The Heroines (17 page)

Pearl fixed me with a stern look. “But where is thy king, thy father?”

“Back at the castle.”

“I mean thy true father. The father who made you.”

“He’s in heaven,” I said, and the images of a father playing a harp and frolicking with angels filled my head.

“Not thy heavenly Father. The earthly one.”

“I
said
. In heaven. He’s dead.” I didn’t like to say the word, so I softened it. “He passed away right after I was born.”

“Art thou certain?”

I didn’t understand why she would say such a thing.

“Sometimes the father is closer than you think. Mine is in the village. He shall join Mother and me in a new land.”

I looked around the woods, a creepy feeling coming over me; I didn’t understand or like what she was saying. The shadows deepened around us. Night was falling more quickly in those October days, and I didn’t want to get caught in the dark. “C’mon!” I said. “We better get back home. Our moms will be worried.”

She merely smirked, then turned away, making me chase her down the path, through the rocky trails and over the extension bridge. Once, she ducked behind a tree and then jumped out screeching like a cat. When I screamed, she merely giggled and headed back toward the prairie, as if she knew, by instinct, that staying in the woods beyond sunset was an unwise thing to do. I was so relieved to see her turn toward home that when we emerged from the woods, I decided to forgive her for everything.

Hester and Pearl stayed for almost a week. Every day, Pearl and I reenacted our drama of the pillory. She was always the governor or the punishing cleric, and I the minister or the disgraced woman, who had to pay for sinful ways with lashings or by holding my arms in the air till the blood drained out. The games always felt terribly serious, intense, but only mildly painful. I succumbed completely to Pearl’s will. And for months after they disappeared, I longed for the thrill of her shaming. I never told my mother about the nature of our play.

I
t’s hard for me to explain the confessional mode that struck me while sitting in the sun on the hot railroad tracks with Albie, my mind foggy with weed. Perhaps the Unit had made me appreciate the freedom of talking to a peer who actually knew me, not to Peggy or some nurse who was trying to unearth some golden nugget that would set me “free.” I felt perfectly at ease confessing to Albie the strange games with Pearl. They had always confused me, made me feel an odd shame. Albie understood it completely.

“We talked about that in class,” Albie said. “How Pearl always created mean imaginary characters. Plus, my theory is that all kids are basically cruel.”

“But why did I go along with it?”

Albie shrugged his shoulders, and curved his scoliosis-prone back. Strands of dark hair brushed his collar, and I noticed some sparse hairs above his lips. “She didn’t actually hurt you, right?”

“No. She just bossed me around.”

“You’re an only child.” He held up one finger, then made a peace sign. “If you had a big bullying brother like I do, you’d have learned to defend yourself.”

Albie’s brother was one of those prep-school dream boys, who’d gone off to a boarding school in the East. He lorded his perfect grades, skin, and looks over Albie like a preening snot. “Maybe,” I said. “I didn’t have a lot of friends my own age back then. Pearl was the only kid Heroine who ever showed up.”

“Cool. Old Anne-Marie’s like a witch or something, drawing these characters to her. What a head trip.”

The word
witch
made me cringe, mostly because it had crossed my mind a million times, and because Pearl had chanted it so gruffly in the woods. “No surprise I wound up in the Unit.”

“Man, your mom sure looked like she could use a break from
her
story line.”

“What do you mean?” I felt the headache creeping back, the inklings of paranoia that (I’d later learn) came with a diminishing buzz. I didn’t want to think about my mom’s feelings; if I let that in, I’d be swallowed up.

“The cops were grilling her pretty hard.”

I looked down at my palms. The creases somehow made me sad, feel older. My hands felt heavy and yet somehow detached from me. Everything they’d done in the past few weeks, all the ways I’d changed. I couldn’t fathom it. I couldn’t fathom what my mother had been through either. I didn’t want to. “I bet she’s getting one of her migraines.”

“If we’re lucky, she will. Isn’t she down for the count with those? It would work great if she were asleep. I think I can handle it if I run into Gretta. She won’t send in the cops, I bet. Does she know the deal about the Heroines?”

“She’s hip.” I looked up from my lap. The sun was starting to drop behind the trees. “You better hurry, Albie. Get that note under the back door.”

“Jump on.” Albie squatted and I jumped back on his back. “I’ll come back later tonight to check on you guys. But like I said before, you should move farther in. Out where we used to build the forts. I’ll find you.”

After Albie left for the Homestead, my paranoia got stronger. He left me a joint to fend off the withdrawal, and I took a few tokes to take the edge off. But as the sky darkened and the crickets started to chirp, fear took up full residence in my bones. I paced the ground, stirring up the dirt and blackening the soles of my feet. Conor and I had to move.

“My mother knows I met you in these woods. Better to throw them off the trail by going to a different part.”

“The High King hides from no man!”

“It’s not like we’re hiding. Just finding a better spot for the final battle.”

