A Severed Wasp

by Madeleine L'engle

  She replied briskly, “I’d like to come up to the Cathedral once or twice to practice on the Bösendorfer.”

  He hit the palm of his hand against his forehead. “How stupid of me! I should have thought of it. Of course, just let me know when. Almost any time, as long as it’s not during a service.” He fished in his pocket and handed her a card. “This has my office number on it, as well as my home number. Thanks for the lovely tea and the yummies.” He broke off as the phone rang, startling them both. She reached for it. “It’s for you.”

  “Why on earth would anyone want to track me down here?” His voice was irritable, but he took the receiver. “Yes, Bishop Bodeway … What? Oh, my God, no … Of course, I’m just leaving, I’ll be right there, Dave.” He put the receiver down and turned to Katherine. “The present is very much with us. Mervin Juxon has just been shot.”

  “Felix—how ghastly—” She remembered the Levantine-looking man she had met at the Davidsons’, with his deep, kind eyes. “Killed?”

  “Yes. It was down Amsterdam—some kids mugging an old woman and Merv intervened and they pulled out a gun. Dear God … I’ve got to get back to the Cathedral as quickly as—I’ll be in touch …”

  5

  After Felix had gone, she turned to the piano, still shocked by the distressing news. In a world where even children had guns, no one was safe.

  But music took her into its affirmative structure, and she rested there.

  She had given Mimi a key to the apartment, at the doctor’s request. ‘Not that I expect you to fall getting out of the tub, but it’s just a good idea for someone to be able to get in to you, if necessary.’

  So she had no idea how long Mimi had been curled up on the sofa, listening, although it was no surprise to see her, since they had planned to get together that evening. Katherine suspected that Mimi had suggested dinner, thinking that Katherine was apt to neglect fixing herself a meal after the tea with Felix, which, of course, was likely.

  “My God,” Mimi said when Katherine turned from the piano, “and to think that Beethoven was deaf when he wrote that.”

  Katherine flexed her fingers. “Maybe that’s why it’s so extraordinarily difficult to perform. An interior sound is not easy to externalize.”

  “You externalized it, all right. How was your tea with Bodeway?”

  Katherine looked at the tea cart with the remnants of their tea, two cucumber sandwiches now withered, a melting blob of chocolate on Felix’s plate. “Just as he was leaving, he got a phone call from the dean telling him that Bishop Juxon had tried to help a woman who was being mugged, and got shot. Killed.”

  “Merv? Killed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Christ.” Mimi’s face darkened with outrage. “What a hell of a world we live in. What a hell of a way for Merv to die.”

  Katherine looked at the messy tea table. “Somehow it’s never who or when we expect. And even when we expect death, it comes as a shock anyhow.” She started to push away from the piano. “I forgot to clean up. I’ve been spoiled. I thought I was used to doing for myself, but I see I’m not.”

  “Stay where you are and play for me, and I’ll wash up,” Mimi ordered. “Something for Merv—not a dirge, he’d hate that. Something light. How about that merry-go-round thing of your father’s?”

  Thomas Forrester had been moody, preoccupied, could never understand the point of a joke, and yet his music bubbled with merriment, and it was this quality that kept it alive. Mimi wheeled the tea cart to the kitchen and Katherine turned to the First Kermesse Suite. When the last notes trembled into silence as though through gentle laughter, Mimi called from the kitchen, “I’m putting together a Greek salad. I hope that’s all right with you.”

  “Fine. I enjoy Greek food. I even like retsina if it’s thoroughly chilled.”

  “That’s a good thing, ma mie, because I brought retsina, and it’s out of a very cold fridge.” She placed a platter on the dining table, glancing at the portrait over the mantelpiece. “I’m glad Sergeievna gave you that. I see something new in it each time I look at it.”

  “You’d have liked my Aunt Manya, I think,” Katherine said. “You remind me of her.”

  “Was she Jewish?”

  “I don’t know … I never thought about it. She was Russian, very Russian. And she was warm and outgoing and generously understanding with me when I was a prickly, frigid little adolescent. She taught me a lot about generosity of spirit—like you.”

  “Many thanks. I hope I won’t let you down.” Mimi flushed. Then, “I’d better give Dave a ring later on. Merv’s death has to be a terrible blow to him.”

