by Moss, John
Harry and Morgan both jumped.
The sheet made a whimpering sound and a small hand appeared from the folds, pushing the cotton away. The child did not wake up. She twisted free of her covering and drifted into a deeper sleep.
“My goodness,” Morgan observed then added, “She’s out like a light.”
Harry touched the child’s forehead with his fingertips. No fever. He felt for her carotid artery and found a vigorous pulse. He brushed her black hair away from her face. She was generically pretty, the way most children are. Her skin was a translucent brown, her eyes were concealed within a clearly defined crease, and her lips were open, but she was breathing easily through flared nostrils. He guessed she was Korean or possibly northern Chinese. It didn’t enter his mind that she might be Canadian.
He said as much to Morgan.
Morgan was the father of a grown son he hardly knew. He wasn’t good with children. He stood to the side watching Harry, who seemed lost in thought and offering no explanation for the child’s presence. Morgan called Social Services and the police. When an agent, her interpreter, and a lone detective arrived at the same time, there were introductions all around.
The agent called herself Joan DeBrusk. She was in her late twenties, with close-cropped hair with copper red highlights, freckles, and an open smile. She introduced her companion, a young woman called Nguyen Wang, as a linguist. The detective was older. Her name was Frances Dombrowski.
Within a few minutes two paramedics arrived and ignoring the others went straight to the child. While they checked her vital signs, Detective Dombrowski and Morgan talked in the hallway.
“She’s been mildly sedated,” one of the paramedics explained to Joan DeBrusk. “We’d better take her to Sick Kids.”
“No. If she’s fine, leave her until morning. I’ll stay.”
The two detectives came back into the room. Morgan said a few words in private to the social worker, then smiled, nodded goodbye to Harry, and left.
Frances Dombrowski was in charge. She turned to Harry. “You knew someone had broken into your apartment. You called Detective Morgan because you’re friends. You came in together and discovered a strange little girl asleep on your sofa. Is that right?”
“That’s about it.” Were he and Morgan friends? He thought of Morgan as Miranda’s friend.
“And you have no idea who she is?”
“No.”
“No idea who left her?”
“None.”
“Morgan said the alarm system was down and the lock was unlocked. Did you forget to secure the premises when you went out, Mr. Lindstrom?”
Harry looked at the Klimts before answering emphatically, “No, I did not.”
He glanced at the child, back at the Klimts, then at Joan DeBrusk, who had returned from walking the medics to the door.
She was very attractive, a restrained version of Madalena Strauss.
“It is perplexing,” said Frances Dombrowski. “People abandon infants in dumpsters. Occasionally we get a three- or four-year-old left at the bus station, but this is a first—a B&E to leave something behind.”
For Harry’s benefit, she clarified. “Break and Enter.”
“Got it,” said Harry. “I’m a P.I.”
“Leaving behind someone, not something,” said Joan DeBrusk.
“Do you want me to take you to Sick Kids?” Frances Dombrowski asked the social worker.
“No,” said Joan. “She’ll need a thorough examination, but we can look after that in the morning. I told the medics we’ll let her sleep it off here.” She turned to Harry. “Do you have any coffee?”
Harry hesitated.
“It’s for me, Mr. Lindstrom, not the baby.”
“Of course. How strong.”
She looked over at his Nespresso system.
“Arpeggio,” she responded, indicating her familiarity with the pressure sealed capsule system. “She’s what, Mr. Lindstrom, maybe four? I call them all babies. I grew up near Timmins in a family with twelve kids. Bush Catholic. I was second oldest, so whoever was youngest at any given time was the baby. The most recent baby of the family is thirteen. I’m older than I look.”
Harry wondered what the hell a bush Catholic was. Detective Dombrowski asked, “I’m Polish Catholic myself, but I don’t know the bush part.”
