Claudine (12 page)

Word-of-mouth recommendations were supreme in her business and not even a whiff of suspicion, whether from jealous wives or journalists, had ever touched any of her customers. She had a sterling reputation for discretion, another factor that fueled demand for her services. She could not afford to have the police on her back.

But clearly, they were on Andrei’s. Maria had never inquired too deeply into his business before he came to work for her. Still, it was a shock to hear he’d been tied up that directly with the mafia. It didn’t match the kind person she’d come to know. People were always full of surprises.

Her mind drifted back to the evil verse left underneath the photo by her stalker. Worm music. The words underneath the photo kept returning to her like a scratch on a record. And Siret
.
Only a few people knew the exact name of the town where the orphanage she’d spent those dark months was located in, or the age she’d left it at. She had a good idea where the information came from. That afternoon she meant to find out for sure.

CHAPTER
13

When Jewel Welland hit her midthirties, she was divorced and alone, so she decided to adopt a child. The idea of being able to simply select one and avoid all the pain and mess of childbirth appealed to her orderly mind. Dire conditions in Romanian orphanages has been much in the news in those days and Jewel had swooped down on one of the orphanages like an avenging angel. She paced between the filthy cots, examining the infant offerings. Most of the boys and girls were ruined by neglect and by years confined to their cots. With no stimulation, barely ever experiencing a kind human touch, many of the children waved their hands in the air as the only way they knew how to communicate. Jewel would try a tentative smile at those she thought might be interesting. The children would stare back at her with wide-open eyes and slack, dribbling mouths as if she were a cartoon character. Those who regularly burst into fits of temper or
tried to clamber out of their beds had their wrists firmly clamped to the cot struts. All of them, Jewel decided, were too far gone. Impossible to mold any of these into an acceptable son or daughter, let alone one who might excel.

The stink of the place overwhelmed her from the start. Jewel’s expensive heels slipped on brown floors damp with urine. She held a perfumed tissue to her nose to staunch the smell of sheets stained with mucus and feces. She’d wanted to save a child who’d endured some of the worst deprivations but now realized it had been a mistake to come.

She was about to tell the matron accompanying her that she’d changed her mind when they passed a small room. She glimpsed a cot pushed against a back wall. It was the only piece of furniture and the cement floor was pitted and soiled. In one corner she could see a nest of some kind, dozens of long, dark, slippery insect bodies swarming in and out of a crack in the cement. They were feasting on excrement. Jewel turned her head away in disgust.

Kneeling on a dirty mattress, staring at them through the high struts of the crib, a cherubic face caught Jewel’s attention, matted blond hair twisting down the child’s bare shoulders, and two wide eyes, a heavenly green. The worn material of the mattress was so stained that the original pattern of the fabric was barely discernible. It had split around the outside seam and the stuffing protruded.

The girl had contorted herself into a painful position, her right wrist tied securely with thin cable to the crib’s top bar. She was naked. With her free hand the girl reached through the gap in the struts, opened and closed her fingers. The gesture was a
parody of welcome. She was not a toddler. Jewel judged the child to be around five or six years old.

She stopped in her tracks and removed the tissue from her nose. “Who’s that?”

“Older girl.” The matron replied. “Trouble child. You don’t want her.”

“What kind of trouble? Is she mentally deficient?”

“
Da
. She has a bad mind. Screams at night. Won’t keep quiet.”

Jewel saw this as a positive sign. It showed the child had normal reactions to extreme deprivation. She walked closer. The girl’s eyes were clear and wary. The vacant expression she’d seen on the other children’s faces was missing. “How long has she been here?”

The matron held up five fingers. “Since January. Five months only.”

“She must be able to talk, then.” Jewel touched the small hand and the girl shrank back in fear.

She noticed a band of bruises on the girl’s arm, a cluster of darker ones around the wrist secured by the rope and more bruising at the top of her thighs. “She’s been beaten.” Jewel said accusingly.

“I don’t know that. They might have to. She tries and tries to get out.”

“Why doesn’t she have any clothes on?”

The matron shrugged her shoulders. “She tears them off and wets on them. Then throws them on the floor. Bad girl. Animal.”

