Hiding Places

by Shannon Heuston

  I had no idea how to react. Should I smile? Give a laugh? Both those reactions seemed wrong.

  Ursula turned her head to study me. When our eyes met, she looked away.

  “I figured you wanted to hear the truth,” I offered.

  Ursula froze, then gave me a chilly smile. “I’m glad I motivated you to be…honest.”

  I shivered. It was cold here, at the top of the house. For the first time, I questioned my reasons for being here. Thus far, this encounter had been painfully awkward. Perhaps Dr. Reiter was not the person I thought.

  I followed her into the attic. “There’s a passageway here,” Ursula said. “Slaves used it to hide when they were escaping to Canada.”

  “Papa’s favorite hiding place,” she explained.

  Ursula yanked a chain hanging from the ceiling, and a single naked lightbulb flared to life. A heap of pillows and a flannel blanket lay on the floor. Nearby was a six pack of bottled water with one missing, and a box of cereal.

  “I make nests for Papa in all his favorite places,” Ursula said. “It makes him feel safe.”

  Three steps and Ursula had reached the rear wall. She beckoned to me and pointed at the floor. “Look.”

  I gasped. What appeared to be a shadow at the bottom of the wall was a gap in the floor. Steps led down in a cleverly concealed spiral. Ursula beckoned for me to follow.

  “I hope you’re not claustrophobic,” she called over her shoulder. “This space is kind of tight.”

  “I’m not,” I assured her, following. I felt like a puppy.

  The space was very tight. It was a good thing I wasn’t bigger. Twenty pounds more and I’d get stuck. We reached another landing, and another nest. More steps, and yet another landing.

  “We come out here,” Ursula said, “but the passage leads all the way into the basement, to a hidden door that opens into the backyard. It’s a one-way door. No one can access the house from it, you can only leave. It was a built-in escape route, in case the house was searched.”

  “Clever,” I commented.

  “Very,” Ursula agreed, “and Papa loves it. He would never leave the house, but he likes having the option.”

  The first floor exit was the back of the pantry. A shelf loaded with canned goods swung out from the wall when Ursula gently pressed a lever. “You have to be careful,” she cautioned.

  We were in the kitchen. The room would have been bright and sunny on a nice day, if not for the shrubbery shrouding the house. The sun porch adjoined the kitchen. All the windows were covered with blinds.

  “Papa enjoys sitting out here when the weather is nice,” Ursula said. “He might let you open the blinds to let in some sun, but make sure to stay with him. If it gets noisy, you’ll need to shut them, or he’ll get upset. It’s quiet and peaceful back here in the summer, but not when college is in session. Just keep an eye on him. If he starts getting agitated, close the blinds and take him inside.”

  I wondered what it would be like to have such a father. I felt my own parents were a burden, constantly bleeding me for money, so I could never save a dime. I resented them for it. But Ursula clearly didn’t feel the same way about her father. She adored him, despite his madness.

  Ursula whipped around to face me with a nervous smile. “Well, there you have it,” she declared. “That’s the job, in a nutshell. What time can I expect you tomorrow?”

  I thought. “One. My last class ends at twelve, but I’ll need some time to grab a bite to eat and walk over.”

  The older woman’s smile didn’t quite touch her eyes. They were cold and assessing. “Let’s try it from one to four tomorrow and see how it goes. It’s just a trial run. It looks like Papa may tolerate you, but we’ll only know for sure after you’re left alone together. He hasn’t been alone with anyone besides me since my mother died.”

  It was almost like Dr. Reiter was hoping it didn’t work out.

  Don’t take it personally, I sternly ordered myself. After so many years, it had to be alarming to give over the care of one’s parent to a stranger.

  I brandished my phone. “Should I take your number, in order to text you if…”

  “Anything goes wrong? Of course. You young people and your texting,” she added, shaking her head.

  After exchanging numbers, I was ready to leave.

  “Don’t stress if Papa won’t come out of hiding tomorrow,” Ursula advised. “Don’t force him. It may take him some time to adjust.”

