Cut and Run

Twenty-Six

A lice Feldon was standing at her desk Monday morning when Matthew Stark strolled in with a cup of coffee in one hand and the Post under his arm. She slammed down her phone and stalked over to him. “I’ll warn you right now, Stark, I am one furious editor. I’ve got the big guns all over me because they okayed trips to New York and Antwerp, hotel fees, a concert ticket-all because I promised them a page-one story. And what happens? I read the whole goddamn thing on the fucking wires! Senator’s fishing camp used to stockpile weapons, two men dead, retired army sergeant arrested, senator denying he knew anything about what was going on, world-famous piano player hugging her mother knee-deep in some godforsaken place called the Dead Lakes-Jesus Christ! There’s even a photo of you, you sonofabitch, punching out Sam Ryder.”

Matthew drank some of his coffee. “Yeah. Felt good, too. Should have done it years ago.” He grinned. “Relax, Feldie.”

“Relax!” She was indignant. “I’ll relax, you lazy shit, when your butt’s out of here!”

“Get yourself a cup of coffee, a pencil, and a pad of paper and pull up a chair.”

She dropped her glasses on the end of her nose and narrowed her eyes at him. “You’ve got something.”

He laughed. “Facts, Feldie, just facts.” He yelled across the newsroom. “Ziegler-get your butt over here!” He looked back to Feldie and grinned. “I think it’s time he made some points around here. He can help you write the story.”

“Help me?”

“Yeah. You remember how, don’t you?”

“Stark-”

“Quit dawdling, Feldie.”

“Damn you, I’m your editor-”

“Fact one,” he said, starting across the newsroom to his desk, “Senator Samuel Ryder, Jr., not only knew about Sergeant Phillip Bloch’s activities but approved them and helped him buy some of the arms and set up his new base in the Caribbean. Fact two: he did so because Bloch was blackmailing him because he knew Ryder had directed the helicopter carrying U.S. Senator Samuel Ryder, Sr.-his own father-into an area he knew still to be hot. The chopper was shot down, and three people, including his father, died. How much Sam, Jr., was actually responsible for may be debatable, but Bloch exploited Ryder’s unadmitted guilt over the incident. Fact three: Otis Raymond was the door gunner in the helicopter in which Ryder, Sr., was killed, and he saved Ryder, Jr.’s life. Bloch found out Otis was snitching to me in order to get Ryder’s butt out of trouble one more time. Bloch will be indicted for his murder.”

“Jesus Christ, Stark, I get the picture.”

Matthew grinned. “And I haven’t even gotten to the part about the world’s largest uncut diamond.”

“Let me get coffee. Why don’t you just start writing?”

“I can’t, Feldie. I’m part of the story.”

She looked at him. “Okay. Give me a minute.”

She and Aaron Ziegler pulled up chairs and took notes as Matthew gave them everything he had-except one tiny fact.

“You never saw this diamond?” Feldie asked.

A paperweight for jam recipes; only Juliana. “No.”

“Then there’s still no proof it exists?”

“That’s right.”

“What about the Peperkamps?”

“Call them. They’ll tell you what they told me: it’s a myth.”

“So Ryder was wrong?” Alice shook her head. “So all that scrambling for nothing.”

“For a chance, Feldie. For a chance.”

“I guess. Ziegler, get going and type up these notes.”

Aaron looked at Matthew. “Are you sure you want it this way?”

“I’m sure,” Matthew said. Zeigler nodded and headed for his desk, moving fast; he knew what he had. Matthew handed his editor a neatly typed sheet of paper.

“What’s this?”

“My resignation.”

“Matthew, don’t be a jerk. You know I was-”

He held up a hand, stopping her. “I know you were.”

She sighed. “What are you going to do?”

Rising, he put on his leather jacket. “Become a music critic.”

“That’s not funny. Stark, stay,” she added. “Do this story.”

“Thanks for arguing, Feldie, I was hoping you wouldn’t let me go without a little bit of a fight. But it’s okay. Time to move on. Hell, I’ve even got a glimmer of an idea for a book.”

“About Vietnam?”

He grinned. “No.”

“We won’t run the story,” she said suddenly, “not as you gave it to us. We’ll just present the facts. You do up the rest for some big fancy magazine. It doesn’t belong in the Gazette.” She gave him a devilish smile. “Too goddamn long.”

“The boys upstairs’ll throw you out.”

“The hell with them. They fire me, I’ll swallow my pride and move over to the Post.”

“Alice-”

“Get out of here. You heading to New York?”

He looked at her, surprised. “How did you know?”

“A woman who’ll paint her nails African Violet has an instinct for these things. Just invite me to the wedding, okay? Every now and then I like to have an excuse to wear high heels.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your piano player. Marry her, for God’s sake.”

“Feldie, I’ve known the woman for two weeks.”

“Yeah,” Alice Feldon said, “but the way I see it, you’ve been waiting for her for thirty-nine years.”

