The Orange Tree

by Martin Ganzglass

  She had to make sure. Of what, she asked herself. That she knew where her things were. At home, in her Silver Spring apartment, everything had its place. If she forgot or lost something, the car keys, her address book, her favorite pearl necklace, she knew where to look. Here, everything was new. She had to establish her own order. That would comfort her and restore her equilibrium. She had sensibly arranged her clothing in the dresser so those items she would use the most were in the top drawers, her underwear, bras and stockings. More and more, it hurt her back to bend down. The outdoor sweaters and warmer sport blouses were in the bottom. Her jackets, slacks and long dresses were hung in the closet where she could easily find them by just opening the doors. Her jewelry box was locked. She had hidden it on the closet shelf behind the extra pillow. Where was the key? She suddenly panicked. Was it in her purse, in the zippered side pocket, or had she buried it in one of the drawers? She couldn’t remember. She turned her purse upside down and emptied its contents on her bed. That was silly, she said out loud to herself. She pulled the zipper and felt inside the pouch. The key was there. Enough, she thought. She shoveled everything back into the purse, put her cabin key in her suit jacket pocket, took one last look at herself in the closet door mirror and left, looking more confident than she felt.

  She had signed up for the later seating at 8:15 in the Upper La Fontaine Dining Room. She felt strongly that cultured people did not have early dinners. A printed notice in her room had said champagne, compliments of the Captain, would be served on the Lido Deck from 5:30 to 7:00. It was a little after 6 and the crowd in the lounge was thinning out as people left for the early dinner seating. She accepted a fluted glass from the uniformed steward, sipped it and spent her time before dinner mingling and meeting people, whose names she promptly forgot.

  She was pleased she was able to find the La Fontaine, one deck down from the Lido, retracing her steps to the elevator and feeling better about navigating her way around a strange place. When she approached the maitre d’ at his station, he noted her name and escorted her to a round table for eight. The seating was prearranged. A tall, white haired man, stood as she approached, waited for her to be seated and introduced himself as Thomas P. Maitland, the Third. He was trim, well dressed in a perfectly tailored blue blazer, which she guessed was of British manufacture, and grey slacks with a sharp crease. She immediately was attracted by his courtly air. Helga was good at estimating a man’s age and thought he was in the 77 to 80 range, certainly over 75. By the end of dinner, she knew the Amsterdam’s Social Director, who had arranged the first night’s seating based on the biographical synopses submitted by the passengers, had done well. She was not looking for a romantic relationship. Not at all. Just pleasant and attentive companionship for the duration of the cruise.

  Drew, as he said his friends called him, was a retired U.S. Ambassador, widowed and living in Milwaukee. He had been stationed in Vienna, first as a young foreign service officer, and then, much later as Deputy Chief of Mission. They spent the entire dinner, talking almost exclusively to each other in German, with brief polite asides to the others at the table. Following the meal, they had ‘a coffee’ in the espresso cafe, recalling the coffee shops of Vienna, remembering the Hotel Sacher and its famous pastries, and how gay and lively the streets were around the Opernhaus, and the special performance during Fasching, and of course Die Fleidermaus on New Year’s Eve. They discovered a mutual obsession with bridge, and to her delight, he asked her to be his partner the next morning.

  It was after eleven when they parted company. Helga was slightly miffed Drew hadn’t offered to see her to her cabin. Perhaps he thought the offer would be perceived as being too forward. She knew her cabin was on the Main Deck but was unsure which way to turn after getting off the elevator. This is simple enough, she thought. The cabin numbers are on the doors and on the keys. She opened her purse and rummaged through it, unable to find the key. She felt the first flush of panic and forced herself to slowly take out each item from her small black evening purse. Her key wasn’t there. A middle-aged couple got off the elevator, looked at her curiously, the man muttering a quiet good night, as they passed her. She started after them, anxious for any human contact and stopped, feeling embarrassed.

