“I know, darling. But this is one for the gods, your Madonna and fate. As hard as it may be, let’s eat our gorgeously expensive food, drink as much champagne as we can handle and celebrate the fact that your child is alive, well and happy … we think.”
I don’t know how he did it but Marco always managed to turn me around from the edge of the cliff of despair just as I was about to jump off. He had done it so many times before and this was the biggest cliff so far.
“You’re right. As always. Yes, let’s be positive. No sense in getting all maudlin and sad when she is obviously so alive and so, so beautiful. And maybe she will call, maybe there is a reason she couldn’t talk to me tonight. Maybe that man is her partner or husband and she didn’t want him to know about her origins. There could be a million reasons,” I said feeling a sense of calm finally descend upon me.
“Good girl,” said Marco. “Now eat your langoustine before it gets cold and I heard the cheese trolley groaning for you,” he smiled.
“On the way home we’ll see if Saint Eustache is open and have a chat to the Madonna there. It might be time to remind her she has a job to do.”
Much later I would find out that on the street corner opposite a long, leggy blonde with blue eyes had been watching us through the restaurant window. From across the road, she saw the tears, the obvious distress and the soothing hand which reached across to the woman, and she felt the gentle irritation of the card she had hastily placed in her bra in the powder room.
27
I returned that night to Nikolai’s apartment in the Place du Palais Bourbon. He likes me to do this, I think because he is aware that The Others occasionally stay at my apartment in Paris, although he says it is because he finds my taste for chandeliers combined with my modern art collection too “conflicting” for his tastes. His apartment is like a smaller version of Polnoch with its ornate gold interior, plush red velvet drapes and furniture, Flemish tapestries hanging from the walls, marble floors and an armchair he claims once belonged to the Grand Dauphin. I always felt like I was entering a very upmarket antique store when I stayed here.
As soon as I sensed Nikolai had drifted off to sleep, as he did rather early these days, I crept out of bed, dressed in the bathroom and left a note explaining that I had to rush back to my apartment as Ola was not well. He didn’t like me to do this, but when it came to Ola, he knew how important she was to me, and understood that she would need me in the middle of the night.
I could have caught a taxi, but I always liked to walk down Boulevard Saint Germain and tonight I needed the time to think. The woman in Le Grand Vefour had obviously been out of her mind, anyone could tell that. But I couldn’t get the picture of the little girl in the locket out of my head. If she wasn’t me, then she had to be my twin, the resemblance was too close to dismiss. Yet I had barely heard of New Zealand and had always understood that I was rescued from the streets, an orphan, just like Nikolai. As I strolled down the Boulevard I knew there was one person who could help me and that was Ola.
“Ola, it’s me, wake up!” I whispered as I knocked gently on her locked door. She had never been able to sleep with an unlocked door as long as I had known her. A precaution she learned in her days working in the prison camp.
A bleary eyed Ola opened the door, an old woman in need of her sleep but never too tired to see her beloved Katya.
“What is it my darling?” she said in Russian, which was the only language she was really comfortable talking in, especially in the middle of the night.
I barged past her into her room and sat on the bed twisting a lock of hair between my fingers as I do when something is troubling me.
“The strangest thing has happened to me. This woman came up to me tonight and said she was my mother. She is obviously mad, but I can’t sleep, she has worried me.” I continued to whisper.
“What! No, Katya, that is not possible,” replied Ola suddenly wide awake.
I told her of the powder room conversation and most importantly the picture of a little blonde girl in her locket.
“Ola, it looked just like me when I was little. I swear if it wasn’t it must be my twin,” I said, still astonished.
“And then she told me I spoke English with a slight New Zealand accent, and I do speak strange English, people have always said I sound Australian. And Ola, she even looks a bit like me. Older but there is a resemblance. I’m not so sure about my father, though, he looked nothing like me, sort of Italian.”
“This is just not possible, Katya. Your parents are both dead, you are an orphan, that is what Nikolai has always told us.”
At that Ola sank on the bed.
“Nikolai would not have lied to you all these years, Katya,” she said. “I know you have never seen the ruthless side of him, but I have, and I’m telling you right now, right here, my darling that you were adopted, you were an orphan, you have no parents. Let that be an end to it.”
“But, Ola, what if she is my mother, and that man my father? What if I have a whole family I have never known in New Zealand?” I said before thinking further. “Is New Zealand part of Australia? I must find out some more.”
“Do that Katya but be very careful. I know in my heart this woman is no relation to you. Best you leave it alone, and please don’t mention a word to Nikolai for this woman’s safety. He would be very angry to know that there is a mad woman annoying you.”
I didn’t sleep that night. I lay there thinking of Nikolai, his broad features, the 55-year-old man who I had only ever known to be caring, loving and adoring. If for some bizarre reason this woman was right, then Nikolai must have abducted me from two obviously loving parents? And why from somewhere so far away as New Zealand? Or perhaps he has no idea and simply arranged to adopt me from someone who did? That was it. He didn’t know.
Russia was full of liars and cheats who would do anything to make some money. Perhaps Nikolai’s only crime was not asking enough questions about me when he adopted me. And why would he? Russia is littered with orphans, I was just another and for all he knew my real parents were drunk on vodka, in a village somewhere glad to have some money to buy more liquid pain relief.
