“I can’t talk about this anymore,” said Monica.
“I’m sorry, but it’s what I think,” said Jimmy.
“I can’t either,” said Eleanor.
“Goodbye, then,” said Jimmy.
When they had hung up, Eleanor looked at Monica and said, “Jimmy’s right. I’m afraid of his death. I’m afraid he’ll die, and there won’t be any movie.” She began to cry.
Bobby appeared in the doorway holding a pair of large, full martini glasses with salt around the rims.
“Ladies, I have made margaritas.”
“You’re a saint,” said Monica. She took the glasses and held them while Eleanor wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
“I thought you would like to know that your father just dropped your mother off for dinner. He’s gone to play poker.”
“Great,” said Eleanor.
Laurus was out on The Rolling Stone watching the International racing, when he came so near hitting a buoy that his grandson was alarmed.
“Granddad? Did you see that?”
He had to wait a moment or two for his answer. They were under power, luckily, as the boy could not have handled the sails single-handed, any more than his grandfather could.
“Would you take the wheel for just a minute?” Laurus finally said.
“Granddad?”
“I’m all right.”
“But what is it?” The boy had the helm.
“I have a headache.”
“Should we go in?”
There was a pause, in which the boy felt panic rise so high in his throat he could taste it.
“I think maybe we should. Go in.”
The boy kicked up the speed and set a course for the committee boat, grateful that the racing fleet was behind him in something close to doldrums. He steered close and the captain of the race committee came on deck without his having to blow the foghorn, which made a terrifying noise. He put the Stone in neutral and dropped the engine noise.
“Everything all right?” called Rufus Maitland, noting that old Mr. Moss was sitting down and looking odd.
“We’re going in. Would you call my mom and tell her?”
“Righto,” said Rufus, heading below to radio the club to relay the message by telephone.
By the time the boy brought the boat into the yacht club dock, a landing he and his grandfather had practiced at tedious length for which he was now extravagantly grateful, Eleanor was pulling into the club driveway. She met them on the dock.
“Oh, hello, honey,” her father said when he looked up and saw her.
“Hi.”
“Are you giving the tea?” Laurus asked.
“No, I just thought I’d see how you were getting along.” She could see the pain in his face but knew it would be fatal to start fussing.
“Well…I have a headache.”
“Where?”
He touched the side of his head. “And I think…something with that eye.” Eleanor and her son looked at each other.
“Why don’t I run you in to see Dr. Coles?”
The fact that he didn’t refuse instantly told her that something was really wrong.
“I hate to run out on my sidekick here…”
“I’ll be fine, Granddad.”
Laurus let the dock boy give him a hand stepping down from the boat rail to the dock, another bad sign.
Three days later, at the Seacoast Medical Center in Union, Eleanor was on the phone to Dr. Coles in Dundee. Outside in the corridor, Bobby sat with her father, who had dressed himself in the clothes he’d been wearing when he was brought in, and announced to them when they appeared that he was glad to see them, because he was checking out and they could drive him home.
“I’d be happier if he’d go to Bangor for an MRI,” said Dr. Coles, “but I have to admit, I can’t make him. There isn’t any reason to keep him in the hospital if he wants to leave.”
“But he’s had a stroke.”
“He’s had a stroke. But the first twenty-four hours make all the difference and he came back pretty completely.”
“But Dr. Hayes said it could happen again, he wanted to watch him—”
“It could happen again. On the other hand, it might not happen for years, or ever. His vision is normal, I examined him last night and didn’t see any residual impairment. And I’m told he had a disturbed night because he wanted to be at home. That’s not good for him.”
“Is that your medical opinion?”
“Yes, Eleanor, it is.”
She thanked him and hung up. She felt that the doctors were in cahoots with her father against her. Even the nurse in charge of the floor had fallen for Laurus when she asked him if he knew who was president of the United States, and Laurus said stubbornly, “I may not know his name, but I know I didn’t vote for him.”
Laurus did not like being in the hospital. And today he did know the president’s name, and anything else they could ask him.
“You take care now, Mr. Moss,” said the nurse as Laurus walked to the elevator, with Bobby and Eleanor trailing behind, carrying his newspapers and books in a paper bag, and the geranium Gladdy had brought him, and his little duffel bag with his pajamas and slippers. “Enjoy your poker game…”
“You’re not planning to play poker tonight,” said Eleanor in the elevator.
“Yes I am. It’s Thursday.”
“Do you want to end up right back in the hospital?”
“I do not. I do not ever want to go to the hospital again.”
They emerged into the daylight. Bobby persuaded Laurus to stand at the door in the shade and let him bring the car, but just barely. They installed Laurus in the front seat and Eleanor behind with the belongings. As they drove down the main street of Union, the sidewalks busy with summer tourists in shorts and sandals (although by far the greater number of tourists would be up at the mall on High Street), Laurus said, “Look, they’re doing The Mikado at the Opera House. I think your mother would like that. Don’t you?”
Eleanor leaned forward so her head was nearly between her husband’s and her father’s.
“Dad, you tell me. You won’t consider having someone live in the house with you.”
“I would if it were necessary. But it’s not.”
