Whispers

by Belva Plain

  “Yes, cleaning out my desk. Twenty-three years of my life. And do you know how I got the news? In the elevator coming back to the office late in the afternoon. I hadn’t been there all day. I’d gone straight from the train to an appointment. And a couple of kids were talking, clerks or mailroom kids; they didn’t even recognize me. They were talking about Budapest, and Bruce Lehman going there to head the office. It sounded crazy. I didn’t pay any attention to it, except to be amused. And then Warren called me in. He showed me a fax from Monacco, and I saw it was true. And still I couldn’t believe it.”

  Robert put his hands over his face. His elbows rested on his knees, and his head sank. She was staring at a beaten man, as out of place in this rich room as any beggar sprawled upon marble stairs.

  “I told him there had to be some ridiculous mistake, that everybody knew it had been promised to me. Why Lehman? It made no sense. I said I wanted to speak to Monacco then and there. So Warren phoned California, but we didn’t reach Monacco. I demanded that Warren tell me what he knew. I wasn’t going to spend a sleepless night trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Damn! It’ll be a sleepless night anyway.”

  And again, Robert got up to pace the length of the room. At the mantel he paused to adjust the Herend figurines, which Eudora had moved when she dusted.

  “I remember the day I bought these,” he said. “I thought I had the world at my feet. I did have it too. Excuse me. These damn tears. I’m ashamed that you should see them.”

  “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Robert. A man has a right to show his grief too.”

  She spoke softly, not out of compassion alone, but also out of her own bewilderment in the face of this stunning complication.

  “And Warren? Did he tell you why?”

  “Oh, yes. Oh, yes. He was delicate about it, you know, very much the gentleman. But how he was enjoying it! He’s home now, I’ll bet on it, regaling his wife or maybe the crowd at the club, with the story. God, as hard as I’ve worked, brought marketing farther along than anyone else had ever done; and what has Lehman ever accomplished compared with me? A drudge, without imagination—”

  “You haven’t told me the reason,” Lynn said patiently.

  “The reason? Oh, yes. I said he was delicate about it. Very tactful. It seems that people—that someone has been saying things, personal things, exaggerations—God! Everybody, every marriage, has problems of one sort or another, problems that people overcome, put behind them. I told him the stuff bore no resemblance to reality, none at all. What right anyway do strangers have to draw conclusions about what goes on between a man and his wife? You’d think a man like Monacco would have more sense than to listen to idle gossip.”

  “Idle,” Lynn murmured, so faintly that he did not hear her.

  All the whispering had united into one tearing shout, loud enough to reach to California. It was a confirmation of sorts, but useless to her, for to what end would it lead? And her path that had seemed so clear, though painful, had brought her into a blind alley.

  “Would you believe a man like Monacco could stoop so low? What have I done that’s so terrible, after all?” When she was silent, a note of faint suspicion came into his voice. “I wonder who could have spread this dirty stuff. You couldn’t—you didn’t ever run to the Lehmans with anything, did you?”

  She interrupted. “Don’t dare say such a thing to me!”

  “Ah, well, I believe you. But then, how and who?”

  The question hung between them, and he was expecting an answer, but she was numb and could give none. In all this horror there was the kind of fascination that draws a person unwillingly to look at an accident, to stare at bloody wreckage.

  Robert resumed, “Warren said—and he was speaking for Monacco ‘according to instructions,’ he said, that of course I was free to stay on in my present position. ‘Of course,’ ” Robert mocked.

  “And you’re not going to,” she said, recognizing the mockery.

  “Good God, Lynn! I wrote out my resignation then and there. What do you take me for? After a slap in the face like that, do you think I could stay on? While Bruce Lehman enjoys the reward that belongs to me?”

  “Bruce never wanted it,” she said.

  “He’s damn well accepted it now.”

  The world is spinning around me, and I make no sense of it, Lynn thought. Then, for want of something to say, she inquired, “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing by leaving?”

