31. The Women of the House on Scheller Street

Awaiting the last breath of summer, the first puff of autumn, Madame Helena ordered the front door left ajar and the chancel door locked once tea had been served in the house on Scheller Street. Because a coach had been requested at six on the dot and because without a doubt the doctor would come to see Katja as he had promised the day before, that day the door to the street would remain open although the chancel door was closed as always. Anxiety could be seen gathering like fog in every corner and angle where walls met, visible to anyone who noticed the shaking lights, who listened to the whispers of women who had lived part of their lives in those rooms, men clearing their throats as they counted their accumulated money not really over something bothersome in their throats but due to a kind of invincible spiritual unease that awoke each time strong hands and weak will undertook that sordid duty. But Katja slept in a poor imitation of the sleep of nubile girls, slept as far from Scheller Street as possible, so disconnected to life that she seemed to see Wulda at dawn, and if Katja did not see her, then who, what other woman could have guessed the little frights that afflicted injured women and disenchanted men who had once lived there and returned to those rooms to sigh, fear, resist, and delay when death drew near. Only Katja knew these things; not Lola who was always so immersed in life that she accepted whatever came, shouldered it and stripped it of all pain and mystery; had she seen the agitation in the house, Lola would have opened all the windows to let the wind enter, or would have embraced the pale shadowy women and fed their men something that would have let them rest without need of Mass or psalms; not Wulda, who only looked at Katja when she was not anticipating her happiness in this world alongside Hans Boher and wishing that the eyelids of this sleeping girl were transparent so she could see her thoughts and soothe her with the words that surely she was awaiting in her sleep. Wulda stayed at night and Aunt Bauma thought it was proper to offer abnegation to the Virgin but not be absent at dawn for housecleaning before going to work; Wulda sat on the empty bed beside Katja and watched her, dozed a bit, got up to count her breaths, closed her eyes, slept, woke, leaned over the ill woman’s chest and tried to hear her heart as she had seen the doctor do, lay down again and slept again and got up again until the sun rose and she went to the kitchen to make Lola’s breakfast, the first meal of the house. Wulda did not mind being beside her, in fact she looked forward to it, sure that Katja would be brought back to life with the warmth of her body, would talk, would tell her something, would finally ask for something.

Silence was prolonged that day beyond tea time: Madame Helena had entered the empty dining room late and the General had just left, and then she had shut herself in her office on the lower floor. She was there when the coach arrived for Miss Esther. The coachman knocked, waited, and knocked again, and Madame Helena opened her door at the moment when Wulda was almost running toward the chancel door. Madame Helena gave her a severe look: nothing abrupt, no running, shouting or even strident laughter, that was the first thing she instructed those who came to work in her house. Wulda, oblivious to all this, opened the door, asked the coachman to wait, and came back. Madame Helena told her not so fast, please, the house wasn’t on fire and the river wasn’t flooding, go notify Miss Esther that the coach had arrived and come down carrying her suitcase. The women of the house on Scheller Street, sitting on the stairway, leaning on the walls, a petalless flower in hand, looking from the windows, closing parasols, deploring that another one of them was leaving, going so far, suffering so much, and with so many hopes to forget, and one of them remembered the moment when she had left through that same door never to return in life, but Madame Helena, very upright and calm, was the only one who had returned in life; she only thought that it was a difficult afternoon with Miss Esther’s departure, the doctor’s visit, the answer that she was awaiting from Mr. Ruprecht to whom she had sent word that the suite was available, and perhaps the arrival of the new maid who had promised to be there at eight although with staff whom you have not personally trained you can never be sure of anything. She had made life suit her tastes, she had organized time into a serenity that made her feel proud and essential: without her, what would have become of the house on Scheller Street? A tangle of problems, constant disarray, insolent servants, disastrous hours, disorderly people, untidiness and even uncleanliness everywhere. Or it would be an abandoned ruin. Or the house of a family like every other with problems, arguments, anger, and even tragedies like that boy she herself had seen die beneath the hoofs of the bolting horses due to the irresponsibility of a mother who had let him play in the street so late. The women who had left the house on Scheller Street wept in silence for their dead children and dried their tears when Miss Esther and Wulda came down the stairway. There was a quick farewell full of smiles and good wishes, a peremptory good-bye and hardly a murmur, and that would have been the end of it except that Wulda had turned back to the house after carrying the suitcase to the coachman at the moment when Miss Esther left: they met face to face, and Madame Helena, who had shaken the traveler’s hand, watched with surprise as Miss Esther put her hands on Wulda’s shoulders, brought her face close, and kissed her on the cheek. Miss Esther got into the coach, and it left. Wulda turned with a dance step, held herself tight tight tight as if she were cold and felt in one blow all the happiness that she was going to have in this world with Hans Boher. Madame Helena looked displeased. The women who had lived there told each other that it had been worthwhile to answer that warm call like returning to the nest and see the afternoon die at the house on Scheller Street.