The Trespassers (12 page)

“Oh, please, Mommy, can I take her with me?” Ilse asked. Her blue eyes looked up searchingly, they were alive with begging.

“Take her along?”

“Please, oh, please let me. Darling Hansi can’t come—I know—but Elizabetha—she’s so little. I could pretend she knew us as long as Hansi—oh, please.”

“Yes, darling, yes, Elizabetha shall come along.” The lump in the throat, the sudden faltering knowledge in her heart that she could not bear this going away. “I’ll get a box for her. Paul, you run out and get some leaves and grass.”

“Just a
little
box, Mommy.”

Christa went into the living room, took up a matchbox and emptied it. Ilse watched rapturously; her cupped hands made gestures of approval. Paul came running in, with a handful of grass and lilac leaves. Christa slid the box open; Paul laid blades of grass and bits of leaf inside.

“It’s a beautiful little castle, just big enough,” Ilse cried, and slowly she transferred the tiny beetle to the green bed and slid the cover shut. “Oh, Paul, now we have a pet to go with us, a real, live pet.”

Outside, a taxi ground to a stop. The children raced out to it, still intent on the two-inch box and its shy inhabitant. Christa locked the door behind her, and left, with no backward glance of farewell.

For her the next hours were numb with unreality. The farewell dinner, the
Auf Wiedersehen’s
at the station, with Aunt Maria weeping and Uncle Karl full of false cheer, with Anna and Johann and Dorothea prattling hearty practical advice—all of it hurt her in some new oppressive way she had never before experienced. It was actually good when the train pulled slowly away from their waving and smiling and weeping.

“Good-by, Austria. Good-by, Austria. Good-by.” Her mind would not give up the phrase.

Only as they approached the Italian border at Arnoldstein did she shake free of the numbing drug. The customs officials were waiting, they would examine luggage, ask questions, loose their indifferent officialdom at her. She must be relaxed, looking for all the world like a happy mother taking her children off for a brief holiday. She must, she must. If they grew suspicious over any detail? Ah, then she and the children would be sent back to Vienna, the Gestapo would arrive, she would be taken off for special examination. She must, she must.

But as the train slowed and halted at the border, something within her began to tremble, and fear marched across her heart.

“Your passports? Anything to declare for duty? How much money do you carry?”

The questions came at her automatically and she answered and moved automatically. She opened her purse wide, showed the twenty schillings that was all one could take out. Ilse was asleep, and did not stir, but Paul wakened, stood near his mother, watching, listening.

Her own voice seemed to her fluty and unreal as she spoke, but the customs men miraculously did not notice. Just as they were finishing, a dark uniform came up. Christa turned toward it, saw the flash of important gold braid on shoulder and collar. The Secret Police.

Without a word, he reached for tickets, passports, customs declaration, and the Italian customs officer as wordlessly handed them over. There was a moment of reading, the rustling of pages turning.

“So, Frau Vederle,” the uniformed one said, his voice smooth and cold. “You are abandoning our beloved country?”

“Abandoning? No, why, of course not.” Christa straightened a little; in her ears her voice echoed. Empty, hollow; she must control it, she must. “My children are just over the whooping cough—here is a written statement from their doctor—I am just taking, them—”

Paul, darling, do not forget you are not supposed to say anything.

“Yes, yes,” the officer said, spacing his words, edging each with iron. “I, of course, know that you would not leave Austria just when our beloved Führer has come—”

He turned to glance at Paul, standing a step apart from his mother’s side. Christa saw his eyes on the boy.
Dear God, do not let him trap this child, so unused to deceit. Paul, darling, do not fo
r
get—

Paul’s eyes were on the man’s. Their glances met. Then, the small body tensed into a soldier’s straight line, the right arm shot up.

“
Heil Hitler
,” Paul shouted importantly. “
Sieg Heil.
”

The scene on the stairs, back home in Döbling. Christa felt she must scream with laughter, with relief.

The officer’s arm shot up.

“
Heil Hitler
,” he replied. He turned back to Christa, handed her documents back. “Now I am sure,” he said warmly. “
Auf Wiedersehen
.”

