A Woman of Intelligence

by Karin Tanabe

  “Let’s sit here,” he said, pointing to a booth by a large mirror, the bottom corner slightly cracked. “Then we can check if we have food in our teeth.”

  “I thought we were just drinking,” I said as I slid into the comfortable booth and looked around. The other patrons varied from a few fashionable women to what looked like casually dressed students. Most were speaking Ukrainian or Russian.

  “Yes, but this is your first time at our restaurant. We can’t drink without eating a little something. The sausage and cabbage you’ve been yearning for? Or roast pork? Fish in bouncy yet delicious gelatin? Borscht? Potato pancakes?”

  “Maybe just dessert.”

  “Just dessert,” he said, eyeing me curiously. He leaned back in the red booth. “All right, then.”

  The waitress came back with menus and glasses of water and he ordered two vodkas, mine on the rocks, and three desserts.

  “Sochniki,” I said, smiling after Jacob had squeezed it in the middle of his orders for nalysnyky and hombovtsi. “I don’t think I’ve eaten that since I had it with you in that little Ukrainian place in Queens. Remember, we went there for breakfast a few times?”

  “Katharina,” he said, letting his hands drop on the table. “It sounds like your life has gotten dramatically worse since college. Plus one husband and minus sochniki. How are you still with us?”

  I lifted my glass of water and murmured dryly, “I ask myself that question daily.”

  He laughed. He might not have had he known how much truth there was in my answer.

  The maître d’ came to deliver us our vodka, Jacob introducing me as “Not Russian, or Ukrainian, but able to speak Russian like a native.”

  “More like a curious visitor,” I said in Russian, happy to still be able to converse in the language.

  Our waitress came back with the desserts, touching Jacob’s shoulder affectionately after she placed the three dishes on the table.

  “They treat you as if you own the place,” I said, digging into the sochniki, the golden dough and sweet cheese yielding easily to my fork.

  “Only because I’m better-looking than my uncle,” he said, shaking his head when I pushed the plate his way.

  “This is delicious,” I said, reaching for more.

  With the sweet taste of the sochniki in my mouth, I felt like a completely different woman from the one I had been that morning. Was it because Jacob was just as amusing as he’d always been, or was it because I was not just eating dessert, but inhaling the sweet taste of freedom along with it?

  “I’m thinner than him, too,” Jacob said, patting his stomach. “For now.”

  I laughed with a mouth full of cake.

  “I’m not declaring myself a motion picture heartthrob, Katharina,” he said, watching me. He was pleased that I was pleased. “It’s just that my uncle is quite fat.”

  “You can declare yourself anything you’d like. Our waitress thinks you’re a heartthrob.”

  “Well, if she only has my uncle or me to choose from, then yes. I win every time,” he said, putting an entire piece of hombovtsi on my plate. “It’s like a rigged game of poker. Plus, I jog in the park.” He put his fork down and mimed a runner’s arm movements.

  “Must be nice. But not as nice as living at the zoo.”

  “Of course it’s not.” Jacob put his fork down and picked up his drink instead. “We should spend days together doing nothing but remembering. Remembering how we met because you fell down the steps of Low Library.”

  “Butler Library.”

  “Was it?”

  “It was. And fell seems like a significant exaggeration. I think I just dropped a book. Maybe two. Maybe my dignity. Okay,” I said, laughing. “I fell.”

  Jacob laughed, too, then reached out and put his hands on my shoulders.

  “Katharina West. Katharina, Katharina. I’m so glad I saved you that day.”

  “I don’t remember being a girl that needed much saving.”

  “Oh, you weren’t. You had it all figured out. Especially New York. You were my world-class tour guide. Uptown, downtown, upsidedowntown…”

  There’s something about being in a room in very close proximity to someone you’ve already had sex with. Great sex with. You know your bodies work together and that knowledge is hard to ignore.

  I looked down at my hands and reminded myself that the FBI was not interested in flashbacks; it wanted the here and now.

  Jacob leaned back again. “But we both know all about the past, don’t we? Instead, let’s talk about this Katharina Edgeworth. What did you do after you abandoned me in ’forty-one?”

