“Did you feel that?” she asks.
He nods, his eyes wide.
“It’s a miracle. Every life is a miracle,” she whispers.
“Linda . . .”
“Do you feel nothing for me?” she whispers. “I just can’t believe you feel nothing, when I feel so much for you . . .”
He doesn’t speak, sorting what he might say. He removes his hand from her belly reluctantly.
“Because if you feel something, anything, I could just hold that close. I could think about it and not care that my life’s a mess. I could have that little glimmer of happiness and go on.” He looks at her, the silken tumble of her blond tresses, creamy throat, soft, pale eyes.
“You should go see to Stash,” he says. “You’re married to Stash.”
“Please tell me you feel something.”
He does feel something. He just doesn’t know if it’s pity or sadness or base desire or an inkling of love. And he doesn’t think telling her about it would help anyone.
“You broke my heart, Linda. I sometimes think it doesn’t work anymore, like a car that’s been in a terrible accident. It’s the part of me I haven’t been able to repair. Look . . .” He gets up. “I do care about you and wish you were happier. I wish Stash was happier. I wish all wars would stop like they said they would when we dropped the bomb . . .” He touches her naked arm, recalls how much he once cherished her skin, the way she tasted, the way she shuddered when he gave her pleasure. But it all feels remote, impossible to claim as his own.
“Bless you, Charlie. I’ll never stop loving you. I want you to know I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I lost you.”
“Thank you for that.”
She takes his face in her hands and kisses him, chastely, respectfully, but still, he feels her passion. For a brief moment he desperately wants her, relaxes his lips against hers and draws her in, taking in the yielding warmth of her sweet mouth.
Then he flees.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In the morning, his head throbbing, Charlie takes the CB&Q train to the suburbs. Hemmings was supposed to drive but called at seven A.M. to beg off: He’s got the flu. Charlie’s been telling himself he’s going to ask the Bureau to have a car modified for him so he can learn to drive again. A knob on the steering wheel as he once suggested to Linda. A lever to replace the shift so he can press it in either direction with his wrist. But every time he starts filling out the request, he stops. It sets him apart, shines a spotlight on his injury. Still, this morning he regrets he hasn’t followed through.
Charlie glances down at Weaver’s wife’s address: Clemence Weaver c/o Adeline Hodges. A friend who’s putting her up? he wonders. As soon as the train starts rocking, Charlie falls asleep and finds it hard to rouse himself to get off at his stop. Christ. He can’t go without a good night’s sleep much longer. He feels weak and disoriented.
Fortunately, the house he’s looking for is only a few blocks from the Hinsdale station. A brick Victorian, set back from the road, sporting one of those crazy turrets with a pointy hat. The lady who owns it must be a gardener. Petunias are tumbling out of every possible crevice. Yellow roses are clutching the chimney wall. He climbs the stone porch steps and knocks. A woman with neat white hair opens the door.
“Yes?” She has one of those sweet Betty Crocker faces that leaves him tongue-tied.
“Ma’am, are you Adeline Hodges?”
“Yes . . .”
“And do you have a Clemence Weaver living here?” he asks.
“Well, yes.”
“Is she in?”
“And who are you?”
Charlie displays his badge, introduces himself. He shakes her hand, having always felt that’s the right thing to do: to treat people the way he was taught to treat fellow parishioners as a child.
“Well, to be honest,” Mrs. Hodges says, “I’m relieved you’re here. We’ve been worried about Mrs. Weaver.”
“Have you?”
“She’s paid for room and board but she hasn’t been down to dinner in a few days. I didn’t want to be nosy or anything, but I checked her room this morning. Thinking, well, you know, she might be ill or need help. Come in, Mr. . . . what did you say your name is?”
“Szydlo.”
“Mr. Szydlo. Now, what kind of name is that?”
“I think it may originally be Hungarian, but my family’s Polish.”
