by Ursula Hegi
While his wife’s voice followed him. “Also … the Braddocks’ sink is stopped up again, and—”
He didn’t turn. “I’ve been on my way for the last twenty years,” he said, thinking about Florida.
As Helene’s adopted language wove itself into her dreams, it became easier to speak it. At times she even found herself thinking in English; it eliminated that slow process of translating everything inside her head before she spoke, and it gave her more confidence to express herself. Gradually she began to recognize American accents. Tourists from Boston spoke differently than tourists from New York; and her husband, who had sounded so American to her when she’d arrived, definitely had a German accent that set him apart from the people of Winnipesaukee.
But what set Stefan even more apart—not just him but his entire family—was the fact that he came from the country America had been at war with; and now that the war was over and several young men from Winnipesaukee lay buried overseas, he could feel that separateness even more than during the years of war. Coming to America had been so easy, like arriving in a place that had already been in his blood, his real home that freed him to become who he was, a home with a far stronger hold on him than his first home. But now it felt as though he were starting all over again in territory more foreign than any he knew, living among people who resented him—not because of anything he had done, but because forty years ago he’d been born in Germany.
It made him draw closer to his family, limit his time with Americans.
On the tenth anniversary of his wedding to Helene, he prepared a veal roast with raspberry sauce for his family, and when they sat down at the dinner table, he presented Helene with an emerald necklace. She tried to fasten it around her neck, but the clasp was too complicated. As he stood up to secure it for her, he suddenly wanted to kiss the curve of her strong neck, but since he figured it would embarrass her in front of the children, he only touched her shoulders before he returned to his seat. On the roof directly above them, the claws of the squirrels were like harsh whispers.
Helene looked at the American children eating, their small hands maneuvering the silverware with the graceful German table manners she’d taught them, and her throat constricted with a startling rage as if the necklace had shrunk: these children had hindered her chance of having a normal marriage with Stefan, a marriage in which their father wouldn’t fear giving her his seed and his devotion, a marriage in which all children were his and hers. As she brought her fingers between her skin and the necklace, she found enough space, and yet the tightness remained. From across the table she felt Greta’s calm gaze as if she knew and—even more so—understood and pitied her, and in that moment Helene resolved to herself that she would never permit herself that rage again.
But it was as if something unfinished had settled itself between her and Greta, who was touchy and rebellious while getting dressed the next morning, complaining about the shoes that Helene was finally able to order from Germany again.
“They’re clunky,” she wailed.
“They’re first-rate quality.”
“But they look third rate.”
Third rate. Third wife. She didn’t let Greta see how much those words cut. Patiently she told her that she had to wear the shoes because they gave good support to her arches. “It’s important during those years when your feet are growing.”
“I don’t care about my arches.”
“But I care about them.”
“They are my arches.” Greta stalked off to her room.
She can certainly be dramatic, Helene thought. Usually it was easier than this to be around Greta, even if the girl often fussed too much around her, trying to help with chores or watching her as if concerned she might be lonely. To distract her, Helene would ask her to play with Robert, who liked to follow Greta around though she was nearly nine years older than he. They’d read stories together or swim in the lake, diving and leaping from the dock, Robert more nimble in water than on land.
When Helene would go into the water with them, she’d float on a rubber raft while Robert and Greta would bob around her, pulling her this way and that as if competing for her. Afterwards she’d sit on the dock, watching those two play ball or dig channels from the water to the sand, making it flow into the moats that surrounded their sand castles.
But Tobias usually kept to himself. Helene wished he had something he was good at, the way Robert was at the piano, but all Tobias did was build tiny animals from matches, and he didn’t like it when she asked if she could touch them. He was secretive, that boy, when it came to what he loved. Noisy when it came to what he didn’t like.
Sometimes though he’d let Greta coax him into running with her and Robert through the house, visiting tenants. One Sunday in October, when it was too wet and cold to be outdoors, the three of them rode the elevator up and down. When they knocked at the Hedges’ door and Buddy Hedge opened it, they asked at the same moment—just as they’d practiced—if they could look at his Christmas closet.
Next they tried to visit Mr. Bell who wouldn’t let them in because he didn’t want their father to find out that he was still cooking on his hot plate. Since it was cheaper than using a stove, he’d set up the hot plate in his bedroom. By now, he’d moved entirely into his bedroom and only used the kitchen counters to store his old law books.
After Mrs. Clarke gave the Blau children bread with butter and sugar, they ran down the stairs to the cellar and into the long room, where all the tenants had storage bins that were divided by wooden slats and secured with padlocks. When Tobias stuck his arms through those slats, Greta and Robert helped him move the tenants’ belongings around in the hope that it would confuse them. Then they rummaged through the wooden trunks that their father had pushed against the back wall of their family’s storage bin and hauled armfuls of clothes to the sixth floor.
By the full-length mirror on their parents’ closet door, they tried on hats that sank to their noses and garments that pooled around their feet: the deep-green loden coat that Helene had bought after her wedding, a velvet jacket with piping that had belonged to Elizabeth, the shiny black pants Stefan had worn the day he’d arrived in New York, a blue skirt Sara had sewn for herself, the lace blouse Helene had worn when she was pregnant.
