Mostly Helen’s “secret” was whatever enabled her to not need a man (or them, for that matter), to live alone for all those years without, so they supposed, having to compromise, capitulate, or provide nutritious meals, clean clothes, and satisfying sex on demand.
For her part, Helen knew these women’s faces but not their names, at least not their first names. (The thief is touching the plates, the howls, the milk jug, the eight-piece tea service4 on the middle shelf.) She knew them as Mrs. Henderson, Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Jensen, Mrs. James. Often she got them mixed up. They in turn called her “Miss Wingham,” but among themselves they called her “Helen,” with a breezy familiarity they knew they had not earned. (The thief is running cold water into the shining stainless steel sink.) Sometimes Helen wished she could give these women what they wanted although she wasn’t entirely sure what it was.
Although by all appearances Helen Wingham could have passed for one of them, these women knew in their small-town hearts that she was not. They knew her head was not full of recipes, patterns, or boring stories about her family. (The thief is filling the copper kettle and placing it on the front right burner of the gas stove where a pretty blue flame leaps up.) These women knew that by comparison Helen Wingham was exotic and mysterious, forever unfathomable. These were qualities for which they either liked or disliked her, amorphous distinctions which they either envied or begrudged her on any given day.
The bus was rolling through the sprawling outer reaches of the city now. Every year Helen noted how you could be in the city for a very long time before you actually got there. (The thief goes back down to the basement and returns to the kitchen with two large mason jars5 and three empty card-hoard boxes.) She took out her makeup case, combed her hair, and reapplied her lipstick while the bus idled at a red light. It was just noon when they reached downtown and the giant office buildings were disgorging slim women in sleeveless dresses and tall men in rumpled white shirts into the shimmering streets. (The thief takes a box of tea from the cupboard, puts the leaves in the pot, and fills it with boiling water from the whistling kettle.) The traffic was snarled and slow. Overheated impatient drivers honked their horns impotently, more for effect, it seemed, than with any real hope of accomplishing anything.
Finally the bus lumbered into the depot and Helen and the other passengers got off. She retrieved her suitcase from the belly of the bus and stepped into a taxi which took her to the hotel.
Helen stayed in the same hotel every year. Old but aging well, small but luxurious, it was a three-story gray stone building on a short side street off one of the city’s main thoroughfares. (The thief is sitting at the kitchen table, looking out at the empty road through white lace curtains6 while sipping a cup of steaming black tea.) The hotel was rather expensive, even by city standards, but it was well worth it, Helen thought, for the first-class amenities it provided.
The concierge was a handsome older man named Frederick who now greeted Helen by name: “Welcome, Miss Wingham. How good to have you with us again.” Frederick stood by while Helen registered and her suitcase was whisked away by a bellhop. (The thief washes the cup and saucer, then the teapot, and sets them down with the rest of the set beside the mason jars in one of the cardboard boxes.) Then he escorted her to her room on the third floor.
In the room there was a large soft four-poster bed with a thick white duvet edged with embroidery and white lace. (The thief is in the hallway) There was a silver-wrapped chocolate mint on her pillow and a bouquet of fresh flowers on the bedside table. (The thief is in the living room.) In the spotless blue bathroom there was a crystal bowl of potpourri on the marble vanity, a plush white robe hanging from a hook on the back of the door, and a telephone on the wall beside the toilet.
Frederick strode across the room and opened the dark green damask drapes with a flourish. (The thief sits in the wine-colored armchair beside the bay window, resting both hands upon the white antimacassars spread over its arms.) Gracious and friendly, gallant in the old-world way, Frederick asked after Helens health and her general well-being during the intervening year. He was scrupulously polite, never nosy or overbearing.
When Helen first began making her annual trip to the city, Frederick had been a handsome younger man. (The thief is lifting a small clock7 from the mantelshelf of the fireplace.) During one of those early visits, Helen had had a dream about Frederick, an erotic dream in which he had come to her in the four-poster bed and his arms were so strong, his skin so smooth, his tongue so agile, and his penis so amiable and big. She had awakened from the dream writhing, wet, and very embarrassed. For the remainder of that visit, she had avoided Frederick. If he noticed or wondered about her odd behavior, he was of course too discreet to mention it. (The thief spies a square black typewriter8 on an oak cabinet beside the sofa.) By the following year Helen had managed to put the dream out of her mind and could act normally around Frederick again.
All these years later she seldom thought about the dream anymore except when Frederick said each year: “Consider me at your disposal, Miss Wingham. I will do anything I can to make your stay a pleasant one. Anything.” This was exactly what Frederick had said in the dream as he lifted her nightgown and buried his mouth between her thighs. (The thief places both hands in position on the keyboard and types: The quick red fox jumps over the lazy brown dog, but there is no paper in the machine and the words fall invisible onto the black rubber platen.) This was exactly what he was saying now as he backed out the door and Helen thanked him with genuine gratitude both for his courtesy and for everything he had done to her in the dream. Helen and Frederick shook hands warmly and she slid a ten-dollar bill into his palm.
