Peter Geye - Wintering

The girl looked at Rebekah sitting in the rocking chair, her eyes cast down on that hat in her lap. By 1963 I’d spent more than twenty-five years with her and I thought I’d seen every expression she was capable of, but there was a new depth to her sadness with Signe in the room. And what did Signe herself see? It was impossible to tell. She was every bit as stoic and straight-faced as her mother.

“Miss Lovig,” Lisbet said, “why don’t you put water on for tea? Maybe we’ll take a break and Signe can spend some time with her grandmother.”

And because it was my place, I went to the kitchen and put a pot of water on the stove. From where I stood, I could watch Signe and Rebekah. They said nothing to each other, only sat there by the window. Rebekah with her hollow gaze on the water, Signe with her eyes on the woman she’d spent her whole young life not knowing. Charlie and Lisbet, they stood on the edge of the kitchen and lit cigarettes and watched Signe as though she were a puppy. It wasn’t long before they found an excuse to fetch something from Lisbet’s car and went downstairs.

It was only then Rebekah said, “Your mother, she’s running around with another man? With Charlie Aas, no less. Charlie’s a swine.”

This was Rebekah’s way. She spoke to almost no one. She hardly ever left her seat at the window, entertained almost no visitors. Still, she knew the color of everyone’s underclothes.

“An oinking pig.” She almost smiled before her expression turned sour. “He’s not the first hornswoggler who’d have us believe this backwater’s the headwaters of the world. It is certainly not. That’s one thing you should know.”

Signe looked at her for a long time before her eyes widened. “Miss Grimm, are you blind?”

“I can still see light and dark. But not much more.”

Signe didn’t say anything.

“Don’t pity me, child. I’ve seen enough in my life.”

Signe still didn’t speak. She stared at Rebekah, rather too freely, as far as good manners went.

“How old are you, Signe Eide?”

“I’m almost thirteen.”

“That means your father is now forty-three. Am I right about that?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Who will tend his nets?”

“No nets this year. He might have to sell his boat. That’s what Mom says.”

“Sell his boat?”

“Mom says there aren’t any fish in the lake anymore.”

“Sell his boat?” she said again.

“He might. If anybody will buy it.”

Signe simply could not take her eyes off her grandmother. They sat there silently for as long as the water took to boil.

Then, while I made the tea, I heard Signe say, her voice almost a whisper, “Miss Grimm?”

Rebekah held her gaze on the window, as if she could see again and the lake was on fire.

“Miss Grimm, why aren’t we allowed to know you?”

“Young lady, don’t ever doubt that your father knows what’s best for you. He learned how to be a father from the best man this town has ever known.” She finally turned to her. “He was right, keeping you from me.”

I set the tea on the table before the rocking chair and poured a cup for Rebekah. She took a sip and looked toward the staircase. Charlie and Lisbet appeared as if magically summoned.

“You’ve been telling secrets up here, haven’t you?” Lisbet said, glancing at Signe even though her words were meant for Rebekah.

Rebekah leaned toward Signe and whispered, too silently for Lisbet to hear her, “Tell your father I’d like to buy his boat.”

—

I could tell my story didn’t impress Gus much. He might even have been getting impatient.

“Let me see if I understand,” he said. “Because Rebekah was once decent to Signe, we should exalt her? Hang up her portrait as the Matriarch of Gunflint?”

“Honestly, you’re even a harder case than your father.”

“I mean, the simple fact she wanted her portrait done in the first place says it all.”

“You’re right. She was vain. Because she was beautiful and thought of herself and no one else. I actually think wanting to have her portrait done was an attempt to understand herself differently, though.”

“And not because it was my mother doing the painting? Not as a way of getting closer to us?”

“Maybe that was a part of it. But I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“How can I say this?” I offered, blushing. “Rebekah, she was the subject of countless photographs.”

“Photographs?”

“Yes. One of Hosea Grimm’s main enterprises was the distribution of nasty pictures.”

“You mean pornography?”

“Old-fashioned pornography, yes. That’s why he brought her here.”

“Come again?”

“He sold those postcards all over the world.”

“Pornographic postcards?”

“Such as pornography was a hundred years ago. Pictures of her in negligees and corsets. Of her bare shoulders.”

He turned his attention back down to the painting.

“Yes,” I said, “that same woman. Which is to say this wasn’t her first portrait. And that wasn’t the first she suffered. She was an orphan, as I’ve told you. She was an orphan who ran away when she was all of twelve years old. The same age as your sister in the story I just bored you with. Think about that. At twelve, Rebekah ran straight into a brothel. From which she was adopted by Hosea and brought here to be his prime subject.”

He looked up, his eyes wide and disbelieving.

“She knew nothing in this world except abuse. She didn’t understand happiness or even possibility. She was more alone than anyone I’ve ever known. And she deserves a little dignity.” I stood up and spread the sheet back over the painting.

“Gus, you asked me why I’m doing this.” I spread my arms as though to suggest the apothecary. “I didn’t end up like Rebekah. Some bluenose in the attic who never had a friend in her life.” Just saying those words made me feel as though I’d betrayed her. “All the people who should have loved her. You. Your sister. Your father. All that happiness she might have known. She got none of it. Can you imagine that? All those lives passing right under your window every day and there’s nothing you can do about it? You’d go blind, too. Blind and mad.” I pointed at the portrait one last time. “I could have been her. I really could’ve. I got the benefit of your father’s love instead. A benefit that might have been hers had things been different.

“But they weren’t different, Gus. Things happened just as they did. To all of us.” I reached over and took his hands in mine. “I think Signe gave this building away hoping it would erase this part of her life. A part of your family’s life. I’m sure that my having a hand in the historical society isn’t something she was hoping for. But I want to do it for your father. This seems like something that would please him. And I want to do it for Rebekah. She deserves some kind glances, even if they come from strangers who are only passing through.”

HE NEVER ventured past the bur oaks again but he went daily to the felled tree, the harvesting of that wood now his sole enterprise.

While he gathered the wood, Harry built a cache and a ladder to reach it, and on those stilts they stored the butchered bear and dozens of gutted fish, packed with snow, that Gus caught in the evenings. Behind the cabin Harry dug a hole, put a box around it, and called it the jakes. He did repairs on the cabin and made a second bunk. His work made Gus feel inadequate, until the last of the oak logs was laid in the snow beside the cabin and Harry said, “That’ll get us through.” Those simple words buoyed Gus more than he could explain.

Each night they ate bear. One night it was a slumgullion of boiled paws and snout with their last potato and onion. Another featured sweetbreads, which Gus could hardly choke down. Twice it was merely strips of meat fried in the bear’s own fat, a meal as rich as chocolate fudge.