Beneath the light of the wall sconces, Stefan Blau’s children pranced in his outdated suits and the clothes of his wives. Generous in sharing and trading, they laughed and screamed with delight, sounds that would not reach other apartments because the walls their father had built were far too thick to allow for noise or fire to pass through. When Stefan stopped by before the evening rush in his restaurant and came upon Tobias in the Persian lamb coat that used to belong to Elizabeth, Robert in a tweed jacket that Sara had worn on their walks, and Greta in a brocade dress that Helene had bought for one of Pearl’s parties, he was drawn into a moment of utter disorientation and could no longer sort out which woman had given birth to which child, implying a terrible oversight on his part, and in this fusing of images—wives buried and children born and wives married—the Hungarian came to him once again, one more person he had not been able to keep alive, and he heard the Hungarian’s voice along with the voices of the other men in the kitchen and the voices of his mother and of his children, all in different languages until he no longer knew which was his own language.
Dazed, he shook his head. Stepped toward the window. And was calmed by the silent and eternal language of the stars. But then Tobias yelled something—“Give me that,” he yelled and grabbed a scarf from Robert—and as Stefan turned toward the voice, it was clear to him that this was Sara’s son, and from there he knew of course—how could I have forgotten even for one instant?—that Greta had issued from Elizabeth, and Robert from Helene. Seized by a deep regret that his work had kept him from knowing his children better, he promised himself to start teaching them about the stars. Tomorrow, he thought. Or Sunday. Yet it would not be his children, but his granddaughter, Emma, who would listen to his s
tories about the stars and about his mother who had taught him about the millions of galaxies and billions of stars, the distances between them so vast that Emma would feel lost, overwhelmed. If earth was small compared to the stars—then how could she matter? It was as though she didn’t exist. But when she would cry and tell Stefan, he would take her by the shoulders, his palms curving to hold her in, to keep her from flying off into a million bright specks. “For me you exist,” he would say, and she’d be safe.
His children hadn’t seen him yet. Butter. I need to order butter. Inventory the spices. Already he saw himself, wooden spoon to his lips, rolling his eyes upward as if in prayer as he tasted his brandy sauce. Prohibition was making it difficult to get the liquor he needed for his restaurant, but not impossible. He could buy home brew from one of the French Canadians in town or from Mr. Heflin who, officially, had added a very young wife and a post office to his general store while, unofficially, he operated a still in the storage area beneath his store. Capers. Get capers and cloves. Cream.
When Tobias noticed his father, he got all quiet and shy. Then Robert.
“You look … good, all of you,” Stefan said, bothered that the only one glad to see him was Greta. They don’t know me. They don’t know me at all. “Keep doing what you’ve been doing.”
But his sons only stood stiffly.
All at once he felt angry at them. “I need to get back to work.”
After his father had left, Tobias made Greta and Robert sit on the floor and got ready to do the one-armed man for them. It was one of his favorites because he could play the one-armed man and the policeman and the woman with the green necklace all by changing costumes and voice. His stepmother had taught him how to make up plays from things that happened and things he imagined, the way she had as a girl in Germany. But Tobias couldn’t imagine her as a girl: she’d been big and old forever. Since he hadn’t met his Uncle Leo, it was easy to imagine him as the boy who’d watched the play while sitting on a crate, thumb in his mouth. He was the uncle who was always supposed to visit but never arrived.
Although Tobias let his sister or brothers play an occasional part, he liked it best when they watched. The one-armed man comes to the woman’s house. Tries to sell her shoelaces. Sometimes lipstick. Or tonic for headaches. When the woman doesn’t want to buy anything, he tears off the necklace that her husband has given her for their anniversary. Runs away. The woman calls for help. A policeman comes, chases the one-armed man. But he doesn’t catch him. Tobias always liked the chase best. He’d seen a one-armed man once. At his grandfather’s bakery. Buying an ugly. That’s what his grandfather called the pastries he baked from leftover dough. Uglies were his specialty: twice as large as regular pastries, they were different each day because he clumped them together from leftover dough, chocolate and white, and added lots of glaze and whatever he had most of, coconut flakes or ribbons of cinnamon or chocolate sprinkles.
His grandmother had whispered it wasn’t polite to stare. When the one-armed man reached for his wallet, he angled his one elbow sideways and pulled the wallet from the back pocket on his other side with two fingers. Tobias had practiced that in the garage with Danny, that and the way the one-armed man walked … as if stepping across new ice on the lake. “What would it feel like to just have one arm?” he’d asked Danny, who’d thought about an answer while his thumb flicked across his thin throat. “Cumbersome. Cumbersome, I believe.” Some days Danny was too busy to talk to Tobias because he was working for Tobias’ father now, helping the Wilsons take care of the building. Or because he was playing pool or cards with Stewart Robichaud, Birdie’s cousin, who was a waiter at the restaurant.
In the pile of clothes, Tobias found an indigo skirt that the one-armed man could wear as a cape. It gave off sparks when he dragged it across the carpets and swished it around. “Look at this.” He twirled. “Look.”
