Escape Artist

by Ed Ifkovic

  A “respectable place,” for as a “Christian lady of the German Lutheran persuasion,” she’d abide no dalliance or misbehavior in her blessed walls. A fussy, opinionated woman, she mothered the men she harbored, those bachelors and widowers who came to Appleton to work. Hers was a household of men and three women—herself, a housemaid, and a cook. “Ladies do too much laundry and want to go into my kitchen,” she said. So the men came and went and most were harmless souls. You had news types like Matthias Boon, transplanted from Milwaukee; Homer Timm, seeking shelter after his wife took ill; railroad men, laborers from the paper mills; wandering disaffected war veterans, always on the move. But despite her loud announcement that she screened and interviewed, there’d been late night knocks on the door by the chief of police. Deadbeat wanderers shuffled out of the back window, one step ahead of the law.

  Mrs. Zeller, of course, romanticized all the gentlemen as models of civil conduct and charitable spirit—her “boys.” The likes of Matthias Boon and Homer Timm…more like troglodytes than feckless lads, surely.

  I introduced myself to Mrs. Zeller’s housekeeper, a sullen looking Bohemian girl with braided hair and a boil on her neck the size of a harvest apple, a girl flustered at seeing a woman at the door. She rushed off to find Mrs. Zeller, who was haranguing the cook in the back of the house. The old woman came rushing into the front parlor, wiping her hands on an apron, and eyed me suspiciously.

  “I’ve come for Mr. Boon’s—ah, copy.” I spoke slowly. Mrs. Zeller, I’d been told, was also hard of hearing.

  “A fraulein? The telephone said they would send a reporter.”

  “I am a reporter.”

  “You’re not.” Flat out.

  “Indeed, I am.” I wasn’t going to argue with this old crone. “Mr. Ryan sent me. If I might speak to Mr. Boon, please.”

  Hands to the cheeks, eyes suspicious. “No.”

  “Is Mr. Boon able to come to the parlor?” I knew that no women were allowed onto the upper floors or into the back rooms, male provinces unsullied by cloying perfume and tatters of lace.

  “Is very sick, is throw up much. Such fine figures of mens, he is, ja. Crushed like a boy with la grippe.”

  Good God. I entertained an image of Matthias Boon heaving into a chamber pot. The stumpy Boon, blustery as March wind, confined to a sick bed, fed nourishing, though lardy, soups and biscuits by a smothering Mrs. Zeller.

  In the hallway the telephone rang and Mrs. Zeller actually jumped. She shook her head. “Is work of devil, but the mens they need it, is businessmens and professions, they are.” She pronounced the words—beezynezmenz and profezzunz, and at first I didn’t have a clue. Mrs. Zeller hurried out of the room, answered the phone, hung up, and looked back in. “I go to knock on his door.” I then heard her heavy footfall on the stairs. I relaxed. Boon was probably listening to her approach with dread.

  I waited. The upright piano in a far corner was covered with old-country daguerreotypes in gold-gilt frames, perhaps twenty of them in various sizes. I saw resemblances to the withered Mrs. Zeller in some of the old photographs, ancient relatives in starched Sunday-best dress, severe German women with rigid, fierce faces, staring as though at war with the newfangled camera.

  Voices drifted from a back room, raised voices, an argument. Bits and pieces of conversation filtered through the wall, and I recognized the pitched voice of Homer Timm, his words sharp and furious. He was countered by another voice, lower in pitch, but oddly familiar. Gustave Timm’s voice, the younger brother sounding defensive and apologetic. I could make out only random snatches of talk, though there was mostly silence, eerie patches of space between the spat-out words. I glanced toward the open archway that led to the hallway and expected Mrs. Zeller to come trudging down, reams of uninspired copy flowing from her hands. I pushed my ear against the wall and closed my eyes. Frankly, I liked eavesdropping on a good sibling spat.

  What I heard: I’m a little tired of…you think that Mother would condone…you’ve never believed…is this good idea…you’re a bastard…you think…I don’t care…no, you’re the fool…I’m trying to advise you…On and on, and sometimes I couldn’t tell which brother—Homer, the Cotton Mather of the high school, or Gustave, the bon vivant—was speaking, so overlapped were their words. They seemed to be saying the same things back and forth at each other.

