by Bryn Bauer
“Thank you Richard. Follow me Sofia.”
Through the door, they entered a hallway longer than she thought possible on a boat. The odd thing was that here again, there were no windows and also no doors. Intrigued, Sofia looked closer and saw what appeared to be seams in the immaculate paneling. This must be what conceals the doors, thought Sofia.
Helena saw her looking and said, “You’re quick my dear. It’s this one here.”
Helena turned and ran her palm over the center of the door. A second later the door swung open to reveal a workroom complete with work bench, jeweler’s tools and high powered halogen lights. For a moment the contrast between the halogen lights and otherwise dim room caused Sofia to overlook the canvas aproned man inside. Once her eyes adjusted, she found herself in the presence of a small man who seemed to be consumed by his jewelers smock. He looked up from his work at the bench. Approaching closer, Sofia saw that he was not actually small, or rather, hadn’t always been. He was quite elderly and had a shrunken, wizened stature to match. Sofia was startled when he stood and embraced Helena. He moved very well for a man who must be in his late eighties at least. The surprises continued when he spoke in a deep, resonant baritone that revealed impeccable Queen’s English.
“Helena, my love, how good it is to see you again.” Helena had to stoop significantly to embrace him.
She let him go and smiled censoriously, “Mr. Winston is it?” Helena shot him a sidelong glance and smiled as she turned to Sofia. “Sofia, I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Winston, also known as the Alchemist.” Far from resolving the questions, this revelation merely created more confusion for Sofia. Dutifully however, Sofia extended her hand which the wizened man grasped with unexpected strength and pulled her into a rib cracking hug. Sofia looked to Helena for help. None was forthcoming as Helena just shook her head and smiled.
When she was released and had regained her breath, Sofia introduced herself. “Mr. Winston, it’s very nice to meet you, I’m Sofia Koury.” He waved off the formality.
“I know. Helena has already briefed me on what you need. Very exciting.” Sofia felt a shot of resentment. This stranger knew more about her assignment that she did. Then, a mental correction entered her mind. Mr. Winston was a stranger to her. He had clearly known Helena for some time.
“How is that gauche, street boy you married?” He asked Helena. Because Helena’s expression did not change in the slightest from the fond, kind visage, this was obviously a routine inquiry.
“He’s quite well and you know it. He was the one who called you when we arrived in Miami. He told me to tell you that he’s watching to make sure you keep your hands to yourself and I believe he was at least half joking.” The little man’s eyes twinkled under the overgrown brows.
“Well, there’s that plan foiled.”
Helena addressed Sofia but did not take her eyes off of Mr. Winston. “He’s been trying to get me to marry him for the last thirty years.”
“Thirty-five.” He corrected.
Helena continued, “Despite my being over thirty years his junior.”
Mr. Winston laughed, “I still haven’t given up on you my love. Let’s see if I can win you over with my wares. I’ve made some special things for you.” Sofia didn’t know what to expect but it wasn’t this. Mr. Winston led them to another room off the main work space. She was nearly blinded when he opened the door. The array of high power halogen lights set the jewelry pieces on fire. Sofia had to consciously remind herself to keep her mouth closed to avoid gaping. Three long rows of cases held a variety of dazzling jewelry; rings, pins, bracelets, necklaces, earrings and jeweled hairpins.
Helena turned to Sofia and explained, “Mr. Winston is one of the preeminent jewelers in the world.” Sofia could see that the pieces here were of such quality and artistry to rival Harry Winston and Van Cleef and Arples. Just then a thought occurred to her and she lowered her voice to Helena.
“He’s not of the Winston family is he? As in Harry Winston? Is he related to the family?”
Helena responded with a smile. “No dear, just a little joke. He did in fact work for Harry Winston for some years though as one of their top designers.”
“It certainly shows. Is that how you met?” Sofia asked. Helena shook her head but it was Mr. Winston who responded.
