Maria’s head was pierced by a knife so intense, it felt like white heat. A noise, a sound like a sizzle, then a violet explosion. Her eardrum burst; she fell downward into cool absence of everything. “Stop that!” cried her mother.
Maria turned in the bed, cried out, her hand to her ear. Anna froze as she tried to move over and lie still, to make room for the girl. But her lower body had a mind of its own. It flung itself about and, arching, shuddered uncontrollably, flailing upward to meet the demon passion. “Oh.” Anna bit her lip. She was hot, open, wanting to be filled. She tried not to make a sound. She tried to push the images away. But the wave started again, a dark pulsation. Obsessive memory and her reaction. And once again she gave herself up to it; she had no choice.
When inner feelings, long buried, start to surface, what can a woman do? She can go quietly crazy, or she can dance. Anna could not sleep; she danced inside instead. She lay twitching while the little girl slept fitfully beside her. “Unspeakable things.” Anna gazed at the ceiling. The memories burned into her. Subterranean. Darkly moving, they cried within her for a way out.
There were only two choices. A woman could go deeper into self-paralysis, reclining, mute for years beside the kindly, bearded, prurient Doktor Freud. More and more aroused, squeezing their legs tightly against each other, Viennese women caged their wild desires, forcing them so far inside that not even speech was possible. This was, of course, the best way. Freud preferred his women masochistic, paralyzed, and mute. That way, he could “help.” Explicit sexual implications rose from their supine bodies, wreathed both doctor and patient in delicious undertones of what was hidden: that bud between their legs, the will to control its throbbing, to squeeze down even harder; the involuntary, soundless cry. Helpless, lovely, trapped-in-headlights women lay on couches, pretending to maintain stillness as a secret perfumed shudder moved along their bodies. Only their Doktor knew.
For the Rat, stillness was not possible. Her only choice was to dance, to dance horribly in a caricature of music as something stirred within her, itched and crazed. She had traveled too far along the path of depravity. Now temporarily in safety, she stared at the ceiling and the memories took over. She twitched and juddered. Her limbs would not be still. Her God would not forgive her. Her memories of violation overtook her every time. Each night she talked and talked, as if to stave them off. She was exhausted by an orgasm of endless talking. And each time when finally she tried to stop talking, the thrill of repetitive climax and the unstoppable fascination overtook her. She was exhausted, but her racked body would not let her rest. One seism after another. The hunchback stared at the darkness, running her hands along her misshapen body, trembling with the force of her memories. She willed herself to lie quietly. She could not. The memories enveloped her. Her body vibrated and quivered around them, contorting her small body while her closed eyes rolled back in her head. The demon stroked and squeezed and forced her open again and again, thick-fingered, relentless.
And when this had exhausted her, it began again. She shook with the force of it, craved it, cried for it, wanted it and wanted it to stop, but still she wanted more. She put her hands on her body carefully to quiet her wild desires. But they sprang up, consuming as wildfire.
As she whimpered with suppression, Maria whimpered also. The child was hot, writhing, as if sensing the torment of the woman next to her. Anna carefully felt Maria’s forehead. “A fever,” she thought, worried. “Sleep, my child,” she whispered to the restless girl as she caressed her cheek. With great effort, she pulled her twisted nightgown down around her legs and slid out of bed. It was nearly morning.
“Penance,” thought Anna. There was no other way. She crossed the room. The doors to the large, looming wardrobe were ajar. Carefully, Anna pried one open and slipped inside. She eased herself into the cavernous closet. The stale air enveloped her, a cocoon, muffling everything else. The wardrobe was dark, enfolding, heavy with the thick smell of Herbert’s tweed jackets and the extra army blankets and mothballs and winter woolens for the family. Anna took a hot breath and eased herself onto the lower shelf, closing the door behind her. She would sit there, out of the way. She would neither eat nor drink. She would pray a whole day and a night, longer if necessary, starving the demon out of her. Only then could she take her place again in the household. A hair shirt, she thought. I will suffer and pray and drive the demons out.
As she put her hands down, she felt a thick, large envelope. The smell of mothballs overwhelmed her. Instinctively, she snatched the folder and put it inside her nightgown, against her thin breasts. You never know when you might need some papers. Hidden ones. “Thief,” she thought, and the word thrilled her. Finally in the airless cupboard, a clammy, dreamless sleep overtook her.
Outside, the wind screeched and hollered. It was dark in the mouth of the building. The cold whistled through the grates. Somewhere far away, the children’s grandfather was floating through the city, doing important things that had nothing to do with them. Somewhere, that snap-jawed thing called “work” would hold Maria’s mother forever in its prison. The hours passed.
