by Frank Conroy
The day's light was beginning to fade as they went back into the living room. Four large round tables with formal settings had appeared as if by magic at the end of the room, just beneath the stage. At a sign from Dewman Fisk, Miss Sanchez went from group to group, alerting them that dinner was about to be served.
"I hope to Christ they didn't put us at separate tables," Lady said. "Ah, good. Here we are, across from each other."
As Miss Sanchez herded the two Parcheesi boys to the table, Claude leaned forward and asked softly, "Where are Mrs. Fisk and Peter?"
Miss Sanchez paused for a moment. "Mrs. Fisk prefers to eat upstairs. Because of her condition. They will be down for coffee."
Lady and Claude took their seats, joined by the children, Dr. and Mrs. Ogelvy from Cleveland, a middle-aged woman named Benedict from the governor's office, Lewis Jadot, an intense young man involved in set design, and an older couple whose names Claude failed to catch.
Lady's parents sat at the next table with Senator Barnes. Dewman Fisk was at table three, and Mrs. Pincloney, a famous, ancient, society grande dame, held court at table four. The low murmur of polite conversation accompanied the consommé.
Lady did her best to keep up a flow of talk, but it was heavy going. She asked one of the kids what he thought of the Beatles.
"They're neat. Ringo especially."
"I hate their hair," said the other kid.
"You're a musician, Mr. Rawlings," said Jadot. "What do you think?"
"Well, it's loud, but it's fun. They've broken out of the thirty-two-bar form for popular music, and that's interesting."
"I can't understand the words," said Mrs. Ogelvy. "I don't know what they're saying."
"Yes, it's hard," agreed Lady.
"Such a shame Dewman is no longer in government," Miss Benedict said out of nowhere. "We do so need people like him."
It was a great relief to Claude when dinner ended. He followed Lady to the sideboard for coffee and happened to glance up at the swinging door to the rear of the house when it was pushed open and Mrs. Fisk, her hand clasping the shoulder of a tall, emaciated young man, entered the room. She had apparently come down the back stairs. With a shock, and only because of the thick glasses, the lazy eyes, and the unhealthy whiteness of his skin, Claude recognized the young man as Peter. Lost in the folds of his suit, he was so thin, crooked, and dazed he looked like a dying man. (Which, in a sense, he was. Years later he was to leave home and go to the University of Chicago as a graduate student in history. In his small, luxurious off-campus apartment he would explode his brain with a German Luger pistol from his collection of World War II memorabilia. Claude would hear how he had lived alone, friendless, without a single telephone number in his new address book, how he had set a table for two, put some Wagner on the record player, sat down, and slipped the barrel of the gun into his mouth. His body was not to be discovered for some time, and the police were to have trouble establishing his identity, so empty was the apartment of any clues.) Claude watched Mrs. Fisk, her hand never leaving her son's shoulder, her eyes not visible behind black glasses, moving forward slowly, now and then stopping to respond to a guest's greeting, tilting her head, tautly smiling. Meanwhile Peter stood frozen, looking off in another direction.
"A tad spooky," Lady whispered, "wouldn't you say?"
Claude put down his coffee and approached Peter. It was hard to tell if the young man saw him coming.
"Hi, Peter." Claude tried to sound bright. "Remember me? It's Claude."
As he watched the pale face and the magnified eyes he was aware of a very quick movement as Mrs. Fisk turned her head toward him and stepped in beside her son. "Who?" she said. "Who's that?"
"Claude Rawlings, ma'am. It's nice to see you again."
"The piano player. You married my niece." Crisp.
"That's right." Claude saw now that Peter was looking at him. "How are you, Peter?"
"I gave up the violin. I became interested in chess."
"Really? We should play sometime."
"I haven't played in a long time." He spoke mechanically, without intonation. "Not since I won the Atlantic correspondence championship. I was thirteen, I think."
"Hey, that's great."
"Now I'm studying history at Columbia University."
"Peter was accepted early," Mrs. Fisk said, and gave the slightest pull. "Come along, dear."