Then Helen unpacked, freshened up, and went downstairs. She took her lunch in the hotel dining room. (The thief is in the hallway.) She ordered Gazpacho, Stuffed Mushroom Caps, Asparagus Soufflé, and a small Caesar Salad. (The thief is in the library.) At home, if she had lunch at all, it was most often brown toast and tea, sometimes a bagel with cream cheese and some of her own peach and pepper relish. (The thief admires the books in their shelves, strokes their spines, removes one, flips through it briefly, and then returns it precisely to its proper place.) Helen marveled briefly at how being in the city always made her ravenous and then she ordered Blueberry Crème Brulée for dessert.
By the time she walked into the street, Helen Wingham had become her city self. She made her way smoothly along the crowded sidewalks, never bumping into anyone or making direct eye contact, bobbing and weaving around slowpokes, ignoring the occasional homeless person camped in a doorway. (The thief is peering at the pages of a large encyclopedia9 spread open on a cast-iron bookstand.) Helen was happy to see how quickly she adjusted to being back in the city, how she must already look like everyone else around her: purposeful, preoccupied, and completely unapproachable. She felt brisk and confident. (The thief is in the hallway.) Navigating the city was like riding a bicycle, making love, or skating: once you knew how, you never forgot. It was simply an intricate series of physical maneuvers which, if performed in the right sequence at the right speed, would carry her safely through. (The thief is in the music room.) Although Helen hadn’t been on skates or a bicycle since she was a girl, she did not doubt that she could still do these things if she wanted to. (The thief sits down at the piano but cannot read music and so rests one hand gently on the keyboard and is silent.) Helen supposed, correctly, that the townspeople would hardly recognize her now.
At home she sometimes felt she was too dreamy, floating aimlessly through the rooms of her sturdy house, anchored to the real world only by the solidity of the house itself and by the high-frequency resonance of the objects with which she filled it. (The thief looks through the viewfinder of a large brown and black camera10 into a gilt-framed mirror on the wall opposite the piano.) Sometimes Helen pictured the roof of her house as a lid which kept her from drifting away entirely, all that lay between her and an attractive pocket of heaven to which she was not yet ready to ascend. Sometimes He
len suspected she was hiding, having firmly barricaded herself behind those well-appointed walls, carefully minding her own business and expecting all others to do the same.
Helen arrived at her favorite bookstore. (The thief is in the hallway.) It was a long narrow room with floor-to-ceiling shelves that required the use of an old-fashioned ladder on wheels to reach the highest books. The salesclerks wore soft-soled shoes and conservative clothing. They did not bother you unless you specifically asked for assistance. (The thief is mounting the oak staircase to the second story.) Classical music played tastefully somewhere near the ceiling.
Helen gravitated first to the biography section. (The thief stops on the landing and removes a small painting11 from the wall.) Although Helen was not generally fond of people in the flesh, she loved to read about them, especially if they were famous in some creative field, especially if their lives had been tormented and chaotic. Although the desire for privacy was paramount in her own life, Helen was thrilled by peeping into the emotional disturbances and scandalous behaviors that pockmarked these famous people’s lives. (The thief looks into several rooms along the upstairs hallway but does not enter any of them.) Helen was particularly fond of those biographies that included photographs of the subject as a baby in its mothers arms, as a small child in a large class of other unidentified small children, as an unattractive adolescent in a marching band; photographs of the subject arm-in-arm with various spouses and lovers, of the rooms in which the subject had once slept, ate, copulated, and entertained; photographs of the gardens, the children, the pets, the Christmas trees, the birthday cakes, the funeral wreaths. (The thief is turning the white porcelain doorknob of the last room on the right.) When reading one of these books, Helen would flip back and forth to these photographs which were, she thought, like the footnotes to the story, the place where all the secrets could be unearthed, the place where the true story could be deciphered and the sum of the subjects life could eventually be tallied.
By the time Helen was finished in the bookstore, she had accumulated enough books to fill three cardboard cartons. (The thief is entering Helen’s bedroom which overlooks the backyard.) At the last minute she added a five-volume hardcover set called A History of Private Life and then she made arrangements to have the boxes shipped to her house early the following week.
Back in her hotel room she closed the drapes against the heat, turned up the air conditioner, and took off her dress. She put on the bathrobe supplied by the hotel and ordered up a light supper from room service. (The thief is opening the doors of the oak armoire.) After eating, Helen made herself comfortable in bed, turned on the television, and watched a concert by the Boston Philharmonic. (The thief is touching Helen’s blouses, her dresses, her skirts, and a number of silly-looking hats stored in the bottom drawer.) After the concert, she turned out the lights and slept soundly, perfectly safe and content, undisturbed all through the summer night, by dreams of Frederick or anyone else.
In the morning she rose early as was her habit, bathed, and got dressed. (The thief is opening the top drawer of the mahogany dresser.) She went down to the lobby, greeted the ubiquitous Frederick, and went into the street.
After a half-hour walk through the nearly deserted streets, Helen went back to the hotel for breakfast. (The thief is touching Helen’s panties and a white silk slip.) Then she spent most of the day prowling through the many antique shops in the neighborhood. (The thief pulls a leather-hound hook12 from beneath Helen’s underwear and finds its blue-lined pages covered with Helen’s small neat handwriting.)
