A Woman of Intelligence

by Karin Tanabe

  “I do,” I said, surprised that the memory hadn’t come to me before. “The CRC wanted to hold the United States accountable for genocide against Negroes, correct? The General Assembly was in Paris, and I’d very much wanted to go, but I was extremely pregnant and my boss preferred that I resign instead of running off to Idlewild.”

  “That’s right. December ’fifty-one. Petition went to the Commission on Human Rights. Claimed that the American Negro is suffering from genocide because of our government policies, that we have ‘deliberate intent to destroy them.’ The U.S. press did a good job ignoring it, except for idiots at the Chicago Tribune, but it caused a damn big stink in Europe. Still, besides publicity tricks like those funded by both the Soviets and rich white donors like that Vanderclown, the Soviets aren’t all that clued in to what the CRC is up to. That’s what Turner says, anyway.”

  I waited for confirmation from the backseat, but Turner Wells remained quiet.

  “’Course, the only documents that would be of interest to the CRC are papers about them specifically. Records outing men like Turner, they’d love to get their hands on something like that. They also want to know if their names are on any lists. There’s been a big push in the American Communist Party to join the CRC, to help give it leadership, help keep it alive. So, they all want to know if the FBI is on to them. Also, whether any of their big-name members are due to get blacklisted like Paul Robeson. That’s what the CRC wants, right, Turner?”

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind all of that,” he said.

  “Here’s what I think,” Coldwell continued. “You and Turner are seen together by Gornev today. You’re talking, you’re happy, maybe it looks more than friendly. You’re speaking in a way that could inspire some assumptions. You make it look like you’re accustomed to working closely together. Who knows what else?”

  I looked at the floor, not letting my eyes go anywhere near the rearview.

  “Gornev, he’ll be damned surprised to see you, Mrs. Edgeworth, but there will be an extra layer to his shock, considering whom you’re walking with. Then, if all goes right, he’ll invite you for a drink—perhaps a meal—and the two of you will speak. Afterward he’ll make contact with Turner—someone he knows already—and ask about you. Check you out.”

  Wells was looking out the window again, his expression distant.

  “Turner will mention that not only are you in the party, you’re also very sympathetic to the cause of the American Negro and you’ve been helping him for over a year. But in the last few months, now that your children are bit older, you’ve gone back and forth to Washington a few times. The FBI has been trying to shut the CRC down for years, saying they’re a communist front organization, and they know that Hoover has his foot on the gas now. Turner can tell Gornev that he’s afraid there are informants among their ranks, which of course there are, and that the Subversive Activities Control Board is inching in.”

  Coldwell fell silent, and I realized that we had driven all the way to Washington Heights, the trees growing denser as we moved farther north into Hudson Heights.

  I, like everyone else reading The New York Times every morning in 1954, saw the word Red on practically every page. Russian Reds, Red China this and that, control of Red unions, warnings about Red teachers. The Subversive Activities Control Board was formed by our government to find and stomp out the Red threat in America, from schoolrooms to boardrooms. Russia was tightening their fists around us by the day, our president kept repeating. And if we women liked our dishwashers and our television sets, we better fight against the threats to our freedoms.

  “From whom am I supposedly getting these documents from?” I asked finally, trying to absorb Coldwell’s logic.

  “We’ll say that a Negro man, a janitor in the FBI building, is bringing out papers for Turner.”

  “And the story is that I’ve been the one carrying them from Washington to New York?”

  “That’s it, Mrs. Edgeworth,” said Coldwell, as if he were speaking to a child who had finally put the round peg in the correct hole. “That’s the story.”

  “Okay,” I said quietly. “But why would I take such a risk? That’s not just a small risk, right? That’s a very big risk.”

  “Because of how much you care about the injustices against the Negro people. You worked at the United Nations. Cavorted with people of all colors. You grew up in a liberal household, your parents loved Roosevelt. They’re even Europeans. It fits with your profile, it’s convincing. Lots of liberal white people have been helping the CRC stay alive since it was founded.”

  “The Vanderclown?”

  “Not just the Vanderclown. You ever read The Maltese Falcon?”

  “Once, in high school.”

  “The damn fool who wrote it, Dashiell Hammett, Dashiell Hammer and Sickle to us, was running their bail fund for years. We got him thrown in a West Virginian prison and it’s now ruined his career.”

  “So because the author of The Maltese Falcon is a member of the CRC, supports them, it is believable that I would be, too?”

  “There’s tons of these idiots. Hammett’s woman, that playwright, Lillian Hellman, the one that penned the play about the lesbians—”

  “The Children’s Hour?”

  “Yes, that one. She’s involved too. Her idiocy has also cost her her career.”

  “So you want me to be one of these idiots.”

  “Exactly,” said Coldwell. “What the CRC needs more than anything is money to bail people out. You’ve got money, you’re a card-carrying Democrat, and you had an affair with a member of the United Nations Haitian delegation. That’s more than half of your story right there, and we didn’t even need to fabricate it.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I asked, feeling even more laid bare, blushing as I tried to do a mental check of every man I’d ever shared a bed or a backseat with.

