CHAPTER 7

On Friday morning, buttoning up his fresh shirt and fastening bright links in his cuffs, Peter was full of hope. For a short while, he attempted to convince himself that this was hope for Lesley’s recovery. Her doctors had begun saying it was conceivable, if unlikely; despite a continuing danger of stroke. They had decided to keep her at St. Luke’s. Therapists visited her daily, and she was subjected to a variety of stimulating treatments intended to help her wake. She had muttered words a couple of times, and that was an encouraging sign. But Peter soon confessed to himself that his sanguine mood was not about Lesley. No, it arose entirely from the prospect of staying home from the office, going to the Devereaux Foundation, and, happiest of all, soon seeing his daughter, a daily pleasure since Lesley’s accident.

Peter and Susan visited Lesley every morning and, usually, each evening as well, and Louis came on the weekend. It had all become routine. After the first two weeks, Peter had insisted that Louis go back to Boston and finish his degree. Graduation wasn’t far off, and Louis couldn’t do anything here but grow more depressed. But he had flown back last Friday evening and gone to sit by Lesley’s bedside, and he was coming back this Friday, too. Peter worried about the way his son sat at his mother’s side, staring. She propped him up; without her, his deficiencies were more obvious. Even at the hospital you could see how the staff respected Susan but only tolerated Louis. Susan herself, where Louis was concerned, seemed to step into her mother’s shoes; she was willing to baby him, shore him up. She was younger by a few years, but she was a grown-up, and he was a kid.

The air was cold for April and the sidewalk still wet with dew when Peter set out for the hospital. His mood rose even higher at the morning’s new tokens of spring. The flower beds across Riverside Drive along the promenade were bright with tulips, and the trees were tipped with yellow-green leaves. His cheerfulness was checked, however, by the sight of Lockhart returning home with his dog, Burke, as he always did at this hour.

“Off to the hospital?” he asked Peter, who nodded and waved but didn’t slow his vigorous pace.

“Wait—Peter, got a second? I’ll walk you up the block,” said Lockhart as Peter did not conceal his impatience at being stopped. Years ago, Peter and Lesley had hoped to be friends with Lockhart and Ivy Hurst, the Columbia professor whom Lockhart called his “partner.” But they had felt condescended to, and Lockhart had been interfering where his aunt and the Devereaux Foundation were concerned. As a result, things had long been cool among the four of them, although none of them acknowledged this. Indeed, they had accomplished that invaluable social magic trick: regression to a state of having never been acquainted. Their two dinners together were erased from memory, forgetfulness doing its effective second best for forgiveness. Peter had learned only recently, in fact, that Susan, on the suggestion of her thesis adviser and knowing little of her parents’ past relations with the Lockhart-Hurst household, had asked Ivy Hurst to sit as outside reader on her dissertation committee. Ivy had agreed, and Peter was uncertain whether or not Ivy even realized that Susan was her neighbors’ daughter.

“Ivy and I want you to come to dinner,” Lockhart said, breathless from trying to match Peter’s stride. “We’re having a few friends over—two weeks from Friday. Very informal. We hope you can come.”

Lockhart, Peter thought, was determined to do the good neighbor thing. “Thanks,” he replied, “but Louis is coming in, and I’ve got plans to take Susan and Louis to dinner.”

“Bring them,” said Lockhart. “All of you come.”

Peter thought about it and hesitated. Lockhart and Ivy had been much nicer lately. He knew that it was less he himself than Lesley who had inspired their condescending behavior in the past, although he had always blamed them. Lesley didn’t know how to deal with their sort. What the hell, he thought. When did he ever get a chance to have dinner with intellectual types? There’d have to be some decent conversation even though Lockhart was a little too right-wing for Peter’s taste.

“Well, if you’re sure two extra won’t be a lot of trouble . . .”

“Not at all! We’ll see all three of you at eight-thirty?”

