“Quit building it up in your head,” Meryl urged. “I told him you’re on the Math team and you went to States in cross-country. He thinks you’re impressive. He said so!”
Eric was not convinced. “Still. Your dad sounds scary as heck, babe.”
She sighed. Smiling, she reached over and squeezed Eric’s shoulder. “You’re so tense,” she said, massaging his neck, which indeed was conspicuously rigid. “Pops can definitely be intense,” she went on, “but he means well. Don’t worry, my sweetums. He’ll love you.”
“I heard he literally killed a guy,” Eric said.
Meryl chortled. “Don’t be silly.”
Dinner at the Stromberg household was at 7 the next evening. Eric dressed in a pair of starch-heavy khaki slacks and a striped blue and red polo shirt that his grandmother had given him for Christmas.
“It’s Peruvian pima cotton,” his grandmother had told him. “One hundred percent!”
“It’s so soft,” Eric had remarked, running the fabric through his fingers.
His grandmother had shaken her head. “I don’t know how they think of these things.”
Eric parked in the street, and walked across the lawn - neatly manicured, a stately elm standing aloof in the center - towards a compact, elegant house made of brick and stucco. Reaching the front door, he made for the doorbell, then thought better of it and knocked firmly twice on the lime green paneling.
Suddenly came the sound of commotion, clattering from the back of the house.
“Shitfire!” somebody shouted inside the house, a throaty, thundering male bellows. “Whoremongering filth!”
The door slid open, and Meryl peeked out sheepishly. “Sorry,” she said in a low voice, beckoning Eric to enter. “He’s worked himself into a state.”
Wide-eyed, the blood having suddenly drained from his face, Eric complied, stepping into a dimly-lit foyer opening onto a kitchenette. “I brought sodas,” he said, gesturing towards the paper grocery bag he had carried with him.
She took the bag, and kissed him lightly. “I’ll put these in the fridge. Pops is around back. You should go introduce yourself while I finish up with dinner.”
“Okay,” Eric said.
He walked down a long corridor to the back of the house, passing by a series of black-and-white photographs. A few were of Meryl and her older sister Jane, who had gone off to college already, from when they were younger. Then he came to one of their mother, a slender, steely-eyed woman who died of lung cancer when Meryl was in sixth grade.
And then he found one of Mr. Stromberg, apparently, in an undated shot: a lean, lanky man in his mid-twenties, dressed anachronistically on what was evidently a film set in the middle of the jungle, a thick mustache and goggle-like spectacles obscuring much of his face, standing beside a stocky, sagely-looking fellow with a short ponytail and a young, steroidal blond gentleman in seersucker and a white top-hat.
“I played the quartermaster on the steamboat in Fitzcarraldo,” Mr. Stromberg said, leaning in over Eric’s shoulder from behind him to whisper. “Not many people know the steamboat had a quartermaster. The studio cut most of my scenes. There,” he said, pointing. “That’s Werner Herzog to my left, and that, on the other side of him, is Klaus Kinski.”
“Um,” Eric said.
“He was a monster, Klaus,” Meryl’s father went on. “A wretched beast. The world is better for having lost him.”
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Eric said, half-turning to face him.
“You must be the boy,” said Mr. Stromberg.
Eric gulped. “Yes-”
“Come,” Stromberg said, raising his hand and gesturing down the hall. “I will show you.”
They came to a windowless room, at the center of which was a raised dais. On the floor were strewn broken shards of a glazed ceramic valis, interspersed amongst a pale mound of soot.
“My wife’s ashes,” Stromberg explained. “She detested the idea of a Christian burial. Thought it barbaric. I was polishing her urn when you knocked.”
Eric’s mouth opened wide. “Oh my gosh, Mr. Stromberg,” he stammered. “I’m so-”
“I spent six years in a makeshift prison in the slums of Bombay,” Stromberg continued. “Before I met Gretchen. She was my the light of my life.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Eric.
“I’ve killed men,” said Stromberg. “Many of them. It was how I made my living, boy. Do you see?” He chuckled quietly. “But then Gretchen came. She rescued me from that life.”
Meryl poked her head around the corner. “Hey guys, dinner’s rea-” She paused, looking to the shards of the broken urn on the floor. “Oh,” she said.
“It was my doing,” said Stromberg. “The boy was totally without fault.”
Meryl looked stricken. “Not this again,” she said.
“He had no way of knowing,” Stromberg insisted.
“I’m sorry,” Eric said, verging on tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“Quiet, boy,” Stromberg snapped. “Quit your mewling.”
“Ok,” Meryl said, taking a breath. “It’s ok, everyone. Dinner’s ready. Hey, you guys. Guys. Everything’s fine. Come on, y’all, it’s fine. I made steak and onions.”
