"Nineteen: when I come into this room to bring you food and milk, you will not look at me, or speak to me, or think of me with disrespect, or of your grandfather with disrespect, for God is above and is able to read your minds My husband is a very determined man, and seldom has any one bested him in any way. He has an army of doctors and nurses and technicians to tend to his every need, and machines to function for his organs in case they fail, so don't think something as weakly motivated as his heart can fail a man made of steel."
Wow! A man of steel to make the opposite bookend to his wife. His eyes must be gray, too. Flint, hard, steel-gray eyes-- for, as our very own mother and father had proved, likes do attract.
"Twenty:"--read Christopher--"you will not jump, yell, shout, or speak in loud voices so the servants below can hear you. And you will wear sneakers and never hard-soled shoes.
"Twenty-One: you will not waste toilet tissue, or the soap, and you will clean up the mess if you clog up the toilet bowl so it overflows. And if you put it out of order, then it will stay that way until the day you leave, and you will use the chamberpots that you will find in the attic, and your mother can empty them for you.
"Twenty-Two: the boys will wash their own clothes in the bathtub, as will the girls. Your mother will take care of the bed linens and the towels you use. The quilted mattress covers will be changed once a week, and if a child soils the covers, then I will order your mother to bring you rubber sheets to use, and thrash severely the child who cannot be toilettrained."
I sighed and put my arm about Cory who whimpered and clung to me on hearing this. "Ssssh! Don't be afraid. She'll never know what you do. We'll protect you. We'll find a way to cover up your mistakes, if you make any."
Chris read: "Conclusion, and this is not a do or a don't, just a warning. She's written: 'You may rightly assume that I will add to this list from time to time as I see the need arise, for I am a very observant woman who misses nothing. Do not think you can deceive me, mock me, or play jokes at my expense, for if you do, your punishment will be so severe that your skins, and your egos, will bear lifetime scars, and your pride will go down in permanent defeat. And let it be known from now on, that never in my presence will you mention your father's name, or refer to him in the slightest way, and I, myself, will refrain from looking at the child who resembles him most.' "
It was over. I flashed Christopher a questioning look. Was he inferring, as I was, what that last paragraph implied--that for some reason our father was the cause of our mother being disinherited, and now hated by her parents?
And did he infer, too, that we were going to be locked up here for a long, long time?
Oh, God, oh God, oh God! I couldn't stand even a week!
We weren't devils, but most certainly we weren't angels, either! And we needed each other, to touch, to look at.
"Cathy," said my brother calmly, a wry smile cocking his lips while the twins looked from one to the other of us, ready to mimic our panic, our joy, or our screams, "are we so ugly and without charm that an old woman who very obviously hates our mother, and also our father, for some reason I don't know, can forever resist us? She's a fake, a fraud. She doesn't mean any of this." He gestured toward the list, which he folded and flung away toward the dresser. It made a poor airplane.
"Are we to believe an old woman like that, who must be demented, and should be locked up--or should we believe the woman who loves us, the woman we know and trust? Our mother will take care of us. She knows what she's doing, on that you can depend."
Yes, of course, he was right. Momma was the one to believe in and trust, not that stern old crazy woman with her idiot ideas, and her gunshot eyes, and her crooked, knife-slashed mouth.
In no time at all the grandfather downstairs would succumb to our mother's beauty and charm, and down the stairs we'd trip, dressed in our best, wearing happy smiles. And he'd see us, and know we weren't ugly, or stupid, but normal enough to like a little, if not a lot. And perhaps, who knows, maybe someday he might even find a
little
love to give to his grandchildren.
The morning hour of ten came and went. What remained of our daily ration of food, we stored in the coolest spot we could find in the room, under the highboy. The servants who made the beds, and tidied up in the upstairs rooms of other wings, must surely have departed for lower sections, and they would not see this floor again for another twenty-four hours.