“Well,” said Joan, responding to the general air of interest, “I grew up instilled with the fear of God, but we seldom made it to church. We could do pretty much what we wanted and in the end the priest would absolve us. Minimal discipline, doctrine, or dogma; a bit of guilt, some hymns, a few psalms, and infinite absolution.”
“Sounds like a license to be wicked,” said Dombrowski with the offhand cynicism of the righteous.
Sounds more like running up bills with someone else covering the costs.
Harry and the three women sat drinking coffee. The little girl began to stir as if awakened by the force of their staring. When she opened her eyes, she smiled. Harry felt his heart soar, until he realized it was a defensive smile, not one of joy but of desperation.
“Hello,” said Joan DeBrusk, getting down on her knees beside the sofa and caressing the little girl’s cheek with the back of her hand. “Can you tell me your name?”
As the social worker kept talking, the girl’s eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered as she tried to maintain her smile. She did not understand, but she wanted to please.
Without getting up, Joan DeBrusk beckoned the linguist to settle on the floor beside her. She eased the girl into an upright position so that their faces were on the same level. Harry and Detective Dombrowski faded as much as they could into the background, leaning against the kitchen counter.
Nguyen Wang began playing a sort of word game, quietly tossing sound patterns to the girl, like dangling so many coloured threads for a terrified kitten. The social worker slowly withdrew and joined Harry and Frances Dombrowski without taking her eyes off the girl.
“Has she been brutalized?” Harry asked in a soothing voice.
“Not physically. She doesn’t flinch to avoid pain.” The social worker used the same reassuring voice, trying to keep the background interference as unthreatening as possible. “But she’s been traumatized. Watch her eyes. She’s looking for Nguyen’s sounds. She’s not listening.”
When Harry observed the girl’s eyes he was astonished. They had the epicanthic folds he associated with Asians, but they were deep dark blue, the colour of night.
The girl cocked her head. The linguist seemed to be offering a range of vocal modulations and tonalities. The girl made a noise, tongue pressed to the roof of her mouth, the linguist responded with oral tremulations, searching for a response. The girl was listening now. She looked like she would cry, then she smiled, not a forced smile but from the heart. These were perhaps the first familiar sounds she had heard in a desperately long time. She held out a tiny hand, palm upward, and let it settle on the linguist’s open palm.
“What is it, Dr. Wang?” Joan DeBrusk eased closer to the sofa.
“It’s a tough one. At first I laid out a tone palette, I moved through sound patterns favoured in Chinese, then Korean, then through a range of other languages, looking for recognition indicators. A twitch, a smile, flickering of the eyes. I even tried Native American, sounds from the Na-Dené language in the Mackenzie corridor, glottal sounds from Inuktitut. I knew I was trying to penetrate trauma and for a while I thought she might be too damaged to respond. Then I hit on Vietnamese tonalities. There was something! I know she doesn’t speak Vietnamese; her reaction was too tentative. And then I had it. Of course, blue eyes, it all fits, she’s from the Yenisei River basin of the Krasnoyarsk Krai district of Central Siberia.”
Harry had moved close to hear the explanation. “Could you be more precise?” he asked.
Harry, for God’s sake!
But Nguyen Wang got the joke.
“How long has she been away from home?” he said.
“Twenty-seve
n days, six hours, ten minutes, give or take.”
Detective Frances Dombrowski was more literal minded and about to say something, but Harry caught her eye. She smiled knowingly, apparently content to have missed the point of their banter.
Without crowding too close, Harry, on bended knees, asked the girl her name.
“She speaks Ket; ask her in Ket. It’s vaguely related to Vietnamese. Or try your Athabaskan, Mr. Lindstrom, they’re closely related.”
Harry looked at Nguyen Wang with a mixture of humility and anticipation.
“You try.”
“Oh, I don’t speak either, I just recognize the patterns. Only about a thousand people speak Ket.”
“In the world?”
“In the world.”
“She is a rare gem,” said Joan DeBrusk. “She should be easy to trace.”
