Dr. Reiter shrugged. “From my vantage point, it’s just a sea of faces,” she said, reaching nervously for a stack of papers. Her hands were trembling. “Well, interacting with my father will further your education, so it will be good for both of you. I probably didn’t mention this in class, but my father hides in the house when I’m gone. Every night when I get home, it’s like playing a game of hide and seek. I know all his favorite places, but our house has many. It was a stop on the underground railroad.”
“That’s so cool,” I breathed, feeling like a dork.
Dr. Reiter held up a finger. “My father is not insane. I know, that’s hard to believe, but it’s true. I refer to him as ‘reasonably irrational.’ He’s oriented to person, place, and time. He knows he’s in the United States and Jews aren’t being hunted anymore. But he’s afraid of people. He believes there is a monster lurking inside of everyone, and after years of study, I can’t say I disagree with him.” She paused. “I used to be a professor with the City University of New York. I loved it, but our apartment was burglarized one day while I was giving a lecture. My father hid. That just increased his feeling of being in danger all the time.”
I found my voice. “I see,” I said, hoping I sounded adult.
“He has agoraphobia, which means he’s afraid to go outside,” Dr. Reiter explained. “He’s never been officially diagnosed by anyone other than me. But there is a solarium at the back of our house. He can be coaxed out there when the weather is mild. It’s screened from view by the trees and shrubs in the backyard. Try to get him out there, even if it’s cold, just for a breath of fresh air.”
“I will,” I promised.
“I’m glad you’re a woman,” Dr. Reiter offered. “I think my father will find you less threatening than a man. You can come over to our house Monday at three, for a trial run.” She reached across the desk to hand me a scrap of paper with the address written on it in spidery cursive. I gave it no more than a cursory glance. I already knew where her house was. “I’ll cancel my office hours on Monday, so I can introduce you to him. We’ll see how it goes. Be prepared, though. He may not accept you.” She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. “If that happens, I’ll give you a week’s salary and we’ll call it a day.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
It was done.
Walking across campus a few minutes later, a sudden cold wind sprang up. It blew against my bare legs and uncovered feet, hurrying my step. Just like that, Indian summer was over. Autumn was fully upon us, like flicking a switch.
I reflected on the interview. It was a thrill to finally be close to Dr. Ursula Reiter, to have her see me, know my name and acknowledge my presence. It was like having a private audience with a celebrity.
It was perfect, except she displayed zero interest in me. She didn’t ask me about myself or my experience. She didn’t even know I was one of her students, before I told her.
But she looked at me. She saw me. She knew my name. That was somewhat of a triumph, a step in the right direction. And in a few short days, I’ll be in her house, meeting her father. Seeing all her secret places, becoming part of her life.
Is that what I wanted? I shivered, wishing I’d had the foresight to bring a sweater.
I stopped short in the middle of the path. Did I want Ursula Reiter?
I shook my head ruefully at my own silly thoughts and continued towards my dorm, finally in sight. The notion was ridiculous. Dr. Reiter was at least Jana’s age. Old enough to be my mother. Older, even. And I’m not a lesbian.
I’m not anything at all.
Chapter Six
Ursula
I drove over the bubbles and ruts in the driveway, thinking for the hundredth time that it needed to be repaved. The gravel was crumbling. Like the mansion itself, it had fallen into disrepair. But I was reluctant to hire a general contractor to renovate the house. Strange people on the premises would terrify my father.
But maybe things would be different, now that there was someone to stay with him during the day. If Maggie worked out, and that was a big if. I wasn’t sure how Papa would take to a companion. I needed to talk to him about it immediately, give him a few days to get used to the idea.
As always, I took the temperature of the house as I entered. My uncanny ability to sense the mood of a room had served me well. It was a skill honed through many years of dealing with Papa.
I cocked my head to listen. The house seemed empty, but I could sense Papa’s presence in the rooms over my head.