Peter had misgivings as soon as they parted. He had momentarily forgotten the uncomfortable issue of the Devereaux Foundation in the background. He owed his position there to Lockhart, and Lockhart, at first, had tried to keep tabs on his aunt by questioning Peter incessantly about her administration of the foundation. Peter had angrily refused to answer, as a matter of professional ethics, and Lockhart had finally backed off, feeling betrayed—which only further incensed Peter. Now, however, Peter was willing to overlook these offenses and hope that just possibly, without Lesley around, there would be some good talk.

Peter stopped in at the hardware store on Broadway, and the young men who worked there greeted him warmly.

“Mr. Frankl!” and “How you doin’?” they said.

They all knew about Mrs. Frankl. They had heard about it from the 444 Riverside doorman, but they were too well mannered to mention it. They were even careful not to scurry any faster than they usually did when Peter, with a hopeful expression, held up a burned-out bulb in one hand and a dead battery in the other. Peter tucked the new bulb and battery into his pockets, paid, and made a good-bye gesture with his forefinger to the nice young fellows. Then he stepped out into the bright light of Broadway, where the first face he saw, looking vacant and lost, was Susan’s.

“Morning, Susie,” he said. He looked and sounded calm, but the unexpected sight of her, even in her melancholy distraction, gave him an emotional spike of wild, warm joy.

Susan, who was very nearsighted, squinted and stared at him with defensively hunched shoulders. “Daddy,” she said, pleasure and recognition filling in her blank expression. “I don’t have my lenses in—I didn’t see it was you.”

“Don’t tell me you ran out of those damned disposable things again. Where are your glasses?”

“I couldn’t find them.”

“You have to put them in your nightstand drawer,” Peter told her, guiding her through the morning rush-hour throng on Broadway, “so you always know where they are—especially if you have to find them in the night. Watch the broken pavement there. Don’t trip. And don’t walk on the grate if you don’t have to. You don’t hear about it, but in fact you wouldn’t believe how many people fall through those. Here’s the coffee place. Want some, sweetie?”

She said yes, just to let him do something for her. She used to say, “Please, Daddy, don’t fuss over me,” but now she let him.

At the hospital, at least five people had said “Good morning, Mr. Frankl” and “Hi, Susan” by the time Peter and Susan reached Lesley’s room. Peter stood in the corridor speaking with the doctors while Susan went in. When he joined her at Lesley’s bedside, Susan was holding her mother’s hand and staring hard at her face.

“She said it again, Daddy,” said Susan.

“Just ‘top drawer’?”

“Yes. I gave her a kiss and said, ‘Good morning, Mother,’ and she said, very unmistakably, ‘top drawer.’ ”

They both sighed and sat on opposite sides of the bed, each holding one of Lesley’s hands.

“What in heaven’s name could it mean?” he said. “Is she trying to tell us something?”

Susan shook her head.

“Top drawer,” muttered Lesley in a low, hoarse voice, her eyes shut.

“My God,” said Peter, shocked. He had never before been present during one of these episodes.

“Dr. Baird said he didn’t have a clue. He said it probably meant nothing.”

“They have no clue about anything—if she’s getting worse, healing. They have no idea,” said Peter.

They sat silently for several minutes. “ ‘Top drawer’ means ‘excellent,’ ‘the best,’ ” said Peter.

“I thought that maybe she was talking about her dresser or nightstand,” said Susan. “But I looked, and there’s nothing special in the top drawers.”

“Whatever,” said Peter. “I think it’s just random synapses firing.”

“Not random. It’s the same synapse, about five times now.”

“Whatever,” said Peter. “Honey, I have to go. There’s a board meeting today.” He kissed Lesley’s cheek, and Susan followed him out into the hallway.

“Daddy, try not to worry.”

“Thank you, sweetie. Oh, I hope you won’t mind. Edmond and Ivy, next door, want me to come to dinner, so I accepted for all of us for two weeks from this Friday—instead of going out after we visit your mother. All right? Sooner or later I have to go, and it’ll be easier with you kids there. They’re not my favorite people, but it could be interesting.”

