Emily tracked down her biological father in a small, industrial town in Northern Germany. Henry Bean had ducked out of Emily’s life when she was only six months old, not long after her mother had left him for another man.
“Look at you,” he said. “You’re gorgeous.”
They met for the first time at a bar in his neighborhood. He paid for her beer.
“Thanks,” she said quietly. She did not want to appear to be too happy. Already, she adored him.
He looked nice, Emily’s father. She liked the way he was dressed: a crinkled white linen shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans. His almost long hair fell in his eyes. They had the same sandy brown color hair. He was tall and lanky. Like Emily. His eyes were sad. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in several of days. There was dirt under his fingernails. If he weren’t her father, Henry was just the sort of man she would fall for. She was, in fact, smitten.
“Your mother broke my heart,” he said.
He said it in such a way as if to imply that twenty-four years later, he was still hurt.
“I’m sorry,” Emily said.
Emily knew she willing forgive this man, this stranger, everything. She had been raised by a mother and a father. Her mother had settled down with an appropriate husband, a liberal Jewish banker. Emily had not actively missed the man who sat next to her.
“It was your mother’s idea to get pregnant,” her father said, and then taking a long drink from his beer. “She didn’t consult me, if you can believe that. She went off the pill and flat out neglected to tell me. I mean come on. What kind of cruelty is this? There we were, married, with this howling fussy little baby who doesn’t sleep and she meets someone else? It’s not that you were a mistake. You weren’t. You were just your mother’s idea.”
Emily had no idea how to respond. She was surprised that this man remembered her so vividly. So unfavorably. He had known her, seen her, held her, and he had left her. Emily sipped her beer. Even in Germany, where the beer was supposed to taste better than anywhere else in the world, Emily still didn’t much like it.
“I’m not sure what you expect of me,” Henry said.
He flipped over his hands, showing her his empty palms.
“I’m broke,” he said.
Emily shrugged. “I’m not expecting anything,” she said. “I’ve never been to Europe before.”
She wondered if this statement could be true. She was twenty-four years old and had never traveled. If her biological father had lived in Texas or Alabama, maybe she wouldn’t have bothered to actually meet him. Maybe she had never dreamed of going to Germany, but it was still part of Europe. There were places she wanted to see: Paris, Venice, Madrid. If things did not work out with Henry Bean, she would travel. She had packed guide books. It occurred to Emily as she sat at the bar, wondering where she would go next, that she was not a person of depth. Those had been the very words of her ex-boyfriend; he had broken up with her not long after she informed him that the marriage of Britney Spears to her backup dancer, the one who had left his eight-months pregnant girlfriend, wasn’t legal.
Emily was surprised her father would think she might want money from him. She was grown. Her expensive college education had been paid for in full. She was a banker’s daughter. Emily forced herself to take another sip of beer. She counted silently to five, and then looked up at her father. He was looking intently into his tall glass of wheat beer. He had long, beautiful eye lashes for a man. She knew little about him, pretty much only what he had told her that same afternoon, when they had talked on the telephone to arrange this meeting. He had married a German woman, they had divorced, but he decided not to return to America. Emily’s mother once said that he was sweet and funny, but he couldn’t make money worth a damn.
Henry Bean. Her father. Who looked like her. Emily was three inches taller than her other father, the man who had adopted and raised her.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “my buddy Otto and I are planning on driving to Amsterdam.”
“Oh,” Emily said. “Okay.”
She was surprised how awful this piece of information made her feel. He was cutting things off before he even got to know her.
“We’re going to buy some pot, go look at the Van Goghs. Would you like to come along?”
Emily nodded. She had been invited. She covered her face with her hair. Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them away, hoping that he wouldn’t notice. He might think it meant something to her, this offer, when in fact, it was pathetically easy to make her cry.
“Yes?” he asked. “You want to come?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Ok,” he said. “Good.”
Henry ordered Emily another Pilsner, even though she had only finished half of the one in front of her.
“I’ll drink it for you,” he said.
Part Two
Henry’s friend Otto had gray, shoulder-length hair and wore little round wire glasses. He greeted Emily as if he had expected her for some time.
“The lost child,” he said, staring at her intently. “It is a delight to meet you.”
Emily understood she had been discussed. The idea pleased her. It occurred to her that Henry might have regretted leaving her. Otto continued to stare long and hard at Emily until she blushed. She had hoped to look out the window, contemplate the scenery during the long drive, but wanted to make conversation. Otto was German, but he spoke fluent English.
