A Severed Wasp

by Madeleine L'engle

  She woke up, her face wet with tears, Llew’s tears, she thought vaguely, and then was astonished to find herself in an old body, a body which could not run as fleetly as she had just run in the dream.

  There had been many nights when she had held Justin, as she had been running to hold Llew, when they had wept together. Perhaps what she missed most was someone with whom to shed tears.

  It was three o’clock in the morning, and the light curtains at the windows hung limply in the humidity. Her various routines for inducing sleep took no account of the warm weather. She went to the kitchen to heat up some consommé, and took it to bed to sip. Sometimes that would quieten her when she had an attack of the past. But this was past and present all kaleidoscoped. She did not like it. In her mind’s ear she played through thesis and antithesis of Busoni’s Fantasia Contrappuntistica, letting the rich fusion of counterpoint and fantasy clarify her mind. She felt Justin’s presence behind her, as he had so often stood behind her while she worked, and in the comfort of his presence she drifted into sleep.

  6

  Toward morning, the air lightened and her sleep became restful. She did not stir till nearly nine.

  She was waiting for her coffee to drip through the filter when the phone rang. It was not surprising to have it be Felix.

  “I hope I didn’t disturb you?”

  “No, I’m up.”

  “Did I call you last night?”

  “You know you did.”

  “No, I don’t know. I got drunk, and when that happens, I forget.”

  “You didn’t sound drunk.”

  “I was. It doesn’t happen very often. But last night—”

  “What about last night?”

  “What did I talk to you about?”

  “You were afraid of something.”

  “You mustn’t take it seriously. I sometimes get the screaming meemies. I can’t apologize enough for bothering you.”

  Frascati or no, she had believed his fear the night before. She did not believe his excuses this morning.

  “Fears—” he murmured. “They don’t end when one is consecrated bishop. Do you remember the horrible ads they used to have in the subway when we were young? Pictures of coffins looking, oh, so cozy, as though if we made the corpse comfy that would take away the sting of death.”

  “Felix, will you hang on a minute? Let me pour myself a cup of coffee.”

  “Of course, my dear. Take your time. It’s a gorgeous spring day, in the seventies, with the sun lovely and warm.”

  She fixed her coffee and sat down comfortably. She wanted to know what had put him in a state of near-panic the night before. “Here I am. What were you saying?”

  “I’m not sure. I have no memory. I think I was talking about fears, all the human fears. I don’t think I’m really afraid of dying now, at least not the way I used to be when I was so appalled at pictures of satin-padded coffins.”

  She was silent. Whatever was making him talk this way had to do with whatever had frightened him the night before.

  “All I meant to do was call and apologize for drinking too much and bothering you, you of all people. Did I wake you?”

  “I told you, I’m drinking coffee.”

  “I mean last night.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Don’t fret.”

  “Bless you, my dear. I’ll be in touch, but I won’t bother you. I promise.”

  She hoped he would keep the promise. She hung up, vaguely disturbed, and warmed a croissant to go with her second cup of coffee. She would spend the morning at the piano.

  The Hunter Portrait

  1

  During her busy professional life, she’d appreciated her rare hours alone. In hotel rooms all over the world she had made herself at home by putting an herb-scented pillow on the bed, pictures of Justin and the children on tables and chests of drawers, scattering books and music about, carrying with her two small vases for flowers, given her by thoughtful admirers. Her times of solitude were treasured, a few hours snatched here and there between television appearances, newspaper interviews, recording sessions.

  Crowds backstage after a concert. Small supper parties afterwards, carefully organized by Jean Paul Yvert, her manager. Formal dinners with heads of state. Gifts from music lovers, not just the great bouquets of hothouse flowers, but more thoughtful things, like the vases, the first herbal pillow, a book someone thought she might enjoy.

  Sometimes she would take two weeks off, in the mountains, or by the sea, sleeping great drenches of sleep, swimming, reading, walking. In the periods between tours, when she stayed in Paris, there were daily visits from Jean Paul as the next concert was planned, the guest appearances with various orchestras. She was always on the move, to airports, hotels …

  After the last long tour, when the house had been sold, the farewell concert given, the champagne flat, the flowers wilted, the plane ticket to New York in her bag, she had said a final farewell to Jean Paul, who had so competently managed her career since Justin’s death. He had tried to hold her back, begging her to marry him, to stay in France.

  She was not sure why she felt she had to leave Jean Paul, to leave the house where she had lived with Justin, to return to the city of her birth, where she had spent only the smallest fraction of her life. But if she was to retire, and she was convinced that the right time had come, then all connections had to be cut.

  ‘It’s absurd to think of marriage at my age,’ she had told Jean Paul. ‘You are young enough to be my son.’

  ‘So was Colette’s third husband. And he took care of her till she died.’

  ‘I have had only one husband, and I have no intention of dying in the near future,’ she had replied with asperity. ‘I intend to enjoy the peace and quiet of my retirement. I own a brownstone in New York and a farmhouse in Connecticut.’

