How Quickly She Disappears

by Raymond Fleischmann

  “Munich,” Alfred said, and he tapped two fingers against his chest. “I’m a German, too.”

  “I can see that,” Elisabeth said, motioning at the German cross on his plane. Alfred briefly turned.

  “Oh, that,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe how uncomfortable that makes some people. But I have no shame in my heritage, never mind what’s going on now.” He grinned, and his eyes flashed as if they had just shared a secret. “I’m sure you understand,” he said. “As a countryman, I mean. By God, it is good to meet you, Mrs. Pfautz. I’ll tell you: Countrymen are rare up here in the wilds.” And as he said that word—wilds—he puckered his lips as if the word itself tasted foul.

  Elisabeth shook it off. “What brings you to Tanacross?”

  “The post office,” Alfred said. He paced back to his plane and unlatched the cabin door.

  “Where’s Mr. Glaser?”

  “In Lincoln, Nebraska.” Alfred leaned inside the cabin and retrieved a single white box of mail, filled only halfway with envelopes and packages. He set it on the ground between them. “I fly a route west of Fairbanks, but I’m pitching in for Glaser this week. His daughter is getting married.”

  In a flash, it came back to her. Months ago, Mr. Glaser had mentioned his daughter’s coming marriage. He had been unhappy about the location and how far he had to travel. But your little girl getting married only happens once, he had said, and then paused, adding, Or it damn well better.

  “Well, it’s good of you to fill in,” Elisabeth said.

  Alfred shrugged. “It’s only my job,” he said, but then a shadow seemed to pass across his face, and he rolled his head side to side like a boxer dodging punches. “I do have a favor to ask, however.”

  “A favor?”

  He nodded. “I’ve been flying all day and all night. My route and Glaser’s, you see. I’m exhausted. I need to rest. I need a place to stay, Mrs. Pfautz, and I’ve been told that you have a guest room.” He lowered his chin, and his eyes steadied on hers. “So, if you’d be so kind, I’d like to stay with you.”

  A place to sleep. It wasn’t an odd request in itself. Elisabeth and John’s home was the largest in Tanacross: three bedrooms, two fireplaces, a dining room adjacent to the kitchen, and a living room not far from that. And all of this was only one half of the house; the southern half served as the local school, the reason they had come to Tanacross in the first place. Their move was John’s first post with the Office of Indian Affairs. During the past three years, he had helped renovate and update the school, both the building itself and its curriculum. He taught writing, mathematics, and biology, the last of which involved monthly field trips to study the flora and fauna of Glaman Pond, a sickled body of water not far from the house. They had hosted many guests in the past: officials from the Department of the Interior, officers in the army, other teachers on their way to other posts throughout the territory. The third room was meant to be a guest room, particularly for those connected in some way to the government.

  But there was something about this man that unsettled her, and there was something strange in the way he had looked at her and spoken to her. He wasn’t inviting himself into her home, and he wasn’t demanding an invitation. He desired it—I’d like to stay with you, he had said—and somehow a desire felt more unnerving than a demand. Elisabeth had no wish to know anything about this man’s desires, and she had no wish to fulfill them.

  And yet she felt trapped. The guest room was intended for exactly this type of stay. Even with John out of town, what option did she really have? It was her job—hers and John’s—to put Alfred up. She felt trapped by obligation, trapped by situation, trapped by a dozen different things at once. But mostly, her eyes locked on him now, she felt trapped by Alfred Seidel.

  “The room is free,” she said, hoping that he would hear how this wasn’t the same thing as an outright invitation, “but don’t you have more deliveries to make?”

  “You’re my last.”

  Elisabeth shuffled her feet, briefly glancing down. “The room isn’t much,” she said. “It’s not exactly the Ritz. Are you sure you’ll be comfortable?”

  He smiled. “I’m always comfortable with my countrymen.”

  “I see,” Elisabeth said. “Well, you should know that my husband is away on business, so it’s just me and my daughter,” and again she hoped that this would dissuade him, that he would understand her awkward position and all its implicit discomfort.

  He didn’t. Alfred smiled merrily, holding up both hands.

