by Pam Lewis
The days had dragged terribly. Her work suffered. A collar, ordinarily such a simple matter, came out crooked. Mrs. Bowen complained that she was slacking off. It didn’t matter. Everything was about to change. She couldn’t wait to face Tessa Dietz. To see her expression. To bring her low.
But on Saturday afternoon while Cassian happened to be there, Mrs. Bowen pounded on the door. “Upstairs now, miss,” she called. “Mr. Wiley wants to see you. And if you have that doctor in there, him, too.”
Minke gathered up Elly, who had been playing with scraps of fabric on the floor, and the three of them emerged to find Mrs. Bowen, arms crossed over her chest and with a frown on her face. “Aren’t you just the happy little family,” she said. It wasn’t the first time she had made an insinuating remark about Cassian’s presence. Minke was not going to stoop to that level and explain. Let her fret. She followed Mrs. Bowen upstairs.
Mr. Wiley sat in the kitchen flanked by Mrs. Bowen, Miss Anne, and Miss Amanda. “I’ve told them everything,” he said.
Miss Amanda eyed her warily. She had never quite accepted Minke. Only Miss Anne smiled conspiratorially at her.
“Might we ask further questions, Louis?” Miss Amanda asked.
“Please,” Mr. Wiley said.
“How well do you know these Dietzes? If you’ll excuse the comparison, there’s a significant difference in your places in life.”
“We were equals in Comodoro. They were in business there, as were we.”
“And yet you arrived here penniless,” Miss Amanda continued.
Cassian explained. “After I was attacked, we were unable to maintain our business, which was morphine production and export. Frederik Dietz took all our workers into his oil fields. No one was left to produce the morphine.”
“How was it possible for these people to have your baby without everybody knowing?” Miss Anne asked. “It sounds like a very small place, where word would travel fast.”
“Tessa lived at an estancia many miles away,” Minke said. “She must have kept him with her there.”
Mrs. Bowen looked unconvinced. “Did you call the police?”
“There were no police to call.”
“What kind of a place has no police?”
Minke looked at Cassian for help. How did one describe Comodoro?
“It’s a place much like your Wild West here in America,” he said. “We had a constable, but he had little authority and little power.”
“What did you think happened to Zef?” Miss Amanda asked. “You must have had theories.”
“People thought he had been sold to wealthy people, perhaps in another country.” Minke paused. “A lot of people blamed the gauchos for being behind it. No one would listen to me when I said that was not true.”
“And of course there was a confession,” Mr. Wiley said.
“I have never found it in my heart to believe the boy my husband shot had anything to do with it,” Minke said.
“And you, Doctor?” Miss Amanda asked.
“The boy was a decent fellow, and yet, as you say, Mr. Wiley, he confessed.”
“And then sold the child to these people,” Miss Amanda said.
“How can you be so sure it’s your child? The picture is small.” Miss Anne looked as though she hated to ask the question.
“I saw him in his carriage.”
Mr. Wiley cleared his throat to draw attention. “You must admit, this whole affair is far-fetched, to say the least.” He smiled. He really did have a lively and wonderful face. “But I’m intrigued, and I do love to be intrigued. What’s more, I have my own reasons for wanting to know these people.”
Minke was dumbfounded. “You do?”
Mr. Wiley shrugged. “Oil is to be the most important commodity of the twentieth century. You’ll see. These Dietzes could shed light on the subject.”
“Then you’ll do something?”
Mr. Wiley withdrew a folded letter from his vest pocket. “There’s more. The name Dietz was familiar to me when you came to my office. You see, at the paper, we had a letter from him. It’s not at all uncommon. We receive the most letters about matters that appear in the society news. Corrections and so on. People hate to see themselves under-represented to their peers.” He slid the letter across the table to her. “Mr. Ochs turned the matter over to me.”
Adolph Ochs
Publisher
The New York Times
Dear Mr. Ochs:
My wife wishes you to turn your attention to inaccuracies in an article that appeared in your newspaper of late. If you would be so kind as to publish the corrections in the society columns, a good measure of peace will be restored to our household. Please note that:
Our triplex boasts three fireplaces, not two.
