The Missing Italian Girl (17 page)

But—and this brought Clarie up short—she had never been in mortal danger.

Her headlong rush home brought her to the gates of the Square d’Anvers. She peered through the wrought-iron fence at the world she had left merely hours ago. A world of nannies and bourgeois mothers and happy, safe, well-fed children. Before meeting the Laurenzanos, Clarie had known violence only through the experiences that Bernard had brought home from the courthouse. Now she had seen a corpse, a beautiful girl laid out like a grotesque doll. A victim of murder. Clarie grimaced and grasped the iron bars of the fence. What made Maura believe that Angela’s killer would be after her? Did she really have to abandon her grief-stricken mother? Three deaths, perhaps even three murders. And a killer on the loose. Clarie shook her head. Even as her heart ached for the mother who had lost her precious child, it was all beyond her ken.

At dinner that night, Clarie told Bernard about Emilie and little Robert, being careful to make it clear that she was not at all disappointed to be spending the summer in Paris. Although she was, a little. But that was such a small thing, compared to…. She tried to hide her distraction while her husband and son ate, talked and enjoyed each other. She could not get Francesca’s question out of her mind.
Why
? Why was such a good, hard-working woman assaulted by abandonment and tragedy? Why do some mothers’ children die? Why is life so unfair? She knew she had to wait for the right moment to talk to Bernard about these sad, unanswerable questions.

Later that night, after she had put Jean-Luc to bed, Clarie returned to the parlor and stood, hesitating, in front of Bernard.

“Is something wrong?” he asked as he set his newspaper in his lap. “I noticed you weren’t always with us at dinner.”

“Oh.” She sat in the chair beside their reading lamp. “I’m sorry—”

“No, no. If you’d like to take Jean-Luc to Normandy for a week or go home to Arles—”

“It’s not that,” she cut him off, eager to get it over and done with. “It’s Francesca again. It wasn’t in the newspaper?”

Bernard shook his head, waiting, the expression on his face not entirely pleased.

“Her daughter Angela was stabbed and killed.”

“The murder in the garment district?” His mouth fell slightly agape, as he shook his head. “I’m not sure they knew who—”

“It’s her.” Clarie moistened her lips, before going on. She was utterly aware that Bernard did not want her to get involved any further with the Laurenzanos. “I got a note about it from school and went to Francesca’s to offer my sympathy.” Before Bernard could voice his disapproval, Clarie added, “It’s so sad. For Francesca and the other girl, who actually seems to believe that she is in danger. I can’t understand how this could be happening to them, or what they can do.”

Bernard pursed his lips. “As I’ve said before, the girl must go to the police.”

“But if they don’t believe her, and she doesn’t trust them?”

“Clarie, darling,” Bernard said as he straightened up in his chair, “there is something very fishy about all of this. First their boss, then their friend, who was obviously a violent anarchist, and now one of them. Who knows what they were plotting and why. And if the girl is innocent,” he spoke again more slowly, “one has to assume she would want to go to the police.”

Clarie sank back, chagrined. Bernard was looking at this like a judge or a lawyer, not like a mother. Not like a witness to a terrible tragedy. A tragedy that could get even worse. Yet his questions made sense. Why Barbereau? Why the Russian boy? Why Angela?

“You don’t think,” she murmured, “that the police had anything to do with the Russian boy’s death?”

Bernard sighed, as if he were reluctant to teach a lesson in the way his world worked. “I would hate to believe it, but the Paris police have been known to go to great lengths to root out people they consider to be dangerous. They could have planted the bomb without intending to hurt anyone. But I doubt it.”

“And Angela?”

“No, an innocent young girl, no.” He shook his head and rattled his newspaper as if he wanted to end the discussion without any disagreement.

“You’re probably right about contacting the police,” she said, getting up and planting a kiss on the brow she had just troubled. “That’s what I’ll tell Francesca if I happen to see her again. And now,” she said, letting her lips curve slightly upward to hide her discontent at his perfectly husbandly response, “I’ve got some clearing up to do.”

