The Missing Italian Girl (21 page)

The second whistle tore through her torpor. It was a signal. Except for the concierge and a few other nosy biddies, the inhabitants of the tenement hated and feared the police, and did everything to protect each other from “the law.”

Maura sprang to the window. An early-arriving carpenter from one of the workshops in the courtyard watched near the entrance as two uniformed policemen and the stocky inspector who had questioned her at the morgue came in. She had to hide. She raced into the hall and began violently to rattle the door next to hers. If the deaf mute was awake, she prayed that he would see the movement of the door. If not, she would rip it open with her own arms.

She almost fainted with relief when gnarled old Monsieur Gaston answered. Frantically she drew him to his window where they could see the last policeman entering the staircase below. She pointed to herself and then under his bed. He nodded. He understood. It was the only place to hide. Like Maman and Maura, he lived in one small room.

Maura crawled shaking under his narrow bed, careful to avoid the chamber pot near her feet. As she flattened herself out on the dusty, rough floor, she found another reason for regret. How often she had made fun of the deaf-mute’s animal grunts and moans. She had always thought him stupid, even when he shared his extra bread with her mother. Now she had to hope that he was smart enough to fool the police. She pressed her lips together, determined not to make a sound. She heard the police thunder up the rickety stairs and begin to pound on her mother’s door. When her mother answered, their shouts and threats reverberated through the thin wall, but Maura could not make out the words. After a few minutes, the voices died down. She heard the table and bed screeching on the wood floor, the sounds of a search. Then more threats. Then steps coming to Monsieur Gaston’s door. Since he could not hear, he did not move from his table, where he sat eating his morning bread.

More and different steps up the staircase. Maura grimaced with the effort of trying to make out what the sounds meant.

“What are you doing?” It was Mme Guyot. “This poor woman is still in mourning!”
Did they have Maman? Were they hurting her
? Maura’s first instinct was to go to her rescue. When her foot almost tumbled the chamber pot, she stopped. She had to be rational.
She
was the one in real danger.

“And that poor man in there is deaf. He can’t hear you,” Mme Guyot continued just outside the door. For the first time in her life, Maura felt admiration for the big, raw-boned laundress, who showed no fear, even of the police.

“Madame, this is none of your—”

“It is. Francesca Laurenzano is my friend, an honest woman.”

The idiot policeman kept on knocking, and Maura was sure that even if she suppressed her breathing, her thumping heart would give her away.

“Here, let me,” Mme Guyot said. Maura heard the door shifting back and forth. Through the ragged edges of Monsieur Gaston’s covers, she saw his carpet slippers amble toward it. They were soon joined by four shoes, good shoes, pushing themselves forward into the room.

Maura recognized the inspector’s voice as he shouted, “Have you seen Maura Laurenzano?”

The tailor inched himself in front of the bed and sat down, his legs and feet well-positioned to block the policeman’s view of everything underneath except the chamber pot. The deaf-mute responded with his version of a mumbling denial.

The inspector, obviously exasperated, told one of his men to get “that woman.” “Maybe she can get him to talk.”

Mme Guyot’s clogs tramped into the room. Maura imagined her making signs and motions, toward the room next door, the room where a policeman must be standing guard over Maman.

All at once Monsieur Gaston began to grunt and moan even louder. From the way the bed was shaking she knew that he was waving his arms and pointing, employing the same gesticulations that had inspired all the kids in the tenement, including Maura, to make fun of him.

“What is he saying?” the inspector asked angrily.

“He’s afraid, I think. He doesn’t know what you are talking about,” Mme Guyot said.

But the tailor went on and on, louder and louder, shaking the bed harder and harder. It was like an earthquake coming down on Maura.

“Can’t he answer a simple question?” The inspector’s voice rose higher.

“He can’t hear, he can’t speak. He’s a poor tailor who barely feeds himself.”

Maura didn’t have to see Mme Guyot to know that she had crossed her arms, waiting for the inspector to come to his senses and stop berating the old man. After all, didn’t he understand that this was Monsieur Gaston’s attempt to communicate? Or—as Maura listened, hardly breathing, a tentative grin spreading across her face—was this the deafmute’s attempt
not
to communicate, to make everyone so disgusted they would just leave him alone? She pressed her fingernails into her palms contritely. She would never make fun of him again.

