“I know this. I do not know how it will be done, but I know that it will be. I know that my Redeemer lives, and that I shall see him face to face.” He stood for a moment, regarding the congregation with a gentle and loving gaze. Then he said, “Amen,” and returned to his seat.
The dean rose in his hooded stall, and read some prayers, to which the congregation replied, “Amen.” Then he seated himself, leaning back in expectancy. A long, low organ note moved slowly, subtly, distance adding to the mystery of sound.
It was one of Justin’s orchestral pieces, a strange cry of loneliness and anguish which transcribed well to the organ. Then Llew shifted to Thomas Forrester’s music, to the merriment, the clashing terror, and the final gentle triumph of the Second Kermesse Suite. The young organist had undoubtedly chosen it to please Katherine, but it stirred up memories of such intense pain that for a moment she thought she was going to faint.
“Are you all right?” Mimi whispered.
“Just a little hot,” she managed. The suite was over, now; Llew was playing some of Justin’s ballet music. She was all right. Her breathing slowed, steadied, and she was able to listen to the rest of the concert with pleasure.
3
Yolande wore, this afternoon, a white chiton with gold embroidery at the hem, in which she looked stunning. Mimi murmured, “Allie buys most of Yolande’s clothes, and I must say he has exquisite taste,” and then moved across the room to Suzy, leaving Katherine to her hostess.
“Allie sends his apologies and hopes to be home before you leave,” the bishop’s wife said, gesturing Katherine to a seat. “One of his priests, up in the diocese, is in the midst of a crisis, and Allie’s gone to see if he can help.”
“I’m sorry,” Katherine murmured.
“His wife is having an affair with the senior warden and the parish is scandalized. Allie’s hoping to put things back together, or at least in some kind of proportion. He’s brilliant that way. I can’t tell you how many marriages he’s saved—he learned in the fire, after all.” She glanced at Katherine. “Are you thirsty? There’s iced tea as well as alcohol.”
Fatima, carrying a plate of small cakes, looked up at the bishop’s wife with the same gaze of adoration that Katherine had seen before, then started around the room with her plate.
Yolande brought Katherine a glass of iced tea, which she was glad to have, as she was still feeling a little shaky. She turned to thank Llew for the concert, but Yolande informed her that he had left the Cathedral immediately to go downtown to Katherine’s neighborhood to have dinner with the organist from the Church of the Ascension since a mutual organist friend was in town just for the evening.
Very well. She would write him a note when she got home. He had played superbly, and his transcriptions were excellent.
Yolande pulled up a hassock and sat at Katherine’s feet. “Are you all right?” Yolande asked. “I feel—I sense—that something has upset you.”
Katherine answered, “I’m all right now,” and changed the topic. “I do love your Hunter.”
Yolande turned her dark eyes toward the bright and peaceful painting. “If I’m upset, and I look at that mountainside for a few minutes, it will calm me, get me back into perspective—sometimes even more than going to the chapel. Felix tells me you have a superb Philippa Hunter, a sort of Madonna and Child, though he says it’s really you and your baby.”
“A Madonna is far from anything I could ever be.” Katherine sipped the cold tea. “Though I suppose any picture of a mother and infant can be interpreted that way. Llew’s concert was beautiful, wasn’t it?”
Yolande swallowed the wine in the bottom of her glass. “Llew is a superb musician, and his music is bringing him back into life. Oh, Katherine—may I call you that?”
“Of course.”
“There were so many years when my singing and the electric reaction between me and the audience were all that kept me going. I didn’t even know that two people could love each other with respect until I met Allie. I had been taught by my manager—by all the men I met—to equate sex with love. I thought that my chemistry, which has always drawn men to me, was love. But it wasn’t. It was just the futile attempt of a prisoner to pretend, you know, that the bars weren’t on the windows and the doors weren’t locked. You married young, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“How did you meet each other?”
