Sustenance

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  The event you are seeking to accomplish will occur on or before the end of next February, or you will owe me nothing more than the initial payment of $20,000, and I will account for my failure in a letter, which it would be wise not to keep. You state you would prefer I use American components to encourage the authorities to search out Americans as primary suspects. You do not need to inform me why you ask for this—far be it from me to discourage business—but I draw the line at planting so-called evidence of any kind. I prefer to use components from the place the event is supposed to take place. I have connections for such materiel as I will require in Paris, the cost of which will be added to the final payment.

  I will expect to hear from you before 8 October; if I have nothing from you by then, I will assume the project you propose has been delayed or canceled.

  I have the honor to be

  At your service,

  Jimmy Riggs O’Hanraghan

  Part Four

  RAGOCZY FERENZ GROF SZENT-GERMAIN

  TEXT OF A LETTER FROM MOIRA FROST IN PARIS TO ROBERT EUGENE PRICE IN PHILADELPHIA; SENT AIR MAIL AND DELIVERED SIX DAYS AFTER IT WAS SENT.

  1 October, 1950

  Robert E. Price, Attorney-at-Law

  Makepeace, Taylor, van Amzel, and Price

  748 Chandler Court

  Suite 3G

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

  Dear Bob,

  Let me begin by apologizing for putting you in an awkward situation again, but I know this is not the sort of thing any of us would want outside the family. It may not be possible to keep some of what I hope you’ll do for me—for Tim, actually—from becoming known, but not as a scandal. Yet I can understand if you feel I must retain other counsel for this matter. I come to you, Cousin, rather than Uncle Owen, because you are more sympathetic to Tim’s and my situation than many of our relations are. I’ve never heard you condemn me for my opinions, or believed the gossip that so many of our other relatives have taken as gospel, for which I am truly grateful. You’ve been helpful to me and to Tim before, so I come to you as the most likely person to be willing to assist us this time. I am still glad that you were able to find a college that will take Regina when the time comes, and although Oregon is a long way from Paris, she wants to do undergraduate work at home, and you are the one who made it possible. It lessens the burdens we have at present, which is above-and-beyond a cousin’s familial duty. So, naturally, I’m going to add to our indebtedness to you. I trust you will understand my reasons.

  As I mentioned last month, Tim’s condition is continuing to deteriorate, and the doctors here tell us that there still is much to be done to slow it down, if I can afford it. As a US citizen, I am likely to have to pay for some or all of his treatment. I have been in touch with a clinic in Switzerland that has made some progress in cases like Tim’s, but the results are uncertain and the costs are far beyond our means. If I had the money from our grandfather’s trust, we might be able to buy him six months of treatment before we ran out of rent money, so I’m not going to ask you for anything so potentially divisive, but I am going to ask you to see if there is any way for him to collect on any of his veteran’s benefits, or other possible benefits we haven’t considered. His family has washed their hands of him since his first questions from the FBI, so now I am faced with a predicament that I cannot extricate myself on my own, as things stand now. The last time you mentioned this, you said the red tape was endless and that I should prepare a report for you on the state of Tim’s health and how he got that way. Tim refused, but now he has reached a state where he cannot comprehend anything that he cannot see or touch or taste. His vocabulary is minimal, and he is very reluctant to see anyone other than me and Washington Young, who has been kind enough to help me with all the chores that come with a disabled husband. I think I’ve mentioned Wash to you: he’s one of the Coven—in fact, he’s the one who puts out The Grimoire four times a year. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that he’s a colored man whose family is in St. Louis. He has been a printer for more than twenty years, and has kept Tim and me in food more than once. I don’t know what I’d do without him. Tim would certainly be a lot worse off than he is now if Wash Young weren’t willing to help out.

  We aren’t paupers—I don’t want you to think that we are. My practice covers most of our expenses, including the rent, most of the time, and for the most part, we’re as comfortable as it is possible for us to be, but I am aware that those times are ending, and Tim is going to need more, either in treatment or simple maintenance, and that has me very troubled. I still have over thirty thousand in my savings account; not a vast amount, but better than what most people have, and I haven’t touched the money from Great Aunt Clodette. The firm you recommended has managed the money well, but as little as I want to admit it, I’m going to need the money, and I know there will be obstacles to achieving that, which is why I am hoping you will find some way to shake the money out of that account and transfer it to me here without too much interference from the government, so that I can continue to take care of Tim without being crushed by the rising costs of his care.

  And with Regina at a good girls’ school in England now, I’ll have those expenses to meet as well. I am willing to pay for her education, especially away from the acrimonious tenor of schools in the US; it would be most unkind to thrust Regina into the midst of the increasing intolerance of political dissidence in America. While he could still do it, Tim set up an education fund for Regina, and she is going to be able to do two years at Saint-Catherine’s without having to scrape and scratch; she lives in at the school; there are several girls who do. Truth to tell, Regina is glad to be away from us, and not just because she’s just turned sixteen: Tim’s continuing problems upset her very much, and she is inclined to view what is happening as grotesque and just more of the same kind of misfortune that has followed us since the accusations against Tim began. She’s a Daddy’s Girl, and she is very much aware of how Tim was hailed as a hero in the war, as we all are, and she feels that the government has cheated him out of the rewards he had earned. I understand her feelings and I sympathize with her, yet I know she will manage better away from us just now. I would like to think that Regina will emerge from this relatively unscathed.

