All These Things I've Done (14 page)

‘How much do you think you’ll get for it?’ I asked.

Mrs Cobrawick fidgeted with her string of pearls. ‘Get for what?’

I knew I should probably stop, but I continued. ‘The picture,’ I said. ‘Of me.’

Mrs Cobrawick looked at me with slit eyes. ‘You’re a very cynical young lady, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I probably am.’

‘Cynical and disrespectful. Perhaps those are things we can begin to work on while you’re here. Guard!’

A male guard appeared. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘This is Miss Balanchine,’ Mrs Cobrawick said. ‘She has led a very privileged lifestyle and I think she could benefit from spending some time in the Cellar.’

Mrs Cobrawick walked away, leaving the guard to deal with me. ‘You must have really pissed her off,’ he said once she was out of earshot.

I was led down several flights of stairs into the basement of the building. It smelt putrid, a winning combination of excrement and mould. Though I could not see anyone, I heard moans and scratching, punctuated by an occasional scream. The guard left me in a tiny, dirt-covered room with no light and little air. There wasn’t even space to stand. You could only sit up or lie down, like in a dog kennel.

‘How long will I be in here?’ I asked.

‘Varies,’ said the guard as he closed the door and locked me in. ‘Usually until Mrs Cobrawick thinks you learned your lesson. I hate this job. Try not to lose your mind, girl.’

Those were the last words spoken to me for a very long time.

The guard had given me good advice, which turned out to be nearly impossible to follow.

In the absence of visual information, your mind invents all manner of intrigue. I felt rats running across my legs and cockroaches on my forearms and I thought I smelt blood and I lost feeling in my legs and my back hurt and I was just plain scared.

How had I even ended up here?

I had nightmares too awful to describe. Natty getting shot in the head in Central Park. Leo slamming his head over and over again on the steps at Little Egypt. And me, always behind bars, unable to act.

Once, I woke up because I heard someone screaming. It only took me a minute or so to figure out that it was me.

Although I doubt this had been Mrs Cobrawick’s point, I did learn something about insanity while I was down there. People go crazy not because they are crazy, but because it’s the best available option at the time. In a way, it would have been easier to lose my mind, because then I wouldn’t have had to be there any more.

I lost track of time.

I prayed.

I lost track of time.

Everything smelt like urine.

I suppose it was mine, but I tried not to think about that.

The only human contact I had was when a stale dinner roll and a metal cup with water would be slipped through the panel in the door. I didn’t know at what intervals the rolls were coming.

Four rolls passed.

Then five.

On the sixth roll, a different guard opened the door. ‘You’re free to go,’ she said.

I didn’t move, unsure if the guard was a hallucination.

She shined a flashlight at my face and the light hurt my eyes. ‘I said, you’re free to go.’

I tried to push my way out, but I found that I couldn’t move my legs. The guard pulled me out by my arms, and my legs woke up a little.

‘Just need to sit down,’ I croaked. My voice didn’t sound like me. My throat was so dry it was hard to speak.

‘Come on, honey,’ the guard said. ‘You’ll be OK. I’m taking you to clean yourself up and then you can leave.’

‘Leave?’ I asked. I had to lean on her. ‘You mean, I can leave the Cellar?’

‘No, I mean leave Liberty. You’ve been exonerated.’

I X.
i discover an influential friend & then, a foe

M
Y CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATE
for how long I’d been in the Cellar would have been a week though I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear it had been a month or even longer.

In reality, it had only been seventy-two hours.

Turned out that a lot had been happening in that time.

The climb up from the basement was far more exhausting than the climb down had been. It seemed strange that being confined to sitting and lying positions could be so physically debilitating, and I felt a newfound empathy for Nana.

The guard, who told me her name was Quistina, led me to a private shower. ‘You need to clean yourself up now,’ she said. ‘There are people waiting to speak to you.’

I nodded. I still felt so unlike myself that I couldn’t even be bothered to ask who was waiting for me or how all this had come about.

‘Is there a time limit on the shower?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Quistina. ‘Take as long as you need.’

On the way into the shower, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I looked feral. My hair was matted and filled with knots. My eyes were bloodshot and the dark circles under them were more like bruises. There were actual bruises and marks up and down my arms and legs. (Not to mention that tattoo on my ankle.) My nails were ragged and bloody – I hadn’t even been aware that I had been digging at the ground, but that was the only explanation. I was coated in dirt. Once I was actually in the shower, I became aware of how truly terrible I smelt, too.