Conor finally agreed, so we broke camp, wrapping the plastic sheet around the branches and roping the mattresses to the horse’s rump. I had to talk him out of carrying the deer on the horse’s back (I couldn’t stomach it) by telling him we’d move faster without it. He could retrieve it later if he wanted. Horse trails wound all around Prairie Bluff, so we could have easily passed for a father and daughter out for a late Sunday ride. Of course, Prairie Bluff residents had fabulous saddles and riding gear, whereas we were bareback, me in PJs, he in a tunic, and carting trash. Conor’s sword would be a little tough to explain as well, but I figured I’d sell him as a fencer, if anyone got close enough to ask.

Within minutes we cleared my normal stomping grounds and wound along rarely traveled trails.

“I nearly set up camp out here,” Conor said, “but I was afraid that you and Deirdre would never find me. ‘Tis true that it’s a far better spot for hiding.”

Albie and I used to have daylong expeditions on these trails, pretending to be chased by giants or constructing feeble forts. This past summer, we were too lazy for hikes; we just sat on logs and listened to WLS on his blue plastic transistor radio. He smoked grass while I did interpretive dances to “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.” It seemed like kid stuff to me now, yet as Conor directed the horse along those dark and narrow trails, I longed for those simple days.

Conor and I rode to the edge of the woods, where the train tracks curved along the river. As we approached the water, we scared up three ducks, which flapped into their heavy-bottomed flight, and annoyed Canadian geese honked at us. Other than the birds, the woods felt deserted, though with the horse at full gallop, it was hard to see anything but a blur of leaves. Conor started to slow down, then brought the horse to an abrupt halt, which made my head spin. He jumped straight off, but I closed my eyes and tried to find my balance before I allowed him to lift me off the horse and down to the ground.

I needed to lie down, and I watched through glazed eyes as Conor reassembled the shelter. As soon as he’d finished, I crawled inside and lay down on one of the mattresses. I imagined how close Albie might be to the Homestead just then. He was so lucky! I only hoped he could reach Gretta without my mother noticing. I wondered if Gretta knew I’d been at the Unit, and what she might think of me. I stared up at the plastic-sheet ceiling, the black outlines of fallen oak leaves. I’d never really thought about it, but Gretta was sort of like a father figure to me. She managed the Heroines well whenever one of them flew into inexplicable outrages or tears, and I knew better than to cross her myself. She was so Old World, played the heavy when needed, and yet when I thought about it, she was actually warm and flexible. There was so much about Gretta that I didn’t know then, and yet I longed for her steadiness nearly as much as I longed for Mother’s Valium. That was the thing about her. Gretta never had a migraine, she never even caught cold. She was the iron force in the household, and yet at thirteen, I knew so little about her life. Yet within days I would learn unimaginable things about Gretta, my mother, and the real truth about my father.

G
retta had been the cook at the Homestead long before Mother converted it to a bed-and-breakfast. She’d been a fixture throughout the Entwhistle family’s summer visits, and her Old World reticence and relentless perfectionism utterly suited Grandmother. Born in a small impoverished Bavarian village in 1929, she knew the meaning of the word
want.
She never wasted a grain of salt. She gathered windfall apples for latticed pies and warm compote. Gretta assaulted food when she cooked. She beat eggs into a froth, chopped meat with a sharp and whistling cleaver; she made quilts from discarded clothes. She cut out dishtowels from old linen tablecloths, pressed them with a steaming iron, and folded them into perfect rectangles that draped the towel bars. Gretta was never idle. She actually darned socks! In late summer I helped her pick blueberries, and we’d make jam the old-fashioned way. After we’d boiled the berries in a huge copper pot she wrapped them in linens, strung the bundle from a stick wedged between the fireplace grates, and let the juice drip for hours into an earthenware crock. It delighted her that I took an interest in cooking, when Mother had scorned all housewifery.

Gretta had come from Germany in 1947 with an American soldier when she was only eighteen. Within one year of her arrival, she was married and divorced, though I never dug up more than scant details about the circumstances. Grandmother took little interest in Gretta’s story. She’d snapped her up when Gretta had answered an ad for a cook and housekeeper in 1948, and she’d served the family well for years. But the most important thing about Gretta was neither her culinary expertise nor her spartan housekeeping tactics. No, what really made her vital to my mother was that she had been present for the most problematic Heroine. And the first intruding Hero.

The story, which I pieced together over the years from different conversations with Mother and Gretta, begins the summer of 1960, just after Mother turned eighteen. Gretta stayed in the Homestead year-round, though the Entwhistles spent only summers and two weeks at Christmas away from their Lincoln Park home. In late June, on a night of thunderstorms, Gretta was up late ironing tablecloths, preparing for the family’s arrival the next day. Lightning cracked, followed immediately by thunder, and it sounded as if a tree had been struck. When the electricity flashed off for an instant, she remembered the Allied air raids, unplugged the iron, and instinctively ran to the pantry. As stalwart as Gretta was, thunderstorms made her tremble like a shell-shocked vet. She slammed shut the door, and inhaled deeply, counting the length of time between the lightning and thunder. Grandfather Entwhistle had told her that every five seconds equaled a mile, which meant the lightning had struck one mile away. Between the growing intervals of crashing lighting and thunder, she discerned another rapping sound. Somebody was pounding at the door. When three raps were audible between the lightning and thunder, she left the pantry and ran to the back door.

