A Severed Wasp Read online

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “The completion of much of the Cathedral—though it’s still not finished—was largely because of Felix. You know, despite my friendship with Suzy and Dave, the workings of the Church are completely beyond my ken, but I have a hunch Felix Bodeway was a good bishop. It would make him very happy if the Cathedral could be a little nearer completion before he dies.”

  Katherine held on to the cracked leather strap as the taxi swerved to avoid a truck. She did not reply.

  Mimi continued, “The designs for the towers and the transepts came about long before Felix’s time. Dean Morton brought in a master builder from England and started a project of training local kids to cut stone. But the world was in its usual state of chaos, inflation was rampant, and things were slower than they should have been. The dean’s vision was brilliant, and despite all the problems the towers of Sts. Peter and Paul got built amazingly quickly. But after Morton left when he was called to be a bishop, things came almost to a halt for lack of imagination and money. Time passed. Then along came Bodeway.”

  “And gets the money?”

  “Wait,” Mimi said. “It’s not as easy as that. Felix is, I believe, a man of prayer, but he never hesitated to ask for money, whenever and wherever he could. But the amount of money he needed isn’t raised by importunate bishops, or even professional money-raisers. Not any more. Things cost far more than anyone could have anticipated when Dean Morton started rebuilding.” She tapped on the glass separating them from the driver. “Go up Amsterdam, please.” Back to Katherine. “When your friend Bodeway was elected bishop, he did all kinds of things that were thought odd. Unless his duties took him elsewhere, he was apt to turn up at the Cathedral for the early communion service, and for Evensong. And he made hospital calls, not just on staff and employees and old friends who were ill, but to the wards of St. Luke’s. He didn’t make any public business about it—I got all this from Dave Davidson, by the way, not Felix. He would go visit someone in the private pavilion, and then he would wander around the hospital, looking more like a monk than a bishop, and if anyone wanted him, there he was. Not that he stepped on the toes of the chaplains, but they were woefully understaffed, and he was so gentle and deferential with them that they were only grateful for his help. When they were exhausted, which was frequently, he took around the early communions. But I digress.”

  Again she tapped on the dividing glass. “It’s on the right, just below 112th.” She leaned back again. “I don’t know why I put all this in the past tense. For all I know, he still does it. But—and this is definitely in the past—before the north transept got built, there was one old indigent woman he visited daily, week after week. One of those thousands of pathetic cases. No family. No friends. Old and alone and ill in an unfriendly city. And she took a long time dying. One foot came off, then the other. Weeks before her death, she smelled of putrefaction, so that she had to be put in a tiny cubicle because none of the other patients in the ward could stand the stench. There are a lot of unpleasant smells in a big city hospital, but hers really got to the doctors and nurses. Bishop Bodeway never let on it wasn’t a rose garden. And he was with the old girl, holding her hand, when she died.” Mimi opened her billfold. “Here we are.” She glanced at Katherine reaching for her bag. “You pay on the way home.” She unfolded herself out of the taxi and held out a hand. “Are you going to be all right on these steps?”

  “As long as you don’t expect me to gallop.”

  They started the climb, and halfway up Mimi stopped. “Let me finish my story. The old girl had left a will and she wasn’t indigent after all. She was loaded. She wasn’t a unique case. I’ve never understood why there have always been millionaires who choose to live in penury, but I’m an orthopod, not a shrink. The money all went to Felix. Naturally, some distant cousins turned up to contest the will, but under the circs they didn’t have a chance. They didn’t admit her existence when she appeared to need financial help in the worst possible way. They weren’t sitting by her bed, holding her hand, when the stench was enough to make the most hardened nurse retch. And it was obvious that the bishop was as surprised as anyone at the will, and he had an entire hospital staff to back him up, from the head medic to the lowest cleaning woman. So the money went to Bishop Bodeway. Some he gave to the hospital. But there was enough for the Cathedral, so that St. Paul’s tower got finished and the transepts started. Not entirely on the old woman’s money, but such bequests, with their publicity, and articles all slanted in Bodeway’s favor, tend to beget more bequests, and money came in, in amazing amounts, I gather, despite hard times.” She saw that Katherine had regained her breath. “Let’s go on up the rest of these ghastly steps and get in early enough so that we can get my pet seats.”

