The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy [02] (16 page)
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Authors: J Michael Orenduff
Making pottery is not like making sausage, but it is like making bread. Start with good ingredients, do a lot of kneading, select the shape you want, and bake. I still wonder why I couldn’t make decent bread.
I got through the first two steps that morning, but when I started on the shape – a wide shallow bowl by Joseph Latoma from San Felipe I intended to copy – I couldn’t get it. I pushed and prodded and started over several times without making any progress. I hadn’t had my hands in clay for several weeks, so I put it down to being rusty. I’ve heard that writers get writer’s block. I wouldn’t know about that. I suppose potters may get potter’s block. I wouldn’t know about that either, because I never have it. But that morning I did. Maybe it was the smashed pots incident still bothering me. I’m usually a happy-go-lucky sort of fellow. I frequently whistle while I walk – I think I sound like Ted Weems – but I admit I couldn’t get the pot smashing off my mind. Of course it could have been indigestion.
The next thing I knew, the bells of
San Felipe De Neri
were telling me it was noon, and I had been working fruitlessly for two hours. I decided to give up and get some fresh air, so I walked over to the church and sat on the adobe banquet next to the gate in the warm noon sun. Then I fell asleep. Maybe it was the warm sun. Or maybe it was the champagne I had with the
chorizo
.
I awoke under a shadow and looked up to see Father Groaz. He’s a bear of a man, over six feet tall with a barrel chest, bushy beard, and shiny black eyes. His collar is always clean and starched, but the rest of his clothes usually look like he slept in them. Since he had just finished mass, he was in his robe, and he looked like Rasputin’s friendly uncle.
“Good Morning, Hubert,” he said. Except it sounded like “Gud marnik, Youbird.” He talks like an Eastern Bloc spy in a B movie from the fifties, but at least he speaks so slowly that you have time to unravel the accent.
I sat up straight and wished him the same.
“You missed church again, Youbird.”
“I’m not Catholic, Father.”
“Wall,” he drawled, “We dahnt check I.D.s at the door.”
“That’s good to know. How’s your Spanish, Father?”
“Thot’s a vahry nice way to say my Anglish iz poor,” he laughed, “baht my Spanish iz batter, and my Latin iz pearfeck.”
“It’s a very conservative parish. I suspect they would prefer you to give the litany in Latin.”
He gave me a conspiratorial smile. “Come to Mass and discover if I do.”
“So how did you happen to be assigned here?”
He shrugged. “Pearhaps woss becoss I was near. I woss in Jemez.”
I noticed his pronunciation of Jemez was perfect. There’s a retreat for wayward priests up there. “I assume you were on the staff?”
He laughed roundly. “You thank mebbe I woss inmate?”
We chatted a while longer until I saw my nephew’s jalopy headed towards my shop, and I took my leave. I found Tristan at my front door with a box of gadgets.
After I let him in, he said, “It smells like Barela’s in here.”
“What you smell is
chorizo
. Want some?”
“Too greasy for me.”
He laughed his rumbling laugh and put the box on my counter. “What we have here is a laser for the door to your new shop to alert you to someone coming in. You know how it works because you already have one on the door to the old shop.”
I never had understood how it worked, but I nodded anyway.
“And here we have an electromagnetic door lock. It’s operated by a pushbutton I can install under your counter. Or, if you want something really cool, I can set it up to be operated by a remote. I know you don’t have a television, but you do know what a remote is, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know what a remote is. They send something like a radio signal to the television to turn it on and change channels.”
“That’s right.” He has the smile of a ten-year-old with a shiny bike on Christmas morning. He seemed genuinely pleased that I knew how a remote worked.
“What I don’t understand is how a remote can operate an electric lock.”
“Electromagnetic.”
“Whatever. If the lock uses electricity, how can a remote operate it? A remote can’t send electrical current through the air, can it?”
“That’s funny, Uncle Hubert. No, a remote sends radio waves like you said. An electromagnetic lock is activated by turning it off. Isn’t that cool? Toasters and TVs and things do what you want them to do when you turn them
on
. But an electromagnetic lock opens when you turn it
off
. The magnet holds the door shut. But it’s not a natural magnet like a lodestone. It’s a winding that magnetizes only when current runs through it. So if you interrupt the current, the door unlocks. All the remote has to do is send a signal to a solenoid that—”
“Tristan!”
“Sorry, Uncle Hubert. You want me to install, not explain. I brought two of everything because I didn’t know if you wanted to do both shops.”
“There’s nothing in the new one anymore, but you might as well do both.” I was hoping my potter’s block was temporary.
31
“Is that what you’re wearing to the party?”
I had on grey trousers, a white oxfordcloth shirt open at the collar, and a navy blazer. I looked down at my clothes. “Is this inappropriate?”
“No, but it’s sort of…ordinary. I think the people Blass invites tend towards flamboyance.”
“I’m not a flamboyant guy, Suze.”
“I know that, Hubert. Maybe you could wear an ascot tonight?”
“I don’t own an ascot.”
“Hmm. How about a print shirt?”
“All my shirts are solid colors.”
“How about one that’s not button-down? Even better, how about one of those shirts where the collar is a different color from the body?”
“Suze, I’m not worried about what I’m going to wear, O.K.? I’m worrying Ognan Gerstner might be there.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. Blass told me it’s mostly arts people.”
“Yeah, but they were fellow department heads before Gerstner retired, and they live in the same building.”
