Forgotten (16 page)

Saul stretched his arm across me. “Wait
here.”

He
disappeared but only briefly. When he returned, he beckoned me to
follow. I remained close behind, wandered past several rockeries
that buffered half-dead plants and other unrecognizable overgrowth.
Stoned pathways were nothing more than home to uncontrollable weeds
invading every crack available. I questioned Alice’s motives behind
such disrepair. Or perhaps gardening just wasn’t her
thing.

Once we reached the foot of the house, Saul
stopped and examined me, strangely. “You don’t know this place, do
you?”

I studied
the house in more detail. It rested on tall, unpainted timber
stumps. Its cream-colored exterior was cracked and peeling, its
corrugated iron roof appeared dull, parts of it covered in reddish
rust. I searched for anything familiar, but could only feel sadness
at what would’ve once been a very stately home. “No, should
I?”

“I don’t know.” He moved closer to the tired
looking steps and went up to the equally neglected front door.

“Won’t it be locked?”

“Probably.”

Before I could say another word, he had
fished an object from his pocket, inserted it into the lock and
jimmied the door open.

We then entered the house of Alice
Polinski.

My initial
impression was horribly creepy. I was in the residence of a person
I half-believed was from a dream and one who had just been cold
bloodedly murdered. Ghostly fingers slithered along my skin and I
trembled.

“
Are you all
right?” Saul said.

“This just feels weird.” Again, he stopped
and inspected me. It was becoming quite unsettling. “Why do you
keep watching me?”

“Looking for indications.”

“Indications of what?”

“Of something familiar to you.”

I vigilantly
scanned the hallway but found nothing. “How about I just
tell
you
if something rings a bell.”

Saul grinned. “Deal.”

We spent the
next half hour combing from one airless, musty smelling room to
another. We rummaged through wobbly drawers, creaking cupboards,
anything in the hope of discovering just one worthwhile
clue.

Nothing
.

Alice Polinski, whoever she was, was as
nondescript in her life as she was in person. Her home betrayed
very limited personal keepsakes. In fact, if I had to illustrate
her personality from the contents alone, it’d have been
exceptionally taxing.

“There has to be something.” Saul was
standing in one of the newly inspected bedrooms. Similar to the
others, its old furnishings were sparse.

“There are no photos,” I said. “None,
anywhere. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“Possibly, but it doesn’t necessarily mean
there weren’t any.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take a look at the tops of all the
dressers, the shelves. There was something on them and in all
likelihood, only recently.”

I crossed to
the dresser. Amidst the layer of dust, lay two conspicuous
dirt-free imprints, one quite large, the other smaller. The
adjacent shelves, revealed similar markings. “There were books
along these.” I indicated a set of aligned wall units.

Saul gave
them a quick look and agreed. He then studied the empty wall where
several hooks hung in an orderly fashion. He smoothed his hands
over the scuffed marks in the paintwork, stood back and studied
some more. “There were things hanging here. But again, only
recently. Someone’s been here before us and, for whatever reason,
has removed them, particularly from this room.”

Naturally, it begged the questions who and
why.

Saul’s eyes
narrowed. “If you were as important to Alice as I believe, she
would’ve hidden the most valuable things where no one would look,
someplace of special significance to her, or perhaps even to
you.”

I didn’t
know what Saul was talking about and told him as much.

“
Claudia, I
want you to try again. Go through the entire house, more slowly
this time. There has to be something here, something you recognize
or something that has meaning only to you.”

“That is one huge assumption.”

“Please, I feel right about this.”

I sighed and then did as he asked. To me the
task seemed erroneous, especially when I had no idea of what I was
searching for. After re-examining every tiny section of the place,
I still came up with zilch.

Sweat
trickled down beneath my breasts, leaving small, damp patches on my
top. I picked up a nearby notepad, leaned against the kitchen wall
and fanned my moist face with it. As I did, I took note of the
striking, natural outlook that stretched from the back section of
the property. It was so picturesque, so contrary to this timeworn
house.

Still
fanning myself, I moved closer to the window and looked down
towards the gardens. They weren’t any better than the front yard,
wild with never-ending overgrowth.

But it was amongst this pandemonium of plant
life that I saw it.

I dropped the notepad and froze. Somewhere
in my circuitous mind, a memory flickered.

Saul appeared from behind me. “What is
it?”

I didn’t pause long enough to answer, but
instead scrabbled out the back door, down another set of rickety
steps and towards the object that caught my attention. I stopped in
front of it, Saul close at my heels.

There,
blanched and weather worn, stood a statue of an angel about five or
six feet high. Its grey, stone eyes were frozen upon a small child
curled at its feet. “I’ve seen this before,” I whispered. My heart
was hammering in the back of my throat.

“Here?”

“No.” As if in a trance, I kept my eyes
fixed on the motionless shape. “My guardian angel.”

I sensed Saul’s movement to the right of me.
“What guardian angel?”

“
The cards.”
My thoughts were racing, my mind full of awe. “The birthday cards.
The ones I got every year on December 3, the ones I told you about.
They were always signed the same,
I am forever watching over you. All my love,
your….
”

“
Guardian angel.
”
Saul instantly plunged to one knee, and began
tearing apart the ground covering directly in front of the statue’s
feet. “We need a shovel.”

It didn’t
take me long to locate one, in a small shed beneath the house.
Unlike everything else, the shovel appeared new, unused. I returned
to the stone figure. Saul then used the shovel and his energy to
lift the soil.

“Why that spot?” I asked.