  “No doubt of it. Anyhow, they want me to go, don’t you see that? They’d find a way to ease me out. They’d make it so miserable that I’d want to leave.” Robert’s face contorted itself into the mask of tragedy, with cheeks puffed, brows upward drawn, and mouth gaping. “I’m ruined, Lynn! Destroyed. Disgraced. Thrown out like trash, a piece of trash.”

  It was all true. He had done it to himself, but it was still true. What could she, what should she, say? She could think of nothing but some trivial creature comfort.

  “Shall I fix you something? You’ve had no dinner.”

  “I can’t eat.” He looked at the clock. “It’s half past eight. Not too late to see Bruce. Come on.”

  “See Bruce? But why?”

  “To offer congratulations, naturally.”

  Dismayed, she sought a sensible objection. “He won’t want us to visit. Well be intruding, Robert.”

  “Nonsense. Hell appreciate congratulations. Well bring a bottle of champagne.”

  “No, no. He’s in mourning. It’s not fitting,” she protested.

  “This has nothing to do with Bruce’s mourning. It’s a question of Robert Ferguson’s honor and good taste, of his sportsmanship. I want him to see that I can take this like a man.”

  “Why torture yourself to make a point, Robert? A phone call will do as well.”

  “No. Get the champagne. He can chill it in his freezer for half an hour.”

  Silently she asked: Whom are you fooling with this show of bravado? By your own admission you’re dying inside.

  “If it’s a celebration you want,” she said, not unkindly, “button your collar and change your tie. It’s stained.”

  Bruce wouldn’t care, but Robert would see himself in a mirror and be appalled.

  She had not been in Bruce’s house since that day. He had been reading when they arrived; the book was in his hand when he opened the door. The evening was cold and windy, a harbinger of winter, and apparently he had been using Josie’s knitted afghan on the very sofa where they had lain together, where he had covered her nakedness with that afghan.

  And she wondered whether the same thought was in his mind, too, and could not look at him or at the sofa, but made instead a show of greeting the white cat.

  Bruce asked whether they would mind if he saved the wine for another time together, explaining, “I am not quite up to it. It’s been a rather bad day for me, Robert.”

  “Now, why should that be?”

  “It’s very simple. The post was yours. You earned it, and it should have gone to you.”

  Robert shrugged. “That’s generous of you, Bruce, but it wasn’t in the cards, that’s all.”

  The remark was almost flippant; it could have aroused compassion for its attempt at bravery, or, given the fact that the others present knew why “it wasn’t in the cards,” it could arouse anger.

  Bruce, though, was compassionate. “I have to tell you that I’m overwhelmed. It won’t be easy to follow in your footsteps, Robert. I only hope I can do the job.”

  “I’ll be available for advice if you need it anytime. It might be a good idea for you to come over one night soon and let me give you some background on what’s already been done over there.”

  “Well, thanks, but not just yet. This has come down on me like a ton of bricks, while I’m still buried under a mountain of bricks. I’m not thinking very clearly.”

  “I understand,” Robert said sympathetically.

  “At least, though, this will force me to get away. I’d been wishing ther
e was someplace where I could get away from myself, Outer Mongolia, maybe, or the South Pole. So now it’s to be Hungary. Not that it makes any difference where. I’ll still be taking myself with myself, and myself’s pretty broken down.”

  Bruce had not given Lynn a glance, but now he turned fully toward her and made a request.

  “I’m worried about Barney.” The cat, lying curled in front of the fireplace, looked like a heap of snow. At hearing his name he raised his head. “I can’t take him with me, and Josie would haunt me for the rest of my days if I didn’t get a good home for him. So do you suppose you could take him, Lynn? I don’t want to give you any more work or any problem, but I’m stumped.”

  “You don’t know Lynn if you can say that,” Robert declared. “She’d take in any four-legged creature you can name.”

  “Of course I will,” Lynn said quickly.

  “No, you don’t know Lynn,” repeated Robert.

  But he does know Lynn, and very well too. The words, on the tip of her tongue, came so close to slipping out that she was shocked.

  “What’s your schedule?” Robert asked.