  ‘But the farmhouse is rented and you need the income, and New York is not safe.’

  ‘It’s no less safe than Paris. All big cities are dangerous. They have always been.’

  ‘But New York—its reputation …’

  ‘Jean Paul, I want to go home.’

  ‘But Paris has been your home—why go so far? What about Norway? Your daughter is there, and your grandchildren. I know Erlend Nikulaussen is dead, but—’

  ‘Norway is out,’ she said flatly. ‘I have no intention of dumping myself on a daughter who, in any case, would not welcome me. And, as you say, Erlend is dead. He was my great good friend, and a fine conductor, and I was probably happier playing with him than with anyone else, but the past is past and I do not need to go to Norway, where I do not speak the language.’

  ‘But your daughter—after all, Julie is married to Erlend’s nephew, and you love to talk on the phone with your grandchildren—’

  ‘Jean Paul, stop trying. I am going home. I do not speak Norwegian and I am tired of talking French.’

  ‘But, my love, you think in French.’

  ‘It is now time for me to return to thinking in English.’

  At first she had felt that she was translating; her idioms came out with a Gallic twist. But after a few weeks she would have to stop herself and check to see in which language she was thinking, or in which language she had been dreaming. One morning in early May when she was setting out to do the day’s marketing, and passed Mimi Oppenheimer in the vestibule, she inadvertently greeted her in French, and to her surprise Mimi replied in French, explaining, “I was born in Paris. My mother was American, so we spoke French and English interchangeably at home. It’s delightful to have someone to speak French with.”

  “I’m trying to remember to think in English,” Katherine said ruefully. “This was a slipup.”

  “You don’t really think in any language,” Mimi told her. “You think in music. By the way, Suzy Davidson called me this morning to say that Llewellyn Owen is giving a concert this afternoon after Evensong. He’s an unusually fine organist. Could I persuade you to join me?”

  “I think you could. I heard him
practicing last month when Felix was showing me around the Cathedral.”

  “Good. I’ll pick you up at three-thirty. I’m off to give a lecture now and I’m running late.” With a quick wave, Mimi loped down the street, swinging a black briefcase, moving more like an overgrown adolescent than a professional woman on the verge of retirement.

  Katherine did her marketing and let herself into the apartment. It was beginning to feel like home. All the pictures were now unpacked, the photographs hung. The music was arranged in a tall cherry cabinet which had been Justin’s present to her on her fiftieth birthday, and was one of the pieces she had brought over from France. The barrels containing silver, china, linens, had been taken away; the sawdust, real and plastic, had been swept up by Raissa, the cleaning woman Mimi had found for her, who came for a few hours twice a week. She had called a piano tuner who understood the piano. She had discovered a good butcher, a stand with really fresh fruits and vegetables. José, the superintendent she shared with half the block, was full of excellent if nearly incomprehensible advice. The exterminator Mimi had recommended would come on the first Monday of each month. An old house in New York, Mimi had warned her, is a favorite habitation of cockroaches and rodents.

  ‘I can stand the mice,’ Mimi said, ‘but not the rats. And not the cockroaches. Do you know that they can survive almost anything: heat, pressure, even the aftereffects of an atom bomb? If human beings eliminate themselves in atomic warfare, the cockroaches will inherit the world.’

  Katherine had shuddered and promptly called the exterminator. ‘And be sure to have plenty of candles on hand,’ Mimi had added. ‘I note you have candlesticks on your table, but you should be warned that the power system of this great city is getting more and more unreliable. The power tends to go out in one borough or other far too frequently, and Manhattan, of course, is likely to suffer most.’ Katherine heeded Mimi’s advice—the doctor, she thought, was not a doom-monger—and put several boxes of candles in her big closet under the stairs in the main hall. It had a strong padlock and was as close as she could come to having an attic. There she stored some silver she did not use regularly, and a few pictures she could not find room for in her limited space. Too many bookcases? No, she could not do without her books—though half a dozen cartons were also stored in the back of the hall closet, waiting until she could figure out a new place for shelves.

  She was, she was confident, settling in, becoming once again at home in her native city and her native tongue.

  But she was not falling asleep easily at night. After all these years of widowhood she kept reaching out for Justin’s warm and sleeping body, as she had so often in the night reached out to give or receive comfort. Even in the hottest weather they had always slept in the same bed, in order that touch be available, the loveliness of a beloved body.

  When she was not at the piano, she had an uneasy sense of being displaced. There was no busy time during the day when she was planning a new tour. When she checked her music, it was not to prepare a program for a new concert. One morning after two hours of aimless practicing she went to the record player and put on one of her mother’s records. It was a new pressing, taken from one of the old 78 rpm discs, and even with all of modern technology there was a faint roaring as of distant vacuum cleaners in the background. But the music rose above it, brilliant and alive. Scriabin. Julie Forrester had been one of the great interpreters of that complex Russian composer. The dense Slavic music twined itself into Katherine’s attentive listening. Why was she playing it? Her mother had been known for her Scriabin, Liszt, Chopin. Not Katherine’s music. So why was she playing it now? What was she looking for?

