Overheard ("stuck")

Professor Gräfenburg said the name of the opera as soon as it came to mind. “Sontag aus Licht.”

“The full production?” asked Doctor Banks. “That’s a thirty-hour show.”

“Ach, no, that was years away. This was still one of the working presentations. Which is the one with the basset horn?”

“Licht-Bilder.”

“I thought that has the trumpet.”

“It has both.”

“Are you sure?”

Doctor Banks waved at her to get on with the story. “So, Xin was at Sontag aus Licht.”

“Yes, Xin at the Sontag. This was after that bad break-up.”

“With the painter?”

“Worse! The chiromancer.”

“I don’t recall the chiromancer. … Wait, was the chiromancer the rebound from the painter?”

Gräfenburg nodded.

Banks paused in thought, before saying, “That was not a pretty break-up.”

Gräfenburg drew out the word. “Noooooo, it was not a pretty break-up.”

Banks rumbled disapprovingly. “She was way too good for him.”

“True,” Gräfenburg punctuated with a long exhale of smoke.

Banks pointed like a lawyer encouraging a witness to elaborate. “And he broke up with her.”

“And she knew she was good for him and still she let that get to her.”

“This was when she was on sabbatical?”

Gräfenburg finished her puff, then nodded. “The Orpheum theater was already dead, but no one wanted to admit it. Least of all Xin. So, the board voted her out so she wouldn’t be trying to put on yet another zarzuela revival while they were looking for ways to embezzle the remaining funds.”

“That’s when her lease expired?”

“Ya, her lease was up, and she wasn’t going to have a job by the end of the month. I couldn’t let her stay in that shabby little affair that reeked of bad ex-lovers. So, I have tenure at the university and my own dormitory. And I wasn’t using it, because I was in Leutonia.”

Banks nodded. “That was for your schottische paper?”

“Varsovienne, actually. … So, I couldn’t let Xin’s tail freeze off, not when I had a nice warm bed sitting all empty. I mailed her the key and my badge.”

“And she was there for how long?”

“Six weeks and two days. With no work to do, no bills to pay, nothing to keep her idle hands busy.”

Banks’ frown was subtle that only those familiar with her might notice that she was frowning. “Xin is not someone to leave idle.”

“No, no, no, she is not someone to be left to idling. You’d think with a run of a university with all those impressionable co-eds learning to ‘seek out their identity’ and what have you, that she could get herself a new piece. But no! She just hides inside all day.”

“And eats.”

“And eats!” Gräfenburg gestured wildly. “Ach, this poor woman, who thinks she is too ugly and too hateful to get herself a nice piece, all she does is feel sorry for herself.”

“And eat.”

“And get even uglier! And so it continues. Here I am, being a good little angel and sheltering this poor dove from the storm while also working so hard. But there I am in Leutonia where they only have electricity for half the day, let alone phone service. And our good Doctor her doesn’t check in on her.”

Banks’ expression was blank. “I was thousands of klicks away. In Sunda.”

“You could have called!”

Banks’ expression remained blank. “I wasn’t legally in Sunda.”

Gräfenburg raised her eyebrows. “Ooh, yes. … And Roux! Where was Roux?”

“Uqbar.” Banks spoke the word with all the gravity of a falling stone.

The professor rolled her eyes. “Ach, Roux and Uqbar! That is a story.”

“But not this story,” Banks quickly interjected.

“No, not this story,” Gräfenburg agreed, and hunched closer to speak in a more conspiratorial tone. “So! Xin, alone, ugly, eating. No good could come of that. Have you seen this woman eat? Does she even taste the food?”

“I thought the hypno-therapy was working.”

“This was before hypno-therapy. And you just know she had been binging before this. The only thing Xin loves more than fussing is eating.”

“I thought your university had a diet plan for students.”

“For students, yes. This woman has my card, my professor card. She goes through five years of my vouchers in a month! The woman just ... inflates.”

“My Hippocratic Oath keeps me from being impressed with such dedication to gluttony. But it’s not just the calories that’s the problem.”

“No, it’s the cheese, and the grease, and the lard, and it all backs up in her plumbing, and she inflates even more.”

Banks was stiff as ever. “Which brings us to Sontag.”

“Yes, Sontag!” Gräfenburg replied, impatiently. “So, our precious little pearl here, she’s still an emeritus of the Orpheum, and though she hadn’t been on stage, she was still on the mailing lists. So, they’re still looking to fill seats at the Sontag aus Light because they want the big patrons. And our Xin, she is still on the mailing lists. So, some computer somewhere decides to invite her to the performance. And where is this performance, you ask?

“The Weberoper.”

