The Hotel New Hampshire

Hampshire his year-round home (when he no longer hit the road, and the winter circus circuit, with the younger midgets). Lilly would get sad whenever she thought of him, because if it had been Fritz’s size that first impressed her, it was the vision of staying in Fritz’s Hotel New Hampshire (instead of going to Vienna) that Lilly imagined whenever she thought of Fritz—and Lilly would therefore imagine how all our lives might have been different if we had not lost Mother and Egg. No “angels from heaven” had been on hand to save them.

But, of course, we had no such vision of the world when we first saw Vienna. “Freud’s Vienna,” as Frank would say—and we knew which Freud he meant.

All over Vienna (in 1957) were the gaps between the buildings, were the buildings collapsed and airy, the buildings left as the bombs had left them. In some rubbled lots, often the perimeters of playgrounds abandoned by children, one had the feeling of unexploded bombs buried in the raked and orderly debris. Between the airport and the outer districts, we passed a Russian tank that had been firmly arranged—in concrete—as a kind of memorial. The tank’s top hatch was sprouting flowers, its long barrel was draped with flags, its red star faded and speckled by birds. It was permanently parked in front of what looked like a post office, but our cab flew by too fast for us to be sure.

Sorrow floats, but we arrived in Vienna before our bad news arrived, and we were inclined toward a cautious optimism. The war damage was more contained as we approached the inner districts; on occasion, even the sun shone through the elaborate buildings—and a row of stone cupids leaned off a roof over us, their bellies pockmarked by machine-gun fire. More people appeared in the streets, though the outer districts resembled one of those old sepia photographs taken at a time of day before everyone was up—or after everyone had been killed.

“It’s spooky,” Lilly ventured; out of fright, she had finally stopped crying.

“It’s old,” Franny said.

“Wo ist die Geműtlichkeit?” Frank sang, cheerfully—looking around for some.

“I think your mother will like it here,” Father said, optimistically.

“Egg won’t like it,” Franny said.

“Egg won’t be able to hear it,” Frank said.

“Mother will hate it, too,” Lilly said.

“Four hundred and sixty-four,” Franny said.

Our driver said something unintelligible. Even Father could tell it wasn’t German. Frank struggled to talk with the man and discovered he was Hungarian—from the recent revolution. We searched the rearview mirror, and our driver’s dull eyes, for signs of lasting wounds—imagining them, if not seeing them. Then a park burst beside us, on our right, and a building as lovely as a palace (it was a palace), and out a courtyard gate came a cheerful fat woman in a nurse’s uniform (clearly a nanny) pushing in front of her a double-seater baby carriage (someone had had twins!), and Frank read an idiot statistic from a mindless travel brochure.

“A city of fewer than one and a half million people,” Frank read to us, “Vienna still has more than three hundred coffeehouses!” We stared out of our cab at the streets, expecting them to be stained with coffee. Franny rolled down her window and sniffed; there was the diesel rankness of Europe, but no coffee. It would not take us long to learn what coffeehouses were for: for sitting a long time, for homework, for talking to whores, for darts, for billiards, for drinking more than coffee, for making plans—for our escape—and of course for insomnia, and for dreams. But then we were dazzled by the fountain at the Schwarzenbergplatz, we crossed the Ringstrasse, jolly with streetcars, and our driver began chanting to himself, “Krugerstrasse, Krugerstrasse,” as if by this repetition the little street would leap out at us (it did), and then: “Gasthaus Freud, Gasthaus Freud.”

The Gasthaus Freud did not leap out at us. Our driver slowly drove right by it, and Frank ran into the Kaffe Mowatt to ask directions; it was then pointed out to us—the building we had missed. Gone was the candy store (although the signs for the former Konditorei—BONBONS, and so forth—were leaning against the window, inside). Father assumed this meant that Freud—in preparation for our arrival—had begun the expansion plans, had bought out the candy store. But, upon closer inspection, we realized that a fire had destroyed the Konditorei and must have at least threatened the inhabitants of the adjacent Gasthaus Freud. We entered the small, dark hotel, passing the new sign by the gutted candy store; the sign, Frank translated, said: DON’T STEP ON THE SUGAR.