“They were department heads in different colleges. They reported to different deans, attended different meetings, and worked in separate buildings. Besides, you told me Gerstner was a stick-in-the-mud. The parties Blass throws are famous for their guest lists: big-name artists, rich collectors, politicians, people with—”
“Flamboyant clothes.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I hope you’re right. Having Ognan there could be awkward.”
A sneaky smile slid onto her face. “It might be a blessing, Hubie. You could burgle his apartment while being absolutely certain he wasn’t in it.”
“Hmm.”
“What kind of name is Ognan?”
“It’s Slavic.”
“But isn’t Gerstner a German name?”
“Originally maybe, but it’s not unusual for a Czech to have a German name.”
“What sort of name is Schuze?”
“It’s pedestrian.”
“Very funny. Seriously, what is it?”
“It’s American.”
“Yeah, that’s what I always thought about my own name growing up. Then some kid in grade school asked me about my name as if it were strange.”
“Well, Inchaustigui isn’t exactly a garden variety name.”
“But I didn’t know that, did I? I mean, all my family had that name, so to me it was as ordinary as Smith or Sanchez.”
“So what did you tell the kid?’
“Same as you. I said my name was American. But when I got home from school, I asked my mother and she said it was Basque. It was a weird feeling. On the one hand I felt special because I was Basque, although I had no idea what that meant. But on the other hand, I was worried I wasn’t normal because none of the other kids in school were Basque.”
“Well, Susannah, I think you were right on both counts. You are not normal and you are definitely special.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Is that what you’re wearing to the party?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m wearing something special, which you’ll see when you pick me up.”
Susannah went home to get ready, and I went to Old Town T-Shirts and Candle Power to buy an outrageous yellow silk ascot with a repeating pattern of red Zia suns. You may know the symbol from the New Mexico State Flag.
32
We arrived fashionably late and – wouldn’t you know it – Rawlings was on duty, looking like an obedient mastiff.
“Susannah Inchaustigui for Frederick Blass,” she told him.
He looked at me with an expression both solicitous and suspicious.
“And you, sir?”
“Mr. Inchaustigui,” I said. Susannah shot me a look but said nothing.
Rawlings picked up the phone and punched in some numbers. “Susannah Inchaustigui and her
father
, sir.” I think the italics were for me rather than Blass. He hung up and said, “Have a pleasant evening,” but I don’t think he meant it.
“Mr. Inchaustigui?” Susannah said once we were in the elevator and the doors had closed.
“I didn’t want to give him my name,” I said sheepishly.
“So you gave him mine?”
“He already had yours,” I said reasonably enough.
We exited the elevator at ten and as Susannah was punching the doorbell at 1009, I jerked the ascot off and stuck it in a pocket. The person who answered was not Frederick Blass. I knew this immediately from the fact that she had no moustache. What she did have was an ivory complexion with knobby cheekbones and a bulbous nose. Her face looked like a ski run with moguls. She was a stout creature with lank brown hair and a crooked smile.
“Hello, whoever you are. Freddie is pouring drinks, so I’m playing doorperson.” The ‘so’ came out as ‘show’. She used her own drink to point towards Freddie and sloshed a bit of it on a Persian carpet that looked to my untrained eye like it had been woven when that country was still called Persia.
“I’m Bertha,” she said. “Bertha Twins,” she added and laughed. Then she hiccupped. “Actually, I’m Bertha Zell. And you two are much too attractive to be associating with this crowd. But come in anyway.”
I peered around Bertha to see if I recognized anyone. I didn’t, but the place was crowded.
“I’m Susannah Inchaustigui, and this is Hubert Schuze.”
“I’m sure you are,” said Bertha. ‘Sure’ came out as ‘sur’. “Freddie is getting drinks for the others – but I already said that, I think. Let me guess what you’ll be drinking.” She leaned back and studied us with a cocked eye. “Champagne I should think.”
“That’s exactly what we want,” I said. “How did you guess?”
“You’re an awful liar. I think I’m going to like you.”
She went to get our drinks and a man to my right said, “Pay her no mind. She’s drunk.”
“But charming.”
“No,” he said, “not charming, just drunk.”
I shrugged.
“I didn’t get your name,” he said.
“That’s because I didn’t give it to you.” I had taken an instant dislike to him.
“You’re not charming either.”
“I am when I want to be.”
Susannah was tugging at my sleeve. “Come on, Hubie, let’s go say hello to our host.”
The fellow next to me grabbed my arm. “I know you.”
“I don’t think so,” I responded, and started to leave, but Bertha showed up with our champagne in tall elegant flutes.
“I see you’ve met Horace, our official curmudgeon. Horace Arthur, this is Ms. Susannah Inchaustigui and Mr. Hubert Schuze.” She turned to me with a broad smile. “You’re surprised a drunk could remember two such unusual names, are you not?”
“I are not,” I said. “Nothing you could do would surprise me.”
“But who I did it with might,” she said and laughed roundly.
“You are not charming,” Horace said to her, “and neither are you funny.”
Bertha said, “See if you can do anything with him, Hubert. I certainly can’t.” She took Susannah’s arm and walked away.
“You seem to be stuck with me,” Horace said.
His Mexican wedding shirt topped khakis and Birkenstocks. He was a couple of inches taller than me but his slouch put his eyes at the level of mine. Mine are an intriguing shade of brown. His were the color of caked mustard and surrounded by turquoise glasses.