It Might Have Been What He Said Page 3

  It was one more irony in Isabel's childhood that when her mother was institutionalized, in a manner of speaking, so too was Isabel. With his wife in a mental hospital in Chicago and an increasing amount of his business in Europe, Mr. Simpson established another base in London. Isabel was sent to a Catholic boarding school in Switzerland run by a very strict order of French nuns. During the years she attended, Isabel endured every conceivable version of being forced to color inside the shapes. At fifteen, she returned to America to enter Miss Porter's School for Girls. The imprimatur of a prestigious university for both children was the final benchmark established by their father.

  Affected by anything and everything, Ian didn't adjust to life as well as his sister. For the better part of his childhood, he stood on constant guard, nervously waiting for the other metaphoric shoe to drop. At the same time Isabel was sent to the French nuns, Ian had been shipped off to the Dragon School, which was a “feeder” to Marlborough School. Both were unforgiving examples of the British public school tradition.

  Rufus Simpson, that man of great wealth independently acquired, believed an individual shouldn't be dependent on advantages provided by birth. Isabel and Ian were told by their father that their college tuition marked his last parental obligation. Upon their graduation, the bank vault closed. Given the family resources, Isabel considered her father's dictum paradoxical. She assumed, as a daughter, she'd be allowed more leeway. No such sentimental dispensation was made. It was Mr. Simpson's belief that only economic self-sufficiency released women from subordination.

  Ian moved to the most remote area of South America and became a cowboy. Mr. Simpson was appalled at what he considered the waste of a splendid — and expensive — education; but there was nothing to be done. Ian had chosen another direction, and it was far off the beaten path. He lived thousands of miles from his father's judgment, but the peace of mind denied in childhood continued to elude him as an adult. There was, however, something to be said about Ian's retreat to the middle of nowhere: he was finally able to offer his left hand its natural place at the table.

  Words had saved Isabel's childhood from total unhappiness. Reading offered the fellowship lacking in her remote family. It was no surprise that words were the currency in which Isabel traded as an adult. She began her career as a receptionist in a book publishing company. Each night, after everyone else left the office, Isabel stayed to read the files.

  8

  Monina Immordino was a literary agent. She discovered young writers in the 1950s and ’60s who, by the ’90s, had become standard-bearers.

  Monina made an indelible mark on the cultural landscape, but she never allowed herself to be influenced by money or fame; nor was she ever pulled off course by the power of her position. The fact that she was a recluse added to her legend.

  Their introduction occurred after business hours. Isabel was in the office reading files when the telephone rang.

  “Hello, this is Monina Immordino,” she announced in such a deep voice Isabel thought the caller to be a man.

  “How do you do, this is Isabel Simpson. I'm afraid every-one's left.”

  “Who are you again?”

  “The receptionist.”

  “I didn't mean a title, I meant a name. Say your name again.”

  “Isabel Simpson.”

  “Can you find your way to the contract files, Isabel Simpson?”

  “Yes, I know where to find the contract files.”

  “I'm phoning from the country, and my staff has left for the day. I want you to pull the most recent Gaddis contract and read me what's called an option clause. It should be the second to the last page. I'll wait.”

  As it happened, Isabel had recently read the “G” files.

  “His contract dated June of 1974 grants the right of first refusal based on a twenty-page outline,” Isabel said.

  “It also grants a ten percent topping privilege if we're unable to come to terms and you submit elsewhere.”

  Monina gave life to a dead silence.

  “Which is it… an exceptional memory or a delusional personality?”

  “Given my gene pool —” Isabel stopped herself in mid-sentence.“Might I ask why you're calling for this information after business hours?”

  Monina realized Isabel was on to her.

  “That sounds like a rhetorical question,” she said.

  “Well, yes, I suppose it is. Is Mr. Gaddis dissatisfied?”

  “Why ask that?”

  “Because contracts only come into play when there's an unhappy party. You wouldn't be inquiring about his legal obligations if he intended to stay.”

  “You're right on both counts,” said Monina.

  “I guess your next question is if there's an arbitration clause,” said Isabel.

  The long pause that followed suggested to Isabel that she might have overstepped herself.

  Finally Monina spoke.

  “Is there?” she asked.

  “None, as I recall,” said Isabel. “Would you like me to double-check?”

  “I doubt that's necessary. But tell me, why does a receptionist care whether Bill Gaddis comes or goes?”

  “Because he's a brilliant writer, and this receptionist will not stay a receptionist,” was Isabel's response.

  “Well, then, we had better get to know each other. Come to my apartment next Wednesday at seven thirty. One-twenty East Seventeenth Street,” instructed Monina.

  Because none of her clients answered questions about her, and no one in the business would betray her privacy, there was never any press on Monina. She communicated with publishers only when absolutely necessary. Monina saw her writers, the small staff in New York, and a few locals in the Connecticut hamlet where she secluded herself most of the week. No one had been inside her apartment or house. Isabel's invitation to meet Monina was unusual. That it was taking place at Monina's apartment qualified as unprecedented.