“Oh. I knew it was foreign.” He doesn’t usually tell that tale—the uncertainty of his family name—wonders why he’s told her. To gain her trust? She ushers him into a hallway dizzy with browning wallpaper, a foxhunt pattern on it. The foxes look demented. Their eyes glow red. A dark wooden railing, complex and Gothic, leads upstairs.
“What did you find in her room?” he asks.
“See, that’s what struck us as odd. Mrs. Weaver’s things are all there. Even her purse. Her wallet too. I didn’t mean to pry, but . . . I wanted to know if I should be worried. And her clothes are all just hanging there, like she’s coming right back. But no one’s seen her.”
“May I take a look?”
“Surely.”
“How long has she been here?”
“A year, I guess.”
“You ever see her husband?”
Mrs. Hodges shakes her head. “No, sir. I guess he works somewhere else and they can’t be together. But she told us she’s married. She wears a wedding band. She showed me his photo once. A real handsome fellow.”
“Has she had any visitors?”
“Not one. And she doesn’t speak to the other guests much. Some people think she’s snooty.”
Mrs. Hodges leads him up the steps. The upstairs hall has the smell that old houses get when their roofs leak, but Clemence Weaver’s room smells sweet. It’s large and airier than he expects. The woodwork is painted white and the sun pours in on a rug figured with pink roses, on the iron bed, left unmade. Wiggling his hand into the oversize rubber glove he wears to examine a crime site, he throws back the sheets and coverlet. No blood. No unusual marks. Just the wrinkles made by a sleeping person. The closet is hung with little bags of something that smell just short of perfume, the source of the sweet smell. Lavender, that’s what it is—the stuff Peggy hangs to keep the moths away. Long, slender dresses dangle from the rack; on the floor, high heels have fallen on their sides. Inside them are the imprints of Mrs. Weaver’s feet. The top drawer of the heavy old chest sticks and he has to yank it. Silky lingerie explodes out, and he stuffs it back in. Elegant things that he’s sure would feel like cream to his fingers without the glove. Nothing else. He shoves the drawer closed. The rest of the chest is filled with sweaters, scarves.
A dark red square purse sits atop the bedside table. Elegant. Expensive-looking. But no wallet inside. Instead, some folded cash in a silken pocket.
“Does she have other purses?” he asks.
“I’m not certain. A brown one too, I think.” Charlie empties the purse entirely. Tucked into a different side pocket, he finds a French passport in a worn green leather case. When he opens it, the name on it isn’t Clemence Weaver. It’s Victoire Spenard. He takes in the photo, the long face, the darkened lips set in a haughty O, the eyes lined in makeup like an ancient Egyptian. This is the person Weaver married? He glances at her birth year: 1895. She’s well over fifty years old. Does he even have the right woman? He turns to Mrs. Hodges, still standing in the doorway.
“Is this Mrs. Weaver?” he asks, displaying the photograph.
She nods. He’ll have to show the photo to Rosalind. He thinks she said she saw Clemence Weaver once. Why would this woman have used an alias? Could she be a Soviet agent? Perhaps Weaver’s wife is or was his handler? When he gets back to the office he’ll look the name up. Victoire Spenard. With his one good hand and some effort, he slides the passport into one of the glassine evidence pouches he always carries and sli
ps it into his jacket.
“Don’t touch anything in this room,” he warns Mrs. Hodges. “And especially don’t clean. Lock it and keep the other guests out. If we don’t find Mrs. Weaver, this room will be a crime scene.”
“Yes. I was right, wasn’t I? It’s odd, isn’t it?”
“Seems odd,” he agrees.
“Do you think she was murdered?” she asks him with giddy horror.
“That’s rarely the case,” he tells her. “She may have left with a small case and a different purse.”
He doesn’t believe a word he’s saying, because why wouldn’t she have taken all the cash? And why wouldn’t she have grabbed her passport—unless she has others with other names? Still, he needs to tell the landlady something to keep her from speculating with all her guests.
“I’ll be back,” he says.
