Sustenance (31 page)

From the kitchen, he heard Wilhelmina call out to him. “Did the meeting go well?”

Bethune shrugged. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” he responded. “I feel like a mouse that sneaked past a badger.”

“Is that good?” Wilhelmina persisted.

“I don’t know yet.” This admission made him wince. “And I don’t know how long it will take to find out; I wish I did.”

Wilhelmina appeared in the kitchen doorway, a large tray in her hands, with coffee-service for two, and two small plates of elegant little pastries.

Seeing her with this burden, Bethune got to his feet. “Here, Willie; let me help you with that.”

She stopped moving and offered him an uneasy smile. “Much appreciated. That’s very nice of you, Tolliver,” she said in her unflappable way. “I’m afraid I overloaded it.”

“Well, if you did, since it was on my behalf, it’s only right that I carry this for you,” he said, thinking of how much she reminded him of his first-year biology professor in college. There was something about teachers, he decided.

“Put your hands next to mine,” she recommended. “That way we won’t drop it accidentally.”

He went to her and took the tray from her hands as she had instructed him to do, carrying it slowly back to the butler’s table, where he set it down. “It looks wonderful.”

She smiled. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

There was a tiny, awkward pause before he returned her smile and told her, “You’re right: I probably do. And I shouldn’t.” He waited until she had sat down in the lady’s easy chair that faced the fireplace and the butler’s table, then sank back down onto the sofa. “I’m glad you were in, Willie.”

“So how did it go today?” Wilhelmina asked him.

“I don’t know that, either. They want information, but it isn’t the kind they were asking about, or it didn’t seem so.”

She got up. “The coffee won’t pour itself,” she remarked as she took the coffee-pot and held it up. “Milk and sugar?”

“You remembered,” he approved. “Yes, if you would.”

“I most certainly will,” she said, and poured out a fragrant black stream into a large white cup. “It’s hot,” she added, putting in two small spoonfuls of sugar, and then milk from a jug, which she handed on a broad saucer to Bethune. “The cream-puffs are very nice, but so are the fig-rolls. I have a few apple turn-overs—I forget what the French call them—still in the fridge.”

Bethune was sitting up very straight now. “May I have one of each?” he asked.

“Of course you may,” she said as she prepared her own coffee. “On Fridays, they do something similar to a hot-cross bun, but it is an actual cross, and it has a filling of buttered crushed almonds. You must come on a Friday, when you can.” She returned to her chair.

“Will there be enough left for Boris when he gets back?” Bethune asked while he waited for his coffee to cool a bit.

“Boris rarely drinks coffee; he prefers tea, that Russian tea that comes in bricks. A pianist he knows sends them to him from time to time.” She made a gesture compounded of affection, resignation, and exasperation. “You’d think he were one of the lost Romanovs, wouldn’t you? Nesting dolls on the mantelpiece, Orthodox crosses on the doors.” She settled herself more comfortably in the chair, drawing her leg up under her. “Close, but no blue ribbon. Boris’ father, who was born and raised in Poland, read that Pushkin thing about Boris Godunov, and couldn’t wait to name one of his kids after it. It was because of his name that Boris got interested in Russian culture, Russian music in particular.” She shook her head, at the same time steadying her cup-and-saucer on the arm of her chair. “The Committee thinks he’s Russian and only claims to be Polish as a way to keep his disguise, as it were. The Committee claims to have proof of his being Russian, although how they can have, I have no idea. But I met his father when Boris and I were first married, and he was well and truly Polish. His mother was Scandinavian—I can’t recall what flavor.” She took a very small sip of her coffee, and asked as if she were beginning one of her once-infamous pop quizzes, “Does any of this interest you?”

“It’s good to know as much as possible about him, but why are you telling me this?” Bethune asked deferentially.

“Oh, no very clear reason,” she admitted. “I think I want to know if anything occurred at your meeting at the Embassy this morning, but I don’t want to have to say so directly, so this is a kind of fishing.” She grinned suddenly, the unexpected expression blossoming on her features as if she had been magically transformed.

Bethune laughed, and after a half-second, so did Wilhelmina. “You must be wily in the classroom, Willie.”

