by Ian Woollen
“I thought she was going to challenge me to a duel,” Mary divulged to Ward afterwards. He secretly welcomed the wedge between them.
An awkward stalemate ensued. Neither Mary nor Rusalka wanted to risk sparking more skirmishes, for the sake of the children’s friendship. At the sledding hill that winter, they stood silently among the chattering group of mothers. The other parents nervously eyed Rusalka’s hand-warming technique with Kayla: stuffing the little girl’s icy fingers entirely inside her mouth. The kids did not appear to notice the distance between their mothers. They challenged each other into snow-pile crash-ups. Rusalka brusquely announced her brood’s departure with: “This princess feels cold pussy.”
Again, in the powder room at the symphony hall, during an intermission after the Shostakovich 7th, Rusalka cornered Mary and sputtered briefly about relations between Russia and the United States, “Our two countries must find way …. Let me tell you how it was when little girl was sent off …. We were mighty friends once. Russia was only hope against Nazis. Like nature spewing thousands of seeds, knowing that only few will take root, little ones sent to gather. When Americans find me and want to know all about ….” Her eyes narrowed and reddened and she never finished her sentence.
Mary talked it over with Ward that night, “It’s as if she’s tiptoeing around a confession to explain herself, and I’m sort of doing the same. But we don’t get there, and it only burrows deeper. Maybe you could call Elbert and feel him out on the situation.”
Ward did not want to feel out Elbert on the situation. He was tired of this female embroilment. He was ready for the wedge to end. It was easier when Mary and Rusalka were friends. He said, “Enough, just invite her to lunch and apologize.”
They met at Fleener’s in the Glendale Mall. Cafeteria-style dining had been invented in Indianapolis a couple decades earlier, but only now had achieved its full glory, thanks to improved heat lamps. Rusalka piled her tray high with corned beef and pickled beets and Jell-O, and took a second tray for desserts. Mary paid the cashier, while Rusalka plopped down at a table by the window, across from a gaggle of blue-hairs.
Rusalka said a silent prayer over her food. Rusalka’s makeup was heavily applied to accentuate her long, fake eyelashes.
“That be us someday, sister,” Rusalka whispered and nodded toward the elderly ladies, “when we happily living divorced.”
“When we’re what?” Mary said.
“My mother proud ‘divorcee,’ ” Rusalka said. “She call it very ‘cosmopolitan.’ ”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of your mother’s divorce,” Mary said. “Where was that, in Russia or France?”
Rusalka sniffed and changed the topic. She said, “I love corny beef here.” Her jangling bracelets brushed down into her creamed spinach. “Sheet,” she hissed loudly, wiping the spinach off on a napkin.
The blue-haired ladies glared and muttered. Mary felt an urge to join in their opprobrium, but forced herself to remember the purpose of this lunch.
“I’m sorry about what happened with Vincent and the sermon. I can understand why he and you were mad,” Mary proclaimed, “and I hope you can understand why I was upset about the Dexedrine pills.”
“Thank you, yes, of course, darling,” Rusalka whispered. “And not to worry. No more pills. I find something much better—marijuana. Really very smoothing.”
Mary, against her best intentions, leaned closer and whispered, “Oh, so is that why you felt smoothed enough to suggest swinging to my husband?”
“Men be swine,” Rusalka said.
Slightly puzzled, Mary prodded, “Are you saying Ward made that up?”
Rusalka’s collapse hit suddenly, rendering her child-like. The spinach-covered napkin went up over her face and she spoke from behind it in tears.
“My husband put me up to it. Elbert wants to be big swinger. I was afraid he leave me.”
“Elbert wants to be a swinger?” Mary exclaimed.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Rusalka sobbed. “He abandon us yesterday. Gone … gone!”
The soiled napkin slowly came down. Mary handed her a fresh one. Rusalka blubbered, “He must be planning it long time. Moving accounts and cutting wife out. The lawyer say he very clever. I now with two kids and little money. He gives me house but I can’t pay mortgage.”