“In Siberia?”
“We’ll get her back to her family.”
“Unless she was sold,” said Harry.
The bubble of congenial good spirits burst. Joan DeBrusk glared. Not because of what he had suggested, it seemed, but because he might be right.
“That is a possibility,” she said quite formally.
Dombrowski spoke up. “Work backwards,” she said. “Somebody left her, somebody not concerned with being traced because she’s been smuggled into the country. She’s not officially here. We don’t know if she’s been abandoned, sold, or stolen. She’s in good condition, so she wasn’t abandoned. She’s been looked after since she was bought or abducted. But before that, she’s been loved, you can tell by her eyes. Behind the fear they’re full of hope. So, I’m saying she was stolen, not sold. The dark blue eyes, amethyst, I’d call them, they have a touch of violet—she’s exotic—there’d be a high price on the street for this little one. Now, let’s go back to the beginning. Why abandon her here of all places? Answer: she wasn’t, she was left for a purpose. She was left on the twenty-third story of a high-rise condo. So, Harry Lindstrom, where do you fit into all this? And where do we fit in? Because if we’re doing our jobs, we’re all part of the plan. Who are you, Harry? And whose plan is it?”
He decided the best response to Detective Dombrowski was to respond as little as possible. She wasn’t interrogating him; she was throwing observations and questions into the air to see where they’d land. Sidestepping, he let them fall unrequited. But he was impressed. The quiet, middle-aged police detective had been observing, thinking, and speculating when he had thought she wasn’t even paying attention.
He felt a brief surge of panic, but it subsided quickly. He imagined it would be impossible to connect this foundling girl to the fat Russian menace who loomed so oppressively in the shadows. There was no reason for the Toronto police to associate her with his own role as Madalena Strauss’ designated, reluctant, and baffled successor.
“How did you know she couldn’t speak English?” Joan DeBrusk asked the linguist.
“How did you know to invite me along?”
“Detective Morgan suggested I’d need you.”
“And how did he know?”
“I told him,” said Harry.
“Really. And how did you know?”
How did you know she wouldn’t speak English, Harry?
“Intuition,” Harry responded.
“Or is there something you haven’t told us?” Detective Dombrowski had sidled around until she stood between him and the child.
“No,” he said, as casually as possible. “But her clothes are exactly the right size.”
Was that it, Harry? Did you read signs so subtle they escaped the professionals?
He and Karen were thinking like one person.
Lucy was always too big for her clothes or too small, wasn’t she? Matt was worse. Remember?
Harry remembered. That was the point. This girl’s dress was bought for the occasion. It was a costume.
“Detective Morgan suggested you might know who broke in,” said Detective Dombrowski.
“No. I thought I did, but no, I have no idea.” He looked at the little girl and thought of the children in Vienna’s 13th District and of all the children in jeopardy that Lena believed her death might save.
“Okay,” said Joan. “I think it’s time we call it a night. It’s after three. Dr. Wang, go home. Detective Dombrowski, I take it there’s nothing more for you here. I’ll call you tomorrow. Harry, could you find yourself a pillow and sleep on the sofa? My little girl and I will take the bedroom—if you have some clean sheets and don’t mind.”
The interpreter and the police officer left. Harry sat with the girl while Joan DeBrusk made up the bed.
When they were alone, the little girl tugged at Harry’s hand and he wrapped it gently around hers. She tilted her head to the side. Her lips moved. He leaned forward to hear her. She whispered the word twice.
“Lucy.” She smiled hopefully. “Lu-cy.”
Harry lurched back against the sofa. It felt like he’d been thrown across the room. She was not the Russian’s messenger. She was the message. A blood-churning, heart-rending threat.
Dimitri Sakarov could kill or he could give new life to the innocent. It was up to Harry.
Oh God, God damn it.
The girl looked frightened at Harry’s reaction. She cowered and covered her mouth, as if afraid she had done something terribly wrong.
