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out for coffee afterward. Right away I noticed they moved ahead of me and sat in the first row. Who would want to sit there? Very little of the movie made sense to me because I spent most of my time either looking at the backs of their heads or wondering who these interesting people were.
     
    “Are summers here always this humid, Joe? It feels as if a big dog is breathing on me. I wish we were back at my mother’s apartment in New York.”
    “India, every time we’re there in the summer you complain about the heat.”
    “Sure, Paul, but at least that’s New York heat. There’s a big difference.”
    She said no more. He looked at me and rolled his eyes. We were sitting at an outside table in front of the Café Landtmann. A red and white tram clacked by, and the colored fountains across the street in Rathaus Park shot their streams up through the thick night.
    “It does get pretty hot here now. That’s why all the Viennese go to their country houses in August.”
    She looked at me and shook her head. “It’s nuts. Look, I don’t know anything about this place yet, but isn’t tourism supposed to be Austria’s main source of income? Most tourists travel in August, right? So they get to Vienna and the whole joint is closed up for vacation. Tighter than anything in Italy or France, huh, Paul?”
    We had been there half an hour. Already I’d noticed India did most of the talking, unless she egged Paul on to tell a particular anecdote or story. But they both listened carefully when the other spoke. I felt a hollow rush of jealousy when I noticed their complete mutual interest.
    Some time later I asked Paul, who turned out to be a delightfully garrulous person away from his wife, why he clammed up when he was around her.
    “I guess because she’s so wonderfully strange, Joe. Don’t you think? I mean, we’ve been married for years, and yet she still amazes me with all of the weird things she says! Usually I can’t wait to hear what’s going to come next. It’s always been like that.”
    When there was a lull in the conversation that first night and everything was quiet, I asked how they had met.
    “You tell him, Paul. I want to watch this tram go by.”
    We all watched it go by. After a few seconds, Paul sat forward and put his big hands on his knees.
    “When I was in the Navy I went out and bought this screwy Hawaiian shirt when my ship docked in Honolulu. It was the most hideous piece of clothing that ever existed. Yellow with blue coconut trees and green monkeys.”
    “You stop lying, Paul! You loved every scrawny little palm tree on that shirt and you know it. I thought you were going to cry when it fell apart.” She reached across the table and brushed her fingertips over his cheek. I looked away, embarrassed and jealous of her casual tenderness.
    “Yes, I guess I did, but it’s hard to admit it now.”
    “Yeah? Well, shut up, because you looked great in it! He really did, Joe. He was standing on this street corner in the middle of San Francisco waiting for a trolley. He looked like an ad for Bacardi rum. I walked up to him and told him he was the only guy I’d ever seen who actually looked good in one of those goony shirts.”
    “You didn’t say I looked good, India — you said I looked too good. You made it sound as if I was one of those creeps who read science fiction novels and carry five million keys on their belt loop.”
    “Oh, sure, but I said that later — after we went out for the drink.”
    Paul turned to me and nodded. “That’s right. The first thing she said was I looked good. We stood on the corner for a while and talked about Hawaii. She’d never been there and wanted to know if poi really tasted like wallpaper paste. I ended up asking her if she’d like to go someplace for a drink. She said yes and that was that. Bingo.”
    “What do you mean, ‘that was that’? ‘That was that,’ except for the fact I didn’t see you again for two years. ‘Bingo,’ my foot!”
    Paul