"Shit/' said Brennbar. Whatever he'd meant as a metaphor, his ravaged face was no invention; we could all see that.
"I was just trying to help you, darling," I said, in a shocking new tone.
"Smart bitch," Brennbar said.
The man for whom comfortable ground was now a hazardous free fall away sat in this uneasy atmosphere of warring minority feelings and wished for more intelligence than he had. "I'll have the clafoutis auxpruneaux," he said sheepishly.
"You would," said Brennbar. "That's just what I figured you for."
"I got him right, too, darling," I said.
"Did you guess her?" Brennbar asked me, indicating the woman next to him.
"Oh, she was easy," I said. "I got everyone."
"I was wrong on yours," Brennbar told me. He seemed troubled. "I was sure you'd try to split the savarin with someone."
"Brennbar doesn't eat dessert," I explained to the others. "It's bad for his complexion."
Brennbar sat more or less still, like a contained lava flow. I knew that in a very short time we would go home. I wanted, terribly, to be alone with him.
Brennbares Rant (1973)
AUTHOR'S NOTES
This angry little story was much more fun to write than it is to read. It was originally a part of my third novel, The 158-Pound Marriage (1974), wherein the story served as an example of the writing of one of the characters, Edith Winter; it also served as an example of how Edith "fictionalized" her husband, because Brennbar was meant to be identifiable to the reader (of the novel) as an exaggeration of Edith's husband, Severin Winter. Such a heightened degree of playfulness became exasperating to me; it seemed too much a story within a story for its own good -- I cut it from the novel.
But before then, an argument ensued -- I forget with whom -- about whether or not I could write a convincing short story from the point of view of a woman. (The argument must have been with a woman, now that I think of it.) Anyway, I set out to demonstrate that this story could have been written by a woman -- namely, Edith Winter -- and to prove the point I submitted "Brennbar's Rant" to Playboy. The story was not presented to Playboy as a story by John Irving; it was submitted as a story by Edith Winter-- an unknown writer, who would remain unknown (except to readers of The 158-Pound Marriage).
A problem arose when Playboy accepted the story; they were very interested in who Edith Winter was -- and had she written anything else? Peter Mat-son, my agent at the time, had warned me that this might happen, and that Playboy might not look upon being fooled with good humor. The confession was made: I was the author of "the zitism story," as it was called; if there were hard feelings, they weren't lingering. Playboy published "Brennbar's Rant" -- in their December 1974 issue -- as a story by John Irving. Edith Winter was thus denied the only opportunity she was given to publish her own work; I had created Brennbar and his rant for her-- in the end, I felt I had robbed her of something.
When I saw the illustration that accompanied "Brennbar's Rant" in Playboy, I sincerely wished that Edith Winter had been the author of the story -- the illustration was so utterly tasteless and disgusting. A woman's breast with a thumb and index finger pinching her nipple, only it is not a nipple but a pimple -- pus and all. "Gross!" said my son Colin; he was nine at the time. For a while, the picture made me want to disown the story, which was foolish because the story was not to blame.
Today I can point to "Brennbar's Rant" as my opinion of political correctness -- before there was any political correctness so-called. I can also point to it as an example of my opinion of popularity before I was popular, for in the story Edith Winter says, "Popularity is probably the greatest insult to an intelligent person." Edith was wrong. Popularity is only an insult to those people who presume they are more intelligent than the person who is popular. But "Brennbar's Rant" was written in 1973; I didn't know much about popularity then.
THE PENSION GRILLPARZER
My father worked for the Austrian Tourist Bureau. It was my mother's idea that our family travel with him when he went on the road as a Tourist Bureau spy. My mother and brother and I would accompany him on his secretive missions to uncover the discourtesy, the dust, the badly cooked food, the shortcuts taken by Austria's restaurants and hotels and pensions. We were instructed to create difficulties whenever we could, never to order exactly what was on the menu, to imitate a foreigner's odd requests -- the hours we would like to have our baths, the need for aspirin and directions to the zoo. We were instructed to be civilized but troublesome; and when the visit was over, we reported to my father in the car.
My mother would say, "The hairdresser is always closed in the morning. But they make suitable recommendations outside. I guess it's all right, provided they don't claim to have a hairdresser actually in the hotel."
"Well, they do claim it," my father would say. He'd note this in a giant pad.
I was always the driver. I said, "The car is parked off the street, but someone put fourteen kilometers on the gauge between the time we handed it over to the doorman and picked it up at the hotel garage."
"That is a matter to report directly to the management," my father said, jotting it down.
"The toilet leaked," I said.
"I couldn't open the door to the W.C.," said my brother, Robo.
"Robo," Mother said, "you always have trouble with doors."
"Was that supposed to be Class C?" I asked.
"I'm afraid not," Father said. "It is still listed as Class B." We drove for a short while in silence; our most serious judgment concerned changing a hotel's or a pension's rating. We did not suggest reclassification frivolously.
"I think this calls for a letter to the management," Mother suggested. "Not too nice a letter, but not a really rough one. Just state the facts."