Hanno’s Doll (12 page)

It had probably been left in the wheel chair, but the wheel chair had been wheeled out into the hall, and Miss Claremot had taken it from the hall to where it lived. The K.K.K. would go and ask Miss Claremot to go and see whether the Montaigne had been left in the chair, but he obviously didn't want to ask her. Miss Claremot was annoyed with the K.K.K., and he was a bit timid about angering her still further. Before asking Miss Claremot, the K.K.K. bent down to see if the book had fallen under the bed. It had, and how relieved he was to find it. (How confusing and how comic life was, the two levels of anxiety in this one small room. His anxiety about a murder charge, the K.K.K.'s because he did not want to beard the formidable Miss Claremot. One would think one anxiety would rule out the other, that one small room could not take both, but, no, the two existed side by side. He pressed his palm down on his book; Montaigne would accept this fact and be amused by it.)

Miss Claremot brought some pills. Would they have searched her too? When Puppchen came (she must come soon) would they search her? A heat of fury made him throw off his covers.

Miss Claremot was so happy to say, “Now, Mr. Dietrich!” and cover him up again. Her particular brand of tyranny had been overshadowed by the law. She could only pull up his covers when he threw them off, but the hand of the law could pluck him out of bed. How Miss Claremot resented that … and so did he.

Miss Claremot asked the K.K.K. to wait outside, please. Mr. Dietrich should try to nap.

The K.K.K. left and Miss Claremot left, and perhaps he did nap.

And then she appeared, the little Puppchen, the little doll. She stood for a moment in the doorway, hesitating, and he saw that her eyes had become shallow, that he was not going to be permitted into their depths. He saw that they had frightened her back to stone again; a statue of a Puppchen stood there. He shoved himself up on the pillows. “My darling, my darling! Come to me, darling, it's Hanno here.” He held out his hand and she came toward him, but stopped again a foot from the bed so that he had to coax her. “Puppchen, Puppchen, Puppchen, it will be all right. Don't be frightened, it will be all right.”

But she didn't move. She was like a frightened animal, caught in the blinding light of fear, transfixed, her eyes blinded by the flash.

He said, “How are you, darling?”

She wet her lips. She used her “deportment” voice. “I'm fine. How are you, Hanno? You're not ill any more, are you? You're much better?”

“Definitely, completely … But you … How—how goes it?” he asked. “Have you been … well?”

“I'm fine, Hanno.”

“Have you been to a doctor?”

She said, “Ernest …”

“And Ernest says you're all right? It will be all right?” He laced his fingers and shook his hands in impotent anger. “That this should happen now! But all is well. Have you been to a real doctor, darling? I mean a baby doctor.”

She shook her head.

“But suppose anything … I feel I have been away for months …
Na
, Puppchen, particularly with this—shock—you had better go to a baby doctor as soon as possible.”

“No.” She said, “I was wrong, Hanno.”

“Wrong? No baby?”

“No. No. I mis—”

“You miscarried! This is my doing being here. It only needed this, my God!”

The deportment voice corrected him. “Miscalculated. I miscalculated, Hanno.”

“My poor darling, my poor darling! No baby. How strange fate is because my darling … oh, my darling … the baby was so important in this. It was the night you told me.” She looked so puzzled. “I bet you don't remember that it was the same night.”

She repeated what he said. “It was the same night.”

He nodded vigorously. He gestured vigorously in an attempt to invigorate her. “That night, yes. I came upstairs and woke you. It was to tell you what had happened, Puppchen.”

“Oh.”

“To tell you about the accident which had happened down-stairs.”

“I thought I cried in my sleep and that was why you came. I remember, now, Hanno. I cried because I had been having a nightmare.”

“You told me, sweetheart. You said you had been dreaming that it was going to be the same again, Puppchen. You dreamed this baby was going to be like the other one. (That's when you told me about the baby.) You clung to me; you were still half in the nightmare, half out of it. You weren't sure you were awake or asleep.

“And I thought you were dreaming about the baby, but you said, no, that was real, that part was true.”

She frowned. “I thought it was, Hanno … I miscalculated.”

