by Keith Korman
As for Fräulein, he gave her several hours of his time to start, less later on. But even these hours a day seemed much less than what she was used to. Those limitless devotions of the Burghive. Now he spent half the day at the institution and half the day at home, and Fräulein spent as much time traveling to and from his office as she did actually sitting in his presence.
She had never realized he lived three miles down Lake Zurich in the town of Kusnacht. The night of the dinner party, she hadn’t known where the carriage had taken her. But since carriages were too expensive for everyday trips, she learned the ways of the tramcars, mastering rail schedules and buying tickets from mean, wizened men in thick spectacles behind dirty wire cages, then not missing her stop or losing her way to Herr Doktors house. All intricate, all difficult, all the time fighting the desire to creep into some cakeshop for a huge slice of torte, to gobble it down — then sit for an hour, twiddling like a leaf, shaking herself to death while the sugar raced through her veins.
So she learned to use the tramcar. And once in every dozen visits the sun would show itself promisingly out of a cloud bank, and Lake Zurich glittered like fish scales. And there she sat, alone in the coach, except maybe for a cheerful, toothless old granny and the driver ring-ringing his bell. And in those times she felt the worth of what she had done. For she had become her own keeper, not a clear egg without a center or a dayroom Gurgler in the zoo of the Beehölzli or a paralyzed twiddler listening to the talk of blank dummy heads, but a truly independent young woman sitting alone in the tramcar while her pale reflection flashed in the window. And she knew that splendid young woman.
Anonymous no more, but the master of her face.
Chapter 7
A Wolf at the Door
She dreaded talking. Wretched words, where anything she said might bring on a sudden fit of despair or inarticulate gagging as she choked on a spoonful of gristle out of her past.
At first Fräulein found ways to procrastinate and overstay her two hours … using spells of faintness and begging harangues, pleading on her knees, even threatening to play the Queen in the public street beyond Herr Doktors door. But such ploys did not have the power over her they once enjoyed. She began to see her aberrant behavior for what it had always been: a scream of defiance from behind her fortress walls, a bestial bellow of Me — I — Me — I —! So if she stooped to smearing menstrual blood on him again or peed in the hall as the maid showed her to the door, such an act felt below her standing,
In her Burghive cell such behavior had been the sacred expression of her mortal soul, the battle of protogenesis versus dementia to birth herself anew. But here in his house she cringed at the childishness of it. At how blatantly she tried to project her power over him and their precious time. For the facts of life had changed —- she’d already been reborn.
And now was growing up.
Describing her past took monumental effort, and crying was tiring work. Too much as bad as too little, draining her heart empty and dry. An hour left her exhausted, and the second hour so wilted that she simply rose from his couch without saying good-bye, nodding off fitfully in the tramcar all the way home. She said the word “Father” now, calling him by name with only a moment’s hesitation.
“F-father.”
But M-m-m still too difficult to say.
One day in late June she set the matching silver hairbrush and hand mirror on his desk, the ones he brushed her hair with long ago as they danced the ritual of the Queen. Touching them one last time as if their molded handles might help tell her tale. Then composing herself on his stiff leather couch. “You wanted to know who my parents were. It started with that brush and mirror. They belonged to M-m-m, and sh-sh-she always kept them on a glass table in her bedroom. At night Î used to sneak from my bed, standing in the dark hall at the crack of her door. Watching her brush her beautiful long hair.”
As Fräulein told it, the words rose into her mouth unbidden, but she hardly paid attention to what she said. For Herr Doktors couch, so strong beneath her, melted away like soft wax … and she walked again in her parents’ house as a little girl of five or six. Her home came to her all of a piece: not in the bright flashes of her ancient dream tale, but the way it really used to be. A town house in Rostov on a quiet tree-lined street, in a German part of the city.
Her parents’ rooms smelled of must, as if an old person lived there, hardly breathing any oxygen or stirring the air. A clean old person, dry as a stick. Maybe it smelled that way because M-m-m rarely opened the windows. The halls bare, unlit and gloomy. Her own bedroom painted a sickly off-white. Its curtained window gave onto another building, a few yards away.
