Her Hungry Heart (17 page)

‘Poppa, Poppa, you’re here.’

There were no tears for Mimi. No misty eyes. Her large violet eyes just shimmered with happiness. ‘Don’t cry, Poppa. I’m fine, we’re here, I knew you’d come. I always
knew you’d come. You told me you would. I did everything you told me so you would be safe, and you are, and you’re here, just as you said you would be. Don’t cry, Poppa.’ Mimi hugged him and returned those many kisses.

A crowd gathered around them. They were standing quite still. One man, for some reason, was snapping pictures of them. They noticed nothing. Penny, David’s daughter, was now standing at the rail next to Mimi. David pushed through the crowd. He had retrieved her beret. He saw how close to losing control Karel was. He tried to interrupt them, to offer them some privacy, but there was no point. Finally it was Penny who got through to Mimi. She was slipping the rubber guards on to her skates for her so Mimi could walk away from the rink.

That interruption gave Karel the pause he needed to regain control of himself. He wiped his eyes unashamedly and kissed Penny’s hand. The New York crowd began to clap. Several men and women patted Karel and Mimi on the shoulder. Gradually the crowd returned their attention to the skaters going round and round on the ice.

Mimi would remember all her life those words, that moment at the edge of the Rockefeller Center skating rink. She said simply, ‘Penny, this is my father, Count Karel Stefanik, and my name is not Kowalski, I only borrowed that for the war. My name is Mimi Alexandra Stefanik. And today I have a Poppa again, who is going to buy us hot chocolate.’

Sophia had been standing on the sidelines of the crowd, weeping uncontrollably. She was only a few feet from Mimi. Holding on to her father’s hand, Mimi pushed towards Sophia and introduced her father to the cook. ‘This is one of my best friends, Sophia. She takes care of me. We make cakes together. Sophia, this is Poppa, he has come to take us home.’

The cook gave a little curtsy. Karel, ever the gentleman, kissed her hand in a perfect continental kiss. Sophia burst
into fresh tears. Karel placed an arm around her shoulders to comfort her. Then he took them all to the Plaza, the Palm Court. There was champagne and hot chocolate and cakes for everyone.

The closeness was there and so was the love in abundance. That neither father nor daughter had a problem about that was obvious to everyone in the party at the Palm Court. It had all gone better than anyone could have hoped for in such an extraordinary reunion. Emotions were running high for all concerned: father, daughter, friends. Here was a long awaited happy ending. A Cinderella story come true, Little Orphan Annie meets Daddy Warbucks, all mixed up with Peace In Our Time. The Peabodys and Sophia were torn between weeping with relief that Mimi’s dream had come true, and laughing because father and daughter had beaten the odds, slain the devil, and could begin to live again, be a family.

Karel returned with Mimi and Sophia to the flat on Central Park West. It was inevitable that there would be surprises for them both. That was to be expected. They had after all been living lives neither knew anything about. But a surprise Karel never expected was to be greeted by silver-framed photographs of Barbara Dunmellyn, set on tables, the piano, one next to Mimi’s bed. Some were of Barbara alone, others with Mimi. Others of Barbara, Mimi and Sophia. Yet others of people, all strangers, whom Karel knew nothing about. There was no photo of Karel, or of Lydia, Mimi’s mother, or her brother. It was as if she had no family at all. That was, of course, to be expected. The child had never had any photographs of her past with the exception of a few of the family houses. They had been taken away with her real identity. And it had been he who had done that to her.

Karel had always known what he had done, and at times had questioned it, but the reality was right here, now, in front of his eyes and it hurt. It hurt badly. If he could feel
that pain, then what must Mimi have gone through? What pain had she been made to sustain, a child without a family whose past, and real identity, had been denied her, a child who had trained herself to live every day of her life as a lie. Mimi had lived her whole childhood wrapped in a tissue of untruths. He asked himself, What have I done? And for both their sakes relegated those questions to the past, so that the pain of what had been might fade away. He thought only of the present and his reunion with Mimi.

Sophia retreated to the kitchen to make a welcome home dinner for Karel and Mimi gave him a tour of the flat.

‘And this is your room, Poppa. We call it the guest room so as not to tempt fate. That was Barbara’s idea. But everyone always knew it was my poppa’s room.’

