Mazarine

by Grimshaw, Charlotte

  So many memories: Patrick and I used to take turns shepherding Maya through these streets on our way to her school, the tiny girl in her neat uniform, her bag decorated with cartoon characters. Now Patrick was dead and Maya was lost, and I was searching the foreign city, the virtual world, the past, skirting the gaps and holes, the blind spots in my memory, the spaces between selves. All that data: London, Auckland, childhood, streets, images, memories, thousands of pictures and millions of words. Pictures of faces, no memory for faces. What stake did I have left in all of it that would anchor me to the world? I had no idea what I would find in the centre, no thread to show me the way.

  I didn’t know what I’d achieved during my awkward conversation with Angela Lang, nor what mistakes I’d made. I hadn’t mentioned the flash drive, nor revealed that Maya was missing, but was that a good thing? How could I know?

  Absurd that I’d told her about my supposed novel, a project I couldn’t even begin until I’d found Maya. A woman who couldn’t read women: how could you hang a plot on that? A woman wanting answers to her strange, isolating illiteracy, searching for answers to a lost mother while at the same time seeking — in a sense, seeking blind — her beloved daughter, who was missing in the ether, the futureworld. Could you construct a narrative out of blank spaces, out of disconnection?

  Well. In any event, those questions would have to wait.

  A novel about touch. Sudden memory. Inez, sitting in the room she called her sun porch, the wicker chair creaking underneath her, cocking her head, bright-eyed and in sprightly form, talking about her weekly cleaning woman of all people, who was, at that very moment, toiling along the hall with her back-pack vacuum cleaner.

  Inez confiding in a stage whisper: ‘Jung Ha’s a dear girl. I always hug her.’

  Mazarine was waiting for me out on the roof terrace.

  I joined her. ‘Why am I not asking Sophie and Angela Lang if they know anything? Maybe they could help.’

  ‘We’re being discreet. Protecting their privacy.’

  ‘Maya and Joe’s privacy?’

  ‘Sure. They don’t want us bailing people up, asking questions.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m groping in the dark.’

  ‘So, tell me. What did she say?’

  ‘We discussed E.M. Forster.’

  Mazarine raised her eyebrows.

  ‘She quoted from Howards End.’

  ‘My mother loves that movie. Vanessa Redgrave. Mr Bast. The tree with teeth stuck in it.’

  I shaded my eyes against the low sun.

  ‘What you’re saying is don’t trust Angela Lang.’

  She sighed. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps I don’t trust anyone. Did you mention the thing Sophie gave you?’

  ‘No. I didn’t get around to it.’

  We were sitting side by side. The sky was bronze, crossed with jet trails. Down at the building site the giant machines had fallen silent.

  ‘Mazarine, what’s your mother like?’

  ‘Mamma? Laid-back. Energetic. Lives in Buenos Aires.’

  ‘Affectionate?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Would she hug you?’

  ‘Of course. Naturally.’

  ‘My mother would never do that. Never.’

  ‘Hug?’

  ‘But she hugs her cleaner. And tells me about it. She’s a black comedy.’

  Mazarine tapped her spoon on the table. ‘Is she the kind of person who hides a knife inside a statement?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Hides aggression inside a show of warmth. And if you react looks bewildered and says, “What did I do?”’

  A short silence.

  I cleared my throat. ‘She fears my anger, apparently.’

  Mazarine looked at me, considering. ‘Sure. I bet she does. Do you have a father? What does he think?’

  ‘That I’m an angry woman.’

  She laughed.

  I shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I hug Maya, though. And my husband always did. Anyway—’

  ‘You never mention your real mother. Do you know—?’

  ‘There were no records,’ I said.

  Mazarine had been to the supermarket that afternoon, and insisted on cooking, refusing offers of help while I leaned against the kitchen bench telling her about the Rosewood. I regretted my talk of hugging; it was what Maya would call over-sharing. Not that Maya avoided touch; like Patrick she was wonderfully demonstrative and warm, dispensing hugs without hesitation, as most of her peers did. I used to be amused by the daily love-in at the school gates, the girls embracing at the final bell like travellers about to part for years. They were too cool to talk about hugs of course.