The attic, I decided, and set off to discover if I was right.
I had been playing this twisted game of hide and seek since I was a small child.
The house was a Nancy Drew mystery come to life. My child self would have been thrilled to live here. My adult self found it barely tolerable.
Up in the attic there was a false wall, and a passageway containing a hidden staircase that descended through four floors into the basement. It was one of my father’s favorite places to hide, because there were exits on every floor, giving him multiple escape routes. I had constructed a nest for him on every landing of the dusty spiral staircase, providing him with blankets and pillows, bottles of water, and energy bars. Every weekend I took inventory and replenished the supplies.
Papa was curled up on the second-floor landing, his favorite spot because it was in the center of the house.
“Papa,” I whispered.
He was asleep, his head cradled by a striped feather pillow. I could see his chest rising and falling with each breath. I worried one day I’d come home and find him dead.
I crept in beside him and nudged him gently. I always woke him carefully, mindful of his anxiety. I made a mental note to speak to Maggie about that.
“Papa,” I whispered again, and he rolled over and hugged me, like I was a child of three creeping into his bed after a bad dream, not a middle-aged woman.
“I fell asleep,” he said, “and I dreamed of my mother. She was beautiful.” He shook his head to clear it.
Papa didn’t remember his parents. He didn’t have a photograph of them. He just knew their names. Alexander and Ursula Reiter. Those names had been drilled into his head, so he’d be able to find them after the war. A fruitless effort, as it turned out.
Over the years, I’d tried to find out what happened to them. But there was no trace of them. No photographs, no notations in a concentration camp roster, not even a record of their marriage or Papa’s birth. It was if they had never existed.
This wasn’t uncommon. Although the Germans were notoriously meticulous record keepers, many courthouses had been destroyed in the bombing during the war, their contents incinerated.
The Reiter line would die with me. That unwelcome thought occasionally popped into my head over the years, but maybe that was as it should be. Perhaps the Reiters should exist nowhere but memory.
I stood up and extended my hand. “You can come out now,” I told him. “I’ll cook dinner. We’ll watch the news.”
Papa obediently followed me into the main part of the house. The room we used as a living room had been the master bedroom. I had taken the door off the closet and used that space to house the entertainment center. We could only fit a couch, an armchair, and a coffee table into the room, but it was cozy. Papa felt safe. It was located in the back of the house and had just two small windows, obscured by the foliage creeping up the outside wall.
I placed him on the couch and sat down across from him, on the coffee table. “I need to talk to you about something,” I began.
Papa started flipping through the newspaper delivered that morning, refusing to make eye contact, a trick I’d learned from him. It was hard to overcome spending a childhood feeling like a hunted animal.
“What,” he demanded, his German accent more pronounced in his grumpy, just awakened state. Vhut.
“I hired a girl to come in a few hours a day, to sit with you,” I said. “A nice girl. Her name is Maggie.”
For the first
time, it occurred to me that I didn’t know anything about Maggie. Other than she was in one of my classes. I should have vetted the girl. For all I knew, she had a record, or a shady history. How did I know she wasn’t a thief?
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Papa grumbled. “I’m not a child.”
“Of course not,” I soothed, “I just hate leaving you alone all day. It must get awfully lonely.”
“Lonely?” Papa asked, outraged, widening his eyes. “We come into this world alone and we die alone. Anything in between is an illusion.”
I sighed. “Please, Papa, give her a chance,” I pleaded. “You don’t have to do anything with her. Just let her stay here, to give me peace of mind.”
“Maybe you’re the lonely one,” my father said. “Maybe you’re the one that needs her, not me.”
Friday, as I set up my materials for class on the lectern, Maggie caught my eye. She was sitting front and center. It was the first time I’d ever looked out over the lecture hall and recognized someone. It was awkward. I didn’t know how to react. Should I nod, give a weak smile? But then what would the rest of my students think? I didn’t like seeing people I knew in my lectures. I liked being disconnected.
