Book Eight: Julia Jumps
63. When I ran into Shemansky. . . .
When I ran into Shemansky in my office on Wednesday, he informed me of what I already knew, that he and I and McKinley were invited to the Steins’ on Friday. My plan for revenge, I saw, would likely fizzle; Julia would make sure that those two clowns did not suffer stress on their refined nervous systems comparable to what they’d put me through when they stole my tape. Nevertheless I resolved to make the attempt. It wouldn’t do to simply let it go by.
Shemansky, like Julia, was familiar with the blues of Alys Culhane. “She’s from Dayton,” he said emphatically, as if that explained something. “She’s from Dayton, Ohio.”
“Didn’t you go to high school in Dayton?” I asked him.
Shemansky nodded, sucking at his stenchy pipe. “I’ve seen her on television,” he said. “I was too young to go to blues clubs when I lived in Dayton.”
I could well believe it, since he looked to be about fourteen. “Quite a few of NU’s football players have come from Dayton,” I observed.
“I was in the marching band,” he replied seriously. “I didn’t know any football players.”
“What instrument?” I asked.
“I played tuba,” he said, looking up at my wryly. “The band director thought he had a sense of humor.”
“Maybe he thought you had tuba lips,” I said. “Anyway, it’s nice of Julia to take me to see Alys Culhane while you two’re slaving away up in Carter Lake.”
“You’re lucky,” he agreed gloomily. “You won’t be there when they lynch us.”
“I wouldn’t worry,” I said. “You guys sound great.”
Shemansky’s pipe went out; he removed it from his mouth and regarded it mournfully. “You lie,” he said. “We sound like a couple of white teenagers whose parents promised to buy them instruments if they’d stay off drugs.” He looked up at me. “Carter Lake must be a snake pit,” he said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t take us there.”
“I’m doing it to keep an eye on you,” I said. “I don’t want you two studs beating me out with Julia.”
After lunch on Wednesday I took myself home for a nap; I arranged a pile of pillows on the sofa and propped myself in a sitting position, and dozed off successfully and slept until I was awakened by a tap on my door, sometime between three and four o’clock. It was Grace’s way of knocking. “Just a minute,” I called out, “I have to think about how I’m going to stand up.”
“Jonas,” she said through the door, “are you really drunk, or something?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve got a charley horse in my back. Hold on, I’m getting there.” I rolled to my knees, stood up, and went to let her in. As I kissed her hello, I saw that the corners of her mouth turned down. An unattractive sadness puckered her face in a way I hadn’t seen before.
“Come in,” I said. “I was hoping you’d stop by before Friday.”
“I don’t know, Jonas,” she said. She remained in the doorway, staring at my shirt. “I really came by to tell you I couldn’t see you any more.”
“Hey.” I made an attempt with my good left hand to touch her cheek. “What’s the matter, sweets?”
“You spied on me, Jonas” she said. “At first I felt ashamed, but now I’m angry. And it doesn’t— make me have more respect for you, either.” She was starting to cry.
I took her hand and pulled her inside the door. “Grace, I didn’t,” I said. “I was watching, you know, to see whether it was safe. I’m not even sure what I saw. Were you playing chess?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “It’s such a— such a tawdry business. What’s wrong with your arm?”
“There’s a piece of metal in my back that’s causing me to have a muscle spasm. I feel pretty good today but you should’ve seen me last weekend. I was a wreck.” I laid a finger under her chin and made her look up at me. “They’ve got me scheduled for surgery next week. The doctor I saw on Monday ordered my arm taped.” I kissed her on the lips. “So,” I said, “when I saw you at Lederer’s— Were you crying because you helped take money from that dumb-ass patrolman?”
“I was crying for a lot of things, Jonas,” she said. “But it wasn’t until I found out you’d been watching that I really got upset.” I let her chin go, and she hid her face in my shirt.
“Well, I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess those big windows go both ways, don’t they. Did one of the waitresses see me?”
Grace nodded. “Sheila,” she said, her voice muffled. “Sheila looks out for me. She thinks I should run away to Colorado.”
“Maybe you should,” I said. “You’re way too smart for the people you hang out with.”
Grace shook her head. “My husband works with the CIA. He’d find me.”
“The CIA can’t operate inside the United States,” I said. “You could disappear if you wanted to.”
“My father disappeared,” she said sadly. “The Polish KGB disappeared him. Don’t tell me what those people can do and what they can’t.” She looked up. “I’m real tired, Jonas. Make me some tea, would you?”
“I would be pleased to make you some tea,” I said. “Come in and sit. The place looks messy because I’ve been sleeping on the couch.”
Grace laid her coat over a chair and sat at the kitchen table; I stood resting my hips against the counter. When the water boiled, I left-handedly got out tea bags and poured our cups. “This thing that’s in your back, did you get that in Viet Nam?” she asked. I nodded. “Why didn’t they take it out while you were there?”
“They didn’t consider it an emergency,” I said. “They were going to do it at some convenient time, but then I got released all of a sudden and the time never came. It hasn’t bothered me at all till now.”
“How do they know that’s what it is?”
“I had X-rays done on Monday,” I said. “I was suspicious because I used to feel the lump in my butt, and lately I haven’t been able to find it.”
Grace sat fiddling with her tea bag, gazing at me so long that it made me nervous. “One thing you could do for me,” I said to break the silence, “is help me take a shower. I haven’t been out of my clothes since Monday, when my arm was taped.”
“I would do more than that for you, Jonas,” she said.
It felt odd to be undressed by her for a purpose other than sex. She didn’t get into the shower with me—Grace was dressed for shopping, and anyway if she’d bumped me wrong I probably would’ve screamed—and she didn’t offer to make love. Afterward, while I laboriously put on a clean set of clothes, she told me more about herself. Her father had been a Polish cavalry officer who’d seen his regiment slaughtered by German tanks; he’d escaped the battle and somehow managed to get his young family to London, where Grace’s mother had been killed in a bombing raid. That was when, to pass away the nights of bombs and blackouts, her father had taught her chess. After the war, they’d come as “displaced persons” to work for the Mennonites; because her father knew horses, they’d tried to make a farm laborer of him. After a few years he’d gone back to Poland, where he’d been arrested and “disappeared.” One thing I took from it was that, as I’d suspected, Grace was just about ten years older than I; she’d been four in 1939. She remembered having a baby brother in London, but she didn’t know what had become of him.
“You’ve had a hard life,” I admitted when she’d stopped talking. She hadn’t told me yet what happened after her father left her with the Mennonites.
“I have,” she said seriously. “And don’t do anything to make it harder, damn you.”
Grace said she couldn’t see me on Friday because The Goon was still in Lincoln. I told her about the Carter Lake trip; like Julia, she said I’d be wrong to leave my friends.
“They’re not friends,” I protested. “They’re assholes.”
“I thought you liked assholes,” she replied coyly.
“Only yours,” I said. “And I wouldn’t want to do that every day.”
“I wouldn’t want you to,” she said. “Though once in a while, it’s kind of interesting.”
“Are you sure you have to go?” I asked. We were embracing in the doorway; I felt her pleasant heat along my thighs, and regretted she was leaving.
“I’m sure,” she said. “I don’t want you taking me for granted, Jonas.”
“I’m sorry I watched you play chess,” I said.
“There are other things I wouldn’t want you to see,” she said. “You’re lucky Don didn’t catch you hanging around. It would’ve been a whole lot safer just to come inside.”
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