“
Just a
hunch.” He didn’t once slow his pace as he spoke.
“
I am forever watching over
you.
I figured this is where the angel is
doing exactly that.”

He figured
right. Within moments, the clanking when metal hits metal sounded.
I immediately knelt down helping to finger the dirt away. My head
was giddy with a rush of anticipation. My heart however, was
thrashing with dread. What would we find? Something rewarding,
something valuable or something that would only further complicate
my already muddled life.

The metal
sound belonged to a large hinged door, possibly three or four feet
in length, half that in width. There were signs of rust, a little
corrosion around its rugged edges, but other than that, it seemed
solid.

Saul wiped
the beads of sweat from his brow, leaving behind a dirty smudge,
and then grabbed hold of the ringed handle with both hands. He
pulled the door until it rested back upon its hinges.

And that’s when we saw it.

A wooden box
with a series of words fastidiously engraved along its crest. Any
giddy anticipation had collapsed, as I read the words
repeatedly.

My darling Claudia. Age
0 months to 12 months.

Immediate
instincts
told me it was another person,
another
Claudia, not me.

But….

I looked
across at Saul who was watching me. Even in my current state of
disbelief, I couldn’t help but be conscious of his open
concern.
He leaned back on one
knee.

I
hesitated. Exposing the contents of the box
could unbolt a new channel of existence for me. The only question
remaining was did I want it to?

We could uncover some pretty unpleasant things,
Saul had warned,
so you need to be prepared for it.

“
You and me,
right to the end. Okay?”
he
said.

I
took
a breath.
“Okay.”

We lifted
the box and placed it on the ground. What took us aback was the
sight of more boxes in the concrete lined void. We continued to
haul them out one by one. There were eight
in total, each inscribed with
My darling Claudia
, the only
notable differences being the ages; each box typified another year
with the final box, reading
Age 7 years – 8years.

Disregarding
a surge of unrest, I unfastened the first box. Lying as innocently
as its pastel pink
color was a small
photo album, my name skillfully embroidered in lime green across
its fabric cover. My unsteady fingers slowly picked it up. Beneath
it, I noticed baby clothes, rattles, booties, soft, plush
toys.

My attention
though, sprang back to the album and the contents it was about to
confess. The need to know had now mushroomed, superseding any
earlier uncertainties. Saul moved closer. Feeling his presence gave
me strength.

I opened the first page.

There was
Alice Polinski, the woman in my dreams, waiflike, pretty,
fair-haired, wearing a huge grin as she gazed upon the tiny baby
nestled in her arms. It was titled
Claudia and Me - Day 1.

I quickly
flicked through more pages. Each of them paraded images of me, my
first smile, my first wave, my first step. On and on it went, my
first year of life depicted in pictures. I couldn’t ignore the
apparent absence of my parents, of my brother Milo or any other
family members.

There existed just us.

Alice Polinski and me.

I closed my eyes in numbed silence,
desperately trying to come to grips with what was in my lap. I then
scurried to wrench open the other seven boxes encountering more
albums, more clothing, more toys, each box chronologically
displaying a period of my life.

My life until the age of over seven.

A time I had
no recollection of, not even now, not even with all the evidence
before me. Only a short time ago, I had the impression that my life
as I knew it was about to change; little did I know just how
accurate I was. My hands began trembling as I swung to the man
beside me. “Saul,” I whispered
.
“
Who am I
?”

He offered a look of genuine sympathy,
coupled it with his strong arms around me. By then, I could no
longer fight back the tears. My body shook as they streamed down my
face. He didn’t say a word; just held me close, occasionally
stroking my hair.

I don’t know
how much time passed with the two of us huddled together amongst
the shards of what was once a regal garden, watched by the eyes of
the guardian angel,
my
guardian angel. The sweet sounding rustling of
the surrounding trees, their aromatic odor did little to pacify me.
Instead, the sturdy, rhythmic echo of Saul’s heart calmed me,
encouraged my tears to eventually stop.

I moved away. “I’ve dirtied your shirt,” I
half choked, brushing the dampened mascara on his shoulder.

“Hmmm, not the shirt that’s in such good
taste.” He lifted my head with one hand and using the thumb from
his other, he wiped away the smudges beneath my eyes. “There,” he
said surveying his handiwork. “Beautiful, again.”

My cheeks heated and I turned away. “I want
to go through these boxes. It may help me remember.”

“
I agree. We
can take them back to my place where you can study them without
interruption… if you want.”

I did want.

It took some
time, but together we managed to load all eight containers into
Saul’s Jeep. We closed the metal door near the statue, re-covered
it with the soil and spread vines and broken shrubbery to conceal
it as best we could.

Before
leaving, I knelt before the statue and gently ran my hand along the
child at its feet. I didn’t know why, but in some strange way, I
felt that this child symbolized me. I raised my heartfelt eyes to
the vigilant ones of the angel, safely guarding the infant. For one
small moment, I imagined it to be the face of Alice
Polinski.

Whoever she was.

My guardian angel.

December 26, 2010

4:55 pm

“
I NEED
TO
see my parents now,” I said, as we
approached a major T-junction.

Saul appeared surprised. “Are you sure about
this?”

The silent
drive from Alice Polinski’s had given me ample time to reflect. “I
need to know who she was; why I was with her.” And then in a low,
deliberate voice. “I need to hear it from their mouths.”

Saul didn’t
question me any further on it. He flicked on his indicator and
turned right. The road was smooth and wide, so unlike the narrow,
gritty one we had just left. One more turn saw us motoring along
the four-lane highway towards Nankari Bay.