Secret Dreams (51 page)

So Herr Wilhelm never talked to Puppchen or the dollhouse family. And Puppchen never went on visits to the dollhouse or had tea picnics on the floor. For the toys had to play alone, and the minute she was finished,
put away right away
.

Mother had pocketsful of rules. They were her beginning and her end. Her be-all and end-all. “Do one thing and then the next,” Mother always said. And so Little Fräulein never ate cookies while she played. Or paused in the midst of her things to go potty. Just get up and put back. Take down from the shelf and put back. Play for a while and put away. With Mother always saying, “Don't start what you can't finish. And finish what you start.”

With Mother's most important rule being:

Never touch the horses
.

On a high shelf in Little Fräuleins room stood Mother's china horses. Dozens of horses, of every color and breed. But these were never taken down. And only dusted once a week by the maid. The most lovely was a high-stepping pure white Arabian gelding marked
Lippizaner
on the base. One day Mother found this special horse with its proud tail cracked off. The maid would not be blamed and glowered darkly in the direction of the hated room, insisting in a low voice, “It's the girl's room, you know. I don't keep an eye on her all day long.” Fräulein didn't remember how it all turned out, but she did recall a sense of high tragedy, that something had happened that could never be set right. She glimpsed her face in the hallway mirror, papery white….

Under the bedroom window stood a steam radiator with a metal cover painted a vile shade of pink. The metal cover made of die-cut tin, the cuts in the shape of fleurs-de-lis. It had been painted so many times the fleurs were filled in with drips, giving it the look of a leper with pockmarked skin. The radiator got fiercely hot when the steam came knocking on the pipes, but it never seemed to heat the area near her bed. Perhaps all the warm air went out the window. She felt her feet turning into painful wooden blocks. Her toes icy glass beads —- afraid if she stubbed them they'd crack off.

Sometimes Mother read her the story of Little Red Riding Hood with her warm red cloak, trip-tripping carelessly through the woods to Grandma's house. The picture book had a page showing Grandma's table laden with steaming meat pies and cozy nooks by the fireplace, with wooden stools for you to cuddle close. But seeing that only made the cold more bitter. In the long night she hated Little Red Riding Hood for living in such a comfortable picture, hated her for sitting by the fire in the great stone hearth, with hot cocoa by the hob and mince pies on the table. If only she could be Little Red's long-lost cousin from the city, her poor forgotten sister.

So through the long, dark night Fräulein became Little Red's poor freezing sister in town, Ninny Blue Toes. Worse off even than the Little Match Girl, who at least died and went to heaven.

Ninny Blue Toes.

Suffering all because of Mother's ninny rules: no socks in Ninny's nighttime bed. Mother said lacy socks were for morning walks in the park, and daytime standing in the department store aisles, and sitting up late evenings in the theater. So no sneaking out of bed to steal them from the sock drawer. No, Ninny Blue Toes, no socks all ninny night long! No matter how she begged and begged.

“Kiss Mother nighty-night now.”

And so Mother was kissed and the blankets tucked around Ninny's chin. Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Ninny drifted off to sleep…. When suddenly the door swung open. Mother!

“Off with the covers and show me your feet. Quick now! Show me your feet!”

Naked blue toes wiggled on the sheets. No lacy socks.

Letting Mother sail away once more, smiling, to her room.

“Did my p-p-parents hate each other?”

Fräulein jammed her fists into Herr Doktors leather couch. “They never slept in the same room. If M-m-m was asleep, I'd sneak the socks on. Then wake up early to slip them off again into the drawer. But if M-m-m was prowling about the house, I crept back shivering into bed….”

Ninny's feet slid over the floor like blocks of ice. A warm glow came from Mother's room. She pressed her face to the crack in the door and saw Mother at the vanity, brushing her hair. The table had looking-glass wings so you could see yourself from three sides and glass legs with frowning lions' heads supporting the top. The lions' heads stared out like soldiers on guard. Ninny sometimes tiptoed into the room to talk to them.

A wave of warm air flowed into the hall — so, so much warmer than Ninny's bare, dark hole. How she longed to snuggle in the bed as Mother sat before the mirror brushing her long, lustrous hair. Stroking with the long-handled brush she always used.

