Authors: Belva Plain
“Are you thinking she meant your family?”
“Who else?”
“I would think, perhaps, the people at her job in the hospital.”
“All her life?”
David looked sober. “Well, perhaps not. Are you connecting what you just quoted with what we heard today at Mrs. Schmidt’s?”
“I’m not sure. Of course, I can tell myself, as I have been trying to do, that the Schmidts misunderstood the whole business. Someone did, and it was either Lore or Mrs. Schmidt.”
David, still looking very sober, asked, “What about her saying that Caroline was dead?”
“To spare her from learning from the Schmidts how Walter died?”
“If indeed he did die.”
“David, my head’s splitting. And what about Eve? Shall we tell her?”
“No, wait. There’s no point upsetting her until we know what we’re talking about. I suggest that we fly back tomorrow, go out to Ivy, and read that diary.”
“I
t feels so strange to be here among her things,” Jane lamented. “It seems wrong to be snooping in her diary.”
In his orderly, decisive way, David, now in the fourth hour of their search, had taken charge. “It’s funny how, after the first few of these fat tomes had been written in German, she suddenly switches to English.”
“She was a perfectionist. As soon as she became fluent enough to speak English well, she thought it was inappropriate to use a foreign language in one’s new country.”
“Born before the First World War! She saw a lot of history in her time. These early ones are especially fascinating.”
Far from being fascinating, Jane thought, most of them were very dull. She had already gone through
fifty-five pages, and all they seemed to do was record every penny Lore had ever spent: so much to have shoes resoled, so much at the pharmacy.… It was touching.
“Make believe you’re panning for gold,” David advised. “You have to pick through tons of rock and dust before you find a nugget. Somewhere in all this stuff there are nuggets, I’m convinced.”
Filled with discomfort, Jane gazed toward the rainy twilight out the window. A life, a long, humble life, lay revealed in these shabby notebooks, and they were exposing it as if they were stripping a person’s clothes off on a public street.
David advised again, “Incidentally, it doesn’t matter that we’re not reading chronologically as long as we mark the dates on the record sheets and make a few short notes. The books are so jumbled up, and it’s not worth taking time to put them in order.”
“Records? Notes?” asked Jane. “You talk like a lawyer.”
“You always say that.” David laughed. “Don’t worry, I know I’m a lawyer.”
The atmosphere, in spite of his effort to lighten it, was heavy. There was Lore in the photograph, staring at them behind her thick glasses, as if to accuse them of trespass. And there was the sibilance of turned pages as Jane flipped through them.
“Dr. D. was furious this morning. That stupid R. forgot his patient’s medication.” Continuing, she found that the price of lemons was outrageous and
that the new coat was not warm enough for this climate. Drowsiness had begun to set in when David startled her.
“And now this. ‘How astonishing it is,’ ” he read, “ ‘that all their calamities come out well in the end. Except, of course, for the poor parents, but that was a worldwide calamity that very few escaped.’ ”
“What’s the date?”
“June, 1955.”
“There’s nothing special then that I can think of, unless maybe my father’s buying the lake house.”
“Wait. There’s more on the next page. Listen. ‘Who would have thought she could change like that, a girl who never did anything but look pretty, that she could work day and night and build up such a business? I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the way she pulled herself together after Eve was born. She used to ask my advice on every little thing, and now she actually gives me advice.’ ”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Jane said. “It’s admiration for my mother, that’s all. It’s praise.”
“Perhaps a little envy mixed in?” David suggested.
She did not reply. The rustle of pages resumed for so long that Jane, who had started another notebook, was growing weary with impatience, when suddenly David spoke again.
“Oh, oh. Here’s something. ‘Who would have thought that out of such a marriage she would have gotten so much? Look at the house they live in and
now, a new baby besides. Some good fairy must have waved a wand over her just as some other fairy frowned on me.’ Nineteen fifty-seven. That’s when you were born, Jane. You’re the baby.”
They stared at each other, Jane thinking, who could have guessed that Lore was so bitter?
“I made a note back here,” David said, “something about another baby. It’s way back, 1940. Here it is.”
“What? That’s when Eve was born.”