  It’s not my intention to load you up with good deeds to do; I’m prepared to pay you the going rate for your services, particularly if I can get my hands on some of my money. I do realize that once it is gone, it is gone, and that cannot be changed. I’m not expecting any special consideration just because we’re cousins. Writing that last, I realized it’s not true. I am expecting you to understand my predicament and to be willing to put up with being questioned by the Committee, or Hoover’s Hounds, in order to help me out. That may be unkind of me, but I look at Tim and there is so little I can do for him, and without Wash Young, I wouldn’t be able to manage the things he does for Tim. Much as I would like to, I can’t pick Tim up and carry him to his wheelchair, or the bathtub, or his chaise in the garden. Those sound like minor things, but you must believe me when I tell you they are not minor at all. Tim is probably not going to last much longer—two years at most, his doctors say—and I don’t want him to have to face them as a bedded invalid.

  After Tim is gone—and it is unrealistic not to be prepared for his death—I will probably remain here in Paris for a year or two at least, longer if conditions at home warrant it. I’ve learned to like this place, and how to get along with the French. I’ll have the house, and my practice, and I don’t want to try to survive in the US as long as my reputation is smirched. I don’t want the Committee to subpoena my patients and question them on how much Marxism I work in with my psychology. You recall they did that when I was practicing in Silver Springs. I would not want to be party to such a lapse in ethics—exposing my clients to more stress than what drove them to me in the first place—not even the guilt-by-association way I would be in a case like that. Just thinking about it distresses me. There are times I worry about that
here, since most of my patients are American or Canadian, and I have warned them that they may be approached by governmental investigators when they return to the US. A few have decided to find another therapist, so even here, worry about matters of sustenance, and what I learn from my patients make it clear to me that I am not being paranoid about my situation. So I will be here until I can be confident that I can do my job properly in the US, without government interference or the FBI pestering my patients. On the other hand, I would not object if you and Jeanne wanted to come for a visit and a vacation. I may not be a friendly native guide, but I’ve learned my way around—I’ve had to. Regina’s room is available if you would like to stay here, but if not, there is a very good small hotel two blocks away, and a more than acceptable four-star restaurant in the same block. It would be a pleasure to see you again. It’s been much too long, and caring for Tim has taught me that time slips away from us much faster than any of us realizes.

  Will you please give my warm regards to Jeanne, and to Howard and Dorothy, and to your mother, if she’ll allow you to mention my name? I think of all of you often, and I look forward to the time when all this unpleasantness is behind us. I’m assuming you and Jeanne still spend Sundays with your mother, and may run into other relatives there. If you have the opportunity, I’d appreciate it if you would bring them up-to-date on Tim’s condition; I only wish the news were better. I know you’ll handle all of this as diplomatically as possible, and I thank you for all you’re doing for us here in Europe.

  Your loving cousin,

  Moira Frost

  P.S.

  If your mother wants to tell the story of how she and Uncle Harry met in Social Studies class in the ninth grade and were sweethearts for forty-one years, let her. I thought I had heard it enough to last me a lifetime, but I was wrong. I wish I could hear it again. It’s funny, the things you miss. This is one of them.

  1

  “SO WHAT do you think of Samuel Effering?” Axel Bjornson asked Winston Pomeroy as they sat hunched over the right angle at the end of the bar at Chez Rosalie, an open bottle of decent Burgundy between them; both of their glasses were nearly empty; the bottle was slightly more than half-full. It was getting on toward sundown, and although it was not yet seventeen hundred hours, it felt as if night were already upon them; masses of dark clouds hovered in the sky, waiting for an opportunity to rain, eerie beams of sunlight sliding under the clouds to lend a wan, yellow light to the end of the day. Regular customers would not arrive until later, which gave the two men the privacy they sought; the bar portion of the restaurant was all but empty but for these two, Dudon himself being occupied in the kitchen with preparations for the evening meals, and Olivier, the taciturn bartender, was not due for another half-hour.

  “It’s a hell of a name to go through high school with,” Pomeroy quipped.

  “No doubt,” Axel said without a trace of humor. “It’s just the kind of name that kids can turn to all kinds of objectionable phrases.” He finished the wine in his glass. “Do you think he’s legitimate? How does he appear to you?”

  “He sounds like most of our members,” said Pomeroy somberly after a thoughtful silence. “I think he’s in a pretty bad mess, just like the rest of us.”

  “But is he credible? Does his story hold up? Well?” Bjornson propped his elbow on the bar. “We can’t have another spy in our Coven. So you tell me—do we let him join or not?”

