XXVIII
FERRANT LEFT FOR England the day of the first real thaw. He had stayed long enough to install a proper vice-president of special risks at Ajax. Long enough to help me furnish my new apartment.
His check for stopping the takeover was the largest fee I’d ever collected. It easily paid for a Steinway grand to replace Gabriella’s old upright. It didn’t cover the cost of a co-op. But a few days after O’Faolin’s death, an envelope containing twenty-five crisp thousand-dollar bills arrived in my office mail. No note, no return address. It seemed churlish to try to trace it. Anyway, I’d always wanted to own my own home. Roger helped me find a co-op on Racine near Lincoln, in a clean, quiet little building with four other units and a well-cared-for lobby.
For nearly a week after the bombing I spent most of my time in the Federal Building. Talking to the FBI, talking to the SEC. When I wasn’t there, I was with Mallory. His pride was badly wounded. He wanted to assuage it by getting my license revoked, but my lawyer easily put a stop to that. What hurt Bobby the most was a letter he got from Dr. Paciorek. A suicide note, really, pouring out guilt and grief over the doctor’s wife and daughter. They found Catherine’s body in front of the family room fire. His was in the study. Murray told me more about it than I wanted to know.
After that, I didn’t have anything to do except sleep and eat and furnish the new place. I didn’t like to think too much. About Rosa, or my mother, or the ugliness I’d found in myself that night with Walter Novick in the snow. Roger helped keep the thoughts at bay. At least during the day. He couldn’t do much about my dreams.
After dropping him at the airport, I felt empty and lonely. And scared. Roger had kept some demons away. Now I’d have to deal with them. Maybe I’d do it some place else, though. Take Uncle Stefan up on his offer to go to the Bahamas for a week. Or fly to Arizona and watch the Cubs go through spring training.
I sat in front of the apartment for a while, playing with the keys in the ignition. Across the street the door of a dark green Datsun opened. The car seemed familiar, with its creased fender and scratched paint. Lotty crossed the street and stood in front of the Omega, looking unlike herself, looking for once as small as a five-foot-tall person should. I climbed out of the Omega and locked the door.
“May we talk, Vic?”
I nodded without speaking and led her into the building. She didn’t say anything else until we were inside my apartment. I hung her coat on a hook in the small entryway and ushered her into the living room where a comfortable chaos was already starting to build on the new furniture.
“Stefan told me Roger was leaving today. I wanted to wait for him to go before I sought you out… I have a lot to say to you. A lot to unsay, also. Can you-will you”-her clever, ugly face contorted in a surprising spasm. She steadied herself and started again. “You have been the daughter I never had,
V.I. As well as one of the best friends a woman could ever desire. And I abused you. I want your forgiveness. I want to- not to go back to where we were. We can’t. I want to continue our friendship from here… Let me explain-not justify- explain…I’ve never talked about my family and the war. It’s too close to the bone.
“My parents shipped my brother, Hugo, and me to London in 1938. They were to follow but never made it Out of Vienna. Hugo and I spent the whole war wondering, waiting. Later we learned they had died in Buchenwald in 1941. My grandmother, all my uncles and cousins. Of that whole large happy family at Kleinsee only Hugo and I remained.
“Stefan-Stefan is a lovable rogue. If he were as hateful as your aunt, though, I would still need to protect him. He and Hugo and I are all that remain of that idyllic time. When he was stabbed-I went mad, a little. I couldn’t admit that he chose his fate. I couldn’t admit that he had a right to do so. I blamed you. And it was very wrong of me.”
My throat was tight and the first few times I tried speaking the words came out in a whispered choke. “Lotty. Lotty, I’ve been through hell and beyond this winter. I have been so alone. Do you know the torment I have been through? Agnes died because I involved her in my machinations. Dr. Paciorek. Did you see what happened? He killed his wife and shot himself. And all because I chose to be narrow-minded, pigheaded, bullying my way down a road the FBI and the SEC couldn’t travel.”
Lotty flinched. “Vic. Don’t torment me by throwing my angry words back at me. I’ve been in that hell this winter, too. But mine was worse. I created misery for my dearest friend. Stefan-Stefan told me about the scene at the priory. About Rosa and Gabriella. Oh, my dear. How much I knew you needed me, and how I tortured myself for knowing I had only myself to thank that I couldn’t go to you.”
“Do you know what my middle name is, Lotty?” I burst out. “Do you know the myth of Iphigenia? How Agamemnon sacrificed her to get a fair wind to sail for Troy? Since that terrible day at the priory, I can’t stop dreaming about it. Only in my dreams it’s Gabriella. She keeps laying me on the pyre and setting the torch to it and weeping for me. Oh, Lotty!
Why didn’t she tell me? Why did she make me give her that terrible promise? Why did she do it?”
And suddenly the grief for Gabriella, the grief for myself overwhelmed me and I started to weep. The tears of many years of silence would not stop. Lotty was at my side holding me. “Yes, my darling, yes, cry, yes, that’s right. They named you well, Victoria Iphigenia. For don’t you know that in Greek legend Iphigenia is also Artemis the huntress?”
Sara Paretsky
Sara Paretsky has a degree in finance and a PhD in history, and has worked as a conference manager and a promotion manager for a large insurance company. She is now a full time writer with seven Warshawski novels to her credit, including TOXIC SHOCK which won the CWA Silver Dagger Award.