At last, the tour over, they sat together. Mimi snuggled up next to her father on the sofa. They were silent for some time just watching the lights of New York through the large window overlooking the park.

‘I think this is the happiest day of my life, Poppa.’

‘Mine too, Angel.’

‘No one has called me “angel” since the last time you did, Poppa.’

Karel pulled her up closer to him and stroked her hair. He touched her cheek, the tip of her nose. He kissed her on the lips and then her hand. ‘You’ve been a very brave girl, Mimi. I am very proud of you. I intend to make it up to you, give you the family you have had to grow up without. If you only knew how relieved I am to see how well you have done here, how happy you are. The friends you have made. What that means to me. I couldn’t bear it if you had been unhappy, deprived of your comfort.’

A silence. Each of them lost in thoughts that lasted for some considerable time. Mimi burying for ever in the recesses of her mind the miserable life she had been made to live from the time she left her father until her arrival at Beechtrees. She would tell him as little as possible of those
years and dress them up. She had always known he would suffer if he knew the truth, and she could not bear that. That silence sealed for ever the past and what war had done to them and their relationship in the name of survival. In that Karel was certain they would be no different from millions of other victims of the Second World War. They would both, father and daughter, live in the present with a love of life for themselves and each other. To ignore, as much as might be possible, Mimi’s lost years. They sat in darkness hugging each other and watching New York all aglitter.

It was difficult for Karel and Mimi to admit to, and so they never did, but they were strangers. The long years of separation had done that to them. But they were strangers only in the sense that they had come a long way for a long time without each other. Nothing could change that. But because they loved each other it was easy to begin again, to take each other at face value, and let themselves unfold to each other the way they were now.

Eventually he broke the silence. ‘It’s a magical city, isn’t it, Angel?’

‘Yes, Poppa. Were you here much before the war?’

‘No, not much. I hardly know this city.’

Mimi knelt beside him and leaned close. Straining to see his face in the dark, she told him enthusiastically, ‘Oh, I do. Poppa, I could show you New York. It’s a wonderful city.’

‘Good. Then you shall be my guide. Starting tomorrow.’

Sophia, on entering the room, chastised Mimi for letting her father sit in the dark. She flipped a switch and the light from several attractive lamps brought warmth and considerable charm to the room. Karel thought he must, at the very least, send flowers to Kate Peabody for her care in the decoration of the apartment. Something more generous later on.

He had already heard, at length, about the Peabodys, and Barbara Dunmellyn, and someone called Jack, an FBI man,
and Ching Lee. Even a man across the hall who made hats for her and Sophia and was teaching them how to make their own. He had hardly had time to think why Barbara had not said anything to him about knowing Mimi. But every time he looked across the room and saw her smiling in a glamorous black and white head-shot from its silver frame, he had no doubts. Whatever the reason, she had probably been right not to. He put the question, for the time being, out of his mind.

Sophia produced a tray with glasses and a bottle of Krug in an ice bucket. Two glasses. ‘Will this do, sir?’ she asked.

‘My dear Sophia, you are a treasure. Yes, very nicely, thank you. But another glass, please, for yourself.’

Clearly both Mimi and Sophia were pleased. Mimi hopped off the sofa and said, ‘You sit down, Sophia. I’ll get it.’

‘Sophia, I am greatly indebted to you for taking such care of Mimi. We will talk about that further, you and I.’

‘I love, Mimi, Count Stefanik. Caring for her has turned out to be one of the joys of my life. I will miss her.’

‘You need not miss her. If you would consider it, you have a place in our family for the rest of your life. I would not think of parting you from Mimi.’

She had been crossing the room when she heard her father. She rushed into Sophia’s arms after handing the woman the glass, hugged her and said, ‘Didn’t I tell you he is the nicest, kindest, most handsome poppa in the world? You will say you will stay with us, Sophia? My poppa will give us the most wonderful life.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘No “we’ll see”. You want to, don’t you?’ badgered Mimi.

‘Sophia,’ suggested Karel, as a soft-sounding pop of the cork he pulled and a slim stream of vapour escaped the bottle, ‘you’re family, and you stay with us for as long as you like. Shall we leave it at that for now, and another day
you and I will sit down and talk about it?’ He poured the wine and the three watched the bubbles rise in the glasses.

