Shining Through (9 page)

“
No
. After that,” Gladys said.

“Oh. See, Mrs. Berringer came back to close the door, but the second she was doing it, you could still hear her. And you know what she said? ‘I don’t care what you say. I’m going to marry Quentin!’”

4

T
he window behind Edward Leland’s desk was open, and the year’s first warm breeze floated in; even Wall Street smelled sweet. But in that office on the forty-sixth floor, there wasn’t a trace of spring softness.

Mr. Leland stared as I stood near the door of his office. Not a man’s stare—no
Look at those legs!
—but a cold look, searching for something, and the worst of it was, I had no idea what he was after. Without thinking, I brought my pencil up to my mouth; when you’re scared, there’s nothing like a good, hard chew on a pencil for fast relief. But the way Mr. Leland’s eyes were boring through me, he would have known the depth of the teeth holes. I lowered it.

Some men undress you with their eyes. Edward Leland did worse. He looked inside you. Sure, I knew he couldn’t actually read my mind, but still, I would have felt a lot safer if that dark stare had been meant to burn through my yellow sweater, my gray skirt, to observe my most private of privates—instead of my mind.

“Sit down, Miss Voss,” he said from behind his desk. Somewhere outside, a bird flying over the southern tip of Manhattan, not knowing it didn’t belong in the corridors of power, tweeted.

For that second, the half of Edward Leland’s face that could move softened. Then it went back to its usual hardness, and I looked away.

His office was filled with the mess of an organized man: manila file folders in precise stacks on two cushions of the couch, a couple of cartons under the window. The glass 58

SHINING THROUGH / 59

doors of his bookshelves were open, and the gaps where books had been pulled looked like knocked-out teeth. The books themselves were piled on a corner of his desk. An open travel case—a big, black one, like a giant doctor’s bag—rested on a brown leather wing chair near the wall. I gave a fast peek as I passed. The white of underwear. Shoes. A heavy sweater—beautiful, like Sonja Henie’s ice-skating partner would wear.

I sat in another leather chair, right across the desk from Mr.

Leland, opened my pad, flipped to a clean page and looked up, ready. But Mr. Leland wasn’t. He wasn’t ready to do anything except stare. This time it was not to examine my mind but to send a message, to let me know that he knew I had taken inventory of his travel bag. I shifted a little, but the leather seat was so slippery I nearly slid off. I thought about landing on the floor—splat—on my backside, my skirt flying up, and then felt my face flush. Edward Leland saw that; in fact, he seemed to see everything. He probably knew I was crazy about the sweater in his bag. (It was dark blue, with white starry snowflakes.)

“I suppose you’re curious about why I asked you to stop in, Miss Voss.” What answer did he want? Yes? No? I thought about it so long that when I finally decided Yes, it was too late to say it.

Edward Leland sat motionless, framed by the high back of his chair, never moving his eyes from me. He was like a scientist examining a new specimen: Note how these secretaries react under pressure. Their eyes dart around the room. Oh, and observe, they chew their bottom lip. I took a deep breath. I forced myself to sit as still as he was. Then, suddenly, as if there had been no silence, he went on. “You know, I’ve been out of the office quite a lot lately.” I nodded. “Do you have any idea where I’ve been?” I don’t know how I knew, but I knew this was not a moment to play dumb.

I told him what the girls were saying at lunch. “I heard you were in Washington.”

“I see. Well, what are people saying I’m doing in Washington?” he inquired. Get me out of here, I thought. Never 60 / SUSAN ISAACS

once moving his shadow eyes from my face, he asked, “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

No, I said to myself, this is my idea of a truly swell time. But out popped: “A little.”

“I don’t mean to, but I like to know what’s being bruited about the office.” His eyes were darker than brown. They were black disks; there didn’t seem to be any difference in color between the irises and the pupils. “Now, what am I supposed to be doing in Washington?”

“No one really knows, sir.”

“No theories?”

His voice was low and so growly; that’s what made his questions scary. This great, important voice, the voice that accomplished whatever it wanted—it was being used on me. Oh, God, I was starting to sweat: down the back of my neck, then in front, dribbling from under my brassiere to my belly button.