  Oh, for god’s sake, move on.

  Mazarine had begun a commentary, meanwhile: cooking relaxed her, she liked to make her own meals, healthy choices were so important, one should try for fresh ingredients, she preferred organic vegetables, the world was awash with chemicals, many of them carcinogenic, soils were devoid of proper nutrients, vegetarianism was best, as well as one’s own body one must think of the planet …

  I waited then said, ‘I think Angela wanted to know if Dominic Hay-Godwin told Aiden and Maya anything, or had meetings with them that she didn’t know about.’

  Mazarine clanged saucepan lids, frowned, pressed the back of her hand to her forehead.

  ‘Taste this.’ She pulled me by the arm, offering the spoon. ‘Watch out, it’s hot.’

  ‘Delicious.’

  She said hotly in my ear, ‘Could Angela be wanting the flash drive?’

  I writhed, my skin prickling, face flaring.

  Her mouth against my cheek, she said, ‘Maybe she wants what’s in the flash drive — maybe the hacker gave it to Aiden.’

  Her glasses had fogged up. She pushed them to the top of her head, put a finger to her lips. We were surrounded by clouds of steam. I felt a mad laugh rising, along with the hair on my scalp, sheer nerves.

  ‘Try it now. I’ve added salt and basil. Better?’

  ‘Delicious,’ I repeated in a witless voice. ‘No, it’s very good.’

  I moved away; talk about cooking made me impatient, bored even. I sat down on the sofa, flicking through news channels.

  Mazarine joined me; we watched students demonstrating in central Paris, protestors and police running through a park, streams of tear gas over the flowerbeds and statues. The police were kitted out in full riot gear, helmets and shields. I was restless, couldn’t keep still. The image came to me again, of Mazarine naked at the health club, and some kind of tension rose in me, an emotion trying to find its way to a connection.

  I said, ‘Angela told me she introduced Aiden to the hacker because Aiden wanted to do a book on London, and he was a colourful local character.’

  ‘Maybe she wanted whatever’s in the flash drive.’

  ‘You’re making quite a few assumptions.’ We were leaning close to each other. ‘I wonder why the Russian names.’

  ‘I told you, any suggestion of Russians makes me nervous.’

  Irritated, I said, ‘But that’s not very scientific. It’s racist actually. I bet you don’t know any Russians. It’s not based on—’

  ‘You said she mentioned a restaurant?’

  ‘Yes, Obshchina was the name. I wrote it down in my phone. We could go there.’

  She shifted away, evasive. ‘This city’s so expensive.’

  ‘We should eat out sometime. Why not?’

  Her cheeks reddened. ‘I don’t have a lot to spare. Debts … Jasmine … the mortgage …’

  ‘I’ll pay.’

  Silence.

  ‘I mean, surely we could eat out some nights.’

  The mention of money had bothered her; she gave me a sour look.

  While we ate, I described as much of the meeting as I could remember, and the more I talked, the more mystified and irritated I became.

  ‘Her account of Aiden was different from Sophie’s. She said he was depressed, Sophie said he was fine. Angela’s a
ccount sort of suggests Sophie was in denial or just giving me a rosy picture; Angela also said Sophie and Aiden were estranged, so Sophie might well not’ve known that Aiden had checked into a clinic.’

  Mazarine nodded, her mouth full.

  ‘Still, it seems strange.’ I was disconcerted, because I’d thought Sophie and I had got on well. I’d thought we had connected.

  She swallowed, pressed a paper napkin to her lips. ‘Maybe not so odd, Frances. In my work, I see witness statements about the same person that are wildly different. Every view is subjective.’

  ‘But even so.’

  ‘You haven’t eaten much.’

  I sat back, sighed. ‘The helpings are huge.’

  She looked at me, then at her empty plate.

  ‘I asked Angela about Dominic Hay-Godwin, but I have no idea why, whether he’s relevant — I assume not at all. It’s so frustrating. And relevant to what? What does any of it have to do with Maya?’ I banged my fork down on the table. ‘I decided on the way back, I’m going to ask the police for advice tomorrow. It must be easy to find out what country she’s in at least, from bank or phone records. I don’t know how well you get on with Joe, but Maya and I talk, we get on, we love each other. She wouldn’t do this unless something was wrong.’

