Ursula Hegi The Burgdorf Cycle Boxed Set: Floating in My Mother's Palm, Stones from the River, The Vision of Emma Blau. Children and Fire

by Hegi, Ursula

  When Nate Bloom heard that Robert was about to marry his son’s fiancée two months after meeting her at his birthday party, he told Stefan, “You people want everything that isn’t yours.” It was a comment that needed no explanation, a comment that cut through years of their friendship and their silence regarding Jews and Germany. You people. And he did not come to Robert’s wedding, though Stefan tried to act around him as though that comment had never been made. You people.

  Pearl, however, arrived with Stanley Poggs and two hand-cut crystal vases. “Nate won’t stay angry,” she told Helene when the two women escaped to the roof during the last hour of the wedding reception that Pearl had helped to set up in the courtyard, arranging for delicacies and cake and even champagne. “Besides, he has always liked your Robert. He even knows him better than he knows his son. It’s just now—with everything that’s in the paper about the Jews in Germany—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be saying any of this.”

  “Go on,” Helene said. “Really.”

  “His son is family.”

  Helene nodded, wishing she could apologize to Pearl for Germany, and yet afraid that she didn’t have the right, that it would be arrogant to apologize for the actions of others … for their decisions. What if she was only doing it to feel better about herself? To Jews who’d survived, an apology from her certainly would not make a difference. “Even the ones who got away—” She stopped.

  “What is it?”

  “I often think of how they had to leave behind everything that belonged to them. Start all over again. Noah Creed, he told me about a Jewish doctor who lives on his block. She had her husband and daughter taken from her, and she’s been in America over a year. You know what she does? Works at a grocery store because she isn’t allowed to practice medicine until she’s passed all kinds of medical and language exams. When I think how long it took me to get used to the language … And it’s not that I’m comparing what happened to me.”

  “I know you’re not.”

  “She didn’t choose to leave Germany. She didn’t have a house waiting for her. She lost her family and her work. I mean, her work is all tied in with language. You can be real good at your work, an expert, and then you’re taken out of your language and you lose your work too.”

  “Hey … this is Robert’s wedding. A day to celebrate.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Helene adjusted the lace collar of her mauve dress. “I wish they had waited…. Yvonne doesn’t know what he’s like.”

  “They obviously adore each other.”

  “What I don’t understand is why it had to be right away.”

  “And to consider—” Pearl interrupted herself, laughing.

  “Consider what?”

  “This conversation between two women who decided within hours to get married.”

  “I knew Stefan for many years.”

  “Knowing and marrying are two separate things, Sweetie, unless you mean knowing in a biblical way.”

  “Unfortunately, it was entirely chaste.”

  “Well, I could count the time between meeting and marrying Nate in minutes.”

  “Stefan calls Yvonne a thin wire.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “The first time I heard him use that expression was about my brother’s wife, Gertrud. A certain frailty. Being stretched so tight you’ll snap.”

  “But Yvonne is not weak. She’s a powerful woman, just not in the same way you are. Your power comes from doing for yourself. Hers from letting others do for her.” Pearl’s dainty feet rested on the low edge of the roof as she sipped the wine she’d brought along. “Yvonne reminds me of my Aunt Amy who always had suitors though she was in a wheelchair. Even as an old woman, Aunt Amy had suitors. They competed with each other, couldn’t do enough for her because she made them feel so helpful… so appreciated.”

  “I never thought of that as powerful.”

  “Oh, but it is. I bet my Aunt Amy got more often what she wanted than you do. She once told me she would have been a fool to marry, to limit herself to one of them.”

  “And where do you fit in with your power?”

