I Remember You

by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

  Something caught in her throat, and she gagged.

  Arden watched her in the mirror. There was a sudden commotion outside: the crows in the yard taken by surprise, rising up, moving farther off into the woods.

  Heike drew in breath all at once, gulping at it, as though she were surfacing.

  * * *

  A long white cord snaked from inside the house out to where Eric stood on the veranda, his back to her, leaning on the rail. He’d brought the telephone out with him, for privacy, his voice low and hard-sounding the way it often was when he spoke on the phone: I think you don’t understand me . . . a significant test . . . years of research at stake . . .

  She’d come down the stairs alone, slowing only at the sound of Eric’s voice—wanting, then, to know who he was talking to, if he was talking to the police. Half the week she’d lain sleeping, and Daniel out there, missing, without her. The first day or two surely the most likely time to find a child alive.

  Either Eric had heard her footsteps and did not turn around, or he did not hear her coming. The receiver smacked into its cradle.

  He had a jacket on, smoke grey, that must have been open by the way it hung loose at one side, and black wingtips. She could see the stitching where it tapered off near the back of one shoe, and a gleam off the leather, even close to the heel. This is what he’d done with his morning, with Daniel lost and gone and Heike lost to sleep: driven to town for a shoeshine.

  She hadn’t simply lain sleeping. Eric had made certain of it, had kept her locked away.

  For a moment she imagined herself gaining speed. She glanced over her shoulder. Was Arden still upstairs?

  Pushing him over. A quick shove.

  It was not a real wish. It was only a moment. She had sometimes imagined herself free of him, walking up the drive, up the road, and away, perhaps down to Ithaca, and from there to the South; or jumping the coal train that ran now and then along the Cayuga shore, over to Geneva and beyond. This felt hardly different.

  Heike stepped over the threshold.

  — Eric.

  She waited for him to turn. She had a dress on, and stockings, but the hook at the back of her neck was still unfastened; she’d torn away from Arden’s efforts to help her dress. When he didn’t respond, she raised her voice.

  — Eric!

  He turned and started, seeing her there. She thought at first there was a meanness to his look—he disliked surprises—but he hid it quickly enough.

  — I wondered what Arden was up to, up there.

  — Eric, where is he? Where is Dani?

  Eric cocked his head slightly but didn’t answer. He stepped to one side, and she followed him around.

  — Eric! Tell me what’s happened. The police, what are the police doing? Take me to town, Eric, I want to see the sheriff myself.

  — Don’t talk nonsense. He stopped in the doorway, looking down at her, his voice low and calm. You’ve had a breakdown, Heike. You’ve been in bed for days. Come inside now.

  The back door to the garage was standing open, and from within it she could hear a metallic sound, a grinding, and she realized the man was down from the hardware store in Auburn to sharpen the garden tools, his foot riding the pedal of the sharpener. The noise stopped, and the man turned to whistling and the whistling to a song: In a cavern, in a canyon, excavating for a mine . . .

  She stepped back abruptly, almost tripping herself.

  — I don’t want to go inside. Did they search the woods already? She pointed through the garden, toward the stream. How far back into the forest? Who is looking?

  — You’re in a state, Heike. Eric stepped forward and took hold of her arm, turning her toward the house. Come. Let’s have a drink. I’ll get you some ice to suck on.

  — No! No, Eric! Heike shifted hard into the ball of one foot to avoid being moved, and Eric’s fingers tightened around her arm. Her voice went up a register: Where is he? Where is Dani?

  — I won’t drag you.

  — Let’s go to the police. She grabbed his shoulder, half supplicating, half working to keep him at bay. Please, Eric, I want to know where they’ve looked.

  — I know you’re upset; I know you are. That’s why I let you sleep. You have to trust me, Heike. The police have been here. I am taking care of everything.

  — You let me sleep? My son is missing!