“Justin was my piano teacher when I was in boarding school in Switzerland. I think I loved him the first time I met him.”
“And he loved you?”
Katherine smiled. “I was only a child. But I was a child with talent, and that was important to him—my talent, not my self.”
“And your childhood crush—it was that, wasn’t it?”
Yolande Undercroft could be as perspicacious as Mimi. “In the beginning.”
Yolande half closed her eyes. Her voice was a monotonous murmur. “I see you. I see you. Small for your age. Like Allie. A hideous school uniform. Long black braids. Big eyes in a peaked face. And talent. Yes, you had talent. That school was regressive for you, wasn’t it?”
Katherine looked at Yolande in amazement. Was this the ‘gift’ she had mentioned? But she answered, “Yes. After my mother died, my father and stepmother were very busy—in the midst of their own careers—and Father was convinced that I ought to have a conventional education. Though that hideous boarding school was their last attempt.”
Yolande’s eyes were still hooded. “And then you started to study with your Justin, and then—something happened—what?—wait—he left. He began to make a name for himself, and he went to Paris.”
That Justin had gone to Paris was all that Yolande could have known. Katherine felt uncomfortable, almost afraid.
“You went to study with him again—later—in Paris—you’d had an unhappy romance—am I right?”
“Yes. But who hasn’t? After mine blew up I went back to France, to resume study with Justin.”
“And you weren’t a child any longer and you fell in love.”
“Yes.”
“How sweet. And how simple. I wish it could have been that way for me. And you had two children?”
“Yes.”
“I wish I could have …” The bishop’s wife reached to the coffee table and a silver filigreed box set with precious stones, opened it, and took out a cigarette. “You don’t mind if I smoke?”
“I do mind.” Katherine tried to sound politely regretful. “I’m sorry, but cigarette smoke stings my eyes.”
Casually, the bishop’s wife put the cigarette back in the case. “I started smoking early, cigarettes for my asthma. I still find it soothing. I doubt if my cigarettes would bother you. They come from Peru. They’re very special, you know, pure tobacco used only by priestesses of the highest caste. I was trained high in the Andes in all the duties of such a priestess. Of course, our religion, like the Western, has deteriorated, and one of our duties, when we reached the age of ten or eleven, was to be available for the priests. Sexually,” she underlined. “They had perverse tastes, and there was nothing we children could do but, you know, submit.” She rose. “Please. Will you come with me for a moment?”
There was such pleading, such pain in her eyes that Katherine said, “Yes, of course,” and followed her to the little chapel, leaving a buzz of general conversation behind them.
Yolande genuflected toward the altar, then looked at Katherine, closed her eyes, and turned toward the prie-dieu. “Of course, some of the girls came to like it—what the priests wanted. But brutality of any kind has always been repugnant to me. I learned early that if I screamed it was worse, it lasted longer. So I would bite my lips, my tongue, till my mouth was full of blood, but I made not a sound.” She turned her back to Katherine and briefly pulled the chiton up over her head. Across the tanned skin were ridged white welts, scars long-healed, but still livid.
Katherine cried out in horror. Her own prison beating had left scars which were barely noticeable, which
Mimi had found only with the touch of her sensitive fingers …
“Oh, it’s all right, Katherine, don’t feel sorry for me. It was all long ago. The thing is, you know, it’s made all physical violence a horror to me. If Allie and I had been able to have children I could never have raised my hand to them. I could never, never hurt anyone.” She was trying to tell Katherine something beyond the words.
But what? Katherine, unlike Manya, or Yolande, had no gifts of prevision.
Yolande’s voice quivered with intensity. “When there is violence in our neighborhood, I can feel it, physically. I felt the bullet rip into Merv. We live in a very wicked world, and I could not survive without my faith in Jesus. How different Jesus is from the gods we were taught to worship in Peru, gods who drank our blood and throve on human sacrifice. Once a year, after she had been used by all the priests, one of us was sacrificed. It would have been my turn next, if I hadn’t managed to slip away when they were all drunk on the sacred wine. It was a hideous life, you know, but it taught me to be tough.”