  I felt like a character in a Gothic novel as I walked to Ursula Reiter’s spooky mansion filled with hidden passages the next day. The house was silent in the autumn sunshine, light bouncing off its front windows, making it impossible to see inside. I unlocked the door with the key Ursula gave me and hesitated in the foyer, listening. I heard nothing except the wind rustling the trees against the house. They made the house seem gloomy and haunted. If I lived here, I would chop down all the trees to let in the light.

  This place needs a ghost, I thought. Although it had one already. Helmut haunted the halls as elusively as any spirit.

  I wondered where he’d hidden today. What if he were dead? That would be awful. My first day of work and my charge dies.

  Ursula had stated the passageway was his favorite place to hide, so I climbed the stairs to the attic. I paused to take in the view from the tiny round window at the top of the house. From here, I could see clear across Baylor, all the way to the clock tower at the University.

  It was a gorgeous fall day, with a brilliant azure blue sky, puffy white clouds, and leaves blazing red and gold. A day like the ones that graced the Baylor University Catalogue, which failed to warn prospective students that the glory days of fall lasted about two weeks. Then it snowed.

  Helmut was not on the attic landing. I squeezed down the staircase, pushing away the suffocating panic that threatened to overwhelm me. The house was creepy.

  I was relieved to spy the old man curled up on the landing below, asleep. He was snoring lightly. I climbed down and lowered myself to the floor beside him. How could he stand being alone in this spooky house all day?

  I took a deep breath, wishing I’d asked Ursula what to do in the event her father was sleeping. At a loss, I lay down beside him, my back pillowed by cushions. As I gazed at him, he sleepily opened his eyes and looked at me. I tensed.

  “I’m Maggie,” I offered. “We met yesterday, remember?”

  “I thought you were an angel. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.” He snorted at his own folly, lifting a hand to rub sleep from his eyes. “I was happy for a minute.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. “No angel, just me, Maggie,” I stated. I picked up one of the bottles of water stashed in the nest and twisted off the cap, offering it to him. “Water?”

  Helmut took it and drank, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Are you sure I’m still alive?”

  I shrugged. “Yes. Unless I’m dead too, and just don’t know it.”

  Helmut smiled. “Well, there is no way a beautiful, vibrant girl like you could be dead, so there we have our answer. You’re the babysitter.”

  “I’m a companion, not a babysitter. Your daughter worries you’ll get lonely, alone in this big house all day with no one to talk to,” I explained.

  “My daughter,” Helmut mocked with a snort. “She’s the lonely one. Can you help her, little girl?”

  Something about the way he was looking at me, eyes twinkling, made me blush. There was no way he could know I admired his daughter. Unless he was a mind reader. Perhaps a man that survived on the good will of strangers was adept at interpreting body language.

  I gave myself a mental shake. I wasn’t even sure how I felt about Dr. Reiter. Particularly after that awkward encounter yesterday.

  “Are you cold? You’re shivering,” Helmut asked with concern. “Come, let’s get out of here, go somewhere warmer.”

  It was stifling in the passage, but I didn’t argue. The man was coming out of hiding without being prodded, I was
n’t going to argue over the reason why. I watched him clamber to his feet, then followed him down the winding staircase to the kitchen.

  “These stairs go all the way down to the basement,” he informed me, which I already knew. I nodded. “It was built to hide people. Better than the place I hid in when I was a boy, because they found me.”

  I dropped my eyes to his tattoo. It was faded, scarred over, barely visible. I wouldn’t have noticed it, if I didn’t know it was there. Helmut followed my look. I quickly looked away, embarrassed at being caught staring.

  Helmut held up his wrist. “Do you know what this means?”

  I nodded. “It means you were in the Holocaust.”

  “Tut, tut, it means more than that,” he scolded. “This means I survived the Holocaust. This means permanence. When they gave me the tattoo, I didn’t cry, because I knew what it meant. I wouldn’t be going to the gas. Do you know how lucky that makes me? Little children like me went immediately to special treatment. That’s what they called the gas. Not me, though.”