"Goodbye," Peter said, and turned away.
"Okay," Claude said, and then surprised himself. "We should get together. Go to a movie sometime." Even to himself it sounded fatuous, hopelessly inadequate.
For the final event of the evening Dewman rounded up all the children, and a few young adults, to sing Christmas carols. Peter was not included.
"You'll do the honors on the piano?" Dewman asked. He did not wait for Claude's answer, but climbed up onto the stage and arranged the singers in two rows, the taller to the rear.
Claude went to the Steinway and saw a mimeographed sheet of paper on the music stand. Dewman handed out more sheets, full of enthusiasm. Words without music. Claude played an introductory series of chords so that everyone would at least start off in the same key.
"Jingle Bells." Dewman Fisk doing a spirited and unnecessary job of conducting, moving back and forth in front of the children.
"O Come, All Ye Faithful." Something odd in the contrast between the thin little voices and Dewman's long, sad face going through various contortions as if to lead them on to glory.
"It Came upon a Midnight Clear." His arms swinging out of tempo.
"Silent Night." His eyes welling with tears. Not from the music, Claude was sure, but from some private emotion within himself released by the ritual of the music. In a sense it was as if he were all alone on the stage, aware of the singers only peripherally, so caught up was he in the symbolism of the occasion, in some incredibly sappy, self-indulgent orgy of sentimentalism. Claude was alternately fascinated and sickened by the spectacle.
When it happened, it happened fast. Even though the procedures had been explained beforehand, time seemed to collapse from the moment the phone rang and they were instructed to come and pick up the baby the following day. Lady had been unable to sleep that night, Claude waking as she got in and out of bed. In the morning she kept up a line of nervous chatter and insisted on going over the directions to the home in Larchmont again and again.
Now, in the car going north on the parkway, she seemed calmer. Claude drove carefully, at an even speed, rarely changing lanes.
"It's happening," she said.
"That's right."
"Even when I was setting all that stuff up in the nursery—God, doesn't that sound odd, the nursery—even then it didn't seem real somehow. More like going through the motions. Propitiation or something."
"The baby will make it real."
"I don't want to name him for a week. I want to look at him for a solid week and then I'll know what his name is."
It was called Sevenoaks, a large nineteenth-century estate converted to its present use in the thirties. Coming around a curve in the country road, Claude caught sight of the main building—stone, three stories, slate roof—behind the iron fence and a scrim of bare trees. "There it is."
Lady looked, but said nothing.
Claude turned into the driveway. The instructions had been precise and detailed—exactly where to park, which entrance to use, exactly where to go once inside. They got out of the car and stood briefly in the cold air, gathering themselves.
It was silent inside. They followed the narrow oriental carpet to the third door on the left. Claude knocked gently and they entered.
Lady had spoken often of Mrs. Freeling, with whom she had had several interviews but whom Claude was meeting for the first time. He had created an image of a rosy, white-haired grandmotherly type, and was taken aback when Mrs. Freeling, a six-foot-tall redhead in her thirties with the body of a dancer and the high cheekbones of a fashion model, rose to greet them. He was aware that she did not ta
ke her intelligent gray eyes from him even as she greeted Lady and indicated they should sit down.
"I'm glad to meet you at last," she said.
"I want to thank you for your help," Claude said, slightly nervous. "Lady says you've been wonderful."
"That's nice to hear." She smiled and shifted her attention to Lady. "I expect you're nervous and a bit wound up, but don't worry. Everyone always is."
"I'm okay."
"Good. Now just a reminder. The mother and the baby are upstairs. We'll go up and go into the room. Conversation is not necessary, and in fact most of the time the handover is done in silence. But if she does say something to you, you should of course feel free to respond."
"Will anyone else be there?" Lady asked softly.
"No. Just the three of us, the mother, and the child. It's best to get it done as quickly as possible without seeming to rush. Do not reach for the baby. Allow the mother to give him to you, and once he's in your arms, turn and leave straightaway. We've found that's easiest on the mother, and we want to help her as much as possible."
