A Severed Wasp

by Madeleine L'engle

  It had been a disaster horrifying enough to be in newspapers all over the world. All the children were killed.

  6

  “I remember,” Mother Catherine of Siena murmured.

  “It was difficult to identify the bodies, they were so burned—” Katherine’s voice remained quiet, without a tremor.

  “Stop it—” Mimi reached out and took Katherine in her arms, but it was Mimi who was crying, her tears soaking Katherine’s dress.

  Manya and Tom had flown over immediately. There was a funeral, of which Katherine remembered little, because what she remembered was always the look of terror on Michou’s face. And, a few days later, Justin, looking at the paper and saying, ‘He’s killed himself.’

  ‘Who?’ she had asked indifferently.

  ‘Von Hilpert. It says he was killed in a shooting accident at his Schloss, but of course that’s nonsense. He felt responsible and he killed himself, poor bastard. It was a way out of everything for him, that disastrous marriage—’

  His words hardly registered.

  Justin went on, ‘I never thought I’d feel sorry for a Nazi, but I feel sorry for him. It wasn’t his fault. It might have happened the night before; Michou wanted to ride those swings and I said, “Not tonight, maybe tomorrow …”

  Manya had stayed with them for a month, delaying the rehearsals of her new play. Tom, with recording commitments in New York, had gone home shortly after the funeral, unable to bear more than his own pain, which he worked out in the Second Kermesse Suite, music which started out with gentle merriment, moved into laughter, and then rose slowly to a climax of terror and pain, and finally resolved into a gentle and accepting peace.

  Nanette was half ill for weeks, sick with self-blame, not hearing when they told her over and over again that it was she who had kept Julie from going on the swings, that she was in no way to blame, that it was an accident, that there was nothing she could have done to prevent it.

  It was Manya who held things together, took care of Julie, sang to her, told her stories, took her to the park, bought her a new hoop, roller skates, despite Nanette’s protestations of danger.

  ‘Life is dangerous,’ Manya stated. ‘You will only hurt the child if you try to protect her from all the little dangers of ordinary living. Let her skin her knees; let her live like a normal child.’ And she took Julie and went out, and they came home with a tricycle, with which the little girl was delighted.

  Justin, like Nanette, would have kept Julie wrapped in cotton wool, but understood that he could not, so he left her to Manya for those first empty weeks, and saw to it that Katherine practiced for the requisite hours. He did not read to her while she played scales; it was months before he opened a book to read aloud to her. Like Thomas Forrester, he worked through his rage and horror in composition, an opera based on Robinson Jeffers’s Medea, perhaps his best work, but so full of anguish when Medea’s two little sons are slaughtered that it was seldom played, while Forrester’s Second Kermesse Suite was heard over and over again …

  Katherine patted Mimi’s shoulder. “It’s all long past.” She looked across Mimi to Mother Catherine of Siena. “You’re right. I needed to say it aloud. We had a bad time afterwards. I don’t know what we’d have done without my stepmother, who stayed with us, even though it meant postponing a play. And then Wolfi—Cardinal von Stromberg—came from Rome.”

  This time Justin did not send for him. The day after Manya left, Katherine was at the piano, practicing, dutifully, dully, the music dead under her fingers. And then, without warning, she was picked up off the piano bench and held in Wolfi’s arms, held tightly, painfully, until at last she was able to cry, to shed the tears which even Manya had not been able to bring from her dry eyes.

  7

  Mimi wiped her hands across her face. “I’ve got you all wet with my tears.”

  “It’s hot,” Katherine said quietly. “They’ll dry.”

  Mimi turned to the two nuns. “It’s terribly late, and you have to get up. I’ll stay with Katherine, sorry help though I am.”

  Katherine touched Mimi’s cheek gently. “I needed your tears.”

