The Puzzle King (25 page)

It was dark by the time they reached Kaiserslautern. Only the light from a crescent moon shone through the foggy sky. No one said anything as they got out of the cab, but if dread could speak it would have found its words in the heavy steps they took and the way they dragged their suitcases behind them. Inside the house, a candle flickered.

“Margot
schön
, we’re home,” Frederick whispered. He raised his voice when no one answered: “We’re here, all of us.” There was a rustling noise. A light went on and there stood Margot, her beautiful auburn hair mostly gray now, springing like cries of help from her head. She still had the beautiful long, slender legs, but she was paler and thinner than Seema or Flora had remembered, and her red and watery eyes looked like fresh blisters. Flora was wearing an olive green hat with a dashing ostrich plume and Seema had on her brown-and-white suit and what was left of the morning’s makeup. The two of them took in the sight of their sister, trying not to let their shock show on their faces.

Margot patted her hair in place and took off the apron she’d been wearing. She hadn’t thought about her appearance since God knows when, but now, caught in the stunned gaze of her sisters, she realized what a sight she must have seemed. She lifted her arms to hug her sisters and became aware of the pungent smell of her own perspiration. “Mutti and I are so happy you are here,” she said, hugging her arms in front of her chest. “Come. Come in. I know she is eager to see you.”

“Ach Margot,” said Frederick, “these people are tired and thirsty. Let’s give them some schnapps and let them relax a little. We’ll sit for a while. You haven’t seen each other in ages.”

An awkward half hour passed as the three sisters and Edith sat at the kitchen table. Frederick took out a bottle of plum schnapps and poured them each a shot. Edith took up the slack in conversation. She told them how her mother had filled a window box with geraniums and how well they were doing. “Can we see them?” asked Flora, jumping from her chair, eager for the distraction. Edith showed them the flowers, and it reminded Flora of the present she had brought for Margot. She dug down into her bag and pulled out an egg-shaped porcelain object wrapped in tissue paper. “Do you still collect these?” she asked, handing the gift to her.

Margot unwrapped the tissue slowly. “Another owl? Yes, I still do. You remembered.”

“Of course I remembered,” said Flora. “How could I forget those little creatures of yours? You used to line them all up by your bed. You gave them all names and you would say good night to each one before we went to sleep.”

The sweetness was still in Margot’s smile. She rolled the blue-and-green owl in her hands and looked into its agate eyes. “He’s beautiful. He looks like an Erich, don’t you think?”

Seema hadn’t thought to bring Margot a gift. Now she considered giving her one of her dresses or the sterling silver cigarette holder that Oliver had given her, but even in her moment of panic, she knew how completely inappropriate that would be. So she said the next thing that came to her mind. “Margot darling, I didn’t bring you a present. I thought we’d go shopping, the two of us, and I’d buy whatever you chose—silk stockings, a leather handbag, pigskin gloves—something beautiful that’s just for you.” Flora rolled her eyes, and Edith squinted, unable to imagine how Seema’s indulgent taste and her mother’s simplicity would square. “That is very kind of you,” said Margot, looking to Frederick, who was nodding his head.

“Margot,” said Flora gently. “Before we go inside to see Mutti, tell us what we can expect.”

Margot described how their mother’s illness had begun. When the vision in her left eye started to blur, their mother would press her finger against the lid, hoping to rub away the shadows. All that happened was the eye went slack and the flesh beneath it sank into her cheek. Margot shook her head and hesitated. Frederick continued: “Soon after, the left side of her face became immobilized and she had to struggle to keep the eye open. She had difficulty speaking and the side of her mouth drooped. Chewing became a chore. She had neither the interest nor the energy to keep trying.”

Margot broke in and described how their mother’s body had shrunk. “She became so light I could have carried her if I had to.” They had moved her into Edith’s room after she left for gymnasium in Frankfurt. “Sometimes, at night, when I come in to check on her, I think for a moment that it’s Edith as a little girl.”

Margot sighed at the thought of it. “We were so young when
Papa died. Do you remember how afterward Mutti never cried?” Seema and Flora nodded. “I was seven at the time,” said Seema. “I asked her why she didn’t cry, and she said something like, ‘I’m not
that
kind of a woman.’ I didn’t understand what she meant by
that
kind of a woman, do you?”