“Good. I’d like to get to know her better. But I don’t know about Louis.” Susan was as pleased for her father’s sake as for her own. She knew how he craved serious, literate talk. She even knew that her father had turned to her for satisfaction of such frustrated cravings. But of course he didn’t know that, and she didn’t tell him.

“He’ll be bored, but he can make up some excuse and leave early. It’s just across the hall.”

“Fine, Daddy. See you here tonight?”

“Sweetie, I want you to take a night off. I’ll sit with her. Go see some friends. Have a little fun. Your mother would want you to. You need some fresh air in your life.”

“Well . . .” Susan hesitated. “I might leave class and come a little early, then, and be gone before you get here, because Chris wants me to have dinner with him.”

“Chris Wylie?” Peter was aware that this name had been mentioned several times. However, it would be premature to ask questions about Chris Wylie, and he tiptoed considerately away from the subject. In a couple of weeks, perhaps, he might indicate that he knew that this name was important. Peter tried to conceal from Susan his anxieties about her. He wished urgently that she have what he had missed in love and in work—this very urgency a measure of what he himself had suffered in the lack. And she must have children, too, but in a more balanced marriage than his own, so that her children’s happiness, and her own, would be assured. He kept himself from asking about Chris, but he read worrying things about him on her face.

When her father had gone, Susan stood at Lesley’s bedside and held her mother’s hand. “Wake up, Mother,” she said.

The Devereaux Foundation was just a few doors away from the Nicholas Roerich Museum and only a block or two from the Buddhist temple on Riverside Drive—forming one of a collection of oddball institutions at the southern edge of Morningside Heights that Peter had always found intriguing. Peter greatly admired the foundation’s work and had always insisted on donating his services despite the fact that it was richly endowed. Over the years, through a haphazard grant system, it had funded any number of worthwhile scholarly endeavors and fascinating projects in the arts as well as a number of absurd and crackpot ones. When Peter worked for the foundation, he served noble causes, not corporate wealth. Of course, there were other good works that he devoted himself to—fund-raising, legal aid, bar association committees—but none of these provided the same zest in his life or felt like anything but more or less tiresome obligations.

Miss Devereaux, elderly even when she and Peter first met, was still a judge of character and ability. She took to him and soon relied heavily on him. He was honest and straightforward, she thought, and his mind was so quick that he had always reached the correct conclusion when everyone else was still trying to understand the problem; yet he was flexible and tolerant, patient in explaining and making sure that everyone else understood, and without even a trace of arrogance. He knew the city, the arts, personalities, the laws, and their pitfalls. Although there were plenty of people he didn’t like, there was no one he hated. Of course, he had no imagination at all and no tolerance for risks, but they didn’t need him for those things. Gradually, she ceded to him considerable authority over every aspect of the foundation’s functioning.

Peter managed to carry so much responsibility at the foundation only by reducing his caseload and, even then, working most evenings and weekends. Of course, Lesley, who always demanded plenty of attention, began to complain that Peter was neglecting her and “endangering our marriage.” For a while, he had tried to conceal his involvement—as though it were an affair—but she always knew anyway, with a wife’s uncanny perception, when he had been sneaking over there.

Peter walked to the familiar row house on 107th and was buzzed in to the ground floor, where visitors had their first encounter with the foundation’s eccentricities in a small gallery of contemporary works of art. Among these, on this day, were realistic paintings of various saints, in dark serious colors awash with Renaissance overtones and abristle with symbols that Peter could not decipher. There was also a collection of stone sculptures of flowers—Peter saw lilies, roses, pansies—undertaken with no irony at all. These were rather fetching, he had to admit, but then, what was one to do with the experience of sincere, fetching stone flowers? Peter hadn’t time to contemplate the artworks further. He took the tiny elevator to, as he always imagined, not the fifth floor but the nineteenth century. The furniture of the dark, wood-paneled reception room was from that era, and it was easy to believe that so was the elderly secretary and receptionist, Milton Steinberg, who had been hired in the days when Miss Devereaux’s father still ran things. He was somewhat deaf and never knew that you had come in until you approached his desk and he caught a glimpse of you from the side. Then he turned to you with a welcoming smile, gracious in a 1930s sort of way, cheerful and suave in a debonair tailored suit and shirt that even Peter envied. There was no computer at his desk; he worked at a manual typewriter, going at an impressive, clacky speed, flinging the carriage back at the end of every line—it always stopped just short of his teacup—and he regarded his dial phone as sufficiently up-to-date. Every hour or so, he smoked a cigarette—most elegantly, Peter thought, like Noel Coward or Leslie Howard, although unlike them, he was troubled by no excess of intellect.