  “They stopped gassing prisoners before you arrived,” I said. “Your daughter explained it to me.”

  “You may hear the story of my life and think me unlucky,” he said, “but unlucky compared to what? I am still here. I still live. Hitler, ach, Hitler, not so much. He’s been dead many years.”

  We were in the kitchen. Pots and pans hung from hooks over the countertop. It was the kind of huge kitchen I’d always dreamed of having in my own home someday. It featured a huge stove with six burners, and an enormous butcher block countertop designed with the ability to prepare a Thanksgiving feast in mind.

  I took down a pot. “Would you like some lunch?” I suggested. “How about some soup? Or a grilled cheese? I make good grilled cheese.”

  “Soup, bread, and cheese,” the old man mused. “Food for a little boy, now food given to an old man. We come back full circle. I hid in crawlspaces and hiding places as a child with a beautiful girl just like you. Now I hide the same way as an old man.”

  I dumped the contents of a can of tomato soup into a pan. I took bread, butter and cheese out of the refrigerator.

  “Make one for yourself,” Helmut suggested. “I do not dine alone.”

  I hesitated. Would Dr. Reiter think it was okay? Perhaps I should text her and ask. But I didn’t want to text her about every little thing. Eating a sandwich and some soup with her father couldn’t be that big of a deal. I’d tell Ursula about it later. If it bothered her, she could deduct the price of the food from my wages.

  “I called the beautiful girl Angela,” Helmut revealed suddenly, "because I never knew her name and she was my angel. She had long curly hair just like you, only yellow. The hair of a good German. Those blonde Germans were considered superior, they were the ones the Nazis wanted to breed. She was older. Probably not as old as you, but she was a grown up to me. She was my keeper, my babysitter.”

  I set a steaming bowl of soup in front of Helmut. “What became of her?”

  He chewed his lip, lost in thought. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I called her Angela, but that was not her name. My protectors never told me their real names, because if the Germans captured me, it was important they not get that information from me. Without knowing their names, I couldn’t find them after the war ended.”

  He scooped up a spoonful of soup. His hairy upper lip pooched out as he blew on it. “I believe she’s dead. She visits me in my dreams.” He shook his head sadly. “My angel. For just a minute, I thought you were her.”

  I slid into the chair across from him and unfolded a napkin. “Well, I can also be your angel,” I offered. “I would be proud to be your angel.”

  Helmut’s eyes glistened, but he said nothing.

  After lunch, I managed to coax him onto the sun porch for a short time, even though it was noisy outside. Everyone was out enjoying the weather on such a beautiful day, knowing it was at a premium. I could hear the rhythm of a basketball being dribbled somewhere close, and the sounds of children playing.

  Helmut was disturbed. The ends of his mustache turned down with his frown. I took him back inside.

  “There’s no telling who is out there or what kind of people they are,” he muttered. “That’s why I can’t go out anymore. Just being alive every day uses up all my courage.”

  Why isn’t he afraid of me? I wondered. Was it because I reminded him of his long lost Angela? I recalled what Dr. Reiter had said about the people who hid her father. The last time he saw them they were standing on the pavement outside their apartment block, hands in the air. Chances were good that the Gestapo shot them once the car carrying Helmut Reiter drove out of sight.

  I glanced at Helmut. He was right. He was one of the lucky ones. He’d faced death and peril at every turn and somehow survived.

  As if he could read my mind, Helmut announced, “You know what? I think you are Angela. Come back to me, at the end of my life.”

  I smiled at him. Maybe I am.

  Chapter Eight

  Ursula

  I never expected Papa to take to Maggie. I figured he would refuse to have her in the house, and that would be that. The intruder would be gone, and I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about leaving Papa alone, since I tried.

  After I returned the first day, Papa was positively chatty, going on about Angela. I didn’t recognize the name.

  “Who is Angela?” I asked, spooning out a portion of the pasta purchased from the hot foods bar at the grocery store.

