Mrs. Houdini(46)

Mrs. Weiss waved her hand. “You must leave me now,” she said. “I’m tired.” Bess imagined it must be difficult for her to have returned to the home she had left so many years ago; when she said good-bye, she must have assumed it would be forever. People who left during those years rarely made it home again. Now she was reunited with the old city, except it was larger and more glamorous than it had been thirty years earlier. There were green parks, and fountains, and stone music halls that had not been there before. Certainly, she could not help being saddened that the place she had loved had become better without her; that she had left for a better life that had disappointed her, and stood now in a past that had blossomed alone.

Through his mother’s uncle Heller, whom Harry had contacted upon their arrival, Bess and Harry had planned the surprise party. Uncle Heller gathered everyone who still lived in the old neighborhood and had known the Weisses and took them across Liberty Square toward the Royal Hotel, which Harry had learned was the most luxurious hotel in the city. He and Bess escorted Mrs. Weiss privately into the courtyard of the massive building, where Harry presented her with the voluminous black gown he had purchased in London.

“This,” he said, smoothing the fabric, “was made for Queen Victoria.” He looked shyly at the ground. “Now it is yours.”

Mrs. Weiss cradled the dress in her arms like a fragile child. “What do you mean?” She looked up, confused, at the building with its wide windows and enormous gray cupolas. “This place is like a church,” she said. “It is like I am getting married. What are we doing here?”

Harry beamed. “Father never would have imagined I would one day bring you back here like this.” He had planned a reception in the palm garden salon, which had been a feat unto itself, as the salon was never used for hosting private parties. Bess, however, had stepped in and won over the management with Harry’s story. She had explained how he wanted to crown his mother as a queen, for a few hours. The sentimentality of the plot appealed to the manager. “For so worthy a cause,” he told them, “you may have the room for nothing.”

When Mrs. Weiss had changed into the dress, Harry led her into the salon, where everyone she had known once who was able to come waited to surprise her. She had not seen any of them in decades; to only a few had she written letters. Uncle Heller, her mother’s brother and the family patriarch, had disapproved of her marriage to Rabbi Weiss, and he had disapproved of her move to America. He had told her it would end in disaster. Now, here she was, an old woman standing in the finest hotel in Budapest, in Queen Victoria’s gown, and her son was famous, and the walls were papered in gold leaf and she did not have that old life in the squalor of New York any longer, she had only this life, here.

The salon was decorated with black-and-white floor tiles, tapestries, palms, and gilded furniture. In the center of the room was a bubbling blue fountain, the water arcing over the head of a tiny cherub. Mrs. Weiss rested her hands on the edge of the fountain and bent her head.

Bess was alarmed. “Are you all right, Mother?”

“I was just thinking how two weeks ago I was looking at the Sears catalog, thinking that twenty cents for a bread toaster seemed so much. And now here I am standing on the other side of the world in Queen Victoria’s dress.”

“Ehrich does love you very much. I can only hope I have a son one day who loves me just as much.”

The manager entered the room wearing an expensive suit of clothes, the kind that was reserved for royalty. He kissed Mrs. Weiss’s hand and knelt before her on one knee. One by one, the other guests, including Harry, knelt as well. The moment had been orchestrated to the last detail.

“Welcome to our establishment,” the manager said. “My mother passed away last year, but she would have been proud to see me open this room to you today.”

“You are like a fairy queen,” Bess whispered, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You are resplendent.”

Mrs. Weiss nodded mutely, staring around her in amazement. A line of waiters entered, bearing cups of black coffee and trays of small iced cakes.

Bess stepped aside to allow them to wait on Mrs. Weiss first. “You are happy, though?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, taking a cake off the tray. “I keep thinking I’m going to do something wrong. Everyone’s looking at me. And I don’t know how to be wealthy.”

“No one really knows how to be wealthy,” Bess said. “Except maybe the king and queen.”

“No.” Mrs. Weiss shook her head. “You’ll be a very good wealthy woman one day. You have vigor.”

Bess laughed.

“Did Harry ever tell you that I was a widow when I married the rabbi?”

“You were? I didn’t know that.”

“Yes. I married my first husband when I was just seventeen. But we were only married for six months. He got involved with some bad men, and lost a great deal of money, and there was an argument over it. He died in a duel.”

Bess grabbed her sleeve. “That’s terrible!”

She looked around the room. “It was a great scandal. Even my family was ashamed. These people I knew once, they came to this party, but that’s still what they all see now, when they look at me.” She paused. “I met the rabbi a few years later, and he was much older than I was, but he loved me, and he didn’t care that I was a widow. So I married him.”