A Woman of Intelligence Read online

  “You’re not,” Marianne reminded me one night at Café Lafayette. “You’re better. Be better. You know, I read a fascinating piece in the Times about divorce. It’s about as easy as sneezing these days they say.”

  “Did someone say divorce?” the bartender had shouted over, and I waved him off, unable to hide my grin. Married did not mean invisible, I had been happy to discover.

  I looked up at the chandelier. It was still shining brightly. The city didn’t have the same verve of the forties, but it was still swinging, having settled nicely from postwar platinum into a lovely rose gold.

  Things changed again as year three of being a barren woman approached. The first glitch in our lovely coupling was that Tom started singing about me leaving my job again. This time, it had nothing to do with babies. On November 22, 1950, one LIRR train slammed into another, killing seventy-nine people. Two hundred doctors had to come to the scene—one of them a colleague of Tom’s who had happened to be in Queens. “This could have been you,” said Tom, putting the paper on the kitchen table of our two-bedroom apartment on Park Avenue. His hands were shaking as he pointed to the ink. “Look, the passengers in that last car. Every single one of them dead. You love to ride in the last car. Look out the back window. ‘Packed like sardines in their own blood,’ the reporter says. That’s what happened to them. One poor girl who survived said, ‘All I could see was parts of bodies, arms and legs protruding from the windows.’ Katharina, I will not have that be your fate. I will not. You are an eccentric, but you are not a sardine.”

  “It’s so awful,” I said. It was all anyone had spoken about at work.

  “And this just nine months after that other LIRR crash that killed, what, fifty?”

  “Thirty-one,” I muttered.

  “Maybe you should take a taxi. It would be costly, but it’s worth it.”

  “How about I sit in the middle car?”

  “How about I have a drink?” He stood up, scared, angry that I was so stubborn and defeated. He knew I wouldn’t relent until I was pregnant.

  By 1951, things had changed again. Tom may not have been making new life at home, but he was saving lives at the hospital. He was no longer just a surgeon, he was chief of pediatric surgery.

  That was when I started to see him less. But I was so proud of him, he was so proud of him, our whole world was so proud of him. I didn’t want to take any of that away from Tom, so I never complained. He’d been dealing with my two-hour commutes since we’d met, what was a ten o’clock dinner once or twice a week? But six months into his new position, once or twice a week became every night.

  “I love what I do,” he’d said plainly, “but the hospital is near financial ruin. I think I can change that.”

  “Could you also cure heart malformations?”

  “Who knows?” he said, shrugging, and I could tell a small part of him meant it. It was a difficult year, especially considering the wonderful previous year we’d had.

  “How about Paris?” he’d said to me one night when I was crying, sick of being constantly short one husband.

  “Yes, to Paris. Always yes to Paris,” I’d said, drying my eyes.

  In Paris, nature finally said yes to me. I became pregnant with Gerrit when I was thirty-four and with Peter a mere five months after Gerrit came into the world.

  Two healthy, chubby boys. What a blessing for Tom. But after the talk of blessings and thanking God were over, the murmurs of “It’s too bad Tom couldn’t be a younger father. Have more years with his boys. Have time to add in a little girl. Oh, he’d be such a good father to a girl” began. Perhaps that Charlotte van Asletson and her sizeable hips would have made him a father before forty.

  Now, five years into our marriage, and three years into Tom’s stint as chief of pediatric surgery, I was no longer Rina the career girl. I was Dr. Edgeworth’s loving wife.

  I thought of Jilly with Gerrit and Peter. Jilly came to help about once every two months. She came so seldom because Tom thought it irresponsible for a mother to leave her children in someone else’s care if she had the means to stay with them. As in, if her husband had the means. He had not learned this through his medical schooling, but from his own experience. “Children need their mother. I needed my mother, and she was never there. I had twelve different nannies. They changed so often I stopped learning their names. I just called them Nanny.” It was a hard sentiment to argue.

  The room erupted into applause and I looked up to see yet another man at the podium.

  “And that’s that,” said Mrs. Morgan, patting my arm again.