The cold winter morning moved into Maria’s clothing like snakes, wriggling into all the secret places. Her ears ached with a hopeless numbness that filled her head with throbbing sounds. Philip stirred, opened his little round mouth, and began to wail loudly. Her head hurt awfully. “Wake up!” cried her mother. “Do you want to eat something?” Ilse was anxious; she had rushed home on her lunch break and would have to leave again. Light came and went on the walls.
Delirious. The word echoed in Maria’s head. Mastoiditis, she heard also. That was a less pretty word.
Philip cried, but his sounds seemed far away. He laughed, gurgled, and let Maria know he loved her. But she could scarcely hear him, lying focused in the white hollow that held her. She needed to think very hard about it, curve the space around her so that her ears wouldn’t hurt so much, her head. She didn’t know that two adults, her mother and grandfather, were preparing for two others to join them. Soon there would be seven, then eventually nine refugees in one small, cold room high over the city. Even now, things were happening around her: people moving; Philip growing into the true companion he would always be for her; her mother receding; her grandfather shrinking also each day, so that only his ears would be left large as ever, sticking out of a tiny, dear little head that was even now shrinking downward on its stem of a neck. His hunched shoulders puffed out under their burden like angel wings under a too-large shabby coat. But for now, her ears ached and she ached with a fever so bright, it purified all else from her mind and body. She floated out of herself darkly, onto the top of the cedar chest in the corner.
“Maria, can you hear me?” Ah, that was perhaps Grandfather speaking. Maria’s hand clenched. She heard “No heat” and “the children waiting.” And “No heat” again. “I’ll talk to the landlord,” her grandfather promised. “Don’t worry, Ilse.” He touched Maria’s mother’s arm. “I’ll talk to him.”
Philip smiled and waved a friendly fist in Maria’s direction. Maria vomited. She felt prickly all over. The door of the small room where she lay opened and shut, opened and shut again. A doctor came with his black bag, then left. She heard once more that word mastoiditis. The word eardrum. Thrum thrum, sang Maria’s head. Eardrum. Thrum thrum. She wanted her mother to stay with her. But her mother had to go to work. She had to work or there would be no food for any of them, her mother explained. “Be a good girl.” The door opened and closed again. The clouds and the sun made radiant swooshing sounds through the window, and then Maria was alone.
Alone except for Anna, who, slowly suffocating in the wardrobe, slept like a stone, in a trance. Anna’s breathing was slower, more labored. For once, her mind was silent, her body, too. Her large luminescent eyes fogged with sleep; her limbs were languorous and heavy. She pillowed her head against a tweed sleeve; the day was nearing its end.
Maria woke up for a moment, sensing the door opening and shutting again. She fell back into her hot swirl of sleep as well: a sleep that was not really sleep, but, rather, the crawling of many insects toward morning. She felt rather than saw her grandfather come in and leave again with her mother and little woolly Philip. Once more, she was alone, sweating in the chill of the empty room. The door opened; opened and shut again. Maria sensed the change in the light: a shaft of afternoon sun as the day crossed the building. Then the door opened and shut again, this time behind someone else. Someone small. Someone dangerous.
“Well, my child? What is the matter? Have you been a bad girl again?” the figure muttered menacingly, almost as if to himself. He took a step or two toward the girl. “Well?” he demanded more loudly. “Have you? Speak up!” Maria felt her mother silent behind the figure. “A bad girl!” exclaimed the little man. He turned back toward Maria’s mother, addressing her directly. “If she doesn’t speak, we will make her, nein?” he said in a sharp voice. “Speak up, girl. If you will not, we have ways. You know,” he continued, “I have my ways.” Maria opened her eyes. “You see,” exclaimed the figure triumphantly, “she understands. The bad girl understands.” At this, he walked into the room.
Maria heard the thump of a gimpy leg being dragged. “Maria,” said her mother redundantly, “wake up. Uncle Felix is here to make you better.” Maria closed her eyes again. She recognized her mother now for the traitor she was. And she knew only too well the family doctor.
Felix limped to Maria’s bedside and stood looking down at her. Maria tried to stay still, although she knew it was futile to pretend sleep. She watched the little stump of a man through half-closed eyes, and he, penetrating, regarded her. “He’s so wonderful with the children,” the European refugee population told one another. “Children love him.”
