A Severed Wasp

by Madeleine L'engle

  The dean looked at her shrewdly. “The Cathedral Close has always been a happy place, or at least the joy has far outweighed the pain. We cannot let what is perhaps the sickness of one disturbed mind throw things out of proportion.”

  He was, she thought, affirming this to himself as much as to her. Resolutely, she held out her hand to him. “Goodbye. I’ll practice these last few minutes till Felix comes.” She did not watch him leave, but climbed the shallow steps to the choir and sat down at the piano, which seemed to be placed in the open, vulnerably. Anybody could be hidden in the darkness of the choir stalls.

  So? Who would it be except one of the Gomez children, who might be ubiquitous but were surely not evil.

  3

  Felix led her into St. Martin’s chapel. At the end of her story, he did not speak. They were sitting in the front row, as far from the wrought-iron gates as possible. To their left was a not quite life-sized statue of Joan of Arc. She looked at St. Joan’s face, but the carved features held no message for her.

  Felix sat silently, his gaze on the hanging lamp, which swayed slightly from the turning of the earth, the heartthrob of the city. There was a faint odor of burning wax. She was shocked at the pallor of his face and the pain in his eyes.

  “I never should have called you when you came back to New York. I never should have tried to get in touch.”

  For a flickering second she agreed with him. “This isn’t the first time sick people have tried to get at me. No one is immune, at any time, in any place. The wonder of it is that when it’s all added up, the love comes out far more strongly than the hate.”

  “But you shouldn’t be involved in this—”

  “Felix, dear, Mimi Oppenheimer is my tenant. It was she who invited me up to the Cathedral to hear Llew Owen play, not you.”

  He looked relieved, but only momentarily. “Oh, God, Katya, I hate to think that anybody is so determined to hurt me that they’ll take it out on you. Is somebody trying to drive me away?”

  “It looks like it, doesn’t it?” Her voice was flat, without resonance.

  “But who? Why?” His voice was hesitant. “Children sometimes make anonymous phone calls, frighten people, just for fun. And the increase of crime by kids, gangs of ten-year-olds stealing, mugging, even murdering—Merv’s death will never let us forget that. The world has lost its innocence.”

  “Has it ever had any?”

  “It’s not been as bad as this since the last days of the Roman Empire. During the Dark Ages, when almost all vestiges of civilization vanished, people were brutal, basic, but they had a kind of primitive health. I probably wouldn’t have survived in such a world, and yet—I think it was probably better than the world we live in today.” He was talking against the dark.

  “It’s futile to make comparisons.”

  “I know. But we’ve forgotten how to play. Even children don’t know how to play any more. They have to have educational toys, or electronic ones, instead of just banging pots and pans. When the world began to emerge from the Dark Ages, everybody played singing games, like ring-around-a-rosy—”

  “Felix.” Her voice was sharper than she intended. “Don’t romanticize.”

  He reached over and patted her cheek. “It’s a way of avoiding the subject.”

  “Do you have any idea who the anonymous calls come from?”

  “No.” Felix batted at a fly. “I’ve been out of church politics for longer than anyone can remember.”

  “Felix: I don’t know much about your church, or mine, for that matter. But don’t you still hear confessions?”

  He looked baffled, then startled, then repelled. “No. No.”

  “I know you’re supposed to forget what you hear—”

  “I do.”

  “Can you forget all of it? If, for instance, Emily’s accident was not an accident, would you be capable of forgetting that?”

  His face went grey as old ash.

  “Would you?”

  “Confession is private. I do not talk about it. You do not ask me.”

  “I’m not asking. Even if you can forget, are there possibly people who fear you because of all that you must know?”

  “They know—everybody knows—that what is said in confession is privileged.”

  “All right.” He looked so distraught that she knew she could not dwell on it. “You still have no idea who’s been trying to frighten you?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve prayed and prayed, but there’s no break in the fog. All I know is that for the past two years someone has been trying to frighten me, and in my senility I allowed them to succeed. I don’t want you involved in it. If someone wants to persecute me, that’s one thing. I’ve done enough wrong in my life to deserve anything I get. But you—”

  “Don’t worry about me, Felix. I was a fool to think that retirement would allow me to drop out. I don’t think I want to drop out.”