"Of course." Lady's voice seemed to be getting smaller.
Mrs. Freeling's gray eyes moved once again to Claude.
"I understand," he said.
Mrs. Freeling picked up a telephone on her desk and dialed a single number. She closed her eyes when she spoke. "Are you ready for us, dear?" She listened for a moment. "All right. We'll be right there." She opened her eyes and hung up the phone. Moving fast now, she got up and led them out into the hall. They walked toward the center of the building.
"The west wing contains the kitchen and dining rooms downstairs, the dormitories upstairs," Mrs. Freeling explained. "Here in the east wing we have the offices, and the medical rooms above. We have an OR for emergencies. First-rate facilities, and I must say the senator helped us get them."
They entered the main hall and approached the grand staircase. The furnishings suggested a private mansion.
"Is it always this quiet?" Claude asked as they climbed.
"Only on days like this. Everyone stays in the west wing when there's a pickup. The whole place gets pretty quiet."
Claude reached out and gave Lady's hand a squeeze as they moved down the hall. She walked forward as if in a trance. Mrs. Freeling stopped at a door, rapped lightly on the top panel of frosted glass, turned the knob, and entered.
A white room. Hospital bed, big windows, a sink, and various shelves with medical supplies against one wall. The mother stood facing the opposite wall, standing quite near to it, her long brown hair hanging against her white shift, her left elbow visible, but not her face. She seemed very small to Claude.
"It's time, dear," Mrs. Freeling said gently.
Together they moved toward her.
Slowly, looking down into the face of her child, she turned around. Then she looked up, tears streaming from her eyes, which suddenly widened as she took a step back.
Claude heard Lady's sharp intake of breath, and saw her bend forward with her fist in her stomach as if she'd been punched.
"Joanna," Lady said, "Joanna."
Mrs. Freeling acted quickly, stepping between the two women, her back to the mother and child, her hands on Lady's elbows. "You know her?"
Lady nodded.
Mrs. Freeling looked at Claude. Behind her, Joanna turned to face the wall again. "Take her to the office, please. I'll be down as soon as I can."
Claude led Lady from the room. "Who is she?" he asked as they moved to the stairs.
"Oh, God." Lady quickened her step. "I taught her at Spence a couple of years ago. Joanna Moore. She was there for a semester. She's only a child."
When they got downstairs Lady broke away. "I have to get out of here. I'll be in the car." She ran down the hall and out the door, slamming it behind her.
Claude waited in the office for nearly half an hour. He was worried about Lady, and was considering whether to slip outside to check on her when Mrs. Freeling entered. On the way to her desk she gave a little skip and kicked a wastebasket so hard that it struck a bookshelf halfway up the wall with a tremendous crash. Papers floated in the air as Claude sprang to his feet.
"Oh, sit down," Mrs. Freeling said, jerking out her own chair. "It wasn't your fault."
"What the, I mean how ...," Claude began.
"This is what happens when we rush things, when we skip procedures." She held the sides of her head and stared down at her desk. "I should never have agreed to this."
"Does the fact that they know each other mean—"
"It means it's off," she interrupted. "Anonymity is absolutely basic. Think about it. Think about it for a minute."
He did. "Because of what could happen in the future," he said finally.
"I will never, never do this again," she said. "I'll resign if I have to." Claude clasped his hands between his knees and avoided her eyes, feeling at a loss.
"You don't understand, do you," she said.
"It's gone wrong. It's very bad luck, and Lady ran out to the car, and to tell you the truth I'd like to just go out there for a moment."
"Yes, certainly, see to your wife. There's nothing more to talk about in any case. You can explain it to her."
Claude rose. "I'm terribly sorry," he said. "I can see how upset you are."
"That girl up there has had her baby for four days. And she was ready. Now it will be weeks. Weeks if we're lucky. I'm sure you can imagine how much harder that's going to make it for her."
He slowly nodded.
"Bad luck maybe," she said. "But there's no maybe about who's going to pay for it."
