Undercover (18 page)

“I think he really loved me,” she said sadly.

“Trust me,” Yael said quietly, “he wasn't capable of it. He was a dangerous man. And he played a dangerous game with your mind.” And then he looked at her even more intently. “Do you want to be free of him now?” She hesitated and then nodded. “Even if that means knowing he didn't love you?” She nodded again, with tears in her eyes. “Have you ever been in love with any other man?” Even if she had, she was an innocent, naïve, decent girl, and she was young. She shook her head.

“Not really. I've gone out with guys I liked, and I was starting to really like the boy I was going out with in New York when we left. I had a boyfriend in high school for a few months, and another one in college sophomore year. But they were boys. Jorge was a man with a fascinating mind.”

“A dangerous, sick, fascinating mind,” he corrected her. “A mind that destroys people. He would have used you and thrown you away the moment you weren't useful to him. He probably would have killed you after he got the ransom, and never sent you back. You already knew too much by then. You would have been dangerous for him. He was just playing with you, Ariana. You can't give him the rest of your life. You need to get free of him and his manipulations if you want to have a good life. One day there will be a man you love in your life. You don't want Jorge keeping that man away forever. One day you will need to put this behind you as a very bad thing that happened, like a terrible accident. But you survived. I don't want you walking with a limp forever, because of him.”

“Neither do I,” she said softly. “That's why I'm here.”

“Good,” he said, then he smiled at her and stood up. “Then we know what we have to do. We got a good start today. I'll see you tomorrow,” he said, and as she stood up and followed him to the door, she realized that she was dripping with sweat and felt as though she had been hit by a bus. She had been there for three hours, and it had flown by.

She went for a long walk in the Bois de Boulogne that afternoon, thinking of everything Yael had said to her. She still had a hard time believing it was true. Part of her still believed that Jorge had loved her. It had been too real not to be true. She could accept what Yael said intellectually, but not in her heart.

She went to the Louvre after that, then walked home, and Sam Adams called her on her cell phone to see how it had gone.

“It was hard, but he was nice.”

“That sounds about right,” Sam said, sounding relieved. Over the years, Sam learned that Yael wasn't always “nice,” but he was usually tougher on men than on women. Maybe because he was French. But he was glad that Yael hadn't scared Ariana off. She needed everything he had to give.

And when she opened the armoire in her bedroom that night, she saw the box on the top shelf and glanced at it. She had a powerful desire to take it down and read his letters again, but she didn't. She wanted to be able to tell Yael the next day that she hadn't. She suddenly wanted to please him, which was a first step in her recovery too.

She lay down on her bed without even having dinner, and slept straight through until the next day. She woke up just in time to take a bath, dress, and go to meet Yael again, and this time when she saw him, it all seemed less scary to her. She knew what to expect. He showed her an EMDR technique he was going to use, tapping her knees rhythmically, as he asked her to close her eyes and relive the day she was kidnapped. It was a technique sometimes used for people who had suffered extreme trauma. She didn't want to do it, but she trusted him, so she agreed. She told him all of it, with her eyes closed. Then he asked her to open her eyes, and relive it again, and when she did, she felt as though she were flying backward and the men who had kidnapped her were getting smaller as she flew away. They didn't talk about Jorge at all that day, only about the men who had taken her from the car on the way to the
finca,
and she was astounded to discover that she remembered each of them in minute detail, like a strip of film that remained in her head. It was all still in there. It took four hours to relate it all to Yael, and she felt sick when they were through. But the feeling of flying backward at a great height had impressed her, and the men looked less menacing to her now from far away. But she threw up when she went home that afternoon, and told Yael about it the next day. They used the same process to go over each day of her captivity that she remembered, and then Jorge was in the film, in their early days together.

