by Nancy Thayer
He swooped to pick it up. He held it out, flat in the palm of his hand, for the light to illuminate it, for Diane to see it as clearly as he did.
On a delicate gold chain was a small heart-shaped locket. The front was decorated in elaborate scrollwork. The back was engraved:
For Jean,
With Love
E.M.
“I think we’ve found it.” Peter’s voice was low.
“E.M.?” Diane asked, testing the initials. “Who’s E.M.?”
Instead of answering, Peter turned the locket this way and that, scrutinizing it, digging at the seam that ran around the side in an attempt to open it.
“Usually lockets that open have little catches at the top,” Diane said.
Peter was too intent to reply. Watching him, Diane smiled: his hands were so huge and clumsy around the fragile locket.
“Here,” she suggested. “Let me.”
Reluctantly he handed it to her. The locket was suspended from the gold chain by a tiny loop of gold at the top. Gently she twisted the loop sideways. At first it resisted. Then, like a shy oyster, the locket popped open, its front and back parting only a fraction.
Peter took it from her and bent the two sides apart. The insides of both halves were rimmed with a tiny edge of gold to hold in pictures. One half was empty. The other half held a strip of paper.
Carefully, he removed the paper from its hollow. He unfolded it to reveal a dark black line of letters, numbers, and symbols much like a geometric equation or a pharmaceutical prescription.
“This is it,” he said, excitement creeping into his voice.
Diane moved closer for a better look. He turned his hand toward her so that she could see it more clearly, but she couldn’t make any sense of it. “What exactly is it?”
“An encoded formula.” He slid the paper back into the locket. “I’ll need to take this with me. I’ll give you a receipt for it. Now I’ve got to make a phone call.”
Grabbing up his jacket and pulling it on as he walked, he crossed the attic and hurried down the stairs, leaving Diane alone in silence. She felt oddly slighted, as if she’d begun an adventure with this man, and now he was leaving her behind.
And who was E.M.?
Turning off the lights, she left the attic and went down the stairs and through her house to the kitchen.
Peter was seated at the desk, phone jammed against his ear, talking intently. A note from Kaitlin was propped up on the bowl of apples in the middle of the table telling Diane that she’d gone out for groceries. Diane made coffee, moving quietly, hoping she could overhear Peter’s conversation without disturbing him.
At last he hung up. Turning to Diane, he smiled. “We’re set.”
“Well, good. I guess,” she replied.
“Now that we know the paper’s in our hands, I can tell you what this is all about. And I need you to sign some things.”
“All right. Would you like some coffee?”
“Sure.” He went into the front hall and returned with his briefcase. Seating himself at the kitchen table, he flipped through a sheaf of papers and documents.
Diane remembered how he liked his coffee and placed the sugar bowl on the table with a pitcher of cream and a plate of Kaitlin’s sugar cookies. When she sat down across from him, her knee touched his. Blood rushed to her face. She readjusted her chair.
Peter sipped his coffee, then leaned back in his chair. “Back in the late 1930s, two men, Patrick Brown, a professor of biochemistry at Georgetown University, and Yuri Oshevnev at the University of Moscow, met at various times at scientific conferences in Europe and began a collaboration in their work toward developing nuclear energy through the fusion of atoms. They communicated through code.”
Diane’s thoughts jumped ahead. “So that strip of paper is a coded message from an American to a Russian?”
“Right. They sent their correspondence to a contact in Berlin, who then sent it on to Moscow or Washington. By 1940, as we approached the world war, everyone was suspicious of everyone else. One of Brown’s coded messages—this one—was intercepted by the U.S. military and taken to your grandfather, who was in charge of naval intelligence. He in turn brought it home, as he often did with his decoding work, and locked it in his safe. Apparently he decoded enough of it to realize it had to do with scientific research instead of with weaponry or war plans. At any rate, he never missed it after your mother took it from the safe.”
“My mother did what?”
“When your mother was in college, she was involved with a group of intellectuals centered in Cambridge who were working for the cause of peace.”
“My mother!”
“Yes. When she was in Washington, she met a man named Erich Mellor—”
“E.M.—” she murmured.
“—who convinced her that he needed a certain coded message that would help prevent war. Erich Mellor had been educated in the U.S., and his English was perfect, but in fact he was Russian. He wanted to get some information about the U.S. Navy, which was in disastrous shape at that time. He asked your mother to bring him a cryptogram from her father’s safe, and she did. But that message—this piece of paper in my hand—wasn’t what Erich Mellor wanted or needed. So he returned it to her, in a locket. He assumed she’d find it and put it back in the safe so that her father would never know it had been missing. Instead—well, it must have fallen down into the lining of the coat.”
Diane looked out the window and, instead of the autumn light, saw her mother as a young woman in a fur coat with boxy shoulders, her mother as a young woman who had broken into her father’s safe to steal a coded message from the United States Navy.
“She must have been in love with Erich Mellor,” she said softly.
“Perhaps.”
Her mother, in a fur coat, in love with a Russian. “And he was just using her.”
“Not necessarily.” Peter leaned forward. “After all, he did care enough to send the locket to her—”
“May I see it?”