How often had Yolande felt the lash? No wonder she had to rearrange the past. What had once been invention for publicity was now necessary protection, rather than pretense.
Slowly she turned to face Katherine. “It also taught me to detest perverts. Thank God Allie is totally normal.” Then abruptly, “Your first child was a boy, Michel?”
“Justin Michel Vigneras, after my husband. We called him Michou.” She added quickly, “Then we had a daughter, Julie—after my mother. She lives in Norway, and I have four splendid grandchildren.”
Yolande spoke softly. “I know your son died when he was quite young.” Then, in a harsh voice: “But you had him. You had two children. I was never able to have a child. When you have been abused by as many men as I have, it does something to your—Jesus, what am I saying? I had abortions, and then my tubes were tied. I was making big money on TV and a baby would have held me back. So I was told. They had conditioned my reflexes to believe them, so I let myself be talked into it. As far as I am concerned, I was forced. It made me an easier—you know—lay. Until Allie, I thought all men were beasts. Your Justin, I take it, was not a beast.”
“No. He was, like most artists, a complicated person.”
“He loved his children?”
“He adored them.”
“He was a good father?”
“A marvelous father.”
“I don’t even know who my father was. And your father was a composer, like your husband? How do they, you know, compare?”
“I’ve never made comparisons.”
“Haven’t you?” Yolande looked at her skeptically. “Whose music do you think will last longer, will still be around in a hundred years?”
“That’s something no one can tell, till considerably more time has passed.” It was warmer in the chapel than in the living room, and Katherine felt tired. She sat in one of the rush-bottomed chairs.
Yolande, too, sat, just across the aisle. “Why do you say that?”
“All artists inevitably reflect their own culture. If anyone had asked a contemporary of Bach’s for the composer most likely to be admired in a hundred years or so, he would likely have been told Telemann.”
“Your father, though,” Yolande pursued, “he really belongs to—well, not quite the nineteenth century, but surely he belongs to another generation—and his music is still quite popular.”
“Actually, it’s coming back. For a good many years after his death he was hardly played at all. Now there’s quite a Thomas Forrester revival, which naturally delights me.”
“I asked Allie to get me some of his records,” Yolande said. “I don’t know much about classical music, but I liked his—so merry, so lighthearted—does it reflect his personality?”
Katherine smiled. “Anything but. He was a brooder. But then, I think he was only part of himself when he was with people, and complete only in his music. My stepmother, Manya Sergeievna, could make him laugh, but I don’t think anyone else could. Odd, isn’t it—Manya Sergeievna was a brilliant star in the theatre in her day—but when an actress dies, her art dies with her. Not many young people today have even heard of her.”
Yolande looked apologetic. “I haven’t. I’m sorry. But then, in a few more years no one will remember Yolande Xabo. A singer’s career is even shorter than an actress’s, while you can go on and on, since your instrument is outside you, not part of your own body. How I hate the body giving out before my understanding of music does. How I hate it!” She stood up and walked to the altar, gazing at the crucifix. “If I were the jealous type I might well be very jealous of you, still able to give concerts.”
Katherine looked at Yolande’s slender back, and bowed head, and the small chapel suddenly felt as though a cold chill had come over it.
But then Yolande turned, and her face was alive with interest. “And your husband’s music?”
“My husband was one of the most delightful, amusing people in the world. I tend to have inherited my father’s broodiness, but Justin could laugh me out of my darkest moods. But his music—his music was born out of war and pain. He has much to say to our torn-apart planet.”
“You’ve been with music and musicians all your life, haven’t you?”
“Yes. I’ve been very fortunate. It’s my world.”