  “I’m not saying anything to embarrass you, Mrs. Edgeworth. What I’m saying is that your profile fits our needs. And if you’re willing to take some risks in life, then you might also be willing to carry papers on national security matters to Jacob Gornev—and let me reiterate, that’s the goal.”

  Suddenly, it all seemed enormous. The men in the car, how much they already knew about me. Even the trees around us. The city. What I had been asked to do. The lies I had told Tom to even get this far. Everything except for my courage.

  I closed my eyes, willing the enormity away. I felt terrified, and too insignificant to be tasked with such a thing. This wasn’t just a conversation. It was pretending to be sexually involved with a stranger, then slyly convincing someone—someone who I actually had been sexually involved with—that I was couriering government documents for a communist front group, and while I was at it, might he want me to carry a few up from Washington for the Russians? Not to mention convincing a communist that I, a woman who lived in one of the most expensive buildings in Manhattan, was a hero of the civil rights movement, fighting not just for equality, but mass democracy.

  I thought about all the things I’d wished I could change this year. How I was not at the UN to translate the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, which I had been following so closely in the papers since 1952. How I couldn’t be the interpreter for discussions on the continued fighting in Vietnam. How I had no money of my own to put in the New York Stock Exchange, which was humming along nicely. My lonely existence on Fifth Avenue. The day it had hailed. Feeling inadequate next to Carrie’s gentle but effective mothering. The afternoon Gerrit fell. His warm saliva hitting my cheek. In just a few years I’d gone from a modestly important cog in international diplomacy to a toddler’s spittoon.

  No longer. I did, in fact, care about the injustices against the Negro people. And I cared about injustices against America, too. Why shouldn’t I take part in stopping them? Why should I be reduced to serving boys their sandwiches, boys both big and little? Why should I be reduced to being a simple housewife? What if I really were the perfect perso
n for the job?

  “When will we be running into Jacob?” I asked.

  “Let’s see now,” said Coldwell, turning the blue car onto an exit in sleepy Hudson Heights as he checked his watch. “In about an hour. Best to just get on with these things, I think, especially considering your restrictive schedule.”

  “Right. That little problem,” I responded dryly.

  I looked out the window, at the picture-perfect day. I had imagined these rendezvous took place only when the sun was low in the sky and the gloom effect was high, like the night I’d seen Coldwell outside my window, before I knew who he was.

  “Maybe Mrs. Edgeworth and I should have a conversation first,” Wells said suddenly. “Alone. Before we go off and try to convince Jacob Gornev that we are closely acquainted. Might be good if she didn’t forget my name in the process. Know a little about me.”

  Coldwell rapped his fingers against the steering wheel.

  “That’s a fair point, Turner,” he said. “But not in this neighborhood.” I looked out at the sidewalk and saw a well-dressed white woman walking her groomed poodle.

  Coldwell turned the Pontiac back to the Henry Hudson Parkway and drove fast down the island, not slowing until we neared the exit for 135th Street in West Harlem.

  “This all right?” he said.

  “It should do,” said Wells.

  Near City College, Wells pointed to a silver-fronted drugstore, green neon lights a bit farther on.

  “I’ll buy Mrs. Edgeworth a cup of coffee,” he said. “If she’s okay with that.”

  I nodded.

  “Right,” said Coldwell, pulling over. “Coffee, then. Don’t be long. Like I said, we see him in an hour, as long as he doesn’t linger at lunch. Or it was an hour. Now it’s less.”

  Wells got out of the car and opened the door for me. Coldwell got out, too, leaned against the car door and lit another cigarette.

  Turner Wells was about five foot nine, built like a wrestler, and walked with his toes slightly pointed out. He gestured to the drugstore and together we went inside. He nodded at the young Negro waitress who greeted us by the door, and she took us to a booth in the back, away from the other patrons, at Wells’s request. All of the staff, and all the other patrons, were Negroes.

  “Coffee?” Wells asked. He took two of the paper menus that were resting between the salt and pepper shakers and handed me one. “And maybe something to settle your stomach.”

  “That sounds fine,” I replied. “My stomach could use settling.”

  Wells looked down at his menu. “The first meeting I ever attended with the CRC was not easy. My stomach needed a lot more than just a sandwich.”

  “But you succeeded.”

  “After a lot of reflection, I did.”

  The waitress brought us two glasses of ice water, then wiped her hands on the striped apron covering the pressed blue skirt of her uniform and said she’d give us some time to look the menu over.

  “I’ve only met Lee twice before,” Wells continued, holding the well-worn menu up. “And both times he told me he was bad with women. I didn’t really believe him. Thought it was just small talk. But he is terrible with women.”

  “He’s a bit rough around the edges,” I said diplomatically.

  “Sandpaper.”

  He hid a smile. “I have interacted with Jacob quite a bit. Like Lee alluded to, he was helping the CRC with Benjamin Davis, a Negro communist, during the Smith Act trials in 1949. Extremely behind the scenes, of course. I wasn’t there yet, but he came back to us last year to offer funding and to meet with William Patterson after the CIA and FBI started really pushing to shut us down. On those occasions, Patterson let me in the room. And I often left the room with Jacob, my friend.”