  “Oh, probably somewhere in between. I can do for myself, but sometimes I choose to appreciate others and let them do for me.” Pearl looked out over the town that had grown in the three decades she’d lived here, spreading into the hills and along the shore of the lake, thickening in a half-belt around the Wasserburg as if drawn to a mysterious source. Below her, on the lawn that ran from the house to the sand, three children were playing with a red ball. A few of the guests had brought swimsuits and were in the lake or on the dock. “A thin wire …,” Pearl mused. “Leave it to Stefan to have an expression for that. Still, I have never seen our Robert this much in love. And don’t forget that they’re both nearly thirty. Old enough to make those decisions.”

  “Age doesn’t protect you from mistakes.”

  Pearl glanced at Helene steadily without a comment.

  “I must sound like one of those mothers who’ll disapprove of anyone their sons might marry.”

  Pearl didn’t even hesitate. “You do.”

  “I’m trying not to be like that.”

  Pearl grinned. “You must try harder then.”

  “I wish I liked Yvonne.”

  “You’re sure? Or do you wish she were different? Not so glamorous and pretty?”

  “Maybe…”

  “Start by finding one positive thing about their marriage.”

  “Yvonne’s belief in Robert… that he is a genius.”

  “You’ll get used to her. Wait till you have your first grandchild.”

  A sudden stinging behind her eyes made Helene press her lids shut. She saw Robert as an infant in his crib, saw him turning over for the first time without her help, saw his sturdy back as he sat atop her German encyclopedia in front of the piano, saw him leaving for his first day of school…. Leaving. All those years. Every single day. Leaving. As if rehearsing for this day of his marriage. And of course she had known since the day of his birth, had readied herself for his eventual leaving that seemed so far off in the future, gradually letting him walk by himself, feed himself, clothe himself, letting go more of him with each day, each year. All at once she felt as if those years of his life had passed in just one instant, far too quickly for her, and as she drew in a sharp breath to keep down the panic of losing him forever, it came to her that this was not the end of it all, but that her years with him were still happening now, and that these changes—his marriage and the move into his own apartment—were merely rounding out that picture without taking anything from her.

  Suffused with gratitude at the gift of having had him in her life, she wished she could tell him. And because Robert wasn’t there, she told Pearl as she had countless times before with other words she’d felt inside herself for her husband or son, words so filled with emotion that she needed to filter them through this friend who loved her, who’d never made her regret these outbursts. Pearl—without speaking—could sift the rawness out of Helene’s words by the time she took them to her husband or son. Sometimes, after Pearl had heard the words, Helene would not even need to say them again.

  “It was a splendid reception,” Pearl said. “Even if the bride’s parents are cheap.”

  “Oh, come now. They couldn’t have afforded it. Besides, they offered.”

  “But they didn’t insist. There’s a difference between offering and insisting. I ought to know. See, you’re smiling. You know exactly what I mean. There is a way of offering to do something in such a way that the offer is refused. A lot of it has to do with just a mo ment of hesitation. For example—and I’ve done this to you a million times—”

  “Do I want to know about this?”

  “Well—” Pearl laughed. “It may keep me more honest in the future. Maybe I’ll really return the things I borrow from you, instead of telling you that I’ll be glad to replace whatever it is as soon as I’ve had a chance to go out and get it, while you, of course,
assure me that I don’t need to do that.”

  “You are good at this.”

  “Very good. But it won’t be fun anymore now that I’ve confessed.”

  “You’ll find something else to enjoy.”

  “Always …”

  “Your crystal vases … they were lovely.”

  “Yvonne said they were the perfect height for roses.”

  And then the two women were silent in the lush summer night that settled around them and grew denser, shrouding them from the town and erasing the lines on their faces until they looked as they had three decades earlier when they had started coming to this roof together. They took measure of one another with the secret recognition of conspirators who’d conjured themselves back into their youthful bodies, and they stretched their shoulders, their necks, and eased back into their chairs with a half-remembered litheness.

  It was Stefan who found them there on the roof after the last guests had left. They heard the whir of the elevator before they saw him approach—an old man from another generation—hair gray, though still curly, the curve of his nose more pronounced now that his face was thinner. In one hand he held a bottle of champagne, in the other three long-stemmed glasses upside down between his splayed fingers. It startled them how far he had outpaced them in time, and they felt almost guilty for not having protected him from that passage, for having let him move ahead of them into old age without warning, without sharing their private knowledge of remaining young with one another.

