The Flight Portfolio

by Julie Orringer

  “He wouldn’t have the appetite for a banquet, even if you could provide it. He’ll do all right on soup and bread. What’s important is to keep the inflammation down. You must keep giving aspirin every four hours. And guard against undue excitement.”

  “Is there nothing else we can do, nothing you can give him?”

  “At the moment, no. We must simply let the disease run its course.”

  He felt as if his own heart were being crushed, as if the doctor himself were crushing it in his clean white hand. “But—can I do nothing at all?”

  The doctor scrutinized him carefully, an apprehending look passing over his sharp French features; Varian was certain Mirandeau had just divined what existed between himself and Grant. He was afraid for a moment that the doctor was going to say something desperate and sentimental, something like Pray.

  “Monsieur Grant faces a long and difficult journey still,” Mirandeau said. “Don’t let him consider its length. Instead, make him envision its end. Make him want to live to see it, even if the pain makes him wish he were dead.”

  * * *

  ________

  That night, while Madame Nouguet tended to Grant, Varian climbed the attic stairs again and knocked on Tobias’s door. Tobias had been near silent on the floor above since Grant had fallen ill; Varian found that he’d managed nonetheless to set his attic room in order, to pack away his papers and herbs and butterflies—to make the place ready, in other words, for either a police inspection or a swift departure. And now Varian sat on a broken stool beside the bed and told Tobias that he would leave on the Sinaïa the next morning. In preparation, he must pack his things into the smallest bundle possible, then prepare to be transported to town in the back of a delivery cart at four in the morning and deposited at a warehouse near the docks, there to be crated up and taken to the ship. As Varian delivered this news, Tobias sat at the edge of his metal bedstead, his dark-fringed eyes growing larger.

  “A cart?” he said. “A horse cart? What if we’re stopped?”

  “You’ll be safer there than in a car. Any car is suspect.”

  “And then I’m to be loaded into a crate?”

  “That’s right. And the hiding place on the ship is a closet. There won’t be room to stand. You’ll be in for hours, perhaps for days.”

  “Well,” he said, “I suppose I’ve had it too easy, sitting up here.”

  “Believe me, it’s not the way I’d choose for you to travel.”

  “And then what’s to happen once I get—where, exactly?”

  “To Oran. One of Murchie’s men will meet you at the dock. He’ll find a place for you to stay while we see about your visa.”

  “How long, do you think, before I can get it?”

  “Not as long as if you were trying from here.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s time for a going-away party.”

  Varian smiled. “Even if there were, we wouldn’t want to advertise your departure. Between now and tomorrow morning, you’d be wise to keep to your room.”

  Tobias’s expression became pensive. “I was thinking, though, that I might go out tonight to find some dill for Mr. Grant. Taken with nettle, it’s got marvelous properties against inflammation. You can use it as a poultice for a wound, but it works if it’s taken internally. And it grows not far from here, I’ve seen it by the verge of the little creek near my father’s place, where I showed you the snails.”

  Could a tincture of nettle and dill keep a man from death? Did he dare let Tobias out again into the Val d’Huveaune that night? “No, Toby,” he said. “You can’t.”

  “I’m sure it wouldn’t take me half an hour to get there and back.”

  “No,” Varian said. “No, no, and no. If there’s something to be got, tell me what it is and I’ll get it. I’ll bring it back here and you can tell me if I’ve got the right thing. If not, I’ll go out again.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, Mr. Fry, but I don’t think you ought to leave Mr. Grant’s side. I think you’d better go back down to him now. He’s been much easier since you’ve been home.”

  “But if there’s a remedy—”

  “Let me get it. Let it be a parting gift. It’s a small thing. Really, I won’t be gone long. And anyway, I’d like to see the valley one more time before I leave it.”

  “No, Tobias. I beg you. Promise me you won’t leave this room.”

