Keeping Time: A Novel (24 page)

The three of them mingling with the people who had come to help. Joining them in the circle that had formed around the police. Listening to the policeman with the bullhorn saying, “Pick a path and start up slowly. Look both right and left off the path, for Hulda can be anywhere. There is no guarantee she’s on a path or even near one. She’s ninety-three.” Repeating that. “Ninety-three.”

People breaking into small groups, talking in hushed voices. No laughter.

The three of them staying back to make themselves available to answer any questions, then slowly spreading out on their own. Sticking together, picking a path—one of many—to start up. Not that they thought they would make it to the top. It was an eight-hour walk for those in good shape, six for the stars, and four for the superstars.

Daisy was exhausted from all the walking the night before, plus she had had a sleepless night. Ordinarily she would take to keeping off her feet, but this was not ordinary. She continued walking, stopping often to rest, taking a break on every bench they came to.

The weather, suddenly changing. Clouds hustling in, unseen until they were overhead, knocking out the sun. The air, already heavy with humidity, thickening, turning a dreary day more dreary.

A group of two men and two women, all members of the National Ski Patrol during winter months, overtaking them on the path although they had just started out. Reaching them in fifteen minutes. It had taken Daisy, Elisabeth, and Michael over an hour. A quick exchange of information. Daisy, thanking them for volunteering. They said they were happy to and continued on, propelled up the mountain on strong ski legs—unlike Daisy, who was winded, perspiring, and nearly hobbling but insisting that she was fine, saying it was Hulda they had to worry about.

Elisabeth, worrying about both, wondering if they should turn around, go back to the bottom, check in with Captain Miller, get Daisy some water and a place to sit.

Doing all that. Back on the bench at the bottom, Daisy, saying, “This is awful.” Coated in perspiration, red in the face. “How could this have happened?” Asking for the hundredth time.

“What are we going to do?” Elisabeth, small twigs undetected in her cropped hair. Exhausted herself.

No one answering.

Michael, in between them, his face falling into his palms. “Maybe she’ll hear the cog train and go back up to get it.”

The people around them had a purpose. Everyone there was there for the search. “I wonder if anything will change when it opens to the public. Do they ask everyone to help or not mention it at all?” Elisabeth, inquiring.

Neither Daisy nor Michael answering. They didn’t know the answer
and were too tired to speculate. They could only sit and stare at the people with not an ounce of strength left to give. All of them, totally spent, needing a fresh burst of energy. Michael, going to buy a supply of water bottles and giant Snickers bars from the vending machines. Returning, handing them out. Eating and drinking, but still needing more of a boost.

Getting more of a boost. From a certain face in the crowd.

Daisy’s arm flying to Michael, with an unwrapped Snickers bar in her hand, Snickers residue smudged on her lower lip.

Michael, turning to her. Seeing her face. Following her eyes watching the pe to get the mower outedhabckople heading for the open cog train. Looking as if she had just spotted Hulda. Michael, saying jokingly, “What? Did Hulda join her own search team?”

Daisy, not laughing with him. Saying, “Look, over there.” Pointing. Words squeezed tightly through unmoving breath.

Elisabeth and Michael, eyeing the crowd. Seeing, not too far away, a tall, robust old man with a younger woman, maybe fifty, at his side, her hands wrapped around his left forearm. Both of them were boarding the cog train, moving in step with the group through the open doors of the car.

Elisabeth, “What, Daisy?”

“That could be him.”

Elisabeth, “Him who?” Suddenly getting it. “You mean Michael Baker?”

Michael, excited. “Really?”

Daisy, her voice shaky, saying, “It could be. I’m not sure.”

Michael, urgently, “Quick. Let’s go ask before he gets away.” Pulling on Daisy, yanking her off the bench to her feet.

Elisabeth, getting up, too. The three racing across the grass to the train. Groups of people were in their way, some walking, some stalled. Michael, pulling Daisy, trying to get her to go faster. Daisy, moving as fast as her thin legs would take her, trying to see through the crowd. Losing
sight of him. Hurrying, wondering if it could be. Could it really be? Could they really have found him? Was that really him, or was she just exhausted and seeing things? Was he just a tall old man?

Michael, saying a little more loudly, “Come on, Daisy, faster.”

Daisy was moving faster than she had in half a century, but not fast enough. The doors on the cog were starting to close.