“Bad girl! Now what have you done?” Uncle Felix muttered between clenched teeth. Suddenly, he gave a loud cry. “Ach! Schrecklich! Bad girl. What have you done to Uncle Felix’s leg?” He clutched his hip dramatically and staggered, half falling onto the little girl’s bed. “Ach! My leg!” He paused, regarding the girl directly. “Now, see what you’ve done to Uncle Felix!” He straightened again. “Would you like to see it? My broken leg?”
Maria tried to worm her way farther under the covers, while at the same time still appearing to be passively asleep. Felix staggered, clutching his thigh. From the region of his hip came a relentless clicking sound. Click-click. He raised his dark eyebrows, watching the little girl intently. “You hear that noise? That is my broken leg, bad girl. My leg!” He turned to Maria’s mother behind him. She was standing in the doorway, smiling. “Did you see what that bad girl did?” he demanded, watching her for effect. “She broke my leg.” Maria’s mother laughed. Maria hated her shadow in the doorway, but she feared more being left alone with the pediatrician.
Felix tottered around Maria’s bed once more, reeling and moaning. Click-click, went the noise of the leg. He reeled to a stop, planted his cane in front of him, and lowered himself onto Maria’s bed, sitting down next to the girl. Maria wanted to shriek with revulsion and fear, but if she did, it would give her away. She willed herself to open her eyes, as if pretending to see the man for the first time.
“Now,” began Dr. Felix briskly in what was another voice altogether. “Mother says you are not feeling well. What is wrong here?”
Maria did not answer, and the watching shadows in the doorway grew closer, blocking the light with their concern.
“Open your mouth. Say ‘Ah,’ ” commanded Felix, moving closer toward Maria’s face. He peered inside. “Hmm. Have you been a bad girl?” he muttered as he peered down her throat. Maria’s ears were cracking with pain. Felix brought his large, menacing face closer to hers. “Do you know what this is?” he commanded, switching on a piercing headlight, which now seemed appended to the front of his face like a second snout. “Hmm? Well, bad girl, answer me!” Maria said nothing, shrinking back as much as she could.
“You see this light?” Felix switched the light off again, on, off. “It’s to find out all your secrets.” He lowered the snout light toward her again. “All of your secrets, child.” Felix let his voice rise from a hiss to a hoarser one. “All of them!” He turned the light on again and bent his head toward Maria’s mouth. “Do I make myself completely clear?” he warned, his face close to hers. He held her frightened eyes in his dark pinpointed ones. “Good,” he said, as if satisfied by something. “Now, open wide,” he commanded in a more hypnotic croon. “Now, my good girl, now turn your head.”
Maria could hear his large breath as he regarded the inside of her ear. He smelled of perfume, and there was something shivery at his touch. A cold instrument entered her ear; then the headlight receded again. Felix straightened away from her again, turning to the watching adults. Maria did not hear him say anything, but there seemed a wave of laughter at the door, nervous laughter.
Felix stood up. The shadows of Maria’s mother and Philip vanished. Maria could hear them slipping out of the room, far away from her, and light shone through the doorway once again. She was terrified, for she realized that she was alone with Uncle Felix.
“I am just going to give you a little medicine,” said Felix. There was a cold draft on her body as the bedclothes were suddenly pulled away. “Turn over for Uncle Felix.” The crooning voice came and she was forced to obey. He pulled up her nightgown, and a colder patch of air lifted a chill wind against Maria’s body. “Lie still. Don’t move,” commanded Uncle Felix as he stabbed her flesh. There was a moment of silvery pain, followed by a dull ache. Maria was so surprised, she could hardly register the moment. She let herself float in a flaking cloud of snowflakes. Felix’s face broke into a jigsaw puzzle and re-formed. Had anything happened? Maria floated in fever, far away from any other sensation.
Felix pulled the blankets around her neck, tucking them in tightly. He straightened and did something to the front of his trousers. “It’s finished now,” he said loudly, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.
Ilse entered the room again, coming closer to the bed and looking down at her daughter with concern on her face. But Maria shut her eyes, refusing even to acknowledge her mother’s presence, that large, false, untrustworthy person who had betrayed, and would continue to betray, the girl.
Uncle Felix glowered toward Maria, who lay shrinking in her bed. “Penicillin!” he said. “A wonder drug. Remarkable, my dear lady, remarkable.” Creaking, he raised himself from the side of the cot, his body hunched like question mark as he dragged himself onto his lame leg. Click-click. The leg straightened.
