Annie Proulx - Barkskins

“I don’t know. For God’s sake she doesn’t know. It’s the change of life — or something — and you know how they get.” “They” made up the vaporish, flighty, talkative, scrambling world of women. Yet her husband understood that she had been biding her time for years, and that she would not let this drop. “I told her the company isn’t the monolith she seems to think it is. I told her we had discussed selling out. She blew her top — how could we think of such a thing, ineffective management, lax ways, blah blah. I suppose I can put it to her that she has to draw up a formal request outlining the duties she would assume — tell her that vague wishes bear no fruit. I hope we can find something to quiet her down.”

James Bardawulf glanced at the dessert wagon against the wall. The waiter saw the glance and hurried to snatch up two dessert menus. “How about something to do with the arts? She’s always been interested in museums and concerts — she can do something cultural. Or civic. Community relations?”

“Sophia feels entitled to a place in the company.”

“She’s smart — I admit that. Too smart, maybe.” Andrew Harkiss thought of his wife’s years of correction of his appearance, how she sniped at his way of speaking, realigned the way he marshaled his facts. He sometimes felt he was married not to Sophia but to James Bardawulf; they spoke the same language. “She’s not young but I can tell you that pointing that fact out to her will produce Vesuvius in action. Let’s wait and see if she can come up with an idea on her own.” Harkiss saw that Kahlúa sauce figured in two of the sweets on the dessert menu. He asked for butterscotch pie but even that came with an arabesque of the moody liqueur drizzled down the triangle. He sent it back, saying, “The chef must have stock in the company.”

• • •

Andrew Harkiss told Sophia that James Bardawulf had asked that she write out a description of the job she wanted.

“Yes, yes,” she said and went upstairs to her closet to sort out old, boring clothes that she would replace on a shopping trip to New York, for Chicago did not have really good garment shops. The specific position she wanted, whatever it was, would come to her.

• • •

The flight to New York bumped over a cloudscape that looked like trays packed with cauliflower heads. The air evened out later in the afternoon. As they flew toward darkness, approaching the cities of the east, the slender tangles of light below became great webs, the radiant country glittering in the night.

Sophia stayed at the Waldorf, as the Breitsprechers always did. From her room she telephoned her cousin Althea Evans, who had married a Wall Street stockbroker. She and Althea could shop together and have an elegant lunch. A maid answered the phone.

“Mrs. Evans is away. They are in Boca.”

“Where?”

“Boca. Boca Raton. In Florida.”

“Oh. Well, tell her her cousin Sophia called. Sophia Breitsprecher. From Chicago.”

• • •

After a late New York breakfast of coffee and toast she went to Bonwit Teller, to Saks and Bergdorf’s. She bought two Norell silk shirtwaist dresses. She tried on suits, even a pants suit, not liking the effect. On her last day she thought again about the position she had conjured up on the plane, rushed out to Henri Bendel and daringly tried on two Coco Chanel suits. Both horribly expensive, they were right for her, and damning the cost she bought them. They were what she imagined an ultrafashionable businesswoman would wear. And the position she was shaping in her mind meant stylized business rituals and the right costumes; Chanel suits were correct.

• • •

It amazed her how much alike were her husband and brother. They were almost interchangeable. She saw herself as the family intellectual; she took Book-of-the-Month Club selections and often read at least the first chapters of the books that arrived. She liked history and habitually skimmed the newspaper columns by “Old Timer” or “Pioneer Jack.” Dieter had been on the Board of the Chicago Public Library from the time after the Great Fire when Chicagoans were emotionally moved by the stooping gesture of the English intelligentsia who donated boxes of books for a new library. Dieter had continued to donate money to the library, first to get it out of that water tower, and then as a Good Work. This memory gave her the idea. If Dieter were still alive he certainly would give her the position and office she wanted.

It took her the entire return flight to write out the job description. The woman in the adjacent seat noticed her writing and said admiringly, “You must be a busy career woman!”

Sophia said, “Yes. Just returning from a business trip to Boca. Boca Raton. In Florida.”

She sent the page to her brother, James Bardawulf Breitsprecher, President of Breitsprecher-Duke, rather than give it to Andrew, who might conveniently lose it. Or laugh meanly. Her brother would see the value. Then she waited.

• • •

Andrew met James Bardawulf for lunch at the members’ club they both frequented. James smiled broadly and said, “That was easy enough. We can give her the job.”

“What job?”

“Sophia. The position she wanted. I got her letter this morning. It will suit her and keep her out of business deals.”

“What the hell? She didn’t send me any letter.”

“Maybe she wanted it to be a surprise. Don’t worry, she only wants to be the company historian. She wants to write a history of Breitsprecher-Duke. She wants all the old journals and letters, copies of wires and telegraphs, whatever papers didn’t get burned or thrown out. There are boxes of that stuff in one of the storage rooms. She calls all that junk ‘the Breitsprecher-Duke archives.’ I’m happy to have a door painted with her name and ‘Archival Research’—which is what she wants.”

“Knock me over. She said nothing to me. Is there anything to write about?”

“Oh yes. Dieter, of course, and Lavinia — working back to old Charles Duke, who started the company — Charles Duke — Canada, Holland. All over. Yes, there’s a lot back there we don’t know. Have to say I’m interested myself to see if she turns up anything useful. There could be some nice publicity that we could work into ads — you know, ‘Venerable Old Company. Leader in wood products for over two centuries.’ ”

“Oh boy,” said Andrew.

• • •

There were several unused rooms in the building, any one of which could be cleared out to become Sophia’s office. She looked them over. Four dusty conjoined rooms, once the kingdom of Lawyer Flense, with a view of the lake would do very well — an anteroom for her secretary, her inner sanctum, two meeting rooms. They would have to be cleared, cleaned, repainted. She telephoned her son, Robert, who had recently opened his office, Harkiss Interiors.

“Robert, I need your help. Are you very busy?” Robert, who had had only a single commission — the guest room in the apartment of Mrs. Grainley Wiley, with whom he was having an affair — was sick with worry over his upcoming office rent. He needed another commission. He made the usual noises of “let me see” and “I think I can squeeze you in” before he agreed.

“This is rather good, Mother, a very workable space. Your renovation ideas are not bad but I would suggest opening out this wall”—he pointed at the separation between the two meeting rooms—“and giving yourself a really large office. Make that room you had picked for your office a meeting room. And we can put in carpet. You’ll be amazed how much carpet softens the atmosphere.”

“I haven’t been living under a stone for the past fifty years, Robert. I have actually heard about carpet.” But she liked the idea of a larger office. Together they shopped for Danish modern office furniture in oil-rubbed teak, beige wool carpet, a big leather Eames chair.