  “What do I think about the good Doctor Effering?” Pomeroy asked back, as if they had anything else to discuss at this meeting. “Well, Praeger and Mary Anne both vouch for him, and that’s reassuring. Mary Anne knows him by reputation, which I’d expect of her. But I don’t like to think of us closing ranks automatically. There might be something we’re missing. I’d like to get the Grof’s take on him, but he’s out of town just now, I think: travels a lot, Szent-Germain does. He’s supposed to be back tonight.”

  “Why consult him? He isn’t one of us.”

  Pomeroy snapped his fingers. “That’s my point. He can study Effering without bias. He’s an outsider and that makes him aware of things we might not notice.”

  “Because we’re all academics,” said Bjornson as if pronouncing sentence on a miscreant.

  “Yes. Because of that. Oh, I’m convinced that Effering is one of us that way, but we don’t know whether what he’s given us here”—he patted the binder containing Effering’s CV—“is biography or legend.”

  “We don’t know what to ask him. None of us is a physician, let alone a virologist. I wish we had someone who could vet him on his medical skills.” Bjornson sighed and stood up. “Very specialized field, virology.”

  Pomeroy remained seated. “We can probably get some information for him from his medical school. It should be listed in his CV.” Again he patted the three-ring binder on the bar next to him. “Stanford means money somewhere, so this isn’t a job for McCall, or diMaggio. People with money can cover their tracks if they want to.” He took the last sip of wine in his glass. “We just have to choose which of our group would be likely to get the most information for us. Sit down, Axel. We aren’t through with this.”

  “I realize that,” said Bjornson, scowling. “I’m going to the bog; along the way, I’ll have a look-see, in case someone follows me, or is watching this place.”

  “Go to the bog if you must, but who’s going to follow you? And why? We’re alone in here.” He could feel the flesh on the back of his neck tighten.

  Outside a chorus of brakes and hooters followed by curses and imprecations in French, identifing a near-miss in traffic.

  “I understand that,” Bjornson said. “But I will feel less uneasy if you permit this.”

  Pomeroy shrugged. “Go ahead. I’ll top off our glasses for when you return.”

  Bjornson nodded and stepped into the corridor, his scowl becoming more distressed. He was convinced they were under observation; there was a very unscientific sensation on the back of his neck that warned him, and after two decades of ignoring its promptings, he now paid close attention to such esoteric signals. At this moment, he was almost completely certain that he was being watched. The last year had been exhausting for him, what with Julia agreeing to testify before the Committee, and his notice that his teaching contract would not be renewed at Columbia, which said that Bjornson’s wife had made his presence on the faculty an embarrassment to the Regents and the academic reputation of the university. He had no doubt that Julia had held nothing back, and was proud of doing what she saw as her civic duty. It was troubling to reflect on the things she might tell the Representatives if they asked the right questions. He went past the double-doors that led to the kitchen, and made his way to the latrine, looking around with care before he let himself into the small chamber, then hurriedly bolted the door.

  In the bar, Pomeroy turned around in his long-legged chair to look out through the arch in front of the dining room. He liked this place, he liked Dudon, he liked the building, and he was very determined not to sacrifice the few real enjoyments he had come upon since he arrived in France simply because he and the rest of the Coven might be under scrutiny. He knew Bjornson wanted to find another meeting place for the Ex-Pats’ Coven, but Pomeroy could not agree; the Coven needed a place everyone knew, a Parisian place, where the Americans would be safer than if they kept themselves isolated in the Ex-Pats’ communities in the city. You hide ducks among other ducks, not in a flock of chickens, reminding himself of one of his grandfather’s favorite aphorisms. The occasional meetings at members’ houses continued sporadically, and that was all the risk he wanted to assume as a distinct group. The Coven’s meetings here had worked well for almost two years, and there was no reason the arrangement could not continue. He took a sip of wine, rolling it around in his mouth before swallowing. He liked the Burgundy. He was beginning to think that Praeger was right, and it would be years still before it would be safe for any of them to set foot on American soil. He sighed, and took the last sip in his glass. And,
he reminded himself, as long as he was the leader of the Coven, he would continue to encourage the group to meet here rather than at any of the members’ homes, so they could enjoy the ambience and food as well as one another’s company. Asking everyone to stand the expense of a dinner was beyond what most of them could afford to do more than once in a year, and the exposure of such meetings had troubled him from the first: it allowed those who might be watching the Coven to see too much of their group, to discover more about them than they already knew. With Steve diMaggio to watch out for bugs, old-fashioned snooping could be used by government agents to keep track of them, and that idea bothered Pomeroy more than he wanted to admit.

  “Did you notice anyone?” Bjornson asked as he came back into the bar.

  “Not really,” said Pomeroy, not wanting to tell Bjornson that he had not bothered to look. “Nothing much going on yet.”

  “In an hour or so it will be busy.” Bjornson nodded and picked up his wine-glass. “This Samuel Effering. To return to our discussion: what do you make of him?”

  “Well, virology is a hot topic these days, and not everything being done in it is for the public good. There are labs working on making super-strong strains of diseases as military weapons almost as fast as there are men trying to find a cure or a vaccine for everything from polio to mumps.” Pomeroy realized he had raised his voice. “Sit down, Axel. We don’t want all Paris to know what we’re doing.”