  Mother Catherine stood with her back to the fireplace. “You know I’d almost forgotten, but when I was a novice the convent was broken into. A thief came through the skylight. It was a weekday, so most of the Sisters were in school. I was home with grippe, and when he looked in my cell I screamed, naturally, and he fled as though I had frightened him, and raced downstairs. One of our older Sisters was at the door. She was so forgetful that opening the door was about all she could do. But she was a most loving person, and what she wanted most in the world was to be of help in any way that she could. So when she saw this strange young man running down the stairs, she asked him if she could help him, and he said, ‘I’m a thief. Give me your money.’ And she tinkled a laugh and said, ‘My dear, we are just poor Sisters and we don’t have any money.’ And she turned the pockets of her habit inside out. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘here’s a stamp. Now you can at least write a letter to your mother. Would you like paper and an envelope, too?’ And while he watched, openmouthed, she found him a note pad and an envelope with the convent return address on it, and then added, ‘Now, there are people with much more money down the street who don’t have our vow of poverty. Why don’t you try them?’ and opened the door for him and ushered him out. She at least had enough memory to tell us what happened, and hoped she had done the right thing and been helpful. I suspect that he was very new at being a thief, and what I’ve always hoped is that Sister Domina turned him toward a more honest living.”

  Katherine glanced at the seascape hanging over the mantel behind Mother Cat. “If he wrote that letter, I wonder what his mother made of the envelope? Now you really must go. Thank you, all of you, for being with me. It’s been more help to me than I can express. But I’m fine, now. Mimi, you, too. Go on upstairs. I don’t need you. I’m all right.”

  “You may not need me,” Mimi said, “but I need you. I’ll just stretch out on your sofa. Thank you for being so thoughtful as to buy a sofa long enough for someone like me.”

  “Justin was tall,” Katherine said. “I’m in the habit of buying furniture for tall people. Wolfi was tall, too. I had an even longer sofa in the house in Paris, and he occasionally slept on it.”

  When the nuns had gone, Mimi said, “I’ll draw your bath.”

  Katherine nodded mutely. She was too tired to bathe, and yet she knew that the warm tub would relax her. “Thanks, dear Mimi. And thanks for being here. And I’m glad you didn’t mention to the policemen that it might be someone from the Cathedral.”

  “Let them do their own homework.” Mimi was brusque. “I did not think it would serve any useful purpose for them to go up to the Close and question everybody there. If we’re to find out who’s behind all this nastiness, we mustn’t make anybody suspicious.” She headed for the bathroom, and Katherine heard the sound of running water, smelled the fragrance of what must be an enormous quantity of bath salts.

  She looked at the place where the portrait had hung and understood that she would not want to have been without any part of her life, even the most terrible.

  It had been difficult to relive Michou’s death, to tell the tellable parts to Mimi and the nuns. But now it was done. And death could not change the brief years of Michou’s life, which had been sheer, unadulterated joy. It was not, she thought, climbing into the tub, a sentimental whitewashing of the truth; the truth was that, once she was well after the trauma of his birth and its aftermath, Michou had been joy for them, and this joy had been the source of a deepening of Katherine’s and Justin’s love, which death had, ultimately, strengthened. It was either that, a firmer bonding, or breaking apart entirely.

  The cardinal had helped them, too, coming as often as possible after Manya had gone back to the States. After Michou’s death, Katherine was able to see Wolfi again, to love him, not as she had loved him before, but acceptingly, quietly, not expecting more than it
is possible to expect from another human being.

  If Justin ever wondered about the paternity of either of his children, he never mentioned it. He was the father. He said, once, ‘I thought perhaps we should talk about having another child, but it would seem like trying to replace Michou, and we can’t do that.’

  ‘And it might hurt Julie,’ she had replied. ‘She might think that she wasn’t enough for us. Besides—we are so busy. We travel so much—’ And who would she have turned to, who would have been the father of a third child? No, Michou and Julie were enough.

  Throughout the years she would occasionally wake, wet with cold sweat as she saw, in her sleep, Michou’s terrified face. As Felix’s nightmares would never leave him, so this one would never leave her. It was during the worst of these nightmare times that she had developed the habit of getting up, making bouillon, so that she would be awake enough to go back to sleep without moving directly back into the terror. Such phantasms are something we all have to endure, one way or another, she thought; Justin surely had more than his share from Auschwitz.