She had toys, though … a tiny silver-plate tea set and a small grand piano that really played. But her grandest was a Georgian-style dollhouse with two chimneys and rooms on either side of a central staircase. The dollhouse dining room had a real glass chandelier and the kitchen an eight-ring cook stove. The water closet even had a two-seater with wooden toilet seats. She remembered the tiny dolls as they sat propped at the dining room table — miniature mama and papa, brother and sister — all wearing their Sunday best. Also two servants, a maid in black and a fat pink cook in white, bent over the fancy stove. Their blank faces painted skin tone, with red lips, blushing cheeks, and vapid, sightless glass eyes.
She also had a stuffed rabbit with long silky ears, which she took with her to bed. Herr Wilhelm Schnitzel, but she mostly called him Herr Wilhelm. And a beautiful dolly named Puppchen, with long, dark tresses, just like Mother’s, which she combed out and tied in braids. But her toys weren’t really hers. Mother was always popping in to see how she got on with them. With rules on the proper way to play. Only one at a time, ‘‘because you’ll get tired and break them.” Never more than one.
So Herr Wilhelm never talked to Puppchen or the dollhouse family. And Puppchen never went on visits to the dollhouse or had tea picnics on the floor. For the toys had to play alone, and the minute she was finished, put away right away.
Mother had pocketsful of rules. They were her beginning and her end. Her be-all and end-all. “Do one thing and then the next,” Mother always said. And so Little Fräulein never ate cookies while she played. Or paused in the midst of her things to go potty. Just get up and put back. Take down from the shelf and put back. Play for a while and put away. With Mother always saying, “Don’t start what you can’t finish. And finish what you start.”
With Mother’s most important rule being:
Never touch the horses.
On a high shelf in Little Fräuleins room stood Mother’s china horses. Dozens of horses, of every color and breed. But these were never taken down. And only dusted once a week by the maid. The most lovely was a high-stepping pure white Arabian gelding marked Lippizaner on the base. One day Mother found this special horse with its proud tail cracked off. The maid would not be blamed and glowered darkly in the direction of the hated room, insisting in a low voice, “It’s the girl’s room, you know. I don’t keep an eye on her all day long.” Fräulein didn’t remember how it all turned out, but she did recall a sense of high tragedy, that something had happened that could never be set right. She glimpsed her face in the hallway mirror, papery white….
Under the bedroom window stood a steam radiator with a metal cover painted a vile shade of pink. The metal cover made of die-cut tin, the cuts in the shape of fleurs-de-lis. It had been painted so many times the fleurs were filled in with drips, giving it the look of a leper with pockmarked skin. The radiator got fiercely hot when the steam came knocking on the pipes, but it never seemed to heat the area near her bed. Perhaps all the warm air went out the window. She felt her feet turning into painful wooden blocks. Her toes icy glass beads —- afraid if she stubbed them they’d crack off.
Sometimes Mother read her the story of Little Red Riding Hood with her warm red cloak, trip-tripping carelessly through the woods to Grandma’s house. The picture book had a page showing Grandma’s table laden with steaming meat
pies and cozy nooks by the fireplace, with wooden stools for you to cuddle close. But seeing that only made the cold more bitter. In the long night she hated Little Red Riding Hood for living in such a comfortable picture, hated her for sitting by the fire in the great stone hearth, with hot cocoa by the hob and mince pies on the table. If only she could be Little Red’s long-lost cousin from the city, her poor forgotten sister.
So through the long, dark night Fräulein became Little Red’s poor freezing sister in town, Ninny Blue Toes. Worse off even than the Little Match Girl, who at least died and went to heaven.
Ninny Blue Toes.
Suffering all because of Mother’s ninny rules: no socks in Ninny’s nighttime bed. Mother said lacy socks were for morning walks in the park, and daytime standing in the department store aisles, and sitting up late evenings in the theater. So no sneaking out of bed to steal them from the sock drawer. No, Ninny Blue Toes, no socks all ninny night long! No matter how she begged and begged.
“Kiss Mother nighty-night now.”
