Dry Your Smile (31 page)

Give him at least a hint, a half-lie but a clue—the way you have lived with hints and clues all your life. Something with wit. If he's as smart as you think he is, as educated as you've been told he is, as obsessed with his child as you've dreamt he is—then he'll figure it out. He'll know and be prepared for the young woman who walks through his office door in time for her 2
P.M.
appointment on October first, 1961.

So she had made the second call. And again got Minna. This time Julian wore a French accent—but a light one, to confuse things safely. She wished to make an appointment to discuss her child's health problem even before bringing the child in for an examination. Why? Well, the child was, uh, fragile. She had not expected to be asked who referred her to Dr. Traumstein. It threw her. But the years of training, rehearsals, live television performances when if something went wrong you improvised, carried her through.

She tossed out a made-up name: an old friend who lived in Connecticut had praised Dr. Traumstein highly. Since she herself had only recently moved to New York from California and had no pediatrician of her own, why no it wasn't too far to travel an hour or so to find a really good doctor.

But, ventured Minna, the name of the referrer was unfamiliar, not one of the Doctor's patients.

“Ah, yes, but of course. My friend has recently remarried and I never
can
remember his name. I always knew her by her widowed name. Doubtless she is registered with your office by her new husband's name, you see.”

Minna saw. Minna, faithful to her role as a walk-on character unwittingly furthering the plot, helpfully made the appointment. In the name of Atreus. First name or initial, please?

“E.”

If he knew his classics, then.

If he remembered.

If the House of Atreus put him on alert.

If the name “E. Atreus” snapped into place unerringly as the final missing piece of the puzzle; if the magic words opened a door to a path that curved inevitably around the last turn of the labyrinth he too might have been treading for almost two decades; if Sophocles and Euripides were still read by him for pleasure; if he were brilliant or merely cared, if he were vigilant or even wary, if,
if
. Then he would not be surprised. Then he would be well warned that no one in the world but his daughter would be appearing in time to keep the appointment of Elektra Atreus.

And if not? If he were stupid or unsubtle, uneducated or forgetful, complacent, dense? If he hadn't ever cared at all?

In that case
—some Sophoclean chorus intoned softly inside Julian's proscenium brain, an ancient menace of revenge hissing through its sibilant innocence—
in that case, let him be surprised
.

She was suddenly sleepy. Absurd to be sleepy now, when they were entering the outskirts of this quiet New England town—neat lawns, tidy white houses, windowbox nasturtiums, trees already flaring gold and crimson with autumn. It was as if the years of lying awake were only now taking their toll. Years rebuilding his face from one faded photograph, decoding, tracking him down—his daughter the post-war Gestapo. Years of Elektra living under Clytemnestra's ruthlessly loving hand, hunching at the palace gate on guard for the encounter that would set in motion a final avenging of her father's honor, the meeting that would at last tell her who she was. Suspense shriveled to boredom, curiosity to indifference, as those years drained out of her mind. All she wanted was to pass the stop, let it slide past the window; to stay on the bus so its motion could rock her to insensibility. Stay on the bus and never go back, not to him, not to her, not to any of them. Stay on the bus and get off someplace else. Become someone else.

“This isn't me,” Julian whispered to the gold watch-face, “I didn't write this. I don't want to live this. It's all the fault of the script.”

But the bus stopped. She rose, tottering slightly on the new heels, and straightened her spine as if she were about to make an entrance.

And so you are, she added silently. You will get down this aisle—
there
—and off this bus—
there
. Now you will look around for a taxi.
There's one
, that's it. Now you will give the address.
There
.

This was happening. She was on her way to meet him.

The taxi reached its destination with alarming speed. Two blocks to the right, a turn, three blocks to the left, compacted labyrinth, and the houses became larger, more imposing, the front lawns more lush, the azalea bushes luxuriant even in autumn. There was no mistaking
the
house. She sensed it ahead just as the taxi began slowing down. The corner house. There, in polished brass swinging from two posts on the lawn, his shingle. The Doctor's House.

