Rachel and the Wizard of Oz
Chapter 3 from the novel Beyond the 4th Door by Richard Seltzer
In July of 1946, Russ, recently discharged from the Army in Georgia, arrived home with his new bride, seventeen-year-old Rachel.
He had the cab stop at the corner, and left their luggage under a bush. Then he paused to admire Rachel.
When she was disoriented, as she was now, she looked very young, naive and vulnerable. But alone in bed at night, she could turn bold and provocative. He enjoyed comforting her, then shocking her, to watch her switch from one extreme to the other. He was fascinated by her fluctuating, lustful innocence.
He took hold of Rachel’s hand and pulled her along, as he slid quickly and quietly toward the house. They hid behind hedges, then behind a large oak tree, then dashed to the front door.
“Remember,” he told her, “they don’t know you exist. Stay right here by the door. I’ll go around to the side. It ought to take me five to ten minutes to set them up. Then I’ll get Mom to open the front door, and you’ll say … “
“Hello, Mom, I’m your new daughter.”
“Right. You’ve got it. It’ll be unforgettable. Just stay put and wait for your cue.”
Russ crept back the way he had come, and picked up the suitcases. Then he strolled up the driveway to the side door. He tried hard to maintain a poker face, but, inside, he was laughing at this surprise he had prepared for his parents.
He knew they would love Rachel. They would be as delighted as he was that he had met her and won her. It was as if he had won a million dollars, and he wanted to spring the news on them with dramatic flare.
He also had a surprise in store for Rachel. He had never told her he had a baby brother. The way she loved kids, she would go wild over little Charlie.
“Mom! Dad! I’m home!” he hollered as he opened the door.
No answer.
“Mom! Dad!” He put the suitcases down and ran to the living room. It was empty.
He hollered even louder, “Mom! Dad!” and rushed into the hall and up the stairs. Still no answer.
He ran back down again, and, out of breath and disappointed, opened the front door for Rachel.
“Hello, Mom … “ she blurted out, then broke into laughter.
“Hush,” Russ put a hand over her mouth. “They aren’t here. They must be visiting at a neighbor’s. We’ll still surprise them, just a different way. Come on in. I’ll show you around. Then I’ll hunt them down and set them up. Believe me, this will work great. I can’t wait to see the look on their faces.”
“God!” she exclaimed as she walked in the door.
“Watch your language. How many times do I have to tell you − my parents are very touchy about things like that. Never, and I mean never, use the name of God in vain in this house.”
“All right, already. But this place is wild. It’s just the way you described it.” She went straight to the fireplace, walked into the alcove, and curled up on the bench. “Come over here,” she hiked up her skirt above her garter belt and started unbuttoning her blouse. “You know how I’ve been looking forward to this.”
“Not now. They could walk in the door any minute.”
“But we’re married,” she coaxed. “Remember, anything goes when you’re married.”
“But not in my parents’ house. Besides, there’ll be time enough for that later.”
“Russ, you are unbelievable. But I love you anyway.” She nuzzled her head against his shoulder. When she stood up straight, her forehead was even with his chin.
He slowly ran his hand through her long, straight black hair, and caressed her ears, adorned with gold-plated loop earrings he had given her. He held her close. “Okay, you Delilah. We both know you can get your way with me whenever you want. But please don’t tempt me now. Come on, I want to show you the house.”
He led her upstairs, then had her wait in the hall while he scampered up a pull-down staircase to the attic, and came back with the horse’s skull.
“You mean that really happened?” Rachel asked. “That whole wild episode?”
“Of course. And come in here. This was Sue’s room. There’s the drawing Uncle Harry did of this same skull. See, it’s a good likeness.” He put the skull on the floor in front of the picture. “And over there,” he pointed to the other wall, “is that blow-up photo of Sue that spooked Fred when he saw it in the living room.”
“God,” she started to say, then corrected herself. “Gosh. This room looks like a young girl still lives here.”
“Mom’s left everything the same, like she expects Sue to come back. From what Dad says in his letters, Mom’s gotten superstitious. Every year, on Sue’s birthday, she bakes a cake, and sets it up with the right number of candles, as if Sue were still alive and getting a year older each year. According to Dad, Mom claims she has seen the shadow of a young girl, in this very room, by that very window.”