A young woman stood under the porch light, soaked to the skin. Her long skirt clung to her legs, and raindrops dripped from her darkened hair down her nose. Gretta opened the door and shooed the girl into the mudroom. Though she was under strict orders from Grandmother Entwhistle never to have guests, she didn’t hesitate to let the girl in. Having watched refugees and soldiers emerge from the Bavarian woods, Gretta could never turn away a person in need. Not when the Entwhistles had plenty to spare.

She searched the cabinets for the beach towels she’d washed for the Entwhistles. Taking care of somebody else immediately steadied her hands. Before she wrapped the towel around the girl’s shoulders, she demanded that she take off her wet clothes. (Gretta had no false modesty about the human body.) The girl peeled away her dress and blouse and started to shiver the moment the towel hit her shoulders. Gretta plunked her down in the old wicker chair and wiped her feet dry, scolding her for being out on such an unseasonably cold night. The young woman was disoriented, didn’t know how she’d found her way there. Her accent was closer to the English Gretta had learned in school in Germany. Deciphering where the girl was from was less important than remedying her chill, and Gretta hurried her up to the second floor and ran a bath for her in the bathroom connected to Mother’s room.

While the girl soaked, Gretta searched Mother’s dresser for a warm nightgown. The girl and Mother were nearly the same size—thin and long-limbed—though the English girl, even in her shivering delirium, had a high forehead and proud lift to her chin that didn’t match Mother’s bearing in the least. Gretta had never understood Anne-Marie Entwhistle. She saw clearly that Mother hid her intelligence, but always had her nose in a book, and it seemed to Gretta that Anne-Marie did her simple chores with an almost studied carelessness. Gretta was always remaking Mother’s bed before Grandmother’s inspection, refolding the crooked towels in her linen closet, or touching up the botched cakes Mother inevitably began to frost before they’d cooled. Mother cared only about exploring the woods or pedaling downhill a half mile to the Lake Michigan beach. Gretta understood Grandmother’s perfectionism completely, yet even she hated to see Anne-Marie berated. Mainly because it had no effect and was a waste of precious time. It was faster to fix things herself than to go to the trouble of having Anne-Marie reapply herself.

Gretta found a flowered flannel nightgown balled in the corner of a drawer and shook it out, trying to decide if she should iron it. A quiet flash of lightning answered that question; Gretta wouldn’t go near an electrical outlet during a storm. Also, she didn’t want to leave the English girl alone; she didn’t seem to be in her right mind. Gretta gave the nightgown a good shake and sniffed the armpits. It smelled like Tide. Mother wore only her father’s oversized T-shirts to bed, never the Victorian gowns that she received without fail from “Santa Claus” each Christmas.

Gretta knocked on the bathroom door, then barged in. “Here is nightgown, miss!”

The girl was submerged beneath the water, her eyes open, her cheeks puffed out like a corpse. Bath oil gave the water a blurry sheen, made the girl look more pale, her nipples bright red. Her hair fanned out above her and clung to the porcelain of the tub. She looked eerie and half dead, and Gretta clapped her hands to snap the girl out of it and ordered her out of the tub.

Mother had twin beds in her room, each with a mahogany headboard and four carved posters. Every bed in the house—all fifteen of them—had received fresh sheets that morning, in anticipation of the Entwhistles’ arrival. As soon as Gretta had tucked the girl into the guest bed and plied her with warm milk and sandwiches, she became more animated rather than calmer. She raved about the disappearance of someone named Heathcliff, and vowed to punish someone called Linton. She sat upright and tore at her wet hair. She spoke of searching the moors, passion and hate. Confused and disinterested in all the blather, Gretta lay a plump hand on the girl’s forehead and pushed her head back against the pillow. She forced a thermometer into her mouth and held it there, ignoring the girl’s wild eyes. One hundred and two degrees. Nothing a couple of Bayer aspirins wouldn’t cure. Cutting in amid all the hysterical talk, she managed to get the girl to say her name: Catherine.

“Swallow these, Katerina.” Gretta held out the aspirin and passed her a glass of water. “Big gulp.”

The girl tipped the glass and swallowed the pills, coughing dramatically afterward.

And with this act of practical kindness, a subtle interference with a Heroine’s destiny occurred. In early nineteenth-century novels, fevers worked wonders for authors. They caused madness and protracted death. They dragged on for months; they brought on visits from country doctors, with dramatic scenes with leeches, meals of water whey and gruel, powders and sponge baths. They gave many a lovelorn spouse or dutiful child, servant, or maid sleepless nights. But with a twelve-hour course of plain old Bayer aspirin (Gretta woke her several times to dispense it), Catherine Earnshaw’s fever was cured.