Escape Artist Read online

  Nodding to Miss Ivy, I left the city room, notebook in hand. As I walked on the wide-planked sidewalks of College Avenue, I began my routine stops. Before long, I stood in front of the poster announcing Houdini’s appearance at the Lyceum. Those massive chains around his body; those piercing eyes, challenging. What would he think of my interview when it appeared? Gripping my notebook, I headed up College Avenue.

  Later that afternoon, already finished typing my morning copy, I met Esther for a sarsaparilla at Neumeister’s Drug Store. Esther would tag along on my weekly stop at the high school to gather information about drama productions, oratory contests, the honor society, athletic meets. As we walked, I buzzed about my interview with Houdini, and Esther, wide-eyed, told me I was the luckiest girl in Appleton. I beamed.

  Both of us liked to drop in at the old Clarion office, where I’d been the Local and Personal Editor. The four years spent at Ryan High School had been happy ones, filled with chatter, laughter, achievement, friendships. Good, good days. A boat ride on the Fox, a picnic at Aloah Beach at Lake Winnebago. In winter an ice-numbing sleigh ride across the pond beyond the high school. Life in those high-school years was spent rushing in the hallways, rehearsing school plays, dancing at the Masonic Hall. Summer days were spent lounging, carefree, in the hammock under the backyard cherry tree, devouring a Robert W. Chambers romance. Life only became serious when I left those strong walls.

  I loved the old school. On the wide auditorium stage where the school’s amateur theatrical society still mounted bowdlerized Shakespeare and creaky classics like Anna Mowett’s Fashion, I’d excelled at oratory and dramaturgy; my thunderous rendition of “The Man Without a Country” sailed over the acoustical heaven until I was woefully intoxicated with my own performance. Up there on that high school stage, up there, the lead role in A Scrap of Paper no less, the embryonic actress; and now, down there in the subterranean vault of the Crescent office. To the depths.

  We walked into the building, greeted Miss Hepplewhyte, the secretary, who sat eagle-eyed by the front door, chronicler of tardiness and noise levels; errand runner, mistress of the moral accusation, finger pointer at any mischievous lad. “Perhaps, Miss Ferber, your hat is a little too showy for civics,” she’d suggested during my freshman year, a line I enjoyed repeating. She nodded at us.

  But before Esther and I could maneuver past this unofficial sentry to Principal Hippolyte Jones’ office where we’d be welcomed by the overflowing man who looked like Santa Claus with his enormous belly and his white whiskers—St. Nicholas with a pince-nez, my mother described him once—we met Homer Timm, barreling out of his side office.

  “Well, well, well. Fresh from a scintillating night at the Lyceum.” He bowed to Esther but not to me.

  Homer Timm was dressed in the same shiny black broadloom suit he’d worn to the theater. While Principal Jones cared not a jot that I roamed the corridors during class time, Vice-Principal Timm cared a little too much, though he often masked his displeasure with his mechanical smile. He shared that smile with me now.

  “I’m afraid Principal Jones is in a meeting with the mayor.” He slipped back into his office and returned with some scribbled sheets. “Here. The cast of the graduation production of The College Widow. Performance dates.” He frowned. “Satire should be off limits for school students.”

  “And why is that?” I asked. He didn’t answer. “Next year, perhaps, Weber and Fields doing Hoity-Toity.”

  He bowed slightly. “Only if you return as our star.”

  He turned away, leaving us standing there. I looked at Esther who was suppressing a fit of giggles, so we hurried out of the building.

  We sat on a bench outside the front entrance, with me scribbling some notes about the Ladies Temperance Society Silver Medal Contest to be held at the Company G Armory. Esther nudged me and pointed. I looked up. “What?”

  “Look.”

  An ungainly man lumbered up the sidewalk toward the front entrance of the school. He paused to catch his breath, adjusting the coat that fit him poorly, and checked a watch fob. He shuffled with a pronounced limp, dragging a deadened leg as though pulling a stubborn tree trunk. Esther shrank back, hunched her shoulders, birdlike. The man slumped by, his leaden foot thudding on the wooden stairs.

  “Tell me,” I whispered. “Why is he here?”

