Sandra and Ulrich in Baja

Sandra and Ulrich

Chapter 1  Karkovsky

A tiny park across the street rests sleepily in the late afternoon sun.

Sandra’s mind drifts and then settles on the men who cast sunlight with a frown and shadow with a smile. The first man arrived just after college, handsome, dark and exotic. They married, but no children gladdened their days. The promise dawned. Time interfered and commitments intervened.

She flew away as a woman does when ignored, and fell headlong into a tornado. Came an artist with whom to while away the days in sexual abandon. She found happiness, yet the artist who painted complex pictures had afoot a very simple problem. He had married already and borne a young daughter. When forced to choose, he chose them.

Cut adrift, she floated and was captured by a bird of prey. The Dutchman lifted her in claws aloft eyrie bound. He waxed philosophical, a manse in a castle of clouds. Their elopement died.

She fell again unharmed to solid ground. She was what she had always been, innocence wrapped in beauteous flesh. A nubile woman.

Karkovsky doesn’t consider marriage a practical arrangement. He would not choose to share his income. He finds the scent of womanhood alluring, even enrapturing beyond all other perfumes. God had mixed the most vital scent and had poured it into the vagina. He is drawn to wherever the fragile flower of the feminine grows. This afternoon while on a stroll to enjoy the exuberant light of the afternoon, he spies Sandra, a woman he had been pursuing, off and on, for a few years. She is sitting alone, absolutely attractive and alone. He cannot possibly pass up this opportunity.

Sandra doesn’t concede the high interest she has elicited in Karkovsky. She feels her nose is a bit too large and her knees knobby. This is not the effect men feel when they spy her, yet she is only partially aware of it, playing it down whenever it crests.

“Sandra, hello!” Karkovsky appears seemingly out of the floor.

“Oh, I didn’t see you approach, Emmanuel.”

“No matter. May I sit?” He indicates the empty chair piled with her sweater and bag.

She gets up to rearrange her things, and he can’t help but appreciate the curve of her breasts. He remembers the one time he felt her wrist when shaking hands.

“We haven’t crossed paths recently, Sandra.”

I don’t go to those parties anymore.”

“You’ve discovered other vales to explore?”

“Well, yes and no. I spend several evenings a week at the Met.”

“Whatever for?”

She enjoys playing with his imagination. She knows he desires her, yet feels revulsion at the offering. Perhaps the Romans and the Greeks made offerings to their gods and goddesses who regarded the puny sacrifices with an equal contempt.

“I like to wander around the ancient statuary. I think, if one listens attentively, they have secrets to impart.”

He strains to remember the last time he had been to the Met’s collection of marble and stone carvings. They remind him of funerary monuments suggesting primarily sadness and only tangentially artistic achievement.

“It must be lonely there.”

She smiles, revealing a very pretty mouth he wants to kiss.

An idea occurs to him. He will suggest she meet an acquaintance he had by chance recently met, a graduate student in Mathematical Computation at MIT who is visiting New York. He feels this man’s shortcomings will render his own assets all the stronger. Farfetched, he would admit.

“Do you happen to know Ulrich?” out of the seemingly blue.

“Who? Should I know him?”

“Perhaps. I could introduce him to you. He is in town and wants to meet a woman who meets his high standards.”

“Is this Ulrich an alter ego of yours, Emmanuel?” nearer to the truth than she knows.

“No. I am not teasing you, Sandra. He actually exists. I met him after a long while just yesterday. I haven’t seen him for years.”

“Who is he?” still half credulous.

“Oh, he is working toward his doctorate in some field of mathematics at MIT. He comes from France, but now he lives in Boston.”

Her ears perk up at the mention of France. Her best friend moved there after college wanting to meet a Frenchman and marry him. Sandra also likes that he is seeking his PhD. It echoes the intellectual achievement of her forebears who had been professors and engineers of some distinction in the Soviet Union.

“I would like to meet him.”

Now he smiles, but not so fetchingly. “Are you free later this afternoon?”

She looks him in the eye. She knows he is playing some game. She waits before replying, “I am free a little bit later. Tell him to come here. I will stay or return shortly.”

Karkovsky gathers his coat. “I will tell him a bit about you. Do you remember his name?”

“Ulrich.”

“Correct. Though he carries the conceit of wanting to be called after one of the Patriarchs. I can’t remember their names. Abraham, Ivan and, I forget.”

“Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” She reminds him.

Ah. You know your Bible.”

“My grandfather taught me something about being a Jew.”

“Many of our relatives died there,” he says.

They both think that all of the Jews now living narrowly escaped annihilation.

“In any case, I will arrange the meeting. If something goes awry, I will leave you a message.”

On the street right outside the plate glass window a lanky man appears. He is a light skinned Negro. An old fedora makes a shadow of his head, more like a skull. Loose hanging suit, a faded brown, flaps as he walks, stoop shouldered. A gray scraggly beard. Large hands with spindly fingers. He lopes down the street. A ghost? A real man? Or a mannikin?

