Looking Through Windows

Looking Through Windows

By

Caren J. Werlinger

Looking Through Windows
Lesbian Fiction

Copyright 2008; 2009 by Caren J. Werlinger
All rights reserved.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-934889-90-9
Print ISBN: 978-1-59092-595-9

First Edition
eBook: June 2011
Print: March 2008  9 876 5 4 3 2

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Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright ©1951,1955,1979,1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The translation of Renée Vivien’s poem “Paroles à L’Amie”  by Caren J. Werlinger.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Acknowledgments

There are many people to thank for their assistance in getting this book to this point. The first and biggest thank-you goes to my partner, Beth Skinner, who has patiently read and re-read multiple versions of this book for the past seven or eight years, offering her insight and gentle prompts to make changes in places. My thanks also to the many others who read the earlier versions, and offered their feedback: Bethany, Kim, Annette, Tommie, Roxie, Jackie and Debbie.

My great thanks and admiration go also to Cristie Cyane, a French poet who compiled the complete poems of Renée Vivien in her website, reneevivien.com, a task which must have been a labor of love, given the volume of work Vivien left us. For anyone wanting to delve more deeply into the writings of Renée Vivien, this is an invaluable resource since her work is so difficult to find.

To Dr. Kathleen McNerney, Professor in the Foreign Language Department at West VirginiaUniversity, I send my thanks, not only for her teaching, but for her encouragement to always think independently and act on my convictions. She influenced me and this book more than she realizes.

I also want to thank Beth Mitchum for her “polishing” of the manuscript. She made the editing process painless and easy. And to Cris and Jennifer DiMarco – by accepting this manuscript, they didn’t just validate the work, they validated a piece of me. I will never forget how much that meant.

Looking Through Windows

Chapter 1

E
mily's battered red Honda Civic rolled to a stop in the shade of an oak tree so large its branches formed an arch across the quiet street. She climbed stiffly out of the car and looked at the enormous white farmhouse belonging to the oak. She double-checked the address scribbled on a crumpled, sweat-dampened sheet of paper she had pulled out of her jeans pocket. 212 Clearbrook Road. This was the right place. She walked up the neatly trimmed walk to the steps of the deep front porch, a few early acorns crunching underfoot. There she saw an older woman on her hands and knees scrubbing the porch floor with a scrub brush and bucket. She hadn't seen the woman at first in the dark shade of the porch.

"Mrs. Gundlach?" she inquired. "I'm Emily Warner."

"Ach!" exclaimed Mrs. Gundlach as she got spryly to her feet. She was short, maybe five-foot-three, with salt and pepper hair and dark eyes.  "We have been waiting for you!" Emily noticed that Mrs. Gundlach's German accent turned 'have' into 'haf.' "Come in, my dear. You must be very hot after your trip. We almost never have weather this warm in Vermont."

When Emily followed Mrs. Gundlach into the house, she felt an immediate drop in temperature, although there were no air conditioners that she could see or hear. Mrs. Gundlach seemed to read her thoughts.  "The shade of our trees keeps the house cool, ja?"

"Ja," Emily replied, automatically answering in German. To the right of the foyer was a wide staircase with dark oak treads and handrail. She followed Mrs. Gundlach straight down a short hall to the kitchen, catching glimpses of a large living room and dining room off to the left. There were two steps leading down into the kitchen, where a large pine farm table occupied one end near a brick wall, which contained a fireplace and raised hearth. As Mrs. Gundlach poured them glasses of cold lemonade, Emily looked out the large plate glass window behind the table. Across a wide expanse of recently mowed grass was an old white clapboard barn.

"This is a wonderful house," Emily said admiringly as she accepted a glass from Mrs. Gundlach.

"Ja, Papa and I love this house," Mrs. Gundlach said proudly. "We raised ten children in this house."

