Ursula Hegi The Burgdorf Cycle Boxed Set: Floating in My Mother's Palm, Stones from the River, The Vision of Emma Blau. Children and Fire

by Hegi, Ursula

  “It’s more important to him … really.”

  “We’ll do it another time. Any evening.”

  “If you want, I’ll come to the movies with you tonight.”

  “Go. Enjoy yourself.”

  After he was gone, she heated a bowl of clam chowder for herself and carried it into the living room without switching on a lamp. It was raining, and what little light filtered through the windows smudged the walls and blurred the colors left in the length of peacock rug she’d moved in front of the sofa. She set down her bowl. Slipped into her raincoat. Walked through the darkening streets of Winnipesaukee, her hair wet and cold against her neck. It wasn’t until she saw the light in the downstairs windows of the yellow Victorian that she realized she was standing in front of Justin’s house.

  Instinctively, she took a step closer toward her son who was there beyond that window, the left side of his face toward her as he raised a fork to his mouth. What if he looked out and saw her? She didn’t want him to feel sorry for her, didn’t want to embarrass him. Quickly, she crossed the street and hid behind the maple tree, the bark of its wide trunk familiar against the side of her face. Long splinters of moon fell at her through its bare branches as she watched her son. Birthday candles on the table in front of him. And around that table Justin’s other family. Celebrating the day I gave birth to Stefan. Mine. I want my son back, want him back, now. All at once, she remembered how closely Justin used to listen to Stefan when he was a small boy, and for that instant she tried to believe that it was good for him to be here with his father. Yet, already, she wanted to caution him that his father would never give him enough of himself. That he was a kind but indifferent man. That to expect any more of him would only bring Stefan pain.

  Drawing her coat closer around herself, Emma shivered as she recalled how not being with Justin had often given her more pleasure than having him with her. In her longing for him, she had felt lovely and high-breasted. But as soon as he’d arrived, she’d felt rushed, trying to fill their one afternoon with all she wanted to have with him—while he was unhurried as though they had unlimited time together. Already disappointed, though he hadn’t left yet, she dreaded his departure; but as soon as she was alone once again, she began looking forward to their next meeting when the possibility of anything would be hers. Except it never became more than a possibility.

  Some days her love for him had felt impetuous, ready to risk anything, though he hadn’t expected risks from her. That last night with him three years ago—the night of their only fight—he had told her he was afraid. “Because I have nailed down everything so securely in my life, Emma. Because you’re the one person who could tear it all wide open.”

  And I still could. Tear it all wide open and walk in there and claim my place at your table. Celebrate the day I gave birth to Stefan. Mine. I want my son back, want him back, now. Her wet hands stiffened into fists, and when she pushed them into her pockets, she felt her knuckles against her thighs. How restricted she had always felt in how much caring she could show Justin. “We have to take this slowly,” he had warned her, and when she’d asked, “How slowly can you take anything when you have a child together?” he hadn’t answered.

  And now their child was spending more time with him than with her.

  In the yellow window, Justin’s wife leaned toward Stefan. Let him be—you already have four of your own. But Stefan let her touch his shoulder, this woman who had let him nudge his way into his father’s house where his mother could not go and had never been, into his father’s family that was a family every day, not just on Wednesdays. Emma wished she could carry Stefan home and keep him there. Wished she could get rid of Justin inside her head. And of all that belonged to him. Eyes stinging, she started off into a lopsided run and didn’t stop until she reached the Wasserburg.

  Once again, the elevator wasn’t working, and she bolted up the stairs to the fourth floor, gathered the clothes she had given Justin—all of them gifts he’d never taken to his house because of his wife—and took them down to Opa’s boat. As she rowed out into the black and uneven waves, she tossed Justin’s clothes over-board. One by one, they swirled away. It hurt, but not as much as when he’d stopped their Wednesdays together, and as she fed the last of his belongings to the icy water, his white terry-cloth robe ballooned for an instant as though she had conjured him to drown in front of her.