We were, of course, already tired of that room, and very eager to explore the outer confines of our limited domain. Christopher and I each caught hold of a twin's hand, and we headed silently toward the closet that held our two suitcases with all the clothes still inside. We'd wait to unpack. When we had more roomy, pleasant quarters, the servants could unpack for us, as they did in movies, and we could take off outdoors. Indeed, we wouldn't be in this room when the servants came in on the last Friday of the month to clean. We'd be set free by then.
With my older brother in the lead, holding onto the small hand of my younger brother so he wouldn't trip or fall, and with me close at Cory's heels, as Carrie clung to my hand, we headed up the dark, narrow, steep steps. The walls of that passageway were so narrow your shoulders almost brushed them.
And there it was!
Attics we'd seen before, who hasn't? But never such an attic as this one!
We stood as if rooted, and gazed around with incredulity. Huge, dim, dirty, dusty, this attic stretched for miles! The farthest walls were so distant they seemed hazy, out of focus. The air was not clear, but murky; it had an odor, an unpleasant odor of decay, of old rotting things, of dead things left unburied, and because it was cloudy with dust, everything seemed to move, to shimmer, especially in the darker, gloomier corners.
Four sets of deep dormer windows stretched across the front, four sets across the back. The sides, what we could see of them, were without windows-- but there were wings where we couldn't see unless we dared to move forward and brave the stifling heat of the place.
Step by step we moved as one away from the stairwell.
The floor was of wide wooden planks, soft and rotting. As we inched along cautiously, feeling fearful, small creatures on the floor went scuttling off in all directions. There was enough furniture stored in the attic to furnish several houses. Dark, massive furniture, and chamber pots, and pitchers set in larger bowls, perhaps twenty or thirty sets of them. And there was a round wooden thing that looked like a tub banded with iron. Imagine keeping a bathtub like that!
Everything that seemed of value was draped over by sheets where dust had accumulated to turn the white cloth dingy gray. And what was covered by sheets for protection shivered my spine, for I saw these things as weird, eerie, furniture ghosts, whispering, whispering. And I didn't want to hear what they had to say.
Dozens of old leather-bound trunks with heavy brass locks and corners lined one entire wall, each trunk stuck all over with travel labels. Why, they must have been around the world several or more times. Big trunks, fit for coffins.
Giant armoires stood in a silent row against the farthest wall, and when we checked, we found each one full of ancient clothes. We saw both Union and Confederate uniforms, giving Christopher and me much to speculate upon as the twins cringed close against us and looked around with big, scared eyes.
"Do you think our ancestors were so undecided during the Civil War they didn't know which side they were on, Christopher?"
"The War Between the States sounds better," he answered. "Spies, you think?"
"How would I know?"
Secrets, secrets, everywhere! Brother against brother I saw it--oh, what fun to find out! If only we could find diaries!
"Look here," said Christopher, pulling out a man's suit of pale cream-colored wool, with brown velvet lapels, and piped smartly with darker brown satin. He waved the suit. Disgusting winged creatures took off in all directions, despite the stench of mothballs.
I yelped, as did Carrie.
"Don't be such babies," he said, not in the least disturbed by those things. "What you saw were moths, harmless moths. It's the larvae that do the chewing and make the holes."
I didn't care! Bugs were bugs--infants or adults. I don't know why that darned suit interested him so much, anyway. Why did we have to examine the fly to see if men in those days used buttons or zippers? "Gosh," he said, finally disturbed, "what a pain to unfasten buttons every time."
That was his opinion.
In my opinion, olden-day people really knew how to dress! How I would love to flounce around in a frilly chemise over pantaloons, with dozens of fancy petticoats over the wire hoops, all bedecked in ruffles, lace, embroidery, with flowing ribbons of velvet or satin, and my shoes would be of satin and over all this bedazzling finery would be a lacy parasol to shade my golden curls, and keep the sun from my fair, unwrinkled complexion. And I'd carry a fan to elegantly cool myself, and my eyelids would flutter and bewitch. Oh, what a beauty I'd be!
Subdued by the immense attic until now, Carrie let out a howl that took me swiftly from sweet speculations and right back to the here and now, which was where I didn't want to be.
"It's hot up here, Cathy!"
"Yes, it is."
