Echo House

by Ward Just

  "It must have been cold," Alec said, tapping the windshield. La Bohème was ended and now the announcer was talking about Texaco.

  "Brisk," she said. "Traffic all the way down from the city, but I picked up the opera in Baltimore and that kept me company. And then when I was driving down Mass. Avenue trying to remember the way, it's been so long, I was stopped for hours and hours by a motorcade, some characters flying flags from their limousines, tinpot despots from Central America or Southeast Asia tying up traffic. I should have flown, but it was such a nice day in New York that I thought I might as well drive the MG just for the hell of it."

  "I'm glad you're here," Alec said.

  "I know you're out on a limb," she said. "Me in Echo House."

  "I'm not out on a limb," he said.

  "Where is he anyway?"

  "In Florida."

  "Palm Beach, I suppose."

  "Beats me. I have a phone number, in case you want to reach him."

  "Sarcasm does not become you, Alec," she said primly. "When I hear your sarcasm, I hear Axel's voice. I was only curious because I heard somewhere or read that he was advising—'summoned,' I believe the word was, to Palm Beach to work on some crisis. Isn't that where they are, working on the crisis, Palm Beach? Do you know what crisis it is? And wouldn't it be a good idea just to leave it there, sweltering in the sun? Solving a crisis in Palm Beach would be like organizing a poets' conference at Ephesus, and why not, everyone speaking a dead language in a dead city once populated by Amazons and now surrounded by the villas of the filthy rich."

  Alec laughed. "Come on inside. I'll fix us some tea."

  "I'm surprised someone hasn't written a poem about them, gathered amongst the yacht basins and golf courses, drinking daiquiris at sundown Archie MacLeish could do it, unless of course he wants a job So many do, you know."

  "It's about to rain," Alec said.

  "I wanted to see the old place again," Sylvia said. "I don't know why, but I've been thinking about it lately."

  Alec said nothing to that, but he was instantly on guard. He continued to hold the car door, though she showed no signs of moving. She blew a smoke ring and watched it collapse in the breeze.

  "I've been working on some poems," she said. "Some new things, interesting things. Disturbing, autobiographical things. I don't know where they're coming from, but I think of them as my Cold War poems. I have an idea that the Cold War is to us what the subconscious was to the Viennese, a kind of basic organizing principle of modern times, explanation and dogma in time of personal crisis. Cold War explains your fear of being blown to smithereens by a nuclear weapon. Cold War is a trauma no less than repressed infantile longings, wouldn't you say? I'll bet Freud would. Your father had a Polish friend, André Przyborski, we used to see him around at parties, some sort of superspook who was supposed to know everything there was to know about Stalin's terror. There was no doubt in my mind that if André was given a bomb he'd use it at once on the Soviets. A frightening man, magnetic in his way. I wonder where he is." She smiled enigmatically at Alec, who was listening to her without comprehension. "Anyway, I work on them every day and long into the night and Echo House keeps coming up and I thought that if I saw it again, went inside, nosed around, prowled the premises, I'd figure out what it is that's nagging at me. Something is. I'm seeing Echo House in my dreams."

  While Alec boiled the water and set out the tea service, Sylvia began her reconnaissance through the Chinese boxes, beginning in the foyer, scene of so many comings and goings. She moved circumspectly, unnerved at the vast opulent solemnity of the place, the pictures, the carpets, the wall hangings from Persia and China and India and Austria. She had an idea that she would meet her younger self coming around a corner and recognize her at once; but the reverse would not be true, because young Sylvia had no idea what surprises life held and the effect of those surprises on her future looks and bearing, everything from the lines in her face to the length of her stride. The room seemed to echo with the rumble of men's voices, as if it remembered the many masculine evenings of cards, whiskey, and political conversation. The room vibrated with the voices of authority and experience, monotonous as drums.

  She turned her back and stepped into the living room, its ceiling higher than she remembered it. Only one of her additions remained, the art deco mirror bought at a shop in the Portobello Road in 1943, an extravagance but a necessity also, because looking into it was like looking into the present century, the one that began in 1914. Axel had changed its location so that the mirror reflected back through the room, where it found another mirror, and so on echoing to infinity. In that way you could look into the mirror and see around corners, all the way back to Bismarck. One century was never enough for Axel. She had seen the mirror in her dreams but saw it where she had hung it originally, in the foyer near the staircase. Its curves reminded her of Klimt and Schiele, degenerates in the Teutonic scheme of things.

