Hysteria

by Elisabeth de Mariaffi

  Now she leaned forward and took a cigarette from the dish and fit it neatly into a silver holder she’d pulled out of her purse.

  — I really feel fine, Heike said.

  Unimaginable that she’d volunteer for more pills.

  In that moment, snared in her bedsheets, she’d decided to stop arguing with Eric. It was almost the argument itself he wanted, more than any result. When he brought her another tonic later that night, she set it down a moment, to slip off her dressing gown, then poured the liquid into the soft carpet at her bedside while he was turned away. And again early in the morning. The empty glasses lining up on her nightstand, a casual mark of compliance, meant only to be observed and cleared away.

  In Dolan’s house, the bathroom door swung open and a man walked out: the short-haired woman’s husband. They touched hands and exclaimed, and the man took a lighter from his pocket and tossed it around while they talked. He was wearing seersucker, and a white shirt that had lost its crisp look in the heat of the afternoon. The jacket hung loose and open, and his wife tugged it closed and played with the buttons.

  Heike went into the bathroom and shut the door and smoked her cigarette down to the filter, leaning against the wall by the vanity mirror, the rising smoke just part of her reflection.

  WHEN SHE CAME OUT, the two women were gone. She’d filed away the little cigarette holder and doused the stub before tossing it in the basket, then bent down to take a drink from her cupped hands, leaning over the sink. Now she walked out into the garden. Her mouth and throat thrummed with cold from the water. She had a high, bright headache coming on, as though the day were piercingly cloudless and sunny, a squinting headache; in fact, it was humid and overcast, the weather tracing a prickle of sweat at the nape of her neck.

  She held up a hand, as if in salute, and searched the small crowd for Eric. He was deep into a funding pitch, speaking to a black-haired man with a greying moustache and a cane he didn’t seem to need for balance. She circled behind them in a dutiful way, hoping to be only peripherally noticed. Eric was on high alert, his hands moving energetically as he spoke.

  — Something to beat this man Berger at his own game. There’s seven million Americans got a script for Miltown in their pocket right now. Seven million. And it’s only a year old. Think of the possibilities. And let me tell you, Miltown’s nothing. Miltown’s only a start. It’s a tranquilizer. He’s just putting their brains to sleep.

  The man shifted and tapped the cane against the shiny leather toe of his shoe. Eric drew closer:

  — What if I told you that I could distill a medication that actually changes the way people feel?

  Heike turned away. There were maybe thirty people on the lawn, and no children. The headache was entirely behind her eyes. She felt otherwise open and clear-minded. For a moment the situation amused her: an upstate garden party, the women all trapped on the green, their pretty shoes sinking into the soft earth, and the men all trying to sell each other things. She was ready for a drink.

  A sailor-suited waitress floated by with an empty tray, on her way up to the house. There was a tug at Heike’s waist that guided her around toward the tables.

  — Come. You disappeared again.

  Eric’s face was close to hers, but he spoke so gently that Heike softened her eyes and allowed his hand to rest against her cheek. People were taking their seats, the white wooden chairs filling up.

  They sat at one end of the second table, facing the water. The short-haired woman from the hallway pulled her chair in just across from Heike, but the man Heike had thought of as her husband was far off at the other table and another man took a seat with her instead. The stiffness between them explained everything: he wore a dull navy; she did not bother to adjust the line of his collar, although it was skewed. There was a fire down at the shore, and men in white jackets carried steaming pots of mussels and clams up to the lawn, their shells almost blue against the spray of lobster claws, and the sailor-girls brought bread and hot cobs of boiled corn and leaves of butter lettuce. Dolan himself paced the tables, offering a bowl of salt. He sat down finally at the head of their table, next to Heike, and used a corn skewer to stuff clams into a buttered roll.

  — It’s you, he said. Hasn’t anyone had the sense to give you a drink? He pushed his glass along the table toward Heike. When she didn’t pick it up immediately, he pushed at it again, in little staccato thrusts. Go on, now. Take mine. I seem to have an unending supply. She curved a finger around the base of the glass, and Dolan lifted a hand to wave a server over, although there wasn’t anyone near them and he didn’t look away from his plate.

