EITHER AND OR DISCUSS
AN ABSENT ACQUAINTANCE
by Charles Brownson
From the artists book The Expatriate, (one copy 2005)
Original 17x25
photocollage and laser printing on handmade paper
Tempe, Ocotillo Arts
for a larger page image visit Emeritus Voices
on the web, or ocotilloarts.com
Either and Or Discuss An Absent Acquaintance
And so it went on, and then it didn’t go on, and he was seen no
more.
Some weeks later two of these men, one of them not well
shaven and the other with very dark eyes, met in the Café Sperl. To
the left of the bar was a long passage which looked out on the
Gumpendorfer Strasse with two rows of tables, one along the
windows and one opposite, against the wall. These two men, who
came in together, chose the table at the far end, away from the
window, on which they laid their hats. One pulled out a chair and
sat down heavily on it; the other, still wearing his overcoat, went to
the bar and returned with two Schlagobers and a small plate with
two small torten. The seated man looked sourly at this plate —
white, heavy china without any dressing at all, not even a paper
doily.
No strudel, the unshaven man said, putting down the plate.
Too late, said the other. He had taken off his coat and hung it
on a peg by the table. The unshaven man sat down still buttoned
up. They both turned their chairs toward the window to look out at
the gray day, now well advanced, and the slush in the street.
Neither spoke.
About Herr Stirpa, the dark-eyed man said finally, and said no
more, as if in a Pinter play. Some time passed.
I understand Herr Stirpa is in Greece, the unshaven man said.
He picked up his cup, sniffed the whipped cream, and then set the
cup down again, carefully, without drinking.
He intends to return?
I think not.
More time passed. The second man pulled his coat closer
around himself.
Did you have anything from him, Hänsel? said the first.
No. Nothing. And yourself, Rumpel?
No.
Well then. That’s an end to it, said Hänsel.
Apparently.
After some morose rumination Hänsel took up his hat and went
out, leaving both his coffee and the pastries untouched. Rumpel
pulled the coffee to his side of the table, pondered a bit, and drank
both of them. He wiped a bit of whipped cream from his upper lip
and smiled, a bit privately, sitting on as the twilight deepened
outside, his large hands lying flat on the table on either side of the
two empty cups. A residue of coffee and milk of an unappetizing
brown color adhered to the inside of each. Rumpel tipped one cup
toward himself, looked into the bottom of it a moment, and
returned his hand to its place on the table. Laughter and the
clicking of pool balls sounded faintly, coming from the large area
on the other side of the bar. Rumpel began to nibble at one torte.
By the time it was full dark both of them were gone. He rubbed a
finger across the saucer where a white linen napkin, perhaps with a
narrow border of blue, should have been.
The Café Sperl, Vienna July 1997
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