Since it was Sunday and the store was officially closed, we had it all to ourselves. Bertha gave us a tour, and I saw that she had reason to be proud. It was a beautiful place. The bookshop had once been a private home, and it was naturally cozy and welcoming. There were wood-burning fireplaces to read by, and a winding staircase leading up to a long gallery on the second floor landing, a natural exhibition space. The drawings and paintings that Pamela had sent ahead were uncrated but still wrapped in brown paper. Bertha had arranged them in small piles.
Also upstairs was the children’s reading room. A wall of windows reached from floor to ceiling, offering a bird’s-eye view of the Public Garden and the lagoon where the Swan Boats would glide silently by come spring. On the other side of the room was Green-away House, a huge dollhouse. Bertha explained that Alice-Heidi, the official bookstore doll, lived there. The fa?ade of the house was completely open so that children could easily reach in and rearrange furniture at will.
Pamela walked over and looked in all the rooms.
“But where is she?” she asked.
“Alice-Heidi? She’s not there? Oh, she must be right . . . there she is, one of the children must have been reading to her.” Bertha picked up the blonde-haired doll from a little wooden chair and set her down in front of the dollhouse.
We returned downstairs, and Bertha set out some coffee in a sitting area by one of the fireplaces. The Velveteen Rabbit sat on the little table in front of us, along with Anne Carroll Moore’s new book, Nicholas, A Manhattan Christmas Story—the story of a little wooden Dutch boy visiting the city.
Pamela barely spoke. After a while, she excused herself and went upstairs to unwrap her artwork.
Bertha and I chatted about her business and about the latest crop of children’s books, but after a bit she looked at me almost apologetically.
“Is Pamela all right, Margery? She seems rather . . . tired, perhaps?”
I was about to answer when I thought I heard Pamela’s voice.
Startled, I asked, “Is there anyone else up there?”
“No, not a soul,” Bertha said.
We went upstairs. Pamela was holding a drawing. And she was talking to it.
Aren’t you a nice fairy, but why don’t you . . . should you . . . hide behind that tree, if you can find that tree . . . run! Run! Run! Why it’s right there, will you please move now . . . ? Why don’t you hide behind that tree . . . ? Do you think there’s a ghost . . . ? Are you afraid to see a ghost . . . just run . . . run!
I was too stunned to make a move at first. Through the huge windows dark winter clouds skittered across the sky. The light in the room flickered. Pamela all bright, then shadowed. Then bright again.
Pamela put the drawing down. She walked over to Green-away House. I watched, detached, as if I were watching a play, as she pulled out Alice-Heidi and set her gently down on the rug. She took a chair from the dollhouse and set it next to the doll. Then a desk, and a bathtub. She picked up Alice-Heidi again. Oh I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. . . . She can wear the rose-colored dress. She can wear the rose-colored dress; tell her to wear the rose-colored dress. . . . Oh, is it lost? Have you lost it?
I woke up from my stupor and went over to my daughter and put my arm around her and held her to me.
I looked at Bertha and the compassion in her eyes unnerved me.
“She really has been terribly overworked lately. . . . I’m very sorry, Bertha, but I must get her home right away, I’m afraid.”
“Of course, Margery. Of course.”
We managed to find a taxi. It was only once we were settled in the back that I noticed the tears running down Pamela’s face. I pressed my handkerchief into her hand. I didn’t ask her why she was crying, what was it all about, because I knew she couldn’t have answered.
I was afraid that I knew, though. The tears of even a young girl can be the tears of an exhausted soul.
margery
At home in Grove Street—we’d had to move from Macdougal Alley to make room for the artist from France—Pamela moved trancelike around the rooms, picking up small objects—pencils, ashtrays, china curios, eyeglass cases, candles, silverware—and lining them up in neat rows. She had to make them perfectly straight. It was never quite perfect. She straightened the rows over and over.
She spent a week in bed. She refused to eat.
Sara called to invite her to dinner. I was surprised that Pamela agreed, and worried once she had left the apartment. She didn’t seem right at all.
Late in the evening the phone rang. Pamela wasn’t feeling well, Sara said. Francesco had to go and retrieve her.
She’d had too much wine, that was obvious. But that was hardly the problem. She kept us up all night, talking and weeping incessantly. Nine hours it went on. Nine hours. How is a thing like that possible?
She took to her bed again. She was delirious for days. Feverish. Talking gibberish. Francesco and I were frightened.
As soon as we could, when she was calmer, Francesco and I brought her to a physician. The doctor’s words should not have surprised me, yet I felt each one as a jolt. Nerves. Hysteria. Breakdown. We all agreed—there seemed to be no choice—that Pamela should be admitted to Four Winds, a hospital in the New York countryside whose specialty was ministering to those of fragile mental health. The doctor said it was unlikely that she’d leave before the end of summer.
Four Winds, Pamela said. It’s a lovely name.
margery
It seemed such a long trip. We’d borrowed the Studebaker from Ira Gershwin, a regular customer at Francesco’s store who’d become a great friend. Francesco was nervous—he had little experience driving in America. I tried to help, kept studying the Standard Oil map, but I was unused to navigating with maps, and we got lost. Under other circumstances, it would have been amusing, a great adventure. But tension permeated the automobile, swelling with every mile. I should have thought it would burst the top right off.
We rode mainly in silence. Francesco occasionally hummed softly. I kept flipping the map, folding and refolding it. I don’t think Pamela said a word during the whole trip.
Eventually, we found Katonah, a pretty little village, and asked a policeman if he could direct us to Four Winds. He pointed ahead, said it was just down the road.
There was a long drive up a hill, and there it was. It looked more like a very nice hotel than a hospital. There was a lovely main house with a porte cochere with columns of stone.
It was dark inside. A highly polished wood floor. A large office. Paperwork to fill out. Then we all traipsed down the hall to Pamela’s room. It wasn’t a bad room. Two windows at the end looked over the high lawn behind the main building and to the woods beyond. The leaves were at their last bit of color. The room smelled of pine and ammonia and the mix of starch and faint perfume emanating from the nurse who never left our side.
We met Pamela’s new doctor. Dr. Boardman. Thank God, I thought, he seems a very caring man. It was more his manner than anything, for he said very little, just that it would take time to sort things out, that Pamela would most likely not be home until summertime. But he would be sure to keep us apprised. We could call anytime we liked.