest, like a bear’s cave or fox’s warren, one big room with a bed nestled under an eave. In fact, everything is tucked under an eave one way or another. But it’s cozy. He makes me a cup of coffee and pours a bit of brandy in it. Usually, I don’t drink alcohol, but this is special. He’s so proud of himself I just can’t say no, so I sip slowly and try getting it down without choking. Mom and I both have this problem of choking on anything spicy or strong.

  Bert and I naturally grab onto each other and then drop into that bed where a person can scarcely sit up. I’m beginning to feel I could be falling in love with this creature of a man. This doesn’t fit my plans at all. I want some time, at least two years, to prove myself as a teacher and establish my independence.

  We aren’t even halfway through the first semester when Bert gives up his place and moves in with me. I don’t
fight it. He makes me feel valued, not just precious, but intrinsically valued, in a way that no one, not even my own parents, who I know love me dearly, ever could.

  We have become the “romance” of the school. Bert’s very overt in his affections, taking my hand when we walk, or throwing one of his monster arms over my shoulders. We have a little coffee-clatch of elementary-school teachers who meet at lunch every day and he joins us. At first, a few object, but they quickly accept him. I keep catching him gazing at me.

  And the change in Wills is remarkable. He’s always hated school. Now he drives there with Bert and me. Bert chatters along about his math, asking him what parts are hard, and showing him the magic, secret ways he has to lick different kinds of arithmetic, as if they’re fighting off some multi-armed dragon. Bert, who isn’t, himself, much of a reader, can also light a fire under Wills, just by reading to him. He’ll go along, then at critical parts ask questions about what’s happened or what Wills thinks is going to happen. He’ll sometimes act as if he’s stuck and ask Wills to sound out a word. What a fine first-grade teacher he’d make.

  He also gets Wills interested in both calculators and his computer. He sucks him in with games, then has him checking his homework, sometimes with the calculator, sometimes with the computer.

  Homework actually begins to be fun-time at home. After dinner, Bert opens a beer and Wills spreads his work over the kitchen table. Bert leaves Wills alone till he’s stuck, then comes charging in. It’s like Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence. Wills will end up begging to do the next part and Bert will keep pushing him off till Wills starts to be mad, then takes over and finishes with joy.

  Bert likes to smoke cigars, the most vile cigars I’ve ever smelled. When he moved in, I told him he couldn’t smoke those things in the house. Then I told him he couldn’t smoke in the car either, even when I’m not with him. When he can’t stand it any longer, he’ll go outside and take a walk to have his “stogie.” Invariably, Wills wants to join him. So now I’ve made a new rule: “no stogie walk” until Wills is in bed. I don’t know why Bert puts up with all this.

  With each new rule, and there are many, Bert just tilts his head, looks at me to see how serious I am, then shrugs his massive shoulders. I hate bringing up any of these rules. I see how he suffers. I also don’t want to lose him. How often does a woman get a chance at a man like this one?

  Bert plays in a basketball league of local Germans and Americans. This is the kind of thing he really likes. Wills loves to watch him. Bert plays like a bull in a china shop, none of the usual slinking around of basketball players. He’ll just dribble, watching for someone to whom he can pass, and if nothing comes up, he’ll find the smallest hole and charge right through it. He has several impressive shots besides a right-and left-hand lay up—especially a stop-and-jump shot with one hand.

  I learn the names of these things from watching and having them explained to me after each game. Before, I didn’t know a thing about basketball. Sports, especially team sports, were not exactly favored in our family.

  Afterward, Bert likes “goin’ out with the boys.” They go to one of the local Stüben and have a few beers, smoke cigars, and participate in some good old-fashioned male camaraderie crap.

  He’ll come home a bit silly, usually bearing some goofy thing he’s picked up, as a love gift, like a beer coaster on which he’s written “Bert loves Kate.” Then he’ll climb in bed and fall right to sleep. I can’t bring myself to ask him to stop.

  At Christmas, I talk Bert into coming to the mill and having Christmas with the family. I know he’ll like it: the stuff about the mill that I hated will be just his thing. I tell him that we’ll chop down and steal our Christmas tree as we do every year. Dad will write about it later, in a book called Tidings. I’m Maggie in that book.

  Bert fits right in with the family. The morning after we arrive, he’s padding around the main room in a sweatsuit and bare feet. Nobody, not even Dad, walks around at the mill in bare feet. The floor is freezing. Bert’s feet just don’t seem to feel the cold. Bert’s enthusiastic about everything—the pond, the hills, the dark mystical quality of the Morvan, the whole family.

  He says it’s the closest thing to Oregon he’s found in Europe, and, in some ways, it might even be better. He connives with the tree-napping, helps mount a ten-footer in the corner next to the fireplace, puts on the highest balls and wraps the lights and garlands around it. He works right in with the family, as if he’s always been there.

