Ursula Hegi The Burgdorf Cycle Boxed Set: Floating in My Mother's Palm, Stones from the River, The Vision of Emma Blau. Children and Fire (166 page)

Once again, the elevator wasn’t working, and she bolted up the stairs to the fourth floor, gathered the clothes she had given Justin—all of them gifts he’d never taken to his house because of his wife—and took them down to
Opa’s
boat. As she rowed out into the black and uneven waves, she tossed Justin’s clothes over-board.
One by one, they swirled away. It hurt, but not as much as when he’d stopped their Wednesdays together, and as she fed the last of his belongings to the icy water, his white terry-cloth robe ballooned for an instant as though she had conjured him to drown in front of her.

One late morning in July—humid and red-hot and without wind from the lake—a package arrived for Yvonne. Enjoying the anticipation, she carefully unfolded the tissue paper around two gowns from her favorite catalog store,
Sophisticated Lady.
She took off her blouse and skirt, held the azure gown against herself in front of the full mirror, one hand pressing the hanger to her clavicle, the other gathering the full satin at her waist.

“It’s your color, my dear,” Robert tells her.

She smiles. “To you, everything is my color.”

Stepping to one side, then to the other, she swirled around.

“May I have this dance, lovely lady?” One summer’s lover spins her across the dance floor, and she arches her back and leans into his embrace as he dips her. The tango, of course …

As she swayed from one foot to the other, the satin in the mirror brought out the night blue in her hair and made her cheeks look smoother. She could easily pass for fifty-eight, maybe even forty-eight.
Soon I’ll be seventy— Don’t count. Don’t think.
Her shoulders rose from the black lace of her slip, slender,
not bony like some women’s;
neck still firm, though the horizontal lines that divided it into three sections had grown deeper. She stroked her fingertips upward across those folds, across the soft skin—
too soft?
—below her chin. New fabric against her skin—there was nothing like it. Still, for years now, Yvonne had tried to please Emma by staying away from her favorite catalogs. But Emma always found something to fret about. That’s why Yvonne made sure to cross out original prices and write lower amounts on the tags, claiming she’d bought them on sale. Last winter, when she and her grandson had come home from a shopping trip to Concord with two pairs of high-heeled shoes, he’d helped her hide the bone-colored sling backs till Easter when she’d brought them out as though she’d just gotten them on sale. It was Emma’s fault, forcing her and Stefan to lie.

For a while Yvonne had bought clothes and makeup for her—bribes so that Emma would let her keep her own purchases—but Emma wouldn’t even use lipstick when her lips were chapped, and she’d returned nearly all the clothes.

But now Yvonne had a second gown to try on.
The delight of it. And I always look best when I smile.
From the cardboard box she pulled the other gown—a deep green velour with sleeves. The more the
Wasserburg
deteriorated, the more she craved new clothes, scarves, perfumes. She draped the satin over a chair and held up the velour. An entirely different feeling—not as lavish but more cosmopolitan, the kind of gown she could wear this fall to the theater or to a good restaurant. She shook her hair. Turned.
Dinner at the
Cadeau du Lac …

Robert pulls out her chair. “You look wonderful, my dear.”

“Mother?”

She spun to the door. Emma—how long had she been standing there? Feeling oddly naked, Yvonne tugged the gown against herself.

In the mirror Emma saw the back of her mother’s flimsy slip, the bumpy veins in her legs, and was seized by a sudden and deep compassion. She remembered her mother as a young woman—so playful, so elegant, so charming that Emma had felt privileged watching her. But that enchantment had worn off, and she was left with embarrassment for her mother’s wants, embarrassment that her mother had a witness and that she had to be that witness.

Bright red circles of excitement floated high on her mother’s cheeks—
face of a clown painted anew each day over the old woman face
—and her black hair, brittle from too many chemicals, lay matted in back as if she only attended to those parts of herself that she could readily see in the mirror.

Emma pointed to the velour gown. “When did you get that?” And noticed on the chair yet another gown, looking new and expensive even though she’d just had to postpone a major plumbing job on the second floor. Suddenly it struck her, the unfairness of it all. Not all that many years ago, the house had been grand, her
Opa
alive, and she had believed it would be like that forever … warm nights on the roof, the people game with Caleb.

When had it all begun to come apart?

With her father’s indulgence of her mother’s wastefulness?

With Uncle Tobias’ curse: “Keeping the house together will destroy it and drive this family apart”?

One day last winter she’d felt so discouraged about the
Wasserburg
that she’d driven to Hartford to ask Uncle Tobias to revoke his curse, declare it invalid as only the originator of a curse can do. He’d seemed embarrassed for her, had insisted on cooking lunch for her, and she’d sat with him and Danny Wilson, both wrinkled and tan, eating shrimp with almonds and currants, drinking wine that was more yellow than white.

“A Sicilian wine,” her uncle said. “Danny wants to take me to Sicily on our next cruise.” At least twice a year the two of them traveled, always to warmer climates from where they sent presents to Stefan. Small pottery drums from Morocco. A woven poncho from Mexico. A set of oil paints from Paris.

After Uncle Tobias made strong coffee in a glass pot and set out a plate with wrapped chocolate wafers, he told her what he’d already said the day of Oma’s funeral—that the house had been cursed before he was ever born, and Emma wondered if it had started the night
Opa
had buried St. Joseph head down, wondered if it was reaching into her own life because she was not only losing the house but also her son.