  But at one point the voices emerged clear and identifiable.

  Gustave: “You think this is a good idea? Well, I don’t.”

  Homer: “My business. I have no choice.”

  Gustave: “True to form, a man who…”

  Homer: “I can’t keep on…”

  Gustave: “She’s…the children…”

  Homer: “…none of…business.”

  I learned—or had confirmed—a couple of things about the brothers Timm. Yes, there was a keen dislike for each other, but, perversely, some filial bond kept them together. The exchange of hot words also told me something else: Homer Timm, the severe educator, displayed more passion than I’d thought possible, emotion lacing his fiery words, even a note of hysteria seeping in. Gustave, the smiling, genial brother, so cocksure, came off as pliant and servile; the younger brother as docile pleader. The little boy in the shadow of a decade-older brother.

  Homer Timm had decided to leave his position at the high school and head back East to woo his freshly recuperated but persistently distant wife—to be a father to his children. Gustave, new to town, thought it a bad move. He’d taken the job at the theater to be near his brother. Gustave kept saying how much he adored Appleton, a town he felt at home in. “What home had I before Appleton?” Homer would not be there for Gustave’s September wedding, and that rankled.

  Homer spoke matter-of-factly. “Why? Mildred has made a point of telling me how little I matter to her.”

  Gustave responded, “If you weren’t so cold to her.”

  Homer, simply, “I don’t like her.”

  I heard footsteps, so I backed away and found myself staring into the face of Mr. McCaslin, who’d obviously entered from the kitchen. He stood there, his index finger marking a place in an English primer; and the look on his face was slack-jawed, stunned. I yelped, startled, but the teacher simply wagged his finger at me. “Miss Ferber, really now. A snoop, no less.”

  I stammered something about the photographs on the upright piano, and he glanced at them. I could still hear a hum of voices from the backroom, the Timm brothers at war; but Mr. McCaslin shook his head.

  “You live here, too?” I blurted out.

  For a second he didn’t answer. Finally, cradling the book to his bony chest, he snarled, “I didn’t realize I had to provide you with my home address.” He coughed, mumbled something about returning to his bed since he was under the weather, turned on his heels and headed to the staircase. But he twisted his head back and sneered, “You know, my dear Miss Ferber, when I directed you in A Scrap of Paper at the high school, I observed your tendency to self-importance. A booming voice does not make a Bernhardt.” He smiled at his own observation, doubled over with a hacking cough, and began climbing the stairs.

  He crossed paths with Mrs. Zeller, descending with heavy thud and waving an envelope in the air.

  “Is at death’s door, the poor boy.”

  Frankly, I wasn’t that lucky.

  I stumbled out, still reeling from my overheard conversation, but more from the verbal attack by the foppish Mr. McCaslin, unfortunately home sick from his classes.

  I stepped out onto the porch and screamed.

  For I nearly collided with Mac, that odd creature who inhabited the pressroom. In that instant I remembered that he, too, rented a room at Mrs. Zeller’s, proving that Mrs. Zeller rented to anyone with a dirty sawbuck and a cardboard suitcase. Cassie Mac, Homer Timm, Matthias Boon, even Mac. The men’s asylum, surely. But I also realized it was midday, and Mac should not be standing on that porch. He should be setting type, hovering over the hot trays, wrestling with the linotype machines, his fingertip
s splattered and stained with printer’s ink. He should not be loitering on this noontime porch, and he certainly shouldn’t be colliding with me.

  “Miss Ferber.” A gruff, unfriendly voice.

  Standing inches from him, I sputtered, “Mr.…” I paused. Everyone called him Mac. I didn’t know his surname, and I couldn’t address an older man by his nickname.

  He grunted. “Mac.”

  “I had to pick up copy from…” I stopped.

  “Nice June day.” When he smiled, he showed missing teeth, broken teeth, black teeth. What I didn’t see was white enamel. And that sickly grin, coupled with his fetid tobacco breath and the stink of unwashed linen, made me recoil.

  “It is.” My head was swimming.

  “A real nice day.” He was uncomfortable.

  “It is.” I agreed again.

