A Severed Wasp

by Madeleine L'engle

  “Don’t,” Mimi urged. “I can see that this is being extremely painful for you.”

  “It’s all right. It shakes me to find that the old wounds still bleed when probed.”

  “Enough probing for tonight. I’ve asked around, and most people who give massages want you to come to them. So my suggestion is that you go take your bath and get ready for bed, and I’ll do the same, give Dave a quick call about Merv, and come down and give you a back rub. I think you’ll find I’m not half bad.”

  “But Iona—you should have gone up to her long ago.”

  “She meant exactly what she said; she came to me because she knew she could go right to bed and not have to talk. She’ll be asleep by now. Don’t worry.”

  “Oh, Mimi—” Katherine protested halfheartedly; she felt achy and a back rub would help her to sleep. “That’s way above and beyond the call of duty.”

  7

  Katherine bathed and then lay on her bed, waiting for Mimi, who knocked lightly and came in, carrying bottles of alcohol and lotion, and wearing blue striped pajamas.

  “Iona was sound asleep with the light on and half a dozen pages of notes scattered about the bed. I picked them up and turned out the light and she didn’t even move.”

  “Did you call Dave?”

  Mimi nodded. “They caught the kids who did it. They’re all underage, so they’ll be back on the streets again in no time. And they’ll find another gun and kill someone else. It’s easier the second time. I’ve seldom known Dave to be so upset or so angry. Now, enough of all that for tonight. How do you like your rub? Rough or gentle?”

  Katherine leaned up on one elbow. “Not rough. Firm enough to knead the muscles a bit, and then gentle enough to relax me.”

  “Take off your nightgown and roll over onto your stomach.”

  Katherine obeyed, and jerked slightly as the slosh of cold alcohol took her by surprise.

  “Relax. I’ll follow the alcohol with lotion.” Mimi’s fingers worked over the tense muscles in neck and shoulders, in the lower back. “Christ, Katherine how did you get these scars on your back?”

  “Do they still show?” Katherine asked in surprise.

  “Not to the naked eye. But I can feel them. What happened?”

  “I was beaten when I was in the Nazi prison, for refusing to give a concert.”

  “Your von Hilpert did this? No wonder you don’t like to talk about him.”

  “No, no, he was away. There was another officer in charge, a Von Stroheim character. Lukas would never have countenanced corporal punishment. It was only the one time—since it didn’t accomplish its purpose. And it wasn’t long after that that my father and stepmother managed my release and got me back to America.”

  Mimi’s fingers were gentle on Katherine’s back. “I knew about the vile stuff that went on in the concentration camps, but not—”

  “Hush.” Katherine turned her head to a more comfortable position on the pillow. “It’s been over for a long time, and the scars healed quickly. I’d forgotten all about them.”

  Manya Sergeievna, closer in time to what happened, had been even more shocked and angered by the beating than Mimi. Katherine had been too weak to hide the scars from her stepmother. She had had pneumonia on the ship to New York, and was taken to the farm in Connecticut and put immediately to bed. She was still coughing; she still had nightmares about the French prison, about what might be happening to Justin.

  When Manya had helped her undress and had seen the still-unhealed slashes on the fair skin, she had burst into a stream of Russian invective. But it was her nursing which helped to heal the scars so that in a few months Katherine was able to wear a low-backed evening dress to play a concert for GIs. As soon as the welts were healed enough, Manya rubbed them with lanolin, with cocoa butter, with infinite love. Surely Katherine had always had the best of Manya, while her stepmother had had to put up with all her adolescent rebellion. But Manya’s patience had eventually won her over, and the love between them grew and deepened.

  Mimi rubbed a delicately scented lotion into Katherine’s skin. “You’ve taken good care of your body,” she said. “Smooth skin, despite the scars. God, I hate the loss of elasticity that comes with aging. Your skin’s at least forty years younger than you are.” Slowly the tensions eased from Katherine’s body, and memories slid away.

