The Spy

    by Pat Aakhus

My cousin Trish is a spy.  I have always suspected this.  When neighbors were ratting on each other, naming names and building bomb shelters, Trish got a degree in Russian.  Her first paying job was at the CIA, her second as an airline stewardess.  For twenty years she has been opening miniature bottles of Stolichnaya and saying vashe zdorovie.  That is what’s known as a white lie. 

At my house, white lies were one of the main topics at the dinner table, along with the nature of the Trinity, mortal sins, why it was stupid to genuflect on Good Friday, conspiracies of the Parish Council and above all--my father being an Episcopal priest--the Problem of Catholicism.  The Problem revolved something called Immaculate Conception, which had to do with sex and was therefore not appropriate to discuss at the dinner table, and Papal infallibility, which didn’t have anything to do with sex but sounded like it should.  Despite these failings Catholics still maintained a certain advantage in being the True or Original Church.  This was because of Apostolic Succession, which I loved, and meant that my father was directly descended from St. Peter and all the Archbishops of Canterbury, something he regularly mentioned.  I didn’t know any Catholics personally, except Trish.  It wasn’t until after Father died that I found out that his whole family was Catholic.    

The last time I’d seen her, at a family wedding, Trish wore a tight, low cut red velvet dress, blonde and blue-eyed, a dead ringer for Catherine Deneuve.  I looked around for 007 but Trish was traveling solo.  I was twelve and read James Bond novels wrapped in brown paper bags so I knew that Trish carried a pistol, but I couldn’t figure out where she carried it.   Before I saw Trish again I used to pray that I might be gruesomely martyred like the saints.  I longed for a test of faith.  After I saw Trish, I wanted to wear red dresses and seduce KGB agents.  “Don’t make the same mistake I did,” she said to me.  I couldn’t see any mistakes.   She was perfect, a 4.0 in college and according to my mother she never got sent to her room once for saying stupid or shut up; she never misbehaved in her life. 

When my first book came out I was in DC for the ABA and I gave her a call, left a message to see if she wanted to meet for lunch.  Why not, I thought, I didn’t know anybody else in DC and I was curious to know if Trish had retired from being a spy now that the Soviet Union was obsolete.  She called me back right away.  The rendezvous point was a-hole-in-the-wall shop, where I found her going through a mountain of Gucci purses with broken straps.  It was Trish, all right.  “I found you some things to try on,” she said, her voice tinged with some exotic accent, perhaps Russian.  Her hands fluttered elegantly as she sorted green chinchilla earmuffs.  “Wait until you see, darling.”

She pulled me into the dressing room and we stripped down, trying on clothes.  She handed me a red silk Bill Blass dress, priced $3200 down to $25.  "This is going to look great on you," she said, taking it off the hanger and stepping on her suit, trying not to walk on the Armani tweed jacket with the hole on the cuff where someone cut off the label, the Dior silk shirt with the missing buttons, the Bob Mackie cocktail dress with a patch of beads gone from the shoulder like a black hole in the firmament.

There really wasn’t room for both of us in there and the shop had only one dressing room, but Trish wouldn’t hear of taking turns.  "Perfect for you," she said, thrusting a black velour Donna Karan mini-dress into my arms.  "Hand me that leather thing, will you?” she asked.  I looked down and stepped off the leather Geoffrey Beene cat-suit that looked like a good episode of Star Trek.  Originally $4800 down to $45.  I gave it to her and she put it on in front of the mirror, shifting the leather until it lay smooth on her hips.  No doubt about it, she had the body of a thoroughbred, a first class spy.  

"How are you?”

