Pressure Drop

by Peter Abrahams

  “Iodine? No one uses iodine anymore.”

  “Really?” said Mrs. Standish. “My husband was a doctor and he swore by it.”

  “That must have been some time ago,” Nina said, a remark she began to regret not long after it was voiced.

  Mrs. Standish smiled. “Oh, it most certainly was.” She took a small butterfly bandage from the box and stripped off the protective seal. “Shall we get this on?”

  Nina moved forward. Mrs. Standish stuck the bandage on Nina’s face in one efficient motion, not gentle, not rough, eyes intent on the task. Nina looked directly into them. They were like works of art, but from a culture Nina didn’t know; she could interpret nothing. She smelled the roses and the sweat, but no longer just the sweat of Mrs. Standish. Now she was sweating too.

  “All fixed,” said Mrs. Standish, capping the brown bottle and returning it to the cupboard. “Now then, Miss—or is it Mrs.—?”

  “I use Ms.”

  “Do you? Well, Ms. Kitchen, why don’t we—”

  “It’s Kitchener.”

  “How inexcusable of me—first the honorific and now the name,” said Mrs. Standish. “Not a descendant of Lord Kitchener, by any chance? My father met him on several occasions, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “No,” Nina said. “The connection is one-sided.”

  “Connection?”

  “We took his name, that’s all.”

  Mrs. Standish blinked. “I don’t quite follow.”

  “Some relative on my father’s side. Before World War One, I think.”

  “Are you saying he changed his name?”

  “Exactly. It’s not that unusual, is it?”

  Mrs. Standish’s eyes shifted toward the window. “Of course not, Ms. Kitchener.” She looked at Nina and smiled. The deep-set eyes didn’t participate. “Shall we sit down?” Mrs. Standish picked up her knitting and led Nina out of the kitchen, along the corridor and into another corridor. “Let’s try the little sitting room,” Mrs. Standish said, opening a door. “It’s quiet. We can talk.”

  The whole house is quiet as a tomb, Nina thought. And the little sitting room was bigger than her apartment. “Please sit,” Mrs. Standish said, gesturing to a chair covered in gold silk. Nina sat, aware as she did of the tear in her pants and the scratch, possibly still bloody, on her leg.

  The gold chair had a twin. Mrs. Standish sat in it. Both chairs faced a pink marble fireplace piled with unlit birch logs. Over the fireplace hung another El Greco, this one a crucifixion. It wasn’t the only crucifixion in the room: another hung in a corner. It dated from an earlier period: Christ and one or two onlookers wore halos of beaten gold.

  “It’s real, I take it,” said Nina, meaning the El Greco.

  Mrs. Standish misinterpreted her. “Oh yes,” she replied. “From a quarry near Siena. We had rather a lot of it after—at one point.”

  “I mean the painting.”

  “The crucifixion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Real?”

  “A real El Greco.”

  “I see. Why, yes, it is. Not one of his best, but not without its charms either.” Nina gazed at the five bloody wounds, thought of the four on Saint Sebastian, and realized that Mrs. Standish hadn’t asked how she had cut her face.

  Mrs. Standish crossed her legs—long, elegant legs, still finely muscled, and reached for her knitting. “You wanted to talk to me about the foundation, I believe? I trust it’s not about a grant. That’s not my department at all.”

  All at once, there was something familiar about Mrs. Standish’s voice. A memory stirred in Nina’s brain, but didn’t come into view. “It’s not about a grant, Mrs. Standish.”

  “Good. It’s nice to have visitors here in the country. If it’s not about grants and getting money and that sort of thing.”

  “It’s not about grants or money,” Nina said. “It’s about the Human Fertility Institute, as I mentioned.”

  “So you did,” said Mrs. Standish, smiling. There was nothing simple about her smile: it had a language all its own.

  “Do you know where Dr. Crossman is?” Nina asked.

  “Dr. Crossman?” Mrs. Standish took up her knitting. She wore several big rings, but they didn’t get in her way. The needles hooked and thrust with quick, sure movements and the sleeve began taking shape: it was a nice sweater with a white anchor on the chest.

  “The director of the institute. At least he was.”