It was a long, laborious, slow process, and by the end of the first two weeks, she realized that they had a lot of work to do. Six months maybe, or three, but the dream of going home in six weeks had disappeared. She had read Jorge's letters twice in the last two weeks, always on the nights that she felt frightened by what she remembered and wanted to remind herself that he loved her. His love was so much less frightening than anything that had happened to her, when they lowered her into the box each day and left her there in the blazing sun until he rescued her. She began to see what Yael had meant in the beginning. It was always Jorge who gave her food and drink and took her to the outhouse, ordered her taken out of the stifling coffin she was in, had the ropes taken off her legs and wrists, took her to the stream to get clean and swim in the cool water. He was the only source of good in her life, and relief. It was easy to see why she had thought he loved her, and it saddened her to realize that it was just a clever manipulation to make her trust him. But she still believed, at the end of two weeks with her sessions with Yael, that he had genuinely fallen in love with her. That had seemed too real to doubt now, and she still didn't. Yael didn't argue with her about it. They had work to do, and things were proceeding at a pace that he was satisfied with. She was a good subject, earnest and unfailingly honest with him and a bright girl. He knew that one day they'd get there. He just didn't know when. But eventually, she would be free of Jorge. He was certain of it, and when she was, she would look back wondering how she had fallen for him and believed what he said. And when she finally was free of him, their work would be done. Until then, they had much to do.

For the first three months until the first of May, Ariana saw Yael every day, five times a week. They ground through each day of her kidnapping, her impressions, the things that were said, the things they did to her, the men who had taken her, her driver's murder and why she felt responsible for it when she hadn't set herself up to be kidnapped, and her father's death. It was he who had insisted on going to Argentina, and she had begged him not to, but now she felt, like everything else, that his death was due to her. She was beginning to see how Jorge had manipulated her, and controlled and distorted her thinking, but she still had a long way to go on that. And after the May 1 holiday, which was French Labor Day, when everyone exchanged sprigs of lily of the valley in France, Yael told her to come in three times a week, so they could proceed more slowly and give her time to do other things. She often felt sick after they met, particularly after he used the EMDR technique on her, which was intense.

At first she objected to his only seeing her three times a week.

“I'll be here for the next ten years if we start slowing down now,” she complained. She had been there for exactly three months.

“Is that so terrible? Why are you in a rush to go back?” He knew how little she had there waiting for her. There was nothing but the cloistered nuns at St. Gertrude's, and her father's empty apartment. No man and no job, and she still hadn't figured out what she wanted to do as work. She didn't need the money to live on, particularly after her father's death, but she wanted an activity that was meaningful to her. And she had mentioned to him in passing that she hadn't collected any of her inheritance from her father's estate and felt guilty about it, another holdover from Jorge's disapproval of the rich, “Los Ricos.” She didn't want to be one of them. And the ransom her father had paid, although not in full, hadn't even made a dent in his estate. He had been a very, very rich man, and left it all to her. But Jorge had made her feel wrong about who she was, and she wasn't over it yet. Yael pointed out that her new concern for the poor was admirable, if it was for the right reasons, but if rejecting her father's money was to maintain Jorge's approval and standards for her, then it was for the wrong ones. And he was still a man who had demanded a twenty-million-dollar ransom. And who knew how he would have used it? To help the poor, as he claimed, or feather his own nest? The CIA had indicated to Yael that they believed Jorge had sent money to Switzerland, and was amassing a personal fortune there. He reminded Ariana of it frequently, to debunk Jorge's claims of his holy mission.

“I think you need time to do some other things, enjoy Paris, make friends, meet people, do things you enjoy here, not just work with me,” he told her in answer to her desire to work with the poor in a sincerely selfless gesture. She was willing to sacrifice anything to atone for her sins, and live the life of a martyr. “Let's not make erasing Jorge your whole life,” Yael said sensibly, “nor giving up your life to serve the poor just yet. You need to have fun, and do some of the things you did before. Go to the theater, the movies, go shopping.” She listened, but she was still unconvinced when she left his office. She didn't feel ready to go out in the world yet. It frightened her. There was still no end in sight, but she was feeling better, and hadn't touched the aviator's box, nor read Jorge's letters, in three weeks, which was the longest she had gone so far. But she always kept the box close at hand, just in case. Yael didn't argue about it. He knew that ultimately, when their work was finished, the box would be gone. And until then they jokingly referred to it as the bottle hidden under the bed. She could read Jorge's letters anytime.