  “That’s fine,” he said. “Countrymen. Countrywomen. I’m sure I’ll feel right at home.” Turning back to his plane, he reached inside the cabin again, this time retrieving a large green duffel bag. He began to close the cabin door, but then he stopped himself. “Oh, I nearly forgot,” he said, and he dropped his bag to the ground. He leaned inside the plane and started digging around a mass of empty boxes and padding blankets.

  Elisabeth leaned to the side, trying to sneak a better look. “Do we have another box?” she said.

  “Not quite,” Alfred told her, “but I do have a special delivery.” He turned to her and handed Elisabeth a flat package wrapped in brown paper. A note was affixed to it. For Margaret Pfautz, it read. “Our dear Mr. Glaser set it aside,” Alfred said. He grinned, and again his eyes seemed to flash. “Margaret. Your daughter, I presume? Such a pretty name.”

  CHAPTER 2

  To his credit, Alfred Seidel wasn’t rude or unfriendly in any way. He wore a daft, cheerful smile almost constantly, and he chatted good-naturedly about the weather, Alaska, Bob Hope’s performance in Road to Zanzibar. He thanked her effusively for everything; judging from his reactions, the guest room might as well have been the Ritz, and the coffee might as well have been champagne.

  Not the least bit rude, no. But he was peculiar. During bouts of silence in a conversation, his lips would continue to move as though he were still speaking, though Elisabeth could never quite discern what he was saying to himself. In the guest room, he removed his boots and set them on his pillow—muddy soles and all—and he pushed his hands against each of the four walls as if testing their sturdiness. Before breakfast, in the midst of describing his favorite recipe for mincemeat pie, he reached inside his shirt pocket and retrieved a handful of pebbles, which he tossed into his mouth like grapes.

  “Good for digestion,” he said, answering Elisabeth and Margaret’s puzzled stares.

  Minutes later, after learning that Margaret had recently read The War of the Worlds, Alfred described at length how he had sometimes seen enormous, faraway aircraft hovering above battlefields during the Great War.

  “The men on the ground couldn’t see them, but those of us in the air certainly could,” he said, calm and matter-of-fact, undeniably serious. “They weren’t zeppelins or observation balloons. These were made of metal. Shining steel. I can’t guess what they were. I can only say that it seemed as if they were watching us—just watching the show.”

  Even Margaret, credulous and always curious, lowered her eyes and went on eating her eggs and hard roll without offering much of a reaction. Elisabeth cleared her throat.

  “You were a pilot, then?” she said. “In the war, I mean?”

  Alfred nodded. “Two years,” he said. “I flew a Fokker dreidecker. Wonderful plane. I miss it every day.”

  “Did you ever meet the Red Baron?” Margaret asked.

  “No, little one,” Alfred said. “I’m afraid I never had the chance.” He looked at Elisabeth. “Such a delightful child. So bright and well-informed. And your spit and image, Mrs. Pfautz. Your absolute twin.”

  At that, both Elisabeth and Margaret tensed, but Alfred didn’t seem to notice any hint of awkwardness. He turned back to Margaret.

  “I suppose you could teach me all sorts of things,” he said, and then made a show of scrunching up his face in thought. “Let’s see. Who was the
fifth president of the United States?”

  “James Monroe,” Margaret said, “but that’s an easy one.”

  “Well, then, who was the thirty-fifth?”

  Margaret chewed, thinking. “We’ve only had thirty-one,” she said. “President Roosevelt is number thirty-two.”

  “Ah, so I’ve stumped you,” Alfred said. “You see, my dear, you will be the thirty-fifth. You, my darling,” and with one finger he touched her nose and roared with laughter.

  Finally, with breakfast finished, Alfred went to the guest room and slept. And almost at once, his sleep was a presence like nothing else in their home. His snoring howled through every room, his sleep so loud that it sounded greedy, as if he was sucking up all of the home’s air for himself alone. And it was endless. Hour after hour passed, and the snoring went on. No more meals. No trips to the bathroom. Not a single, silent pause. By lunchtime, it was humorous. By evening, annoying.

  “How long is Mr. Seidel staying?” Margaret asked as Elisabeth cooked dinner, a meal of seasoned pork chops and thyme-sprinkled radishes from the greenhouse behind their home. Margaret sat on the floor with her back against the icebox, reading her encyclopedia while idly stroking Delma, their three-year-old malamute.

