The Heroines (18 page)

C
atherine slept late the next day and descended the stairs in her nightgown around one-thirty, oblivious to how she was inconveniencing Gretta. Catherine had regained her color, but her tangled hair was a mess. When she entered the kitchen, Gretta was vigorously arranging the big refrigerator. Grandmother Entwhistle liked it perfectly ordered and gleaming: a clear pitcher of milk and a pitcher of lemonade on the top shelf, red fruits and vegetables in one bin, green in the other; cheeses and lunch meat layered carefully in their drawer; eggs snug in their holding pens on the door; aluminum ice trays full and ready to be snapped for Grandfather’s scotch. Squeezing lemons was Gretta’s final chore—that and the more troublesome task of sending Catherine off (though she didn’t know where) and tidying Mother’s room before the family arrived at three.

She’d baked bread that morning, and she cut a thick slice for Catherine and layered it with last summer’s blueberry preserves. Catherine sipped breakfast tea but ignored the bread. Seeing lack of appetite as a sign of illness, Gretta brushed aside Catherine’s matted hair and felt her forehead. It was cool and dry.

“I’m dying,” Catherine said. “I’ll be deep in my grave before—”

“Nonsense,” Gretta said. “You are fit as a horse.” She pushed the plate of bread closer to her. “Eat.”

“I shan’t eat another crumb until Heathcliff returns.”

“When will that be?” Gretta checked the clock on the fireplace mantel. The brass pendulum swung back and forth. “He will come here? My employer does not like—”

“He ran off to the moors last night. Who knows if I’ll ever see him again?”

“Is there another place you could meet him?”

“He left without bidding adieu! I’m torn in two! Why can I not have them both? Why must I choose?”

“You have two men in love with you?” Gretta sliced through a lemon with a serrated knife, then plunked the glass juicer on the table. Shaking her head, she wrung the last drop of juice from one rind, then grabbed another. “Two men, two times the trouble.”

“What should I do?”

When Heroines asked those questions, Mother was always evasive, encouraging them to speak, rather than offering her own opinion. She would have pretended not to know Catherine and Heathcliff’s fate (nor that of their troubled offspring), and like a mediocre therapist, she’d say, “What do
you
think you should do?” Gretta, who knew nothing about Catherine or
Wuthering Heights
or pop psychology, asked a more basic question.

“Which one you love more?”

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath!”

“
Sheisse!
I don’t believe in this in-love-with-two-
men-at-the-same-time
sheise.
You know who’s the one! Only guilt keeps you from admitting it!” Gretta shook her fist, a juiceless lemon rind in her hand. She zipped the knife through ten more lemons. Catherine had obviously struck a nerve. Gretta poured the lemon juice into the pitcher. At the sink, she turned on the tap and flicked her finger under the stream to gauge the temperature. “You don’t make up your mind, one of them make it for you!”

“How can they make the choice?” Catherine lifted her chin and a haughty look seized her face. “It is mine to make!”

“This Heathcliff. He ran off already. Some men don’t want to play the second violin to another man. Women too!” She cracked a tray of ice and poured it into the pitcher. “They rather be alone than share.”

Catherine jumped out of her seat and pulled the ends of her hair. She tugged on Gretta’s arm, trying to derail her lemonade-making. “You think he’ll never return? I will die surely! I can see them all gathered around the parlor after I’m gone. Edgar and Isabella—weeping. Even Hindley might shed a tear. And Heathcliff, wouldn’t he be sorry to see my eyes forever closed, tucked into my coffin—”

“You getting carried away, miss! You listen.” She shook off Catherine’s hand and started grinding another lemon against the juicer. “You light in the head from hunger. Nobody’s dying in this house! Not when Frau Entwhistle arrive in one hour!” Gretta led Catherine back into a chair and pointed so fiercely at the bread that her finger picked up a spot of blueberry. “Now eat!”

“I can’t!”

Gretta licked the jam from her finger. “Eat or it’s out on the street!”

Catherine picked up the bread and held it before her mouth without biting into it. Her eyes narrowed as she glared madly at Gretta and climbed up to crouch on the chair. “I see what you are! Only a witch would predict such a thing as Heathcliff’s desertion.” Her eyes grew misty. “I see you, hag! You are gathering elfin bolts to kill our heifers! You’ll poison the well with a glance!”

As if casting a spell, Gretta stretched out her arm and wagged her index finger at Catherine’s nose. “Eat!”

