The Tightrope Walker

by Dorothy Gilman

  On Wednesday afternoon the truck brought my goods from New York and in a fury of work I rearranged the shop's window display, and then I stayed up until midnight painting the last wall of the shop, which I'd been too busy to finish a month ago. I draped a few lengths of the Indian fabric across one wall in a great colorful swath, laid out the blue willow ware, and hung price tags on the line of cuckoo clocks.

  On Thursday, after dinner, I dialed Joe's telephone number just to hear his voice, planning to hang up as soon as he answered. I was denied even that: there was no answer. I called again at midnight, out of some perverse anger, and still there was no answer. Obviously he was finding solace elsewhere: a woman, I thought darkly, and one more amenable than I.

  Not entirely sure what "amenable" really meant I looked it up in the dictionary and found that it meant exactly what I'd thought it meant: capable of submission to test, readily brought to yield or to submit. Unamenable Amelia, I thought with grim humor, and lay in bed staring at the ceiling and hearing my mother saying from her grave, "You see?"

  That did it. The next day, Friday, I arose sane, if grief can be called a form of insanity. Joe had come and Joe had gone: never mind, the sun had still risen, I was twenty-two and I had promises to keep. To Hannah. Mr. Georgerakis stopped in at noon to be shown where everything was, and he displayed his usual deadpan self.

  "Miss Jones, I worry about you," he said. "This is the Ebbtide Shop, or maybe Macy's?"

  "Ebbtide," I said, playing straight man as usual.

  "I would never have known." He shook his head. "Watch your profits, Miss Jones, in this business it's in pennies, not dollars. Those clocks—"

  "Twelve of them for fifty bucks at the auction," I told him proudly. "I'm selling them for nine ninety-five."

  "Not bad," he admitted, "but that hearse outside with Ebbtide Shop painted on the side—"

  "Not a hearse, Mr. Georgerakis, a van."

  "It could bury you from what it must have cost. Watch out or I'll charge you twelve dollars a day for my services. Where's the old jukebox?"

  He whistled faintly when I told him the price I'd gotten for it. We shared a cup of coffee and then he patted my hand and said the shop looked just like me, sunny and bright and cheerful. Since I'd just climbed out of the black hole of Calcutta I was inordinately pleased by the compliment.

  "See you tomorrow at eight," he said. "It will be a pleasure."

  Tomorrow at eight... I remembered what that meant— Portland, Maine—and nearly panicked. I had to reread Hannah's note three times before my sense of mission was restored and my anxieties banished; my safety zones were being pounded against rocks by a heavy surf. I packed blue jeans, a heavy turtleneck sweater, my windbreaker, pajamas, and toothbrush, and at eight o'clock in the morning I greeted Mr. Georgerakis wearing my ubiquitous beige corduroy suit, this time enlivened by a pink and orange scarf. Half an hour later when I carried my suitcase out to the alley where the van was parked at night I stopped dead in my tracks in shock. Joe was leaning against the side of the van.

  "Hi," he said cheerfully. "If you'd only left this monster of yours unlocked I'd have stowed away and shouted 'boo' to you along about Massachusetts. But you locked the darn thing, and anyway I'd have only scared you to death and killed us both."

  I stared at him, not understanding a single word he said.

  Fortunately he chose to be more explicit. "I'm going with you to Maine," he said, pointing to a dufflebag at his feet that I hadn't noticed in my shock. "Unless you mind?"

  "Mind!" I gasped. "But your parents!"

  He said with a shrug, "No problem. I drove down Wednesday to wish them another thirty-five years of connubial bliss and got back last night. Told them I just couldn't make it over the weekend for the big event."

  I must have looked as dazed as I felt—after all, I'd lost him, attended the funeral services, mourned him and buried him by now—because he added patiently, "Look, Amelia, if Hannah's top priority for you right now I'll make her mine, too, but only for a little while, you understand? For that matter I may have to be back here Wednesday for a court case but I'm yours until then. I think this is what's called compromise."

  I could have told him that it was also generosity but I only grinned from ear to ear and said, "I'm so awfully glad to see you, Joe. Would you like to drive first, or shall I?"

  PART II

  "Beware all greedy men, Colin, for who knows where they will stop? If they envy you your fine pendant of jade and feathers, who's to know if they will bargain for it, snatch it, or kill you?"

