An Image of Death (25 page)

“Did you know at the turn of the twentieth century, Chicago had the second largest Swedish population of any city in the world?” Susan said, sliding her napkin onto her lap.

“No.”

“And did you know it was Swedes who built Wrigley Field? And founded Walgreen’s?”

“Do you have some Swedish blood you never told me about?”

She laced her fingers together. “I used to date a guy whose parents were from Sweden. He taught me the only Swedish I know.”

“What’s that?” I imagined some endearment or romantic expression. Maybe something more graphic. You know the Swedes.

“For yag tala med Erik.”

“And that means…?”

“It means ‘May I please speak to Erik.’” A flush crept up her neck. “I wanted to impress his mother when I called.”

A waitress, in dark slacks and a navy polo shirt with a green face imprinted on it, took our order. She seemed disappointed when we only ordered cinnamon rolls.

“You want to split an omelet?” I asked.

Susan shook her head. “The last one I had—not here—” she smiled up at the waitress—“looked like it had been run over on Willow Road. It kind of put me off eggs.”

I flashed the waitress an apologetic look. She gave us her back.

“So, Ellie.” Susan twiddled her thumbs. “Why are we here?”

“There’s been a major disaster.” I explained what happened in Philadelphia. She winced when I got to the part at the airport.

“I should have known,” I grumbled.

“Known what?”

“He’s a chip off the old block.”

“How so?”

“Remember how his father and mother got together? David’s apparently inherited those genes.”

“What genes?”

“The ‘I-can-do-anything,’ opportunistic ones.”

She frowned. “From what you’re saying, this—this Brigitte is the opportunist. David sounds like the victim.”

Tears suddenly stung my eyes. “I—I don’t know, Susan. I’m confused. And angry. I can’t think straight.”

She laid her hand on my arm. “Don’t worry, sweetie. We’ll figure this thing out.”

I went quiet, trying to gather myself together. Then, “You know what I don’t understand? If he fell under her spell in Europe, why did he let me come to Philadelphia? And spend time with his uncle?”

“Maybe he wasn’t sure. Maybe he needed to compare.”

“So now I’m a piece of fruit in the supermarket?”

She shot me a look. “I know it’s hard to believe, but he could be just as confused as you.”

“If he is, then that’s the least of his problems. This woman is deceiving him. Perpetrating a fraud. And he doesn’t see it.” I paused. “You know something? Maybe I should let her. I mean, she’s obviously a master at manipulation. Maybe we could learn from her.”

Susan ignored my comment. “Has he called?”

“Twice. I haven’t called him back.”

The cinnamon rolls arrived with two cups of coffee. I speared a huge piece with my fork and stuffed it into my mouth. A sweet, melting sensation rolled over my tongue.

Susan cut a tiny sliver and chewed meticulously. “Talk about self-serving people. I know it’s not the same thing, but I have to tell you what happened to Andy last week.”

Andy is Susan’s son, a cheerful ten-year-old who loves baseball, soccer, and stamp collecting.

“What?”

“He hooked up with another boy to sell tickets to the Boy Scout pancake breakfast…you know, the one where the proceeds go to the Settlement House? They get points toward a badge, depending on how many they sell. So the boys decided to split the points down the middle. Fifty-fifty, no matter who sold what. Well, then Andy gets the flu, remember, and could only sell ten. The other kid sold twenty-two. And guess what. The kid reneges on the deal. Takes all the points for himself.”

“What did you do?”

“What could I do?”

“Call the mother.”

“Andy made the deal himself. I can’t get in the middle. It’s one of those hard-knock experiences I guess he’ll learn from.” She pushed her plate away. “But can you believe it? The whole thing was for charity to begin with. What’s the point?”

“The badge,” I said.

“Yeah, and this kid will get his. But the way he went about earning it was totally alien to the spirit of the thing.”

“What else is new? There are always people who need to have an edge. Preferably at someone else’s expense.”

“Oh, Ellie, stop the psychobabble. It’s was greed. Pure and simple.”

“Better Andy learns that now, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.” She sipped her coffee. “But it was a hard lesson.”

