Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts_Edward and Pia

Edward and Pia

EDWARD LOOKED AT HIS RED BEARD in the tableknife. Then Edward and Pia went to Sweden, to the farm. In the mailbox Pia found a check for Willie from the government of Sweden. It was for twenty-three hundred crowns and had a rained-on look. Pia put the check in the pocket of her brown coat. Pia was pregnant. In London she had been sick every day. In London Pia and Edward had seen the Marat/Sade at the Aldwych Theatre. Edward bought a bottle of white stuff for Pia in London. It was supposed to make her stop vomiting. Edward walked out to the wood barn and broke up wood for the fire. Snow in patches lay on the ground still. Pia wrapped cabbage leaves around chopped meat. She was still wearing her brown coat. Willies check was still in the pocket. It was still Sunday.

"What are you thinking about?" Edward asked Pia and she said she was thinking about Willies hand. Willie had hurt his hand in a machine in a factory in Markaryd. The check was for compen?sation.

Edward turned away from the window. Edward received a cable from his wife in Maine. "Many happy birthdays," the cable said. He was thirty-four. His father was in the hospital. His mother was in the hospital. Pia wore white plastic boots with her brown coat. When Edward inhaled sharply -- a sharp intake of breath -- they could hear a peculiar noise in his chest. Edward inhaled sharply. Pia heard the noise. She looked up. "When will you go to the doctor?" "I have to get something to read," Edward said. "Something in En?glish." They walked to Markaryd. Pia wore a white plastic hat. At the train station they bought a Life magazine with a gold-painted girl on the cover. "Shall we eat something?" Edward asked. Pia said no. They bought a crowbar for the farm. Pia was sick on the way back. She vomited into a ditch.

Pia and Edward walked the streets of Amster?dam. They were hungry. Edward wanted to go to bed with Pia but she didnt feel like it. "Theres something wrong," he said. "The wood isnt catch?ing." "Its too wet," she said, "perhaps." "I know its too wet," Edward said. He went out to the wood barn and broke up more wood. He wore a leather glove on his right hand. Pia told Edward that she had been raped once, when she was twenty-two, in the Botanical Gardens. "The man that raptured me has a shop by the Round Tower. Still." Edward walked out of the room. Pia looked after him placidly. Edward reentered the room. "How would you like to have some Southern fried chicken?" he asked. "Its the most marvellous-tasting thing in the world. Tomorrow Ill make some. Dont say rapture. In English its rape. What did you do about it?" "Nothing," Pia said. Pia wore green rings, dresses with green sleeves, a green velvet skirt.

Edward put flour in a paper bag and then the pieces of chicken, which had been dipped in milk. Then he shook the paper bag violently. He stood behind Pia and tickled her. Then he hugged her tightly. But she didnt want to go to bed. Edward decided that he would never go to bed with Pia again. The telephone rang. It was for Fru Schmidt. Edward explained that Fru Schmidt was in Rome, that she would return in three months, that he, Edward, was renting the flat from Fru Schmidt, that he would be happy to make a note of the callers name, and that he would be delighted to call this note to the attention of Fru Schmidt when she returned, from Rome, in three months. Pia vomited. Pia lay on the bed sleeping. Pia wore a red dress, green rings on her fingers.

Then Edward and Pia went to the cinema to see an Eddie Constantine picture. The film was very funny. Eddie Constantine broke up a great deal of furniture chasing international bad guys. Ed?ward read two books he had already read. He didnt remember that he had read them until he reached the last page of each. Then he read four paperback mysteries by Ross Macdonald. They were excellent. He felt slightly sick. Pia walked about with her hands clasped together in front of her chest, her shoulders bent. "Are you cold?" Ed?ward asked. "What are you thinking about?" he asked her, and she said she was thinking about Amboise, where she had contrived to get locked in a chateau after visiting hours. She was also think?ing, she said, about the green-and-gold wooden horses they had seen in Amsterdam. "I would like enormously to have one for this flat," she said. "Even though the flat is not ours." Edward asked Pia if she felt like making love now. Pia said no.

It was Sunday. Edward went to the bakery and bought bread. Then he bought milk. Then he bought cheese and the Sunday newspaper, which he couldnt read. Pia was asleep. Edward made coffee for himself and looked at the pictures in the newspaper. Pia woke up and groped her way to the bathroom. She vomited. Edward bought Pia a white dress. Pia made herself a necklace of white glass and red wood beads. Edward worried about his drinking. Would there be enough gin? Enough ice? He went out to the kitchen and looked at the bottle of Gordons gin. Two inches of gin.

Edward and Pia went to Berlin on the train. Pias father thrust flowers through the train win?dow. The flowers were wrapped in green paper. Edward and Pia climbed into the Mercedes-Benz taxi. "Take us to the Opera if you will, please," Edward said to the German taxi-driver in En?glish. "Ich verstehe nicht," the driver said. Edward looked at Pias belly. It was getting larger, all right. Edward paid the driver. Pia wondered if the Ger?mans were as loud in Germany as they were abroad. Edward and Pia listened for loudness.

