Hanno’s Doll (7 page)

It had been Puppchen who suggested that Miss Mildred come home to lunch with them to be helped. Puppchen sat next to him in the front seat of the station wagon while Miss Mildred huddled to the door, and he had pressed Puppchen's hand in gratitude and homage, for her impulse, unlike his—unlike his—had been pure kindness.

Someone had had to talk on that ride home, so he had talked. He told Puppchen Miss Mildred's story, and how the young man in question had said he would return and then scooted, left her standing at the church. “All Miss Mildred can think of is to go to the police, Puppchen. Miss Mildred naturally sees her young man lying on a hospital bed. This, to me, seems unlikely. These young men don't have accidents, do they, Puppchen? They run off.”

“They run off,” Puppchen had agreed, and the look came on her face when she remembered her own young man who had run off. She turned to Miss Mildred. “You must forget about him. You must never think about him or talk about him. You must wipe him out.”

Quite a speech for Puppchen! Quite a blaze in her eyes, too.

“You forget him and Hanno will help you.”

She meant he would help this girl the way he had helped her. Puppchen had given him the way out.

“Don't cry,” Puppchen said. “There's no good crying, really.”

And there was no good crying. Spilt milk was spilt. He said, “First we will have a gorgeous lunch; nothing is as bad on a full stomach. I Hanno say this. Have you ever had
pfannkuchen
, Miss Mildred? We three will eat and then you and I will have a little talk.”

After the lunch, there had been a moment of panic when he couldn't remember the doctor's address. (We forget what we wish to forget.) But Puppchen remembered. (We cannot forget what we cannot forget. It was one thing to sit outside in the waiting room and another to be in the operating room.) Puppchen left them alone after lunch, and he had settled Miss Mildred on Puppchen's ottoman, while he, from the big Poppa chair, dispensed wisdom.

He had had to tell Miss Mildred over and over again that if the young man had been hurt in an accident, she would have known. It was remarkable how one always knew about accidents. Now, if she wanted everyone to know, then she could ask the police. Miss Grace Metal would know, the college would know, Clifton, Idaho, would know.

Yes, probably the police could find him for her. Yes, even if she knew so little about him. Give the police his letters. But she had no letters. He had never written her.

A photograph, then?

She had a snapshot, yes, she had one snapshot. They had been so happy when she took that snapshot of him.
Oh weh! Oh weh!

He had to remind her of what Puppchen advised. Forget. Never think of him or speak or dream of him. Wipe him out. She must not be sentimental over him; anger served better. Puppchen knew. Experience had taught Puppchen what she had tried to teach Miss Mildred. Puppchen had turned to ice over her young man, and that was the best way, the only way. “Now I am angry with him,” he said. “I personally do not like these young men who hit and run.” That much was true. That terrible boy hadn't intended to go back to Miss Mildred, was hitching back to New York, leaving her. “Where do they run, Miss Mildred? Straight to some other girl's bed, believe me.” It was the truth that Miss Mildred would have needed help in any case. (This made him feel a bit better.)

“No more tears, Miss Mildred. Listen to me. I will help you, but only if you take Puppchen's advice. Wipe him out. Can you do this?” he had asked her. “If, once this emergency is past, you try to find him again, start again, the whole thing, then I will not help you now. What for?”

She had promised to wipe him out.

“Very well, we will go back to the office now.” Not until he had that snapshot and any other souvenir would he call the doctor. Because he hated that part. He had hated it with Puppchen; it was killing, but, as with Puppchen, when it was either the child's life or the mother's … And here,' once again, it was Puppchen's life. It was for Puppchen.

He had gone up to Puppchen's room to tell her he was returning to the college with Miss Mildred. She had been at her dressing table, brushing her hair. He had seen the scars on her wrists in the mirror. Yes, it was for Puppchen.

He and Poor Miss Mildred had had a tussle about the snapshot. Why would it hurt to keep it? How could it hurt to keep a snapshot?

“It can hurt,” he said.

Miss Mildred had given in and they had a ceremonial burning of the snapshot. (It was the boy, of course, but in the snapshot he looked so ordinary. In the snapshot there was no resemblance to the rat-hole boys of Berlin.)

