Seductive Poison Read Online Free PDF Page B

that that I learned why.
    Long before I came onto the scene, my mother had begun to spin a cocoon around herself. From her place of solace, she wove interesting stories and gave them to her children as protective shields against the painful truths she could not bear to tell. The one most closely associated with me was the story of my arrival. My birth, it seemed, was a momentous occasion. I loved the pretty stories of the long discussions and appeals from my big sister, Annalisa, for a baby sister. Mama, too, said she desired “just one more” baby. I grew up knowing that I was the only really planned-for child because, at age eight, my sister had successfully convinced my parents that she would take care of me. However, the truth was far different. It is only now that I realize my conception must have been on the evening of May 10, 1952, the evening my mother learned of her own mother’s suicide. I imagine the night was filled with tears and profound despair, my father holding and consoling my mother, trying to dissuade her from her crushing guilt. On February 7, 1953, exactly nine months after Grandma Anita’s death, the secretly grieved-about baby arrived in Tooele, Utah. Although she cared for me deeply and listened intently to my never-ending questions, she seemed sad, preoccupied, and sometimes in awe of me. Perhaps my presence reminded her of the mother she believed she had forsaken. Somewhere deep inside my mother’s heart she must have wondered from where my spirit arose.
MAY 10, 1952
My friends,
Know that I, free and proper, am a good American. But I was a gossip
and have been entangled in a network of intrigue. I no longer have the
strength to free myself from it.
Forget me not, my beloved children and family.
And you, Hugo, forgive me.
Live well. All of you loved mankind so much!!
–A.–
    On the morning of her suicide, Grandma Anita left behind what at the time seemed a mysterious missive written in German. No one understood why she mentioned being a good American. Sadly, however, Anita had a basis for her belief that she was entangled in some terrible intrigue.
    In 1951, my father had left his associate professorship at Johns Hopkins to accept a prestigious position as Associate Director of Chemical Warfare at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. My mother was apprehensive about the assignment, as was her mother.
    Anita had become very involved with the American Society of Friends (Quakers), the organization that had safeguarded her and Hugo’s journey out of Nazi Austria to the United States. The Friends had kept the Nazis at bay while desperately trying to obtain the last of the emergency visas granted to Jews. On March 20, 1940, the Friends gave Anita and Hugo the precious gift of another life in America.
    Now Anita was a devoted Friend and believed in their gospel of peace and nonviolence. Her son-in-law’s involvement in research on how to “kill humans with chemicals” was abhorrent to her. She talked with her daughter about her misgivings and begged her to convince Laurence not to take the job.
    In 1951, Anita could not know that after her son-in-law’s arrival in Utah, he was promoted to chief of the entire Chemical Warfare Division. With this high-level appointment, Dr. Layton required the highest level security clearance possible and the FBI began to conduct a thorough background investigation. My father, one of the government’s top men at Dugway, was married to a German woman, an “Alien of Enemy Nationality” as denoted on her passport, and her parents had to be closely investigated.
    J. Edgar Hoover was in his prime. He was a xenophobe and believed the Society of Friends to have Communist leanings. Hoover’smen, with little concern for the fallout of their investigation, began to question my grandmother and her Quaker friends. These men deemed it unnecessary to explain to the Society of Friends and the neighbors of Anita and Hugo why they were investigating the loyalties of the