Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death (17 page)

We now had the correct window, but unfortunately it was not open. Of course, being an unoccupied room, this was what we expected. With me holding the flashlight, Mrs. K slid the special tool in between the window and the frame and, after working at it for a minute or so, she was able to slide back the lock and pull the window out. I cannot help but be impressed, how Mrs. K is as good at bad things as she is at good things! She would have made quite a successful
ganif,
I am certain
.
Or maybe that is not a compliment.

So once again I was setting up the stepstool and Mrs. K was climbing into a window. This time there was no table conveniently placed inside, so Mrs. K leaned in to see if she could find something onto which to climb. She was bent over the sill, her upper body in and her
tuchis
(from which she could afford to lose a few pounds, but couldn't we all) still out—another picture best forgotten—
apparently trying to reach a nearby chair and pull it over to the window when she leaned just a little too far. For a second or two she teetered between in and out. I was about to grab her legs and try to pull her out when I heard a muffled
“oy gevalt”
and Mrs. K slowly slid down the sill and into the room. I am thinking,
Oy,
what an
umglich.
What a calamity!

I leaned into the window and, as loud as I dared, I whispered, “Rose, are you all right? Are you hurt?” Whatever it was she was looking to find in that room, it couldn't be worth hurting herself, not to mention being discovered there.

I waited, hearing nothing and fearing the worst. Then from somewhere on the dark floor that I could not see, comes Mrs. K's voice: “You see, Ida? There was nothing to it. I am in.”

I could just barely see that Mrs. K was getting up and of course I was very relieved. I know that Mrs. K was a good athlete when she was in school, and although she is many years, and many pounds, beyond those days, she is still in remarkably good condition. Nevertheless, I would not recommend she make a habit of climbing in and out of windows. And I especially would not recommend this particular method of doing so.

This time I did not hear any snoring noises or other signs of life, other than Mrs. K brushing herself off as she stood up. She came to the window and whispered, “Ida, now that I am inside, it might be best if you go back around and stand in the hallway by the door to this room. I do not expect anyone to come in, of course, but still I would feel better knowing you are there. You can put the stepstool inside with me so no one will see it if they should walk by on the lawn.”

“But won't you need help getting back out?”

“Possibly, in which case I hope you can come back to help me.”

“How will I know when you are ready to leave?”

“A good question. How about if I knock softly twice on the door, and if you hear me, you knock twice back to tell me you are coming to help me climb out. If I don't hear the twice back, I shall try again.”

“Knock twice. Fine. And what if, God forbid, someone is coming to the room?”

“No one will be coming to Bertha's old room, Ida. But yes, just in case, then you knock twice first.”

So everything was to knock twice. At least it was easy for me to remember.

I handed Mrs. K the stepstool through the window and I made my way back to the door that led into the building. The hallways were deserted, the movie being less than half over. I walked down the hall to the door in question. I did not have to count the doors like I did the windows, of course, because I know from the front which room is which, and besides, as I mentioned earlier, names of residents are next to their doors. When I got to the door with no nameplate one past the Rinefelds, behind which Mrs. K was doing her search, I stopped and began my watching. I was nervous, and I only hoped no one came down the hall before Mrs. K left the room.

Nu,
hope is one thing; what actually happens is another. As I was watching, who do I see coming toward me but Mr. Harold Campbell (like in the soup!), the Home's maintenance man. We all just call him Harold. What he was doing there at this time of night I could not imagine, but still, there he was, and he was definitely heading my way.

I stepped in front of the door behind which was Mrs. K doing her burgling. When he saw me, Harold smiled and said, “Good evening, Mrs. Berkowitz. Shouldn't you be watching that movie in the lounge?” Harold is short and round, with red cheeks and always a smile on his face. What you would call a jolly type of person.

I leaned against the door and tried to smile back and be casual. “Oh, I already saw this movie. I was just…just going to my room. To lie down. I mean to go to bed early.”

“Well, I won't keep you,” Harold said. “I just have to get into the room behind you there for a minute.”

Oy gevalt!
Why this room, and why just now? I asked him this.

“Oh, I was in there earlier today fixing a faucet—the people next door could hear it dripping, believe it or not—and I left a wrench behind. I have a job across town in the morning and I'll need that wrench, so I thought I'd better come and get it now. A plumber ain't any good without his wrenches, eh?” He laughed at his little saying. I think I smiled rather weakly.

