“I’d like to try.”
“I’m not sure we want to dredge this back up.”
“Henry,” she said, hitting him with the full force of her reproof.
By the time an old address for Wallace Graves in Missoula, Montana, was turned up, 1939 had become 1940. Germany occupied Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France. Matilda wrote a letter, sent it off. No reply came, but neither was the letter returned. She wrote again. Throughout the war, she wrote every few months, always saying more or less the same thing: She was trying to locate the children of Addison and Annabel Graves because she would like to know what had become of them and to make some attempt to repay a debt. In 1945, she stopped writing.
In 1947, she received a reply.
* * *
—
And now Shirley is tapping on the door, showing in a tall, thin, blond, watchful woman in wool slacks and a long, unbelted cotton coat, and Pigeon is yapping and skittering around. “Hush!” Matilda says, scooping him up, offering her hand to Marian.
Marian has a strong grip. She appears older than she is, which must be thirty-three or thirty-four, a little older than Georgie. Her face shows lines made by squinting and worrying, and she has an aura of experience about her. The boniness of her father’s face has survived in her, but, like her mother, she has unusually pale hair and eyes, both bleached like things left too long in the sun.
“Tea? Coffee?” Shirley says. “May I take your coat?”
“No, thank you,” says Marian.
“You certainly look the part,” says Matilda.
“What part?”
“Shut the door, please, Shirley,” says Matilda. When they are alone, sitting on opposite sides of her desk, she says, “Well, here we are.”
Marian looks around the office but does not speak. Matilda is not afraid of silence and waits until Marian says, “I’d never been on an airliner before.”
“And?”
“It was all right. Strange to be cargo. Thank you for the ticket.” She shifts in her chair, crossing her legs, which are so long Matilda wonders where she finds slacks that fit. “It wasn’t necessary.”
Matilda waves this away, and vigilant, dim-witted Pigeon barks at the clatter of her bracelets. To appease him, she takes an open tin of smoked mussels from a drawer and feeds him one off a fork.
In her letters, Marian is not given to elaboration, but they have been correspondents long enough that Matilda knows about the deaths of Jamie and Wallace and about the brief, long ago visit and subsequent disappearance of Addison. She feels no further need to discuss the past, though she has decided that, if the moment presents itself, she will tell the truth about the explosives in the Josephina’s belly. In her early letters, she’d simply asked questions. Later, she told Marian she had come to believe her family, the Feiffers, owed the Graves family a significant debt （she was vague about its nature, let Marian infer she simply felt bad about Addison’s fate）， and she intended to make some settlement. As the original form of the debt was not monetary, she wrote, its erasure was not possible, but money was what she had, what she could offer.
No, Marian had written back, she did not want money. I learned the hard way that patronage can be dangerous.
What then, Matilda asked, do you want? You would be doing me a kindness to accept my offer. In allowing me to lessen my burden of guilt, you would be the benefactor, not I.
A month had passed before she received Marian’s reply. I’ve considered your question, and what I want is to fly around the world north-south, over the poles. It had never been done. It would be very difficult and dangerous, perhaps impossible. She would need money, yes, enough to buy a suitable airplane and modify it and to pay a navigator to come with her, among other expenses. She would need fuel, a lot of it, which she imagined Liberty Oil would be in a position to supply, and she would need that fuel to be waiting for her in remote places, which she imagined Liberty Oil could reach. She would also need assistance in securing the necessary permissions and support.
Come to New York, Matilda had responded. I would like to meet you. We can talk more.
And here Marian is. Somehow this guarded woman is the same entity as one of the bundles in Addison’s arms in the newspaper photos, being carried down the gangway from the rescue ship.
Matilda sees no point in small talk. “I’ve decided to help you with your flight, but I have a question.”
Marian turns wary. “All right.”
“Don’t look so put out. Answering a question seems like a small concession.”