  — Stop arguing with me; the gardener can hear you. He had been speaking in an even tone, steady and almost melodic, but it dropped now to a rough whisper. He pried her fingers off his shoulder. Christ knows you were in no shape to speak to anyone, he said. Hysteria. Dropped at the side of the road by a strange man, in the early hours of the morning. He paused and pressed in closer: Infidelity is an offence in America, Heike. Remember? I’m willing to forget all about that night. You ought to be grateful. Now come inside.

  This was meant as a threat. She looked past him, into the house, and didn’t move.

  — And his things. All his things are gone.

  Eric said nothing but just looked at her.

  — His toys, his trains! She broke out of his grasp but stepped inside anyway, back into the white room. She picked up the crocheted blanket and hurled it against the couch. Everything is gone!

  Eric stepped slowly in over the threshold.

  — I’m sorry, Heike. I put his toys away. Me. I thought they would upset you, seeing them all strewn around. I was trying to protect you.

  — Please, Eric. There is nothing to protect. Please. I am so afraid.

  — I tell you I have dealt with the police.

  — But I haven’t! I am his mother. That counts for something. It counts; it must. Where did you look? Can you tell me that, at least? Where did you look for him? Did you look in the water?

  — Take yourself in hand, Heike. You’re becoming hysterical again.

  Eric turned and walked to the bar and began tossing ice cubes into a glass with his fingers. She followed him, her eyes tracking the trim along the walls as though the room itself might hold a clue.

  — Anyone would think you were trying to keep me prisoner.

  She said this and then sucked in her breath. He turned suddenly and grabbed her by the shoulder and shook hard.

  — Take yourself in hand.

  His voice no longer kind.

  There were footsteps, someone in the hall. Arden appeared in the doorway. She stayed back but did not take her eyes off Eric.

  — Hey, sport. Her voice cool: Unleash the flesh, would you?

  Eric released Heike’s shoulder, and she stumbled back slightly. He turned away again.

  — Go to the police if you want. Go on. I’ve spent quite enough time with the sheriff. Eric took up the glass and threw in another handful of ice, plus a quick shot from the decanter. His hand slipping a little, a slosh of liquor spilling out over the lip of the glass as he poured. How will you get there? On foot? It’s a long walk. He’s no friend to Deutschland, I’ll tell you that right now. Spent twenty minutes telling me that he didn’t lose the best of his unit at Aachen to come home and help Americans with Kraut wives. I had to tell him you were half-loopy to even get his sympathy. I said, “That’s why I had to hire a girl to look after things. Madame is prone to fits.” He looked at Arden: And then guess who saunters in? Strolling barefoot down the drive from another man’s car.

  Arden twitched, looking from Eric to Heike to Eric again.

  — Everyone’s upset here, Eric. Everyone. Not just you.

  — I don’t have time to stand here answering to a bunch of hysterical women. He turned to Heike and pointed: It’s you who lost him. You. His mother. You think we’d be in this mess if you hadn’t been gallivanting all over the countryside that night? We’d have been home in bed.

  Heike’s stomach tightened. The weird silence that had wrapped the house the night Dani disappeared closing in on her now, only the tinny grinding of the sharpener cutting through.

  Eric shook his head and moved closer.

  — You know I’m r
ight. Don’t you? Go on to the sheriff. Go on and tell him yourself what an unfit mother you are. You’ll never find Daniel without me on your side. Careless. Carefree. You want someone to blame, just look at yourself. It’s your fault he’s gone.

  He turned back to Arden and motioned for her to take Heike upstairs, and then made for the hallway. There was the smack of his office door.

  * * *

  Arden did not move after Eric brushed past her. There was a quiet moment, Heike staring after him as though she expected the office door to open again. Then, suddenly, fists clenched and shaking, she let out a howl:

  — Where is my son?

  For a moment she saw herself beating at his door, but instead her body caved in, the fists coming down hard against her own thighs instead.

  — Where is he, where is he?

