A Severed Wasp

by Madeleine L'engle

  “Let me go see if I can find a blanket,” Mimi suggested.

  Katherine shook her head. “Just shut the window.”

  Mimi rose and did so, and the chilly draft stopped. “Katherine, you being you, you probably haven’t forgotten that this is the weekend I was supposed to be going to Boston.”

  “Yes. Tomorrow.”

  “I’m not going.”

  Fully awake now, Katherine looked at her in surprise. “Why on earth not?”

  “I’m not going to leave you completely alone in the house for the weekend with Dorcas away. This cold front is being pushed out by a low, heavy one, and severe thunderstorms are forecast for tomorrow afternoon and evening. The power will go off, there’ll be vandals roaming the streets—”

  Katherine cut off Mimi’s recital of doom. “Don’t be absurd. The weather reports are seldom right. And how much help do you think Dorcas would be? She was downstairs totally unaware when someone picked my good Yale lock. And you were upstairs. Neither of you had the faintest idea that anything was happening.”

  “Okay, okay,” Mimi agreed. “But even though things have been calm enough on the surface lately, I still can’t bear the thought of your being entirely alone. Now stop bristling, it’s only my own foolishness.”

  “Foolishness is right. You are not going to miss Iona’s sixtieth birthday on my account.”

  “I am not her only friend. It will be well celebrated without me.”

  “Mimi.” Katherine sat up as straight as the sagging springs of the sofa would allow. “Iona is your good friend. This party has been planned for a long time. I am not going to have her disappointed.” She stopped as a nurse came to tell them that Dorcas had been taken from the labor room to the delivery room. The baby’s head had crowned.

  “And that turd Terry doesn’t even want to know when his baby comes,” Katherine murmured.

  “It’s coming quickly for a first one.” Mimi checked her watch. “No unexpected problems. Yet.”

  “Why do doctors always expect problems?”

  “Because we see them far too often.”

  —And maybe those who don’t see them should get spectacles. Witness Michou’s birth.

  “Are you warm enough?”

  “Fine.” She felt irritated, and barely stopped herself from saying, “Don’t hover,” as she had on occasion had to say to Nanette and Jean Paul. To forestall further conversation, Katherine leaned back, closed her eyes, and slid into a shallow sleep, waking only as she heard Mimi speaking. She pulled herself out of the dank embrace of the sofa. The imitation leather was clammy. She got to her feet and saw a doctor, in his greens, coming toward them, smiling.

  “It’s a little girl,” he announced. “Mother and child both fine, no complications. Afterbirth tidy and complete. I’m sending her back to her room and she wants to see you. The other bed’s empty, so I see no reason not to bend the rules a bit. It’s a hell of a way for a girl to have her first child. It’s a good thing she has you, Doctor, and Mrs.—”

  “Vigneras.”

  “Her landlady? Is that right?”

  Katherine’s eyes twinkled. “That’s right.” It was pleasant to be anonymous.

  Dorcas was waiting for them, the baby in the crook of her arm, an ordinary, red-faced, ancient-looking, withered, normal baby. Joyfully normal. “Isn’t she beautiful?” Dorcas asked.

  6

  They were home before three o’clock. Tenth Street was quiet, most of the windows dark. Lit by the streetlamps, trees threw shadows against the stone. Katherine said firmly, “Now, Mimi, go upstairs to your own apartment, and go to bed. You have to be at the hospital tomorrow morning, don’t you?”

  “Yup, and I’ll check on Dorcas.”

  “Good. And I’ll go see her during the afternoon visiting hours. Now I’m going to take a good hot bath, go to bed, and sleep as long as I can.” Slightly to her surprise, Mimi did not argue, but went on upstairs.

  It was a long time before sleep would come. Her body had gone beyond fatigue to a hollow wakefulness. Her memory would not leave her alone. She relived not so much the births of her own children as their conceptions, smiling as she thought of Norseman’s Cove and the orchestral lovemaking with Erlend. At last she slid into sleep. And a gentle dream of Lukas. Lukas. Once love has been awakened, the flame never entirely dies, and she knew and accepted that it is quite possible to love more than one person simultaneously, one love ultimately adding to—rather than taking away from—the other.

