“Yes.”
“And that you hope to see him soon?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“He will be pleased,” their mother said, but, released, they were already across the room.
Frau Stengel was, on the whole, an unsatisfactory substitute for a mother’s watchful care, and it was only because Mrs. Kennedy had been unable to make a better arrangement that Frau Stengel had become the governess of Jane and Ernestine. A mournful Volksdeutsch refugee from Prague, she looked well over her age, which was thirty-nine. She lived — with her husband — in the same hotel as the Kennedy family, and she had once been a schoolteacher, both distinct advantages. The girls were too young for boarding school, and the German day school nearby, while picturesque, had a crucifix over the door, which meant, Mrs. Kennedy was certain, that someone would try to convert her daughters. Of course, a good firm note to the principal might help: “The children’s father would be most distressed…” But no, the risk was too great, and in any case it had been agreed that the children’s religious instruction would be put off until Mr. Kennedy had made up his mind about God. Frau Stengel, if fat, and rather commonplace, and given to tearful lapses that showed a want of inner discipline, was not likely to interfere with Mr. Kennedy’s convictions. She admired the children just as they were, applauding with each murmur of praise their mother’s painstaking efforts to see that they kept their bloom. “So sweet,” she would say. “So herzig, the little sweaters.”
The children were much too pretty to be taxed with lessons; Frau Stengel gave them film magazines to look at and supervised them contentedly, rocking and filing her nails. She lived a cozy, molelike existence in her room on the attic floor of the hotel, surrounded by crocheted mats, stony satin cushions, and pictures of kittens cut from magazines. Her radio, which was never still, filled the room with soupy operetta melodies, many of which reminded Frau Stengel of happier days and made her cry.
Everyone had been so cruel, so unkind, she would tell the children, drying her eyes. Frau Stengel and her husband had lived in Prague, where Herr Stengel, who now worked at some inferior job in a nearby town, had been splendidly situated until the end of the war, and then the Czechs sent them packing. They had left everything behind — all the tablecloths, the little coffee spoons!
Although the children were bored by the rain and not being allowed to go out, they enjoyed their days with Frau Stengel. Every day was just like the one before, which was a comfort; the mist and the rain hung on the windows, Frau Stengel’s favorite music curled around the room like a warm bit of the fog itself, they ate chocolate biscuits purchased from the glass case in the dining room, and Frau Stengel, always good-tempered, always the same, told them stories. She told about Hitler, and the war, and about little children she knew who had been killed in bombardments or separated forever from their parents. The two little girls would listen, stolidly going on with their coloring or cutting out. They liked her stories, mostly because, like the room and the atmosphere, the stories never varied; they could have repeated many of them by heart, and they knew exactly at what point in each Frau Stengel would begin to cry. The girls had never seen anyone weep so much and so often.
“We like you, Frau Stengel,” Jane had said once, meaning that they would rather be shut up here in Frau Stengel’s pleasantly overheated room than be downstairs alone in their bedroom or in the bleak, empty dining room. Frau Stengel had looked at them and after a warm, delicious moment had wiped her eyes. After that, Jane had tried it again, and with the same incredulity with which she and Ernestine had learned that if you pushed the button the elevator would arrive, every time, they had discovered that either one of them could bring on the great, sad tears that were, almost, the most entertaining part of their lessons. “We like you,” and off Frau Stengel would go while the two children watched, enchanted. Later, they learned that any mention of their father had nearly the same effect. They had no clear idea of the nature of their father’s illness, or why it was sad; once they had been told that, because of his liver, he sometimes turned yellow, but this interesting evolution they had never witnessed.
“He’s yellow today,” Jane would sometimes venture.
“Ah, so!” Frau Stengel would reply, her eyes getting bigger and bigger. Sometimes, after thinking it over, she wept, but not always.
For the past few days, however, Frau Stengel had been less diverting; she had melted less easily. Also, she had spoken of the joyous future when she and Herr Stengel would emigrate to Australia and open a little shop.
“To sell what?” said Ernestine, threatened with change.
“Tea and coffee,” said their governess dreamily.
In Australia, Frau Stengel had been told, half the people were black and savage, but one was far from trouble. She could not see the vision of the shop clearly, and spoke of coffee jars painted with hearts, a tufted chair where tired clients could rest. It was important, these days, that she fix her mind on rosy vistas, for her doctor had declared, and her horoscope had confirmed, that she was pregnant; she hinted of something to the Kennedy children, some revolution in her life, some reason their mother would have to find another governess before spring. But winter, the children knew, went on forever.
This morning, when Jane and Ernestine knocked on her door, Frau Stengel was sitting by her window in a glow of sunshine reflected from the snow on the mountains. “Come in,” she said, and smiled at them. What pathetic little orphans they were, so sad, and so fond of her. If it had not been for their affection for her, frequently and flatteringly expressed, Frau Stengel would have given them up days ago; they reminded her, vaguely, of unhappy things. She had told them so many stories about the past that just looking at the two little girls made her think of it all over again — dolorous thoughts, certain to affect the character and appearance of the unborn.
“Mother doesn’t want us to go to the movies with you,” began Jane. She looked, expectant, but Frau Stengel said placidly, “Well, never do anything your mother wouldn’t like.” This was to be another of her new cheerful days; disappointed, the children settled down to lessons. Ernestine colored the pictures in a movie magazine with crayons, and Jane made a bracelet of some coral rosebuds from an old necklace her mother had given her.
“It’s nice here today,” said Jane. “We like it here.”
“The sun is shining. You should go out,” said Frau Stengel, yawning, quite as if she had not heard. “Don’t forget the little rubbers.”
“Will you come?”
“Oh, no,” Frau Stengel said in a tantalizing, mysterious way. “It is important for me to rest.”
“For us, too,” said Ernestine jealously. “We have to rest. Everybody rests. Our father rests all the time. He has to, too.”
“Because he’s so sick,” said Jane.
“He’s dead,” said Ernestine. She gave Gregory Peck round blue eyes.
Frau Stengel looked up sharply. “Who is dead?” she said. “You must not use such a word in here, now.”
The children stared, surprised. Death had been spoken of so frequently in this room, on the same level as chocolate biscuits and coral rosebud bracelets.
“He’s dead,” said Ernestine. “He died this morning.”
Frau Stengel stopped rocking. “Your father is dead?”
“Yes, he is,” said Ernestine. “He died, and we’re supposed to stay here with you, and that’s all.”
Their governess looked, bewildered, from one to the other; they sat, the image of innocence, side by side at her table, their hair caught up with blue ribbons.
“Why don’t we go out now?” said Jane. The room was warm. She put her head down on the table and chewed the ends of her hair. “Come on,” she said, bored, and gave Ernestine a prod with her foot.