“No, Ms. Koury. I knew Helena’s father, God rest his soul. Then, after, Helena and I were politically active in the same circle.” Sofia wanted to ask more but a cloud passed over Helena’s face, shadowing her usual radiance and Sofia let the subject drop. Mr. Winston seemed to pick up on this change in Helena as well for he revealed a green velvet jewelry bag like a master magician performing his best illusion. He gave the bag to Helena who opened it. As she withdrew the emerald and diamond pin, the cloud passed and the sun shone once again on her face. It was indeed gorgeous. A spray of lilies of the valley in flawless diamonds anchored by emerald leaves and stems. Helena passed a thumb over it in admiration then shook her head and held it out to Mr. Winston.
“It’s beautiful, but not what I requested.”
“I know”, the little man responded. “I was inspired to make it especially for you. Emeralds and lilies of the valley are for those born in May and I believe you had a big birthday last month.”
“GPS?” inquired Helena.
“No, nothing about this is special except for you.”
Helena’s eyes shone with suspicion and she shook her head. “I can’t possibly accept this. Joe would be furious aside from everything else.”
Mr. Winston seemed to be a little offended. “That boy wouldn’t know art if he woke up with it coming out of his…well, anyway. Just tell him that I got confused about the GPS I was making and accidentally made two. He already thinks I’m senile anyway.” He handed her another bag. “Here’s the real one.” Helena gave it a cursory examination and held it out to Sofia for a look. With a look of playful teasing Mr. Winston, added to Sofia, “I heard Helena’s old GPS device was somehow given away.” Sofia laughed as she tilted the pin this way and that, catching the light. It was equally beautiful with concentric circles of diamonds and sapphires, though perhaps not quite as artistic as the pin. Helena took back the pin and replaced it in the bag as she spoke to Mr. Winston.
“Thank you. As usual, your work is impeccable.”
“You’re very welcome my love. Now, Ms. Koury, here is what I have for you. He drew out a hair pin with a miniature version of the lilies spray he had given Helena. It was much smaller but no less perfect. It was also somewhat longer than a normal hair pin ornament should be. Mr. Winston instructed Sofia. “Now, you’ve not had proper weapons training, so, I’ve made this for your protection. Self-defense only.” Then he drew the head of the pin up and an infinitely slim tensile steel rod was unsheathed from the surrounding platinum pin. Actually, it was very similar to a thin needle.
Sofia smiled. “Just like high ranking Japanese women carried in feudal times.”
“Indeed, indeed.” Then he glanced at Helena. “This young lady is sharp, Helena, if you’ll excuse the pun. And here I was thinking that you had picked up a naive innocent.”
“Of course not. You know I only hire the best and brightest.” Sofia worked to hide a blush. She certainly did feel naive at times around Helena and Joe, but knew that in the grand scheme of things, she could hold her own. Mr. Winston directed her attention back to the pin with a sharp move of the needle.
”You know the history, but do you know how they used it?”
Sofia nodded, “To avoid rape, which wasn’t uncommon. The woman would puncture her assailant’s eye and therefore his brain killing him instantly. Then the woman might remove the stiletto and because there was very little blood, she may be able to get away with it. The only thing is that the assailant has to be up close and personal in order to use it.” The last statement gave Sofia a qualm in her stomach. Would she be able to use this on another human? Would she be able to kill someone? She thought about her assailant aboard the
Mariana and tightened her grip on the pin and her resolve strengthened. She could do it if needed.
Mr. Winston took the sheath and returned the stiletto to it and gave it back to Sofia. “Yes, the women were the ones who passed this knowledge and this weapon from one generation to another. The men could not know. The women had to work together.” Then, looking between Helena and Sofia said, “I hope you remember that.”
Sofia felt a moment of tight electricity in the air before it broke as Mr. Winston took a deep breath and said “Ladies, I fear I’ve commandeered too much of your time already. Let me walk you back out to the lounge where I’m certain the rest of your items will be ready for you.” Sofia and Helena followed the slightly bent but spry form back to the lounge. Upon entering the large room, Sofia was surprised to see it bustling. Eight women stood beside their respective racks of clothing with two make-shift dressing rooms at the far end. How had Helena arranged this so quickly? She felt certain that each rack held clothing in hers and Helena’s sizes.