  But he never did extract the promise; just at that moment Grant cried out downstairs, and Varian ran down to him. And in the midst of his ministrations to Grant—the application of cloths, an excruciating walk to the lavatory, the delivery of chip after chip of ice—he forgot to listen for Tobias’s tread on the stairs, or the sound of the kitchen door opening and closing. He only learned of Tobias’s going out an hour or so later, when the boy himself reappeared in the doorway of Varian’s room, the hem of his trousers soaked with dew, holding a handful of what looked like electrified green hair.

  “Damn you, Toby,” Varian said. “Don’t you listen to anyone?”

  Tobias smiled in apology. “I’m not really in the habit of it.”

  Varian got up and went to the dresser, then withdrew an envelope marked with Tobias’s name; it contained thirty thousand francs, the rest of the money his father had sent for him. He put it into Tobias’s other hand, the one that didn’t contain that dew-soaked plant.

  “That’s from your father,” he said. “Change it in Oran. And keep your head about you. There are Gestapo officers there, too, of course. We’ll try to get you out as soon as we can.”

  Tobias nodded, and glanced toward Grant. “How is he?”

  “The same.”

  “Let me make some tea from this. Maybe it’s just an old wives’ tale, but if it can help, let it do its work.”

  “All right. Go make tea. And then, for God’s sake, don’t leave your room until they come for you. Do you understand?” He put a hand on Tobias’s damp sleeve, wondering at the affection he felt for this boy, son of his enemy, his rival. But of course Gregor Katznelson was not really his enemy; he was a man Grant had loved, a man Grant did love. And here was his child, preparing to cross the ocean under dangerous circumstances, to a place where he might at last put his prodigious talents to use.

  “Travel safely, Toby,” he said. “Get your fine brain to America.”

  Tobias smiled. “Yes, I hope to—my brain and all the rest. And, Mr. Fry, Godspeed you home to New York when your work is done.” And then he turned and padfooted down the stairs to the kitchen, careful not to disturb the patient.

  31

  Cargo Loaded

  If dill tea conferred any benefit against pericarditis, Varian couldn’t see it. All that night Grant sat awake in bed with his chest against a stack of pillows, his back radiating heat. Each time Varian applied a cold cloth to his skin, Grant winced at the sensation; the wince irritated his chest, and he gave an involuntary yelp of pain. The act of making that noise, the way it lifted his diaphragm, incited further pain, and the result was a maddening concert of cause and effect, performed for an audience to whom it was torture. Varian scarcely registered the passing of time. Through a dreamlike haze he heard the horse cart pull into the circular drive below, then Tobias’s tread on the attic stairs, then his descent into the kitchen. When the kitchen door closed and the window above it gave its faint glassy rattle, Varian came back to himself for a moment and composed the string of half-heard sounds into a series of events: Tobias had gone down to meet the cart; Tobias had gone. If all went well, he’d soon be hidden aboard the Sinaïa.

  Grant seemed not to register the fact of Tobias’s departure, though Varian whispered the news into his ear. Grant had left the realm of casual communication altogether, stretched as he was on a Catherine wheel of sleeplessness and pain. Varian himself hadn’t slept at all. In a delirium of exhaustion he’d convinced himself that he mus
t not sleep, that if he were to slacken his attention even for a moment, the patient would slide inexorably toward the pit. One wrong step, the doctor had said. Sometime before dawn, through a haze, a figure appeared in the doorway: not the rounded form of Madame Nouguet, who had been keeping them supplied with cool cloths, but Killer, standing there against the doorframe in nothing but white undershorts and a pair of mismatched socks, his arms crossed over his chest. Varian hadn’t known he was in the house. The sight of him brought an instant rush of acid to his throat.

  “What do you want?” Varian said.

  “I want to sleep,” Killer said. “None of us can close an eye without hearing—”

  Grant himself filled in the missing sound. Varian kept a hand on his back. “Leave us alone,” he said. “Put a goddamned pillow over your head.”

  Killer stepped into the room and Varian sprang to his feet, ready to flatten him with a blow. But Killer produced from his curled hand a tiny black box with a sliding top; he opened it to reveal a miniature vial and a syringe capped in red wax.