Sandra watches it through the plate glass.

Emmanuel notices the shift of her gaze and turns, but sees nothing strange. He shrugs, and makes his way back into the street.

She rapidly reviews what has transacted. She feels the advantage is hers. Who knows? This Frenchman might turn out to be something splendid. Good things come in unexpected packages. She decides to stay a few more hours in the café. She has some reading, and this is as good a place as any. She likes to read slowly but thoroughly. Her memory, think many who come into contact with her, is superb. That is mainly the product of her careful consideration of an idea when it first emerges into her field of vision. She looks at it from all sides, and then finds the best way to fashion it into a mosaic with all of the other thoughts and feelings she has experienced. This is similar to the magical arts and memory systems discovered by Giordano Bruno in the middle ages. She is completely unaware of him, however. She drew it down from the collective unconsciousness first perceived as such by Claude Levi Strauss. Her memory is truly outstanding, as is the intelligence and perseverance to practice it consistently and with purpose.

It is twilight, and though vampires are in vogue, they have not arisen out of their graves as of yet. Dracula, forbidding and lugubrious, exerts an extraordinary charm on the weaker sex. Every move he makes has erotic overtones, and women melt in his hands. Most men yearn for such power, but will not go the necessary distance to achieve it. Vampires have gone over to the other side. Perhaps their practice of immuring themselves in the earth each night awakens an atavistic majesty that is utterly foreign to the normal man. It might be available to them, however, if they too dug well within. Says the poet, Seamus Heaney, ‘I dug it with my thumb’.

Ulrich retains the arrogance of a man holding back much that he would never openly admit, until Karkovsky informs him that he has found a lovely woman for him to meet that afternoon. He uncharacteristically spilled some personal information about a broken affair and how he had suffered. For some reason he opened his heart to this friend. Maybe because they had played chess together and he had felt a strong sense of male comradery. Karkovsky plays chess very well, and Ulrich respects that. The chessboard is a ruthless prism through which to measure the intelligence of a man. He places great stock in his intelligence and has learned to appreciate its presence in others worthy of the claim. He takes the offer to meet Sandra, “a most charming and beautiful woman, just a bit younger than you,and I think, interested in men of high intellectual attainment,” most seriously indeed.

Ulrich takes pains to attend to his appearance. From the stares he elicits from both men and women he knows his looks are more than the common. In truth he is both beautiful and handsome, in a word, androgynous. Neither of his sisters could be called comely. One suffered from a congenital ailment of the nervous system that scarred her looks and gave her a haunting presence. The other, a half-sister, inherited the depression of her mother and languished in perpetual misery.

His father, a wealthy property owner of a hotel in one of the favored arrondissements of Paris, had divorced both mothers of these frail creatures he regarded as failures attributable to them, not to him, of course. Ulrich by some miracle had grown into a jewel of a man, encompassing both beauty and brains, as if all of the good had been poured into him, leaving the others bereft.

Ulrich, or as he preferred to be called, Isaac, advanced through the French school system at the top tiers, just below entry into the Sorbonne. He did not rue that shortfall. He felt his father had abused his mother and his sisters with his harsh judgment for something beyond anyone’s control. He got into a major row with his father, cursing him and being thrown out in return. He fled to America, and earned entry into MIT for a doctorate in mathematics. A detail he preferred to not disclose, and an indication of what was to come, was the fact that he had spent almost a decade on his doctoral research with not much to show, having been fired by one sponsor for his surly attitude, and then casting about almost without success for another. His new sponsor insisted he alter his subject to computer language, a lower mark on the totem of knowledge, and an insult he felt acutely. He swallowed it, but it festered in his gut like a poisoned snake. He carried his notes for his dissertation in a pack that always accompanied him, like a ball and chain would a convict.

He arranges his scarf just so around his neck. An American would think it an affectation or even effeminate, but for him coming from Europe where men display more flair, chose the color he thought would best set off his face. When asked why he wore a scarf, and sometimes nothing more than that when in a sexual encounter, he countered that it soothed an injury sustained in a motorcycle accident.

In the peripheral highways surrounding Paris the motorcycles run in seemingly suicidal fashion between rushing cars. No one appears to ever tip a hair to the left or right and crash, but someone must have somewhere at sometime.

Perhaps he spun out one late afternoon when the light was waning and twisted his neck. Now forever after he will have to wear a scarf. If it was fated, he scorns it. He refuses to stoop to the level of whiners. Says Jung, ‘the individual signifies nothing in comparison to the universal, and the universal signifies nothing in comparison with the individual. It is betwixt and between’.

