Father's Arcane Daughter

by E. L. Konigsburg

  Contents

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  For my good friend,

  Winston Elliot Carmichael,

  and she knows why.

  one

  Later—much,- much later—when we both knew what we had bought and what it had cost, she said that I should tell it.

  “But” I protested, “there are some farts that I hardly know and other farts that I don’t know at all!’

  She smiled. “Life’s like that. A little knowing. A lot of not knowing.”

  “My telling will he a string of incidents. Like the separate frames of a comic strip. Besides,” I said, “I’m bound to give myself all the good lines.”

  “A mood can he an incident” she said.

  “Oh, no!” I protested. “No, no, no, no, no. Moods are colors.”

  “The comic strips are colored on Sundays. And in books.”

  I thought a minute. “For me it all began on a Thursday, a September Thursday in 1952”

  “Begin it there” she urged. “That Thursday is a good place to begin. It is precise. You’ll see, the rest will follow.”

  IT WAS EASY to remember which day of the week it began because Thursday was a particular wart in my week.

  It was early day at Wardhill Academy, which by itself was good, but it was also early day at Holton Progressive, Heidi’s school, and that was bad. Our mother always went to the beauty parlor on Thursdays, and with Mother gone, it became my responsibility to amuse Heidi. And that was what actually made Thursday the most disagreeable day of the week.

  Heidi sat at the table in the breakfast room, waiting. She watched while I ate the snack that Cora had prepared. She sat there, her head propped on her hand, her elbow on the table and asked, “What’ll we do today, Winston?”

  I knew the question would come. Once a week it came, and I waited for it, the way I waited for the bell changing classes—with a mixture of expectation and dread. I never answered immediately. She watched my face for an answer, and I waited until she turned aside and then I said, in a quiet monotone, in tones I knew she could not hear, “Why don’t you go into the kitchen and have Cora teach you how to do two things at once, my’dear? Like putting your head in the-oven and turning on the gas?”

  Heidi turned’ back, “Did you say something?” I chewed on -my’brownie, looking straight at her, I said nothing, and. she got tired of watching my lips in motion, not making words. “Mummy says” … she began.

  I stopped chewing. “Why don’t you call our mother, Mother?” I asked. I looked at her and added, “A mummy is something all stiff and wrapped in bandages.”

  “But Mummy sounds cozier.”

  I chewed on the brownie some more and took a swig of milk. Cora was one of our better cooks. I hoped she would stay. The cook before Cora had lasted six months, and the one before that had lasted seven meals; she had quit after breakfast on the third day. No wonder. With Heidi around, it was like cooking for two different households on one salary.

  Heidi leaned closer, she was watching my lips, not wanting to miss the moment when my chewing would change into talking. I opened my mouth, a huge moosh of chocolate, nuts and milk and made a gargling sound. It was a quiet gargle, and its sound—effectively repulsive, I thought—was lost on Heidi. She just stared at my maw, waiting, watching, leaning over, not wanting to miss anything I might say.

  “Look,” I said at last, speaking slowly now so she could easily read from my lips those sounds she couldn’t hear, “Let me finish my snack. Let me go upstairs, and let me take care of certain important body functions. Let me also change my clothes. Let me do all those things out of sight of you, and I’ “play the Invisible Game.”

  I watched Heidi smile that warm, wet, creature smile of hers, and then she larrupped away. I liked the word larrup, it suited her; water buffaloes larrup, and so do hyenas. I had accumulated a secret vocabulary of words that applied just to Heidi’s queer, bumpy ways.

  I could see her waiting in the library as I passed by on my way to my room. In her lap were her gatherings for the game, I hung up my school blazer; the school year was new enough that it had not yet become short in the sleeves, but old enough to have one soup stain and one small spaghetti. I did everything I had told Heidi I would do, and when I couldn’t drag things out any longer, I went downstairs to face my Thursday fate: fun and games with Heidi.

  The Invisible Game was her favorite. The chief rule was that everything was invisible to everyone except Heidi. Everyone really meant me, for I was the only one who ever played with her. I was blindfolded and seated at the far end of the library. Losing the full use of one of my senses made me Heidi’s equal. Heidi brought me things to identify. Each item was given a value, depending on its difficulty. If an article had a value of three, and I identified it correctly, I was. permitted to take three blindfolded steps out of the library. If I bumped into a piece of furniture, I had. to take double that number of steps back. Once I made it to the door, the game was over.

  She was clever at finding things hard to identify. She gathered them from all over the house. A toenail clipper, a napkin ring, a single cuff link, a lace-paper doily.

  On that Thursday I had advanced through toilet paper roller and paper punch when the doorbell rang. Partly out of annoyance—I had in my hand a tiny dress snap, which I couldn’t identify—and partly out of a need to assert myself, I tore’ off my blindfold and ran to the door.

  Heidi screamed, “Winston, W-I-N-S-T-O-N,” and came running after me.

  I managed to flick on the switch of the intercom and ask, “Who is it?” when Heidi arrived in the foyer and in her rage espaliered herself against the black and white marble floor and bit my ankle. I screamed, and the voice at the other end of the intercom called, “What’s happened? What’s the matter?”

