Things were winding down and we were about to leave Mom to her chicken cutlets when we heard a key scrabbling in the lock.
“That’ll be Jen,” Mom said. “Excuse me.” She went to the entry hall and knocked twice, our signal for “pull out the key; I’ll unlock it from inside.”
We heard the door open and shut.
“You’re cutting it pretty close,” Mom said, her voice floating over the sound of the bolt being set and the metallic clatter as the safety chain was fastened.
“I know,” Jen said. “Traffic was a nightmare. And the vultures are still out there. Can you believe it? I mean, what can they possibly hope to—Oh, hi!” They’d come into the kitchen by then and she’d spotted Sofie. “I’m Jen.”
“This is Joplin’s new friend Sofie Carlson,” Mom said. “She’s Chloe’s cousin and she’ll be joining us for the weekend.”
Jen’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow, that’s great! I really wish I didn’t have to rush, but I have a gallery opening tonight and I have to go transform myself. But you’ll be here all weekend, so we can talk later.”
“Jen, wait,” I called as she disappeared into the living room. “Will you and Leonard be coming back here after the party? Because we’ll be taking some of the couch cushions into my room to make a bed for Sofie.”
“Not to worry,” she called back. “We’re going out to dinner after. You girls enjoy your slumber party.”
We hung around in the living room while Jen got dressed and Mom finished dinner. Sofie was eager to see how Jen would “transform” herself. Apparently this wasn’t something she’d encountered over the course of her long, strange life.
“Don’t get too excited,” I said. “She doesn’t turn into a princess or anything. Just, you know, fluffs her hair, puts on a black dress and high heels and dangly earrings.”
“Does that make her look different?”
“Yeah, it kind of does. You’ll see.”
While we waited, Sofie’s eyes wandered around the room. I wondered what she thought of Jen’s collection of prints, which seemed a little strange, even to me. And things like the cordless phone and the flat-screen TV—did she even have a clue what they were? Did they have those things when she was a person before?
The house phone rang. I answered.
“Mom!” I called. “Can you talk to the agency guy?”
“Be right there,” she called back.
I met her at the kitchen door and handed her the phone. She was drying her hands with a dishcloth, so she cradled the receiver between her ear and shoulder. “Hi, Eddie,” she said.
I went back to the couch and whispered to Sofie, “Remember that man in the garden this morning? The one who was worried because you were hanging around near our door? He was one of our security guards. Mom’s publisher hired them because these reporters have been stalking us. The agency phones in every night with a report.”
“But why are reporters—?”
“All right,” Mom said. “Hold on. I’ll go look.”
She disappeared into the kitchen, apparently going to look out the front window. “No, I’ve never seen him before,” I heard her say on her way back into the living room. “Yes, I’m sure. Huh! That’s odd.”
I couldn’t resist. I got up and headed for the door to take a look. Sofie was right behind me.
“I really don’t know,” Mom said. “Yeah. If you think that’s best.”
Careful not to show too much of my face, I peered out the window with one eye. Across the street, walking slowly and looking pointedly in our direction, was a short, stocky, middle-aged man. His brown hair was long over the ears. Bangs covered his forehead. As he shielded his eyes from the setting sun, the better to see our apartment, I caught the sparkle of gold and blue, and a little flash of red: the two rings on his right hand, one large and one small.
I sucked in breath, and for a moment I couldn’t seem to let it out.
“Someone you know?” Sofie asked.
“Yes,” I whispered. “His name is Lucius Doyle.”
I remembered how eager he’d been to buy my “worthless” broken platter. How he’d offered me five hundred dollars and hinted that he might pay even more. How he’d flushed, and sweated, and trembled with emotion.
How he’d taken out his little book and written down my name and address.
“Can I see?”
“If you want.” I slid away and let Sofie take my place. I was about to go tell Mom that I knew who the mystery man was, when Sofie reached over and grabbed my arm.
“What?”
“I know him too.” Her voice was so soft I could barely hear.
“How could you?”
“His name wasn’t Lucius Doyle then, but he’s had many names over the years.”
“Sofie, ow! You’re hurting me.”
“I’m sorry. But please don’t go away.”
“I won’t.”
She released my arm. “He’s leaving now.” She sounded terrified. She was trembling.
“Sofie, look at me. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. There’s no way you could possibly know that man. You’ve never been in New York before last night, and you haven’t been anywhere except the garden and in this building. Maybe he just looks like—”
“No. It’s him. And I have been here before. I was in New York a long time ago.”
“When?”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s not the important thing.”
Before I could ask what the important thing was, we heard the swish of a skirt and the click of high heels. And there was Jen in sapphire silk and sparkly fake-diamond earrings. She looked like a movie star.
It occurred to me for the first time that this wasn’t one of her usual gallery openings, the ones she had to go to as part of her job. This was a special evening. She was like Cinderella going to the ball.
“You look amazing,” I said.
“Excellent! That’s exactly what I was aiming for. Will you lock up behind me?”
“Sure.”
From the kitchen Mom called, “Have fun!”
