The Story: Love, Loss and the Lives of Women: 100 Great Short Stories

by Victoria Hislop

  The next time I was alone in Greg’s house I went into the kitchen and looked at the space between the fridge and the wall. It didn’t seem wide enough for any-one to sit in. But when I pushed the brooms and mops and vacuum back and tried it myself I discovered that there was just barely enough room. I felt weird in there, like a kid playing hide-and-seek who’s been forgotten by the other kids. All I could see was a section of avocado-green cupboard and a strip of vinyl floor in the yellowish-green swirly seasick pattern that I’d never liked too much. The cleaning-rags and the dustpan brushed against my head and neck. I wouldn’t have wanted to sit there for any length of time, even if I was a kid. And I thought that anybody who did must have been in a bad way.

  I think that was a mistake, trying it out, because now I had a kind of idea of how Ilse Spiegelman must have felt. But then for a while I forgot the whole thing, because Greg asked me to marry him. Up till then he had never even mentioned marriage, and neither had I. I certainly wasn’t going to hint around the way he’d said his last live-in girlfriend had, or pressure him like the one before that.

  That was the year there was so much excitement in the media about a survey which claimed to prove that college-educated women over thirty had just about no chance of getting married. A couple of times people said to me, Dinah, you’re a statistician, aren’t you worried? Well, Jesus, of course I was worried, because I was nearly twenty-nine, but I just smiled and said that everybody in my field knew that study was really badly flawed technically.

  By Christmas of that year, I’d begun to sense a rising curve of possibility in the relationship; but I waited and kept my cool. Then Greg told me he’d been invited to the Rockefeller Foundation Study Center on Lake Como for a month the next summer. He said he wished I could come with him, but you weren’t allowed to bring anyone but a spouse. I didn’t make any suggestions. When he told me how luxurious and scenic the study centre was, I just said, ‘Oh, really?’ and, ‘That’s great.’

  Three days later he brought it up again, and asked me what I’d think of our getting married before he went, because he knew I’d enjoy seeing Italy and he really didn’t like the idea of leaving me behind. I didn’t shriek with joy and rush into his arms, though that was what I wanted to do; I just smiled and said it sounded like a fairly good idea, as long as he didn’t want us to be divorced as soon as we got back, because my poor old Ma couldn’t take that.

  It was the next day that I saw Ilse for the first time. I still had my apartment downtown, but I was spending a lot of time at Greg’s, and sleeping over most nights. I got up early on Sunday to make sausages and waffles with maple syrup, because we’d been talking about American country breakfasts a couple of days before and he said he’d never had a good one.

  It was a wet dark late-winter morning and the kitchen windows were streaked with half-frozen rain like transparent glue. When I went into the room the first thing I noticed was what looked like somebody’s legs and feet in grey tights and worn black low-heel pumps sticking out between the refrigerator and the wall. I kind of screamed, but nothing came out except a sort of gurgle. Then I took a step nearer and saw a pale woman in a dark dress sitting wedged in there.

  I didn’t think of Ilse. If I thought anything, I thought we must have left the back door unlocked and some miserable homeless person or schizo graduate student had got in. ‘Jesus Christ, what the hell!’ I screeched and backed away and turned on the light.

  And then I looked again and nobody was there. All I saw was Greg’s black rubber galoshes, left to drip when we’d come in from a film the night before, and his long grey wool scarf hanging from a hook by the dusters. I couldn’t see how my brain had assembled these variables into the figure of a woman, but the brain does funny things sometimes.

  Later, after I got my breath back, I thought of Greg’s story and realised that what I’d seen or imagined was Ilse Spiegelman. I didn’t like that, because it meant that Greg’s ex-wife was on my mind to an extent I hadn’t suspected.

