The Devil's Madonna

by Sharon Potts

  “I’m not quite sure.” Kali noticed a splotch of turquoise paint on one of her fingernails. “She doesn’t really talk about it.”

  A peculiar silence fell over the table. Everyone looked down at their food and concentrated on eating.

  “This is terrific brisket, Mitzi.” Al’s voice was too cheerful. “Just like your mom used to make.”

  “It’s her recipe.”

  Kali took another sip of cider. So what if her grandmother was from Austria? It wasn’t like she had any involvement with the terrible things that had taken place during the war. She put her glass down, grazing the side of a serving dish.

  Everyone looked up at the tinkle of breaking glass.

  “Oh no. Your good crystal.”

  “Are you okay?” Seth said. “You didn’t cut yourself, did you?”

  Al reached for Kali’s hand and turned it over in his. “She’s fine. No cuts.”

  “I’m really sorry,” Kali said.

  “It’s nothing,” her mother-in-law said. “No big deal.”

  “It’s just a glass, Mom,” Seth said.

  “I said it was no big deal.”

  Kali felt her phone vibrate in the pocket of her dress. She ignored it, the moment too awkward for her to check the caller ID.

  Seth looked at her, eyebrows in a squiggle.

  Her phone stopped, but a few seconds later began vibrating again.

  Mitzi was picking up the pieces of glass from the table, putting them on a plate.

  “Isn’t that your phone, dear?” Al asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, go ahead and answer it.”

  Kali slipped it out, glancing at a number she didn’t recognize. “Hello,” she said. “Yes, this is she.”

  She listened to the voice at the other end. “What?” Kali’s stomach did a somersault. “You’re sure it’s nothing serious?”

  Seth and his parents were watching her, his parents with concern, Seth with something more like panic.

  “Yes. I know where it is. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Kali closed the phone and bit down on her lower lip.

  “What’s wrong?” Mitzi asked.

  Kali pushed out her chair and stood. “Seth, we need to go. That was the hospital. My grandmother.”

  “Oh dear.” Mitzi brought her hands to her face.

  “She’s okay,” Kali said. “But she almost burned her house down.”

  3

  The students streamed through the hallway past Javier Guzman, hurrying to get to their dorms or maybe grab some dinner. The column he’d chosen to stand behind partially hid Javier, but gave him a clear view of everyone as they left the classroom. He ignored the coeds with their come-on breasts and too-tight jeans and searched among the male faces for his golden boy—now a tall, muscular young man. But only grungy, slouchy, unshaven slobs emerged from the room. Javier had dressed in worn blue jeans himself knowing, despite having thirty-plus years on this crowd, that with his smooth scalp, he’d blend in as one of their professors.

  The exiting students thinned out. The hallway resumed its after-the-party desolation with crumpled papers and crushed cans of Red Bull littering the concrete floor. Javier picked up the scent of lingering cigarette smoke from the ones he’d smoked before class broke, ignoring the NO SMOKING signs. His fingers twitched for another, but he’d wait until later.

  He checked his watch. 9:07. Gabriel’s last class. From here, Javier expected Gabriel to head over to an off-campus bar that was loose on checking IDs and have a couple of beers. No big deal, really. Gabriel was just a few months short of twenty-one. Then around eleven, eleven thirty, the boy would drive the three-year-old BMW his mother’s husband had bought him back to the garden apartment he shared with two other art students.

  Javier knew Gabriel’s routine well. He had been monitoring him for the last three months, since Gabriel had transferred down to the University of Miami. Javier had remained in the shadows, learning the patterns, waiting for the right opportunity.

  A deep female laugh came from inside the classroom. Javier moved back behind the column, still able to watch the door. Two people emerged from the room. The young man was wearing a wrinkled shirt with rolled up sleeves and holding a large leather portfolio. Gabriel was majoring in art—an interesting coincidence. He had a strong jaw, longish straight blond hair, and massive shoulders that could have easily brought him success in football had the boy not chosen to tackle the world with a paintbrush.

