And most of all she is afraid, afraid of feeling the way she felt for those few short minutes at the Home, afraid of feeling the way she felt during the drive back to New York, afraid of having her heart once again turned upside down.
Would it kill her to show her face?
It might.
One night they are eating when a maid appears with a folded note, which she places on the table. Madam. Bertha is about to scold her for interrupting dinner when she notices that the note has opened slightly, revealing at the bottom the name E. F. Fetchett, M.D. She slides it under the base of her wineglass.
After dinner she sequesters herself in her sewing room.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Muller
Kindly request your immediate attention by telephone.
Sincerely,
E. F. Fetchett, M.D.
She picks up the line and asks for Tarrytown four-eight-oh-five-eight.
The doctor answers. In the background there are sounds.
“This is Mrs. Louis Muller,” she says.
“Labor has begun. I thought you might want to know.”
Bertha fingers the phone cord. “Mrs. Muller?” “I’m here.”
“Will you be present for the birth?”
She looks at the clock. It is eight thirty. “Will she last til tomorrow morning?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“Then I won’t be present,” she says, and hangs up.
THE NEXT MORNING, she orders a picnic packed. She and David spend the day in Central Park.
WHEN LOUIS RETURNS FROM TARRYTOWN late that night, he looks as though he has run the entire distance on foot. His tie is gone, his shirt sweat-stained and missing studs. He goes directly to his suite and shuts the door.
“What’s wrong with Father?”
“He’s ill. Did you have a good time today?”
“Yeah.”
“Excuse me? I didn’t understand that.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“You’re welcome. Who loves you more than anyone else in the world?” “You do, Mother.”
“That’s right. What are you doing after supper?”
“Practicing my violin.”
“And?”
“Reading.”
“And?”
“Listening to the Yankee game.”
“I don’t remember that being on the agenda.”
“Can we put it on the agenda? Please?”
“Practice first.”
“Yes, Mother. May I be excused?”
“Certainly.”
He lays down his napkin. Good boy.
“Mother?”
“Yes, David.”
“Can I visit Father?”
“Not tonight.”
“Will you please tell him that I hope he feels better?”
“I certainly will.”
When he is gone, Bertha lingers at the table, rubbing her temples. The maid asks if she would like anything else.
“I am going to see my husband. I don’t want to be disturbed under any circumstances. Is that clear?”
“Yessum.”
She steps in the elevator and girds herself for battle.
HE ARRIVED IN THE VILLAGE as the heat peaked. The air blurry with gnats, the sweet rot of manure, half-naked children throwing water at one another. The chauffeur steered along the rutted road and forked onto the rural byway leading to the cottage they choseBertha chosetheir advance halted by a cattleguard and a swing-arm gate that necessitates stopping the car, getting out, opening the gate, driving through, and stopping again to close the gate behind. Louis ordered the chauffeur to leave it open. He didn’t care who might wander in. Let them.
As he stepped inside the cottage, he felt nauseated and dizzy, and his instinct was to reach for his wife’s arm. Since his last visit, the place had been converted into an operating theater. A pile of bedsheets, rank with antiseptic and bodily fluids. The quiet disturbed him: shouldn’t there be crying? Ruth herself barely made any noise as a newborn, and he had always understood that to be symptomatic of her condition. What if her child is the same way? What untold miseries will he endure?
Dr. Fetchett looked cadaverous, although he had only good things to say. The baby was a boy, his heartbeat strong and regular. The mother’s health was excellent; better, in fact, than many normal mothers after a similar ordeal. In the interest of cleaning up, they had moved both mother and child to the neighboring cottage, where nurses were attending to her.
“How is she, is she happy?”
The doctor rubbed his cheek thoughtfully. “Who can say, really.”
They went first to see the baby. Red and squashed and swaddled; black, spiky hair on the top of his head. Utterly ordinary.
Actually, he looked a little like Bertha.
Dr. Fetchett explains that it is indeed possible for a mongoloid mother to have a normal child. “Of course, we can’t say for sure that other problems won’t arise down the line. I say that not to disturb you but because I’m trying to prepare you for any eventuality.”
Louis asked to hold him. In his arms the baby felt like paper.
“Should he be that red?”
“It’s normal.”
At first he is relieved. Normal, normal, everything normal. But the longer he holds the sleeping boy in his arms, the more clearly he comes to see that normalcy is the worst curse of all. If the child is normal, he represents a claim on the estate and a threat to David’s sovereignty. Louis can only imagine what Bertha might do.
The doctor asks if Mrs. Muller will be coming to visit.
Louis said, “I don’t believe she will.”
Now, lying on the floor of his drawing room to quiet his screaming back, looking up at Berthashe towers over him, standing behind two armchairs she has pulled together like an embrasurehe says, “The child is dead. The girl is dead, too. They both died in childbirth.”
A MONTH LATER, under the pretext of business travel, Louis goes back to the Home.
“I want to know the name of the father.”
Dr. Christmas’s eyes dart around the room, in search of his missing legal counsel.
Louis says, “My wife doesn’t know I’m here. The least you can do is help me give the boy a proper name.”
After a moment, the doctor goes to a cabinet and takes out a file. He hands Louis a photo of a young man with wild, dark hair; wild, dark eyes.
“His name is Cracke,” says the doctor.
Louis compares features. “A patient.”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t look defective.”
“He had other problems. Many of them. A troublesome boy.”
Louis puts the photo down. He should be feeling something. Anger, perhaps, or disgust. But he feels nothing, only mild curiosity.
“How did he know my daughter?”
The doctor shifts uncomfortably. “I can’t say. As you’re aware, we segregate the sexes. Sometimes for a concert we bring everyone into the main hall. Presumably, they slipped out together unnoticed.”
Louis frowns. “Do you mean that she went consensually?”
“I would have to think so,” says the doctor. “She asked for him repeatedly.”
Louis says nothing.
“He’s no longer with us.”
Louis is confused. “He’s dead?”
“I ordered him moved.”
“And where is he now?”
“At another home, some miles outside Rochester.”
“Does he know?”
“I don’t imagine so.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I hadn’t planned on it.”
“Please don’t.”
As he opens the car door for Louis, the doctor smiles unctuously and says, “I hope you don’t find it rude of me to ask how Ruth is. We were all quite fond of her.”
“She’s right as rain,” Louis says.
The doctor offers his hand. Louis declines.
HE HIRES A STAFF OF THREE, overseen by an anvil-jawed Scotswoman named Nancy Greene, a former employee at the Home. She is kind to Ruth, kinder still to the baby; she understandsor seems to understand when Louis presses upon her the importance of keeping secrets. No good could come of anyone knowing, he tells her, and she seems to agree. He pays her very well.