The blue feathers were not those of a Patagonian parrot but belonged to my wife’s beloved Brazilian hyacinth macaw.
Cordially,
Frederik August Dietz
Trans: Miniver Rustrup
“He complained!” Minke said.
Mr. Wiley grinned. “He did indeed.”
“We’ll have them to luncheon,” Miss Anne burst out.
“Oh, Anne,” Miss Amanda said. “Let Louis do the talking.”
“We’ll have them to luncheon,” Mr. Wiley said.
Miss Anne giggled.
Minke wanted to kiss him. Wanted to leap across the table and smother him in kisses of the purest joy she had ever felt. He pushed another sheet of paper toward her. “The invitation has already been sent. I made it clear that we wish for all three of them to come. I expressed special interest in the child. This”—he tapped the letter—“is the reply. We’ll see if the boy is indeed yours, and if not, I shall have made inroads with a knowledgeable fellow.”
Dear Mr. Wiley,
Despite our regret that Mr. Ochs himself is not available and did not respond to our letter of complaint personally, we accept your invitation to luncheon this coming Sunday. My wife wishes me to inform you that she is unable to eat the following:
Onion
Fish of any type
Unsalted food
In addition, our son requires a chair that allows him to sit at a level with the adults present. He is two years old and becomes restless. I trust a member of your household will be available to amuse him if this is the case.
Yours sincerely,
Frederik August Dietz, President
Pan American Petroleum & Transport
“Tomorrow!” Minke felt very glad she had listened to Cassian. The smile on her face would never go away.
“Onions,” Mrs. Bowen intoned. “Fish of any kind.” Her eyes sparkled devilishly.
Miss Anne clapped her hands. “Let’s cook fish.”
“Will a member of the household be available to amuse Zef?” Minke was trembling at the prospect. “Oh, I do believe the seamstress will step in.”
“Best for all of us to call him Hendrik for now,” Cassian said. “I continue to worry that our hopes are being raised too high.”
“Oh, Cassian! I despise the name Hendrik. Anyway, I know it’s my Zef.”
Miss Amanda tapped the letter and said with distaste, “We may have invited a kidnapper to luncheon.”
“Exactly,” Mr. Wiley said. Sometimes it seemed as though it took great strength for him to hold that head upright; it was so big. “But tell me, does the child have identifying marks? Something that will make us absolutely certain?”
“I delivered Zef,” Cassian said. “He has a small mark on his lower back. We refer to such marks as Mongolian blue spots. Harmless but unmistakable.”
“Excellent,” Mr. Wiley said.
An almost unbearable joy erupted inside her that Zef was found. That she would see him tomorrow. The joy softened her every edge. She loved them all. Minke threw her arms around Mr. Wiley. “Thank you.” The man stiffened but allowed the hug. He was apparently not accustomed to being touched.
“I think it will have to be a feast,” Mrs. Bowen said.
/> Minke threw her arms around her as well.
23
MR. WILEY WAS in his element. At work he managed a large team of people employed at something called public relations. It meant reaching out to hundreds, even thousands, of people mentioned in the newspaper, people from every possible walk of life from the grandest to the most humble, and soliciting their views and their favor. He had, Miss Anne explained, almost single-handedly elevated the reputation of The New York Times. Such was his great skill, and he would apply it to Tessa and Frederik Dietz.
The household was electric with the excitement of preparation. Turtle soup, oysters, roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. Even the sisters helped with laying the table and polishing the wineglasses. Minke herself set the place for Zef. She drew a chair from the parlor and stacked onto it the most colorful pillows she could find to raise him to the height of the table, like a colorful little throne. She set his place with a small bud vase and a rose and placed in a semicircle around his plate little yellow and red balls she had made from scraps of fabric.
A Japanese screen of lacquered black decorated with red and gold flowers was set up in front of the swinging door to the kitchen. The screen consisted of three panels, allowing an inch of visibility in the spaces where the panels joined. In this way, the kitchen door could remain open, but the kitchen would not be visible from the dining room. Minke and Cassian would sit in chairs hidden behind the screen and watch the luncheon from the slits in the screen.
