Strange Traffic by Irene Dische

Strange indeed; Dische's short stories are peopled with oddballs and innocents who mostly occupy a grey-coloured old world stage that's sometimes New York, sometimes Germany, Austria, Hungary - that part of Europe.

Whoever put these stories together put the best up front, getting me very excited about having stumbled across a fantastic writer. The first story A Prior Engagement is shatteringly good. It's about a suave and successful restauranteur Oliver Weinstock:

'"While the doctors shine their weak torches into the drainhole that is your past, I guess the direction your life has taken is the product of coincidence alone. This applies particularly to love. But mind you, what counts is not whom you loved or who loved you, but who did not love you. And," he concluded, "how they did not love you."'

Oh-ho, ah-ha.... therein lies the crux of Oliver's secret, right in the opening paragraph, whereupon compelling and engaging story ensues. Where did she get the particulars of this story, I asked myself. Did she just dream it all up?

The second story was my second favourite, An Innocent Vacation, about the misadventures of a young girl's travels in 1969. It's ironic, but gentle and affectionate, like a nice memory from a long (enough) time ago:

"There I met an American who had been to Chicago in 1968. He said, "The kids are going east this year." That set my itinerary. I hitchhiked east - if I had any unpleasant experiences I did not notice them - until I reached a place where the kids talked only about the price of hashish (Tehran); I did not enjoy hallucinating, so I went west again, until my money ran out (Venice). After I sold my army surplus knapsack and all of its contents at a flea market, I was left with one finest quality goosedown sleeping bag from Macy's, good to minus forty degrees, and the Indian shift from West Fourth Street, with a blue-and-white bunny rabbit motif, that I was wearing at the time of the sale. The dress was square-shaped and crowded with these bunnies, so that the first words Charles said to me were, "I see you're travelling by hutch."

She's pretty good, right? Those were my two favourites. The other nine stories are good, but I suppose I didn't find the characters so endearing. Yes, that's it, they were interesting, but they weren't loveable. -RBR

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