I Remember You

by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

  Toward the back wall, the workshop fell into deep black, a darkness that felt soft from where Heike stood. Too dark even for shadows.

  She leaned her temple against the glass. It was an old greenhouse, or made from old fixtures, and the panes were thick and rippled, distorting the view. She could see the deep green of the lawn and the shape of the house beyond that, queer somehow, like it was a model house set on the pebbled floor of an aquarium, next to a chest of sunken treasure.

  Heike thought suddenly of the little girl with her clapping game, fingers stretched wide to press up against Daniel’s, only a moment before she disappeared into the pond. The way she’d spoken only to him, never to Heike, answering Heike’s questions only by talking to Daniel, touching Daniel’s hands. Daniel, as he had been on the raft that afternoon, toes wrapped tight around the edge, leaning in to see something under the surface before he fell. Reaching: as though something below the water also reached up for him. A mirror image, the surface rippled, distorting the image of whatever hovered beneath. Heike’s stomach turned. She closed her eyes and took a slow, cool breath, as though it was the wavy glass that was making her seasick. It might be hours before she could get home, lay her hand on his back, curl up beside him while he slept.

  She opened her eyes. The light inside the greenhouse had changed. Something moved in the dark, just a few feet away. Heike jumped back.

  — Who’s there?

  There was a scuff against the floorboard and the figure moved closer, then stepped back against the shelf.

  — I’m sorry. I didn’t think anyone would be here.

  A match flared and Heike could see the serving girl from the study, holding a cigarette to her mouth, her eyes pale blue in the sharp light, almost transparent. She stepped forward again and moved to push past Heike toward the door. A trickle of blood from one nostril dark against her skin, cheekbone swelling out purple. The match puffed out, all at once.

  — Stop, wait. Heike leaned closer and caught the girl’s arm. What happened to your face?

  — Just let me go.

  The smell of the cigarette in the damp of the greenhouse made Heike feel sick again. In the dark, just the red tip of it flashing as the girl moved. From outside there was a new brightness and they both turned.

  The beam from a lantern lit up the doorway, skimming across the girl and Heike both in a quick sweep.

  — I thought I saw someone out here.

  It was Dolan. He stooped a little to get past the transom.

  — You can’t smoke in here, he said. It’s a greenhouse. You’re killing my roses. He shone the beam at each of their faces in turn. And who are you? Oh, the German girl. Heil, heil.

  — Not heil. Heike. She’s hurt.

  — Hikey, then. Who’s hurt?

  Dolan moved the lantern so the beam fanned out wide and bright, and Heike stepped back, wincing in the glare.

  — Jesus. Look at that shiner! Prizefighter, are you? He turned to Heike. My aura is chock full of prizefighters, you know. I can’t get rid of them.

  The girl looked at Dolan and then over to the doorway.

  — So it wasn’t you, then. Heike let go of the girl’s arm.

  — Me? Dolan gestured to himself with both hands and then blinked violently against his own light. I didn’t even hire her. You come with the cook, don’t you? With Mickey?

  — Please!

  The girl pulled away, skimming past Dolan.

  — Wait a minute, Heike said. You dropped your cigarettes.

  The pack had fallen in the girl’s desperation to escape. Heike bent down to retrieve it, but she was already gone, out across the grass.

  Heike stood there, holding her shoes.

  — She thinks she loves him, do you imagine? Dolan said.

  — Some men are bad to you.

  — Some men are very good. Dolan got down on his hands and knees and cast the lantern around. There you are, he said. He pulled a brown glass bottle out from under the rose shelf. He was on his knees, looking up at her.

  Heike grabbed her skirt and held it tight against her hips.

  — I’m only here in the summers, he said. I never know what the gardener will find and what will stay hidden. He stood up again and pulled the stopper out of the bottle. Could you ever love a bad man like that?

  Dolan swayed slightly on his feet as he poured liquor from the bottle into a pocket flask. He’d set the lantern on the shelf to free up his hands and it shone an arc of light across the floor.

  — People are never just one thing. Heike flipped her chin sharply toward the door where the serving girl had run out into the night. I can’t tell you what makes love tip into control.

  This was a somewhat bolder statement than she’d meant to make, and it surprised her. Her eyes widened, then relaxed again. It was not untrue.

  Dolan drew a swallow of whisky off the top of the flask.

  — You’re Lerner’s wife, he said. He capped the flask and tucked it away in the pocket of his vest, suddenly reformed.

  Heike stepped back.

  — Hikey, he said.

  — Heike.

  — Either way. I saw you yesterday, walking. You were on your own up on the road, right where the trail leads down into the woods. Near Union Springs. Isn’t that right? I don’t have you mixed up with some other creature? He leaned back on a heel. Seemed a far way out for a girl on her own.

  — You were far from home yourself if you saw me.

  — I’d been down to Ithaca.

  She looked at him, more cautious now, and moved slightly to one side.

  — I like to be alone in the woods.

  — Aren’t you afraid?

  — In the woods?

  — In the woods, Dolan said. Or anywhere. Here. Now. Aren’t you afraid, hidden away here with me? Who knows what I might do.