Not the gates of Mycenae, but formidable all the same. The Doctor's House differentiated itself from the uniform white of neighboring homes on the block. This one was painted a soft gray; the sun-porch around the back half visible from the side, glass-enclosed for year-round use. A back-lit stained-glass panel—imported, from the looks of its quality, possibly an antique—had been mounted in the front door: opalescent water-lilies undulating against a milky green background. The block, the neighborhood, the town itself might be “suburb,” but the Doctor's House proclaimed itself “Old World Europe.”

Julian tried to ingest and process the moment as she paid the cab driver. Twitches of emotion—excitement, fear, urgency—were now so continual in their shifts that she could barely separate them one from another as they jerked through her puppet self. But there was no time to wait them out. She didn't dare linger too long on the sidewalk. It wouldn't do to appear suspicious until the moment itself. The twitches danced their puppet up the front walk. She was still fearful of telegraphing herself, that her identity would be discovered before she got to him—that the audience would then be snatched away, the visitor rejected before she reached the inner chamber of the throne room.

The doorbell of this home-office didn't buzz like most American doorbells; it chimed deeply, echoing from somewhere inside the bowels of the house. A respectable wait. No answer. Julian pressed the bell again, watching her gloved hand begin to tremor slightly. Control yourself, she thought. What is this—stage-fright, like a baby? Had she—or Minna—got the date wrong, or the time? Had all those damned fake accents confused the facts of when and how? Had David read the Atreus clue
too
clearly, and summarily cleared out rather than face his Elektra? Was he even now hiding inside the house, refusing to grant her admittance?

The door swung open. A plump, dark-haired woman in her early fifties stood there, offering a tentative smile.

“Yes?”

“I have an appointment with Dr. Traumstein?” The statement came out as an appeal. Correct the tone. Needs more authority. And don't forget the French flavor.

“Ah. You are Mrs. Ahtrayoos?”

“Miss Atreus, yes.”
Stupid
, Julian. You're a
Mrs
., you're the mother of a child, he's a pediatrician, remember? And why repronounce the name more accurately? Maybe nobody got the clue just because of Minna's mispronunciation. Because this, definitely, was Minna. The “other woman.” The woman who'd displaced Hope. The stepmother, wickedness and all. No mistaking the voice, or, for that matter, the type.

David Traumstein was in one thing, then, consistent. He had a weakness for a particular type—the Doctor's Woman. Short,
zaftig
, with dark hair and large eyes. Minna and Hope could have been sisters, Julian thought. But she couldn't avoid noticing the milder quality of this woman, an almost deliberately projected pliancy, perhaps required to conceal the strength of the woman who had won. That vibrant, often offensive, sometimes electrifying energy Hope radiated was lacking here. Where Hope would confront and defy, Minna would appease and manipulate. Where Hope would manipulate, Minna would concede. And where Hope would (hard to imagine) concede—which would be done with privately articulated vows of vengeance—Minna would surrender tractably. This was a more unsavory, because more genteel, version of Julian's mother. Even the physical features, Julian thought with some satisfaction, were coarser: the eyes not so lustrous, the hair not so fine. The skin was ruddy, unlike Hope's cream alabaster flesh. The voice was a shade too high-pitched, too cheerful in its hausfrau poise. Julian, following the jelloid hip-motion of Minna down the Persian-carpeted dark foyer, felt startled to discover in herself such unforeseen loyalty to Hope. Nonetheless, she couldn't help thinking that David Traumstein had settled for a Roman copy of the Greek original.

Minna ushered her into the waiting room. It was Modern American Doctor, an abrupt departure from what little she had been permitted to glimpse of the rest of the house. This room might have been moved intact to any twenty-storey “professional building” of doctors and dentists: pastel yellow walls, the wifenursereceptionist's desk toward which Minna homed like a self-satisfied pigeon, a tweed-cloth-covered sofa on which sat a tired-looking woman not much older than Julian, with a toddler asleep on her lap. The requisite coffeetable displayed copies of
Time, Newsweek, Ladies' Home Journal, McCall's
. These were joined by a stack of pamphlets: “How to Raise a Healthy Child,” “What Every Mother Should Know” (in a pink cover), and “Fathers Can Help, Too” (in a blue one). A vase of silk flowers stood on Minna's gray metal desk, where that pudgy dovelet now sat, proffering a clipboard and pencil at Julian with her ladylike menial air.

