Lilli's Quest (8 page)

It was a huge, shaggy beast, not as sleek as the dogs in Germany that the SS and other police patrolled with, on leashes. Perhaps it was a good-natured animal, not that used to people but not trained, as in Germany, to tear at human flesh. This turned out not to be the case. The dog leapt at me in a frenzy, hurling its heavy body on top of mine. Teeth like sharpened steel spikes sank into my bare leg. I was on the ground, screaming, screaming, in pain and terror. But I could not hear the sounds I was making, only the hoarse, shrill barking of the attacking dog.

Ten

“Hey, hey . . . Hey.”

I was slowly rising to the surface of some dark and fearsome place, yet the words in my ears were wondrously soft, and the barking of the hysterical hound had vanished. I opened my eyes to the whiteness of a sailor's middy and, above it, the fresh face of a young man with searching blue eyes.

The next moment the pain in my leg struck with such fierceness that I cried out.

“Yeah, you got a pretty deep gnashing there, girl.” The voice now became a bit husky. “Take a deep breath, because I'm gonna lift you up and carry you. By the way, my name is Roy.”

“Helga,” I managed to breathe.

“Oh, a German name.”

I wanted to answer, to explain that I was a Jewish refugee from Germany, but I must have passed out again. The next thing I heard was the revving of an automobile engine. Roy was strapping me into the passenger seat of a car. “I'm taking you into town to see the doctor. Can you hear me? Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes,” I said. “You really mustn't trouble yourself.” I looked down at the calf of my leg, which was now wrapped in white bandages stained with small rivulets of blood. “It was only a dog bite.”

“Only,”
Roy mocked. “We've gotta get you a tetanus shot. Just cross your fingers that dog hasn't got rabies.”

Rabies!
My head began to whirl with visions of foaming at the mouth, hallucinations, paroxysms, brain disease, and
death
. “Do animals in America have rabies?”

“Sure. Bats, skunks, raccoons, foxes, wolves. A dog can get it from a wild- animal bite. But,” Roy patted my knee, “there haven't been any reports of rabies around here for a while. So calm down. Where are you from, anyway?”

I told him briefly about Germany and then England.

“Oh, now I get it. Hey, I'm going to try a little homegrown German on you.”

To my amazement and delight, Roy broke into my birth language, and I could make sense of his comforting words. It turned out that he was Irish on his father's side, but German on his mother's, and had been brought up partly by his grandmother.

More than an hour later, Roy drove me back to Shady Pines. The doctor in the nearby village of Harper's Falls had treated my wound with antiseptics, re-bandaged my leg, given me a tetanus shot, and assured me there had been no recent cases of rabies in the entire county. Still, I
was given a list of symptoms to be aware of in the coming days, just to be safe.

Roy parked in the Shady Pines lot, and suggested that I lean on him as we approached the broad sweeping lawn that fronted the main building of the hotel. Already, I could hear a loud buzz of voices—I had been missing for hours. Once again, I had brought unwanted attention to myself, and had surely worried my relatives.

I made my appearance walking beside Roy, and limping as slightly as possible. But the sight of me drew a round of women's screams and, when Roy mentioned that I'd been bitten by a farm dog that we were sure
didn't
have rabies, Aunt Harriette promptly fainted.

In gratitude for rescuing me from “bleeding to death alone in the woods,” Roy was invited to have lunch at Shady Pines, and the big fuss started all over again. The guests also wanted to know about Roy. He was seventeen, just out of boot camp, and awaiting assignment to a ship, probably somewhere in the Pacific. He had heard the barking dog and my screams from across the road, where there was a leafy, well-concealed bungalow colony where he had been visiting relatives for a few days.

Again, I was bombarded with questions from all over the dining room, this time as to whether I had any symptoms of rabies yet. “Does it burn where you were bitten?” “Have you got a headache?” “Can you drink water? Because you know that's why they call it hydrophobia.
If you can't, well . . .” It was a relief when I was ordered to spend the afternoon in my room, resting. “Show me where you'll be,” Roy whispered before leaving. “I'll come by later and check on you, pretty girl.” He spoke in German, and every time he did that, I felt a throb of familiarity. I thought of Karl, although he would not have been so personal.