They each made a toast before they drank. Sophia’s was, ‘To Joe Pauley, for bringing Mimi to me and changing her life and mine.’ Then they drank.

In the week that followed the reunion, Karel was to learn from Sophia who Joe Pauley was and about Mimi’s first appearance at Beechtrees, but precious little else. He had no doubt that the cook had been censored by Mimi. He had also heard about the deaths of Mashinka and Tatayana, and Mashinka’s brother. The tears in Mimi’s eyes and his own despair at her being orphaned by their deaths prevented any further questions about their deaths or where they were interred. He was never to question Mimi again.

Chapter 15

Every day for nearly a week they arrived, long-stemmed white roses. A different species to mark each day. With them his calling-card inscribed with a line of sensuous poetry and nothing more.

Barbara was sitting cross-legged on the floor at one end of the studio, studying an enormous canvas, the first of her Storm Warnings series. She had captured something quite wonderful in the thin washes of an elephantine grey over mauve, and below that another wash of violet. Horizontal streaks of shiny black oil paint undulated mysteriously through the layers of pigment. At the far end of the studio she could hear the tap-tapping of a hammer. Her studio assistant, Henry Ho, a distant cousin of Lee, was stretching new canvas over a large frame. It was ten o’clock in the morning. The sun streamed through the skylight. Barbara was wearing a long loose shirt over blue jeans, around her hair a soft silk scarf tied with a bow that had slipped to one side.

Lee arrived carrying a silver tray with coffee, bacon and scrambled eggs, toast and apricot jam. On the tray yet another small white card. She recognized it at once. Lee placed the tray on the floor in front of her.

‘More white roses?’ she asked him.

‘The loveliest yet, large, full-blown, with an extraordinary scent. Don’t let your food get cold.’

She left the card on the tray and poured a cup of strong black coffee. It was very hot, nearly burned her lip. She
flinched from the heat and some of the liquid spilt into the saucer. Barbara placed the cup and saucer down on the tray. Tissues from the breast pocket of her shirt went under the cup. A flutter of cards, his calling cards, fell on to the tray. She ignored them and raised the gold-rimmed porcelain plate. With a silver fork, she ate ravenously while still studying her work in progress. Lee returned with a Lalique vase and the white roses. He set them on the floor where she could see them, in front of the canvas she had labelled Storm Warnings No.1.

Lee sat down, cross-legged like his mistress, buttered a piece of toast for her and placed it on her plate.

‘I’ll go and help the boys.’

‘Yes. These eggs are perfect, Lee.’

She had been staring into her painting. He had been with her for years. He knew how distracted she became when she worried and assumed it was this that was absorbing her. He was only partially right. She put the plate down next to her on the polished wooden floor and more cautiously drank the hot coffee. It felt good, the taste, the shot of caffeine. She stared down at the neat little pile of cards assembled distractedly by Lee, the latest one placed squarely on the top. She glanced at the white flowers, so pure in their voluptuousness, so vibrant and sexual against her painting.

She placed the cup and saucer on the tray and opened the small white envelope. She read the card, closed her eyes and let herself drift into lusty thoughts of sex with him. She set the small white card alongside the others. Roses every day and exquisite, provocative words to excite her fantasies, to remind her of the sexual hold they had upon each other. Words that caused her to think of her own erotic needs. He was her devil in bed and that was what satisfied her. With him she liked that sensation of feeling like a cat on heat, that yearning for cock, a trip into sexual madness. Sexual love with him surged in and out of her consciousness. She suspected the sexual love she felt for him had already
become a factor in her life. Barbara knew in her heart she would always be ready for him. What made that more exciting was her sense that he would always be ready for her.

She refilled her now empty cup with hot coffee. While it cooled she dealt the small white calling-cards as if from a deck, and spread them out in front of her. She reread his love-notes, savouring every word. Barbara rose from the floor, and with her fingers took the last rasher of bacon on the plate. She ate it between sips of coffee, and walked to the far end of the studio to see how the boys were getting on. She was excited by the progress she had made in her work that morning. Her yearnings for Karel and sex were something separate from the rest of her life and work. She was intelligent enough to understand and respect her own fearlessness in both work and sexual passion. She knew instinctively that she would deny neither of them, not ever, no matter what. She was enslaved to both at her own will. Both of them would take her where she wanted to go and, although at first it seemed reckless to give herself up so totally to Karel Stefanik, to sex and the desire to experience everything sexual that they demanded of each other, she now revelled in the prospect of going ever further into erotic oblivion with him. If there was a puzzlement of any kind about their passion for each other, it was that they should feel so safe, so at one with each other. Theirs was an Eros till death us do part.