  I couldn’t tell that voice that what was really the matter was that I had broken a cardinal rule of the Invisible Game, Heidi’s Game. I had allowed myself to use all of my senses.

  The person at the door jiggled the door knob just as Simmons, who had heard the remote in the kitchen, reached the foyer. He switched off the intercom with his right hand and picked Heidi up in his left arm and deposited her a knight’s move away from my foot. He then switched the intercom back on and asked in a voice as cool as autumn rain, “Who is it, please?”

  “Is everything all right?” the voice asked.

  “May I help you?” Simmons responded.

  “Is someone injured?” the voice insisted.

  “Everything is fine, thank you,” Simmons answered. “How may I help you?’

  “I am here to see Mr, Carmichael.”

  “He is not in at the moment. Did you have an appointment?”

  “No.”

  “I suggest that you call his-office and-arrange an appointment.”

  And then, as if the person were at the other end of a telephone not the other side of a door, Simmons asked, “Whom may I say is calling, please?”

  “This is Caroline.”

  There was no further voice at the other end of the intercom. I heard footsteps, and I hobbled over to the parlor window, listing starboard, rubbing my ankle.

  I saw the back of a tall, thin lady as she walked toward a taxi. She had a lighted cigarette in her hand. I watched her raise her hand toward her mouth and take a puff. Only in detective movies had I ever seen a woman walking and smoking a cigarette at the same time. The woman walked toward a waiting taxi.

  I moved from the window and l
ooked over at Heidi and saw her upper lip fold over her lower like living sponge. I was.glad that.she had bitten my ankle. She had not called for Luellen, and I knew she wouldn’t tell Mother that I had tried to answer the door.

  MOTHER RETURNED HOME, wearing a yellow scarf over her hair. The scarf was made of a thin material and was just long enough to tie under her chin.

  She sat down on the ottoman in the library and Heidi climbed, amoebalike, onto her lap. The knot of the yellow scarf was tight, and its working ends were short. Heidi’s fingers tugged and pulled. Mother sat there, wearing a smile like a cosmetic, as Heidi unwrapped her Mummy.

  Mother lifted Heidi off her lap. Small though she was for ten, she was still half her life past the stage where she would be sitting on laps, cuddling. Mother’s skirt looked like a cafeteria serving of tuna casserole.

  She got up from the ottoman, and I watched as she brushed at her dress, and then I asked her if she were finished.

  “Finished what?” she asked.

  “Finished being patient.”

  Mother rushed a worried glance over toward Heidi, and I could read her look of relief when she realized that Heidi hadn’t heard. I had deliberately spoken softly.

  “What do you want?” Mother asked.

  “Caroline came today,” I said.

  “Caroline who?”

  “I have no idea. Came in a taxi.”

  “In a taxi? What did she look like?”

  “I saw only her back and her right profile. She was smoking.”

  “Well, if it was anything important, she’ll come back. Did Simmons get her last name? Never mind, I ’ll ask him myself.” She was walking away. I could tell she was anxious to get upstairs to change her clothes.

  * * *

  THAT EVENING the doorbell rang.

  Mother and Father were sitting in the library. Father had already had his brandy, smoked his cigar and had returned to his desk. Heidi was in bed. That would make it past nine thirty, late for someone to be calling.

  I had been in my room reading Junior Scholastic, an assignment, but I could never resist the call of a doorbell, so I folded the magazine and started downstairs. I saw Simmons scurrying across the foyer floor. His movements were usually as glossy as Mother’s hair on Thursday afternoons.

  By racing, Simmons managed to keep ahead of the woman and arrive at the library door first. There was enough time for him to say, “Mr. Carmichael, there is a Miss’Caroline to see you,” and there was enough time for Father to look up from his papers before the woman arrived at the archway and said, “Hello, Father, I’m home.”

  I could not see her face, but I saw Father grow pale. The woman turned to Mother and said, “I see that you’ve replaced the oriental rugs with wall-to-wall carpeting.”

  Recognition dawned on Mother. “Caroline! You’re Caroline!” she said.

  Father remained speechless.

  The woman nodded.

  Father got up from his desk and walked quickly but quietly across the room. He took the woman by the shoulders. I could see his face, not hers. He looked intensely—even fiercely—into her eyes. Then he pulléd her to him and hugged her, and her arms left her sides for the first time. She returned his embrace.

  Mother sent Simmons out of the room and closed the heavy doors that sealed the library off from the hall and effectively sealed me off from the life in the library.

  two

  “Didn’t you suspect who Caroline was?” she asked.

  “Of course I suspected. That made me more anxious to hear the story firsthand. I wanted to he told. I wanted to he included.”

  “Included in what?” she asked.

  “Included in the past. I had always known that Caroline was the shadow under which I was growing up. I wanted, at last, to learn the shape of that shadow”

  “Did you think that once defined, it would disappear?” she asked.

  “I thought that it would grow smaller when exposed to full light. Shadows are supposed to.”

  BREAKFAST WAS as usual the next morning. Mother appeared in the breakfast room just as Luellen was helping Heidi gather her things together. Mother always came down to check if Heidi had all her equipment. Heidi never carried books to Holton Progressive; she always carried things. That day it was flour, paper clips and sandpaper.