When the well-shod feet and the clogs left the room, Maura sensed the deaf-mute’s calm return to his seat by the window. She heard the shuffling rearrangement of Monsieur Gaston’s table and then a sigh. Time to get to work. Maura understood. She and Angela had always started working on the shirtwaists early in the morning, as close to the window as possible, afraid to waste even a moment of free light.

Maura did not know how long she lay there, breathing in the smell of Monsieur Gaston’s pungent, unwashed bedding, in constant fear that a rat or mouse would crawl out of a hole to torment her. She kept an ear to the floor in the hope of hearing the policemen’s progress through the building. But she heard nothing except the tenement waking up: sleepy voices heading out to work or, through the window, the grinding and sawing tools of the men who labored in the shops around the courtyard.

Finally, Monsieur Gaston knocked on the floor by the bed and waved his hand. She crawled out, and he took her by the sleeve of her nightgown and led her to the window to show her that the policemen were leaving.

Her chest began to heave as she slapped the dust off her nightgown. She had to pee, to cry out, anything. She had held everything in under the bed. “I must go see my Maman,” she told Monsieur Gaston. And then she almost laughed at herself. She pointed to her chest and to the wall that separated their rooms. He nodded.

“Thank you, thank you,” she said as tears came rolling down her cheeks. “Thank you.” She kissed him on both cheeks, bringing a smile to his face, the first real smile she had ever seen from him. She took his hand, but he waved her off, pointing to her mother’s room.

Wiping her nose on the sleeve of her gown, Maura quickly padded out of the room in her bare feet and knocked on her mother’s door. “Maman, it’s me. Maura.”

The door flew up and her mother grabbed her, holding her tight. “I can’t lose you!” she cried.

“Don’t worry, Maman, everything is going to be all right,” Maura said as she untangled herself from her mother’s embrace. She brushed a kiss on her mother’s forehead, remembering how she loved those gentle reassuring kisses that Maman used to give her when she was a little girl.

Suddenly her mother drew away from her. “What have you done?” she cried, breaking the mood.

“What do you mean?” Fear thudded in Maura’s chest. Had they told her mother about her role in disposing of Barbereau’s body?

“Look at this,” her mother stretched out an arm. “Look what they did.” She stepped aside, forcing Maura to take in the destruction. Clothes on the floor, pots and pans swept from the shelf, even the chamber pot kicked from under the bed, lying on its side. “They were searching for dynamite, for stolen money. They said that you and Angela plotted with that boy to blow people up, that you murdered Barbereau because he was a boss.”

“It’s not true.” Although part of it was, of course. But Pyotr had only hit Barbereau because he was beating Angela. He had not meant to kill him.

“They said you were anarchists, violent. Like the Italian who killed the French president three years ago.”

“Maman, it’s not true.” And once more Maura felt the urge, the impossible urge to tell everyone about the real Pyotr, how good and kind he was. “Let me—” She pointed to the chamber pot, righted it, then lifted her gown and peed. “I’ll take it down later,” she said as she stood up.

“Don’t worry about that. Tell me what you’ve done,” her mother demanded.

“Nothing, Maman, nothing bad, really bad. We’d never hurt people. It’s Barbereau who was hurting Angela.”

“I don’t want to hear about that,” Maura’s mother cried and covered her ears. “I don’t want to know what he did to her, my poor baby.”

The warm opening in Maura’s heart froze and closed a little. Whose fault was it that Angela had gotten involved with that bastard, made to have sex with him, take his blows? And why care about what had happened to Angela, who was dead, when Maura was standing in front of her mother, alive and in trouble? But instead of embracing her again, Francesca turned, held out her arms, hands clasped, toward the crucifix over her bed. “Oh, sweet Jesus, what have I done, what have I done to deserve this?”

“Nothing, Maman, nothing,” Maura muttered as she went over to the window to make sure that none of the police were still about.

“All I’ve done is try to put bread on the table, and now my little girl is gone and the police are accusing me.” Her mother’s pleas to the inert cross continued.

“Maman, don’t worry, the police know you are innocent.” How could they not? How could anyone believe that pious Francesca Laurenzano would break a law?

Maura’s mother bowed her head and turned back to her daughter. “Are you going to the laundry today? It’s Saturday. Mme Guyot’s busiest time.”

