A Severed Wasp

by Madeleine L'engle

  More doctors, more medications. She lay on her side, on her good hip, her face to the wall.

  They sent her from the hospital to the farm. Perhaps, the doctors said, if she were in familiar surroundings, back with her husband, her baby, she would improve. She and Justin could resume their sex life, the doctors said; that, too, might help, they said.

  The nurse was there with Michou, who nuzzled against her breast; the milk was long gone. The nurse gave her a bottle of formula to hold, put Michou in her arms.

  Winter had come. The ground was white. Fires were kept blazing in all the fireplaces. But she was always cold, and the inner cold was more penetrating than the outer. She did not like to go into the library with the big piano reminding her of her inability to play even the simplest pieces. She felt a weary sense of loss, as though someone had died.

  7

  And then, one day, Cardinal von Stromberg.

  She was in the bedroom, lying on the chaise longue in front of the fire, wrapped in a steamer rug, and he came in. Out of the grave in which she had entombed him. Without knocking, he came in.

  He was dressed in a dark traveling suit, but he was still a cardinal. Tall. Strong. The Great Grey Wolf. He stood looking down at her, not speaking, his steel eyes softened with compassion. She looked at him, and the weariness and iciness increased, and she closed her eyes against him.

  She felt him move, and opened her eyes to see him kneel by the chaise longue. He reached out his hands and put them on her head, and she felt a tingling warmth move through her body. He began to murmur the prayers for healing, and then, in English, said, ‘Use these unworthy hands, Lord, for the healing of your child, Katherine. Use these sinful hands to return her to health and to her work which helps heal your broken world. Use your sad and sorry servant, Lord, in your service. Amen.’ Then he rose, looked down on her, and left.

  She found out later that Justin had called him, and that he had come on the first possible plane, rented a car at the airport, come to her, and then driven directly back to the airport and the next plane, as silently as a great grey wolf.…

  There was no immediate miracle. Perhaps it was not even Wolfi (though it was), but slowly the swelling and stiffness subsided. And as her body healed, her energy, her joie de vivre, returned.

  She spent first an hour at the piano, then two. Her appetite became healthy. She laughed as Justin tossed Michou into the air and caught him, and the baby crowed with pleasure. At bedtime she would give Michou his last bottle and sing to him, while Justin got ready for bed, constantly interrupting himself to come gaze at mother and child. He was painting her portrait, in his way, as much as had Philippa Hunter.

  8

  She had worked through the pain of the memory of Michou’s birth and the weeks that followed, but she was now as awake as though morning had broken. She left the piano, walked slowly back to the bedroom, and turned on the light by the chaise longue. She would read awhile. Something dull. Kant.

  She looked out the window and saw a dark shadow in the garden below. Dorcas. She was sitting by the fountain, which plashed gently. Her body drooped wearily. She was caught in her own private hell and Katherine ached for her, though it was likely Dorcas’s pain which had triggered the old memories. Now that she had moved through them, she looked at them, and the hurt was gone.

  She went back to bed then, and slept.

  And dreamed. She did not believe people who said they never dreamed. For some reason they could not or would not remember their dreams. In this dream it was dark. The cardinal was lying on the rocky lip of a cliff, leaning over, holding Dorcas’s hands and pulling her, slowly pulling her up from the chasm over which she was suspended, pulling her up to the cliff’s edge until he was on his knees; and then, as he raised her up over the edge of the cliff, he rose to his feet, and set her beside him on the solid rock.

  His face was beaded with sweat. He was panting from effort. And he looked at his hands, which were bleeding, and as Dorcas gaspingly thanked him for saving her life, he murmured, ‘And with these hands,’ and looked at them with wonder and with awe.

  9

  As the dream ended, the phone rang.

  She should be used to it by now. There were many times in her life when the incessant ringing of the phone had made it seem a monster. As long as it was not the anonymous caller …

  It was Julie. “Well, Maman, I happened to call Kristen and got your new number.”

  Katherine tried to ignore the rebuff in her daughter’s voice. “Yes, darling, I did send you a note, and I’d planned to call you late this afternoon so I’d get you before bedtime, but a couple of crises intervened.”

  “Crises?” Was there a slight thawing? “Anything wrong?”

  “Not with me. I was up at the Cathedral working on the benefit”—she had written Julie about that—“and then one of the dean’s children came in and I had to hear her play. She was studying ballet, but she lost a leg in an accident, so things are very rough for her, and that took longer than I expected. And then when I got home I got involved with the tenants below me. She’s pregnant, and their marriage is breaking up, so it’s all rather a mess. And by the time I was able to get away it was too late to call.” She was, as always, overexplaining, trying to justify herself in Julie’s pale, judgmental eyes. She reminded herself of an invented sonata Justin sometimes used to play at parties—his hands allowed him at least some fooling around on the piano—where the concerto began at least a dozen times, had three very short movements, and then worked up to the ending for as long as the laughter of the audience allowed. But there was no laughter on the other end of the phone. It wasn’t much past midnight in New York, so Julie must, as always, be up early.

  “You seem to be having your usual effect on people.”

  “They’re just—people in need.”

