She would say, "Play the Buxtehude, Moldenke. I enjoy the chills it gives me." She would close the door behind herself and leave him alone in the piano room with its pots of ivy and ant-traps.
He would begin the Buxtehude on the cold keyboard. In the bedroom she would listen through a wall.
He would play the Buxtehude until ants crawled along his fingers and assembled on his sleeves.
He would then walk into the kitchen, carrying his hands like packages, and scrape the ants into a teaboil. Roberta would emerge from the bedroom, stand in the doorway in her flannel. Moldenke would turn from the teaboil and smile, his old silver tooth throwing out a beam of light.
Roberta would say, "Tea?"
Moldenke would add mock sugar. "Yes, would you like a cup?"
She would always have a cup. She would say, "As always."
Moldenke would have his with potato milk, she without.
David Ohle 1971
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