Free Body & Soul by Frank Conroy

manhandling crates, forklifts scooting, people shouting orders or waving up to others already on board. A sense of excitement, of purpose. Here was the idea of destination compressed into a single huge, busy image as passengers flowed up the long steep gangways onto the ship, the SS
Batory.
Claude stared up at the bright superstructure shining in the sun, seagulls wheeling, and felt a longing so deep it was like a sickness, the same feeling he'd had clinging to the lamppost on V-E Day years ago.

    "Take this." Eisler leaned forward to hand her a hundred dollar bill.
    "I can't," she said.
    He shook the money impatiently. "Take it, take it."
    She did.
    "Now listen to me, woman. If you are wise, you will break off all connection with your group. Completely. Do not go to any more meetings. Do not respond if anyone attempts to communicate with you. Forget that you had anything to do with any of them. Wipe it out."
    If he had struck her, he could not have shocked her more. She stared, her mouth open.
    "They are amateurs. Dreamers. They can't protect themselves, and they can't protect you. Do you understand me?"
    "Yes, but—"
    "It is a house of cards. It will collapse."
    Claude was astonished to see tears in her eyes. "But they're my friends."
    "They are false friends. They have no discipline, and they will, how do you say it, they will roll over." He got out of the cab. "Goodbye, comrade, and thank you for your help." He walked to the nearest gangway without looking back and boarded the ship.
    Claude was mystified, but as he stared at the back of his mother's head he sensed it was not the time to ask questions.
    They sat silently for a long time, looking up at the great ship, until she finally started the engine, pulled at the wheel, and drove away.

    "The maestro would like to see you put on some weight," Franz said. "A little more strength in the upper body, hmmmm?"
    Claude pointed to one of the photographs. "Is that him?"
    "Taken many years ago."
    "He's big."
    "Push-ups are good for a pianist. Do you know how to do pushups?"

    Claude shook his head. Franz lowered himself to the Persian rug and demonstrated. "Nothing should touch but your toes, your hands, and your nose. Ach. I can't do it anymore. But keep straight, keep your tush in the air. Now you try it."
    Claude managed to do three. They lay together on the floor, side by side, breathing hard.
    "He suggests that you do them after practice. It will come quickly because you are young. You'll be surprised."
    "I'll try." It was odd lying next to him. Claude sneaked a close-up look at the Adam's apple, which bobbed as Franz swallowed and caught his breath. The old man got up slowly, first to his knees and then, bracing himself on the piano bench, to his feet. He ran his fingers through the long white hair on the sides of his head.
    "He also suggests that you eat here after practice. At six-thirty in the dining room. Will that be agreeable?"
    Claude got up. "Yes. Thank you."
    "Good. Come in back now and we'll talk to Helga."
    They moved across the room, through the big doors, the foyer, the dining room, and the swinging door into the kitchen. Smells of cinnamon, coffee, and lemon. Helga wore an apron and a small white cap on her graying head.
    "So," she said, shaking hands. "We make you fat,
ja?
"
    Claude looked at the floor and she touched his head lightly and quickly. He felt uncomfortable talking about his body because he hated his body. He resented the earaches, recurrent in his left ear—the sharp pain, the cracking sounds, the crusty yellow stuff he would dig out with his finger. He resented the chilblains he got in cold weather, the way his scalp itched in warm weather, the scabs he got on his knees and elbows. Something was always wrong. Recently he had discovered, quite by accident, that his foreskin had adhered to one side of the head of his penis, and every night, grimacing with pain, he would pull it back, every night a bit more, ignoring the spots of blood,