“And you’ll let me know if they find her, won’t you? I won’t sleep a wink.”
“I’ll let you know.”
* * *
The next evening after work, Rosalind takes a piece of paper and a pen and sits at the small desk by the window where she pays her bills.
Dear Sirs,
I would like to inquire about a position at Argonne National Laboratory. As a student of Dr. Enrico Fermi and a scientist on the Manhattan Project, I have long believed in the peacetime potential of nuclear energy. I’m particularly intrigued by your work on light-water reactors.
She stops, stares at the page, notes that her hand is shaking. Should she write to Fermi first and ask him to intervene with Argonne? Would her old mentor welcome her reaching out to him? Or did he lose all faith in her when Weaver penned that report? Fermi never wrote or called after she was dismissed. True, he was at Los Alamos at the time. He had more important things on his mind. And as much as she adored him, he was often more interested in his own thoughts and theories than in people. “People are too volatile,” he once said. What must he have thought about the report that most of all stressed her volatility?
She sets down her pen. Later. She’ll tackle it later. Pacing, she realizes that she hasn’t spoken to Louisa since last Saturday, the day Louisa had her knockdown fight with Henry. The day Roz and Ava and Weaver spent their beautiful afternoon together. Usually, she and Lou speak two, three times a week. Roz knows there’s a benefit to this schism: Without the constant trickle of Louisa’s carping, Rosalind feels more lighthearted. Still, she picks up the telephone. Her enthusiastic “Hi, Louisa!” meets a wall. “I’ve been wondering how things are with Henry. You know, after that tiff last weekend . . .”
“So you actually found time to think of us with his nibs lurking around.”
“What?”
“Ava told me about Weaver.”
“Oh.”
“How could you see that man after what he did to you?”
“I didn’t plan it. It just—”
“And with all hell breaking loose at our house.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Henry’s threatening to move out and get himself a room at the Allerton.”
“He’s joking, surely?”
“He doesn’t think it’s a joke. Do you?” Louisa’s voice crumples chillingly.
“My God. Let me speak to him. You didn’t think to call me?”
“I figured you were too busy with Tom Weaver to care.”
“Of course I care.”
“How can you see that man again? After all he did? Have you forgotten how we all had to pick up the pieces when he threw you away last time?”
Roz feels attacked and yet recognizes, almost immediately, that it’s Louisa changing the subject so she doesn’t have to talk about what hurts in her own life.
“I’ll never forget that,” Roz says. It’s just like her sister to deflect, to push Roz away when she needs her most.
“And now he’s charmed Ava too. I don’t want my daughter being exposed to that louse.”
“He seems to have changed, Louisa. But I understand why you’re cynical. I’m cynical.” She can hardly tell Louisa about the FBI. Since the night she made love with Weaver, she’s ashamed how much she longs for him. Charlie Szydlo’s become Rosalind’s excuse for letting Weaver back into her life, and God knows, she needs one. “Tell me about Henry. What’s happened?”
“He hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you. Maybe he’s just angry.”
“He says he’s had it with me. I know I’m not the easiest . . . I don’t know what I’ll do if he leaves. I haven’t worked since the war. And there are no torpedo plants hiring at present.”
“You could do all sorts of things. You’re good with numbers. You could be a bookkeeper. Or work in management somewhere. You’ve got the experience.”
“Women don’t manage things anymore. Not since ’45.”
“But you could. And it’s important to know Henry would give you and Ava money, no matter what. Couldn’t you put him on the phone? Let me talk to him?”
“We’re not speaking.”
“Not even enough to wander in and tell him I want to speak to him?”
“No.”
“C’mon, Lou.”
“No.”
“Okay, I’m coming over there,” Roz says.
“What? Now?”
“Yes. Right now. I’ll grab the bus, be there in a half hour.”
Louisa harrumphs before she hangs up.