In the early years of her annual trip to the city, Helen had come to these shops looking mostly for furniture. Each year she had bought four or five large pieces and had them shipped home. These beautiful antiques now filled all the rooms of her house. (The thief opens one by one the four drawers of the mahogany jewelry chest, runs fingers through gold and silver necklaces, brooches, bracelets, earrings, watches, and rings, but does not take anything.) Helen bought these antiques for the moments of pure happiness they offered her each time she walked into a room and: there they were! Every day the sheer sight of them would give her a jolt of surprised satisfaction. It was like catching sight of her own reflection now in a store window as she walked through the city streets. (The thief takes a large photo album13 out of the glass-fronted bookcase by the window.) Glimpsing that cosmopolitan woman striding along with such graceful determination, Helen thought, “Now there’s a fine-looking woman!” just in that split second before she recognized herself.
But much as Helen loved her possessions, she had to admit that sooner or later even the most extravagant objects of her affection would become just furniture after all. (The thief hears noises outside, a bicycle perhaps being leaned up against the house, footsteps coming down the driveway and passing into the backyard below.) Then she went back to the city and bought more. After ten or twelve years of this, even Helens big house contained just about all the fine furniture it could hold. (The thief stands just to the right of Helen’s bedroom window looking down at the town boy as he unrolls the hose and begins to water the garden.) Now Helen scoured the antique shops for smaller treasures, precious bits and pieces of long-dead strangers’ lives which she could then make her own, all of their history there for the taking, all of their dreams there for the imagining.
Today she found, among other things, a miniature toy harp with seventeen tunable strings; a man’s alligator-skin traveling case still containing comb, toothbrush, razor, and strop; an eight-ball croquet set with fancy striped mallets and copper-plated arches.
Then she went back to the hotel and had a nap, suddenly exhausted after all that shopping in the heat. (The thief steps back from the window and sits motionless on the edge of Helen’s bed until the boy gets back on his bicycle and rides away.) She spent the evening much as she had the night before. But tonight she did not fall asleep so quickly.
Tonight she lay awake for a long time, happily buoyed up by a burgeoning sense of possibility. (The thief stands up and smoothes the wrinkles out of the white eyelet counterpane with both hands which are trembling slightly.) Here in the city Helen was emboldened. Here she felt she could do anything that crossed her mind. Anything. Here she still believed her life could change. It was not too late. Any day now she could wake up and find herself living a totally different life.
At home Helen did not like to contemplate change. (The thief goes back downstairs to the kitchen.) There she was comforted by the sameness of her solitary days. She valued stability, security, and peace of mind. She avoided anyone and anything that might cause anxiety, confusion, disappointment, or overstimulation. (The thief sets the three full cardboard boxes in the back hall.) At home when Helen thought about the future, she hoped simply to find herself living exactly the same life for the rest of her life. (The thief goes into the backyard, unrolls the hose, and turns it on a small flower bed that the town boy had overlooked.) Sometimes at night Helen’s hope took the form of a prayer: “Please God, just let me be.”
But here in her hotel room she lay awake for hours imagining herself in all manner of new and startling situations. (The thief leaves by the back door, making sure it is locked afterward, carrying the boxes one at a time to a gray midsize car parked a hundred yards down the road, pulled onto the shoulder under a clump of weeping birches.) She could travel. She could visit the Parthenon, the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the Sphinx. She could take a slow boat to China. She could sell the house and buy a villa in the south of France. For that matter, she could keep the house and still buy a villa in the south of France. She could redecorate in Danish modern. She could dye her hair red. She could write a book. She could take flying lessons. She could get married, for God’s sake!
But in the morning Helen did none of these things. (The thief, on the final trip to the car, is passed by a brown station wagon with two crying children and a barking dog in the backseat, and the harried woman at the wheel does not notice or wonder about this familiar-looking pers
on carrying a cardboard box down the country road in the sunshine.) In the morning Helen rose much later than usual and enjoyed a sumptuous brunch in the hotel dining room. She sat for a long time sipping her coffee and sampling the bountiful offerings of the dessert table.
Having finally eaten her fill, Helen went upstairs and took her clothes from the armoire, her toiletries from the marble vanity, and repacked her suitcase, removing all traces of herself from the room.
Her bus home did not leave until three o’clock. (The thief is driving slowly away, down the country road and into the center of town.) She went downstairs to the lobby which was decorated to resemble an old-fashioned parlor with overstuffed armchairs, antique lamps on well-polished tables, deeply worn Turkish carpets on the hardwood floor. (The thief pulls into the driveway of a bungalow with pale yellow aluminum siding and black trim, red and white geraniums in the window boxes, two well-pruned cedar bushes on either side of the front door.) In fact the hotel lobby resembled Helen’s living room at home which she had begun to long fondly for now. She was always glad to go to the city but always glad to get home again too. It was exhilarating, all this feeling adventurous and confident, exhilarating but exhausting, and she was looking forward to turning back into her essential dreamy comfortable self.
Forms of Devotion Page 4