  She was crying, hollow now and lonely-sounding. Her fists would not unclench, and her fingernails dug into her palms. After a little silence, Arden stepped toward her.

  — Heike.

  Heike didn’t respond but lurched forward, still off-balance, and ripped off her shoes. She’d already imagined Dani waking without her and wandering out into the woods. Calling for her, his voice growing thin and panicked. Or moving silently through the trees to the stream, pulled there by some unseen hand, disappearing into the arrowhead and the ox-tongue, then down into the water below. Dogs searching the stream bank and divers out in the lake. In a moment she was back out on the veranda, then down the stairs and into the yard.

  Arden chased after her, catching hold of her elbow just where the lawn descended into forest.

  — Heike, wait—maybe Eric is right. Maybe you ought to lie down for just a bit longer.

  — I thought you were the one who saved me from that. Heike wrenched her arm away and swished through the high ferns. She could hear the stream running down below, just a little farther on. She shouted back over her shoulder, not a call but a cry: The long stupor of Heike Lerner! Didn’t you help me out?

  Arden pulled off her own shoes and ran to catch up.

  — I don’t mean more sleeping pills. I mean, maybe a bit more recovery time. She grabbed hold of Heike’s arm again. You see how strange Eric is; he’s hardly himself. Spilling booze all over the place and grabbing you like that.

  Heike paused, gauging whether this statement rang true. She shook her head.

  — A child can drown in nothing, in a puddle.

  She moved forward until she was in the stream proper, the water cold around her calves, then held her skirt up out of it and followed the current, slipping a little where the rocks were wider and flat, but recovering herself again.

  — This is how I lost my sister, she said. Eric knows that. Lost in the woods. Heike stopped moving and looked around her. What god there is can only be cruel.

  Arden stood on shore.

  — Let me help you, Heike.

  There was the repetitive sound of the grinder from the garage, faint here, and Heike shifted her gaze to search the woods on either side of the stream. The water rushed fast around her legs. She turned back to face Arden.

  — He is here somewhere. I feel it. I know he is here.

  Arden stepped in, her foot sinking a little into the mud at the side of the stream. She looked over her shoulder before turning back to Heike, her eyes fixed and sharp with concern.

  — Let’s go to Auburn. I have John’s car, up on the road. I’ll take you.

  — Auburn?

  — To the sheriff ’s office. Let’s go. It was the sheriff who was here that night, wasn’t it?

  — Eric . . .

  Heike stopped. From inside the house, the sound of the phonograph came up, the music expanding out into the afternoon heat. Mahler. A particularly cheerful beginning. No composer is so completely happy or completely sad as Mahler.

  — He’s not himself, Arden said.

  Heike glanced at her and then twisted around again, staring fiercely toward a rustle in the trees. Her collarbone had a knife edge to it.

  — I have lost my son. She turned away from the stream abruptly, wading back out onto shore. If he went into the water, then he is dead. I won’t leave him, Arden. I won’t give up. Not this time.

  — At least we can find out what’s been done. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To find out where they’ve looked? What they know?

  The door to the garage was still open; the machine sound cut in now and then over the music from the house, but only in short bursts. She could not hear the man’s whistling or his song. Just the pitch of the blade grinder, on and then off again. And then on.

  — Heike?

  Heike didn’t answer but started back up through the garden. At the garage door, she stopped and glanced toward the bean teepee, looking for Daniel’s dump truck, but Eric had put that away, too: only the little garden hoe lay there, dirty, where she’d left it last.

  11

  Arden pulled into a spot a few car lengths down from the courthouse but didn’t take the keys from the ignition. She’d had a crimson silk scarf knotted under her chin for the drive, and now she untied it, shaking her hair loose. A solitary mosquito bumbled back and forth at the corner of the windshield.

  Heike rolled the window lower on her side and tried to wave the insect out a few times before flicking it sharply against the dash, then leaned into the windshield herself for a better look. They were facing south, the sun off to her side. She already had a hand on the door.