All these years, Roz has wondered how Henry put up with Louisa. How he managed to ignore her sister at her most miserable. She recalls how he would sometimes turn to Roz when she was just a teenager and oh so subtly shake his head, his eyes glancing upward as if to say, Your sister. We’ll ignore what she just said, shall we? Rosalind owes Louisa so much but finds it so hard to breach the trench that’s been dug between them. She brushes her teeth, reapplies her lipstick, and grabs her purse. Still, she loves her family, and as small and odd as it is, they’re all she has.
* * *
After getting a full report about school from Ava and a whispered diatribe about how really awful Henry can be from Louisa, Rosalind hugs her sister.
“Please, Lou,” she says. “Hand out the olive branch. Let him know you wish to work things out at least. That’s all Henry ever asks for.”
“He’s the one that should be handing out an olive branch, the son of a bitch.” Louisa turns back to her dishes. But then Roz sees she’s crying. “He’s never loved me. Not really. I see that now. When I’ve loved him all along. When I gave up everything to take care of him.” She wonders what her sister means.
“Hey.” She reaches out to touch her, but Louisa flinches, shoves back an elbow. Rosalind stands for a long time, watching her, her throat sore with worry. “I’m sorry,” she says at last. “I’m sorry you’re hurt. He does love you. I’m certain he does.” But Louisa doesn’t answer. How many people in the world are so poisoned by sadness, they push love away when it’s the one thing they long for most? Even more since the war.
“Please. Please, leave me alone.” Roz sees Louisa in a way she’s never seen her before: wounded. Sturdy Louisa. Implacable Louisa. Wounded.
“We can talk. Take a walk maybe.”
Louisa shakes her head fiercely.
“Later, then, maybe.” Shrugging, Roz leaves her and heads down the hall, knocks softly, then opens the door to Henry’s study. Her brother-in-law is leaning over his desk with a chessboard in front of him. She closes the door quietly behind her and asks, “Playing by yourself?”
“Kid. I’ve missed you.” He rises, puts his arms around her. Throughout her childhood, it was most often Henry who was there to clean a cut knee or give her a hug when the world seemed askew.
“I hear that the dam’s burst in this household. What’s going on?” she asks.
“A guy can only take so much,” he says. His mouth presses in
at the corners, making him look almost fierce, though Henry is buttered melba toast. He was handsome when he married her sister. A mop of dark hair. Sturdy squared shoulders from his years in the service. He volunteered for World War I and victory was declared soon after, so he never saw battle. He did desk work in Washington during the Second World War and celebrated in the streets on VJ Day. But Louisa is a war that cannot be won. Worn down by the enemy, Henry’s skinnier every year. His shoulders roll forward; his scalp shows through the comb marks in his hair. His brush of a mustache now sports white wires among the brown. He’s still handsome, but in the threadbare way of a much-loved chair.
“Here, sit.” He gestures to the corner where he often reads and turns his office chair to face her. On the walls are all his certificates. Diplomas and CPA licenses. Such a steady guy. Working hard. Never letting anyone down.
“Tell me about what’s going on,” she says. “Why now? You’ve put up with her all these years.”
“It wears on a fellow. I’m not made of steel. How many years do I have left?” he asks.
“Thirty. Forty.”
“If I’m wildly lucky. Do I want to spend them feeling angry?”
“You know she loves you even if she doesn’t always show it.”
“I’ve been thinking about this,” he says. “How people fall in love and put up with someone who gives them none of what they want. They’ve chosen badly and then feel stuck. A lifetime of suffering, for what? A glimmer of hope that things will change. Well, it took me years to come to this, but people don’t change.”
Rosalind can’t argue. Weaver withheld so much from her, and yet she clung to the hope that someday he’d marry her, openly love her. The less he gave, the more she craved.
“But you love Louisa. You still wish she’d give you what you want, don’t you? Love or patience. What if you give her an ultimatum?” Roz asks. “Tell her you’ll stay under certain conditions. Write them out.”
Atomic Love Page 13