  Katherine continued the climb, grateful for the respite. “That’s a nice story, about Felix. Thanks for telling me. I’m glad to know he turned out to be that kind of person.”

  “Suzy and Dave think the world of him. I do hope you’ll give him his benefit concert.”

  “You’ve convinced me,” Katherine said.

  4

  Once again she felt the coolness of the stones, of the great vault of the Cathedral, light and space as much part of the architecture as the soaring columns. Mimi took her the length of the nave, treading briskly on the bronze medallions around which Felix had carefully walked, past the carved oak chest which received widow’s mites, up the wide marble steps to the ambulatory and into the choir stalls.

  “We’ll be more comfortable here than in those folding chairs. And the acoustics of this place are such that we’ll hear as well here if not better than in the crossing.”

  There was already a clustering of people in the choir stalls, in the nave. Half concealed in a carved and hooded seat at the front of the choir sat the dark man she had met with Felix—the dean. Mimi caught his eye and waved discreetly, and he smiled at them, leaning his chin on one hand, looking, Katherine thought, worn and tired.

  “Evensong’s just over,” Mimi whispered in her ear. “I didn’t think you’d care to be here for that. It makes a long time to sit on uncushioned seats. A lot of music lovers come in after the service. Llew waits to begin till people have found seats and quieted down.”

  Assorted groups were milling about the nave, greeting each other, chatting, looking for seats, acting more as though they were in the lobby of a concert hall than in a cathedral, Katherine thought; but then, she was not at all certain how people were supposed to behave in a cathedral. What she looked for was a rich silence, like the pause between the movements of a sonata.

  Years ago, so long it was like another lifetime, Cardinal von Stromberg had sent her into the cathedral in Munich, not to pray, just to be quiet. There was no service going on. The silence seemed as ancient as the wooden carving of a Madonna and Child before which she stood, drawing strength from the other young woman’s stillness. She looked about Felix’s cathedral but saw no statue of the Virgin. Instead, she noted four nuns walking in, dressed in light-blue summer habits. They headed for the choir, and one, taller than the others, paused for a moment as she passed the dean, to speak to him, and he reached out his hand for hers.

  “Mother Catherine of Siena,” Mimi said. “She runs St. Andrew’s, the school the Davidson kids go to. She’s quite a gal, Mother Cat, a priest, and a canon of the Cathedral.”

  “I didn’t know nuns were priests.”

  “Episcopal nuns,” Mimi said. “And most aren’t. Some are. Mother Cat’s qualified, all right. She has a Ph.D. in Byzantine theology, and she also has—though this is rumor—an M.D. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  Katherine shook her head. “The Episcopal Church is an enigma to me. Just when I think it’s like the Catholic Church, I discover there are nuns who are priests.”

  “Not just nuns. Other women, too. Why not? People used to think that only men could be doctors, that women had to be nurses. The Catholic Church is on the verge, I gather. But you’d know more abo
ut that than I. You are Catholic, aren’t you?”

  “Nominally, I suppose, since Justin was, also nominally.”

  “You must meet Mother Cat. You’ll like her. She knows music—I wonder if there’s anything she doesn’t know?”

  The four nuns seated themselves in the choir stalls opposite Katherine and Mimi, and a small boy, with dark, curly hair, was crowded into the stall with Mother Catherine of Siena, leaning against her confidingly. Katherine started as she recognized the child who had tried to get her a taxi and offered to sell her secrets. “Who is the little boy?”

  Mimi followed her glance. “Topaze Gomez. His mother is Yolande Undercroft’s cook, and he has a funny, fat older sister. The nuns do tend to pick up waifs and strays. Kids who don’t get enough love at home—which the Gomez kids certainly don’t. No wonder Topaze hangs around the Sisters. He’s a beautiful child, too beautiful to be true, I suspect.” And then she turned the subject, asking Katherine, “Where were you during the war?”