“It used to belong to your mother,” Greta told him.
Tobias bunched the material against his face and became very still. “If you like, I’ll have Mrs. Teichman sew you a shirt from it.” His stepmother had come up behind him.
Tobias yanked the skirt away from her. “Don’t cut it.”
“It was only a suggestion. The fabric is still good.”
“I remember her wearing it one afternoon.” Greta reached for his fingers and stroked both their hands across the creased fabric until his grip eased. “Feel how soft it is.” Her neck felt cold, and the air that came into her was thin, pale, because she could feel Tobias’ sadness at not having his own memories of his mother, felt his loneliness extending into those years when they both would be far older than their mothers had ever been.
“It was windy, that afternoon, and she was walking with me and Vati along Weirs Beach. She pointed to the ground and said, ‘There’s a buried treasure somewhere beneath our feet.’”
Tobias watched her without speaking, possessive of the treasure because it was his mother who’d known about it.
Greta leaned toward him, offering him her memories. “Your mother told us about the man who used to run the Old Red Store a hundred years ago. His name was William Wilcomb. He did all kinds of work.” Her glasses had slipped, and she pushed them back. “He was a weather forecaster. And a postmaster. And a banker like my grandfather. One evening he was robbed. After that, he hid gold in his cellar. But it was never found….”
“Maybe we can go look for that treasure.”
“There are different kinds of treasures,” his stepmother said. “Like the stories your mother knew.”
When Tobias took the skirt into his room, he folded it and hid it inside his closet, feeling set apart from Greta and Robert, even more so than he usually felt set apart from other children in his class who didn’t like him because he could find facts and spell faster than any of them. That night, Stefan found him sleeping on the Persian rug in the living room, fully dressed, with the skirt draped around him like a cape, and when he carried him back to his bed, Tobias was mumbling, and Stefan touched his lips against the damp temple and drew in the child-scent of sweat and sleep.
But in the morning Tobias had no recollection of having walked in his sleep. As soon as he got up, he asked Greta questions about his mother, and she recalled for him an afternoon on the mail boat.
“We saw the Dolly Islands, and your mother told us the legend of Aunt Dolly Nichols after whom the islands were named.”
“Where was I?”
“You weren’t born yet.”
Tobias couldn’t picture his mother. Couldn’t picture himself. Only Aunt Dolly, brown and wrinkled the way his mother had described her to Greta, maneuvering her hand-propelled ferry between Meredith Neck and Bear Island. Fishermen buy rum and hard cider from her. She rows to Weirs for a barrel of rum … carries it on her shoulders to the boat… lifts it above her head while rowing whenever she gets thirsty. …
From Greta he found out that he and his mother had only lived together for seven days, that she’d recovered briefly after his birth, but then—as if she’d found him wanting—had died one week after his birth. Even after Greta told him all the legends his mother had written into her notebook, he waited to hear them again so that he could watch the people in those stories inside his head, waiting for the day when he’d be able to see his mother as clearly as he saw them. And then one day it happened: images of Dolly filled in the void, and he could see his mother, brown and wrinkled and strong, drinking rum from barrels.
That’s how he would describe his mother to Danny Wilson. “My mother was stronger than most men,” he would tell him that winter when Danny would take him ice fishing in the bobhouse he’d built on the frozen bay with Stewart Robichaud and one of the other waiters. The two of them would sit on stools around the hole that Danny and the others had hacked into the three-foot-thick ice with axes and ice chisels. Live shiners on their hooks, they’d pull the slippery bodies of cusk and brown bullheads and yellow perch from the blue-white glow that would come from beneath them.
<
br /> Miss Garland felt certain there had to be a community in the house, people who got together and entertained one another; yet, except for the Blaus’ annual tenants’ parties—Christmas and summer solstice—she was never invited. It had to be an oversight—she was sure of that. The other tenants always seemed glad to see her. Always. By the mailboxes. In the drying room. On the dock … When she went about finding out where the parties were held, Robert became her best source since his parents, of course, were usually invited.
Wearing her good navy suit with the fancy buttons or the silk poplin suit—both from Gimbel’s catalog; both perfect with her shadow lace blouse—Miss Garland began to appear at people’s doors, extending a plate or cake tin with peanut brittle that, even Homer Wilson conceded, was delicious. “I got up early this morning to make this for you,” she’d say, smiling with the certainty of being welcomed as she walked in, the bloom of excitement high in her cheeks. Invariably she would stay, the last to leave. Her visit would be followed by a gracious letter, thanking her reluctant hosts for including her and praising the sense of community in the Wasserburg.
Whenever Stefan saw her coming toward him, he evaded her, uneasy because she was the one person who cherished his house as much as he did; but Pearl, who gave most of the parties, was amused by Miss Garland’s persistence.
“She keeps stopping by unannounced,” she told Helene one evening as they sat on the roof. From up here, the flowering lilac bushes looked like bouquets. “And she brings you a gift. Those sticky peanut things. Flowers she’s picked herself. Or a note thanking you for the last wonderful talk you had. And—”