As I talked, my eyes kept shifting to the girl’s face, almost of their own accord. She returned the eye contact as if issuing a challenge. I looked away every time, but my eyes kept sliding back.
Maggie approached me at the end of class, as the rest of the students shuffled out. “I can’t wait until Monday,” she said. “Is there something I should do to prepare?”
I was startled. I don’t like students approaching me without warning, even to ask a question about my lecture. I preferred them to email any queries. Her question felt intrusive, as if she was trying to force her way through the shield I’d carefully erected around myself.
Maggie the companion and the student in my lecture class were supposed to be inhabiting different worlds.
“I’d rather we discuss this via email,” I informed her through gritted teeth. “I don’t mix my professional and personal lives.” I grabbed my briefcase and marched out without looking back. I knew she was watching me leave with a stricken expression.
I stifled the surge of guilt as I stalked across campus in the direction of my office. Damn, the girl was eager. And hopeful. Filled with promise. Ah, to be young again.
I was never like that.
But here I was, trying to stomp out the girl’s youthful fire, and extinguish the light in her eyes. Would it have killed me to exchange a few pleasantries after class?
Well, the sooner Maggie Dunlap lost her ideals, the better. Maybe I was jealous. Growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust, I had never been so hopeful, so filled with promise. I felt a pang. Who would I have been without Papa’s demons?
Back home, once dinner was in the oven and Papa was settled on the couch, television remote in hand, I flipped through the papers I’d assigned during my first class. I hadn’t read them yet. I considered them research, to be perused at my leisure, not something to be graded.
I located Maggie’s essay. I expected it to be the typical delusional garbage. Every student believed they would risk their lives and put everything they had on the line to fight. Meanwhile they complained about blacks playing the race card, Muslims being terrorists, gays trying to push their agendas and illegal aliens stealing welfare benefits and jobs. They failed to make the connection between their own petty prejudices and the horror that gripped Europe for years.
However, I was in for a shock as I read Maggie’s words. First shock, then disgust.
All my life, I’ve been an outsider. I always felt like there was an invisible wall between me and others, one that I just couldn’t climb, no matter how hard I tried. That’s why, if I was to be completely honest, I believe in my heart that I would be on the wrong side of history. My desperation to belong might lead to me excluding others and joining in when they were degraded and abused. Just as long as it wasn’t happening to me. Even if I didn’t really hate them, I would have gone along with it, because I wouldn’t have chosen to be an outsider.
I shut my eyes tight. Did I really want this girl around my Papa?
But I would be a hypocrite if I held Maggie’s honesty against her. After all, she was only confirming what I already knew. At least she owned her inner monster. That meant it could be destroyed. All the rest, the students who wrote fantasizes about their own heroism, were liars. They lied to themselves. They figured they were made in the image of God, unaware that Satan had imprisoned them in their own prejudices.
I wasn’t sure I should allow Maggie to enter the sanctuary I’d created for Papa. I wasn’t sure I should allow anyone, not after what he’d been through. But what was the alternative? I hated leaving Papa alone all day. I worried about coming home and finding him dead in one of his hiding places, a death that could have been averted if someone else had been there.
I needed help. I couldn’t deny it anymore. This was just the beginning. The day was coming when I might need someone full-time, maybe a live-in companion.
I tried to shut out the world to keep Papa safe, but I couldn’t continue. Maggie represented the first breach of the barrier.
I knew it was irrational, but I resented the girl for somehow getting in. I would have to hide my feelings very carefully.
Chapter Seven
Maggie
Monday dawned gloomy and rainy, a quintessential fall day. Over the weekend, the last traces of summer had fled. The leaves blazed red and gold overnight. The wind was already blowing them off the trees. I loved the short interlude between summer and winter, but it was all too brief in Northern New York.
It was too windy for an umbrella, so I donned a windbreaker with a hood. I didn’t mind the walk in the rain. It was a good transition, and it cleared my mind.