  There was a uniform cop standing up on the courthouse stairs, in the shadow of the columns. He reminded her of the officer who’d been at the house the night Daniel went missing, and this made her draw the hand back again, into her lap. She tried to recall what the cop that night had looked like, but could only remember his voice. Indulgent, or paternal: Calm down, now. Your husband’s got you all looked after.

  — I don’t know if I should do this.

  The officer came down a step or two, and Heike pressed back against her seat. His hat shaded his eyes.

  — That’s what we’re here for. Remember?

  Heike turned from the window to face Arden.

  — Who knows what Eric has said to them? What if he’s right: they call me a careless mother? What if they want to take Dani away from me forever? Before I can even find him? How can I tell them this: Someone took my child in the night. Not even someone. Something. Something took him.

  Arden looked at her own hands, still resting on the steering wheel.

  — You’re afraid of him, she said. Eric. He makes you afraid.

  Heike pulled her knees up high under her chin, a protective measure, despite the closeness of the car. Now that they were no longer moving, the heat and the stillness settled in: her skin was damp, the fine hair along her brow curling in little wisps. There was the vague noise of other cars moving by them. She shut her eyes.

  — Eric has a mind that reaches into everything, she said. He remembers. I don’t mean in a cloud or a wave or as a picture, the way you remember a day you spent on a picnic, or how it looked on the top of a Ferris wheel. Specific conversations. A wording, a phrase. Every marker. She opened her eyes again but did not turn back to Arden. This is his pride, she said. He takes note of your movements, habits you do not know yourself. Which tiny hole in a shoe’s leather strap is most worn, the colour of teacup that most appeals to you, the way you wipe your face with a washcloth at night, right to left or left to right. As though his eye were a camera.

  She did not say: He collects your moments of quiet pleasure. She did not say: Until you learn this, no part of you is safe.

  Heike turned to glance at Arden, then back to the courthouse. The officer had not moved. She wondered if he recognized her, if he was watching their car.

  — Sometimes it seems he knows me better than I know myself, she said.

  — There are people who’d tell you that’s as it should be for a husband.

  — In the beginning, it was charming. You think you must be very special, for someone to pay suc
h close attention to you.

  When they’d first come to New York, after the blur of travel, he’d wanted to whisk her off somewhere new every weekend. He was still calling it their honeymoon. They called it a honeymoon for months, weekends at Montauk, or spent strolling the boardwalk in Atlantic City. Or leaving a party early to walk home through the park at dusk, eating hot chestnuts from a cart. Or skipping the party altogether (more likely) to sit close against a silver-railed bar drinking Campari. He didn’t want other people. He only wanted Heike.

  There’d been a moment when she could feel the change, when Eric’s attention had moved from sweet talk to something heavy, a hand on the back of her neck, but she could not remember when exactly this had happened.

  — Like with the maid that day.

  Heike stirred a little.

  — You remember? Arden said. His thing about the way she lines up jars. She was so embarrassed. It was like he’d caught her at something, some little illicit thing. I thought it was a strange sort of exercise. Or a test.

  Arden took her hands off the wheel and pressed them into her temples. There was very little air. The car was still running.

  — The police are meant to help you, you know.

  — I have a bad feeling, Heike said. She sat motionless, watching the cop on the stairs, as though any movement might be the thing to betray her.

  — Tell me about Leo Dolan, Arden said.

  Heike’s shoulder twitched.

  — What do you mean?

  — I mean, what happened that night? When Daniel disappeared.

  — It was a party. Eric was gambling. I was alone. We had a drink together. Maybe a few drinks; I wasn’t paying attention.

  — But you didn’t come home with Eric?

  — It was so late. Eric made a scene. Heike leaned carefully into her seat, curling her legs up beside her. I didn’t want to come home at all. I only came back for Daniel.