“ ‘Well, life will be very different for this poor baby. No rose garden, no velvet dresses, and no governesses. No father, either, poor little thing. Just struggle, struggle. However will Caroline manage? What tricks life plays!’ ”
“The baby Caroline managed rather well, didn’t she? And the baby Eve didn’t do too badly either.”
“Good Lord, listen to this. It’s more clear than ever that she had to marry Joel. That’s why I made up the cancer scare, so that she would accept him.’ ”
“She made up the cancer? Actually made it up?”
“So she says. ‘He wanted her, and I am just not able to cope with everything by myself, the strange country, her moods, and an infant, too. But I promised to take care of her and I’m doing the best I can. It’s a matter of honor.’ ”
“She talks of honor!” Jane cried. “Oh my God!”
“Wait, here’s more. ‘Joel is a moral man, an innocent with a strict conscience, and he will see her through. He will be good to her. But when her parents,
if they survive, meet this son-in-law, it will be a shock, I’m afraid. The daughter of that house, married to an uneducated working man! They will find out how the poor have to live. But I could tell them. I have memories enough. I could—”
Jane interrupted. “What a mean thing to say about my father! Mean and snobbish and stupid. On top of everything else.”
“Yes and no,” David spoke judiciously. “There’s some truth in it. His background actually was very different from your parents’! And think of the other good things she did say about him.”
“You’re not excusing her, I hope! A person who tricks a woman into marriage, who lies—”
“I’m excusing nothing. I’m investigating.”
“How much more can there be to investigate? A woman who could do what she did to Caroline and Joel can do anything. I’ll tell you: Amalia Schmidt was right, she knew what she was saying.”
“It was hearsay, Jane. You can’t depend on hearsay.”
“Stop talking like a lawyer.”
“Well, I am a lawyer. Come on. We’ve that whole pile to work through.”
“All right. I’ll close my eyes and grab. Here, 1961.”
Page after page was still cluttered with mundane affairs: endless hours on duty in the hospital, an occasional concert, a birthday party for “little Jane” and visits to the dentist to bewail her “awful teeth.”
There was an appalling sameness in the record of these days.
Then, finally, as she started another volume she came across some lines that should have been marked in red ink. And she read them aloud.
“ ‘Now that it’s happened, I know that it went too far. I had my suspicions when Vicky brought in the new, young lawyer. I had no idea she would grab almost everything, but I should have guessed. She has changed from being the poor girl, the outsider that I was when I went to live with the Hartzingers. She’s turned into a greedy, vulgar shrew. Eve said Joel told her there would be plenty for everyone, including me. Why didn’t I speak up and protect Eve? Because it was too late. Vicky knew that I had my suspicions and I would have been in the middle. I am sick. I am so ashamed of myself.’ ” Jane broke off. “David, I think I must be hallucinating.”
“As to your father’s will, you’ve known all along it was a fraud.”
“Yes, but never could I have known that Lore knew it beforehand.”
“Go on,” he said grimly.
Her hands, supporting the notebook on her knees, were cold and trembling. “ ‘Poor Joel,’ ” she read, “ ‘I really liked him. I’m glad he’s past knowing what was done. I would never have wanted to hurt him. He, too, came up the hard, hard way.’ ”
David raised his hand. “May I interrupt? Here’s a note I made this morning. See how important it is to
keep notes? Listen. ‘… telling me he’s marrying Vicky partly to have a mother for Jane! She, a
mother
? When I’m the only one who loves Jane. And Jane loves me. If that’s what he wanted, what about me? I would have been a better wife to him, too.”
“My God. Did she really think my father could have wanted her for a wife?”
“Apparently she did. Come on, let’s finish. We’ve only got another half dozen to read through.”
Baffled and sickened, Jane skimmed further. After a long interval, another terrifying revelation leaped out.