  “I’m not familiar with the name.”

  “But Mr. Percival said you hired him.”

  “Percival is misinformed,” said Mrs. Standish, reacting not at all to the introduction of his name.

  “The foundation, then. He said the foundation hired Dr. Crossman.”

  “That is not impossible. I had no dealings with the fertility people.”

  “Then who did?”

  “May I ask what your interest is in this doctor?”

  “I was a client of the institute. Dr. Crossman handled the impregnation procedure. My baby was kidnapped out of the hospital. And now Dr. Crossman has disappeared and the institute is defunct. Is that good enough?”

  Mrs. Standish laid down her knitting. “How awful for you,” she said. Her jeweled hands fell limply on the little sweater. “But I’m still not sure what it is you want with the doctor. Is he a suspect in the kidnapping?”

  “No. But he probably knows the identity of the sperm donor, and I want that name.”

  “Is the sperm donor a suspect?”

  “Yes.”

  “In that case, I’m surprised I haven’t been contacted by the authorities.”

  “The authorities haven’t been very helpful.”

  “Oh dear,” said Mrs. Standish, taking up her knitting. The needles jabbed and darted their way past the elbow.

  “The problem is that I can’t find Crossman and no one seems to know where the institute’s records are.”

  “That is a dilemma.”

  “It’s more than that to me,” Nina said.

  “Of course it is,” said Mrs. Standish, halfway to the wrist.

  “Do you have the records, Mrs. Standish?”

  “I?” she said, looking up.

  “The foundation, then.”

  “I really have no idea. Is that what you want? My help in finding the records?”

  “Yes.” Nina said. “Someone at the foundation must know. Who handled dealings with the institute?”

  Mrs. Standish sighed. “There is a board.”

  “And who’s on it?”

  “I am. Percival. And Happy.”

  “Happy?”

  “My son.”

  “Can we talk to him, then?”

  “Talk to Happy?”

  “Since you and Mr. Percival don’t know. That leaves your son, unless there are other members of the board.”

  “There are no other members,” said Mrs. Standish. She hooked the last stitch, cut the yarn with scissors she took from her jacket pocket, held up the sweater and examined it. “We can talk to Happy,” she said. “The problem is he can’t talk back.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Mrs. Standish folded the sweater neatly and placed it in her lap. “Have you heard of the locked-in syndrome?”

  “No.”

  Mrs. Standish looked into Nina’s eyes. “It’s a type of coma where the victim is totally paralyzed but aware of everything. The difficulty is finding a way to determine from the outside that awareness exists. In my son’s case, we are fairly sure that this has been done. But not one hundred percent. That may be asking too much, I’m told.”

  “He’s in a coma?”

  “Has been for a year and a half. Will be for the rest of his life. Which may not be of normal duration. He’s very susceptible to illness now.”

  Nina looked away. No words came to mind. The ground had tilted beneath them, raising her up, dragging Mrs. Standish down, changing the balance. Mrs. Standish felt it too. She glanced down at the sweater and said: “So you can see
why I sympathize with you.” She was quiet for half a minute, perhaps more, staring into space and stroking the sweater with her fingers. Then she said: “I’ll do what I can to help.”

  “You will?”

  “I’ll talk to Percival in the morning. But you’ll have to give me a day or two. Percival will get in touch with you.” She rose.

  Nina rose too. “Thank you, Mrs. Standish.”

  Mrs. Standish smiled.

  Nina saw that she had left a red streak on the gold silk.

  Mrs. Standish took her to the front door. Zulu was lying in front of it. He sprang up and flexed. “Be nice, Zulu,” Mrs. Standish said. Zulu remained flexed. Mrs. Standish opened the door.

  Clouds of snow blew into the hall. Outside the wind was blasting, hurling snow through the sky in sheets and twisters, piling it up on the threshold. The storm was playing the third movement in its score, and it was a wild one. “Gracious,” said Mrs. Standish, raising her voice over the wind. “You can’t go out in that.” She slammed the door.

  36

  Night fell. Nature demonstrated its power, closing Route 7, then the Merritt, then 95, socking in all the little towns in the hills of western Connecticut.