  He leaned forward, and I moved back against the peeling balustrade. My Lord, the man behaved as though he’d rarely spoken to a young woman before. Well, perhaps he hadn’t. Awkward and gangly as a fifteen-year-old boy caught up in a forbidden apple tree, Mac shifted from one foot to another, unable to move. Cornered, I looked back at the house, but there was no escaping. He loomed before me, more giant-like, more—I hated the word but it had to do—primitive. Removed from the city room, Mac was a panicked animal.

  The front door opened and the brothers Timm emerged, both startled by the sight of Mac and me facing each other on the front porch. The men were red faced from their brotherly spat, though Homer found his schoolmaster intonation. “Miss Ferber, my, my, you’re a visitor to Mrs. Zeller’s establishment? Are we newsworthy?”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  Gustave laughed at that.

  But the appearance of the two snapped me from my inertia, and I took a few steps away from Mac, though he turned to follow my movements. “I was just leaving, have to get back to the office.” Wildly, I waved Boon’s copy as though displaying proof.

  “Well, good day.” Gustave tipped his hat and walked by me down the steps. Homer stayed on the porch frowning at his retreating back. Mac followed the movements of both brothers, but then his eyes landed on me with that same penetrating stare. I fled the porch. As I rushed to the sidewalk, Homer Timm walked briskly by me. He said nothing as he turned onto the street. I was trembling, bothered by the collision with Mac. Nothing had happened, an accidental meeting with the mysterious man—towering, grim, so very close—but it seemed premeditated. Foolish, I told myself; nonsense. But I couldn’t get Mac’s horrible face out of my mind.

  Crossing onto College Avenue, a little out of breath, I nodded to Gurdon Tanner, a lawyer whose business seemed to be drowsing all day in a swivel chair in front of his office and chatting with passersby; and then I paused to gaze at some framed lithographs in Mayes’ Emporium—sentimental scenes of the Italian countryside. I reminded myself to buy my father some cuff links I’d seen in town, the ones with the ivory cameos. He’d be able to feel the intricate carving…

  Turning suddenly, I caught a fleeing shot of a hulking figure in the shadow of the Voight building, a few doorways away. I froze. I knew in that moment, even though the specter did not reappear, that I’d glimpsed Mac. He was following me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I met Esther later that afternoon at the Temple Zion, where her father handed me a hand-written chronicle of social activities for the summer. Idly, I wondered how I’d enliven it for the Crescent. Lately, I’d been taking undue license with my matter-of-fact reportage. My account of the Annual Fireman’s Ball became an exercise in hyperbole: “Festoons of red, white, and blue crepe paper dipped and swirled above the candle-lighted dance floor; and the theme of Springtime on the Fox River brought to mind dances of Cleopatra on her barge on the Nile, with garlands of lilac and forsythia strewn on papier-mâché columns.” Sam Ryan, peeved, had edited it down to a serviceable line: “The theme of this year’s Annual Fireman’s Ball was Springtime on the Fox River. Winner of the dance contest was…” He warned me: I was not Frances Hodgson Burnett gushing out Little Lord Fauntleroy; perhaps I should read Rebecca Harding Davis’ grim reportage on life in the coal mines. As I blithely told Sam, facts bored me. They were, paraphrasing Cervantes, the enemy of truth.

  “Maybe you should write fiction,” he countered.

  I was telling Esther about Sam Ryan’s comment as we strolled down College. We dawdled in front of shop windows. I didn’t want to return to the city room, so I’d implored Esther to walk with me. In front of the Lyceum, I pointed at the old building. “I don’t want to write one more piece on the Elks Club fund-raiser,” I whined. “I want to be Juliet on that stage.”

  Esther smiled. She’d heard it all before, of course. “Edna, Edna.”

  “Theater is in my blood, Esther.”

  She yawned. We’d played this scene many times in front of the Lyceum. Edna the tragedienne? Edna the comedienne? Camille? Portia? Lady Macbeth? Edna ingloriously tied to the tracks as a locomotive lumbered toward her. But this time Esther seemed to have forgotten her lines, which annoyed me. This was a play we knew by heart.

  Suddenly I was overcome with the image of the hapless Frana proclaiming herself the belle of Broadway.

  Theo, Houdini’s brother, walked out the front door, sat down on a bench in front of the theater, and lit a cigar. I knew he’d been visiting friends in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and was just back in town.

