In memory of Vera, passing gently into the deep shade of a vast and unknown forest.

From dusk until late into the night she sat alone by the telephone, illuminated by a single yellowing lightbulb like something out of a play. She tried not to look at the phone, knowing full well that like a watched pot that never boils a watched phone never rings. And yet Mrs. Weiss couldn’t help but peek from the corner of her eye from time to time, until her resolve failed her, and she stared at the mute, heavy black plastic device, the rotary dial scratched and worn.

 She waited patiently, and impatiently, for the telephone to ring. The clangor of the phone had always made her jump, a knot in her stomach, her heart pounding. Yet as she waited each night, she would have dearly suffered that violence just to hear its bell… that one special call. She was terrified to step away for even a minute—would she get to the phone in time? If she missed it, would he call again? She tried to find ways to keep herself busy while waiting, but her concentration failed her every time as she waited and waited. She offered silent promises, prayers, exhortations, to make it ring.

Just have him call, she said silently, and I promise I’ll always be good. 

One call from him, and I’ll never take the lord’s name in vain again. She was an atheist but wanted to cover every contingency.

It doesn’t matter what he says, just to hear his voice.

She tried commanding the phone: Ring! she shouted silently. Now! Ring now!

She carefully turned the phone over, pressing the handset tight against the base—her knuckles knobby with age—to check yet again that the knurled ringer volume dial was rotated to its maximum position; the label on the rough metal bottom warned all that it was Bell System Property, and not for sale. And then, in a near panic, she picked up the receiver, listened for a moment to make sure there was a dial tone, and slammed it back down again. What if he tried to call just when the phone was off the hook? Surely, he’d call back if he got a busy signal…

This is how she spent her evenings, from dusk until late into the night, every day. She prepared her small, simple meal before her vigil began, and then waited: imprisoned by the silent telephone.

She wondered if the phone had some mystical power over when and if calls went through. In her imaginary world where the telephone was master over communication, she wondered how many calls were never connected; how many important conversations lost; complaints unspoken; lovers’ unheard whispered words crackling over the live cables that threaded their way through the neighborhood of anonymous apartment buildings like angry snakes suspended in mid-air. She was sure she could hear the buzz of the conversations as she walked underneath the phone lines. She said this once to a friend who looked at her funny, like many people seemed to, and so never mentioned it again. But she was sure she heard it, the hissing and humming and snapping of conversations over miles of phone cable. She had read that there were hundreds of thousands of miles of telephone lines stretched across the country. That’s a lot, she thought. And somewhere in all that buzzing and droning and crackling there must be the voice, the call, coming for her.

Her building was of a time past, the neighborhood divided into buildings that were “before the war” and others “after the war.” There used to be a doorman, as there had been in many of the buildings in the neighborhood, but such things now existed only for luxury apartments—a vanished secret society of men in caps who could be seen nodding to each other wordlessly, the meaning of the greeting and the nature of their relationships a mystery. 

She had a small apartment, but not without its charm. In common with most such apartments the only views out the windows were of the street below and the buildings across the way, the tenants and their lives screened by curtains and venetian blinds. Her early childhood had also been in an apartment but of a very different style, place, and feeling; all that remained of that distant past was a lingering sense of loss and regret, and on the rare occasion when the spring brought a whiff of lilacs in bloom, the briefest memory of the play of sunlight in a room; a neighbor’s bird cage with two canaries—all of which fluttered through her mind and disappeared just as quickly.

The sparse furnishings were those of a woman of a certain age living alone: tasteful, old, and well cared for. A small sofa; an armchair; a sideboard; and, of course, the small table with the telephone. A flowered blue and white vase and matching bowl on the sideboard seemed particularly well cared for: prized possessions. The small kitchen and bedroom were equally spare: everything in her apartment spoke of a single occupant, but one not suffering from the settled state of her life. 

She liked to pretend that a phone had saved her family’s lives as they escaped from Europe, that a phone call in the night, an unknown whispered German voice—a Nazi—said “get out now—you must leave now.” She’d told herself that fiction so many times that she believed it; she no longer had any lingering doubt about the accuracy of the story she’d invented. She imagined it was Papa who got the call—he was the only one who ever answered the phone, a dubious and somewhat frightening device. It had wires. It must be electric. It was dangerous. Only Papa was allowed to touch it.