  Heike glanced out at the lawn, but the light from the lantern glared against the glass, casting a reflection instead. She couldn’t see the deep green or the house in the distance; instead, another Heike, another Dolan, his flask back in his hand now.

  — All the best stories start with a girl alone in the woods, Heike said.

  — Interesting. He took a slow and thoughtful drink. And occasionally true, he said.

  — Only occasionally?

  — I don’t know about all. Occasionally, I can agree with.

  She turned back to face him.

  — You’re a terribly agreeable man.

  — A minute ago you thought I’d punched a girl’s lights out, Dolan said. He offered her the flask: Between storytellers, he said. Just a capful. Just a swish.

  For a moment she put out her hand, then hesitated.

  — I’d better not.

  — I thought you weren’t afraid?

  Heike reached down and slipped a foot into one shoe, hooking the back strap around her heel. She could imagine by now that Eric had noticed her missing, and the idea made her nervous.

  — I don’t think we ever met before, she said.

  — I was paying attention when you arrived, Dolan said. She leaned forward with the other shoe and Dolan took it from her, catching her hand in his. He said: You think I’ve been drinking.

  — Drunks don’t make me afraid.

  — I wouldn’t say drunk. Would you say drunk? Really? You’re hard on me, Heike. I’ve barely met you, and you’re awfully hard on me. He crouched low with her shoe in his hand and touched her bare foot. Come on now. Give it here.

  Heike pressed the foot against the ground.

  — Don’t be silly. I’m getting my trousers dirty so you don’t have muss up your dress and have your jackass husband ask you a bunch of uncomfortable questions.

  — You shouldn’t call him a jackass, Heike said. But she lifted the foot.

  — I’ve met Lerner, Dolan said. He straightened up, bringing the lantern with him. I wish you’d take a drink.

  — You should turn off that light, Heike said.

  — Place is probably glowing like a U
FO, is that what you think?

  — You should turn it off so I can go back quietly.

  — You think I’m a drinker, but you’re wrong.

  Dolan shut off the light and stepped forward, matching the toes of his shoes almost to hers. He stood a foot taller than her, even in her heels, but she looked down instead of up, and took a step back, making space. Her hair curling now in little tendrils at her forehead and neck.

  — I don’t think anything of you, Heike said.

  — You must have been a kid when you left. He set the dead lantern back on the shelf and stepped in toward her again, closing the gap between them. They airlift you out? Or Red Cross brought you over. Yeah? And now here you are, another New York housewife in charming shoes. Charming shoes and clean fingernails.

  He was talking to her in a careless way, disappointed, as though they were under the bright light of a kitchen potluck and she was holding a jellied salad instead of something better, as though the dark and the close air of the greenhouse and the line of her hip in the thin dress meant nothing to him. He put out a hand and let it run back along her waist and wrap the exposed skin at the small of her back.

  — I could do more of this, Dolan said. His voice pulling cleanly along. Like he was peeling an orange.

  — No, Heike said. She didn’t move but looked down and waited for him to drop the hand and let it trail away along the flare of her skirt. I told you: I’d better go.

  She stepped backward and to the side to get around him. At the doorway she turned back.

  — I walked, she said. From Germany. Nobody airlifted me out.

  — You walked to the USA?

  — To Switzerland. I was fourteen. I walked through the forest.

  — Alone in the woods, were you? Dolan said. Funny. I hear that’s how all the best stories begin.

  There was a little dip off the floorboards at the doorway that made it feel like she was falling back out into the world. Her heel sank into the soft lawn immediately and stuck there, and she had to take the shoes off and carry them up to the house anyway.

  * * *

  On the way home in the car, Arden slumped against her in the back seat and stroked her hair, like sisters, and Heike stayed back there for the rest of the drive, even after Eric had dropped the two of them, Arden and John, off at their own house.

  — And where were you all night? Eric said once they were gone.

  — Talking to people. Walking around. Like at a party, she said. Then, catching her own tone: I stopped in to see you playing cards, but you looked busy.

  — What’s that supposed to mean?

  Heike tightened her shoulders and the small of her back against the seat behind her. He’d had some luck at the table and it should have made him genial, but she knew that he’d been drinking, too.

  — Tell me, she said. How many games did you win, exactly?

  Eric dropped one hand off the wheel.

  — Eight, he said. Eight! It’s not right; it shouldn’t be that easy. His shoulder moved slightly with a bend in the road. He spoke again, and his voice was loud and low: That whole party was full of pseudo-intellectuals. Dolan wasn’t even in there playing, he said. What kind of man won’t gamble in his own house?

  — Maybe he doesn’t want to be accused of stacking the cards.

  — Why do you have to argue with everything I say? Why can’t you ever be on my side?

  The car turned sharply off the main road and onto the gravel drive that ran close along their part of the lake, wheels spinning for a moment against the loose ground.

  — Eric, be careful.

  He threw both hands up in the air.

  — You want to take the wheel? Go ahead!

  — Eric, please! I only said to be a little bit careful. It’s so dark.

  He brought his hands back down and glared at her in the mirror.