  One late morning in July—humid and red-hot and without wind from the lake—a package arrived for Yvonne. Enjoying the anticipation, she carefully unfolded the tissue paper around two gowns from her favorite catalog store, Sophisticated Lady. She took off her blouse and skirt, held the azure gown against herself in front of the full mirror, one hand pressing the hanger to her clavicle, the other gathering the full satin at her waist.

  “It’s your color, my dear,” Robert tells her.

  She smiles. “To you, everything is my color.”

  Stepping to one side, then to the other, she swirled around.

  “May I have this dance, lovely lady?” One summer’s lover spins her across the dance floor, and she arches her back and leans into his embrace as he dips her. The tango, of course …

  As she swayed from one foot to the other, the satin in the mirror brought out the night blue in her hair and made her cheeks look smoother. She could easily pass for fifty-eight, maybe even forty-eight. Soon I’ll be seventy— Don’t count. Don’t think. Her shoulders rose from the black lace of her slip, slender, not bony like some women’s; neck still firm, though the horizontal lines that divided it into three sections had grown deeper. She stroked her fingertips upward across those folds, across the soft skin—too soft?—below her chin. New fabric against her skin—there was nothing like it. Still, for years now, Yvonne had tried to please Emma by staying away from her favorite catalogs. But Emma always found something to fret about. That’s why Yvonne made sure to cross out original prices and write lower amounts on the tags, claiming she’d bought them on sale. Last winter, when she and her grandson had come home from a shopping trip to Concord with two pairs of high-heeled shoes, he’d helped her hide the bone-colored sling backs till Easter when she’d brought them out as though she’d just gotten them on sale. It was Emma’s fault, forcing her and Stefan to lie.

  For a while Yvonne had bought clothes and makeup for her—bribes so that Emma would let her keep her own purchases—but Emma wouldn’t even use lipstick when her lips were chapped, and she’d returned nearly all the clothes.

  But now Yvonne had a second gown to try on. The delight of it. And I always look best when I smile. From the cardboard box she pulled the other gown—a deep green velour with sleeves. The more the Wasserburg deteriorated, the more she craved new clothes, scarves, perfumes. She draped the satin over a chair and held up the velour. An entirely different feeling—not as lavish but more cosmopolitan, the kind of gown she could wear this fall to the theater or to a good restaurant. She shook her hair. Turned. Dinner at the Cadeau du Lac …

  Robert pulls out her chair. “You look wonderful, my dear.”

  “Mother?”

  She spun to the door. Emma—how long had she been standing there? Feeling oddly naked, Yvonne tugged the gown against herself.

  In the mirror Emma saw the back of her mother’s flimsy slip, the bumpy veins in her legs, and was seized by a sudden and deep compassion. She remembered her mother as a young woman—so playful, so elegant, so charming that Emma had felt privileged watching her. But that enchantment had worn off, and she was left with embarrassment for her mother’s wants, embarrassment that her mother had a witness and that she had to be that witness.

  Bright red circles of excitement floated high on her mother’s cheeks—face of a clown painted anew each day over the old woman face—and her black hair, brittle from too many chemicals, lay matted in back as if she only attended to those parts of herself that she could readily see in the mirror.

  Emma pointed to the velour gown. “When did you get that?” And noticed on the chair
yet another gown, looking new and expensive even though she’d just had to postpone a major plumbing job on the second floor. Suddenly it struck her, the unfairness of it all. Not all that many years ago, the house had been grand, her Opa alive, and she had believed it would be like that forever … warm nights on the roof, the people game with Caleb.

  When had it all begun to come apart?

  With her father’s indulgence of her mother’s wastefulness?

  With Uncle Tobias’ curse: “Keeping the house together will destroy it and drive this family apart”?

  One day last winter she’d felt so discouraged about the Wasserburg that she’d driven to Hartford to ask Uncle Tobias to revoke his curse, declare it invalid as only the originator of a curse can do. He’d seemed embarrassed for her, had insisted on cooking lunch for her, and she’d sat with him and Danny Wilson, both wrinkled and tan, eating shrimp with almonds and currants, drinking wine that was more yellow than white.

