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Dear Muggs,
Just before I left for Buenos Aires in 1940, the wife of one of Dad’s law partners lowered her voice to a conspiratorial level and asked in a plumy sotto voce if I was ‘charged with a mission.’ I thought she was talking about religion. I asked Dad where she might have got the idea that I was attached to the missions. He had a good laugh (he didn’t laugh often). I wonder if my suspicions about Douglas aren’t just as ridiculous. Today, anyway, I felt like I was the spy.
I’ve mentioned the barn, haven’t I? It’s on the other side of a sort of wilderness near the pool. From the terrace by the pool, and the windows in the library - but not from anywhere else, I think - you can see the little turrets, I think they’re called ‘ventilators,’ atop the roof of the barn. There is no silo. Nor is there a path through the woods. In order to get there, you have to walk down to the fork in the drive and turn back onto the other road, or else walk way out onto the lawns and around the clump of trees. But since I have never seen anyone walk over there or walk back, I am convinced that there is an underground passage. (Douglas is always telling people about how ‘neat’ the secret passageways at the Elm Rock house were.) It’s really not all that long a distance, as the crow flies.
No one has ever told me to stay away from the barn, but I’ve assumed all the same that it was off limits. Just the way any explicit mention of just what it is that Douglas does for a living would be off limits. I am often tempted to ask, but then I imagine Mr. Marshall’s empty, steely eyes staring at me, and that stops me. After today, I think it may be more fun to try to figure it out on my own. It will give me something to do.
I didn’t mean to poke around the barn - or at any rate I didn’t mean to poke around it today - but at the end of my walk, there it was. I had been thinking about this and that and not paying any attention to where I was going, but I had been walking for a good long while and was getting tired. Coming upon the barn woke me right up.
I don’t think it’s a very old building, but it’s not new, either. What I mean is that I don’t think Douglas built it to suit whatever it is he does in there. The driveway leads right up to it. I approached the building from the rear, and then I walked all the way around it. The side that faces away from the house and toward the sunset is pretty much all windows on the upper floor. There’s a small attached shed on the opposite side, with a window and a door. The door was padlocked and the window had curtains.
So that was that, I thought, and I headed back the way I came. This time, though, I noticed a basement door down a flight of steps at the back. I expected it to be padlocked, too, but it wasn’t. I must have stood there for ten minutes trying to decide what to do next, shifting from one foot to another. Go home and forget about it, or explore? In the end it was teatime that decided me. Every afternoon around five, Mary makes herself a pot of tea and sits down for a spell before starting dinner. It’s nothing fancy, just a pot of tea at the kitchen table, but she doesn’t mind it when I join her, which is most of the time. It gives me a slightly different perspective to spend half an hour with Mary, though she’s circumspect as the grave and never says anything, really, about anything, not even the weather. I looked at my watch: it was nearly four. So there was time before tea for a little frolic, and I went down the stairs.
It suddenly hit me that Douglas is a counterfeiter - of dollars! I can just hear me asking, “You wouldn’t be a counterfeiter by any chance?” The barn’s just the right size, I should say, for a tidy little operation. You might ask what do I know, but we actually had to defend a few characters at the firm. Not the masterminds themselves, but some third party suppliers and that kind of thing. Did you know that only two manufacturers are permitted to make money paper? I could tell you who they are but it’s probably privileged.
But let’s assume it’s not counterfeit. Because if it is, then I might as well head off to Happy Acres Rest Home and Mortuary. I should be so lucky! I’d probably be a defendant myself. The government would make me pay the rent on this room - a pretty penny that would be, considering the real estate and the three meals a day. Let’s say it’s smuggling art objects in and out of the country. Well, into; I don’t suppose there’s much traffic the other way just yet. (Although I did read in the Times the other day that somebody in Paris is making a market in baseball cards.) Let’s say - why does it have to be illegal? Because if it were on the up and up Douglas would talk about it? Because there aren’t any matches lying around with the name of the business printed thereon? Or is it just my wicked mind?
If you were in any kind of shape, I could ask you over for a weekend and you could ask him. I can just hear you wheedling it all out of him, smooth as silk. Oh, Muggsy, the way you ran men! You could probably even get it out of Mr. Marshall.