Ninny often thought Mother's face was sharp and bright like a bird's. But now it seemed soft and slack. Her eyes dreamy, her body loose. Seeing her made Ninny think of strawberry jam on hot buttered toast, and she thought,
Mother has lost something
. But what Mother had lost she couldn't guess.

Mother took the stopper from a perfume bottle: frosted glass in the shape of a dove, called Lovebird. She dabbed the stopper behind her ear, on her throat, then lower to the opening of her silk dressing gown. Following the cord that plunged down the shadow between her legs. Mother touched the stopper there.

Ninny Blue Toes smelled the scent of Lovebird welling through the crack. She had never seen Mother's dressing gown hang so open. In the room the candles flared brighter. Mother turned the long-handled brush over in her fingers, the silver flashing in the flickering light. She leaned back in the chair and carefully parted her long white legs, propping one foot on a frowning lions' head. Then softly rubbed the smooth silver back of the brush along the inside of her thigh. First lower, then higher, then lower again.

What was Mother doing? Hurting herself?

Ninny pressed her face to the crack. Mother stroked the silver hairbrush along her long white thigh, the other hand slipping down to the shadow and back to the candlelight again. She touched her fingers to her lips. The fingers moving, lower and higher, then lower again. The tiny candle flames stuttered.

Now the hands went faster. Tongue
—
shadow — tongue. The brush fell mutely on the carpet, but the hands kept going. Mother's naked toes clenched the lions face. Tongue — shadow — tongue, more frantic now. Ninny shuffled on the hard wood floor. Her own fists clenching. Open — closed —open. Should she go for help?

Tongue — shadow — tongue. Ninny Blue Toes fled.

The tin-cylinder phonograph played softly in the drawing room. Ninny stood in the doorway. Father had lit a fire in the grate. He sat in the green leather chair, smoking his pipe. Soft sucking sounds as he drew on it… then a quiet hiss as he blew smoke into the air. He looked up sharply.

“What now?” he murmured. “Can't you sleep?”

She always loved the way his gleaming hair swept back off his forehead like a cresting wave. It made her want to stick her fingers in the curl. He held out his hands, beckoning her to his lap. “Come on, then.”

She climbed over his knees, curling into him.

“Eh, what's this?” He held her frozen feet. “They're cold as ice!” He rubbed them in his big, warm hands. And the red embers of the fire seemed to go into her toes. If only she could sit all night in his safe lap, if only —

“What's
this
now?”

Mother towered in the doorway, tall and grim, her silk dressing gown wrapped tight about her waist. Her face no longer slack, but bright and sharp again.

Father clasped Ninny to him. Couldn't she just stay in his lap and never leave? She felt him tremble. Father
afraid?
Was he going to hand her over? “Her feet were cold,” Father explained. His voice sounded doubtful, as if he didn't really believe it. Then glancing feebly at the fire as if the truth lay there. But no, just embers crumbling to ash. Ninny heard his belly rumble, arguing with itself. Then, with some resolve, “What of it?”

The man and the woman took the measure of each other. After a pause, the woman said at last, “Nothing. It doesn't matter.” She held out her hand. “Come along; its back to bed for you.”

Father's large hands seemed sad to let her go. Ninny went into the hall's dark tunnel, hearing the soft sounds of Father drawing on his pipe. The tin-cylinder phonograph now still …

Mother pulled down the chill bedcovers. “Get in.” Ninny's bare feet rubbed together, two numb blocks of ice. Mother went the round of the room: checking the china horses, feeling the radiator, seeing all the toys were put away. Finally Mother's grave face rose above the bed. Ninny Blue Toes clutched Herr Wilhelm to her chest.

In one rash stroke Mother plucked the rabbit by the ear and flung him across the room. He sailed through the air as if his floppy ears were limp wings and fetched up against the radiator. Mother's prodding fingers searched her skinny body.

“Did you go in the sock drawer?”

“No!” Ninny cried.

The bird face came closer, became harder, whiter. “That's a lie!”

“It's not!”

“You were watching me so you could get some socks. I heard you in the hall, spying.”

“No!”

“What did you see?”

“Nothing!”

Mother held up the long silver hairbrush. “Did you see this?”

“No.,” Ninny whispered.

For a moment Mother looked like she might go away, for she seemed to rise…. But then bared her teeth. “Don't call for help. Don't move.” The hairbrush struck the bed by Ninny's arm.