  “What’s that?” Varian said.

  “Morphia.”

  “Not on your life. I’m not giving him anything the doctor didn’t prescribe.”

  But Grant himself had come to attention now. “What’s that, Raymond?”

  “Morphia. For your pain.”

  “Oh—yes,” he said. Speaking produced pain; he could manage it only in short bursts, with effort. “Varian, please. Do it, or I’ll”—he coughed—“I’ll inject it myself.”

  “You’re not injecting yourself with whatever’s in that vial!”

  “It’s pure,” Killer said. “Very pure. I was keeping it for myself, for an emergency.” He held out the box to Grant, but Varian caught his hand.

  “No,” he said.

  “Please,” Grant said, his eyes filling.

  Varian held Killer’s hand a moment longer, watching Grant as he trembled in the bed. Then, overcome by his own exhaustion, he let go. Grant reached again for the box and examined its contents: the syringe, the tiny vial.

  “How much do I—inject?” he asked Killer.

  “The entire vial if you want to die,” Killer said. “A tenth if you want to sleep.”

  “Want to die,” Grant said. “But I’ll—settle for sleep.” He turned his eyes toward Varian. “Please,” he said. “Help me.”

  Varian looked at Killer. Killer held his gaze.

  “All right,” Varian said.

  Grant gave an oceanic sigh. Varian took the syringe and drew up a few milliliters from the vial, mimicking what he’d seen their family physician do for his mother dozens of times. But what happened next? Where was he supposed to insert the needle, and how? This was the point where, at his mother’s bedside, he had always turned away. He hated to make any appeal to Killer, but he hardly had a choice.

  “Now what?” he said.

  “Oh, les naïfs,” Killer said. He removed a belt from a pair of pants that hung over the desk chair, placed a tourniquet on Grant’s upper arm, and injected the morphine into his antecubital vein. They all sat in silence, waiting. Outside, a nightingale prefigured the morning with its pale blue song. Madame Nouguet clinked the china below, as though there were anything to prepare for breakfast.

  “I don’t feel—anything at all,” Grant said, panic entering his voice.

  “Just wait,” Killer said.

  “I don’t feel anything! I don’t feel anything. I don’t—oh.”

  Varian glanced at Killer, and Killer shrugged his bare shoulder toward the patient.

  “Oh,” Grant said again. “Oh. I think I’d like—to sit back now.”

  “All right,” Varian said, and eased him against the stack of pillows. A few moments later, Grant’s breathing had deepened.

  “Voilà,” Killer said, and replaced the paraphernalia in the little box.

  Varian shook his head. “If anything happens to him, I’ll lead you to the gallows myself.”

  “Mary Jayne knows what you do not,” Killer said, his eyes narrowed. “Even a thief may possess a capacity for empathy.”

  Varian held his gaze. “You’re to leave this house before noon.”

  “As you wish, Monsieur Fry. But first I’m going to get some sleep.” He left the room and let the door close behind him, and Varian climbed into bed with Grant and put his head against Grant’s burning chest. Within moments he was asleep too, and it wasn’t until the kitchen door banged sometime later that he woke again. Grant still sat propped beside him, breathing deeply. Varian got to his feet and looked out the window to see Gussie’s bike lying on its side in the drive. He ran downstairs, and there was Gussie in the kitchen, messenger cap in his hands, inhaling the deep fragrance of soup. Madame Nouguet stood at the stove, stirring something in her largest copper pot.

  “Mr. Fry,” Gussie said. “This arrived at the office for you.” He held out a folded rectangle of paper, and Varian opened it.

  Cargo loaded, the note read.

  “Well,” Varian said. “Godspeed, boy.”

  “Pardon me, Mr. Fry?”

  “Never mind. Thanks for bringing this.”

  “Monsieur Fry, how is the patient?” Madame Nouguet asked.

  “Sleeping,” Varian said. “What’s that you’re stirring?”

  “Fish stew,” Madame Nouguet said. “Tell this young man to stay for lunch. Mademoiselle Gold and Monsieur Couraud have gone into town. Will Monsieur Grant take a little, do you think?”