He advanced toward the door, no doubt expecting me to move over. Only I was not going to move over. What I was going to do I had very little time to decide. I wished I had Mrs. K's
saichel,
her common sense and ability to think super-quick on her feet, because I would have to come up with something in the few seconds before I and Harold collided.

What with the excitement and stress of the earlier part of the evening and this new threat that we would be found out by Harold, my heart was pounding and I was feeling a little faint. So the easiest thing to do was just that: I fainted.

Not really, of course, but it did not take much acting on my part, so close I was to it for real. I just slid down the door, sat on the hall carpet, and closed my eyes. With me resting against it, there was no way Harold, or anyone else for that matter, was going to open that door.

Harold right away bent down and put his hand on my wrist, saying, “Mrs. Berkowitz, are you all right? Mrs. Berkowitz?”

I did not want that he should start with the CPR, so I opened my eyes and said, “Yes, I just felt a
bissel
weak there for a moment. If you could help me up and to my room, I'll just lie down.”

Harold looked concerned, as would be expected, and said, “Are you sure? Would you like me to call the doctor?”

“No, no! I'll be just fine. This has happened before, and a rest is all I need. In my room. With some help.”

Finally he nodded and said, “Sure, I'll help you up. Now take it slowly.”

I did take it slowly, because while I was standing up, I was knocking twice on the door. I thought Harold would not notice, but he said, “What was that for?”

“Nothing. My hand just slipped and hit the door.” Twice? But what else could I say?

Harold did not look convinced, but of course there was not much he could do about it at this time, so he took my arm and we set off in the direction of my room. I hoped no one else would come along before we got there. I hoped even more that before Harold returned from helping me to my room, Mrs. K would have heard the two knocks and somehow discovered that I was no longer in the hallway.

She was, as they say, on her own.

Harold held my arm to steady me as we made our way toward my room. While we were walking in the hallway (as slowly as I could manage), I was frantically trying to think of ways to keep Harold from returning to the room in which Mrs. K was doing her looking around before she had time to finish looking and get out.

We reached my room and I would have stalled for a minute or two looking for my key, except that I didn't have my purse with me and had only one small pocket in my dress where to look for it, and anyway Harold offered to open the door for me with his passkey. So how was I going to keep him there once I was safely in my room? Now, were I forty or fifty years younger, I might have had several ways to keep a man from leaving my room, some of which I need not discuss here. But under the circumstances, the best I could do was to offer Harold a cup of tea for his trouble.

“That's very nice of you, Mrs. Berkowitz,” he said once he had escorted me inside and through the small entrance hall and deposited me on my sofa, “but it's getting kind of late, and I have to get back home. Maybe some other time. As long as you're okay now…”

I was considering protesting I was not okay, or even falling down with fainting again, anything to keep Harold occupied awhile longer, but I hesitated too long and after a few seconds Harold said, “You know you have a call button by your bed and in the bathroom, just in case you need help later.” I nodded and made like to stand, so I could at least delay him with some kind of
shmooze,
some small talk at the door. But he just turned and said, “Don't get up, Mrs. Berkowitz. You just rest. I'll see myself out.”

Before I could say or do anything else to stop him, he walked quickly back to the door, opened it, and was gone.

On his way to discover Mrs. K in mid-burgle!

Harold had not been gone more than a minute or two, during which time I did nothing but sit with
shpilkes,
when there was a loud knock on my door. A very forceful knock.

My first thought was that I needed a visitor like a
loch in kop.
But immediately it occurred to me who this visitor might be.

Oy gevalt,
I thought, it is Harold and he has found Mrs. K and is demanding an explanation. Or worse yet, it is Mr. Pupik and he will demand that we move out, or even he will call the police! The fact that the
shmegegge
Pupik never stays there after five o'clock if he can possibly help it, and he never joins the residents for movies or anything else he doesn't absolutely have to, not to mention that there had not been time for Harold to report to Pupik even if he did find Mrs. K, did not even occur to me, so worked up I had become.

The knocking became more insistent and I knew I had to answer it, so I lifted myself out of my chair and hurried to the door.

It was not Harold standing there, and not Pupik.

It was Mrs. K!

