Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (2 page)

“Mrs. Pollifax,” boomed Miss Hartshorne in her quartermaster’s voice.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Pollifax, trembling a little. The elevator arrived and they stepped inside. Thoroughly cowed, Mrs. Pollifax let Miss Hartshorne press the floor button and received a pitying glance in return. (“You have forgotten pi again, Emily”.)

“It’s warm,” Miss Hartshorne announced as the elevator began to rise.

“Yes, warm. Quite humid, too,” contributed Mrs. Pollifax, and pulling herself together added, “Planning a trip this summer, Miss Hartshorne?” It was not so much a question as an exploratory statement, because Miss Hartshorne was always planning a trip and when she was not planning one she was showing colored slides of previous trips. Sometimes Mrs. Pollifax felt that her neighbor did not really see the countries through which she traveled until she came home to view them on a screen in her living room.

“In September,” said Miss Hartshorne crisply. “It’s the only month for the knowledgeable traveler.”

“Oh, I see,” replied Mrs. Pollifax humbly.

The door opened and Miss Hartshorne moved toward apartment 4-C and Mrs. Pollifax to 4-A. “Good day,” Miss Hartshorne said dismissingly.

“Yes—that is, to you, too,” mumbled Mrs. Pollifax, and opened the door of her apartment with a feeling of escape.

Nothing had changed in her three rooms except the slant of the sun, and Mrs. Pollifax adjusted the venetian blinds before removing her hat. As she passed the desk the engagement calendar caught her eye and she stopped to glance at it with a sense of
ennui
. This was Monday; on Tuesday she wheeled the bookcart at the hospital, on Wednesday she rolled bandages, on Thursday morning there was a meeting of the Art Association and in the afternoon she worked in the gift shop of the hospital. On Friday the Garden Club met, on Saturday morning she would have her hair trimmed, and in the afternoon Elise Wiggin
would come for tea—but Elise talked of nothing but her grandchildren and how joyously they embraced toilet training.

The doctor had said, “Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do but never had the time or freedom for?”

Mrs. Pollifax tossed the day’s newspaper on the couch, and then on second thought picked it up and leafed through its pages because it was important to be well informed and in touch with the world. On page three the photograph of a woman caught her eye.
FINDS CAREER AT
63, said the words over the photograph, and Mrs. Pollifax, captured, immediately sat down to read. It was about a woman named Magda Carroll who had turned to “Little Theater” groups after her children married, and following only two plays she had been discovered by a Broadway casting director. Now she was performing in a play that had opened to rave reviews in New York. “I owe it all to my age,” she told the interviewer. “The theater world is teeming with bright and talented young things, but there is a dearth of sixty-three-year-old character actresses. They needed me—I was unexpected.”

Mrs. Pollifax let the paper slide to the floor. “ ‘They needed me—I was unexpected.’ How perfectly wonderful,” she whispered, but the words made her wistful. She stood up and walked to the mirror in the hall and stared at the woman reflected there: small, feminine, somewhat cushiony in figure, hair nearly white, eyes blue, a nice little woman unsuited for almost everything practical. But wasn’t there any area at all, she wondered, in which she, too, might be unexpected?

Nonsense, she told herself; what she was thinking was absolutely out of the question.

“You could always try,” she reminded herself timidly. “After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained—and you’re a taxpayer, aren’t you?”

Preposterous. Unthinkable.

But at the back of her mind there remained the rooftop and how very nearly her right foot had moved into space.

“Isn’t there something you’ve always longed to do?” the doctor had asked.

“Of course it wouldn’t hurt to ask,” she began again, feeling her way cautiously toward the idea once more. “Just looking into the idea would be a nice little vacation from volunteer work.”

Now she was rationalizing because it was insane, utterly.

“But I haven’t visited Washington, D.C., since I was eleven
years old,” she thought. “Think of the new buildings I’ve not seen except in pictures. Everyone should remain in touch with their own Capitol.”