  Wolfi made a special point of coming to them for Julie’s birthday, the first without Michou. The Great Grey Wolf was fully back in favor with his Church. They heard rumors that he might be the next Vatican Secretary of State.

  He arrived just before the party, half a dozen little ones to dress in party clothes, play games, take home prizes. After Nanette had taken Julie off to bed they had sat talking, late, and the cardinal decided to spend the night on the sofa. Katherine was up early the next morning, and started to tiptoe past him to the kitchen, when he sat up and called to her. She turned back and sat on the sofa beside him. ‘Lukas von Hilpert was Michou’s father, wasn’t he?’

  For a moment she did not answer. She did not move, nor did the expression on her face change; though he had taken her by surprise, she had learned that much control. ‘Justin does not know who Michou’s father was, and he does not want to know, because he was Michou’s father. If I tell you yea or nay, then that will make a difference. As long as I am the only one who knows, it is better for Justin.’

  He kissed her hand again. ‘Yes, Kinderlein, you are right. I was wrong to ask.’ He sighed. ‘You have grown, ah, how you have grown. Why must it be pain that makes us grow? Your music—I wept through most of your last concert. Good tears, purgative tears. You take all that you have learned, and then you give it to your audience. That is why you are so much loved.’

  She had brushed this away, embarrassed. ‘I do have excellent stage presence. Justin has seen to that.’

  ‘Justin and Katherine. Katherine and Justin. I thank God for you every day. Why did it take Michou’s death to bring us back together as we were before?’

  ‘It’s not as we were before, Wolfi. I’m not as I was before. And you’re not, either.’

  ‘No. We have both moved a long way. I do not think you know how much you have taught me.’ This last was murmured in so low a voice she was not sure she had heard.

  She told him, then, about a concert she had given in Munich a few weeks before. She had gone back to the cathedral. To the ancient statue of the Virgin and Child. How could a wooden face have so many changes of expression? Now the young woman looked old, and full of grief. She held the baby as she might have held the man when he was taken down from the cross, and the baby’s face was ancient; the painted eyes held all the wisdom of the world. Katherine had bowed her head against all that wisdom, and when she looked at the mother again, the carved face was bright with love. Grief, and the acceptance of grief, yes. But love was the strongest expression, and the love seemed to be saying: You can bear this. You can bear it and go on living.

  ‘And I am bearing it, Wolfi. At first I didn’t think I could, but I am, because I know that if I didn’t bear it, Justin couldn’t.’

  ‘You do know that? That you have to bear it with him, for him?’

  ‘Yes. I know that. And thank you, Wolfi, for coming for Julie’s birthday, for making it merry. I’m not sure we would have been able to laugh and play without you.’

  ‘Whenever you need me,’ he had promised, ‘I will come. If it is humanly possible. I will come.’

  How much did Julie remember of Michou? Of the amusement park and the explosion? Nanette had whipped Julie around, the child’s face protected by the grey skirts, had taken her immediately back to the chalet. Nanette, in anguish for Michou, but holding the little one from horror. There was nothing she could do for Michou, but she would try to keep Julie untouched.

  And that, of course, was not possible.

  Was Michou’s death part of what had wounded Julie? Did the grief for Michou make her feel unloved, unwanted, unneeded? It had not been possible to hide that Michou’s death had split their universe apart. Perhaps Julie needed to get back at Katherine for Michou’s death.

  Too much psychologizing was not a good idea; she swished the warm scented water about her.

  8

  Mimi helped her out of the tub. “I’m feeling very stiff tonight.” Katherine winced.

  “You hurt,” Mimi said. “I’ll try to massage away the pain. You’ve been through a lot this evening. No wonder your body had to let out a shout.”

  Katherine tried to quieten under the massage, but she could not banish visions of the living room, of the seascape where the Hunter portrait should be hanging, the piles of music to be sorted and put back in the cabinet, possible calls from the police. And Emily was coming the next day for her first piano lesson. She couldn’t disappoint the child.

  “Relax,” Mimi ordered. “I’m going to stay with you till you fall asleep.”