I was filled with excitement about seeing Ursula’s house and meeting her father, even though she hurt my feelings the other day. I needed to learn not to take things personally. It had to be hard to get used to people when you’d spent your whole life avoiding them. I should know.
Dr. Reiter opened the door a crack with the chain lock still latched, like a suspicious old woman in a city tenement. I wondered who she thought might be banging on her door on a rainy Monday afternoon in Baylor, besides me.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said, like she was expecting someone else. Her long thin fingers unlatched the chain and reluctantly held the door open.
I stepped inside gratefully, removing my hood. “It’s a little chilly out,” I announced. “The weather has changed, become more like fall.”
Ursula hesitated. “Yes,” she finally agreed, shifting from one foot to the other. “Well, let me explain the layout of the house. We don’t use the front rooms. Papa doesn’t like the windows, because they face the road. We don’t have enough furniture to furnish the entire house, so a lot of rooms are empty.”
“You could probably make money renting those rooms out, to college students,” I suggested.
“Out of the question,” Ursula said. “Not with my Papa the way he is. Anyway, we use the rooms in the rear. Follow me.”
I followed her angular form down a narrow hallway, past a wooden staircase. It reminded me of houses I’d seen on field trips, like the Boscobel mansion or the House of the Seven Gables, creaky and old fashioned.
“This is Papa’s sitting room,” Ursula announced, stepping aside so I could enter.
An ordinary looking elderly man sat on a small, overstuffed couch. He wore glasses and had lost most of his hair, with the exception of two white turfs that stood upright from his skull, giving the appearance of horns. He looked up from his book and scowled.
“Papa, this is Maggie,” Ursula explained. “The girl I told you about.”
The man returned his gaze to the book, dismissing us. “I am not a child and I do not need a babysitter.”
I needed to say something to improve the situation, earn my place in this household. I de
sperately wanted to belong. “Oh, I’m not here to watch you,” I said, with a laugh. “Is that what you think? No, your daughter hired me to help with the chores, like washing dishes, cooking dinner, and cleaning. She doesn’t have the time.”
“My daughter is a terrible housekeeper,” Mr. Reiter agreed.
Ursula snorted. “Well, then you agree that Maggie should come for a few hours every day,” she said. “I was worried it would upset you, Papa.”
“She doesn’t upset me,” he scoffed. “Look at her. She’s just a girl. Who would be upset by her?”
I felt like I’d just been insulted. I looked at Ursula uncertainly. Amazingly, the older woman’s eyes were twinkling. She made a twirling gesture next to her head with her hand. Crazy. She pointed outside the room.
I exited, and she followed, closing the door behind her. “Papa feels safer with the doors shut,” she explained. “That was smart of you to add in the part about housekeeping. Actually, I could use that.”
I shrugged. “I might as well, while I’m here.”
“Awesome,” Ursula blurted, then colored. “Sorry. Anyway, let me show you the rest of the house.”
Ursula’s bedroom was on the third floor. Unlike the other rooms in use, it faced the road. Enormous floor-to-ceiling windows were designed to let in tons of light when the sun was out. Today, water ran down the panes in rivulets.
Ursula had a huge, old fashioned four poster bed with a patchwork quilt.
The older woman nervously fussed with the pillows, as if needing to do something with her hands. “Papa doesn’t like to come in here, because of the windows,” she admitted. She gestured at a baby monitor. “He doesn’t know about that, or he’d have a fit, but I need to hear him. He screams in the night. Bad dreams.”
I nodded. I didn’t know what to say. Expressing sympathy seemed inappropriate.
“By the way,” Ursula tossed over her shoulder, as she led me from the bedroom, “I read the essay you wrote for class. To be honest, I was a bit disturbed, but then I realized you were just stating what I already knew. Usually my students weave a fantasy about how they would risk their lives to rescue Jews.”
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