  Javier felt a mixture of pride and resentment, just as he always did whenever he caught a glimpse of Gabriel. Life had been unfair to Javier, often appearing in one of the devil’s many guises, so that Javier had been repeatedly tricked into believing a deception. Through these missteps, he had lost his loved ones and occasionally his own way in the world. But Javier was determined not to let the devil prevail. He now knew the truth and would one day redeem himself in the eyes of those he’d failed.

  The woman was talking too loudly. She was black and Oprah plump with close-cropped kinky grayish hair and gold hoop earrings. She patted Gabriel’s arm. “Catch you next week, Gabe,” she said, then flounced down the hallway in the opposite direction.

  Javier was surprised by the fluttering in his chest. Would Gabriel see him as flabby and useless? A middle-age man who’d amounted to little despite his brilliance? Javier brought the stale air deep into his lungs. It was time for him to take action. He’d let too many years go by without intervening and he was starting to fear that the damage might be irreparable.

  The young man passed him without even a glance.

  “Gabriel,” Javier called, stepping out from behind the column.

  Gabriel stopped. Javier could see his shoulders rise, his back stiffen. Gabriel slowly turned around.

  The two of them were face-to-face. They were the same height, but Gabriel still had the narrow waist and slender hips that Javier had lost twenty or so years ago.

  “What do you want?” Gabriel’s jaw was clenched, his eyes charcoal gray like his mother’s.

  “You know who I am?” Javier was surprised. Had Gabriel noticed him lurking over the years?

  “Why are you here? Why don’t you just leave me alone?”

  “Please, Gabriel.”

  “My name is Gabe.”

  “Gabe, then. Please. I just want to talk to you. You’re a man now. You can make your own decisions about things.”

  Gabriel pushed past him. Javier grabbed his shoulders.

  “Don’t touch me, you creep.”

  Javier jerked his hands back. “Sorry, no touching.” He held his hands up in the air like he was under arrest. “How about a quick beer? Just so you hear my side.”

  “I know enough about your side, you goddamn bastard.”

  Gabriel started walking rapidly down the hallway, his sneakers pounding against the floor. Javier kept in stride with him. “I never meant to hurt her.”

  Gabriel stopped abruptly. His face was contorted and he was breathing hard. “You fucking liar.”

  It had become warm and close in the hallway, as though the air-conditioning had been turned off.

  “She wouldn’t listen,” Javier said. “She didn’t understand.”

  “You’re a sick man. You should be locked away somewhere. Or better yet, you belong in front of a firing squad and shot.”

  Javier felt like a poker had been run through his insides. “You have to listen to me, Gabriel. Please. I understand you more than you know. I didn’t recognize the truth, either. And then, when I finally did, it was too late for me. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

  There was a brief moment of hesitation. It seemed to Javier that Gabriel was studying his face, looking for something recognizable.

  A door slammed in the distance. Voices and laughter. A moment later, a young man and woman, arms wrapped around each other, zigzagged down the hallway too busy sticking their tongues in each other’s faces to see where they were going.

  Javier returned his gaze to G
abriel. “Here, take this.” He pressed one of his business cards into Gabriel’s hand. He felt a jolt as his finger grazed the warm hand. His first touch in twelve years. Twelve maddening years when all Javier could do was watch from a distance.

  Gabriel glanced at the card, then shoved it into the front pocket of his jeans. His lips twitched downward like Javier remembered them doing before he’d burst into tears over a broken toy or some childish disappointment.

  He’d gotten through to him, Javier thought, as the tightness in his gut relaxed. “You know, Gabriel. You and I used to be great friends. Remember those rollerblades I gave you for Christmas? You were eight years old and we went to a skating—”

  “Stop.” Gabriel held his hand in front of Javier’s face. His own features were tense, once again. “My name isn’t Gabriel. And we’re not friends. Never will be. Do you understand? Stop following me.”

  “But Gabriel—”

  “I said stay the fuck away from me.” Gabriel started walking quickly down the hallway, past the empty classrooms.

