Secret Dreams (52 page)

His red eye fell on the dollhouse. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” He left off brushing and slunk from the bed, one slow paw padding in front of the next. “Come, come, Fräulein,” he coaxed. “Don't be silly. Come out and well brush your hair. Didn't your mother give you the brush? Wasn't it her favorite? Isn't it your favorite too?”

The wolfs black nose pressed against the dollhouse door. Fräulein crept to the safety of the stairwell and clung to the banister. The wolf pawed the house off its foundation,- the chandelier swung wildly. Mama and Papa were thrown from their chairs. The brother and sister dolls tumbled from their beds. In the kitchen the terrified cook tried to stuff herself into the oven.

The wolfs paw broke through a French window and clawed the front hall carpet. Fräulein held fast to the banister and prayed. “Oh, thank God he's too big to get in.” But to her dismay the wolf began shrinking. Soon he had shrunk to the size of poor Herr Wilhelm. His narrow jaws stabbed into the dining room, splintering the table to matchwood. “Come, come, my dear. Come out and let me brush your hair!”

She wrung the spindly balusters and wept in terror. “Oh, please, Mr. Wolf! I didn't see anything in M-m-m's room that night! I don't want the brush!
Please
, Mr. Wolf!”

Fräulein awoke in bed in her apartment on Fesselstrasse. Outside, night had fallen. Her splitting headache was gone. She glanced apprehensively about the darkened room. Nearby, the reassuring hulk of her steamer trunk slumbered against one wall. The icon of Christ on the cross hung over her bed, just as it had at the hospital. In the center of the room stood the four-franc table she bought from the one-eyed junk seller. Feeling slightly ridiculous, she peeked under the bed.

Absolutely nothing.

Why, then, did her bed pillow look so much like a rabbit thrown against a radiator? Fräulein peered about more closely to set herself at ease. Her winter coat hanging on a peg. The dirty dishes in the sink, just as she'd left them that afternoon. Püppchen lying on the floor with her dress askew, one of Ninny s frilly white socks on her foot. Poor headless Püppchen. A thread of blood ran from her neck.

‘This is my a-parents!” she stammered, meaning, This is my apartment!

Moonlight fell on the courtyard, turning the flagstones blue. Down below, the wolf walked across the flat stones on his hind legs. She tried to shout for the old woman who lived across the hall, but all that issued from her mouth was a choking bubble of silence. He knew where she lived…. Püppchen bleeding on the floor. My God, he'd been there
already!

His red eye pinned her at the window. He held up M-m-mother's brush in his paw. “I've come for your hair, Fräulein. Shall we brush your hair?”

A moment later his hind legs creaked on the landing. The brass doorknob turned. His black snout snuffed at the widening crack. “Let's brush your hair, my dear.” His tail clicked eagerly inside. “Come, give us your hair!”

No! No! No! she cried, throwing her weight against the door. She pressed it closed with all her strength. How incredibly strong he was! The animal snarled as the lock snicked shut. She sagged to the floor. The frustrated tick-tick-tick of his pacing paw nails came from the landing.

And then an evil silence.

The bathroom window! She'd left it open. His claws scrabbled at the narrow window ledge. She slammed the window shut, fastening the latch against the snarl of rage beyond the frosted glass. But even as she flew from the bathroom, the front door began grating open once more. The wolf had his whole head in, grinning at her. “Come, come now! All I want is your hair!”

She threw her weight against the door, but still it inched open, In desperation she snatched her big black winter boot from beside the door and raised it over her head. She struck him on the snout with the heel. A yelp of pain. She struck him again. He yowled louder. She stomped and stomped. Again and again she swung the boot, the wolfs jaw becoming a bloody mangled mess on the wooden doorframe. He whimpered weakly…. A fire raged through her. How beautiful to smash his face with her big black boot.

“Aaaaaaaaahl” she bellowed in triumph. She was winning!

Fräulein woke up, mumbling, “uhhhhhhh …” She meant to say, “I've won!”