  “A Sicilian wine,” her uncle said. “Danny wants to take me to Sicily on our next cruise.” At least twice a year the two of them traveled, always to warmer climates from where they sent presents to Stefan. Small pottery drums from Morocco. A woven poncho from Mexico. A set of oil paints from Paris.

  After Uncle Tobias made strong coffee in a glass pot and set out a plate with wrapped chocolate wafers, he told her what he’d already said the day of Oma’s funeral—that the house had been cursed before he was ever born, and Emma wondered if it had started the night Opa had buried St. Joseph head down, wondered if it was reaching into her own life because she was not only losing the house but also her son.

  “It’s nothing I did,” Uncle Tobias added. “Besides, I’m not that powerful.”

  “None of us are, Emma,” Danny said, watching her closely.

  “I couldn’t resist.” Her mother straightened the bodice of the dress and tilted her head. “Look.”

  It was obviously made for a younger woman, and the low neckline made her mother look strung together with hollow bones and gray skin. Skin that used to be pale yet soaked up light. Skin that now—when it no longer could hold that light—had gone the other side of pale to gray.

  Emma kept her voice gentle. “You know we have to send those back.”

  Her mother brought her face close to the mirror, and in the still, hot air that slowed down all movements, she tugged with two fingers at a fold on her throat as if about to turn her skin inside out. “Oh,” she said and then smiled. “You can’t mean that.”

  “I wish we could afford them. But I have to say no.”

  “One then,” her mother whispered.

  “We can’t.” Heavily, Emma sat on the edge of the unmade bed.

  “Of course we can,” her mother said in her most charming voice. Holding both dresses against herself, she walked toward Emma, hips rippling as if she were a model in a fashion show. “I’ll even let you choose.” Surely now, Emma would see how unique these dresses were, how wonderful they looked on her.

  Deep inside her body Emma felt an immeasurable weariness that might never be dislodged, not even by the longest sleep. By delegating the choice to her, her mother was trying to make it impossible for her to send either one of the dresses back.

  “Which one?” Her mother pressed her with an anxious smile. “Admit it—you like them both.”

  Emma got up and lifted the blue satin dress from her mother’s hands. The price tag was over four hundred dollars. Jesus, she’d better take a look at the other tag too. Nearly six hundred. She let out a slow breath. What can I do before she squanders it all? What do I have to do to save the house from her?

  Her mother was stepping into the blue satin dress. “Will you please close the zipper for me?”

  Reluctantly, Emma guided the zipper up. “How about all your other dresses?” She opened the door of her mother’s closet and pointed to an entire row of evening gowns: strapless chiffon with sequins down its bodice; white satin with a huge bow above the seat; gray silk with flowing sleeves and a deep V-shaped neckline; black velvet with a matching jacket…. “Some of these you haven’t even worn.”

  “But I will. You know how hard it is to find stylish clothes in this town, and when I see something like this in the catalog, I—”

  “Where would you wear this?” Emma pulled out a pink silk with a tear-shaped neckline. “To the dentist? To the store?” Not that her mother hadn’t worn absurdly formal clothes just to the bakery or beauty parlor.

  “Let me see. I have worn this … twice already. When your father was still alive. Once to dinner in Manchester. And to the ballet in Boston. The chiffon I wore on your grandmother’s last birthday. And this white one here … remember, five years ago when Caleb visited.” Her chin rose. “Caleb would let me keep these gowns.”

  “Sure. While the house is falling down around both of you.” Sometimes—while washing her mother’s laundry or scouring her mother’s tub, Emma would get angry at Caleb who was doing what he loved far away on the West Coast. “Let Caleb pay for the gowns then,” she said. “Maybe I should just take Stefan and move out. Caleb can look after you and the house.”

  Her mother looked startled. “He wouldn’t come back to New Hampshire.”

  “Right.”

  “Don’t be like that, Emma.”