  The Magistrate, in The Maze in the Heart of the Castle

  There was no Greenwood Hospital in Portland but there was a private psychiatric hospital five miles out of town called Greenacres. It was a gently aging building of rosy brick surrounded by improbably green lawns, like Astroturf, except that they had to be real because a man was mowing to the south of the building. I swung the van into the parking space labeled visitors only and turned off the ignition. "So," I said brightly, "we're here."

  "We're here, and it's all yours," Joe reminded me, pointedly bringing out his paperback copy of Astronomy for the Layman. "Good luck, bon voyage and all that."

  He said the last very dryly because we'd talked and argued for several hours about how I was going to get inside to see Leonora Harrington if she was here; we'd phoned to learn the Sunday visiting hours but we'd not dared ask if she was a patient. It was Joe's theory that in any private hospital, considering its astronomical costs, no one was going to allow a presumptuous and impertinent young stranger to bother a patient without a darn good reason. Unfortunately neither of us had been able to think of one.

  And so it was up to me. Naturally.

  I walked up the wide, shallow cement steps to the huge door, half wood, half glass. Looking in before I entered I could see that it looked just like any hospital: there was a brightly lighted reception counter on the left, with clipboards and a switchboard, and a waiting room on the right. The only difference was that the reception counter was Italian marble and mahogany, and the waiting room was done in shades of mauve, purple and pink. Sunday visiting hours began at two o'clock, and since it was now two-ten the waiting room was empty, the only person in sight a nurse in very starched white behind the counter. She looked young, earnest, and new.

  I said politely, "Good afternoon, I've come to see Miss Leonora Harrington if she's receiving visitors today."

  The girl's friendly smile turned startled. "Miss Harrington?"

  "Yes. Unless of course she's—"

  "Oh no, it's just she never has—" The girl stopped, flushed, and began again. "That is, usually no one except—I'll have to check it out, would you mind waiting a minute?"

  She was even more inarticulate than I at my worst.

  A very severe-looking middle-aged nurse was produced next, who proved to be more articulate. "I'm Mrs. Dawes," she announced. "Are you a member of Miss Harrington's family?"

  Hers was the cold voice of authority, and her gaze was sharp enough to strip a person of pretensions, illusions, and confidence. I am very familiar with the type: they like helpless people and rendering people helpless, and I saw no reason to frustrate her. "Oh I do so hope I can see her for just a minute," I said, turning arch, naïve, and awkward. "I have no right, of course— not at all—but her cousin Robert Lamandale in New York referred me here. It's a legal matter," I added, gesturing helplessly. "It's so important that she identify this photograph of a hurdy-gurdy."

  This floored her. "A what?"

  I produced the snapshots and placed them on the counter. "I wouldn't for the world want to be a bother and of course you've every right—"

  I've noticed that if someone is about to tell you that you've no right to do something it confuses them no end if you say it first. The hurdy-gurdy confused her, too; I mean, it had the unexpectedness of a non sequitur. I do not mean to imply that Mrs. Dawes warmed to me but she blinked, and her gaze changed in quality from flint to steel. "You do know
Mr. Lamandale then," she said.

  "Yes. Robert Lamandale, in New York. The actor."

  "Dr. Ffolks is in his office," she said coldly. "I really don't know—"

  No one seemed to finish their sentences here, but I was content; I often don't finish them myself. I stood there trying to look poised, since I was here on a legal matter, and at the same time helpless, to placate Nurse Dawes. It was a difficult combination. Presently a man in a white coat accompanied Mrs. Dawes down the hall to inspect me. He looked very tired and all the lines in his face sagged, including his jowls, which gave him an uncanny resemblance to a St. Bernard dog. He nodded to me curtly. "Nurse Jordan will of course have to accompany you for the visit," he said, "and it will have to be limited to five minutes. Miss Harrington's under sedation but she's quite lucid. Miss Jordan?"

  "Yes, Dr. Ffolks," said the young nurse. "This way, miss."

  I was glad I'd decided on the truth since I was to have a witness to my interview. Both Dr. Ffolks and Mrs. Dawes stood and watched us walk to the elevator and then lingered to eavesdrop frankly while we waited for its arrival. I commented breathlessly to Nurse Jordan on the signs of spring in Maine, the greenness of the lawn outside, and then we stepped into the elevator and at once I stopped such nonsense and asked how long Miss Harrington had lived at Greenacres.

