local Ben Franklin. Who is sick, who is well, who is adulterous. In the case of wartime Weimar, who had been taken away in the middle of the night.
Here and now, also in the evening but an ocean away and fifty years later, Trudy is pushing the speed limit as much as she dares: seventy-five on the highway, thirty in the populated zones. These small towns are all speed traps, and the interstate is not much better. When she reaches the New Heidelburg limits she slows still further, though she is frantic with the need to press the accelerator to the floor. Crawling along Main Street, Trudy is aware of curtains twitching, of faces gathering at the windows of Chic’s Pizza and Cathy’s Chat’N’Chew. She pretends not to see them. She knows that not only her presence here but the reason for it will have traveled through the whole town by morning. In fact, Trudy can hear the conversations as clearly as if she were eavesdropping on the party line: Did you see Trudy Swenson was here today? Nooooo. But I did hear her mother tried to burn the house down. Oh, you know, I heard that same thing! I guess Miss Big-City Swenson’ll finally have to put that old witch in the home.
Trudy doesn’t realize she has been holding her breath until she reaches the other side of New Heidelburg, at which point she lets it out in a foooooooof. The speedometer’s red needle creeps upward as she passes the last stand of trees, the defunct golf course, the Catholic cemetery—the town’s papists segregated from the Lutherans even in death—and a smattering of farms. Then there is nothing, until a few miles farther the New Heidelburg Health Clinic looms suddenly in Trudy’s high beams. The big red brick building, along with the nursing home crouched beside it like a mongrel dog, is completely isolated from the rest of the town, as if not only illness but old age—its dementia and vacancy and bed-wetting—demands quarantine.
Trudy turns into the clinic lot and parks, checking the dashboard clock. It is seven-thirty, two and a half hours since she received the call from Anna’s caseworker. Trudy has made good time. She shuts off the engine and headlights and sits in the dark for a minute. Then she sighs, pulls her muffler up over her face, and sprints into the building.
The hallway is quiet and dim, the check-in desk awash in fluorescence. As distracted by worry as Trudy is, the scene reminds her of a Hopper painting: the zone of bright light and the woman sitting alone in it, the distilled essence of isolation.
The nurse looks up at Trudy’s approach, inserting a finger in the paperback she is reading.
Can I help you? she asks.
I’m Trudy Swenson, says Trudy, slightly out of breath. My mother is here? Anna Schlemmer?
The nurse nods and reaches for a folder in the hanging files in front of her.
Room 113, she confirms. But visiting hours are over. You’ll have to come back in the morning. I’m sorry, hon.
No, please, says Trudy. I have to see her. I drove all the way from the Twin Cities. I came as quickly as I could—
I’m sure you did, says the nurse. But I can’t go against the rules. Your mom’s in the trauma unit—
Trauma! Trudy repeats. I was told the smoke inhalation was only minor!
Well, that’s true, says the nurse. There’s nothing for you to be real concerned about. But at your mom’s age, you know, we can’t take any chances. That’s why we’re keeping her for observation.
She gives Trudy a sympathetic smile. Why don’t you get some rest yourself and come back tomorrow? That’d be best.
Trudy stares at the nurse in frustration. For a moment she wonders whether the woman is deliberately barring her access to Anna—yet another slippery New Heidelburg trick. But no, although the nurse is about Trudy’s age, Trudy has never seen her before. She is not from the town; she must live somewhere nearby, Rochester, maybe, or LaCrosse.
Couldn’t I just sit with her for a minute? Trudy persists.
Listen, Mrs.— Swenson, is it?
Doctor, corrects Trudy automatically.
The nurse raises penciled brows.
You’re a doctor?
Of history, Trudy says, smiling.
The nurse regards her with some pity, and Trudy has the momentary and uncomfortable sensation of viewing herself as another might: a foolishly arrogant little blond woman in a pilled black overcoat, with a determined set to her jaw.
Please, she says.
The nurse sighs.
I really shouldn’t, she says. But . . . All right. Just