“Don’t step on the sugar, Frank?” Franny said.

That’s what it says,” Frank said, and indeed, entering cautiously into the lobby of the Gasthaus Freud, we felt a certain stickiness on the floor (no doubt from those feet that had already trafficked on the sugar—the hideous glaze from the candy melted in the fire). And now the ghastly smell of burnt chocolate overwhelmed us. Lilly, staggering with her little bags, stumbled into the lobby first, and screamed.

We were expecting Freud, but we had forgotten Freud’s bear. Lilly had not expected to see it in the lobby— loose. And none of us expected to see it on the couch by the reception desk, its short legs crossed while it rested its heels on a chair; it appeared to be reading a magazine (an apparently “smart bear” as Freud had claimed), but Lilly’s scream startled the pages right out of its paws and it gathered itself together in a bearlike fashion. It swung itself off the couch and ambled sideways toward the reception desk, not really looking at us, and we saw how small it was—squat, but short; no longer or taller than a Labrador retriever (we all were thinking), but considerably denser, thick-waisted, big-assed, stout-armed. It rose up on its hind legs and gave the bell on the reception desk a terrible clout, bashing the bell so violently that the little ping! was muffled by the thump of the animal’s paw.

“Jesus God!” said Father.

“Is that you?” cried a voice. “Is that Win Berry?”

The bear, impatient that Freud had still not emerged, picked up the bell on the reception desk and whistled it across the lobby; the bell struck a door with great force—with the sound of a hammer banging an organ pipe.

“I hear you!” Freud cried. “Jesus God! Is that you?” And he came out of the room with open arms—a figure as strange to us children as any bear. It was the first time we children realized that Father had learned his “Jesus God!” from Freud, and perhaps the contrast this information made with Freud’s body was what surprised us; Freud’s body bore no resemblance to my father’s athletic shape and movements. If Fritz had allowed his midgets to vote, Freud might have been admitted to their circus—he was only slightly larger than they were. His body seemed stricken with something like an abridged history of his former power; he was now simply solid and compact. The black hair we’d been told about was white and long with the fly-around quality of corn silk. He had a cane like a club, like a baseball bat—which we realized, later, was a baseball bat. The strange patch of hair that grew on his cheek was still the size of an average coin, but its colour was as grey as a sidewalk —the nondescript and neglected colour of a city street. But the main thing (about how Freud had aged) was that he was blind.

“Is that you?” Freud called across the lobby, facing not Father but the ancient iron post that began the banister of the staircase.

“Over here,” my father said, softly. Freud opened his arms and groped toward my father’s voice.

“Win Berry!” Freud cried, and the bear swiftly rushed to him, caught the old man’s elbow with its rough paw, and propelled him in my father’s direction. When Freud slowed his pace, fearful of chairs out of place, or feet to trip over, the bear butted him with its head from behind. Not just a smart bear, we children thought: here was a Seeing Eye bear. Freud now had a bear to see for him. Unquestionably, this was the kind of bear who could change your life.

We watched the blind gnome hugging my father; we watched their awkward dance in the dingy lobby of the Gasthaus Freud. As their voices softened, we could hear the typewriters going at it from the third floor—the radicals making their music, the leftists writing up their versions of the world. Even the typewriters sounded sure of themselves—at odds with all those other, flawed versions of the world, but sure they were right, absolutely believing it, every word tap-tap-tapping into place, like fingers drumming impatiently on tabletops, fingers marking time between speeches.

But wasn’t this better than arriving at night? Admittedly, the lobby would have looked better cared for under the mellow glow of inadequate lighting and the forgiveness of darkness. But wasn’t it better (for us children) to hear the typewriters, and see the bear—better than to hear (or imagine) the lunging of beds, the traffic of the prostitutes going up and down the stairs, the guilty greetings and good-byes (going on all night) in the lobby?

The bear nosed between us children. Lilly was wary of it (it was bigger than she was), I felt shy, Frank tried to be friendly—in German—but the bear had eyes only for Franny. The bear pressed its broad head against Franny’s waist; the bear jabbed its snout in my sister’s crotch. Franny jumped, and laughed, and Freud said, “Susie! Are you