The truth of their escape was banal enough compared to her invention: family hidden in a cellar—they went to ground, like a fox evading the hounds, escaping into the countryside in the middle of the night—officials bribed—hiding from the German patrols as the moon slid in and out from behind its cover of clouds—ocean liner tickets bought—surviving on grubs and little nothings that they found as they hid in barns—belongings left behind—buried in a hay cart as it made its laborious swaying back-breaking way through the countryside—a mad crush as they boarded the ship bound for the New York harbor—German soldiers with dogs inspecting the hay cart; Papa seizing a pitchfork and fighting the Nazis single-handed—he was such a hero! In her imaginary story she always felt just a little sorry for the soldiers—they were only boys, after all, and one of them was quite handsome. But her darling Papa was a hero and saved his family’s lives.

The confused memory of what really happened—the escape to America on a ship— only came to her from time to time in her sleep: but for her it was only a dream. Her make-believe story was better—a whispered voice in the night—it made her smile with satisfaction. She’d told many people her fiction over the years—they were impressed, fascinated; it made her feel important. It seemed almost romantic to hear that a nameless voice would urge them to escape. 

She remembered her Papa as if he existed only in photographs—black and white, somewhat out of focus, speckled from dirty negatives. He was such a handsome man, so kind and sweet; sometimes stern and a little scary when he was angry, but always her Papa. She remembered him carrying her, one arm underneath her as she wrapped her arms tight around his neck. When she closed her eyes and concentrated, she could almost remember the spicy smell of his cologne, her face pressed against his.

Tuesdays were always the best shopping day, when she went on her weekly grocery rounds, a string mesh bag clasped in her hand. She usually wore a raincoat—one never knew—and a blue kerchief with little yellow flowers. The cheerful colors had faded, and so the blue cotton matched her eyes, also faded with age. Not unlike her attire and the furnishings of her apartment, the neighborhood looked worn, no longer as charming as it had been decades ago, though she never noticed the change.

The greengrocer’s looked to her like a wooden produce crate jam-packed with smaller wooden fruit and vegetable crates. There was a small paper bag waiting for her on the worn wooden table in the middle below the mechanical scale: two shiny red apples and a banana. As the owner passed the brown paper bag to her, he raised his eyebrows. She shook her head solemnly and he shrugged his shoulders and looked upward—a philosopher among his fruits and vegetables.

Back on the street, a scruffy man leading an equally scruffy dog saw her coming. Taking hold of the dog’s collar, he held the animal firmly in the gutter as she passed—he knew she was frightened of dogs. He tilted his head in recognition as she passed him.

Her last stop was at the butcher’s. The store occupied a corner with a sense of gravity and massiveness; the elegant gold script on the window announcing that it had been in business for nearly a century. Inside it looked something like an abattoir—the walls and floor were hard white rectangular tiles—with a small selection of dry goods: boxes, cans, and little bottles of spices on wooden shelves on the other side of the store across from the butcher counter. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Weiss!” cried the butcher. She smiled a little awkwardly—even after so many years as his customer she was still uncomfortable being seen—but it was also nice to be remembered. She stepped uncertainly towards the counter; the heels of her shoes rounded with wear. “I have your beefsteak set aside for you, Mrs. Weiss.”

She smiled and reached for the little package. “Thank you, Sam,” she said, shyly. “You always look out for me.” It had taken years for her to overcome her resistance to calling the butcher by his first name, but in the end, he had won this minor battle.

He waved away her thanks. “It’s the very least you deserve.” His face became serious. “Did you get your phone call last week, Mrs. Weiss?”

She shook her head sadly. “No, still nothing. Maybe this week.” She brightened as she thought of it.

As she stepped away from the counter, her little white paper-wrapped bundle clutched in her hand, the boy behind the counter smirked and touched the side of his forehead. She recoiled in shock as she watched the butcher round on him sharply and smack the back of his head with his large open palm. He shoved the boy into the storage room and grabbed him by the shirt.

“You little shit,” he hissed, his red face close to the boy’s. “She’s a customer, and you never speak to a customer that way. She’s old enough to be your granny—would you dare talk to your granny that way?”

The boy opened his mouth to say that he hadn’t spoken, and that he never knew his granny, but the butcher shook him again by the shirt and he swallowed his words.

“She’s had a hard life,” he snapped, “harder than you can possibly imagine.” Sam shook his head and looked at the floor; he seemed to sag from the weight of his words. “Her heart, all the love in the world, was torn from her breast.” He looked sadly at the boy, releasing his big-handed grip on the boy’s shirt. “But you’re too young to understand that. I hope someday you do—but maybe I should hope you never do. The world is too complicated for the likes of us.” Shaking his head, he awkwardly straightened the boy’s collar, wiped his hands on his white apron and headed back to the counter, the boy watching him with astonishment. 