She watched the men working on the stretcher for several minutes, but her mind drifted away from them towards Karel. When would he return? Indeed, would they ever be together again? Strangely she had no anxiety about that. She was resolved that with him it would only be – when it would be. Barbara Dunmellyn had been a realist about her relationship with Count Karel Stefanik from its beginnings. Desire would not impair that. There would be other lovers, but none would be a substitute for him. What they had
together was irreplaceable. But there would be other men, she was resigned to that. And there was Brandon, too, to be considered, although not to be mixed up in this very private, secret world of sex with Karel.

She had to smile to herself as she remembered Brandon’s words two nights before. ‘I don’t know who is sending these flowers, but whoever he is, he’s very good for our sex-life.’ Not bad of him to understand and ask no questions, make no demands but just enjoy her even more, and have the élan to acknowledge it.

Barbara felt happy, lucky, she would have them both. One thing was for certain: she and Karel would never dissolve their relationship. It worked naturally for them. Brandon? For as long as they loved each other and could make it work. About that she had no more illusions than he did.

Two hours later one assistant was priming the now stretched canvas; the other, at the far end of the studio, was cleaning brushes, taking stock of her paints, making lists for the art-supplies store. Barbara, working diligently on Storm Warnings No.1, was interrupted by Lee. She had no idea how long he had been standing there, quietly, patiently, waiting for her to look away from the canvas and see him. ‘You want me?’

‘Count Karel Stefanik is downstairs in the drawing room.’

She looked at her watch. Barbara used a table – a white marble slab on a bank of shallow drawers set on large rubber wheels – as surface for her palette of paints and for old crocks to hold her brushes. She laid her brushes on the table and rolled the unit several feet back from the canvas she was working on, turning around to get a better perspective on her work. Crossing her arms across her breasts she viewed her efforts in silence, Lee standing near her.

‘Well, what do you think, Lee?’

‘Very powerful, Miss Barbara, also very sensitive.’

‘Yes, it may be sensitive.’ The moment she said the words she knew these paintings were much more than that. They had an erotic quality about them that none of her other works had ever expressed. A deep and abiding sexuality that made them enormously powerful. They were provocative paintings for all their sensitivity, they were as realistic, as figurative as hell, only painted in an abstract, expressionistic manner. They were the more mind- and emotion-expanding for it. This series of paintings was what she was waiting for. The breakthrough she had been working towards for years. These paintings would make her one of the finest painters in the New York school of art. She needed no critic, no dealer or museum director to tell her that. Now she was ready to take her place in the art world. These paintings would comprise her first solo show. Once she saw that, she understood and could accept the critical acclaim tentatively attached to her work for years.

Barbara pulled the table close to the ten-foot-long canvas once again. She squeezed out a long worm of cadmium white oil paint and worked quickly, mixing it with linseed oil and turpentine. She applied it with several brushes of various sizes in a misty wash. From there she built up a thicker layer of the white pigment. On top of that, with the finest of brushes, she applied the slim ribbons, more a trickle, of an even glossier shade of white. Now she painted swiftly in broad strokes with a dry brush. It worked: the white emerged from the depths of the dark storm of paint and then slid behind the colour, only to emerge again with even more power. It dived in and out several times. Some was rich, an erotic stream of come that shot an unbelievably sensuous light into the painting. It oozed sexuality, proclaimed its ecstasy. As she painted she called out over her shoulder to Lee, ‘Ask Count Stefanik to give me fifteen minutes. Offer him a drink in the library and then bring him up here to the studio.’

She worked feverishly, perfectly. The work took possession of her. With that one, relatively small section of the canvas completed, the painting was transformed. She slapped the brushes down on the table, walked away from the painting, went back to it, once, twice, and then withdrew to where she could see it whole and entire. Then, with a deep sigh, she spun around. Hands on hips, feet set apart, she took a stance and gave her work her most objective, critical gaze.