Then Jen was gone, the door was secure, and we were alone in the hall.
“Okay,” I said. “The important thing?”
Sofie seemed about to cry. She was hugging herself to stop the shivers.
“That man is the reason I’m here,” she said. “He is the reason for everything.”
It was like the clouds had parted and a bright ray of understanding shone right through. “Sofie—back when you knew him, was his name Hans van der Brock?”
She slid down the wall and sat on the floor. She hunched over, head down, arms crossed over her chest. It was like her plane was going down and she was assuming the crash position.
“Was it?” I asked again.
“How did you know?” Her voice was very small.
“Come on,” I said, reaching down with both hands to help her up. “We’re going to my room now. Try to look normal.”
14
Strawberry Fields
THE NEXT MORNING WE TOOK the subway up to Central Park—Sofie, Barrett, and me. Barrett had brought a rolled-up blanket and a picnic lunch for three.
He suggested we go to Strawberry Fields, since it was in a Beatles song and Barrett thought that was cool. There was a big mosaic set in the cement, with the word Imagine in the middle. Barrett said it was a memorial to John Lennon, who was arguably the most important Beatle.
I didn’t know much about the Beatles, to be honest, and Sofie had never heard of them, but we stood and looked at the memorial for a while, sending good thoughts John Lennon’s way, then wandered off toward the grass and trees.
There weren’t any actual strawberries there, so far as I could tell, certainly not fields of them. But maybe there used to be, back in the day before it was a park. Or maybe they just called it that because of the song.
We found a nice, private spot under a shade tree and spread out the blanket. In the distance kids were playing Frisbee on the lawn. Couple
s were sitting under trees, kissing, or lying in the sun catching rays. People were out jogging, riding their bikes, reading, or walking their dogs. They all seemed happy to be in the park on a beautiful Saturday morning.
I didn’t feel happy exactly, but I was strangely hopeful. Maybe it was the sunlight bouncing off the trees and the grass. Or maybe it was the way Sofie’s hair was lit up from behind, like the halo on a Christmas card angel.
“Okay,” I said to Barrett when we were settled. “There’s a lot to tell.”
Barrett nodded. He knew something big had gone down since he’d left on Friday afternoon. He just didn’t know what.
“Sofie?” I said. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, like you did last night?”
She sat up a little straighter. Her halo glowed even brighter.
“All right,” she said. “You already know I come from Holland. I lived in a little village there, not far from the town of Delft. This was more than three hundred years ago. I had two older brothers, Hubert and Franz, and a little sister, Greta, who was still in her cradle, not yet a year old.
“We lived a simple life, or it would seem simple to you. My father was a carpenter, but like most country people we had a cow, some geese, a rooster, and some laying hens. My mother kept a kitchen garden. I helped with the housework and looked after Greta, who was the sweetest thing you could possibly imagine.
“It’s Greta I miss the most. To think that she grew up, and lived her whole life, and died, and I never saw any of it—that’s very sad for me.”
I reached over and squeezed her hand. Sofie squeezed back.
“There was a market every week in the next village over. It wasn’t far, an hour’s walk, I would guess. Sometimes my mother would send me there with things to sell—eggs, mostly, cheese, and little cakes she made. I would buy things we needed with the money I got.
“I passed many cottages along the way. But on the outskirts of this other village there was one house that was noticeably larger than the others. It belonged to a potter—he needed more space for his workshop, you see, and his kiln. His name was Hans van der Brock, and he used to stand outside his door smoking his long pipe and watching the people pass by. I didn’t know this till later, but he was looking for interesting faces, getting ideas for the pictures he painted on the china he made. It’s something artists do.
“One day he asked if I would pose for him. All I had to do was stand still while he drew my picture. He said he’d give me a penning—it wasn’t much, like your penny, but it seemed quite generous to me, especially for doing nothing. So I did what he asked and he paid me as promised. After that it became a regular thing, almost every week.”
“He was trying to gain your trust,” Barrett guessed.
“That’s right. Then one day he offered to pay me a stuiver, a much larger amount, if I would pose a bit longer. As you said, I had come to trust him by then. He’d even told me to call him Hans, like we were old friends. Anyway, I agreed.
“In the past, we’d always just stood in the yard while he sketched, and it was pretty quick. But this time he brought me into his workshop. He showed me exactly how to stand. I was to pretend I’d just led my geese to a pond, then someone had called my name, so I turned toward the sound. ‘Just so,’ he said, turning my shoulders at an angle. ‘Give me a half smile, like you’re glad to see your friend.’
“This time he didn’t draw with charcoal. He painted directly on the platter with a tiny brush. The whole time he kept muttering to himself, saying words in a strange language I had never heard before. When he’d finished painting, he sprinkled some powders over the platter—three different kinds. The first was yellow and smelled like rotten eggs. The next one was white. And the last was blue—just a pinch, as they say in recipes.”
Sofie pressed her thumb and pointer together to demonstrate.
“The next thing I knew, I wasn’t standing anymore. I was looking straight up into his face—from below and very close. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. It was like I didn’t have a body at all. I had become part of the platter.