In the car Lady sat stiff as a statue as they drove back to the parkway. Claude started to explain, but she held up her hand.
"I know," she said, and began to weep.
"Shall I stop somewhere?"
"I just want to go home," she said.
18
CLAUDE had his hand on the doorknob before his mind registered sign taped to the glass at the entrance of Weisfeld's Music Store: closed. He was doubly confused. First, it was the middle of the afternoon on a cold Tuesday in February, a business day. Second, the sign, with a distinctive water stain in the lower right corner, was from the door to Bergman's pawn shop. Weisfeld's did not have such a sign. He got out his key and let himself in.
He'd come for a particular book on tympani from those that remained downstairs in the studio with the Bechstein, which he still played two or three times a month, but now he went to the counter and stood tapping his fingers on the glass. The lights were out, but even in the half gloom he could see that the store was in perfect order, everything in its place. He heard the distant sound of a jackhammer from Eighty-sixth, where they were tearing up part of the sidewalk. For some time he simply stood there. The last sale on the register had been one dollar and fifteen cents.
He went to the door in back, opened it, and looked up the stairs.
"Mr. Weisfeld?"
He cocked his head but heard nothing. He waited for several minutes and then put his foot on the first step.
"Mr. Weisfeld?"
He seemed not so much to climb the stairs as to very slowly float from step to step, his hand sliding along the thin banister affixed to the wall. Momentarily he had the sensation of being outside his body, watching himself. He moved up into wan daylight.
It was a surprisingly large room, almost empty of furniture. To his right an entire wall of books. In front of him two windows facing onto Third Avenue at the same level as the tracks of the elevated, a large desk before one window, a single overstuffed armchair before the other. To his left the north wall, upon which hung framed photographs of various shapes and sizes, forty or fifty of them covering that part of the wall best illuminated by the light from the windows. The odd emptiness of the room, the stillness, his own sense of illicitness, combined to create a feeling of unreality, as if he had entered a hallucination. Every angle, every shadow, every trick of the light, seemed charged with elusive meaning.
He
crossed the bare wooden floor to the photographs, moving awkwardly because his body felt out of place here, like a loud noise in a cathedral. The photographs were old. A residential street in a foreign city, solid stone houses with granite second-floor balconies, carved pilasters around tall windows, recessed entries. A group of people in front of one particular house, posing for the camera. With a shock he recognized a young Weisfeld standing with a woman of about the same age, a five- or six-year-old girl in front of them, an older man with a large white mustache and two older women behind them.
The young woman sitting under a tree in a park, holding up an apple with an impish grin, offering it to the photographer. Dozens of pictures of her in various settings—riding a horse, holding a baby in her arms, mugging in full evening dress, kneading dough with one of the older women in a kitchen. Many photographs of the child. A shot of the old man on the steps of some large institutional building. Shots of the two older women, constantly together. Sidestepping along the wall, Claude began to understand that he was looking at three generations of a family somewhere in Europe, before the war.
He stepped back, taking in the whole display. Weisfeld's family. It was disorienting, like waking up in strange surroundings.
Now he faced the rear of the apartment. He moved into an empty hall, past a small kitchen, a bathroom, a sort of study, the door open, filled with books, musical scores, records, a large walnut radio-phonograph console, a drafting table, and an old, well-worn chaise longue. An impression of order, of meticulous neatness. He passed on to the last door, which was ajar, spilling a pale beam of yellow light, and paused before it.
"Mr. Weisfeld? It's me."
There was no answer. He placed his fingertips on the door and slowly pushed it open, his heart racing so fast he could hear his pulse in his ears.
Mr. Weisfeld lay fully clothed on a narrow bed, a book open on his chest, his thin hands illuminated by a reading lamp. As Claude moved closer he saw Weisfeld's pale face, eyes closed, the skin gleaming with sweat, mouth slightly open, and heard his shallow breathing. There was a wooden chair next to the bed, and Claude sat down just as he felt his knees go weak.
