Chapter 16 Bad Paintings over Bullet Holes #2
“Ich komme gleich!” Jimmy called to her, hastily getting dressed—not knowing what was proper to wear to see a movie on one of his landlady’s living room sofas.
(“I’m coming at once!” he’d told her.) He put on clean sweatpants, a clean T-shirt, some white athletic socks.
The socks, he hoped, would protect his feet from Siegfried’s stray soldiers, but he took them off.
Irmgard, he knew, would be barefoot. James Winslow would be brave and barefoot, too.
He would let the T-shirt and the sweatpants suffice.
Even through the frosted glass, he’d noticed that Irmgard was wearing one of her usual dressing gowns; her idea of going to the movies didn’t entail going out or dressing up.
Before Jimmy could get to the living room, he could hear Tex Ritter singing over the opening credits of High Noon—12 Uhr mittags, in German.
The bad guys were gathering in black and white, before riding into town.
Mercifully, they’d not dubbed Tex Ritter; James Winslow was relieved that a substitute for Tex wasn’t crooning away in German.
What could be more perfect? The great Fred Zinnemann, an Austrian, had directed High Noon.
Jimmy was imagining himself telling Irmgard that Fred Zinnemann was one of the wonderful European Jews who had transformed Hollywood.
Zinnemann had a law degree from the University of Vienna and his parents were killed in the Holocaust. Jimmy was happy he had something to contribute to the conversation he imagined with Irmgard.
Jimmy padded barefoot down the hall to the living room, wary of brutalized plaster soldiers or their sharp little body parts, while Tex Ritter repeated, “Do not forsake me.” And there was Irmgard lying full-length on the sofa—one languid arm fallen to the floor, the fingers of her hand trailing on the rug.
In the context of the killers getting ready to ride into town, Irmgard made Jimmy think of a shoot-out victim.
Without lifting her head from the sofa cushion, Irmgard indicated the empty sofa parallel to hers. Lying down on it, Jimmy was discouraged by the coffee table between them. Irmgard was too far away to touch. The opening credits rolled, while the killers rode into town.
“Wait along…” Irmgard sang in chorus with Tex. Jimmy took this to mean that Irmgard, like him, had seen High Noon before. (It was 1963—the film had been made more than a decade ago.)
“Fred Zinnemann,” Jimmy said tentatively, only a few minutes into the movie. “Er ist ?sterreicher.” (This wasn’t offered as an opinion. “He is Austrian” was a fact.)
“Gary Cooper ist Amerikaner,” Irmgard said. “He American is,” she added, translating herself.
Jimmy didn’t know the word for director in German.
He could only try to explain himself in English.
“Fred Zinnemann is the director,” Jimmy told Irmgard.
“He directed High Noon. He’s Austrian. His parents died in the Holocaust—he’s Jewish,” Jimmy said, just to be clear.
“Fred Zinnemann has a law degree from the University of Vienna,” young James babbled away.
Irmgard thought this over, but she kept her eyes on the movie. When Grace Kelly appeared, Irmgard pointed at her. “Grace Kelly ist Amerikanerin—she American is,” Irmgard told him. “Keine Jüdin—not Jew is,” Irmgard added, just to be clear.
“Ich wei?—I know,” James Winslow said.
Now Gary Cooper was on the small screen—the German he was speaking was not in sync with his lips. “His parents in the Holocaust didn’t die,” Irmgard pointed out. “Not a lawyer from Vienna is,” she added, sounding pretty sure of herself.
“Ich wei?,” Jimmy could only repeat. It was not quite the conversation he’d expected; they’d not explored film as art. (Even James Winslow would wonder if Irmgard was putting him on, from the beginning.)
At the end of the movie, when Grace Kelly hears the gunfire and gets off the train, she runs to the marshal’s office—a great camera angle, as she comes into frame with the holstered revolver hanging from a peg.
Jimmy stole a look at Irmgard, her breasts rising and falling on the sofa.
“I this part love,” she told Jimmy, not looking at him.
When Grace Kelly shoots one of the bad guys through the window, she gets him in the back.
“She a Quaker no more is,” Irmgard pointed out.
“I know,” James said.
“Wait along…” Irmgard sang together with Tex, as the marshal and his bride are leaving town.
“I like watching movies with you,” Jimmy said to Irmgard, hopefully.
“In winter, the living room colder is—better on one sofa movie to watch,” Irmgard told him.
Jimmy couldn’t tell if the look she gave him was suggestive—if this was a promise.
The looks Irmgard gave James Winslow were obdurately neutral; she gave nothing away.