  The address turned out to be a brownstone. Isabel climbed the stairs and inspected names on its intercom. None were for Monina. Isabel walked back down the steps and opened the iron gate leading from the sidewalk to the ground-floor apartment. There was no buzzer to the door. She knocked… and waited for the great adventure that would answer.

  Isabel had no idea what Monina looked like. Very few people did. But she certainly didn't expect the visual non sequitur that opened the door. The physical reality of Monina joyfully mocked any mental image one might have had of her. Standing in the doorway was a short, round woman in a gray, shapeless dress. Her hair was pulled back into a neat bun. She wore no makeup, and her only jewelry was a small gold cross around her neck. The ground-floor apartment suggested Monina to be more the Sicilian concierge than a renowned literary agent.

  “You don't feed yourself enough,” Monina said as they greeted each other.

  Isabel walked into the apartment and onto floors completely covered by needlepoint rugs. There were countless rugs piled one on top of another. Not only were the rugs Monina's handiwork, so too were the pillows propped, like stacked tombstones, in every conceivable area where she would be likely to sit. Realizing Monina had cocooned her entire apartment in needlepoint, Isabel thought, Nowhere could possibly be stranger than where I am right now.

  “Please sit. Would you like something to drink?” asked Monina politely.

  “Just water, thank you.”

  Isabel sat down and pulled one of several pillows from behind her so she wasn't forced to balance on the edge of the couch. “My mother did the most remarkably intricate work in crewel,” she said, looking at the pillow appreciatively.

  “Your mother was European,” Monina said while pouring herself a Canadian Club.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Unless you're misusing the word, crewel is a more refined stitch that is taught in Europe.”

  “She's still alive,” volunteered Isabel.

  Monina settled in a chair opposite Isabel. “And still insane?” she asked.

  Monina had managed to get it right with nothing more than intuition. The word insane was harsh; but after guarding the secret for so many years, Isabel was relieved to have finally heard it spoken out loud. Then and there, she decided to trust Monina in a way she trusted no one else.

  “They'd always take away her scissors.” The sealed silence of the room, whose nearly floor-to-ceiling textiles buffered any outside noise, allowed Isabel's attention to drift. She smiled wistfully.

  “You've remembered something,” said Monina.

  Isabel looked over at Monina, who had put down her drink.

  “They took away…,” Isabel began to repeat. “No crewel in the hospitals. But they permitted large, clunky knitting needles,” she continued. “When I was in boarding school, my mother mailed me a sweater knitted together in these gargantuan rows. She somehow doubled over the wool in order to accommodate her huge needles. The result was this unrecognizable garment that looked as if it had been on a regime of steroids. I was absolutely sure it was alive and growing during its trip by mail, because it was three times the size of the box it came in… and I swear it was undulating when I was finally able to pull it out. Mother didn't include a note. Or maybe she did, and the sweater ate it.”

  Monina's chuckling was infectious, and by the end of the story, Isabel was also laughing to the point of needing the bathroom.

  “It's to the right, and the light is on the outside,” said Monina. Isabel stepped into the small bathroom. The shower curtain had been shredded into narrow strips. She decided it would be impolite to ask for an explanation. Unless Monina didn't bathe on a regular basis — highly improbable, given her appearance — Isabel concluded that whatever had happened was recent and had been done by someone else.

  “You've seen what he left behi
nd in the bathroom?” asked Monina, pouring herself another whisky before explaining. It seemed the only person to whom Monina had ever offered the apartment was one of her writers. His single oeuvre — a coming-of-age novel written in his early twenties — became prerequisite reading for American college students. What followed was an extended case of writer's block. He became furtively misanthropic and kept no home address. Every six months his royalty checks — totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars — were sent to a P. O. box in Nova Scotia.

  “I know he's going through a bad spell — well, it's been thirty years, so I suppose it's no longer a spell and now qualifies as his life — but if you take shears to someone else's shower curtain, decency dictates that you buy another,” reasoned Monina as she prepared dinner: pasta with olive oil and pecorino cheese for Isabel; another whisky — this time mixed with milk — for herself. They spoke of many things; none had anything to do with book publishing. After Isabel cleaned her plate in the kitchen sink, she told Monina, “I should get home.”

  “I don't know what I'll do with Gaddis's next book,” said Monina. “But I do know that someday you'll have a son, thin girl, and I'll love you both as my own.”

  Book publishing is a staid profession not given to meteoric ascents. Isabel was an exception. Her advancements — one after another — were due to a combination of attributes. Isabel possessed an ability to discover gifted writers, a genuine respect for their work, and a talent for editing what they wrote. Her determination demanded that all of these capabilities work together on behalf of unrelenting ambition. But it was pure luck that awarded Isabel her golden prize.

  A stroke felled the company's president in the lobby of the University Club, and his head split open when it hit the marble floor. Isabel happened to be in the right place at the right time. At twenty-eight, she was given a chance to run the business. Lack of doubt provided a competitive advantage. Boundless energy fed her unapologetic drive. And a combination residing only in the young — ignorance and arrogance — eliminated any distraction along the way.