Helena said, “I’ve already selected some items for us. All we’ll need to do is try them on. Don’t worry though, there’s no red for you and if you don’t like something just tell me. We’ll figure something out.” The offer was generous, but unnecessary. Sofia loved just about everything she tried on. Her favorite being the white, full-skirted Caroline Herrera cotton dress with green birds of paradise. It walked the delicate balance between no-nonsense and feminine and perfectly matched the hairpin Mr. Winston had given her.
She finished her fittings in near record time. The selections and sizes had all been spot on. While the personal shoppers packed up her items, Sofia directed herself toward Helena’s fitting room where she was nearing the end of her parade of clothing. She had just arrived outside the curtained cubicle when the sales representative reached a hand out for a belt. As the curtain flapped, Sofia gasped. She saw Helena with her back turned. In the instant before the saleswoman zipped up her dress, Sofia caught a glimpse of the gruesome scars that covered nearly all of Helena’s back. Though the light was low in the makeshift room, Sofia had clearly seen great white puckers and whorls of scar tissue. How had she not seen this before? Then she thought back, Helena’s clothing, including her bathing suits always covered her entire back, all the way up to the base of her neck. At Helena’s age, it was probably easy to cover them as modest dress was the norm but Sofia felt a pang of sympathy for Helena, especially if she had this accident in her youth. Having to hide them as a young woman must have been extremely difficult.
Sofia said little as they took their leave of Mr. Winston, had their parcels loaded into the Jag and headed back toward the Mariana. Sofia tried to make light conversation, mentioning the beautiful jewelry pieces and the lovely clothing. After a few minutes however, Helena gave her a kind but penetrating look that made Sofia think “Oh, no. She knows! She knows I saw her scars.” Sofia was adept at hiding her true thoughts and emotions but Helena and Quint seemed to see right through her veil of politeness. It was very inconvenient. Then Helena said, “Do you want to ask me something dear?” Well of course Sofia wanted to ask her, but how do you ask someone about an event that must be very painful?
“No, why do you ask?”
Helena shifted in her seat to more fully face Sofia and continued to give her that look. “Yes, you do. Out with it.” Helena was calling bullshit on her and wasn’t going to make it easy. Sofia steeled herself and thought ‘alright, here we go’
“How did you get the scars on your back? A fire? They look like burn scars.” There. If directness was what Helena wanted, she got it.
Helena didn’t seem fazed by Sofia’s bluntness but simply replied, “Yes, an explosion to be more precise.”
“An explosion? When?” Helena glanced at the driver and correctly interpreting her look, he raised the soundproof divider before she continued.
“Just before my time in the IRA.”
Sofia’s eyes widened slightly and involuntarily. “The Irish Republican Army?”
“Well, I don’t imagine Individual Retirement Accounts do things like this, and to be accurate, it was the Provisional IRA. The original group petered out in 1969 which is when I joined.”
“But, how would you even be involved in something like that. It seems so unlikely.” It did. Although she knew Helena was into reconnaissance, looking at the well-dressed, refined, kind woman before her, Sofia couldn’t imagine Helena sporting camo and brandishing an Uzi. Though, as she knew from her own family, the start of someone’s life could look very different than the second half.
“Oh, not so unlikely. My family lived in Belfast and my father was fairly outspoken with his political views. One day, he opened the door of his car to go to work….and…boom.” Helena threw up her hands in demonstration. “The explosion took my mother and brother who were near the car. I’d had an argument with my father and didn’t go out to tell him goodbye.” Helena looked away. “You can’t imagine how that stayed with me for years.”
Sofia put her hand over Helena’s. “Actually, yes, I can. You remember about my mother.” Sofia thought it wasn’t exactly same because at least she hadn’t blamed herself. That would have been unbearable. Helena looked back, squeezed Sofia’s hand and Sofia was glad to see Helena’s eyes were dry.
“I know. Maybe that’s why I like you so much. You know that you should enjoy and cherish people, and live in the moment.”
“Not as much as I should.”