Can we separate the man of the moment, the individual, from the artist or scientist who achieves universal importance? Men and women pass into middle age, and most eventually enter the cemetery gates of old age. The world goes on and the wind cleanses it of what remains. A person realizes with terror that the world has passed him by. The young cavort around a maypole without any conception of what it portends. Few care. Once classical learning defined the complete man. That world vanished. Words carry elastic meanings, lacking true definition. ‘Muslims for Life!’ Since its inception Islam has wreaked violence and death in its god’s name. A dark river erupted on the moon in a crater, and rain plummets down with its wrath onto the earth. What crazed wizard would utter such a phrase? One imprisoned in fervor.

Four is the number of the crossroads. One can meet all sorts of folk there, includingthe truly horrible. The devil waits patiently there as if he has all the time in the world. At 4 o’clock Ulrich makes his entrance onto this tableau. He would scoff at any such reference to Satan. Though a Jew, he is uncircumcised. He lacks the imagination of the Jew, finding his cues elsewhere, in mathematics above all. The inchoate beauty of math lights his brain on fire. It is with mortals that he struggles to relate, with only varying levels of success. If only, he thinks, could he meet a woman of stature equal to his, then he would find his completeness. In this mind, he finds his own beauty to fulfill his every crevice. Another man could make the picture complete. With that he has not yet wrestled, as did Jacob when he wrestled with an angel.

Sandra flicks up her eyes from her book to notice the tall, dark and handsome stranger who enters the café. She is not the only one who sees him, but for her it is a fateful meeting.

He peeks in at the window before entering and sees the beauteous redhead with pale skin and green eyes sipping her coffee and reading. She pulls at the strings of his heart. Can this be her?

He snakes through the tables to stand before her. “Sandra?”

She is pleased he has come to her table. “And you are?”

A flood of warmth wells up from his heart to light his face. “I am Ulrich.”

“He is beautiful. It’s a good indication.” She momentarily drops her reserve. “Will you take a seat? Would you like some coffee?”

The warmth continues to inhabit him, as if he already has drunk a hot cup of preprandial cordial. He takes the seat and sits across from her with eyes alert and bright. The contrast with his dark hair and olive skin makes a startling image.

“Are you always this handsome?”

“Not always, I am not over occupied with my appearance. Why do you ask?”

She wonders why the initial openness has disappeared. “It is not normal for a man of preternatural beauty to wander over to my table. If it is fate, it is improper to wonder why. Do you have any other explanation?”

He is drawn into conversation with her. He yearns to express his most profound contemplations. “I have often wondered at the meaning of events and impromptu meetings like this one. Perhaps it is predestination. Or do you believe in the random nature of the universe?”

“Are you just passing through New York?” she asks.

He frowns a little at the question. “Why doesn’t she answer?” He is both intrigued and perturbed. “I am here for the weekend.”

“How do you know Karkovsky?”

“I play chess with him. Sometimes we go to the chess club on Myrtle St.”

“Is it there that you undress the queen?”

He is appalled with her sexual reference, as if that were the only goal in this meeting. He considers her close fitting blouse in bad taste as it accentuates her cleavage and leaves little to be imagined. On the other hand, he cannot deny the balance and harmony of her breasts. “I am here at his suggestion.”

“I am glad that you came.”

“Ah, that is good. I am glad to make your acquaintance too.”

“Tell me more about yourself. What do you do besides playing chess?”

He finds her smile beguiling. It both thrills him and instills fear. He is a man of dichotomy. “I am writing my dissertation for my Ph.D. at MIT.”

“That is impressive. It must be hard. Are you a mathematician?”

“It can be vexing.” He nods. “But I have the stomach for it.”

“And for what else?”

“I am an expert skier.”

“So you like to go to the cutting edge?” She likes men who assert their masculinity by striving for the ultimate.

“I ski the most difficult, almost vertical, slopes.”

“You are good at diverse activities. Where did you get these abilities?”

He likes her questions. They are out of the ordinary. It requires a probing mind.

“A prerequisite is hard work and perseverance. The coup de grace is genius.”

“A Picasso? An inflated ego? Perhaps, but nothing I can’t handle.” Then she says, “What do you carry in that bag? It looks like a great heavy load.”

“My dissertation. If someone stole it…”

“Are you always working on it?”

“Yes and no. It is rather droll. All that makes me worth more than my salt is contained in those pages.”

“It must tell an inscrutable tale. But what of this moment?”

He briefly ponders the scale of the infinite. It is one of his pet projects. “Do you think experience is continuous?”

“What do you mean? Like in a film?”

“Yes,” pleased that she has caught his meaning. “A film captures reality at approximately 24 frames a second. It appears to be smooth, but is really a set of still images.”

“Of what relevance is that? Are you also an actor?”

“The founder of Scientology found his audience in Hollywood. In one of his books, Fear and the Ultimate Dimension, the key to reality is realizing that time stops. It’s a matter of will to keep it going.”

She finds his manner of taking this conversation to weird angles at bit off-putting. She wonders if she should end the meeting. Yet he interests her, and she wants something more. “Will he ask me to go out this evening?” she wonders.