  Yvonne’s body fit around the curve of his back, her thighs and knees into the V-shape of his bent legs, her toes against the arches of his feet. Through his pajamas and her nightgown he felt the heat of her body. In the morning, the layers of material were damp with sweat—mine? hers?—and his pajama top clung to his back, growing cool as soon as she moved away from him. It was like that every night, on their honeymoon in Rye Beach and once they returned to Winnipesaukee where his mother—with the help of Danny Wilson—had readied the only available apartment in the Wasserburg for them, a small unit that was to be theirs temporarily.

  Once the Blooms had relocated to the first floor, Robert and Yvonne were to move into their lavish suite of rooms on the fifth floor. But suddenly Nate no longer wanted to move. He had his own war with Stefan, accused him of letting Robert steal Yvonne from his son.

  “And now you’re stealing my apartment.”

  “But it was your decision to relocate,” Stefan reminded him.

  “Relocate … That’s how it starts.”

  Stefan tried to calm Nate by taking him in his wheelchair to the first floor and showing him how the expansion of his new apartment was progressing. He’d agreed to let Nate combine two apartments into one that included a suite for Stanley and opened the large kitchen and dining room into a greenhouse that jutted into the courtyard.

  “We’ll keep the apartment on the fifth floor too,” Nate insisted as Stefan wheeled him through the rooms.

  “I’ll need that for Robert and his wife.”

  “Well, he can’t have it.”

  “All right. Then Robert will move into this apartment here.”

  “No. Not after all the planning I’ve done to get it right.”

  “You choose which apartment you prefer. And then Robert can take over the other one.”

  “Relocate … Take over … I used to think you were a different kind of German, but I was wrong. The same way the fools over there were wrong about their neighbors. Some neighbors … I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to force me out altogether just like—”

  “Nate—”

  “—just like they’re doing to Jews in your country.”

  “This here is my country, Nate. I came here as a boy.”

  “Once a Kraut—”

  “Don’t.” Stefan felt sick. Furious. “What have I done to you?”

  “You people have done plenty.”

  “Listen to me. I have lived here half a century. I have only been back to Germany once. For many years I have regarded you as a friend. And I don’t think—the hell I don’t think—that I deserve any of this.” He wheeled Nate from the apartment. Slammed the door on their way out. Pushed the up arrow for the elevator.

  “Don’t tell me—” Nate started, but stopped when the elevator door opened and Fanny Braddock was standing there in her bright red sweater, one finger on the control panel. Her short hair, gray already, stuck up in tufts.

  “Can you move aside a bit, Fanny? Thank you. I need to get Mr. Bloom’s chair in here.”

  “Five?”

  “Yes, you can get us to five.”

  Pleased, she pressed her thumb against the number five button. While the elevator rose, she stared at Stefan as though she knew about his fight with Nate. But when she opened her mouth, she said, “You have a nice body, Mr. Blau.”

  I don’t need this. I don’t need any of this. Still, he told her what he’d taught both his sons to say to Fanny when they were boys. “Thank you, Fanny.”

  She leaned against him, smelling of cheese and lake water. Fit her head beneath his chin.

  “Stand up straight, Fanny.” He tried to step away from her, but behind him was the wall of the elevator, and next to him Nate’s wheelchair.

  She sighed with contentment. “Weatherman says sunshine.”

  “Fanny? Stand up straight.”

  But she didn’t budge.

  “They’re relocating people like her too,” Nate said. “Jews and morons.”

  Stefan couldn’t breathe. It was hot in the elevator. Tight. With Fanny pressing at him with her body, Nate pressing at him with words.

  “They throw them all together into camps and—”

  “Fanny,” Stefan said desperately, “you must stand on your own, Fanny.”

