It started as many as six years ago with the rumor that the college had made special plans for the property. She knew it was coming, of course, but she preferred not to think about it until it happened . It was less painful that way. But now it was happening; it was happening and there was no way to stop thinking about it. She had worked hard today, hoping that by keeping busy she would not have to think about leaving. In addition to cooking the three meals a day her boys expected of her under any conditions, she had directed the packing of all her kitchen utensils and had packed the mementos and other personal items which had accumulated in the drawers and shelves of her pantry. Now she was tired. Supper was almost over; they always ate so fast after she had taken so long to fix them the dinner they expected. She had tried extra hard on this last day to create one of her special desserts for her boys and now that it was served, she could relax for a moment before washing the few remaining pots and pans. The steady drone of voices from the dining room accompanied by the persistent clatter of dishes from the waiters' pantry made her drowsy. For a moment she forgot, her head nodded and came to rest between the clean white lapels of her uniform. She slept as she slept every evening after dessert, a cup of coffee growing cold on the table before her.
Mabel had been the cook at the Mu Beta Mu fraternity for twenty-four years. All those years had been spent in the same building, the old Allen Mansion which had been purchased by the college and leased to the Beta Mu's as their fraternity house. In twenty four years, she had seen many boys pass into manhood during their four year college careers; she had watched as the brotherhood split in two over a discrimination clause in their constitution; she had encouraged them when they decided to split from the national fraternity and go local; she had been with the brotherhood when they were a successful House of sixty members and during the grimmer years when it was a House of fourteen. In short, only Mabel and the Allen Mansion itself could be termed "permanent" with respect to the history of the fraternity. Her boys had made her an honorary brother more than twenty years ago but now Mabel was more than a brother; she was an institution. And as much as Mabel was part of the fraternity, the fraternity was part of Mabel. Working in the fraternity kitchen was no longer a job, it was her way of life. She had been doing the same thing for so long and had put so much of herself into it that if, some day, she had no Beta Mu kitchen to come to, it would be like waking to find that the world had disappeared. There would be nothing, nothing but loneliness.
At sixty-four, Mabel was still energetic. Carrying an enormous pot of potatoes from the sink to the stove was not as easy as it used to be and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to win the daily battle against the dust and grease which she waged in an effort to keep her kitchen clean, nevertheless she staunchly refused to acknowledge these minor victories of time. It merely meant that her evening nap in front of the black coffee altar increased in length. Partly responsible for the unflagging drive in the woman was her intense Irish pride in the fact that she had never set a single meal out late nor missed a days work in all her twenty-four years excepting the three weeks she had spent in the hospital with second degree burns she had received when she accidently upset a pot of boiling water. Even then, in a state of shock, she had mopped up the spilled water, refilled the pot, and finished preparing the meal before two of the waiters discovered her sitting at the table smearing butter on her burned arms and face. They had rushed her to the hospital not bothering to heed her complaint that if she were not there her boys would have to do without dessert.
The waiters had finished the dishes and thoughtlessly entered thekitchen engaged in a loud conversation. Mabel woke with a start, took a second to reorient herself, and pushed three dishes of semi-melted ice cream toward the waiters. Her gaze fixed on the old four-burner stove which was part of the house when she came to Beta Mu. She remembered two weeks ago, when she opened the oven door, it had fallen completely off its hinges and onto her foot. The springs which held the door in place were no longer effective; a piece of string now did their job. Every time she wanted to use the oven now, she would have to unwind the string, hold the oven door with one hand, and work with the other.
The condition of the stove was typical of all her appliances. The top of the freezer had an enormous crack in it and besides, it was much too small; the refrigerator would not maintain a constant temperature and often the food would thaw; the door of the refrigerator had to be opened with a screwdriver since the handle had fallen off months ago. She managed to endure these inconveniences and, in fact, there were many things which she liked about her kitchen: there were three large windows which caught the sun during the entire day, the walls were a soft yellow color which gave the room a bright, cheery atmosphere, the small oval table was perfect for spreading her crocheting upon or simply trading gossip across, there was plenty of wall space which she filled with knick knacks and a black plastic "good luck" rooster, and, the thing she liked best, an extra large pantry which also served as a sitting room-dressing room in which she had all the privacy she needed simply by closing the door. She had arranged the kitchen so that she could operate at peak efficiency at all times. It had taken her twenty-four years to fit this kitchen to her needs. Soon she would have to begin all over again.