He senses that her attention has drifted away if only slightly. He considers it a call to leave. He stands and looks down at her. He is rather tall. “I am not sure I am attracted enough. She is a fascinating mixture.” He is sluggish about making commitments. He considers them a chain. “I will make a clean exit. I have her number if I want to contact her.”

“I will make my adieu,” he says, “Very nice to meet you.”

She is surprised at his eagerness to leave. She fears that she has lost his eye, and she wants it. She has a competitive streak. “I am sorry to see you go.”

He ponders the eventualities. “I really must go. I have things to do.”

She feels the rejection and is crushed. Then realizes the game is not over. She is certain Karkovsky gave him her number. “I know he will call.” She had felt his interest, and this had deepened her pulse. “This was not a chance encounter. I think it was fated.

She looks up at him and says, “Bye for now. Get in touch later.”

Chapter 2 Baja

“Ulrich Savas or Isaac Bloch? I don’t know which name. I can whisper both.” He turns toward her as they walk in the direction of the rental car office.

It is early morning in Baja, California.

“Sandra, do you remember when I called that night after our first meeting, you know, the one that Karkovsky arranged?”
“Still jealous?”

“No, of course not. I don’t want to awaken that ghost.”

She remembers the sex, but forgives him, for a first time can be awkward for anyone. Especially since he is such an intellectual with fantastical breadth. “Then what is the reason?”

It had been her idea to go to southern California below the border. She loves to travel. As a girl she had emigrated from the Soviet Union through a long stopover in Italy. That feeling of adventure has never left her.

Ulrich considers himself an outstanding hiker. In his telling he had scaled Kilimanjaro after a heavy snow, and after a large meal with several rounds of alcohol.

“Let’s take the car deep into the mountains.”

She eyes him suspiciously. “Are you sure you know where you are going?”

“The early explorers used the sun as their beacon.”

“I didn’t know there were any French explorers.”

“David Crocket could easily be a bastardization of a French name.”

“Why this fascination with names?”

They entered the rental car office, a little bit shabby and rundown. They bargained for a better price and got it down by 10%. Smiling and happy, they drove off toward the mountains.

The scenery is magnificent. Cacti of every shape dot the land. Some are round like balls while others resemble erect phalli. It is a sexual oasis.

In the middle of nowhere, Ulrich brings the car to a halt.

“What are you doing?” shaken from her reverie on the cacti.

He pulls the car off the road. “I don’t want to be hit by a truck.”

“But why are you stopping here?”

He grins, creasing his face in a way that mars his otherwise pristine beauty. She refrains from asking him not to grin for any reason.

“I want to go for a hike.”

“In the desert?”

“Have you ever wondered what it was like for the first white man to see this part of the world?”

“White women certainly saw it first. The Indians stole them from their farmsteads while the men were out herding the cattle or pitching a fence. I am sure they took their booty as far as the coast.”

“You think women are first in everything.”

“I am not an ardent feminist.”

“Then what are you?”

“I appreciate beauty. I am sure they chose only the most beautiful women to accompany them to the Pacific.”

He sneers. “Where is your proof?”

“Why do you think Hollywood was established in Los Angeles?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“It was because that was where the most stunning women could be found, and this was due to the Indian raids.”

He finds her logic to be riddled with holes. “I want to explore the area, the desert and the mountains.”

“Why? Haven’t you any wisdom?”

“I want to go to uncharted areas.”

Sandra unfolds the free map in the glove department. “It doesn’t show any detail of this area.”

He pushes it away. “I don’t need a map.”

He turns toward the west and starts to walk. She follows a step behind, and then even with him.

She buries her qualms. “I like a man who takes charge.”

He stakes a direction and tries not to veer off it. The desert goes gently up and down. It appears to be as level as a pool table, but like in betting, it is only a mirage.

The mountain toward which he was heading is no closer than when they began several hours ago. He twists around to ascertain their position. Perhaps they had circled round? There are few landmarks and they all resemble one another rather too closely.

“Are you a rock climber?” She had appreciated his lean muscularity during their lovemaking.

“I have been climbing since I was a boy in France.”

“Do you still enjoy it?”

He grimaces. “It is not something I do because I find joy. I do it because I must.”

“Are you like those men who can climb a vertical rock face?”

“No. I am not an Olympic climber. I haven’t devoted enough of my self to reach that pinnacle.”

“How often do you climb?”

“Back then I went out with my friends on weekends and holidays.”

“And today?”

“I would like to climb that mountain over yonder.”

“Do you still climb?”

He looks down at her. “I go where my mind takes me.”

A spot warms in her loins. “I wonder what our children would look like?”

“There is something I want to ask you.” He turns his head away to reveal a handsome profile against the big sky. The expanse of the west can swallow a small man. “I am wondering whether I should call myself by my given name or one of my own choosing?”