They were in their places by a quarter to one. While they waited, Cassian offered Minke a sip of morphine to calm her nerves, but she declined. She wanted to be fully aware of every moment. True, she was agitated. But it was the agitation of having what she wanted most in the world almost within her grasp.
At one-fifteen the buzzer in the foyer sounded, and Mr. Wiley picked up the receiver to the house phone. “Yes?” he said crisply. “Yes, good. Please send them up.”
She waited, heart pounding, peeking around the edge of the screen to see a slice of the foyer. There came the sound of the brass gates opening on the elevator and then a knock at the door. Mr. Wiley passed before her vision. Disappeared. There came the sound of the door opening, of Mr. Wiley greeting his guests. She hadn’t expected the revulsion that the voices of Tessa and Frederik Dietz would produce in her. She strained to see or hear Zef.
“And this must be little Hendrik,” Mr. Wiley said in a loud voice meant for Minke and Cassian to hear, so they would know for certain the Dietzes had brought the child.
Minke leaped to her feet, her response automatic, but Cassian gripped her arm so hard he might have bruised it. “Just one look,” she hissed at him. “I’ll be careful.”
Cassian gripped her arm harder. It was a promise not to be broken under any circumstance. If, for any reason, Minke was mistaken and it was not Zef, Mr. Wiley and his sisters’ reputations could be irreparably damaged. She recovered her wits in time and sat again.
Mrs. Bowen passed on her way from the kitchen to take the coats. She motioned to them to push their chairs back a little so she would have room to navigate. The sounds of Mr. Wiley’s and the Dietzes’ voices faded as they made their way to the parlor, where the Misses Wiley awaited. Mrs. Bowen returned from hanging the coats in the closet.
“Well?” Minke asked.
“How should I know?” Mrs. Bowen whispered.
Twenty minutes passed with nothing but the occasional sound of Frederik Dietz’s laughter at the far end of the apartment. Minke listened intently. She rose and tiptoed into the kitchen. “How much longer?” she asked.
Mrs. Bowen sat at the table doing nothing. She opened her hands as if to say, Who knows?
“Can’t you announce luncheon?”
Mrs. Bowen made a tippling motion with her thumb to her mouth. “Mr. Wiley thinks it’s best to serve them a few glasses of sherry before lunch.”
Minke smiled at her. “Brilliant!”
“Go sit down, miss. Or you’ll ruin everything.”
Why did everyone keep telling her that?
After another ten minutes, Mrs. Bowen finally got to her feet, passed them outside the kitchen, and went to the parlor to announce that luncheon was served. Back and forth she went, laying out platters of this and that, and all the while the gaggle of voices grew closer, with Tessa’s annoying giggle and Dietz’s eruptions of mirthless laughter.
It was agony.
The voices were close. They were entering the dining room. Minke was able to stand and not be seen over the top of the screen. She peered through the slit, but her view was limited to the tunnel of what was directly in front of her.
“Yes, of course,” Dietz was saying. “The future of the world lies in the discovery of greater deposits of oil.”
“Unregulated, I understand, in Comodoro.”
“Acch,” Dietz said. “Of course.”
“Won’t you sit here, Mrs. Dietz?” Mr. Wiley said, pulling out the chair farther. “And Frederik, if you would kindly take the seat beside your wife.” It had been decided that the Dietzes’ backs should be to the kitchen, an extra precaution. “And little Hendrik, I see that someone—a good elf, perhaps—has made a fine high place for you to sit and put out these little colored balls.”
“You might need one of those high chairs yourself, eh, Wiley?” Dietz boomed out.
“Of course,” Mr. Wiley said. “That is very amusing.”
“What a dear little boy,” Miss Anne said. “I am honored to have the place beside him.”
“And I the other, if I may?” Miss Amanda said.
The Dietzes had broad backs, both of them, and try as she would, Minke could not see past them to Zef. She mouthed the words to Cassian, “Is it him?” Cassian shook his head and mouthed back, “I don’t know!”
Mrs. Bowen went in and out past Minke and Cassian, carrying the hotter dishes.