  “Which war?”

  “Ours. World War II.”

  “Paris.”

  “The whole time?”

  “No. I was in prison for a while, and then my father and stepmother managed my release, and I came back to America.”

  “And your husband?”

  “I was an American citizen, so it was easier to get me out. He was in Auschwitz for about a year.”

  “I didn’t realize he was Jewish.”

  “He wasn’t. A good many people went to concentration camps for refusing to collaborate.”

  Mimi beat one fist lightly against her breast. “Mea culpa. We sometimes forget that other people besides the Jews suffered during the Holocaust.”

  “My—Erlend Nikulaussen—the conductor—”

  “Of course.”

  “He took his boat between Norway and England countless times, carrying men to safety—flyers who had escaped, anybody wanted by the Germans. Many Norwegians lost their lives, either in the bombings or the Resistance.”

  “Yes. Sorry. We have services remembering the Jews in the Holocaust and forget the Dutch—or the towns in Greece where all the able-bodied men and boys were shot down in front of their women—and the English, and—well. The dean, too, has had occasion to remind me of this. So, you refused to collaborate. Was that why you were in prison?”

  “Yes.”

  “Quite a few well-known musicians did collaborate.”

  “Yes,” Katherine said flatly. “I was stubborn to the point of pigheadedness.”

  “As for me,” Mimi continued, “I had no choices to make. I was a small child and whipped off early to my American grandmother in South Carolina, where I stayed for the duration. Odd, isn’t it: if you’re half English and half Dutch, say, you have a choice at twenty-one which to be. If you’re half Jewish, you’re a Jew—or even an eighth. Which is fine with me, even though that was Hitler’s idea.”

  “Oh, come,” Katherine said. “I don’t suppose most people feel that way.”

  “Oh, don’t they?” Mimi demanded. “What about blacks? The head of ophthalmology in my hospital is fair-haired and blue-eyed and lives on Washington Square, but he calls himself a black. Dave Davidson is a mixture of Puerto Rican and Indian and—I think—Welsh, but his skin is dark enough so that most people call him ‘the black dean’ in private, if not to his face. So I’m a Jew, and happy to be one, because Jake, my father, was a Jew. As my mama pointed out, before the war broke out we were in the midst of things and couldn’t see the forest for the trees, and if it hadn’t been for Grandmother Renier’s urgent transatlantic calls in a day when such were not usual, we’d never have got out in time. We had to leave France because Jake was a Jew; though I never felt any anti-Semitism in Paris, there was plenty in South Carolina. Some of my Huguenot Renier cousins could be pretty insular.”

  “And yet—it’s a good thing you left Paris, or you’d have felt anti-Semitism soon enough, and drastically.”

  “I know. We might all have been marched into the gas chambers. So here I am, a Jew, an atheist, and devoted to an Episcopal dean. Life is full of surprises. Grandmother Renier, who was a devout Episcopalian, would be delighted.”

  A small stir of anticipation moved like a breeze through the audience, and the concert began. At first the notes of the great organ were muted, no more than a whisper. Then, slowly, a series of rich chords rose, swelled, burst into brilliant life. Katherine leaned her head back against the carved wood of the stall. Mimi’s chatter was gone now, Mimi was gone, there was nothing but music.

  The Cathedral was gone. Memory, memories were gone. The power of the music caught her up into pure being. Into is-ness. Reality. It was this transcendence into which music drew her which had been her salvation during the most intolerable periods of her life.

  The concert may have lasted an hour, but music, which is inextricably intertwined with time, is also paradoxically a release from time, and when enthusiastic applause greeted the final notes, Katherine was scarcely aware of time having passed.

  “He is superb, isn’t he?” Mimi was still beating her hands together.

  “Glorious. Of course, he played some of my favorite things.” Katherine reached for her cane and the lacy shawl she had brought in case the weather should once again change suddenly.

  Mimi put a restraining hand on her arm. “Let’s wait until the place clears out. It’s hell, isn’t it, but Llew’s playing has deepened enormously since he lost his wife and baby.”

