The Dream of the Green – Part 2

BACK TO THE HAMPTONS, CLAIRE!

„Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York—every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour, if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler’s thumb…..“

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors d’oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another. By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived—no thin fivepiece affair but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other´s names. 

   The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath—already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumph glide on through the seachange of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light. Suddenly one of these gypsies in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and moving her hands like Frisco dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray’s understudy from the ‘Follies.’ The party has begun.

„Claire, stop reading and pass me the cell phone, please. We need to find another way out of that highway.“

„Hmm?“

“Claire!” – she was really beautiful. I loved to observe her sitting at the right seat of the old Q5 with blue jeans, a short white blouse and long blond hair dancing in the wind entering from the front window.

„Yes, it´s really crowdy. Where do they all go, Marty?“

„They wanna leave downtown, before the lockdown. Whatever place they can find. Move into the green!“

She was putting her nose back to the Fitzgerald.

„Claire, hör auf zu lesen und gib mir das Handy, bitte. Wir müssen einen anderen Weg von diesem Highway finden.“

 „Hmm?“

 „Claire!” – Sie war wirklich wunderschön. Ich liebte es, sie zu beobachten, wie sie auf dem rechten Sitz des alten Q5 saß, mit blauen Jeans, einer kurzen weißen Bluse und langen blonden Haaren, die im Zugwind ihres Fensters tanzten.

„Ja, es ist wirklich voll hier. Wo wollen die alle hin, Marty?“

„Sie wollen raus aus downtown, noch vor dem lockdown. Wohin auch immer zu irgendeinem Ort.  Ins Grüne!“

Sie steckte ihre Nase wieder in den Fitzgerald.

There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam.

„This is the way to Long Island, Marty. Change to the right lane!“  I nearly passed the exit lane – she was right.

„The sea air will do you good. We should have come much earlier.“

 I could never have imagined to spend more than two days at the Sea house. Doing the sub-urban life. I felt more the downtown type. Until last spring, when it all suddenly changed: the centre had become a sad place, all the bars and food outlets closed. Even Coney Island – deserted and somehow estranged. I do not even remember the last movie that I saw at the cinema. The opera and the theatres closed and the public transport considered a multi-spreader. Had they all become crazy? It was not so easy to find out.

Meanwhile we were condemned to discover the pleasures of the countryside.

„Did you pass by the grocer´s, Claire?“

Four lanes of cars at stop-and-go. „Claire!“

„Ehh? – we still need kitchen knifes. The rest shoud be fine.“

Kitchen knifes. That was what I was thinking as we walked out of the church on that winter morning.

“Das ist der Weg nach Long Island, Marty. Nimm die rechte Spur!”  Ich fuhr fast an der Ausfahrt vorbei – sie hatte recht.

 „Die Seeluft wird Dir gut tun. Wir hätten schon viel früher kommen sollen.” 

Ich hätte mir nie vorstellen können, mehr als zwei Tage am Meer zu verbringen. Das Vorstadtleben zu führen. Ich fühlte mich eher wie ein downtown Typ. Bis zum letzten Frühjahr, als sich plötzlich alles änderte: Das Zentrum war ein trauriger Ort geworden, alle Bars und Läden geschlossen. Sogar Coney Island – menschenleer und irgendwie entfremdet. Ich kann mich nicht einmal mehr an den letzten Film erinnern, den ich im Kino gesehen

habe. Oper und die Theater waren geschlossen. Öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel wurden als Multi-spreader betrachtet. Waren nun alle verrückt geworden? Es war nicht so einfach, das herauszufinden.

Inzwischen waren wir dazu verdammt, die Freuden des Landlebens zu entdecken.

„Warst Du noch im Laden, Claire?”  Vier Spuren voller Autos im Stop-and-go-Verkehr.

„Claire!“

„Ehh? – wir brauchen noch Küchenmesser. Den Rest hab ich besorgt.“

Küchenmesser. Das war es, an das ich dachte, als wir an jenem Wintermorgen aus der Kirche gingen.

– at this moment we arrived at the place that I remembered in a completely different way. The house was bathed in a sunlight and the bay below the garden was blinkering like liquid silver. It was breathtaking! Perfect to see the trees embracing the house in its peaceful harmony.

 „There is space for two families. “ Claire pointed to the white sedan at the driveway, fumbling the door keys out of her picknick basket. „My father said the garden needed a hand. And that we find red wine in the kitchen pantry.“

I smiled and kissed her. „ Lucky girl. He really cares for you.“

– in diesem Moment kamen wir an dem Ort an, den ich ganz anders in Erinnerung hatte. Das Haus war in ein Sonnenlicht getaucht und die Bucht unterhalb des Gartens blinkte wie flüssiges Silber. Es war atemberaubend! Perfekt, wie die Bäume das Haus in ihrer friedlichen Harmonie umarmten.

„Hier ist Platz für zwei Familien. ” Claire deutete auf den weißen Avant an der Auffahrt und fummelte die Türschlüssel aus ihrem Picknickkorb. „Mein Vater hat gesagt, dass es im Garten was zu tun gibt. Und dass wir Rotwein in der Vorratskammer finden.“

Ich lächelte und küsste sie. „Glückliches Mädchen. Er kümmert sich wirklich um dich.”

„Let´s open all doors and windows so that the sun comes in. The beds will feel humid the first night.“

Well, that was something I was about to accept.  I lit a cigarette.

It was a good choice during uncertain times. I felt something like happiness. I went up with my rucksack, washed my face and took out a white towel from the suitcase and left my Glock in the first drawer of the cabinet. Would it be more than a hideaway? Was it safe to stay?

It was like the Dream of the Green.

„Lass uns alle Türen und Fenster öffnen, damit die Sonne hereinkommt. Die Betten werden sich in der ersten Nacht feucht anfühlen.”

Nun, das war etwas, das ich akzeptieren wollte.  Ich zündete mir eine Zigarette an.

Es war eine gute Wahl in unsicheren Zeiten. Ich fühlte so etwas wie Glück. Ich ging mit meinem Rucksack nach oben, wusch mir das Gesicht, nahm ein weißes Handtuch aus dem Koffer und legte meine Glock in die erste Schublade der Kommode. Würde es mehr sein als ein Versteck? War es sicher, zu bleiben?

Es war wie ein Traum im Grünen.