  “Call me Inge,” said Mrs. Standish.

  In the dining room, she and Nina ate tuna fish sandwiches on white bread and drank water. A birch-log fire burned in the grate, although Nina had seen no one light it. “Do you live here alone?” she asked.

  Mrs. Standish finished chewing. “It’s the servants’ day off,” she said. “And we’re not as big as we look, especially since the south wing was closed.”

  They sat at one end of a long, dark table, Mrs. Standish at the head, Nina at the side, facing the fire. Candles burned in the center of the table, but they seemed far away and did little to lighten the room. It might have been a re-creation of a medieval refectory; perhaps it was a real one, shipped across the ocean and reassembled. Dark wood encrusted with rosettes paneled the walls and ceiling; ornate, heavy buffets and armoires stood in the corners; over the fireplace hung an oil painting of a pale man in a dark suit. Nina had seen his weak chin before.

  “Who is that?” she asked.

  Mrs. Standish glanced up. The light from the candles and the fire flickered on her fine face but left her deep-set eyes in shadow. “Hiram Standish. My husband.” She stared at the man in the portrait. “Long dead of course. A lifetime, it seems.” She looked away from the painting, picked up her glass, sipped. “I’ve had three lives, really, like so many women—before marriage, marriage, after marriage.”

  Times had changed. Nina, and a lot of women she knew, were still in life one, or had passed so quickly and unhappily through life two that it didn’t count. “There’s another portrait of him at the institute. Or there was.”

  Mrs. Standish nodded. “We founded the institute in his honor.”

  Nina waited for Mrs. Standish to continue. When she didn’t, Nina said: “What kind of a doctor was he?”

  “An obstetrician, by training. But research was his love. He spent most of his time in the lab.”

  “What sort of research?”

  “He specialized in fertility. Like my father.”

  “Your father was an obstetrician too?”

  “He never practiced. He taught and did his research.” She turned to Nina. “My father developed the first fertility drug ever used.” Nina heard the pride in her voice, and wondered if there were tears in her eyes, but all she could see were shadows. Mrs. Standish cleared her throat. “That was in 1922,” she continued in her normal voice.

  A normal voice, Nina thought, that she had heard before. And was it normal? It occurred to her that English, as perfectly, even stylishly as Mrs. Standish spoke it, might not be her first language. “Where was this?” Nina asked.

  “Where was what?”

  “Where your father did his research.”

  “Various universities and institutes,” Mrs. Standish replied. “Whoever would pay.”

  “Was it marketed?” asked Nina, wondering where all the money had come from.

  “Marketed?”

  “The fertility drug.”

  “Not really ‘marketed,’” Mrs. Standish said. “It was used experimentally and of course that led to the development of all the modern fertility drugs.”

  “That sounds important,” Nina said. “What was his name?”

  “Do you mean my father?”

  “Yes. Is he still alive?”

  Mrs. Standish pushed away the remains of her sandwich and stood up. “My father died in the war,” she said. “And his name would mean nothing to you. He never got the recognition he deserved.” She walked to the window. “Look at that,” she said.

  Nina turned. There was nothing to see but driving snow. She checked her watch. Almost nine. She finished her water but left most of the sandwich Mrs. Standish had made for her. “Did any of your children go into obstetrics too?”

  The skin of Mrs. Standish’s forehead drew itself down into a V. “Happy is my only child,” she answered. “And no, he did not. His inclinations were artistic. They are artistic, I should say. I don’t suppose inclinations would change, even in his circumstances, do you?”

  Mrs. Standish no longer gazed out the window. She was looking at Nina, and now the firelight shone on her eyes, hard and blue.

  “I really don’t know,” Nina said.

  Mrs. Standish snorted. It was unsettling, like seeing royalty do something vulgar. Perhaps Mrs. Standish saw this reaction on Nina’s face. She returned to the table, sat down and sipped her water.

  “Some wine?” she said.

  “No thanks.”

  “I could get a bottle from the pantry.”

  “Not for me.”

  “I won’t bother then,” Mrs. Standish said, staring at the miniature flames dancing inside a diamond on her finger.

  “Did your son end up pursuing an artistic career?”