  Mother skimmed a look at me and asked. if I had everything I needed. But that was just courtesy. I never forgot anything.

  I waited until Heidi’s back was turned before I said softly, “I want to talk to you about last night.”

  Mother’s head tilted up suddenly as if I had landed a light jab. “What about last night?”

  “Caroline,” I answered. Then I turned and walked out. Maurice was holding open the door to the back seat. I ignored the courtesy and opened the front door and slid in. Maurice didn’t like that, and Mother didn’t, either.

  “Why aren’t you riding in the back with Heidi?”

  “I’m allergic to flour dust.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since last week—last week she brought flour to school three times,” I threw out my hands. “Overexposure did it.”

  Heidi waved “bye-bye”—she always called it that— and Mother blew kisses to both of us. I never waved nor blew.

  AFTER SCHOOL I wasted no time. I tracked Mother down even before taking a snack. I told her that I wanted to see her alone to discuss the matter I had mentioned that morning.

  “I called your Father -about; that,” she said. “He wants to speak to you about it after dinner.”

  I suddenly felt like a prime minister.’ Father would tell. me. He would explain. Father would tell me everything I needed to know. As I ate my crumb cake, Mrs. Wylie, our cleaning lady, passed through the breakfast room. “Winston,” she said, “I wish I felt about’Fridays the way you look.”

  I answered, “Not every Friday.”

  I DID NOT ONCE mention Caroline all through dinner. I made no effort to rush through the meal, and when dinner’ was over, I hesitated long- enough to allow Mother and Heidi to be the first out of the dining room. They crossed the foyer toward the library, and I hung back, waiting to take whichever direction Father did.

  He headed toward the library. I caught up with him and said, “Father…”

  “Yes, Winston?”

  “Have you forgotten our discussion?”

  “Not at all.” He held out his arm, ushering me toward the library.

  “But Heidi and Mother are in there.”

  “Yes. Your mother thinks it best that Heidi be told, too.” He glanced down and studied my face. “I’m sure you would prefer it that way.” Father was not telling me what I would prefer; Father was telling me what I should prefer.

  Mother was holding a scrapbook when I walked into the library. She clutched it to her breast with both arms. It filled all the space from the crook of one arm to the crook of the other.

  Father began. It was necessary that he speak slowly and face Heidi to make certain that she could follow:

  Seventeen years ago, Father’s daughter, Caroline, had left home to go to college in Philadelphia, a small exclusive girl’s school, not known for its academic excellence but for the fact that nice girls went there. In the spring of a brief freshman year, she made reservations to fly home for vacation. She never arrived. She never reached the airport. The taxi driver, was one of three men who kidnapped her.

  The kidnappers demanded that the rich and famous Mr. Charles Carmichael give them a million dollars. He was allowed to talk to Caroline on the phone after he reassured the men that he would not notify the police, mark the bills (they wanted to be paid in cash), and that he would make no effort to track them down.

  “But a person can be very wealthy and have very little money on hand. A person cannot put an ad in the classified section of the paper and sell a mill making factory equipment. In short, there is no way for even a very rich man to get his hands on five hundred thousand dollars cash without others getting involved. Over a period
of a week, the kidnappers called three times. The first two times they allowed me to speak to Caroline. Then, the third time they called, the time when we were to arrange for the pickup, they wouldn’t allow me to speak to her. They said that they had moved her. I asked for some reassurance that she was still alive, and they told me that I would have that the following day, that two hours after they had picked up, the money, I would receive another rail telling me where Caroline could be found.

  “That call was traced, and the police staked out the place, from which it was made. The police agreed to allow me to pay the ransom; they did not want to endanger Caroline’s life. But when one of the men, probably en route to picking up the,ransom, spotted someone, he returned to the house. Once inside, he fired a high-powered rifle and killed the policeman. Then there were further shots from the house, and finally the police began returning fire. It turned into an old-fashioned shoot-out. ?

  “The house was an old frame house outside of Latrobe. We don’t know what started the fire—whether the men inside, realizing the hopelessness of the situation, deliberately set it, or whether it was started by the gunfire.

  “Four bodies were burned beyond recognition. We were told that one was Caroline’s. But I have always had my doubts. That last call, the one when they said that Caroline had been moved—I have always held onto the possibility that she was not in the house. That doubt has been my hope.”

  “How do you know that the lady who came yesterday is your daughter?” I asked.

  Mother answered. “At this moment we aren’t certain.” She smiled. “At this moment we are quietly checking into the lady’s claim. It seems strange to me that she would appear just months before her thirty-fifth birth day, the deadline for her to claim the Adkins inheritance,”

  I addressed Father, “Aren’t there some identifying scars or birthmarks?”

  Father smiled, a smile of delight. “The lady has them.”

  “What about fingerprints?”

  “There is no record of fingerprints. There was never any thought of them. My daughter was not a criminal; she was a college student.”

  “Your father has never given up hope that Caroline would return one day,” Mother said. She was still clutching the scrapbook. “Sorrow strengthens some and softens others. Unfortunately, Caroline’s mother fell into despair.”