La Casa de Muerte
walked up to the front door, and through the screen could see her
feet. She was sitting on the couch, legs perched up, watching
television. I could have gone right in, but I chose to ring the
doorbell, in order to get a greeting.
"You can come in," Therese said when I rang. She was named after the Zola novel, or so I imagined, and I loved her name. Its elegance matched her exquisite nature.
I entered and smiled both uncomfortably and humorously. She narrowed her eyes, as always, and stared back, a little smile cracking her wide mouth.
"Hello," I said, lingering before her, not sure whether to sit down.
She motioned toward an armchair, which was covered with bath towels, as was everything else in the living room.
"No," I said, "I'll sit over here," and into an older rocker I sat.
I was a bit behind her, so she turned around to me, and with a little devilishness in her voice and face, said, "Don't you want to sit in the chair of death?"
I laughed in a low tone. "Well, I came into the house of the dead, didn't I? But I don't like that seat. She might come out and get upset."
We both spoke quietly, to avoid being overheard.
Then I heard the sound that inevitably comes with my every visit. There was a screen door, inside the house, that separated a back bedroom from the hallway. Why it was there, I did not know; it was the subject of ongoing sarcasm, though. It closed and made the detestable sound that meant I must deal with the unfortunate.
"Oh, hello, Robert," an old voice said to me.
I turned and faked a smile to her. Old and gray, stooped and in a blue sweatsuit, Blanche was attacking me.
I answered her, "Hello, how are you today?" My facade was not obvious, I hoped.
"Oh, you know. Problems, problems."
"Ah," I answered, knowing what lay ahead.
"Yeah, just feeling a little tired. I told you, didn't I, dear?" She swung to attack Therese. "The damn doctors are giving me the run around again."
"Yeah, you told me about that," Therese said in a voice ill at ease.
"Oh?" Why did I show interest? Didn't I know by now that to pay attention is to sit through unbearable minutes of medical information? There must be a better way to handle this. My thoughts, bitter, wrestled with my face, pleasant.
"I went in three days this week, but they keep trying to pass me off to other specialists. They say there's nothing they can do. I tell them I need surgery and they say it will kill me. Well, maybe that wouldn't be too bad a thing." She chuckled a little, trying to get pity out of us. But I could not pity her, no matter where in her eighties she was. I just smiled a little.
I could see on Therese's face the discomfort of talking once again about medical problems, but that she was succeeding once again in bearing it.
After we carefully averted hearing another story about the cat gut that held Blanche's intestines together, the old woman gave up and went into the kitchen. We escaped into Therese's room.
"You see what I have to put up with?"
"I know well already," I answered. "Every time I come over, it's the same thing. I don't see how you put up with it."
"I'm sick of her. Aren't you sick of her?"
"Well, yes," I answered, "but I have to be respectful. This is her house."
"No, it isn't." Therese grew angry. "I told you before, she stole it."
"Yes, I remember."
"She lived here with my grandmother until she passed away, and then she was only supposed to be the custodian. The house belongs to my mother, not Blanche." This point was one of serious contention. I did not interrupt when it was told for fear of causing Therese more anger than she already felt.
"So when Blanche dies it will be yours," I said.
"Yes, if she ever does. She'll outlive us all, I think."
We spent the day talking in her room. About five in the evening we decided to go and have some dinner out. We gave Blanche the slip, and went to a little Mexican restaurant a few blocks away. I drove Therese there, and then bought her her dinner. I got taquitos with guacamole and she got two carne asada tacos. As usual, she did not like her food, and I spent the meal listening to her complaints. After eating, we sat there, at one of three outdoor tables, and talked. We were in no hurry to return to Blanche's house.
We left the restaurant and went to two bookstores. I searched for books in French, she for Curious George storybooks for her sister's children.
After cruising about the town for an hour, I brought up the possibility of getting a couple of beers and returning to Blanche's. Therese thought the idea a good one, and we bought two large Harps at the grocery store.
By nine p.m., we had returned to the dreaded place. I held the beers in a brown paper bag. Therese walked in first, and greeted Blanche who sat in her chair.
"Well, hello, you two," said the octogenarian. "Been out gallivanting all over town?"
"Hello," I said, simply.
"We had dinner and went looking at books, that's all," Therese explained.
"I was going to see if you two wanted to order a pizza. I was going to pay. But, I guess you wanted to do otherwise." She giggled, attempted to endear herself to us, but we remained somber. I slowly shuffled out of the room, into the relative safety of Therese's bedroom. She followed.
"Did you hear that? 'Gallivanting'. What an old busy-body she is!" Therese was angry with her great aunt again.
