ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title> Poetry and Prose from In Posse Review</title> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html" charset="utf-8" /> <meta name="author" content="In Posse Review, http://www.webdelsol.com" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="19_a_style.css" /> </head> <body> <center> <br /> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td valign="top" width="35px"> <p> <img src="insposse.gif" width="30px" height="187px" alt=" " /><br />&nbsp;<br />&nbsp;<br />&nbsp;<br />&nbsp;<br />&nbsp;<br />&nbsp;<br />&nbsp;<br />&nbsp;</p> </td> <td valign="top" width="15px" bgcolor="#0f0000">&nbsp;</td> <td width="15px">&nbsp;</td> <td align="left" valign="top" width="400px"> <h1>Austria</h1> <h2>Lee Upton</h2> <p>The man who was related to Sandy leaned across the table and touched the skin under Marie's left eye. "It looks like you've got a headache in your eye," he said. "It's twitching." </p> <p> "Is it?" she said. In her mind she was measuring his head, wondering if it was twice the size of her own. Only yesterday Sandy told Marie, "He can't meet nice girls on the road. He meets skags. I told him about you. I have his cell number if you want to talk to him." No one liked a good listener more than Sandy. </p> <p> "Okay. Listen," Sandy's cousin said. "You look like a sweet kid. You are a sweet kid." He slapped the top of the table three times before he said, "Don't mind her." </p> <p> "Who?" </p> <p> "That woman who keeps looking over here." </p> <p> "What woman?" </p> <p>Sandy's cousin took Marie's chin between his fingers and turned her head. "Over there. That one in black by the end of the bar. The beautiful one. She's nobody. Eddie&#151;my drummer. She's Eddie's wife." </p> <p>The woman at the end of the mahogany bar was talking to the bartender, a smile on her lips. "Does Eddie know she's sitting at the bar?" Marie asked. </p> <p> "Eddie knows she's his wife. Yeah. He knows that." </p> <p> "Do you like her?" </p> <p> "What's not to like?" Sandy's cousin hardly moved as he studied Marie. He called over to the waiter. "Give her something with an umbrella," he said. </p> <p>Was it supposed to rain? Marie wondered. </p> <p> "How about Austria tonight?" Sandy's cousin asked. "The tour?" The hair on the back of his hands was thick. His white silk tie was knotted loosely. </p> <p> "I've never been to Austria," Marie said. The waiter put a drink in front of her that was full of tilted parasols. </p> <p> "I'll tell you something. There's a town in Austria." </p> <p> "I know," Marie said. </p> <p> "Jesus. Tell me I'm not losing my mind. Take off your sweater. Come on. That's better. You're a little girl, but you're not a little girl, are you? Are you ready for Austria tonight? The tour?" </p> <p>He motioned again for the waiter. </p> <p>When the waiter left, Sandy's cousin said, "Yeah. There's a special town in Austria. I'd like to take you there. It's called Fucking. I'm not making this up. You've got your kids in the back seat saying, Are we there yet? and you're thinking. Yeah. We're almost there. Fucking. It's spelled like that too . . . What? You're not going to laugh? That's part of the act, huh? Are you really a nice girl?" He put his hand on top of hers and squeezed. </p> <p> "Sandy said you'd like to meet a nice girl," she said. </p> <p> "Sandy's crazy. I'll tell you what&#151;." </p> <p>He stood and pulled her with him, leading her by the arm out of the restaurant area and to a room at the back of the club that smelled like frying oil. The room was filled with luggage, packages of tablecloths in stacks, boxes. It was so cold that Marie remembered being a child and the sensation of snow packed inside her boots. A man crouched next to her. He pulled at her boots. "It has to be lukewarm, almost cold, or you'll think you're being scalded," he said. He took off her snow pants and her sweater, her slacks and panties and lifted her into the tub. He said, "Everything's okay. I've closed my eyes." Before he left, which was right away, he said, "You're okay, little queen." The next day, when her mother returned from the hospital, Marie's mouth was bleeding. "Open your mouth. Let me see." Suddenly her mother's thick salty finger was next to Marie's tongue. There was a shooting pain. Then a tooth was held up. Marie remembered all this before Sandy's cousin said, "Okay, that's Europe" and led her back to their table in the restaurant. </p> <p>At the front of the restaurant three men clustered on the stage. Sandy's cousin joined them. He turned his back and whipped the microphone chord before he spun on his heel toward the audience. Instantly he was singing and pointing at Marie. Soon there were noises in people's throat. Marie's tongue went dry in her mouth. </p> <p>It was her left leg that galloped under the table. Her knee hit the underside of the table top again and again. The empty glass that Sandy's cousin had been drinking from tipped over. At last Marie's right leg, the non-galloping leg, pulled out from under the table. She was able to stand without knocking the table over. She hurried past the bar. </p> <p>As soon as Marie pushed through the restaurant doors