"I hate it up here, Cathy!"
I glanced at Cory, his small face awed as he looked around and clung to my side, and catching his hand, and Carrie's, I left behind the fascination of the old clothes, and all of us wandered off to pry into everything this attic had to offer. And that was considerable. Thousands of old books in stacks, dark ledgers, office desks, two upright pianos, radios, phonographs, cartons filled with the unwanted accoutrements of generations long gone. Dress forms, all sizes and shapes, bird cages and stands to hold them, rakes, shovels, framed photographs of peculiar pale and sickly looking people who were, I presumed, dead relatives of ours. Some had light hair, some dark; all had eyes sharp, cruel, hard, bitter, sad, wistful, yearning, hopeless, empty, but never, I swear, never did I see any happy eyes. Some smiled. Most didn't. I was drawn in particular to a pretty girl of perhaps eighteen; she wore a faint, enigmatic smile which reminded me of Mona Lisa, only she was more beautiful. Her bosom swelled out beneath a ruffled bodice most impressively, making Christopher point to one of the dress forms and declare emphatically, "Hers!"
I looked. "Now," he continued with admiring eyes, "that is what you call an hourglass figure. See the wasp waist, the ballooning hips, the swelling bosom? Inherit a shape like that, Cathy, and you will make a fortune."
"Really," I said in disgust, "you don't know very much. That is not a woman's natural form. She's wearing a corset, cinched in at the waist so much her flesh is squeezed out at the top and the bottom. And that is exactly why women used to faint so much and then call for smelling salts."
"How can one faint and still manage to call for smelling salts?" he asked sarcastically. "Besides, you can't squeeze out at the top what isn't there." He took another look at the shapely young woman "You know, she kind of looks like Momma. If she wore her hair differently and her clothes were modern-- she'd be Momma."
Hah! Our mother would have more sense than to wear a laced-up cage and suffer. "But this girl is only pretty," Christopher concluded. "Our mother is beautiful."
The silence of that huge space was so deep you could hear your heartbeat. Yet it would be fun to explore every trunk; to examine the contents of every box; to try on all those rotting, smelly, fancy clothes, and pretend, pretend, pretend. But it was so hot! So stifling! So stuffy! Already my lungs seemed clogged with dirt and dust and stale air. Not only that, spider webs laced the corners and draped down from the rafters, and crawling or slithering things rambled about on the floor or up the walls. Though I didn't see any, I thought of rats and mice. We'd seen a movie once on TV where a man went crazy and hung himself from an attic rafter. And in another movie, a man shoved his wife in an old trunk with brass corners and locks, just like these, and then he slammed down the lid and left her there to die. I took another look at those trunks, wondering what secrets they held that the servants shouldn't know.
Disconcerting, the curious way my brother was watching me and my reactions. I whirled to hide what I was feeling--but he saw. He stepped closer and caught my hand, and said so much like Daddy, "Cathy, it is going to be all right. There must be very simple explanations for everything that seems to us very complex and mysterious."
Slowly I turned to him, surprised he'd come to comfort and not to tease. "Why do you suppose the grandmother hates us, too? Why should the grandfather hate us? What have we done?"
He shrugged, as baffled as I was, and with his hand still holding mine, we both pivoted to look the attic over again. Even our untrained eyes could tell where new sections had been added to the older house. Thick, square, upright beams divided the attic into distinct sections. I thought if we wandered here, and wandered there, we would come upon a place for comfortable, fresh breathing.
The twins began to cough and sneeze. They fixed resentful blue eyes on us for keeping them where they didn't want to be.
"Now look," said Christopher when the twins started to really complain, "we can open up the windows an inch or so, enough to let in a little fresh air, and no one will notice such a little opening from the ground." Then he released my hand and ran on ahead, leaping over boxes, trunks, furniture, showing off, while I stood frozen, holding to the hands of both my little ones, who were terrified of where they were.
"Come see what I've found!" called Christopher, who was out of sight. Excitement was in his voice. "You just wait and see my discovery!"