  Eric had been turned in conversation with the navy-suited husband and now leaned out across Heike’s body to take a cut of butter from the dish at the end of the table.

  — You’ll find my wife is not a drinker, he said. He spread the butter along a stub of yellow corn and then used his knife to hook the glass away from Heike and pull it down the table. She let her finger fall away and rest on the cloth.

  — Lerner, I’m mystified. Dolan took a bite off the end of the roll and chewed at the clams inside. It doesn’t make sense to me, he said. That a man who works on the edge of Seneca should make a home for himself on a different lake entirely. You must love your car.

  — One could say the same of you, out here in cottage country.

  — Ah, but I’ve got the Thruway now. Thoroughly modern living, up here. Dolan paused, fingering the sharp end of the skewer. I mean, the country roads are nice, he said. I just don’t know why you’d prefer to spend your time driving when you could be in the company of your lovely wife. He put the skewer down and returned to his clam roll, picking it up in one hand. I guess I figured the doctor is never far from the asylum.

  Heike looked around the table. The short-haired woman dandled a bit of lobster over top of her own roll, then shook it off her fork. Her husband leaned back in his chair. Down at the other end, she could see Renny Paulsen gesturing at a freckled woman with an empty glass in her hand. Heike turned her attention back to her plate. Paulsen’s laugh expanding and carrying up over the hum of other voices.

  — I’m not sure who told you where to find us, Eric said.

  — Not a lot of secret mansions in New York, Dolan said. Perhaps in comic books.

  A striped sleeve sailed down from above, the hand bearing a fat rocks glass, half full, no rocks. The hand went on its way. Dolan picked up the glass and held it.

  — You seem happy enough to have been found, he said. There was a lick of wind, rippling the chestnut leaves above them. Dolan held the glass but didn’t drink from it.

  — This is a pretty piece of land you’ve got. Eric had taken off his jacket in the heat, and his sleeves were unbuttoned and rolled just once. He looked like a stockbroker, like they were talking cattle futures and he’d been up all night working the numbers. At the fold of his cuff there was a streak of colour. He’d been eating olives, his fingers not quite clean when he’d gone to adjust the crease. He pushed a plateful of mussel shells off onto the table with the side of his hand before continuing: But I prefer to keep my family life private. He wiped his hands on a napkin and unrolled his sleeves and buttoned them at the wrist. Enjoy your dinner, Dolan. I think I should find my wife a drink of her own.

  Heike looked up. She had been sitting, poised over the orange claw on her plate as over a drafting table, a lobster cracker at the ready. From the beach came the smell of burning coals; the cook’s assistant was down there, dousing the fire. She flexed the cracker, unsure of whether to set it down. She had been about to take on the task at hand.

  Across the lawn they heard the slam of a door, a kind of wild shouting. Eric pushed his chair back. The waitress from the other night came out of the house, backwards along the grass, tripping over herself.

  A few of the men stood up. The girl had something in her fist. It caught the light as she turned, stuck out between her fingers. There was another slam, and Heike watched as a short man crossed the la
wn after her, grasping at the hand. They were the same height; from a distance it looked like a child’s game of keep-away. The thrum and squeak of conversation fell low all at once, as though the lights had come down at the start of a performance. Those still in seats forgot to put aside their forks and sat spearing the air around them. Dolan was out of his chair and taking the yard at a light jog. The man reached out and held the girl by one shoulder, his open hand drawing back.

  Heike turned to face the water. Her fingers curled around the cloth napkin over her knees, and she wound it into a tight cigar. The lake reached shore in little lapping tongues, the cook shovelling sand over the place where the fire had been. She expected to hear shrieking, but none came. When she turned back, most of the table was up and moving around. Dolan strolled down toward her, tossing and catching a silver thing in his hand. As he got closer, she could hear the thing jangling.