“Rose! How did you…I mean, did Harold…that is…”

Mrs. K smiled, stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She looked pleased with herself.

“So tell me already, Rose. Did you find what you were looking for? Did Harold find you? Are we in big trouble?”

Mrs. K laughed. “I passed Harold in the hallway. We said hello. What do you mean did he find me?”

I explained what had happened from the time I was discovered by Harold in front of the door.

“Did you hear me knock twice on the door?” I asked.

“So that really was you knocking?” she said. “I thought so, but I wasn't sure. I listened for any further sounds, but I did not hear anything else, so after a minute I went to the door and I looked out through that little glass peeping hole thing that shows you who is at the door. I did not see anyone in front of the door, and I could see the hallway was empty, at least just in front of the door. I must say I wondered where you had gone.”

I recounted briefly how I had pretended to faint and asked Harold to help me to my room.

Mrs. K smiled broadly and took my hand. “Ida! That was brilliant. Such quick thinking, certainly as good a plan as I could have come up with in a few seconds. I am very impressed.”

To have Mrs. K, who has the sharpest mind of anyone I have ever known, say that I thought as quickly as she would have was like being awarded some kind of shiny medal. But I had no time to
kvell,
to enjoy the compliment, because Mrs. K quickly continued: “I had already found what I was looking for, so I decided rather than crawl back out the window, which I have to say I was not looking forward to, I would close the window and try to leave by the front door.”

“Wasn't that risky, should someone see you?” I asked.

“I suppose. But there was no time to worry about that. I quickly considered the matter and thought, if in fact you had knocked twice, that meant somebody was coming. But clearly you were no longer in front of the door. I knew you would not abandon your post, so to speak, except for a good reason, and the only reason I could think of under the circumstances (other than perhaps an extremely urgent call of nature) was that you were somehow busy keeping that somebody away from the door.”

My pretending to faint did not involve any such complicated reasoning, but I still appreciated her earlier compliment.

“I couldn't see enough through the peeping hole, so I opened the door just a
bissel
and looked out. I saw no one, so I opened it farther and still could see no one in the hallway. Now assuming my theory was probably correct, I took a deep breath, said a little
broche,
opened the door just enough to get through, and casually walked out of the room.”

“
Gotenu!
What if someone had seen you?”

“Yes, I know. I tried to look as though I had business in the room, so if someone saw me it would not seem strange that I should be leaving.”

“And did Harold not see you?”

“Oh, yes, but by that time I was just walking down the hall. Fortunately, he did not see me leave the room. Of course, until now I didn't know just how fortunate that was. I'm not sure what I would have said to him, but I'm sure I would have thought of something.”

I had to sit down, being both relieved and feeling like a
shmatteh
that has been soaked in water and wrung out.

Then suddenly something occurred to me. I began to feel panic again.

“Speaking of leaving things behind,” I said, “I do not see you carrying the burglar lady's stepstool! Did you leave it in the room? What if Harold found it? And even if he did not, Florence will expect us to return it. Perhaps it even has her name on it somewhere!” I was getting myself all worked up over this, until Mrs. K patted my hand and smiled.

“Do not worry, Ida. I had already dropped the stepstool out the back window when you knocked. I'm afraid it is still there, and we will have to retrieve it. But I doubt anyone will notice it before we get to it.”

I was much relieved. “So tell me what you found. I am bursting to hear.”

The satisfied look came back to Mrs. K's face. “I found just what I expected, Ida. The dress has no pockets.”

Since at that point Mrs. K had not yet told me just what her theory was, I did not understand what the significance of this statement could be.

I would soon find out.

We made our way outside and down the back lawn again, but this time we were not as worried that someone might see us, because we were not going to pry open any more windows or climb into any more strange rooms. Ever, I hoped. We found the stepstool lying outside the window where Mrs. K had dropped, it, and we casually picked it up as if it were a common thing to retrieve stepstools in back of the Home at night and brought it back to my room.

We did meet some of the residents coming back from the movie. Either they thought our carrying a stepstool down the hall at night was nothing strange, or they thought it so strange they did not wish to ask us embarrassing questions about it. Either way, if Mrs. K now had all the information she needed, I didn't mind we might be thought a little
meshuggeneh.

And if I am honest, considering the kind of chances we had taken that evening, I would have had to agree with them.