“What do you do?” he said.
“Do?” Emily said. “Me?”
The truth was she did not do anything. All of her friends from college had gone on to fancy things: grad school or non-paying internships at magazines, high-paying jobs at corporations. Whereas Emily floated from one temp job to the next. She had spent an entire year trying to please the boyfriend who had dumped her, buying seductive underwear to keep his interest, wearing lipstick and high heels, taking him out for expensive dinners.
“I don’t know,” Emily said. “I type, I guess.”
Emily could type fast, seventy-five words a minute, though it was not a skill she was proud of. She did not like the open way Otto stared at her. He seemed to understand, right away, that she had nothing to offer: not to him, her father, or anyone else. The expression on his face was kind, almost pitying.
“What do you do?” Emily asked him.
“I manage the Schloss where your father is staying. He told you about the place?”
Emily had never heard of this Schloss before. Much to her relief, Otto told her, changing the conversation to a subject that was mercifully not Emily. A Schloss, she learned, was a castle. Otto leaned over the back seat and explained to Emily the set-up of the place while Henry drove. “It’s not like an ordinary museum, where you stand back and look. You are not a passive participant here. At the Schloss, you come to experience reality in a brand new way. To unfurl the mind and senses. We have experience stations where you can truly explore the sense: how the ear hears, how the nose smells, the fingers touch, the feet understand the earth, the lungs breathe, the blood pulsates, and the body vibrates.”
To Emily, this sounded like a speech Otto had delivered many times before. Her first instinct was to be cynical. The Schloss, in fact, sounded idiotic to her, but she smiled, nodding her head, pretending to be interested. She wasn’t fooling Otto anyway. He only had disdain for her.
“I like the gongs,” Henry said.
Otto described a dark bar in the basement, a room where you could have drinks in absolute blackness. The bartender was blind.
“This guy here,” Otto said, resting his hand affectionately on Henry’s shoulder, “nearly had a panic attack. For the first time I can remember, he couldn’t finish his beer.”
“It was insanely dark,” Henry laughed. “It was way too dark for me.”
“I would love for you to experience it, Emily. At the Schloss, you get to appreciate senses you’ve only before taken for granted,” Otto said. “I think you would enjoy it.”
“I’d like to,” Emily said. She thought it was possible Otto did not hate her.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “We’re having a concert. A flute player from Hamburg. She plays some wild stuff. You’ll come.”
“Okay,” Emily said.
She looked out the window of the tiny blue car, at the fields of wheat, the flat European landscape. The cows looked like all the cows she had ever seen before. The autobahn was narrow and Henry drove fast. His car made a dangerously loud put-put noise. Emily sat on her hands. She tried to listen to Otto talk but really she was busy wondering if he was gay. Otto was handsome and somehow delicate. Her father was tall and rough. They lived together in this strange crumbling castle. It was possible that he was her father’s lover. Because they did seem comfortable together, like a couple.
Eventually, Otto stopped speaking, and they drove the rest of the way in silence. Henry pulled the car into a parking lot of a campground, five kilometers before the exit to Amsterdam.
“Here we are,” he said.
He looked at Emily’s confused face, and began to unload the trunk: tents, sleeping bags, a heavy knapsack. “Hotels cost a fortune in this town.”
Emily’s leg started to shake. She had not camped a single day in her life. Her mother did not believe in sleeping on the ground. Emily had no camping gear. She needed to tell them that that she couldn’t stay there, but she desperately did not want to be any trouble. She watched Henry and Otto carry everything to their little plot of grass. They had packed for her. She had her own little gray and blue nylon tent and an orange and purple sleeping bag. Their allotted space was on a patch of grass not far from where they had parked the car. Her tent was next to Otto’s, which was next to Henry’s, which was next to two teenage Dutch boys, who were next to a young Australian couple.
She let Henry and Otto do everything. After they finished setting up the tests, she followed them wordlessly to a bus, allowed Henry to pay first her bus fare, which deposited them in downtown Amsterdam. Emily felt young and small and helpless. She trusted these strange men as if they were her new, gay parents. She was convinced that she loved them both.
Part Three
In a café in Amsterdam, Henry Bean presented to his newly discovered, grown daughter a thick joint and a glass of fresh orange juice.
“This is weed like you have never tried before,” he said. “The buds are so fresh. Smell. See how delicious that is? You take the first puff.”