  “Fish stew! Made from what in the world?”

  “What God provided,” she said. And then he saw, through the window, Monsieur Thumin’s long-handled butterfly net resting against a tree beside the goldfish pond; the surface of the pond was strangely still, unmarked by its usual pattern of concentric rings.

  * * *

  ________

  The patient, refreshed by a few hours’ sleep and fortified by broth, passed an easier day. Just before dusk the doctor visited again; the patient’s blood pressure, he was pleased to report, had come up slightly. He approved the use of morphine—supplied by himself, he specified—in minute quantities, in tablet form, and only for a period of three days. By then, he said, the patient’s relief from pain should have allowed him enough healing sleep to produce a change in his condition.

  Varian thanked him and walked him downstairs, wanting to ask if they had stepped back from the precipice. But the doctor’s look was still grave as he shook Varian’s hand in the vestibule, and he promised to stop by again the next morning.

  Upstairs, Grant sat propped in bed, a notebook open on his knee. On it he had an airmail blank, and Varian saw he’d written the first few lines of a letter.

  “Who are you writing to?”

  “My mother. It’s been”—he caught his breath—“too long. I fancied—these last few days, that I might get knocked off by this—peridot-itis or what have you, and she’d never know—” He coughed, groaned, and put a hand to his heart. “She’d never know how—happy I’d been these last few months.”

  “Have you been?” Varian said, sitting at the edge of the bed. “Has there been time for that? My work here never leaves us a moment for pleasure.”

  “Now, mon cher Vaurien, that is—grossly inaccurate.”

  Varian smiled. “When you get well—” he said, but Grant raised a hand.

  “Let’s not—talk about that just yet,” he said. “I still feel like—I’ve got shards of glass around my heart.”

  “Let me give you some good news, then. I’ve been keeping it in my pocket, waiting until you’d had a chance to eat and sleep.” He extracted the message Gussie had brought, opened it, handed it to Grant.

  “Oh,” Grant said. He raised his light-shot eyes to Varian’s, his skin flushing a deep rose. “Oh, thank God. We must—cable Gregor! Will you do it?”


  “I instructed Gussie to cable when I sent him back to town.”

  “So it’s done,” Grant said. “He’s—off the continent. Not upstairs in that attic, pacing like a—a restless ghost. Not dead in a camp.” He paused, took a long series of breaths, girded himself to speak again. “I can—scarcely believe it. Off the continent. Unkilled. Untortured.” He shook his head, touched the corners of his eyes with his fingertips. “What a—debt of gratitude I owe you.”

  “You owe me nothing,” Varian said. “Write to your mother. Send her my love.”

  “Write to your—own mother, why don’t you?”

  Varian sighed. “I ought to do just that. It’s been at least a month since I wrote to her and Dad. I know Eileen shows them bits of letters, but—” His last letter to Eileen was, of course, unshowable. And no response had yet arrived. It seemed unbelievable, an unreality, that a break with Eileen meant that she would cease to be a daughter-in-law to his own parents, and that he, Varian, would no longer be considered the son-in-law of her parents, those white-haired Bostonians who had for years, in their quiet way, teasingly encouraged him and Eileen to produce an heir, and who had given him the deed to forty acres of their familial land in New Hampshire on the occasion of his thirtieth birthday. Not co-owned land, not part of Eileen’s dowry, but a “gentleman’s parcel,” as his father-in-law had called it, a place where he might go on his own to camp and fish and hunt, as if he did those things or had ever done them. It occurred to him for the first time that it might have been a kind of inducement—a suggestion that if he engaged in a man’s pursuits, he might behave more like one.

  As he was taking up his own pen and paper, Grant made a sound of distress: the effect of the morphine had begun to wane. Varian produced the pill and the glass of water, and Grant took the medicine and fell back against the pillows. For a long while he was silent as Varian sat at the desk, his pencil hovering above a blank page at the top of which he’d written Dear Mother and Dad.