“I stared up at his face as he finished the platter, painting in the background and all the other details. He had a square sort of head and a big, fleshy nose. His eyes frightened me the most. They were this startling blue, so pale they were almost transparent, like water in a clear stream.
“Finally, when he’d finished, he carried the platter outside and put it into the fiery kiln.”
“Oh!” Barrett said, flinching and sucking in breath. I scooted in closer and, without letting go of Sofie’s hand, grabbed Barrett’s too.
“I was terrified—well, you can imagine. But I felt no pain at all. I just knew where I was and what was happening around me. Inside the kiln it was all fire and dancing light, as I’d always imagined the mouth of hell would be.”
I looked over at Barrett, who shuddered. I remembered how hard it had been for me to hear that story the first time—in whispers, in the darkness of my room at night.
“Finally, after the oven had cooled, he took the platter out again. He seemed very pleased with his creation. ‘Now listen, Sofie,’ he said, looking directly at me. ‘I wish to be a wealthy man. I want you to do that for me.’
“And so it began. He had many wishes after that, and I fulfilled them all. Or rather, as I told you yesterday, the things he wanted flowed through me and out to him.”
“But I don’t understand why he needed you at all.” Barrett was leaning forward now, gazing at her intently. “Why couldn’t he just do his magic all by himself and grant his own wishes?”
“I’ve asked myself that same question many times. I can only guess that for the magic to work, he needed to capture a spirit.”
“Sort of like Faust?” Barrett asked.
Sofie cocked her head. “What is that?”
“An old story, about a man who made a pact with the devil—his soul in exchange for riches, and love, and all the knowledge in the world.”
“But this isn’t the same,” I said. “Even assuming the Faust story was scientific and not a fairy tale. Sofie didn’t sell anything or get anything. She was kidnapped and enslaved.”
“Right,” Barrett said. “But I’d still like to think that when Van der Brock died, he was dragged kicking and screaming into a fiery pit.”
“I would like to think that too,” Sofie said. “It would be justice. But I’m afraid he is in no danger of dying anytime soon.”
“What?”
“I’ll get to that in a minute, Barrett. But it’s best if I tell things as they happened.”
Sofie had her own particular way of speaking. Always kind of formal and solemn. And she laid out her thoughts in an orderly manner. They flowed like a story.
I guess all those years of watching and listening had made her that way. Not to mention the long, boring hours she’d spent staring at walls in empty rooms. She must have gone deep into her mind then, thinking about the people she’d seen, the things they said and did. Making stories from their lives, and her own.
“I’m not sure what happened in the weeks that followed,” Sofie went on. “Hans put the platter away in a drawer, wrapped in layers of cloth. I could hear things, but just barely, and I saw nothing at all.
“The people of my village would have searched for me. They might even have gone to Van der Brock’s workshop, since the neighbors knew I posed for him. We stood outside while he sketched, where everyone could see. But they wouldn’t have looked for me inside a drawer.
“I thought about that constantly, there in the darkness—how my parents must have suffered. If I had died of disease, as so many children did, of course they would have been sad. But it would have seemed natural. To simply disappear—that was alarming.”
Barrett reached over and took her free hand. We formed a circle now, holding hands.
“Some time later, we moved from the village to a house in some great city. I think it was probably Amsterdam, though I never knew for sure. It was far f
rom Delft, though. I heard Hans mention that several times, that he was glad to get away from that place.
“Once we were in the city, he took the platter out of its wrapping and put it on display. He’d kept it hidden in the village, of course, because the people there might recognize my face. But in Amsterdam, or wherever we were, he felt perfectly safe. So after that I could see and hear what went on around me.
“Hans was a rich man by then. His house was very grand, filled with expensive furnishings—Turkish carpets, fine paintings, silver goblets and candle stands, tapestries hanging on the walls. He dressed in silk and velvet, with gold buttons on his jackets, plumes in his hats.
“He had set the platter on a cupboard in the room where he dined with his guests, so I heard their conversations. That’s how I know about his circle of friends. They were alchemists, men who dabbled in sorcery and read forbidden books. Even I, a country girl with no education, knew how dangerous that was. They burned people for such crimes back then—burned or drowned.
“One morning a man came to the house. I’d seen him many times before. But that day, he was frightened and in a hurry. He was leaving the city, he said, and Hans was advised to do the same, because one of their mutual friends had been arrested for witchcraft. People knew of their connections, that the accused man had often visited the Van der Brock house. Both of them were likely to be arrested next. It would be wise to get away before that happened.
“As soon as the man had gone, Hans burned all his suspicious books and the pages and pages of notes he’d carefully written. Then he took passage under a false name on a ship bound for New York. It was called New Amsterdam back then. Lots of Dutch people lived there.
“But, of course, they burned witches in the New World too. So, to be absolutely safe, Hans made a wish for immortality. No matter what they might do to him, he would not die.”
“You’re telling me he’s still alive?”
Sofie nodded.
“We saw him yesterday,” I said, “right outside our apartment.”
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