  Love, perhaps? Reassurance? Even now, was she looking for figurative lap-sitting, the petting, the coddling she had not received as a child? But surely she had received more than enough affirmation from Manya, once she had been able to turn to her stepmother. But, like all human beings, she still had unfulfilled longings. She could still be as lonely and frightened as a child, and with as little reason.

  The music still playing, she returned to her desk. Her correspondence was large, and likely to remain so. She had received many fan letters over the years, and some of them had resulted in lifelong friendships and continuing correspondence. Many of the letters were from fellow musicians, others from people who appreciated music and understood it. Only the day before, she had received a letter from a man who had heard her last concert in Vienna—how long ago? a year?—and had remarked that when an audience listened to Vigneras, there was no curtain of protection between player and audience, that there was a sensation of music not so much being played as creating itself, of its own volition. He surely deserved a reasonable thank-you letter. During the height of her career she had needed a secretary to take care of the bulk of the mail. For the past few years she had been weaning herself of this assistance, and had devoted at least an hour a day to answering letters, and this now gave her some needed structure. But she did not want to be an old woman dependent on fans for a sense of self. Absurd. Letters were fine, and she treasured the friendships, and was helped, as all artists need to be helped, by reassurance; however, she spent only a small part of each day at her desk. Time stretched ahead of her with no structure she herself did not impose. Perhaps she had been overhasty in retiring.

  Nonsense.

  But she was restless. She was lonely. She was grateful for Mimi’s invitation.

  2

  When the doctor arrived, a little ahead of time, Katherine offered her a cup of tea. The spring weather had been unwontedly variable. The day before, after a warm beginning to May, she had needed a coat. Now, with one of New York’s unpredictable switches, it was summer-hot.

  Mimi accepted a cup with alacrity. “I’m glad I came early. The students were particularly dull today, and I did not think I was being that obscure. I have a reputation for being an attention-holding if slightly flamboyant lecturer, and one young creature yawned.” She settled herself comfortably on the sofa, one leg tucked under her. “You’re looking more rested. Everything going along all right?”

  “Fine. I’m not accustomed to total lack of schedule.”

  “You practice regularly.”

  “Oh—that. Yes, of course. But it’s for no particular purpose.”

  “Have you heard from Bishop Bodeway since your dinner together?”

  Katherine shook her head. Felix had honored his promise not to bother her. She did not want to betray him, and as the weeks had passed, she had put the two strange phone calls from her mind, but she heard herself asking, “Has he ever had a drinking problem?”

  Mimi smiled. “Did he go rather heavily on the wine that night at dinner?”

  “No. We had only one glass apiece. And one small glass of dry sherry beforehand.”

  “Then—forgive me—but why do you ask?”

  Katherine prevaricated: “He used to drink more than I thought was good for him back in the days of our extreme youth.”

  Mimi’s eyes were shrewd. “But that’s not why you ask. Never mind. No, I don’t think he has a drinking problem. I gather that a long time ago he drank heavily, but he was not an alcoholic, and he’s had no problem with drinking ever since I’ve known him. From all I can see, he has none of the telltale signs of the secret drinker. I think he is, in fact, a temperate old boy.”

  Mimi rose, and stood by the bookshelves, pulling out a volume. “You have eclectic taste in reading.”

  “I’ve tried to keep my horizons a little wider than music.”

  “Where’s the picture of your son and daughter?”

  A small hesitation. Then, “Oh—I have so many pictures I rotate them. There he is, Michou, standing by Julie in her cradle.” She pointed to a snapshot which was focused on the baby; the small boy was in shadow, only his fair hair visible as he bent over the cradle. “And”—Katherine pointed toward the fireplace—“there he is again with me.”

  The doctor turned to regard a portrait of a young woman, half-veiled by loose
dark hair, nursing a baby, a beautiful subtle painting. “Gorgeous! Whose?”

  “Philippa Hunter’s.”

  “I should have known. Her use of light and shadow always awes me. Did you know her?”

  “Slightly. She was a protégée of Aunt Manya’s—my stepmother—who was an actress—”

  Mimi said, “I recognized her photograph on your wall, there. I’m old enough to remember Manya Sergeievna.”

  “Lots of people your age don’t. Anyhow, Philippa asked to do the portrait. Aunt Manya bought it for Justin and me and we always loved it—it’s probably my most treasured possession.”

  “Small wonder. It’s one of the best Hunters I’ve ever seen.”

  Katherine, too, gazed at the portrait. “Everything’s uncrated and unpacked and put in its place—at last. I’m feeling very much at home.”

  “Yes, this is a home. And I’m very glad you’re in it.”

  3

  In the taxi, Katherine said, “Felix wants me to give him a benefit concert.”

  “Why not do it? It won’t be like preparing for a tour, but it will at least give you a small sense of purpose.”