“Sweetheart,” Mary said, her anger giving way to womanly condolence.
Rusalka sighed, “You right to be mad at me.”
“Ward should have never accepted the pills anyway,” Mary said.
“I must ask big, big favor,” Rusalka said.
Mary gulped her iced tea.
“I need job. Can Wangert Public Relations give me job?” Rusalka pleaded.
Mary shrugged. “I can certainly speak to Ward about it. His business could use some … help.”
“I promise not to give marijuana,” Rusalka whispered, diving into her lemon meringue.
“That would be a good start,” Mary said.
Ward agreed to take Rusalka on as a ‘probationer,’ under the tutelage of his father’s old secretary, who was retiring that summer. He rationalized that Rusalka’s presence in the office would allow him to catch any chinks in her armor.
To everyone’s surprise, Rusalka did very well. Where had she learned to operate a Dictaphone and change the notoriously finicky ribbon on a Selectric? Rusalka showed up early and left late. She kept the coffee fresh and introduced Ward’s staff to bagels. She pitched ideas, including one to get in on the endorsements racket by hosting the star Pacer players with the city’s car dealers.
Constance Wangert refused to attend the party, claiming that her late husband would be turning over in his grave. She banged around upstairs in her wheelchair. Ward hovered nervously by the fireplace, wondering if he had indeed sunk to a new low.
Everyone else had a wonderful time. The car dealers brought their roomiest models for the players to test drive. The kids dressed up as waiters with tea towels hanging over their arms. Robbie and Duncan and Vincent and Kayla solicited autographs from the basketball stars, and also from the car dealers, who were local celebrities in their own right. The kids imitated their popular commercials:
“Nobody, but nobody, will sell you a new car for cheaper than ol’ Buddy Anderson,” Kayla crooned, to applause from the guests. A lively discussion about the presidential campaign kicked up at the dinner table, initiated by the tallest basketball player, a supporter of Robert Kennedy. With the Indiana primary coming up, he encouraged everyone to attend a Kennedy speech the following month at a Baptist church downtown.
“Oh, those Kennedy brothers,” Rusalka said, cleaning up after the party. “Some things very good, some things very bad.”
“I would like to hear him,” Mary said.
“We will do no such thing,” Ward stated.
“And why not?” Mary demanded.
“You know the firm’s policy on matters like that. We can’t be seen at a political rally.”
Rusalka bit her lip and stayed out of the way. Mary didn’t. Either because it was one time too many, or because Ward had been such a grouch about the party, Mary raised her voice and said, “I am so tired of this neutrality crap. There is absolutely no reason why we can’t attend a speech by the late President’s brother!”
“Shhh! The children will hear you!” Ward chided. Vincent and Kayla were upstairs for a sleepover, which meant by definition that they were not asleep. Rusalka winked at Mary.
“I don’t care if the children hear me!” Mary continued. “They need to hear me, because you’re wrong! They need to know what’s going on in the world and that it’s okay to have an opinion. And, as for this nonsense about Wangert Public Relations always staying above the fray, it doesn’t seem to be doing much for your balance sheet, does it?”
Her comment hit below the belt. Ward threw his drink in the fireplace and stalked out of the room.
Mary collapsed back in her chair. Rusalka hurried over for a hug. “I sorry, sister,
” Rusalka sighed. “I egg you on.”
“No, no,” Mary mumbled, “I’ve wanted to say that for years.”
Chapter 28
The Dark Star
He Who Remains Classified chewed on these reports of marital dissension like a dog with a bone. Stationed back in Washington, he paced the Orientals on his office floor. Fantasies of living with Mary revived. They could buy a house in Arlington. His inveterate bachelorhood would finally end.
The breakup of her marriage with Ward would not even require a nudge from him, nor would it involve transgressing any secret society vows. Times had changed, or so he was told. Couples were decoupling and recoupling frequently. Ward and Mary would do the deed, and after their divorce, He Who Remains Classified simply had to present himself as an enticing option.