“It’s nothing I did,” Uncle Tobias added. “Besides, I’m not that powerful.”

“None of us are, Emma,” Danny said, watching her closely.

“I couldn’t resist.” Her mother straightened the bodice of the dress and tilted her head. “Look.”

It was obviously made for a younger woman, and the low neckline made her mother look strung together with hollow bones and gray skin. Skin that used to be pale yet soaked up light. Skin that now—when it no longer could hold that light—had gone the other side of pale to gray.

Emma kept her voice gentle. “You know we have to send those back.”

Her mother brought her face close to the mirror, and in the still,
hot air that slowed down all movements, she tugged with two fingers at a fold on her throat as if about to turn her skin inside out. “Oh,” she said and then smiled. “You can’t mean that.”

“I wish we could afford them. But I have to say no.”

“One then,” her mother whispered.

“We can’t.” Heavily, Emma sat on the edge of the unmade bed.

“Of course we can,” her mother said in her most charming voice. Holding both dresses against herself, she walked toward Emma, hips rippling as if she were a model in a fashion show. “I’ll even let you choose.” Surely now, Emma would see how unique these dresses were, how wonderful they looked on her.

Deep inside her body Emma felt an immeasurable weariness that might never be dislodged, not even by the longest sleep. By delegating the choice to her, her mother was trying to make it impossible for her to send either one of the dresses back.

“Which one?” Her mother pressed her with an anxious smile. “Admit it—you like them both.”

Emma got up and lifted the blue satin dress from her mother’s hands. The price tag was over four hundred dollars. Jesus, she’d better take a look at the other tag too. Nearly six hundred. She let out a slow breath.
What can I do before she squanders it all? What do I have to do to save the house from her?

Her mother was stepping into the blue satin dress. “Will you please close the zipper for me?”

Reluctantly, Emma guided the zipper up. “How about all your other dresses?” She opened the door of her mother’s closet and pointed to an entire row of evening gowns: strapless chiffon with sequins down its bodice; white satin with a huge bow above the seat; gray silk with flowing sleeves and a deep V-shaped neckline; black velvet with a matching jacket…. “Some of these you haven’t even worn.”

“But I will. You know how hard it is to find stylish clothes in this town, and when I see something like this in the catalog, I—”

“Where would you wear this?” Emma pulled out a pink silk with a tear-shaped neckline. “To the dentist? To the store?” Not that her mother hadn’t worn absurdly formal clothes just to the bakery or beauty parlor.

“Let me see. I have worn this … twice already. When your father was still alive. Once to dinner in Manchester. And to the ballet in Boston. The chiffon I wore on your grandmother’s last birthday. And this white one here … remember, five years ago when Caleb visited.” Her chin rose. “Caleb would let me keep these gowns.”

“Sure. While the house is falling down around both of you.” Sometimes—while washing her mother’s laundry or scouring her mother’s tub, Emma would get angry at Caleb who was doing what he loved far away on the West Coast. “Let Caleb pay for the gowns then,” she said. “Maybe I should just take Stefan and move out. Caleb can look after you and the house.”

Her mother looked startled. “He wouldn’t come back to New Hampshire.”

“Right.”

“Don’t be like that, Emma.”

“We cannot afford dresses like these. And I’m sorry about that. Because I wish we could. Just as I wish we had the money to repair the furnace and the elevator and—”

“Just one dress then. Please …”

“They’re far too expensive.”

“I won’t buy anything else for a while.”

“I’m sorry.”

Slowly, Yvonne straightened her shoulders. “Not that it is your decision to make.”

“Mother—”

“I was merely asking your opinion. And since you’re being so very stingy, I have decided to keep both.”

“Will you let me show you something?”

“What is it?”

“Just come with me. Please?”

In the blue gown, Yvonne followed her daughter into the hallway where the carpets were so drab that you could no longer see the original pattern; through empty apartments where tiles had cracked and water leakage had left yellow-brown blotches on the ceilings; into the basement where pipes were rusting and several light fixtures had burned out.

“This is where we need to spend money,” Emma said. “Not on evening gowns.”

Yvonne shrank from the musty smell, the peeling walls. Something was wrong. What if Emma was playing a trick on her? She felt a dull ache in her bones because all at once it seemed possible that she could lose the house altogether. Weakly, she tried to protest. “There always was more than enough.” She raised one hand to support herself against a streaked wall. It all was much worse than she had expected. So this was what Emma had been talking about. The house was decaying.
Aging. Creases and skin like ash?
She could feel Emma’s frustration because she, too, had known it along with the urge to restore.
Restore myself.
Except that this house needed far more than she would ever need, far more than one dress, one scarf, one jar of skin creme.
Where will I go if we lose everything?
Though she wanted to blame Emma, she couldn’t because she knew how Emma loved the house—loved it more than she’d ever loved that doctor who had only given her leftover hours and loneliness.
Odd, that a woman like me would produce a daughter so… ordinary.
How she missed Caleb and his appreciation for beauty.

“All we have are the rents,” Emma was fretting.

Even now. Even now at my age, I feel more alluring than my daughter has ever been.

“We need to budget.”

If only she had inherited my beauty.

“Find tenants.”

Men would adore her, would want to help her.

“People want to live in new buildings. Mother—”