  “Yes, we were deep in the past, and the telephone jolted us roughly into the present.”

  “Was that a bad time for you? The past you and Felix share?” Kindly but piercingly, Mimi’s surgeon’s eyes probed Katherine.

  Their shared past was before the war, many years ago. “Some of it was gloriously happy. And some of it was bad. Music and love clashed, and I was young enough not to know I couldn’t have both, with Pete. I’m grateful, whenever I see Felix, to know that I can look back on it now and not relive any of the pain.”

  “Are all your memories that cleanly healed?”

  Katherine, shaking the stiffness out of her knees, walked to the table where Mimi had the meal in readiness. “By no means.”

  “And did you have both—music and love—with your Justin?” Mimi seated herself on the kitchen side of the table, and helped their plates.

  Katherine sat, unfolded her napkin, and laid it across her lap. “Yes, though possibly not as the world would see it.”

  Mimi poured the wine, and the faint, resinous odor filled the room. Then, suddenly, her expression changed, and she looked around, her ears almost visibly pricking. Katherine heard nothing, but Mimi rose, crossed the room to the front door, and peered through the peephole. Then she flung open the door. “Iona! What on earth!”

  6

  “Come in, come in, don’t just stand there.” Mimi drew the other woman into the room and shut the door. “Katherine, this is Dr. Iona Grady, the very first of my tenants, who came to share my apartment when she was interning at St. Vincent’s. Iona, this is my landlord, otherwise known as Madame Katherine Vigneras.”

  Dr. Grady shook hands, smiling politely. She had a firm, cool grip.

  Mimi laughed. “Iona’s ear is even tinnier than Suzy’s. Love of music was one thing we did not share in common. So—to what do we owe the pleasure, Iona?”

  Dr. Grady slid the bag off her shoulder. “At least you’re home. I was beginning to think I’d have to call Isobel and spend the night at the convent.”

  “I was lecturing all afternoon.”

  “Is the back bedroom available?” Iona pushed her short-cropped hair from her forehead with a weary gesture.

  “For you, yes. But what brings you to New York?”

  “One of my colleagues was to give a lecture tomorrow morning at Memorial, and he slipped and sprained his shoulder, so I was asked to pinch-hit. I agreed, because I was beginning to realize I needed a break, and even twenty-four hours is a help.”

  Katherine asked, “Have you eaten? There’s lots of salad.”

  “Thank you, Madame—uh—”

  “Vigneras.”

  “Vigneras. You and Mimi go on with your meal. I’m not hungry, but I’d love a glass of wine.”

  “It’s retsina,” Mimi warned.

  “It could be rhinoceros pee—it could be anything, as far as I’m concerned. I’m tired, I need to go over the lecture notes I put together on the plane, but I’d love a glass of wine. Am I interrupting something?” She seemed entirely impervious to her abrasiveness.

  “We’ve both had a hard day. One of the suffragan bishops was killed this afternoon, and we were trying to relax.” Mimi handed the other doctor a glass of wine.

  The younger woman sipped, made a face, and sat down. “Do I know him?”

  “I don’t think so. Merv Juxon.”
>
  “A good guy?”

  “Very.”

  “It always seems to be the good who die young, doesn’t it? Or was he young?”

  “Not fifty. Young.”

  “That’s lousy. I’m sorry. How’s Suzy?”

  “Busy.”

  Dr. Grady sighed. “Aren’t we all? I could really do with a two-week vacation, but I can’t get away until August.” She reached to Mimi’s plate and picked up a black olive. Katherine noted that there were stains of fatigue under the hazel eyes. “I’ll just drink this and go on up and take a shower, if you’ll let me have the key. Have you been in touch with Isobel?”

  “Last I heard, she had a bad cold.”

  “Just as well I didn’t go to the convent, then. I’ll give her a ring tomorrow.”

  Mimi explained to Katherine, “Iona’s sister is a nun, up at the Convent of the Epiphany—one of Mother Cat’s Sisters.”

  “At least one of us is saved.” Iona’s mouth was suddenly bitter. “The Church has made a heathen of me. Are you churchy, Madame—uh?”