Emily had only smoked pot a couple of times in her life. Every time, the people she was with made fun of her for coughing. But her father’s face looked expectant, as if this were her birthday and his heart would be broken if she did not accept his gift. She looked at him. And then she looked at Otto, who had taken off his cable knit sweater to reveal a tie dyed Grateful Dead t-shirt underneath, and she imagined what her mother would say if she could see her now. Emily had been in Amsterdam for less than an hour. She didn’t want to be inside this dark room, getting high. She wanted to be in the bright sunshine, taking it all in. Emily hadn’t known that there were canals in Amsterdam. She thought they were only in Venice.
“The arrogance of America,” Henry had said. His voice had been contemptuous. “They teach you nothing about the rest of the world. Not even simple geography.”
Emily wanted to stand at the edge of a canal and gape. She wanted to marvel at the old stone buildings, the kind that could only be in Europe. She was in love with the cobblestone streets. She wanted to breathe the stink in the air, but Otto and Henry hadn’t given her a chance to catch her breath. They headed straight to a fast-food stand where they bought French fries with garlicky mayonnaise, and then, hunger satisfied, into the dark café where they bought their pot.
“Emily?”
It was the first time her father had spoken her name.
Emily felt herself blushing.
Yes, of course, she was still smitten. Emily hadn’t been sure of her feelings for him back at the campground. She questioned them again while she watched her father devour his French fries, mayonnaise covering his fingers. Who was this man? Why was she here? Her mother had told her that it was Henry’s job to look for her. She strongly advised Emily not to take this trip. She said that no matter the circumstances, she should not give him any money. Emily knew she had been warned. Her mother was right about most things. Emily looked at him, overwhelmed. He would disappoint her, he would disappoint her, he would disappoint her. Henry said her name and she melted.
He was looking at her, stubble on his face, long beautiful eyelashes. Her father was still holding the thick joint out to her. She reached for it.
“Go easy,” he said. “This is some strong stuff.”
She leaned forward so that he could light it, and then Emily sucked in the smoke. As much as she could. She looked up at Henry, and when he nodded at her, she let it all out, and then, started to cough.
Otto took the joint from her unsteady fingers.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, the back of her throat burned, and as much as she wanted to, as hard as she tried, she could not stop coughing. Her legs were shaking, out of her control. Emily wanted to run and hide. She wished she had never decided to try to find her father.
Henry handed her the glass of orange juice and everything instantly got better. The juice tasted delicious. It was freshly squeezed. It soothed her burning throat. She wanted to apologize for all of her most recent thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I am an idiot.”
Otto patted her gently on the back.
“What are you talking about?” he said. “You got a good hit.”
“That’s the purple haze talking,” her father said, grinning. “Terrific stuff.”
Henry took the joint from Otto, brought it to his lips, and took what seemed like a crazy long puff. “This is nothing like the junk you get back home.” He handed the joint back to Otto. When it came back around to her, Emily shook her head. She wiped the tears off her eyes with a paper napkin. Otto and Henry finished the joint, smoking amiably, without talking, just like they had been in the car, and on the bus, and in the campground, while they wordlessly set up the tents. These men were not judgmental. Emily felt safe and protected around them. It was all right to cry, to cough her head off. Maybe she belonged with these two quiet, older men. Grown up hippies living in Europe. She could be their little mascot, their puppy dog.
On the counter at the bar, there was a round goldfish bowl. The gravel was purple and green. There were two plastic dinosaurs and three orange and white goldfish, swimming round and round.
* * *
Emily stood for a long time in front of a Van Gogh painting. It was called “Wheat Field Under Thunderclouds.” Emily was literally dumbstruck. Struck dumb. Because the painting was so simple. So simple but also wonderful and powerful in its very simplicity. The paint was crazy thick, rising off the canvas. The wheat field was yellow and light green and dark green. There were red flowers in the foreground, quick brush strokes, nothing defined. The sky was a smeared blue, with a couple of round, low hanging clouds. And then some random strokes of white. Emily had never seen this painting before. It wasn’t one of the well-known Van Goghs: “Starry Night” or the famous sunflowers. It wasn’t an earless self-portrait. But still, somehow, she was floored. Emily wanted to touch the painting. She wanted to feel the thick swirls of paint beneath her fingers. The depth of the blue sky. She felt as if the field itself could suck her in. She could close her eyes, open them, and she would be in the painting, wandering barefoot through the landscape.