“What do you mean?” Then she remembered something about another name Karkovsky had mentioned. One of the patriarchs?

“I am dissatisfied with Ulrich Savas as my name.”

“Why is that? It suits you.”

“So I thought for most of my life. But now I am not so sure.”

“What doubts do you have?”

“Nothing like that, or maybe I want to escape the illness my name conveys.”

“You think changing your name will alter your destiny?”

“It is more than a quaint belief. The syllables we utter vibrate in our bodies affecting our organs.”

‘Ah, so is it not a magical belief in the power of incantations?”

“I think it is closer to the Hindu belief in the power of the mantra.”

She knew very little about Hinduism.

“What illnesses do you want to avoid?”

“Well, my sisters are both half-sisters. We share our father, and he is a tyrant. I hate him. Both of them are very ill with congenital diseases.”

“I understand. But what other name? What kind of surname is Savas?”

“It is some kind of Sephardic name.”

“Do you know from where?”

“I think from Turkey, though I don’t know for sure.”

“You want something more European sounding?”

“I want something more Jewish.”

She laughs. “Like Cantor? Or maybe Goldberg?”

His face reddens. “I am thinking of Bloch.”

“Where does Bloch come from?”

“It is my mother’s maiden name. I have always had a fondness for it.”

Bloch reminds me of Eastern European Jewry and literature. Are you also a writer?”

“I am not a serious writer. I have spent most of my time studying math.”

“I would like to read your dissertation.”

“Why? Have you any training in higher mathematics?”

“No. I would read it to appreciate its literary value. I would truly love a poet.”

“There is a certain beauty to mathematical equations and solutions of problems. It is called elegance.”

“I love that word. It reminds me of high fashion and couture.”

“That is nonsense. I was not speaking about women’s costumes.”

“There is a lyricism to skirts, dresses and blouses.”

“I don’t care for such common things. I search for the truth.”

They had been talking off and on and as they had had a late starting out, the sun was setting in the west behind the mountains.

“Do you think we should go back?”

“We haven’t yet gotten to our objective. I don’t want to go back empty handed.”

“Do you really know where you are going?”

“That same mountain as before. It hasn’t changed.”

She looks but can’t see it clearly because of the dusk.

“There’s enough light. Let’s keep going.”

She admires his steadfast demeanor. “Will you not quail before any adversity?”

“I sat in many libraries trying to crack a text for hours. I never gave up.”

“You are fierce. Like a lion.”

He trembles slightly, but in the growing darkness it is invisible. “I am really quite humble.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think you possess a humble bone in your body.”

He ignores the remark. “It might take longer than I projected to reach our destination.”

He stands still as an eagle gripping an outcropping atop some inaccessible peak. “I think I will go to the summit of that hill.”

“What for?”

“The darkness has fallen like a drape. It is almost nightfall. Maybe I can find our way.”

“And if you do, do we go on?”

“Of course.”

“Can you even see where that hill reaches its crest?”

“Not precisely. But I know it is not too far.”

“Like all the other hills you mounted to find our way?”

“Yes. Success builds upon success. I will be back. You wait for me here.”

She looks around. “How will you find me in the darkness?”

“I will always know where you are. Don’t worry.”

She finds that reassuring and then strangely troubling. If examined, it would reveal a heart divided and adrift in the Mare Vaporum, 13.3 degrees North by 3.6 degrees East, on the face of the moon. She strongly desires to have him as her lover and perhaps husband, yet in the far reaches of her consciousness she feels an over-awareness that warns her of peril.

She waits pondering while he disappears into the enfolding darkness.

“I will take it as a sign if he returns promptly. If he is late, then it is as good as abandoning me.”

He strides up the uneven incline of packed sand and rubble. “I will look for a way out when I get to the top.” It is a bit further than he had planned, and in the darkness, difficult to discern if he had really attained the highest point. He peers into the distance hoping the moon might shed some light. He surrenders, realizing that he is not strong enough to lift the darkness by his will.

“But I came damn close!”

When he returns, Sandra is not where he had left her. He calls out, ”Sandra!”

Then he sees the burning orange tip of her cigarette. “Why are you smoking?”

“I got a little nervous.”

“You told me you didn’t smoke.”

“I haven’t smoked for a while. But tonight it tastes rather good.”

“In nature? You would sully the air with your ash?”

“What took you so long?”

“I spent some time trying to pierce the darkness with my spirit.”

“Are you part Indian?”

He barks laughter. The sound unsettles her. “I might aspire to the purity of the American Indian, a truly tragic figure.”

“Did you find anything out?” She weighs the time of his returning, and feels he has returned in a reasonable time.

“I saw a stand of trees up ahead. Why don’t we go there to spend the night?”

“And not go back to the car?”

“I’m not sure of the way back exactly.”

“We walked from that direction.”

“True as far as that goes. However, we might miss it by a half-a-mile.”