  “Vigneras. No.”

  Dr. Grady’s fatigue was expressed in a barely controlled irritation. She made Katherine feel slightly uncomfortable. Mimi said, “But Katherine is an old friend of Bishop Bodeway’s.”

  “I hadn’t seen him for ages until a couple of months ago. I lived mostly in Europe. But I’m retired now, and Felix called me shortly after I got home.”

  “Were you a doctor?” Iona asked.

  “I’m a pianist.”

  “Oh.” Dr. Grady’s eyes strayed to the piano. “Mimi’s right. I’m tone-deaf. I know I’ve missed a great deal, Madame—uh—Vinegar.”

  “Vigneras.”

  “Sorry. I’m bad about last names. My patients are kids, and we’re on a first-name basis.” Dr. Grady drained her glass and pushed back her chair.

  “What’s your rush?” Mimi asked.

  “Those lecture notes. I’ve got to gather my thoughts together.”

  Mimi tossed Iona a key ring.” “Make yourself at home.” She let Dr. Grady out the kitchen door, then returned to the table but did not sit. She took a sip of wine and made a face. “Ugh. You’re right about tepid retsina.” She picked up the bottle and put it in the refrigerator; came back to the table.

  “What’s the matter?” Katherine asked.

  Mimi pulled out her chair, and dropped into it so that it creaked alarmingly. “Sorry.”

  “What is it?” Katherine pursued.

  “You’re bound to hear about this sooner or later—”

  “About what?”

  Mimi picked up her fork and poked at her salad. “Felix hasn’t said anything?”

  “About what, Mimi?”

  The doctor sighed, gustily. “Iona’s sister is, as I said, one of Mother Cat’s nuns.”

  “Yes.” Dr. Grady hadn’t sounded particularly enthusiastic about the convent, but that did not strike Katherine as enough explanation for Mimi’s reluctance.

  “She was also,” Mimi plunged, “Allie Undercroft’s first wife.”

  “Who?” Katherine asked in surprise.

  “Isobel. She was Allie’s first wife. They were both very young and untried. Isobel as much as Allie.”

  “What happened?”

  “They had a child, a beautiful little girl. She was Iona’s goddaughter as well as her niece, and named after her. She was called Ona, and Iona adored her. She adored her brother-in-law, too. A nice setting for disaster, eh?”

  Katherine was not deceived by the facetious tone. “Go on.”

  Mimi sighed again, then continued. “When Ona was a little over two she developed cancer, one of the devouring kinds we still can’t do anything about. Iona knew enough about medicine to know how negative the prognosis was. She told Allie and Isobel—false hope would only have made things worse in the long run.” Mimi shoved back her chair, got the retsina, refilled their glasses, and put the bottle back into the refrigerator. “Iona didn’t expect medical miracles, and she didn’t expect Allie to pull some kind of religious miracle out of a hat, but she wasn’t prepared for him not to be able to cope. As I said, she adored him. He had a reputation for being regular about hospital visits, giving courage and strength, almost as good as Felix, but not when it was his own child. He simply couldn’t cope, not with the baby, not with his wife, not with his sister-in-law. He withdrew into work. He was cardinal rector of a big East Side parish, and he was available with compassion and understanding for everybody except his family. A backhanded compliment, in a way. He hurt so much he couldn’t bear it. Iona took a leave of absence from St. Vincent’s, and went up to Boston to be with Isobel and the baby. Allie called, daily, I grant you, but he stayed in New York, and Ona died in Iona’s arms.”

  Mimi put her palms down on the table in a flat gesture, as though she was finished. Then she looked up and added briefly, “And Iona changed from orthopedics to pediatric oncology.”

  “What?”

  “Kids with cancer,” Mimi explained. “I’m not sure I could handle it, tough cookie that I am. Iona’s one of the best in the field, and she goes through considerable hell.”

  —And well she might, Katherine thought.—One seven-year-old’s death is all I’ve been able to handle, and that not well. Without work, without the piano, it would have killed me. Of course, for Dr. Grady it was work; they were not her own children, bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh. Still … “What about Allie’s wife—Isobel?”

  “Isobel. She understood Allie’s pain far better than Iona did. Even though he let her down abysmally when the baby got sick.”

