“May we talk, Vic?”
I nodded without speaking and led her into the building. She didn’t say anything else until we were inside my apartment. I hung her coat on a hook in the small entryway and ushered her into the living room where a comfortable chaos was already starting to build on the new furniture.
“Stefan told me Roger was leaving today. I wanted to wait for him to go before I sought you out… I have a lot to say to you. A lot to unsay, also. Can you-will you”-her clever, ugly face contorted in a surprising spasm. She steadied herself and started again. “You have been the daughter I never had,
V.I. As well as one of the best friends a woman could ever desire. And I abused you. I want your forgiveness. I want to- not to go back to where we were. We can’t. I want to continue our friendship from here… Let me explain-not justify- explain…I’ve never talked about my family and the war. It’s too close to the bone.
“My parents shipped my brother, Hugo, and me to London in 1938. They were to follow but never made it Out of Vienna. Hugo and I spent the whole war wondering, waiting. Later we learned they had died in Buchenwald in 1941. My grandmother, all my uncles and cousins. Of that whole large happy family at Kleinsee only Hugo and I remained.
“Stefan-Stefan is a lovable rogue. If he were as hateful as your aunt, though, I would still need to protect him. He and Hugo and I are all that remain of that idyllic time. When he was stabbed-I went mad, a little. I couldn’t admit that he chose his fate. I couldn’t admit that he had a right to do so. I blamed you. And it was very wrong of me.”
My throat was tight and the first few times I tried speaking the words came out in a whispered choke. “Lotty. Lotty, I’ve been through hell and beyond this winter. I have been so alone. Do you know the torment I have been through? Agnes died because I involved her in my machinations. Dr. Paciorek. Did you see what happened? He killed his wife and shot himself. And all because I chose to be narrow-minded, pigheaded, bullying my way down a road the FBI and the SEC couldn’t travel.”
Lotty flinched. “Vic. Don’t torment me by throwing my angry words back at me. I’ve been in that hell this winter, too. But mine was worse. I created misery for my dearest friend. Stefan-Stefan told me about the scene at the priory. About Rosa and Gabriella. Oh, my dear. How much I knew you needed me, and how I tortured myself for knowing I had only myself to thank that I couldn’t go to you.”
“Do you know what my middle name is, Lotty?” I burst out. “Do you know the myth of Iphigenia? How Agamemnon sacrificed her to get a fair wind to sail for Troy? Since that terrible day at the priory, I can’t stop dreaming about it. Only in my dreams it’s Gabriella. She keeps laying me on the pyre and setting the torch to it and weeping for me. Oh, Lotty!
Why didn’t she tell me? Why did she make me give her that terrible promise? Why did she do it?”
And suddenly the grief for Gabriella, the grief for myself overwhelmed me and I started to weep. The tears of many years of silence would not stop. Lotty was at my side holding me. “Yes, my darling, yes, cry, yes, that’s right. They named you well, Victoria Iphigenia. For don’t you know that in Greek legend Iphigenia is also Artemis the huntress?”
Sara Paretsky
Sara Paretsky has a degree in finance and a PhD in history, and has worked as a conference manager and a promotion manager for a large insurance company. She is now a full time writer with seven Warshawski novels to her credit, including TOXIC SHOCK which won the CWA Silver Dagger Award.
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Killing Orders Page 27