Sustenance (50 page)

In the bar, Pomeroy turned around in his long-legged chair to look out through the arch in front of the dining room. He liked this place, he liked Dudon, he liked the building, and he was very determined not to sacrifice the few real enjoyments he had come upon since he arrived in France simply because he and the rest of the Coven might be under scrutiny. He knew Bjornson wanted to find another meeting place for the Ex-Pats’ Coven, but Pomeroy could not agree; the Coven needed a place everyone knew, a Parisian place, where the Americans would be safer than if they kept themselves isolated in the Ex-Pats’ communities in the city
. You hide ducks among other ducks, not in a flock of chickens
, reminding himself of one of his grandfather’s favorite aphorisms. The occasional meetings at members’ houses continued sporadically, and that was all the risk he wanted to assume as a distinct group. The Coven’s meetings here had worked well for almost two years, and there was no reason the arrangement could not continue. He took a sip of wine, rolling it around in his mouth before swallowing. He liked the Burgundy. He was beginning to think that Praeger was right, and it would be years still before it would be safe for any of them to set foot on American soil. He sighed, and took the last sip in his glass. And, he reminded himself, as long as he was the leader of the Coven, he would continue to encourage the group to meet here rather than at any of the members’ homes, so they could enjoy the ambience and food as well as one another’s company. Asking everyone to stand the expense of a dinner was beyond what most of them could afford to do more than once in a year, and the exposure of such meetings had troubled him from the first: it allowed those who might be watching the Coven to see too much of their group, to discover more about them than they already knew. With Steve diMaggio to watch out for bugs, old-fashioned snooping could be used by government agents to keep track of them, and that idea bothered Pomeroy more than he wanted to admit.

“Did you notice anyone?” Bjornson asked as he came back into the bar.

“Not really,” said Pomeroy, not wanting to tell Bjornson that he had not bothered to look. “Nothing much going on yet.”

“In an hour or so it will be busy.” Bjornson nodded and picked up his wine-glass. “This Samuel Effering. To return to our discussion: what do you make of him?”

“Well, virology is a hot topic these days, and not everything being done in it is for the public good. There are labs working on making super-strong strains of diseases as military weapons almost as fast as there are men trying to find a cure or a vaccine for everything from polio to mumps.” Pomeroy realized he had raised his voice. “Sit down, Axel. We don’t want all Paris to know what we’re doing.”

“All Paris doesn’t speak English,” Bjornson reminded him, but got back onto his high-perch chair. When he spoke again, it was softly. “I’m sorry that I’m being so abrupt. It’s been a hard couple of weeks, ever since diMaggio found bugs in Charis Treat’s flat, and in McCall’s apartment. I’m afraid that we’re still under scrutiny. I have no proof,”
except for the feeling on the back of my neck
, he added to himself, “but I don’t think we should ignore the possibility.”

“Indeed, no,” said Pomeroy. “Effering has some of the same concerns; he said so.”

“It’s either the truth or a clever ploy to make us think he’s truthful.” Bjornson took a swig of the Burgundy.

“The question is, which one,” said Pomeroy, and poured the last of the wine in the bottle into Bjornson’s glass. “Unwind, Axel. You’re going to get the job; they need your experience. As you said, there’s no one with a background as thorough in recovering from natural disaster as what you have, and that’s certain.”

“We’ll see,” said Axel gloomily. “There are a lot of matters to consider, you know. I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

“You provided your degrees, your CV, four analyses of your rebuilding plan—what else can they want?” Pomeroy asked, signaling Olivier for a second bottle. So far the wine had had little impact on him, and he was mildly disappointed.

“A Frenchman?” Axel suggested, and reached into his pocket for his pipe, and realized his tobacco pouch was almost empty; he put his pipe back in his pocket. “Sorry—that sounded surly, didn’t it? It’s nothing to do with you, it’s—I had another dispatch from Mother today. Julia is supposed to testify in Washington, DC, next week. That makes the third time she’ll be in front of them.”

“So they wore her down; that’s unfortunate, but you said they would,” said Pomeroy, looking up as he saw Samuel Effering coming up to them, looking a little worn-out and bedraggled. “You know how they do it. They lean and lean and lean until their target can’t support their push anymore.”

