“Look what I’ve brought for you!”
“But, Mistress!”
“It’s for you! For you! For you, Bernice!” It was a shawl. “Aztec … the first people in Mexico, real artists, they made it. Rather, it was made by an artist who practices the arts of the Aztecs. It is pure art, Bernice. And I want you to have it.”
“Oh, Mistress Burrmann …”
Beethoven was raging over some topic of a theme that had nothing absolutely to do with the warmth in this sitting room. “And oh! here’s a letter for you. A local letter.”
“Thanks, Mistress.”
“Well, I’m home! Een mi casa! I am home!” And she breathed in the air of Toronto, all the time giving the impression that it was really the air of freedom and the air of Mexico she had been breathing and enjoying. “Please draw me a bath, and then you are free.” Bernice got worried: this woman ain’ come back different! she come back crazy as hell! what freedom she telling me ’bout? And as Bernice moved away with the suspicious letter in her hand, thinking of Mrs. Burrmann’s use of the word, “free,” before she was out of earshot, she heard Mrs. Burrmann say, heavy with nostalgia and longing and happiness, and perhaps with love, “Free, free, free, libre! libre! libertad …” By the time Bernice got halfway up the stairs to her quarters, after having started the bath, Mrs. Burrmann was on the telephone, to her friend and neighbour Mrs. Gasstein, telling her, “Coma esta usted? como esta usted, Irenina? Diga-something-darling, diga-something, I have come back, oh-May-he-co! May-he-co!” And then there was a pause in the conversation. And then there was a complete change in the expression of Mrs. Burrmann’s voice. You knew that something not quite as warm as Mexico was being discussed. Mrs. Burrmann sighed, and said, “Yes, and I must thank you for writing to me … yes, you can never tell. You think these things happen only in books, in novels, and on television … and I want to talk to you about it as well … well, I always had my suspicions, Irene. After all, a married woman is always suspicious of these things … though she tells herself they won’t touch her, won’t happen to her, because …”
My dear Bernice (the local letter began),
I don’t know how to say this, or what to say really. So much has happened. So, I had better just come to the point, and tell you what I want to tell you. As you can guess from the letter, I am living in Toronto. I was always in Toronto. I couldn’t face you on that Thursday when I knew you were coming to get me. I could not face you because of many things. But I am fine now. I would like to see you, when you have a chance. I do not want anybody else, Dots or Boysie or Henry or Agatha to know what happened to me, and where I am living. I give you the address on this separate piece of paper, so you can keep it in your purse. If you don’t intend to come, just burn it. But I wish you would come.
Your dear sister,
Estelle.
It was much later in the afternoon, almost nighttime, before Bernice felt she had the strength to go downstairs to see if Mrs. Burrmann needed anything done. Her valises were still unpacked, lying on the settee in the hallway from the entrance. Mrs. Burrmann had meantime gone across the street, and had been telling Irene Gasstein all about her Mexican trip firsthand with personal experiences, some of which included “strong brown Mexican men, oh, darling you should have come with me!”; and after the enthusiasm of those reminiscences had worn off, and after Irene Gasstein had drunk three medium-strong vodkas-and-orange with Mrs. Burrmann, the conversation got round to the real topic for which the visit was made: Mr. Burrmann and Estelle.
“I know how badly you feel about this, dear.” They were sitting in Mrs. Gasstein’s bedroom. No other room in the large three-storeyed mansion seemed safe and secretive enough to bear witness to these personal words of advice. There was a lamp burning on the dressing table, although it did not add much more to the natural light of the dying afternoon. “That night when it happened … it was the first time in the twelve years I’ve been living on this street that an ambulance ever had to enter this neighbourhood …” She sighed. “I made up my mind to get it out of her,” she said, talking of Brigitte. “And I damn-well did! The bitch! I was like a judge at the Nuremburg trials, I tell you.” And Mrs. Gasstein went on to relate everything she knew: the parties in the house while Mrs. Burrmann was away; Mr. Burrmann’s comings and goings, which she had recorded in her diary after she heard of the scandal; about Brigitte (“Soon’s I get a person from an agency, I intend to get rid of that! You must do the same with Bernice! You have no other choice”), and about the two police officers, “Gentiles, god-damn Brigitte!” She was careful to call them “gentiles” and not the other more derogatory name, for she was a woman of some sophistication. “Well, what in the hell would my children think?”
A film of tears and sorrow that came to Mrs. Burrmann’s face was now wiping away the earlier happiness which Mexico had brought back to Toronto with her. When Irene Gasstein saw it, she stopped talking for a while. Children were shaking the door to get in. Brigitte had told them a harsh word in German. Nobody in the Gasstein house knew German but Brigitte. “Go away, you goddamn brats!” Mrs. Gasstein shouted. And the shaking at the door faded, and faded into steps running down the thick broadloomed passageway. “I’m sorry, Glad, darling, that this should upset you.” Then cars flowed across the boulevard; and then it was quiet again, as that night of the beating, before the ambulance invaded the shaded