  The Kommandant

  1

  A sudden electrical storm awakened Katherine. She turned onto her back and watched lightning illuminate the night outside her windows. Almost immediately a crash of thunder followed, and then the rain. After a moment, realizing that it was driving in the windows, she got out of bed and shut them, getting wet enough in a few moments to make her nightgown cling to her body. She pulled it off and went to her chest of drawers for a dry one. This storm would certainly break the heat. June was hotter and more humid than she remembered. She thought with longing of the house in Connecticut, where there was always a breeze.

  The storm had also broken her sleep. She glanced at her clock: 2 a.m. A miserable time to be wakened, out of the best and deepest sleep of the night. Resolutely she turned out the light, determined to sleep, yet knowing that the determination itself would keep her awake. She rolled on her side, taking the herb-scented pillow with her.

  In her mind’s ear she played through the program she had chosen for Felix. An hour’s program. She played some encores. Sleep was still far away.

  A Vivaldi horn concerto. During her nocturnal concerts she could play any instrument she chose. Tonight it did not help. She got up and went to the kitchen for the ritual cup of consommé, adding a good dollop of lemon juice. Back to her chaise longue. The garden below was empty, the fountain playing, mingled with the rain, which was still coming down, although the electrical storm had passed.

  Lukas. She had in no way explained to Mimi (nor did she intend to) why she thought of the man who had been her jailer as Lukas. She had already said too much. No more.

  Kommandant von Hilpert.

  She had not been prepared for his courtesy, as she had not been prepared for the occupation of Paris. The other Germans in charge of the makeshift prison had been different and he could not always control them, although she learned later that she and others in the school had been treated far more humanely than those in similar detention sites.

  Nor had she been prepared for the first meeting with him. The knock on the apartment door, the uniformed Germans, the sudden departure from her home, Justin taken in one car, she in another, had been a nightmare, but somehow less unexpected than the summons to the office of the Kommandant, which had been the office of the headmistress of the school. The gracious room had been untouched. There was a fire burning in the fireplace. Lamps were lit against the dull skies of a rainy day. Spring in Paris could be cool. The Kommandant had sat at the headmistress’s desk, so that for a moment the nightmare reminded her of boarding school.

  ‘You do not look like your mother,’ he said.

  This nightmare of reality had less coherence than a dream. Such a statement was not part of any reasonable script. ‘How did you know my mother?’ she demanded.

  ‘Sit.’ He pointed to the straight chair in which no doubt students had sat after being summoned to the office for some misdemeanor.

  ‘How did you know my mother?’ she repeated, still standing.

  ‘Sit.’ When she had obeyed he said, ‘I loved her.’

  ‘You knew her?’

  ‘I was an adolescent when she played in Berlin. I was studying music, seriously, and I had free tickets to many concerts. I heard her play, and I fell in love with her, with her playing, with the vibrancy of her self. She was charming to me, charming as one is to a puppy. I do not complain. How else could she behave with a callow, adoring youth? But you do not resemble her.’

  ‘No. I look like my father’s mother.’

  He regarded her across the desk. ‘You are quite beautiful, with that splendid black hair and marble skin. But you do not have the—t
he feral quality of your mother.’

  Katherine replied stiffly, ‘I did not think of my mother as wild.’

  And he had laughed, a warm, relaxed laugh. She had not realized then what an unusual interview this was, because she had not yet realized what had happened, to herself and Justin, to France. Had they been taken to any other prison than von Hilpert’s, things would undoubtedly have been different.

  He had escorted her that first day to the grand piano in the school salon, a Pleyel. She had obeyed his command to play because this was not a public performance; it had, in her mind, to do with her mother, because this man had admired her. He sat, in his immaculate uniform, on a stiff, yellow satin-covered chair while she played, and when she was playing she was out of nightmare, the waking nightmare in which she did not yet believe.