  Late one evening, after Christmas, when everyone has gone to bed, I have a few moments alone with Dad.

  “What do you think of Bert, Dad?”

  “Well, to be honest, I’m not sure he isn’t a member of the family who’s been hiding out on us. I can look at Robert, Matt, and Bert and see them as brothers. I think he’s terrific. What do you think of him?”

  “You remember what you said when I was considering divorcing Danny and I asked you, long distance, what love was?”

  “I’ll never forget it. I was very upset. I didn’t want you to divorce. Now it seems to have worked out, but I still feel sorry for Danny.”

  “Don’t worry about Danny. He’s living a yuppie life in Venice, California. But that isn’t what I want to talk about.

  “You said love was admiration, respect, and passion. I thought you weren’t being helpful, but you were. Do you remember what you said about having all three?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, now I know I don’t have to die to go to heaven.”

  But I did.

  CHAPTER 3

  BY NOW, Bert’s moved into my place with most of his junk, and we need more privacy. We need a bedroom to ourselves.

  One of the teachers tells us about an apartment up on the hill overlooking town. We go see it. Although it isn’t perfect, it’s the right price and gives us just about what we want. It’s second floor again with an outside metal spiral staircase. We can also enter through the front door, up a real marble staircase on the inside, but then we need to pass through Frau Zeidelman’s part; she’s the owner of the place. We decide to use the outside staircase, unless we’re desperate—ice, or snow, or something like that.

  The apartment’s basically a corridor, with rooms on each side. The rooms on one side open onto a terrace looking out over the town to the lake. It’s a beautiful view. On that side we decide to put the living-room, our bedroom and Wills’ bedroom. On the other side is the toilet-room with one of those crazy German toilets where the shit sits on a platform so you can inspect it while it smells up the entire room before you flush.

  But it’s clean, everything is ungodly clean, and well-built in the German style, with double windows that swing open in all kinds of weird ways with levers and locks. The doors are so big and heavy, fitted so tightly, you could cut your fingers off without trying.

  Because we’re the school romance, everybody on the faculty pitches in with furniture, even some of the parents, so that in no time, we have the place nicely furnished. I haven’t felt so part of a place since we lived in Idylwild.

  Bert hates to sleep in a bed. There’s more than a little hippy in him. He wants a mattress on the floor. He usually gives in to me but not on this one.

  I’ve got to admit it’s comfortable, and it helps my back, but getting up and out of this “floor bed” in the morning is almost more than I can manage. Unless he gives me a push or a pull, I have to spin around on my knees and crawl out backwards. Also, it’s hard to make. I honestly don’t think Bert ever made a bed in his life. I need to show him how to make hospital-type corners that won’t come out, and then how to fold the top sheet over the covers. He thinks it’s all very amusing.

  Because he stretches out in the evenings on the bed to read—says he can’t read or think in a chair—it’s usually a mess again before I climb in anyway. His idea of a great evening is slipping into his gray sweatsuit, then flopping on the bed with a copy of Stars and Stripes or the Herald Tribune and nibbling on some of those big,
fat German pretzels while slugging down a beer or two.

  Lots of times, Wills snuggles in beside him, and I have the house to myself. I’ll sit in the living-room and read something and pretend I’m Mom. Later, after Wills has fallen asleep, I’ll take him down the hall to the toilet, then to his own bedroom.

  After I’ve tucked him in, most times I go back to our bed. Bert half wakes and softly explores all over me, mumbling and singing in his half-sleep. If I want to, I only need to show some interest and we’re off. If I’m tired or just not interested, it doesn’t take much, and his consciousness, or whatever it is, will slowly recede, and he’ll roll on his back and snore quietly.

  When summer comes, Bert’s crazy about going to Greece. Danny and I’ve made a deal: I can take Wills with me to Europe, provided he stays with Danny through the summer. Actually, by the terms of the divorce, Danny could have stopped me from taking Wills out of the country at all.

  Danny has a new job, a good one, selling stainless steel, and has married a very nice woman. I feel reasonably comfortable about Wills going off to California. The only thing that worries me is he’ll probably find himself all wrapped up in TV and TV dinners while he’s there. But as Bert says, “He’s Danny’s child as much as he’s yours. You just have to let go.”

  It’s a teary goodbye at the airport. As soon as I put Wills on the plane, I telephone Danny to verify that he’ll be there at the airport in Los Angeles to pick him up. Danny can sometimes forget even the most important things. We split the cost of the fare.

  So Bert and I take off for Greece, camping. I’ve always hated camping. We didn’t do much of it in our family. Dad said that during World War II he’d had all the camping he’ll ever need for the rest of his life. The idea of sleeping out on the ground in what he calls a “fart sack” has no appeal to him.