  ‘Okay, sure, something might be wrong. You can fill out a police form, but what will that achieve? She’s emailed you. She can cross any borders she likes, go where she wants.’

  ‘Why are you the one dictating how we deal with it? You don’t even communicate with Joe.’

  ‘I love Joe, Frances. I’m not dictating—’

  ‘You think we should keep it secret that we don’t know where the kids are. A file with a Russian name on it, I mean who cares? You think Russians are “bad karma”. What does that mean? You think this is one of your crime thrillers.’

  She looked up sharply. ‘Which wouldn’t be subtle enough for you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Crime does happen, you know.’

  ‘Yes it happens, but—’

  ‘Perhaps you’ve led a sheltered life.’

  ‘That is a complete tangent. I know crime happens. You like the way it gets solved in thrillers. But you said yourself real life’s not like that.’

  ‘They’re not absorbing enough.’

  I was stung. My face went hot. After a pause I said, ‘Look, let’s not argue. We’re in this together. I’m sorry about your money issue—’

  ‘There’s no money issue.’

  Silence.

  ‘But you said …’

  She folded her arms, considered, weighing something up. ‘You told me you sometimes can’t read women.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Your daughter’s a woman.’

  I stared.

  ‘No. That’s different. I know Maya absolutely, I do understand her, because she’s my girl, we get on well. We love each other. My daughter and my sister, they’re the women I can communicate with.’

  There was the distant sound of the lift creaking in the shaft, voices in the stairwell, a door banging.

  She laid her palms on the table. ‘I thought it made sense to help each other, Frances. To pool our resources. I’m happy to move to Cartwright Gardens tomorrow. I’ll call the hotel in the morning, and I’ll search for an Airbnb.’

  ‘Okay. Fine. And I’ll find a police station and get advice.’

  I washed the plates and cutlery, scoured the pots and wiped the surfaces that were splashed with Mazarine’s cooking. I cleaned up furiously, full of disgust for food, mess, the heat, the oppressive city.

  Mazarine disappeared into the bathroom and turned on the shower. She emerged in a cloud of steam, and hovered at the edge of the room, opening and closing her suitcase. I ignored her and took my laptop out to the terrace, where I began the usual trawl through news and social media.

  The trees in the square heaved with a sudden squall. A dense black cloud had intensified over the buildings, and fat drops began to fall. Down in the street, two men argued over a minicab fare, their voices rising above the hiss of the rain.

  I searched random news sites, watching recent footage of protestors dodging tear gas during the demonstration in central Paris. Young people were camped in la Place de la République, having defied the curfew after the terror attacks, and had turned it into a shrine for the dead. The monument was covered in placards, scrawled with graffiti. I scanned faces in the crowd, looking for the one I knew.

  After a while I gave up and sat looking at the rain. I didn’t know why I was so pent up and frustrated, nor did I understand why Mazarine’s naked body kept appearing to me, an image burned on the back of my eyes. It now came to me that when she was near, something in me wanted to turn towards her instead of moving away, as if her proximity, forced upon me despite all my resistance, had allowed a thousand impressions of her to build up, expressions, gestures, little flashes of feeling she tried and just failed to mask, a world of subtleties and touching details, until I had assented, turned, said yes instead of no — but yes to what?

  She lay on the bed reading one of the thrillers I’d bought her. Occasionally she reached out a hand and groped for the bag of sweets at her side, putting a toffee in her mouth without taking her eyes off the page. I saw how sensual and shapely she was, and sat glazed with the unexpected thought, trying it out in my mind, but a sound broke in, a ping from the laptop: it was an answer to a message I’d sent that morning to one of Maya’s friends.

  Hi Frances

  Sorry I haven’t heard from M since she split from Joe! 2 weeks? After Paris she was going to a festival on some island in Budapest — after that not sure — she was maybe talking about Warsaw?

