The Missing Italian Girl (15 page)

“Money, we have no money,” Maura said. Burial, a priest, no, who could afford that? “My mother has no money, and I’m just a laundress,” she whispered. All the dreams and schemes that had fueled Maura’s hopes seemed to evaporate as she stared at her sister. All she could utter from the benumbed places that held her heart and mind were a few bare, necessary truths.

A hush filled the hall. Somehow Maura sensed that everyone was hanging on her every word. They were the audience to her tragedy. This is what they all had come for. To gawk and stare at her during her darkest hour.

Someone said, “Oh, look at her, those dark curls peeping out of the bun on top of her head, it’s like Rose Red and Snow White, the two poor beautiful sisters in the fairy tale.”

Another called out, “Was she really an angel?”

Maura didn’t like the uniformed man holding on to her. She didn’t want to talk to him. What if he knew about Barbereau? Some instinct broke through her paralysis and told her the crowd could help.

“Yes,” she turned, shaking off her captor, “she was an angel. Angela, Angelina, the little angel. I am Maura. My mother is a poor widow.” Her chest was heaving in turbulent waves.
Rescue me. I don’t want to talk to the police. I don’t want my sister to be dead.

“They can’t bury an angel in a pauper’s grave,” a woman dressed in silks said, and others murmured their agreement. “Here,” the same wealthy woman unfolded a lace-trimmed handkerchief and held it in the air. “Let’s take up a collection for Rose Red and Snow White. For the Angel and her dark-haired sister. For a proper Catholic burial,” she ended with a flourish.

The policeman’s hand tightened around Maura’s shoulder as if she could get through the crowd and flee, when all she could do was watch and wait, knowing that for the moment, she was the center of their attention, the object of their charity.

She lowered her eyes. For isn’t that what one should do when you have just seen your dead sister? She folded her hands. Help me, help me now, were the only words running through her mind. Help get me out of here.

The policeman cleared his throat and loosened his grip, raising her hopes, for no single man could thwart the emotions of those filling the stifling hall. But he was clever. He shouted his good will. “Do gather the money and we will send her home to her mother to arrange a burial. For now, I will take her to a quiet place to ask a few questions. You can leave your generous donations at the door. We all want to find the murderer of the Angel, don’t we?”

“Yes,” someone yelled, and again a murmur of assent fluttered through the crowd.

“This way, mademoiselle,” the policeman said to Maura, loud enough for those around to hear. “Come quickly. And you’ll be on your way soon.”

Angry that he had foiled her feeble attempt to escape, Maura tried to yank her arm away. Instead of letting go, he growled in her ear, “If you don’t want to get into big trouble, come with me quietly.” Maybe he knew she was clever too.

He led her through a door near the exit into a small room with a table and two chairs. A man smoking a cigar was waiting for them. He got up and tipped his bowler. “Inspector Jobert.” He was ginger-haired and mustached, broad as a wall, fitted like a fat sausage into his beige summer suit. “And who are you?” he asked, as he gestured with his hand for her to take a seat.

An inspector. Why an inspector?
Maura tried to resist the policeman pushing behind her.

“Come, come,” he urged. “No use trying to stall. Better to tell the truth.”

The odor of something far stronger than the soap and bleach of the laundry seeped into the room and mingled with the aroma of the inspector’s cigar. Nausea lurched up from Maura’s stomach.

“Sit her down before she faints,” the man called Jobert ordered. Maura felt herself being pressed into a chair.

“Once again,” Jobert said, peering into her face. “Who are you?”

“Maura, Maura Laurenzano.” She felt her lips moving and heard the sound of her words.

“Good!” he said, as he reached into his pocket and slapped an identity card on the table. “Angela’s sister.”

Maura’s eyes moved from his satisfied ruddy sneer to the card on the table. Angela’s identity card.

“You knew!” Her heart began to pound. They had trapped her, here in the smells, by the dead bodies. Trapped. But why? Did they know she’d been involved in a murder? No longer able to hold her fear and nausea down, she bent over and threw up on the floor. When she was able to sit upright, she covered her face with her hands, trying to block everything out. She heard the door open and close.

When she looked up she saw Jobert scrutinizing her. “Not quite as strong or as clever as you thought you were, huh? Well, we’re used to that here.”