That was the moment he picked to smile at me. It was a wide smile, kind, the sort lawyers never give out, except maybe to their best clients. Like his voice, his smile was a weapon. An effective one, all the more because it was off center in that damaged face. But it lit him up. It made him the most wonderful person in the world. I found myself flooded with happiness. Life was good—and Edward Leland was letting up on me.

“No hunches about what I’ve been up to, Miss Voss?” Okay, so he wasn’t letting up.

“I guess you’re doing something for your clients, Mr. Leland.”

His smile stopped. He turned a paper clip over and over, waiting, patient. He knew he’d get what he wanted. “Is there anything else, sir?”

“What kind of something, Miss Voss?”

“Mr. Leland, I’m sorry…”

He leaned toward me. The light reflected off his black eyes; they looked unnaturally bright. “Come now. You seem to be a bright girl. There’s a war going on in Europe. What would a lawyer want in Washington?”

It didn’t take a genius. Anybody who had enough intelli-SHINING THROUGH / 61

gence to know how to turn on the radio could figure that one out. “I guess it would help your clients if you knew the government’s plans. Like for instance, how much aid we’re going to be giving to England. If it’s a lot, they could make a lot of money.” I should have said “profit.” Rich people don’t like the word “money.”

But it didn’t seem to bother Mr. Leland. “Very good,” he said.

“Any other ideas?”

I swallowed hard. My throat hurt. He was playing a game.

No, he was giving me a test, and for the life of me, I didn’t know whether it would be better to pass or to fail. But I gave it the old college (or, in my case, high school) try. “You could be, well, a person who feels we shouldn’t get mixed up over there and you’re trying to make sure we don’t.” In other words, an America Firster, an isolationist bastard. If he kept asking questions, sooner or later (sooner) he’d figure out my politics; they would not put a song in the heart of a Republican. But how could I stop his examination? Bash him with my steno pad? Run?

“I’m an isolationist? An intriguing theory, but I’m quite open about my interventionist leanings. But I find this interesting. I like to know what people are thinking and sometimes”—he picked up a gold and black fountain pen and rotated it between his palms—“I get rather out of touch. Tell me more.” My throat closed tighter. I hated his cold, upper-class, “rahther.” He put down the pen. “Go on, Miss Voss.”

It burst out: “Maybe you’re doing some kind of spy stuff for the government.” I tried to laugh at my crazy imagination (and prayed he would join me), but I couldn’t even begin to push my face muscles into a laugh. You know why? I believed it was true.

Sure, I just tossed off the remark, but I must have been thinking it, deep down, for a long time. This guy across the desk from me who’s always taking trips could be doing
anything
. And something dangerous seemed more like Edward Leland than something just clever.

Then suddenly I thought: This isn’t fair, calling me in here, pressuring me, forcing me to talk. He could ask me anything he wanted, and if he didn’t like my answer, or 62 / SUSAN ISAACS

didn’t like me, there went my twenty-five bucks a week. There went my life.

“This isn’t fair,” he said. “I’ve been cross-examining you and haven’t given a clue to why I asked you to drop in.”

How do you figure someone like him? I saw a man who could almost read minds, who made trips to Washington the way I made trips to the five-and-dime. But I also saw something more than a powerhouse New York lawyer. I’d seen a few of those.

He was different.

It showed in Edward Leland’s fascinating face. For some reason, it was a face every big shot in the country was drawn to look into. And every little shot: I had to force myself not to stare at him.

Although Edward Leland’s voice was tough—gravelly, low—and although the word around the office was that he’d grown up poor, on a Vermont farm, talking to cows, the way he sounded seemed strictly champagne-at-the-Ritz. “You’re quite perceptive. I am doing a bit of work for the government.” A bit of work. “Although certainly not your ‘spy stuff.’”

Certainly not, my behind, I thought. “Yes, sir,” I said.

“The thing of it is, what with the situation in Europe, I need someone who can do some secretarial work—in German. Not a great deal. Nowhere near the sort of thing I’d want to hire someone for.”

“If there’s anything I can do, Mr. Leland…” That was the best I could come up with. No secretarial course at Grover Cleveland High School had offered Good Manners in Potential Espionage Situations.

“I’ve taken the liberty of checking your personnel file and making a few inquiries,” Mr. Leland went on. “Do you know why?”

