They were all waiting for us in the lobby. Schraubenschlüssel was wearing his streetcar conductor’s uniform; he looked very “official.” Arbeiter had come dressed for work; he was so well dressed, in fact, that he wouldn’t have looked out of place at the Opera. He was wearing a tuxedo—all black. And the quarterback was there, the signal caller was there to lead them—Ernst the lady-killer, Ernst the pornographer, Ernst the star was there. Only Old Billig—Old Billig the radical—was missing. He blew the way the wind blew, as Arbeiter had observed: Old Billig was smart enough to have excluded himself from this end of the movement. He would still be around for the next show; for Ernst and Arbeiter, for Schraubenschlüssel and Schwanger, this was surely the gala (and maybe the final) performance.
“Lilly dear,” Schwanger said. “Go fetch Freud for us. Freud should be here, too.”
And Lilly, once again cast in the role of Freud’s Seeing Eye bear, brought the old blind believer to us—his Louisville Slugger tap-tap-tapping in front of him, his scarlet silk robe with the black dragon on the back was all he wore (“Chinatown, New York City, 1939!” he had told us).
“What dream is this?” the old man said. “Whatever happened to democracy?”
Lilly seated Freud on the couch next to Father; Freud promptly whacked Father’s shin with the baseball bat.
“Oh, sorry!” Freud cried. “Whose anatomy is that?”
“Win Berry,” my father said softly; it was eerie, but that was the only time we children heard him speak his own name.
“Win Berry!” Freud cried. “Well, nothing too bad can happen with Win Berry around!” No one looked so sure.
“Explain yourselves!” Freud shouted to the darkness he saw. “You’re all here,” the old man said. “I can smell you, I can hear every breath.”
“It’s really quite simple to explain,” Ernst said quietly.
“Basic,” said Arbeiter. “Truly basic.”
“We need a driver,” Ernst said softly, “someone to drive the car.”
“It runs like a dream,” Schraubenschlüssel said, worshipfully. “It purrs like a kitten.”
“Drive it yourself, Wrench,” I said.
“Be quiet, dear,” Schwanger said to me; I just looked at her gun to confirm that it was pointed at me.
“Be quiet, weight lifter,” Wrench said; he had a short, heavy-looking tool protruding from the front pants pocket of his streetcar conductor’s uniform, and he rested his hand on the tool as if the tool were the butt of a pistol.
“Fehlgeburt was full of doubt,” Ernst said.
“Fehlgeburt is dead,” Lilly said—our family realist, the family writer.
“Fehlgeburt had a fatal case of romanticism,” Ernst said. “She always questioned the means.”
“The ends do justify the means, you know,” Arbeiter interjected. “That’s basic, truly basic.”
“You’re a moron, Arbeiter,” Franny said.
“And you’re as self-righteous as any capitalist!” Freud told Arbeiter.
“But mainly a moron, Arbeiter,” said Susie the bear. “A truly basic moron.”
“The bear would make a good driver,” Schraubenschlüssel said.
“Stick it in your ear, Wrench,” said Susie the bear.
“The bear is too hostile to be trusted,” Ernst said, so logically.
“You bet your sweet ass,” said Susie the bear.
“I can drive,” Franny said to Ernst.
“You can’t,” I said. “You never even got your driver’s license, Franny.”
“But I know how to drive,” Franny said. “Frank taught me.”
“I know how to drive better than you, Franny,” Frank said. “If one of us has to drive, I’m a better driver.”
“No, I am,” Franny said.
“You did surprise me, Franny,” Ernst said. “You were better at following directions than I thought you’d be—you were good at taking instructions.”
“Don’t move, dear,” Schwanger said to me, because my arms were jerking—the way they do when I’ve been curling the long bar, for a long time.
“What’s that mean?” Father asked Ernst; his German was so poor. “What directions—what instructions?” Father asked.
“He fucked me,” Franny told Father.
“Just sit tight,” Wrench said to my father, moving near him with his tool. But Frank had to translate for Father.
“Just stay where you are, Pop,” Frank said.
Freud was swishing the baseball bat as if he were a cat and the bat were his tail, and he tapped my father’s leg with it—once, twice, thrice. I knew that Father wanted the bat. He was very good with the Louisville Slugger.
Occasionally, when Freud was napping, Father would take us to the Stadtpark and hit us some grounders. We all liked scooping up ground balls. A little game of good old American baseball in the Stadtpark, with Father whacking out the ground balls. Even Lilly liked playing. You don’t have to be big to field a ground ball. Frank was the worst at it; Franny and I were good at fielding—in a lot of ways, we were about the same. Father would whack the sharpest grounders at Franny and me.
But Freud held the bat, now, and he used it to calm my father down.
“You slept with Ernst, Franny?” Father asked her, softly.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“You fucked my daughter?” Father asked Ernst.
Ernst treated it like a metaphysical question. “It was a necessary phase,” he said, and I knew that at that moment I could have done what Junior Jones could do: I could have bench-pressed twice my own weight—maybe three or four times, fast; I could have pumped that barbell up and not felt a thing.
“My daughter was a necessary phase?” Father asked Ernst.
“This is not an emotional situation,” Ernst said. “This is a matter of technique,” he said, ignoring my father. “Although I’m sure you could do a good job of driving the car, Franny, Schwanger has asked us that each of you children be spared.”
“Even the weight lifter?” Arbeiter asked.
“Yes, he’s a dear to me, too,” Schwanger said, beaming at me—with her gun.