  “We cannot afford dresses like these. And I’m sorry about that. Because I wish we could. Just as I wish we had the money to repair the furnace and the elevator and—”

  “Just one dress then. Please …”

  “They’re far too expensive.”

  “I won’t buy anything else for a while.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Slowly, Yvonne straightened her shoulders. “Not that it is your decision to make.”

  “Mother—”

  “I was merely asking your opinion. And since you’re being so very stingy, I have decided to keep both.”

  “Will you let me show you something?”

  “What is it?”

  “Just come with me. Please?”

  In the blue gown, Yvonne followed her daughter into the hallway where the carpets were so drab that you could no longer see the original pattern; through empty apartments where tiles had cracked and water leakage had left yellow-brown blotches on the ceilings; into the basement where pipes were rusting and several light fixtures had burned out.

  “This is where we need to spend money,” Emma said. “Not on evening gowns.”

  Yvonne shrank from the musty smell, the peeling walls. Something was wrong. What if Emma was playing a trick on her? She felt a dull ache in her bones because all at once it seemed possible that she could lose the house altogether. Weakly, she tried to protest. “There always was more than enough.” She raised one hand to support herself against a streaked wall. It all was much worse than she had expected. So this was what Emma had been talking about. The house was decaying. Aging. Creases and skin like ash? She could feel Emma’s frustration because she, too, had known it along with the urge to restore. Restore myself. Except that this house needed far more than she would ever need, far more than one dress, one scarf, one jar of skin creme. Where will I go if we lose everything? Though she wanted to blame Emma, she couldn’t because she knew how Emma loved the house—loved it more than she’d ever loved that doctor who had only given her leftover hours and loneliness. Odd, that a woman like me would produce a daughter so… ordinary. How she missed Caleb and his appreciation for beauty.

  “All we have are the rents,” Emma was fretting.

  Even now. Even now at my age, I feel more alluring than my daughter has ever been.

  “We need to budget.”

  If only she had inherited my beauty.

  “Find tenants.”

  Men would adore her, would want to help her.

  “People want to live in new buildings. Mother—”

  … more alluring than my daughter has ever been.

  “Are you listening?”

  “I’ll spend less. And I’ll return the oth
er dress for credit. This one now—” Yvonne motioned to the satin hem that had picked up dust along the way. “You know they won’t take it back like that. But I’ll get it dry-cleaned and wear it for several occasions.” More alluring than my daughter has ever been. “Because from now on, I promise, Emma, no more extravagances. Now that I see what you mean—”

  “But you don’t see.” Emma shook her head. “You’re looking at it and you still don’t see.”

  “I’ll trade you.” Yvonne smiled, suddenly feeling very brilliant. Not only would she keep both dresses, but she’d also get Emma to make sure the house wouldn’t get worse. “I’ll do it. I’ll make it yours, the house.”

  Cautiously, Emma swallowed. Again. Don’t say anything wrong. Don’t mess it up now. Listen to her. Listen closely.

  “I’ll make it yours.” Her mother’s face was radiant. “Yours and Caleb’s.” She sounded like a child who believed that if she was nice, she’d get what she wanted.

  So give her what she wants. “Good,” Emma said, her heart beating slower. “Yes.”

  It would be all right. Yvonne could feel it. “But you’ll have to let me keep both gowns.”

  “Both gowns,” Emma repeated, though she hated the waste.

  “And you’ll fix up the house, right?”

  “You’ll always have a place to stay. Because I’ll bring it back to how it used to be. And then Caleb and I will work it out between us.” And she would. Restore the house for herself and Caleb.

  The last time she’d seen her brother she had tried to talk to him about saving the house from their mother. Emma had been kneeling on the floor of a vacant apartment, cleaning around the recessed buzzer, getting the place ready for the Ketchums, a car mechanic married to a beautician.

  “I’ve met with a lawyer,” she had told Caleb. “We’ve taken the old deed from the registry, and he has drafted a new one. He’ll notarize it once Mother is ready to convey the house to us. It would also make her eligible for Medicaid.”