"She was probably just trying to be witty," I said, playing devil's advocate.
"No, she was being her usual insulting old self."
Just then, Blanche stuck her head through the half-closed door. It shocked the two of us.
"So where did you have dinner?"
Therese put on a pleasant face and tone. "At Los Tacos."
"Yeah, I really love that place. Can't eat there anymore because the doctor said it's too fattening for me," Blanche attempted again to ingratiate herself upon us.
"My blood pressure is a little too high," she continued. "That stuff would be the death of me if I still ate there."
"Yeah," was all Therese could say.
I began taking the beers out of the bag. It was something of a symbol, I suppose. I was signaling the end of this little lecture on Blanche's medical problems before it began, telling the old woman that Therese and I were preparing to drink a beer together and to leave us alone.
The hint somehow worked, and with a few concluding remarks that I ignored, Blanche retired to her bedroom. The screen door closing marked our renewed freedom.
With the alcohol came a lifting of inhibitions. I broached the one subject that had been on my mind all day. I had endured my unpleasantries to get to this one moment of the visit.
"So are you still going to Germany to marry Jergens?" I asked her this, knowing that an entire night's discussion would spring from it, and hoping that during such I would be able to dissuade her from going. She was my love, and I was about to lose her to a German named Juergen. I often called him after the lotion brand, and even sometimes called him Juergen Bergen Shmergen in der Dinkeldurgen. These were my ways of showing my distaste for him, that he was stealing away my chance at happiness. He made me truly bitter.
"Yes," she answered, a bit sorrowful, "it is my fate to go."
"Fate? Your fate is what you decide, what happens based upon the direction you set. It isn't a force in the universe, and it is only in hindsight that we ever know what fate was. In the future, nothing is set."
"But what else am I supposed to do?" Therese pleaded her case, becoming upset. "Stay here with her?" She motioned toward the back bedroom, behind the indoor screen door.
"No, I suppose you can't do that either. Do you remember, I offered you the chance to get an apartment with me? We could be roommates, and both work, and then you wouldn't have to choose either Juergen or Blanche." Now it was my turn to plead, and I had to be very careful to constrain myself so as not to beg.
"But I've already said I would marry him. His family expects me to come. I can't get out of it."
I sat back, my first attempt falling on deaf ears. I knew that the battle would become more and more uphill. I'd tried to convince her to stay before, always to no avail.
I sipped at my beer, whereas Therese had already finished hers. "Damn, you drank that already?"
"It was good," she said. "Maybe we should go get another one."
I smiled, cheered from the mood a minute before, and said, "All right. Let me drink this down and we'll go."
An Oasis song played on the radio during the short trip. We returned and cranked the caps off the new bottles. We were quiet again. I wanted to bring up the eternal vigil of keeping her from leaving, but thought it was too soon. I didn't want to upset her again.
We talked of other things, and very many things having to do with her miserable existence. I knew she was unhappy, but I loved to be with her. Happy or sad, I loved her, and it pained me not to be able to help her. She was going to go off to Germany, and there wasn't anything I could do about it.
I decided that I would make one last effort. Without preface, I said, "Why is it that you never considered me for marriage?"
She gave me a strange look, as if disdainful, and I knew the question was phrased far from well. But I waited for an answer regardless.
"You know we're just friends, Robert," she answered, and once again dashed my hopes against the unyielding rocks of reality. I had known this, and well, and for a long time, but I couldn't accept it. It was a lost cause, a pipe dream, but I couldn't give up.
My courage was somehow ignited, and I said, "You know I love you, and I'm very unhappy to see you so unhappy."
"Well, I love you, too," she replied. But after a few moments, she added, "Just not romantically. I love you as a friend."
I fell silent, drinking my Harp. She let the subject of my feelings go almost immediately, however, and continued to talk of her own troubles. I knew the cause had been lost for good. I humored her, and we talked on.
My gloom concreted, I showed no pain. I endured the rest of the evening, until I announced I had to go. She understood, and we said goodnight. I knew that I would most likely not be back, that she would be going away soon, and I would be abjectly alone.
As I drove off in my Mustang, I looked over to see if she was watching my departure. I did not see her in any of the windows. She had forgotten me already. She had things to concern herself with. She couldn't be bothered.
I had not said goodbye to Blanche, I thought. I navigated out of the town and got onto the freeway. I was numb. I had lost all emotional capacity. I knew my future, and did not like it. I was going home, but what did that matter? Home would be a lonely place. I would be an empty shell of what I could have been. I could have been happy, and life full of joy, with her as my wife.
Back at that house, my hope had died.