Just then someone rapped hard on the back door. The fierce knock made Gretta jump, and Catherine’s hands began to tremble.

“Does he know you’re here?” Gretta asked.

“Where?”

The pounding grew furious. Gretta dropped the lemons, put her arms under Catherine’s armpits, and dragged her off the chair. She pushed Catherine into her own bedroom, which was just off the mudroom, a forbidden zone for all children. She turned the old skeleton key and locked Catherine in. If only she had set her free! But instinct made her protect the half-crazed girl. The man’s violent knock reminded her of when the SS pounded on her own door, sweeping the village for Jews.

The mantel clock chimed twice and Gretta ran to the door and pushed aside the eyelet curtains she’d ironed and pressed earlier that week. Through the glass she saw the face of a young man. He had gaunt cheeks and dark skin and wavy black hair. She immediately thought that he’d have been rounded up as a Gypsy during the war. He peered at her with dark eyes and struck the glass with a hard thin branch.

“Open up, woman!” Even through the glass his words were clear. “Catherine!”

Just then Gretta heard the front door burst open and someone running back toward the kitchen, calling, “Gretta, I’m here!”

Catherine pounded the bedroom door and wept and wailed. Gretta double-bolted the kitchen door and yelled, “Go away! I call police!”

Heathcliff folded his arms and glared at her. He raised his stick again but held back.

“Here they come!
Polizei!
”

And in she swept, my mother at eighteen. Clear-skinned and freckled, her auburn hair in a fresh flip-do, a thin belt around her geometrically patterned pink dress. She wore low white pumps and a matching white headband. Her face glistened with sweat as she kicked off her shoes and ran to see who had been pounding the back door. When she joined Gretta at the window, she saw Heathcliff’s handsome face. Her mouth fell open and she covered it with a gloved hand, as a powerful and unfamiliar desire snaked up her spine and streamed through her veins like warm water. Like many a Heroine, she fell in love at first sight.

G
retta pushed Mother away from the window and pressed her back into the wall. “Where your mother?”

“Who’s that guy?” Mother asked, her flip-do bouncing as she jumped and waved her hands.

“When she come your mother? Why you alone?”

“She let me come up by myself on the train. They were taking forever to get ready, so they said if I helped you, I could come up alone. Who’s that guy?”

“When she get here?”

“Is he related to you?” She got on her tiptoes and reached over Gretta’s shoulder to draw the curtain back.

“No!” Gretta pushed Mother’s hand away. “When she come? Five minute? Two hour?”

“Around three, like they planned.”

Heathcliff rapped on the door again, this time less furiously. “Why don’t we find out what he wants?”

“I need your help!” Gretta said.

“Making beds?”

“No. House ready. Go in my room. Calm down that girl. Another one of those Heroines, I think. She your age and she out of control. Crazy! And I can’t turn her out! Not with him out there.”

Mother finally noticed the muffled weeping on the other side of the door. “You let somebody in your room?”

“Just go in and talk to her!”

“Is that her boyfriend?” Mother asked, her heart sinking. “She must be beautiful. What’s her name?”

“Katerina. She crazy. Two boyfriends. Him and somebody else! Go.”

Gretta turned the key in the door lock and Mother stepped inside Gretta’s room. The scene inside stunned Mother. For one, she’d only glimpsed the room when Gretta slipped in and out of it. Entrance was strictly forbidden, and Gretta kept it locked at all times, the key fastened inside her apron pocket with a yellow duck-shaped diaper pin. Mother had imagined a million versions of Gretta’s room throughout her life. That the headboard and nightstands were made from gingerbread. That the room spanned the length of the house, with a spiral staircase to the basement. That she had trunks full of gold doubloons. The real room stunned Mother because it was half the size of her own; it was spare and neat with a simple oak dresser, an old rocking chair, a lamp with a curved gooseneck. The dust ruffle matched the eyelet kitchen curtains, but the bedspread and drapes were a masculine brown with yellow and blue pansies. But the most shocking feature was what lay across the single bed: a weeping blond girl in bare feet who wore Anne-Marie’s own Christmas 1959 flannel nightgown.

Another girl might have been outraged to see somebody wearing her pajamas, but clothes meant little to Anne-Marie Entwhistle, since her mother chose every article of clothing for her. Even the dress she was wearing was her mother’s choice. She had insisted that my mother dress like a lady for the train ride, and Anne-Marie was ready to do anything to avoid the long hot ride in the station wagon with her tense parents. No, she was a simple girl when it came to accoutrements; what interested her were stories, people, drama. The girl’s spectacular weeping impressed Anne-Marie. She quietly moved to sit on the edge of the bed.