  — He’s a moping drunk. Your friend Dolan. Did you see that? Head on him like last week’s helium balloon.

  Heike hesitated, unsure if she was meant to answer him or not.

  — I suppose.

  — You suppose what?

  She dug her fingernails into the vinyl seat cover. It was late. She wondered if Daniel had woken, looking for her. The girl, Rita, was meant to have slept in the same room with him. She wasn’t supposed to leave him alone.

  — It means I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention.

  They were close to home. She could see the dark shimmer off the water on the other side of the trees, forty or fifty feet in. They passed another house, set close to the road, where Heike sometimes saw a lone man smoking on the porch. Tonight he was not there, but there was a light in an upper window, and the curtain blew in and out of it. She felt a warmth at the base of her spine where Dolan had laid his hand.

  — Funny thing about you, Eric said. You never have a thing to say. Not a damn thing interests you, is that right?

  She could see part of his face in the rear-view and watched him, hoping for his brow to soften. The road had twisted away and uphill from the lake proper. Their stream, wider here, snaked between the trees. She caught a glint of light in the mirror and turned to see out, suddenly afraid. A flash, the glare of flames reflected in the water. The white house on fire, windows popping like fat drops of oil in a hot pan. Daniel locked inside.

  But it was only the clearing where the drive began, the open lawn down to the stream, the headlights of the car revealing the band of dark water below. A clear night. The stars spangled the little river like floating candles, as though someone had lit a thousand tiny lanterns and set them adrift.

  5

  Eric stayed in bed through most of the next day.

  He’d been easier again once they were home, his own house, half-smiling as he walked up the steps at the crooked set of the car where he’d parked it:

  — Maybe I ought to have quit while I was ahead.

  Heike scurried to catch up.

  — I don’t think the sheriff has a drunk-o-meter balloon for you.

  She’d seen the contraption on the cover of a magazine the year before, but there was little risk of running into a patrol car on a country road in the middle of the night, and even less of Eric being stopped.

  He liked that and laughed aloud and took her by the hand to the kitchen and fed her bits of cured ham from the icebox. There’d been a parcel on the front stoop as they came in—something he’d been waiting for—but he set it aside on the counter, just within sight, while they ate. She was itching to see Daniel, but Eric drew her along with him, like they were tied at the hip.

  — The house is still standing, isn’t it? He teased her, playing at a mosquito bite on her knee with his fingers until she managed to slip away, saying she wanted to change out of her dress. His hand on her leg irritated her.

  She came back downstairs later, in her nightgown, and found him no longer in the kitchen but hunched over his desk in his undershirt and dress pants, comparing one notebook to another. The stack of money, his night’s take, sat neatly to one side, and the parcel, now open, was emptied out on the floor.

  — It’s so late, Eric.

  — Did you check on Daniel?

  — He’s sleeping. She didn’t stay with him, though. Rita. He’s in our bed, and she’s in his room. I thought you told her to stay with him.

  — I don’t want the maid in our bedroom.

  He spoke without looking up at her. She waited for him to finish his notation, taking her own quiet inventory of the space. She didn’t come into the office often. On the wall over his desk there was a type box, each square home to some souvenir or keepsake: an arrowhead he’d found as a boy, a Pro Juventute Helvetia stamp worth a single Swiss franc. He had fussy habits, almost feminine. Heike was not a trinket collector. In school in Dresden, before schools shut down altogether, she’d been best at mathematics, scored worst at Mädchenhandarbeit, needlework things.

  On the other side of the room, a tall bookshelf loomed, and she let her gaze drift along the spines:
Hegel and Kant, Erikson, Kinsey, Skinner. It seemed to her now that Eric had described Skinner’s work to her once, but she could not remember much beyond rats and electrodes. One of them had observed his own children as part of his experimentation. Piaget? Not Skinner, surely, with his little treats and electric shocks. Or was it? Heike pushed the thought from her mind.

  Eric pulled open a drawer, and there was a clink of bottles knocking against each other. She almost told him he’d had enough to drink but then thought better of it. One of the windows was open at the back of the house—she could hear the breeze as it made its way through the garden, a creak from the wood-plank veranda as it settled in the cool of night.

  He pushed the notebooks to one side and spread a small handful of paper tabs across the desk in front of him, then riffled through the bottles in the drawer. He pulled out two of them: small and brown, like iodine bottles. With eyedroppers. Heike pulled a stool over from the corner of the room and sat down. She was tired, but it was worth a few extra minutes to end the night on an agreeable tone. He didn’t like it when she went to bed without him.

  — Are you hurt?

  He didn’t respond right away but lined the paper tabs up in two rows, five per row, and unscrewed the top of one of the bottles with his thumb and middle finger.

  — You’re getting a real scoop here, you know. A new project. You’re the first to see it.

  — What is it? A serum?

  — Sure. Kind of. Call it a medicine. He squeezed the little bulb, and a single drop of liquid hung from the tip of the dropper, held there for an instant by its meniscus, before spreading into the tab below. Mustard-coloured. It’s not what I was planning on, he said.

  He nodded in the direction of the empty parcel. She could see now that one side of the box was caved in, as though it had been kicked or stomped on.