  “Sometime in December, I think.” And Bruce said again, “It’s all so sudden.… I’ll keep Barney till I go.… It’s good of you.… I’m grateful.… Josie would be grateful.”

  “He’s in a fog. He’ll never measure up. Doesn’t know what he’s in for,” Robert said when they left.

  At home he resumed his agitated pacing, saying, “He’ll never measure up.”

  Annie came quietly into the room, so quietly that they were startled by her voice.

  “What’s wrong? Has something awful happened? Is Emily sick again?”

  Robert made a choking sound. “Oh, Annie. Oh, my little girl, no, Emily’s well, thank God. Thank God, we’re all well.” And pulling Annie to him, he kissed the top of her head and held her, saying tenderly, “I’ll find a way to take care of you. They think they’ve ruined me, but they can’t crush my spirit, no—” He began to weep.

  “You’re terrifying her!” Lynn cried. “Daddy’s upset, Annie, because of some trouble at work. He’s leaving the firm. He’s upset.”

  The child wriggled free of Robert and stared at him as if she had never seen him before. A variety of expressions moved across her face, ranging through curiosity and distaste to fear.

  “I need to talk to Emily,” Robert said. “Get me her number, Lynn.”

  “You’ll scare her to death too. Wait till you calm down.”

  “I’m calm,” he said through his tears. “I’m calm. I need to talk to her, to tell her I’m sorry. We’re a family, we make mistakes, we have to stand together now. What’s the number, Annie?”

  If I hadn’t seen how little he drank of it, I would have said it’s the Scotch, Lynn thought.

  “Emily, Emily,” Robert was saying into the telephone. “No, don’t be frightened, we’re all right here, it’s just that I quit GAA. It’s a long story, too long to explain over the phone, but—excuse me, I’m very emotional at the moment, I feel that the stars have fallen—But I’m going to pull myself together and I—well, I want to apologize, to straighten things out between you and me. I’ve been heartsick over the situation. I want to apologize for not understanding you, not trying to understand. I just want to say, don’t worry about the tuition, I’ll pay it, I’m not broke yet. You just stay there and do your work and God bless you, darling. I love you, Emily. I’m so proud of you. Tell me, how’s Harris?”

  Later, in their bedroom, he became subdued, sighing and questioning, “Tell me, do I—do we—deserve this? I wanted everything for you, and now—now what?”

  In bed he turned and, pulling her gently from where she had been lying with her back toward him, drew her close. And she knew it was assurance that he wanted, a bodily relief from tension, some sweet recompense for loss. He wanted proof that he was still a man, her man. Had he asked this of her even a few hours ago, before disaster had befallen him, she would, she knew, have scratched and fought him. Now, though, she hadn’t the heart to inflict another hurt; what did it matter, after all? A woman could lie like a stone and feel nothing. In a few minutes it would be over, anyway.

  So often during these past weeks she had imagined the humbling of Robert Ferguson, and yet now that he had been humbled beyond imagining, the sight was almost too dreadful to be borne. And she felt his pain as if she were herself inside his skin.

  In the tight little world of the company, many of whose officers lived in the town, news spread. On Saturday in the supermarket a group of women had obviously been talking about the Fergusons, because when they saw Lynn, they stopped and abruptly gave an unusually cordial greeting.

  Not that it makes any difference, she thought, and it’s probably absurd of me to ask, yet I have to know how this happened. And going to a pay phone, she telephoned Tom. Perhaps he would know; if he did not, he would find out.

  “It’s about Robert. Have you heard that he’s left the firm? They found out that …” Her voice quavered.

  “Yes, I know. Come over, Lynn. I’m home all morning.”

  In the large room where the table had glittered on that night from which the present trouble had stemmed, she felt suddenly very small. She felt like a petitioner.

  “How did you hear?” she asked.

  “Monacco phoned me. He’s always had the impression, for some unfathomable reason, that Robert and I are close friends.”

  “But why did he phone you? To ask or to tell?”