In a gentle voice, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m dying!” Catherine propped herself on her elbows. “That hag won’t let me see Heathcliff! She’s trapped me in here. I’ll go mad!”

“It’s Heathcliff!” Mother said, snapping her fingers. “From
Wuthering Heights
!”

Catherine sat up. “You know the Heights?”

Mother nodded.

Catherine gave her a puzzled look, then tried to tear off the sleeves of her nightgown. “I’ll go mad! I will! That hag is just like Nelly! She’ll betray me the same. She has no pity for my situation. Choosing between day and night. Edgar and Heathcliff!”

Mother observed Catherine’s long blond hair, porcelain skin, ethereal beauty. And the guy outside looked tortured and dark and gorgeous, even beyond what she’d imagined when she’d read
Wuthering Heights.
“I’m Anne-Marie Entwhistle.” Mother pressed her gloved hand to her lips again and sat down in the rocking chair.

Catherine ran to pound on the door. The key turned in the lock, and Gretta burst into the room. Her face was wild and she opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a dark object from underneath her clothes.

“What’s that?” Anne-Marie rushed to the door.

“Only one way to get rid of this man!” She held up a black gun with a mahogany handle.

“You can’t shoot Heathcliff!” Mother yelled.

“The hag is mad!” Catherine cried.

“I just scare him away with a few shots. He no understand! Frau Entwhistle be here in half hour!” She ran out of the room and as she tried to lock the girls in, they charged the door and found their way out. Gretta gave up and ran to hold the pistol up to the window. She still didn’t dare open the door.

“You two back up!” she yelled.

Catherine and Mother stepped backward. Heathcliff yelled through the door, “I will wait on the moors all night!” Then they heard him turn away and clomp across the patio.

Once he’d gone as far as the back garden, behind the apple trees, Gretta opened the door and stepped onto the porch. She checked over her broad shoulders. Mother held Catherine back, but the girl trembled with rage, her fingers curved like claws. Gretta ran to the end of the brick patio, stood beside the barbecue, held the gun with both hands, and fired two shots into the trees.

Anne-Marie pulled Catherine into the house and they charged up to her room to watch Heathcliff from the window. But by the time they climbed the two flights of stairs and wrestled open the bolted sunporch door, they caught only the last flash of his cape disappearing into the prairie. Catherine assumed her prostrate pose on the bed, the back of her hand pressed to her forehead. Anne-Marie sat on the edge of the bed, waiting and wondering about the appearance of this Heroine. But most of all, she was stunned by the presence of this Hero, Heathcliff, who had somehow followed Catherine here. He could rightly be called an anti-Hero. Never before had a man followed his Heroine here.

“Do you ever have odd dreams, Anne-Marie?” Catherine said, her voice muffled and monotone.

“Sure,” Mother said.

“Once I dreamt I was in heaven, and it’s horrible to say, but I was unhappy there. Can you believe? Unhappy in heaven? What kind of person am I? And one of the angels became furious with my lack of gratitude, and he cast me out, and when I landed on Wuthering Heights, I awoke with a sob of elation! Pure delight and salvation. What can this mean?”

“It’s like you want to be with Heathcliff, but some part of you feels it’s sinful. And yet, you would rather be a sinner than an unhappy saint.”

“Precisely!” Catherine sat up, her eyes bright with tears. “Why is it so?”

“You two are so alike.”

“I am Heathcliff,” Catherine said.

Mother nodded slowly. “That makes perfect sense.”

“Oh, a kindred spirit at last! How I wish my mother had lived to give me a sister like you.”

“I’ve always wanted a sister too!” The two girls hugged. For a bookworm like Mother, a Brontë novel sister was better than a biological one. Catherine must have arrived at the Homestead at the moment when she was trying to decide which man to marry. Mother had to convince Catherine not to wed Edgar! She’d never been tempted before to meddle in a Heroine’s fate, and it meant she had to ignore her own attraction to Heathcliff for the sake of a happier story. Anne-Marie often helped her prettier friends win the handsome guy. This always-the-bridesmaid, never-the-bride role marked Mother’s life. If she could alter the fates of these characters, she’d be working miracles! She petted Catherine’s hand. “Everything will work out! Let me think!”