Should he send a Christmas card this year? What with current internal tensions in the agency, he hesitated to produce any hard evidence with his name on it. He decided to anonymously airlift a few pounds of caviar—special delivery. Mary would know exactly what that meant.
The revival of his craving for Mary was exacerbated by his participation in a unique counter-intelligence experiment. He volunteered as a guinea pig for James Jesus Angleton’s paranoiac scheme to use hallucinogens to ferret out information about a high-placed Soviet mole. If such a creature existed. Nobody wanted to acknowledge Angleton’s paranoia. There probably was no high-placed Mole, but the boss’ instincts told him otherwise and nobody could question him. His underlings nervously vied to show their fealty and divert suspicion.
He Who Remains Classified sat uncomfortably strapped to his desk chair with Brooks Brothers’ belts, borrowed from the diplomatic staff. A nurse fed him a blotter tab of something called, “Blue Nirvana.” He waited for psychedelic visions of KGB station chiefs in tutus naming names in furtive whispers while dancing a grand ballet that featured a giant, red-eyed mole.
Instead, he received an intimate 3D visit from Mary. Naked, soft, glowing, a-shiver with youth. He could not see her face, but knew it was her, then, now, forever, eternally effervescent, their embraces unambiguous. Nothing like the pin-up pandering he received from the local coterie of approved providers. He was shocked to discover that every muscle in his body contained a bursting lodestone of perfect recall. Mary, yes, sweet Moscow Mary. Cascading waves of joy and terror consumed the room. He was thankful for the restraining belts.
Chapter 29
The Kile Oak
The unpleasantness between Ward and Mary festered. Crassly adopting a ploy of his father’s, Ward circled a date on the calendar and announced he would not be speaking to his wife until the appointed day. To spite him, Mary turned to her own father for consolation and advice. Fred Stark dismissed Ward’s threat. He said, “Oh, Loretta used to pull that one and she never made it beyond twenty four hours.”
Mary called Dr. Keller for a second appointment. She couldn’t tell from his voice on the phone whether he remembered her. He said he did, but she couldn’t tell for sure, and she didn’t know why that felt so important.
His office was still in Irvington, across from the enormous oak tree. His waiting room looked different. The magazine table was covered with unfamiliar publications, Ramparts and the Village Voice. Dr. Keller looked different too. Balding on top, the rest of his long hair tied back in a ponytail. Mary had seen TV images of men with long hair, but had never been in the presence of one.
Dr. Keller offered her tea and inquired after “baby Anthony.” Mary smiled cautiously and reported that he was all grown up and doing very well at boarding school. She thanked Dr. Keller for his reflections at their first session and apologized for taking so long to come back.
She continued, “When I was here however many years ago, I didn’t tell you the full story about baby Anthony. It’s eating me up inside … in a way … I don’t know how, exactly. I’m sure people come to you with all kinds of crazy tales. What would you think if I were to tell you that my husband is not Anthony’s biological father, although Anthony thinks he is?”
“Go on,” Dr. Keller said calmly.
“What would you think if I told you that his real father is a prominent State Department official, and a bigwig in the C.I.A., but my son knows nothing of this and I often struggle with a lot of guilt about whether I should tell him?”
Dr. Keller sipped his tea. He stroked his ponytail. She gulped her tea. He stroked his mustache. She gazed out the window at the oak tree. He said, “You’ve been carrying this a long time.”
“It’s hard for me to talk about,” she said. “I want to know the effect on my son of not knowing his real father.”
Keller said, “I can give you a textbook response, or I can give you mine.”
“Both, please,” Mary said.
“According to the textbook, if you don’t tell him, it could really mess him up. And, according to me, if you do tell him, it could really mess him up.”
“Thank you. How much am I paying you for this?” Mary asked.
“Frankly, if that kind of guy were my real father, I probably wouldn’t want to know about it,” Keller said, “and if you think your husband is doing a decent job with Anthony, why change it all now?”