“No disagreement,” said Bjornson, adding, a bit guiltily, “Julia loves to dish it out, but she can’t take it.”

“I have a cousin like that,” said Pomeroy in commiseration.

“Mind if I join you, gentlemen? I won’t stay long. I know you have things to discuss about what I’ve told you.” He looked around. “It’s just so nice to speak English again. I’m getting so tired of French.”

Pomeroy hooked a long-legged chair, and pulled it nearer to them. “Olivier, another glass while you’re at it,” he called in passable Parisian French.

The man who had just taken up his post behind the bar reached for another wine-glass and set it where Effering could reach it. “More Burgundy, or would you like something else?” He spoke in heavily French-accented English, wondering how much longer Pomeroy would insist on Burgundy.

“A Cotes du Rhone, perhaps,” said Bjornson, adjusting his face to a smile. “Pull up one of these bar chairs, Effering.”

“I don’t mean to be pushy, but I have to know your decision as soon as possible. If I can’t join the Coven, then I’ll have to look elsewhere for work, and Americans. I’ve already tried England, you know, which was hard enough, but Paris!—and the language barrier gets more imposing with every move I make. But I can’t sit around doing nothing, letting my imagination run wild and getting more broke by the minute.” He watched Olivier open a bottle and pour a taste for Axel Bjornson so he wouldn’t have to look the two Americans in the eyes. He had mixed feelings about the Ex-Pats’ Coven and wished that Dudon would not encourage them to meet here. He thought it would be easier to serve the members by keeping as much secret as they could, but it was too late to reclaim that privacy in Paris, not after more than a year of even-numbered months’ meetings.

“Very pleasant,” Bjornson pronounced. “We’ll have some.” He indicated Pomeroy and Effering. “If you’ll leave the bottle for us?”

“Bien sur,” said Olivier, and went back to preparing for the evening crowd.

“You say you worked with Salk,” said Pomeroy as soon as Olivier was out of ear-shot.

“Yes. I still think he’s on the right track. I expect him to release a vaccine in the next three years. He’s had encouraging results.” His smile lessened. “I’ve got a half-brother in an iron lung. It matters to me, this vaccine.”

“Would you be able to teach in any language but English?” Bjornson asked.

“Not virology; basic high school science, perhaps, but nothing more complex,” said Effering.

“But you are conversant with other languages, aren’t you?” Pomeroy inquired.

“How do you mean, conversant?” Effering regarded the other two men with a slight sign of unease.

“You say you spent two years in Czechoslovakia after the war,” Bjornson prompted.

“In refugee camps, for the most part. The conditions were pretty primitive there, and almost everyone living in the Army tents we provided needed more food and shelter and medical care than we were in any position to give them. We had a translator with us, sometimes two of them.”

“A group of you were tracing break-outs of diseases as part of a United Nations effort to keep from a repeat of the Spanish ’Flu after the First World War, according to what you’ve said in your CV,” Bjornson said quietly with an obvious glance at the three-ring binder.

“United Nations, you say. So you weren’t all Americans, then?” Pomeroy asked.

“No. We had a Scot, a Belgian, a Pole, a Swiss, and a Ukranian. Six of us in all. I was the only American.” He took another sip. “It was over in ’forty-eight, and I went to work with Salk and his team.”

“Not letting any grass grow under your feet, were you?” Bjornson remarked.

Effering sighed. “That’s why the Committee began investigating me. I’d done some work with the Red Cross during the war, and the Committee thought I might pass on information to the Russians because we had worked together as the war was ending. I told them that even if I had done that, the USSR was in no position to develop a polio vaccine at present, with or without our help. They didn’t like that, and so I ended up out of work, and no one was willing to hire me.” He took another sip of the wine and smiled. “Very nice.”

“Truly,” said Pomeroy, pointing to the ring binder Effering had supplied to the Coven. “It says here you’re divorced. When did that happen?”

“In ’forty-three. Ellie didn’t like me being gone so often, and not allowed to talk about my work when I came home. I can’t say I blame her. She wanted a social life with a genial man, and with me she had neither. I don’t condemn her for that. I didn’t oppose her suit, and I gave her as much of what we had together as my lawyer would let me. I didn’t need it, and being gone meant that I’d have to sell the house in any case—I let her have it, and the car. I’m lucky. I could afford to do that much for her.”