Emily understood that she was high.
She felt as if she had never properly looked at a painting before. She also felt happier than she had ever been. She wanted to share how happy she felt, and looked over to the tall, lean man who stood next to her. She wanted it to be her father, but instead it was Jim Jarmusch, the American independent film director. She recognized his shock of albino white hair. He was staring at the same painting. He turned his head in Emily’s direction, as if to acknowledge Emily’s presence, but then he looked right back at the painting, taking a small but obvious step away from her.
Emily felt hurt, snubbed. She wanted to cry. She wouldn’t have bothered him; she didn’t want his autograph. She loved the painting. It was her right to stand in front of it for as long as she wanted to. Only now she couldn’t. Emily’s moment had been smashed to smithereens, and she knew she had to get away from Jarmusch as fast as she could. Even though she loved his movies. All of them, except maybe “Dead Man,” with Johnny Depp, which had made her fidget all the way through.
Emily practically ran across gallery floor, straight to Otto who she knew would not shun her. Her heart was racing. She didn’t think she could concentrate on Van Gogh anymore, but then she did. This painting was also heartbreakingly beautiful. A simple bedroom, a narrow bed against the wall, a desk and a chair.
Otto grinned at her.
“Do you like it?” he said.
Emily nodded. She didn’t even need to answer because he already knew. He could see it in her face. Emily loved how Otto, who had talked so much about his castle on the drive to Amsterdam, also knew how to be quiet. He held her hand as they stared at the painting. She felt warm and happy, like his little girl.
Part Four
There were no stars in the sky at the campground. Emily could hear Bob Marley coming from the tent next to her. She could smell marijuana smoke in the air. Henry and Otto had finished off another joint, sitting out in front of their tents, but it wasn’t just them. The aroma was all around her. Emily saw bright flickers of light coming from inside tents the campground. If she concentrated hard enough, she could hear the muted sounds of the Australian couple having sex. The cool breeze felt good. Emily wore Otto’s sweater over her own. She closed her eyes and she could see stars in the back of her eyelids.
It was perhaps the strangest, most eventful, interesting, and meaningful day Emily had ever had in her dull, safe life — even considering the fact that Emily had trouble piercing together what had happened. After the Van Gogh museum, they had sat on the grass in a park; Emily remembered looking at her reflection in a pond, she remembered a family of swans swimming in the water. Next, they were in a dark restaurant. Emily drank a beer, and she had been so thirsty that she had been able to finish it on her own, without any help from her father. She must have eaten some food. They had gotten lost on the way back to the bus, and then Emily found herself in a crowded alley, essentially naked women pressing their bodies against the glass window displays. These streets were thronging with men. The red-light district. Emily had been scared. Otto and Henry held her hand until they had made it through the crowds.
They had sat on a bench, drinking beers on the street, tall cans of Heineken’s, while they waited for the bus to come. Her father began to rant about America. And global warming. The war in Iraq. Tax cuts for the rich. And then back to the war.
“One-hundred thousand dead civilians and you re-elect the man,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” Emily said.
“Your stinking president is no better than Darth Vader.” Henry Bean was yelling in the street. Emily could not understand this sudden outburst of anger. They had had a wonderful day, she had thought. “He’s no better.”
“I guess,” Emily whispered.
She had an image of Darth Vader in her mind, the hard black plastic suit and the helmet head, but she barely remembered the Star Wars movies. She figured Bush had to be a whole lot worse. She wondered if she should have said this, she wanted to, but Emily was always nervous when she had to make a case for herself. She felt unsure, disagreeing with her father, especially when he seemed to be drunk. She wished that Otto would quiet him down. But he only looked at Emily and shrugged. His look seemed to say, what can we do? She decided that Otto must be the woman in the relationship.
“You guess,” Henry said. “You don’t have a defense for your nation?”
“I didn’t vote for Bush.”
“And none of the Germans were Nazis during the goddamned war. Citizens always place the blame on someone else. It’s incredible.”
It wasn’t fair: that her father was insulting her for being an American, for the wrongdoings of her country. He was also American. It didn’t matter where he lived. He was not one to talk about responsibility. All her life, he had stayed away.
“That’s not fair,” she said.
Emily did not like being compared to a Nazi. She knew that she was not as good a person as she could be. She was aware of a large number of atrocities taking place in the world: genocide, natural disasters, suicide bombers, poverty, AIDS. All of it. But the truth was, Emily really only worried about herself. Was she pretty enough? Was she smart enough? Should she buy a drink when she went out for a meal or stick with water which was free?