  I didn’t say anything about it. I damn sure wasn’t going to tell Greg, who said sometimes that one of the things he loved most about me, besides my naturally pointed breasts, was my well-organised mind. ‘You’re a wonder, Dinah,’ he used to tell me. ‘Under those wild black curls, you’re as clear-headed as any man I ever met.’ Like a lot of guys his age, he believed that no matter how much education they got most women never became rational beings and their heads were essentially full of unconnected light-weight ideas, like those little white Styrofoam bubbles they pack stereo equipment in.

  So I didn’t say anything to anybody. What I did was, I tried to find out what Ilse had looked like. My idea was that if she was really different from the thing I thought I’d seen, it would prove I’d had a hallucination. That wouldn’t be so great, but it would be better than a ghost.

  Greg didn’t have any photos of Ilse as far as I knew; at least I couldn’t find any around the house. When I asked him what she was like he only said she was blonde and shorter than me. Then I asked if she was pretty. He looked at me and laughed out loud and said, ‘Not anywhere near as pretty as you are, my lovely little cabbage.’

  After that I did a sample among his friends. I didn’t take it too far; I didn’t want people to think I was going into some type of retrospective jealous fit. So I didn’t have a significant data base, and when I averaged their statements out all I got was the profile of a medium-sized woman in her early forties with dirty-blonde hair. Some said it was wavy and others said it was straight. They all agreed that she didn’t have much to say and her accent was hard to understand, but she was attractive, at least to start with. Later on, some of them said, she seemed to kind of let herself go, and towards the end she looked ill a lot of the time.

  Greg’s department secretary told me Ilse was slim but a little broad in the beam; but that information isn’t much use if you’re trying to identify somebody sitting on the floor behind a refrigerator. A couple of people said she looked ‘foreign’, whatever that meant; and a colleague of Greg’s said she had a ‘small sulky hot-looking mouth’, but I had to discount that because he was always on the make.

  Finally I decided that it could just possibly have been Ilse, but most likely it was my imagination. That was bad enough, because I’d never been the imaginative type, and I didn’t like the idea that I was starting to see things, like one of Ma’s superstitious old-lady neighbours.

  The trouble was, though, I began to feel uncomfortable about Greg’s kitchen. I didn’t like going in there much any more; and I always made sure to switch on the overhead light first, even if it was a bright day. I had the theory that if the light was on I wouldn’t think I saw Ilse Spiegelman, and in fact I didn’t.

  Weeks went by and my weird feeling about the kitchen should have gone away, only somehow it hung on. So one day I asked Greg casually what he thought of our moving after we married. We’d been to a cocktail party at my boss’s new house on the lake. It had a big fieldstone fireplace and sliding glass doors onto a deck and a really super view. I said I’d love to live in a place like that. I think it was the first time I ever asked Greg to do anything more for me than stop at the store for a bottle of Chardonnay on his way home. Up to then he’d more or less anticipated my every wish.

  Well, Greg didn’t see the point of it, and from a practical view there was no point. His house was in good condition and its location was ideal: less than a mile from the University, so that on most days he could walk to his office. He said that for one thing it would be a real drag for both of us to drive to town in the kind of weather they have here from December through March. Then he reminded me how much work he’d done on his garden and grounds over the years. Next year his asparagus bed would be bearing for the first time, I wouldn’t want to miss that, he said and laughed and kissed me.

  So I let it pass. By that time I’d just about convinced myself that I hadn’t seen anything.

  Then one day in March I came in after work with two bags of grocerie
s and set them on the counter and turned, and Holy Mother of God, there she was again, squeezed in by the refrigerator. It was nearly dark out and darker inside, but I knew it was the same woman: the hair like frayed rope, the shapeless dress and shiny grey tights and black clunky pumps, scuffed at the toes, sticking out into the room.

  She didn’t seem to see me. She wasn’t looking in my direction anyhow, but down at the seasick-green floor, just sitting there, not moving, as if she were drunk or stunned. It was much worse than the first time. Then I was just surprised and uneasy, the way anyone would be if they found a strange woman in their kitchen, but now I was like really terrified.

