The Uninvited

by Cat Winters

  “I’m too tired to go upstairs with you.”

  “No, not for that.” He wrapped his hand around my palm and wrist and guided me up to my feet until we faced each other. “I’ll draw you a hot bath, and then you can warm up by the fireplace and sleep in my bed.”

  My eyes strayed to the drawers below the brass cash register, no more than two feet away from us. “It’s in there, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “The article about the murder.”

  Daniel shifted his position and blocked the drawers with his body. “You don’t want to see that right now. Not if you’re exhausted and unsettled.”

  “What better time to read it than when I’m already unsettled?”

  “I told you”—he squeezed my hand—“this is supposed to be paradise in here. Just you and me. Don’t remind me of what happened here. Don’t even think about it. Just come upstairs and forget about all these troubles.”

  “I don’t . . .” I eyed the front door. “I don’t know if I should. The women I’m working with—the Red Cross volunteers—they also know about you and me.”

  He shrugged. “And do they seem to care what you’re doing?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Have they called you names or threatened you?”

  “No.”

  “Then what does it matter who knows? Everyone out there besides the APL is too busy saving their own necks to give a damn who’s visiting whose bed. Come.” He laced his fingers through mine and led me toward the workroom. “Let’s take care of you. The rest of the world can just go to hell for all I care.”

  His hand relaxed on our way up the stairs, as did the stiffness in his shoulders and his back. His composure eased my own breathing and posture, and by the time we reached the top floor, we had melted into more tranquil versions of ourselves.

  The band didn’t play their jazz in that early-morning hour, and the apartment upstairs sat silent and still. The first fingers of daylight nudged through the living room curtains and turned the place into an entirely different scene from the mystique of our jazz- and sin-infused nights of lamplight and shadows.

  “It’s so quiet up here,” I murmured.

  “I’ll play you a song on the guitar if you’d like.”

  “No, there’s no need. I’m sure you’re tired, too. I do miss the German composers, though. I will say that.”

  “I can tell you with absolute certainty that the music of Beethoven and Bach sounds nothing like German warfare. It’s a ban created by idiots.”

  He led me over to the living room sofa, a beautiful piece of furniture upholstered in ivory linen, with a black lacquer finish on the wooden frame and legs.

  “Sit here.” He let go of my hand. “Get comfortable. I’ll go draw you a bath.”

  I lowered myself to the sofa, and as promised, he disappeared into the little bathroom next to the kitchen. The spigot within the room squeaked with a high-pitched cry, and then water rushed through the pipes and splattered into the tub beyond. I sank back against the sofa and stared up at the mantel photograph of the couple whom I guessed to be his parents. The man sported a thick mustache and wore a three-piece suit with soft stripes. He held a pocket watch and a violin. The woman wore a dark dress and a wide hat with a large rosette, and she held on to the man’s left elbow. They posed in front of a brick fireplace—not unlike the one right there in Daniel’s apartment—in a house or a photography studio that must have stood thousands of miles away. Little half-smiles lit up their faces. They appeared content. Peaceful. Musical. Loving.

  Daniel wandered back out to check on me while the water roared into the tub in the bathroom behind him.

  “Are those your parents in that photograph?” I asked.

  Without a glance at the photo, Daniel lowered himself to the rug in front of me and untied the lace of my right shoe. “Yes.”

  “Are they still alive?”

  He slid the shoe off my foot. “Yes.”

  “In Germany?”

  He peeked up at me from the tops of his eyes.

  I sank my spine against the firm backing of the sofa. “All right.” I sighed. “I won’t ask questions.”

  He untied my other shoe and guided it off my left foot. He then slid the hem of my skirt up over my knees and past my thighs and unclasped my right stocking from its garter. I shifted my weight, surprised at the prickles of arousal that managed to awaken inside my limp and weighed-down body. Daniel leaned his face forward and kissed the inside of my right leg. Warmth spread from the pressure point of his lips to the far reaches of my thighs and my shins.

