The History of History

THREE • Time, Flowers


In November 2004, there was an event, and it is best to describe precisely how it happened. Right from the start, it was a ruinous development. Margaret came home from the university one afternoon when the final leaves were yellow, and found a letter in her mailbox, standing like a flag of surrender.

It had been a long time since Margaret last received a letter. The upstart scrap of intimacy—for she saw it as an intimacy from the beginning—surged at her, a gust of wind. Merely the sight of the handwritten address, and she felt herself begin to tilt.

When she looked at the letter more closely, however, she found that, no, in fact it was not addressed to her. She was Margaret Taub, but this was for a Margaret Täubner. And then she checked the return address, and it too was unfamiliar. The letter must have come to her in error. Perhaps someone searched out an address on the Internet and tangled the rows of names.

But even though it was not addressed to her, Margaret opened the letter. For some reason she could not name, she was excited. On this yellow autumn day, Margaret Taub became more excited than she had been in a very long time.

The letter turned out to be nothing but a formality—a medical doctor summoning this other Margaret T. to an appointment. Margaret’s face fell, although only the Hausmeister raking leaves in the courtyard garden was there to observe the plunge.

The wording, however, struck Margaret as unique and it is worth reproducing it here in full.

Very honored Frau Margaret Täubner,

Belatedly I have scheduled an appointment for you on Tuesday afternoon, November 16, 2004, at 15:00. Please come to my office in the Schwäbische Strasse and bring your insurance card.

I would also like to add, in case you are concerned: let it be known that, although you and I have not always seen eye to eye, I remain interested in your fate.

With friendly greetings,

Dr. Gudrun Arabscheilis



Margaret glanced over it, and then over it once again. The strange show of familiarity in the second paragraph puzzled her. “You and I have not always seen eye to eye.” More perhaps than a medical doctor was in the habit of expressing to a patient.

Margaret took the letter up into her apartment.

She went to make tea, but waiting for the water to boil, pushed by an unseen hand, she came back almost instantly to the whispering letter. She reread it, tracing its grain with her fingertip. The letter gave off a gentle warmth, an oddly bright iridescence. She noticed too, in the letterhead, a telephone number. She took up the phone and dialed.

The answering voice was brittle, feminine.

“I’m afraid I received a letter from your office in error,” Margaret began. “A letter meant for a Margaret Täubner. But I’m Margaret Taub.”

The woman commanded Margaret to hold. Footfalls went clapping—heels against wooden floors, echoes against high ceilings, slamming doors. There was a swish and the phone was taken up again. Margaret found she had been holding her breath.

“Doctor Arabscheilis has instructed me to tell you—if you are the Margaret who lives at Grunewaldstrasse 88—” The woman cleared her throat: “Are you Margaret at Grunewaldstrasse 88?”

“Yes, I am,” Margaret said.

“In that case, she said to tell you expressly that your family name is of no interest to her. She’ll expect you on Tuesday the sixteenth.”

Margaret was astonished.

“I don’t know the doctor,” she said.

“Better you come here and work it out with her yourself.” The woman was businesslike in the usual way.

“No, but thank you, I—” Margaret felt the muscles of her back tightening.

“You’ll discuss it with the Frau Doktor when you’re here,” the woman cut her off. “Auf Wiederhören.” The line went dead.

Margaret did not call back. She sat with the lifeless receiver in her hand for a good ten minutes, maybe more.

•

By Tuesday the sixteenth, Margaret had in fact decided to appear at the appointment. Since the call to the doctor’s office, the flowers of time had been blossoming, cracking open slowly instead of racing toward death. The key, she thought, was that it had been such a long time since anyone had paid any attention to her, even mistaken attention, and, truly, it must be admitted that despite everything, Margaret was lonely. Now here was this doctor: interested in her fate. She did not yet suspect nor wish for anything more than companionship.