  “Kristen said you’ve been getting anonymous calls.”

  “Nasty ones. That’s why I have a new number. Do you have it in your book?”

  “Yes. Do you want me to call the others, or have you already done so?”

  Katherine said mildly, “I’d appreciate it if you’d mention it to them.” She had been stupid, stupid, to call Kristen and not Julie, thereby making Julie feel stepped over. “I sent them airmail cards, but mail gets less and less reliable.” Julie had been a cuddly baby, a warm, loving child. Should artists simply not have children? Do we do terrible things to them by our very existence? Will Kristen hurt her unborn child simply by her being?

  What had Katherine done that was so terrible to her daughter? Julie was happily married, or at least seemed to be, now that Eric had settled down. The business was as much hers as his and Leif’s, and it was flourishing. Despite the problems with appalling inflation and taxation, they were prospering.

  “Are you there, Maman?”

  “Yes. I’m here.”

  “I just wanted to check on you and make sure you’re all right. You are getting on in years, after all.”

  “I’m fine. Thank you. Don’t worry about me.”

  “That’s all I wanted to know. I’ve got to go. Good night, Maman.”

  “Goodbye, darling. Thanks for calling—” But Julie had already hung up.

  Sometimes Julie was warmer, more talkative. Indeed, yes, it had been a mistake to call Kristen first.

  Suzy and Dave too were overbusy parents, and their children were likely paying for it. But surely they would not have chosen not to have their children, any more than Katherine would have chosen not to have Julie and Michou.

  Was Julie jealous? Had she read too many good reviews in the papers, too many interviews which held up the family as the perfect model of what a family ought to be? From where had the image come? She had never fostered it, nor had Justin.

  After Julie’s marriage, Katherine had tried to keep in touch with her daughter by occasionally taking her on concert tours with glamorous destinations—Majorca, for instance—paying for baby-sitters so that Julie was able to get away for a much nee
ded rest. But while they had enjoyed the time together, Katherine had never felt at all close to this dearly loved child. Katherine, the mother, had opened herself freely, and Julie, the daughter, had accepted graciously, but had given nothing of herself in return. She seemed more Norwegian than her Norwegian in-laws; and she was, in fact, half Norwegian/Finnish, so small wonder. And if she had been suffering from Eric’s infidelities, it was not surprising that she had kept her sorrow to herself.

  Katherine sighed, and turned over onto her back. Does one ever stop being a mother, and vulnerable where one’s children are concerned? Her grands held a special and beautiful place in her heart. But Julie and Michou were the children of her body.

  No point in blaming herself overmuch, or wallowing in false guilt. She was who she was, and she could not, at this late date, change herself. Could she ever? She doubted it.

  So be it.

  She returned to bed and tried to sleep.

  Julie’s conception had been both simpler and more complicated than Michou’s. When Justin had said, tentatively, that he would like another child, her reaction had been quiet. He had put his arms around her, tenderly. ‘There’s no reason you should go through what you did at Michou’s birth. I’ve talked with the doctor. That was all the fault of that idiot obstetrician!’

  ‘I know. I’m not afraid.’

  ‘Minou, if I thought there was any chance of a repetition of any of it, of the arthritis—’

  She moved her fingers softly against his face. ‘My hands are all right.’

  ‘Michou is nearly three. In the logical way of things—’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Don’t push me, my love. We’ll see.’

  And he had not pushed.

  10

  There was no need to go running to anyone. Wolfi was in Rome, but evidently doing well. He was moving, rather than being kicked, upstairs. Justin phoned him frequently. It was tacitly understood that when Wolfi called she would talk with him briefly, but that she would not call him. Justin questioned her about her reluctance, but accepted her explanation that she could not explain, that it was part of the horror of her illness after Michou’s birth, and that despite her gratitude to Wolfi, he was still a reminder of pain and fear. ‘It’s totally irrational,’ she had said. ‘It’s just something I can’t help.’ And Justin had accepted the irrational far more easily than he would have accepted a reasonable excuse. Artists are irrational. Women are irrational. Women who are artists are doubly irrational. Women are irrational where their children are concerned; therefore, Katherine was trebly irrational. She smiled and did not try to disillusion him.

  There was no question in her mind as to who the next child’s father would be. This time there was no blind running. She called Oslo.

  Erlend Nikulaussen had been after her for some time to spend a night with him, a weekend, laughing at her reference to her marriage vows. When she called him to suggest that they spend some time together he took it matter-of-factly. ‘But how splendid! I’m due two weeks’ holiday in ten days. Can you come with me?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Do I have to tell you? Can it be a surprise?’

  Yes, it could be a surprise.

  ‘Can you get away? What will Justin think? How will you manage?’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  ‘And we’ll be perfectly secure, where I’m taking you. No one there knows us. There’ll be no gossip.’

  Fortunately, while Erlend cared little about marriage vows, he did care about gossip. He was not married; or, rather, he had not been married for several years. There was no wife for Katherine to worry about.

  She flew to New York, where he met her, and only then did he tell her where they were going, to the northern end of Jamaica, to Norseman’s Cove.