She was enjoying a stroll along the quais one day, after looking in the bookstalls, and at the Bateaux Mouches sliding by on the Seine, when she noticed a string of pet shops, and decided to go in. It was the funniest assortment of pets, with lizards, iguanas, rats, mice, a ferret, and even chickens in cages, and a wall of woebegone-looking puppies waiting for homes. There were various terriers, a poodle, several Yorkies, and a particularly sorrowful-looking French bulldog who the pet store operator said was the runt of the litter and was unusually small. She had a black patch over one eye, and a pink nose, and the rest of her was white, and she looked at Ariana intently and barked, a ridiculous tiny bark. She was eight weeks old. Ariana asked if she could hold her, and the moment the attendant took her out, and Ariana set her down, she ran around Ariana's feet barking and playing, and when Ariana picked her up, she licked her cheek. She was intolerably cute, but Ariana told herself she didn't want a dog. What would she do with a dog? She had serious work to do here, with Yael, about the trauma she'd been through, but there was nothing traumatic about the puppy, she was just an adorable little creature to love.

“Thank you very much,” she said, giving him back the dog, and walked out of the store, looking resolute and proud of herself for not succumbing. She could still hear the puppy barking when she left, and told Yael about it the next day.

“Why didn't you buy her?” he asked, curious about it. “Were you depriving yourself, or do you really not want a dog?”

“I don't know,” she said, thinking about it.

“It might be good company for you.” He glanced over at his old shepherd as he said it, asleep at his feet. She came to every session, and seemed to follow him everywhere. It reminded Ariana of how much French people liked dogs.

“I'd have to walk it, and then what if something happened to me?” And then she said what she was really thinking, “What if someone attacked me, or kidnapped me, when I was walking the dog?” It had taken a lot to say it, and he was pleased.

“Are you afraid you'll be kidnapped again?” he asked her, and she nodded, with tears in her eyes. “That's not likely to happen, particularly not in France. There are no bandits on the road here. It's not a common occurrence. I can't remember the last time there was a kidnapping in France.” She knew that was true, but she was scared anyway. “Would you feel better with a bodyguard?” he asked her seriously. He assumed she could afford it, if it would make a difference to her. He was flexible about things like that, and she had every right to be scared after her experience in Buenos Aires.

“No, I'd feel stupid,” she admitted. “I should be able to go out alone like everyone else.”

“But you're not like everybody else. You were kidnapped and held hostage by rebels for three months. Other people haven't been through that. It's okay if you're scared.”

“I guess I am.” She felt better now that she'd said it, as she thought about the little dog. She was thinking about her again when she left Yael's house, and she went back to the shop on the quais that afternoon. The white bulldog puppy was still there, and she jumped and started barking when she saw Ariana. This time she couldn't resist her, and didn't try to. Talking to Yael about it suddenly made it all right. She bought all the supplies she needed, a pink leash and collar with rhinestones on it, and took her home. The puppy was ecstatic as soon as she got there, and Ariana was laughing as she chased her around the apartment and played with her, and the puppy played with the toys Ariana had bought her. She had a great time with her, and the next morning, with a day off from Yael, she took her for a long walk at Bagatelle. She was too young to play with other dogs, but Ariana set her down on the grass, and they ran until the puppy was exhausted and rolled over on her back with her paws in the air. She was incredibly cute. People were smiling as they watched her. Ariana had decided to call her Lili, and she took her to meet Yael the next day. The old shepherd looked annoyed by their guest, sniffed her, and sauntered away. Lili slept at Ariana's feet for the entire session. She took her for a walk in the Tuileries after that. She was turning out to be great company. Ariana felt like she had a new friend.

For the next three months, they met three times a week, and she was feeling better, and then Yael surprised her by saying he was going away for a month. He had a sailboat in the south of France, and he was planning to sail to Italy with his wife, his children, and another couple.

“Are we done?” They had been working together for six months.

“Do you think we are?” he asked her pointedly, and she shook her head. The aviator's box was still in the armoire, and she had read his letters again only a few days before. She was wondering if she'd ever get past it. But she was in no hurry now to leave France. She was happy here, she loved her apartment, and she had rented a car and driven into the countryside several times, which was a big step for her. At first she kept expecting to be waylaid and kidnapped, but now she no longer thought of it as she drove. And she took Lili with her everywhere. She felt safer in a car than on foot, but took Lili to the park too, even if walking around alone still made her nervous, but she was getting braver, and forcing herself out of her comfort zone more now.

“When will you be back?” She had no idea what to do with herself while Yael was gone. He was the focal point of her life in Paris, although she went to museums, exhibitions, auctions, and shopping, and walked all over Paris with the dog. Having the dog with her made her feel bolder too, although Lili was too small to protect her. But the dog gave her an illusion of protection.