The thought of snuggling up with him around a small campfire in the desert night sounds romantic. “Where are those trees?”

“Just over this incline. Not too far.”

They walk the short distance to find a suitable spot under one of the larger trees. It is a sparse stand, but they make do.

“Can you make a fire?”

“That’s a good idea. Why don’t you gather some small sticks for kindling?”

He takes out his knife and cuts some dead wood from some of the trees. Before long a small fire is warming them. It gets cool in the desert.

“Where did you get that knife? It has a beautiful handle.”

“I won it.”

“You won it? How?”

“Gambling. Back at the university we play cards sometimes, and occasionally the betting can get pretty high. One of the guys put up his knife, and I won the hand.”

“You’re a gambler?

“Not exactly. I can count cards and that does give me an edge.”

“So your mathematical ability has a practical side.”

“You belittle my academic accomplishments again and again. I know I am only in graduate school studying for my PhD. And you are already working at Bell Labs.”

“I’m only making light fun. Don’t take it so seriously.”

He takes his arm from her shoulder, and stands towering over her. “I will one day create my own company.”

She shrinks a little inwardly, but is too proud to expose it. “I’m sure you will.”

“You’re still sarcastic.” He stamps out the fire with his foot. Then he lays down on the desert floor to sleep, his coat draped over him.

Sandra tries to cuddle near him, but he won’t share the coat. She turns away and tries to create warmth by curling up in a ball. The night passes fitfully.

She awakens first and goes over to a rock to sit and have a smoke. She examines his handsome face, almost as pretty as a covergirl’s, looking for a flaw. Perhaps, she thinks, a defect can show up in the face, especially when sleeping and the unconscious has full sway.

He opens his eyes suddenly. “Why are you looking so intently at me?”

Sandra had averted her eyes and tried to look nonchalant. “I wasn’t doing anything like that.”

“I could feel it. Are you uneasy about last night?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I can see you smoking over there perched on that rock

“I admit to teasing you a little bit. But I wasn’t sarcastic.”

“You’re like a cat.”

“Like in Through the Looking Glass? Do you think I’ll disappear?”

“Not right away, but perhaps in the future.”

“Into the arms of another man,” she completes his thought.

“Why don’t we go back to the car, get some breakfast, and then go to another place to explore?”

“You have something in mind?”

“Not exactly, but I know that there are a number of monasteries around here from long ago.”

“Monasteries? Who built them?”

“The Spanish. They taught the Mexicans about Christianity.”

“When did they arrive in this part of the country?”

“I think early in the 16th century.”

“You mean they were in California and they didn’t discover gold first?”

“I don’t know why. Certainly they were avaricious.”

“Alright. Let’s go back. I’m hungry.”

The walk back was quicker than going. They walk silently, each musing about the night before.

He feels justified in not sharing his coat with her. She should have come prepared. It is not his job to take care of her.

She feels drawn to him and marvels at the scope of his knowledge. She finds it thrilling. Maybe some of it would sprinkle onto her. She has not forgotten his stinginess last night, but accepts it as part of his nature she would just have to deal with.

Chapter 3  The Monastery

After breakfast, they drive back into the desert toward a monastery.

“Do you have something particular in mind?”

“Not precisely. The names of the monasteries are hard to remember. But I know one at least is out there.”

He drives off onto a dirt road. The car kicks up a cloud of dust.

She had been studying the map. It showed a monastery somewhere in the distance.

“Don’t you want to stay on the road?”

“No. Of course not. This is part of the fun.”

“Fun. What do you mean by that?” She asks.

“Why do we need to follow a map?”

“Because it shows the way to get there and back.”

“That is the normal way of thinking. Think out of the box.”

“So you think you know where you are going.”

“I told you. I follow the sun.”

“But you’ve never been here before.”

“I studied the map before we left, while you were in the bathroom. I know the direction we have to go.”

“I don’t like unnecessary risks.”

“Who said this was dangerous? I am only following the road I suspect will take us there. I love shortcuts.”

She looked out the window and wondered at the thousand and one shapes of the cacti.

Just around lunch time with the sun burning overhead, the car dies.

“We’re out of gas.”

“In the middle of the desert we’re going to find a gas station? Is this part of your adventure?”

“Your sarcasm drives me crazy.”

“It’s only practical. How could you manage this trip so poorly?”

“The monastery is up ahead. I saw a steeple.”

“Where? Is this another one of your delusions?”

“It’s behind that dune. Do you want to come with me?”

“It’s better than sitting in a hot car.”

It was true; the monastery loomed darkly in shadow. The masons had considered the climate and had built a Moorish design with overhanging rooves. It offers a place of refuge from the demiurge.

“Ah. It’s beautiful. Don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t consider a church beautiful.”

“Why not? It somehow fits into the landscape.”

“What we need is a gas station, and I don’t see one.”