“She probably meant she wasn’t the kind of woman who would fall apart,” said Margot. “She couldn’t afford to because she had the three of us.”

“Maybe she meant she wasn’t sentimental,” said Flora. “Or at least if she was, she sure as heck wasn’t going to show it.”

“I remember, right after, I tried to get her out of bed one morning,” Seema continued. “She pushed me away and turned her face to the wall and I thought that maybe she had become
that
kind of a woman.”

Margot sat up. “She’s done the same thing these past few months when I tried to get her out of bed. Two weeks ago, I brought her some water and she looked at me as if she’d never seen me before and said, ‘Who are you?’ That’s when I sent you the telegram, Flora.”

Frederick moved his chair closer to his wife. “It’s been rough. Now that the two of you are here, Margot doesn’t have to be the lone soldier anymore.”

Seema reached for the plum schnapps.

“Come, let’s go see her,” said Margot, who had convinced herself that her sisters were as deeply devoted to their mother as she was. She tiptoed into the room, sat down on the bed, took her mother’s hand, and began stroking it. The other two followed. Seema sat at the foot of the bed, on the edge, making sure not to touch her mother. Flora stood and studied her mother’s shriveled body. Already her skin was starting to fall away from her bones.
Flora searched her face for something familiar, but age and disease had stolen all of that.

Margot cupped the owl in her hand and held it up to her mother’s face. “Look what Flora brought me. Isn’t he beautiful? I’m going to call him Erich,” she said in a childlike singsong voice. “Didn’t you have a distant cousin named Erich? Wasn’t he the one who took you to the old castle wall? You were a very little girl then, and he dared you to climb to the top with him, and you fell and you twisted your ankle but you didn’t cry and you kept climbing. You remember that, don’t you?” She placed the owl on the table next to the bed. “I’ll leave him here tonight so he can watch over you.” She kissed her mother on the cheek. “Sweet dreams, Mutti. And don’t have nightmares about Erich and the castle wall.” She stood up and said to her sisters, “I read somewhere that even if people are unconscious, you should keep talking to them as they might hear you. There was this man in Lisbon, I believe, who was asleep for seven years. His family kept talking to him anyway, and one day he just opened his eyes, looked around the room, and said, ‘Where have you been?’ These things can happen.”

Seema jumped up and left the room as quickly as she could. Flora stared at her mother and at her sister. She felt pity for the frail woman and for her youngest daughter, whose heart was clearly breaking, but that was all.

S
EEMA HAD ONE
more glass of the plum schnapps before walking next door with Flora to the Schultz farm. Out here it was dark, darker than any night she’d seen in New York City. In New York, nights just seemed like days with shadows. There were never any stars. And even if you were up at four in the
morning, all you had to do was look out the window to see that you weren’t alone. But here, it was barely ten p.m. and there were no signs of life or light, only the smudges of stars in the sky and the cold musky air. Seema thought the air smelled as if there were wild animals nearby, and it made her afraid. Flora carried a candle, and Seema took her arm. In her high heels, with a few glasses of schnapps in her and her suitcase in the other hand, she was wobbly. “I hope this place is, you know, decent,” she said.

Flora laughed. “You won’t care tonight,” she said. “We just need to get into bed and everything will be fine.”

The Schultz farm turned out to be more than decent. Frau Schultz had fixed up a room for them off the kitchen. There were two beds with fresh linen sheets and goose-down quilts. There was a bureau, a fireplace, and a little table on which she had left treasures: chocolate, a loaf of bread, butter, and a bottle of milk. Seema sat down on the bed nearest the door. The pillows were fluffed and the room was toasty. In the fire’s glow, Flora looked like a little girl, unpacking her suitcase and carefully laying her things in the bureau. Seema kicked off her shoes, took off her suit, peeled off her stockings, and dropped them to the floor. Without bothering to wash up, she got under the covers. Someone had taken the time to make it cozy here. She lay in the goose-feather cocoon and watched Flora as she readied for bed.

It was reassuring to have Flora so close by. It was even reassuring to have Margot next door. Seema felt warm and she hugged the quilt around her. She tried to remember the last time she had felt this taken care of and safe. It must have been when she and Flora were very little girls, right after they came to America and stayed with Aunt Hannah and Uncle Paul. An uninvited memory barged into her thoughts. Mr. Holt, Uncle Paul’s friend.
The things he did to her in the kitchen. She tried to shoo away the party crasher by turning her mind to other things. “Do you suppose if we had stayed here, we’d look the way we look?” she asked Flora.