  “The angel, the girl who came today,” he said. “My beautiful angel come back to me.”

  I dropped the serving spoon, splattering sauce all over the table. “Do you mean Maggie?” I inquired, trying to keep my voice even. “Papa, the woman who came today is named Maggie. Not Angela. Who is Angela, Papa? I never heard you mention her before.”

  “She took care of me,” he answered. “She was the daughter of the family that hid me, one of my protectors, and that was what I called her. Angela. She was my angel, sent to keep me safe. Now she’s back, to keep me safe again.”

  I chewed my lip, thinking. I knew there was no use arguing with Papa. For all his eccentricities, he was lucid. He knew Maggie was not this long-lost Angela, whom he’d never mentioned before today. But it irked me that one day with the girl had triggered this repressed memory, when I thought I’d milked him of every detail of his past.

  Was I jealous? The idea was preposterous.

  “I’m glad you like her,” I said, staring down at my plate of penne vodka. “Her name is Maggie, though.” I gave him a cold smile.

  Papa was glaring at me, like when I sassed him as a child. “She said it was okay if I called her Angela,” he growled, like I was arguing the point with him. “Her name was never Angela, anyway, that was just what I called her.” He gestured at me with his fork. “You don’t know that it isn’t her. Maybe her soul was born into this girl, to take care of me now that I am old.”

  “Maybe,” I conceded.

  We ate in silence. I knew I should be glad he liked Maggie. That meant things would work out, and I could stay longer at the university, get more work done, without having to check on Papa so much. This is a good thing, I reminded myself.

  I resented the hell out of the girl, even so. Papa was only supposed to like me. It was like a long-lost sibling had abruptly turned up and become the favorite daughter.

  I sighed. I couldn’t help thinking it would have been better if Papa hated her, as I’d expected. Then I could have paid her off and forgotten her. Maggie made me uncomfortable, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. Her presence felt like an intrusion, her enthusiasm speaking of insatiable need.

  I gave myself a mental shake. This was ridiculous. I was the one who summoned the girl here. She wasn’t intruding, she was invited. And the need wasn’t hers. It was mine and my father’s.

  Ironic that I was the one who was having trouble adjusting to Maggie.

  Every day I taught my class on the Holocaust, Mag
gie was front and center, smiling. Because of her, the blurry lines of the bloated anonymous faces in the audience began to define, become people. The man who sat on Maggie’s left side had horrific acne. During the lecture he’d absently run his fingers over the bumps. Had anyone ever told him he shouldn’t touch his face, that he was spreading it? On the right side, the woman wore glasses with lenses so magnified her eyes swam behind them like she was underwater.

  This was exactly what I didn’t want, had never wanted. I wanted to instruct a bunch of floating heads and move on with my life. I didn’t want to see my students as people. They were merely subjects, a means to an end. I didn’t want to feel connected to them. My father’s unending suffering was a warning. Don’t let anyone in.

  Maggie was clawing at the door, trying to get in.

  I wanted to fire the girl, but the moment had passed. Papa was attached to her. Go figure. In a million years, I never would have predicted that outcome.

  Maggie was like a puppy, full of boundless energy and joy, just wanting to be loved. She would literally run to meet me every evening when I arrived home, my hands full of mail and a bag containing whatever I’d picked up for dinner over my arm.

  This is what life would have been like if I’d had a daughter, I thought once, then immediately banished the thought. There would never be any children for me.

  Puppies sometimes grew into big mean dogs that bit. I kept that in mind when I was around Maggie.

  “What other classes do you teach?” Maggie asked, leaning on the counter, as I opened the mail.

  I always tried to get rid of her without being rude, but she never quite got the hint. “Psychology,” I responded, knowing it was a smart aleck response.

  Stating the obvious. Maggie knew full well I was a psychology professor. But I wanted to subtly discourage her from signing up for more of my courses. I couldn’t deal with having her in class again next semester. I didn’t want to know my students. First her, then the kid sitting next to her, and before I knew it, I’d be waving and calling to people on the quad. Horrific.