  Because, of course, I recognized Christ Lempke, a German immigrant who’d been wounded in the Spanish-American War. He’d been a farmer and mill worker living in a ramshackle homestead out on Bay Road, a genial man, friendly even. But the brief, splendid war had changed that. Returned home with a shattered leg and a dull, spiritless heart, he became a bitter man who hid away on the bleak farm. At the Fourth of July parade he looked unhappy, unresponsive to all the flag waving and firecrackers and hip-hip-hurrah. I always thought it odd that he even showed up.

  Esther leaned in. “He brings Frana to school in the morning and collects her in the afternoon. He’s like her…warden. She can’t leave the school grounds, even for midday meal.”

  Frana Lempke, like Kathe Schmidt, was another casual friend of Esther—and another pretty girl that I had little use for. Frana had a small speaking part in A Scrap of Paper, and, to my horror, garnered slavish attention from the giddy, applauding boys. Only rarely did Frana join Esther and other young people for boating excursions on the Fox because her family kept a close eye on her. Most times when Esther organized these breezy outings I chose not to go along, for I felt too much radiance coming off Frana and Esther, even off the annoying Kathe. Three beauties, and me. So I stayed home with a book.

  Frana, a senior, sometimes worked for Esther’s mother during spring housecleaning or during the late-summer canning season. Frankly, I thought her too pretty and flighty to be allowed near pressure-cooked fruit and vegetables. Frana strolled down College Avenue warbling “I’m Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage” in a shrill soprano, which turned heads. She told perfect strangers that she intended to become a famous actress, an obvious ploy to get attention from the simpering, foolish men of the town who gazed long at her buxom farm-girl body, too mature for such a young girl. And one so ethereally fair-haired and blue-eyed. A girl, I felt, destined to collect dirty dishes in the dining rooms of the Sherman House.

  “For Heaven’s sake, why is her uncle escorting her?”

  “Well,” Esther confided, “I only just learned this. But you know how old-fashioned the Lempkes are. They’re German Puritans or something.”

  “There’s no such thing, Esther.”

  “Like Mennonites maybe.”

  I got impatient. “So what? They’re strict Catholics. Does it matter?”

  “Well, I guess someone told Frana’s father that Frana has been seeing someone.”

  “For land’s sake, Esther, we aren’t living in the Dark Ages.”

  “No, no. She’s been sneaking out after dark. And it’s an older man.” Esther waited, delirious.

  I sat up. “Who?”

  “Frana won’t say. No one knows. She told her father—so I heard—that she’s gonna marry him. He’s gonna take her to New York.”

  “But who is it?”

  “I told you, she won’t say, but someone said she was chatting with one of those annoying drummers staying at the Sherman House.”

  I understood. How many times I’d sauntered by the popular hotel where itinerant salesmen, bored from their travels, abandoned their worn sample cases and lingered on the veranda, cigar smoke circling their heads, heads swiveling back and forth as they watched the town girls. Or wandered outside after a leisurely massage at the Turkish baths, flushed and friendly, brazenly flirting with the maidens of the town. Innocent enough perhaps, but annoying. And most were genteel, proper sorts, these lonely men missing wives or girlfriends. Now and then one of them, sloshy with foamy beer or an extra whiskey in the belly, muttered some indiscreet remark. Even a bold invitation. But seldom. The hosteller was too rigid to allow loose and lascivious behavior; any condemned drummer, cardboard s
uitcase in hand, samples tucked under armpits, was booted out.

  “But surely she can’t be interested in any of those men,” I insisted. “I mean, no one takes them seriously.”

  “Smooth talkers, they are. And glib.”

  “Well, Frana is a foolish sort…”

  “An innocent.” Esther looked at me. “I know you don’t care for her.”

  “She’s vain and empty-headed,” I blurted out. “She draws attention to herself. I saw her singing…”

  “Just because she’s so pretty.” Esther had a malicious twinkle in her eye.

  “Prettiness has nothing to do with it, Esther.” I was hot now. “She shakes those blond tresses and expects the earth to stop its rotation.”

  “Anyway, Edna, her puritan family has imprisoned her. Locked her up. I mean, the uncle walks her to school in the morning and is there”—she pointed to the empty doorway—“in the afternoon.”

  “I wouldn’t stand for it.”

  “You’re not Frana, Edna. What can she do? My mother said…” The door opened and the students started to file out.

  Though I glanced at them, I focused on Esther. “Tell me, what does Frana say about this?”