She watched him go off to another passenger. Then she put her hand on Paul’s shoulder.

“You are a good boy,” she only said. He looked at her questioningly.

The rest of the trip was somehow easier. At Milan, they stayed in the hotel, waiting for the telegram from Franz that would bring them enough money to continue to Basel. Hour followed slow hour, the time for departure drew closer. At last the cable arrived, Christa rushed the children to the telegraph office, showed her passports and identification papers, and finally had the small sum, the innocent-looking small sum in her hand.

They sped back to the hotel, picked up their stacked and waiting luggage in the lobby, and once again were going toward a railroad platform, settling themselves in a train, watching through the windows as strange scenes swept up and then receded.

It was then that Ilse suddenly cried out in alarm.

“Mummy, Elizabetha—where is the box—where is she?”

“Oh, Ilse, haven’t you—look in your purse.”

“No, no, I took the box out so Elizabetha could breathe. I—”

“Wait, darling, hush, where did you put the box?”

“I don’t remember, oh, Mommy—”

“She put it on the top suitcase,” Paul offered. “Right on the very top one of the pile in the lobby.”

“Didn’t you see it, Mommy? Didn’t
you
take it?” Ilse’s eyes turned their stricken look upon Christa.

“I didn’t see the little box,” she said. “The last minute was so rushed—oh, my poor baby, come here.”

For Ilse was sobbing, torn with this misery. For long minutes, Christa just held her, saying nothing, stroking her fair hair in the helpless silence of understanding. Paul looked on, awkward, unhappy himself.

“Somebody will find the box,” Christa said at last, “and take Elizabetha to board, just like Hansi. She will be all right—”

“No, oh, no,” Ilse sobbed. “No, she will die, Elizabetha will die there—”

“No, she won’t,” Paul comforted. “Ladybugs don’t die like that.”

“But she’s an
Austrian
ladybug,” Ilse said to him. “How could an Austrian ladybug live in Italy?”

How indeed? Christa only held the small shaking body closer. The lump in the throat, the awful, steady lump in the throat.

T
HE BUZZER HUMMED SOFTLY
, and Vee picked up the phone. “Mr. Crown calling, Miss Marriner,” Miss Benson’s voice said. “Shall I put him through or wait till your meeting’s over?”

“I’ll take it now.”

“So I thought you could stop by for a cocktail,” Jasper began. Vee laughed at the abruptness, laughed because there was some thing gay in his deep, large voice. The others in the meeting went on politely talking.

“Hello,” she said. “Stop by at your place?”

“Yes. I’m up here now—about to start a meeting with some stockholders, but it will be over by five or so.”

“Well, I have a sort of date—” .

“Break it, why don’t you? I’ve got something for you and no April-fool gag either. I’ve got to stick around here on account of a long-distance call at six.”

For a moment she hesitated.

“All right then, I’ll stop by on the way home.”

“How about dinner? Why not with me?”

There was some elation in his voice that was special; something had happened or was happening that pleased him deeply. Probably some new triumph about the company; nothing else could make his spirits soar so high.

“We’ve a date, for the theater tomorrow night,” she said. “I—”

“What’s that got to do with tonight?” He laughed. “See you around five, then.”

She hung up and turned back to the meeting. Her own spirits were light; he was so appealing in a mood like this. She forced her mind back to the problem of employee schedules under the Wages and Hours Act.

At five-thirty she rang the flat brass bell of Jasper’s apartment, high up in the Sherry-Netherland. She heard his big voice inside say, “Never mind, Harvey, I’ll get it,” and a moment later he opened the door himself.

“Hello, you,” he said, and drew her inside.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I’ll give you a drink first.”

They went into the beautiful drawing room. Far below them lay the spring-freshening Park. He disliked modern rooms; his apartment was furnished with carefully sought-out treasures from antique dealers.

It was a calm room, with tall windows and quiet colors, with the unclouded eyes of an ancestor looking down from each of three walls. “Not my ancestors,” he was always quick to explain, “just any old ancestors—I bought them because they’re fine pictures, that’s all.”

Vee sat in the deep sofa, put her hat beside her, and looked at Jasper, waiting.