“ ‘While Eve was packing to take Jane to California, I could hardly keep myself from screaming, “Stop! I think I may know something about all this. Stay and I’ll help you fight. Don’t go.” Instead, I just watched them leave for the airport and I went home and I cried.’ What to make of that? Or this, later. ‘It’s good to have them back in Ivy, like having a family again, going out to visit them at the school, or making dinner for them here. I’ve been so lonely. My loneliness is sometimes more than I can bear.’ ”
And then there was this. “ ‘So she’s marrying a schoolmaster instead of the California millionaire. It’s all theater, this life is, a theater. Caroline herself used to say her own life had been a drama. Sometimes one has to feel sorry for all the little actors with their pride and sense of independent power. And I do feel sorry for us all.’ ”
The notebooks lay between them in a jumble on
the floor. Jane sat there in disbelief. Like coiled, poisonous snakes ready to rear and strike, they lay.
“David, I don’t want to read all this about Lore. It’s distorted. It’s terrible. Let’s throw these things away.”
“You know we can’t do that. Somewhere here we’ll find the truth about Walter.”
Three notebooks remained. Jane’s arms were almost too limp to hold a notebook on her lap. Her eyelids wanted to close. And the clock ticked on through the awful, interminable day.
“Here, I made notes from an earlier book,” David said. “1927. ‘Graduation,’ she writes, ‘I have my cap. I passed third in my class. They gave me a little party at home. Some of Father’s colleagues came. They are all so good to me.’ ” He stopped. “The other side of the coin, isn’t it? Love and gratitude.” He read on. “ ‘They will get me a job in the hospital. Even Mama, who is not too bright except at the piano, treats me like a daughter. I am a daughter of the house. Father is so proud of me. Oh, how I hate calling him “Father”! He has everything a girl could want. Handsome and tender and wise. I love him so. If only he were younger and I were older.’ ”
“My God, in love with my grandfather!”
“Here’s more. ‘There’s so much loving in this house. I remember when I came here how they fussed over Caroline.… Where I lived before, there was a new baby every year and people hardly paid attention to it except to feed it. In most ways I admire all
this loving and yet—it’s funny, but sometimes it annoys me. I almost feel angry. Watching them together. Is that queer of me?’ ”
“Yes,” Jane said. “Queer and very, very sad. David, I really don’t want any more of this. I’m too confused, too angry.”
“I’ll do the rest. You can stop.”
“No, I take that back. This is my family’s problem and I should have the guts to deal with it. I’ll finish.”
After a long, quiet hour David made a sound that came out midway between an outcry and a groan.
“Jane, Jane, listen to this. ‘Caroline is slowly dying. It is terrible to watch her suffer. I think of all the times she has been so dear to me, sometimes like a mother, and sometimes like a daughter. I think of the things I should never have done.’ ”
“Now I really can’t stand any more,” Jane said. “David, I can’t.”
He looked at her. “You’re played out. Lie down on the sofa while I finish the rest myself.”
The eyelids that had been trying to close now did close; yet no sleep came. Wide awake, as the noisy clock kept on, her thoughts struggled to find order in a tumbling sea of tragedy and killing rage. How Caroline had suffered! And Lore the comforter, the wise adviser who had done so much good, was at the same time the stranger, seen through a fog, glimmering for an instant and fading again into the dark.
The only thing that was clear, she thought at last, is that Lore had been miserable. She called herself an
“outsider.” But why, considering how we loved her? Perhaps she was not capable of unconditional love? Dreadful things seem to have happened to her before she came to live with the family, things that no one knew about.
And slowly, as she had been trained to do, Jane tried to form in her own mind a picture of Lore’s mind. She despised her body. Among handsome people, she must have felt stigmatized. She had said so often enough. She wanted a man to love her body, and no man ever had. Our grandfather is supposed to have foreseen a hard life for her. Perhaps as a doctor, he had seen something that other people couldn’t.
She woke to find David standing over her with an extraordinary look of anxiety and tenderness upon his face.
“You finally fell asleep. You needed it. I’ve finished them all.”
She sat up, questioning. “And what?”
“Amalia Schmidt was right. Lore did tell him that Caroline was dead. She didn’t want any ‘further contact’ with the Schmidts, didn’t want Caroline ever to know anything. So she sent one letter saying that she, Lore, was moving out West and giving them no forwarding address.”
“That’s it?”
“No, there’s more,” David said solemnly, and paused.
“The story about Walter? True or not?”
“True.”
For a moment neither spoke. The last gray-blue light, as the shortening day gave place to night, lay on the windowpanes. And grief wrote itself on David’s bowed back as he stood there.