Edward received a letter from London, from Bedford Square Office Equipment, Ltd. "We have now completed fitting new parts and adjusting the Olivetti portable that was unfortunately dropped by you. The sum total of parts and labour comes to ￡7.10.0 and I am adding ￡1.00.0 hire charges, which leaves a balance of ￡1.10.0 from your initial deposit of ￡10. Yours." Yours. Yours. Edward re?ceived a letter from Rome, from Fru Schmidt, the owner of the flat in Frederiksberg Alle. "Here are many Americans who have more opportunities to wear their mink capes than they like, I guess! I wish I had one, just one of rabbit or cat, it is said to be just as warm! but I left all my mink clothes behind me in Denmark! We spend most of our time in those horrible subways -- metros which are like the rear entrance to Hell and what can you see of a city from there? Well you are from New York and so are used to it but I was born as a human being and not as a --" Here there was a sketch of a rat, in plan. Kurt poured a fresh cup of coffee for Edward. There were three people Pia and Edward did not know in the room, two men and a woman. Everyone watched Kurt pouring a cup of coffee for Edward. Edward explained the American position in South Vietnam. The others looked dubious. Ed?ward and Pia discussed leaving each other.

Pia slept on the couch. She had pulled the red-and-brown blanket up over her feet. Edward looked in the window of the used-radio store. It was full of used radios. Edward and Pia drank more sherry. "What are you thinking about?" he asked her and she said she was wondering if they should separate. "You dont seem happy," she said. "You dont seem happy either," he said. Edward tore the cover off a book. The book cover showed a dogs head surrounded by flowers. The dog wore a black domino. Edward went to the well for water. He lifted the heavy wooden well cover. He was wearing a glove on his right hand. He carried two buckets of water to the kitchen. Then he went to the back of the farmhouse and built a large wooden veranda, roofed, thirty metres by nine metres. Fortunately there was a great deal of new lumber stacked in the barn. In the Frederiksberg Alle apartment in Copenhagen he stared at the brass mail slot in the door. Sometimes red-and-blue airmail envelopes came through the slot.

Edward put his hands on Pias breasts. The nip?ples were the largest he had ever seen. Then he counted his money. He had two hundred and forty crowns. He would have to get some more money from somewhere. Maurice came in. "My house is three times the size of this one," Maurice said. Maurice was Dutch. Pia and Edward went to Maurices house with Maurice. Maurices wife Randy made coffee. Maurices son Pieter cried in his wooden box. Maurices cats walked around. There was an open fire in Maurices kitchen. There were forty empty beer bottles in a corner. Randy said she was a witch. She pulled a long dark hair from her head. Randy said she could tell if the baby was to be a boy or a girl. She slipped a gold ring from her ringer and, suspending the ring on the hair, dangled it over Pias belly. "It has to be real gold," Randy said, referring to the ring. Randy was rather pretty.

Pia and Edward and Ole and Anita sat on a log in France drinking white Algerian wine. It was barely drinkable. Everyone wiped the mouth of the bottle as it was passed from hand to hand. Edward wanted to sleep with Pia. "Yes," Pia said. They left the others. Edward looked at his red beard in the shiny bottom part of the kerosene lantern. Pia thought about her first trip to the Soviet Union. Edward sat at the bar in Le Ectomorph listening to the music. Pia thought about her first trip to the Soviet Union. There had been a great deal of singing. Edward listened to the music. Don Cherry was playing trumpet. Steve Lacey was playing soprano sax. Kenny Drew was playing piano. The drummer and bassist were Scandina?vians. Pia remembered a Russian boy she had known. Edward talked to a Swede. "You want to know who killed Kennedy?" the Swede said. "You killed Kennedy." "No," Edward said. "I did not." Edward went back to Frederiksberg Alle. Pia was sleeping. She was naked. Edward lifted the blan?kets and looked at Pia sleeping. Pia moved in the bed and grabbed at the blankets. Edward went into the other room and tried to find something to read. Edward had peculiar-looking hair. Parts of it were too short and parts of it were too long. Edward and Pia telephoned friends in another city. "Come stay with us," Edward and Pia said. "Please!"

Edward regarded Pia. Pia felt sick: "Why doesnt he leave me alone sometimes?" Edward told Pia about Harry. Once he had gotten Harry out of jail. "Harry was drunk. A cop told him to sit down. Harry stood up. Blam! Five stitches." "What are stitches?" Edward looked it up in the Dansk-Engelsk Ordbog. Edward had several ma?neuvers that were designed to have an effect on Pia. One of them was washing the dishes. At other times he was sour for several hours. In Leningrad they visited Pias former lover, Paul. The streets in Leningrad are extremely wide. Paul called his friend Igor, who played the guitar. Paul called Igor on the telephone. Pia and Paul were happy to see each other again. Paul talked to Edward about South Vietnam. There was tea. Edward thought that he, Edward, was probably being foolish. But how could he tell? Edward washed more dishes. Igors fingers moved quickly among the frets. Ed?ward had drunk too much tea. Edward had drunk too much brandy. Edward was in bed with Pia. "You look beautiful," Edward said to Pia. Pia thought: I feel sick.

In Copenhagen Edward bought The Penguin English Dictionary. Sixteen crowns. Pia told a story about one of the princesses. "She is an archeologist, you know? Her picture comes in the newspaper standing over a great hole with her end sticking up in the air." Pias little brother wore a black turtleneck sweater and sang "We Shall Overcome." He played the guitar. Kurt played the guitar. Kirsten played the guitar. Anita and Ole played the guitar. Deborah played the flute. Edward read Time and Newsweek. On Tuesday Edward read Newsweek, and on Wednesday, Time. Pia bought a book about babies. Then she painted her nails silver. Pias nails were very long. Organ music played by Finn Videro was heard on the radio. Edward suggested that Pia go back to the univer?sity. He suggested that Pia study French, Russian, English, guitar, flute, and cooking. Pias cooking was rotten. Suddenly she wished she was with some other man and not with Edward. Edward was lis?tening to the peculiar noise inside his chest. Pia looked at Edward. She looked at his red beard, his immense spectacles. I dont like him, she thought. That red beard, those immense spectacles. SAAB jets roared overhead. Edward turned off the radio.