A siren shrieked past on Belmont, its wail rising to a crescendo, then mournfully fading away. The waitress hovered nearby. I waved her off.

“You really do need to talk to David, you know,” Susan volunteered.

I stiffened. “I can’t. I don’t know how he’ll react. After believing for so long that he was alone, that he had no living relatives, finding his uncle has to have triggered a sea of feelings. And not just on a personal level.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s got to be a sense of victory, too. You know, triumph that the Nazis didn’t destroy everyone in his family.”

“I guess. But what does that have to do with this—this Brigitte?”

“She’s linked to his family. Indirectly, perhaps, but she’s Jewish, and she’s German. And she’s been the person who’s been closest to his only living relative.” I stopped. “My God. I just got it.”

“What?”

“Brigitte. Who does that remind you of?”

“Lisle,” Susan said, not missing a beat. “His mother.”

“Maybe that’s the attraction.”

“That she reminds him of his mother?”

I nodded.

“But this woman’s a con artist. A charlatan.”

“He can’t see that. He might actually believe this woman is his destiny. Especially if she reminds him of Lisle.”

“Ellie, that’s irrational.”

“Of course it is.” I played with my spoon. “But, let’s be honest. David’s quest—his obsession to find his family—has never been entirely rational to begin with.”

Susan didn’t answer. Then she cleared her throat. “About ten years ago,” she said softly, “before you and I became friends, I was convinced Doug was having an affair.”

I almost choked on my coffee. Susan’s life was supposed to be perfect.

She ran a finger up the edge of her knife. “He was coming home late at night. He wouldn’t tell me where he’d been. I was devastated. Ready to call it quits. File for divorce.”

“Was he?”

She held up the knife. “I took the kids and went to my mother’s. I know, how trite can you get? Anyway, she sat me down. It was probably the only real conversation we ever had. She made me realize that I wasn’t pulling my weight in the relationship.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I was going to the grocery store, doing the cleaning, raising the kids. I thought that was what I was supposed to do. The problem was I wasn’t thinking about Doug.”

“How?”

“He was going through a hard time. The market was down. Things were tight financially. But I didn’t know it. And he didn’t tell me. It turned out he’d been moonlighting, trying to scrape together a few extra dollars.”

“He never told you?”

She shook her head. “He was afraid to. He thought I’d think he was a failure and leave him.”

“Which you almost did.”

She smiled ruefully.

“What happened?”

“My mother told me to go home and talk to him.”

“Did you?”

“I thought it over for a day or two. But then, yes, I went home.” She put the knife down. “We talked all night.”

“It obviously worked out.”

“When we realized how much we cared about each other, the kids, and the marriage, we started to see options. Doug realized he didn’t have to shoulder everything by himself. I realized I could help and went to work. It’s not a lot of money—but it’s there. He started to relax. I eased up on my expectations.” Her eyes twinkled. “And now, well, things are pretty good.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Thanks, Mom.”

“If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.”

She shifted. “The point is you have to talk to David, if you think there’s any chance to fix things.”

I shook my head. “It’s too risky.”

“Ellie, since when have you run away from anything?”

But Susan didn’t realize how profoundly inadequate I felt where relationships were concerned. I pushed my plate away. I felt like I was perched on a diving board, but I didn’t know if the pool was full or empty.

***

The neighborhood that Ann Sather’s occupies is a work in progress. It used to be just the “North Side.” Then it became “New Town.” Now it’s called “Lakeview,” even though it’s blocks from the lake, and there is no view.

After leaving the restaurant, we walked down the block past several antique shops, a new hair emporium, and a Thai restaurant. The sex shop that used to be on the corner has gone, but the tattoo parlor across the street was still there.

I stopped, a tickle of awareness passing through me. A tattoo parlor! I checked my watch. Just after two. We had an hour before we had to be back north. I started to thread my way through traffic, then stopped. I shouldn’t be doing this.

As if reading my thoughts, Susan pointed to Krueger’s Antiques, a few doors away. “Why don’t we check out some Bakelite?”

I looked at the antique store, then back at the tattoo parlor. On the other hand, all I’d be doing was asking a few questions. “In a minute.”

Susan flared her nostrils and pointed her chin in the direction of the tattoo parlor. “Must you?”