  “Abandoned you? I believe you have that reversed. You were the one who graduated in ’forty-one. You said you were going to Moscow.”

  “Did I? Well, my apologies. For abandoning you, that is.”

  “Accepted,” I said, keeping my body close to the table, ready for Jacob to reach out to me again.

  “What did you do after Columbia?” he asked after finishing his bite. “Tell me how you’ve spent these lost years. And you can end with how you became acquainted with Turner Wells. Seeing you with him was quite a surprise.”

  How did I become acquainted with Turner Wells? It was a legitimate and disastrous question, one which neither Coldwell nor Turner himself had prepared me for. I managed to nod and started chewing very slowly, to buy time. After swallowing, I reached for my water, downing half of it. “Delicious, but quite sweet.”

  “That’s the thing about dessert,” said Jacob, his voice calm. The joy that had radiated from him since we’d spotted each other had disappeared. “It’s predictable. It’s always going to be sweet.”

  “Nice. That continuity.”

  “Sometimes. But you. You were never predictable.”

  “Me, well, I suppose we should pick up where we left off,” I said brightly, still having no idea how my story would end. “After Columbia I became a secretary, then a translator.” I was tempted to start from the day of my birth, so I could build my fake narrative, but my gut told me that was pushing it.

  “Italian translation, yes?” said Jacob, pulling the plate away from me and plunging his fork in as if we were old friends breaking bread together, which I supposed we were. Though now I was an extremely nervous friend.

  “A little Italian. A lot of French. But mostly German. It was the middle of the war.”

  “For the government, then,” he remarked. “The American government.”

  “For the local government, actually. City Hall. At first, anyway. But then for the United Nations. Only French for them. I started there in ’forty-six, soon after it was founded. Needless to say, no German was required.”

  “Do you work for the United Nations now?” he asked, his voice even. Too even.

  “No. I left when I was pregnant,” I said.

  “Ah,” he said, a little less evenly. “That is what it’s like in this country. America does not approve of mothers holding on to employment.”

  My boss at the United Nations had in fact asked me to resign at the end of ’51 when I’d gone from showing to looking like I might give birth in the hallway. He’d asked me why I hadn’t resigned already. He’d called my appearance “distracting.” I could have told him that I was planning on it, but instead I said, “I will leave, but only so I no longer have to work with you.”

  The waitress walked to our corner with a coffee for me. I hadn’t had any of my vodka, and she must have noticed.

  “I really don’t remember that your uncle owned a restaurant,” I said, trying my best to steer the conversation elsewhere. I thanked the waitress but didn’t touch the coffee. The nerves I thought I’d left uptown were back, and caffeine was the last thing they needed. I glanced around. “But I like it very much.” I wondered if Jacob even had an uncle in New York, or if that was just his longtime story, his front.

  “I’m glad. So, you no longer work. Pity, for someone like you. Tell me about your husband, then. Who is the man you married? He can�
�t be as charming as me. Or Turner Wells.”

  He was certainly not dropping the thread to Wells.

  “Depends on the kind of charm one finds charming,” I said, reaching for another bite of dessert. I put an enormous piece of hombovtsi in my mouth to stall.

  “There is only one kind, Katharina,” Jacob said, finishing his vodka. He put his hands in the center of the table and leaned toward me, exchanging my coffee for the vodka. His hands looked dry and worn, the hands of a man who did more than push papers in a shipping office for a living. “You’re either charming or you’re not. Like you’re either pregnant or not, dead or alive. There is no in-between with charm.”

  I nodded, hoping that I looked thoughtful instead of panicked. “My husband … well, he is charming, then. Tom Edgeworth. He’s a doctor, a surgeon for children at Lenox Hill Hospital.”

  “A noble job,” he said, leaning back again and gesturing to the waitress. “Not charming, but noble.”

  “What is a charming job?” I asked as the waitress filled his glass with more ice-cold vodka. She’d certainly applied more red lipstick between trips to our table. “Working in your uncle’s restaurant? Running your uncle’s restaurant?”