I peeked in the window first, as though I were just snooping innocently. Then, when I had given everyone plenty of time to catch me, I tried the door. It opened and I walked right in.
Inside, there was a little hallway, with a door to the right, a door to the left, and a flight of stairs in the middle. I took the stairs. At the top was a storeroom full of crates. I didn’t stop to investigate, because I wanted to get the lay of the land first. I went through another door and came into the garage, which was very large. There were two trucks, a big one and a little one. The big one was vaguely familiar, but all trucks look the same to me. I found another flight of stairs. The building was utterly quiet, and I was sure that I was alone, so up I went.
Upstairs was mostly a workshop, as I could tell from the tools. I couldn’t tell what it was a workshop for, though. This was the room with all the windows. Across the hall there were little rooms, and one of them was fixed up as an office. I should have gone right in and rummaged around, but I really did want to see what else there was first. I could always come back - idiotic, but typical.
Still another flight of stairs took me to an attic. There was nothing in it, just one undivided space, with a window at the far end. The window drew me like a magnet. There wasn’t much of a view, just some treetops and the driveway. I stood there as if hypnotized, and then, bam!, a van appeared at the turn in the drive, coming straight for the barn. I heard a mechanical noise that must have been the automatic door opener, because the truck swept by underneath me without stopping.
From the top of the stairs I soon heard voices - Douglas and Mr. Marshall, big surprise. They were clearly agitated, and I wondered if they’d gone looking for me in the house, and, not finding me there, inferred that I must be in the barn. I heard them climb the stairs and bundle down the hall, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I crept down to the bottom stair. I thought I heard Mr. Marshall say something about Riga, but it turned out they were really talking about Roma. Something was ‘screwed up in Rome’ - that’s how Douglas put it - and if it wasn’t cleared up soon he was going to have to go ‘over there’ and fix it. How wonderful, I was thinking - Rome! - but Douglas wasn’t; he hoped it ‘wouldn’t come to that.’ Mr. Marshall opined that a trip to Rome wouldn’t do Douglas any harm, and I heartily agreed, thinking he might be persuaded to take me if I turned on all my charms. I’d be the perfect cover, because I’m so gifted at not appearing to know what’s going on.
Douglas asked what time it was and that instant the phone rang. Just once - a fax. I heard the paper rolling out of the machine and completely shared the men’s anticipation. Then Douglas exclaimed, “Six!” Mr. Marshall mumbled something, but Douglas exploded. “That’s the goddam limit! I can’t wait to hear Amanda talk her way out of this one.”
You probably imagine that because of all her slights to me I was happy to hear that Amanda was in the doghouse, but I’m really not. I must confess that I was interested. But I realized that I wouldn’t want her to be in too much trouble - she peps things up.
The outburst was most unnerving. Douglas never loses his temper, and hearing him bang his fist on the desk was unpleasant. I wasn’t curious anymore; all I wanted to do was get away. So I hurried on down the stairs on tiptoe and went out the way I came in. When I got to the outside steps, I practically crawled up them, listening for any little sound, but as soon as I got to the top I made a run for it - well, as near a run as I’m capable of. I charged into the wilderness. It wasn’t as dense as I thought, but I managed to get enough scratches and burrs to arouse Mary’s alarm. She nursed me through teatime with mercurochrome and the dustbuster (which made us both laugh, but it worked.)
Rome! The last time I was in Rome, Paul VI was the pope, and Dad arranged for me to have an audience. Not an audience just for me, of course. I’m not that important - even Dad wasn’t that important - but more than that I can’t imagine what we’d talk about. Mother always said that the whole point of Mass is to organize one’s relationship to God and give it focus, and that the best thing the rest of the week is to try to do good without thinking about it, no matter what the priests say. I go to Mass and say my prayers, and that’s that. Thinking about God just disturbs people and ends up making them ridiculous. So unless the Pope wanted to celebrate a private Mass just for me, I’m afraid we couldn’t relate. That is, unless the Pope, in the alternative, was a gossip at heart and wanted to share the lowdown with me. You never know. I seem to bring out the gossip in people. No doubt it’s because of my circumspect air.