  "Oh, practically forever," said Nurse Jordan cheerfully. "She was here when my mum worked nights, and that was eight years ago when we were all kids."

  "Weird," I said, and we exchanged the knowing glances of contemporaries.

  "They say she drank all her money away," Nurse Jordan added in a lowered voice as the elevator slowed. "They say she's paranoid, too, but I've never—"

  The doors slid open soundlessly at the third floor and we stepped out on a corridor with windows at either end. Miss Jordan knocked on the door opposite the elevator, opened it, and I followed her into a room with its curtains half drawn against the sunlight.

  "I didn't ring," said a petulant voice from the left-hand corner of the room, "and if you dare to say are we having one of our bad days I'll throw a glass of water at you."

  "But I've brought you a guest," Nurse Jordan said in a neutral, colorless voice.

  In the bed along the left wall of the room a woman stirred, sat up, and peered at me. Adjusting to the semi-darkness I could see her now. It was hard to guess how old she was, she could have been thirty or forty; her face was an oval from which all emotion and life had been drained. Only her eyes were alive, and they burned like the eyes of someone who looked frequently into hell. She must have been beautiful once, one of those fragile and very exquisite ash blondes; the bone structure was still there. Her hair, striped now with gray, hung to her shoulders but it looked as if she ran her fingers through it often, and with anger. Seeing me she tilted her head questioningly.

  "This is Miss Jones," said Nurse Jordan. "She's a friend of your cousin, come to see you. Your cousin in New York."

  Miss Harrington's face brightened. She said eagerly, "Robin? You've seen Robin?"

  Robin. I was so startled I almost jumped. Robin— and her name was Leonora. Of course—Robin and Nora! It was like panning for gold and suddenly bringing up a fortune-sized nugget; I found it hard to suppress my excitement but I said calmly, "Yes, and he's just auditioned for a part in an important play in New York. He sent his best to you, and he said it was all right to ask you about this."

  I placed the two pictures of the hurdy-gurdy on her bed table. She turned on the bedside light and leaned over to peer at them.

  "Oh my God," she said softly, tears coming to her eyes. "Oh my God, Aunt Hannah's hurdy-gurdy. How we loved it as children!"

  "Your aunt Hannah," I repeated carefully, really excited now but not wanting to frighten her. Matching the softness of her voice I added, "Was her name Harrington, too?"

  But she was staring at the snapshots, bemused, the tears sliding down her haggard cheeks and splotching the pictures.

  "Your cousin Robin said that it was your hurdy-gurdy later, that you owned it for a while," I pointed out. "Is that true? I'm trying to trace it, you see. It was yours at one time?"

  She nodded. "I kept it... I chose it.., as a souvenir, you know—after everything went. Everything. Oh, I hated selling it but I needed the money," she said with sudden anger.

  I said quickly, aware of my limited time with her, "Where did you and Robin play with the hurdy-gurdy, Miss Harrington? I mean, where did your aunt live?"

  "In Carleton."

  "Carleton, Maine?"

  She nodded absently; her eyes were looking far beyond the pictures into a past she'd lost.

  "And your aunt Hannah's last name, was it Harrington, too? Or perhaps Lamandale?"

  She wrenched her gaze from the pictures and stared at me in astonishment. "Of course not—Hannah Meerloo. Why didn't you know that?" she asked suspiciously. "She ought to have known that," she told the nurse pettishly. "I don't like her, I don't like her asking me questions and making me cry. Take her away or I'll call Dr. Ffolks."

  Nurse Jordan touched my arm, and as I followed her out of the room, Leonora Harrington called after us spitefully, "Tell Robin to come himself next time, damn him, I'm not insane, you know."

  "She'll cry now and fall asleep," Nurse Jordan said as we walked into the elevator and she pressed the L button. "No harm done. She's not always this way. Tomorrow she'll be sitting out on the rear lawn knitting in the sun with all the other patients."

  I said, "But if she's so poor, how on earth can she afford to stay here at Greenacres?"

  "Oh, a friend of the family pays her bills," explained the nurse. "He's the only one who comes to see her, which is why you surprised me. He comes once a month, regular as clockwork."