“Oh, I’m scared of ghosts,” Rachel murmured, nuzzling up to him again. “I need a big strong man to protect me.” She turned her head to the side so their lips could touch.
He laughed and pushed her back, “Not now.”
“But we’ve never kissed in a haunted house before.”
“And you know I couldn’t stop with just kissing you. Wait here. I’ll find my parents and bring them back. Then I’ll come up and tell you my new plan.”
“Why not just tell me now.”
“Believe me, if I knew it, I’d tell you. I’ll figure it out as I go along.”
He threw her a kiss from the door.
***
When Russ first came barging into the house, little Charlie, age four, was playing with tin soldiers in his parents’ room. Frightened by the shouting and the loud steps, he crawled under the bed and hid. Then he heard soft voices coming from Sue’s room. Then loud footsteps rushed downstairs again.
Slowly, cautiously, Charlie crept out and inched his way toward Sue’s room.
Now, standing in the doorway, he saw Sue herself, sitting in her old room, with light streaming through the window behind her. Her face was in shadow, but even from the doorway he could feel the warmth of her love, a warmth he had never felt before.
She was playing with her miniature horses on the windowsill. He’d never seen a grownup play make-believe before. Her hands slid from one figure to the next as her attention moved. Then she tossed her head back and shook her hair as if she, too, were a horse.
He walked up to her, slowly, without saying a word. He knew without a doubt who she was and presumed that she knew him − afterall, he was her brother. Even a ghost would have to know that much. He wondered why it had taken her so long to appear to him.
Charlie tripped over the horse’s skull on the floor. The girl turned toward Charlie. Sue had disappeared, and in her place stood another girl, about the same age − a pretty girl, with long black hair. Charlie screamed an unworldly scream, and the girl ran up to him, picked him up, and hugged him tight to comfort him.
“Where did she go?” asked Charlie in confusion. “What did you do with her? Where did you hide her?”
“Who?” asked Rachel.
“Sue. My sister Sue. She was just here. You made her go away. Tell her you won’t hurt her. Please call her back.”
***
Meanwhile, Sarah, walking back to the house from the end of the driveway, saw the shadow of a young girl at Sue’s window. She stopped, shut her eyes, turned away, then looked again, and the shadow was still there. She took her glasses out of her pocketbook, wiped them clean on her blouse, and looked again. The shadow was still there.
With trembling voice, she began to repeat the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father … “
Then the shadow moved and an unworldly scream broke loose − Charlie’s scream.
Sarah ran up the driveway, stubbed her toe on the doorstep, banged her knee on the door, tripped up the stairs, and found this strange girl with a wild frightened look, holding Charlie.
The girl hesitated in confusion, then blurted out, “Hello, Mom, I’m your new daughter.”
Sarah grabbed a broom from the corner and waved it at Rachel, shouting wildly, “Out, you madwoman, you imposter, you demon.”
Rachel clutched Charlie and ran through the upstairs hall, down the stairs, and out the side door to the driveway.
Sarah came racing after her, waving her broom, and shouting, “Un-hand my son, you, you … “
Rachel cowered, helpless, with her back to the wall. “Your son?” she asked. “But your sons are in the Army, or were in the Army. You’re … “
“Old enough to be his grandmother? Yes, indeed, but he’s mine.” She reached out her arms to him. He hesitated a moment, then pulled away from Rachel and ran to his mother. She picked him up and hugged him warmly. Then she shifted her attention back to the intruder. “And who are you to be playing Goldilocks, wandering into other people’s houses?”
“As I tried to explain … “
“Don’t explain anything. Just tell me who you are!”
Rachel hesitated, then answered, “My name is Mrs. Uhland.”
“What?”
“Mrs. Rachel Uhland. Mrs. Russell P. Uhland. Your son’s wife.”
“Impossible. You’re just a girl, no older than … “
“Than your daughter Sue would have been? Russ told me about her many times.”
Stunned, Sarah stared and held Charlie even tighter.