“Oh, Mr. Frankl,” said Milton, who was just then pausing for a graceful drag. “So good to see you. Miss Devereaux has just gone in. Won’t you . . .” He blew smoke and motioned to the familiar heavy door that stood ajar.

Peter found all the others already assembled at the massive old mahogany conference table. Coffee was being poured from a silver pot, and pastries that had been sent up fresh that morning from Bouley Bakery were set out on a sideboard. None of them knew anything about Lesley’s accident. Peter kept quiet about it whenever he could, so as to avoid the endless questions and expressions of sympathy to which he was otherwise exposed.

Miss Devereaux, fragile and innocent, sat benignly at the head of the table. Orazio Cromwell, the foundation’s secretary-treasurer, was on her right, an unlit cigar clenched in his stained teeth, and Hilda Hughes, the program officer, was on her left. Orazio’s face was cheerfully devious, as though his plans to abscond with the foundation’s millions were well in hand. When Peter first met him, he had worried about whether the man was honest and went through the books personally to be sure all was well. Finally he concluded that Orazio’s shifty expression reflected only his sense that he deserved all decent people’s suspicion because of his given name, the explanation of which was that his mother was an Italophile whose maiden name was Horace. The things parents do to children, Peter thought. Children should have names like Jane or Susan or Paul.

Hilda Hughes, as always, sat with eyes averted and nervously tapped and wiggled her trembling fingers and rolled the corners of her papers until they shredded. Next to Hilda was Wendell Bradstreet Ellery IV, who tilted back in his chair, wearing what he intended to be an astute expression. Poor Ellery was slow-witted and afraid that people would notice; therefore, on occasions such as this one, where his acumen might be tested, he adopted a special expression, with one slightly raised eyebrow, that he imagined a powerfully smart and witty man would wear. Peter thought it came across as the expression of someone finding something suspicious in his soup. Miss Devereaux had appointed Ellery to the board because he was the grandson of an old family friend who had begged her to find something for him to do, and she had convinced herself that a man of his simplicity would bring straightforwardness to their deliberations. When Milton Steinberg came in and sat beside Ellery, across from Peter, to make a shorthand record of the meeting, Miss Devereaux tapped the table with a teaspoon.

“Let’s get started,” she said. “Coffee, Mr. Frankl? Are you sick? You look pale, not well. Or is it just the thought of dealing with us?”

Everyone laughed heartily, Ellery five seconds later and longer than the others.

“Now, uh, you’ve all read my memorandum, I hope,” she continued, looking around graciously, “and I want to hear your reactions. I confess I’ve sent it already to . . . to, uh . . . oh. Well, I sent it . . . I . . .”

“Oh . . . I think . . . I vote yes,” said Hilda in soft little bursts, so embarrassed by this fumbling for the name that she spoke without being spoken to.

“Not so fast,” said Peter. Ordinarily the gentlest of men, he regularly found himself roused to protosadism against Hilda because of her timid, tiny voice, which irked him in its assumption that the rest of humanity, other than herself, were all malignant brutes. “There’s no motion on the table. Nothing to vote for yet.”

Hilda shrank into her chair. “Oh, of course, sorry. . . .”

“What did you think of the project, Wendell?” Peter asked.