The door opened again behind her.

“Ah, give the young lady the wet towel to wipe herself off.”

She hated being grateful, but she was. She wiped her face and arms, and ran the towel down her dress. She rolled it up and laid it on the table with her hands over it. She needed its coolness. But the policeman took it away from her and slapped it on the floor, over her vomit.

“You know,” the inspector said as he leaned across the table toward her, “it would have been much easier if you had not run away when we came to investigate Barbereau’s murder. Maybe if you had chosen to talk to me then instead of hiding, your sister would still be alive.”

“Don’t say that!” Maura jumped up. “Never say that! We were afraid, that’s all.” How could he possibly blame her for Angela’s death? How could she live without Angela? Why had she let Angela go alone to work? Hadn’t they always done everything together? Why had she even dreamed of running away alone, without her sister?

Putting his elbow on the table, Jobert turned away from her and took a few long draws on his cigar. She stared at his rosy, well-fed profile. He was demonstrating his calm, his control. And her vulnerability. She hated him.

Finally, after blowing a ring of smoke in the air, he said, “Your sister played a dangerous game, being the lover of both Barbereau and the Russian anarchist.”

“She was not their lover!” Maura shouted. “Cover her up right now. She was always modest. She’s not a show.”

“Well, she was someone’s lover. We’ve done the full examination, you know.”

“He violated her! And beat her. She did not love him!”

“Which one is that?”

“Barbereau,” she whispered, realizing her outburst had led her into a trap.

“And that’s why you killed him.”

Maura fell into the chair, silent. “No,” she lied. “We did not kill him.”

“Not your Russian friend?”

She shook head. She would say no more. They could beat her. They could keep her here forever, surrounded by that sickening smell and dead bodies. She crossed her arms. She would say no more.

Jobert tried. He told her about all the gossip spread by the concierges in Maura’s neighborhood and his interviews with the other seamstresses that Barbereau had hired and tried to seduce. He told her that he suspected both her and Angela of sympathy with Pyotr Ivanovich’s violent brand of anarchism.

“Lies,” she shouted out against this libel, forgetting her pledge not to speak. And then she crossed her arms, waiting for their tortures.

“You don’t want to accuse the Russian? He’s dead, you know. It wouldn’t hurt him.”

Some instinct of self-preservation stilled her tongue. No, she would not betray Pyotr by saying he had killed Barbereau and frightened her and Angela into hiding. She had invented that lie to protect her sister. And now Angela was dead.
Angela is dead
. The three words reverberated in her brain. Angela is dead. She began to sob, and the tears came in torrents. Finally, somehow, gasping for air, she stopped. She wiped the tears and snot from her face with her sleeve, ready to be defiant again.

Jobert was close enough for her to see the wart on the side of his ruddy nose and smell his cigar-laden breath. “Don’t you see a connection?” he asked. “Barbereau, the Russian, your sister? Doesn’t it make you a little afraid?”

Although she was sitting very still, Maura felt like someone was pressing hard against her, squeezing the air out of her chest. She could not feel her arms and legs. Her mouth fell open. It as was if all her lies were coming back to haunt her. When they were in the Russian girls’ room, hadn’t she tried to scare Angela by saying they might be in danger? And now, it might actually be true. What if the person who had killed Pyotr had killed Angela and would eventually try to kill her? Because of Barbereau. Or what if the police were involved already, killing Pyotr to prove he was dangerous, and then…. It was too confusing. Too scary.

“We can help you, you know.”

She didn’t believe him. Even though he seemed to be able to see right through her, she didn’t believe a word he said. Why should he help her, except to help her into the Saint-Lazare Prison for the rest of her life? Or to the guillotine. No! She’d tell them nothing.

The door opened again, a man in a long white smock. “It’s hot out there,” he remarked to Jobert. “We’d better get this done before noon.”

The inspector nodded and gestured that the man should talk to Maura. The attendant bent over and gave her a list. “Go home,” he explained, “get your mother to come back to identify the body, sign a certificate, have someone inform a priest, and try to arrange for a burial for tomorrow.”