(She clung to the word as if the polysyllables supported her.) “
Na
, Puppchen!”

“But you're blaming me! You're blaming me, Hanno.”

“Not you, my darling. Fate, fate! Think of it, Puppchen. How could I make my annunciation … what was downstairs … when you made yours? After your holy Annunciation, mine? How could I tell you that your nightmare was real, and that I would have to leave you with this baby the way he had left you with the other? How could I tell you that I would have to walk out on you when you needed me more than ever?

“
Na!
I tried. I smoothed your hair and I wondered how long they would keep me away from you for this terrible accident downstairs. I knew it would be longer than when I had been in hospital, that this was more deadly than hemorrhage.

“How could I tell you? I took you in my arms and hid your face against me. Remember? Remember now? I promised I would never leave you. ‘Rest, Puppchen. Sleep, Puppchen.' I gave you one of your sleeping pills, but still you wouldn't let me go. You lay back obediently, you closed your eyes, but you held my hand. When I would try to release my hand, you would open your eyes again and sit up. So while I sat there I thought, Do I have to do this to her? Must I hurt her this way even though it can't help the boy?

“Puppchen, I thought, Maybe I was having a nightmare, also. I thought, Maybe there is no such boy. The boy who wasn't there, I thought, who hadn't come because who had invited him? I thought, The boy hadn't fallen, hadn't died on the terrace, I hadn't pushed him.

“I sat there watching you become sleepy and I told myself that this was enough punishment. ‘Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it' Do you understand, Puppchen? And then you went to sleep and I went downstairs to the lower level of my hell. I went to the telephone. I went away from the telephone. I wandered around the room while what I had done—or hadn't done—lay outside.

“I took his glass that he had drunk from because he had put so much bitters in, the glass was pink with it. I washed the glass. How would that hurt? I took the bottle of gin off the tray and put it back into the kitchen, because you might notice a bottle of gin. I do not drink gin. You might wonder.

“I went to the telephone again. I thought, No, there is no boy out on that terrace. There need be no such boy. Because who would know he had been there? He was just a passer-by, Puppchen, a passer-through, a hitchhiker with no possible connection with us. No one in the world knew the boy was coming here. No one could trace him to us.” He pulled at his face with his hand. “I was much mistaken, Puppchen.”

She whispered, “Someone knew?”

He nodded.

“Someone knew? Who knew, Hanno?”

He kept his hand over his face. He was ashamed that this should hurt him so much. “Anni.” He heard Puppchen draw her breath in sharply. Then he went over the story for her, hoping that she would find a flaw in it, at least find it preposterous, that he would not, in addition to all the rest he had to accept, bear the burden of this too. He did not look at Puppchen until he finished, hoping, but when he did look, he saw that she had accepted the story without trouble.

Puppchen said, “Why did she, Hanno?”

“She—” But he could not betray Anni's jealousy, even now. “We used to be good friends.…”

“It was me, wasn't it, Hanno? She got jealous of me.”

Now he nodded.

“How awful, Hanno.… What an awful thing!” She pushed at the bracelet on her right wrist. “Ernest wouldn't think Anni was so wonderful if he knew, would he, Hanno?”

“You mustn't tell him, Puppchen. Not tell Ernest. This is just between you and me. You mustn't tell anyone!”

“He thinks she's so wonderful, Hanno. Oh, I won't tell him about Anni, Hanno.”

“Enough about Anni!” Too much. “We will talk about you, Puppchen. We must make plans for you.” Now he groaned. “How will you manage? What will you do during this—this—”

“I spoke to Mr. Clinton this morning, Hanno.”

“Your lawyer, yes.”

“Mr. Clinton said the same thing, Hanno. What I was going to do.” Her lips trembled. “I just didn't know what to do.”

“
Na!
What did Mr. Clinton suggest, darling?”

“He talked to Ernest, too. Ernest's been so kind to me, Hanno.”

“He is a good child.”

“He reminds me of you, Hanno.”

“I thank heaven he was here to help you.” Some good in every evil.

“He is just like you are to me, Hanno. I guess because he was with you so much when he was little. You trained him.”