“I am not part of the evil empire,” she said, feeling stupid. The balmy spring night had turned cold. There was no bus. There was only the hard bench on which she sat. “I’m not.”
She was grateful when she felt Otto rub her hair.
“You’re fine, Emily,” Otto said. “We know.”
And then, somehow, they were back at the campground. Emily had no recollection of being on the bus. She had woken up only when it creaked to a stop. She was wearing Otto’s thick sweater. It was time to fall sleep, but Emily was stupidly wide awake. She could never sleep in a tent. Her father, it turned out, hated her because of her nationality. It occurred to Emily than the man might very well be an asshole. Her mother must have had a reason to leave him the way she did. She must have had many reasons to take such drastic action.
Emily was in a campground somewhere outside of Amsterdam. Because of her father. She wanted to be in a hotel room, lying on a made bed, watching cable TV. She looked at him, his handsome face, the similar features, and she gave him a hopeful smile.
“We had a good day,” Henry said. “Didn’t we?”
He gave Emily a rough pat on the head, zipped open his tent, climbed in, and zipped it back up from the inside. And then he was gone.
She was alone, she realized, with Otto. He leaned over and gently gave her a butterfly kiss on the lips.
“It’s funny how Henry starts talking about America when he gets drunk,” Otto said. “I think he misses the place, you know, so instead of recognizing his sense of loss, he gets angry.”
Otto placed his hand on the back of her neck.
Emily touched her lip.
She wasn’t really sure if her father’s best friend had just leaned over and kissed her. She had been stoned since early that afternoon, and perhaps nothing Emily felt or thought could be taken at face value.
“You’re not lovers?” she whispered. She looked in the direction of her father’s tent.
Otto’s mouth dropped open. He shook his head and then he started to laugh. He laughed so hard Emily was sure he would wake her father and the Australians and everyone else around them. She looked down at his sweater. She felt uncomfortable, knowing that it was his. She had understood the entire day all wrong. She had held his hand in the museum.
“Sometimes I almost feel that way, you know?” he said. “About Henry. We share a lot of meals together. We are comfortable. It’s a good friendship. He’s done a lot of good work at the Schloss. Painting and gardening and giving tours. But since he’s moved in, there has also been some trouble. I have to get on his case to clean up after himself, you know? Do his dishes, clean his paint brushes, and then, I sound like a nagging old wife. He really is lazy, your father, when it comes to cleaning up. But no, Emily, we are not lovers. You really thought that?”
The campground seemed much too quiet.
Emily didn’t notice when exactly the Bob Marley music turned off or the lovemaking Australians had fallen asleep. She could hear her father snore through his tent. Emily wondered if she was still high, even now, hours and hours later. She did not understand her present circumstances. She had wanted Otto to be gay. He would have been her adopted gay stepfather.
“I’m sorry,” Emily said. “I hope I didn’t offend you.”
“Offend me?” Otto smiled. “No. I find you delightful.”
Otto ran his hands through Emily’s hair; he leaned over to kiss her again. She felt his tongue go into her mouth, and not wanting to hurt his feelings, she returned the kiss. But Emily’s thoughts were running wild. This man, Otto, whose last name she did not know, was not her father’s boyfriend. He was German. He had a thick German accent. He was into her. He was also her father’s closest friend. Her father was a belligerent drunk. She wondered if Otto must be a bit of a scum bag. He had to be at least twenty years older than she was. He wore faded tie died T-shirts. But she also remembered how good it had felt, her small hand folded up in his, standing in perfect harmony in front of the Van Gogh. She had held Otto in higher esteem than Jim Jarmusch, whose movies she might never watch again. She was disgusted by Otto. And thrilled that he wanted to hiss her. Emily dislodged Otto’s round glasses, leaning in to kiss him harder. Every time Emily kissed a new man, she felt somehow proud of herself. Otto’s lips were thin and rubbery. His skin was scratchy like sandpaper. She had never kissed an older man before. She had not spent her life looking for father figures. She was not messed up in that particular way.
“Can I come with you?” he said. “Inside your tent?”
“My tent?” Emily said.
She looked over at her father’s tent.