  She devoted a few moments to the Behl portraits in the dining room, noting the long foreheads, a family signature no less than lobeless ears or a club foot; and Axel's preposterous Barkin lip. Alec resembled them, though there was something of her in him, too. Her own good English stock had been overrun by the Hun but not annihilated. The portraits had not been part of her dreams, and she realized now that she had forgotten them. When she was seated at table in the old days, they were unavoidable as she faced Axel across the expanse of polished hardwood, as cold and hostile as the north German plain, Adolph and Constance bearing down from the wall behind him. She thought of them as hanging judges.

  She moved into the garden room, pausing here and there like a visitor in a museum, and looked into Axel's study, appointed exactly as she remembered it, books floor to ceiling, a single framed etching in the shelf behind his desk. Some OSS comrade had given it to him, number thirty-seven in Goya's Horrors of War series, six figures in various stages of distress overseen by a complacent officer in tricorn; the officer might have been callow Corporal Bonaparte. Goya called the piece Lo Peor Es Pedir— "The Worst Thing Is to Beg." On the desk were the same three photographs, one of Alec suited up for rugby, one of Axel and Fred Greene, and one of a brightly lit old-fashioned airplane hangar, five men straining at a trolley containing a heavy shrouded object; and no need to ask what the object was, for the bomber in the background had a name, Enola Gay. There were signatures at the bottom of the photograph, the plane's pilot and navigator and, in characteristically clear, Palmer-method script, Harry S Truman. She decided that in this bleak study the world had not changed since about 1947, Alec an adolescent, Fred very much alive in Axel's memory, the ghastly bomb a presence now as it was then. Of course in 1947 there had been a fourth photograph, but it was long since discarded, perhaps destroyed—her own lissome self at a café table somewhere in the St. Germain-des-Prés, June 1940. A German officer was visible in the background, openly admiring. Sylvia remembered, she was smiling to beat the band, presenting her bravest face to the world because Germans terrified her and she and Axel were not due to leave for another week. They were practically the last Americans in Paris, though when anyone asked, and many did, they were Swiss nationals and had the passports to prove it. The smell of defeat was everywhere in Paris and she longed to be in warm-hearted England, yet Axel seemed exhilarated, almost boyish, now that the European war had begun at last. Roosevelt would be unable to delay much longer; and then Axel could go to work. He had always been able to carry her along in his enthusiasm, but he could not carry her along in this, a European war.

  Then the war ended and they were back in Washington, occupying Echo House. She remembered that it was very warm that afternoon in early August when she entered the study, unannounced, around cocktail rime, sitting in the leather chair in the corner, watching Axel as he talked on the phone. It was an overseas call and the connection was bad. He was shouting. The window was open, admitting the thick Washington heat, so heavy and damp that no birds sang. She sat quietly and listened carefully and did not understand
one word. At first she thought he was discussing the Marshall Plan, something to do with the German mark. Then she realized that the subject was a man named Mark, who had lived in Germany before emigrating to Canada. Whoever he was, he was important to Axel. She listened to Axel's side of the conversation, breaking it into phrases, and rearranging the phrases in her own mind to resemble verse. It was verse such as a perverse playwright might render it, portentous, suggestive, without context.

  How certain are you

  of his record?

  But where was he then?

  I can find out.

  Let me do it.

  We can get the money.

  Uh-uh.

  Don't worry about money.

  It's only money.

  I said IT'S ONLY MONEY.

  We have to pin him down.

  We have to know his provenance.

  Where he's been and

  With whom.

  Who's owned him

  The way we'd do with a Vermeer.

  Right.

  Alleged Vermeer.

  Huh-huh.

  Sylvia left and returned with a drink, sitting quietly, and watching him speak into the receiver, his voice rising and falling with an intensity that fascinated her, his swivel chair creaking as it moved minutely to and fro. When he finished, he replaced the receiver and faced straight ahead, his eyes closed, apparently still thinking about the German who had to be pinned down in order to establish his provenance, meaning who owned him. She was certain that Axel had forgotten she was in the room when he suddenly looked at her and smiled warily, asking her how her day had gone. Who was that? she asked. Who were you talking to on the telephone? The usual business, he replied, boring overseas business to do with a man who won't cooperate; it's not a big thing but we have to do it, you see. His right hand went to his scar as he continued to smile tightly at her. But he volunteered nothing further.