Mother looked at the clock on the nightstand. Her mother’s imminent approach overrode any other plans. She had to get Catherine cleaned up and presentable, out of the sweltering nightgown, for starters. She would tell her mother that Catherine was a friend from the boarding school up the road (Prairie Bluff Academy, which I would later attend). Her mother was sure to welcome the pretty young Englishwoman and consider her a good influence on Anne-Marie. (Grandmother, like many upper-crust Americans, was an unrepentant Anglophile.) As Mother ran to her closet to find a suitable outfit for Catherine, Gretta stormed into the room.

“She must go! I can’t have that Gypsy man pounding on door!”

“He’s not a Gypsy!” Catherine leapt off the bed and charged toward Gretta with her hands outstretched and ready to strangle her.

Gretta didn’t back off at all, but dug her fists into her hips.

Mother jumped between them, facing Gretta. “Please. Let me handle this. You know we can’t just kick her out. It doesn’t work that way. Is everything else in the house ready? Mother will be here in ten minutes.”

“Yes, miss.” In the end, Gretta was the servant, and Anne-Marie had reached an age when she could give an order as directly as her mother. Gretta highly doubted that the spoiled American girl, who’d wanted for nothing her whole life, would have the wit to handle the Katerina problem. She was mistaken. Mother might not have known how to roll out pie dough, fire a pistol, or survive a grueling winter on nothing but rutabagas, but she knew how to get Catherine around the most towering obstacle of her own life: her mother, Edith Entwhistle.

She rifled through her closet of pressed summer dresses and found a pale yellow sundress she’d worn last year. It had capped sleeves and a vinyl belt, and she grabbed a shoebox that held yellow flats with white bows and handed them to Catherine. “Try this on.”

Catherine glared at Gretta. “Only because
you
asked me to, Anne-Marie.”

Mother turned to Gretta. “We’ll tell my mother that Catherine’s a friend I met on the train, and I invited her to stay a few days.”

“As you wish.” Gretta pulled a bottle of Bayer from her apron pocket and handed it to Mother. “Keep these. She had a fever.” Then she marched downstairs, grabbed her cleaver, and took out her frustration on five pounds of New York strip steak.

“Now, Catherine, when my mother comes—”

“You’re so fortunate to have a mother still!” Catherine pulled off the nightgown, and lifted her hands in the air so Anne-Marie could pull the sundress over her head. It hung loose on Catherine’s lean frame, but it was one of those cheerful, virginal dresses Edith adored.

“And I know she’s going to love you—but. Please don’t pace like that. Sit. Let me brush out your hair.”

“We have to find Heathcliff!”

“Don’t stand at the window. Come here.” Mother finally coaxed Catherine to sit on the edge of the bed and pulled a hairbrush through her tangled curls. “See, Heathcliff’s a little bit of a problem. My mother’s very strict about dating and boys.”

“But he is my foster brother! Couldn’t we tell her that? Oh, why does the world always turn against him?”

“I know, it’s not fair. But it would be such a big huge favor to me if we just sort of”—Mother gently pulled the brush through a tough tangle of Catherine’s hair—”
pretended
like Heathcliff wasn’t around. Then at night, when everyone’s in bed, we can sneak out and go look for him.”

“Yes, we’ll take excursions in the moonlight! With torches and hounds!”

“Right. So for now, let’s just say you’re visiting. There’s a boarding school up the road. We’ll say you’re staying on for a few weeks this summer. And I’ll ask if you can spend a few nights here.” Mother figured it would take a few days to convince Catherine to choose Heathcliff to marry instead of Edgar.

“You brush my hair so gently!”

With every stroke of the brush, Mother said calming words to Catherine. “You’re going to be fine. We’ll find Heathcliff tonight.” Catherine closed her eyes, and Mother felt empowered. In the novel, Nelly had always seen Catherine’s temper as an affectation, an exaggeration. But Mother believed that with kind words and compassion she could, perhaps, avoid disaster. Even if Anne-Marie’s knowledge of passionate love was derived only from books, she did know how it felt to be misunderstood and to have her feelings mocked. Every summer she’d been stuck with her irritable mother. She was starved for the companionship of girls her age, and she’d do anything to keep Catherine close. As she pulled the brush through Catherine’s hair and watched the sun light up the curly ends, she heard the crunch of tires and the rumble of the family car pulling into the circular drive below.