  “In a way. He studied music and became a critic. A published critic.”

  “Who did he write for?”

  “Various newspapers and magazines.”

  “Freelance?”

  “Is there anything unworthy about that?”

  “Not at all. What sort of music did he cover?”

  “Popular,” said Mrs. Standish. The word seemed to displease her.

  “Is the sweater for his child?”

  “Sweater?”

  “The one you’re knitting. I thought it might be for your grandson.”

  “Grandson?”

  “Because it’s blue.”

  The V deepened in Mrs. Standish’s forehead. “Happy never married.” She was looking at Nina again, her eyes once more in shadow. “Not that he was homosexual or anything like that—he’s had girlfriends. But none suitable.” Her water glass was three-quarters full. She drank it down in one swallow. When she spoke again her voice was quiet. “There was no hurry, you see. A man can marry at any time. As opposed to a woman. Reproductively speaking, I mean.” She paused, and her voice was stronger when she added: “But I probably don’t need to tell you that.”

  “It’s why I went to the institute.”

  Mrs. Standish nodded. Then she was silent. A log crackled in the fire. Mrs. Standish raised a hand and smoothed the V from her forehead. Nina tried to imagine her as a grandmother, and could: the kind of grandmother who might have tea at the Carlyle, and own a house in the South of … A strange idea began taking shape in Nina’s mind, but before she could examine its implications, or even see it clearly, Mrs. Standish said:

  “Tell me something about your family, then. We’ve exhausted the subject of mine.”

  “There’s not much to tell. My father worked in a bank and my mother taught school. They’re both dead and I don’t have brothers or sisters.”

  “But you’re still young. How did your parents die?”

  “Cancer.”

  “Cancer?”

  “There were other complications at the end. But basically it was ca
ncer.”

  “My God,” said Mrs. Standish. She seemed upset. “Is there a lot of cancer in your family? In the past, I mean.”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Mrs. Standish’s shadowy eyes regarded Nina for a long moment. “Good,” she said. Then she checked her watch. “Look at the time.”

  “I know.”

  They both faced the window, and saw what they had been seeing for hours. “I’m afraid I retire rather early,” Mrs. Standish said. “You’ll have to stay the night.”

  “I really couldn’t.”

  Mrs. Standish smiled her complicated smile. Firelight glowed on her even little teeth. “Is there an alternative?”

  Nina pictured her rental car buried in snow, the local roads impassable, the route to the city closed. There was no alternative.

  “We have a nice little guest room in the north wing,” Mrs. Standish said. “It’s all made up.”

  She led Nina along a long hall, up two flights of stairs and down another hall to a corner room with one set of windows facing the road and another overlooking the south wing. It was a pretty room, with floral-printed furniture and curtains and a four-poster bed. “The lavatory is through there,” said Mrs. Standish. She folded down a corner of the eiderdown and patted the pillow. “Sleep well,” she said, going out and closing the door.

  Mrs. Standish’s footsteps faded away. Nina went to the window that faced the road and watched a world that might have been created by Jackson Pollock, using only black and white. She sat on the bed, sinking into the soft feather mattress. It made her think of Europe. So did the prints on the wall—landscapes that were all dark skies, except for the occasional tiny rustic at the bottom. She opened all the drawers and closets and cabinets in the room, hoping to find a radio or television, something to connect her with the world outside the storm. All she found were wooden hangers, a book—The Sorrows of Werther, but in the original—two towels, a bar of soap from the Plaza Hotel and a business card. A scuba diver was on his way to the bottom of the card; bubbles outlined in blue floated toward the top. “Zombie Bay Club,” read the card. “N. H. Matthias, P.O. Box 9, Blufftown, Andros Island, the Bahamas. Tel. (809) 555–9865.”

  Nina went into the bathroom. Everything that could be gold-plated was, including the frame of the mirror over the sink. In the mirror Nina saw a purple bruise spreading beyond the borders of Mrs. Standish’s butterfly bandage, and a streak of crusted blood that ran all the way to her jawbone. Why hadn’t Mrs. Standish mentioned the blood, or even appeared to notice it? Nina splashed cold water on her face, washing the blood away. The bruise remained.