“Oh, I was,” she said, her smile vanishing. “Athletic boys lived in terror of my random quizzes, and pretty girls with crushes on Jimmy Stewart would implore me to excuse them from any exams.” Then she looked away, her eyes turned toward the window, but seeing a classroom on the other side of the Atlantic.

“How’s your aunt doing?” Bethune inquired, trying to buy Wilhelmina a little time to collect herself, as he tested his coffee and found it cool enough to drink.

“As well as can be expected. She recently arranged for us to have this house for our residence as soon as she dies, no delays in court. Her attorney has already filed the papers. Aunt Eugenie has been very good to us.”

“Any idea—”

“—when?” She drank more coffee. “No. Probably more than three months but less than six.” She looked in the general direction of the stairs. “She’s pretty much bed-ridden. Her doctor comes twice a week.”

“She’s in her sixties, isn’t she?” Bethune asked, and took a bite of a flaky-crusted fig-roll.

“Seventy-two. She’s had a good, long run, and I think she’s ready for all this to be over.” She got up to get a pair of cream-puffs, then sat down again. “I can tell she isn’t hanging on very much. She’s not eating very much, and about all she likes to do is read Victorian novels. She’s clearing everything out.”

Something occurred to Bethune as he listened, something that had not crossed his mind until this afternoon; he asked it while it was fresh in his mind. “When all this Red-baiting is over, are you going back home, or will you stay here?”

Wilhelmina almost tipped her large saucer off the chair arm. “You know, Tolliver, I’ve been thinking about that recently,” she said. “I suppose it depends on how long it takes to get things straightened out. Boris and I aren’t spring chickens, and if we’re still here five years from now, then we may just keep on. There’re a lot worse places than Paris, wouldn’t you say?”

“Do you think Boris agrees?” Bethune asked, his speculations already on the rest of the Coven. How many of them thought the way the Kings did?

“I don’t know specifically, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.” She drank half her coffee and picked up the first of her cream-puffs. “The trouble is, I don’t know about the Frosts, or how any of the rest of them, for that matter, feel.”

Bethune heard her with the intensity he usually reserved for news bulletins out of Berlin. It had not occurred to him before now that for some of the Coven, return to the US was not necessarily the desired end of his efforts on their behalf. He realized he should say something, so he looked at Wilhelmina and said, “You’re right. These fig-rolls are excellent.”

TEXT OF A LETTER FROM BETTY-ANN PARKER IN CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, TO HER COUSIN MOIRA FROST IN PARIS, FRANCE, SENT VIA AIR MAIL AND DELIVERED FOUR DAYS LATER.

April 3
rd
, 1950

Dear Cousin Moira,

Sorry to hear that your husband is in the hospital. Tim’s had a horrible five years, hasn’t he? What a sad thing that is, you being in a foreign country and all. Do the doctors think he’s going to have more seizures? Do you know what caused it? And in the car, too. You’re lucky he didn’t fall out the door. Golly, you two have been through a lot. You tell him I hope he gets well soon, even better than he was before he had the seizure. I have to tell you, I never knew a bad concussion could be so awful for so long. I don’t think I could stand it, either having such a concussion or taking care of someone who had one. Is the friend you mentioned helping you out? You say Tim will be in the hospital for another week—that’s a long time, isn’t it? Is there anything they can do to lessen the kind of seizures he has? Some kind of medicine, maybe, or an operation to help? I can ask Dr. Ives, if you like, to see if he can suggest anything. He’s just our local doc, but he’s good at his job.

I don’t know if anyone else has told you, but Uncle Frederick and his second wife, Alexis, are signed up to do a month-long Mediterranean cruise in June, to celebrate their first anniversary. They’ll be stopping at Barcelona and Nice, and nine other cities. Dining is formal, and women must wear long skirts. They start out in Belgium and end up in Greece; Uncle Howard says that Alexis is going to want to go to every chapel, church, and cathedral they encounter along the way. The trip is costing $4,000—each! For what they’re spending on this trip, they could live pretty well for a year—not lavishly, but not pinching too many pennies. Daddy says Uncle Frederick is a fool, that he should put that money to good use so it can keep him and Alexis comfortable in their old age, not use it for gallivanting around the world. We haven’t done anything with them since Christmas, which is kind of too bad, since I do like Alexis. The rest of the family doesn’t agree with me, but they don’t see what she’s done for herself, and that she really does love Uncle Frederick. The thing is, her Daddy took a bad fall in the Crash, and she said she decided she would make money and make the most of that money having fun with it. Daddy warned Uncle Frederick that he would live to rue the day he married Alexis.