  “Hell,” Katherine agreed. “But that’s the way it works. Look at Beethoven. The worse his deafness, the greater his music. And the best was composed when he was totally walled into a silent world. Did you notice that your Llew played one of Justin’s pieces? Justin might never have started composing had his hands not been broken in Auschwitz.”

  “Christ, I didn’t know about that,” Mimi said. “Yes, it’s hell. Oh, shit.” She heaved a sigh. “Suzy’s invited us to the deanery for a drink. I told her just to leave it open, we’d come or not according to your inclination.”

  “Would you like to go?”

  “It’s really up to you, but it would mean a lot to Llew to meet you.”

  “As long as we don’t stay too long—”

  “Just give me the high sign whenever you feel like it and we’ll cut out. I think you’ll enjoy the Davidsons. They help me retain a faint shred of hope for the institutional church. Grandmother Renier diligently took me to church with her every Sunday, but it did nothing for my soul, to her sorrow—and mine, because she was a great lady. No anti-Semitism in her. She and Jake adored each other, and there were many tears when we returned to France. When”—she turned the subject with typical abruptness—“when were you and your Justin married?”

  “The week before the Nazis knocked on our door and arrested us.”

  “Did you expect the knock?”

  “No. We were unpardonably naïve.”

  “Was it a good week, before the arrest?”

  —Americans have no hesitation in asking personal questions. Felix. Mimi. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. They all want to know everything. Too much psychiatry. “Yes. A good week. One can get through almost everything on the strength of one good week.”

  “I sometimes wonder”—Mimi reached for her handbag, which she had stashed under the stall—“if I have ever had that kind of good week? It involves a commitment I’m not sure I’ve ever been able to make. I’m closer to Suzy and some of my other tenants than I’ve ever been to my lovers. The trouble has been that the men I’ve enjoyed most in bed would have been inadequate as marriage partners and companions. And those whose friendship I’ve enjoyed haven’t been exciting at sex, or have been gay.”

  —And Americans tell all as well as ask all. And I must remember that I am American.

  They took the same exit Felix had used, Mimi running down the steps and waiting for Katherine. The four nuns were getting into a car, and Katherine saw that one was old and gnarled with arthritis, and
the curly-haired boy was helping her in. Mimi waved to them, and the tall nun, who was waiting to get in the driver’s seat, came over to shake hands.

  “Dr. Oppenheimer, I might have expected to find you here for Llew’s concert. He was magnificent, wasn’t he?”

  “Better every day. Mother Cat, I’d like you to meet my landlord and friend, Madame Katherine Vigneras.”

  The nun’s thin, intelligent face lit up. “Madame Vigneras—truly? I’d heard you’d come back to New York.”

  “Katherine,” Mimi said, “this is Mother Catherine of Siena—two Katherines I admire, though you spell it differently.”

  “Madame Vigneras, I’m delighted.” Mother Catherine of Siena shook hands warmly. “We often play your records during Recreation, especially when we are overtired and need to be together without talking. May I drive you anywhere?”

  “Oh, thanks, but no,” Mimi replied. “We’re just on our way to the Davidsons’.”

  “Do give them our love,” the nun said.

  “And my love to everybody,” Mimi said, “especially Sister Isobel.”

  “She has a nasty cold, otherwise she’d have been here this afternoon.” Mother Catherine of Siena looked down at the child who was pulling at her skirts. “What is it, Topaze?”

  “C’n I come back with you for Vespers?”

  “All right. Hop in the back.” She waved, and got into the car.

  “She’s beautiful as well as bright,” Katherine remarked.

  “That she is. Come along, it’s just across here, past Ogilvie House, which is sometimes lived in by bishops, sometimes by deans. The bishop has it now, which seems a pity, since he and his wife have no children, while Suzy and Dave have their four still living at home. But Mrs. Undercroft, the present Mrs. Undercroft, that is, isn’t about to give up any of her perks. What matter that she doesn’t need all those rooms? Topaze’s mother is her cook, and she could perfectly well let Mrs. Gomez and the two kids live somewhere up on the third floor but no, they have to live in a filthy tenement up on Washington Heights.”