She felt Otto’s hand, softly rubbing her neck. His hand was warm. She closed her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I just want to hold you.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
Emily had had sex with men before just because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to refuse them. She didn’t think of herself as desirable and this made her a little bit desperate. Emily was aware of this. She did not like this about herself. Otto had a nice face, a beautiful smile. Warm hands. While Emily crouched in the corner of the tent, stripping down to her t-shirt and underwear, Otto attached his sleeping bag to Emily’s. She climbed in, looking away, as Otto took off his clothes. He climbed in next to her, also wearing his underwear. Otto slid his arm beneath Emily’s neck, and then he wrapped his other arm over her. They lay side by side, spooned around each other. Now Emily could hear herself breathe. She could hear Otto breathe. She could hear her father snore. She hated camping. She was afraid to move. She closed her eyes, and then she opened them. She was aware of Otto’s hands wandering over her body. Up and down, traveling the length of her legs and then over her chest. Emily felt deeply ashamed of herself. She pretended she was asleep. She wished that Otto would undress her. She sucked in her breath when he slid his hand into her underwear.
The whole thing felt like incest.
Part Five
The next morning, Henry’s car wouldn’t start.
“Are you sure?” Emily said. “Are you sure it won’t start?”
Henry turned the key in the ignition. Nothing.
“What happens now?” she said.
Henry shrugged. He pulled the bag of weed, purple haze, from his jeans pocket. He removed the rolling papers from the glove compartment and in the bright light of the day, he started to roll a joint. The day before, it had been fun getting high with her father. Now she wasn’t sure. She looked at him full of hate. He was a stoner, that was it. She needed to take a shower, to drink good coffee, to get away from these men. Henry passed the joint to Otto. Emily crossed her fingers, hoping that he would refuse. This man, who was almost her lover. He ran a government-funded castle for the senses.
Otto took a hit and then he offered it to Emily.
“Sweetheart?” he said.
Emily did not like the way he had stopped addressing her by her name. She got out of the car; she slammed the door.
Henry laughed.
“Emily’s mother was like this,” Henry said.
The window to the car was open. Emily understood that this comment was intended just as much for her as it was for Otto. Her father was insulting her when she had done nothing wrong. “She had no patience. Had to have whatever she wanted, the second she wanted it.”
Emily started to pace. She decided she was furious. Furious at them both, Henry and Otto, who was not the sensitive hippie good guy he advertised himself to be.
“What’s the hurry, princess?” Henry called out the window. “Where do you need to be? Right now? You have plans? This is how it works, bonding with good old dad. Weren’t you warned about me? Didn’t your mother tell you? I am a walking disappointment.”
Otto put his hand on Henry’s shoulder.
“Hey man,” he said. “Let’s not go there. Not now.”
Henry shook Otto’s hand away. “Did you know that I dropped you, daughter? I was changing your diaper. You were kicking, howling like a little demon, and then somehow you fell right off the changing table. Splat. You’re lucky you’re not dead.”
Emily sat down on the curb, put her head between her knees.
She did not want to know this information.
“I show the girl her first canal,” Henry said, his voice was growing louder and louder. Emily wondered if he was screaming. She had put her fingers in her ears. “I get her high, I show her a great time and still the girl is unhappy. I’ve shown you all my tricks. And still it’s not enough. I am never enough.”
Emily lifted her head from his knees and looked at him.
He was absolutely right. This man, her father, was not enough, not nearly enough. His eyes were bloodshot. His hair was dirty, his linen shirt rumpled and there was dried ketchup on his collar. She had remembered seeing him only two days ago at the bar. He had been so handsome. She had adored him. But now she knew; he had never loved her. He dropped her on her head when she was just a tiny baby.
“You haven’t tried all that hard,” Emily said.
The words surprised her. They had come out of her mouth. She had said them. All along she had promised herself that no matter what, she would not blame Henry for the past, that she was only interested in the present. But that was exactly what she had just done. She was pissed off, she probably had been so for a long time.
Henry pushed his hair out of his eyes.
He looked at Emily and she saw that she had done it, she had gotten to him. She had made him squirm in his seat. She had actually caused him pain. Henry banged his head against the steering wheel of his car. It bounced off the felt covering and back down again.
“This stupid, stupid, stupid car.” Henry banged his head on the steering wheel every time he said the word stupid. The tiny car shook. Emily watched, fascinated. Her actions had caused this moment to happen, she had orchestrated her life in such a way that she was here in this parking lot in this foreign country with her father and his best friend Otto. This was her life but it was also Henry’s.