  Again he patted her cheek gently. The touch was soft as a moth’s wing. “How grateful I am to you for giving me back my peace. Now I can bear whatever is happening without falling apart. You’ve given me back the courage I thought I’d lost. I did have courage, real courage—it held me up the time I was shot.”

  “Shot!” she exclaimed.

  “Didn’t you read about it? It was in all the papers, everywhere, not just in New York.”

  “I’m terribly sorry—when I’ve been on tour I’ve gone weeks without looking at a paper. When was it? What happened?”

  “It was years ago, when I was Diocesan. It was a Sunday when I was preaching, and some lunatic from a fringe sect took a potshot at me. He grazed my shoulder, but that’s all, and the guards were on their toes and got the gun and the man. The thing is, I wasn’t frightened, even when I didn’t know whether or not he’d hurt me mortally. God was with me and I never faltered. I’m really rather … rather hurt that you didn’t know about it.”

  “I’m sorry, Felix.”

  “Maybe it’s best. What could you have done? Maybe you’ve come back into my life at the moment when my need is greatest. You’ve turned me around, and I can reach out for God’s hand, knowing that it is there.”

  “Felix, dear. Only you can turn yourself around.”

  Behind them came a sound. “Oh, Llew—” Felix rose and moved toward the beautiful grilled gates, so tottery that Katherine was afraid he might fall. Then the gates were pulled open, and Llew Owen put out his arm to steady the old man.

  “Bishop, are you all right?”

  “Why, I’m fine, Llew, completely fine. I’m sorry we kept you waiting.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I have the car outside, and we’ll drop you off.”

  “I’m all right.” Felix straightened. “The walk will do me good.”

  Llew said, “It’s no trouble to take you,” and Felix did not protest.

  4

  After the almost unbearable tension of that afternoon in the Cathedral, life unexpectedly slipped into a quiet routine. No more anonymous phone calls. No more terror. Once a week someone drove her uptown to the Bösendorfer, and her practicing sessions were without incident. Usually she saw one of the Gomez children, but Fatima skittered away like an overblown shadow, and Topaze offered her no more information. Usually Emily came and sat quietly to listen.

  Katherine and Mimi had several meals together, most often in the apartment, occasionally at a local restaurant. One time, when they were eating out, Mimi mentioned that she had received a call from one of Iona’s colleagues. “Her birthday’s the second Friday in August, so I’m working my schedule out so I can take the shuttle up to Boston. I’ll be back early Sunday evening. It’s not for a while. I just wanted you to know it’s in the offing.”

  “A birthday celebration—that sounds pleasant.” But Katherine’s mind was not on Iona, or even Mimi. Emily had been with her that day for a piano lesson, and it was Emily who kept Katherine from being lulled into feeling that everything was all right now, that nothing more was going to happen.

&nbs
p; Emily was so transparent to Katherine that there was no way she could hide that she was afraid.

  The piano lessons themselves were sheer joy. Emily was getting over her bad habits pianistically. She might possibly turn out to be a performer. But it was her talent in composition which excited Katherine. She had written a fugue for recorders and English horn which not only was charming but had a depth, under the haunting melody, which was far beyond the child’s age. The piece was almost ready for performance, not just at the Davidsons’ on a Sunday evening, but publicly, with some small, experimental group. Perhaps early in the next season would be a good time. Meanwhile, Katherine had Emily concentrating on music for the piano. If—when—she gave Felix his benefit in the autumn, she might well premiere some of Emily’s music.

  When Emily was at the piano, her concentration was so complete that there was no room in her for anything else. But when she first arrived for a lesson, or when Jos was a little late in picking her up, Katherine sensed fear, desperate fear. When she tried gently to question the child, Emily froze, and under the unnatural stillness, Katherine felt a barely repressed hysteria and stopped probing. When Emily was ready to talk, she would talk.

  Mimi’s strong voice broke across her thoughts. “You all right?”