Yes, the picture was all she had. No, there was nothing in her room. She had kept the snapshot in the desk so Miss Metal wouldn't see it and become curious. She had never told Miss Metal a word about …

“No name,” he said. “No name!” Because if he knew the name, the boy would be real. “I don't want to hear his name.” He had refused to know Puppchen's lover's name for the same reason. He had not wanted him to be real, either. (Anni once asked him whether he thought if he closed his eyes and ears to a fact, it wasn't. Anni didn't miss much, did she?)

He had laid his finger across Miss Mildred's trembling lips for silence.

“We tell people I am giving you that chance at Broadway, that I have heard of a small part. Naturally, you leave tomorrow morning, parts wait for no man. Then, you attend to the bad part. (I will telephone the doctor immediately.) After that, you rest up in New York City awhile, and then you do get a chance at a part I will find something. Cheer
up
, Miss Mildred.”

She had cheered up. There had appeared the most subtle shadow of a lift of her drooping lips. What it was to be stage-struck, dear God!

“You will tell people you asked me for a chance and I am giving it to you. If you make good at it, you go on, on your own. If you don't, well, you are still ‘Miss' Mildred, and some day you will make some good man a better wife because of all this.”

He had then called the doctor and made an appointment for the next afternoon. Naturally, he had wanted Miss Mildred removed as quickly as possible from all temptation to talk.

One half day of rest, and then Miss Mildred in tears again. The next morning when she was supposed to be leaving for New York, Miss Mildred at her desk in tears again.

She could not. She could not. It was wrong, wrong, wrong.

But he had made the arrangement with the doctor.

No. No. No.

He had not pressed her. (Could not.) She seemed as determined to keep her child as Puppchen had been not to keep hers.

He had told Miss Mildred that he would have to think of something else, then. He would think of something else. Miss Mildred was to wait, only not to talk. To tell anyone was the one fatal thing. To tell anyone at all would make whatever he did think of useless. “Trust Hanno.”

And he had thought of something else. It hadn't taken much time. It hadn't taken much doing, either. (And this, too, had seemed a sign that fate was trying to make up for what she had permitted to happen.) Leaving Miss Mildred sniffling at her desk, he had gone to Philip Scott's office, taken a cigar from his case and lighted it. A prop cigar, he rarely smoked any more. Staring into the evil red eye of the prop cigar, he said, “Philip, have you a girl?”

Philip blushing. No one girl in particular.

The cigar. Pull, glow, pull. Hypnotize Philip with the evil red eye of the cigar? Nonsense. No. He had asked Philip seriously if be had any serious girl, and Philip said he hadn't one. Went around, of course. (Perfectly normal.)

Seriously.

Seriously, Philip had girls but no one he wanted to marry, if that was what Hanno meant.

Yes, that was what Hanno meant.

It was then that Philip had said he would wait for someone like Puppchen. What he meant was someone who kind of looked up to him. Oh, Hanno could laugh, but it wasn't funny. He really wanted someone who needed him rather than someone who believed he needed her.

(And Anni thought there was something wrong about his needing to be needed.)

So he had told Philip Scott that there
was
someone who needed him.

He described Miss Mildred's plight, the light affair, the heavy consequences. He told Philip about the man being married. He asked Philip to marry Miss Mildred so that she could have her child without what she considered disgrace … a marriage in name only, of course. If Philip would take Miss Mildred to New York and marry her and then come back, leaving her in the city … he Hanno financing, of course … If Philip would help Miss Mildred have her baby respectably, and then a quiet divorce … he financing again …

Philip had said, “Tough on the poor kid, but, gee, Hanno.”

“The baby will have a chance of life and, then, if Miss Mildred doesn't want it, you bet
your
life, there are many people who do.”

“Oh, I get it now. Now I see,” Philip said, and it was Puppchen he saw, of course. Philip saw Puppchen grateful to him, Puppchen smiling at him. Philip had agreed so easily because he saw a smiling, grateful Puppchen with this child nestled in her arms.

“Yes, Philip, now you see.” That, too, had seemed right. If Miss Mildred didn't want it, why not adopt this baby? It had seemed to him, smiling gratefully at Philip, disposing of the cigar, that perhaps the Fates had not slipped up, perhaps this was why they had allowed the accident. An eye for an eye, he had told himself, a life for a life. He and Puppchen would take this baby and give it the best possible life.