She glanced over her shoulder at the stainless-steel clutter of pots and pans waiting for her. Reluctantly, she forced herself from her chair and calling forth energy from seemingly untapped sources, she attacked the pots with a fervor. She was less than five feet tall and had to stand on her toes to reach the bottom of her deep double sink. This awkward situation was further complicated by the fact that the short woman was by no means a tiny woman, weighing roughly one hundred ninety-five pounds. At one time she had weighed as much as two hundred eighty pounds. Threats by her doctor and a minor case of diabetes had frightened her sufficiently to get her onto a much-needed diet. Once a week, every week for eleven months she went to her doctor to have her progress measured. She had been like a little girl. When she lost the prescribed amount of weight, she would be as pleased as if the doctor had given her a lollipop and if she did not lose or gained, she would be genuinely disappointed in herself and feel quite guilty. The end of the year, however, showed a ninety-five-pound improvement and she felt much better.
Finishing the last pot, she turned the faucet as far as it would turn and waited for the steady "drip-drip" to cease; she knew it would not but still she watched as the drops tapped out a lively beat on the bottom of the sink. It needs fixing she thought, and then she remembered again why it wasn't fixed. We're moving tomorrow. No sense fixing it when we won't be using it any more. The rhythmic tap-tap of the water had been a constant reminder for the past month; it had been one of the many signs that Beta Mu was moving to a new home, but it wasn't the first sign. She knew the time was fast approaching when she returned in September to start another year. That first day, as she looked out the kitchen window and across the street, she saw a man with a plumb-bob standing as a landmark for his partner who was siting on him with a surveyor's transit. Their waving and shouting had annoyed her. “Look at them peering through their little telescope as though this house was already gone”, she muttered. She had been irritable for the remainder of the day.
The surveyors' erratic arm waving and shouting was soon replaced by the steady clank-clank of the geologists' drill. Every day for an entire month and one half, the drill would begin its monotonous repetitions, probing the contents of the earth beneath and around the Allen Mansion to discover if the subsurface were suitable for building the planned science center.
The drill was not without its effect on Mabel. Most of the time it was located in the side yard of which Mabel's largest window commanded a full view. Her annoyance with this irritating drill and its crew manifested itself in a spiteful yet oddly humorous bit of behavior. It had always been her custom to invite any members of the buildings and grounds crew who happened to be working in or around the Beta Mu house to partake of a cup of her freshly made coffee and a donut or two. It was her idea of entertaining guests and playing hostess. She enjoyed it as much as the workers did. All the workers, that is, except the men who operated the drill. She never mentioned anything about them, she simply denied their existence in so far as it was possible to deny the existence of such loud clank-clanks from their drill. Clank went the drill and Mabel hummed while she put another pot of coffee on the stove.
Six months ago, in late November, Mabel overtly expressed her concern for the old house for the first time. The occasion had been a disappointing one for most of the members of the house. Several members of the grounds crew had appeared with orders to dig up the old magnolia tree which stood by the side of the house. The tree was enjoyed by every brother of Beta Mu in one way or another. Every Spring its fragrance drifted through the open windows of the fraternity announcing that Spring had finally arrived. It being an old tree with three low branches arranged such that they were ideal for sitting in, many boys had taken the opportunity to sit in the tree with their favorite girl and carve their initials in the bark. Mabel too profited from the tree’s existence. She always hung a bird feeder from one of its branches and was fond of watching the birds who feasted there. Its enormous flowers furnished just the proper combination of shade and sunlight, and Mabel often took advantage of this convenient coincidence by placing her lounge chair beneath it on sunny afternoons.