  Javier tried to keep up. He was breathing hard as he spoke. “They’ve filled your head with the lies of the devil. Listen to me. I’m going to find this old woman. She has a painting. It will prove they’re all wrong. You’ll see, you’ll be proud of who you are.”

  But Gabriel was racing down the hallway, leaving Javier behind.

  “Wait.” Javier took a few running steps, then stopped, knowing he couldn’t catch him this time.

  He watched the young man disappear around a curve.

  “I love you, Gabriel,” Javier shouted. “You’re my son. You’ll never be able to run away from that.”

  4

  Lillian Campbell lay on the hospital gurney surrounded by the relentless sound of beeping. Nurses and doctors rushed around her, one blending into the next. Poking, prodding, asking question after question, making her brain hurt.

  Despite the oxygen plugs in her nose, she could still taste smoke and fumes. Even a thousand candles wouldn’t set her free.

  November 1938. Over seventy years ago, but the memories bit into her with the impact of exploding glass.

  The shrill screech of the locomotive braking. Stepping off the train onto the platform in Paris, everything a steamy haze. The sting of soot as she took a deep breath, trying to settle the seismic palpitations in her chest.

  She glanced into the blur of bobbing faces, not knowing whom he had sent to hunt her down, or when an assassin’s bullet would find her. He could be anywhere, anyone. And she’d never see him coming.

  The shove came from the left. Her scream choked like a trampled bird’s last note.

  “Pardon, m’mselle,” said the man, touching the brim of his hat.

  She backed away as he continued babbling unintelligibly in French, then she turned and pushed through the jostling mob with their trunks and bundles, into the grand terminal of the Gare de l’Est. She prayed that she looked like just another young, pretty woman, perhaps seeking work or visiting family. But she knew it would be a long time before she saw dear Mama, Papa, or Joseph again. If ever.

  The crowd parted for a group of dull-eyed soldiers, rifles slung over their shoulders. She lowered her gaze and burrowed her head deeper into the scarf she wore to hide her blonde curls. The cut on her chin throbbed as it rubbed against the collar of her cloth coat. Beneath the coat, she had on only a torn slip, stiff with dried blood. She was conscious of his filth on her skin. Although she had tried to scrub away his semen in the toilette at the Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin, it seemed to cling to her like tar.

  The soldiers tramped by. Khaki uniforms, garrison caps, laced boots—French, not German. Her muscles relaxed. Safe. Or was she?

  She risked another glance through the crowd, afraid to meet anyone’s eyes, yet desperate to know if she had been followed.

  She clutched her purse against her chest. The tiny painting was still there, wrapped in a lace handkerchief. Several times she had almost thrown it away. But she knew that wouldn’t change anything. With or without the painting, she was irredeemably defiled.

  The crowd carried her through the vast, echoing entrance foyer. She was immersed in the din of voices, the rapping of heels against the marble floors, the garbled announcements over the loudspeakers. A dull light leaked in through the arched glass ceiling far above her. She could smell sausage, cooking oil, shoe polish. She hadn’t eaten in over two days and felt faint.

  She leaned against a newspaper stall. Most of the papers were in French, but there was a German edition of the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten.

  She scanned the bold headlines. Her heart crashed against her ribcage.

  Dear God!

  She remembered the spittle hanging from the side of his mouth.

  His promise. His curse. His retribution against her.

  Lillian sat up with a jerk. Beeping all around her.

  The candles. What had she done?

  A black male nurse was adjusting the blood pressure cuff around her arm.

  “I must go home,” she said.

  “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t.” She clutched at his blue uniform shirt. “I must go home now. I have to stop him.”

  He patted her hand, like he was trying to placate a child. It infuriated her.

  “But he’s coming after me,” she said.

  “Let me just finish taking your blood pressure, then I can help you into a wheelchair.”

  “My granddaughter. Where is she? What’s happened to her?”

  “I’m sure she’ll be here very soon.”

  Lillian looked around the large open room, at the blur of bobbing faces, suddenly feeling very small and exposed.

  He could be anywhere. Anyone. And she’d never see him coming.