Mary nodded cautiously, “Okay, but meanwhile, with Anthony away at school, there’s a Cold War developing at home with my husband.”
“Cold Wars are harder,” he said.
“And please don’t just tell me to get a divorce,” Mary said. “Everyone I know claim their analysts think divorce is the solution to everything.”
Dr. Keller nodded. “Yeah, that has been going around.”
“Are you married?” she asked.
“Why does it matter?”
“I don’t see any family pictures on your desk. I was wondering if you’ve been through it—a marriage, I mean.”
Dr. Keller said, “I’m homosexual.”
“What?” Mary spouted.
“I’m a homosexual. I have a partner, but, of course, we’re not legally allowed to marry,” he said, studying her reaction.
“Um … uh … I never … it’s just that … sorry … I …” she sputtered.
Dr. Keller offered, “It would be perfectly understandable if you now felt you’d come to the wrong place to talk about marital difficulties.”
“I don’t know,” Mary said, shaking her head. “I suppose that relationship, uh, relationship things …. What’s the word everyone uses now?”
“Dynamics?”
“Yes, I guess relationship dynamics are probably much the same between all human beings, a few variables perhaps between men.”
“A few variables,” Dr. Keller agreed.
“Male couples can have Cold Wars, too?” Mary asked.
Dr. Keller nodded. “Sure, in fact, many couples, heterosexual and homosexual, have adopted the Cold War practice of ‘mutually assured destruction.’ ”
Mary found herself smiling again, though she wasn’t sure why. “My husband will think this is all very odd.”
“But it’s really very sad, isn’t it?” Dr. Keller interjected.
“Yes,” Mary agreed.
“Or rather, you are really very sad.”
Mary nodded. “I am, deep down.”
“And does your husband know that?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. He’s caught up in his own kind of sadness. We have this story we make up for each other at night. We try to tell each other things.”
Dr. Keller said, “Maybe in the next installment, your sadness could meet his.”
Mary looked forward eagerly to her next appointment, which she was determined to keep. It was all she could do not to brag at the ladies’ book club about having a homosexual analyst. When she next arrived at Dr. Keller’s office, she found a note taped to the outer door:
Break-in! This office vandalized again! Someone looking for patient records! Maybe it’s J. Edgar Hoover out to get me! Enough, I’m moving to Canada. All patients please call Dr. Gordon at AT3-3511. He will b
e taking over my caseload. Many apologies.
Mary banged on the door. No answer. She impulsively kicked at the door. She did not stop to wonder who might be looking for whose records. Flush with a sudden rage at Dr. Keller for leaving, Mary pulled a pen from her purse and angrily scrawled on his note, “Fuck you.” She had never actually written the word ‘fuck’ before. It felt like the right word. Everyone was saying it these days. Mary kicked the door again.
She caught herself and forced a deep breath and peered around to see if Rusalka was watching from the parking lot. Mary marched across the street to the Kile Oak and plopped down on one of the low hanging limbs. It was broad enough for her to pull her legs up and lie back, as if on a traditional analyst’s couch.
She gazed up at the maze of branches. As a child, she was a tree-climber. She’d study a tree and plot out her ascents, branch to branch. The tree-of-life symbol was hard to avoid here and it hit her full-force, particularly in the loss of her ability to plot a clear course through her adult years. Where to next? A conquistador of trees, or so she imagined. Thinking back, she realized her desire was also for the embrace of the tree, the hours nestled in the comfortable crook of trunk and limb. Is that why she’d settled on Ward? Her anger at Dr. Keller shifted to a sigh of jealousy, that in middle age he could still embark on a new ascent, just up and go.
Mary studied the limbs above her and tried to see a path to the top. Fortunately, she was wearing pants. She took off her heels and slowly began to climb in stocking feet, stopping to rest and enjoy the view at intervals. The higher she went, the more the branches swayed. So what the fuck if Mrs. Ward Wangert was apprehended clinging to the top of the Kile Oak? This was the 1960s and people were supposed to be outrageous.