  “May I help you madam?” She jumped, startled by the voice. She hadn’t heard the steward coming down the corridor from the other direction.

  “Yes, thank you,” she said assertively to hide her relief at being rescued. “I seem to have lost my key and I don’t remember my room number.”

  “No problem. Madam. Please give me your name and I will call the Concierge.”

  “Mrs. Helga Fessler,” she said, standing up straighter and putting her hand in her jacket pocket. She felt the brass key with her fingers as the steward dialed a number on his cell phone. She wanted to flee to the sanctuary of her cabin, regardless of the embarrassment.

  “Oh. Here it is in my pocket. I’ve had it all along. I thought it was in my purse.” She showed it to him, seeing what she thought was bemused sympathy in his eyes.

  “DA 2548,” he said. “It’s right this way,” he pointed down the hall in the direction the middle-aged couple had gone. “Would you like me to walk you to your room?”

  She was going to say it wouldn’t be necessary, but she was seized with the fear that she may not find it, or the key wouldn’t work, and then what.

  “Yes, please. I would appreciate that,” she said in what she thought was a nonchalant but haughty tone.

  At her cabin, he politely took the key from her, opened the door, handed her back the key and wished her goodnight. She closed the door and leaned against it, angry at the thought that tonight, in the stewards’ quarters, he would amuse his friends with a story of the forgetful old lady who didn’t even know where she was. His politeness masked his insolence and disdain. She was sure of it. It had spoiled her nice evening with Drew.

  She slept fitfully, her sleep disturbed by the sense she had something to do. Sometime after 4:30 she gave up, turned on the lights and wrapped the thick terry cloth bathrobe with the Holland American logo in deep blue over her thin nightgown and unpacked and repacked the dresser. Next, she took down her jewelry case, smiling to herself for remembering where the key was, and laid out the jewelry on the bed, rings first, then earrings, bracelets, brooches and last, necklaces. It was all there. She put everything back in their red cushioned little compartments, locked the case, made sure the zippered side pouch was closed and lay down on the bed, with the lights on. She felt better. All she had to do was establish a routine, an order to this cruise, and she would be fine.

  The next morning, she enjoyed her bridge game with Drew as her partner. She was the superior player. She played just well enough so as not to outshine him. A woman should not embarrass a man in competitive games, her mother had always said. She knew, from her marriage, how important it was not to damage a man’s ego. Drew invited her to lunch and regaled her with stories of behind the scenes details of President Clinton’s visit to Vienna. That afternoon she made an appointment for a deep massage at the Spa. At dinner she asked him if he had ever been to the spas at Karlsbad. When he replied he had not, it was her turn to describe the level of luxury of the Empress Elizabeth Spa, named for the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph of the Austrian Hungarian Empire, and how only the finest people went there. Regretfully, she added, it had deteriorated with the influx of nouveaux riche Russians, their hair so obviously died red or orange, and other eastern European women who ignorantly thought the thermal waters made them younger, when all it did was help with arthritis. He gallantly responded that a woman as lovely as Helga surely had no need for such treatment.

  The facial, the late dinner accompanied by wine, and the pleasure of a charming, cultured escort did not assuage her unease at night. She awoke again, in the early morning hours before daybreak, and succumbed to the compulsion to make sure her things were all there. As on the first night at sea, she unpacked and repacked her dresser and examined
her jewelry case to make sure nothing was missing.

  At Ketchikan, she and Drew attended the lecture by a U.S. Forest Service naturalist but to her surprise, Drew declined to go ashore for a tour of the town. She attached herself to several single women from the Amsterdam and visited the Ketchikan Historical Museum, where she was bored but went through the motions. The Totem Heritage center was initially interesting but she had never understood American Indian culture or art and had no inclination now to learn more about it. She browsed in the gift shop and bought a medium sized totem pole replica for Josh, thinking he would like it.