  “Your friend.”

  “Of course.”

  “But Lee approached you about this.”

  “Let’s say we’ve been talking. Jacob told me that his woman, the courier, is heading to Russia. He wondered if I had any ideas about a replacement. I passed that question on to Lee.”

  The waitress checked on us, and we ordered coffee and cold ham and cheese sandwiches.

  She came back with our coffee and Wells gestured to the pot of cream in front of me. I poured in a drop and watched it snake through the liquid. I took a sip, even though I knew it would be too hot. It burned my tongue, but as with the bruises on my hips, the pain came with a rush of relief, reminding me I was alive.

  “I think Lee is even more nervous than usual. I suppose we all are these days. The Russians are crawling around everywhere. At the FBI, we’re all scared they’ll flip our country, public opinion, our agents. But even without the paranoia that comes with the job, Lee is gruff stuff.”

  “I take it Mr. Coldwell is not married,” I said, after another swallow of the coffee.

  “He isn’t. He’s married to the bureau.”

  “Are you?” I asked quietly, barely looking up.

  Wells nodded.

  “Married? Yes, I am. With five children.”

  “Five?” I said, my voice rising in shock. “No, you don’t. That can’t be.”

  “I do,” he said, grinning. “Four boys and a girl.”

  “And you still have time to do this?” I said, gesturing into the air.

  “Someone has to feed us all.” He reached for his sandwich, which had just been placed on the table.

  “Five children,” I repeated, imagining four more Gerrits. How was it humanly possible to take care of that many children and live to see the age of forty, which is roughly how old I took him for?

  “I don’t have a favorite,” he continued. “Unless you count Jane, then I suppose she’s my favorite.”

  “Of course,” I said, smiling wider.

  Turner Wells was not bad with women.

  “I suppose I should tell you more about me, about the CRC. But, like Lee said, it goes without saying that this is to stay between us.”

  His expression was serious, but not intimidating.

  “Okay,” I replied quietly. “Yes. As I stated in the car, I hope I’m a person who can be trusted.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  He took a sip of coffee and kept his hands around the white ceramic cup.

  “For the last three years, I’ve been a loyal member of the Civil Rights Congress. A leader, I suppose. I helped William Patterson with the United Nations appeal that you remember. I’ve also traveled south to work with our chapter in Louisiana. I protested the execution of the Martinsville Seven. And a lot more. It’s been four years, and somehow my cover hasn’t been blown. But it could be any day. We’ve got an informant in Western Pennsylvania, a former coal miner, who I’m worried about.”

  “The whole time you’ve been with the FBI, you’ve been with the CRC?”

  He nodded. “To be clear, it’s not exactly a communist front group, it’s just that the FBI is convinced that it is.”

  “It’s not?” Lee had seemed certain of that fact.

  “It’s complicated. Many members of the CRC also belong to the Communist Party. That’s true. But much of what they do is good, necessary work. I wouldn’t say that out loud to Lee Coldwell, but I’ll say it to you. It’s legal work that no one else is doing, especially down south.”

  I took a sip of coffee, the heat in my throat feeling stronger than usual.

  “Now, if they were just defending Negroes in the South, taking on legal battles, providing representation, giving money, making noise, the FBI wouldn’t be that interested. But since they also defend communists, we’re very interested.”

  “Is it hard? Pretending to be one of them?”

  “I’m doing my job,” he said when he’d swallowed his bite of sandwich. “This is what Negroes in the FBI do. For the most part, we’re sent to report on our own.”

  “Is this all right then?” I asked.

  “This?” he said, looking around us.

  “If someone saw you here. With me. Would this be all right?”

  “Wh
at? Me eating a sandwich with a white woman?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.

  “Yes,” I said, suddenly feeling it was a very stupid question.

  “It’s all right by me if it’s all right by you.”

  “It is. Yes. Of course.”

  “On the very slim chance that someone in this drugstore knows about me and the CRC, which they don’t, I would just say you’re involved. Coldwell is right that white people are involved. Everyone he named and dozens more. A white woman lawyer, Bella Abzug, she worked for us in the forties. Civil rights is not just a Negro issue, Mrs. Edgeworth.”

  “Yes, I know. I mean, yes, I agree,” I stumbled.

  He took another bite of his sandwich.

  He smiled and said quietly, “I know you know. I know you agree. I read your file.”

  “Katharina,” I said instinctively.

  “What was that?”

  “My name. Let’s stop with the Mrs. Edgeworth. Actually, Rina. I prefer it when people call me Rina.”

  “Okay, Rina then,” he said, finishing his sandwich. “Is that what I should call you in front of Jacob?”

  “Yes. At Columbia everyone called me Rina, except for Jacob.”

  “I’d rather join everybody else than Jacob.”

  “It’s still a tough thing for me to grasp. Jacob Gornev, a member of the Communist Party.” It was, in truth, one of the things that made me the most nervous. I wondered if I’d soften too much when I saw him, if I would think of him as a Columbia student instead of an enemy. As a man I had once done a lot more than practice my Russian with.