Isabel, who I thought had been acting strangely all through lunch, was strictly warned by her mother to stay out of our room for a couple of hours so as not to disturb me. There also appeared to be something going on between her and Roy. When I glanced back after reaching our room, I saw her looking up at him and waving her arms around as if she knew him and was angry about something. Perhaps she was jealous of all the attention I'd been getting. I'd have been more than happy to transfer the whole glaring burden to her.

I had been resting for a while and had maybe even dozed off, when I opened my eyes and noticed that one of the bureau drawers that had been assigned to me wasn't properly closed. It sat open at an angle, as if an effort to slam it shut in a hurry had backfired.

Instantly suspicious, I rose from my bed, limped across the floorboards, and pulled the drawer open. Sure enough, someone had been examining my possessions while I'd been exploring the unfriendly countryside.

Most private was my
Shokoladen
box, which I had brought with me from Germany and treasured during my time at the Rathbones and at the hostel. It had never been tampered with before, to my knowledge. Now I could see that the mementos, photos, and letters had been sifted through. The picture with Mutti, Papa, and the three of us lay at a crooked angle. A letter, written in German, had been removed from its envelope and been reinserted the wrong way around. Isabel!

An inspection of the half of the closet where I had hung my things revealed more snooping. Hangers had been brushed aside for a closer look. My delicate flowered chiffon dress was crushed against another garment. I knew that Aunt Harriette, who was already familiar with my wardrobe and the contents of my old chocolate box, would have no need to invade my privacy. Isabel!

When would our stay at Shady Pines end and rid me of this “typical American girl?”

Was I dreaming, or was Roy really calling to me from the window above my bed? Darkness pervaded the room. I had no way of knowing if Isabel was asleep. But how long could I just lie there, with Roy urging me to come outside?

I had no time to think carefully about what I was doing. I got up and crouched close to the window. “One moment,” I whispered hastily. I was wearing the flower-sprigged seersucker summer pajamas that Aunt Harriette
had bought me—“with matching robe.” Snatching up the latter, I tiptoed across the floor and let myself out the door. Roy met me at the bottom of the porch steps casually, as if there was nothing wrong with his invading Shady Pines in the middle of the night and enticing a fifteen-year-old girl to a rendezvous.

“How's your leg?” he asked. “Can you walk to the car? I parked just off the grounds. I could carry you.”

“Car? No. Where are we going? It's crazy.”

“Helga, listen. It's just so we can sit and talk. See, I got my orders yesterday. I have to be on the eight am train to the city. I wanted to see you again. To say goodbye.”

Limping only slightly, I followed Roy under a starlit sky to the borrowed car he had used to take me to the doctor that morning. He had parked it at the side of the dirt road, hidden by trees. He helped me into the passenger seat and came around to the driver's side. It felt odd to be sitting in a parked vehicle that wasn't about to go anywhere.

“So you must leave tomorrow,” I said to break the silence that followed after he had gotten in the car. “I'm sad. I can only say thank you once again. Do you really think you will go to the Pacific?”

Roy flung his arm across the back of my seat. I could feel his fingers dangling loosely at the back of my neck. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “But let's not talk about that now. I want to tell you some things in German. I hope you
can understand me.” I relaxed, looking forward to the kind of familiarity I had experienced in my sibling-like discussions with Karl. But what Roy told me in German made me blush and fidget, and long to get back to my room. His words were agonizingly personal, praising my hair, my eyes, my body. He spoke of feelings he had for me that he could barely suppress. His arm engaged my neck and he drew me to him in a smothering embrace. I pulled away sharply and opened the door of the car. “
Nein!
This is too much. You are asking me to pay a price for your services.”

I ran, limping, back toward the grounds of the hotel, with Roy following me. “Listen to me, listen to me, Helga,” he said after me. “I never meant to . . . I truly care for you. I acted like some American guy. I was stupid. I apologize.” I slowed down. My bandaged leg had begun to hurt. “Wait,” Roy begged. “Before we get too close to the hotel. Give me your address. I'll write to you. I swear I will. I don't want you to forget me. I won't forget you.” He took some paper and a pen from his pocket.

I hesitated for a moment but then, as if under a spell, gave him my aunt and uncle's address in Westchester. “Something else,” Roy added. “If things ever get tough for you, you can always take shelter in the bungalow where I've been staying. I'm writing the address and a drawing of where the key is hidden. Nobody's there except in the summer.”

What a strange invitation. Why would I ever want to run away and hide myself in this spooky countryside? Nevertheless, I took Roy's note and tucked it into the pocket of my robe, suddenly wondering how I had come out to meet him so improperly dressed?