  ‘It’s a private hotel,’ he said, ‘owned jointly by about fifty of us, all Norwegian. Some people are buying private property, but that involves caretakers and all kinds of responsibilities, and worrying about whether the unrest at the southern end of the island will come to the north, where we aren’t hated. Odd, you know: I don’t mind being hated by other musicians who are jealous of me, but I would mind very much being hated by these gentle black people. We’ll have one of the cottages, and it will be beautiful.’

  It was. They stayed in a small stone cottage up on a cliff overlooking the ocean from their bedroom, the cove and the sinuous lagoon from the living room. There were terraces, balconies, sliding doors, a profusion of green of every shade, of vines and wind-carved and curved trees and more vines, of flowers and birds like flying flowers. It was one of the most sheerly beautiful spots Katherine had ever seen.

  And the most physical two weeks she had ever spent. Erlend, half Norwegian, half Finnish, held a surprising sense of play, and their lovemaking was interrupted by wild joys of laughter. They were tumbled over by waves in the cove, and then swam in the soft, clear water of the lagoon, and there in the water he would come to her and make love and make love and make love—

  It was something to be made, like music. It was like the moment when the piano has to join the orchestra, and Erlend would draw her into the music—

  Sometimes it was like the flute, clear and sweet; and sometimes the piccolo, laughing in merriment; and sometimes the entire orchestra; and then she would be taken into the music, the keyboard joining with the strings, the brasses, the celebration of the timpani.

  At the end of the two-week holiday, Erlend startled her by saying, ‘Divorce Justin and marry me.’

  ‘Erlend, you’re out of your mind.’

  ‘I’m completely in it. Katherine, I’ve been with many women, I’ve been married twice, but nothing has ever been like this.’

  ‘I made it clear that this was two weeks for us to be together, two weeks and nothing more.’

  Erlend reached for her. ‘We make love together the way we make music. You know you play for no other conductor the way you play for me. You can’t tell me that love with Justin is better than love with me.’

  She drew away. ‘Comparisons don’t come into it. I’m Justin’s wife.’

  ‘Then why did you come with me?’

  ‘You’ve been trying to get me to go off with you for years. You said it was perfectly natural for a woman to—’

  ‘But I didn’t know it would be like this, and neither did you.’

  ‘Erlend, when we’ve played together, when we’ve given a concert series, I know that I will never play that way for anyone else. But it’s over. We go on. You go to your orchestra and to other soloists, and I go back to my piano—to other conductors. And that’s the way it is now. I’m going back to Justin.’

  Finally, seeing that arguments were useless, that even more love-making was not going to change her, he let her go.

  And so, in beauty and play and loveliness had Julie been conceived.

  This time there was no aftermath of depression. She had enjoyed every moment of the two weeks in Jamaica, enjoyed, outrageously enjoyed making love with Erlend, but she had not fallen in love with him. She would go on seeing him, playing with him in Oslo or wherever he was conducting; he was her good, true friend, but that was all. When he died, several years before Justin, died as he would have wished, of a heart attack while conducting the Sibelius violin concerto, there was no need to hide her tears. She wept for her friend, wept in Justin’s arms and was comforted.

  11

  And Erlend, thank God, never knew why she had gone to Jamaica with him. Once, when the children were small, when Erlend had yet again asked her to marry him, saying, ‘Just because you’ve borne two kids by Justin …’ something in her had relaxed with relief. If Erlend did not suspect, no one else in the world could possibly have the slightest suspicion.

  And it had been far easier, while she was carrying Julie, than it had been with Michou, to think of the life within her as belonging to Justin. Julie’s birth had been in a small private clinic outside Paris. Labor was hard, but Justin was with her, rubbing her back, wiping her face wit
h a cool cloth, and had seen Julie bursting forth into the world, screaming lustily. The doctor had placed her immediately between Katherine’s breasts, and Justin had looked down at his wife and daughter, laughing and crying simultaneously. She would never forget that moment, the small weight of the infant, still wet from the amniotic fluid, her cries of outrage at the harshness of life suddenly stilled as she lay against the secure warmth of her mother’s body and slipped into a contented sleep.

  Manya and Tom came on the next plane. To their relief, there were no problems after the birth. The placenta had come out easily, and complete. In a few days she had regained her energy, was home, hovered over by Manya and Tom, and by Nanette, who was enchanted with the new baby, Nanette, who had told Katherine well before Justin that it was time for her to give Michou a sister.

  Katherine nursed Julie for a year, taking her along on the few concerts outside Paris she had accepted. Manya and Tom, delighted at her swift return to full vigor, went back to the States. But Manya, as long as she lived, was always there when needed, arriving in less than twenty-four hours, once flying became the normal mode of travel. And so for a few years the children had a loving grandmother, who gave the family with lavishness her warm, openhanded love.

  Katherine was still thinking of Manya, half in a dream, when the phone rang again. If it were not for the grands, she would take it off the hook at bedtime. And it was one of the grands: Juliana. Juliana wrote frequently, called seldom. She and her Edvard did not have the money to spare for overseas calls. When Juliana called, it was always because her sense of her grandmother’s need was greater than her own natural frugality and timidity, and her timing was always accurate. “Mormor?” The voice had the sweet treble of a child.