Mrs. Weiss didn’t remember, couldn’t allow herself to remember, that her dear sweet Papa had been dead for many years. He’d been ill—he died—she was at school that day. She hadn’t been home to hold his hand while he took his last breath, to look at each other one last time; then maybe at last he would tell her that he loved her—words that she had waited for so patiently, and impatiently.

This week everything went wrong. It stormed heavily on Tuesday—the good day to go shopping—the sky dark gray and yellow as it thundered, and rain came down in sheets. She had to wait until Wednesday to shop, something that rarely ever happened, which left her feeling off balance.

Wednesday still had the remnants of the storm: a threatening sky; sudden capricious gusts of strong wind; streets and sidewalks still damp—the splayed autumn leaves slicked to the street like yellow and red outstretched hands.

She started on her usual route to do her shopping, but everything was out of order. The scruffy man with the scruffy dog appeared, unexpected to both of them. He wasn’t prepared to pull his dog to the side and fumbled with the animal’s collar. Mrs. Weiss recoiled in fear as the ancient dog struggled to approach her, its tail wagging innocently. As she stepped backwards there was a sudden gust of wind. She glanced up to see the phone cables swinging hard with brute intention in the breeze. She grabbed for her kerchief and watched in dismay as it blew into the street. The scruffy man let go of his dog’s collar as he stepped into the street to retrieve the faded blue cloth with little yellow flowers. Mrs. Weiss gasped as the old arthritic dog slowly approached her, its tail wagging furiously in idiot delight. Terrified, she turned and hurried back the way she came, glancing over her shoulder, eyes wide with fear.

“Lady,” called the scruffy man, “your scarf,” as he waved the lost kerchief.

Breathing heavily, Mrs. Weiss took a different route from the one she always followed to do her shopping. Though she’d lived in her neighborhood for decades, she felt lost and bewildered—and even undressed without her kerchief. She tried to keep her eyes on the sidewalk but couldn’t help glancing at the wicked phone lines from time to time, her eyes narrowed with distrust. The apartment buildings that had been so familiar to her for so many years all looked strange—like faces not recognized, they seemed unkind to her, even dangerous. She arrived at the greengrocer’s first. He didn’t have a bag waiting for her as it wasn’t her usual day; there were no bananas and the busy greengrocer barely glanced in her direction—it felt as if she’d become a complete stranger.

Shaken, she went on to the butcher. Sam wasn’t there that day and there was no tightly wrapped white butcher paper parcel with her little beefsteak. The substitute butcher couldn’t understand her repeated request for “a little beefsteak,” just like Sam made for her. He tried to be patient.

“Ma’am, we’ve got ribeye steak, loin steak, chuck steak—whatever kind of steak you like.” He glanced at the boy who worked behind the counter who shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes.

“Beefsteak,” she kept repeating, querulously, “the way Sam—my butcher—always makes it. Beefsteak.”

Mrs. Weiss left with a piece of meat that was unfamiliar to her. It was much larger and more expensive than the nice beefsteak she always got from Sam, and she wasn’t sure what to do with it—it was simply too much for her. She looked uneasily at the angry phone cables swaying in the abrupt gusts of wind. What do they want from me? she asked silently. What if they lose calls with all that swinging around—my call… 

Disturbed and unnerved by her experience, she returned home and was glad to close the door and hear the familiar click of the locks. She sat in her little armchair and pressed a cool damp cloth to her head, trying desperately to regain her composure. 

At last, she was calm enough to take her usual position by the telephone illuminated by the yellowing lightbulb, waiting for the call that never came. She tried to read a book as she waited for the phone to ring. She went through her usual routine, silently coaxing and demanding that the phone ring, as she had for decades.And then it happened: the silent telephone seemed to ring. Trembling, she picked up the handset, the dial tone clear in the receiver. “Papa?” she asked the dial tone, her voice shaking. “Is it really you? I’ve missed you so much, Papa. Papa—you sound…” she closed her eyes and smiled, “you sound exactly the way I remember.” She sighed. “Yes, Papa, I love you too.” And on she went, speaking into the silent phone. No sweet words of love from her beloved Papa, long gone; no echoed words from the grave. But she didn’t notice, her dream of so many years—snatched from her hopeful breast like the merest tissue of mist—come true, if only in her own mind.

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