  “Oh—fine. I’m just grateful that there haven’t been any more nasty phone calls, or Vandals, Goths, and Visigoths breaking into the apartment. It seems they plunder in every century.”

  Mimi laughed. “So right. I hope the shuttle to Boston isn’t hijacked. It’s going to be Iona’s sixtieth, and we didn’t think it should go unobserved, so a small group of us are taking her out to dinner.”

  Katherine toyed with the remains of her meal. “That should be fun.”

  Mimi looked across the table at her. “Will you be okay? I hate to leave you alone after …”

  “Mimi, please stop clucking over me like a mother hen. I’ve lived alone for a long time. I’m used to it. I enjoy it.”

  Mimi flushed. “Sorry. I do tend to come on strong.”

  “And I tend to be overindependent,” Katherine said quickly. “I’m grateful that you’re around to take care of me, and that you understand and forgive if I bristle.”

  —Bless Mimi, she thought as they smiled across the table at each other.—How fortunate I am to have found such a friend.

  “How are the lessons with Emily going?” the doctor asked.

  “Better than I could have hoped. I’m more and more convinced that she’s a composer, not a performer, but she’ll end up playing the piano more than adequately. But her own music … She’s working now on a tarantella which I may well put into my own repertoire. It reflects the noises of the city, the constant frenetic movement, in a way that’s rather reminiscent of Gershwin. And I discovered that Emily hardly knows his work.”

  “I’m more delighted than I can express,” Mimi said. “As you know, Emily has a special place in my heart.”

  “Mine, too,” Katherine said.

  How amazing to acquire a new child at her age! She found herself thinking about Emily frequently, and with concern. At the close of her lesson the next week, Emily put her arms around Katherine, to be held, rather than to hold. She seemed about to speak, and Katherine thought that the child now trusted her enough to tell her whatever was causing her fear. But the doorbell rang, announcing that Jos was ready to take Emily home. When the time was ripe, Emily would talk. Nevertheless, Katherine felt a pang of anxiety at Josiah’s interruption of something she felt to be of utmost importance.

  Without Manya to confide in, Katherine would have been far less able to move through the pains of growing up than she had been. There had been one summer on the Riviera when she was in her mid-teens, and had slipped into an uncalculated and naïve one-night affair, and had finally confided to Manya her fear that the sorry episode might result in pregnancy. Manya, neither condemning nor condoning, had been there for her during the period of waiting until they knew that there was no pregnancy. It was over this incident that Manya had read to Katherine from the Bible: ‘Et non seulement cela, mais nous nous glorifions même dans nos afflictions, sachant que l’affliction produit la patience, et la patience l’épreuve, et l’épreuve, l’ésperance. That’s from Paul’s letter to the Romans, and while I tend to quarrel with Paul’s attitude toward women, he knew what he was talking about here.’ And she repeated softly, translating, ‘For we glory in tribulation, knowing that from tribulation comes patience, and from patience comes experience, and from experience comes hope.’

  These words might be good ones for Emily to hear.

  5

  The beginning of August was hot, fiercely hot. Katherine wilted under the brazen sun, the damp humidity. She thought longingly of the house in Connecticut, of Norway, of Paris, anywhere that the temperature didn’t hover around a soggy ninety.

  In this intense heat, New York was a city of fear. It was difficult not to pick up the contagion. She took shorter walks and cooler baths. On her walks, if she saw a group of teenagers, she turned and went in another direction. She did not like being afraid, but to walk deliberately into what was likely danger was foolish. She carried a ten-dollar bill in her pocket, and a card with her address and Mimi’s number. The paper carried stories daily of people being beaten up, killed, because they had no money when money was demanded.

  She came in from her walk, sodden, carrying a grocery bag full of materials for a cold fruit salad, and took a tepid bath. But as she bathed, New York did one of its rapid changes, and a cool breeze came in through the windows. By the time she had put the salad together and Mimi had come downstairs, she felt better.

  Mimi remarked on it. “You’re perked up, like flowers in fresh water.”

  “It’s the lovely cool breeze. I kept reminding myself that New York’s heat waves don’t last, but while I felt like melting butter I kept forgetting it.”