“Wonderful,” Trish laughed, slipping off the cat suit.  “It’s nice to see you.  So you wrote a book.  That’s great.”  Her stack of cashmere sweaters, each marked $1300 down to $8, was expertly folded.  "I was thinking Mom should write a book.  A romance.  You know my parents had such a marvelous marriage.  He was so sweet.  I thought you could give me some tips.  About getting published and all that."  Aunt Mary was a remarkable person.  In her whole life she had never had an aspirin, coke, cup of coffee, cigarette or sip of alcohol.  When she saw me after twenty years she opened my mouth to inspect my teeth.  She wore a size 6 at eighty-three and did yoga every day.  She returned a rose bush to Sears Roebuck after ten years and got her money back.

"Actually, I don’t know much about the romance market but you can get a copy of Writer’s Market--”

“Well, she really doesn’t like to read.  So it’s better if you can just give me some ideas.”

Trish took the clothes from my arms and kicked the door open, put them in a sack and tucked them under the merchant’s feet next to her stash: Ferragamo slippers, Guess jeans with rhinestones, a mink-lined leather bomber jacket.  “We’ll be back.”

We walked to a deli around the corner and Trish ordered pastrami sandwiches.  She had put on shades, though it was quite dark inside.  Maybe it was habit or the neighborhood; maybe she was going incognito.   

“It’s great to see you,” she said.   “What’s your book about?”

“Ireland.”

“That’s nice.  You wanted to be a nun, didn’t you?”  She smiled her million dollar smile.

“Not really.”  But I understood why she’d got that impression.  “I suppose one inherits certain interests,” I said.  “Or habits.”

Trish looked at her nails.  “Is that a joke?”

 “Yes.  No.”  Just last week, after my brother Matthew had been hospitalized for taking all the cupboard and closet doors off and refusing to let anyone put them back on, I’d said to my husband at breakfast, “I think insanity runs in my family.”  I had expected him to show a bit of surprise then correct or amend my hypothesis.  He said nothing.  Thinking maybe he hadn’t heard me I repeated myself and he nodded slightly, as if to acknowledge that the toaster had popped up or the cat had a hairball he’d clean up later.  He picked up his books, kissed me on the cheek, patted the dog and left for class.  Some things people just don’t want to talk about.  Look at his side of the family.  Why did Uncle Todd give everyone in the family a box of nails for Christmas?  What about Aunt Betty and the pigs?  It was a week before they found her; she always kept a litter under the dining room table.  

“Our fathers were brothers,” I said.  “Maybe we can fill in the blanks.” 

“Actually, I don’t get home much,” Trish said.

“I know what you mean.  But we have memories.”

“I’m worried about Mom.  I have to get her out of that house.  It’s dangerous.”

“What do you mean?”  Had Trish blown her cover?  Was she being watched, even now?

“She never throws anything away.  The newspapers alone could kill her.  One of these days I’m going to throw everything in that house away.”

There was silence.

“Oh,” she gasped, fluttering her hands.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to say that.”

So she had heard about Father. White lies wouldn’t even begin to cope with it.  Here are the bare facts.  After Mother and my Sunday School teacher and spiritual advisor Miss McBride, Father married a nurse named Rachel on his deathbed.  The week after he died she sold his house and contents to her boyfriend for cash.  She needed a few days to get her head together, she said.  When she disappeared with the bank accounts empty and the credit cards maxed, her boyfriend got the picture and being naturally pissed off, chopped up the contents with an ax.  His piano, family photographs, war photographs, everything.  Set out for the trash in bits.  We found out after trash pick up when the mortuary tracked us down to pay the cremation fee.  The bride had skipped town.

“Your poor father.  He was so sweet.  That trashy woman took advantage of him.  Of course I had no idea, at the funeral.  She seemed nice.  Did you?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“You weren’t there?  You didn’t go to your own father’s funeral?”

“No.”

She lit a cigarette, took a deep drag.  She didn’t want to hear any more.

We didn’t get along was next, but my mouth wouldn’t say it.  Go ahead.   What’s the big deal?  Tell her.  By high school he was hitting me drunk or sober.  I irritated him.  “I wanted to.  I couldn’t get off work,” I lied. 