Michael, saying more urgently, “Come on, Daisy.”

Daisy, panting, red in the face. “I can’t go any faster.”

Elisabeth, looking at her. Worried. “Take it easy, Michael. It’s not worth a heart attack.”

Michael, yelling, “But the doors are closing!” Letting go of her. Taking off. Running up to the train. The doors closed, the train beginning to depart. Michael, peering into the crowded car. Finding the man. Shouting, “Are you Michael Baker?” Feeling the old man’s eyes on him. Getting no reaction.

The woman with him, shaking her head, calling through the closed window, “No, sorry.”

The wheels of the train slowly turning, beginning its journey up the mountain. Michael, hurrying alongside it, keeping pace with it, ignoring the woman. His eyes were on only the man. Shouting, “Did you ever play the piano?”

The woman, sliding a window down, leaning her head out, saying, “Please leave my father alone. We’re here to help in the search.” Pulling her head in.

Michael, suddenly indignant, running alongside the train. “You don’t have to tell me about the search! We
are
the search. Hulda came here with
us
. And we came here to find
you
!” Pointing at the old man. Michael, jogging, trying to keep up with the train. Running over uneven terrain. Knocked off balance by the tip of a boulder implanted in the mountainside. Stumbling. Falling. Hitting the ground. Looking up, watching the train moving away. Screaming at it in desperation: “@sshaDaisy Phillips is looking for you. She’s right there.” Pointing at Daisy some
yards back. Daisy, panting, leaning on Elisabeth. The two stumbling over the grass, making their way toward him. Michael, scrambling up from the ground, cleaning himself off. Suddenly tired. Suddenly wanting to go home. Suddenly done with the whole darn thing.

The train gone, the three returning to the bench. Daisy, apologizing. Doubting it was him. Feeling guilty for causing trouble. Noticing the change in Michael’s face. How young he looked, how tired, how unhappy.

Daisy, handing him another Snickers bar. Finishing her own.

EIGHT MORE HOURS. No closer to a resolution. Breaking for dinner, leaving the mountain. Eating heartily, feeling guilty about their lusty appetites and their pleasure in the food. Asking themselves again what they should do. How could this have happened? Where cou"19UOPP">Hurry

FORTY-TWO

THERE DIDN’T SEEM to be anything more to be said. Hulda’s empty seat was the loudest thing in the car. It was a terrible feeling, leaving the mountains behind. Leaving Hulda behind. If not for the goal of helping Yodeli, they might not have been able to do it.

They needed to. They needed to get back. For the boys and Richard and Ann, who had been picking up the slack, and Elisabeth’s job.

BACK IN BROOKLYN. Not far from Hulda’s apartment. Daisy, asking how they were going to get into it.

“No problem,” Michael, reminding them. “I have that bag she gave me. She must have her keys in there.” Reaching down between his feet. Picking it up. Hesitating before opening it, fingering the latch. “It’s okay, right?”

Assuring him it was. He was just going to get her keys.

But that wasn’t what happened. Because right there at the top of the bag was something addressed to him. And to Daisy. And to Elisabeth—postcards from Mount Washington. Written out at the top of the mountain
from a bench on the observation deck while Daisy sat nearby in the bright sunlight and Michael and Elisabeth ambled around.

Postcards written to them.

“Oh, no.” Michael, reading. “Oh, no. Mom?” His voice, younger.

Elisabeth, looking over at him but keeping an eye on the bustling Brooklyn street ahead. “Michael, what is it?”

A bad feeling creeping in.

Daisy, leaning forward from the backseat, her hand on the side of Michael’s seat.

His voice shaky, Michael, saying, “Mom, pull over.”

Elisabeth, a sideways glance at him. Pulling over to the side of the road. There was nowhere to park. Double-parking, using her emergency flashers, blinking rhythmically. Turning to Michael. The postcards. Nodding for him to go on.

Beginning in a wobbly voice: “Dear Daisy, Elisabeth, and Michael. I don’t know when you’ll be reading this, but by the time you do, I will certainly be missing—for hours or days, I don’t know. Or maybe I will have already been found, found how I want to be found—as a part of the mountain. I hope you will forgive me the grief and inconvenience I have caused you in doing what I did. I am doing what I want to do—ending my days with Albert’s name on my lips and those of my children and parents, how and when and where of my choosing.”

