Trudy walks to her mother and crouches beside the chair, putting her hand on it.
Hi, Mama, she says. How are you feeling?
No answer.
I hear you’ve had some adventures lately, Trudy says. Gave the folks here quite a scare. The manager says you’ve run away three times—is that true?
Anna continues to stare through the window. Only the slight flare of her nostrils shows that she is alive at all.
Trudy sighs. Come on, Mama, talk to me, she persists. Have they been mistreating you? Why did you do it? Such a stupid thing to do—don’t you know you could have frozen to death? Or...
Trudy pauses.
Or perhaps that was your intent, she says.
This is apparently worthy of response, for Anna twists to bestow a pale glare of indignation on her.
Of course it was not, she says, and faces forward again.
Then she adds, Du bist keine gute Tochter.
Trudy blinks. What? What did you say?
You heard. You are not a good daughter.
Anna clears her throat. Her voice is rough, from lack of use, Trudy assumes.
Only a bad daughter would put her mother into such a place as this, Anna says.
Trudy watches her for a minute, then stands.
How unfortunate you feel this way, she says dryly, since you’re coming to live with me.
She turns her back on Anna and crosses to the closet, from which she retrieves Anna’s battered maroon suitcase. Behind her she hears a scrape as Anna rises from the chair.
Is this true? Anna asks. We will leave right now? Today?
As soon as I can pack your things, says Trudy, tossing dresses and blouses and skirts into the case. I called around last night to find another place for you where you might be happier, but nobody has space on such short notice. So for now you’re stuck with me.
Oh, says Anna. Oh, I . . . I mean to say, that is quite acceptable.
Trudy sets two pairs of pumps atop the clothes and hands Anna her boots. She is trying to stuff Anna’s robe into the case when Mrs. Heligson, perhaps no longer confident that she would win a lawsuit, appears at the door to make amends.
So, Anna, she says, looking a little flustered at the speed with which Trudy is dismantling the room. So I hear you’re going to live with your daughter for a while then. Won’t that be nice!
Anna gives the woman a long, chilly stare but says nothing. Mrs. Heligson flushes the red of the pantsuit she is wearing, the color rising into her doughy cheeks.
Come, Mama, says Trudy, helping Anna into her coat. Button up. It’s cold out there.
She refrains from adding, As you already know, as she takes Anna’s elbow to guide her down the hall. She has no wish to needle Anna further; in fact, Trudy is feeling quite kindly toward Anna at the moment, since there is a distinct triumph in rescuing her, in mother and daughter promenading past the goggle-eyed aides, in shielding Anna from the shaking old hands that reach out to touch them as they pass. Indeed, the relief of departure is so great that it is not until the two women are in the car, the sign for the New Heidelburg town limits dwindling in the rearview mirror, that Trudy realizes she has won a Pyrrhic victory: her mother is really coming to live with her.
Trudy glances sidelong at her passenger. Perhaps Anna too is nervous about such an arrangement, for she is looking anxiously about her at the scenery. Not that there is much to see. Everything is white, the sky, the fields. After the tiny town of Coates, the land opens up into acre upon acre so relentlessly flat that Trudy fancies she can see the curvature of the earth at the horizon. It is, she thinks, like driving on the surface of an eye. What is the joke about emigrating Scandinavians? That they searched the globe until they found a place as miserable as that they left behind. Trudy envisions Anna trudging along the roadside in only her coat and nightgown, her feet purple with cold, and shakes her head.
The wind pushes snaking, hypnotic waves of snow across the highway, the joins thudding rhythmically beneath the tires with a sound as though the car is swallowing the road. Other than this, the miles pass in silence. Trudy can think of nothing to say but inanities, and every time she attempts one of these her mouth seems to dry up, her lips parting with a soft rip as though she has been sleeping for hours. She doesn’t, of course, expect Anna to say anything, so Trudy is startled when Anna suddenly bursts out, as though resuming a conversation: Pay it no mind.
Trudy struggles to right the course of the car, which she has steered into the oncoming lane.
What are you talking about, Mama? she asks.