We ran, eager to see something exciting, wonderful, fun-- and all he had to show us was a room, a real room with plaster walls. It had never been painted, but it did have a regular ceiling, not just beams. This seemed to be a schoolroom with five desks, facing a larger desk up front. Blackboards lined three walls over low bookcases filled with faded and dusty old volumes that my perpetual seeker of all knowledge had to immediately inspect by crawling around and reading the book titles aloud. Books were enough to send him off on a high tangent, knowing he had a way to escape to other worlds.
I was drawn to the small desks, where names and dates were etched, such as Jonathan, age 11, 1864! And Adelaide, age 9, 1879! Oh, how very old this house was! They were dust in their graves by now, but they had left their names behind to let us know that once, they, too, had been sent up here. But why would parents send their children into an attic to study? They had been wanted children, surely--unlike us, whom the grandparents despised. Maybe for
them
the windows had been opened wide. And for them, servants had carried up coal or wood to burn in the two stoves we saw in the corners.
An old rocking horse with a missing amber eye wobbled unsteadily, and his matted yellow tail was a woebegone thing But this white-and-black-spotted pony was enough to bring a delighted cry from Cory. Instantly he clambered up on the peeling red saddle, crying out, "Getty-up, horsy!" And the pony, not ridden for ever so long, galloped along, squealing, rattling, protesting with every rusty joint.
"I want to ride, too!" bellowed Carrie. "Where is
my
horsy?"
Quickly I ran to lift Carrie up behind Cory, so she could cling to his waist, and laugh, and kick her heels to make the dilapidated horse go faster and faster. I marveled that the poor thing stayed hinged together.
Now I had the chance to look over the old books that had charmed Christopher. Heedlessly, I reached in and took out a book, not caring what the title read. I flipped through the pages and sent legions of flat bugs with centipede legs madly scampering everywhere! I dropped that book,--then stared down at the loose pages that had scattered. I hated bugs, spiders most of all, worms next. And what swarmed from those pages seemed a combination of both.
Such a girlish performance was enough to send Christopher into hysterics, and when he calmed down, he called my squeamishness overdone. The twins reined in their bucking bronco and stared at me in astonishment. Quickly I had to reach for my poise. Even pretend mothers didn't squeal at the sight of a few bugs.
"Cathy, you're twelve, and it's time you grew up. Nobody screams to see a few bookworms. Bugs are a part of life. We humans are the masters, the supreme rulers over all. This isn't such a bad room at all. Lots of space, full of big windows, plenty of books, and even a few toys for the twins."
Yeah. There was a rusty red wagon with a broken handle, and a missing wheel--great. A broken green scooter, too. Terrific. Yet there stood Christopher looking around and expressing his pleasure in finding a room where people hid away their children so they couldn't see them, or hear them, or maybe not even think about them, and he saw it as a room with possibilities.
Sure, somebody could clean all the dark secret places where creeping horrors lived, and they could spray all over with insect repellent so nothing sinister was left that was small enough to step on. But how to step on the grandmother, the grandfather? How to turn an attic room into a paradise where flowers bloomed, and not just another prison like the one below?
I ran to the dormer windows and climbed upon a box to reach the high window ledge. Desperate to see the ground, to see how far we were above it, and if we jumped how many bones we'd break. Desperate to see the trees, the grass, where the flowers grew, where sunlight was, where birds flew, where real life lived. But all I saw was a slate black roof expanding wide beneath the windows, blocking out the view of the ground. Beyond the roofs were treetops; beyond the treetops, enclosing mountains hovered over by blue mists.
Christopher climbed up beside me and looked, too. His shoulder brushing mine quivered, as did his voice when he said softly, "We can still see the sky, the sun, and at night we'll see the moon and stars, and birds and planes will fly over. We can watch them for amusement until the day we don't come up here again."
He paused, seeming to think back to the night we came--was it only last night? "I'll bet if we leave a window open wide, an owl might fly in. I've always wanted an owl for a pet."
"For heaven's sake, why in the world would you want one of those things?"
"Owls can turn their heads all the way around. Can you do that?"
"I don't want to do that."