The appearance of the workers was the first actual intrusion into Mabel's world. With the first scrapes of their shovels, she had hustled over to the window to discover what new foul play was going on in her backyard. When she saw what was happening, she bustled outside to find out what person had ordered this philistine action. They told her that the tree was being removed to another location. Her discussion with the workers was a brief one; she told them what she thought about the idea and particularly about the men who gave the orders. The least they could have done was leave it up until we moved, she bristled. As it turned out, the tree remained with its roots exposed all winter while the "men with all the bright ideas" decided where the tree would be put. In early March the same group of men returned and covered up the bared roots. She had been disgusted; they intentionally tried to kill that tree, she felt, and probably had succeeded. She did not expect to see any blossoms this year.
Rum-tum-tum went the leaky faucet as Mabel waited for her ride home. As soon as the boys found out they were leaving the old Allen Mansion, they stopped repairing it, cleaning it, and caring for it. Why should they care; they'd only lived there for three years at the most. Three years, twenty-four years: that's quite a difference. But they could at least fix the water! It bothered her intensely. In the afternoon, when she sat crocheting while her dinner was cooking, the rum-a-tum-tum nearly drove her to distraction. She was forced to play her old radio quite loudly and listen to the static which filtered through its tubes. She preferred the static to the dreadful rum-a-tum-tum but when even that became too much for her, she would turn off the radio and sing at the top of her voice. Several times one of the boys had heard her singing and had stopped to inquire as to the reason for her good humor. As long as there were people music or noise enough to drown out the incessant drumming, it wasn't so bad.
The first sign of consistently good weather after the snow had melted brought the wrecking crew; not for the Beta Mu house but for the Schaefer house next door. Mrs. Schaefer had been ninety-four years old and one of Mabel's dearest friends. The old woman always used to call Mabel "young lady" and Mabel always used to get a kick out of that. But the Schaefers had gone now, and their beautiful old home was about to be demolished. She sat in the window and stared as if in a trance as the huge teeth of the machine hovered over the building and then plunged mercilessly into the roof of the building. The wood frame house offered no resistance and was soon converted into piles of rubble, loaded into trucks, and carried away. The roast was burnt that evening and the dining room was unusually quiet. Someone had heard her crying behind the closed door of her pantry. In less than a week, the house was gone and the ground levelled off---there was nothing but a big vacant lot. Had it really been there?
There had been less than a month to go when she realized herself how much she had become attached to the old house. Spring was in the air, and her boys were becoming quite rambunctious as they did every Spring. They began breaking things and talking about a house wrecking party. Their primary target was the once beautiful staircase leading from the front hall to the second floor. Whenever someone felt particularly aggressive as they ascended or descended the stairs, they would vent their enthusiasm on one of the railings of the bannister. She said nothing the first few times she saw this happen, but after a while, about half of the railings were missing from the bannister and could be found in a shattered heap at the foot of the stairs. Coming out of her kitchen one day, she caught one of the boys red-handed, let out a banshee scream, and chased him with her broom until she ran out of breath. “We're still living here”, she had shouted, “and at least you could treat the property with a little respect until we're gone.” It did little good for her to shout at them for they still broke the railings---they did make sure, however, that Mabel wasn't about when they did it. She was an extremely sensitive person and felt very badly for having chased the boy and especially for having sworn at him. But, as she explained to one of the salesmen: “It was like watching him take a kick at me. Its not so much that the kick would hurt as the out and out disrespect and inconsideration that was behind the kick.”
After asking several times to be given a ride to the new house at the opposite end of the campus, one of the boys relented and drove her there. It was meant to be a surprise, but it was a difficult secret to keep. They had purchased brand new kitchen appliances to replace the antiques with which she currently worked. She had a shiny new stainless-steel kitchen which was as functional as any efficient cook could wish to have. The freezer-refrigerator was three times as spacious as the old one; the stove had a smoke hood to catch the smoke and grease and keep it off of her clean white walls. It had two more burners than the old one and what's more, ALL of them worked. She had brand new extra deep double sinks which were connected to a long stainless-steel table which ran almost the entire length of the room. It was four feet high and had a rack underneath for pots and pans. Every inch of the wall space was filled with cupboards and modern conveniences to make her job easier. Mabel was horrified!