God, if the law business ever went bust, this guy could make a fortune playing Twenty Questions. Then I started talking fast, because I didn’t want him to read
that
thought. “If you’re doing stuff for the government, then you probably don’t want someone taking dictation who has a secret crush on some German general.”

SHINING THROUGH / 63

“Who’s your favorite German general?” he asked suddenly.

For that second he seemed playful, almost young. I guess he was relieved I hadn’t gotten up and goose-stepped yet; so far, I was okay.

“You mean who do I hate most?” He nodded. “Right now, I guess Kaupitsch.”

Wow, he stopped being lighthearted real fast; I’d pushed the magic button. But it was weird; it didn’t take a Yale lawyer to know about Kaupitsch, the Nazi bum running the invasion of Denmark; his name was plastered on page one of every newspaper in the city. “I see you’re up-to-date on the invasion,” Mr.

Leland said, not sounding too thrilled about it.

Not up-to-date like I bet you’re up-to-date. Would I love to have said that. “I read the
Daily News
, Mr. Leland,” was what I said instead.

And then, boom! My mind went straight to that sweater in his valise, that heavy snowflake sweater on a warm April day.

I bet it wasn’t so warm in Denmark. But then I thought: Nah.

How could he be going anyplace near an invasion? He could go down to Washington and read spy reports, but—

“This is how it stands, Miss Voss. Your file looks fine. The next stop, because this does involve the government—in the most peripheral way—is to have one of the agencies check into your background.”

“You mean like the FBI?”

He just kept going. “I have some papers for you to fill out.

The usual information: name, school, previous employers. But before you do, I think we should make certain”—I got another smile from him, a little smaller this time, not real; a smooth lawyer smile, like the ones John gave out—“that you don’t mind having your life under, shall we say, scrutiny. Do you understand?”

“You want to make sure my favorite uncle isn’t in the SS.”

“Exactly. I’d like to know a bit about your family.”

“Well, my mother’s side is all English, I think. But not English English: American.” He picked up a pencil and jotted something down. I could have saved him the trouble, taken it in shorthand and given it back, word for word. “My 64 / SUSAN ISAACS

father’s family is one-hundred-percent German, but dead. And even when they weren’t—dead, I mean—they weren’t Nazis or anything.” I could have said, Hey, listen, there’s nothing to worry about: they’re Jews, and cleared up the whole thing. Cleared it up so much I might lose my job. So I just went on. “My father worked in a sausage plant. He was foreman. But you know, the Depression…” There was something about Edward Leland that made you keep talking. If I didn’t watch myself I would give him my life story, from my first spoonful of Pablum to my father’s religion to my being madly in love with his (for another couple of weeks) son-in-law. “My grandfather died when my dad was little—back in the 1890s, I guess. And my grandmother worked in a button factory until my dad got his first job.”

“She’s the one you spoke of so fondly, the one who taught you German?”

“Yes.” So that’s why he’d been so interested back in February.

“Any other family, friends?”

“My mother has four sisters, but the only one we keep in touch with lives in Seattle now. And we have some cousins in Brooklyn—Oh, you mean my father’s side. Just a couple of old relatives in Germany—Berlin—that my grandma used to write to.”

“Do you know their names?”

What he was asking was, Are they Nazis? “I can’t remember their names. But they’re probably in their late seventies by now.

They were two old ladies, sisters. I think one was called Liesl.”

“What was her first name?”

“Liesl’s a first name, Mr. Leland.” These guys thought everything female should be Mary or Babs. “I don’t know her last name. Anyway, they could be dead by now. I think they were around my grandmother’s age, and she’d be seventy-nine.”

“Do you have any friends, relatives or neighbors who’ve expressed sympathy with Hitler or his policies?”

“Mr. Leland, the only people who really like the Nazis are SHINING THROUGH / 65

some of the ones who came over in the last ten, twenty years.

They’re still German. But people in Ridgewood are loyal Americans.”

“I’m sure they are.” It was weird; for a second we just eyed each other, both of us knowing that his gentlemanly “I’m sure they are” was full of bull. And in the next second, both of us decided to forget it. We looked away.

“All right,” Mr. Leland said. “I think that’s all.” He pushed the forms toward me. “Naturally, you understand that what we’ve discussed here goes no farther.”