A Severed Wasp

by Madeleine L'engle

  “Welcome, Madame Vigneras.” Sister Isobel held the door open for her. “We are all looking forward to having you come talk to us.”

  “Thank you. I’m looking forward to it, too,” Katherine replied, somewhat stiffly. Why should it be more difficult to speak to a nun than to a bishop? Familiarity with Felix, probably.

  “Goodbye, and I love you,” Emily said breathlessly, and leaned forward to kiss Katherine softly on the cheek. “’Bye, Sister.”

  “’Bye, Em. Get on home.” The nun watched as Emily walked across the Close, waited until she was in the vestibule of Cathedral House, then started the car. She was easy and relaxed and drove well, heading for the park. “You and Emily seem to have become friends.”

  “She is an amazing child.”

  Sister Isobel stopped for a light. “That she is. But we have many amazing children in our school. Kids on the Upper West Side of this city tend to have had amazing things happen to them early in their lives, and some grow on them, and some fall apart. How is Emily as a musician?”

  “She’s a composer,” Katherine said. “Did you know that?”

  “No, but I’m relieved to hear it. I didn’t think she was a pianist.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve gone past while she’s been having her piano lesson.”

  Katherine leaned back as the nun turned into the park. The trees were beginning to look tired and dusty. To break the silence, she said, “I don’t think Emily’s teacher is the one for her.”

  “How right you are.” Sister Isobel waved one hand in the direction of the Natural History Museum. “Odd to think this was out in the middle of the country when it was built. Emily’s teacher just loves little children.” Katherine smiled at the irritation under the nun’s words. “People who just adore little children are seldom good with them, and to treat Emily as a child is to court disaster. I wonder if we could change her teacher?”

  “Yes. I’m going to teach her.”

  “Alleluia!” Sister Isobel negotiated around a taxi. “I love Emily, and I love music. I played a little before I entered the Community, and still practice when there’s time.”

  “What’s your instrument?”

  “Clarinet. Easily transportable. I sometimes play faux-bourdons for festive Vespers. We all love music. Sister Agnes plays the harp. You should have seen her when she arrived to become a postulant. She seemed a mere baby, in blue jeans and sweatshirt, with her enormous harp. And frightened—she looked like a lamb expecting to be slaughtered. You’d never think it now. She teaches math, is highly organized, and only when she touches the strings of her harp do we get a glimpse of the delicacy of spirit which is underneath all the efficiency. It’s what makes her such a fine teacher, and so loved by the students.”

  “What do you teach?”

  “A little bit of everything. Some cellular biology to the highschool kids. Handbells to fifth and sixth grade. And the recorder to some of the little ones who are musical but who can’t afford violin or piano lessons—such as Topaze Gomez. And I go about quite a lot to conduct retreats. We all have to have our hand in a number of things. We have lots of highly gifted students, and a lot of grievously wounded ones.”

  “Like the Gomez children?”

  Sister Isobel nodded. “They have a weak father, who was a tool of stronger men, and a mother who’s a born hater—if there can be such a thing.”

  “What about Topaze?”

  “Basically he’s a bright, outgoing child, and he has considerable spiritual gifts. But I’m worried about him.”

  Would a child with spiritual gifts sell information? Then she remembered the small, hunched figure in St. Martin’s chapel. “Why?”

  “I’m not sure. I think he’s frightened, but I don’t know of what. The father’s in jail, so he’s no longer a threat. He used to beat the kids.”

  “No wonder they’re wounded.”

  “And his mother puts too many burdens on Topaze, talks too much, fills him with her resentment and hate, and Topaze simply doesn’t understand resentment and hate. It’s not in him. But he’s frightened and he clings to us too much. He’s been at early Mass every day this week, holding on to his faith in a kind of frantic desperation. Well—he’s not the only child I worry about. As for poor Fatima, unless something can be made of her voice, I don’t know what life is going to hold for her.”

  “Tory Davidson seems very fond of her.”

  “Tory’s friendship with Fatima is an enigma. It’s partly propinquity because the Gomez kids are around the Close. And I think Tory feels somewhat like Zola championing Dreyfus. All she knows about Gomez is what Fatima has told her, and the poor child worships her father.”

  “Even though he beat her?”

  “Evidently physical abuse does not preclude a desperate kind of love, especially in a child.”

  —And poor Fatima, starved for love, is trying to find it in worshipping Yolande, Katherine thought, and decided that to question Sister Isobel about that would be the acme of tactlessness. “How about Tory himself? Where is she going to go?”

  Sister Isobel shook her head. “She’s one of our brightest students, but she has no particular direction. And she has a strong jealous streak which does her no good. Perhaps she likes Fatima because there’s no competition, and Tory can be Lady Bountiful. I’ve noticed a marked cooling off lately. Perhaps—” She stopped behind a car which had braked suddenly, and when she spoke again, she said, “A lot of our students receive what little love they get from the Sisters. We have a large number of single parents who drop their children off at school at eight in the morning on their way to work, and pick them up in the evening on their way home.”

  “I can see that your hearts are full, as well as your hands.”

  Sister Isobel nodded, nosing the car through the dense traffic they moved into as they left the park. “It’s a good life.”