Before he died I talked to him on the phone.  The deep voice that rang out Verdi from the shower every morning he wasn’t hung over had no notes in it at all; he was hoarse from the cancer and fluid filling up his lungs.  “I’m getting better,” he whispered.   “Rachel is going to sleep with me, tonight, she promised.”  I wondered about the privacy in ICU, but I said “That’s great.”  “I love you, honey,” he said.  “I love you, too, Dad.”  It was ten years ago, and I could still hear his voice.  When I got the news that he was gone, I thought I’d die of a broken heart.   

The waitress brought our food.   “Something from the bar?” she asked.  I ordered Jamesons.

“Coffee,” Trish said.

She went away and came back with a coffee pot in each hand, like a fountain ready to go off.

"Regular or Decaf."

I turned the cups over.  "It doesn't matter.  Regular."

“Decaf,” Trish said.

"I'm sorry.  Have you got any Poupon mustard?"  I asked, holding up the yellow plastic French's bottle.

"That's the mustard," she said politely.

"I know, I just wondered if you had any Poupon."

Her face was red.  "Is it empty?  I just filled it this morning.  It couldn't be empty."

"Grey Poupon."

She touched her grey hair.  She looked at me like I was saying a bad word, like I was mad at her.

"Please, never mind.  This is fine."

"That's the mustard," she said again.

"Yes, it's fine.  Thank you.  We don't need anything else."  She went away.

"I hate this stuff," I said to Trish, squirting a fine, bright yellow tube onto my rye bread.  “Fake food.  Looks like what they take into outer space.  Blecch.”

She took off her shades and her eyes were wet.  She was no longer happy to see me.  I felt terrible.  I’d said the wrong thing and shocked her and she didn’t trust me anymore.

“I bet they have Grey Poupon at the CIA,” I said. 

"They have ways of controlling people."

“I’m sorry?”

“Everybody knows that.”  She lifted one end of her kosher dill.  "Do you want my pickle?"

"Sure," I said, looking down at my plate.  I was right after all; she was a spy.  The pastrami was starting to curl up under the bread.  There was something wrong in that place; the lights maybe, made everything look peculiar.

“I don't remember very much.  I just have flashes," she said.  "And the cuts."

“Cuts?”

"Is everything alright?" the waitress asked.   We hadn’t touched our food.  She looked at my plate, at my two pickles.

"Fine, everything's fine.  What have you got for dessert?” I asked.

"Pecan pie, apple pie, mudfly pie,"

"What's that last one?"

"Caramel on the bottom, chocolate mousse, whipped cream, pecans and shaved chocolate."

"We'll have that.  Two pieces, please.  And more coffee.  I'm freezing.  It's a little cold in here, don't you think?"

She looked up at the ceiling.  "Heater's blowing right on you."  She took the cups away.  They were still full, cream floating like an oil slick on the coffee, stone cold. 

"I don't understand," I said to Trish.  “Are you serious?  I’ve heard about them experimenting on dogs and using dolphins to find bombs.”

"It’s a project to see how humans detach themselves from their emotions.  How we break our own rules," she said calmly.  "Their society is highly sophisticated but it's difficult for them to get rid of superstitions and taboos.  They're experimenting on humans to see if it can be done without disintegrating the personality.  I don't remember any of this consciously; my therapist tells me.  It comes back under hypnosis.  It’s the only sleep I get."

"Why can’t you sleep?" I asked quietly.

She shook her beautiful head like I was a dumb little kid.  "I'm afraid if I go to sleep they'll come take me."

"Take you out of your own house?"

“Yes.”  She removed her sunglasses; her eyes looked tired, the tiny wrinkles more evident.

"I don't mean to sound stupid," I said.  "You think of people being abducted on a deserted highway, or in a cornfield."

"Sometimes I meet them outside."  Her voice was flat.  

"How do you know when to meet them?"