  “Don’t be too sanguine,” Mimi warned. “There’s another low-pressure system on the way.”

  They were finishing their salads when there was a ring and a knock on the door, and Katherine opened to Dorcas, who said, breathlessly, “I’m having contractions.”

  Immediately Mimi was all doctor. She asked Dorcas some brief questions, and said, “Good. This is probably the real thing. Do you have an enema bag?”

  “I think so. Downstairs. If Terry didn’t take it.”

  “Somehow I don’t see him making off with an enema bag. We’ll give you an enema now, so you won’t have to have it done at the hospital. Go on down and get ready for me. I’m going to give your obstetrician a quick ring and tell him we’ll meet him at St. Vincent’s in about an hour.”

  “Thank you.” Dorcas moved to the door. “Thank you for being here for me.” She turned imploringly to Katherine. “Play the piano, please. Something loud, so I can hear.”

  Katherine waited till Mimi was through on the phone and had gone downstairs. Then she moved into some Rachmaninoff preludes. Nice and loud. Some Liszt. She wasn’t overly fond of Liszt, but he was splashy. And loud.

  In less than half an hour, Dorcas returned with Mimi. “She’s a fine, healthy young woman,” the doctor said. “Things are moving along, and I think it’s time to go to the hospital. It’s fun for an orthopod to play obstetrician for a few minutes, but I think Dorcas heeds her own doctor now. I’ll trot down to Sixth for a taxi. We’ll honk when we get to the door.” She set down a small overnight case. “She’s well prepared.”

  “Llew told me to be ready. And he said he’d pray for me. That’s nice of him.”

  “He is nice,” Mimi said, and she was off, briskly competent.

  Dorcas turned to Katherine. “She’s wonderful.”

  “Yes. She’s very special.”

  “Madame Vigneras … I’m afraid …” Tears trembled behind Dorcas’s words. “I want Terry to be with me. I mean, not the Terry who sleeps around, AC-DC, but the Terry I thought—” She choked on a sob.

  Katherine took the girl’s cold hands. “Terry
isn’t with you. But Dr. Oppenheimer and I are. You are not alone.”

  Dorcas gasped, and her grip on Katherine’s hands tightened. “Dr. Oppenheimer says—says—that these are—only dilation pains—not pushing pains—but oh, God, I hurt—”

  “Count,” Katherine ordered. “Breathe slowly and count. One, two, three …”

  Up to seventy.

  “It’s gone.” The girl looked at her watch. “Every ten minutes now.”

  Outside, the taxi honked. Katherine picked up the little blue case, which seemed to her oddly pathetic. “Let’s go to the hospital before the next pain comes.” Even in this urgency she remembered to double-lock the doors.

  In the hospital Dorcas was whisked away and Katherine and Mimi were sent to the waiting room on the obstetrical floor. Mimi said, “First babies can be very slow in coming. Why don’t you go home? I’ll call you as soon as anything happens.”

  “I promised her I’d stay till the baby comes.”

  At that, Mimi shrugged. “And you won’t break your promise. I know. I wish everybody honored promises as you do.”

  “I don’t make them casually.”

  They were sitting on a big sofa covered with brown imitation leather. Above them was a bad reproduction of a Cimabue mother and child. Katherine glanced at it, then away; it spoke to her of nothing but unresolved pain. On the wall across from the sofa was a framed embroidery of a bleeding heart.

  Mimi pointed. “What would Cardinal von Stromberg have made of that?”

  “Wolfi was able to accept paradox and contradiction. And he—he saw several concentration camps just after they’d been evacuated. He said that the only Christ he could comprehend then was a weeping Christ with a bleeding heart.”

  “Well—” It was half an apology. “I still wouldn’t want to wake up to that every morning.”

  They were the only people in the waiting room. Venetian blinds covered the windows which looked out onto the street. The head nurse told Mimi that there had been a flurry of activity earlier, half a dozen babies arriving so closely together that everybody seemed to be running in several directions at once, but that now it was unusually quiet. Katherine leaned back and dozed, but woke because the breeze coming in the window was chilly.