As it wasn’t on my dime, I took a very long shower. Possibly the longest shower of my life.

When I got out, my school uniform was on the bathroom counter. Someone had laundered it and even shined my shoes.

Upon putting on my clothing, I realized that I must have lost some weight. The skirt that had fit perfectly a few days earlier was now a couple of inches too big in the waist and rested on my hips.

‘Mrs Cobrawick would like to see you before you go,’ Quistina said.

‘Oh.’ I was not eager to encounter that woman again. ‘Quistina,’ I asked, ‘would you happen to know why I’m being released?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t really know the specifics or if I’m even supposed to talk about it with you.’

‘That’s OK,’ I said.

‘Although,’ she whispered, ‘on the news, they said people all over town were ending up in the hospital with chocolate poisoning, so . . .’

‘Jesus,’ I said, and then I crossed myself. This news meant that the Fretoxin contamination had been in the supply. It hadn’t just been Gable. He’d likely been the first because my family got our chocolate before everyone else. The question wasn’t whether I had poisoned Gable but who had tainted the entire shipment of Balanchine Special. These kinds of cases could take years to solve.

I’d been using Mrs Cobrawick’s private bathroom and, according to Quistina, she was waiting for me in her sitting room, which was down the hall.

Mrs Cobrawick was wearing a formal black dress as if she were in mourning. She was perched on the edge of an appropriately severe black parsons chair. The only sound in the room was the tapping of her nails against the glass coffee table.

‘Mrs Cobrawick?’

‘Come in, Anya,’ she said in a tone that was markedly different from the one she’d last used with me. ‘Have a seat.’

I told her that I’d rather stand. I was exhausted but relieved to be ambulant again. Besides, I didn’t exactly relish a lengthy visit with Mrs Cobrawick and standing would discourage such a possibility.

‘You look tired, dear. And it’s polite to sit,’ Mrs Cobrawick said.

‘I’ve spent the last three days sitting, ma’am,’ I said.

‘Is that meant to be some sort of dig?’ Mrs Cobrawick asked.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’s a statement of fact.’

Mrs Cobrawick smiled at me. She had a very broad smile – all her teeth showed and her lips disappeared. ‘I see how you’re going to play this now,’ she said.

‘Play this?’ I asked.

‘You think you’ve been treated badly here,’ Mrs Cobrawick said.

Hadn’t I? I thought.

‘But I simply wanted to help you, Anya. It looked as if you might be here a very long time – there was so very much evidence against you – and I find that it makes everyone’s time easier if I’m stern with the new arrivals up front. It’s my unofficial policy, really. That way, the girls will know what’s expected of them. Especially those who’ve had as privileged a background as you’ve had—’

I couldn’t listen to this any longer. ‘You keep mentioning my privileged background,’ I said. ‘But you don’t know me, Mrs Cobrawick. Maybe you think you know things about me. What you’ve read in the newspapers about my family and such, but you really don’t know the first thing.’

‘But—’ she said.

‘You know some of the girls here are innocent. Or even if they’re not innocent, whatever they’ve done is in their past and they’re just trying to do their best to move on. So maybe you could treat people based on your own experiences with them. Maybe that might make a good unofficial policy.’ I turned to leave.

‘Anya,’ she called. ‘Anya Balanchine!’

I didn’t turn back around but I heard her coming after me. A couple of seconds later, I felt her claw-like hand on my arm.

‘What?’

Mrs Cobrawick clutched my hand. ‘Please don’t tell your friends at the DA’s office that you were treated badly here. I don’t need any trouble. I was . . . I was foolish not to consider how well connected your family still is.’

‘I don’t have any friends at the DA’s office,’ I said. ‘Even if I did, getting you in trouble is pretty much at the bottom of my list of things to take care of. What I’d most like is to never see you or this place again in my life.’

‘What about Charles Delacroix?’

Win’s father? ‘I’ve never met him,’ I said.

‘Well, he’s waiting for you outside. He’s come to personally escort you back to Manhattan. You really are a very fortunate girl, Anya. To have such powerful friends and not even know it.’