  I’d missed every word she’d said, but I put my hand on her arm in return. “Indeed it is.”

  She smiled at me and turned to the Baxters.

  “Why, Jezebel Baxter,” she said, leaning in, her red silk dress almost in her dessert. “You’ve been awfully quiet this evening.”

  The woman froze, her hair seeming to turn a shade lighter, even though that seemed impossible in the color wheel. Her hair was already the color that Tom’s mother called “brothel blonde.”

  “It’s Guinevere,” the woman said through a forced smile. “Guinevere Baxter.”

  “Oh, so sorry about that, pet,” said Mrs. Morgan, pulling her napkin from her lap and wiping the corners of her mouth, even though she’d eaten nothing but the stuffed olive from a martini. “It’s just that dear Alistair here has had so many wives it’s hard to keep up. At least Guinevere and Jezebel are close. His last wife was named Christine, and I called her Jezebel, too.”

  Guinevere Baxter stood up without saying a word and left the table.

  Alistair looked at Mrs. Morgan and shook his head. “We’ve been quiet because it was the speeches. One is supposed to be quiet during speeches. And please, do have another drink, Auntie. I don’t think you’ve had quite enough.”

  He stormed off, and I looked at Mrs. Morgan, who was shaking with laughter behind her napkin.

  “Is he really your nephew?” I asked. “I had no idea.”

  “He is. And I paid for his ticket. His and that Jezebel’s.”

  “Guinev—”

  “Darling, I know,” she said, waving her hand at me. “It’s just that I don’t like her, so I enjoy poking at her a bit.”

  “Why don’t you like her?” I asked, even though I didn’t like her much, either.

  She eyed me as if I’d asked why birds fly south in winter.

  “Katharina, she’s stupid. It’s like conversing with a guinea pig.”

  “Well,” I said, trying not to smile. Mrs. Morgan really was very good at noticing when someone needed to smile. “Some people can’t help that.”

  “They should try.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “You’re not a guinea pig now, are you, dear?”

  “No. I’m a loving wife,” I said, fiddling with my napkin.

  “Pish.” She took a glass of wine from the table—mine, since hers was empty—and drank half. “You’re more than that. Didn’t you used to work for the mayor?”

  “Yes. And the United Nations.”

  “Even better,” she whispered and started clapping. Mr. John R.R. Rawlins, another tablemate, eyed her like she had slipped a rung or two, clapping for a speaker who was not there, but she was clapping for me.

  Mrs. Morgan cupped my chin in her hand and thanked me for being such enjoyable company.

  “Must run. I see other relatives I’m due to torment,” she said with a wink, hopping up with the gusto of a much younger woman.

  From my chair I watched as Tom made his way back to his seat. The noise around us had picked up, as the final speech of the night wasn’t for another hour. He had almost reached our table, second from the front, when a flying mass of peach damask hit him like artillery. When it settled, I saw that somewhere in the folds of that voluminous dress was a woman I did not know. Tom didn’t seem to know her, either.

  “Doctor Edgeworth, you brilliant man,” she sputtered, even as tears started to flow, marring her thick mak
eup. “I had to come tonight. I had to see you, to say thank you.” She took Tom’s hand and shook it, moving it up and down rhythmically as if he were a water pump. “You saved my son’s life. His life.” She smothered him in another embrace. “He is with me tonight,” she said. “The son you saved.” A young boy in a tuxedo appeared, as if produced from the folds of her dress. He had a noticeable limp, but smiled when Tom shook his hand.

  “He was nearly gone,” his mother said, clutching his shoulders. “I could see the spirits there, ready to carry him away.” She pushed the boy closer to Tom. “And then you came. Misdiagnosis, you said. No one had been able to pinpoint his true ailment—Guillain-Barré syndrome—except the great Dr. Edgeworth.”

  “People sure do like that man,” I heard a voice say behind me. I turned to see a waiter with a tray of martinis held firmly between his hands.

  “He’s an excellent doctor,” I replied, plucking two drinks from the tray and downing them in succession. “And a very loving husband.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “Oh, dear God,” I said into the air when I woke up. My head was pounding, my eyes were pounding, even my teeth were pounding.