“It will come in time. There must be gas somewhere if only for emergencies.”

“This is all because of your incompetence.”

“Let’s go inside.” Her insults were beginning to burn.

They walk into the main hallway of the church. It seems to be deserted.

They see a man come in through a screen door at the far end of the hall. He slowly approaches them. He wears a grey cassock tied with a cord.

“You haven’t come here before. I don’t recognize you.”

Ulrich says, “Is this how you welcome us?”

“I don’t have the leisure to engage in chitter chatter. We do important work here.”

“What kind of work? Do you make fine liquor like those monks in Europe?” Thinking she might get a taste at the source.

“You are not far from the mark, though of course we do not imbibe.”

“I was not expecting this. A monastery should not be so empty and lifeless.”

“The life unexamined is lifeless. You come from the cities of the dead.”

“We don’t come from Mexico. We are only visiting. On holiday.”

“The Jews had it right when they called it a Sabbath, a day dedicated to God.”

“We are Jews.”

“Then you have strayed far from the Temple that was destroyed.”

Sandra and Ulrich look puzzled. “What temple? Jews don’t go to temples.”

“The Temple that the Jews lost because of their turpitude. Then the Son was crucified to expiate the sins of His brethren and all of the world besides.”

“You mean the temple that the Romans destroyed?”

“I am talking about the Golden Calf. “

“Isn’t that from some fable like Rumpelstiltzkin?”

“No. Rumplestiltzkin is a fable, though it curiously has some Hebrew in it.”

“Hebrew? It is not a Jewish story.”

“No one knows where the fairy tales come from.”

“Where is the Hebrew? I read this story and didn’t notice any Hebrew at all. It is a very short tale.”

“Those without eyes to see will see nothing.”

“Can you point out the Hebrew? I am curious.” Sandra loves stories.

“The miller’s daughter must guess Rumplestiltzkin’s name if she is to escape giving him her son. The first three names she guesses are Kaspar, Melchior and Belshazzar.”

“I don’t hear any Hebrew.”

“Ah. Kaspar is Keseph or money, Melchior is King of Light, and Belshazzar is master of weaving.”

Ulrich shakes his head. “This is all fine but useless.”

“Then what is virtue? Was Rumplestiltzkin virtuous?”

“I don’t care. Do you have any gasoline?”

“I like the storytelling and the connection with Judaism. I hadn’t realized it appeared in a fairy tale.”

“Did you run out of gas?”

“We did. The car is over yonder.”

“I wondered why you didn’t drive up to the front. I have a canister of gas in a shed behind the monastery. You are welcome to it.”

He leads them to the rear. Ulrich carries the heavy can to the car.

“I can recommend a shortcut. That gas won’t take you far.”

They understand the directions and start out. The Chevy is a low slung car not suitable for driving over and around dunes. Frequently Ulrich has to put flat stones under the tires so they don’t sink into the sand.

“That visit to the monastery was unsatisfying.”

“Why did you have to pamper him with questions about the Hebrew? He just likes to prattle on.”

“Do you know where you are going? This process is unbelievably slow, and it is all because of your lack of planning.”

“Why don’t you go out and put the next stone under the tire? You’re so competent.”

“You’re the man, aren’t you? In charge, but clueless.”

He sits on the driver’s seat and fumes. “It’s all an adventure.”

“Adventure, shmadventure. For a smart man you are surprisingly moronic.”

He goes out to put the final stone in front of the tire. At last they get to the road. Just before dawn they roll to the edge of town, out of gas again. They sleep deeply.

Chapter 4  The Knife

Ulrich wakes first. He uncurls his long legs and unfolds out of the car. The sun shining through the windshield wakes him.

He hurries over to a tree and halts. A pockmarked pickup truck with laborers trundles past. One of them flips him the bird, mocking the size of his penis. He has a hard time getting the flow started.

Sandra wakes too, and sees him standing by the tree.

“What are all these mounds of trash? Did you park us in the dump?”

“Well, it was pitch black last night. I couldn’t see.”

“More incompetence. Can you get me out of here?”

“I think we’re out of gas.”

“You think? You can at least give it a try.”

He looks down the road. “I see a gas station. I will walk there. Do you want to come?”

“It’s better than sitting alone in the car.”

They walk the quarter mile in silence.

“I will wait here.”

Urlich pays with his last dollars for a can of gas. No matter what he said the owner would not give him a discount.

He drives to a campground.

“Another one of your adventures? You must be joking.”

“We planned it. Remember?”

“After what happened last night?”

“It’s all part of the experience.”

“What about breakfast? I would like some coffee.”

“There’s a bodega over there. Do you have any cash left?”

“What’s the matter? You a little short?”

He grins. “I must have dropped some money somewhere. I am practically out.”

“Must you distend your features like that?”

“You don’t like my smile?”

“Look. I’ll give you some money. Get me a coffee and a muffin, and some orange juice.”

