A Severed Wasp

by Madeleine L'engle

  “Juliana!”

  “Mormor, did I wake you?” The small voice was anxious.

  “It doesn’t matter, darling. It’s always lovely to hear from you. Are you and Edvard all right?”

  “Oh, fine, Mormor, everything’s fine.”

  “How did you get my new number?”

  “Mor called.”

  So Juliana had sensed that her mother’s call might have been upsetting. “I’ve been getting some nasty anonymous calls, and in order to stop them I had to have my number changed. I sent you an airmail postcard.”

  “I’m glad Mor called, then. Mail takes forever, and I like to be able to get in touch with you. Just in case.”

  As a child, too, Juliana had wanted to know just exactly where everybody was. She had not had a favorite blanket, or a favorite toy, but she could not sleep at night unless she knew the whereabouts of the entire family, which was not always easy, with the older children away at school, Katherine on tour. “I’m glad you called, darling,” Katherine said, “but let’s not talk long. I don’t want to run up your phone bill. I’ll call in a few days and then we can chat.”

  “Oh, good. Thank you, Mormor. I just wanted to make sure I had your number, and the right one, and that you were all right. I love you and I think of you lots.”

  “I love you, too, darling, and I loved your last letter.”

  “I’ll write again soon. Can you read all right on that thin paper?”

  “I can read it with no trouble at all.”

  When they had said good night, Katherine lay down and slid into sleep, dreaming both of Juliana and of Manya, so totally different, and yet so alike in the lavishness of their love.

  The Discipline of Memory

  1

  As Katherine continued to regard the past, it became easier to recollect it with tranquillity, and the happy times surfaced more often than the tragic ones. When she was at the piano working on the benefit program, Justin’s presence was almost tangible, and she could sense him urging her to give another concert for Felix in the autumn. It was never too late to add to one’s repertoire. Ronald Melrose had written a new sonata she would like to try, an intricate blending of current popular music reflecting the culture of these difficult years, balanced by an almost fugal classicism, a fine and innovative piece of work. She would enjoy working on that. And Justin’s influence was still with her; it was ingrained in her fingers, her ears, her kinesthetic memory, a kind of total intimacy that would always be with her.

  In the morning, on impulse, she called Dorcas. It was the sort of impulsive gesture Manya might have made; and that, too, had left its permanent imprint on her. “Come up and have café au lait and a croissant with me.”

  Within two minutes Dorcas was at the door, dressed in a flowing gown of sprigged dimity. “Thank you. I’m not contemplating suicide, not with the baby, but I’m too close to contemplating it for comfort. Terry’s gone. At last. He spent all night packing his stuff into our suitcases and all the boxes he could get from the liquor store, and he’s gone.”

  “Where? Or does it matter?”

  “It probably matters more to June than to me. He said he was going to a hotel, but he didn’t say which. He didn’t even ask me to call him when the baby comes. He just said he’d have the proper documents drawn up and he’d see to it that we’re taken care of financially. If it weren’t for the baby, I wouldn’t touch a penny. But a single parent can’t afford to be proud.”

  “You’ve done a lot of thinking, haven’t you?” Katherine looked at bubbles touching the sides of the saucepan of milk and took it off the flame.

  “I’ve had to. Breaking up a marriage with a baby on the way shouldn’t be done without thinking, so I’ve thought. And you know what I bet?”

  “What?” Katherine poured coffee and milk simultaneously into two large Royal Copenhagen cups.

  “June isn’t going to let Ric go, and I don’t think Ric is going to want to leave June and the kids for Terry. So what I bet is that within six months after Terry and I are divorced, he’ll be married again.”

  “Not to you.”

  “Definitely not to me. When something’s killed, it’s killed.” She looked at Katherine over the rim of the cup. “You must have had lots of things killed during your lifetime—”

  “Lots,” Katherine agreed.

  “And you must have been through a lot of hurt and pain—”

  Katherine nodded.

  “And yet, when I’m with you, what I feel coming from you is a sense—not just of contentment, but of happiness. I mean, you seem to me to be a happy person.”