  I touched his shoulder. “I’m so tired, Daniel.”

  “I know.” His lips brushed my skin with a second kiss before he stood back up and returned to the bathwater.

  Later, while he lit a fire for me in the hearth, I undressed amid a cloud of steam in the little whitewashed bathroom. My feet balanced on blue and white diamond-shaped tiles, and I struggled to remain awake and upright. I climbed into the bath, sank down into the water with a deep plunking sound, and curled onto my side in the heavenly heat. My head rested against the porcelain rim. The warmth nestled inside my nostrils and swallowed me up until I imagined myself becoming part of the vapor. I envisioned drifting up to the ceiling and landing in a wet circle high above. Little ripples of water lapped against the tub’s walls.

  I thought again of Eddie in May’s bed, and of Billy standing behind the ambulance. My mind tried to talk itself into believing I’d imagined them all—there was no such thing as ghosts. Mama and I never actually experienced the Uninvited. We merely believed ourselves to be witnessing spirits because our minds couldn’t bear the cruel and smothering anguish of grief. No one close to me would perish from the earth in a matter of hours, or even minutes. May simply slept with a lover who resembled her deceased husband. Mama remained healthy and alive. Sigrid and her children would survive. Daniel would be safe as long as he stayed away from others and kept his door locked tight against the APL and my father.

  Father—who drank hard when upset—who just watched another son leave for the war—who might learn from Mama that I now spent my time with a German—who didn’t care that I was standing right there in the barn when he slammed that shovel against the side of my brother’s head.

  I sat up straight in the tub.

  Daniel never locked the door. I always walked straight inside the store, even at nighttime.

  “Lock the door!”

  I sprang out of the tub. Water rained down on the tiles from my hair and my arms. “Lock the door! Daniel!” I wrapped a towel around my middle. “Lock the front door—now!”

  He flew into the bathroom. “What’s wrong?”

  “Go downstairs.” I pushed his arm with a palm that soaked his shirt. “Lock the front door. My brother—Peter, Father’s favorite—just enlisted. I told my mother I’ve been with you. My father’s going to think more Germans are taking away his children. He’ll kill you.”

  “He won’t kill me.”

  “Yes, he will. You know he’s done it before. He once even hit my brother Billy in the head with a shovel.”

  “If your father comes in this store”—Daniel stepped forward with feral, darkened eyes—“he’s the one who’s dying, Ivy. I’ll take a knife and carve him up until he squeals like the pig that he is.”

  I shrank back and clasped the towel around my chest. Daniel blinked as if he had just realized what he’d said. He cupped his hand over his forehead and breathed with ragged gasps.

  “Please, just lock the door,” I said, and a sob burst from my lips.

  Daniel turned and left without another word.

  I sank down to the bathroom floor in my towel and held my stomach. Vomit rose to my throat. I covered my mouth, worried the foul black tar of flu victims would spill out of me.

  Daniel returned with gentle footfalls. His eyes softened when he saw me down on the tiles.

  “It’s locked,” he said, holding on to the bathroom door.
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  “Would you really kill him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I clutched the towel. “Your eyes . . . they turned so wild and hateful when you talked about carving him up.”

  “I didn’t . . .” He put his hands on his hips and sighed. “That Yank bastard who raised you brought murder into my home and my business. He ruined my brother and me. What do you expect me to think of him?”

  I swallowed and stared up at him, remembering what I’d thought of him when I first saw him—how his head had seemed the ideal shape for a helmet of the Kaiser’s army.

  “Do you want to kill me, too?” I asked.

  He sighed again, this time with a growl of frustration, and he offered his hand to me. “Come.” He wiggled his fingers to get me to take them. “You’ll get cold down there on the floor. I have clean, warm pajamas waiting for you to wear. They’re my pajamas, but we can roll up the legs and hope the bottoms fit those lovely, rounded hips of yours.”

  I grabbed hold of his hand and let him lift me to my feet.