  “She’s not allowed to talk to her friends outside of school. For four days now this has been going on.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I thought you knew.”

  “Maybe someone should talk to the drummer.”

  Boys and girls we knew waved hello, chattered, strolled by. One girl, to be married that summer, told me she’d be having a china shower and expected a notice in the Crescent. When she left, I muttered, “Crockery for the crass at heart.” I was getting impatient; I had to get back to the city room. Yet Esther’s gossip intrigued me. Frana, always the giggly, vacuous girl, suddenly had become interesting—the captive maiden squired to and from school by her crippled uncle, who admittedly looked none too pleased with his task. I lingered on the bench, if only to watch the inglorious departure.

  A noisy gaggle of girls rushed by and suddenly, emerging from the crowd, an animated Kathe Schmidt slipped onto the bench beside Esther. I frowned and thought of burnt roast beef.

  Kathe was laughing as she spoke. “Esther, you should have seen Mr. Timm’s face when Mr. Lempke opened the front door.”

  “What happened?”

  Kathe spoke to Esther in a manufactured lisp. “He yelled, ‘Sir, you storm in here like Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill.’”

  “That’s not funny,” Esther said. “He doesn’t have a lisp.”

  I shook my head. “Did he really say that, Kathe?”

  Kathe smirked. “It was something like that. He wasn’t pleased.” The young girl rattled on and on, more drivel about Frana’s plight, driving me to distraction. I stood. Out of here. I was in the presence of a hot air balloon.

  At that moment Frana and her uncle appeared in the empty doorway, the two of them standing there, frozen; and I felt sorry for the girl I’d never liked. For Frana, caught in the flickering shafts of sunlight, looked scared, her face pale and drawn. Dressed in a drab gray dress, with a bunch of lace ruffles gathered about her neck and the incongruous ribbons she always wore in her hair, she seemed a cadaver, her uncle’s fingers grasping her shoulder.

  Then the tableau unfroze and Christ Lempke hobbled down the stairs, dragging the girl. Frana’s eyes moved left and right, caught sight of the three of us on the bench, and her body stiffened. Her uncle tugging her along, Frana attempted to move gracefully; but Lempke’s clumsy walk, the dragging of that bum foot, threw off her stride, and she kept stumbling.

  When she neared us, she suddenly became defiant, twisting to face her uncle. He loosened his hold and seemed to spin, ready to topple.

  “You’re embarrassing me,” she sputtered.

  He followed her glance to Esther, Kathe and me. “You disgrace us, Liebchen.” A hoarse whisper.

  For some reason, Kathe was amused, a low whistle escaping her throat as she watched the squirming Frana, a fragile rag doll, loose-limbed and buckling.

  “I ain’t.” Frana then muttered something in German that I didn’t catch.

  “The behavior of a whore,” he hollered.

  Frana’s face turned scarlet and she tried to break away. Christ Lempke, furious, slapped her across the face. Frana screamed and burst into tears.

  Lempke maneuvered the sobbing girl away from the school grounds until they were out of sight.

  Kathe was laughing out loud.

  “What, Kathe?” I snapped. “What’s so amusing?”

  Kathe pouted. “Nothing. He called her a whore.”

  I stood to walk away, but spoke directly into her face. “Doubtless it’s a word you’ve heard before.”

  ***

  I sat in Pfefferle’s Elm Tree Bakery sipping thick black kaffee with rich cream and munching on a piece of Apfelkuchen that Greta, the plump German waitress, just served me. Late afternoon, the small room quiet, I’d settled myself into an alcove under a print of a helmeted and mustachioed Bismarck in regal uniform, his face perpetually at war. I was writing an account of a social tea given by the Ladies Auxiliary of the Knights of Pythias, at which the Reverend Mr. Bronson Peck spoke of missionary work he’d accomplished in Jaffa, near Jerusalem. What I wanted to write about was that one of the lodge members, ninety-year-old Ezra Platt, had slipped into a noisy slumber and kept blurting out the word “balderdash” at odd moments. I wasn’t convinced he was really asleep.