  “It must have been hard on him, too,” Katherine remarked.

  “I quite agree. But he let Isobel and Iona bear the burden.”

  “And now Isobel is a nun. Isn’t that unusual?”

  “Unusual, but not unheard of. Quite a few nuns have been married before circumstances, or what have you, turned them to religion. Isobel’s faith carried her through the long months of Ona’s dying. Allie and Iona cursed God. Isobel’s a very special human being. My shrink friends tell me that it takes seven years to get over a child’s death. It was ten years after Ona’s death that Isobel entered the Community of the Epiphany.”

  “What happened to her marriage?”

  “My shrink friends also tell me that something like Ona’s death either makes or breaks a marriage. It broke Isobel and Allie’s. As I said, they were both young and untried. Allie blamed Isobel for the whole thing—his way of avoiding his inability to cope. And he did a good bit of sleeping around. Very discreet. No gossip. But it’s not the kind of thing you can keep from your wife for too long, especially if your first mistress is—anyhow, I learned to dislike Allie Undercroft long before I met him. Sorry to have bored you with all this ancient history.”

  “I’m not bored. So you’ve known Allie a long time?”

  Mimi shook her head. “Only by hearsay, through Iona, until Suzy and Dave moved to the Cathedral and at last I met him in person. So undoubtedly I came to him with many prejudices, probably unfair. I think I’m just as glad this came out tonight. So Allie reminds you of your old jailer, eh?”

  —All men have their weaknesses, she had been thinking wearily.—We ask too much of each other.

  She replied, “So there’s no possibility of my seeing him objectively either.”

  “Was your jailer a complete baddie?”

  Katherine shook her head. “No. Oh, no. He, too, was complex. Can you be truly bad if you don’t also have the capacity to be truly good?”

  Mimi twirled her wineglass between her fingers. “I might put it the other way around. Don’t judge Allie Undercroft by Iona or me. I’m anti-clerical on principle.”

  “What about Dave?”

  “I’d never have gone near him if Suzy hadn’t up and married him. But—yes—I’m very fond of Dave.”

  “Just what does a dean do?”

  Mimi laughed. “You’re asking me? He’s administrator of the Cathedral, I suppose. But w
here the administrator of a hospital doesn’t have to be a doctor, a dean has to be both administrator and priest, and the two are constantly in conflict. Dave somehow manages to maintain a creative balance.” She went to the kettle, which was simmering, and prepared two cups of herb tea, which she brought to the table. “Your jailer who reminds you of Undercroft—or vice versa—what was he like?”

  “Like Bishop Undercroft, and utterly unlike. His eyes, for instance, were grey, like the sea in winter. Bishop Undercroft looks—well, rather sunny. Lukas was more somber—like his eyes.”

  “This von H—”

  “Hilpert.”

  “You called him Lukas. Does one ordinarily call one’s jailer by his first name?”

  “No. I learned to call him Lukas many years later.”

  “After the war?”

  “Yes. After.” Katherine found that she was trembling. She pushed up from the table and went across the room to the piano.

  “Ma mie.” Mimi crossed swiftly to her. “I didn’t mean to do this to you. There’s too much emotion floating around here tonight, with Merv—and Iona coming in.”

  “It’s all right.” Katherine lowered herself onto the piano bench. “I have to learn to remember it without reliving it. Have you come to terms with all your memories?”

  “Christ, no. And my life has been—emptier than yours.”

  “Lukas—or Kommandant von Hilpert, as I first knew him—was an extraordinary jailer. He knew music—he had even known my mother when she played in Germany when he was little more than a child. He allowed Justin and me three hours a day to practice on the school piano—the Nazis took over a school—” She struck a diminished seventh, resolved it. “Not together. I practiced in the early morning, Justin in the afternoon.”

  Mimi sat where she could watch Katherine, who was moving her fingers soundlessly over the keys. “That cannot have been usual.”

  “No.” Softly she struck a minor chord. “He was a man of strong convictions, and he believed in the Nazi dream. Later he likened it to the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov—” She paused. “During the war—at least in the beginning, when I knew him, he believed it all. But later—it was a terrible disillusionment for him—”