4

A
NGELA FLOATS DOWN THE
B
OULEVARD
Saint-Germain. Overhead, a canopy of tender green leaves gently sways with her every move. Glimmers of sun wink through the branches and spin her hair into gold. She wears a gauzy white dress that flutters down to her pink satin shoes. Students in straw hats and elegant women streaming out of the Bon Marché stop to stare. Suddenly she begins to run, graceful as a ballerina, past the students and the shoppers, past tightly corseted ladies and top-hatted gentlemen. She runs, until breathless and panting, she reaches the gilded gates of the Luxembourg Gardens.

Handsome as a prince, Pyotr stands there waiting. The sleeves of his shirt billow in the breeze. They stretch out their arms to grasp each others’ hands. Lidia and Vera shower Angela and Pyotr with fresh blossoms. The students and gentlemen invite the ladies from the Bon Marché to dance. Everyone is dancing.

Round and round, faster and faster. Too fast. Pyotr and Angela cannot stop. They whirl out of the park, onto the docks, too close to the water. Stop them, stop! They’ll fall in. But they don’t. Still dancing at arm’s length like innocent children, they circle back to the darkness and safety of the warehouses. They see, they want to see, only each other until … a tall, thin man creeps out of the shadows. Angela lets go of Pyotr. She can’t bear to look at the stranger. But Pyotr, brave Pyotr, holds out his hand. Angela backs away, toward the water, her lips contort into one sound, No! No! No! No!

“Will you shut up down there, we need our sleep!”

Maura woke up with a start. She huddled in the blanket, pulling it tight to quell her trembling. She had come down to the courtyard because she could not bear to sleep in the same room as her sister’s corpse. And somehow, through the foul smells and her grief, she had snatched a few moments’ sleep. If only she could reach up and snatch the dream, too, and make it end differently. For a moment, Pyotr and Angela had still been alive, the Russian girls had been free, and she was not alone. Maura struggled to her feet and stumbled out of the courtyard, away from the loathsome, fetid drain. She searched the sky for the first signs of dawn, wishing the night to be over. But the only light she saw was the yellowish flickering cast by the street’s single gas lamp.

Still shaking, Maura leaned against the wall of the tenement. Although the uneven cobbles dug into her bare feet, she did not move for a long time. She had to think about the dream, she had to understand why it made her so sad and so afraid. She closed her eyes trying to recapture the happy images. Angela, Pyotr, the Russian girls. Instead what she saw was the long, thin shadow of the stranger who suddenly appeared at the La Villette Basin. Her eyes shot open and her heart began to pound. Had he seen her hiding behind the wheel of the cart when Pyotr went to comfort Angela? Pyotr had said he was a friend and took his hand. But Angela had shrunk away from him. Why? Is he someone who would murder them because of what they had done to Barbereau?

Maura held her breath, not wanting to make a sound, alert to anything that moved around her. She heard nothing but the trickle of the tenement’s drain running into the sewer. When she let go, the sound of her breathing seemed to reverberate in the street. She couldn’t stay here. She had to get to safety.

She turned and ran across the courtyard toward the entrance to her staircase. Even in the unlit hallway she knew the way by heart, as long as she mounted the stairs slowly, feeling them under her feet, careful not to trip on the old, tattered blanket. Finally she reached the door to the room that she shared with her mother and Angela’s dead body. She didn’t want to sleep by the coffin. Still shaking, she sank to the floor of the hallway.

A few hours later, the sound of footsteps and the roving light of ascending candles woke Maura up. She got to her feet and looked down the staircase. It was the laundress, Mme Guyot, accompanied by two men that Maura did not know. Maura closed her eyes and grimaced. It was time.

“Such a sad day,” the washerwoman said as she haltingly reached the top of the stairs. “You’ve been waiting for us?”

“No,” Maura mumbled as she turned the knob to let the laundress into the room. Maman was already awake, praying over the coffin.

“It’s time, dear,” Mme Guyot said. “The priest will only give us an early mass.”

“No, no,” Maura’s mother moaned. “Not yet.”

“Yes, dear.” Mme Guyot, displaying the strength that years at the washhouse had given her, lifted Maura’s mother to her feet. The laundress took one last look at Angela, then she set the candle on the floor and lowered the lid of the simple pine coffin that the municipality provided for the very poor. Sighing, she reached in her apron for a black cloth which she unfolded and draped over the rough, splintery box.

“I’ve hired two men with a dray that brings the barrels to the wine-shop. They’ll take her to the church and then out to the graveyard.”

