Hanno’s Doll (9 page)

“I'm Frances Ford. I hope I'm welcome, too, Mr. Dietrich. The invitation said ‘you,' and we hoped you did mean all of us.”

“All of us” … all of them, the unholy mob of them; first the female clacking, clacking, her eyes expertly raking the room, seeing the furniture, the Bechstein, the tree, Puppchen in her Lady dress.

“And this is Mrs. Dietrich, isn't it?” She waited for no introduction, that one. “Do you have any kids around, Mrs. Dietrich? Oh, good! I mean, I'm afraid little Petey's caught a bad cold.”

Little Petey announcing his presence with a sneeze. The pigtailed knock-kneed sister drooling over the
canapés
, the two older sisters just tall enough to pull down the swag over the fireplace. Clack, clack, Frankie this and Frankie that and Frankie so thrilled to be given this chance to work with Hanno Dietrich. Frankie busy walking up and down trying to smother the worst of little Petey's sneezes in his manly pigeon breast.

Puppchen had gone behind her face, extinguished, banished, not peeping out once, even for him. (It would have been funny except that what was outside in the funk hole made it
un
funny.) Fool that he'd been! But, then, how could he have announced to the dean that his requirements for a new assistant were so special. He couldn't have asked for another Philip Scott because the dean might think it the kind of deal the dead boy said it was.

Oh weh
, that Christmas evening!

It had been a perfect start for the holiday. After the Christmas play, great triumph that, Puppchen's empty smile as he was congratulated—empty triumph—and then their party after which the Drama Department simply dispersed, vanished in a body. He had not realized that in a college Christmas, not even one student mouse stirred.

If he had not promptly caught little Petey's cold, surely he could have contrived something for them to do so that it would not have been so dull in Felix's house. A barrel of laughs, he thought, setting his hand on his belly. But the damned cold he had caught turned the barrel of laughs into a barrel of coughs, snorts, sneezes. No Philip to make Puppchen feel safe, no boys to play with, no laughs. He had sneezed and Puppchen had moped.

And then, on the twenty-ninth, the Ernest drove up with Anni.

My God, how happy he would have been to see the Ernest without Anni! How the Ernest had sweetened the air, walking in that raw afternoon, so slight, so neat in his navy-blue coat, his mouth so sweet and his gentle brown eyes, with the abiding touch of sadness, resting on him with such anxious affection. He would have burst into a Hallelujah chorus had the Ernest come alone, but he was accompanied, inexorably, by Anni.

Inexorable Anni, wearing her Daniel-come-to-judgment face. Not a woman any longer, a judge; her glance had weighed rather than greeted him.

An aging woman should work harder at her dressing table than a young one. She should not flaunt her loosened flesh but try to conceal it. She should use her hair to flatter her, not chop it off. (How beautiful her hair had been, blue-black, now grizzled.) Why could she not dye her grizzled hair? Dyes were so good nowadays. Why behave as if she should do without such frippery? And have it curled. And put
Crème Ducharme
to make it shine, and never be without make-up on that skin which used to be so creamy. And when had Anni forgotten that it was not enough to smell of soap? Her skirt dipped in the back because she would not wear a girdle; a tailored suit was unbecoming to the old Anni, so why always a tailored suit these days? With anyone's shirt, any old color.

It was as if Anni had not aged but changed, not a woman any longer, something different. She had become a third sex, she as good as said, a third sex into which both men and women changed in the end, and so should he have changed, she meant. “No, thanks,” he thought. Yes, the way Anni had been got up was to show him, to be a living calendar to him.

Puppchen had been wearing her Saint dress that afternoon. The contrast, the contrast! Puppchen was how a female should dress, how a female should be. Seeing Puppchen sitting on the ottoman, hugging her knees, chin tucked in, listening, taking in, assenting or dissenting, but not merely sitting silent until she could pass judgment, didn't that show Anni anything? A woman could stay that way always; it had nothing to do with age. Anni had never been like that. Only when the Nazis had her scared to death, only when she knew that disobedience to him could mean her death and Felix's and the Ernest's had she been like that. She had let him guide her only then; from the moment she was out of danger, she wanted everything tandem. A bicycle built for two. Well, he didn't want that. To carry a woman in your arms, to protect her, yes. To have her pedaling along with you, making her legs (and spirit) ugly with great muscles, no! Good-by!