  Katherine wondered if Sister Isobel, knowing that Katherine lived in the same building as Mimi Oppenheimer, would guess that Mimi might have mentioned the nun’s disastrous marriage. If so, the Sister gave no sign of embarrassment, but continued to chat about the school and the students. The traffic eased after the Port Authority Building. “By the way,” Katherine said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d drop me off on the corner of Sixth and Twelfth—I need to pick up some groceries if I’m to eat this evening.”

  “Gladly. I can tell you’re an old New Yorker. I, too, have never learned to call Sixth Avenue the Avenue of the Americas.”

  3

  Katherine said goodbye to Sister Isobel, and walked down the street to the grocery store, where she picked up eggs and the makings of a salad. When she came out of the store with the brown paper bag in her arms, she was somehow not surprised to see Topaze.

  “Carry your bag for you, music lady?”

  This was surely a better way of earning money than selling information, so she handed it to him. “What brings you down to my neighborhood?”

  “I like to ride the subways,” Topaze said. “I was lucky and saw Sister letting you out of the car.” He shifted the bag from one arm to the other. “I heard you playing this afternoon, music lady.”

  —And I saw you crying, Katherine thought.

  “I like to hear you play. It makes me feel everything isn’t going to fall apart.”

  “Thank you,” Katherine said. “It holds things together for me, too. Is something bothering you, Topaze?”

  “My father’s in prison.”

  That was not what he was crying about. “Yes, Topaze, I know. You told me.”

  “Ma says it’s unfair. She says everything’s unfair for people like us.”

  “Unfortunately, life’s not very fair, Topaze.” They were nearing Tenth Street. “Do you like school?” She tried to lighten the air.

  “Yeah. Mrs. Undercroft pays for it. Ma says we need to know the right people, and find out how to use them.”

  Evidently Mrs. Gomez did indeed talk too much to her son. They turned east on Te
nth Street, and Katherine said nothing.

  “I like the Sisters,” Topaze continued to chatter. “They don’t mind what your parents are like. They look at you, and that’s all they see. When I’m with them I’m Topaze, not the bishop’s cook’s son, or the son of a jailbird.”

  They had reached the house. Katherine took the bag of groceries.

  “Can’t I carry it in and put it in the kitchen for you?” Topaze was begging, but somehow she did not want him to come in.

  “I’m sorry but I have a phone call to make, and surely it’s time you got back uptown.” She got out a quarter, put it back, and pulled out a dollar. “Thank you for carrying my groceries.”

  He took the dollar and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. “You want to know anything, music lady?”

  “Topaze, I am pleased to give you something for carrying my groceries. I am not interested in buying information.”

  “Not selling it to you. Telling you for free.”

  “Topaze, child, there’s nothing I want to know from you. Do you understand?”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t want you to give the concert.”

  Startled, she asked, “Who?”

  “They sit, and laugh and laugh.”

  Again she was surprised enough to ask, “Who?”

  But he simply turned and started down the street, calling back, “Take care.” The way he spoke, it was not the casual, usual, nearly meaningless phrase.

  4

  As soon as she got into the apartment and put the bag of groceries in the kitchen, Katherine put Topaze and his disturbing conversation behind her and went to the phone to call the Davidsons. Tory answered, and shouted for her mother.

  Suzy came immediately to the phone. “Madame Vigneras, I scarcely got in the door before Emily was all over me. Is it possible that I heard correctly?”

  “If what you heard is that I would like to give the child piano lessons, and that she shows considerable talent for composition, yes.”

  “I’m overwhelmed. I’ve never before seen Emily speechless.”

  “She has some bad teaching to unlearn,” Katherine warned.

  “I’m sorry—we didn’t know—” Suzy sounded both confused and apologetic.

  “Her teacher may be quite adequate for the average child whose parents have piano lessons on the agenda. Emily needs something different.”

  “I’m totally unmusical—but I should have realized. And Dave—it’s not an advantage to children to have highly motivated professional parents. We were just so grateful that Emily’s life was spared—”

  “Now,” Katherine cut in briskly. “Logistics. I live downtown. Emily lives uptown. How are we going to manage?”

  “At your convenience, of course.”

  “My convenience is highly flexible. I’ll need to see her once a week.”

  There was a moment’s pause on the other end of the line. Then, “Jos has only one class on Mondays, between three and five. He could drop her off on his way to N.Y.U. and pick her up when he’s through, and she could sit and read when her lesson is over if two hours is too long.”

  “Two hours is fine.”

  “Thank you. We don’t want her going on public transportation alone, at least not the subway, and the bus trip seems endless.”

  “Monday afternoon will suit me splendidly.”

  “And—Madame Vigneras—whatever you charge—”

  Katherine replied crisply, “Pay me whatever you were paying the other teacher. I’ll see her Monday, at three.”

  Odd how things twist and change. When she had first met the Davidsons she had thought that it was John who was going to be her favorite, John whose gentleness reminded her of Michou. But it was Emily she was going to take into her life.

  Ah, well.

  She was hungry, so she headed for the kitchen. She was poaching herself some eggs for supper when the doorbell rang. Sighing, she went to the door, calling, “Who is it?”