she began running. It was too late for the bus. The night was moonless, without a breeze. A sedan pulled up beside her and coasted. When she turned her face, ruined with tears, the sedan squealed off. </p> <p>It wasn't until an hour later that she was inside her apartment. In case she was watched from the street, she kept off the lights. She sat on the floor and hugged her knees, careful to stay motionless. Eventually, she slipped off her shoes and, fully dressed, got under the blankets of her bed. </p> <p>Marie woke when a giant body covered with hair rolled over beside her. The bear's hairs brushed against her arm. The bear rose and walked into the kitchen. She recoiled when she felt the warm spot where he had been lying. </p> <p>Marie stayed under the covers, frozen with terror. Cupboards opened and closed. She could hear a spoon digging into a jar of instant coffee. She concentrated on the noises until she fell asleep again from an exhaustion so complete that another person might say it felt like being buried. </p> <p>At work on Monday, Sandy said, "You poor baby. He was a prick, wasn't he? I hoped he'd behave himself around a nice girl like you." </p> <p>The bear stood behind Sandy, tilting his giant head back and forth and poking out his tongue. </p> <p>Often in the coming weeks, Marie felt the bear's fur as he brushed against her. She saw the bear reflected in store windows and in the giant mirrors across from the elevators in the building where she worked. At night the bear slept close to her. If she opened her eyes she could see his breath in the air. On some weekends she preferred to continue working overtime, although when it was clear that she was going to have the baby she became so sleepy in the afternoons that she had to limit her hours. </p> <p>Two teeth erupted on the baby's lower gums&#151;white and sharp! Soon the baby learned to scoot along the floor. Almost every day he tried to make a new sound. Marie thought of her father who shook the baby mice from a burlap sack in the granary and stamped them out with his boots. They're little pink marbles of fat, her mother said. They're not marbles, Marie told her mother. To get at the biscuits she wanted to thaw, Marie's mother pushed the frozen cow's tongue out of the way. Look at this tongue, her mother said&#151;it's a big old hard knob. But it wasn't. It was a tongue, Marie told her mother. </p> <br> <p>During Marie's first date with the engineer, the bear sat at the nearest table. His claws were large and yellow and clattered on the table whenever he shifted in his chair. </p> <p> "You're very quiet," the engineer said. White napkins were folded upright at the table. "I like that you're quiet." The engineer swallowed and then said "No&#151;I don't mean that the way it sounds. I just mean you don't have to talk. It's okay with me." </p> <p>He ordered wine. </p> <p> "How do you like this wine?" he asked. </p> <p> "I don't know," she said. The wine was warm. It made her want to close her eyes. Was that a good thing? </p> <p> "I probably shouldn't say this," he said, "but you seem lonely." She looked through the window behind him. Five trees stood at the edge of the parking lot. No, six. <p>A week later the engineer kept his head down when he saw Marie at the receptionist's desk. </p> <p> "I have an appointment," he said in a loud way. </p> <p>She scanned the list of names. He was early. </p> <p>On his way out, the engineer again stopped at the reception desk and told Marie he wanted to see her that night. "I won't bite," he said. "I'm sorry if I went too far last time." </p> <p> "You didn't go too far," she said. "You found me." </p> <br> <p>The heavier the baby became, the easier he was to lift. He clung to his mother. Soon he would learn to talk, although now there were no words he knew for what he wanted. But there were always words, Marie thought. Nevertheless, her own experiences weren't about words&#151;even if other people's experiences were about words. </p> <br> <p>Standing behind the engineer, the bear kept sticking out his tongue. It was a pure white tongue. Marie didn't know when it had turned white, but there it was. </p> <p> "Leave me alone," Marie said. </p> <p> "What's wrong?" the engineer asked. "I haven't done anything." </p> <p> "I don't have to talk. I don't have to listen or talk." </p> <p> "No. I can just look at you . . . I never said I didn't want you to talk last time. I said you didn't have to talk." </p> <p> "You're right." </p> <p> "That's nice to hear," he said. "I don't hear those two words too often." </p> <p> "You're right." </p> <p>The engineer spoke in a way that required Marie to bend close to his face. "And you're a comedian," he said. </p> <p> "No," Marie said. "No, I'm not." </p> <p> "I'm the clown then. You're beautiful, and I'm a clown. I want the whole world to know how beautiful you are." He winked and clasped her hand. </p> <p> "Do you have a headache in your eye?" she asked. </p> <br> <p>Later that night the engineer didn't mention anything about Austria. Instead, he said, "I didn't have much of an interesting life before I met you." </p> <p> "But you did," she corrected him. </p> <p> "No," he said. "I was stuck in