  “The pajamas are in my room,” he said with a nod toward the rest of the apartment, outside the bathroom. “Please, get dressed, and come get warm by the fire. The door is locked. We’re safe. It’s just the two of us, and no one is killing anyone. I swear to God.”

  THE GLARING LIGHT OF MORNING blinded my eyes on my way back to the sofa, and the pain reminded me of how little I’d slept. I rolled up the too-long sleeves of his striped pajamas and plunked myself down on the same ivory cushion where I had relaxed before the attempt at a bath.

  Daniel sat in an armchair next to the Victrola and whittled the flat piece of wood I’d seen him carving when I peeked across the street at him from the Masonic Lodge window.

  “If you really want to sleep well,” he said, crossing his right foot over his left knee, “I could pour you a glass of strong German brandy.”

  “No.” I smiled and tucked my legs beneath me on the sofa. “Not this early in the morning, thank you. If I ever take a night off from driving the ambulance, however, I’ll gladly take you up on that offer.”

  “Gut. I hope you do. I have a strong suspicion you’ve never tried honest-to-goodness booze before.”

  I smiled. “No, I probably haven’t.”

  The fire crackled in the hearth between us, and beyond the windows, the rest of the city stirred to life. The electric streetcar sang against its tracks. Wagons jostled down Willow Street, accompanied by the steady clip-clop of hooves and the jingle of reins.

  Without warning, a Model T ambulance dashed through the street down below—I recognized the particular pops and rumbles of the motor and the sound of the size of the vehicle. I lowered my feet back to the floor and sat up straight.

  “I hear an ambulance,” I said.

  Daniel set his knife on his lap. “You’re off duty, Ivy.”

  “I know.” I glanced over the back of the sofa, toward a window covered by a thin brown burlap curtain.

  Daniel left his whittling behind and joined me on the sofa. “Don’t pay any attention to the world out there. It can function without you for the next twelve hours. Come”—he patted his lap—“lay your head down and close your eyes. Rest and get warm.”

  I hesitated. Laying my head down on his legs in such a way would suggest tenderness. Nurturing companionship. Even love.

  “Are you sure you want me to—?”

  “Lie down.” He patted his lap again. “It’s all right. No one is coming in here to arrest you for being with me. I swear. People have better things to do right now.”

  I lowered my head against his leg, and my cheek settled against his trousers. My legs stretched across the sofa’s smooth linen, and I reached my toes as far as they could go before bumping the curved arm. The smoky scent of his fireplace settled inside my nose, and I remembered how I used to believe, with such terrible prejudice, that all German homes smelled of beer and sauerkraut.

  “Am I keeping you from the shop?” I asked with my eyes half closed.

  “I worked all night. I think someone might be coming by to measure for new windows this afternoon, but this morning”—he laid the palm of his left hand against my hair—“I plan to rest, too.”

  “Were you hoping to open the store back up soon? I heard the APL say—”

  “No—don’t say those three letters anymore. They’re officially banned from paradise.”

  “All right. That’s a reasonable request.”

  He stroked my hair and made my scalp tingle, and I felt as though we were playing at husband and wife. I wondered if Wyatt and Sigrid shared such moments together. Or my mother and father—before we children came along.

  “Ivy,” he said, breaking the delicate silence.

  “Mm hmm,” I murmured, on the edge of sleep.

  “When you first came to the store, you said you’d been sick.”

  “Yes, I had been.”

  “With this flu?”

  “Yes.” I sighed through my nose. “At first, I thought I wasn’t feeling well because of the news of the death of my brother. I fell ill the same day we received the telegram about Billy.”

  Daniel’s hand came to a stop above my ear. “Did you suffer much? From the illness?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “At least, I don’t remember too much about it. My temperature spiked to a troubling number, apparently, and I remember my family sitting with me, holding my hand. At one point, even Peter, my . . .” I cleared my throat. “The brother who caused trouble here . . . he brought me flowers. My mother kept watch over me”—I nestled my head further against Daniel’s legs—“deep into the nights.”

  “But you weren’t in pain?”