  “Terry Gibson. Dorcas’s husband. May I come in for a moment?”

  This was not going to be easy. Katherine opened the door. “Do come in and sit down. Just let me turn out the flame under the frying pan.”

  “I’m interrupting you—I’m terribly sorry—”

  She was not prepared for his beauty. From the discussion at the Davidsons’ she had expected Terry Gibson to be wearing a dark business suit, to look more conservative, less like an artist. He was wearing black Levi’s, and a fawn shirt open at the throat. His slender neck and barely visible Adam’s apple made him seem young and vulnerable. His hair, which was neither long nor short, was fair and clean-looking. Underneath the clear skin the bone structure was delicate and strong.

  Dorcas was not beautiful. She had the kind of undistinguished plainness which could sometimes flame into beauty on a stage, but she was not beautiful. Terry, Katherine thought, reverting to the language of her youth, was a knockout.

  She turned off the gas. “It’s all right. Don’t fret.”

  He sat on the piano bench. “I’m terribly unhappy about Dorcas’s decision.”

  Katherine asked carefully, “What is Dorcas’s decision?”

  “Oh, God.” Terry put his face into his hands. “She’s so absolute. And of course she’s right. But I don’t want to go.”

  “She wants you to?”

  “Yes. And I want—oh, please, Madame Vigneras, I want my wife and baby.”

  She was touched by his obvious misery. She asked, gently, “Why does she want you to leave?”

  “She doesn’t understand the—oh, the horrible ambiguity of life. She’s so young—ballet dancers tend to be babies when they start out. She’s only nineteen. Over ten years younger than I am. The awful thing is—oh, it would have worked out, I know it would have, given time, if she hadn’t—well, it was premature. Am I making any sense?”

  “I think I see where you’re leading,” Katherine said. “But perhaps you’d better be a little more specific.”

  “You’ve lived such a long full life, you do understand, don’t you, about ambiguity and how feelings aren’t always things one can control?”

  “Yes, I understand that.”

  He crouched over, his hands between his knees, as if in physical pain. “I never meant her to know. If I’d had time, I could have worked it out. But she came blundering in and of course she was horrified, she absolutely fell apart, and I couldn’t make her understand …”

  “Understand what?”

  “Fidelity isn’t just who you—who you are physically attracted to, who you, maybe, make love with. There’s much more to it than that. Anyhow, men and women have different needs.”

  At this, she looked at him with astonishment. “Good Lord, I thought that went out with the nineteenth century.”

  “I’m sorry.” He was immediately apologetic. “Some things went out with the nineteenth century, yes, and some things are going out with this. Attitudes toward love are different—” He shook his head, and closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply. “I’m trying to rationalize, and that isn’t any use with you, is it? I’m not happy about myself, but I am who I am. I love Dorcas. And I love Ric. God, I love him. I never meant to love him. For a long time I didn’t know he was—was the way I am. He made the first—Well. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want Dorcas to break our marriage.”

  He was, she thought fleetingly, too beautiful. He was used to getting his own way. “Do you and Dorcas,” she asked, “look at marriage in the same way?”

  “Evidently not.” Briefly, his voice was hard. “I didn’t tell her, before we were married, because it didn’t seem pertinent, that I had been with men as well as women. AC-DC, as Ric’s wife so graphically puts it. I thought—well, I suppose I thought she knew. And if she didn’t know, it was better not. She’s gorgeous when she’s onstage, you know, radiant, a firebird. But she doesn’t—and she can’t cope with—” His words dwindled.

  Katherine looked at him, seeing that he wanted the marriage his way, that if Dorca
s could not cope, neither could he. She said, “Believe me, Dorcas doesn’t want your marriage to end. But she does want a faithful husband.”

  He sighed, a gusting of air. “If only she hadn’t found out—”

  “Wait a minute,” Katherine said. “That wouldn’t have worked. It never does.”

  “Why not?”

  “Dorcas may be young and naïve, but she’s not stupid. Isn’t she worth working for?”

  “She’s so unbending, so absolute,” he repeated. “She doesn’t understand the ambig—” He stopped himself. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Could you possibly try being faithful?”

  “Can’t someone make a mistake?”

  “Of course. We all make mistakes. No one is totally faithful. Not even Dorcas. But your intention, if I understand what’s behind your words, is to continue to be unfaithful, and that’s not the same thing as making a mistake, picking yourself out of the mud, and trying again.”

  He rose slowly, moving with a feral grace. “I should have realized you’re too old to understand, another generation. I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t mean—you’ve been more than kind, listening to me. But—”

  But, she thought, underneath the charm, the sensitivity, was a selfishness which Emily had evidently seen. The sensitivity was for himself and his own needs, not others. Not even his wife’s.

  She murmured, hardly realizing that she was speaking aloud, “Yes, you are a turd.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She flushed. “I don’t think it’s going to work, Mr. Gibson. You and Dorcas have totally different intentions about your marriage.” She, too, rose. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been much help.”

  He moved to the door. “You’ve been brainwashed. You’ve heard it all only from Dorcas.”