She wondered whether there was something wrong with her. None of the boys could understand why she didn't like the new kitchen. But for Mabel it was too cold, there was too much stainless steel; it didn't look lived in and never would. She wouldn't be able to sit around the table and trade gossip with her friends as she used to. Why, she was barely able to reach the top of the table when she sat in a regular chair. And there was no spacious pantry. It was very small and jammed from the floor to the ceiling with shelves. There was no room for anything besides shelves. Surely there was no room for Mabel. She felt, as she looked around the room, that she had been squeezed out of her own kitchen by the new appliances. Moving from the old house to the new would be like getting thrown out of a home into the cold stainless-steel world of functionalism. It was impossible to feel at home in the new kitchen. There was no place to put her knick-knacks, no place on the walls for her plastic "good luck" rooster. It bothered her most that there was no color in the room. There were only the white walls and the shiny stainless steel which cast her reflection back at her wherever she moved. In short, the kitchen of the old house had become her real home, she only slept at the one she returned to every evening. Now when she got up in the morning it would be like going to work; she hadn't felt like that for almost twenty years.
A horn honked outside in the street and Mabel got up and put her coat on. She took a long look around the old kitchen. Boxes were piled high in every corner ready for the moving van to take them away in the morning. Tomorrow she would be too busy to reminisce, too busy moving to think about moving. The kitchen, dimly lit by a small night light she always left burning, looked lonely to her. She felt as if she should be apologizing to someone or something. The time had finally come. The magnolia tree had been dug up again and moved to a new location, the boys had become increasingly more destructive until there was very little left in the house which was undamaged. Every room but the kitchen was scarred in one way or another. There was no sense in getting "mushy" about the whole thing, she thought. It's only an old house you've grown old in yourself during the past twenty-four years. It's only the house that. . . Another honk from the horn called her back to the present and she left for the night.
The next two days went quickly. The move was accomplished with relatively few complications, and the new kitchen was operational by the end of the second day. The third day was proclaimed a school holiday, not by the college but by the brothers of Mu Beta Mu. The old house was coming down. Half the brothers were there, camera in hand, to record the historic event for posterity, the other half out of sheer curiosity or sentimentality. Only Mabel was there for more. Hackneyed though it may seem, Mabel was there for a funeral.
The big crane swung indifferently toward the side of the house and with a splintering crunch bit into the second-floor area just above the kitchen. The event had a strange effect on Mabel. She couldn't decide whether the crunch had been within or without. She felt as though she should be experiencing a pain somewhere but there was no pain. Crunch . . . the crane bit again and again and each time there was a corresponding twinge in Mabel. The boys cheered and made wise cracks; Mabel remained silent and poker-faced. Crunch. . . and the second-floor rooms which she used to clean and dust herself in her younger days were exposed. She could watch no more. Using the excuse that dinner had to be prepared, she asked one of the boys to drive her across campus to the new house. “In a minute”, he had replied. He wanted to watch more. She started out across campus on foot. It was a beautiful Spring day, the kind which usually made her feel good. She wished it were raining. Suddenly she felt very tired. It must be the walking she thought. Because of her weight and age, she had been advised not to exert herself unnecessarily. She was quite unaccustomed to walking such long distances. Finding that it was already mid-afternoon when she walked into her new kitchen, she set right in preparing the evening meal.
One by one the boys returned for dinner. The waiters appeared and dinner was put out on time as usual. The dessert was served up and Mabel drew her cup of black coffee from the large coffee urn. She was tired from her walk across campus during the afternoon and hadn't had time to catch her breath in her hurry to put dinner out on time. She seated herself on the high stool which was purchased specifically so she could at least rest her elbows on the new table. She thought about the house, the old house, and that peculiar twinge shook her again; only this time it was accompanied by a sharp pain in her chest. Shouldn't have walked so far this afternoon, she thought . She nodded slightly and assumed her usual after-dinner posture. A noise from the dining room startled her momentarily and she opened her eyes half way to see what was happening. As she closed her eyes again, the blurred after image of her own reflection in the new stainless steel refrigerator remained, then nothing.
The waiters finished their chores and entered the kitchen looking for dessert. Seeing that Mabel did not stir, they lowered their voices and left the kitchen. There were no pots to wash, the new dishwasher took care of that. The time went by and still Mabel did not stir. Outside the new house, a horn honked. There was silence, not even the familiar drumming of a leaky faucet. The horn sounded again, and all was quiet as if the world had disappeared.