  After Lukas’s death, so shortly after Michou’s, she had not dreamed about him, nor had she been able to think about him for a long time, so closely was he tied in with terrible anguish.

  It seemed no more than a logical continuation of the anguish when one day at breakfast, with the morning sun pouring in on them, Justin looked at her over the newspaper. ‘Von Hilpert’s wife is dead, too. There was some question of an overdose of sleeping pills, but the doctor has diagnosed a heart attack as the cause of death.’

  She had listened, almost without hearing.

  The phone cut across Justin’s unemotional voice, breaking through her memories. She looked at her watch. Nine o’clock. She had slept longer than she realized.

  It was Dean Davidson. “Madame Vigneras, my wife’s at the hospital, or she’d be giving you this invitation herself, but Mimi forbade us to call you before nine. We do hope that you’ll come spend the weekend with us. We have a pleasant guest room and bath and can promise you privacy and as much time at the Bösendorfer as you’d like.”

  She was too close to sleep to be polite. “Mimi is interfering and I won’t have it. Thank you, but I know she’s put you up to this, and I am quite capable of spending a weekend alone in my own house.”

  “Madame Vigneras, I can’t ignore all that has been going on. Someone has harassed you, to put the most innocent possible interpretation on it. Mimi very much wants to go to Boston for the weekend, but she won’t go and leave you alone.”

  “This is emotional blackmail. I have not yet had my coffee. I’ll call you back in an hour,” Katherine said firmly, and hung up. She felt sleepy, but when she lay down and curled up under the light blanket her eyes opened immediately. Sunlight splashed a puddle of gold on the rug. She swung her legs out of bed.

  She was finishing her first cup of coffee when the phone rang again. Dorcas. “Madame Vigneras, thank you for coming with me last night.”

  “It was a pleasure.”

  “I can’t quite realize it—I’m a mother!”

  “There’s no doubt about it.”

  “You were right, it really wasn’t bad. Once I’d dilated and started the pushing pains it was almost fun. And my doctor was so kind and gentle.” She giggled. “Madame Vigneras, he doesn’t have the slightest idea who you are.”

  “Why should he? The music world is a small one. Does he know who you are?”

  “He knows I’m a dancer because of my muscles, but I’m not anybody. And he said he’d never even been to a ballet. Madame Vigneras, may I name the baby after you? Will you be the godmother?”

  She had not expected this, and she was not sure it was a responsibility she was prepared to take.

  “Madame Vigneras?”

  How could she refuse the child? “I’d be honored. And I’ll be over to see you during visiting hours.”

  “Oh, will you? That’s marvelous. I’m already thinking of her as Kitty, because she’s as cuddly as a kitten, so I don’t know what I’d have done if you’d said no.”

  Well. Responsibility or not, Katherine was pleased. Very pleased.

  Kitty. She had avoided Kitty and Kathy, although Pete had sometimes called her Kitten—why had she suddenly remembered that? And Manya had called her Katya. Kitty was a pleasant name for that funny, raw little creature who was her unexpected godchild.

  She poured herself a fresh cup of coffee and went to the piano, remembering to take the phone with her, although she had forgotten to return the dean’s call. Her body jerked involuntarily a
s the phone shrilled. She shouldn’t have brought it over to the piano with her. She should have taken it off the hook.

  “Madame Vigneras, it’s Emily.”

  She kept her voice light. “Why, hello, my child, how’s the practicing going?”

  “Fine. I think. It’s much more … more flowing than it was. Madame, Daddy said I could call you, since you didn’t call back.”

  She glanced at the clock. After eleven. The time had slid by quickly.

  “Please, Madame Vigneras, please come for the weekend. Dr. Oppenheimer really wants to go to Boston.”

  This was not Emily’s fault. Katherine tried to control her temper. “There is no reason whatsoever why she shouldn’t go to Boston.”