  That night, at dinner, Drew apologized for leaving her on her own, assuring her he would much preferred to spend the time with her and blaming his absence to an unspecified health problem. She graciously accepted his excuse, expressed concern for his health while not expecting any more details, and steered the conversation back to the familiar and more pleasant subject of Austria. He entertained her with a story of his week long stay, many years ago, in Grundelsee at the mountain top retreat of a retired American Ambassador married to an Austrian Rothschild. Helga was enthralled with the description of the home, the expensive rugs and artwork, the panoramic view from the dining room, the hardwood floors and the two very well behaved, grey Weimareners. She also had vacationed in Grunsdelsee with her husband, she said, but of course they had not visited the Baroness Rothschild, she added quickly.

  When they docked in Sitka, Drew accompanied her down the gangplank and suggested they hire a taxi to tour the town. At each stop, he held the cab door for her, and she felt herself propelled back in time to an era when good manners and courtly behavior were the norm. They went to St. Michael the Archangel’s Cathedral, a remnant from the time of the Russian’s presence in Alaska.

  “Do you think Alaska would be more cultured if the Russians had stayed?” Helga asked him, as they walked up the Cathedral steps.

  He stopped to catch his breath and shook his head. “No more than Siberia,” he said curtly. She heard the condescending, dismissive tone in his voice. It reminded her of her husband’s way of speaking to her when he thought she had asked a stupid question and was restrained enough not to berate her publicly. Over the years, she had learned not to react to her husband’s slights and public humiliations. She had sacrificed her happiness for Eleanor. To give her the proper family environment, the appearance of normalcy. To avoid the shame of divorced parents. Well, she thought, hooking her arm into Drew’s and slowing her pace to match his. She owed this man nothing. She would show him tomorrow at the bridge table the price to be paid for speaking to her like that.

  The night before arriving at Juneau, the Captain hosted a grand Alaskan Seafood Buffet on the Lido Deck. Salmon grilled on cedar planks, steamed King Crab legs, served with melted butter, tomato based rockfish chowder, halibut broiled with parsley and lemon wedges, and incongruously, reindeer chili and venison steaks. Helga sat with Drew near the Captain’s table, limiting herself to salmon and a small round venison steak, enjoying the gala atmosphere, the toasts, the wine, and Drew’s gallant attention.

  “Remember the venison at that restaurant near the Opera House. They served it only when it was in season with priselbern. It was so tender. Do you remember the name of that place, Drew? I am getting so forgetful lately.” She looked at him for help.

  “There was a restaurant on Prinz Eugen Strasse. I can visualize the dining room but blessed if I can remember the name.” He paused, rubbing his temples, making a show of trying to massage the answer from within. “There was a mounted head of a huge elk at one end, which made the racks of the deer seem puny, and some ferocious looking boars on the side walls. I remember the maitre d’. He had a round face, with mutton chop whiskers and a mustache that would have made a Sergeant Major proud. A plump man. You could see the shirt buttons bulging under his jacket. A nice enough fellow who seemed to partake of too much of the spaetzle and red cabbage. It’s been years since I was there.”

  That was not the restaurant she had been thinking of. She remembered it as having an understated air of elegance, not the hale, blustering atmosphere of a men’s club. “That may be the one,” she said smiling at him, deploying her ingrained manner of making men feel they knew everything, were in control and superior. It was an automatic part of her arsenal of charm. He beamed back at her, proud he had conjured up the restaurant’s details to compensate for her failure to remember the name. She noticed the beads of sweat on his forehead and a sudden paleness of his complexion.

  “I’m sorry my dear Helga. You must excuse me. Perhaps something I ate tonight did not agree with me.” He stood up abruptly. “I must go back to my cabin.”

  “Do you need help?” she asked, alarmed at his pallor.