“Now,” Roy said, as we stood together in the dark, “I get my goodbye kiss, something nobody can ever refuse a sailor.” As he pulled me toward him, half-roughly, in a firm embrace, my resistance seemed to melt. His lips were on mine, and I was responding eagerly. My very first kiss! I gave myself up to the new sensation and to the surge of sexual feeling that swept through my body. Roy! At that moment, I believed myself madly in love with him.

We clung to each other until it was Roy who backed off. “Goodbye, you sweet girl. Think about me, huh?” His figure faded off into the darkness.

Partings, there were always partings. I lay in bed for a long time before the weeping started. It went on for a long time, until I felt a sharp poke that made me shriek and sit up in bed. Isabel! I was pretty sure that she knew I'd left the room for a time, so I lied and told her that my leg was hurting and I had gone to the bathhouse to wash the area around the wound with cool water. Then I flung my arm across my face and pretended to fall asleep.

* * *

A few days later, there was a miraculous turn of events. Late on a Saturday afternoon, Isabel was ordered by her parents to pack up her things. Although the family's stay at Shady Pines was to have lasted for two weeks, the Brandts were abruptly returning to their apartment in the city, which I had learned was on a thoroughfare in the Bronx known as the Grand Concourse.

I had just come in from a volleyball game with some of the hotel guests down on the so-called athletic field to find Isabel dashing around our room, cramming her clothes and other possessions into a suitcase that was already bulging to the point of not closing. She appeared to be having a tantrum of some kind. Startled, I inquired, “Isabel, what is it? You're leaving? Is it my fault? Where are you going?”

Without even looking up, she gave me a single word answer, “Home.”

I sat down on my bed. I was hot and sweaty, and longed to go to the bathhouse to take a shower. “Isabel, please tell me. If I did something wrong, something that upset you . . .” All I could think of was my going out to meet Roy the night before he'd left. She had probably told her parents, and they had decided I was an immoral companion for their daughter. But wouldn't the Brandts have reported my misbehavior to Aunt Harriette? And wouldn't my aunt have questioned me as to my whereabouts the night I left the cabin?

“Isabel, if you won't talk to me, I'm sorry for whatever I did. But I have to go and take my shower now.” I extended my hand, which she took limply. I couldn't say that I was sorry our acquaintanceship had been so short. As a matter of fact, I hoped that I would never see her again. I managed a few words: “I wish you good luck in your new school year.”

When I returned to the annex room after my shower, Isabel and her suitcase were gone. Her bedding had been removed and only the bare mattress stared back at me. I dressed for the Saturday evening dinner in a pretty, aquamarine cap-sleeve dress that Aunt Harriette had bought for me in the “department store” in Harper's Falls, and wandered out onto the grounds. I was still certain that I was the reason for Isabel's departure.

Our table in the dining room had now shrunken to three places instead of six.

The arriving diners were surprised at our sudden reduction in numbers, and many stopped by to question my aunt and uncle. “I saw them pulling away in the car about two hours ago,” a moustached, card-playing friend of Isabel's father remarked. “His tires were kicking up the dirt like a bucking bronco. Didn't say goodbye to nobody. What happened?”

“A family matter,” Aunt Harriette replied sweetly. “Nobody sick or dying. Just a little private matter.”
The unsatisfied questioner moved away hunching his shoulders, and went off to the other tables to report his non-news.

I turned to Aunt Harriette. “It was something I did that offended Isabel and her parents. Right?”

“You! Oh, no, no, no, dear.”

With enormous relief, I learned that Isabel's brother Arnold, who was about to turn eighteen, had given up his plan to enter college in the fall and enlisted in the Air Force instead. Although Isabel's father was an all-out supporter of the war effort and had praised Roy generously for having joined the navy, he had hoped his own son would go to college and maybe even get a deferment. The news of Arnold's defection from civilian life that very afternoon, had resulted in Mr. Brandt's decision to cut short the family's stay at Shady Pines. They were a strange family, the Brandts, the parents often squabbling and criticizing each other, as well as Isabel. Perhaps I should have made allowances for Isabel's brusque and bossy ways? Anyway, I was now free to have my own room, to enjoy tennis on the hotel's dilapidated court, play volleyball on the bumpy lawn, go for short walks with Aunt Harriette, and to see the latest Hollywood movies at the small town movie theater in Harper's Falls.