“You won’t even talk about moving somewhere where you could have help taking care of Mother, and yourself if you should ever need it…”
“No I will not, and I don’t want you and your sister trying to go behind our backs. We’ve made our own bed, without help from you, and we intend to lie in it.”
Eleanor was quiet for about a half mile, trying to figure out what exactly that meant. And how did he know not to include Jimmy in this?
“All right, tell me this. You won’t go for an MRI.”
“I do not want any more hospital.”
“Tell me why not. What happened at the hospital that was so bad?”
“I’m old. I’ve had a very interesting life, but I have no intention of living forever and I don’t want strangers doing things to me I don’t want.”
“All right. What if something happens to you so you aren’t dead and you can’t live as you do now? What am I supposed to do? Will you tell me? Do you want us to build you a platform in the woods like the Indians and drive off and leave you? That will look wonderful in the papers.”
“Five-card stud,” said Al.
“So what’d you say?” Hugh Chamblee asked Laurus.
“I told her I’d made arrangements with Al to take care of it.” The men laughed.
“But that won’t help you if you’re in Connecticut,” said Hugh. “You better find a plumber there who makes house calls.”
“Maybe I better not leave Dundee.”
They played the hand out, and the deal passed to Al.
Mutt Dodge and Hugh Chamblee were having lunch at Olive’s.
“What do you make of Laurus?” Mutt asked. “I gotta admit, I see this from the daughters’ point of view. My father’s ninety-three and I can’
t do a thing with him. Lives alone and likes it, shovels his own walk, won’t have a generator…”
“How’d he make out in the ice storm, then?” The region had had a bad one the past winter, with power out for days.
“Just fine. He lit a fire in the woodstove and got in bed with the dog. The two of them ate Ritz crackers for two days and then they got their power back.”
“Ours was out for six days.”
“I remember,” said Mutt.
OhnoOhNoOhNoOhNo.
Oh…wherewherewherewhere?
Now. How. Ohno. Ohno.
Mmmm. Huhuhuh.
Honey…honey…
Hm. Hm. Huhuhuhuh…
The phone rang in Cressida Pease’s kitchen. She had just come down from the fair. Everyone else was up there waiting for the fireworks. Cressida had seen fireworks in her time and she hadn’t taken a heavy sweater. The evening had turned nippy.
“Hello?”
“Yes!”
“Hello?”
“Uuuuuuhhh…here…”
Cressida held the receiver away from her ear and looked at it in annoyance. Then she hung up before the voice on the other end could ask her if she had Prince Albert in a can.
Shirley found them.
It was Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend. She didn’t usually work on Sundays, but she’d promised Eleanor she’d come in, as she’d have most of the week off and Eleanor couldn’t be there herself. The Applegates had gone to Rhode Island to a godchild’s wedding. Jimmy was in California and Monica was at home nursing her mother-in-law.
Marlon was supposed to drive Sydney and Laurus to Connecticut Tuesday after the worst of the holiday traffic. Shirley had plenty to do before then, baking blueberry muffins and Mr. Moss’s favorite butterscotch cookies for them to take home in freezer bags for the winter. She had all the laundry to do so the water could be turned off and the pipes drained before frost. After they’d gone, she had to pack up all the liquids in the house from kitchen and bathrooms and laundry and carry them home in cartons to keep in her own warm basement, where they wouldn’t freeze and burst.
She’d let herself in the kitchen door and had the coffee made and the orange juice squeezed, and was setting the dining room table for breakfast, when she noticed it was time Mr. Moss was down, and she didn’t hear anything. She stopped and listened for the creaking of footsteps crossing the bedroom floor above, of water running in the bathroom. All was quiet. She made the batter for blueberry pancakes. When there was still no stirring, she thought she better just run up and see if everything was all right.
“Mr. Moss?” she called, from the foot of the stairs.
Nothing.
She called again. The grandfather clock in the living room struck the half hour. He was always up by seven-thirty.
Stopping on the landing, she began to taste the air. There wasn’t so much a smell, as something you could feel in the back of your mouth. She didn’t want to go farther, but she did.
The bedroom door was shut; no one answered when she knocked. She opened it, and the smell was like a pillow against her face. She went straight to open the windows. Then she turned to take in the scene.
A lamp was turned on beside the bed, though it was bright daylight. The bedclothes where pulled back. Mr. and Mrs. Moss had both been in the bed, but they weren’t there now. The bathroom door was open, and that light, too, was on.
It took her a minute to get herself moving toward the door, not wanting to find what she knew she would find.
They were lying together on the tiled floor. Mr. Moss was in an awkward pile, with one arm crumpled under him. It looked painful. He had a pillow under his head, though, and the blue and white overshot counterpane from the bed was bunched over him. He was still and his face was a bad color.
Mrs. Moss, in her pink nightgown, was lying on her side on the bath mat beside him. She had one arm around his shoulders, as if she were trying to keep him warm. With her other hand, she held his hand. Her skin was a waxy yellow, and one eye was open, unmoving.