“Not a sound.”

The silver hairbrush hovered in the air. Ninny held her breath. Don't cry, Ninny. Don't move. Just stare at the brush floating in the air. The silver brush … hovering for ages near Mother's face. Or look at Herr Wilhelm rabbit on the floor by the radiator, with his head bent sideways. Oh, poor Herr Wilhelm with a broken neck. Finally the brush disappeared into the silken folds of Mother's dressing gown. For some moments she paused in the doorway. The rabbit's eyes gazed disconsolately at the ceiling.

“Mother, I'm cold. Can I have some socks, please can I —”

“I'm sorry, Fräulein, but our time is up.”

She gawked at Herr Doktor incredulously. He couldn't possibly end it now. He stared down at his desk, making notes on a pad.

“But why?” she demanded. “Why did sh-sh-she make me lie to her? Why couldn't I have socks when I was cold? Why?”

Herr Doktor ceased his note taking. In a very sensible voice, he told her, “We'll continue again tomorrow. At your regular time. Telephone me if there's any change in your plans.”

She staggered up to go, too dumbfounded to believe he would actually make her leave.

“Did you bring your umbrella?” he asked.

“An umbrella … ?” she said uncertainly, “No, no umbrella.” She groped out. Downstairs, the maid helped her with her coat. In five minutes Fräulein rattled homeward in a tramcar. Her underclothes were totally soaked with perspiration,- she had a splitting headache. Exhaust from a truck blew into the coach and stayed there, sickening her the whole ride. When she climbed the stairs to her apartment, the headache grew so bad she could hardly see. She fell into bed at once, sleep stunning her like a club.

But the session went on in an ugly dream. Fräulein sat at the dining room table of her Georgian dollhouse. Up close the tiny knives and forks looked crude and rough. The mama doll and papa doll sat beside her in rickety chairs, their cloth faces painted in broad quick strokes of blush, with dots of blue and white for eyes. The oaken dining room table was really made of varnished balsa wood. And the crystal chandelier merely a loose collection of dingy cut glass.

Through the grimy French windows she saw her vast room. Püppchen and Herr Wilhelm rabbit sat on her narrow bed like giants. They were in animated conversation, Püppchen saying, “Did Mother really sneak in and slap the bed with the brush?”

“Oh yes,” Herr Wilhelm assured her. “Take my word for it — I saw the whole thing with a broken neck.”

“How savage!” Püppchen gasped.

“Yes, savage — that's just the word for it,” agreed the rabbit.

“Did it hurt very badly?”

“Why, no …,” Herr Wilhelm confessed. “My neck is flexible. No bones, you know,- stuffed with cotton.”

“I'm hollow inside,” Püppchen confided earnestly. “But my hair is real.”

“And lovely hair it is too,” the rabbit complimented her. Herr Wilhelm had M-m-m's silver hairbrush in his clumsy paws and was trying to brush the doll's long tresses.

“Oh, leave off with that,” she chided him. “We'll do you first. I think your ears would look charming in a bun.” The doll gathered the rab^ bit's ears, braiding them to see how they looked. “No, that's not my style,” Herr Wilhelm told her. “They've always looked better hanging down.”

Fräulein felt so glad the two of them had finally learned how to talk. She had so much she wanted to tell them. She rushed to the front of the dollhouse, but before she reached the door the rabbit and the doll ceased their chatter, then clutched each other in silent fear. Frozen, waiting.

A large wolf bounded into the room. In one swipe he tore Puppchen's head clean off. The head shrieked through the air, thudding mutely to the floor. In one huge gulp the wolf swallowed Herr Wilhelm whole. The rabbit said, “Oh my!” in surprise as he vanished down the beast's throat. The wolf stalked about the room on his hind legs. Loops of saliva hung from his jaws, which he wiped with a handkerchief. His red eyes looked hungrily for her. He sniffed the sterile row of china horses, snorting at them in disgust.

Then sat on the bed, crossing his legs. He picked up the silver hair brush, curled his tail around to the front, and began to brush it lovingly. “Now, where oh where could a little girl be?” he mused out loud. “I'm sure I was told a little girl lived in this room….” He held his tail in his paws, brushing it thoughtfully. “Now, where oh where could a little girl hide? Under the bed? No, too obvious … In the sock drawer? No, not allowed in there.”