  He had said then, ‘You do not look like her, but the quality is in the music. Less mature, perhaps, but there. Every man who hears you is going to want to make love to you.’ There was no lust in his voice; nevertheless, prickles went up her spine. He continued, ‘It would be a pity to let such talent go to seed. I will see to it that both you and your husband have time to practice.’

  She did not ask if they would be expected to play in payment for the hours of practice. She did not need to ask. They would have to deal with that when the time came. (A beating for her. Auschwitz for Justin. It might have been different if von Hilpert had still been there.) She asked, ‘Where is my husband?’

  ‘The men are in the servants’ quarters. He is not being mistreated, I assure you. You are not, after all, criminals.’

  ‘May I see him?’

  ‘That would not be wise.’

  ‘But we’ve just—’

  ‘I realize. You have just been married. I am sorry to interrupt the honeymoon. If you would like to be together again it is very easy. A concert or so, for audiences who will be, I assure you, appreciative.’

  She shook her head.

  The phone rang.

  It was not the phone in the headmistress’s office in Paris all those years ago. She was in New York. Preparing for a benefit concert. And who would be ringing her at four in the morning? She pulled herself up from the chaise longue, and sat on the bed, reaching for the phone.

  “Mormor, it’s Kristen. Did I wake you?” Mormor, Norwegian for the maternal grandmother, literally Mother mother. The paternal grandmother was Farmor, Father mother. She was delighted. “Kristen, how lovely. You didn’t wake me, but I was having a waking nightmare, and I’m grateful to you for freeing me. What’s up?”

  “You’re going to be a great-grandmother. I thought you might like to know.”

  “My dear, I’m delighted.”

  “Do you want a great-granddaughter or son?”

  “Either will do. Or both. Don’t twins run in Martin’s family?”

  “Mormor, don’t wish that on me! By the way, I’ve just been promoted to first flute in the orchestra, so I’m not spreading the news of my incipient motherhood—seven months off. It’s between us.”

  “I’m silent as the grave.”

  “I haven’t even told your esteemed daughter yet. You’re the first to know, except Martin, of course.” As Katherine was silent, Kristen added, “Don’t worry, Mormor, I’m learning to be the soul of tact. Only you and I will know of this call. I’ll give Mor a ring this evening when she gets home from work. How’s life in the great U.S. of A.?”

  “Interesting.”

  “Life’s always interesting for you, Mormor. I’m glad you haven’t changed.”

  “I’m preparing for a concert.”

  A chuckle from Kristen. “I thought you were retired.”

  “It’s only a benefit for an old friend. Gives me something to do. How’s Martin?”

  “Ecstatic. You’d think he was the one to be pregnant; he felt queasy this morning at breakfast.”

  “And my other grands?”

  Her grandchildren were as dear to her heart as her children, and had been spared the inevitable publicity Michou and Julie had endured. Who could blame her for more than skimming the surface with the journalists? If there were the normal family tensions, there was no need for them to be revealed. She did not tell of their anxiety about baby Juliana, slow to speak, not quite up to the other three grandchildren, Juliana who was loving and happy, not severely retarded, but not able to get along with schoolwork, happy with animals and hurt things, ultimately marrying an inarticulate but gentle man who treasured her fey childlikeness and took her to his farm to live away from tensions and competitiveness.

  “Last I heard, darling Juliana”—a tenderness touched Kristen’s brisk voice—“is contented as a kitten on the farm and has created some new breed of chicken which lays vast quantities of enormous eggs. I wish people wouldn’t underestimate Juliana. Nils is on something like page 972 of his novel. Ole and Dagmar are talking about having children, so you’re apt to be inundated with greats. When are you coming to see us?”

  “Who knows? If I had a fortune I’d bring you all to New York for Christmas.”

  “Wish you could. Mormor, I’m glad you’re giving a concert. I never approved of your retiring. I’d better hang up, or Martin will have a fit over the phone bill—though he did suggest that I call you about our babe.”