So her bed won’t be drenched in pee, you idiot, she thought. That showed the child had a clear working mind. And better, a desire to keep herself clean.

“What happened to her parents?”

“Criminal people. Executed.”

The girl kept her eyes glued on her visitors. Jewel thought she detected a faint glimmer of warmth. She turned to the matron. “Is there somewhere you can give her a bath? A hand wash even? And some clothes, comb her hair? Then bring her to me. I may be interested in taking her. I’m willing to be generous.”

One week later Maria Lantos was on her way to Providence, Rhode Island. Jewel hired a nurse to accompany them, fearing the child might burst into the temper tantrums the matron described. It proved unnecessary. Maria was a quiet little mouse, afraid of everything. This enlivened Jewel in a different way. At the law firm, Jewel was admired for her single-mindedness. Once she’d mapped out a course of action, she was unstoppable. She managed her cases carefully, choosing only those she knew she would win. To create an intelligent, well-balanced daughter out of such deprivation presented a challenge. Jewel believed Maria was a case she could win.

M
aria possessed only one tailored suit. She’d worn it exactly twice, once for an interview with the university registrar and the second time for a funeral. She felt now as if it were another funeral she was headed to; the woman she was about to see had been dead to her for a very long time.

Jewel’s condo was only a few blocks away from Maria’s building. Was it odd that Maria had chosen a place so close even though the emotional distance between them was fathomless? Keeping a fragile thread alive, perhaps, to her girlhood? She
hoped not. That was simply too pathetic. She held her breath while the doorman called up to the apartment. There was no certainty her adoptive mother would agree to see her. So she felt both relieved and anxious when he told her to go on up after clicking off the intercom. She hit the buzzer at Jewel’s door and a maid answered. The maid nodded in approval when Maria removed her shoes, and showed her into the long, elegant living room. It was the same as she remembered; not even the smallest detail had changed. Except for the kitchen and bathrooms, wall-to-wall white broadloom covered all the floors in the apartment. Jewel hated noise, said she liked it quiet enough that you could hear a pin drop. Maria had once emptied a whole box of pins on the tile kitchen floor just to see whether Jewel would notice.

Everything was spotlessly clean. The Ming dynasty china Jewel loved to collect gleamed in the glass cabinet. Tasteful antique furniture that looked attractive but felt uncomfortable was artfully arranged. The television was discreetly hidden behind cupboard doors, the fireplace long closed off. No clutter of plants or family photographs. No music playing in the background. It was as if the life had been drained out of the place. She went over to the white baby grand in front of the leaded glass windows and plunked a simple tune on the ivory keys.

She’d taken her first lessons on this piano in Providence. Jewel was at work much of the time, often not home until after dinner. Maria’s nanny, a part-time college student, came from a big, boisterous African-American family in the Mount Hope district. She’d take Maria home with her and devised all kinds of games to play with her younger siblings and cousins. Afterward
they’d sit in the kitchen, the main gathering spot in the house, and eat a huge meal, often with twelve at the table. More than anything else, this tempted Maria out of her cage of fear. She began to trust people again. It was her nanny who first sat beside her on the piano bench and taught her to play. Jewel was thrilled when Maria managed a complete piano score with no mistakes. It was one of the few times she could remember Jewel approving of something she did. She lifted the lid of the piano bench. She picked up the thin, browned pages of one of the music books, surprised to see Jewel had kept it through all these years. Her memories were abruptly cut off by her adoptive mother’s sharp tone.

“You’re lucky I was here.” Jewel said. “I’m going out soon.” She checked her watch even though Maria knew she had the time right down to the minute. “What did you want, Marie?”

Nothing more than that. Not even a hint of surprise at Maria materializing after a nine-year absence. And “Marie” never “Maria.” Right from the start, Jewel refused to use her proper name as if it had been necessary to erase all elements of the past in order to realize her grand remodeling project.

She steeled herself, and thought, Don’t rise to the bait. Be nice. “You’re looking well, Jewel. I’m glad to see you.”

Her invitation to call a truce was met with silence.

“How’s Milne?”

“He’s away. On a business trip.”