  “Just tonight,” Elisabeth said. She flipped the pork chops in the enamel pan, and they fizzled in their pool of lard. Grease nipped at her knuckles. “Perhaps he’ll leave even sooner. He’s slept a lot already.”

  Margaret turned a page. “He said I look like your twin.” She didn’t look up from her book. She kept on reading, or pretending to read. “Is that true? Do I look like Jacqueline?”

  Margaret knew only the basics about Jacqueline. She knew that Elisabeth had once had a twin sister, and that Jacqueline had disappeared when they were children. But apart from the simplest facts, Margaret didn’t know much, though she knew that her mother rarely spoke of the matter. She knew to tread lightly, and Elisabeth was glad to do the same.

  “I’d say you look like me,” she told Margaret, poking the chops around the pan. “But in a sense you look like her, too, yes.”

  Margaret nodded, still reading. “I hope Mr. Seidel leaves soon,” she said. “He smells bad,” and the moment passed, to Elisabeth’s relief.

  After dinner, both of them were itching to leave the house. Elisabeth went to visit Mack Sanford, and Margaret went to Betty Northway’s house to play Which, What, or Where?, a geography trivia game that they had inherited from their predecessor at the OIA school. Though Margaret excelled at so many things, geography had never been one of her strong suits.

  It was strange; geography seemed so much easier than everything else, so much simpler, yet Margaret struggled with it more than any other subject. She could recite the definition of acrimony and rattle off the multiplication tables without missing a beat, but when it came to correctly labeling Alabama and Mississippi, suddenly she would find herself at a loss. Elisabeth chalked it up to a simple lack of interest.

  “Why do I have to learn about places so far away?” Margaret had asked her once. She was staring down at a map of the South Pacific.

  “Because those places aren’t actually far away at all,” Elisabeth had told her, trying to whet her interest. “Think about it. Everyone lives on the same globe. If an earthquake happens on one side of the world, it can make a wave that travels across the whole ocean. Those places may seem far away, but they’re not as far as you may think.”

  Margaret was quiet, still staring at the map. Then she looked up. “Can I just learn about earthquakes?” she said. “Those are much more interesting than maps.”

  Spelling, math, and science—those were the subjects that Margaret enjoyed, and that was why Elisabeth was visiting Mack. She needed motor oil for Margaret’s first experiment, and Mack was the only person in town who owned a motorized vehicle: a small bulldozer speckled with constellations of rust. There were no cars in Tanacross, no plumbing or running water. The town’s only source of electricity was a small hydroelectric generator in the Tanana River, and this powered one thing only: the army radio intended strictly for emergencies. During Christmas, Father Ingraham, the priest who had run the town’s Episcopalian mission for nearly thirty years, would sometimes play choral music from a crackling windup gramophone, but apart from that, as far as technology went, Mack’s bulldozer was the beginning and the end.

  Mack was their closest friend in Tanacross. Witty and gregarious, quick to laugh, quick to joke, he had always reminded Elisabeth of John—John in the early years of their marriage, the good years, before they had soured, before they had gotten too used to each other. Mack and John even looked alike in certain respects: broad shoulders, barrel chest, thick legs. Mack was shorter than the other Athabaskan men, most of whom were tall and lanky. Still, he was all Athabaskan, and he bore many of the traits so common among the people in Tanacross: almond eyes, dark skin, wavy black hair, eyebrows that were thick and flat—qualities that made them look almost Asiatic, much different from the Indians outside of Alaska, or, rather, much different from the pictures and drawings Elisabeth had seen of them.

  And that, it seemed, was a fair enough summation of the town as a whole: different, unexpected. Before moving to Tanacross, what Elisabeth had known about the Athabaskans was what little she had learned from books and pictures—grainy photographs of dour-faced men clad in heaps of fur, dogs pulling rickety sleds, hollow-eyed children huddled against their unsmiling mothers. The pictures always showed a place untouched by the rest of the world, and that was what Elisabeth had expected to find. The frontier. The edge of civilization. A town the world had yet to reach.