“You will please to fill out the information form, Mrs., uh—”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Julian swallowed a tiny bubble of panic when she glanced at the form. Mother's name. Father's name. Date of birth. Hers? Or her imaginary child's? Medical history. But the Greek chorus remained steadfast inside her head, swaying slightly in rhythm to their chant.
It's a standard form. Make up any answers you like. He'll have his answers soon enough. They don't matter. What matters is how close you are now, all but inside the door, that door, there, which must lead to his office. You're inside the gates, now get inside that door
. She scribbled her answers rapidly and handed the board back. Minna disappeared with a courtier-like scuttle through the door to the inner sanctum.

Julian sat down on the sofa, smiled nervously at the young mother, and looked at the sleeping child.

“Not seriously sick, I hope?”

“No, I don't think so. I sure hope not,” the woman sighed. “I don't have an appointment, I'm just waiting for an opening. I sure hope not,” she repeated. “I've got a newborn at home—my mom's with him now—and he's had colic. I dunno how I can handle two sick kids at once.”

Julian nodded, trying to act sympathetic but feeling a twinge of guilt that she was not about to offer her own appointment time so that this woman and child could go first. As it was, every second of waiting for Minna to emerge seemed interminable.

“I think it's just a cold,” the woman rambled on, reassuring herself, “but she has a low fever, so Dr. Traumstein thought I better bring her in, to be on the safe side. What with a new baby in the house and all, you know.”

Julian nodded again. Then it came out before she could censor herself.

“What's he like? Dr. Traumstein?”

“You never met him? You never been here before? Funny, you look familiar.”

“Uh, no. A friend recommended him. I, uh, wanted to meet and talk with him before I brought my child in.”

“You got only one?”

“Yes. Yes, only one.”

“Lucky. But you should have another. They say an only child is lonely. And spoiled. Best thing is to have 'em close together. Then they can play with each other, you know? Kids are such a joy,” she yawned.

“I'm sure you're right,” Julian said, glancing toward the door to the inner office. “What
is
he like?”

“Dr. Traumstein? Oh, he's real good with kids. My sister has two of her own, one's in his teens now. She's been bringing 'em both here for years. Kids seem to trust him. He always gives 'em candy after a shot, tells 'em little jokes. Real good with—”

The door opened and Minna emerged. Julian stood up.

“He will see you soon, Miss Iytreeoos. The Doctor.”

Minna pronounced his title with such reverence one could hear the undertones: Herr Doktor. Poor Minna, Julian wondered, had she once, like her predecessor Hope, dreamt of a different life? Had the handsome young doctor swept her off her feet, too, promising romance and a vicarious career as the soulmate of an altruistic physician and chatelaine of his manor—only to wind her up here, in however fancy a house on a suburban American street, doubling as his receptionist? Surely this demure creature had never envisioned herself a second wife, co-conspirator with her husband for years about the Gothic-novel secret of a skeleton-child rattling in the closet of his past.

But Minna seemed the essence of
Gemütlichkeit
, puttering contentedly away at her metal desk among his papers, bills, appointment books. Julian tried to picture them in bed together, her father and this placid woman, an exercise in imagination complicated by her ignorance of his appearance. It was not possible to conceive of anybody making love to Minna without sinking into her ductility like a dazed child into a featherbed. Hope—whom Julian had never seen in an erotic situation with anyone beyond the flirtations conducted with brokers, agents, and headwaiters—Hope was as clearly, and with as little evidence, capable of passion. Grand passion, probably, Julian supposed; ever-hyperbolic Hope.

“Please to be patient,” Minna simpered.

Be patient. Almost there. Get inside the door. With an effort, Julian slowed down her pacing.

Minna pantomimed formally toward the couch—she tended to make gestures out of a Schnitzler play—but Julian declined and continued to stroll around the room. The windows looked out onto carefully barbered lawn. The pictures on the walls were stock prints of landscapes; mediocre, not worth a second glance. Only one, on the wall beside his private office door, showed authenticity. It was a deep-framed engraving printed with sepia ink, a nineteenth-century view of a river valley, the water flowing between two gently sloping cliff walls, the ruins of a castle high on a distant rock overhang. “Dürnstein an der Donau,” read the legend at the bottom. The Danube valley. That had been part of home for him.