  5

  When Kali walked into the emergency room at Mount Sinai Hospital on Miami Beach, she saw only trapezoids, parallelograms, a smattering of oblongs and spheres. Then the waiting room came into focus. It was filled with despondent, drooping people sitting or stretched out on stiff-backed chairs. A couple of TVs hung from the ceilings, emitting a low rumble, which sounded like gibberish to Kali. The burnt smell of boiled-down coffee almost made her gag as unwelcome memories surfaced.

  She looked around once again. Where was Seth? He said he’d be right behind her in his own car when they left the Millers’ apartment, but there was no sign of him.

  Kali went to the reception desk. A harried-looking man wearing a short-sleeved white shirt sat behind the desk examining a clipboard, while an attractive woman in black argued and complained. Kali got in line behind the woman, checking if there was someone else who could help her. The door to the emergency room was operated electronically, so she couldn’t simply push her way in.

  Kali twirled the end of her braid around her finger. Although the man on the phone had said her grandmother was fine, Kali needed to see for herself. Hadn’t everyone reassured her when her mom had been rushed to the hospital? A little car accident. Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.

  “We’ve been here forty-five minutes,” said the woman in black. “And you let three other people who came after us go in.”

  The wide doors to the emergency room opened and a man in scrubs walked into the waiting area. Now, Kali thought. She darted around the woman in black, past the man in scrubs, and through the doors just before they closed.

  She found herself in the midst of a strong antiseptic smell, frowning faces, intermittent beeping, and disembodied voices. For an instant she was thirteen again, overwhelmed by panic. Mommy, she almost cried out. She took a deep breath. Everything would be fine. Her grandmother was fine. Her hand went to her abdomen. Fine.

  The nurses’ station was in the center of the large, open area, surrounded by small alcoves separated by curtains. People lying on gurneys were scattered haphazardly in any available open space, as though there was a shortage of treatment rooms. The scene reminded her of the Paul Klee painting—Twittering Machine. Kali tried to get the a
ttention of one of the nurses, but they all appeared to be busy. She scanned the room. Seated in a wheelchair in the far corner was a frail woman wrapped in a white hospital blanket. Her grandmother.

  Kali hurried toward her. “Lillian.”

  Her grandmother’s hands were in her lap, worrying the edge of the blanket, her skin looking as soft as crushed velvet.

  “Are you okay?” Kali asked.

  Lillian looked up at Kali, tension in her deep-set blue eyes. Her short white hair was pushed back from her face, accentuating her high cheekbones and chiseled chin. She was ninety-three, but still beautiful.

  “I have to go home.”

  “We’ll leave in a minute. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Yes, yes. Tell them to let me go. They don’t listen to me.”

  A slender, black man wearing a blue nurse’s uniform and clogs sashayed over to them. He held a clipboard with some papers against his chest. “That’s not quite so, Mrs. Campbell. I’ve listened to everything you said.”

  “I’ll take you home now, Lillian,” Kali said.

  “I’m sorry,” said the nurse. “And you are?”

  “Kali Miller. Mrs. Campbell’s granddaughter.”

  He pursed his lips. “You called her Lillian.”

  “That’s right.” It was what she’d called her grandmother since her mother died.

  “So you’re the missing granddaughter.”

  “I wasn’t missing. I got here as soon as I heard.”

  “Just giving you your grandmother’s perspective.”

  Lillian perked up. “There’s nothing wrong with my perspective.”

  “Of course not, Mrs. Campbell.” The nurse raised his eyebrows and gestured with his head. Kali followed him to a supply cabinet a short distance away. A machine beeped loudly behind them, but none of the nurses paid any attention.

  “Is she okay?” Kali said.

  He spoke in a low voice. “There was some concern about smoke inhalation, but she’s fine. The doctor cleared her to leave.”

  “What exactly happened?”

  “Apparently she was lighting candles and things got away from her. Someone called 911. The fire department came and an ambulance brought your grandmother here. He leaned closer to Kali. “Just so you know, she’s freaking out that someone’s going to break into her house while she’s away. Has she ever been burglarized?”