T. Boyle - The Women

Perhaps so. But she was nothing if not adaptable and the house did have its charms, Tonka Bay struck with light from early morning till late in the afternoon, loons calling across the water, the weather holding through September in a long lazy spell of Indian summer, and when it did turn in the first week of October the frost came at night to fire the trees in a display of color as rich as she’d ever seen. And they were together, just the four of them, with no battery of workmen hammering away, no clients to mollify, the outside world forbidden to them and their inner world all the richer for it. She adjusted to the cuisine of the new cook (a Miss Viola Meyerhaus, thick-legged and spinsterish, of indeterminate age, with her blond hair worn in an inflexible braid looped atop her head, whose dishes were invariably heavy with gravy, Kartoffeln, kraut and sausage, though she did make a wonderful Himmel und Erde, a mixture of mashed potatoes, apple sauce, onions, diced bacon and roast pork even Svetlana seemed to like), and on the cook’s day off Olgivanna took the time to prepare soups and stews and bake confections till the house smelled the way a house ought to smell. Every day they went sailing on the lake, and in the evenings there were rambles in the countryside and then hours spent by the fire. Frank, ever restless, hit on the idea of writing his autobiography — if he was denied architecture, he could at least use his time fruitfully, couldn’t he? — and she loved to sit and listen as he dictated the book aloud to the stenographer he hired on the strictest confidence.

All went well, aside from the occasional slipup — neither of them could seem to remember to call Svetlana “Mary” when there were people about, and the Cadillac, with its Victoria top and Wisconsin tags, had to have been fairly conspicuous, especially as the newspapers were running photographs of both Frank and her and trumpeting the not-inconsiderable reward for information leading to their arrest and prosecution — and if she were to look back on this period in the years to come, she would have seen it as being as close to a pure idyll as anything she’d ever experienced. Given the circumstances, that is. She was happy, genuinely happy, and again, just as she had at Taliesin that spring, she began, despite herself, to relax.

She was in the kitchen brewing a pot of tea one morning, Frank at work in his makeshift study on the pages he would dictate that evening to Mrs. Devine, the stenographer, the baby asleep, Svetlana playing some sort of game in the canoe (which was firmly tethered to the dock and under no circumstances to be untethered — or paddled — without an adult present) and Viola busy at the stove, when a man in his thirties with a high vegetal crown of yellowish hair came up the back steps and entered the house without knocking. Before she had a chance to protest or even open her mouth, he was holding out his hand to her, simultaneously apologizing for the intrusion and introducing himself. “I’m Mrs. Simpson’s son?” 61he said, making a question of it. “And I’m so sorry to bother you, but I happened to be out from Minneapolis for the day — I’m an attorney, I don’t know if my mother told you? — and I was just, uh, well, I mislaid my fishingpole and I had an appointment to go fishing this afternoon with one of my clients. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind? I’m sure it’s in the attic.”

He had an eager look to him, as if he were a boy still — tall enough to graze the doorframe but without the excess flesh so many men put on as they drift into middle age, his face as bland as a fried egg and his eyes unwavering and clear — so that the request carried with it an automatic stamp of plausibility. He’d lived here, grown up in the house. His fishing apparatus was in the attic. What could be more reasonable?

“Oh, I’m sorry, hello, Viola,” he said, addressing the cook before Olgivanna could muster a reply. “I didn’t see you there. Are you well?”

“Yes, Jimmy. Very well, thank you. And your mother?”

A glance for Olgivanna, just to see how far he could go. “She’s enjoying her vacation — thanks to you, Mrs. Richardson. She went up Duluth way to visit with my aunt, but you know Mama, Viola, she’s back with me and my wife now — and just loving looking after Buddy and Katrina.”

Frank must have heard the male voice echoing round the kitchen because he came out of his study then, looking neutral — not alarmed, not yet — and said, “Well, well, who do we have here? Is it Mrs. Simpson’s son, is that what I hear?”

The man gave a visible start before he recovered himself, his voice rising to a kind of yelp as he moved forward to take Frank’s hand, “Yes sir,” he said. “Jim Simpson, at your service.” And then he explained his errand. “You wouldn’t mind if I just dashed up the stairs — it won’t be a minute. Of course, I didn’t mean to. . well, I guess I’ve already put you out—”

Frank didn’t demur. He stood there a moment, looking up into the man’s face, trying hard to read him. “You do much fishing, Mr. Simpson? ” he asked finally.

“Oh, yah — but not as much I’d like. You know how it is, busy, busy, busy all the time.”

“And what are you after — pike perch?”

“Yah, mostly.”

“Panfish, I suppose?”

“Yah.”

“Any whitefish in the lake? That’s the fish I prefer”—and he turned to her then—“isn’t it, Anna? Best-eating fish around.”

“Well, you know, Mr. — Richardson, right? — I’m not sure on that. Don’t know if I’ve ever — well, listen, I’ve taken up enough of your time already.”

“Go on ahead,” Frank said, “go get your fishing rod. And I’ll say goodbye to you now, sir.” They shook hands again, as if sealing a bargain. “I’m right in the middle of something,” Frank added, by way of explanation. He winked. Grinned. “Work, you know. No rest for the weary.”

“Or the wicked either. But if you don’t mind my asking, what is it you do?”

“Philately.”

“Stamps? ”

Frank nodded. “That’s right.”

“Well, that must be — interesting, I suppose. Is there a living in it?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.”

The man shot a glance round the room, showing his teeth in a quick smile. “Well, all right, then, as I say, I don’t want to keep you—”

There was a murmured thank you and then the pounding of feet on the stairs, the slamming of a door, the squeak of hinges — one of those pull-down things, she imagined, with the ladder attached — and then the odd rattle and thump from above. Frank went back into his study without a word. She listened briefly for the baby, glanced out the window to see Svetlana sitting on the dock now, rocking the canoe with her feet, then she poured herself a cup of tea, sat down at the table with the book she’d been reading, and forgot all about Jimmy Simpson until the hinges squeaked again, the door slammed and the footsteps thundered on the stairs. Then he was in the kitchen, his face riding high across the room as if he were carrying it on a platter right on out the door with a holler of “Thank you, Mrs. Richardson” and “See you later, Viola.”

The footsteps retreated across the porch and fell off into a well of silence. “Nice boy,” Olgivanna said, just to say something, but she didn’t feel the truth of it. Just the opposite, in fact. There was something, well, fishy 62 about him. And if she wasn’t mistaken — she couldn’t be sure, he’d gone by so fast — he wasn’t carrying a fishing pole either.

“Oh, yah,” Viola returned, “salt of the earth.”

There was a chill in the air that evening — it was the third week of October now, the trees dropping their leaves, geese crying out overhead like lost souls in the ether — and she’d come back from a long walk round the bay to the rich astringent odor of Viola’s sauerbraten and a fire of oak and sweet-scented apple from a windfall tree Frank had cut and stacked earlier in the day. Outside, beyond the windows, the sky was tied up end to end with pink ribbons of cloud under a cold red sunset. Svetlana was busy over a drawing, the baby asleep, Frank in his study. Olgivanna helped Viola with the table, setting out the plates and cutlery, tucking a red-flecked leaf into the fold of each napkin and taking her time over an arrangement of dried flowers and pinecones she’d collected on her walk, a simple thing, but Frank would like it. He was a great one for bringing nature into the house — they’d already made an expedition in the Cadillac to a local farmer for their Halloween pumpkins and the cornstalks to frame them, and practically everything in the place that could serve as a vase sprouted a sprig of cattails or yarrow or Queen Anne’s lace.