  I almost couldn’t breathe, but somehow I stumbled back and put on the light, and when I looked round she’d disappeared again. But I was sure I’d seen someone, and I was practically sure it had been Ilse. And what was worse, I got the idea that she’d been sitting there on the floor for a long while. Or maybe she was always sitting there, only most of the time I couldn’t see her.

  I can tell you I was in a bad state. I figured either I’d seen a ghost, or I was losing my mind. But I didn’t feel crazy, except whenever I had to go into the kitchen I panicked. The main idea I had was that I had to leave that house.

  Next day at breakfast I brought up moving again, but I didn’t get anywhere. Greg made all the points he’d made before, and also he mentioned the financial aspects for the first time. It turned out he had no savings to speak of and not much equity in the house. But he had an eight per cent mortgage; he couldn’t possibly get that kind of rate again, he said. I was a little surprised that Greg didn’t have more net worth, but it made sense when I thought about it. He liked to live well: trips to New York and to conferences all over the world, expensive food and liquor, and a new Volvo every five years.

  He assumed the issue was settled, but I didn’t want to let it drop. I said I was making enough money to help out and I had some savings besides; and I knew I’d be happier in a new place. Greg lowered his newspaper for a moment and glanced up at me, and for the first time I saw, just for a second, that thin cold look he gave people and things he didn’t like.

  But then Greg smiled slowly and folded the newspaper and put it down and came over and kissed me and said I mustn’t ever worry about money. He wouldn’t think of touching my little savings, he said; he had plenty for both of us.

  I kissed him back, of course, and felt all warm and loved again, but at the same time just for a moment I remembered something a friend of mine at work had said when I first started going out with Greg. ‘He’s a really sweet guy until you cross him,’ she said. ‘Then, watch out.’

  In a couple of days I’d more or less forgotten about that look Greg had flashed at me; but I realised I’d stuck myself with Ilse’s kitchen, and my morale slid way down the chart. I didn’t know what the hell to do. If I said anything to anybody they’d think I was nuts, and maybe they’d be right. Maybe I ought to just drive up to the state hospital and turn myself in. I thought of telling Ma; she believed in ghosts, and a couple of her friends had seen them; but those were always ghosts of the dead.

  Then I remembered something I read in an anthropology book in college. There were sorcerers in Mexico and Central America, it said, that could project an image of themselves to anywhere they chose. The author hadn’t seen it done herself, but all the locals were convinced it could happen. Well, I thought, it could be. There were some weird things in the world. Maybe Ilse Spiegelman was some kind of Czechoslovakian witch, and if she wanted to keep me from marrying Greg and moving into her house and her kitchen she might do it that way. The distance wouldn’t faze her – for that kind of project two thousand miles was the same as two yards.

  If I told Ma, she’d probably say I should go to a priest and ask for an exorcism. But I knew if I did that he’d give me a lot of grief for not having been to confession for three years, and living in sin with Greg. And besides, how the hell could I ask Greg to have his kitchen exorcised? I considered trying to sneak a priest into the house when Greg was at the University, but I decided it was too risky.

  So I told myself okay, let’s assume it was Ilse, trying to scare me off. Well, I wouldn’t let her. The next time she appeared I’d make the sign of the cross and tell her to get the hell out and leave me alone. Listen, sister, I’d tell her, you had your chance with Greg, now it’s my turn.

  After that, instead of praying I wouldn’t see Ilse, I actually tried to catch her at it. For a couple of weeks, whenever Greg went out, I set my jaw and said a Hail Mary and marched into the room. I never saw a damn thing. Then, late one evening after I’d rinsed our coffee mugs in the sink and turned out the light and was leaving the kitchen, I saw her again, sitting shadowy by the refrigerator. I wasn’t expecting her, so I screamed out, ‘Jesus Christ!’

  Greg had gone up to bed already, and he heard me and called out, ‘What’s the matter, darling?’ I was frightened and confused, and I called back, ‘Nothing, I just cut my hand on the bread knife.’ Then I switched on the light, and of course nobody was there.