Maria could see Felix’s hand in his hip pocket. She loathed him for trying to fool her, for thinking she could be fooled by such deceptions. “My leg!” cried Felix, hobbling once more around the narrow room and shrieking for effect. Maria refused to smile. “Look,” Felix commanded. Slowly, he withdrew his hand from his pocket and opened it in front of the girl’s nose. She looked; she could not help it. In his gnarled palm lay a shiny green frog. Felix pressed his fingers together and the frog gave off a metallic croak. Click-click. Maria’s mother smiled indulgently. “Here, child, this is for you,” Uncle Felix said. “Now that you’ve broken my leg, you might as well have this. My poor leg is completely useless even without my little frog to help me. Here.” He put the toy frog down on Maria’s blanket, clicking it twice more for effect. “Now I must go.”
“Felix, will you stay for some coffee?” Ilse offered as the doctor limped toward the door.
“Ah, dear lady, you are indeed too kind,” said Felix in a normal voice.
Within the wardrobe, Anna woke with a start. Suddenly, she felt she would die if she stayed in the wardrobe a moment longer. The mothball odor and the smothering pressure of the stale smell of old wool pressed down on her little misshapen body. Her delicate nostrils quivered and her compressed lungs tried desperately to suck in air. She had slept for the first time in perhaps years, and now, waking, she had forgotten why she had ever entered the wardrobe. She must have climbed in. A ridiculous impulse. Why was she here? How foolish to suffocate like that, a desiccated carcass to be found perhaps days later when the family needed an extra blanket. She must get out, and immediately. She turned on the small shelf and hesitantly put one foot down toward the floor, timidly opening the door to the wardrobe just a crack. But wait, there was someone else in the room. Someone small as Anna herself almost, small and quick and unfamiliar. Looking through the crack, Anna could see Maria still in bed, and the disarray of bedclothes. It was dark again, night at the window. Had she slept away the entire day? A bit of fresh air blew in through the crack in the wardrobe door, fresh to Anna’s lips anyhow, and she sucked it in gratefully. But something told her to stay still, hidden and concealed, until the coast was clear. Peering through the crack, she observed the room and the shrieking little man who now inhabited it.
Anna saw him dart back toward the girl. He looked at her, and one eyebrow started working furiously. Up and down. “My face!” he shouted at her. “What have you done to my eyebrow, hmm? Bad girl, have you been bothering Uncle Felix once again?” The eyebrow, as if with a life of its own, waggled furiously on Uncle Felix’s face. Maria shrank back, seeing in that eyebrow hordes of black ants. Felix held in one hand the end of a long black thread that seemed somehow to be attached to the frenetic eyebrow. Maria could see the thread protruding out of Felix’s coat sleeve.
“They all love this trick,” Felix confided to Ilse. He turned back to Maria. “Bad girl, bad girl.” Maria slipped softly into the coolness, finally, of sleep. But Anna was wide awake now, watching, startled and fascinated.
Felix turned back just before following Maria’s mother into the hallway, toward a hot plate and coffee deliciously steaming. “I’ll stay with her just a minute more,” he said as Ilse left to prepare the coffee for him. Satisfied that Maria’s eyes were closed, he darted, now totally silently, back into the little room from the doorway. But this time, he did not pause at Maria’s bed. He moved silently, lightly on his feet toward the army blanket that divided Herbert’s space from that of the mother and children. Quickly, he lifted one end of the blanket where it hung on a clothesline. Anna, watching from the wardrobe, cringed back against the blankets, hoping she would not be seen. But Felix had other things on his mind. Even more silently, giving one furtive look behind, he ducked through the blanket partition. He bent down, ran his hands quickly along the top of Herbert’s bed, and then slipped his hands under the narrow mattress that lay upon it. Silently, Felix withdrew both hands. He put both hands in his pockets now, hands that no longer grasped a black thread, but something larger perhaps, something more bulky. Felix once again made as if to leave.
Maria, lying, eyes shut, entering sleep, felt the cold rustle of folded wings. Then, dimly receding as she sank gratefully into a possible relief from fever, she heard the heavy limp of Uncle Felix. The door shut behind him, and the thump of his “broken” leg punctuated the loud announcement of his presence, exiting toward coffee, her mother, and a discussion of their mutual pasts.
Carefully, Anna exited the wardrobe. The stiff envelope crackled against her breast. She stood hunched, as if in thought. But for once her mind was clear. She walked over to the child and kissed her. “My darling child, sleep now,” she said.
Someone, Maria knew, had entered Grandfather’s part of the room. And someone had left it. But no longer on guard, Maria slept. Next to her, on the blanket, a small green frog, luminous eyes bugged open, and neck sac bulging, slept, too. Its striped back caught the light and winked back. Click-click, it might have said. But in the afternoon, it, too, was silent.