one place. Everything was stuck, if you know what I mean." </p> <p> "All right," she said. It was fine if he didn't want to be precise. </p> <br> <p>After she had been asleep for hours, Marie woke to make out the figure of the bear standing at the foot of her bed. In the dark his eyes glistened. </p> <p>She turned on the bedside lamp. The bear's ear was wet. There were moist patches around his neck. His right eat was torn as if he had been in a fight. </p> <p> "What do you want?" she asked. </p> <p>When he didn't answer, she turned over on her stomach and fell back to sleep. </p> <br> <p>After she washed the baby's plastic toys in soap and water, Marie read the baby the rhymes in a nursery book that she was given by the people at work. <em> The little dog laughed to see such sport.</em> She couldn't be sure the rhymes would do the baby any good. That afternoon she found the bear curled up in the foyer closet, under her winter coat. On the bathroom sink she discovered clutches of the bear's hair. There were dirty paw prints in the shower stall. The wallpaper in the baby's room was shredded, as if the bear had steadied himself against the wall before falling. </p> <p>She turned on the radio. A man was singing. The voice sounded as if it came from another room in the house. She turned the radio off and took a load of the baby's clothes from the washer. She held the clothes against her chest for the warmth. </p> <p>Later, while she sang to the baby, Marie watched the bear, bent nearly double, as he stumbled across the living room. </p> <br> <p> "Have you lost it entirely?" Sandy said. "What country are you from? If you needed money you should have told me." Sandy had downloaded the photographs in her cubicle. "You really had me fooled," she said. </p> <p>At first Marie could not recognize herself. The girl on the computer screen didn't look quite real. The girl looked like she had not come awake from sleeping. Her eyes were slits. The tip of her tongue was visible between her teeth. Marie remembered seeing a dead animal with its tongue like that. She could only think how strange it was, as if there was another body than her own that people thought was hers. But it wasn't her real body. She didn't ask Sandy how she found the photographs or what websites she visited that led her to the images. </p> <p> "You have a baby now," Sandy said. "Remember that. If the father ever wanted custody he could just show a lawyer what you've got going here." </p> <p> In the photographs the comforter peeled back on the bed was the one with unicorns on it&#151;a gift from her mother a year before her death. The baby would have been sleeping across the hall. </p> <p> "They're well lighted, I'll say that," Sandy said. "Your skin's the color of a cantaloupe." </p> <p>Marie might as well have touched an electric wire&#151;the sensation of understanding stunned her so much. There were hardly any spaces left between things. What's far is near. The cow could jump over the moon. </p> <br> <p>When she picked him up out of his crib, the baby looked at Marie with serious eyes. Together they stared into the mirror above the layette. Moving away from the mirror, Marie felt the new coldness in the apartment. A chill ran up her back and she shivered. </p> <p>She put the baby in her own bed, drawing him close, listening to the breathing that was filling the room. It wasn't her own or her baby's. It wasn't the bear's. And then she remembered. Coming toward her, the man's chest was so large it could hardly fit through the door. The father of her baby was singing the words to an old song about the moon. But there was only one moon. There should be only one moon in the song, not two moons. And that's why people laughed when he pointed at her while he sang onstage. They thought it was a good joke. Ha ha ha. Her body did the right thing: running away. She should be proud of her body. </p> <p>After a long time she fell asleep, waking to hear the baby kicking his legs and making soft sounds. Lying next to the baby was the bear, motionless&#151;shrunken smaller than the baby, his eyes hard, no different than any toy's. </p> <p>When Marie woke, the room was warm. It was morning. The baby was still lying in the center of the bed. Marie pushed back the comforter and opened the curtains. And then she remembered the bear. She looked for the bear under the comforter and in the tangled sheets and on the floor. The baby squirmed without opening his eyes. Marie searched under the bed and in the living room, and even long after the baby woke up and cried she could not find the bear, could not find her way back. </p> <hr /> <h2>Lee Upton</h2> <p>Lee Upton's fifth book of poetry, <em>Undid in the Land of Undone</em>, is forthcoming from New Issues Press in fall 2007. She is the author of four books of literary criticism, most recently <em>Defensive Measures</em>, Bucknell University Press. </p> <br /> <br /> <div id="logo"><em>In Posse:</em> Potentially, might be . . . </div> <p><img src="tedhead.gif" align="right" alt="logo" /></p> <h3><a href="http://webdelsol.com/InPosse/index.htm" align="right"> Return</a>&nbsp;&nbsp; </h3> <br /> <hr /> </td></tr></table></center></body></html>