  I thought, oh God. That’s what she wanted. She’s never going to appear when I’m ready for her; she wants to surprise me, and hurt me. And now she had, because of course then I had to get out the bread knife and saw a hole in my hand to show Greg.

  After that I was in a bad way. I didn’t want to see Ilse when I wasn’t expecting her; but I couldn’t think of her the whole time. Plus I was developing a full-blown phobia about her kitchen. So I came right out and told Greg that there were things I didn’t like about his house.

  He was very sweet and sympathetic. He put his arms round me and kissed one of his favourite places – the back of my neck just above the left shoulder, where I have a circle of freckles. Then he asked me to tell him what it was I didn’t like and maybe it could be fixed. ‘I want you to be perfectly happy here, Dinah my love,’ he said.

  Well, I told him there were three things. I said I’d like the downstairs bathroom repapered, because I’d never cared for goldfish, they had such stupid expressions; and I’d like a deck by the dining-room so that we could eat outdoors in the summer. ‘If that’s what you want, why not?’ Greg said, holding me and stroking me.

  Then I said I’d also like a new cabinet built in the kitchen, between the refrigerator and the wall. That was the only thing I really cared about, because I thought that if there wasn’t any space there Ilse couldn’t come and sit in it; and that was the only thing Greg objected to. If we put a cabinet there, he said, where would I keep my cleaning equipment? Well, I told him I’d move it out to the back entry. No, I didn’t think that would be inconvenient, I said; anyhow I’d always thought a kitchen looked messy if there were old brooms and rags hanging around. I was terrified that he’d suggest building a broom cupboard, which would have been worse than nothing, but luckily it didn’t occur to him.

  ‘You want your kitchen just like your graphs, all squared away,’ Greg said. ‘All right, darling.’ And he laughed. He liked to tease me sometimes about my passion for order.

  Greg promised to have the improvements made before the wedding and he carried through. The day the new cabinet was installed I went into the kitchen the minute I got home. Just as I’d planned, it completely filled the space where Ilse had sat. There was a drawer under the counter, and a shelf under that; nobody could possibly get in there. I stooped down and looked to make sure, and then I put in a couple of baking tins and some bags of paper cups and plates.

  I’ve done it, I thought, and I was really happy. I thought how generous and brilliant and good-looking Greg was, and how smart I was, and how we were going to Montreal for our honeymoon and then to Europe. I’d bought a beautiful wedding dress: heavy ecru silk with a sexy low square neck and yards of lace.

  Well, it got to be two weeks before the wedding. I was so high I was even starting to feel a little sorry for Ilse. I thought about how she was probably back in those two nasty little rooms again with her family. I knew what that was like, fro
m the years I spent with my mother and sisters in the trailer camp, with cold sour air leaking through the window-frames and the kitchen faucet spitting rust and the neighbours playing the radio or screaming at each other all night. No wonder she was jealous.

  Then the term was nearly over, and Greg’s department was giving a reception. He called me that Friday afternoon from his office to say they were short of paper plates and could I drop some by after work? So when I got home I went into the kitchen and opened the new cabinet by the refrigerator.

  It was a good thing I was alone, because I let out a real burglar-alarm screech. There was Ilse Spiegelman, just like before, only now she was shrunken down into some kind of horrible little dwarf about two and a half feet high. I didn’t even try the light. I just howled and stumbled out into the hall.

  It took me nearly thirty-five minutes to get up my nerve to go back into the kitchen – where of course Ilse wasn’t any more, or at least I couldn’t see her – and put my hand into that cabinet, maybe right through her, and take out those paper plates that Greg was waiting for.

  After that I knew I was beaten. If Ilse could shrink herself like that she could appear any size, and anywhere she goddamn wanted to. Maybe she’d get into the flour bin in the pantry next, or maybe some day when I took the lid off the top of the sugar bowl she’d be in there, all scrunched up.

  I was really depressed and sort of desperate. But then I thought that maybe Ilse wouldn’t mind my living with Greg as long as we weren’t married. After all, she hadn’t even appeared until we got engaged.