“The damn Weberoper! Can you believe?! …. Now, Xin, who knows what is going through her sugar-addled brain, to think that she’s supposed to be on this list to see the unfinished Sontag in the damn Weberoper. But she has nothing else to do. And the craziest thing happens.”

“It’s not that crazy.”

“Xin somehow finds a dress that will still fit her. How big was she?”

“The report said twenty-six stone.”

Gräfenburg slammed her hands on the table. “Twenty-six stone!” she emphasized.

“I did say it was impressive.”

“Twenty-six.” The professor shook her head. “The woman is a barge. But hey, I understand. All that time shacked up in my little room, listening to music and crying while she inhales more food, and then this little ray of sunshine falls on her. She feels wanted, she feels invited, good for her. Who am I to shame someone about their appearance?”

“You’re certainly not a physician,” Banks said flatly.

Gräfenburg laughed contemptuously. “I certainly am not! So, Xin, she squeezes into this dress and trundles off to the damn Weberoper to go see Sontag aus Licht. And when she gets there, there’s the problem. The Weberoper is a three-hundred-year-old theater.”

“Reconstructed in the 19th century after the fire.”

“Yes, but to the original specifications. So, you’ve got these seats, you’ve got these seats for your tiny malnourished little 18th-century arses, and here’s our Xin who goes and stuffs her twenty-six stones into this antique wooden seat.”

“She did fit.”

The two looked at each other, and said unison, “At first.” Both could not resist laughing.

“You see,” continued Gräfenburg, “our little Xin, our delicate pearl, she just couldn’t help herself. All that eating. All that cheese, all that butter, all that curds and whey. All sitting inside her while the reverberating music shakes her big fat guts.”

“Another thing quite impressive about Xin is her qi gong.”

“Sure, use the fancy words in front of the kid…. What would she do? Burp at the opera? Fart? In the Weberoper? Unthinkable! Our woman clenches up so hard, she must have a sphincter that can cut steel cable. And our inflated dragon, she gets even more inflated.”

“She also has a high tolerance for pain.”

“I can’t imagine which is worse, the gierige Schmerzen from the inside or the arms of the chair on the outside. Bless that Old-World craftsmanship, but the wood holds. And you know how long she has to sit there?”

“About an hour is the first intermission.”

“When she pointedly does not get up. But I am sure the ushers, they noticed this barge when she first sailed through their doors. They were watching her. And nothing ruins a performance like some big fat dowager busting a bladder at your fund-raiser. So, the ushers fall on her and offer to assist.”

Banks was stone-faced. “And that’s when they found out she was stuck.”

Gräfenburg nodded so enthusiastically, she had to steady her wig. “She was stuck. But what are they going to do? The Weberoper is a historical landmark. They can’t just cut her out of the seat. That’s an antique. So, this next part, this next part we are not making up.”

“We would never play you false about anything,” said Banks, poker-faced.

“Shut up, you liar. Anyway, so this next part is the strangest thing.”

“And we’ve seen strange,” said Banks, still poker-faced.

“The Weberoper has a plan for this! With only a minute or so to prepare, they pitch a tent over her.”

“Not a tent, they were fire blankets. They throw them over explosive devices to contain the blast.”

“They pitch these fire blankets over her and underneath it they prepare this … medical apparatus. What was it again? You know these things, you’re warm for these details.”

“It was a Szalinski siphon.”

Gräfenburg struggled to speak without laughing. “And what is that, this Szalinski?”

“It’s a device that harvests digestive gas from a subject, quickly and painlessly.”

The professor’s smile was a rictus on her face. “Why do you say ‘harvest’ and not ’remove’?”

“Because it isolates all the removed gas in its own reservoir. So that one may examine the output for disease, especially biohazard.”

Now the professor was giggling. “Is this Szalinski something you get from a hospital?”

“To my knowledge, the Szalinski siphon isn’t sold outside of the United States. Most hospitals would merely isolate and intubate.”

“But the Weberoper somehow has one ready in mere minutes?”

“Presumably, it’s because the Weberoper keeps a Szalinski siphon in house.”

“You see?” pointed Gräfenburg. “You see? The most prestigious opera house keeps a device to suck the farts out of their fat patrons so fast that they can then roll their big arses out of the seats to keep from splintering the woodwork. Because this kind of thing happens so much!”

Banks sipped her coffee. “I understand they moved Xin to a private box after that, and they somehow kept it out of the papers.”

“Good, because could you imagine?” Gräfenburg gestured, to mimic a marquee headline. “’Dragon too polite to fart explodes, burns down opera house’.”

“Xin doesn’t like us to tell this story,” said Banks, unsmiling.

“No sense of humor, our Xin!” added Gräfenburg, biting her lip.

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