Harry placed his hands palms up on his lap in a non-threatening gesture and began to speak in the soothing monotone he would have used to settle Matt and Lucy. The point was not the meaning but the sounds of his words. He recited the names of philosophers, quoted passages from Nietzsche, from Heidegger, and finally, as she began to relax, he offered garbled snippets from Lewis Carroll.
“The time has come, the boojum said to the snark … I’ve believed six impossible things before breakfast … if you don’t know where you’re going, you can’t get back to yesterday … I was a different person then and everything is funny if you can’t laugh … and so on and so forth.”
The little girl listened intently. When she reached out and placed her hands in his, his heart went out to her. She understood nothing of what he said nor how nonsensical he was being. She had been thrust into a world she couldn’t possibly comprehend, where mock turtles and mad hatters were nothing unusual.
But she must have instinctively trusted these new adults in her life to keep her safe, sensing they were different from those who had erased everything familiar. She could have had no idea what she had said to upset Harry, saying the word “Lucy” as she had been instructed.
Harry looked through into the bedroom. He was not used to seeing a woman there. And now, this nice looking young woman with freckles and expressive features could not know her kindly function was inseparable from the most heinous threat. She looked out at him and smiled wanly. She looked tired.
“Bring her in,” she called. “Don’t carry her. Encourage her to walk.”
Harry did as he was directed and immediately backed out of the room. He was surprised when Joan joined him after settling her ward on the bed.
“Don’t you need rest?” he said.
“You look apprehensive, Harry. What is it?”
She sat down beside him on the sofa. He could see The Forces of Evil over one shoulder, The Kiss over the other. In the muted light from the table lamp, her hair had the same copper luminescence that Klimt had captured in the paintings of Elisabeth Bök. The same as Madalena Strauss had displayed with such casual pride in sunlight or shade.
“I’m not sure,” he answered. “It’s all just a little confusing.”
Say nothing or say everything, Harry. I’d suggest nothing.
“Don’t worry,” Joan DeBrusk responded, “We’ll get to the bottom of this. Can you sleep? Would you like me to leave you alone?”
“No,” he said. “What did Dombrowski mean by street value?” He felt sick, asking the question.
“Probably not sex, Harry. There’s more money in adoption. There are people who would pay a very
high premium for such an exotic child. Asian features with amethyst eyes. Maybe a hundred thousand, maybe more.”
My God, Harry. If Sakarov can afford to throw away a hundred grand to make a point, think of how much is at stake.
“Could I make you another coffee?” he asked.
“A decaf would be nice.”
When he returned with their coffee, he settled into the armchair so they were facing diagonally. He wanted to see her without losing sight of the paintings.
“Do you think she’ll be okay?” he asked.
“She knows we’re the good guys.”
“Have you ever heard of Ket?”
“The language or the people?”
“Either.”
“Neither. I studied social work. I’m not much of a linguist.”
“U of T?”
“London. Ontario.”
“Ontario?”
“If you just say London, people in Toronto think you mean England. They’re very provincial that way.”
“Or intent on making you realize how cosmopolitan they are.”
“Which is very provincial.”
“I worked there for a while,” he said.
“At Huron College, I know.”
He looked at her quizzically. “I taught philosophy.”
“You and Father Black? I took a course from him.”
“Tom Black. Yeah. I was there for twelve years.”
“You came in my sophomore year. I nearly switched to philosophy.” She had an ingenuous smile. She wasn’t flirting, just adding warmth to the conversation. “Do you like this better?”
Her smile meant, being a private investigator, living in a Toronto high-rise, resolving the mysteries of existence on a practical level. She didn’t seem surprised by his radically altered life nor did she ask for an explanation.
He shrugged.
“I took American literature from your wife.”
What a strange small world it really is!
“Professor Karen Malone,” she added in confirmation. She said nothing more, but it was understood that she knew Karen was dead.