  “Is Mr. Houdini at the theater?” I called.

  Theo nodded. “Yes, but…”

  “Could I say hello? I’m Edna Ferber, a reporter.”

  Theo smiled. “Oh, I read your interview. Quite…romantic.”

  That cheered me. “Well, I did my best.” But noting the sardonic tone of his voice, I wondered if he was really complimenting me.

  “My brother is rehearsing. I don’t know if…”

  Harry Houdini was suddenly standing in the doorway, waving to me.

  “Come in,” he called to us. “Come visit. I’m rehearsing.”

  Meekly, we followed the brothers into the quiet theater. Onstage behind a dropped curtain, Houdini had set up some new paraphernalia. “I’m experimenting with both a straightjacket and this farm harness Theo located. It seems designed to limit the movement of frisky animals.” He tapped his foot nervously. “The straightjacket I got from a madhouse in New York. Bedlam and me. I’m going to escape from the dangerous combination of a straightjacket reinforced with this iron harness. I’m escaping from the inescapable.” He glanced from me to Esther. “Do you want to watch?”

  Theo helped his brother into the elaborate contraptions, tightening the cords, binding the clasps, buckling the straps. The iron brace looked sinister and deadly. I imagined some roving heifer locked into panicked immobility. While Houdini maneuvered his body into the gear, he kept up a stream of chatter, enjoying himself, showing off. He danced around, the class clown in front of giggly girls. As we watched, wide-eyed and a little nervous, Houdini shrugged and strained and fretted and sweated—and seemed unable to extricate himself. He was having trouble.

  Finally he mumbled, “This is new for me. I gotta devise a way out.” Unmoving, he mulled it over, his broad shoulders shifting under the restraint, his torso heaving, the tendons in his neck swelling. No progress. Theo waited nearby, tapping his foot. Houdini toppled onto the stage, rolled over on his side, huffing and puffing. Sweat poured off his face.

  I couldn’t resist. “You seem to be concentrating, sir, but you don’t seem to be using your imagination.”

  Theo glowered. Esther threw me a look that said—Have you gone mad? Gustave Timm had walked onto the stage, observing Houdini’s machinations, and my comment made him shake his head. But Houdini burst out laughing, a high infectious cackle, his body rolling back and forth in the ungainly jacket and irons. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  “You’re too much, Miss Ferber,” he stammered. Then, to Theo, “Get me out of this.” Quickly, his brother released him and Houdini shook out his arms, exercised his stiff f
ingers, and rotated his beet-red neck. He pushed the contraption aside, and he smiled sheepishly. “I won’t get into a bind unless I know my way out. This one’s a puzzle. A few wrinkles.” He sized up the contraption. “This will be a sensation on stage. The straitjacket is no problem. I already do that.” He winked at me. “Assuming I use my imagination.”

  “I’m sorry.” Though I wasn’t.

  “You said what you were supposed to say.” He saluted me. “Like my wife Bess, you hurl the most cutting barbs when I’m trussed and chained.”

  I started to say something, but Esther, who’d been quiet all along, suddenly spoke. “You know, sir, Edna’s dream is to become a famous actress. Like Bernhardt. She wants to perform on a stage like this.”

  Said, the line seemed inappropriate, especially in the old, creaky theater and on that storied stage. Outside of my family, she alone knew my precious desire. Why would she say that now? Houdini raised his eyebrows as though Esther were joking; and Gustave Timm looked perplexed. Embarrassed, I didn’t know where to turn.

  “Really?” Gustave Timm said. “I’m surprised. I picture you as a writer.”

  Feebly, I sputtered, “It’s been my dream.” I breathed in. “Well, I love the theater. The Ferber family has survived dismal towns because there was always a theater nearby.”

  “I know what you mean.” Gustave understood that. “Your father and I have had wonderful talks about it. He remembers seeing Edwin Booth in Hamlet, in fact. Even Nat Goodwin in A Gilded Fool. I find that thrilling.”

  “So why is it surprising that I want to be an actress?” I avoided eye contact with Houdini.

  Gustave Timm acted flustered. “I meant no harm, Miss Ferber. Of course, it’s just that given my profession”—he waved his hands around the room—“I hear a lot of such sentiment from many young men and women. People think of the glamour and the…the…” He looked away.