  “Both. He told me that a letter had come to him, and he asked me whether the accusations in it were true, whether I knew anything about them.”

  “A letter,” Lynn echoed.

  “I don’t know who sent it. It was a woman’s letter, anonymous. But it sounded authentic, Monacco said, as if the wife of one of the firm’s officers had written it. It had a good deal of corroborating evidence, one thing being a report from some neighbors.”

  Tom lowered his eyes to study his shoes before saying anything further. Then, looking directly at Lynn, as if he had had to consider the decision to say more, he continued, “It was about what happened the night you came here to make dinner.”

  “An anonymous letter. How dirty!”

  She was thinking rapidly: Who, except the Stevenses, could have known what happened that night? And they were related to that child Susan’s family. And Eudora, who had seen too much, was a friend of the woman who worked for the Stevenses.

  “And since the letter said there’d been a call to the police, Monacco had a check made.”

  Weber. He hadn’t “buried” it, after all. Weber had wanted to get back at Robert for the things Robert had said.

  “So they made the check and found that there had indeed been a complaint, and that somebody in the police department had tried to hide it, had actually hidden it, as a matter of fact.”

  Then she had misjudged Weber. At once guilty and pitying, she asked Tom, “Did he get into trouble, the man who had hidden it?”

  “No. The police chief is a friend of mine, and we had a talk.”

  “Then you know about Emily and his son,” she said softly.

  “Nothing except that they ve been going together.” Tom smiled. “Do they still say ‘going steady’? My teenage vocabulary is definitely out of date.”

  “I don’t really know. It’s all a tangle,” lamented Lynn.

  Tom nodded. “Tangled is the word. Even the cop at the club knew all about it. He used to be my gardener before he joined the police force, and he tells me things. You’d be surprised how many people know about Robert, things true and untrue. That’s what happens in these towns; you find your way into the stream of gossip, and soon everybody knows what kind of breakfast cereal you eat.”

  “The meanness of it!”

  It seemed to her as if, in exposing Robert, the slack-tongued mob, inquisitive and gloating, had exposed them all, herself and the girls and even the baby boy. Anger exploded, and she protested, “You would think people might f
ind better things to do than to probe into other people’s trouble!”

  “You would think, but that’s not the way it is.” And Tom added, “Monacco won’t tolerate scandal, you see, not even the slightest.”

  “It isn’t fair! The thing’s all blown out of proportion. It’s between Robert and me, anyway, isn’t it? Not GAA, or the town. Why should any wrong done to me affect his job? Why?” she ended, demanding.

  Tom’s expression, as he raised his eyebrows and shook his head, seemed to be saying, I give up!

  “Oh, you think I’m naive?”

  “Yes, very. Corporations have an image, Lynn. There’s morale to maintain. How can you get respect from a subordinate when your own behavior is—shall we say ‘shady’?”

  “All right, it was a silly question. All right.”

  Then, following Tom’s glance, she became aware that she had been twisting her rings, working her nervous fingers on her lap. And she planted her hands firmly on the arms of the chair. But she ought to go home; having heard what she had, there was nothing more to wait for.

  “Monacco was really distressed,” Tom said gently. “This isn’t anything a man likes to do to someone he admires. And of course he said what you might expect, that this was the last thing he would have believed of Robert, as brilliant as he is, with such a future ahead.”

  “Like seeing a murderer’s picture in the paper, I suppose. ‘Oh, my, he’s got such a nice face!’ Is that it?” And Lynn’s fingers went back to the rings, twirling and twisting.

  Tom reached over and held one of her hands quietly. “It’s the devil for you, I know.”

  “One has to ache for Robert, regardless of everything. He can’t sleep, just walks around the house all night, upstairs and down. He barely eats. He looks older by ten years. The rejection … The humiliation …”

  “Especially because Bruce is the one who got his place?”

  “Well, naturally. He certainly never thought that Bruce, of all people, could be his competition.”

  “Why do you say ‘of all people’?”

  “I didn’t say it, Robert did. He always said Bruce was not competitive.”