Shirley went out to the bedroom again, and turned on the overhead light. She looked carefully at the scene. A cordless phone was on the floor. A glass of water on Mrs. Moss’s side of the bed had been knocked over. She looked at the space heater; the dial was turned up, but it sure wasn’t giving any heat. She turned the gas off, then went out, closing the door behind her.
In the kitchen, she sat down at the table and had a quiet cry. What if they had suffered? What if they’d been frightened? Then she blew her nose and tried to think whom she should call. They didn’t have 911 in Dundee. This wasn’t a case for an ambulance. She guessed she might as well call the fire department.
“Hullo?”
Who was that? Oh. “Al? Is that you? I’m calling the fire department.”
“What’s on fire?”
“Nothing.”
“Good. Is that Shirley?”
“Yes…”
“I set the phone at the firehouse to ring through to home last night so everyone could go to the fair,” said Al. “What’s the trouble?”
Shirley told him.
In the Pease kitchen, Cressida saw Al go still. He hung up abruptly, without saying goodbye. Sitting at the kitchen table in her pink quilted bathrobe, Cressida watched his mouth work in a way she knew. Trouble.
“Who was the fella said be careful what you wish for?” Al asked presently.
Cressida didn’t know. “What’d you wish for?”
“Not me. Laurus Moss. He’s gone.”
Cressida moved in her chair, relieved it wasn’t one of their own. “I’m sorry,” she said. She knew Al had been truly fond of Laurus Moss. “He was a real gentleman.”
“Yuh,” said Al, surprised at how upset he was. He paused. “I better get over there.” Instead he sat down at the table with her and picked up his mug of coffee. Cressida watched him, wondering what he would do with these feelings, since expressing them was out of the question.
“Want me to heat that up?”
Al shook his head. He took a long swallow. Then he said, “I hope he’s seeing his movie.”
Privately Cressida thought the only thing Laurus Moss needed to see a movie about was how he happened to marry that awful wife, but this wasn’t the time to say it. “We’ll never know,” she said, and stood up to clear the breakfast plates.
Nina is in Frøslev prison camp on October 2, 1944, her birthday. She turns twenty-two. The prisoners’ barracks here are set in a semicircle like beams radiating from the sun, the role of the sun being played by the central guard tower. Barriers of barbed wire extend straight out from the tower on either side, bisecting the camp, captives on one side, captors on the other. The Germans’ quarters are similar to the prisoners’ barracks but there are important differences. The Gestapo men eat, drink, and smoke as they like. They come and go. They have no machine guns trained on them. The only route from the prisoners’ side of the camp to the Germans’ is a narrow choke point, the hallway through the base of the central watchtower itself.
Frøslev camp is run by the Gestapo, under SS General Pancke. General Pancke reports not to Dr. Best but directly to Berlin. Nina arrived at Frøslev in early September, in a van from Horserød prison near Helsingør, where she’d been sent after the SS in Copenhagen got tired of questioning her. Like all prisons in German-occupied territory, Horserød was growing crowded with resisters, Communists, and other thorns in the Third Reich’s side, as well as its original population of criminals. Nina was among some twenty prisoners scooped up from Horserød without explanation and sent south. Others included an elderly Lutheran minister who had been caught hiding Jews in his crypt,and a half-dozen “asocials,” thugs who were not part of the Resistance except insofar as there was a profit in it or an opportunity for violence.
The asocials wear a thick stripe of hair running down the middle of their otherwise shaved skulls from forehead to nape, a style they call “Red Indian.” In the van they spat and made crude jokes througho
ut the journey, or sat in a row and stared at Nina in silence until her discomfort made them laugh. She was the youngest person in the van and easily the prettiest. There were older prisoners who would have intervened if they could, but it had been all too clear that the Gestapo men guarding them enjoyed the game as much as the asocials.
On arrival at Frøslev, an officer explained that they would be deloused as a sign of the Germans’ care for them. As long as the men and women were to experience this care separately, Nina felt it would be easier to bear than the trip had been.
The women prisoners are all in barracks H-16.There are fifteen bunks to a room;she has an upper one. Each barrack is run by Danes appointed by the Gestapo. It saves the Germans trouble, as the Danes are very good at organization. It is also very good for the prisoners, who, Nina finds, have managed to “organize” all sorts of things not dreamt of in General Pancke’s view of prison life. There is a gymnasium headmistress in Nina’s room named Ulla, who has “organized” a complete set of art materials with which she makes forbidden pictures of camp life. She also conducts courses for the younger women, to keep their spirits up. There is nothing so cheering as learning new things. When Nina joins them, the course in progress is medieval history. On her birthday Ulla makes a beautiful card for Nina, which is signed by all the women in their room. It helps, in prison, to develop a prison “family,” and though Ulla has many acolytes in the camp, she responds to something in Nina, her intelligence, her wide frightened eyes, her gentleness. Nina is deeply grateful for Ulla’s protection.
The women prisoners work in the laundry, doing the wash for the inmates and their warders as well. The workshops are also run by Danes,so the work is hard but not crushing. It will be worse in the last months of the war, when the population at Frøslev has swollen from the 1,500 it was designed for, to 5,500. But it will never be the murderous slave labor found in the south. Also, in early autumn of ’44 the food is still adequate, as it will not be much longer, even here.