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Covert

by JOHANNA DEL RAY

No one but myself knows what I have suffered, nor what I have gained, by your unsleeping watchfulness and admirable pertinacity.

- Black Arrow

"The better way," Miss Hamm said with a glib smile, "is to pat it down with your hands."

"Someone taught you that?" Lira asked.

She shook her head. "I read it in a book." Lira had to learn from Miss Hamm's lips, as there were only five books in the manse. Two chronicles by Robert Louis Stevenson, and the rest may as well have not existed. They were in French. Lira spent the afternoon dusting the two attic rooms, preparing them for what her employer called "new arrivals." They had not been in use for some time, since long before the last war.

It was her task to sort the produce, celery from lettuce, avocado from cucumber. For each patient she cut up some in a little cup. The gals were evidently thankful by the way they nodded to Lira. The ward was all women except for a few token males: Miss Hamm's young son Daniel was the gardener, there was a border collie who had impregnated a stray somewhere on the property, Alex Pearl and his brother Ben were the only male employees, and Miss Hamm had a friend named Veld. It was how Lira learned the true meaning of the word platonic.

Veld took her aside suddenly as she was packing up the little crates for the food service. She could not imagine what he was going to say, but after a foreboding prelude, he asked her help in picking out a gift for Miss Hamm. She was both a little disappointed and relieved. Then she felt panicky, for in truth she could not know what someone with fine tastes would even want.

Brushing his long hair from his brow, Veld asked her to not tell Miss Hamm, but she went to do so anyway, at the first opportunity. Her supervisor was sewing the pocket of a long trench coat.

"Lira," Miss Hamm said after hearing the story, bouncing a thimble on her bottom lip, "you must like someone." With the excretion of a border collie no doubt somewhere in her hair, it did not seem like a moment to admit to anything, even if the confession was a lie. She told her mistress what Veld had said earlier.

Miss Hamm stopped sewing and began writing something. "What did you tell him?" she asked. Lira found herself saying, "I couldn't have answered him if I wanted to, and I found that I did not want to anyway."

Later that week a new patient arrived, a young woman by their standards, younger than Miss Hamm, named Miss Darlington. Miss Darlington was a lovely blonde shaped something like a crane. She and Miss Hamm had known each other in some previous life and acted like old friends. In the mornings Lira got in the habit of serving the two women and Veld tea in a leisurely fashion. They would ask her to sit with them if she did not have some other work, which was rare. She found that Veld paid roughly the same amount of attention to his two friends. He spoke to her infrequently, only to ask a question or to suggest he would fetch the next cup himself.

At the onset of spring, Miss Darlington did the opposite, catching a virus that weakened the feeling in her legs. The bug was not contagious. Veld did not mind sitting in the attic; it was not Lira's favorite, but Miss Hamm begged off due to her claustrophobia. Without her boss around, she found Miss Darlington altogether different from Miss Hamm in a way she had never seemed during their placid tea-times.

In the evening when everyone was sleep she sat on her bed and read one of the Robert Louis Stevenson novels. She heard him say, that others may display more constancy is still my hope, and felt the urge to obey.

By the following Friday, Miss Darlington seemed to have recovered, a refreshingly full cast came over her cheeks. She took Lira into town of Tunstall on a wandering pursuit of a new collar for the border collie; she had named the dog Leslie. After ten or so minutes of small talk, Miss Darlington said, "She's quite unused to this, you know. She's doing her best."

Lira knew to tread carefully. "Yes, ma'am."

"When I knew her," she said, "she would read our palms and tell us our fortune. Give me yours. If there's a war, your friend Veld will be called off. Does that bother you?"

Lira thought for a moment. "No."

"It should, Lira, it should. Suppose you were called off. Don't you think he'd be sad?" She look Lira to a fashionable store, one she would have never dared enter on her own. Miss Darlington tried on a few jumpers, nothing particularly seemed to suit her. When they were alone in the dressing room she opened a large black purse and showed her a small silver box.

"What's in there?" Lira found herself asking.

Miss Darlington said, "A gift from Mr. Veld. I'm returning it." Inside was a necklace that glowed with anticipation.

"You don't like him," Lira said.

"No, I don't," Miss Darlington said. "Does that surprise you? Well perhaps it does, you're not used to condescension. It's when someone is saying something they half mean."

"Doesn't that make everything condescending?" Lira said.

"Nearly so," Miss Darlington said.

In the bathroom of a diner, Lira made what small changes she could in her appearance.

Johanna Del Ray is a contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Atlanta.

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