When Women Were Dragons(35)
“Why am I doing this?” I demanded after my fingers were raw.
“To hold you in place,” my mother said mildly, without meeting my eye.
“I already am in place,” I roared—only because my father was not at home. “I’m grounded, remember? Why are you making me do all of this?”
“You’ll understand someday.”
I knew this wasn’t true.
Beatrice, being Beatrice, did her best to distract and entertain me. She created elaborate pantomimes based on the stories that Sonja had told her. Mountain elves and forest trolls and the Fossegrim in the river who will play his fiddle so sweetly that no creature can resist its song—even the trees will pick up their feet and dance. I’m sure my mother assumed that the stories were coming from Beatrice’s own imagination—if she knew their origin, I had no doubt that she’d put a stop to it. Beatrice accompanied her stories with pictures she had drawn to illustrate each moment. A forest troll running away with a stolen baby. The Fossegrim reluctantly teaching a young woman to play even though he knew it would spell her doom, and that everyone she loved would dance themselves to death when they heard her strike the bow. Every story made me miss Sonja more. Beatrice was only trying to help—how could I tell her that each dramatized scene weighed like a stone on my heart.
Beatrice finished her story with a flourish and bow. She waited for me to applaud—I did, even though my hands hurt and my body hurt and the whole world hurt—and then she bowed again.
“Do you feel better?” she asked me, inspecting my face. “I made you feel better, right?” Her face was lit with a ludicrous smile. I smiled back in spite of myself.
“How can I be sad when I’m with you?” I replied. It was a lie. It was entirely true. Both at the same time.
At the end of the two weeks, my restrictions lifted. My mother put the basket of string away. My endless tasks were reduced to my normal chores and I was once again allowed to walk myself to and from school without my mother in tow.
I thought about Sonja. I dreamed about Sonja. I couldn’t bring myself to say her name out loud, but my mother saw it on my face anyway.
“The rule is still the rule,” she said pointedly, at dinner. My father said nothing. He simply attacked his pot roast and potatoes as though they had wronged him.
“I always follow the rules,” I said, dropping my gaze to my lap and clenching my fists.
“Alexandra,” my mother said.
“Alex,” I whispered.
“The rule is still the rule.” She didn’t say what this rule was. Obviously I knew. And I had every intention to break it.
The next day, after school, I went straight to Sonja’s house.
And I stood on the front walkway for a long time, openmouthed. I don’t think I cried. I had to remind myself to breathe, and when I did, each inhale felt like the blade of a knife. Each exhale was a sputter and a choke, like someone at the edge of drowning.
The colors on Sonja’s magical house were all gone. Someone had painted it white, and badly. There were streaks and lumps and splatters on the windows. The garden beds crowded with flowers native to Norway—salvia and foxglove and snow buttercups and saxifrage—had all been dug up and covered with wood chips. A sign had been nailed in the center of the yard, its corners fluttering slightly in the breeze. FOR LEASE it said.
And there, at the bottom, was the logo for my father’s bank.
Very slowly, I approached the house. The paint fumes were so strong they made me sick. I leaned on the window, cupped my hands, and peered inside. The colors and woodland scenes and images of Norway and trolls and Lake Superior had all been covered over in a thick layer of off-white paint, and Sonja and her grandparents were gone. I stood on their front step for more than an hour, my body trembling with disbelief. Finally, I stumbled back home and barricaded myself in my closet. I didn’t come down for dinner.
The next morning, still in tears, I sat in the living room in silence, my book bag slung across my shoulder, counting the minutes until it was time for school. Beatrice, having no idea what was going on, sat next to me and held my hand. My mother came and stood in front of me for a long time.
“It’s probably for the best,” she said at last. She wouldn’t meet my eye.
She handed me my lunch and opened the door. It was November, with its sudden, quaking cold. The kind of cold that sinks straight into your bones. The sky was the color of chalk dust. I pulled my coat tightly around my shoulders, took Beatrice’s hand, and we walked out into the morning.
We were good children. We kept our eyes on the ground.
Testimony of Dr. H. N. Gantz before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, March 12, 1960
CHAIRMAN: The committee will come to order. This morning the committee resumes its series of hearings on the vital issue of the use of American passports as travel documents in furtherance of the objectives of those who seek to disrupt, deform, or otherwise derange the American way of life.
MR. ARENS: Dr. Gantz, I understand that you applied for a passport in order to attend a scientific conference in Communist Prague. Is this true?
DR. GANTZ: Yes, sir, though it should be noted that Communism has nothing to do with it. This conference has long been held in Zurich—or, to be more clear, in neutral Switzerland—but many scientists from nations less free than ours were unable to attend, due to their countries’ fear of defections. The conference organizers determined that it would benefit science and the exchange of knowledge if the event was held in a country that was more acceptable to nations . . . less free, in theory, than ours.