Drying out somewhere, Maria thought.

Jewel checked her watch again. “I’ve just got time for a cocktail. Do you want one? What about a White Lady?”

“Sure, thanks.” She forced a smile. White Ladies were the only cocktails Jewel ever drank.

Jewel rang for the maid and ordered the drinks. “Don’t stand on ceremony. Have a seat.” Maria lowered herself to one of the settees and Jewel sat on the other facing her, the two of them holding themselves breathlessly, like gladiators preparing for combat.

It was as if nine years had vanished in a flash. Jewel looked no older. A product of extensive surgery, she had the tight-skinned, plasticized look to prove it. Not a hair of her white-blond coif was out of place. She wore well-cut slacks and silk shirt of black, her favorite color. Pinned to her lapel, a sapphire brooch with a teardrop pearl. Milne’s wedding gift. Early on, Jewel had developed the habit of always wearing a precious gem as an acknowledgment of her name.

The maid brought their drinks and disappeared. Jewel took a sip and set her stem glass down on a coaster placed on the end table. “Well,” she said brightly, “are you still whoring?”

Maria wanted to toss her drink in Jewel’s face, smash the precious Ming china, and ruin the white broadloom. Instead she said, “Let’s not get off on the wrong foot. I know you have no desire to see me. And I wouldn’t have come if there wasn’t an urgent reason.”

“You turned out to be an extreme disappointment to me, Marie. After everything I did for you, you can’t expect me to feel charitable. All the funds spent on private schools. Your piano lessons, summer camp in the Catskills, braces. All money down the drain. What a colossal embarrassment you turned out to be.”

“And the next thing on the tip of your tongue is: I should have left you in that orphanage. I know the litany, so you can spare me the rest.”

“You were a distant child right from the start. It was unnatural.”

“What did you expect? I’d just come from a torture chamber.”

“I should have known that you can’t make an angel out of a slut.” Jewel carried on as if it had been a speech she’d been itching to give for nine years.

Maria wanted to scream at her. The same rage she’d felt as a teenager boiled up all over again. She banged her glass down on the end table.

“Look. I came because I need some information. A man has been stalking me. He’s aware of things. The name of the town near the orphanage, Siret. How old I was when I came here. Very few people know about that. Have you talked about me, my origins, with anyone recently?”

“
You
are not a subject I make a habit of discussing. Why would you think I have any desire to broadcast a source of shame?” She took an angry gulp of her cocktail, draining the glass. “A man’s stalking you. Do you have any idea how absurd that sounds? He probably just wants to screw you. You’re not playing hard to get are you? That can’t be good for business.”

Maria folded her arms across her chest as if to defend herself from the river of spite pouring out of Jewel’s mouth. “It’s just me here. Me and you. If you don’t tell me, I can send the police over if that’s what you want. Wouldn’t
that
ruffle your neighbors’ feathers.”

“The police don’t waste time checking out harassment cases against prostitutes.”

“Jewel, a young girl was killed because she looked like me. A child. She was only fifteen,” she said flatly, making one last effort to wind the tone back down to manageable levels.

“Well, you can see how your . . . habits . . . lead to sordid endings. My advice would be to put your life back together again, seek counseling, whatever you need to do. Start afresh. Move to another city where no one knows you.” It was obvious what she meant.
Far away from me.

“Why would I do that, Jewel? I like my job. And I’m very good at it.” She gave her a witchy smile.

Jewel stared at her for a moment, then pulled out her phone and checked something on the screen. Despite the tone of voice she’d used, Maria wasn’t sure her adoptive mother even heard what she’d said. “Jewel! Who did you tell about me?”

Her words were met with a stony silence. Then Jewel said, “My friend’s due any minute. We’re off to a launch at the New Museum. You’ll have to leave, I’m afraid.” Her voice was cold and her waxy skin, always carefully protected from the sun, looked as white as ice.

Living in Jewel’s household had left Maria with an appreciation for fine art. She kept informed about the various openings and shows. She knew there was no launch scheduled at the New Museum that evening. And likely no “friend” on the way either. Jewel had made the story up to get rid of her. For some reason this cut much deeper than the bitter words.