  Isabel was prepossessing. That is certainly true. But no one who knew her thought Isabel to be self-satisfied, and so what came before her fall was more subtle than pride. Regardless of her early achievements, Isabel's life had taken place in the sanctuary of privilege, insulated by boarding schools and private country clubs. No amount of intelligence and intellectual self-reliance could make up for her lack of worldliness. That dangerous fact hid in the tall grass… and when it was eventually flushed out, Isabel didn't have the first idea of how to protect herself against its painful consequences.

  9

  Isabel's publishing company, Priam Books, was small but extremely profitable.

  One of its best-selling mystery writers was the daughter of a past U.S. president. During an icy cold winter, Isabel arranged to join her in Chicago for a day of book promotion. They'd be staying overnight and within walking distance of Michael Reese Psychiatric Hospital, where Isabel's mother had been a patient for the last ten years.

  It was comically disorienting each time Isabel tried phoning her mother in the hospital. With the kind of determination one couldn't help but admire, a patient had managed to hang himself with a phone cord. As a precaution, the hospital installed the only available phone in plain sight; and in the institution's misguided attempt to normalize the appearance of its obviously abnormal boarding community, patients were encouraged to answer any incoming call. Each time Isabel tried phoning her mother, another disenfranchised voice interceded. It would either rush her through a paranoid monologue or, in slurred and overmedicated droning, lull her into a soporific trance. Every patient answering Isabel's calls took the opportunity to tell his or her own story.

  Had she not traveled to Chicago while her father was out of town; had the publicist not booked her into the author's favorite Chicago hotel; had that hotel not been within walking distance to the hospital, Isabel never would have heard her mother's story. It all fit together as if preordained. There was only one remaining piece of information required for the jigsaw puzzle to take shape.

  Miss Drake maintained a consistently formal relationship with Mr. Simpson during her thirty loyal years as his secretary. Among her many duties was to draft checks for his personal bills, including those made out to his wife's psychiatrist. After keeping Mrs. Simpson's condition a secret for her entire career, Miss Drake responded to Isabel's inquiry with the relief of someone who had waited a very long time before finally allowing herself to be un-burdened of the information.

  “Yes, I can provide the name of your mother's doctor,” said Miss Drake.

  Her cooperation was so unexpected, Isabel stood motionless: one hand holding the receiver, the other unprepared to react even though it was holding a pen. By the time Isabel understood she'd been offered the doctor's phone number, she wasn't entirely sure she had transcribed it accurately. She dared not ask Miss Drake to repeat it. Looking down at the seven numbers scrawled quickly on the hotel's phone pad, Isabel realized she had grouped the numbers together like the combination to a locked safe.

  With the doctor's name, but without any knowledge of the person to whom it belonged, Isabel placed her call.

  “Dr. Stutz, this is Tisza Simpson's daughter. I'm in from New York, and was hoping you might be willing to see me.”

  “I won't compromise my doctor-patient relationship,” was the doctor's rote reply.

  “I understand,” said Isabel, sounding disappointed.

  “I can give you basic information about her illness,” the doctor volunteered.

  “Fine,” Isabel agreed.

  “Come by my office after rounds tonight, say, about ten o'clock.”

  Isabel found Dr. Stutz's office by walking toward the one light in an otherwise deserted hospital hall. The doctor, engrossed in paperwork, left the door ajar in anticipation of her visit. Shaking his hand as he half rose to greet her, Isabel's first impression was that everything about him looked tired.

  “Please, take a seat.” He motioned as he sat back down.

  Now it begins, thought Isabel. His first words will speak for whatever follows.

  “Nothing can be done about your mother's mental illness. Not now. Not ever,” was the doctor's preamble. “I understand you found her the day she tried to kill herself,” he said.

  Isabel didn't answer.

  Dr. Stutz explained aloofly that her mother's “case” had been reviewed by countless doctors and ultimately reduced to the chemical craft of balancing medications so that Mrs. Simpson might have what he referred to as “acceptable days.” Isabel wondered how he defined an acceptable day, but decided not to ask.

  Isabel also wondered whether the doctor possessed any more detail of her mother's murky past than she'd managed to find out on her own. The only concrete information Isabel was ever able to ascertain was that, like her father, her mother had no living relatives. I don't even know where she came from, Isabel thought while listening to Dr. Stutz's prognosis. She looked for signs he might be holding on to more information than he was volunteering. He didn't seem to be.

  10

  Mrs. Simpson spoke a number of languages: German to Vera; French to her dressmaker; and Italian to the butcher.

  “How did you come to America?” Isabel asked her mother, but not until she was an adult herself.

  “I came from Vienna to pursue my music,” her mother responded obliquely, with a reference to motive but none to logistics.

  “Where? And how old were you?” Isabel asked.

  “Juilliard. In New York. Which is where I met your father. I played the piano.” The concise response answered three separate questions and at the same time raised another — completely unexpected — one.

  “But we never had a piano in the house.”

  “Deliberately.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “How it was meant to be played… how it should have sounded.”