Win’s father was to meet me in the Exit Room, an area that was reserved for those leaving Liberty. The Exit Room was more elaborately decorated than any other place in the facility, with the possible exception of Mrs Cobrawick’s quarters. There were overstuffed couches, brass lamps and framed black-and-white photographs of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island. Mrs Cobrawick waited with me. I would have very much preferred to wait alone.

Though I might have expected such a powerful man to have an entourage, Charles Delacroix had arrived alone. He looked like a superhero without the cape. He was taller than Win, and his jaw was broader, as if he spent his days eating trees or rocks. His hands were large and powerful but much softer than Win’s. No farming for Charles Delacroix.

‘You must be Anya Balanchine,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m Charles Delacroix. Let’s ride on the ferry together, shall we?’ His manner was such that it seemed as if there was nothing he’d rather be doing than taking some mafiya daughter on a boat ride back to Manhattan.

Mrs Cobrawick piped up. ‘We are so very honoured to have you visiting our facility, Mr Delacroix. I am Evelyn Cobrawick, the principal here.’

Charles Delacroix offered her his hand. ‘Yes. How rude of me. Pleasure to meet you, Mrs Cobrawick.’

‘Perhaps you’d like a tour of the facility while you’re here?’

‘No time for that today, I’m afraid,’ Charles Delacroix said. ‘But we really must reschedule.’

‘Please do,’ said Mrs Cobrawick. ‘I’d love for you to see Liberty. We are very proud of our humble institution. Truth be told, we think of it more like a home.’ Mrs Cobrawick punctuated this comment with a modest laugh.

‘Home?’ Charles Delacroix repeated. ‘Is that what you call it?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Cobrawick. ‘It might seem silly to you, but I do think of it that way.’

‘Not silly, Mrs Cobrawick, but perhaps a tad disingenuous. You see, I was raised in an institution like this one. Not a reformatory, but an orphanage. And trust me, those confined to the walls of such a place do not think of it as a home.’ Charles Delacroix turned his gaze to me. ‘But you’re in luck. For I have Miss Balanchine as a travelling companion and I imagine she will be able to attest to the qualities of Liberty on the boat ride back.’

I nodded, but said nothing. I would not give Mrs Cobrawick any more fodder. I crossed my arms, which made Charles Delacroix notice that one of the injection sites was inflamed and oozing pus. ‘Did this happen to you here?’ he asked me in a gentle tone.

‘Yes.’ I pulled the sleeve of my dress shirt down. ‘But it doesn’t hurt much.’

His eyes moved down my arm to my hand and to the raw and worried skin of my fingertips. ‘And this I presume.’

I said nothing.

‘I wonder, Mrs Cobrawick, if these are the kinds of injuries that children sustain in a home.’ Charles Delacroix took my arm in his. ‘Let’s do schedule that tour, Mrs Cobrawick. On second thoughts, perhaps I’ll drop in unannounced.’

‘Your predecessor never had any problem with the way I ran Liberty,’ Mrs Cobrawick called.

‘I am not my predecessor,’ Charles Delacroix replied.

Once we were on the boat back to Manhattan, Charles Delacroix said to me, ‘Dreadful place. I’m glad to be out of there. I imagine you are, too.’

I nodded.

‘Dreadful woman, too,’ he continued. ‘I’ve known Mrs Cobrawicks all my life. Small-minded bureaucrats in love with their tiny bit of power.’ Charles Delacroix shook his head.

‘Why don’t you do something about Liberty then?’ I asked.

‘I suppose I’ll have to some day. But the city has so many serious problems and I frankly don’t have the resources to deal with everything at once. Liberty is a fiasco. That woman is a fiasco. But they are, at the very least and for the time being, contained fiascos.’ Mr Delacroix stared over the railing of the ferry. ‘It’s called triage, my dear.’

Triage was something I understood very well. It was the organizing principle of my entire life.

‘I want to apologize for the fact that you were sent to Liberty at all. This was a mistake. People in my office got overexcited at the idea of a teenage poisoner, and they became positively histrionic at the idea of that criminal being the daughter of Leonyd Balanchine. They mean well, but they’re . . . It took a couple of days, but you’ve been completely cleared, of course. Your attorney, Mr Green, was remarkably vocal in your defence. Incidentally, the young man . . . Gable is it?’