  Tom was standing by the bed, dressed in a gray flannel suit. I sat up slowly, trying to get a better look at him, but feeling as if I might be about to have a heart attack.

  “Who poured all that gin down my throat?” I croaked, putting my hand against my forehead as if some mysterious fever was to blame for the way it was hammering. It was actually quite tough to get a tropical disease at the Plaza.

  “Did you have quite a lot to drink? Perhaps you were drinking for both of us. I barely had time for one glass of wine,” said Tom, adjusting the sleeve of his white shirt.

  I nodded and looked up at him, so handsome in his suit against the dove gray paint of our bedroom. No rooms in our apartment were white. “Too hospital-like,” Tom had told the decorators.

  “You were quite popular last night. As it should be,” I rasped.

  “It was a lot of small talk, but if it helped raise money for the hospital, then so be it.” He turned around, looked in the mirror above my dresser, and undid the top button of his shirt.

  “Are you going somewhere before our family day starts?” I asked after a moment. “I’d been thinking we might take the boys to the Museum of Natural History this morning.”

  Before he could respond, a wave of heat hit me and I felt dizzy. I lay down again and turned on my side, trying to hide my expression from Tom. I put my face into a pillow and heaved into it, then faked a cough. I wasn’t eager to show him just how intoxicated I had been at his event.

  “Not feeling well?” he asked.

  “The alcohol has not quite released me from its grip, unfortunately,” I said, my voice muffled by the pillow. “I think fresh air might help. Maybe we could walk across the park for a bit before hopping in a taxi.”

  “Katharina. I think that trek would knock you flat in your state,” said Tom, opening his top drawer and pulling out a pair of monogrammed cufflinks. He went about changing the mother-of-pearl ones he had already put in. “I saw you speaking to Mrs. Morgan for most of the night. She’s always good for a drink or seven. I assume that’s what happened.”

  “Mrs. Morgan is good company. Too good sometimes. And the drinks were complimentary.”

  “So is the hangover.”

  “That’s why I have you,” I murmured. “Dr. Edgeworth. To pick me up again with his spells and potions.”

  “Yes, about that,” he said, deciding to button his collar after all. “Unfortunately, I have to go in for a few hours. To the hospital. Maybe three or four. Or five. I just received a call.”

  I sat upright again, strengthened by my disappointment. “No, Tom! You promised.”

  That explained the suit. I thought he was just in the mood for overdressing. Tom’s upbringing had been so formal I wouldn’t have batted an eye if he said he was going to throw on a smoking jacket to take out the garbage, not that he ever took out the garbage.

  “I know. I feel terrible about it,” he said, reaching for his watch on the dresser. “I really do. I know how much the boys were looking forward to our family outing. But Mark Epstein is out with the flu and—”

  “Who gets the flu in April?” I asked, utterly irked.

  “People who spend their day with extremely sick children. They get the flu.”

  “Yes,” I mumbled. “I suppose.” Nothing makes a person feel worse about their own petty problems than someone bringing up “the extremely sick children.”

  I finished watching Tom dress and didn’t say a thing when he kissed my head and walked out of the bedroom. My eyes were still fixed to the top of his dresser, a sleek thing carved in Denmark. There was a silver-framed picture of me in my wedding dress, a picture of the boys from when Peter was a newborn, Gerrit holding him on his lap, and a clock that was once on a ship that sailed the Pacific captained by a distant Edgeworth relative. The old timepiece informed me it had just gone seven. I lay back down, desperate to settle my stomach before the boys woke, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, Peter started wailing.

  I hurried down the hall, kissed his fat cheeks, pulled him out of his crib, and slipped off my nightgown to breastfeed. When I’d first started nursing, Tom had tried to limit me to one glass of wine, “for Gerrit’s health,” but when I threatened to stop, he’d changed it to “whatever gets you through.” I finished feeding the baby, then comforted Gerrit when he woke up screaming. I made breakfast. Gerrit put a bowl of eggs on his head. The bowl broke. The baby took off his diaper and peed on my foot. I cleaned it. I cleaned Gerrit. I cleaned myself. I tried not to vomit in the shower. Peter swallowed soap. I breastfed him again to calm him down. I vomited in the sink instead. Three hours later, I had us all in Central Park. Outside, April suddenly felt like June.

