The first time the doorbell rang, it was two o’clock in the morning on July 29th, which was a Monday.
David’s bedroom was right behind his mother’s and when the doorbell rang, he sat up in bed thinking it was the telephone. In fact, he could hear his mother lifting the phone from the receiver alongside her bed, since she thought it was the phone, too. She said, “Hello,” and then the ringing came again, from the front door, and there was a short puzzled silence. His mother put the phone back on its cradle and whispered, “Fred, you’d better get up.”
“What?” David’s father said.
“There’s someone at the door.”
“What?” he said again.
“There’s someone at the door.”
His father must have looked at the clock alongside the bed because David heard him whisper, “Don’t be ridiculous, Lo. It’s two o’clock in the morning.” His mother’s name was Lois, but everybody called her Lo except David’s grandmother who called her Lois Ann, which was her full name.
“Someone just rang the doorbell,” his mother said.
“I didn’t hear anything,” his father said.
“Fred, please see who it is, won’t you?”
“All right, but I’m telling you I didn’t hear anything.”
The doorbell rang again at just that moment. In the next bedroom, there was a sudden sharp silence. From the other end of the apartment, where the housekeeper slept, David heard her yelling, “Mister Ravitch, there is somebody at the door.”
“I hear it, Helga, thank you,” my father called, and then a light snapped on, and David heard him swearing as he got out of bed. David went to the doorway of his room just as his father passed by in his pajamas.
“What is it?” David whispered.
“Someone at the door,” he said. “Go back to bed.”
His father walked through the long corridor leading to the front door, stubbing his toe on something in the dark and mumbling about it, and then turning on the light in the entrance foyer.
“Who’s there?” he said to the closed door.
Nobody answered.
“Is someone there?” he asked.
Again, there was no answer. From where David was standing at the end of the long hall, he heard his father sigh, and then heard the lock on the door being turned, and the door being opened. There was a moment’s hesitation, and then his father closed the door again, and locked it, and began walking back to his bedroom.
“Who was it?” David asked.
“Nobody,” his father answered. “Go back to sleep.”
That was the first time with the doorbell.
The second time was two nights later, on a Wednesday, and also in the early morning, though not two o’clock. David must have been sleeping very soundly because he didn’t even hear the doorbell ringing. The thing that woke him up was his mother’s voice saying something to his father as he ran down the corridor to the front door. Helga had come out of her room and was standing in her pyjamas watching his father as he went to the door and unlocked it. David’s mother was wearing the same white nylon puffy robe she used to wear when they were in Paris.
“Did they ring the doorbell again?” David asked her.
“Yes,” she said, and just then his father opened the door.
“Who is it?” David’s mother asked.
“There’s no one here, Lo.”
“But I heard the bell, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I heard it.”
“I heard it, too, Mister Ravitch,” Helga said.
“I wonder,” David’s father said.
“What do you think?”
“Maybe someone rang it by mistake.”
“Monday night, too.”
“It’s possible.”
“And left without waiting for the door to open?”
“Maybe he was embarrassed. Maybe he realized his mistake and...”
“I don’t know,” David’s mother said, and shrugged. “It all seems very peculiar.” She turned to David and cupped his chin in her hand. “David, I want you to go back to bed. You look very sleepy.”
“I’m not sleepy at all. We used to stay up much later than this in Paris.”
“How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm?” his father said, and both his mother and Helga laughed. “Listen, Lo, I’d like to check this with the elevator operator.”
“That’s a good idea. Come, David, bed.”
“Can’t I just stay to see who it was?” David asked.
“There’s probably some very simple explanation,” his mother said.
The elevator operator was a man David had never seen before, about fifty years old, but with a hearing aid. David knew most of the elevator men in the building, but he supposed this one always had the shift late at night, which is why he’d never seen him before this. The man told his father his name was Oscar, and asked him what the trouble was.
“Someone just rang our doorbell.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. Did you take anyone up to our floor just now?”
“No, sir. Not since I came on, sir.”
“And when was that?”
“I came on at midnight, sir.”
“And you didn’t take anyone up to the eleventh floor all night?”
“No, sir.”
“What is it?” David heard a voice ask, and he looked past his father to the opposite end of the hallway where Mrs. Shavinsky had opened her door and was looking out. “What’s all the noise about?” she said. “Do you realize what time it is?” She was wearing a big flannel nightgown with red roses strewn all over it, printed ones. Her hair was in curlers.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Shavinsky,” David’s father said. “We didn’t mean to awaken you.”
“Yes, well you did,” Mrs. Shavinsky said, as pleasant as always. “What’s going on?”
“Someone rang our bell,” his mother said.
“Good morning, Mrs. Shavinsky,” David said.
“Good morning, young man,” Mrs. Shavinsky said. “It is far past your bedtime.”
“I know,” David said. “We’re up to catch the bell ringer.”
“Did you say someone rang your bell?” Mrs. Shavinsky asked, ignoring David and looking up at his mother.
“Yes. Monday night, and now again.”
“Well, who was it?” Mrs. Shavinsky asked.
“That’s what we don’t know,” David said. “That’s why we’re all here in the hallway.”
“It was probably some D-R-U-N-K,” Mrs. Shavinsky said.
“No, it wasn’t no drunk, ma’am,” Oscar said. “I didn’t take nobody up here.”
“Then why would anyone want to ring your bell at three-thirty in the morning?” Mrs. Shavinsky asked, and no one could answer her.
Later, David’s mother kissed his cheeks and the tip of his nose and his forehead and hugged him tight and tucked him in.
Mrs. Shavinsky told him about her demitasse cups the next day, and when he hinted that he didn’t believe such a collection existed, she asked him to wipe off his feet and come into the apartment. The apartment smelled of emptiness, the way a lot of apartments smell when there is only one person living in them. She had her demitasse collection in a china closet in the dining room. David told her it must be fun to have a big dining room table like the one she had, and then he looked at her demitasse collection, which was really quite nice. She had about thirty-seven cups, he guessed. Four of them had gold insides. She said they were very valuable.
“How much do they cost?” he asked her.
“You should never ask anyone that,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because it is impolite.”
“But you told me they were valuable, Mrs. Shavinsky.”
“They are,” she said.
“Then why is it impolite to ask how much they cost?”
“It’s not only impolite,” she said, “it’s impertinent as well.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Shavinsky,” he said.