  Katherine put jam generously on her croissant. After a moment she said, “I don’t think much about it, being either happy or unhappy. But I think I am far more happy than not. Life has been rich and full, and I’m more than grateful.” She smiled slightly, to herself, because her memory flipped to that unhappy anniversary when she and Justin had gone to Aalesund, and it did not hurt. For the first time she looked at it without pain. What she remembered now was Kristen’s insistence on sleeping at the hotel with her grandparents, Kristen, the only grand old enough to sense anything wrong.

  “Madame Vigneras—”

  Katherine licked apricot jam off her fingers. “I’m here. I was just remembering something which hurt me a great deal, a long time ago, and I was being grateful that I can look back on it without pain. Is Terry really gone? Or was he playacting?”

  “Lawyers playact all the time, I think. As I look back on our marriage, I can see now that I was making the whole thing up—Terry, myself, the marriage. It was never real. And that’s over. I’ll act when I’m onstage; I’ll pirouette and smile, or fall dying gracefully into the arms of my partner, whoever he is, even Ric, but I’ll keep it for the theatre. Terry wanted a pretend world for all time. Never real. And I want to be real. In my private life. And when I dance, too. And I can’t be real with Terry. I’m glad he’s gone.” There were no tears in the girl’s eyes, though her voice was brittle as crystal.

  “What about the apartment?” Katherine asked. “Was that part of the act, too?”

  Now the eyes glistened, but the tears did not overflow. “It was. But it needn’t be. We’d probably have had to move, after the baby. With only one bedroom, it’s just right for two, not three. You know, Madame Vigneras, our apartment is much more you than it is Terry, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Katherine cocked an eyebrow. “Is it?”

  “Much more. And, under the circumstances, I’m grateful for that. So long as he’s willing to pay for it—and he makes plenty, it won’t bleed him—I’ll keep it, for the baby’s sake. Terry’s pretty well stripped the place. There isn’t much of him—or us—left in it. So I can make it a home for myself and the baby.”

  “When is the baby due?”

  “In about a month.”

  “How much sleep did you get last night?”

  Dorcas looked surprised. “None.”

  “Then I want you to go into my bedroom and lie down. This is the day Raissa, who cleans for me, comes, and I’m going to send her downstairs to clean up and make the place habitable. I know you’re not sleepy now, but if you’ll lie down and breathe slowly—do you dance the Goldberg Variations?”

  “Yes, it’s one of my favorites.”

  “Then dance it in your mind’s eye and ear. Move from slow movement to slow movement. Feel it in your body. Don’t think of anything else. You’ll go to sleep. And I have a lunch date with Felix—Bishop Bodeway. We’re going museuming, so you won’t be bothering me. And I’ll be back by mid-afternoon.”

  Dorcas nodded mutely, and Katherine settled her in the bedroom. As she returned to the living room, the dean called, with Katherine reaching for the phone on the first ring, not to disturb the girl.

  “Madame Vigneras, I just wanted to add my thanks for your kindness to Emily.”

  “It’s not kindness. She has talent and courage and she needs a better teacher than the one she’s had.”

&nb
sp; A slight pause. “I should have realized. Yes, Em does have courage. And she’s named for another Emily of great courage, Emily de Cortez.”

  “The pianist?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know her?”

  “She used to live up in this neighborhood when she was a child, Emily Gregory. After she was blinded in an accident, I was her reader for her schoolwork, and I watched her fierce struggle to become independent. When we named Emily after her, I never thought—”

  Katherine said, “I didn’t know she was blind. She’s a fine musician.”

  “Very few people do know. She wants to be known for her music, not as a blind pianist.”

  “She’s succeeded, then. She’s surely the best-known interpreter of South American composers. I thought she had to be South American herself. I take it her husband is Pio de Cortez, the conductor?”

  “Yes. When Em was in the hospital I reminded her of Emily de Cortez, and she snapped, ‘You can play the piano without eyes, but you can’t dance without a leg.’ And I said, ‘You can play the piano without your left leg.’ So I feel responsible for turning her toward music.”