  “No. No. Everything is alright,” he said quickly. “I need to take my medicine and lie down. Don’t worry.” He waved his left hand stiffly, gesturing her not to get up. “Tomorrow morning at the embarkation point. We’ll see Juneau and the glaciers together. Be sure and dress appropriately. I don’t want you to be cold.” He walked slowly toward the exit, grasping a table once for support to steady himself, and disappeared through the door.

  She resisted the impulse to follow him and sipped the remainder of the wine he had ordered, a light, bubbly Austrian Gruener Vetling. She sat at the table with others, separate and isolated from their ongoing conversations. After what she deemed a respectable length of time, she excused herself. She thought to pass by his cabin but realized she didn’t even know the number. In any event, she concluded, it would be both unseemly and presumptuous of her to do so. That night, she awoke earlier than usual, performed her comforting routine of locating her clothing and taking inventory of her jewelry, and lay down, the lights on, her eyes wide open.

  She turned her head and looked at the photo of her deceased husband, gone now eight years and five months. She missed him, of course. He had been eleven years older than she when they were married. It was always unspoken between them but understood that in the normal biological sequence, he would die first and leave her alone. He had made adequate financial arrangements for her. That was not the problem. She had never, before he died, considered the consequences of being left alone.

  Before his death, if she had thought about it at all, she had seen herself as she always had been, healthy, confident and independent. She still knew how to project that image. Internally, she felt herself slipping toward an abyss, gradually becoming less self assured, confused and afraid of growing old and being alone. Her fears, overwhelming at times, had coincided with Mitchell’s aunt coming to Washington. Helga’s brief visits to the Nursing Home inevitably sent her mind careening down the unwanted path of her own bleak future. She lay there on the bed, in the warm comfort of the bathrobe, submissively visualizing what she would look like in later years. She had always been careful of her appearance. At age 76, she continued to dye her hair so it was still the dark black color in the photographs of her youth. But instead of being carefree it was lacquered, capable of withstanding a strong wind, so that when she came in from outside, every hair was still in place. She bought herself new clothes every year. She despised women who wore the same outfits for every occasion, until they looked threadbare and worn out themselves. It never occurred to her that they might have done so to save money, not because they liked looking shabby. While she was well groomed and vigorously active, now she sometimes saw herself as Helen and the old women at the Hebrew Home, white-haired, unkempt, wearing mismatched and food stained clothing, drooling, mumbling to themselves, shuffling aimlessly down the same antiseptic smelling halls, or even worse, dependent on someone to push their wheelchairs from one room to the next.

  Sometimes, she worried she would fall and break her hip, like her mother had. It would be the beginning of her end. She would be unable to walk or drive and would be placed, only temporarily, she could imagine Eleanor saying, in a rehabilitation center. She knew she would never get her independence back. But why would she be in a nursing hom
e? She could live with her daughter, Mitchell and the children. She tossed her head on the pillow, silently mouthing the words, no, no, no, as if she was arguing, pleading with Eleanor, not to put her away. This was her real fear, a deep, painful gnawing from within. The realization that her only daughter, the child she had carried, nursed and protected, the one she had sacrificed her happiness for, would not let her own mother live out her few remaining years in happiness in her daughter’s home. She could see Eleanor resolutely rejecting her tearful pleas, telling her not to be so melodramatic, hardening her heart against her own mother. She would say it was for Helga’s own good but Eleanor meant it was better for her. How could her daughter be so cruel? She asked herself, what had she done in her life, her life devoted to her only child, to deserve this?

  She could clearly imagine herself, forced into the Nursing Home, ending her days abandoned by Eleanor and the family. Or at most, their visiting on Saturdays, begrudging her the brief few hours away from their friends and active social lives. Occasionally, she saw them granting her the privilege of being invited to the house for dinner. Then, on the High Holidays Eleanor would parade her into Temple, to show what a caring, devoted daughter she was. No, she said out loud. She would not permit it to happen. She would resist it with every fiber of her being. Eleanor must be made to recognize her duty to her mother.