  — She had his keys, he said. He swung them once around his finger by the ring, then curled them tight into his hand in a gesture of finality. He’s a Buick man, but also a whisky man, and she tells me those two don’t mix.

  This was meant as a kind of announcement, a cue for the crowd to settle back into their supper, but the spectacle had galvanized them and people moved now from chair to chair. There was a general call for another round of drinks. The tall woman with the silver bracelet had taken off her shoes in the grass; two men nearby began to pick at the plates closest to them. Relief had thrown them into a public house cocktail hour. At the very least, there was now no lack of intimacy. The short-haired woman and her lover stood elbow to elbow; her navy-suited husband sat with his back against a tree and picked his teeth. Only Heike seemed aware of a change. Renny Paulsen wound an arm around the redhead’s waist, and together they wandered off toward the willow trees.

  She had expected Dolan to return to his seat, but he stood instead at the next table, talking and cracking pepper onto the cloth. In time, the plates were cleared and there were strawberries and whipped cream and brandy served in the dark, with torches. Eric slung his jacket over a new chair and accepted a cigar. Heike picked up Dolan’s drink, the one he’d pushed at her, and traced a line along the shore, with its smell of wet wood and muskgrass, rounding the gardener’s shed, and eventually finding her way back up to the house.

  IN THE KITCHEN, THERE was a crew of Negroes working the sink in a line: one to suds up, one to rinse, one to dry and stack away. The drunk, Mickey, slumped in a chair by the table. He was wearing workboots under his trousers, suspenders to hold up his waist. He had a belly in the way cooks often do, with skinny, caving shoulders. He looked hungry, a man for whom the ache of wanting is never done. The girl sat near him, fanning and closing a pack of cards. In the light of the room, Heike could see she had not much of a bruise left. She had large eyes and a mouth that turned downward and sat wide across the bottom of her face. A schoolteacher’s face; a mouth that belonged on an older woman. The car keys that had been the source of their earlier skirmish were clipped to a bracelet on her wrist. Heike wondered when Dolan had brought them back in to her: she had not seen him as she’d approached the house, outside with the throng. There were cigarettes on the table, and an open bottle and the dirty plates left over from the staff meal: chicken bones, bits of mashed potato stuck in the fork tines. The Negroes did not sing, as they would have in a movie.

  She came out into the hall. There was a little alcove in behind the kitchen, and Heike was just leaning in for a look when she caught sight of the housekeeper from the first party. The woman was stationed in the living room, her back to the indoors, her glare now following the progress of a cocktail waitress across the veranda and down the stairs. The alcove turned out to be a kind of elevated pantry; Heike ducked inside to avoid being seen. Shelves stretched to the ceiling: wide-mouth jars of green peas and pickled eggs, and higher still, cardboard salt shakers for picnic season and tin cans of beef stew and Campbell’s tomato soup. She stayed there a moment, unsure of what to do next, her body tucked into a corner cabinet stacked with glass that clinked whenever she tried to shift position.

  The housekeeper made no appearance. Heike waited.

  Her head throbbed. It was a dull pulse now, as though someone had wrapped a cloth around her skull and the pain could only be felt beating through this softness. To one side of the pantry there was a door. Back to the kitchen? It occurred to her that whatever this door led to, it was likely to be a better option than being found here, crouched in amongst the canned goods. She put a hand on the doorknob.

  It opened, not into the kitchen as she’d imagined, but rather to a narrow room with a high, wide window giving onto one end of the lawn. There was a small bar with a few bottles and an ice bucket and a tumbler filled with bamboo swizzle sticks, and beside it, Leo Dolan himself, swizzling a drink and looking out through the glass. So he’d come inside, after all. She’d let a triangle of light from the pantry into the room, but as the door closed behind her, the shadows deepened. She had to stop and let her eyes adjust. Dolan’s face was half-lit in profile. She could see the line where his cheek met his jaw and the barest trace of a beard; she guessed that he hadn’t shaved since early that morning. The only light in the room was the muted glow coming through the window.