"Sometimes the phone rings and a voice says, 'Can I talk to Brad?'  I think it's a wrong number and I hang up, but my subconscious understands a time and a place.  Somebody comes up to me in the grocery store and shows me a list, asks me where something is, and it looks fine, but it's really a code, and I get it."

She took a business card out of her purse and laid it down on the table, near the pickle that was sticking out of my plate like an oar in a boat that nobody was rowing.  When I was seven, the age of knowledge and sin, Father took me fishing and when he wasn't looking I untied the rainbow trout we’d caught from the side of the boat and dropped the bunch of them back into the lake.     

Richard Stonegarten, agent.  With the address of a local real estate company.  "You got this in a grocery store?"

"I think so.  I don’t recognize the name.  I found it in my purse.  Turn it over."

On the other side was a drawing of the planet Earth, segmented like an orange.

"What's that?" I asked.

"I don't know.  I can't see it.  To me, it's blank."

I drew the image on a napkin and handed it to her. 

She stared at the napkin and then at me and shook her head.  "I’ve been brainwashed, naturally.  I see you drawing something, but there's nothing there.  Draw just a piece of it, then I can see it."  I drew the image slowly.  Trish could see one, two, three sections; when I drew the fourth it disappeared.

“Amazing,” I said.

“It is,” she said.

The waitress brought the mudfly pie, a geological section with strata of caramel, mousse and chocolate pudding revealed.  The whipped cream was sliding off the chocolate, like part of a tectonic fault.  She was holding two wet metal forks in her hand, staring at the drawing on the napkin.  I put the napkin on my lap.  "You kept your forks," she said, and walked away, shoving them down in her deep pocket.

"Does anyone else know about this?  Anyone in your family?"  She shook her head no.  “I understand,” I said.  “That must have been hard.”

When I got up to the cash register to pay the bill, the waitress handed me the check and I saw the diagram of the segmented earth crossed out three times along the bottom.  She blushed and handed me the change.  "It's hard to draw." 

We went back to the shop and I found an Italian black strapless sheath made of iguana skin.              “Fantastic,” Trish said.  “I never find anything like that." 

I wore the iguana dress; carried my suit.  “What are you doing now?  Are you going back to work?”

"Grocery store."

"I'll come with you.  I have a late flight out."

We walked down the aisles of the supermarket together, Trish pushing the cart.  We passed through thirty feet of shampoo and conditioners, the aisles steep and close.  What if an agent tried to contact Trish while we were shopping?  On a forest trail if you make a lot of noise the bears will stay away.  We went down the cereal aisle.  I picked up a box of Kix.  "Oh my God.  They still have this.  Do you remember Kix?  This was my favorite brand.   Kix, Trix and Jets.  What kind did you eat?"

“You know, when we were growing up, Mom made us drink a raw liver shake for breakfast every day.  Just raw liver shakes,” she said, smiling.  She picked up a carton of cigarettes.  “I’ve got to quit one of these days.  Mom would kill me if she knew I smoked.” 

She walked me to the taxi stand.  “So, you don’t believe in UFO’s,” she said.

“UFOs?  No, I don’t.”

“I didn’t think so.”  She smiled.

“I thought you were a spy,” I said softly.

She laughed.  “You’re so funny.”

By the time I returned to my hotel the clouds were churning over the city.   I sat out on the balcony and watched the storm come in.  The iguana dress was hot, but I didn’t want to take it off.  I met a missionary once who had a cape made out of an entire tree bark.  The people gave it to him just before he left Africa, for protection.  The clouds were black in the west.  The wind bent the cherry trees over; their crowns sweeping the grass.  The airport was closed down.  Trish wouldn’t be flying tonight.  Nothing could come in with that wind.  The sky was green like it was under water, and terribly still.  Everything was green: trees, clouds, grass.  The scales of the iguana dress had a deep glow, like sunlight underwater, like chips of emerald in a big rock, hot and still under the green sun.  We had our secrets and nobody could do anything about it.