She would go. “I’ll go!” she announced out loud, and feeling positively giddy at her recklessness she walked to the closet and pulled down her suitcase.

On the following morning Mrs. Pollifax left by train for Washington. The first thing she did after registering at a hotel was to go by taxi to the Capitol building and visit her congressman. The next day was spent in sight-seeing and in restoring her courage, which had a tendency to rise in her like a tide and then ebb, leaving behind tattered weeds of doubt. But on Thursday, after lunch, she resolutely boarded the bus for the twenty-minute ride to Langley, Virginia, where the new headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency had been built. Its address and location had been discovered by Mrs. Pollifax in the public library, where she had exercised a great deal of discretion, even glancing over her shoulder several times as she copied it into her memo pad. Now she was astonished—even shocked—to see sign after sign along the road directing everyone, presumably Russians, too, to the Central Intelligence Agency. Nor was there anything discreet about the building itself. It was enormous—“covers nine acres,” growled the bus driver—and with its towers, penthouses and floors of glass it fairly screamed for attention. Mrs. Pollifax realized that she ought to feel intimidated, but her courage was on the rise today—she was here now, and in such a glorious mood that only Miss Hartshorne could have squashed her, and Miss Hartshorne was several hundred miles away. Mrs. Pollifax walked through the gates and approached the guards inside with her head high. “I would like,” she said, consulting her memo pad, “to see Mr. Jasper Mason.”

She was given a form to fill out on which she listed her name, her address and the name of Mr. Mason, and then a guard in uniform escorted her down the corridor. Mrs. Pollifax walked slowly, reading all the signs posted on how classified wastepaper should be prepared for disposal, and at what hours it would be collected, and she decided that at the very least this was something that would impress Miss Hartshorne.

The room into which Mrs. Pollifax was ushered proved to be small, bright and impersonal. It was empty of Mr. Mason, however, and from its contents—several chairs, a striped couch
and a mosaic coffee table—Mrs. Pollifax deduced that it was a repository for those visitors who penetrated the walls of the citadel without invitation. Mr. Mason contributed further to this impression when he joined her. He carried himself like a man capable of classifying and disposing of people as well as wastepaper but with tact, skill and efficiency. He briskly shook her hand, glanced at his watch and motioned her to a chair. “I’m afraid I can give you only ten minutes,” he said. “This room is needed at two o’clock. But tell me how I can help you.”

With equal efficiency Mrs. Pollifax handed him the introduction that she had extracted from her congressman; she had not told the congressman her real reason for wishing to interview someone in this building, but she had been compelling. The young man read the note, frowned, glanced at Mrs. Pollifax and frowned again. He seemed particularly disapproving when he looked at her hat, and Mrs. Pollifax guessed that the single fuchsia-pink rose that adorned it must be leaning again like a broken reed.

“Ah—yes, Mrs. Politflack,” he murmured, obviously baffled by the contents of the introduction—which sounded in awe of Mrs. Pollifax—and by Mrs. Pollifax herself, who did not strike him as awesome at all.

“Pollifax,” she pointed out gently.

“Oh—sorry. Now just what is it I can do for you, Mrs. Pollifax? It says here that you are a member of a garden club of your city, and are gathering facts and information—”

Mrs. Pollifax brushed this aside impatiently. “No, no, not really,” she confided, and glancing around to be sure that the door was closed, she leaned toward him. In a low voice she said, “Actually I’ve come to inquire about your spies.”

The young man’s jaw dropped. “I beg your pardon?”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “I was wondering if you needed any.”

He continued staring at her and she wished that he would close his mouth. Apparently he was very obtuse—perhaps he was hard of hearing. Taking care to enunciate clearly, she said in a louder voice, “I would like to apply for work as a spy. That’s why I’m here, you see.”

The young man closed his mouth. “You can’t possibly—you’re not serious,” he said blankly.