“Well, part of that is youth. I was eighteen at the time of my family’s death. I was incredibly angry and so when a neighbor approached me and told me that it was the British government who had done that to my father, and would I like to avenge him, of course I said yes. I thought avenging his death would free me from the guilt. I threw myself into the IRA, quit school, the whole bit. That’s where I learned reconnaissance which was and still is my specialty. The ability to blend in or stand out at will is quite valuable. You’ll know that from your time with your family. I imagine you had to do that too.” Sofia nodded, remembering.
“Well, that’s where I met the Alchemist. He was a wonderful teacher and mentor. He earned that moniker from his unequalled skill with his hands. And that skill helped him work his way up through Harry Winston after he left the IRA which was around the same time I did.”
Sofia ventured a guess, “Bomb making?”
Helena shrugged, “That and other things. He designed most of my reconnaissance equipment. Still does come to that. He loved me, but I was much too young and angry to love anyone or anything, least of all myself.”
“So, why did you leave?”
“I was on a surveillance assignment, watching a young American agent who was working with British intelligence. He figured out what I was up to and called me out. Luckily, he just approached me. He was kind enough not to tell my superiors or his. I left him alone after that, I begged off the assignment but he kept popping up in the same places I was. Of course, I knew it was on purpose. After a while we talked and became fairly close, covertly of course. I couldn’t have anyone know I was talking to a known American agent, even if it was innocent. “
“Weren’t you worried about him trying to get information from you?”
“At first, but we never talked about our work or politics or cases. He never once asked me for a piece of information on our actions. Then, a few months after he and I had been…well, I wouldn’t call it dating exactly, but talking, he said that he wanted to tell me something about my family. He showed me a file with my dossier. I saw evidence that the explosion that killed my family was actually set by the IRA, my neighbor to be precise.”
Sofia was horrified. Whatever lay between her father, mother and her was nothing compared to what Helena had endured?
Sofia asked the question. “Why would they do that? Was he pro-treaty or pro-British rule?
Helena shook her head, “No, he was a leader in the IRA actually. I didn’t know that at the time, we hardly spoke. But, there was reliable int
elligence that he was trying to get out and move us to County Cork where his family was from. I suppose he didn’t want us growing up in what was becoming increasing violence. The leadership couldn’t let that happen. They weren’t the forgiving type.”
“How did you know it was the IRA?”
“They used Semtex. It was one of the only explosives at the time that was so powerful. And, it was very much in vogue with the Organization in the late sixties and early seventies.”
“That’s awful, I’m so sorry. It must have been unbearable to know you were working for the people, the person who killed your family.” The comment didn’t begin to equal Sofia’s reaction to the unimaginable betrayal, but she didn’t know what else to say so she leaned over and hugged Helena. Helena patted her on the back.
And Sofia asked, “How did you leave the IRA? You couldn’t have told them you knew anything or that you wanted out.”
“No, I was young, but not naive. The American agent helped me. He got me a job, a passport and asylum.”
“Sounds like a good man to me. You should have held onto him.”
Helena smiled, her usual radiance returning “Well, in my packet of documents, he also gave me an engagement ring and the keys to a rusted old sailboat.”
Sofia felt like she’d been hit over the head. “Joe!”
Helena nodded. “Yes, we’ve been together ever since he saved my life. That is what he did; he saved me from the violent vortex that was carrying me under.”
“I guess Mr. Winston was none too pleased.”
Helena responded through suppressed laughter. “No, he wasn’t. He was convinced Joe was using me. He’s a very proper British gentleman and absolutely hated Joe’s brash, somewhat arrogant personality. He still doesn’t like Joe much, even after all these years. But, when I left the organization, so did he. At the time, I was convinced he knew about the IRA’s plot on my family but looking back, there was very little chance he knew anything. He rarely knew who the targets were. Being young and in love though, I was very angry with the Organization and at his friction with Joe. I’m so glad he was old enough to know how stupid the young can be.” She laughed again. They had arrived at the Mariana and Helena put a hand on Sofia’s arm to stop her opening the car door.