However it had only been Ernest who came that afternoon to say good-by. Not Anni, she wasn't going to Wien, not Anni. Never going back to Wien. Never would go back. Only a fool would put her head back into the lion's mouth. The old story, Scratch a German and find an anti-Semite. Hanno had read about the anti-Semitic riots in Germany, hadn't he? Well, outbreaks, then.

Hoodlums. Only hoodlums.

Hoodlums? Maybe, but she had had enough of such hoodlums. She would not cross the ocean to seek them out.

The same irresponsible hoodlums we have here.

Hanno had read in the papers what had happened in New York City? He had read about the defacing of the great Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue and about the twelve other temples? “That could be the beginning here,” Anni said.

“Nonsense. Nonsense.” He had begun to sweat, seeing it coming.

“Maybe nonsense, maybe not,” Anyhow, Anni had come to Bradley for that reason. She had come to ask him for the house. She would return the money. It had not yet been touched. She would pay for the transfer of the deed; that was only fair.

“Fair? My dear Anni! I only bought it because …”

“I know, Hanno. I am very grateful for your kindness, but please be kind once more. I want Felix's house back.”

“You are impossible, Anni!”

Ernest said, yes she was, she was, but Hanno knew Momma. Once she got a notion into her head … The Ernest said, “The other night there was a ring at the door. Red Cross, Hanno. To Momma it was the Storm Troopers.”

Anni said nowhere was safe, nowhere was safe, but why had Felix left his sister his house, his foolish sister? Felix was no fool like his foolish sister. Felix had not cherished foolish dreams of going back to the old country; no, on the contrary, Felix had—

“I don't want to hear another word; I'm ashamed of you, Anni! I'm ashamed of you!” He stood up, sweating, and sent the two children out of the room, commanded (and got) silence of Anni while Puppchen and Ernest were hurried into their coats. Puppchen was to take the Ernest for a walk while he talked some sense into Anni. “Ernest, you should have given your mother some tranquilizer pills instead of letting her come here.”

When he and Anni were alone, he tried to talk some common sense into her. Surely she knew it was futile to believe she would be more secure in this house than in any other house?

“Maybe I do.”

Her security, like everyone's, rested in herself, and not in a funk hole to hide in.

“You are a fine one to talk, Hanno.”

“Me? Why me?”

“You are the one who told me your wife's security is only in you. According to you, didn't she try to kill herself because all her security was bleeding to death?”

“According to me? And why, according to you?”

“I do not know why.”

“No, you are incapable of understanding because you couldn't do it. You are incapable of giving yourself to anyone the way Puppchen gave herself to me.”

“That's right, I am not a Puppchen. I never was a Puppchen. I was a woman always and never anyone's doll.”

“And that is why you are nobody's doll now. That is why you are a lonely old woman now.”

They laced into each other in quite the old way, forgetting everything in their argument. It was Anni who remembered first. She
was
lonely, then. She
was
frightened then. She wanted the house back. Give her the house back.

How shocked she had been when he refused her. Even if she had never been his doll, he had not refused her many things in their long past together. (How much more shocked she would have been if she knew how much he wanted to turn over the house to her and never set foot in it again.)

“I'm sorry, Anni. No. If you're such a hysterical fool, find another house with another funk hole.”

“I hysterical? So are you hysterical, Hanno.” She pointed at him. “You have given yourself a fever with your hysterics. You are burning up with fever from hysterics.”

And again a pitched battle … old opponents. They were shouting at each other when Puppchen and the Ernest returned. Puppchen slipped out of her coat and came to him as he sat blowing his red and swollen nose. She had clasped her hands.

“Let's give the house back to Anni, Hanno.”

“
Na
, Puppchen,
na!
”

“Please, Hanno.” She had come closer to him, pulled up the ottoman to him and sat on it. “Please, please, please.”

Another county heard from. “
Na
, Puppchen!”

“If Anni wants it, please let's give it to her.”