At the bodega a long line snakes around the building. He falls into conversation with another American.

“You on the breakfast run too?”

Ulrich turns around. “That’s right. What brings you here?”

“Some business and pleasure. What about you?”

“Vacation. What business can you possibly do here?”

“The leisure business, my fine friend. In particular, surfing.” His teeth, brilliantly white, almost blind Urlich.

“There’s money in surfing?”

“It’s a multimillion dollar business.”

“That much or are you exaggerating?”

“Where are you from? France? You speak with an accent.”

“Yes. But most recently from New England.”

“Oh. What are you doing up there?”

“I’m getting my doctorate.”

“What subject? Gastronomy?”

Ulrich grins. “No, mathematics.”

“Then you have a feeling for numbers.”

“In a sense of speaking.”

“Then calculate this. A surfing competition in a place like this near California and with great waves will attract hundreds of competitors.”

“It’s like a skiing competition.”

“Exactly. Have you seen the movie Endless Summer?”

“No. Is it about surfing?”

“Yes. These two guys go around the world seeking the perfect wave.”

“It’s that popular?”

“It has drawn in even more people. Estimates predict a quadrupling of profit.”

“So you’re down here to set it up?”

“Right. Maybe you’ve seen the workers going down that road.”

“I saw some. They’re working for you?”

“Yes. I’ve got a lot to do in the next month getting it all ready.”

“The American dollar goes a long way here?”

“It certainly does. That mathematical training gives you an edge.”

They had arrived at the front of the line. He orders the food.

Sandra reflects on the encounter with the monk and then the ridiculous trip back. Whoever heard of such a situation? However, good resulted, in that they found that monastery and its interesting inhabitant. I never realized fairy tales had any connection to Judaism. And what else do those monks do over there? We didn’t find out. But it’s all because of Ulrich’s curiosity that we got there in the first place. He is a jumble of contradictions. I believe I can straighten them out given enough time.

“Ulrich! Did you get the breakfast?”

“Yes. I’m not sure how hot the coffee is.”

“That’s alright. We’re camping.”

They sit at a table. A tree partially overhangs the table. He sits in the shade and begins to brush the crumbs off the table.

“Must you do that?”

“Do what?”

“You have a silly expression on your face.”

“Why do you care so much?”

“Do you have to hog all the shade?”

“I hadn’t noticed.” He moves over, and notices that his pocket is empty. “My knife!”

“What about it?”

“It’s missing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t have it. It’s gone. Have you seen it?”

“No. I don’t think about things like that.”

“Well, think! Who could have stolen it?”

“You probably dropped it.”

“Dropped it? I don’t drop things that important.”

“How can a knife be that important?”

“I didn’t realize this place would be swarming with thieves.”

“You shouldn’t get so agitated.”

He jumps up from the table and searches the ground. He runs over to the car to look there. “I know I had it this morning.” He tries to retrace his steps since he woke. He goes over to the tree where he tried to pee and winces at the thought of the Mexicans. “One of them stole it.” He gnashes his teeth in frustration.

He walks over to Sandra who is watching him. His chest heaves. “I am furious.”

“Are you mad?”

“They’re in cahoots.”

“Who do you mean? Cahoots over what?”

“That American.”

“Start from the beginning.”

“I don’t have time.” He runs back to the bodega.

The cooks sit lazily in the shade swapping gossip. They wonder at the crazy white man running toward them as if a ghost were chasing him.

Ulrich stops and kicks up a cloud of dust. He looks around for that fast talking American. He only sees some Mexicans stiffs hunching over their cups. He examines the grounds.

“Did you see which way that American with the blonde hair and blazing white teeth went?” he asks them.

“All you northerners look the same.”

“How can you say that? We don’t all have the same black hair like you.”

“You all have the same goofy expression.”

“What did he say? I couldn’t quite pick it up.”

“It looks like you need a massage.”

“What’d he say that for?”

“His uncle owns a shop in the village. Don Juan is the masseuse.”

“Don Juan from Byron?”

The Mexicans start chuckling. “You know so much you are dumb.”

“I don’t need any man to touch me. I have a girlfriend back over there.” He points.

“Then what did you run this way for?”

“I lost something. Do you know where it might be?”

“You mean the Lost & Found?”

“Ah, you’re no help.” He turns and walks away in frustration.

“Why do you think they are so goofy?”

“I think they watch too much Disney and start believing it’s real.”

He is morose. Sandra can’t get him to forget about the knife even for a moment. It is simply gone, not in the car, not in the surrounding area, and not able to be found. Urich can’t shake the idea that a Mexican stole it, probably while he was at the bodega. All for breakfast.

He sullenly packs up their stuff and shoves it into the trunk.

On the flight home Sandra commits herself to setting this man straight. He has such potential. It thrills her to think she is the one to steer him away from the worst of himself.

That is a woman’s folly, that she can be her man’s conscience.