This time not a fake waking, but she glanced involuntarily at the floor to see if poor decapitated Püppchen lay there. No, only bare floor. Her blood still ran hot with exultation, joy, rage — feelings much, much better than being a little clear egg without a center. A lick of fear, a taste of power. What profound changes had come over her since the night of the dinner party. The Burghölzli time over, a new life begun. Now she fended for herself, shopped, cleaned, went to Kusnacht by train, and traveled home again. But not alone. Ages ago, the wolf first came to her in Herr Doktors suit and tie. Then in the dollhouse dream like crazed M-m-mother with the brush. Yes, even now the wolf sat beside her. At her four-franc table as she studied, in the shower, or when she slept. Out of the dollhouse and into her room. No waking from the nightmare, no escape from Herr Doktors sessions, where she confronted the old wreck of herself. Then crawling home after every bout with the wolf
—
only to recover, rouse herself, and struggle with him once more.

She heard a noise. The white curtains blew in the open bathroom window. In the far distance red lights burned from within a church spire. À pair of black silk stockings hung on the shower rod to dry. She almost closed the window but listened instead to the wind moan in the sky. Her eyes gazed at the red lights burning in the far-off spire. Wolf lights she would call them — for they were red like his eyes. And leave the bathroom window open from now on, for always. To see those lights glaring in the distance. Wolf lights in an open window,

God, how far she had come!

Fräulein sat herself down at her table with a lined writing pad and tried to recall everything: the quaking dollhouse, the fake waking, headless Püppchen … But soon all the copying became tiresome and she left off. On a scrap of paper she had made a sort of list, all her empty heads:

Cowled Infants

Carriage Mannikins

Masked Wood People

Mother of Stone

Everywhere an empty face. Everywhere she looked, blank eyes staring back …

“Yesterday, Fräulein, you were telling me about your family.” Another analytic session had begun. “About how you went to your mother's door. How you watched her secretly. How you saw her —-”

“Yes, yes — Î remember,” she said irritably. A headache came on, squeezing the light from her brain. “Don't you know any good words for what M-m-m did? Aren't there any nice words? M-m-m was touching herself.” Touching. Such a nice word. How gentle, how sweet. Not the brutal, ugly sex words people used. Oh, the pain in the side of her head! She rubbed her temples, her voice thin and feeble.

“I told you how I saw M-m-m touching herself. How she caught me in F-father's lap. How she took me to my room and questioned me. The next morning I woke to see M-mother still standing there. Like a statue. Like a … Mother of Stone.”

The room slowly turned; an eyelid over one eye fluttered wildly What had the People of the Wood called her? The Inescapable One. What was that rhyme? Who is she? The One you know. The One of woe. Fräulein held her head to keep it from cracking. “Mother put that sock on my foot while ! slept. To prove I spied on her.”

Ninny Blue Toes awoke in the cold morning. Mother stood over her as though she'd stood there all night. Then slowly drew back the covers, exposing Ninny's poor bare feet. But on one icy foot she wore a frilly white sock. À sock in bed! How had the sneaky thing gotten under the covers and on her foot? Mother held its mate in her hand. “You lied to me,” she said. “I found this on the floor. Outside my door.” Mother's voice pure silk. “Deplorable,” Mother said. “Simply deplorable.”

She held the deplorable sock at arm's length as if it were a soiled rag. “I told you. If Little It can't wear the socks correctly, Little It won't have sockies at all. Mother will take every pair away.”

Who was Little It? No, her name was Ninny. Ninny Blue Toes. A potty pain started in her tummy, warm and uncomfortable at the same time. She wriggled to ease the pressing. What if she went in the bed very quietly, just opening her legs and letting go?

“My name is not Little It. My name is Ninny Blue Toes. Ninny Blue Toes because my feet are cold. Because of all your ninny nighttime rules. Ninny play rules. And all your stupid things.” She looked hatefully at the row of china horses on the shelf —- colorful, pretty things she was never allowed to touch or play with. “I hate those horses. Why don't you take them away? I wish they'd break and be gone.” The pee feeling washed over Ninny, making her eyes water. “And Ninny has to go potty.”

The hand holding the deplorable sock fell to Mother's side. Now her face came close, white as when she slapped the bed with the hairbrush. “Stay there!” she hissed.

Ninny's leg dangled awkwardly over the side. Inch by inch she shrank back under the covers. Any second, she thought, any second she'd open and let go.

“Who
has to go potty?” Mother asked quietly

“You know …”

“Not unless you tell me. Tell me and you can go.”

“Me!”

“Who is me?”

She no longer looked at Mother's face. Crossing and uncrossing her legs, the potty-go feeling making her shudder. Hold on, Ninny! Hold on!