"Ten! We only had three children in my family." Emily smiled at the thought of tiny Mrs. Gundlach keeping ten kids in line. They were sitting at the table drinking their lemonade when Emily saw a tall man coming across the yard, accompanied by a huge German shepherd. When he entered the screened-in porch and came into the kitchen, she guessed him to be Mr. Gundlach. He appeared to be in his sixties.  He had a deeply tanned face and laughing blue eyes. She liked him immediately and stood to introduce herself. "Hello, Mr. Gundlach, I'm Emily Warner."

"Miss Emily! We have been looking forward to having you here with us. We were very happy to help out when Dr. Brooks called to see if we had a room to let to one of his prize students." His large hand dwarfed hers in a warm handshake. The German shepherd whined and pushed her nose into Emily's hand. "This is Greta, our fierce watchdog," he smiled as Emily scratched her large ears.

"Let me show you to your room," Mrs. Gundlach said, leading the way upstairs. "This is our room, Papa and me," she said, indicating a large room at the east end of the hallway. They passed a couple of furnished but unoccupied rooms before entering a room at the other end of the hallway. To Emily's delight, it was on the south side of the house, facing the road. She'd have plenty of winter sunlight and lots of summer shade.

"This is wonderful," she murmured. "I'll start unpacking the car."

"I'll get Papa to help," Mrs. Gundlach said.

Emily went out to open her hatchback. As she reached in to gather a box of books, Mr. Gundlach joined her and took three boxes of books in his arms, despite Emily's protests that they were too heavy. She quickly filled her arms and hurried to catch up to him. In no time the car was unpacked, and she was alone in her room to settle in.

The room was furnished with a sturdy double bed made of walnut, an oak desk and two tall bookshelves. There was a tall chest of drawers on one outside wall, and a good-sized closet for such an old house. She pulled the switch to activate the ceiling fan, and set about putting things away. After she had unpacked her suitcases and put her books on the shelves, she realized how tired she was. She stretched out on the bed, lulled by the low hum of the ceiling fan and promptly fell asleep.

Emily was wandering down a dimly lit hall with darkened windows on either side. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't see past the reflections into the rooms beyond. Window after window was completely dark and it seemed like the hall went on forever. Finally, in one of the windows, a dim green light shone. By its faint illumination, she saw a still figure lying in a bed. She had to get to the person lying there, but there were no doors, only windows in the hall. She began pounding on the glass, trying to get the attention of the person in the bed... pounding and pounding.

 Emily suddenly wakened to the sound of knocking on her door. She didn't know where she was for a moment.

"Emily?" Mrs. Gundlach's voice came through the door and she remembered.

"Yes, Mrs. Gundlach, I'm coming." She quickly got up. "I'm sorry," she said as she opened the door. "I really fell asleep."

"I'm sorry I woke you, but I wanted to tell you that dinner is ready, if you would like to join Papa and me."

Emily realized she was famished. She hadn't bothered to stop for lunch on her trip earlier. "I'll be right down," she said. She quickly brushed her short brown hair, but the soft curls bounced wherever they wanted. She made a face at herself in the mirror and ran downstairs.

Mrs. Gundlach said they would eat in the kitchen since there were only the three of them. They sat down to a meal of oven-fried chicken, German potato salad, green beans picked fresh from their garden and fresh rolls. No one said much as they began eating, but as Emily helped herself to seconds, Mr. Gundlach asked, "What will you be teaching at the university?"

"I'll be teaching German and French while I work on my doctorate in European literature," Emily replied. "I chose this doctoral program at Weston because it doesn't force me to focus on only one language or one culture."
'And because I don't know a soul up here,'
she thought as she swallowed. "Dr. Brooks is in a bind. One of his professors retired last year and they haven't been able to replace her, so he has to teach one or two classes more than he is supposed to as department chair. As a result, he asked me to supervise the other teaching assistants, who are all working on their Master's degrees."

Pushing her plate back, Emily hoped she hadn't been impolite by eating so much.