“No.” Maura shook her head. “The police are probably going there right now. And besides,” she put her hand over her belly, “I don’t feel well.” As proof, she sidled past her mother and plopped down on the bed, folding her knees against her chest. Even if the police weren’t there, she wasn’t going to face Yvette or Mimi. She had to figure out what to do next.

“Then I’ll go.”

If her mother expected Maura to object, to save her from the bruising labors of that horrible place, she was mistaken. Something had hardened again between them. If she insisted on being the martyr, so be it, Maura thought. Besides, if Maura came up with a plan, it would be better for her mother if she didn’t know anything about it. Maman should go.

Maura lay curled up, waiting and watching through half-opened eyes as her mother dressed. The tears welled up again. She didn’t want to be angry with Maman, and she didn’t want her mother to be angry with her. She longed more than ever for Pyotr and Angela. They had loved her. When they corrected her, told her things she had done wrong or thought wrong, they had done it gently. They wanted her to be better. Like them. Instead, here she was, again, fighting with the only person left in the entire world who cared about her.

After her mother left the room, Maura rolled over to face the cracked ceiling, letting the tears trail down her cheeks onto the thin pillow. The past was past. She was alone. If she wanted to survive, she’d have to stop feeling sorry for herself and do something. The police could come back any time.

She pushed herself up. Her only chance was to leave. Hide somehow. From the police, from a killer. She began picking up the clothes to pack when she spotted Pyotr’s pants, vest and shirt. Of course. A disguise.

She threw Pyotr’s clothes on a chair and began flipping through the rest of the debris on the floor. Finding her flowered dress, she anxiously ran her fingers over the hem. The money was still there. She tossed the dress on a chair and began searching for something to carry it in. Slithering out beneath her mother’s shawl was a string bag large enough to hold everything she’d need. Finally, she came across the box that held the tools of her former trade.

She snatched the small cotton bag inside and poured the needles, thread and buttons on the table. She grabbed the scissors and went to the mirror by the window. She pulled tight on one of her curls and hacked it off, and continued hacking until all of her black locks fell to the floor, until she looked like a boy. Then she scooped up her hair and stuffed it into the bag that had held her needles and thread. She’d sell it later. She picked up Pyotr’s shirt. Until that moment her pulse had been racing.

Now she held Pyotr’s shirt up to her face, slowly, reverentially hoping to breathe in what was left of his smell and his spirit. She decided then, she’d call herself Pierre, French for Pyotr.

After putting on his clothes, she whirled around to think of what else she’d need. Protection. She reached for the scissors. Paused. Would a boy carry scissors? No, he’d carry a knife. With all the dexterity that sewing hems and buttons had taught her, she worked for a desperate five minutes to unscrew the blades, leaving one on the table and stuffing the other in the string bag with her dress and some underclothes.

She should have run out immediately. But she had to look again, at the table where she and Angela had worked, at her mother’s bed and her mother’s cross and picture of the Virgin, at the clothes flung about, the stove, the collection of cracked dishes and utensils. Trying to be strong and logical, she reached up and took a spoon in case she found something to eat. As she tucked it into the string bag, she pressed her lips together to keep from sobbing. Poor Angela. Poor Maman. It would be too cruel to leave without a word, as if she were angry or imprisoned or dead.

Dropping the string bag on the bed, Maura went out into hall and moved the door back and forth until Monsieur Gaston answered. She pantomimed that she needed paper and pencil, which he kept for the moments when his hand gestures failed. With a frowning expression of concern, he pointed to her hair and touched her cheek lightly. Then he led her to his table, where she sat down and wrote a note to her mother.

8

M
AURA TIPPED
P
YOTR’S CAP OVER
her eyes and lowered her head, clutching the bundle of clothes to her chest as she hurried out of the courtyard. She did not want the children to take any notice of her. With only one sideways glance toward her past, she turned in the opposite direction from the laundry. She slung the bag over her shoulder and began to sway and strut, trying to appear nonchalant, like a confident young man going forth to meet his future. But Maura couldn’t keep up the act for long, because she couldn’t keep her heart from pounding or her eyes from roving side to side, searching for a policeman or a tall thin shadow. Walking faster and faster, urgently, as if the sun-heated cobblestones were burning through the thin soles of her shoes, she reached the end of her neighborhood, the railroad tracks to the Gare du Nord.