He had not been able to resist a glance at Anni, pointing out with it how kind Puppchen was to her, although Puppchen certainly was aware that Anni had been against her from the beginning. But Puppchen wasn't being purely kind; she did not want to stay in Bradley any longer. He had known that since Thanksgiving. “That's very sweet of you, my dear, but you know I've taken on certain obligations here. You know this, Puppchen. I can't drop everything because Anni has a whim.” He had taken her chin in his hand and wagged it gently. “No.” And his hand could almost feel—the sensation was so strong—her soft flesh turning into stone, just as he could see the shutter coming down in her eyes and barricading Puppchen from him.

She moved away from his hand.

By then, though, he was feeling too ill. It hadn't been hysteria he was burning up with, but fever. By then the harpoon was discovering his chest. He could not coax Puppchen then, gently, quietly, patiently make her understand that he was not being cruel to her, cruelly betraying her trust in him. He felt too sick to make her understand that he was not turning into another mother, another betraying father, another faithless lover. It had been, by then, all he could do to steel himself each time he breathed; he could not breathe life back into her as well.

“No!” he said. “We will not leave for Anni or for anyone. Here we are and here we stay!
Schluss!
Finished!”

Puppchen's little face had turned color, white then red. Snow White, Rose Red, as if he had slapped her face, and of course he had. Oh, Puppchen, Puppchen, he had never spoken to her that way, never had said, “No! Finished!
Schluss!
” to any request. He would not have been surprised if the room had exploded, if the champagne glass he held in his hand had shattered and a sliver had pierced through his blubber into his heart.

Nothing had happened, of course, except Puppchen wore the face she had never worn for him, the one he had vowed to banish. Nothing had happened except that she looked at him in the way he had vowed she would never look at him, poor Puppchen, and then, before his agony at having done this to her could vanquish the agony in his chest, she turned and ran.

The Ernest said, “You shouldn't talk to her like that, Hanno. She only wanted to be nice to Momma.”

Then Anni was at him, too. “Give her what she wants, Hanno.”

“What you want! What you want!”

“Not for me. Give her what she wants, I tell you. This isn't in the bargain, Hanno.”

“In the bargain? In the bond? ‘'Tis not in the bond.' A Daniel come to judgment! yes, a Daniel. Have I promised Puppchen a pound of flesh?”

“Two hundred and sixty pounds of flesh, my dear.”

“I'am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!'”

Anni had come close to him, studied him with her eyes squinted. “I don't understand, Hanno. Why won't you …?”

His hand had come down on the arm of the chair. “Because I won't! Because I won't!”

Anni's hand was on his forehead. “Because you're sick. You're really sick.” Then she yelled, “Ernest! Ernest!”

And then the Ernest, listening to his chest, taking his temperature, shaking his head, and Puppchen, now stiff with terror, saying that he must go to the hospital, the hospital. But he could not go to the hospital and leave Puppchen alone. (And the grounds alone?) No hospital, no.

Yes, hospital. (Anni bossing everybody.) Puppchen wouldn't be alone because she would stay with her again.

And then, because by that time he had been beaten by the pneumonia, the telephone calls, the bundling into the Ernest's car, his only rebellion the return for Montaigne and Puppchen's photograph. And then the groaning, moaning, the stabbing in his chest and seven days in the college infirmary. And this. This.

And now what? The door was opening. His nurse. His nurse plus an invalid chair, plus disapproval sharpening every line of her body and cutting new folds in her face. She wheeled the chair parallel to his bed.

“For me? Where am I going?”

“They want you to sit outside for half an hour.”

Now his nurse's disapproval was all for “them.” Obviously she didn't believe that even a Criminal Pneumonia should be unceremoniously hustled out of bed and into a wheel chair. She transferred him into it, her lips tighter than the blanket she wrapped around his legs.

She wheeled him into the corridor and he saw that a bench had been set outside his door so the K.K.K. could keep guard in comfort. He told himself that the corridor was bright enough, perfectly ordinary, that the whisperings, the fantasies had furnished it for him so that it remained a corridor to hell. (It was the corridor of the old jail where the Nazis had taken him for questioning that time.)