“Nin-nin-nin,” she sobbed.

“Tell me. Tell me and you can go.”

Give her the right answer. There had to be an answer.

“Just say it! Say it and you can go!”

“Little It!” she shrieked. “Little It has to go potty. Please, Mother, Little It has to go!”

Without answering, Mother knelt before Little It's narrow chest of drawers. Clothes and underthings came flying out. All the while muttering, “Mother told Little It. If Little It can't wear sockies correctly, there'll be no sockies at all. Mother told Little It …” In the end she got every pair. When empty drawers hung from the dresser, Mother surveyed the mounds of scattered skirts and dresses, slips and smocks, that lay about the room in small heaps. A queer expression had come to her face: bland tenderness….

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Mother asked kindly. “The potty is right there. Why don't you go?” And with that Mother left the room with every pair of socks.

The brass rattled noisily as it all came gushing out. It hurt it felt so good. As she squatted she saw Mother had forgotten one frilly sock, the deplorable sock that started it all. Snuck under the covers and onto her foot. She swept Herr Wilhelm off the floor. The rabbit's head lolled stupidly.

“What did you see?”

But the rabbit said nothing, just smiled at her with his sewn mouth. She threw him back on the floor, head to the fierce radiator pipes. “Stay there till you can talk,” she told him. “I don't care if your face burns off.”

Back in Herr Doktors office the room stopped revolving. The summer heat of early June poured into the stifling office, the light from the windows unbearably bright. “Shall I draw the curtains?”

He pulled a cord, and the drapes rustled across the window, throwing her face into shadow. Her soft voice came out of the gloom,

“The three of us existed alone in the world. Separate even from each other. Except for breakfast, which we ate together, A silent breakfast we ate day after day. Even at breakfast, my p-parents never spoke….”

“Was your brother at breakfast too?”

“No: he ate alone in his room.”

“What was the matter with your brother?”

“I don't know. My p-parents never talked about it. They hardly ever let him out.” À horrible nauseous feeling came over her whenever she thought of her brother. Never at breakfast. Alone in his room. Never seen. Never heard.

Mother had put all the deplorable socks on the high shelf of her closet, far out of reach. Little It had no socks at all. She wore her hard leather shoes with bare feet inside. The skin between her toes cracked into thin red lines that rubbed together and never healed.

In the mornings they all sat together in the blue kitchen. Every morning they ate the same thing: one soft-boiled egg, one piece of rye toast, one pat of butter. The meal passed in slow, silent mouthfuls as the cuckoo clock ticked steadily in the corner. When the hour struck, the painted wooden cuckoo bird flew out his door and cried, “Little Red Toes! Little Cracked Toes! Soon you'll have no toes!” Then slammed the door bang. Only Little It seemed to hear him.

She hobbled from bed to kitchen and back again on cracked red toes. When her feet grew too swollen for hard leather shoes no matter how loosely she undid the laces, a pot of ointment appeared at her bedside one night. She smeared it in the red cracks and on the white flaking skin between her toes. The open cracks finally closed, the dried white skin flaked away. Her feet fit into the shoes again. Father must have taken pity on her. Mysteriously, the socks reappeared in her drawer….

Fräulein shut her eyes, searching her mind. “When I think of my F-father, I always see his foot. Did he have a clubfoot? A toeless foot? When he came to Zurich, did you notice anything unusual about him?” “About your father's feet? No, nothing strange at all. His feet seemed perfectly normal.”

She lay back, one arm thrown over her eyes, quietly disappointed. “Yes, of course. But I swear there was something about F-father's foot that M-mother hated more than anything. You see, when I saw M-mother with the hairbrush, loving herself with it, I wanted the pretty thing to love me too. It wasn't hard to steal. But all that was just the beginning…. It got worse. Father used to watch me in my room.” “Watch you how?”

Little It sat on the bed with Püppchen tucked under her arm, waiting for Mother to leave. She glimpsed long black gloves and hat swishing through the hall. Had Mother really gone? She found the hairbrush in its place by the crystal perfume bottle of the dove. She greedily took both. In her room she brought out the dollhouse family so they might watch. First Brother from the toilet. Then Mama from the dressing table, so she wasn't gazing at herself all the time. And last she sat Papa in his armchair with Sister in his lap….