*****

Irma slipping easily into the role of constant companion, pleased to see the quantity of old clothes I’d brought along, the happy arrangement revealing itself in the day-to-day of work and life. But our schedules a dilemma, Irma working from 2PM ‘til 2AM, six days a week. I from 9-1, then to classes, library and done, on my own through the day and into the evening and night. This thing called bliss needed adjustment. Otherwise our time together was from the middle of the night when Irma returned from work exhausted but expectant, our shared hours together anticipated delight.

A few hours allotted for heavenly sleep, stagger awake hoping to leave newfound love tenderly tucked away. But Irma would have none of it. Despite my protests, each morning left our bed for the kitchen to prepare coffee and a proper breakfast. Swore she’d get back to sleep upon my departure. The pleasures of breakfast for two manifest in Irma, she ground beans by hand in a pretty little thing she called a coffee mill, filled the espresso pot, set it to boiling, heating milk to a perfect temperature and “Voila” she cried, “Café au lait.” Toast, butter, and jam fitting accompaniment.

All this, should mention, as Irma stood before the stove without a stitch of clothes. “Shameless you are,” kissed her my thanks, suggesting I might someday learn the intricacies of the espresso pot. Irma looked at me, mock derisive, “Stick to poetry, I’ll handle the pot.” And off, oh the joys of love and marriage. With no exclusions to my own life, happily directed through this maze by a woman who’d been there before. As for me, tabula rasa of the soul I was, ready and willing to block in unelaborated pages.

Part of studying the rules of engagement in this marriage of true minds was to agree it was not enough. Free on weekends, Irma spent Saturday mornings with her therapist before work at two. We’d have Sunday until two as well. That, plus those middle of the night encounters followed by sleepy breakfast all we had. Something had to give if we were to retain some semblance of the ordinary; Irma took the situation in hand convincing Helen she didn’t need to be there ‘til 2AM on weekends. Could leave as early as seven or stay ‘til ten depending on what we would be doing. It would at least give us the weekends to play. When Irma told me of the new order, asked of her only that she see exhilaration. Tentatively asking a favor in exchange, “My Saturday appointment is cut short because I pick up baklava from a Greek bakery on 28th Street. Do you think you could get it for me? Take it by taxi to The Limelight? Helen gives me money to pay for it and a taxi.” Of course I could, happy to oblige. Happy to ease any burden Irma might carry. It’s love this time it’s love, my foolish heart.

A first venture into baklava pickup led to revelations simple and complex. A baking aroma worthy of Parnassus, large flat trays pulled from ovens and set in racks to cool, boxes filled with these temptations stacked high on tables. When told of my reason for being there a fat Greek asked, “Not Irma?” Followed by a Greek God asking, grammatically, “Where’s Irma?

Carrying my load to street and taxi, dropped off at the Barrow Street entrance to the Café, and found Helen Gee.

Relieving her of the boxes, with an amused look, “So you’ve moved in with Irma.”

“Not exactly, it’s her place.”

“Well, she seems happy with the arrangement and likes a man around the house.”

A boy not a man, Helen saw I was amused at the suggestion and asked, quietly, “What do you know about Irma?”

“Not much. She rarely talks about herself. But she did tell me she came to America from France in 1942. How did she get out with a war on?”

“Her mother got her out when she was 14, that’s all I know.”

“And her mother is dead.”

“Yes, a suicide.”

I went spiraling at the word.

“Irma came home from high school, 17 years old, and saw a body covered by a blanket front of her building and knew it was her mother.”

Stared at Helen, trying to sort this bare bones description of so awful an event. “So be careful with Irma, Tony. She may look tough, but she’s quite fragile.”

Another fact had been gleaned from that short conversation, Irma if 14 in 1942, no more than 26 but looked 10 years older. Would I ever find out the what and why of her hard life? Whether or no, offered small tokens within my limits to bring the sort of smile she’d bestowed when we talked about that poem. Least and all, nuance began to enter my life, not the kind poetry engaged, insufficient.