What I have said back there. That you are a bad daughter. I did not mean it.
It’s all right.
It is not right, Anna insists. It was only anger talking. That place. It was unspeakable.
Trudy takes her attention from the road for a second to give Anna a strained smile.
It’s fine, Mama, she says. Forget it.
Anna looks uncertain, but after a moment she nods and leans back against the headrest. The shadows in her sockets have the density of bruises, as though somebody has gouged his thumbs into the tender skin there.
She dozes until they reach Trudy’s house. Then, apparently rejuvenated, Anna snaps to attention and climbs from the car and—spurning Trudy’s outstretched hand—marches up the porch steps by herself. Following with the suitcase, Trudy finds her mother in the living room, gazing around with wide-eyed interest. She has been in Trudy’s house only once before, for the small reception following Trudy and Roger’s wedding over three decades ago; since then, mother-daughter visits have always—at Trudy’s insistence—taken place at the farmhouse. Now Trudy stands like a stranger by her own front door, watching uneasily as Anna wanders about, skating her fingertips over the surfaces of the furniture as if checking for dust.
You must be tired, Mama, Trudy says, although Anna has slept for the past hour. Why don’t we go up and get you settled?
No, thank you, I am fine, Anna replies, bending to peer at Trudy’s asparagus fern. She blows on one of the waving fronds.
Trudy feels herself flushing. She is a good housekeeper, of course, but next to Anna, hausfrau extraordinaire, she is nothing, and she notices for the first time that the plant’s soil is parched and that it needs to be repotted, that a pair of dust mice—stirred into life by the gust of wind from the door—are tumbling animatedly in a corner. And then there are the idiosyncrasies of the house that Trudy, accustomed to them, keeps intending to repair but hasn’t gotten around to: she will have to warn Anna about the stove burner that clicks but doesn’t light, emitting dangerous gas; about the fact that the taps on the bathroom sink are reversed, so hot water gushes from the cold faucet and vice versa.
Yet if Anna notices anything amiss, she doesn’t comment. Instead, she drifts through the house, pausing here to examine a lithograph, there to rub the fabric of drapes between thumb and forefinger. And still she says nothing, until Trudy—who has tired of trailing her and decided to bring the suitcase upstairs—hears Anna exclaim, What is all of this?
Trudy drops the case and runs down the steps toward her study.
Oh, that’s nothing, Mama, she says, don’t look at those—
But she is too late, for Anna is standing over Trudy’s desk, peering at the titles of the books there, her lips moving as she translates the long English words. Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich; The Nazi Officer’s Wife; Tales of the Master Race; Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.
Anna looks up at Trudy, who tries a smile that seems suspiciously large and fishy, even to herself.
Teaching materials, she explains, for one of my classes.
Anna’s expression is unreadable.
Come on out of there now, Mama, says Trudy, and let me show you to your room.
But Anna has turned again to the texts, and Trudy knows from the set of Anna’s shoulders that she is not about to move. Trudy shrugs and feigns nonchalance.
Fine, she tells Anna
’s back, you can find me upstairs when you’re ready.
Then Trudy saunters from the room, as if her books and what Anna thinks of them means nothing to her at all. She takes the suitcase to the guest bedroom and sets about unpacking Anna’s clothes. Every now and then she stops to listen, silencing the jangling hangers. For a long while the house is as still as if Trudy were alone, but eventually she hears the slow thump of Anna’s rubber boots ascending the risers.
Trudy turns to the bed and smoothes sheets already pulled tight, plumps pillows already fat.
Well, Mama, she says, when Anna comes in. What do you think of the room?
Anna takes a few tentative steps forward, gazing at the white walls, the uncarpeted hardwood floor, the yellow tulips on the bureau and afghan of the same color that Trudy has draped over the rocking chair to brighten the otherwise monastic space.
It is very nice, Anna says.