Arms and fingers outstretched, Maura flattened herself against the wall by the door. She felt glued to it, afraid to move, afraid that her legs would give out. This was it! Angela was dead. Angela was going into the ground. Maura bit her lip and almost fell upon her mother. They hugged each other, crying. Then Maman put the palms of her hands under Maura’s chin and held up her head. “It’s only the two of us now. Our sweet Angela is gone.”

Maura could hardly bear to look into her mother’s eyes, which were usually sharply and darkly disapproving of something she had done or said. Now they were swollen, dull, awash with tears.

“Come now. It’s got to be done.”

The laundress. Why didn’t she shut up! Why didn’t she…. But Maura knew that she was right. They had to do it.

“Come, Maman, come. We must.” She put her arms around her mother’s thin shoulders, supporting her. “We have a priest.” That should please her mother. Because of what Maura had done at the morgue, getting people on her side, they could afford a priest. Maura swallowed hard and said words she barely believed: “And he is going to send Angela to heaven.”

Mme Guyot nodded her approval of Maura’s words before barking to Jacques and Marcel, to come in and take the coffin down the stairs. She took the candle that one of them had been holding. “You take care of your mother now,” she said before leaving the room.

Maura took her mother by the hand and gently led her out the door. “Hold on to the railing, Maman,” she ordered, sure that her mother’s knees were every bit as shaky as her own.

Step-by-step they went down the stairs, following the candles lofted by the laundress who walked behind the men carrying the coffin. Maura felt more tender toward her mother than she had for a long time, as if her mother were a child who had to be watched and guarded so she would not stumble. When they reached the door to the courtyard, the sky was streaked with the portents of a hot, sunny day. The laundress, though, did not blow out the two candles. Maura sensed that Mme Guyot meant to give Angela a proper funeral procession, or at least as proper as they could afford. A few men coming into the courtyard to open their workshops took off their caps when they saw the coffin. The concierge, ever alert, crossed herself before puckering her lips in disgust.

Maura wanted to slap the pious, hypocritical witch, but she had something more important to do. She had to hold up her mother, who seemed to grow smaller with each step. “Can you make it to the church?” she asked. “Or do you want to ride on the dray?”

In reply, Francesca Laurenzano straightened up and clenched her jaw. “I will walk,” she said, “and carry a candle.” She freed herself from Maura, showing that she, too, was determined to give her daughter a proper procession. She stepped up to the laundress and together, each holding a burning taper, they followed the dray.

Maura walked behind, head bowed as they wound their way to the ancient church that served their neighborhood. Even though her thoughts should be with the body in the coffin, she could not forget the dream and was alert to everything happening in the streets. They were almost as empty as the night she and Pyotr had dragged Barbereau’s body to the Basin. The owners of the wineshop and the creamery and the bakery paused from opening their shops and lowered their heads respectfully as the funereal dray passed. Maura was grateful, as she had never been grateful before, for their familiar presence. Their watchfulness served as a kind of protection—at least for the moment.

The priest at Saint-Bernard mumbled through the Latin mass, going as fast as he could. Maura glanced at her mother, who was hanging on his every word, waiting for the consolation that he was in too much of a hurry to give. Maman deserved more. Angela deserved more.
If we were rich or important
…. As soon as those angry words came into her mind, Maura felt guilty. She shouldn’t have angry thoughts now. Her dead sister lay in the church’s middle aisle in a coffin so close to Maura, she could reach out and touch it. She was kneeling in a beautiful holy place, echoing with grand, ancient words. How could she feel anything but sadness and awe? Maura bowed her head and tried to pray, remembering that once she had prayed, had believed. When the priest swung the censer over the coffin, releasing the smoke of burning incense, Maura’s eyes stung with new tears. Not only for Angela or Pyotr or her mother. But for herself, her sinful self.

She clasped her hands together so tightly, her knuckles turned white. If she believed in heaven for Angela, what about Pyotr? He always said he would honor no church until a church learned to honor the poor. Would he…. No, he could not go to hell. She shook her head and almost spoke her denial aloud. He could not be eternally damned. She would pray and pray and pray. He had to be in heaven with Angela. If there was a heaven. If? Maura bit down hard on her lip, as if that would still her sinful doubts. Nevertheless, a sob broke through the dam in her throat. What good could the prayers of someone like her do? She was so confused, so alone.