And so Mother was kissed and the blankets tucked around Ninny’s chin. Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Ninny drifted off to sleep…. When suddenly the door swung open. Mother!
“Off with the covers and show me your feet. Quick now! Show me your feet!”
Naked blue toes wiggled on the sheets. No lacy socks.
Letting Mother sail away once more, smiling, to her room.
“Did my p-p-parents hate each other?”
Fräulein jammed her fists into Herr Doktors leather couch. “They never slept in the same room. If M-m-m was asleep, I’d sneak the socks on. Then wake up early to slip them off again into the drawer. But if M-m-m was prowling about the house, I crept back shivering into bed….”
Ninny’s feet slid over the floor like blocks of ice. A warm glow came from Mother’s room. She pressed her face to the crack in the door and saw Mother at the vanity, brushing her hair. The table had looking-glass wings so you could see yourself from three sides and glass legs with frowning lions’ heads supporting the top. The lions’ heads stared out like soldiers on guard. Ninny sometimes tiptoed into the room to talk to them.
A wave of warm air flowed into the hall — so, so much warmer than Ninny’s bare, dark hole. How she longed to snuggle in the bed as Mother sat before the mirror brushing her long, lustrous hair. Stroking with the long-handled brush she always used.
Ninny often thought Mother’s face was sharp and bright like a bird’s. But now it seemed soft and slack. Her eyes dreamy, her body loose. Seeing her made Ninny think of strawberry jam on hot buttered toast, and she thought, Mother has lost something. But what Mother had lost she couldn’t guess.
Mother took the stopper from a perfume bottle: frosted glass in the shape of a dove, called Lovebird. She dabbed the stopper behind her ear, on her throat, then lower to the opening of her silk dressing gown. Following the cord that plunged down the shadow between her legs. Mother touched the stopper there.
Ninny Blue Toes smelled the scent of Lovebird welling through the crack. She had never seen Mother’s dressing gown hang so open. In the room the candles flared brighter. Mother turned the long-handled brush over in her fingers, the silver flashing in the flickering light. She leaned back in the chair and carefully parted her long white legs, propping one foot on a frowning lions’ head. Then softly rubbed the smooth silver back of the brush along the inside of her thigh. First lower, then higher, then lower again.
What was Mother doing? Hurting herself?
Ninny pressed her face to the crack. Mother stroked the silver hairbrush along her long white thigh, the other hand slipping down to the shadow and back to the candlelight again. She touched her fingers to her lips. The fingers moving, lower and higher, then lower again. The tiny candle flames stuttered.
Now the hands went faster. Tongue — shadow — tongue. The brush fell mutely on the carpet, but the hands kept going. Mother’s naked toes clenched the lions face. Tongue — shadow — tongue, more frantic now. Ninny shuffled on the hard wood floor. Her own fists clenching. Open — closed —open. Should she go for help?
Tongue — shadow — tongue. Ninny Blue Toes fled.
The tin-cylinder phonograph played softly in the drawing room. Ninny stood in the doorway. Father had lit a fire in the grate. He sat in the green leather chair, smoking his pipe. Soft sucking sounds as he drew on it… then a quiet hiss as he blew smoke into the air. He looked up sharply.
“What now?” he murmured. “Can’t you sleep?”
She always loved the way his gleaming hair swept back off his forehead like a cresting wave. It made her want to stick her fingers in the curl. He held out his hands, beckoning her to his lap. “Come on, then.”
She climbed over his knees, curling into him.
“Eh, what’s this?” He held her frozen feet. “They’re cold as ice!” He rubbed them in his big, warm hands. And the red embers of the fire seemed to go into her toes. If only she could sit all night in his safe lap, if only —
“What’s this now?”
Mother towered in the doorway, tall and grim, her silk dressing gown wrapped tight about her waist. Her face no longer slack, but bright and sharp again.
Father clasped Ninny to him. Couldn’t she just stay in his lap and never leave? She felt him tremble. Father afraid? Was he going to hand her over? “Her feet were cold,” Father explained. His voice sounded doubtful, as if he didn’t really believe it. Then glancing feebly at the fire as if the truth lay there. But no, just embers crumbling to ash. Ninny heard his belly rumble, arguing with itself. Then, with some resolve, “What of it?”