Then she makes her way to the rocker and lowers herself into its creaking cane seat. Drawing the curtain aside, she looks through the window at the house next door, from which, Trudy suddenly remembers, one can often hear the neighbors—they of the offensive Christmas lights—making love with great grunting gusto. It is possible to see them, too, as they are careless about lowering their blinds. Trudy has sometimes found herself viewing this floor show—a flailing leg here, a bobbing head there—with amusement and repugnance and an odd, uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. She is disgusted with herself afterward, of course. But there is something comforting about glimpsing this little sliver of boisterous life, as well as the fact that the woman’s jiggling breasts and belly are no more attractive, if much fleshier, than Trudy’s own.
Trudy stows the empty suitcase on the closet floor and slaps her hands together in a workmanlike fashion.
Well! she says. You’re all set. Make yourself comfortable, Mama. If you need anything, just ask. I’ll let you rest now.
She is almost out of the room when behind her Anna says, Trudy.
Trudy stops. Then turns. Anna has let the curtain drop and is staring at her.
Yes?
Those books, says Anna. Those books downstairs—
I already told you, Mama, Trudy says. They’re teaching materials. For my seminar.
I see, says Anna. And what is its name, this seminar?
Trudy steps back into the room and shuts the door.
It’s called Women’s Roles in Nazi Germany, she says.
I see, Anna repeats.
She says nothing further, but the way she looks at Trudy causes Trudy to feel a scalding, primal shame the likes of which she has not experienced since childhood, as though she has been caught watching Anna in the bath or rifling through her drawers.
Yet she faces Anna’s inspection squarely, and her voice is level when she says, I take it you don’t approve.
Anna gives a little shrug, as if the matter is of no consequence to her. But the skin around her nostrils has blanched, as it always does when she is angry or upset.
You know my view on such things, she says.
Yes, of course, says Trudy, and recites: The past is dead, nicht? The past is dead, and better it remain so.
Anna folds her hands in her lap.
Just so, she says.
Trudy looks at her. Something about the way she is sitting is familiar. And after a moment it comes to Trudy: if Anna were fifty years younger and holding the child Trudy in her lap, if not for the cheerful yellow blanket behind her, Anna could be posing for the photograph in the gold case, which is now hidden down the hall in Trudy’s own sock drawer. Not only is the past not dead, it has come home to roost.
Trudy exhales and rubs her tired eyes.
Well, Mama, she says, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.
She leaves without waiting for Anna’s response, if any, and—resisting the compulsion to have a peek at the photograph—she goes instead to the bathroom, where she wets a washcloth and presses it to her face. It seems, thinks Trudy, sinking onto the toilet lid, as though her entire adult life has been a hallucination, a long hallway through which she has walked only to find that it is circular, leading her back to a door that when unbolted reveals Anna standing there. But this won’t last, Trudy reminds herself, cold water trickling from her compress toward her ears. Anna’s stay here is temporary. Sooner or later, one of the nursing homes to whose waiting list Trudy has added Anna’s name is bound to have a room for her. Trudy peels the cloth from her forehead and tosses it toward the sink.
The door opens.
Oh, I am sorry, says Anna, backing away as rapidly as though she has come upon Trudy with her pants bunched around her ankles.
That’s all right, Trudy replies.
Without getting up, she reaches past her mother’s embarrassed face to shut the door. Another home repair Trudy will have to make. She will have to put a lock on it.
29
THAT EVENING, WANTING TO BE ESPECIALLY HOSPITABLE ON Anna’s first night in the house, Trudy emerges from her study early to cook dinner. It is rather more extravagant than her usual solitary supper: an omelet with herbs and cheese, a clear soup, a salad, a slender baguette that Trudy cuts into pretty coins to camouflage the fact that it is two days old. And instead of hastily consuming this standing at the kitchen counter or at her desk—all the better to get back to work—Trudy sets the table in the dining room and, once Anna has been summoned and seated, brings everything in on a tray. She knows her mother will notice and appreciate this latter touch; Anna has always been adamant about adhering to the niceties of dining even in the farmhouse, cloth napkins and place mats and bread in a basket and dainty dishes of pickles placed just so. And indeed, although Anna doesn’t offer praise—this etiquette being standard, after all; hasn’t she raised Trudy in this tradition?—her silvery eyes gleam at the sight of the food and she tucks into her portion with relish.