“Yes, of course,” she told him warmly. “I’ve come to volunteer. I’m quite alone, you see, with no encumbrances or responsibilities. It’s true that my only qualifications are those
of character, but when you reach my age character is what you have the most of. I’ve raised two children and run a home, I drive a car and know first aid, I never shrink from the sight of blood and I’m very good in emergencies.”

Mr. Mason looked oddly stricken. He said in a dazed voice, “But really, you know, spying these days is not bloody at all, Mrs.—Mrs.—”

“Pollifax,” she reminded him. “I’m terribly relieved to hear that, Mr. Mason. But still I hoped that you might find use for someone—someone expendable, you know—if only to preserve the lives of your younger, better-trained people. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, but I am quite prepared to offer you my life or I would not have come.”

Mr. Mason looked shocked. “But Mrs. Politick,” he protested, “this is simply not the way in which spies are recruited. Not at
all
. I appreciate the spirit in which you—”

“Then how?” asked Mrs. Pollifax reasonably. “Where do I present myself?”

“It’s—well, it’s not a matter of
presenting
oneself, it’s a matter of your country looking for
you
.”

Mrs. Pollifax’s glance was gently reproving. “That’s all very well,” she said, “but how on earth could my country find me in New Brunswick, New Jersey? And have they tried?”

Mr. Mason looked wan. “No, I don’t suppose—”

“There, you see?”

Someone tapped on the door and a young woman appeared, smiled at them both and said, “Mr. Mason, I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s an urgent telephone call for you in your office. It’s Miss Webster.”

“Miss Webster,” murmured Mr. Mason dazedly, and then, “Good heavens yes, Miss Webster. Where
is
Miss Webster?” He jumped to his feet and said hastily, “I must excuse myself, I’m sorry, Mrs. Politick.”

“Pollifax,” she reminded him forgivingly, and leaned back in her chair to wait for his return.

Carstairs was lean, tall, with a crew-cut head of gray hair and a tanned, weather-beaten face. He looked an outdoor man although his secretary, Bishop, had no idea how he managed to maintain such a façade. He spent long hours in his office, which was a very special room equipped to bring him into contact with any part of the world in only a few seconds time. He often worked until midnight, and when something unusual was going on he would stay the night. Bishop didn’t envy him his job. He knew that Carstairs was OSS-trained, and that presumably his nerves had long ago been hammered into steel, but it was inhuman the way he kept his calm—Bishop was apt to hit the ceiling if his pencil point broke.

“Anything from Tirpak?” asked Carstairs right away, as Bishop handed him reports that had been filtering in since midnight.

“Nothing from him since Nicaragua.”

“That was two days ago. No word from Costa Rica, either?”

Bishop shook his head.

“Damn.” Carstairs leaned back in his chair and thought about it, not liking it very much. “Well, business as usual,” he told Bishop. “It’s time I made arrangements for Tirpak at the Mexico City end. One must be optimistic. I’ll be in Higgins’ office.”

“Right.”

“And keep the wires open for any news from Tirpak; he’s overdue and if there’s any word I want to hear immediately.”

Carstairs opened and closed the door of his soundproof office and joined the life of the humming building. Higgins was in charge of what Carstairs—humorously but never aloud—called “Personnel”: those thousands of paper faces locked up in top-secret steel files and presided over by Higgins of the cherubic face and fantastic memory. “Good morning,” said Carstairs, peering into Higgins’ room.

“Actually it’s cloudy outside,” Higgins said mildly. “That’s the trouble with this modern architecture. But come in anyway, Bill. Coffee?”

“You’re saving my life.”

Higgins looked doubtful. “You’d better taste the swill before you say that, and you’ll have to manage your own carton, I’ve already lost a fingernail prying open the lid of mine. What can I do for you?”

“I need a tourist.”

“Well, name your type,” Higgins said dolefully, and lifting his coffee high murmured,
“Skoal.”

“I want,” said Carstairs, “a very particular type of tourist.”