“I'll be back in a month, at the end of August. We'll resume our work then,” Yael answered. It seemed to Ariana that all of France would be closed for a month, even some restaurants and stores.

“When do you think we'll be finished, Yael?” she asked him, sounding discouraged.

“When that box isn't in your closet or under your bed, and you don't need the letters anymore.” That was their goal, and she wondered now how long it would take. Yael said that one day it would just happen, but neither of them could guess when. Ariana thought of Jorge far less often, but in subtle ways, his influence was still there. She was still trying to please him and be the woman he had loved, or claimed to.

Yael's leaving the city for a month made Ariana think of doing that herself. She rented a car, and drove down to the south of France, stopping at various places she had wanted to visit. And of course, Lili came with her, and slept on the front seat next to her. She went to Aix en Provence and St. Paul de Vence, got as far as St. Tropez, spent ten days there, and then drove slowly home to Paris. In all, she was gone for three weeks, and sent postcards to the nuns at St. Gertrude all along the way. She'd been sending them photos of Lili by e-mail for the past three months.

And while she was away, she had time to read a book Yael had given her on Stockholm Syndrome, and a biography of Patty Hearst that she'd bought herself—she had also become enamored with her captors when she was kidnapped. Both books gave her further insight into what had happened to her, and her feelings for Jorge, the deep love she had felt for him, and the dependency on him he had fostered, as her only means of survival.

In September, she and Yael resumed their work. He pushed her harder now, because she said she was anxious to finish. But it was Christmas before they had a real breakthrough, when she realized that Jorge getting her pregnant had been yet another way of manipulating her. He had been trying to possess her and turn her mind inside out, and she had been so desperate and frightened that she had clung to him for dear life, wanting to believe his love for her. She had lost everyone else she trusted and relied on, her mother when she died a year before, and her father when she was taken from him.

“Are you ready to give up the box now?” Yael asked her, as the final challenge. “It might be a nice Christmas present to yourself. You could gift-wrap it and bury it and throw it away.” But the thought of relinquishing the last vestige of him terrified her. She still wasn't ready to give up the illusion of Jorge's love, nor the symbol of it through his letters in the aviator's box.

“What if no man ever loves me again?”

“At twenty-five, with your looks, brains, and charm, that's not likely to happen,” he said, smiling at her.

“Maybe after the new year,” she said cautiously, and he didn't push her. She had to be ready to give up the box herself.

It was January, after Yael had gone skiing for a week over Christmas, before the subject came up again. She had been working with him for almost a year. The anniversary of their first meeting was coming up in a few weeks, and suddenly it dawned on her.

“I'm ready,” she said, sounding breathless. “I think I'm done.” She didn't want Jorge in her life anymore, his journals or letters, and the box she was tired of seeing at the top of the armoire, as a reminder of the worst days of her life. “Our first meeting was on February second. I'm going to get rid of it that day.” Suddenly she was absolutely sure.

“How are you going to do that?” he asked with interest. The scenario had to be hers, just as the victory would be, and the freedom once she did.

“I think I want to bury it somewhere. Maybe when I walk Lili. We can bury it together.”

“Are you going to leave the contents of the box intact?” She thought about it then and shook her head.

“I think I want to burn the letters and journals, and put the ashes back in the box. Kind of like a cremation.” She could visualize it as she said it, and Yael nodded approval. Each person had to find their freedom in their own way.

“On February second then. Do you want me to come with you?”

“No,” she said quietly, “I want to do it alone.” In a way, it was like burying Jorge and everything she had thought they shared.

And on the night of February 1, she put the aviator's box in the metal sink in her kitchen, carefully took out the letters, and held up a lit match, as Lili sat next to her and watched with interest, as though she knew something important was going on. Ariana's hands were shaking, as the edges of a page turned brown and the letter began to curl, and without thinking, she blew the flames out. Suddenly all she could see was his body burning under the fallen tree the night they rescued her. She felt as though she were setting fire to him again and knew she couldn't do it. The fire was still too symbolic to her and reminiscent of that night. She tried again on another letter, and blew the flames out just as fast. She contemplated the journals then, but they were too thick to burn. There were seven of them, all filled with Jorge's handwriting, just like the stack of letters. She thought about calling Yael to ask for his advice, but knew she had to figure this out on her own.