“One world—” Yolande sighed. “I’ve known so many—that’s why I try to help young artists. Fatima Gomez has an amazing voice. I was born with beauty as well as talent, but Fatima—well, her voice may overcome all the rest of the obstacles. It’s amazingly like mine at that age.” She genuflected once more to the altar. “I suppose we ought to get back to the others, but I did want a little time alone with you, and this seemed the only way to get it. I love this chapel. It gives me great comfort. The last couple of years have been—you know—hell.”
4
The young bishop was waiting for them. He greeted Katherine, apologizing for his delay.
“It’s good to see you,” she said. “I gather you had some kind of crisis to solve.”
Still holding her hand, he replied, “I’m not sure all crises have solutions. Maybe resolutions, if one is given the right things to say at the right moment.”
Yolande put her arm about her husband. “That is your gift, Allie. You are very blessed. Is everything going to be all right? I told Katherine what it—you know—was about. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” The bishop let Katherine’s hand go. “All I could do, for today at any rate, was to stop my poor young priest from acting too impetuously. His wife’s a fool, but a nice fool, and I think she’s learned her lesson. That pompous senior warden I’m not sure of. When people start using Jesus to justify wrongdoing, there’s not much they’re able to hear. Well, enough of diocesan problems. How was the concert?”
“Excellent,” Yolande said, casting a long side glance at Katherine.
“Do sit down, Madame,” the bishop said. “This chair is a good one for you, I believe.”
“Thank you.” Katherine felt tired from the tension in the chapel with Yolande. She looked at Bishop Undercroft and tried to visualize him as Felix had seen him in San Francisco, but could see only the young Lukas. Lukas had not looked like a Greek god; with his height and strength he was more like a Viking. Or, irony of ironies, a young wolf. Lukos is the Greek word for wolf. But she had not known that until long after both Wolfi and Lukas were dead.
“I have a little treat for you,” Yolande broke across her thoughts. “Fatima is going to sing for us. I’ve kept telling you what a, you know, lovely voice she has, and I think it’s time you heard it. She’ll be less self-conscious with her mother not there. Mrs. Gomez doesn’t think much of music.”
Fatima was standing at the head of the steps to the living room, looking clumsy and embarrassed. The formidable Mrs. Gomez, Katherine thought, would indeed likely have intimidated her daughter even further. Yolande went to the record player and put on an orchestral recording of some f
olk songs. Fatima stood stolidly through the first song, frozen in her lumpish fright, looking as though she were never going to open her mouth, but at the second song she began to sing. And suddenly she was no longer ugly or stupid-looking. Her voice was clear and pure, and she sang with her eyes closed, her arms dropped loosely to her sides, lost in the music. The simple melodies showed off her range well; it was even wider than Yolande’s, and the quality of the voice was infinitely richer. Katherine was grateful that Yolande had trained the child with these simple songs.
When the record ended, Fatima opened her eyes. The applause was enthusiastic.
As the child started to scurry off, Yolande said, “Wait, Fatima, you must take a bow now. You did very well, and I’m proud of you.”
Blushing painfully, the girl bowed in clumsy imitation of Yolande, then scuttled off.
Yolande looked at Katherine, “What do you think?”
“She’s extraordinary.”
“A good investment on my part, n’est-ce pas?”
“I should say that Fatima has a superb teacher.”
Yolande blushed with pleasure, and the group began talking about Fatima and her surprising voice, and again Katherine withdrew, leaning back and resting.
After a while she realized that the dean was no longer there, and then Suzy rose, thanking the Undercrofts and saying that it was time to leave. Katherine pushed out of her chair, murmuring her thanks, and Yolande said, “It was more than a pleasure to be with you. It was a privilege. Thank you for letting me talk to you. I can’t tell you how much that means to me. I don’t have many women friends. I need someone who understands music, as you do.” She stood at the door to Ogilvie House, elegant in her white and gold, waving them off.
The air outside was oppressive. One of the peacocks strutted by, dragging his long tail in the dust. Topaze emerged from behind some bushes.
A Severed Wasp Page 24