That makes two of us, I thought of telling the kid, but not with Em there. Em and I hadn’t delved into the details of my overhearing her orgasms. Knowing Nora, she would have said something to Em—on the subject of Em’s orgasms having a life-changing effect on me—but Em and I had not discussed her orgasms in detail.

I was remembering how the zither man had taken his time, getting up the nerve to tackle Elvis, when Em just started singing in the coffeehouse on the Lower East Side. Well, out came the zither; the grandkid hadn’t hesitated. The old edelweiss man, in his lederhosen and the Tyrolean hat with a feather, had to work up the courage to give us the zither version of “Heartbreak Hotel” and “I Forgot to Remember to Forget,” but the zither-meister’s grandson knew his Elvis cold, the way the kid knew his Harry Lime. They must have known the zither boy in the coffeehouse. Everyone in the place was happy to hear him play; our waiter looked like he’d been waiting for the zither.

There would be no mention of Em as the orgasm girl, as the zither kid referred to the legendary character. Em didn’t identify herself, and I wasn’t going to blow the whistle on her. The zither kid had idolized the orgasm girl; she was the most desirable girlfriend imaginable, in the kid’s estimation. “She neva speaks, and she neva stops comin’—there’s no beatin’ that,” the talented grandchild assured us. We didn’t want to disillusion him, now that Em was speaking. And the zither boy’s segue from “Heartbreak Hotel” to “I Forgot to Remember to Forget” was seamless. Em and I wanted his music at our wedding. Em’s way of demonstrating that she couldn’t possibly have been the orgasm girl was to keep singing.

The kid knew the zither-meister’s liveliest and most lugubrious numbers. He serenaded us, and the other patrons of the coffeehouse, with “The Café Mozart Waltz” and “Farewell to Vienna.” I let Em do the talking for us; she wanted to keep speaking as soon as she stopped singing. I thought of the old Austrian musician, taking Em’s orgasms to his grave—as I would take them to mine. Em just kept talking.

Em told the zither man’s grandchild we were having a civil marriage—“the most secular wedding you can imagine,” was how Em put it. Molly’s Manchester house was small, and there would be no guests to speak of—only Molly and Matthew were invited. Em explained that Matthew was my kid, and Molly had been the maid of honor at my mom’s wedding. The zither grandkid remained calm; the old Austrian must not have talked about my mother and Molly.