  Heike hopped up higher to look out. Outside, the torches were burning and the dinner guests had arranged their chairs in small circles. The tables were clear; a few of the men were sitting down to cards. Eric was there already, his jacket on the ground beneath his seat. She came down off her toes.

  — So you watched me coming.

  Dolan had not turned away from the window. He nodded in agreement.

  — I saw you. You went down along the water first, and then you disappeared, just there, behind the greenhouse. He held the little stick in the air over his glass and shook a few droplets off it. You came up again by the side of the lawn, near the trees.

  — You don’t even have a chair, Heike said. She leaned lightly against the bar with one hip.

  He inclined his head toward her.

  — Don’t you think you ought to ask if you’ve a right to be here?

  — I’m quite sure you would have locked the door if you wanted to be alone, she said. She set her empty glass down on the bar and ran the tongs through the ice bucket, picking and choosing. Offer me a drink. Haven’t you got your little flask?

  Dolan tilted a bottle of rye, but only briefly.

  — Your husband will miss you, he said.

  Heike played with her drink, swirling it. The liquid muted the sound of the ice.

  — Will he? I think Eric doesn’t want a wife.

  — The good doctor? What does he want?

  Heike held up her glass and let it clink softly against Dolan’s.

  — A little test tube, of course. She had a child’s explosive laughter, one hand over her mouth. Her own flippancy surprising her.

  — I heard the sales pitch, Dolan said.

  — Of course you did. His work is very important to him. I can’t think of anything more important to Eric.

  There were some cushions scattered around. Dolan stacked them up in the bare corner, and they sat on the floor like harem girls.

  — This is the best I’ve felt in a long time, Heike said. Except for the headache. And I almost don’t mind it. She drew her legs up under her chin, her skirt all around.

  — Aren’t you nervous at all? Hidden away like this?

  — Did you know that half your lady friends are living on little white pills? Heike leaned sideways, toward him, and made a ring around her wrist with her thumb and middle finger. They carry them in their jewels, she said.

  — Like Lucrezia Borgia!

  Heike dropped one hand and wrapped an arm around her knees.

  — You amuse me, she said. You remind me of someone I used to know.

  HE ASKED HER TO tell him how it was she’d managed to walk out of Germany in the middle of a war, and she told him they’d trained her for it, unwittingly, in the Jungmäd
el. A compulsory club, as she explained it, where little girls got to live like boys: camping and playing sports, away from the watchful eyes of their parents. Himmler had disapproved.

  — I’d been hiking all over the forest since I was ten years old, she said. With my rucksack. I don’t think they knew they were teaching so many of us how to run away.

  — Most people weren’t so lucky.

  — In Dresden? No.

  She told him what she knew of it: that the sirens had started, and twenty minutes after that, the bombing began. Superflamers. Firebombs creating a wind tunnel in every street, a burning gust. People were blown back into their houses, like being blown into a torch. Adults burnt down to the size of children. Pieces of bodies, arms and legs. She’d had to imagine all of this: the details she read about later, in books and magazines. She’d read an account in Life magazine, much later, in New York. Before that, she’d read about it in Signal.

  — But you weren’t there.

  — No. No, three days before, my mother sent me to the bakery to see what they had left. She told me not to come home. She told me to keep walking, out of Germany, to Switzerland.

  Her mother had hidden false papers and a small roll of money in a breadbasket, under a clean cloth, a week before. Hoping for any chance. The papers to use at checkpoints. The checkpoints to be avoided at all costs. There had been some bombing in the railyards already, Heike said, once in the fall and once in January. So they knew it was coming.

  — She wanted us all to go, years earlier, Heike said. But it’s not so easy, you see, to give up your home.

  He’d been in Europe at the same time, he said. They’d dropped him from a plane over Sicily in 1943, but by the end of the war he was laid up in a British military hospital.

  — Show me your scar, Heike said, and Dolan pulled his shirt from his trousers. She ran a finger along the mended places. It must have been hot in Italy, she said.

  — Things get infected.

  — And you didn’t have a sweetheart here waiting for you?