I nodded.

She sighed, and followed me across the street.

Chicago Tattoos and Piercing was so sterile and well-lit it could have passed for the clinic I take my father to. We stepped into a large room—the studio, a sign said—filled with several dentist-type chairs and a phalanx of steel instruments. The sign said the shop prided itself on being the oldest—and cleanest—tattoo parlor in Chicago, and there wasn’t a speck of dust, a piece of trash, or dirty needle to be seen. The place was so civilized there was even a waiting area, with a leather couch and soda machine. I looked around, half expecting to see a supply of surgical masks on hand.

The walls were covered with hundreds of designs, from dainty butterflies and dragons to coiled snakes, and every conceivable animal, emblem, and logo in between. Large, small, conventional, obscene—I’d never seen so many tattoos in one place. Hundreds more were displayed in a thick binder on the counter.

Susan sat primly on the sofa, her purse on her lap. The place was empty except for a man bent over a bucket of sudsy water, ringing out a mop. His gray hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he sported a long gray beard. The skin on both arms was completely obscured by tattoos, and he wore an orange sarong. When he spotted us, he straightened up and gave us a beatific smile. I thought of one of those smiling Buddha statues you see in yoga studios.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Susan muttered under her breath.

The man put down the mop, folded his hands in front of his heart, and bowed his head. “
Namaste
.” Greetings.

I did the same thing. The man in the sarong nodded approval. “Are you here for a tattoo?”

“Well, not exact—”

“You’ve come to the right place.” He picked up the bucket and moved toward the counter. “We have some beautiful ancient designs. Asian, Buddhist, Thai, Indian.”

“But—”

“First timers, huh?” He stepped behind the counter.

I tried to cut in. “Actually—”

He went on. “The ancients believed people took on the characteristics of the tattoos they chose. Different tattoos have different powers. For example, there’s a tattoo called
sah riga lin torng
that brings adoration. On the other hand,
suk roop seua pen
is a tiger tattoo that causes its wearer to be feared. Thais thought tattoos could stop bullets.” He smiled. “It’s part of a long tradition that sees pain as the way to tap into man’s primal urge for meaning and belonging.” Susan and I exchanged glances. “Women, too,” he added hastily. “It’s all very spiritual.”

“We’re not here for a tattoo,” I said firmly.

He looked temporarily crestfallen. Then he brightened. “Maybe a piercing? I have some lovely navel rings and nose—”

“I was just wondering if you might be able identify a tattoo.”

“Oh.” He looked disappointed. “Depends what it is.”

“I can draw it for you.”

He pulled out a paper and pencil.

I sketched out the torch and the stars. While he studied the design, Susan got up and picked her way into the studio.

He tipped his head to the side. “Where’d you see this?”

“A woman. She had one on her wrist.”

“American?”

“I—I’m not sure. Why?”

“I’ve been in this business for a long time. Before I became a Buddhist, even. But I’ve never seen anything like that. Like I said, though, tattooing is a very old practice. Asians did it centuries before the Hell’s Angels.”

I watched Susan examine some of the designs on the wall. “Why’d you ask if she was an American?”

“Because if she wasn’t, and you knew where she was from, it might trigger something. Like I said, I’ve been around these things practically all my life.”

I hesitated. “What if she were Russian? Or from that part of the world?”

“Russian, huh?”

“Maybe.”

“Well.…” He fingered a tiny gold hoop in his ear. “In Russia, you got your prisons. And your gulags. You see a lot of tattoos there. Some are just general, but others could be specific to a particular prison. Even a ward.”

“I wouldn’t know whether she was ever in jail.”

“Don’t matter. The men—they like to brand their women.” He grinned. “The women don’t mind.”

I pursed my lips.

“Course, then you got your army folks, too,” he said hurriedly.

“The Russian army?”

“Or navy.”

Susan stopped at a row of tattoos on the wall.

I looked back at the sketch. “Do you think this could have been an army tattoo?”

“Hard to say.” He stroked his beard. “But, you know, now that I think of it, I remember a guy who came in a while back. He had a torch with some kind of number on his shoulder. Wanted to add to it.”