She held out her hand, and Peter gave it to her. She stared down at it, holding it only by the corners, not daring to touch the cryptic black letters printed on the page. “This is a formula related to nuclear fusion?” she asked. “We think it is.”
It was so light it was almost weightless, yet like a jewel, terribly valuable. She handed it back to Peter.
“In the early forties,” Peter told her, “scientists discovered how to create nuclear energy by fission, splitting atoms. But they’re still working on fusion. This could be a crucial part of the puzzle.”
“What about the two scientists?”
“Because of the war, Brown and Oshevnev died without ever sharing their research with the scientific community. It took until now, when things loosened up between us and the Soviets, for researchers to recognize how valuable their work was and start a search for their formula.”
“So now what happens?”
“I’ll give this to my superiors, who will hand it along the line to the proper authorities. Russia and the U.S. used to cooperate. It looks as if they might do so again.”
“Wow. I’m having trouble taking all this in.”
“I’m sure you are.” He placed a complicated document in front of her, and said, “This is merely a release form. I need your signature.”
Diane scanned the form and signed. He gathered up the papers and put them in his briefcase. Then he took a card from his wallet and wrote something on it. “This is my home phone. In case you have questions, or ever want to reach me—about anything.”
He was going to leave now, Diane realized, surprised at the disappointment she felt, and at the sudden urgency within her to make him stay. She took the card from him.
“I’d better go,” he said, rising.
“Yes.” What could she say, what could she do to keep him with her? “I’ll walk you to the door.”
In silence they went into the front hall, which was warm and bright with late-afternoon sunshine. She
took his coat from the hall closet and reluctantly turned to hand it to him, when he surprised her by putting his hands on her shoulders and holding her still as he looked into her eyes.
“I have to go. But I’d like to see you again. I know you’re married. I don’t want to insult you, but I can’t help feeling there’s something special between us.”
“I know what you mean,” she replied, and she tilted her head back so that it was easy, exactly right, for him to step toward her and bend his head down and kiss her mouth. His hands moved down her shoulders to pull her tightly against him, and she let his coat drop to the floor so she could bring her hands up to touch his black hair. It had been a long, long time since she’d been kissed as Peter was kissing her, a ravenous, greedy, improper kiss that brought her body straining against his. Without taking his mouth from hers, he moved her back until she was pressed against the wall and then he brought his hands around and very slowly drew them down from her shoulders over her collarbone until they rested on the swell of her breasts. She felt the curving weight of her breasts against his palms.
Bringing his mouth down in kisses across her face to her neck, he said in a husky voice, “Your breasts are beautiful.”
Pleasure swept through her. Yes, she thought, my breasts are beautiful, and it had been a long time since she’d remembered that. Bracing her back against the wall, she slanted her hips out to push against his, while he continued to kiss her, at the same time reaching down to pull her work shirt out of her jeans so that he could put his hands up under her shirt.
“Oh, God,” he whispered, “oh, God,” as he pulled at her bra.
He slid his hands around to undo the snaps and then, groaning with satisfaction, he tugged the material up so that her breasts fell freely into his hands. Still he kissed her, his mouth warm and wet, and she felt how her breasts were too large for his hands, and sensation poured through her veins much as milk had once long ago, pulsing then channeling and gathering and flooding into her engorged nipples. She wanted his mouth on her breasts, she needed his bite to break the tension … but suddenly she heard the kitchen door open and Kaitlin called out, “Hello? I’m back!”
Diane pushed Peter away. He stepped back, breathing heavily. Quickly she reached her arms up to fasten her bra and tuck her shirt back in. “Hi, Kaitlin!” she called, her voice unsteady. Then they heard Kaitlin singing to herself as she unpacked the groceries.
“Well,” she said, smiling at Peter, feeling desirous and embarrassed and happy and proud.
“Look,” he said, smoothing back his hair, “I’ve got to go to Washington today. I can get back here next week. May I see you then?”
As her blood calmed, she remembered who she was, where she was. A married woman, in her family home.
“I need to think about this,” she said, for they both knew what he meant when he asked to see her. “Call me,” she told him. “In a day or two, when things settle down.”
“All right,” he said. Picking his abandoned trench coat off the floor, he went to the door and opened it. “I’ll call you.”
He went out into the afternoon sunlight and Diane watched him walk across the porch, down the steps, and across the lawn to his car.
Going into the kitchen, Diane began to talk casually with Kaitlin about the evening meal, impressed and amused by her own air of normalcy. Then, grabbing her car keys and jacket, she drove into Cambridge. Lisa had taken the afternoon off for a dental appointment, and Diane was glad. She appreciated the silence. Her assistant had piled yesterday’s mail on her desk, and Diane began to diligently sort through it.
The American Gem Trade Association wanted her to be on a jury at an international design show for young designers. Ornament magazine wanted to interview her. The Rhode Island School of Design wanted her to speak on jewelry design in the nineties. She flipped through a sheaf of telephone messages from sales reps, jewelers, and customers wanting to commission special pieces.
