“They cost several thousand dollars,” she said. Her voice lowered. “Do you think the bell ringer is after them?” she asked.
“After what, ma’am?” he said.
“After my demitasse cups?”
“I don’t think so, ma’am,” he said.
“Then why would he ring your bell at three-thirty in the morning?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Shavinsky, but it seems to me if he was after your cups he would ring your bell. Maybe he’s after our cups.”
“Do you have a valuable collection of demitasse cups?” Mrs. Shavinsky asked.
“No, ma’am.”
“Then how, would you please tell me, could he be after your demitasse cups, if you do not even own demitasse cups?”
“I meant our coffee cups. In the kitchen.”
“Why would he want those?” Mrs. Shavinsky asked.
“Maybe he likes big cups of coffee,” David suggested, and shrugged.
Mrs. Shavinsky wasn’t sure whether or not he was making fun of her, which he wasn’t, so she kicked him out.
That night, the doorbell rang at one o’clock in the morning.
David was asleep, but his father was still awake and watching the news final on television. The doorbell rang and David’s father leaped out of bed at the first ring and ran down the long corridor to the front door and pulled open the door without saying a word. There was no one there.
“Damn it!” he yelled, and woke up the whole house.
“What is it?” David’s mother called.
“Damn it, there’s no one here,” his father said.
“What is it, Mister Ravitch?” Helga called from her bedroom.
“Oh, go to sleep, Helga,” his father said.
David was awake by this time, but he knew better than to ask his father any silly questions. He just lay in bed watching the ceiling and realizing the doorbell had rung again, and his father had gone to answer it again, and again there was no one there. Through the wall separating his bedroom from his mother’s, he heard his father going into the room and getting into bed, and then he heard his mother whisper, “Don’t be upset.”
“I am upset,” his father whispered back.
“It’s probably just someone’s idea of a joke.”
“Some joke.”
“He’ll grow tired of it.”
“He’s got Helga scared out of her wits.”
“She’ll survive.”
“How the hell does he disappear so quickly?” his father whispered.
“I don’t know. Try to get some sleep, darling.”
“Mmm,” his father said.
“There.”
“Mmmmm.”
While David was investigating the hallway the next day, Mrs. Shavinsky’s black housekeeper came out with the garbage. Her name was Mary Vincent, but David was not sure whether Vincent was her last name or just part of her first name, the way “Ann” was part of his mother’s “Lois Ann.” What he was doing as Mary Vincent came out with the garbage was pacing off the number of steps from the stairway in the service alcove to the front doorbell.
“What are you doing, David?” Mary Vincent said.
“There are fifteen paces,” he said. “How long do you think it would take to run fifteen paces from our door back to those steps?”
“I don’t know. How long would it take?”
“Well, I don’t know, Mary Vincent. But whoever is ringing the doorbell manages to disappear before we can open the door. If he doesn’t use the elevator, he must use the steps, don’t you think?”
“Unless this here’s an inside job,” Mary Vincent said.
“What does that mean? An inside job?”
“Somebody in the apartment.”
“You mean somebody in our apartment?”
“Could be,” Mary Vincent said, and shrugged.
“Well, that would mean just my family.” David paused. “Or Helga.”
“I didn’t say nothing,” Mary Vincent said.
“Why would Helga want to ring the doorbell in the middle of the night?”
“I didn’t say nothing,” Mary Vincent said again. “All I know is she was mighty angry while your mother and you was away in France and she had to stay here and work, anyway, without no kind of a vacation.”
“But she is getting a vacation, Mary Vincent. Mother asked her if she wanted to take her vacation when we went away or in August sometime, and Helga said August.”
“That ain’t what she told me right here in this hallway, David.”
“When was this?”
“When we was putting out the garbage.”
“I mean when.”
“When you and your mother was in France.”
“Well, that sure sounds mighty strange to me,” David said.
“It sure sounds mighty strange to me, too,” Mary Vincent said, “that somebody would be ringing your doorbell in the middle of the night.”
“I don’t even see how Helga could manage it,” David said.
“Her bedroom is right close to the service entrance, ain’t it?”
“Yes, but...”
“Then what’s to stop her getting out of bed, opening the back door, ringing the front doorbell, and then coming in again through the back door and right into her bed? What’s to stop her, David?”
“Nothing, I guess. Only...”
“Only what?”
“Only why would she want to?”
“Spite, David. There’s people in this world who do things only because it brings misery to others. Spite,” Mary Vincent said, “plain and simple spite. If I was you, David, I would keep my eye on her.” Mary Vincent laughed, and then said, “In fact, I would keep both my eyes on her.”
David started keeping both his eyes on her that very night because the doorbell rang at exactly two-thirteen a.m. David had a watch that was waterproof and shock resistant which his grandfather gave him when he was seven years old. When he heard the doorbell ring, he jumped up in bed and turned on the light and looked at the watch, and it was two-thirteen A.M.
“There it is again,” he heard his father say in the next room, but David was listening for sounds coming from the back door. He didn’t hear anything. The doorbell rang again.
“Let him ring,” his father said. “If he thinks I’m getting out of bed every night, he’s crazy.”
The doorbell rang again. David still hadn’t heard a sound from Helga’s room. He kept looking at the sweep hand of his watch. It was now two-fifteen.
“Are you just going to let it ring?” his mother whispered.
“Yep,” his father said.
“All night?”
“If he wants to ring the damn thing all night, then I’ll let him ring it all night.”
“He’ll wake up Mrs. Shavinsky.”
“The hell with Mrs. Shavinsky.”
“He’ll wake up the whole building.”
“Who cares?” David’s father said, and his mother giggled, and the doorbell continued ringing. David still hadn’t heard a peep from Helga.
“Mom?” he said.
“David? Are you awake?”
“Yes. Do you want me to see who’s at the door?”
“You stay right in your bed,” his father said.
“Someone’s ringing the doorbell,” David said.
“I hear it.”
“Shouldn’t we see who it is?”
“We know who it is. It’s some nut who’s got nothing better to do.”
“Mom?”
“You heard your father.”
“Are we just gonna let him ring the damn thing all night?” David asked.
“What?” his father said.
“Are we gonna let him ring the damn thing all...?”
“I heard you the first time,” his father said.
“Well, are we?”
“If he wants to. Go to sleep. He’ll get tired soon enough.”