  There was a time when, with his great charm and energy, he could make her do anything, go anywhere, Helsinki in winter, Calcutta in summer, Paris on the eve of invasion; not to go with him was to miss out He seemed invulnerable then, happy all day long. Axel Behl drew people to him like a magnet. He had such gaiety and sincerity, and grace. He attracted men as well as women and why not—he wore ardor on his sleeve. Men admired him and women sent him flowers. But that was in Europe before the war. That was before the OSS. That was before he left her in England to go play soldier with wretched Fred Greene, with disastrous results.

  She remembered that he wearily proposed a drink, pushing back from his desk, waiting for her to precede him into the garden room, where the drinks paraphernalia was laid out. He looked at her curiously when she did not move, except to place her highball carefully on the edge of the desk and begin to speak to him, so rapidly that the words tumbled over themselves. She was so eager to get it over with.

  She demanded a sincere apology from him for the previous evening, and a promise that he would never again hit her, ever, for whatever reason. It would be difficult to begin again, but impossible without the apology. When he remained silent, she told him she was leaving. Any idiot could see that their marriage was a misalliance. They both wore false faces. She'd thought she could make a go of it but couldn't no matter how hard she tried, and she had tried; give her that. They were not suited to each other. They did not believe in the same things. People changed whether they wanted to or not and suddenly black was white. She had not wanted anything to happen but something had happened and she was leaving at once to join Willy Borowy in New York. I'm sorry about it, she said. Forgive me, she added, as she moved to hurry from the room and out the front door to her car, already loaded with her luggage. She remembered that Axel had not moved as she spoke to him except to narrow his eyes when she said, "Forgive me." She had meant the remark as a concession, but Axel did not look pacified.

  She paused briefly, waiting for anything he might say—in anger, in sorrow, in spite, in apology. But he remained silent and his eyes clear, staring at a point just over her right shoulder. No doubt he would have a word or two concerning Mrs. Pfister. But the silence lengthened, and when she turned at last she saw what was in his line of sight, a white-bordered photograph in a plain glass frame, a young girl in a beret. It had not been there the day before. She had never seen it in her life. But Sylvia knew who she was.

  She wheeled when she heard a floorboard creak behind her. She was still thinking of that August afternoon fifteen years ago, and wondered if Axel had returned unexpectedly. She lowered her eyes.

  Alec stepped from the shadows carrying the heavy tray. It had taken him a minute to find her, though he expected she would make for the study, Axel's sanctum now as it had been then. If she was looking for his spirit, that was where she would find it. And indeed she was standing just inside the door, her head bowed as if she were at graveside. From the rear, in her cashmere sweater and corduroy trousers and short hair, she had the vivacious float of a well-bred college senior. Alec said nothing for a moment, watching his mother stand quietly, her fingers touching the edge of Axel's desk. He could only guess at her thoughts after so many years and so much discussion—but her organizing principle had always been Lo peor es pedir. And she thrived on mystery. He knew his father would not be pleased if he discovered her there, "nosing around," as she put it, prowling the premises. God alone knew what she wanted really, but it had nothing to do with the Cold War or Echo House in her dreams. Sylvia had the bad habit of turning up at unexpected times and places, always at her own convenience, usually with only a few hours' notice. If you had plans, you were expected to drop them or revise them or include her in them.

  So when she called that morning announcing her imminent arrival, Alec was not surprised, in part because the moment was awkward. He had arrived on Thursday from Chicago, had met with the senator in the afternoon and the publisher all day Friday, a delicate matter involving a license for a television station; the young publisher wanted it, and the senator wanted to help him get it, but the owner of the license didn't want to give it up. Negotiations were stalled and were likely to remain stalled until Lloyd Fisher himself arrived from Chicago, the aging veteran replacing the rookie who couldn't quite manage a squeeze play. Alec hated calling Lloyd and was lying in bed thinking about it when Sylvia called, causing Leila Berggren to sit up straight, alarmed when Alec mouthed "my mother" and began the usual decathlon, fine, how are you, yes that would be a wonderful surprise, grand, when do you think you'll be hoving into view? Sylvia did not care for that locution, interpreting it as sarcasm. She said, I'll be hoving into view when I damn well feel like it, not before four, not after six, depending on whether I fly or drive. Your darling secretary said you'd be staying alone at your father's, so I'll meet you there.