She dropped it all back on the desk. She couldn’t concentrate on her work today. Her thoughts were in a tangle: where was her mother, her mother who had had an affair with a spy? What could she do about Julia and Sam—what should she do? Oh, surely it was too much to have to worry about her mother and her daughter at the same time! Really, her body informed her, she didn’t really want to think about them at all; she only wanted to close her eyes and remember Peter’s kiss, his touch, which made her shiver in memory.
She went into her studio. It smelled of warm metal. She picked up the mold she’d been carving, then put it down. Not even this held her interest today.
At five, Diane dialed Jim’s office. When he finally came on the line, she said, “Is there any chance you can come home early tonight? I’ve got a lot to tell you.”
“About Julia?”
“No. About my mysterious mother.”
“Is she all right?”
“Oh, she’s fine. It’s me—I can’t believe it. It’s quite a tale.”
“Can’t it keep till later? I’m really tied up here.”
Diane bit back a bitter remark. She counted to ten.
“How about going out with me for a quick bite to eat?” she suggested.
“I really can’t. I’ll grab a sandwich here.”
“Fine,” Diane said, anger edging her voice.
“Are you okay?” Jim sounded wary, defensive, and hurried.
“Yes, Jim. I’m okay. See you later.” Diane hung up the phone and put her head in her hands, defeated.
She remained that way for a long while, thinking of nothing at all, letting the tension of the day slide off her shoulders. When she lifted her head she saw that night was falling. The windows were dark and the building was silent, and outdoors horns blared as the traffic moved relentlessly past. The room felt cold. Rising, she shivered a little, wrapped her arms around her chest for warmth, and went back into her studio to turn off all the lights. On her desk, caught in the focused glow of a lamp, lay the sketch pad with the elaborately entwined monograms of the couple about to be married. She saw with her artist’s eye that the body of the brooch was muddied, unclear; she needed to draw it again more carefully, making the letters more distinct. She felt an arrow of sadness piercing her heart through, for it seemed to her as she looked at the two letters joined together that it was somehow symbolic of her own life: she had been alone, then for years her life had been truly indistinct from Jim’s and also bonded to the lives of her children, but now she was coming out of all that, returning once again to a singular state, separate from her grown children, her distant husband. She was entering a new phase of life, and it frightened her slightly, and yet—Remembering Peter Frost’s kiss, she smiled as she turned off the lights, locked her studio, and went down to her car, to drive home.
Entering her house, she noticed how it, too, loomed silent and empty. Instead of continuing through the hall, her mind set on messages on the answering machine and heating dinner and looking through the day’s mail, she leaned against the front door and looked down the long passageway from entryway to kitchen. Without trying very hard at all, she found that she could superimpose upon the polished table and clean-swept floor the objects that once had been scattered around the hall: children’s raincoats, snow boots, book bags, mittens, basketballs, baby dolls, water pistols, sweaters. So many things had been tossed here, abandoned, as the children raced through the house on their way from one game to another. Now it was all as clean and tidy as a museum.
Yet for her, part of this hallway was dense with a secret richness, and she moved from the door to the spot near the hall closet where she’d stood earlier that day with Peter Frost. Closing her eyes, she felt the memory of his kiss, his touch, his need, his warm, intense, immediate desire rush over her in a flood of heat, leaving her weak-kneed. She thought of the sadness that tinged his eyes when he spoke, so briefly, of his son’s problems, and she longed to sit somewhere with him and hear about the rest of his life.
But most of all, she knew she wanted to make
love with him.
Drawing her shoulders up sharply away from the wall, she forced herself to head down the hall to turn up the thermostat and glance at the answering machine, which flickered at her. She rewound the tape, then listened to it click on.
“Hi, Mom, it’s Julia, I just called to tell you I’m fine. Sam and I will be back Saturday sometime. We’ve talked to his parents, too, so everything’s cool. ’Bye—” A pause crackled along the tape, then in a rush Julia’s voice came again: “—Love ya. ’Bye.”
Tears stung Diane’s eyes. Of course Julia loved her, and of course she loved Sam more and wanted to escape from this house, this life where she was only a child. She sounded absolutely fine. Sane. Safe. That was what really mattered.
Diane went into the living room, fell into an armchair, leaned back, closed her eyes, and instantly fell asleep.
She awoke to the sound of the front door closing. Looking at her watch, she saw that it was almost ten o’clock.
“Hi. Sorry I’m late,” Jim said, crossing the room to give her a quick peck on the forehead.
Diane rubbed her eyes. “Have you eaten?”
“Yeah. I had a sandwich. But I’m going to see if there’s any pie left. Want some?”
“Mmm. I’ll join you.” She stretched and got up. The house was warm but dark. Moving wordlessly, she turned on the kitchen light and heated up a pot of decaf and cut two pieces of apple pie. Then she sat at the table with Jim and, as they ate, she told him about the discovery in the attic: the locket, the paper, the code, the two scientists working decades ago on the secret of fusion. The discovery that her mother had loved a Russian spy, so many years ago.
“It’s astounding, isn’t it?” Diane asked when she’d told him everything.
“Amazing,” Jim agreed. Something had captured his imagination, and in a quiet voice, as if speaking to himself more than to his wife, he said, “Those poor men.”