Naturally, James thought he understood something about unwed mothers.
Considering the mother he knew and loved—not to mention Esther—Jimmy remembered how those two could hold things back.
In the first letter she wrote her dear James in Vienna, Honor Winslow held nothing back.
“Forgive me for putting this in writing to you, honey, but maybe it’s easier for both of us,” Jimmy’s mom began.
James Winslow was grateful to Chantal for their earlier conversation; he was prepared for the gist of his mother’s idea.
It began with his getting someone pregnant.
He needed to be what his mom called “a bona fide father” to a child.
Being a father was the best way not to be drafted into what she called “another misguided war.” Naturally, there was mention of Chantal’s reluctance to be the birth mother.
“As you say, Arnaud wouldn’t understand! ” Honor wrote, with irritation.
Even Jolanda, who was very tall and lesbian, was a better idea than Irmgard, Jimmy considered.
It seemed safer to show his mom’s letter to Claude and Jolanda together.
This way, it wouldn’t look like Jimmy was proposing anything—or so he thought.
Yet this entailed his having to tell them the two-moms story—so that Claude and Jolanda could understand the origin of his mother’s plan.
(Getting pregnant for the purpose of giving a baby to someone else wasn’t a new idea in the Winslow family.)
“Wait, wait!” Claude cried. “Is Chantal your aunt?” he asked Jimmy.
“Remain calm, Claude. Chantal isn’t Jimmy’s aunt,” Jolanda said.
But this entailed Jimmy’s saying more about Chantal than he meant to—her uniqueness among the Beaudette women of childbearing age, her smallness in her bigger sisters’ hand-me-downs.
“You should never have mentioned the cruel speculation that Chantal might have one big boob instead of two,” Jolanda told Jimmy later. “Claude will never let go of the horror that she has a onesie.”
“Wait, wait! Poor Chantal!” Claude had cried. “A onesie is so sad!”
“It’s not sad, it’s just a cruel thing to say. No one has a onesie—you idiot, Claude!” Jolanda had told him.
Now both Claude and James Winslow were remembering the reason Jolanda broke up with her girlfriend.
She’d told Jolanda she wanted to try having sex with a guy.
“I just want to try it once—I know I’m going to like it with you better!
” the girlfriend had said. (This did not go over well with Jolanda.) Jimmy was hoping Claude would be intrepid enough to ask Jolanda if her girlfriend might be interested in trying it with Jimmy.
It was probably safest to leave the part about getting pregnant for a second question, James Winslow was thinking—just when Claude, in his intrepid but bumbling way, posed an onslaught of questions.
“Your girlfriend’s name is hard to say, Jolanda—if you’re not Dutch,” Claude began. “MEE-kuh, MEE-kuh, MEE-kuh,” he chanted.
“You got it, Claude—that’s how you say Mieke,” Jolanda told him.
“If Mieke wants to try it with a guy, she could try it with Jimmy—with you there. You could hold her head, or talk to her, the whole time,” Claude went on. Claude kept looking at Jimmy—not at Jolanda, who was speechless. “It wouldn’t be like Mieke was having an affair—she would just be trying it.”
“Stop it, Claude!” Jolanda cried. “I never want to try it with a guy, but I would rather try it with Jimmy than hold Mieke’s head while she’s trying it!”
“But do you or Mieke want to try the getting-pregnant part?” Claude asked Jolanda. “That’s the more complicated part,” he said.
“You idiot, Claude—we know!” Jolanda cried.
Young James apologized to his newfound friends; he hadn’t meant to cause any strife between them.
His problem, or his mother’s plan, was not their problem.
He had no expectation that Jolanda or her girlfriend would be interested in having sex with him, or in having his baby.
“I understand—it’s okay,” Jimmy told Jolanda.
“No, it’s not okay,” Jolanda said. “Now we’ll never be friends—not with your wanting me all the time.” Jimmy hoped she was kidding.
“Jimmy never said he wanted you, Jolanda,” Claude pointed out.
“I can tell that Jimmy wants me, Claude—like I can tell you don’t,” Jolanda said. Jimmy still didn’t know if Jolanda was kidding.
“It’s true, I don’t—I want someone smaller, because I’m small. But I like you, Jolanda,” Claude told her, looking like he would burst into tears. Then they both hugged; things were all right between them again.
“I like you both,” Jimmy told them; they hugged him, too. Claude and Jolanda were very clear with Jimmy that he shouldn’t try it with Irmgard, who seemed entirely capable of watching a movie while she got pregnant.