Catharina smiled at her daughter, sitting on the edge of her mother’s bed in the huge, elegant master suite of her Park Avenue apartment where her doctor had insisted she remain for a couple of days. An infection had started in her arm, but they’d given her antibiotics and put on a cast and everything would be fine soon. She only regretted not being able to roll out her speculaas for the holidays.

“Hendrik de Geer was a friend of ours-Johannes, Wilhelmina, myself-for many years, since he was a boy,” she said, speaking quietly. “During the war, he became an informant for the Underground Resistance, sharing information he’d learned from his contacts with the NSB, the police of the Dutch Nazi party. We despised them even more, I think, than the Germans, because they were Dutch, our countrymen. Hendrik played a very dangerous game, but no one made him. It was his choice. He knew the risks.”

“Was he actually on the Nazis’ side?”

Catharina shook her head sadly. “He was on no one’s side but his own, Juliana. During that last, terrible winter, we were all suffering terribly, none more than the onderduikers, and our resources were stretched to the limit. Hendrik came to us and said he believed the Nazis were suspicious of us, but that he could keep them away and get us food and some coal if only he had something to bargain with. Father and Johannes decided to tell him about the Minstrel; Wilhelmina was against it, of course, but they were desperate to help those in hiding. We were all starving-and so cold! We were desperate, and we trusted him.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Juliana said.

“Perhaps. What Hendrik didn’t tell us was that the Nazis suspected him and he was going to use the Minstrel to save himself. Well,” she said, “it didn’t work. Johannes and my father gave me the stone to bring to him, knowing, I think, that he’d never harm me, but it was too late. The officer who’d suspected Hendrik of playing both sides against the middle had pressured him, and to save himself he told them everything-about Mother and Father’s work with the Resistance, Willie’s, where Johannes was hiding, Ann, the Steins. His plan was to get back to them before the Nazis could and warn them, but he couldn’t. They were all arrested, and here we were, Hendrik and myself, ‘free.’ He could have taken the Minstrel and left me, too, to the Nazis, but he chose instead to get me safely into hiding and disappear, without the Minstrel.”

Catharina stopped, unable to go on. Juliana touched her mother’s hand. “Was anyone killed?”

Her mother nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Nine members of the Stein family were murdered in the concentration camps. Rachel and Abraham were the only survivors. Willie was imprisoned until the end of the war. Johannes was sent to a labor camp.”

“His wife?”

“She was deported to Auschwitz, but she came back. However-” Catharina held back, unable to go on. How could she tell her daughter? How? “However, her son was sent with her, and he was gassed. It’s something I’ve never been able to bring myself to talk about. I-it’s as if I’ve blotted him from my memory, but, of course, I haven’t. He was your only cousin on my side of the family. His name…his name was David. He was six years old.”

“Dear God,” Juliana whispered, “I had no idea-”

“I should have told you, I know.”

“No, Mother. A month ago, I might have said yes and been furious, but not now. You weren’t ready to talk. I understand. What about your parents? What happened to them?”

“They were executed,” she said. “Shot by the Gestapo after being tortured for information. They never broke. I’ve always thought they should have gone to Hendrik with the Minstrel, and if they had-but they guessed what he might do, you see, and they wanted to protect me.”

Juliana smiled through her tears. “But now you understand, don’t you, about protective parents?”

“Yes,” she said, grasping her daughter’s hand with her thick, strong fingers. “They did what I would have done.”

“What about the Minstrel?”

“I returned it to Johannes after the war, when he was released. He was the rightful caretaker; the stone was his to do with as he felt necessary. I begged him to throw it into the sea, but obviously he didn’t listen. In all these years, I never thought you would have anything, ever, to do with the Minstrel’s Rough. I expected the tradition to die with him. But we’re a family of tradition, aren’t we? You were the last Peperkamp, and Johannes felt it his duty to pass the stone to you, no doubt. He did it in Delftshaven, at the concert?”

Juliana nodded. “He told me not to mention it to you.”

Catharina smiled, still crying. “Yes, I can see why. But it was his right-I don’t question that-and he must have thought Hendrik was dead since he hadn’t come for the Minstrel in all that time. And who else knew about it? Only us. Juliana-what Hendrik told you, before he died…”

“Mother, please, you don’t have to explain. That’s none of my business. I understand that I don’t have to know everything about your life.”

“I want you to know, Juliana-he was my first love. I adored him-idolized him. He was what all men should be, and when he betrayed us…I thought I could never love again. But when your father came to Holland as a graduate student, he was so different, so good.” She lifted her shoulders, uncertain how to explain. “He taught me to laugh again.”

He came in then, Adrian Fall, tall and so enduringly patient. For two days now he’d been turning away reporters and telling Catharina and Juliana that yes, he would forgive them, but never, never again were they to put him through such horror. While they were in Florida fighting Bloch and his men, he’d been in New York screaming at the police to find his wife and daughter.