  But instead, what she had found was this: The rest of the world had already gotten here. Yes, Tanacross was isolated. Yes, it was free of certain conveniences, and, yes, Tanacross existed inside a kind of bubble, but that bubble wasn’t as impenetrable as she had been led to believe. Away from the cold, the men wore slacks and button-up shirts. The women wore blouses and tulip skirts and fussed about their hair. People gossiped, fought, worried about the war and the sons and brothers who might soon be fighting in it. They went to church, smoked cigarettes, played cards, read the newspaper. Of course Tanacross had its own culture—in writing letters to friends and family back home, Elisabeth still used quotation marks whenever she mentioned sweat baths or potlatches—but the town didn’t feel as foreign as she had thought it would. It still felt lonely. It still didn’t feel like home, and Elisabeth was certain that it never would. But foreign? Not exactly. Not entirely.

  Mack lived a few hundred feet from the landing strip, on the north side of town. His house was smaller than most of the other homes in Tanacross, but Mack didn’t need much space. Years ago, his wife and infant daughter had died from tuberculosis, and now he lived alone. He had scores of family in Tanacross—brothers, nieces, nephews, cousins near and distant—and he could lend an able hand for nearly any task or problem. He could fix chairs, clocks, lanterns, guns, boats, fishing reels, traps, and sleds. Two summers ago, he had helped John reinforce the roof and windows of the school. Not long after that, he and John had built the greenhouse out back.

  Mack also bred dogs. Malamutes. It was Mack who had given them Delma—the runt of a litter who would have been drowned had they not taken her in. Mack kept the dogs in three large kennels beside his house: one for the males, one for the bitches, and one for the mothers and their pups. The kennels were long and narrow and lined with chicken wire.

  The dogs began to stir as Elisabeth approached. Some of them paced while others jumped against the mesh, bracing their front paws on the wire and wagging their tails as if they expected Elisabeth to feed them. Despite their excitement, none of the dogs barked; the dogs in Tanacross only howled, and this they did at night, howling for ten or fifteen minutes straight, a chain of call-and-response with the wolves way out in the bush.

  “What the heck’s going on out here?” Mack said, smiling as he open
ed his door and walked down the steps of his stoop. “You stirring up my dogs, Else? Causing trouble?”

  “I’m always causing trouble,” Elisabeth said. “Don’t you know that by now?”

  “I do. I do,” Mack said. “And I’ll admit it: As long as it’s got your name attached to it”—he winked—“trouble doesn’t seem so bad.”

  Elisabeth felt her cheeks flush, and she bowed her head. She was smiling—she couldn’t help it—but instantly the air around her and Mack seemed to shift. They were quiet for a beat. Then Mack cleared his throat, and he tapped one foot against the stairs’ bottom step.

  “So,” he said, straightening up, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Mack dug around inside for a while. The bulldozer, he said, hadn’t been used since last May, and it wasn’t something he regularly maintained.

  “It’s not exactly a Cadillac,” he told her. “I change its oil about as often as I take it to a car wash.”

  Mack’s home was more or less a workshop. Tables were piled high with half-completed projects. Bookshelves were crowded with cans of grease, paint, and oil. Sawdust covered the floor like a blanket of snow. On every wall hung rows of tools, wrenches and saws and measuring instruments of all shapes and functions. Why in the world do you need so many collets? Elisabeth had asked Mack one of the first times she visited his home. Why in the world do you know what a collet is? he had replied, and with that she had reminisced about her father—a tool and die maker with the graceful touch of an artist. Before her sister’s disappearance and her father’s passing not long after, his workshop behind their home had been one of the mainstays of her and Jacqueline’s childhood.

  A toolmaking shop was a strange place for children to enjoy, but its strangeness was exactly the reason why their father’s shop had been so interesting. It seemed like the laboratory of a wizard or Dr. Frankenstein, a place of tricks and odd little gadgets, a place of invention and, sometimes, a place of mystery. Their father used to make them toys in that shop, and once, when they were eight years old, he made them a doll built from wood and glass and metal pins that held its limbs together. The doll’s eyes were wide and unmoving, but when you held it up to the sun or another bright light, they would slowly close as though the brightness was too much to bear. How does it do that? Elisabeth had asked. Magic, her father said.