  Hope you guys are allg

  Cara xxx

  I took the laptop over to the bed and held it in front of Mazarine.

  ‘They’ve broken up.’

  She read the message, frowned, took off her glasses and polished them.

  I sat down beside her. ‘I don’t believe it. They were close. She told me they were soul mates.’

  ‘It’s not surprising. They’re young.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘It would be surprising if they stayed together.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  Silence.

  I said, ‘So she’s not with Joe, or Mikail.’

  Mazarine frowned. ‘You’re happy about that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re glad she’s not with Mikail, especially.’

  ‘No, I’m not, I wasn’t thinking about him.’

  ‘You just mentioned him.’

  ‘Did I? I don’t know.’ I closed the laptop. ‘I honestly don’t know what to think.’

  Was this better or worse? Mikail, I’d got myself into a sweat of anxiety about him, imagined him linked to the Paris and Belgian terror attacks, which was pure prejudice, based only on the fact that he was religiously strict, came from a heavily Muslim district in Brussels, and was supposedly angry and political. Mazarine was right, it was a stretch to go from that to actual terrorism — but still, I’d formed a negative view of him, had worried Maya would be tainted by association.

  Tainted? Listen to me. What a world.

  I looked at Mazarine. ‘I never asked, do Joe and Mikail get on well?’

  ‘Yes, they were always close.’

  Did I prefer it that Maya was travelling alone? No. Even though I wasn’t fond of Joe, I’d felt okay about him, had liked it that Maya had a male companion; it seemed safer, given the cheap hostels and dodgy areas they stayed in, being young and poor.

  What about the fact that she’d told her friend about the break-up, and not me?

  Mazarine lay on her back and looked at her hands. She swallowed. ‘Frances, I think this further explains Maya’s silence. She’s had two upheavals, first the boss, then the boyfriend. Anyone might lie low.’

  I didn’t reply. I couldn’t agree that it was reasonable for her not to talk to me. I lay back on the bed, saying
nothing. Mazarine got up and padded around the room.

  Her calmness chilled me. Perhaps she’d disliked Maya, and was glad. But how could anyone dislike Maya? Her lay-about son had never deserved such a brilliant, beautiful girl. Maya would have dumped him, not the other way around; she must have got sick of his lazy fecklessness, his lack of drive.

  Mazarine opened her own laptop and sat with it at the table. She was typing in the dark as I drifted into sleep, dreaming I was on a bridge in Paris, Maya passing on a boat beneath me. She looked up, calling words I couldn’t hear. The river was rust red; leaves whirled in the current and sank, the sky was red too, blazing, crossed with black ropes of cloud.

  I was walking with Mazarine across a rooftop; we were making our way between television aerials that sprouted like a metal forest, the wind screaming in the wires. Below the roof was a vast plain on which thousands of faceless people were moving. I was trying to tell her something important, it was about my sudden new feelings for her. I said her name. ‘I know why I got angry, Mazarine, it’s because I—’

  Waking, I saw her leaning over the keyboard, her glasses reflecting the blue screen. I closed my eyes, slept. Joe and Mikail had come to my house in the cul-de-sac. Joe held up a photo of Maya, and both young men smiled. I slammed the door, but when I turned Mazarine was behind me, and she too held out a photograph …

  I was a child, standing at the kitchen door, snooping, on a hot summer evening, hearing voices against the drugged cicadas and their sheen of noise. Inez talking to a friend, in the same tones of smothered melodrama that she used to describe me as too different: ‘Without adoption, I’m afraid the fate of these children is fixed. For boys, the army, for the girls, prostitution.’

  Werner Bismarck’s voice: ‘But Frances, you don’t have a brother.’

  Of course I do. Lovely Frank.

  Mazarine saying my name:

  ‘You called out.’

  Had Joe hurt Maya? Had he reacted badly to her leaving him? The brothers on the run, protecting each other. Maya seeing something: Mikail from Brussels, he was radicalised, he was clever, an engineer, he could build bombs, suicide vests. The parents protecting their sons, trying to keep me silent, watching me, biding their time. Mazarine at the computer, secretly talking to her ex-husband while I slept.