  She disengaged her head. Peered up at him sideways. Licked the underside of his chin.

  “Jesus!” He dried his chin with his sleeve, dreading Nate’s laugh or another nasty comment about him and morons and sex.

  But Nate looked solemn when he said, “You shouldn’t do that, Fanny.”

  To live in the rooms where she had met Robert seemed romantic and exciting to Yvonne, who immersed herself in a feast of decorating. She hired two women who’d started their own construction company a few years ago, and they tore down Pearl’s dark green satin hangings, built shelves, sanded the floors, and painted the walls ivory, emphasizing the graceful arch where the walls merged with the ceiling. Meanwhile, Yvonne sewed ivory lace curtains for the long windows, bought a soft ivory carpet, and dyed white fabrics of different textures in the same hue of ivory, so that she could make slipcovers and pillows for the chairs and sofas she’d brought here from her apartment. It gave her pleasure to tell Robert how she’d managed to find what she needed despite shortages.

  Though he couldn’t make himself comfortable in their apartment, he told himself that it was important for her to express her decorating talents. After all, she’d given up stimulating work in Boston. Once the apartment was finished, their expenses were sure to go down. But Yvonne had an expensive wardrobe to which she constantly added, and though she sewed most of her clothes, she still chose the best fabrics. Often she’d change outfits three or four times a day. To him she looked good in everything, especially in blue.

  “It’s your color,” he’d say.

  She particularly liked evening gowns, chiffons and silks and brocades that she’d wear to restaurants or the theater, moving with such confidence that—even if she was the only woman in a long gown—she never looked overdressed. It was rather that whatever she wore seemed right and made everyone else seem underdressed.

  “She makes a lot of things herself,” he told his mother one day when she worried about Yvonne’s constant spending. “She finds remnants, puts them together in interesting ways.”

  “I know she sews beautifully. But that carpet she bought was not a remnant. And the mirror she put on your closet door wasn’t inexpensive either.”

  He didn’t tell
Yvonne about that conversation because she already felt intimidated by his mother’s accomplishments in the kitchen, felt ignored because his mother never commented on the style and colors of new clothes. Still, she welcomed his mother’s invitation to dinner every evening since it kept her out of the kitchen and made it possible to spend her days decorating the apartment or sewing clothes.

  Yvonne was intrigued by what she thought of as Stefan’s European ways—how he bowed his head when he held her chair for her, inquired about her day. But when Helene tried to include her in conversations, Yvonne gave brief answers and retreated into strained silences that baffled Helene.

  Yvonne liked it when Greta joined them for dinner or invited her along on her daily walks; and she enjoyed visiting Pearl Bloom and sitting with her at the marble table in her greenhouse. That greenhouse allowed Miss Garland a view into the Blooms’ life, and she was able to confirm what others in the Wasserburg suspected: that Stanley Poggs had indeed become Nate’s successor.

  “What else did you see?” Mrs. Perelli asked, eyes bright.

  “Scandalous,” others said.

  “What’s most scandalous,” Miss Garland informed them, “is that Pearl Bloom doesn’t even hide their affair from her husband.”

  “You mean he knows?”

  “Approves of it.” She’d describe to anyone willing to listen how the three of them would sit at the dinner table, Pearl in the middle, sometimes holding the hands of both men.

  “Unnatural,” Mrs. Evans told the other tenants.

  “Deviant,” Mrs. Heflin told her customers when she added up their groceries.

  One morning, when Pearl had her first cup of coffee and saw the curtain shifting in Miss Garland’s window across the courtyard, she strode into the greenhouse, opened her bathrobe, and pressed her bare breasts against the cool glass. Already, she could picture herself telling Nate how unexpectedly sensuous her breasts felt. High and taut. As though she were twenty years younger. So much of her daily pleasure came from imagining herself talking to him about moments as she experienced them. To him and Helene. She used to save all that up for Helene, but Nate’s illness had made him a better listener.