“Stupid,” Henry said. He lifted his head. His face was bright red. Emily could see the braided pattern of the steering wheel imprinted on her father’s forehead.
“Okay,” Otto said. He’d leaned over, grabbed Henry’s shoulders and pushed him back into his seat so that he could not continue to smash his head. “All right. I think that’s enough drama for today. We won’t fight anymore. We’ll deal with the immediate problem at hand, yes? Let’s get this car fixed, yes? We’ll find a garage. I saw one not far down the road. We’ll go back to Germany. We’ll show Emily the Schloss. She’ll come to the concert. The flutist from Hamburg? I think you will enjoy it, Emily. And Henry, you will show her your paintings. Your exhibit. Yes? You two have to get to know each other. Slowly. Okay?”
“Slowly,” Emily repeated. As if she would listen to him, after he had promised that he wouldn’t touch her. Emily had no desire to see her father’s paintings. He had dropped her when she was just a baby. Dropped her on her head. She couldn’t get over that fact.
Otto was able to convince Henry to stop banging his head against the steering wheel. It was Otto who arranged for the car to be towed to a garage nearby. The Dutch mechanic wore a yellow jumpsuit; there was a large red tulip stitched on the back. He was young and he was cute and he smiled at Emily in a way that had to be considered flirtatious. There was a yellow Labrador retriever tied to a tree outside the garage. Emily scratched the dog between his ears, and the dog wagged its tail in delight. She knew that both her father and Otto were watching play her with the dog.
It was almost nightfall before the car was ready.
Henry couldn’t afford to pay the bill.
He asked Otto for a loan.
“I run a non-profit Schloss, my friend,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I spent all my money on the weed.”
Otto looked at Emily. His expression was almost bemused, regretful. Her tall, beautiful father slumped against the wall of the garage. The yellow lab wagged its tail. The mechanic waved the keys to the car.
“Yes?” he said, waiting. “The car is fixed.”
Emily paid the six hundred Euro bill with her credit card. She remembered what her mother had told her, but they were stranded somewhere outside of Amsterdam.
The mechanic handed her the keys.
“No.” She shook her. “Not me.”
She gave the keys to her father.
“This is how it is, kiddo,” he said. They stood there, looking at each other. Her father really was not that much taller than Emily. She had gotten her height from him. Henry Bean touched the tip of her nose.
“We have the same nose,” Emily said.
Henry Bean gave Emily a hug. “You are a real sweetheart,” he whispered into her ear. “I am glad to know you, but now you understand. My life is a disaster.”
Emily did not know what to say. She wanted to be angry, about the money, about Otto, but she only felt sad. She also wanted to keep on forgiving him for everything. This was her father. Emily climbed into the back seat and put on her seatbelt. The car revved up, as loud and shaky as it had been on the way to Amsterdam. She said a silent goodbye to the yellow dog.
* * *
Emily found the flute player from Hamburg profoundly disturbing. She was a tiny woman, wearing a long dress that went all the way down to the floor. Her hair was green, shaved close to her scalp like a soldier. She wore clunky yellow glasses, and she swayed while she played. She was barefoot. Emily was fascinated by the spectacle of this woman who could not possibly be real except for the fact that there she was, standing on a wooden platform, creating high-pitched, atonal sounds from her small silver instrument. The music was so awful it made Emily start to sweat beneath her clothes. She chewed on her hair. She clenched her eyes shut. She was sure that she would have to scream.
The Germans at the Schloss, however, seemed to be enjoying themselves.
The performance had already started when Emily arrived. She had hoped that her father might save her a seat but she could not locate him in the dark. She could see Otto in the front row. His eyes were closed, his head moving to the beat of the atrocious music which was getting worse with every passing second. The flute player had begun to repeat the same series of high pitched notes, again and again and again, like a broken car alarm.
This wasn’t music, Emily decided. It was liquid pain.
Emily rushed for an exit. Instead of leaving the building, she found herself running down a winding passage that lead her further into the Schloss. It felt like a scene from a horror film, the only possible end being her own bloody death. The hallways were dimly lit. The lights were turned off in the actual galleries. With every step, the flute playing receded.