  Emily’s voice quivered with restrained passion. “I offered to come spend the weekend with you, but Daddy didn’t think Dr. Oppenheimer would think that was good enough.”

  Katherine could not keep the sharpness from her voice. “I have every intention of spending the weekend in my apartment. Alone.”

  Tears quivered behind Emily’s words. “Please, Madame, please come. For—for Uncle Bishop and the Bösendorfer. You’d have lots of time to practice. And—and somebody—might know you’re alone in your apartment and might come again and—”

  “This is melodramatic,” Katherine said, “but I can see I am going to be badgered beyond the point of endurance.” She looked around her pleasant room. A car drove up the street and a shaft of light moved across the seascape where the portrait should have hung, cutting it diagonally as the knife had slashed the painting. “I am coming against my will, they might as well understand that. Dorcas has had her baby, by the way.”

  “Dr. Oppenheimer told us.”

  “And I am going to visit her at two o’clock this afternoon. I should be home by three. Can someone come for me?” If they were this importunate, they could chauffeur her.

  “Of course. Llew or Jos or Daddy. Just bring a nightie and a toothbrush. You won’t need anything else.”

  —I’d rather go to a hotel, Katherine thought rebelliously as she packed her overnight bag.—I hate staying in private homes. I thought I was through with travel and strange beds.

  Was she feeling like a petulant child because she had allowed them to override her protestations about staying home alone? Or was she afraid? Afraid of all that she knew, which did not as yet add up to anything comprehensible. The house would indeed be very empty. She did not know any of her neighbors along the street well enough to call them in an emergency. And if she went up to the Cathedral she would, as both Emily and the dean had suggested, have extra and needed time at the Bösendorfer.

  The phone rang twice again, to her intense displeasure.

  The first caller was Mother Cat to say that the portrait of Katherine and Michou was at last ready, beautifully restored, and that she would bring it down that afternoon if convenient.

  When Katherine protested that it was entirely out of her way, the nun said, “I took it down from the mantelpiece, and I’d like to hang it back up. And then I can take you back uptown with me and drop you at the Davidsons’.”

  Katherine replied with asperity, “It seems I have no private life.”

  Mother Cat made a murmur of apology and continued, “I had cause to talk to the dean this morning and mentioned the portrait, and that I planned to bring it down, so he quite naturally asked me if I’d mind driving you uptown. Is around three o’clock convenient?”

  “Fine, and I’m sorry if I sounded short. My young downstairs tenant had her baby last night, and Mimi and I went to St. Vincent’s with her, so it was rather an interrupted night. I’m going to see her when visiting hours start at two, but I should be back by three. I’m not going to stay long.”

  “If you’re not back, I’ll wait for you,” Mother Cat assured her calmly.

  The second call was from Llew, suggesting that he go to the hospital with Katherine to visit Dorcas.

  “You know she’s had her baby?” Katherine asked in surprise.

  “Emily told me.”

  Of course.

  “And then I could bring you uptown,” he added.

  “I’d love to have you come to the hospital with me, Llew,” she said, “but Mother Catherine of Siena is coming down with the portrait—it’s been fixed. And she’s going to drive me. Maybe you could visit Dorcas tomorrow, when I won’t be able to.”

  He was hesitant. “That does make sense, but … but if you don’t mind, it would mean a great deal to me if I could go with you. Then I can drop in and see Yorke and Lib.”

  “All right. Let’s walk over. I’ll be ready by a quarter to two.”

  She finished packing. A gentle breeze was blowing through the apartment. The air felt light. There was no smell of an approaching storm.

  She did not feel like cooking, or even going to the trouble of making a sandwich. There was some vichyssoise in the refrigerator and she had a bowl of that, then returned to the piano. Thank heavens she still had a large enough repertoire so when the benefit had to be moved from the chapel to the choir she had more than enough selections to choose from to replace the pieces which did not work in the greater space. Otherwise, she would be even more annoyed than she was. And she was annoyed.