  “Call collect next time.”

  “Tusan tak. I will. Have a fine morning, Mormor.”

  “It may be morning in Oslo. It’s still night here.”

  “Yes, I know. You’re still a gallivanting old lady, and I love you for it. Lots of love, Mormor.”

  “To you, too.”

  2

  Kristen’s call had achieved what the consommé had not. There had always been a special bond between Katherine and her grandchildren, perhaps particularly with Kristen. With Julie, her own child, she never felt completely secure; it is not a kindness, she thought, for people with demanding careers to have children. In her own case, she had never felt left out or displaced because of her mother’s career. She had lived so much more with her father and stepmother that Julie had been able to remain a special icon to her; there was no competition. And during the brief time she had lived with her mother, before Julie’s premature death, Julie had, like Justin, turned her energies to Katherine’s talent.—It’s a wonder, Katherine thought,—that I was able to retain a sense of my own identity. I am, thank God, me, Katherine, not a creation of my mother’s or husband’s.

  Julie, her second-born, had not been an artist, despite her parentage. From somewhere she had been given a shrewd sense of business, so shrewd that as soon as her children were old enough she took over the books for her husband’s shipping business. Katherine admired her daughter, but she was never sure of the love between them. She felt an unspoken resentment of her career which time had only diminished, not taken away. But with her grands, the biological remove made it easy for them to have a deep, delighted love. And was Julie resentful of that, too? In any event, she did not tell her daughter how often she talked with Kristen, with the other three. With the grands, she felt relaxed and secure. Secure in their love, and does the need to love and be loved ever lessen? Is anyone completely secure? She doubted it.

  Kristen was, in a way, her link with Julie. It was Kristen who had told her, maybe ten years earlier (she was both vague and indifferent about chronology), that Eric was having what the jargon then called a mid-life crisis. ‘It’s very trying for Mor,’ Kristen said. ‘But Far’s basically a homebody and I’m sure it won’t last long. He’s just trying to see how far he can go. What he needs is for Farfar to put him over his knee and wallop him. But his parents think he’s God, and they have their eyes tightly closed.’ It was Kristen who had told her, ‘Far’s over his philandering phase. Things are pretty good with him and Mor right now, sort of a new honeymoon stage.’ Had it not been for Kristen, she would have known none of this. She hoped the younger children were not as aware of their father’s foibles as Kristen, and thought they were not.

  She fell asleep, slippin
g into a pleasant dream, set in a falling-down hotel in Jamaica where she had once spent some time with Erlend Nikulaussen, whose stepnephew Eric was.

  A smell of flowers and the wind blowing in the palms pervaded the dream, and the sound of surf and the warmth of sun. She moved from the solace of the dream to a quiet and deep sleep.

  3

  A little before nine she roused, and made herself get up. If she stayed awake half the night and then slept half the day, she would set a pattern, one which she had been used to on her concert tours, but which she did not want to fall back into now, when the structure of her days was logically different. When her children were little, and she was home between tours, she had always carefully made the transition from being a night person to being a morning person, so that she could have breakfast with the children, be with them as much as possible.

  Coffee was dripping through the filter when she heard a knock on the kitchen door. Mimi would have knocked and come in. “Who is it?”

  “Iona Grady.”

  Katherine opened the door. “Good morning.”

  Iona looked rested; the shadows under her eyes were less apparent. “Good morning to you, too. May I come in for just a moment?”

  “Of course. I’m about to have coffee. Will you join me?”

  The doctor shook her head. “Mimi and I have been drinking coffee for an hour, and I’ve had my quota. Go ahead with yours, please.”

  Katherine filled her cup, added milk, and then sat down at the small dining-room table.

  Iona said, “I want to apologize for my unexpected arrival last night, Madame—uh—”

  “Vigneras. And it’s quite all right. I hope you slept well.”

  “I went out like a light. Mimi said she told you about Allie and Isobel.”