  “You gave her hope,” Katherine said. “One can’t live without hope.”

  “But if I was wrong—”

  “And you can’t live without risk. You know that. I wouldn’t be taking her on if I didn’t think there was real talent there. Particularly for composition. I look forward to working with her.”

  She said goodbye, hung up, and prepared to leave. She had arranged to meet Felix for lunch at the private dining room of the Metropolitan Museum, and then to see a special exhibit of French Impressionist painting.

  He was waiting for her just inside the entrance. “Shall we eat first, or look at the paintings?”

  “Let’s have a glimpse of the paintings, eat, and then go back to the exhibit. I love the Impressionists, but I tend to drown in them if I look at too many for too long.”

  “How right you are.” Felix took her arm and led her through jostling people until they got to the gallery with the special showing. It, too, was crowded, but Felix managed to sidle them in until they were standing in front of a Degas ballet dancer. “This always reminds me of our youth—” Felix pointed at the dancer lacing up her pink toe shoe. The girl in the painting reminded Katherine of Dorcas, and the present. “Young and innocent,” Felix said, “though I suppose her innocence was short-lived. Loss of innocence—Have you had any more horrid calls?”

  “No. Changing the number seems to have taken care of it.”

  “Good.” They moved on to the next painting, a Rouault head of Christ.

  “Surely he wasn’t an Impressionist,” Felix murmured, but stayed, staring at the powerful face. “Oh, Katya, there are so many times when I’m assailed with doubts. I’ve based my life on the unreasonableness of this”—he nodded at the painting—“death and resurrection, on the unreasonableness of this love, of all love. Sorry, I’m sounding like one of my sermons.” He put his hand up as though to cover his clerical collar, and, realizing that people were listening, moved on until they were standing in front of a van Gogh, a painting of a fiery sky.

  She replied quietly, “In a way, so have I based my life on the unreasonableness of love.”

  “I know, my dear, and I’m grateful. You’ve shared your wisdom with me and made me less afraid.”

  “Afraid of dying?”

  “Of anything. Of dying not so much as the manner of dying. Of horrid phone calls. Of bad dreams. In the old Office Book there’s a Compline hymn which I still say every night, old-fashioned or no:

  From all ill dreams defend our eyes,

  From nightly fears and fantasies;

  Tread underfoot our ghostly foe

  That no pollution we may know.

  No pollution. What a prayer in a polluted world! Ill dreams—how I wish we could rid ourselves forever of them.”

  “Perhaps we learn from them.” What kind of dreams had van Gogh had in order to paint that incredible sky?

  “Perhaps. But the nightly fears and fantasies? Do you fantasize, Katherine?”

  “Not so much any more. I used to. When Justin was alive, if he was ten minutes late coming home, I fantasized everything terrible that could possibly happen to him. And usually the terrible things that in fact do happen are things we never could have suspected.” She said abruptly, “What is it about those threatening calls that frightens you so terribly?”

  “I’m not sure. What makes you ask?” He moved them on, shuffling with the crowd, until they reached a Renoir family, full of gentleness and warmth.

  “Because I think you’re more frightened than anonymous phone calls justify. Why?”

  “If I knew why, I might not be so frightened. Maybe it’s just that I’m too old to let human sickness slide off me any more.”

  “You said Wolfi’s books mean a lot to you, that he speaks your theology for you?”

  “Yes. I know he wouldn’t react so stupidly.”

  A crowd of students pushed by them. “Wait. Listen. I’m not sure whether it was in one of his books or whether he was quoting … Anyhow, he said Satan could never tempt Jesus because Jesus did not possess anything, no worldly goods, no reputation. There was nothing Satan could threaten to take away, because Jesus had nothing.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s true.”

  “So what do you have that anybody could take away from you that you’re so afraid? Are you afraid of dying?”

  “Yes, but they can’t threaten me with that. They’ve never threatened me with my life, but even if they did, I don’t think they could frighten me, because my life is God’s.”

  “What, then? Your reputation?”