“I, uh . . .” Ellery was terrified to give his opinion first. If only Hilda hadn’t made a mistake and voted! He looked shrewd, but actually he hadn’t been able to figure out the memorandum except that it seemed to have something to do with terrorism and September 11.

“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “we shouldn’t get involved in our own business and stay clear of—”

“Janet Millbrook at Columbia,” said Miss Devereaux, “and she was very positive. She said she thought they could find a room, and plenty of faculty interest, but she was, shall we say, thoughtful about the idea of non-faculty members. However, she was quite delighted to hear of our connection with Mr. Frankl because she remembered him from . . . from . . .”

“Are you going to invite Arif Ahmed?” asked Orazio Cromwell, looking furtively around the table. “That would make it interesting.”

“Hilda has a list,” said Miss Devereaux. “Have you got copies of that list, Hilda—a list of names of possible outside members?”

Hilda tried to pass around copies of the list of names, but her hands shook so conspicuously that instead she shoved the stack into the middle of the table where everyone could reach one. She acted as though this were a good idea and gave a shy little chuckle. Peter knew that the woman wasn’t stupid and basically kept the whole foundation running, but she was completely, annoyingly, neurotic. He scanned the list, to which she had given a three-line title, “Possible Outside Members for a Two-Year Seminar on Terrorism and Its Causes and Cures, to Be Funded by the Harmon R. Devereaux Foundation and held at Columbia University, Academic Years 2003–04, 2004–05.” She had drawn up a very good list, in Peter’s opinion, with politicians, scientists, theologians, and Middle East experts, among others whose names he did not recognize, but at the top of the list, she had listed, as chair, Peter Frankl.

“Oh, no, you can’t do that,” said Peter. “No, no. Columbia would never agree to an outsider as chair. You’ll have to have an academic do that, a Columbia person or some renowned visiting someone or other. You can’t put me in there, and I can’t imagine why you’d want to anyway. Out of the question.”

“Hilda thought it would be a good idea to pick someone who is not academic and who isn’t tied to one narrow discipline,” said Miss Devereaux. “You’re so well-read, Mr. Frankl. We all think you’re so intelligent and down-to-earth—just the man to keep the group sensible and focused. Besides, most of the people will probably lean left or right, and your opinions are always moderate and well-balanced. We need that if people are going to be forced to think about their most basic premises. And I don’t know why Columbia wouldn’t agree to it. After all, you taught a course at the law school once, didn’t you?”

“Twice,” said Peter, “but long ago. Look, I appreciate the compliment, but it’s impossible.” He found this very bad idea quite tempting, though, and briefly fantasized making the occasional well-appreciated trenchant remark to an attentive circle of leading lights.

“And suppose they do say no,” said Miss Devereaux. “How does it hurt to ask?”

“It doesn’t hurt to ask, I guess,” said Peter. He sighed, thinking of the vow he had made, years ago, to his now perilously ill wife to cut back on his involvement with the Devereaux Foundation so that they would have more time for “enjoying themselves before they got too old.” And before he could stop it, the ghastly thought again raced through his mind: maybe Lesley would never wake up. He so thoroughly banished it that he immediately forgot he had thought it at all, however, and was aware only of a trifling hope that something might come of Hilda’s little scheme.

Hilda, examining his face surreptitiously, correctly guessed that he was pleased and would accept the job if Columbia permitted. She was exceedingly gratified. She had had an idea that inviting Peter Frankl to lead this seminar would be a good way to repay him for some of the trouble he had been taking over them for all these years. She looked away to avoid the danger of catching his eye accidentally; but Peter knew she was trying to do him a big favor, and he was both touched and humiliated that even Hilda Hughes saw through him. Poor silly, sweet woman—one of those damaged people. Surely, Peter thought, another terrifying idea breaking loose in his mind, surely there was no chance that someday Susan would end up like Hilda—a strange, lonely lady living hand to mouth in some drab little room somewhere, with some artsy little job. Hilda had no high-earning, devoted father to protect her.