  Leila was put out, because Alec had promised to come to her dinner, a fund-raiser in a private room in a restaurant downtown. She and her partner were raising money to establish their own research institute. They were selling ideas and trying to estimate the market. Leila wanted Alec on hand because she was nervous and he was a calming influence, never obtrusive or insistent but always reliable and shrewd about money; he knew Washington so well, and he was Axel Behl's son. She thought it would be good for him, too, meeting fat cats as opposed to the usual alley cats. It would help me if you were around, she said, and naturally he agreed because he loved her and wanted her to succeed in Washington. They had been apart now for a year and he could sense that she was moving into a new phase of her life, one with much opportunity but some danger also. Moreover, he enjoyed her fat cats.

  Alec explained that Sylvia had not visited Echo House in many years and that her arrival now meant she was in a crisis of some kind and needed him. But what about me? Leila said. I have the most important dinner of my life and I want you there and you want to be with your loony mother instead. What did she ever do for you? Leila demanded and threw a pillow at the wall. Alec promised to cut off the meal with Sylvia as quickly as he decently could and go directly to Le
ila's dinner. I'll be there before ten, Alec said, but Leila wasn't buying. I won't forget this, she said, a threat that sounded like a prophecy.

  He moved forward with the tea tray, hearing the floor creak, and watching Sylvia stiffen.

  "Tea's on," he said.

  "You startled me." Then, "This room gives me the creeps."

  "Is it the Goya?" Alec asked, knowing it was not the Goya.

  She looked at him sideways. "The Goya's all right; it's an ordinary appalling Goya. But years ago there used to be a picture of a jeune fille, a pretty little peasant in a beret. Where's she?"

  "His bedroom," Alec said.

  "How adorable," Sylvia said, but she was smiling as she said it. She wondered what story Axel told the occasional visitor to that bedroom, or if on such an occasion he turned the picture to the wall. "I heard the most fantastic story the other day, Axel arriving at a benefit with that Italian actress on his arm. Lovey-dovey was the way they were described, though surely the age difference was conspicuous." Alec was looking at her with a half-smile and she knew she would get nothing from him, even if there was anything to get. The Chinese boxes of Axel's life were closed, and admittance to one did not mean admittance to the others. Months would pass without a sighting of any kind; then his name would show up as one of those present at a White House ceremony or international conference or benefit for some obscure cause, always worthy and neglected. Her stepmother had seen him and the Italian actress—she had a nickname. Belladonna or some such—at a benefit for refugees of the Spanish Civil War. They were holding hands, according to Grace, who described the actress as really cute, nuzzling Axel. Axel laughing, Axel nuzzling back, Axel feeling like a boy again.

  "Let's have the tea," Alec said.

  They sat in the garden room; Alec poured. They talked for a moment of this and that, Sylvia trying mightily to work the conversation back to Axel; and when that failed, she inquired about Alec's work at Fisher, Gwilt, and what it was precisely that he did and for whom, Alec stubbornly leading her back into her own life. When he asked if she had discovered what was nagging at her, she said she hadn't and hadn't expected to, really. It was a long shot, like a hunch bet at the racetrack, but you never knew when you'd come up winners. It was strange that Echo House was at the center of her thoughts, asleep and awake, and some part of it present in all the poems she had written lately, the dense Cold War poems that were so disturbing and autobiographical. No muse ever lived at Echo House, she said. Echo House was a climate. You wrote into the climate whether you wanted to or not, yet it was important to understand that beyond the storms, the thunder and electricity, lay a vast and pregnant silence, and it was the silence that beckoned. You had to discover a way to give voice to the silence between explosions. This subconscious was her true subject, but so far she was groping in heavy weather, unable to achieve the radiance she desired. She listened for the poem's heartbeat. She was listening hard for the silence that eluded her. She had always possessed a third ear that came alive at moments of high emotion, and she thought that Echo House would inspire her. If it represented the grammar of Cold War, it seemed also to represent the marriage that had failed in the city she despised, and no doubt there was a direct link between them. Or conceivably they were the same thing.