“Russ wanted to surprise you. I thought we should invite the whole family to the wedding, or wait and have the wedding here, or at least tell you what we were doing. But Russ insisted. He’s a big kid the way he loves surprises, and I love him for that. He had this whole script worked up − what he was going to say to you and Mr. Uhland, and how he’d get you to open the front door and there I’d be standing. But nobody was home when we got here. Nobody except the little one.”
“Charlie.”
“Yes, Charlie. That must have been another of Russ’s surprises − not telling me he had a little brother. That rascal. If I didn’t love him so much, I’d hate him,” Rachel laughed.
Sarah stepped forward to take a closer look at this girl. Confused and innocent, wearing a plaid skirt and white blouse and saddle shoes with green socks, Rachel looked like a ninth grader just home from school.
Russ emerged from the backyard, walking with his father. “Oh,” he stopped short. “I guess you’ve met already.”
“This little girl says she’s your wife.”
“She most certainly is.” He ran up and lifted Rachel, with one arm under her knees and another under her back.
“Is this some kind of joke?” asked Sarah. “She’s not old enough to be married.”
“She’s 17, Mom. In Georgia, that’s nearly an old maid. Besides, you were 16 when you married Dad.”
Rachel craned her neck upwards toward Russ, perhaps to kiss him or perhaps to bite him, in anger at the humiliation he was putting her through.
“Seventeen?” repeated Sarah. “Why, Judy Garland … “
“What, Mom?” asked Russ.
“Judy Garland was seventeen when she played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Who could ever imagine Dorothy as a married woman?”
“Oh, that’s a wonderful movie!” Rachel nuzzled Russ’s neck, all sweetness now. She kissed him behind the ear. “I saw in the paper that it’s playing again. When it first came out, I saw it three times and loved it more each time.”
Sarah stared at her, unaccustomed to seeing signs of affection in public. She held Charlie tighter. She was still trying to absorb the shock that Russ was married. “Sue was ten when I took her to it. I haven’t been to another movie since then. Come to think of it,” she added distractedly, “Charlie has never been to a movie at all.”
“Oh, but he must go. He simply must,” insisted Rachel. “That’s the most magical movie of all time, and movies are the most magical experience on earth. Please let me take him, Mrs. Uhland, please.”
Sarah turned to Russ, then to Carl. She had no idea what to do or say, and she could tell that Russ and Carl were equally confused. Her son had married a puzzling and perhaps wicked little girl. That was an incredible mistake that could throw all of their lives in disorder. But the question at hand was whether to take Charlie to the movies. Sarah felt dizzy. On impulse, she responded, “We’ll both take him.”
“Great idea,” Russ confirmed, with a sigh of relief. “I’ll check the times in the paper. That’ll give you two a chance to get acquainted while Dad and I catch up and take care of the yard.”
“The lawn could certainly use a mowing,” added Carl, with a smile.
Sarah smiled too, put Charlie down, and gave him a pat on the behind. “Run upstairs, wash up, and put on your best Sunday clothes. And don’t forget to wash behind your ears and under your nails. Let’s make an occasion of this − it’s not every day you see your first movie.”
***
Charlie was confused, but he did what he was told. It was bad enough having to get dressed up and go to God’s house every Sunday. Now he had to get dressed up on a Saturday, to go to some new kind of place. Rachel said that there would be lots of people. Mom said he’d have to behave and stay still and keep quiet. He hoped this wasn’t something he’d have to do again and again, like going to church. He’d rather stay home with Dad and Russ and play and work in the yard. But he knew there was no arguing with Mom.
The building was as big as a church, but instead of wooden benches, there were grownup seats with arm rests. Mom wanted to sit in the back and Rachel up front; so they sat in the back. Then Charlie stood on his seat to see over people, and Mom picked him up, and they moved to the front row.
He was just getting comfortable in his big soft seat when the lights went out. It was darker than nighttime. With one hand he grabbed his mother’s arm, and with the other he found Rachel’s hand. He held his breath and squeezed tight.
Then the curtain opened, and he was almost knocked over by the light, the color, the music. Creatures appeared that were many times bigger than anything he had ever seen before. He wanted to ask, “Which one is God?” But he figured he was supposed to know without asking, and Mom might get upset that he hadn’t paid attention in Sunday School.