‘Yes,’ almost in a whisper, then louder, ‘oh, yes, yes.’

Finally she threw her hands, now clenched in closed fists, up into the air several times. With outstretched arms she punched towards the skylight as if wanting to break it and knock on heaven’s door. She shouted it out again: ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes.’

The two assistants on the far side of the studio left their work and went to stand behind her. It was the finest painting, the most important she had ever created. There was a wholeness about it, a sensuality, a vibrancy hitherto missing from her work. She was painting with a new inspiration, a new kind of freedom wrenched from her old self. Only she knew that Karel Stefanik had, maybe not everything, but certainly a great deal to do with it. She saw in the two young men’s faces long before they were able to express it that they had just witnessed that moment of truth in a work of art that all creative artists strive for. Then there were pats on the back, the shaking of hands. After years of struggle, there it was.

She began to laugh, and it was then that Karel walked through the rear door. Was it always going to be like that? Her heart very nearly skipped a beat at the sight of him. Was she always going to have such a strong physical attraction to him? Would he always be able to draw her to him with that magnetic charm, that outrageous sexuality? she asked herself, already knowing the answer.

One of the young men handed her a cloth. She wiped her
hands as she walked towards Karel, still laughing. Her laughter was infectious, and he smiled. She saw his gaze rest for a brief moment on the roses protruding from their glass vase in front of the canvas. She could see in his face how pleased he was that they were placed there.

‘I was laughing because I had just had a monumental breakthrough in my work. A moment of awareness, and I was suddenly there. It had happened when I least expected it. And I was reminded of the Zen Buddhist monk’s lesson to a disciple about awareness. It made me laugh, because having experienced something I had been seeking for so long I now understood what that Zen teacher meant. The Buddhist monk told his disciples, “Awareness can come at any time, and in any number of ways.” I am paraphrasing, he actually said it much better. One of the dimmer of his disciples reckoned that wasn’t much of a lesson. He kept asking, “How will I know awareness?” The Zen master slapped the disciple as hard as he could across his face, and walked away. The white roses in front of my painting?’ She laughed again, light laughter like the tinkle of tiny bells. She took him by the hand. ‘Come and see.’

His arm was around her shoulders. Together they walked to stand in front of the canvas. They stayed in the studio, sitting in old wooden chairs before the canvas, drinking champagne with her assistants and Lee. And then quite suddenly she had had enough. Her assistants and Lee sensed it and vanished almost abruptly from the studio.

Barbara and Karel sat in silence, viewing the painting. The studio was very quiet. There was about the space a kind of purity, an ethereal atmosphere. It felt almost church-like. Finally he asked her to go to him.

She did. He remained seated, took her hand and held it above his head. He directed her around behind him, to stand at his side, finally to seat herself on his lap. That way nothing, not even Barbara, blocked his view of the painting. ‘You are a fine painter, Barbara. That …’ and he raised his
arm in an extravagant gesture ‘… I think might possibly be a very important painting. The roses may or may not have been your slap of awareness. For my own vain reasons I would like to think so. But this painting will be, for some, your Buddhist monk’s slap in the face, their moment of awareness of something beyond what the eye sees. For others it might mean a humbling experience. For me, it’s a most carnal painting, and I doubt that many people will miss that. To be crude, it is as if you had painted it with your cunt.’

Before she could answer, he placed his lips to hers. They kissed each other hungrily. He opened her blue jeans and slipped his hand in to caress her. She felt his fingers parting her cunt lips. She sat with her head resting on his shoulder feeling blissful and sighed. ‘I want this with you,’ he told her, ‘but first we have to talk.’ He removed his hand, put his lips on her mound of curly blonde hair to kiss it with great tenderness, then closed her blue jeans.

There was no note of sadness in his voice. She felt no separation looming between them. Those were the things she had felt with her other lovers. With men who had been besotted with her and with whom she had immensely enjoyed her love affairs, until the last moment when they had run their course. But nothing like that existed between Karel and Barbara. There was a sureness, a sense of the eternal, about their feelings for one another. A foreverness, if you like, was implicit in their sexual comings together. She had always felt, and still did, that everything they were, the past, the present, the future, was always wrapped up in that moment of being together. There would be for them nothing more, nothing less.