“Very generous of you,” said Bjornson.

“I was making good money doing epidemiological studies on viruses, and I have a good-sized trust fund—that I cannot easily draw upon while I’m here, but I was in a position to use to help my ex-wife. I arranged for reasonable alimony, and agreed to keep my life insurance paid up, and have her remain the beneficiary.” He tried to chuckle. “I didn’t think any of this would happen. Not this whole witch-hunt.”

“No kids?” Pomeroy asked, deliberately blunt.

“None planned, either.” Effering put his wine-glass on the bar. “She still sends me Christmas cards, Ellie does. She’s a good gal.”

“That’s nice,” said Pomeroy, to encourage Effering to go on.

“How much time have you spent in Paris?” Bjornson pursued.

“About four months this time. Maybe a couple more if my previous visits were added up. I’d be happy about it if the circumstances were different.” He turned to Pomeroy. “You’re from Cal Davis, or so I’ve heard. You worked with the Russians on improving their food supply during the war, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Pomeroy, a bit remotely.

“The Russians had a hard time of it, trying to maintain their farming during the war, from what I’ve read.”

Pomeroy stared past Effering. “They did.”

“Did you think the war changed anything for them?” Effering asked.

“I don’t know.” Pomeroy shook his head. “You know what it was like. My … Comrades weren’t encouraged to communicate with me, nor I with them once the war was over. They say Stalin sent a couple of them to the Gulag.”

“You’re in a kind of exile, aren’t you? We all are,” Effering said.

“My situation is unpleasant; the Russians in the Gulag are as wretched as all those Jews and Gypsies and Catholics in Hitler’s concentration camps,” said Pomeroy with unusual force.

Undaunted, Effering went on. “Still, I guess Oppie’s reputation hurt you, too, after the war.”

“Oppie had nothing to do with it. Cal Berkeley has its own agricultural department, with greenhouses on Oxford Street at the north edge of the campus. Robert Oppenheimer might have hurt the work they do in Berkeley, but Cal Davis is not that kind of university. The two campuses are nearly a two-hour drive apart.” He realized that Effering was goading him, and made himself calm down. “I doubt the Committee understands that difference in campuses—that’s more apt to be the reason for coming after me rather than the work on the atom bomb. Besides, most of that was done in New Mexico.”

“And the scientists who worked on it came from all over, not only New Mexico,” added Effering with a nod. “Oak Ridge, Chicago, Princeton. Everywhere.”

All three men drank more of their Cotes du Rhone and kept their thoughts silent for a short while as a light spatter of rain dashed against the two large windows at the front of Chez Rosalie.

“DiMaggio’s going to scan the meeting room for us tomorrow afternoon,” said Pomeroy as if that had been the subject of their discussion all along. “Tomorrow night, we’ll make our recommendation to the Coven, Effering.”

“I guess that’ll have to do,” said Effering. “The thing is, if I’m going to be part of this group, I want to find something more than a tourist hotel to live in, and I’d like to have my situation set before I sign a lease or arrange to move my things again.” He watched as Bjornson poured more wine into his glass and then topped off Pomeroy’s and his own. “I don’t like having to push, but you see my predicament.”

“That we do,” said Bjornson before Pomeroy started up again. He held out his hand to Effering. “We’ll be back in touch with you in two days, to discuss your background one last time.”

Pomeroy gave him a startled look. “Are you certain?”

“I believe so,” said Bjornson for both Pomeroy’s and Effering’s benefit. “We do have an associate who should be able to get us the information we need, and quickly.”

“Do you mean the Grof?” Pomeroy asked, too startled to show it. “Are you sure we need to approach him?”

“Yes. We have too little time to address these questions. If Szent-Germain can’t provide the information himself, he’ll know who it is we should contact,” he said, and gave Effering a brief scrutiny. “I will use your own CV, if you don’t mind?” He indicated the three-ring binder. “You have a great deal of information for us to digest. We’ll call upon the Grof first thing in the morning.”

“Is he one of those wild noblemen? The kind that are all over Monte Carlo?” Effering asked skeptically, paying no attention to the wine Bjornson was pouring into his half-empty glass. “Paint-the-town-red exile?”

“He does not gamble that I know of,” said Bjornson. “If he does, he chooses private clubs and not the glamour of Monte Carlo.”