The two women eat in silence, Anna speaking only to murmur approval of the meal. Trudy observes her covertly. At least Anna seems to have regained her appetite, which is a relief. Maybe she was never really ailing at all; given the fare at the New Heidelburg Good Samaritan Center, Trudy thinks, she might choose to be fed through an IV herself. But what is she going to do with Anna? The atmosphere over the table is airless in a way that is all too familiar, as though the candles Trudy has lit are sucking the oxygen from the room. Anna mops her plate with a slice of bread and reaches for another, and Trudy, watching her, reflects that even the most ordinary acts performed by the beautiful seem blessed with grace, simply because they look so good doing them. She also thinks of Frau Kluge and Rose-Grete and the others she has interviewed, and of the photograph in its gold case upstairs and all the subsequent evenings she will have to endure in which there is nothing to say, or rather so much to say that neither she nor Anna will ever say it, and her omelet clogs, congealed and nasty, in her throat.
When Anna is done she stands and begins to clear the table with the efficiency of long habit.
No, Mama, let me, says Trudy. You don’t have to do that.
I do not mind, says Anna. Then she looks down. Oh, forgive me, Trudy. You are not yet finished.
Yes I am, Trudy says, getting up too. She holds out her hands for the silverware Anna has collected.
Anna clutches it to her waist.
But you have barely touched your food, she says. Are you not well?
I am fine, Trudy says, then shakes her head; Anna’s formal sentence structure is contagious.
I’m fine, she repeats. Just not all that hungry.
Anna deposits the cutlery onto the tray with a clatter and sweeps Trudy’s full plate next to it.
Still, you must eat, she says. It is not good for you to eat so little. This is why you are so thin, Trudy. And so pale.
She lifts the tray with some effort and carries it off to the kitchen. Trudy, looking after her, starts to call, Leave the dishes, Mama! Then she reconsiders. If Anna wants to wash them, let her. It will make her feel useful to have s
omething to do. And with Anna thus engaged, she, Trudy, is free to return to her study.
Which she does, promptly, shutting the door behind her. She pulls her chair up to the desk with a resolute air, and then she realizes she has little to do. It is true that the new semester begins tomorrow, but since it is the first day, all Trudy will do is greet her students and distribute the syllabus. And this she has already prepared this afternoon. Trudy glances at the tape of RoseGrete’s interview, lying a few inches away on the blotter. She could transcribe it. She gets up and slots it into her VCR and plugs the headset in. Then she sits at her computer with the earphones slung around her neck like a stethoscope, listening not to Rose-Grete’s faint voice but to the water running in the kitchen sink, the grind of the garbage disposal. Trudy shuts her eyes and tries to deduce from Anna’s footsteps and the opening and closing of cupboard doors whether she is putting everything away in the right places.
Then Trudy’s chin touches her breastbone and bounces back with a jerk. She has dozed off in her chair. She consults her watch and untangles herself from the headphones. It is ten o’clock; she can go to bed; this first difficult night with Anna in the house is over. And maybe, Trudy thinks hopefully, maybe things will get easier from here, as they get more used to each other.
Trudy opens the door and pokes her head out. The house is quiet. She investigates the kitchen. It is dark save for the fluorescent light bar humming over the stove; the countertops are shining; the dish towel is folded in thirds on the sink. Trudy smiles a little wryly at this and stumbles upstairs, yawning and grateful. She will not even bother to brush her teeth; she will go directly to bed and burrow into the comfort of sheets and blankets that smell of her own hair. And sleep.
But once she is there, sleep deserts her.
No, Trudy groans. No, no—
She turns on her left side. Then her right. Rolls onto her stomach and buries her face in the pillow, though she knows this will result in a stiff neck. No matter, for it is to no avail: Trudy eventually finds herself in her usual insomniac position, lying flat with her hands buckled across her stomach like a seat belt, staring at the ceiling. She tries not to look at the digital clock on the bedside table, but she can’t help it: 12:13, 1:46, 2:03, 3:01. Why is it that losing a night’s sleep should induce such panic, as if Trudy is squandering precious currency she will never get back?