  “No. I’m too passé to have that be a problem. But Allie’s—”

  “Can’t you give Allie credit for taking care of his own reputation?”

  A pause. Then, “You’re right again.”

  “If they, whoever they are, know they are succeeding in frightening you, they’ll go on. If you aren’t frightened, they’ll stop.”

  A longer pause. “You make me ashamed.”

  He moved down the gallery. She followed. He sat down on a bench vacated by three students, and she sat beside him, looking at a Seurat beach scene. “I don’t want to make you ashamed. I overreacted to my anonymous phone caller in the most absurd way. I just don’t want you to be frightened when you needn’t be.”

  “I am ashamed. What’s happened to my faith that I’ve let myself be blinded by panic? You’re absolutely right. I don’t have anything they can take away. What few things I’ve gathered in my apartment are only material things, and I sit lightly to them. Thank you, Katya, my dear, dear Katya. You’ve brought me to myself again. In my foolish panic I seem to have forgotten everything I believe. I won’t forget again.”

  “You still have no idea who’s behind this—this terrorism?”

  “None.”

  “Do you want to know?”

  “Not particularly, now that I realize how foolish I’ve been.”

  “Let it go, then. I’ve been foolish, too.” She thought briefly of the used condom and decided against saying anything. Manya had once told her that anyone who has suffered extreme pain becomes more rather than less sensitive to it. So, since the hideousness of the motive behind the dead rat, she, too, had become more, rather than less, sensitive to acts of hate. Perhaps this was Felix’s problem, too.

  “I loathe their dragging you into it,” he said.

  “I’m dragged into it only if I let myself be. We had anonymous phone calls in Paris, too. I occasionally had them when I was on the road, staying in the best hotels. They’re nothing new. Human nature doesn’t seem to change.” She pushed up from the bench, and he followed while she led him to look at a Lautrec whore. A superb exhibition. “I’m enjoying working on the program for your benefit. I think it’s coming along.”

  “I can’t ever thank you enough, and I bless you for it—and mostly for you. Ready for lunch?”
<
br />   The private dining room was light and spacious and not crowded. “In the winter you have to book weeks ahead for a table,” Felix told her.

  “Felix”—Katherine spoke abruptly—“when I asked you how Mrs. Gomez happened to cook for the Undercrofts, you didn’t tell me the truth, did you?”

  Felix picked at his salad unhappily. “I didn’t lie to you.”

  “But you didn’t tell me the whole truth.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because I have the feeling it’s important. Why are you holding back?”

  He stirred his iced tea. “You live in the same building with Mimi Oppenheimer. She doesn’t like either Allie or Yolande.”

  “Please give me credit for having my own opinions. I don’t know either Allie or Yolande well, but I like them.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, Felix, I do.”

  He speared a cherry tomato, spattering the cloth. “Things that belong in the past ought to be left in the past.”

  “That would be ideal.” She watched him mop up the stain. “However, the past produces the future. What about the Undercrofts and Mrs. Gomez?”

  He spoke softly. “Some people can’t forgive the past, even when it’s been repented, atoned for, redeemed. You can forgive the past, Katya, I know, because you’ve forgiven mine. All right. I’ll tell you. When Yolande was singing, being worked half to death by her manager, she took drugs. Gomez was her supplier. Katherine, this is privileged information.”

  “I’m not going to tell anybody. Half the world took pot.”

  “Not just pot. Heavier stuff. Allie told me, so there’s no seal of confessional—” He sounded anxious.

  She repeated. “I’m not going to tell anybody.”

  “Gomez wanted to go straight, after the birth of the kids. But he’s a sullen man, and he couldn’t keep a job. Mrs. Gomez supported the family for years, but she acquired a bad reputation. Not as a cook, but as someone with a bad nature and an unpredictable temper. It wasn’t exactly blackmail when she begged Yolande to take her on. Yolande needed a cook—”

  “But Mrs. Gomez wouldn’t be above letting the world know that the bishop’s wife had been a drug taker, and who knows, might still be one?”