The Falling Leaves Home - Part 2

The Falling Leaves Home

Part 2

Harry Buschman

The meal began with pineapple salad, it is a specialty of the home and served whenever there was something in the wind. Even those who could not attend the evening meal, (the non-ambulatories who were compelled to eat in their rooms) would know something was up downstairs if they saw pineapple salad on their trays.

The occasion was the introduction of Claudine Prolifka as a new staff member, and Pastor Sweetwood rose to tell us of the fascinating things she was going to teach us to do. I was very nervous being in the same room with Claudine. Although I realized she would never recognize me, her uncanny resemblance to Heidi, and the memories of our wild love affair, made the situation unbearable. Something else occurred to me–my name! She was bound to remember my name! I couldn't keep that a secret for long. Then, when Pastor Sweetwood announced they would both pass among us to be formally introduced, I stood and asked to be excused.

For a brief moment Claudine and I locked eyes and stared straight at each other. Did I detect a glimmer of recognition? The look was identical to those angry glances of reproach I occasionally got from Heidi long ago whenever I did something she didn't approve of. Sweetwood, (damn his hide) remarked, "That's O.K. Charlie, we understand, we all have to go sometimes."

At that moment I wished Sweetwood would go permanently and take his mealy mouthed homilies with him. I glanced quickly at Claudine to see if the name "Charlie" rang a bell with her, but not a glimmer! Yet the quick glance was enough to assure me that it was indeed Heidi Hollander. She sat there holding her fork over her pineapple salad precisely the way Heidi did over her caviar that final evening at the Russian Tea Room.

I made my way to the door with no intention of coming back that evening and I slowly made my way upstairs. Realizing I would be awake and filled with gas on an empty stomach as well as a troubled mind all night. I stopped off at Bertha Wollensak's room. Bertha was not ambulatory and took all her meals in her wheelchair from which she could look out her small window at the brick wall across the street. Her bones were brittle with age and arthritis had nailed her joints shut but she had a sharp mind and an eloquence of speech that seemed to grow more flexible as her body grew more rigid. She could keep a secret too.

"C'mon in Charlie, what's the pineapple salad for?"

"The new Activities Director," I replied, "You going to finish those chicken croquettes?"

She screwed up her nose at the croquettes, "Help yourself, finish the squash too––honestly everything they give you here looks like it's been half eaten before you get it" .... she cocked her head at me a little .... "you look a little sickly, Charlie––have a bad day at the office?"

Well why not I thought, if there was anyone I would trust with a secret in this place it was Bertha. "Can you keep a secret Bertha?"

"Charlie Morasse, I've got so many secrets I have to keep them in folders. Every brick in that wall over there hides a secret. I know something about everybody here, even O'Casey. The only one I'm not holding secrets for is Sweetwood," she leaned back a bit in her chair and grimaced. "I'm looking forward to his secrets, I'll bet he's got some beauties."

So I let it out. It all came in a rush. I told her about the magic days before the war, long before I met Hester, how those days had come back to haunt me, and how guilty a man can feel when they take so strong a place beside the memories of being a husband and a father. "Sixty years ago, Bertha, and I can still remember her perfume, the sound of her heels on a hardwood floor, the funny way she would say 'Sharlee'––she was French/Austrian, you know?" Then I went on to tell her about Claudine. "They are one and the same Bertha––no doubt about it!"

Bertha put her claw-like hand on mine, "You old dog, Charlie .... you must have been a pair. I just hope there's a couple of old bastards out there who remember me that way. They should––I wasn't always like this you know."

"I'm sure they do, Bertha––but suppose one of them walked in here now .... would you recognize him?" That was the whole point. The implication was not lost on Bertha who in any case looked ready for bed with another Falling Leaves secret to digest along with her half-eaten chicken croquettes.

I was about ready to turn in also. It had been a long day. If Seymour hadn't chosen this day of all days to slip away, I might have laid it all out for him.

So here I am, flat on my back with Hugo snoring next to me, going back over the life I've led. I've been a good husband on the whole faithful, but with a nagging memory of youth and romance. A time when there was no tomorrow and sharing that time with a woman I really never got to know. If the war had not come, if I'd never met Hester, if Heidi was all there ever was .... what would it have been like? .... What then?

Are you Heidi, Claudine? .... it's been such a long day.