I didn’t get to gossip with the Pope. His Holiness was on holiday or somesuch, so the audience was scheduled for Castel Gandalfo, the Popes’ summer house. When I was a girl I was shocked to hear that the Pope had a summer house - with a swimming pool, no less! - but then it wasn’t until Wellesley that I learned just how worldly the Popes used to be. Anyway, you board the bus in St. Peter’s Square and drive up. It’s not a bad bus, and the ride isn’t too long. I sat with another lawyer, a matrimonial specialist from Denver. She was apparently a very high-powered attorney since she mentioned a retainer of $5000, less than of it refundable. This in the 70s! I made a crack about what the Pope would say about divorcing people as a career and that was the end of the conversation - so I knew right away that she was Catholic. I had the window seat, fortunately, so I just took in the view for the rest of the ride. I don’t remember a thing about it except that it was interesting.
At the Castel, they ushered us into a salon off at one end. It was a round room, with doors open onto a garden. Very Italian and overdecorated. Why is Catholic art so second rate? I suppose it’s because there’s so much of it. Dad could never bear the Italian parish up on Route 22, where the painting was on a par with Castel Gandalfo. He was much more comfortable at St. Joseph’s, which had been designed by an architect who had only done Episcopal churches before. No paintings at all, just stone. Very boring Sunday after Sunday, but I suppose stone is boring in a more agreeable way than hideous paintings. The longer we waited for the Pope, the more hideous the paintings became. Every surface that wasn’t a mirror was covered with some sort of fruit or garland or chubby cherub. On the ceiling there was a pretty bad piece of trompe l’oeil. I think it was supposed to represent the Assumption of the BVM, but it looked more like a nun being carried to the infirmary tent at a county fair. She was blue in the face and if I ever looked like that I hope somebody would try that maneuver that we’re all supposed to know.
We were arranged in a ring and told to await His Holiness. I was glad the bus had been equipped with the facilities, because we were kept waiting for well over half an hour. Then there was a commotion at one of the doorways and some Swiss Guard appeared. At this, the lady next to mepulled open a huge portmanteau, which I thought for sure would have a small cannon in it. Yikes! Two guards went right over to her and asked what was in the bag. And the answer was: rosaries. All she was carrying was rosaries. Rosaries to be blessed by the Pope. Dozens, possibly a hundred rosaries. She was from Cordoba in Spain, and, she explained, she had been sent to Rome for no other reason than to have these rosaries blessed in person by the Pope. The guards went back to the door and the lady from Cordoba began stringing the beads over one arm. When it wouldn’t hold any more she loaded up the other. While I stared at this delicate operation, she asked me what had I brought, she asked. Just my lonesome, I shrugged - or Spanish to that effect. I wondered if I should offer to hold some of the rosaries. It was painful to look at her; all I could think of was ‘Mater Dolorosa.’ She looked more and more dolorous, too, for nothing was happening. Finally the Pope did come in, and he started blessing people right away, saying a few words to each person and smiling discreetly. When he got to me something came over me and I curtsied. He looked a little nonplused, but he blessed me and I curtsied again. My mind was on the massive benediction that was about to occur to my left. The lady from Cordoba smiled brilliantly and reached her arms out toward the Pope, as if she were going to give him a hug, and instinctively he backed away. (Two nuts in a row!) All she wanted, of course, was a more effective blessing for her rosaries, and as soon as the Pope figured this out, he started making signs of the cross, one for her, one for the beads on her right arm, and one for those on her left. When she didn’t move, he threw in a fourth. She was still smiling ecstatically when the Pope moved along, flush with the thrill of a mission accomplished and a sacred one at that. Then she collapsed. Her arms dropped and the rosaries rolled everywhere on the polished wood floor. There was a rather undignified scramble of helpers picking them up. I noted with some satisfaction that His Holiness did not bend over to help.
Now the van that Douglas and Mr. Marshall drove into the barn is parked outside my bedroom window, and I notice that it looks a lot like a UPS van, only without the lettering. How’s that for funny business!
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