“About your lawyer, Puppchen?” But Ernest was like him. But he had trained Ernest. In spite of Anni, he had influenced the boy. “What did your lawyer suggest?” He had never had any dealings with them; Puppchen many dealings. There were always so many papers she must sign, with all that money. Puppchen's money had nothing to do with him; that had been between Puppchen and her lawyers, always.

Mr. Clinton had come early this morning. (Ernest had telephoned Mr. Clinton when … “Last night.”) Mr. Clinton had listened to them and then to the policeman, and then he had taken her to the sheriff's office.

“Oh, Puppchen!” Puppchen in a police station.

“It wasn't bad, Hanno. Mr. Clinton wouldn't let them be mean to me. He wouldn't let them.… Hanno, they wanted me to go to the undertaker place.”

“
Ach
, Puppchen!”

“Mr. Clinton wouldn't let them make me, Hanno. I couldn't!”

“Of course not, Puppchen. What for?”

“I don't know—Oh, yes, to see if I knew who …” She shivered. “I couldn't!”

“How could you identify? They are monsters of routine.”

“Mr. Clinton telephoned the doctor from that place where they took me when I …” She held her arm up.

He winced, as he always did at her scar. “That was a good idea. Mr. Clinton earned his money.”

She nodded. “Mr. Clinton fixed it for me. All I had to do, Hanno, was make a statement. I just told them that I didn't know anything about it.”

“You didn't even know what night it happened.”

“No. Hanno, do you want me to tell them about waking up and the nightmare and you coming in …? What you just told me, Hanno. Should I go back to the sheriff's office and tell them about that?”

He said wearily, “What good would that do, darling? My darling,” he said. “I don't know. The baby, you; these were a great part of why I didn't—how would they put it—report the accident. I don't know when is the time for that We will see.”

“I want to help you, Hanno. I will ask Clint. I'll ask Mr. Clinton if I should go.”

“Yes. Ask Clint.”

“He likes me to call him Clint, Hanno. He's been my lawyer since I was a baby.” She came closer to the bed now. “I made this statement and I signed it and then they said we could go and we went.”

Now he could see deep into her eyes, down to her in her eyes. “And now you are here. At last.” He scooped up her hand and kissed it, his cracked lips rasping her tender skin. He felt her flesh soften under his touch, then draw itself hard again. She was looking at him steadily.

“Hanno, Clint says I must go away.”

“From here? From me?” She winced. It was because he had grabbed at her hand which she had withdrawn. “But you can't go away, Puppchen!”

“Clint says I better. He wants me to go to the South of France.”

“What?”

“There are some lovely places there, Hanno. I was there, remember? It was nice when I was there with my father. It really was. When he was nice.”

“They can't take you away from me! You must stay here with me! No,” he said, almost shouting at her.

“Clint says I can't help you here. I can only hurt myself. He says I must go.”

In her fright (his loud voice had frightened her), she pushed at her bracelet. For a moment he hated her. How could she not know what it did to him to see that scar? “I don't understand, Puppchen.”

“Ernest is outside. He can tell you, Hanno. Clint spoke to him.”

They were taking her away. “Yes, ask Ernest. Call the Ernest.” She walked lightly to the door. He had made her practice walking with a book poised on her head and now she could walk beautifully without a book on her head. On his head. On his head be it, he thought. He thought, Must it be? As if to answer him, before she opened the door, she turned and gave him, tableau, a picture of her helplessness. Just looking at her moved him intolerably. He had not taught her how not to be helpless. He had kept her a Puppchen. (This was Anni speaking now.) He had kept her a helpless Puppchen, so it must be on his head now.

And there was the Ernest, his eyes as sad as always, his eyes kinder than ever.

Ernest, too, stood at the door for a moment, and then came to him with his hand out, but he wouldn't have that. He tugged at the hand, pulled down the Ernest's face, and bussed him soundly. “
Du bist mein Schatz,
” he said, the way he used to when the Ernest was a small boy.

Behind the Ernest, he saw Anni. “Shut the door,” he said.

Puppchen ran to the door and shut it.

“Hanno, Momma told the police to
help
you!”