  “I hallucinated and slept and shivered, all of that awful stuff that comes with the flu. But I was never afraid, because I didn’t know this flu would be such a vicious killer. I don’t even know how I managed to contract it.” I stopped and opened my eyes, and my stomach clenched. “Oh, God.” I shot up to a seated position. “It must have been one of the children I teach. They’d come to my house for lessons, and—” I slapped my hand over my mouth. “I wonder if whichever child it was . . . I wonder if he—or she—is still alive.”

  A second ambulance tore down the street outside the window. I jumped and covered my ears and heard the engine squalling through my brain.

  Daniel left the sofa and clicked open a cupboard door on the Victrola’s mahogany stand. I removed my hands from my ears and watched him sift through dozens of record sleeves that crinkled from his touch.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Aha!” he cried. “Da ist es!”

  “What are you saying?”

  He stood up straight and slid a record out of a thin tan sleeve. “I’m going to play my favorite song for you so we can both block out the world outside. It’s my fault for bringing up the verdammt flu.”

  He lowered the record onto the phonograph’s turntable and wound the silver crank on the right-hand side. With the gentlest of movements, as when he had picked up his guitar during my first night in his bedroom, he leaned forward and placed the needle onto the crackling grooves.

  “‘Slippery Hank,’” he said, lifting his face toward me with an arch of his left eyebrow, “by Earl Fuller’s Famous Jazz Band.”

  A second later, one of the fastest and most frenzied jazz songs I’d ever heard volleyed across the apartment walls. A cornet trumpeted, and music zigged and zagged all over inside of me.

  I laughed. “That’s marvelous. It sounds like watching a circus while on cocaine.”

  “You’ve tried cocaine?”

  “No, I’ve just read newspaper articles about it. Or—I know—the sound of people chasing one another around in a Fatty Arbuckle comedy.”

  “You like the song?”

  “I love it.”

  He plopped down next to me on the sofa again, and I lowered my head back to his lap. The clatter and chaos of the outside world fell away—no more ambulances, no wagons ambling down the st
reet with the dead wrapped in sheets. The wood-paneled walls and little brick fireplace, and even the brown burlap curtains blocking out the sun, seemed to brighten and nestle us closer together.

  Once again, it was simply Daniel and me and beautiful, boisterous jazz.

  Chapter 16

  Eventually, we retired to his bedroom and slept in his bed the entire rest of the day. Not once did I awaken until the band from the Masonic Lodge sent its nighttime music sailing through the thin glass panes of Daniel’s window. The pull of Nela and Addie and our transports drew me out of the snug sheets, where I had slept with Daniel’s right leg over my left one. I washed my face in his bathroom and borrowed a swig of mouthwash to make up for my lack of a toothbrush and the fuzzy taste in my mouth. My skirt and blouse from the day before replaced the comfort of his oversized striped cotton pajamas.

  “Are you leaving already?” he asked from the bed, dressed in only a pair of white pajama bottoms. He stretched his arms over his head and looked so lovely with his bare chest and mussed-up hair, I felt half-tempted to jump straight back into bed with him and continue hibernating.

  “Nela and Addie, those Red Cross volunteers, will be counting on me to drive the ambulance again tonight.” I sank my backside down on the mattress next to him.

  “Stay a little longer.” He raised himself up to a seated position. “Why hurry to rush back into hell?”

  “I promised them I’d help.” I reached forward and sifted my fingers through the close-trimmed hair above his left ear. We had never before sat and just looked at each other like that, I realized, face-to-face, eye-to-eye. I stroked his soft curls as if I’d known him for years, and even though, for whatever reason, he had inflicted his personal punishment upon himself, banning himself from kisses, he rubbed his lips together in a way that conveyed a need for me to lean my face close to his. I bent forward and pressed my mouth against his mouth, and for the first time in our short yet intimate relationship, we kissed.

  He froze, and his breath fluttered through his nose in a quiet patter, breezing against my cheek. When I lifted my head, he turned his eyes away and inhaled a sharp breath.