Part 6 (2/2)

”You mean in relief work? Enoch is not in relief work. Unless you count burial as relief. I suppose it is, for the dead.”

”No, I was thinking of my own position,” said the Dutchwoman, looking first at me and then again at the pocketbook.

”My husband regards his corpses as displaced persons. He's very sympathetic toward them. His aim, you know, is to have the murderer lie down with the murdered. It's a kind of prophetic view. But in almost every case it can't be done. All the murderers are still alive, it seems.”

”Mr. Vand is full of sayings,” the Dutchwoman said slyly.

”He's a clever man,” my mother agreed. ”I just wish he'd exert himself a little with the child. I brought her out here expressly for that, but he won't take the trouble.”

”Perhaps he is too busy,” said the Dutchwoman accommodatingly.

”He holds a very high post,” my mother persisted. ”He is devoted to his work.”

”Yes,” the Dutchwoman affirmed in a very soft voice, smiling fixedly, ”grave-digging nowadays leaves time for nothing else.”

”That doesn't sit right with me, Anneke, you are too arrogant,” my mother warned.

”But it is all meant in good faith, madam. The Americans have bureaucratized even grave-digging. It will be done much faster by the Americans. Your husband will see to it.”

”My husband has great administrative capacity,” my mother petulantly defended herself. ”He has a kind of political genius. In fact,” she concluded proudly, ”he's often mistaken for a European on that account.”

”What a shame,” observed the Dutchwoman, slyer now than before, ”that his present job is not political.”

”There is no job today that is not political,” my mother said. ”It's only the dead who can afford to have no politics.”

”That is another of Mr. Vand's sayings, isn't it? He is so clever it is a shame really,” my governess repeated, ”that he has no political influence. Perhaps that is why he is thought to be a European.”

My mother blazed. ”He has influence enough.”

”He would do nothing for my brother. My brother was deported for underground activities. He has three children and speaks seven languages. Now he is an orderly in a hospital in Amsterdam. Mr. Vand would do nothing for him.”

”There are already too many interpreters.”

”Last month there was a position open. I heard Mr. Vand speak of it to you. But it came to nothing.”

”Perhaps your brother did not qualify.”

”No,” said the Dutchwoman, ”he did not qualify. They would take only an American. So many of the refugees are Polish, and the American did not know Polish. In spite of it they chose him.”

”You don't understand, Anneke,” my mother protested. ”My husband's organization is merely an arm of the Government. It isn't in his hands to make policy.”

”Of course,” the Dutchwoman concurred, still steadily smiling. ”That is precisely what I said. He has no political importance whatever.”

”You cannot belittle Enoch Vand,” my mother retorted. ”Perhaps you should measure his importance by the number of people he has it in his power to dismiss. I have some importance myself in that respect. Be careful, Anneke, or I'll decide to show my importance in a way you would not like.”

I looked up from my sh.e.l.ls in alarm, but my mother's speech did not appear to have frightened my governess. ”Certainly,” she resumed amicably, ”nowadays you Americans decide everything. But the child would not like you to send me away. It would not be good for the child.”

”Nevertheless,” said my mother, but there was no real menace in her voice any more. She opened her pocketbook and took out a wallet. ”Do you want your wages now or when I come back?”

”Now,” said Anneke without hesitation.

”You had better get rid of those sh.e.l.ls.”

”Yes, madam.”

”See that you obey your governess,” my mother admonished me.-Outdoors the chauffeur's horn called.-”Good-bye.”

I did not answer. ”Goodbye,” said the Dutchwoman generously, pus.h.i.+ng me forward to be kissed.

My mother bent to me quickly; I saw her tense stretched nostrils. She steamed with toilet-water. ”My husband will be Amba.s.sador some day,” she stated, and went out without rancor to her car.

The Dutchwoman was counting bills and folding them one by one into a little purse. ”That will be a great jump from the burial committee. Here,” she said, and threw me a five-franc piece.

”Anneke, I want to keep my sh.e.l.ls.”

She was at once serious. ”I'll show you where to find more,” she offered promptly, ”if you promise to stay in the room by yourself tonight.”

”You know I'm not supposed to be left alone,” I reminded her.

”If I swear not to tell Mrs. Vand?”

She gave me another coin, light and smooth as a wafer, and we shook hands on the bargain.

In the evening she went away wearing a blue dress and a yellow band in her hair, and did not come back until morning.

”Were you afraid?”

”No,” I said bravely, ”but there were noises.”

”When you sleep there are no noises. Tonight you must be sure to sleep.”

”Are you going away again?”

”I have to spend the night with a friend. Come,” she urged, ”I know a new place near the sea wall where there are cartridges.”

But I had a dream, and saw a thing with ochre eyes and a bra.s.s tail which ended in a dagger; monster-like it leaped through the window and rattled its metal forelock on the metal bedpost: and I screamed in my sleep and woke the concierge's husband, although he was somewhat deaf.

All the keys trembled on his great steel ring, and his teeth were ridged with gold, and his tongue churned the spittle in the forest of his lip-hairs. But I understood nothing. And so the concierge came down the corridor in her coffee-smelling robe, rubbing her gla.s.ses with the vigor of suspicion; and very slowly and loudly, as though I were the one who was deaf, she questioned me. ”Ou'est Madame Vand?” ”Elle est partie pour le nord,” I said in the French I had learned from the children on the beach. ”Et ta soeur?” ”Je n'ai pas de soeur.” ”Ah! Une gouvernante!” ”Oui,” I replied. ”Ou est-ce qu'elle est?” ”Je ne sais pas.” ”Est-ce que ta gouvernante est sortie de la maison?” ”Oui.” At this information the concierge a.s.sessed her husband's considerable mustache with a look of disgust. ”Ah, nous y viola!” she shrieked. ”Quand estxe qu'elle va venir?” ”Je ne sais pas,” I said again; ”la nuit pa.s.see elle est venue a...a six heures du matin.” ”C'est ca!” mumbled the husband, ”pas de chance,” as though it were all up to his wife, and while the key-ring dangled and jangled from the crook of his knuckle they went on conferring sibilantly. Finally the concierge prodded my pillow with her fat squat fingers; it was the motion of a judge with his gavel. ”Qu'est-ce que ton pere fait?” she demanded with a terrifying solemnity; and because I did not know the word for stepfather, I answered as though Enoch were really what she thought him: ”Mon pere est fonctionnaire,” I said in the phrase I had often heard Anneke use on the boulevard. ”Americain,” the concierge conceded in triumph, and waggled the ta.s.sel of her belt at her husband: ”Le grand malheur! Alors, de quoi te plains-tu?” And I saw from the swagger of their departing backs that they were satisfied: Monsieur Vand was good for the rent-money; an abandoned child had not been left on their hands after all.

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