  “Running? Yes, I keep it busy for him. I have another job, a serious man’s job in international shipping, but this one is far more charming. Of course. No business needs charm more than this one. If your hosts aren’t charming, the food won’t taste as good and you won’t want to return. Then your business fails. Simple as that. Charm runs the world.”

  “I thought it was money.”

  “Maybe a little of both, unfortunately,” he said after he’d had a swallow of vodka. “You’re very droll, Katharina. Very funny. Were you this funny at Columbia?”

  “I think I was funnier,” I said honestly.

  “You’re funny now. Still funny. And!”

  “A little charming?”

  “Very charming,” he countered.

  I picked up the vodka. I knew I shouldn’t have any, that it was just about the worst idea, especially when I was supposed to be at a doctor’s office discussing my drinking habits, but I also didn’t want to look as if I were purposely trying to keep my wits about me.

  I finished the vodka in a few thirsty gulps and put the empty glass on the table. It was quickly refilled. My hand twitched, longing to pick it up. I placed it on the coffee cup instead.

  “Köstlich,” I said, smiling. Delicious. “Do you find ways to use your German? In international shipping?”

  “Natürlich,” he said, only half-smiling. “Now, tell me,” he continued, leaning back comfortably. “How do you know Turner Wells?” Christ. He’d come back around.

  How had no one prepared me for such an obvious question?

  “We were introduced by a mutual friend,” I said, finally, not exactly a lie.

  “Who?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Who? I know Turner. Perhaps I know the friend, too.”

  Lee Coldwell. An FBI agent. I doubt you know him, but he sure knows you.

  “I don’t think you would,” I said finally. “It’s a she, and she’s Negro. I met her at work. At the United Nations,” I added in a rush, my conversation from the early afternoon winding into my mind like a tributary I’d overlooked. Though I had not been in Paris for the petition, Turner was already undercover with the group in ’51, and I was still at the UN. It felt like an entirely plausible story. Perhaps the only plausible way we would ever meet, besides being thrown together by the FBI.

  “Do Negroes work at the United Nations? American Negroes?” Jacob asked. I could see his mental wheels turning, and they were tracking only too well.

  “Not many. Our mutual friend worked in the mailroom. But I’m afraid she met the same fate I did. Jane Eyre … ickson.”

  What in all that was holy was wrong with me? I was awful at simple conversations. The only woman’s name I could come up with was Jane Eyre and then I turned her Swedish. An American Negro named Jane Erickson. I should be beheaded by Hoover himself.

  “Janie Erickson. Married name,” I added. “She’s a lovely woman, but I don’t believe you’d know her.” My mind was spinning as I tried to remember the UN mailroom and if any of the workers there were Negro women.

  “You don’t think I associate with Negroes?” said Jacob.

  “I didn’t say that,” I said, reaching for my vodka and taking a long sip. “One thing I always liked about you is that you associated with all different kinds of people. Even me.”

  “Even you,” he replied, finally smiling. “You’re right, I don’t have the privilege of knowing Mrs. Erickson,” he said, steady again. “But I remember Turner being quite passionate about certain causes when I first met him. Ones that reached all the way to the United Nations.”

  “He still is,” I said quietly, my mouth warm from the vodka. “Passionate about important causes. As am I,” I added, my voice quieter still.

  “Here’s to the unexpected,” Jacob said after a long pause, lifting his glass.

  “To the unexpected.”

  * * *

  “Well.”

  Lee Coldwell’s voice was as flat as ever, as if he were unacquainted with question marks.

  “Mr. Coldwell, this is Mrs. Edgeworth,” I pronounced. I had just left Jacob, declining his invitation for dessert to move backward into dinner.

  “Yes, I assumed as much. How did it go.”

  “Well, very well,” I said, my whole body warm from the vodka and adrenaline.

  “He liked you? He wants to see you again? Gornev?”

  “He does,” I said confidently, though I had no idea if it was true. “No set plans, but he now has my telephone number and address.”

  “Good.”

  “So we wait?”