“Do you mean,
Would we dress in clothes from B. Altman’s and Wanamaker’s?
I doubt it. If you mean,
Would we look as worn out as Margot?
I don’t know.”

Flora got into bed and kept talking. “Margot’s always been high-strung, but I’ve never seen her like this. Thank God for Frederick. He’s saintly, the way he takes care of her. I can’t imagine what she’d do without him—well, you know, after …”

“Do you think she really believes that Mutti can hear her and might even wake up?” asked Seema.

“I guess she’s hoping that if she keeps at it long enough, she can jog her memory and bring her back to life,” said Flora.

Seema sighed. “It’s sad. That woman is as close to dead as a living person can be. How long do you think she has? One day? Two at the most? I predict we’ll be home in a few weeks.”

“People don’t die on schedule,” Flora said flatly. “We could be here for a while.”

Seema heard the annoyance in her sister’s voice, and suddenly she was a million miles from Frau Schultz’s firelit bedroom. “This place isn’t such a dump after all. But honestly, I’ll last here about a week, at the most. Even if she doesn’t die, I don’t know how much of Margot’s moping I can take. Frederick may be a saint, but truthfully, he’s going to drive me crazy; the way he talks to Margot, as if she’s a two-year-old. It’s sickening.”

“Seema, you’ve had an awful lot to drink. Why don’t we just go to sleep now and talk in the morning?” Flora closed her eyes and turned away.

“Oh come on, don’t tell me they don’t drive you as crazy as they drive me,” Seema pressed, wide awake now. “How is it that everyone is always trying to protect little Margot? Even Edith—and you know how I adore Edith. Poor Edith, sleeping in the same room as that woman. I could never do that. The smell alone …”

“For crying out loud, Seema, shut up. You don’t know what you’re saying. You’ve had half a bottle of liquor tonight.”

“You’re my sister,” said Seema, her tone suddenly plaintive. “If I can’t talk to you, who can I talk to?”

“How about Oliver?”

“I would rather die. To be perfectly honest, there’s not much I can talk about with Oliver. I don’t mean that I’d be ashamed talking about these things with him. It’s just that he has specific tastes, if you know what I mean. I know he’d want me to be comfortable and he’d be concerned that I … Flora? Flora. Are you awake?”

O
VER THE NEXT WEEK
, and the one after that, the three sisters took turns sitting by their mother’s bedside. When Seema suggested they call a doctor, Frederick shook his head. “It’s too late for that,” he said. “The one time the doctor came, he said there was nothing to be done.” Now there was even less to be done as she’d mostly stopped eating. They were able to dribble water into her mouth and every now and again some milk. Every other day they would wash her. Margot would brush her hair and make sure that her fingernails and toenails were trimmed. The hardest part was when she soiled herself. They’d fashioned diapers out of old linen sheets, dishrags, and anything else they could find, but even then there was some leaking. And the smell.
It was the stench of urine and feces and something rotting from within. While none of them talked about it, it was clear by the nasal sound of their voices that they each held their breath every time they were near her. At these times, Seema would usually find a reason to walk out of the room, leaving the chore of changing her mother to one of the others.

When Seema was off duty, she would take long walks in the countryside. If she walked south, she’d come to the Pfälzer Wald, the woods and the lake where Edith swam in the summer. Seema found comfort in the still water and the lithe beechwoods and in the thought that these things would go on forever. And when she’d had about enough of nature, she’d walk north to Café Konditorei, where she could have a cup of bitter German coffee, or something stronger, smoke a cigarette, and eat an éclair. The walls were a golden yellow, and the place always smelled of cigarette smoke and freshly brewing coffee. It wasn’t like the frantic bars back home, where people knocked back drinks for sport and bragged about it. Locals sat here for hours reading newspapers, writing letters, or just talking with friends. They didn’t come for show but for comfort and, as in Seema’s case, because they didn’t have a better place to go. It didn’t take long for the owner to recognize Seema and to bring over the first cup of coffee without her asking. Now and then a strange man would look her way or even sit down for conversation. Once, when one of them asked her where she was staying, she said the Schultz farm. “Oh, that’s next door to the Jew house, isn’t it?” he’d asked. She didn’t make much of it.