He smiled, watching the Negro, Harvey, bring in their drinks.

“Another million or so?” she asked, letting her voice mock him.

“No, this isn’t the company I feel good about. Oh, sure, that too. This meeting here this afternoon, they’ve just left; it’s a little ticklish, this deal—fat little Tim’s been trying to bitch me with everybody, and this was to straighten things out.”

“Oh. Is everything all right? You mean—”

“Sure. They’re all set.” He smiled. “Since Tim and I parted—”

“You never told me that Tim—”

“He’s out. I had to have a showdown with him, and he’s out of the picture.”

“Oh, Jas, how awful—he worked so hard and sold his station and—”

“You bet. But when I found he was working so hard for Grosvenor instead of Crown—” He stopped. His voice had changed in the last minutes; now the high good humor was gone, and all inflexion with it. It was without argument, without any need for self-justification.

Vee was obscurely troubled. She wondered what Timothy Grosvenor was thinking, wondered what his version would be. Often she had heard people say that Jasper Crown was ruthless, even slippery. But nearly always the accuser was someone who had fallen behind in a competitive situation, or someone who had worked for him, or someone who had heard a story from somebody else. Were the accusations correct, or were they only angry and distorted judgments born of defeat on some issue?

Whenever she heard from Jasper himself his own account of any such matter, his behavior or decision always seemed to her to be completely rational, thoroughly justified. Where
was
the truth in these things?

“Hell with all this—you’ll see later I’m right about things like this,” Jasper said, after sipping his drink through the silence that fell between them. “I told you I had something for you.”

“You did—let me see quick.”

She sat up expectantly; he rose, keeping his eyes on her, watching her expression. Her face was now eager and impatient, yet she felt that something spontaneous and happy had left both of their moods.

He went to a cabinet, brought back a small square box. It was of shrimp-pink leather, edged with a scalloped design in gold.

For a moment he held it in his open palm before her. She made no move toward it. That shrimp-pink leather—why, that was a Cartier box. But…o

Jasper pressed the pink button, the cover flew up, with its back to her so that she still could not see what was inside. Then slowly he turned the box around. Nested in the white satin, a diamond clip gleamed, a great star sapphire for its heart.

“Oh, it’s so beautiful,” she whispered.

For a moment she stared at it, still in its box, still in his hand. She made no move to reach for it.

He snapped the lid shut, put the box into her hand. She opened it herself and stared at it again. She said nothing.

He waited. He saw some veiling of her eyes, some straightening of her lips. She made no move to lift out the clip and try it on.

“Don’t you like it?” he said finally.

“Oh, it’s—it’s beautiful. I think it’s maybe the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever held in my own hands.”

“Then let’s see how it—”

“But I can’t take it, Jas. I simply can’t ever—”

“Can’t? Can’t ever? Why not? I want you t—”

“But I couldn’t ever take things like this. A present, yes. But, you know, not jewelry, not diamonds and sapphires and—”

“How conventional of you, Vee. Why should
you
bother with the set of rules that says you can do this and not that?”

“It’s not just convention,” she said. “It’s a—a whole attitude, with me. I simply would hate it if—if—”

He was vexed with her. Not just disappointed; of course he could not plan this surprise, chose this dazzling thing, offer it to her, and have her refuse it—could not, humanly, then escape disappointment, even hurt. But it was not either which was in his eyes now, in the imperceptible stiffening of his body. It was vexation, annoyance, even outrage.

It was part of his unspoken demand always that she see things
his
way, accept
his
rules and concepts about their relationship. When she resisted, his mood always changed; he became depressed and silent; their evening became heavy with an unnamable, sad friction.

She feared those evenings; long ago she had fallen into the habit of ignoring her own instinctive wishes; of following the pattern he set up for her, because she feared those evenings. It was so, even in small things; when they chose to dine at home, it was rare that Jasper came to her apartment and dined there. He liked his own cook inordinately, was completely candid about preferring her cooking to that of anybody else’s cook. Soon it was an unspoken arrangement between them that when they dined privately, it was at his place; it did not occur to him to wonder whether Vee would have preferred him to come to her. And she came to feel that it was too small a matter to turn into an issue.