He had thought! He had thought!

Because that wasn't what had happened.

“Thanksgiving,” he had told Philip, “Thanksgiving vacation, you and Miss Mildred go off to New York and get married.”

It hadn't been so easy to persuade Miss Mildred. (It is easier to give than to receive.) It had been easier to persuade Philip to do his good deed than to persuade Miss Mildred to receive it.

“No, it isn't right,” she said. “It just isn't right.”

But it had seemed right. To him and Philip immediately, to Miss Mildred after a while. Only Puppchen was sad about it. She hadn't said so, of course, never would say so, but just as she had believed it wrong when he proposed to take her lover's baby for his own, so apparently it was wrong for Philip to father Miss Mildred's child. Miss Mildred should have an abortion, not have Philip. Oh, Puppchen had bowed to his decision, of course, but it left her unhappy. In part her disapproval came from her feeling that it was wrong, but part, of course, came because she did not want Philip to marry Miss Mildred and go away. Puppchen needed Philip. In his need, he had forgotten Puppchen's. He had disregarded what Philip meant to Puppchen, something he had known about since the evening of the Infanta dress.

In October that had been, a month after they had come to Bradley. He had wondered as Puppchen came down the stairs in the Infanta dress how she had managed to do up the back without him. He had disapproved, thinking it too big an effect for Felix's stairway, for Felix's country room, for an evening with just himself and Philip Scott. (He had designed the Infanta dress for the Oscar presentation the year before.)

He remembered how he had seen her effect in Philip Scott's upturned face as she came slowly down, making, as he had shown her how to, the most of the tilting of the wide panniered skirt, her bracelets glistening. She had set her hands, as he had taught her to, one on each side of the skirt. It had seemed that Philip would never get his mouth closed, that Philip would gape up at her, forever, stand forever with his glass in his hand.

He had had to push the ottoman forward for Puppchen, since any chair would crush the skirt, and she had swayed across the room to it and then waited there, unmoving. (“Never fidget, Puppchen.”) When he had brought her the champagne in the Waterford glass, she had gravely bowed her head in thanks, like a little queen.

He had known then that Philip Scott hadn't meant
cavalier servant
to Puppchen, not just someone to squire her, to take her around if he was busy. Oh, no, Philip had been an insurance policy, Philip's youth had given Puppchen back the confidence she had lost when, in his dressing room that day, she had watched his lifeblood draining in the hemorrhage and had gone home to kill herself. It was only after the reinforcement, the insurance policy in the person of Philip, had appeared that she had been able to bear her husband out of her sight at all without trembling for fear the Grim Reaper would appear and snatch him and leave her alone again, as when her mother had left her, her father had deserted her, her lover had run away. Not knowing why he had had to take Philip Scott away from her, Puppchen had not approved.

He had understood, after a while, why Puppchen felt as she did, but he had not been able to do anything about it. It was when Miss Mildred and Philip came to the house the night before Thanksgiving to say good-by that he had seen.

“I hope you will be very happy,” Puppchen had said to Miss Mildred. “I congratulate you, Philip.”

Deportment, that is, but with her voice thinned out. She had looked at him, at her husband, with hurt eyes, then lowered her lids and hid the hurt. Those white lids slowly descending … He had seen Pavlova dance. Puppchen's eyelids could execute a perfect little ballet movement.

He had touched Puppchen's shoulder. “Philip will be back soon,” he had said, and conveyed his understanding and a promise in the pressure on her shoulder. Because she spoke so little, strangers did not know how quick she was. Immediately he felt the speaking flick of her shoulders, the flesh of her shoulders, softening, at ease, secure again in his understanding of her needs.

“Have you told anybody about the elopement?” he had asked Miss Mildred.

She had told Grace Metal, but Miss Metal had not liked the marriage, either, apparently smelled something not quite right with her sniffing, old maid's nose. Who better than an old maid to know whether a man loved a girl or not? But Miss Metal (suspecting the unborn child?) had apparently accepted the marriage as a necessary evil. Miss Metal too had formally wished Miss Mildred happiness.