  “Bird,” Gerrit said, pointing as we walked, the boys’ coats shoved into the bottom of the stroller. “Signor Montazelli.” “Small dog.” His words were starting to come fast, and it always fascinated me to see which ones lodged in his mind the quickest. Signor Montazelli was the New York Symphony conductor who lived on the first floor of our building. I looked down at Gerrit’s “bird,” a city pigeon that had found a discarded hot dog bun. I let him inspect the scene and pushed the stroller past it. When I looked up again, Gerrit had taken off.

  “No, Gerrit!” I shouted, sprinting after him, stroller and all. I managed to grab him before he was run over by a bicyclist, but not before he fell into a large gray puddle.

  I whisked him to a bench and pinned him to it as he flailed. I reached into my bag and took out dry shoes and clothes for him. I had taken to practically carrying a suitcase when I was out with the boys, an act I had regretted the day of the hail. At least this time, I had the stroller.

  “Clean baby Gerrit,” he cooed when I’d changed him.

  “That’s right, darling,” I said as he sat on my lap. I kissed his mass of dark hair and plopped him next to me as Peter started to fuss in his stroller. I pulled him out. It seemed he wasn’t fussing because he wanted to move; he was fussing because he was covered in white, thick vomit. I put Gerrit in the stroller, strapping him down as he protested, and began changing Peter into his spare outfit.

  “Too much milk,” I said to him sweetly as I stripped him, keenly aware of the glances from passersby. One child kicking the stroller and crying, the other naked.

  Doing my best to ignore the looks, I managed to get both boys clean and started walking them toward Central Park West, automatically heading toward Tavern on the Green. Before I’d had children, when Tom and I were in our “trying years,” a double entendre he adored, we would eat at Tavern on the Green most weekends, often meeting his parents there. I of course preferred when it was just the two of us, or even just me alone, The New York Times keeping me company, or some women’s magazine that I pawed through to disguise that I was really watching the diners around me. My favorite was an older woman, a regular with faded s
trawberry blonde hair, who had spent years passing off her pet rabbit as a cat.

  “Just pretend it wandered out of the kitchen and found its way onto my lap,” she’d suggested on the day she was finally caught. “You do have rabbit on the menu, after all.”

  “We don’t usually pluck them live from a briar patch, madam. They come to us already prepared. As in deceased,” the manager had countered.

  “Don’t listen, Pickles,” she’d protested, then gave the maître d’ what appeared to be hundreds of dollars, sat down at the best table, and ordered the quail.

  As we neared the restaurant, I paused the stroller and grabbed Gerrit’s hand, looking at the polished women having breakfast, the men in their weekend trousers and sport coats, the young couples in hopeful spring colors under the red and green umbrellas on the terrace.

  Pickles and his keeper did not appear to be present, but there was one pretty woman sitting alone, her dark hair freshly curled, the newspaper folded in front of her, a glass of wine on her table, though it wasn’t quite ten. She moved languidly. I took a deep breath, wondering if I’d looked like that before I’d gotten married, before I became a mother. Unworried, unhurried. But this woman, in a dress the color of cherry blossoms, looked more than that. She looked shiny. Full of vitality, fully alive.

  Gerrit pulled on my arm, reminding me that my past was very much past.

  “Dinosaur!” he demanded, his insistent tone turning my stomach again. The fresh air was helping my hangover, but dealing with a fractious toddler certainly was not.

  “It was you who chose this,” my Swiss mother told me the first time she saw me hungover, my junior year in high school. We’d moved to Tudor City by then, on the far east side of Manhattan, and I had accidentally walked into Haddon Hall instead of Hardwicke Hall, where I lived, and had made myself comfortable on a stranger’s couch. The next day, I remembered nothing, but my dehydrated body served as reminder enough. That, along with my mother’s anger. Parental disappointment really does hit harder when voiced in German.