Astonished it had been only two weeks since that fateful Friday night we’d spent together, the daily grind gave little chance for casual conversation. What I’d come to know about Irma was gathered from her own brief remarks and Helen. Powerful enough to want more, but needed time. Time for a walk, or lounge about comfortable in each other’s company. Beginning to think it was Irma’s preference that we live this way out of touch with each other except for bed and breakfast. Until she revealed her new work schedule, and how grand to be free on weekend evenings and unspoken, her need for compassion, without explanation.

To celebrate that announcement I’d given Irma a gift of the book of poems we’d read. “I hope you have time now to read the poems on your own.”

She held it in her hands, a precious object, talisman for what it might mean to her. Playing coy, cute, girlish, unlike anything seen before, “Can’t I count on you to read with me?”

The would-be gentleman I was working to be, “Delighted you’d like me to.”

Clutching her new possession close she told me of plans she’d made for the weekend: “I’ll meet you at The City Center tonight for the ballet a little after 8.”

A ballet performance, The City Center for that matter? Reading me perfectly, “On 55th Street near 6th. You can walk from here in about half an hour.

Saturday night we’ll go to a party. Sunday night we’ll see if something’s going on, OK?”

How not OK? I would have suggested a movie. In her hands happy to be taken along for the ride. “I’ve got to go,” waved the book at me and with a kiss of thanks, was gone. An ugly thought intrudes on a joyous moment, matter of time before she tires of me.

*******

Time alone offers options for mischief. But describe honest inquiry as mischief?

Not if it involves that library of Irma’s in a wooden apple crate on a windowsill. Research it can be honestly called. Research into the loved one and all she surveys. And so it was, fetched one of many volumes by Dr. Wilhelm Reich and read about orgone energy, a discovery by the aforementioned doctor. Who knew it was energy present in the body waiting to be tapped, accumulated, used for all sorts of positive purposes. Good sex, maybe a cure for cancer, there for the taking by way of the good offices of a thing he called ‘Vegetotherapy.’ Go figure, but soldiered on, eager to see where all this fit within the life of the body and mind encountered with Irma.

Ah hah! A discussion of “Body Armor and muscular tension.” How test for it? Why simply remove your clothes and let the therapist palpate and tickle you. Sounds like fun, but not for me. What Irma accepted as useful every Saturday? Enough for a while, exhausted both patience and interest, reminded myself to be careful with Irma. What might be folly for me, for her was wise.

Turning to my own comforts, while wandering the stacks of the college library reading willy-nilly among the stacks, a hand falling on any book by chance, came across a volume called, “The Search for Xanadu”. Some stalwart scholar in the past had taken upon himself to read everything and anything that Coleridge had been said to have read. And, culled from it his insights into the mind of the great poet. “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, a stately pleasure-dome decree…” If happily entranced by lines written by an often drug addled poet, why not Irma’s mad scientist?

*******

Striding off for City Center a place unknown, to see a ballet equally unknown, something heard about, Irma setting up a fair exchange for things we cared about. My passion for poetry, had yet to learn of her craving for dance, let alone what now could call The Orgone.

Walking west across 49th Street, twilight holding out against the setting sun, happy to see the days beginning to lengthen, to Sixth Avenue turning uptown. City Fathers in a condescending wave to their Latin American inferiors had changed the street’s name to Avenue of Americas. Every street sign told us so. It has taken, never referred to as anything else by New Yorker’s but 6th Avenue. Small thing for some, for me another example of contempt for certainty, pleasant thought, on a stroll in springtime. The anarchy it represented had come to me young, traces of its origins an inheritance from my father. But spend it differently.

Turning on 55th a crowd across the narrow street outside a building that had to be City Center, streetlamps casting light on darkened streets. Knew the neighborhood, MOMA close by, but never noticed this exotic building. Irma not yet arrived gave a chance to look at its façade covered in a riot of tiles in blue, orange and white, exotic shapes of five double windows on an upper floor. Euphoria replaced by the ecstasy of Irma walking toward me,...