  But my mind kept wandering to Frana and her abusive uncle—the awfulness of that scene. The fear in Frana’s face. The slap…

  High-pitched laughter snapped me out of my reverie. Kathe Schmidt had walked in and took a small table by the front door. Was she laughing to herself? No, Kathe had said something to Greta. Not wanting to be seen, I pushed my chair back, blocked by the thick velour draperies, and sipped my coffee. The pastry was warm to the touch, perfect. The room had a few late-afternoon stragglers: two businessmen at one table, one of them deftly rolling a cigarette; two women at another, both reading the ads in the Post. Within seconds the door opened and Kathe looked up, expectant. She looked disappointed when she saw it was Mr. McCaslin, the drama coach and English teacher from the high school, who coldly nodded to her as he took a table at the back of the bakery where, unfortunately, he caught my eye. He dropped his eyes to his table. Within seconds he seemed fascinated by the strudel before him. An unpopular teacher, Mr. McCaslin made a point of not acknowledging students he saw outside school halls. He also famously liked Pfefferle’s legendary strudel.

  A moment later Kathe’s boyfriend Jake Smuddie joined her, and the two huddled together. Loudly, in German, Kathe ordered a cherry-studded Schaumtorte. Jake said no, nothing for him. A glass of spring water, maybe.

  Ignoring Jake’s plea that she lower her voice, Kathe breezily exaggerated the episode of Frana and her uncle, her voice loud and rich with laughter. Did she want everyone to hear? Frana, oddly, was Kathe’s friend. Supposedly they were best friends. Annoyed by the shrill young girl, the businessmen glanced over.

  Jake Smuddie was a good-looking boy. On rare, vagrant occasions, I acknowledged to myself that I found him appealing. He was a footballer with wide shoulders and a broad chest. He wasn’t a bookish boy, an irony, given the fact that his father was the severe Herr Professor, Solomon Smuddie, lecturer on Biblical Archeology—or some such yawner—and also the man with the first automobile on Appleton streets, notorious for scaring the poor horses in town.

  Now, with Kathe tucking her head into his neck, Jake stopped her flow of chatter. “Why are you always making fun of poor Frana? It ain’t nice.”

  Kathe, jerking back, accused him. “I thought you were over her.” The brazen Kathe, oblivious of her surroundings, informed me plus the startled businessmen, the two women, and the frowning Mr. McCaslin that Jake had, indeed, seen Frana last year, had taken her to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union Dance at the Masonic Hall. “You obviously
long for that girl who abandoned you.”

  Frana and Kathe were alike in looks: the same Germanic fair hair, oval faces, cornflower blue eyes. Frana was delicate, doll-like, breakable. Kathe was coarse, rough mannered, and blunt, her pretty features unfinished, as though God had forgotten to tidy up the edges.

  “I don’t,” Jake stammered. “It’s just that you’re always mean about Frana.”

  Her German accent grew prominent now. “Because her very name makes you act so…so…strange.”

  “Not true!” But listening, I understood that Jake Smuddie still had feelings for Frana Lempke. His whole voice shifted, the timbre softened. His voice was low-key and almost feminine with wistfulness, even hurt, in his tone.

  “Well,” Kathe summed up, “she’s obviously playing with fire. She has that forbidden lover.” She said the last two words with bold capitalization fit for a stage melodrama. “I already told you some old man wants to take her away and marry her, no less.”

  Jake shrugged. “She’s always wanted to leave Appleton and go to New York to be an actress.”

  “Ha!” Kathe crowed. “She ain’t an actress. You know, one time she even dragged me along while she followed that actress Mary Allibone as she headed for rehearsals at the Lyceum. Kept talking to her. I mean, Mary Allibone—world famous. Mary said, ‘Leave me alone.’ At the theater she demanded that Gustave Timm shoo Frana away, but Frana started wailing about being an actress, going onstage at the Lyceum, mind you. Mr. Timm tried to be kind to her but then he got angry and said go away. He almost called the police. He caught me rolling my eyes and shot me a look. Like I was part of her craziness. I got scared but Frana kept pleading. One of the ushers came and led us out. Humiliating, I tell you.” She grumbled. “An actress. Really!”

  “She was in A Scrap of Paper.”

  “And she read her lines like…like reading the alphabet backwards.” She made a smacking sound with her lips, doubtless enjoying her doughnut. “And you think that her family will allow that. Some sick old drummer dragging her off to New York. Jake, you are so simple. Her uncle will club her to death first. Her brothers will…You should see how he slapped her.”