Rachel gave him a hug, and whispered to him, “They look alive, but it’s just a trick. Look up. See that beam of light? That’s where the pictures come from. They’re just light on a screen. Nothing to be afraid of.”
“Oh, I’m not afraid,” he answered, then quickly looked over at Mom to see if she was mad at him and Rachel for talking. But Mom was just staring at the screen and smiling.
Cartoons switched to news reels, to previews, to a Tarzan serial, to the feature. To Charlie, it was all one long sequence of pictures − one surprise after another − everyday-looking people and things mixed together with storybook characters and things, like in a dream.
Rachel leaned over and whispered. “I used to live in Kansas. But I never saw a tornado,” she added.
“What’s a tornado?”
“That is,” she said, pointing to the screen, where wind was blowing things every which way.
When the movie switched from black-and-white to full color, Charlie jumped like he had when light first hit the screen.
Afterwards Charlie remembered Rachel’s words more clearly than the words of the movie. And the pictures he remembered best were the ones that she named and described as he watched. Years later, he would say that her voice had controlled a camera shutter in his mind. “Ruby shoes … Munchkins … Scarecrow … Tin Woodman … Lion … “ − one snapshot after the other, held forever in memory.
When the Great Oz first spoke, Charlie leaned toward Rachel and whispered, “Is he God?” But she didn’t answer.
The cackling laugh of the Wicked Witch of the West cut into him. The Witch scared him so much it hurt. He shut his eyes and tried to think of other things.
He slept through the rest of the movie, his scary dreams mixing with sounds and images from the movie.
He was glad when it was over and they were safely out on the sidewalk again.
Then Rachel started singing the rainbow song, and Mom joined in. Rachel took one hand of his and Mom the other, and they started dancing and skipping up the street, chanting, “Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my!” It was like they were kids with him or he was a grownup with them. He laughed like he’d never laughed before, and hugged them both with abandon. And they hugged back like he was the most important person in the world and they both wanted him all to themselves.
***
That day, and every day for a week, Charlie kept talking about the movie and asking questions. Rachel read the book to him. Then they went to see the movie again the next Saturday, and the Saturday after. Gradually, he began to see the story, instead of just pieces. He was fascinated with it, and he loved the grownup attention he got when he talked about it.
“Is our house like that, Mom?” Charlie asked at bedtime. “Can it take us to some other world?”
“Charlie, don’t be silly. That’s just a story, like a dream.”
“You mean dreams aren’t real?”
“I suppose they’re real in their own way. But things aren’t what they seem in dreams. One thing stands for another.”
He didn’t know what that meant so he asked, “Do you dream, Mom?”
“Of course,” she answered. “We all do. That’s part of being human − like remembering and building things and talking and reading.”
“What do you dream, Mom?”
“Lots of times I dream of houses,” she admitted.
“Ones that fly and fall on wicked witches?” he asked.
“No, I dream of the house I grew up in. Sometimes the house has extra rooms − attics on top of attics, and passageways leading to new passageways. Some are empty, and some are storage areas, like at our summer house, with trunks and boxes stacked high. I go wandering through those rooms, from one to another, opening boxes looking for a lost recipe as if the world depended on my finding it. Or I walk into a room that’s furnished like a living room, well kept and dusted, with a warm cup of tea sitting on the table, waiting for the owner, whoever she may be, to come back. Or I wake up in a strange bed in one of those rooms, and can’t find the passage that will get me out again. Sometimes I think I catch a glimpse of your sister Sue, playing hide-and-seek in those rooms.”
“Have you ever seen me there?” he asked.
“No, I haven’t seen you or Rachel in my dreams, not yet. But I will some day. I’m sure of it. That’s the way dreams are.”
After that, Charlie made a habit of asking his mother about her dreams when he went to bed at night. Even when she was busy and in a hurry, she would linger a few minutes to answer his questions. And his own dreams, instead of jumping from here to there to everywhere, like they had before, began to resemble the dreams she told him − often dealing with huge old houses with unexplored rooms. He was no longer afraid of falling asleep.