  The doors slid open and there was Mrs. Dawes waiting for us like a vulture. "Very good," she said, nodding to Nurse Jordan. "Five minutes to the second." Her eyes rested on me dismissingly. "Good day, Miss Jones."

  I walked alone up the hall to the lobby, and being alone now I suddenly saw what I should have noticed before, except that it would have been meaningless ten minutes earlier. There was a bronze plaque set into the wall in the lobby. It read:

  GREENACRES PRIVATE HOSPITAL

  GIVEN IN MEMORY

  OF JASON M. MEERLOO

  BY HANNAH G. MEERLOO

  I walked thoughtfully back to the van, and to Joe, who looked at me questioningly and put aside his book. "That didn't take long. Amelia, you look funny."

  I said slowly, "I seem to have found Hannah. Of course not really, but Leonora Harrington is Nora— she has to be—because she called Robert Lamandale Robin, and the hurdy-gurdy belonged to their Aunt Hannah, whose last name was Meerloo, and this hospital is the gift of Hannah Meerloo."

  "Wow—paydirt," Joe said, and whistled. "And so?"

  "I don't know, except that Hannah lived in Carleton, Maine."

  "You look scared," he said, looking me over with a professional eye.

  I nodded. "Suddenly I know her name now and I don't—don't know what to do with or about it."

  Joe grinned. "Then it's a darn good thing I came along because I know exactly what to do. Climb in and I'll drive. We'll look up Carleton on the map and while we drive there you can tell me word for word what happened. What you're suffering from is shock but you'll get over it."

  "Joe, you're nice."

  "Of course," he said blithely. "Uncannily intelligent as well, and suddenly intrigued by this damnfool hunt of yours, I don't know why."

  "I'm not," I said in a small dismayed voice. "I suddenly want to go home."

  "That's because you're afraid of success," he said forgivingly. "Lack of confidence and all that. A temporary aberration."

  "She doesn't sound like—I didn't realize she'd be rich."

  "The rich are human, too, and the rich get murdered, Amelia. Most murders are done for love, money, or revenge. The important thing is to remember her note."

  He was right, of course. I was forgetting Hannah's
note, I was feeling betrayed by superficialities and facts and unpleasant people and—I had to confess—a meeting with reality. But in her note Hannah had spoken to me, don't ask me why I felt this so deeply because I was only just learning to trust my instincts, but her note was real, and Hannah was real, and it was this I had to hang onto, forgetting petulant nieces and plaques in lobbies.

  I looked up Carleton on the road map and found it to the north, on one of the bays or harbors that scallop the Maine coast. "It looks a long way from Portland,"

  I said doubtfully. "Maybe a hundred miles up Route 1, and then out on a peninsula." I turned to the back of the map and read aloud, "Its population is 463."

  "Then someone will certainly remember a woman named Hannah Meerloo," pointed out Joe. "What's the nearest decent-sized town?"

  "There's only one—goodness what a strange state Maine is! Angleworth's the nearest city and its population is only 4,687."

  Joe turned onto Route 1 and glanced at his watch. "We'll head for Angleworth, it's nearly half-past two already."

  I could guess what he was thinking: last night we'd stayed at a modest inn and had quite casually and naturally taken rooms at opposite ends of the building: Miss A. Jones, Mr. J. Osbourne. But that was New Hampshire. Nothing much was open at this season in Maine, and the smaller the towns, the more limited the accommodations. Soon we would have to become self-conscious about what lay between us, which was something that had not occurred to me until we'd crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York State yesterday: was Joe expecting me to sleep with him?

  Oddly enough for a virgin it was the word expect that terrified me. Amelia, my mother used .to say sternly, courtesy means doing the right thing, courtesy is performing graciously what is expected of one. It sounded like a transaction.., courtesy for courtesy, and Joe had certainly been kind to come with me to Maine. I did not labor under the illusion that my mother had intended extending one's largesse in this sort of situation but the words were nevertheless engraved on my psyche; expectations had always been heaped upon me and were always my downfall. I realized with a sinking heart that if Joe expected this of me then I would probably sacrifice myself like one of those Mayan or Aztec maidens who leaped off cliffs to appease the gods, or had they immolated themselves instead? I couldn't even remember which it was, having been a dismal student, which was one more expectation I'd botched. I knew I'd botch this, too, if the occasion arose.