As if she were stupid and wouldn’t remember or could not read. Or as if the man had dealt with many shocked souls before. She nodded and picked up the piece of paper. “I understand that a collection has been taken up for the burial,” the man in the white coat continued. “Officer Olivier has it. We’re going to dress her now.” He said it just like that. “We’re going to dress her.” Angela’s dead body.

When Maura walked into the hall, she paused to see the huge green curtains drawn to a close over the exhibition window. Hot tears streaked her cheeks again. Behind that curtain someone was yanking Angela’s cold rigid arms into useless bloody clothes. Holding Maura more gently this time, Officer Olivier led her out of the exit door, which was at the opposite end of the building from the entrance. She was grateful for his authority now, for no one tried to stop her or talk to her. He walked her to the bus stop, waited until he saw the bay horses approaching, then handed her the tied-up, lace-trimmed handkerchief, once belonging to the silk-dressed woman. In parting, he admonished her to bring her mother back as soon as possible.

3

C
LARIE STARED OUT HER BEDROOM
window, watching the first shadows encroach upon the quiet, sunlit courtyard. What could she have done? She was a wife, a mother, a teacher, so busy, so … what? She realized she had been clutching her hands so hard, they were almost numb. She let them go and began to pace around the bed. Wasn’t she, above all, a human being? Wasn’t she a mother who had lost a child? Yet even in the worst of times, she had never been as alone or as destitute as Francesca seemed to be. As her steps quickened, a growing frustration surged into Clarie’s sadness. She wasn’t useless. She didn’t want to be useless. Clarie paused. What had Bernard often said? That for the poor a death was more than a tragedy, it was a catastrophe, a hand lost to the labors that made survival possible, an unsanctified burial in a pauper’s grave. She
could
do something.

She pulled open the drawer that held her chemises and blouses and searched underneath for the envelope containing the secret savings which she used to buy little surprises for Rose and Jean-Luc. She spilled its contents onto the dresser. Only two five-franc notes and a few coins. She put the bills in her pocket and replaced the coins. Then, because she was unaccustomed to telling lies, she took a deep breath before going to talk to Rose.

“Madame Clarie, are you all right?” Rose came out of the kitchen as soon as she heard Clarie enter the parlor. Her eyes searched Clarie’s face.

“Oh, yes, just a bit tired. And I realized that I need to pick up something from the school. Do you think Jean-Luc will sleep for another hour?”

“He’s no problem, our little Luca. If he’s awake,” Rose shrugged, “he can help me in the kitchen.”

“Thank you,” Clarie said as she put on her gloves and smiled, a smile she feared could hardly seem real. “It may take a while.”

Without having any clear idea of what she was going to do, Clarie hurried down the steps and out of the building, striding quickly through the streets that had become so familiar to her. She had to reach the school before Berthe Sauvaget left. She was panting when she arrived at the lycée. She wiped her hot, damp brow with a handkerchief before ringing the bell. When the économe opened the door to the empty school, Clarie almost lost heart. How was she going to explain herself?

Fortunately Mme Sauvaget spoke first. “Oh, Madame Martin, I so feared that you would find the news upsetting. But I promised that I would tell you. I wasn’t aware that you knew Francesca.”

“I encountered her one evening when I was working late. I’m surprised she remembered my name.” Clarie bit her lip, before again heeding the instinct that kept her from telling the entire truth. “I thought if I had her address, I could send her a note of sympathy.”

“Of course, come with me,” Berthe Sauvaget said with the cheery efficiency that allowed her to keep the school’s complicated accounts in order.

Clarie followed the short, wide, bustling bookkeeper up the stairs. As they crossed through the second floor, Clarie glanced anxiously toward the principal’s office. Much to her relief, the door was closed. She dreaded the possibility of running into Mme Roubinovitch, who might well ask penetrating questions about why she was there. Mme Sauvaget, a much less formidable administrator, was quite happy to accommodate Clarie without pressing her. As soon as they got to her office, Mme Sauvaget searched through the notebooks lined up on the shelves behind her desk until she found the one containing the accounts for maintenance. “Just a moment, just a moment,” she mumbled, as she shuffled through the pages before giving out an “ah” and triumphantly announcing, “here it is. I can remember her saying it was just on the other side of the hospital when we all worried about her getting here on time.” Then Mme Sauvaget wrote the address on a piece of paper and handed it to Clarie.