'A closet in infrared?'
'A guard's got to have someplace to go, Graff. Someplace for sitting and having his coffee, and a spot to hang the keys.'
'Why, Siggy!' I said. 'Are you scheming a zoo bust?'
'Oh, wouldn't that be something, Graff? Wouldn't that be something rare? Just to let them go!'
'The rarest of fun!' I said.
And a veritabl
e gaggle of bears went waddling out the main gate, carrying with them the ticket taker's booth, in which the man with the gambler's green eyeshade was crying for mercy.
But I said, 'Except, of course, it wouldn't be any fun going back to Vienna. That's at the very bottom of things I'd like to do.'
I opened my eyes and saw the lovely pale stars above me; the stunted, desperate firs were climbing out of the gorge. Siggy was sitting up.
'What's at the very top of things you'd like to do, Graff?'
'Have you ever seen the sea?' I said.
'Only in movies.'
'Did you see From Here to Eternity?' I said. 'It was an American film, with Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster. Burt was rolling Deborah in the surf.'
'It wasn't the sea you were interested in, Graff.'
'Wouldn't that be something, though?' I said. 'Camped down on a beach somewhere - in Italy, maybe.'
'I saw that movie too,' said Siggy. 'I felt that their crotches must have been sandy.'
'Well, I'd like to see the sea,' I said. 'And fish some more, up in the mountains.'
'And roll Deborah Kerr in the surf, Graff?'
'Why not?'
'And frot a whole herd of country girls, Graff?'
'Not a whole herd,' I said.
'But one fine piece of a girl, Graff? Just one to make a world out for you awhile?'
'Suits me,' I said.
'Suits you, indeed, Graff,' he said. 'You dreaming romantic ninny-ass bastard.'
'Well, what do you want to do, then?' I said.
'Well, you can frot all you want,' said Siggy, and he lay back down, his arms crossed outside the bag; his arms were all the bare, pale colors of the stars in the stinging night. 'That zoo won't be going anywhere,' he said.
I gave a glance to the firs in the gorge, but they hadn't climbed out yet. Siggy didn't move; his hair fell over his pillow of duckjacket and touched the shiny grass. I was sure that he slept, but before I slept myself, he mumbled me a groggy little bedtime song: Frau Freina Gippel's lost her pan.
And never will she find it.
The Frau has teeth on her behind,
But Gippel doesn't mind it.