You may have heard that Grandfather Larkin passed away last Tuesday in the evening. He had been in badly failing health for over a year, so we all knew it was coming. Sixty-four is the age he reached, not too bad, when you think about it. The last six months were really hard on him. His housekeeper did a good job. She’s a retired nurse who takes on cases like his. Grandfather Larkin asked Uncle Howard to handle the Will, and to make sure that Mrs. Cassidy gets something extra for all her trouble. I don’t expect we’ll receive anything from him: he gave Daddy the grandfather clock two years ago. It’s not like Grandfather Larkin was an extravagant man, like Uncle Frederick is. Mom told me that she thought Grandfather might make small gifts to his grandchildren, and if he did, she wants to be sure that I put mine toward my college fund. I won’t count my inheritance until it’s in my savings account.

Cousin Emily’s twins are finally doing better; their doctor says they’ll be fine, but I still think it wasn’t a good idea to call them Mason and Dixon. Everyone coos and giggles over those little boys, because their names are so cute. I don’t think they’ll think that when the boys are in grade-school. They’re like to be teased to distraction. But Cousin Emily won’t hear a word against them, and her husband positively boasts about them. You probably think that’s a good thing for parents to do, but keep in mind, there are all kinds of hassles that happen to kids that the parents never find out about. You know about that, too, don’t you?

I’m not supposed to mention current events, but there was a long article in the paper yesterday about how the FBI hunts down Communists, and how dangerous Communists are. There was a little something about the CIA doing the same in foreign countries. There was nothing about how they coordinate their work, but that could be because they want to keep that part secret. Daddy says it’s because they’re rivals, but I don’t see the point in that, do you? I probably shouldn’t be asking you this, but I think you know more than I do, or anyone else in the family.

Swim team practice starts next week, and I’m taking ballet lessons, to improve my stretching and stamina. Mrs. Rollander, who teaches American History and Current Events, is the coach this semester. She was on her college swim team, and I think she’s doing a great job. We wear regulation tank suits for our competitions, and they look awful, but Mrs. Rollander tells us that they help us swim faster. I’m not going to argue with her, but it seem like a dumb idea.

Let me know as soon as you have Tim home again, and give him my best wishes in getting well. We all miss you here—even Emilia, who thinks you guys are up to no good—and when you can come home, Uncle Frederick promises to throw you a big party. No one will want to miss that. Until then, our prayers are with you.

Your loving cousin,

Betty-Ann

6

“
S
ORRY WE’RE
late,” said the Praegers as they came into the living room of Charis’ flat, almost in unison. Both of them were dressed in a manner to show that they were one of those who saw themselves as a pair who can display the appropriate sartorial requirements of all those in the Coven: they would look appropriate to half the university campuses in the US, and similar to the look of students in Europe. Their arrival somewhat startled the group gathered in the eclectically furnished living room, for they had come up the stairs and had not bothered with the elevator, so that the sound of their footsteps in the foyer had sent a chill through those who had already arrived. “It’s the Praegers,” Jesse added, in case they were not the last to come; he and Elvira were taking off their jackets to hang in the coat-closet. “We would have been here sooner, but I had a call home booked for six, and I didn’t want to lose it. My mother’s birthday.” In spite of his energetic way of talking, he had the air of someone wrestling with a difficult problem; Elvira seemed scared, and a little short of breath, for she huddled in her jacket as if to keep out something worse than the evening chill. They went from the foyer to the half-open double-doors, where they paused to admire the way the place had turned out. “Say—not bad. Not bad at all,” Praeger decided aloud. “What do you think, honey?”

Elvira managed a rictus smile. “It’s beautiful. Different. I like it.”