“Wilhelmina called,” he said. “She informed me she’s bringing supper.”

“What?” Catharina laughed. “She’s a terrible cook!”

Adrian looked at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled at his wife. “Better than you, I should think, in your condition. She said she’s discovered Zabar’s and was delighted to see they had smoked eel. If you both don’t mind, I think I’ll send out for a sandwich.”

Catharina assured him that Wilhelmina wouldn’t be offended, and when he left, Juliana looked at her mother. “Does he-”

“No,” Catharina said, “he doesn’t know much more than you did. Juliana, do you want to tell me about Matthew Stark?”

“Not now,” she said. Matthew…how many times had she picked up the phone to call him? How many times had she remembered how he’d lifted her up into his arms and kissed her, right before he’d turned around and landed his fist squarely on Sam Ryder’s jaw, just as the FBI and God knew who else had arrived? They’d practically ended up arresting him! He was in Washington, she knew. She smiled at her mother. “But would you like to hear about J.J. Pepper?”

Wilhelmina had transplanted four begonias into fresh, clean pots and put them in the windowsill in her living room. The sun was shining. It was a fine day in Delftshaven, and she was content. She had arrived home the day before and would go to Antwerp in the morning to settle her brother’s affairs. She missed him. She had seen so little of him over the years, but she’d always known he was there in Belgium with his diamonds, with the memories of their shared past. Now he was gone.

She had spent her last night in New York with Juliana, and they’d had dinner with Catharina and Adrian and learned more about J.J. Pepper, whom Wilhelmina found quite reassuring. A needed presence in her niece’s life, to be sure. At least this J.J. explained all the old clothes.

Juliana had come to her before dawn and awakened her, sitting on the edge of her bed. “Were you and Hendrik de Geer lovers?” she asked directly.

“You’re impertinent,” Wilhelmina told her.

“He loved you first, and then my mother started to mature, and he fell in love with her, too. That’s what he meant, isn’t it?”

“Go back to bed.”

“I can’t sleep.” She sighed, her eyes shining even in the dark. “I feel like playing the piano.”

“At three o’clock in the morning?”

She nodded.

“Well, then, let me get my robe. We’ll play a duet.”

“You play piano?”

“I used to. Lately it keeps coming back. I don’t know why; I sometimes play at the church. During the occupation, when times were particularly difficult or frightening, I would sing sonatas to myself, to occupy my mind so I wouldn’t worry so much about what would happen to us all, about failing my responsibilities. Rachel and I would sing all the time. She had such a wonderful, clear voice, Rachel did. We didn’t have a piano. I’d pretend to play on the table, and Rachel would pretend to catch my missed notes. Your mother thought we were so crazy! She was always cooking. She could lose herself in her cooking at any time. She never complained about hunger of anything else as long as she had something to cook, if only potatoes and seeds and beets.”

They’d played for hours, and Wilhelmina made no apologies for her missed notes, her awkwardness. Juliana was delighted. “You should get a piano!”

“Bah. The neighbors would complain.”

But now she almost wished she did have a piano. She never fell asleep when she was the one doing the playing!

At the airport in the morning, Wilhelmina had kissed Juliana goodbye and told her, “Yes, Hendrik and I were lovers, but only for a little while. I always suspected what kind of man he was-I just didn’t think he could ever hurt us. If I could have seen what he’d do, I’d have slit his throat in the night. After what happened, I tried to find him and kill him, but now…I think he suffered more by living.”

“And you, Aunt Willie? Are you lonely?”

“I’ve had a good life, Juliana. No, I’m not lonely. But you must come visit me.” She smiled. “Bring your mother.”

“Oh-I almost forgot. Mother sent these.”

It was a box of butter cookies. Inside was a note. “Willie, Adrian and I talked last night. I told him everything. It felt so right! I’ve been crying ever since, for his goodness, for Mother and Father, and little David, and Mr. and Mrs. Stein, the children, even for Hendrik, for everything…at last. The burden of guilt isn’t gone, but it’s lessened. I know Mother and Father wanted me to live, as I would do anything-too much?-to protect Juliana. Dear sister, forgive me. You never drove me away. I left because I couldn’t stay; that’s all. And because of Adrian. He’s made me so happy. Enjoy the cookies. C.”

Wilhelmina had enjoyed the cookies tremendously. She’d eaten most of them on the plane; there was only one left.

She went to the wooden box she kept on the hearth and dug out an old black and white photograph. The edges were crinkled and yellowed, the quality of the photograph not terribly good, but she didn’t care. She balanced it against a lamp and looked at it a long while.

It was of Rachel and Abraham, Johannes and Ann, Hendrik and herself, and Catharina, a mere child, at a skating party before the war. She’d once considered cutting Hendrik out of the picture, but in so doing she would have cut out a part of herself.

She went into the kitchen and made herself a cheese sandwich and a pot of tea and ate the last butter cookie.