  “We do not. We push things along. Can you call me again? Perhaps tonight? I’ll have some ideas by then.”

  “The later the better,” I said, buzzing with excitement, alcohol, and worry.

  “Ten?”

  “Two.”

  “In the morning? Fine. Speak then. And thank you, Mrs. Edgeworth.”

  “Thank you,” I replied firmly. It was the most genuine thank-you I’d uttered in months.

  I stood in the phone booth after I hung up and thought about Coldwell’s words. “We push things along.” What did that look like? Was it one more drink with Jacob or straight to cocktails at the Soviet Embassy? I didn’t know, but I also knew I hadn’t felt this alive in months. Years. Whatever Coldwell asked me to do next, I would say yes. The alternative felt too bleak. It felt like agreeing to spend life facedown on the floor, unidentifiable, uninteresting, except for my expensive dress and my riveting failings.

  Before stepping out of the booth, I leafed through the phonebook. When I found a promising option, I dialed the number.

  “Park Avenue Florists,” said a pleasant female voice.

  “Hello? Yes. I’d like to send flowers to California. Is that possible? Good … that’s right, Los Angeles. They are for Miss Faye Buckley Swan at O’Melveny & Myers. It’s a law firm. A large bouquet. The color? I don’t know. Something not too feminine. They’re flowers, right, you do have a point. No, no, not a cactus. How about something blue? Fine. Grape hyacinth, that will do. Wonderful.” I paused. “Actually, one more order for California. This time, for Mrs. Arabella Rowe at 2700 Pacific Avenue. Let me see, for her … what was that about a cactus? No. She’d send a firing squad. Let’s just do roses. White. And when I say white, I mean white as snow. Not a brown spot to be seen.”

  I hung up the phone and stood a bit taller. I was a woman who did things, a woman with tasks—and not ones that involved staring wistfully at Tavern on the Green and attempting to keep two children alive for one more day. Feeling lighter than I had since my return from California, I headed northwest to the Gramercy Park Hotel, sat in the lobby, and asked for a carafe of water. I drank as much as I could, closing my eyes and thinking about the many times I’d been there before, consuming
all types of things that weren’t water.

  Before leaving, I went to the powder room, rinsed my mouth out with soap, which nearly made me vomit, and reapplied my lipstick and rouge. The last person I needed smelling alcohol on my breath was Jilly. As wonderful as she was, she’d still rush back to the West Side to tell Tom’s mother, and the news of my relapse would reach her son mere seconds later. Everyone in Tom’s world seemed to possess a tin can telephone that stretched directly to him. The only one who didn’t was me.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Where Mama?” I heard Gerrit’s voice as soon as I was in the foyer. “No baby Peter. Want Mama. Mama. Mama.”

  “Darling! Gerrit!” I called out as the elevator doors closed behind me. “Here I am. Mama’s here. I had to go to the doctor today. I’m sorry.”

  “I want Mama!” he said, running to me. Jilly had the baby in her arms. He was trying to squirm out to reach me, too. She placed him gently on the floor and he crawled over to me.

  “Did everything go smoothly, Jilly?” I asked, Peter warm in my arms and Gerrit hugging my legs as I tried to squat down to his level.

  “It went just fine, Mrs. Edgeworth,” she said, heading swiftly for the entrance hall and taking her coat from the closet. If she were on fire she could hardly have moved faster. “Did everything go all right with you?” she asked cheerfully.

  Tom’s mother had clearly not only informed her of my plans for the day, after being filled in by her son, but also asked her to report on my condition when I returned.

  “It all went very well,” I said smoothly. “I’m feeling much better. These women doctors are just wonderful. Terribly insightful. And quite modern. I should have consulted with one earlier.”

  “I imagine so,” said Jilly. “I go to the Edgeworths’ doctor. Dr. Schulman. Have done so since I started working for them twenty years ago. I’ve never had a lady doctor.”

  “I recommend it,” I said, praying I looked like a woman with so much spring in her step she could touch the moon. “I feel not only cured in the heart, but in the head. And Jilly,” I added, smiling sweetly.