  Annoyance. She had long since learned that annoyance was often a cover-up for fear. When Justin’s heart had first raced out of control, a good ten years before his death, her terror until the doctor came was held at bay by anger, not at Justin, but at the threat of a heart attack. She raised him to a sitting position, where he could breathe slightly more easily than lying down, and murmured soothing endearments. ‘It will be all right, my darling, try to breathe more slowly, the doctor is coming, it will be all right, my love,’ while her own heart pounded in outrage.

  Why was she feeling such fierce annoyance now?

  Her fingers continued diligently to play, but her mind was not on music. She might just as well be playing chopsticks, and what, indeed was she playing? Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto, music totally unsuited for the benefit.

  She ran scales until Llew rang the bell.

  “You’re sure Dorcas won’t mind my coming with you?” he asked.

  “I think she’ll be delighted. She’s ecstatic about the baby, but she’s in a very lonely position, and she’s going to need all the support she can get.”

  They walked in silence, which Llew broke. “This isn’t going to be easy for me.”

  “What?” Katherine broke out of her own thoughts.

  “Going to see Dorcas and the—the baby. But I think it’s something I need to do, like giving away the crib, and turning the baby’s room back into my practice room. I’ve avoided seeing babies ever since—I couldn’t quite—”

  “It’s all right, Llew. I think I understand, and I think you are right. You can’t spend the rest of your life looking away when someone goes by with a baby carriage. And this way, you’ll be doing something for somebody else, and that should make it easier.”

  “It does. Thanks for understanding.” He took her elbow as they crossed the street.

  “Dorcas was very grateful that you said you’d pray for her.”

  “It was the least I could do. You prayed for her, too.”

  “I don’t know much about prayer. I just went with her.”

  “That’s prayer,” Llew said, “the best kind. Everything went all right?”

  “Fine. No problems.”

  “And she’s really happy about this baby?”

  “Yes. You’d think Kitty was the first child ever to be born.”

  “Kitty?”

  “Yes. After me. Isn’t that lovely?”

  “I think it’s super.” He was quiet for the rest of the walk to the hospital complex. They were given admission cards at the security desk, with visiting rules written in English on one side, Spanish on the other. Llew said rather crossly, “This used to be a largely Italian neighborhood, and nobody bothered to have things in Italian as well as English. But we didn’t have
security desks then, either.”

  The crossness, she realized, was due to his tenseness. It was going to be difficult for him to see the baby.

  Dorcas was sitting up in bed, and held out her arms to them. Katherine kissed her, and Llew, rather awkwardly, pressed her hand.

  “Would you like to see Kitty?”

  “Of course.”

  “She’s in the crib closest to the window, so you can get a good view. She was a bit early, just off being a preemie. But she’s adorable. The nursery is right down the hall.”

  Llew walked silently beside Katherine. The blinds were up at the nursery windows, and they had a good view of the half-dozen tiny cribs. The arrangement had evidently been changed, because the first baby was a little black button. But the next was likely Kitty, for she was indeed tiny, red and wrinkled and bald, as Katherine had seen her the night before. They stood, watching for several minutes. Finally Llew said, “Okay,” and they returned to Dorcas’s room.

  “I’m apt to have a roommate by this evening,” she said. “My doctor says he has someone else just about ready. Isn’t Kitty gorgeous?”

  “She looks exactly like a baby,” Katherine said firmly, “a right and proper baby.”

  There was a knock on the door and Mimi came in, wearing her khaki suit and carrying a small case. She greeted Dorcas and Llew, then turned to Katherine. “Thank you for giving in to me.”

  “I gave in to the entire population of the Cathedral Close.”

  Mimi laughed. “I’ll pick you up on Sunday on my way in from La Guardia.”

  “All right, thanks. Have a good weekend, and give my best birthday wishes to Iona.”

  When she had left, Dorcas said, “I’m glad you’re going to the Davidsons’ too. That’s an awful lot of empty house, after everything that’s happened. When we get home, Kitty and I will be there to protect you.”