“Oysters?” Tessa said in her clotted Dutch, apparently to her husband. “I thought you told them no fish.”
Dietz translated this loosely.
“Mrs. Bowen,” Miss Anne called out to the kitchen with a mock sternness that would escape Tessa. Mrs. Bowen rushed into the dining room. Miss Anne scolded, “Whatever were you thinking? You’ve served fish against our instructions!”
“Where I come from, a fish has a pair of eyes and a big mouth. An oyster, as you can plainly see, has neither of these, miss.”
Dietz translated this as “She says an oyster isn’t a fish.”
“Tell them to take it away immediately,” Tessa said.
Minke could see enough to observe that the child swung his head with keen interest when the conversation shifted from one person to another, but he still was not fully visible. Mrs. Bowen passed into the kitchen, carrying Tessa’s plate.
“Servants,” Tessa said in English, then made a guttural sound of disgust.
“She’s such a trial,” Miss Anne admitted.
“Not half so bad as our seamstress,” Miss Amanda added.
“What’s she saying?” Tessa asked her husband.
“They have a seamstress.”
“All to themselves?” Tessa asked.
“Louis won’t have it any other way. Tailoring is so important, don’t you agree?”
“Frederik, we must hire a seamstress,” Tessa said in Dutch.
“Hendrik,” Mr. Wiley said. “Look what I have for you.” Minke didn’t see what it was. It didn’t matter, because the child laughed, and in that one moment she knew beyond any doubt. His laugh. Cassian turned to her with a smile so big it brought tears to her eyes. They clasped hands. But the plan was to wait. Difficult as it would be, she was to wait.
“Splendid, splendid,” Dietz was saying.
“Say thank you to the nice man,” Tessa barked at Zef in Dutch.
There was a sound.
“Hendrik!” Tessa shouted. Mrs. Bowen rushed past them again. “You’re a very bad boy!” Tessa scolded. Mrs. Bowen swept past with a roll of her eyes and carrying a cloth.
&nb
sp; “He’s such a clumsy child,” Tessa said. “My Astrid was so much more delicate than this boy.” Dietz translated this exactly.
Minke could barely stand it. How dare they insult him? She was proud of him for spilling whatever it was.
“Boys are different,” Mr. Wiley said. “It’s what makes the world go round. Don’t you agree?”
“No manners at all,” Tessa said.
“If the child needs manners, Mrs. Dietz,” Miss Anne said in her quiet way, “then isn’t it up to you to teach him?”
Dietz translated this as “She says it’s our job to teach him manners, and if he has none, his behavior reflects very badly on our servants.”
Minke could see Tessa’s bowed back as she dove into her lunch. Mr. Wiley took the opportunity to ask if she had seen the correction in the newspaper. Dietz translated, and Tessa responded with her mouth full that she had indeed, but that it was run in a place where none of the important people of New York would see it, and she would prefer if they ran it again prominently on the social pages and perhaps with another interview, which she would be willing to grant, given the circumstances.
Dietz translated this as “She said everything was fine.”
“I’ll just be a moment,” Mr. Wiley said. “We’ve arranged a special dessert for little Hendrik. I want to check with Mrs. Bowen.” With that, he rose and came behind the screen. Cassian and Minke followed him into the kitchen and let the swinging door close behind them. “Well?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” Minke said. “It’s my baby.”
“And you concur?” Mr. Wiley asked Cassian.
“I want so much to say yes, but I remain not sure. It’s been a very long time since I saw him.”
“We must take no chances.”
Mr. Wiley returned to the dining room. “I say,” he said to the Dietzes, “before dessert, Mrs. Bowen wants the boy to go in the kitchen to clean his hands. Eh? What do you say? Mrs. Bowen rules the roost around here. We all do as she says.”
Mrs. Bowen, hearing herself summoned, sailed back to the dining room. Minke took up her station behind the screen, watching anxiously through the slit as Mrs. Bowen lifted Zef from his chair. Minke was wild with excitement and almost knocked down the screen in her haste to follow Mrs. Bowen to the kitchen.