The man and the woman took the measure of each other. After a pause, the woman said at last, “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” She held out her hand. “Come along; its back to bed for you.”
Father’s large hands seemed sad to let her go. Ninny went into the hall’s dark tunnel, hearing the soft sounds of Father drawing on his pipe. The tin-cylinder phonograph now still …
Mother pulled down the chill bedcovers. “Get in.” Ninny’s bare feet rubbed together, two numb blocks of ice. Mother went the round of the room: checking the china horses, feeling the radiator, seeing all the toys were put away. Finally Mother’s grave face rose above the bed. Ninny Blue Toes clutched Herr Wilhelm to her chest.
In one rash stroke Mother plucked the rabbit by the ear and flung him across the room. He sailed through the air as if his floppy ears were limp wings and fetched up against the radiator. Mother’s prodding fingers searched her skinny body.
“Did you go in the sock drawer?”
“No!” Ninny cried.
The bird face came closer, became harder, whiter. “That’s a lie!”
“It’s not!”
“You were watching me so you could get some socks. I heard you in the hall, spying.”
“No!”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing!”
Mother held up the long silver hairbrush. “Did you see this?”
“No.,” Ninny whispered.
For a moment Mother looked like she might go away, for she seemed to rise…. But then bared her teeth. “Don’t call for help. Don’t move.” The hairbrush struck the bed by Ninny’s arm.
“Not a sound.”
The silver hairbrush hovered in the air. Ninny held her breath. Don’t cry, Ninny. Don’t move. Just stare at the brush floating in the air. The silver brush … hovering for ages near Mother’s face. Or look at Herr Wilhelm rabbit on the floor by the radiator, with his head bent sideways. Oh, poor Herr Wilhelm with a broken neck. Finally the brush disappeared into the silken folds of Mother’s dressing gown. For some moments she paused in the doorway. The rabbit’s eyes gazed disconsolately at the ceiling.
“Mother, I’m cold. Can I have some socks, please can I —”
“I’m sorry, Fräulein, but our time is up.”
She gawked at Herr Doktor incredulously. He couldn’t possibly end it now. He stared down at his desk, making notes on a pad.<
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“But why?” she demanded. “Why did sh-sh-she make me lie to her? Why couldn’t I have socks when I was cold? Why?”
Herr Doktor ceased his note taking. In a very sensible voice, he told her, “We’ll continue again tomorrow. At your regular time. Telephone me if there’s any change in your plans.”
She staggered up to go, too dumbfounded to believe he would actually make her leave.
“Did you bring your umbrella?” he asked.
“An umbrella … ?” she said uncertainly, “No, no umbrella.” She groped out. Downstairs, the maid helped her with her coat. In five minutes Fräulein rattled homeward in a tramcar. Her underclothes were totally soaked with perspiration,- she had a splitting headache. Exhaust from a truck blew into the coach and stayed there, sickening her the whole ride. When she climbed the stairs to her apartment, the headache grew so bad she could hardly see. She fell into bed at once, sleep stunning her like a club.
But the session went on in an ugly dream. Fräulein sat at the dining room table of her Georgian dollhouse. Up close the tiny knives and forks looked crude and rough. The mama doll and papa doll sat beside her in rickety chairs, their cloth faces painted in broad quick strokes of blush, with dots of blue and white for eyes. The oaken dining room table was really made of varnished balsa wood. And the crystal chandelier merely a loose collection of dingy cut glass.
Through the grimy French windows she saw her vast room. Püppchen and Herr Wilhelm rabbit sat on her narrow bed like giants. They were in animated conversation, Püppchen saying, “Did Mother really sneak in and slap the bed with the brush?”
“Oh yes,” Herr Wilhelm assured her. “Take my word for it — I saw the whole thing with a broken neck.”
“How savage!” Püppchen gasped.
“Yes, savage — that’s just the word for it,” agreed the rabbit.
“Did it hurt very badly?”