  “Mimi,” Katherine protested. “You won’t sleep as well here as upstairs in your own bed.”

  Mimi rode over this. “Tomorrow we will put on the lock the police suggested. On both your doors, the one from the kitchen to the hall, too. I don’t think there’s going to be any more trouble tonight, but someone did get into your apartment, and therefore you are vulnerable. Of course, I sleep soundly, and I am told that I snore loudly. My snoring itself would probably scare an intruder away. No more talking.”

  Slowly the tenseness eased from Katherine’s body. She had not realized how tightly she was in its grip until Mimi began to massage. It seemed that every smallest muscle was tightly coiled. After a while Mimi turned out the light with one hand, continuing the gentle massage with the other. Katherine did not know when it was that Mimi pulled the sheet up and went into the living room.

  9

  A little past nine in the morning Mimi came in with a breakfast tray, café au lait, a soft-boiled egg, and a brioche.

  Katherine rolled over sleepily. “You’re spoiling me.”

  “I think you could do with a bit of spoiling.”

  “And I don’t have a bed tray—”

  “I got it from upstairs. I’ve been to the locksmith around the corner. He’ll be here at ten. As soon as he’s done the locks, I’ll take off.”

  “Don’t you have to be at the hospital?”

  “Not till eleven. I gave them a ring.”

  “You shouldn’t have changed anything for me.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. I’m frankly fascinated and filled with curiosity.”

  “And you think it’s all connected—the phone calls—last night—”

  “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

  “Why did you get anonymous phone calls last year?”

  “Could be a number of reasons. I’m connected with the Cathedral in several ways—through Iona, and Sister Isobel; through Suzy and Dave. Anybody who dislikes them could well include me, just out of spite. Or it might be anti-Semitism, which is still raising its ugly head. Dave found a swastika spray-painted on one of the altars not long ago.”

  “And last night—” Carefully, Katherine cut the top off her egg. “Why would anyone want to slash Michou’s face?”

  “Don’t, ma mie. I think it was random. The baby’s face is in the light in the portrait, and you’re in the shadows. Anyon
e who didn’t know might not even realize it was you and Michou. I’m not at all sure that you, Katherine Vigneras, are the target of whoever it is who is devoured by malignant passion. They—he? she? it?—may be trying to get at somebody else through you.”

  “But who?”

  “Possibly the old bish.”

  “Felix?” She had not told Mimi about Felix’s calls.

  “I’m no detective. Unlike you, I do not amuse myself with English murder mysteries. I prefer science fiction or the New England Medical Journal. I simply offer it as a very tentative postulation.”

  “Who would hate Felix that much?”

  “There you have me. Some people hate all bishops on general principle.” She paused. “Eat your egg while it’s hot, and take your mind off sick people. It’s gone so far I am going to tell Dave about it, all of it, from the call made to me from the front desk at Cathedral House at midnight, to the vandalizing of your apartment last night. Then he can decide what to do about the police. He has a lot of friends on the force, and he’ll know who to go to if necessary. I hope it won’t be. Dave’s an independent cuss, and if he can work it out himself he will. He’s dealt with voodoo and neo-Nazis and God knows what-all and I think he’ll manage to deal with this.”

  “Are you going to call him?”

  “I’m going to see him this evening. I called him before breakfast to make sure he’d be in. I didn’t worry him; it’s not the first time I’ve needed to go uptown and hash things over with him.” The phone jangled and Mimi reached for it, saying, “I am not going to have you disturbed until you have had a quiet breakfast.” She turned to the phone. “Yes? … Oh, hello, Felix. Yes, it’s Mimi Oppenheimer. I do live just upstairs, you know.… No, she can’t come to the phone now … Oh, Chr—all right, I’ll tell her. She’ll give you a call later on. Will you be in your office? … Yes, she’ll call you as soon as possible. Goodbye, Bishop.” She replaced the receiver. “It might have been easier for you to talk with him now and get it over with. Requests for tickets for your concert are pouring in, and it’s totally outgrown St. Ansgar’s chapel. They’re going to have to put the piano in the choir, just at the head of the steps, and seat the audience in the nave.”