Emily walked into a gallery, feeling along the wall for a light switch. In the center of the room hung an enormous golden bell. That was it. The room was otherwise empty. There was enough room for at least three, maybe four more golden bells. The walls needed painting. She looked at her reflection in the bell. Her face was contorted, too long and too narrow. Her skin was shiny. She remembered her father saying that he liked the gongs. Gongs. Why would you go to a museum to play a gong? The place, Emily decided, was idiotic. She switched off the light and continued through the Schloss. She could hear her footsteps echo through the empty halls.
Emily wasn’t sure what she was looking for, until she found it, down a flight of stairs, next to the sign for the bathroom. Her father’s exhibit. The light to this room was already on, as if she were expected.
Emily wandered back and forth in front of the paintings, not sure what to think. She wished that she was stoned. In Amsterdam, she knew just how to feel. Like the Van Goghs, the paint was spread thick on the canvas. These were abstract paintings, dark and moody and inscrutable. Somehow, still, they seemed appropriate considering the circumstances, a suitable match for the flute playing. These painting were the stuff of nightmares.
“Look who is here. Emily Weinberg. Fruit of my loins.”
Emily screamed.
“Oh my God,” she said, but it was only her father, Henry Bean, standing in the doorway. He was wearing a clean linen shirt, a clean one, and a pair of blue jeans, darker than the faded ones he wore when they met. Emily’s heart raced, terrified that that he would be upset with Emily because she didn’t appreciate his paintings. Then, she realized that her father could not read her mind. She could lie to him. He was not all powerful. He had no idea what she was thinking.
“I didn’t think you would come tonight,” he said.
Emily didn’t know what to say. She was in a small town in Northern Germany. She had bought a plane ticket, traveled across an ocean. To meet him. He had finished her beer. Emily wanted to believe that she could be happy with Henry Bean and his friend Otto, in Germany, like she had been in Amsterdam. She had a sudden, wild hope they would invite her to stay. She would never have to type again.
“I like them,” Emily said. “Your paintings.”
“No you don’t,” Henry said. “No one really likes my paintings or I wouldn’t be almost sixty years old, hanging my stuff in the basement of a non-profit castle for the senses. I know my work is good. I don’t have the energy to care about the public.”
“I am not the public,” Emily said. “I am your daughter.”
“Technically speaking.”
“Yes,” Emily said. “Of course.”
“I didn’t pay child support,” Henry Bean said. “Or go to your high school graduation. That is what fathers do. Jonathan Weinberg is your father. I will never repay you for the car.”
“Oh,” Emily said. “All right.”
Though she could no longer hear the flute player from Hamburg, Emily felt as if she had somehow returned to the concert upstairs. There was a loud, persistent beep going off in her head. She could hear the atonal trills, they were pulsating her brain. Emily tried to blink back her headache. “That doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “The money.”
“Maybe you think it doesn’t.” Henry walked over to her. “But it does. Or it will.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind Emily’s ear. “You need some confidence, girl. You need to stand up for yourself. Otherwise, I’ll have to start worrying about you. So where are you going next from here? On your big European adventure.”
Emily bit her lip. He would worry about her? She needed an answer to his question. She had told him, from the start, before they met, that she was traveling. It was probably why he had agreed to meet her.
“Paris?” she said. She would go to Paris. She had always wanted to go. ”Paris.”
She looked at Henry Bean. His nose, his hair, his eyes. Her genetic blue print. It seemed impossible that their relationship would end because of six hundred Euros and a fight about nothing.
“Do you want to come?” she said. “With me?”
Immediately she realized her mistake. Her father had no money. He did not love her. But maybe he liked her, just a little bit. Emily reached into her pocket and pulled out her wallet. “I have money,” she said.
She caught her breath. She imagined sharing a tiny blue-tiled bathroom in a Parisian hotel. She pictured toothpaste smeared along the sink, dirty socks strewn across the floor. She imagined him sprawled out drunk on the bed while she tried to sleep on a chair.
“We can eat croissants and drink café au laits.”
Emily surprised herself, the way she kept going on. She could not make the ghost of the flute player shut up. There was something wrong with this place. With Otto. With her father. He lived here. This was his life. Emily wanted to go to Paris by herself. She wanted to walk along the Seine, the wind blowing in her hair. She wanted to be lonely, all by herself.
“We could go up the Eiffel Tower, ” she said. “That would really be something.”
Emily looked at her father, imploring him. He closed her fingers over her wallet.
“You are really something,” he said. “You are a lovely girl.”
Upstairs, Emily could hear the sounds of people clapping. The flute player from Hamburg had finished her performance. The noise had stopped, and it was safe to leave.
