Irma Voth Read Online Free PDF Page B

you were fourteen? I asked. I sat down on the bed beside her and she handed me her pack of cigarettes.
    I’ll tell you another time, she said. I have a son who isn’t much younger than you.
    How old is he? I asked.
    He’s sixteen, she said. But spiritually he’s much older. I’d say closer to eighty.

    I hope that someday somebody asks me where I was when I smoked my first cigarette so that I can tell them that yeah, well, you know, I was in my aunt and uncle’s bed with this fourteen-year-old German actress who had an eighty-year-old son. No big deal. Marijke talked about her son, about missing him. She told me that she was worried that maybe she had been too much of a friend to her son lately and not enough of a parent.
    Friends are good, she said, but sometimes a kid needs someone just to say hey, don’t inject that, or whatever.
    Are you from Russia? I asked her.
    Yes, she said. I was born there but the place where I was born doesn’t exist now.
    What do you mean? I asked her. I was having a hard time following this conversation. I knew more about the social significance of birdsong, I realized, than I did about human interaction.
    We talked about Diego and the crew and we talked about the script which I hadn’t seen but which she told me was full of little drawings that accompanied the text and that she thought she’d be expected to take off her clothes for one or two scenes.
    Do you want me to tell Diego that you don’t want to take off your clothes? I asked her.
    No, no, she said. That doesn’t bother me. It’s his story.
    What is the movie about? I asked her.
    Agony. And swimming. I don’t know. I can’t quite figure it out from the pictures and it’s written in Spanish.
    She asked me if I wanted to see the script and I said yeah but then she couldn’t find it in her room and didn’twant to go out to the main room to see if she’d left it there because she’d be expected to socialize with a bunch of people she couldn’t communicate with beyond tequila and danke schön or learn how to juggle devil sticks or whatever they were doing in there.
    I should go, I said. I was worried that Aggie would come looking for me here.
    Why? said Marijke. You’re nineteen years old! Are your parents that strict?
    No, no, I said. My husband.
    What? said Marijke. You’re married?
    Yeah, I said.
    Does your husband mind that you’re working as my translator?
    No, I said. Not really. Well, actually, he doesn’t know about it. He’s been away for a while.
    Well then, how would he be worried? she said. Why should you go home? She put her finger gently on the bumpy ridge between my eyes. Where your source of energy begins, she said. She kneaded the bumpy ridge gently with her long finger. I tried to speak and she said don’t speak now, notice the light. Do you notice the light?
    I don’t know, I said. I have to do the milking or the cows will explode.
    Is your husband a good kisser? she asked.
    What? I said. Jorge? I don’t know. I have nothing to compare him to.
    We were quiet then, smoking, thinking about Jorge. At least I was. I think he might have been a good kisser. I pledged to tell him that if I ever saw him again. Thecigarette was making me feel dizzy and I was trying not to cough.
    Have you heard of the four-part cure, Irma? she asked.
    No, I said. Cure for what? I stood up and looked around for a place to put my cigarette.
    Here, said Marijke. She took it and put it in a glass of water next to her bed.
    She said she had googled a new philosophy, a four-part cure, that would help her to live life on life’s terms. She laid it out for me:
Don’t fear God, she said.
Don’t worry about death.
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.
    I’m quoting, she said. It’s Epicurean. From a thousand years ago. People misinterpret Epicureanism these days. They misinterpret everything.
    Plus, she said, I’ve learned that thoughts are atoms flying around in totally random patterns.
    Oh, I