Michael, flipping to the second postcard. “You three have made my wishes come true, for there is no glory in dying alone in a Brooklyn apartment with the landlord celebrating at my last gasp. But there is in returning to a place like my#ou’b. They parents knew and their parents before them. You have allowed me to end my time on earth at a place so reminiscent of my beginning.

“Please, if I could ask, get in touch with my son in Venezuela. He’s number one on my speed dial.”

Switching to the third postcard, Michael, reading, “Elisabeth, please
take my recipe book and always make the Mailaenderli cookies for sweet Michael. Michael, I would like you to take Yodeli. Maybe you’ll be able to get him to yodel! And Daisy, what can I say other than thank you. Your spirit and bravery in coming alone to New York are what started this. You gave me the guts. I’m looking at you now as I write this in the glittering sunlight. You’re beautiful. I wish I could do more to help you succeed in your goal. Best of luck in reaching it.

“Love to you all, Hulda Kheist.”

“Oh, no,” Daisy saying, her voice cracking, her mouth dry.

“Holy shit.” Elisabeth.

Silence from Michael. The three postcards spreading across his hands. Rereading them. Wrapping his young brain around them.

“She planned the whole thing,” Elisabeth, realizing.

Daisy, slowly nodding. “That’s why she gave Michael her purse.”

In the car, silence except for the clicking of the emergency flashers. Three heads, grappling, trying to absorb. Street sounds from outside. A hot, humid day in late June. New Yorkers out in shorts, sandals, tank tops. People from all over the world. Cranky babies in strollers. Dogs pulling against their leashes, sniffing. An old woman pushing a grocery cart. A young man carrying a guitar in a big black case.

Daisy, her eyes on the postcards in Michael’s hands, wondering what to think. Picturing Hulda on the mountaintop hunched over the postcards, busily writing. Picturing herself sitting right there, just a few feet away, not having any idea what Hulda was doing. Now, sitting here, not having any idea what she was feeling. Confused. Needing time. Needing it to settle inside her. Needing to sift through all her emotions. It was so big.

“We should call Captain Miller. He has to be told this.” Elisabeth, taking charge.

“So she might be dead?” Michael, asking, looking at his mother. His lower lip quivering, tears in his eyes. Elisabeth, silently marveling that he
hadn’t already feared that. That what had been taunting her mind never entered his. She looked at him a long minute without answering. Wondering if she should let whatever process it was that had kept him from thinking the worst to continue protecting him. Should she let him off the hook, not burden him with the truth? Protect him from being uncomfortably close to death? From rubbing up against it in this way?

For Hulda had literally left him holding the bag. Cementing her hope that she and the weekend would never be forgotten.

Elisabeth, looking Michael softly in the eye. Slowly nodding her head. He had asked for the truth, she had to give it to him. “It’s what she wanted.” Her voice gentle, caring, loving.

Michael, biting his top lip. Tears welling up. Releasing. Crying long and hard. Full of fear and sorrow.

Elisabeth, taking him into her arms across the car’s dividing console. Cradling him like a baby. Comforting him as in days gone by. Soaking in the smell of his hair, his skin, his scalp. Thinking she would continue inhal to get the mower outrehabcking him as long as he let her.

Finding deep contentment in the moment.

THEY HAD TO PULL themselves together. Wipe the tears from their eyes. Rescue Yodeli. Elisabeth and Michael, breaking apart.

Elisabeth, reaching for her cell phone. Michael, staring forlornly out the window. The postcards still in his hands. His eyes fixed on a sunflower in the corner of someone’s garden. His thoughts six hours away.

Daisy, feeling for Michael. Her heart breaking, wanting to reach out to comfort him. But resisting it. It was Elisabeth’s moment. With one eye on Michael, Elisabeth, managing to find the torn paper in her bag with Captain Miller’s phone number on it. Managing to dial.

The call, answered almost immediately. Elisabeth, explaining. Captain Miller, saying the new information would change the nature of the search but not end the search. He thanked her for calling, expressed his sympathy, said they would be in touch.

Elisabeth hung up, glanced over at Michael, who was still staring out the window. Resisting the urge to rub his shoulder, not wanting to push too far.

Shifting into drive, heading for the apartment. Double-parking in front, flashers going. They got out. Michael had the keys.