“Mrs. Santini, since you’re here would you like to have a look inside?” April jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the partially finished interior.
“I’d like that very much. But please, call me Norma.”
“Norma, then. The carpeting hasn’t been installed, and I have no window coverings yet. I uncovered the most marvelous wood floors in the bedrooms when I pulled out the old carpet. The smallest of the three bedrooms has different wood from the other two. It’s lovely—quite unique. Perhaps you’ll know if it’s a local hardwood.”
Following April inside, Norma took care to scrape the mud off her boots, even though April assured her she’d have to clean many times before having new carpet laid.
Once inside, Norma stood completely still, saying over and over, “Oh my, oh my.”
“The wall I removed separated a tiny room from the living area. These days a lot of people need a home office, and I thought it’d be perfect as a work-space alcove. I’ll install beveled-glass French doors here.” April traced out an area. “This was the wall where I found the letters. Without it, I imagine the room looks very different from what you remember.”
April retrieved her coffee mug from the sawhorse. Lifting it, she spoke into the lengthening silence. “Could I get you some coffee, Norma?”
“What? Oh, I’d love some. I feel…light-headed. I’m afraid I simply wasn’t prepared for all these memories.”
“Do you need to sit? I’ll help you into the kitchen. That and my bedroom are the only rooms I’ve furnished in order to live and work here.” She led the older woman to the breakfast nook and pulled out a chair. Hurrying over to the carafe, April poured a mug full of coffee and returned to put it in Norma’s cold hands.
“You asked about the flooring in the smallest bedroom,” Norma said, after taking a bracing sip of coffee. “Yellow poplar. The only stand that’s left, I believe, is in Ramsey’s Draft Wilderness area.” She pointed out the window. “That room ended up being Brett’s nursery.” Norma set down her mug, crossed her arms and rubbed her sleeves as if warding off a chill.
But she’d never removed her quilted coat and she wore a turtleneck sweater underneath. Seeing the home had obviously been overwhelming. April urged her to drink more of her coffee.
That did seem to help Norma’s color. Rather than remain seated, however, she rose and went to examine the kitchen. “You’ve done a wonderful job with the cabinets. What I wouldn’t have given back then to have this kitchen.”
“You didn’t have a cook?” That surprised April.
“Heavens, no. Tony owned this land, but not much else. As I said, construction materials came at a premium. He had some savings when he retired as an army major and that’s what he used. We’d both left the OSS by then, so for a time we had no income.”
“OSS?” Slipping in behind Norma as she left the kitchen, April wondered what that was. She’d never heard of it before.
“Yes, dear. The Office of Strategic Services. But you’re probably too young to be familiar with it. The OSS was the forerunner to our current CIA. It’s how I met Tony. Of course, then I didn’t know his name, nor he mine. He was one of several officers picked to train agents. And I was one of a few select women who ended up wearing many faces, my dear.”
April gulped, afraid that Norma might be delusional. And as the old woman moved slowly from room to room, murmuring to herself, it was as if she’d forgotten she wasn’t alone. She let old memories unfold in almost a whisper. “In 1943 I was a blissfully naive eighteen. I’d completed a year at Barnard, then attended finishing school abroad. I loved Europe. My father was an international banker, and throughout my teen years we spent a month here or there in France, Germany, Italy. All before the war broke out. When it did, my parents called me home. I was eager to do something to help the war effort—anything except fill cocktail glasses at the parties my parents held to raise money for the troops. I guess that made me the perfect OSS candidate.”
Pausing at the door to one of the empty bedrooms, Norma turned and walked back to the living room, April not far behind.
Nervous, April bit her lip, but said nothing to interrupt Norma’s soft flow of words. She was intrigued, but also wasn’t sure any of this was true. But…maybe it was.
“A general who often attended Father’s evening fundraisers was interested to learn that I’d traveled extensively abroad. And that I was fluent in several languages. At one party he pulled me aside and asked questions in French, Italian and German. I have an aptitude for languages. And before he left that night, he slipped me a business card. He said he had a job for me in Washington.”
Norma stopped in front of the massive fireplace and ran her fingers over the oak mantel, but continued to ramble. “The war changed everyone. Under normal circumstances my parents would never have approved of me working, other than at home for Father. But my older brother and his friends had shipped out to England. Mother’s women’s group helped by rolling bandages, which I found too tame.”
She crossed to stare out the side window. “At the time I put the general’s card in my pocket and agreed to an interview. I told my parents that at most I’d be answering phones, filing or typing in some moldy back office on Capitol Hill. It turned out the general was recruiting me to be a specialized support person in Europe. To be extra eyes and ears for a newly formed counterintelligence unit, he said. I wasn’t allowed to tell a soul, my parents included. Real names weren’t spoken aloud.” She turned toward April and sighed. “A dashing and very attractive officer, whose name I learned much later was Anthony Santini, assigned us code names. Mine was Oriole. He and our other trainers were older and far more experienced than I was. They were so impressive and very serious. I spent weeks in awe of them.”
April remembered the page tucked among the letters addressed to Oriole from Kestrel. April guessed Tony Santini might be Kestrel. So, if Norma’s story wasn’t a figment of her imagination, the scrambled letters on the pages she’d seen could be secret, encrypted messages.
April injected her first comment in a while. “When I was in college, I read a biography of the Countess Romanones, who supposedly worked as a clerk in a U.S. company with offices abroad. Part of her job was actually to decode intercepted enemy messages.”
Norma’s head shot up. “I did that for a few months. I was used to helping my father with his banking, and I discovered I was good at unscrambling codes. Things moved fast, though, and I was transferred to Morale Operations, later called psychological warfare. We disseminated propaganda, so I began delivering messages to field agents, as well. I was taught to kill swiftly and silently when necessary—but fortunately it wasn’t necessary, not for me. Still, a difficult lesson for a refined former debutante. It was far easier to act like a silly young woman out for a good time. In those situations I was expected only to store the conversations taking place around me in a number of languages. Although sometimes that had serious consequences, too,” she said, her eyes blanking momentarily.
Such a sad expression came over Norma that April’s imagination ran wild. So wild, she stopped her guest right there. “Mrs. Santini, uh, Norma. I can’t bear to think I’ve contributed to these painful memories.” Gently, April tugged the mug from the woman’s tense fingers and began escorting Norma back to the entrance. “Those letters and any information they contain should be kept private.”
At the door, April squeezed Norma’s arm. “I swear I’ll return them this afternoon. I’ll try for three o’clock, four at the latest. I ought to be able to manage that, but I really should get back to the work I was doing before you arrived.”
Her promise seemed to relieve Norma. Still, April had grown more curious than ever about those letters—and why they were hidden in a wall. Obviously, someone had intended they’d never see the light of day. If the letters contained damning secrets, why hadn’t Norma simply burned them in the old stone fireplace that flanked the very wall