And perhaps this woman with her strange accent and odd ways was simply not well in the head. Perhaps she approached lots of blonde, blue-eyed girls in powder rooms and said she was their mother. But while I had seen many women in bad ways in the powder room at Le Grand Vefour, it was too expensive and exclusive to harbour mental patients on a regular basis. Perhaps I would investigate further, but I would take Ola’s advice and be very cautious.
I felt much happier now that I had found a possible reason for last night’s revelations. But if my reasoning was correct, and I was taken from these people, then that could mean I have a real mother and a father. I felt a slow warmth travel around my body, a warmth I had never felt before. Was this how it felt to belong? And then I finally drifted off, wondering if I should make that phone call after all.
The next morning, after Nikolai had called to check Ola was okay and to arrange to meet me for dinner again that night at his other favourite Parisian hang out Le Tour d’Argent, I logged onto my laptop in my office and typed “Jane Lyndhurst” into the search engine. I only needed to read the first 10 entries to be convinced that I was the missing Charlotte Cunningham who appeared on every page. There was my smile, there were my eyes, there was my olive skin. When Ola came in with my coffee I read out all the hideous details of my disappearance, causing both of us to feel a sense of dread about what would happen next.
“Katya, that woman, the one in the stories about the girl Charlotte, is that the woman from last night,” asked Ola tentatively.
“It is, but she is older now, and has some grey hairs,” I said. “But the man from last night, is not this man who is the father, Lawrence Cunningham. So I guess they must not be together.”
“I think you are jumping to conclusions, Katya,” said Ola. “I know this must be very exciting for you, the hope that you have parents who are alive, and
that you belong to a family but I am still not convinced.”
And then I found it. The video which was released to all the news organisations immediately after Charlotte disappeared.
Ola grabbed hold of me
“That is you, that is the little girl who I found huddled in bed that morning at Polnoch!” she screamed before catching herself and putting her hand over her mouth.
We looked at each other. Then we looked back at the video playing again on the screen, and grabbed each other’s hands, holding tight. Not knowing whether to laugh with joy or cry with despair.
“What am I going to do?” I asked Ola. “I must ring her, I must go to her, but Nikolai will be in danger surely, he must have done something terrible to get me,” I wondered. “Do you think he knew? Perhaps he was the last one in the chain and genuinely believes he adopted me legally?”
Ola settled herself back in her chair and took charge. This is what she had always done and this is what she would do now.
She looked at me long and hard. “I need you to be sensible about this. Look at your life, look at your home, your clothes … This is a long, long way from the streets of Russia where Nikolai found you. Do not ask any questions, Katya. You will only cause pain for you, for Nikolai and for me. Be happy with what you have,’ she said sternly.
I was getting angry now.
“What do you mean Ola! The evidence is sitting right there staring at you. You said so yourself, that is me, that is the girl you found in the bed. How can you ask me to give up a chance to find out who I am, where I am really from? What are you scared of? I don’t know if you can comprehend this but finding out that I’m not some unwanted stray fathered by a vodka-soaked peasant is good news to me. To find out that a perfectly nice woman gave birth to me and then had me taken from her is something I want to know more about. I think I am right about this and no one, not you or Nikolai, can stop me!” I shouted.
“Shh,” said Ola. “Calm down, you know how you get when you lose your temper,” she soothed. “I am thinking of your well being. If you go further with this, Katya, you may lose this place where you live, you may lose everything, you may even lose your life.”
“Oh, you have read too many spy novels, Ola. Nikolai would never harm me, or you. I am going through with this whether you like it or not,” I replied, leaning back and crossing my arms, something I had done since I was a child to show I meant it.
Ola looked at me for a moment. She mumbled something under her breath, crossed herself and then stood up.
“If you are determined to pursue this, then I can see that I must give you something. Come with me,” she commanded in the voice I knew never to disobey. “But first close that thing down and erase everything. We must leave nothing to be found.”
I did as she asked and then followed her up the stairs to her bedroom where she went straight to her wardrobe and opened the door. Then with some difficultly she removed a wood panel from inside it.
“What are you doing, Ola, this is no time for mending your wardrobe,” I said.
“Katya, I need to give you something,” she said walking over to me holding something in her hands. “I found this in a pink backpack which had been thrown out in the rubbish the night you arrived at Polnoch. I rescued it before they burned it in the furnaces and I believe that bag was with you when they found you. It is the one reason I have never truly believed Nikolai’s story about you being an orphan discarded on the street.”
“Ola, why have you never told me of this before? You have kept this a secret from me for all these years?” I was incredulous. I could not believe that my dear Ola, who loved me so much, would not let me know such an important detail about my life and origins.
“Katya, you were a frightened little girl drugged up to her eyeballs. I made the decision hastily, and because that bag and its contents told me you were from a privileged home, and of course you spoke nothing but English.”
“You never told me that Ola,” I was shocked. “Are you telling me that I spoke English before I spoke Russian? How can that be?”
“It is true, but you were young enough to pick up the language quickly and you never remembered.”
So much of my life I didn’t know about. So much tumbling out in the past 12 hours.
“I knew that if Nikolai found out he would have me dispensed with and so I kept it a secret. And I guess I knew that one day, I would be showing you this.”
With that she handed over the picture she had not looked at while it was in her hands. I took it from her and slowly turned it over.
I stared in silence at the two good looking adults staring back at me as they held a chubby blonde five-year-old between them. The two good looking adults from the internet. The woman called Jane Lyndhurst and the man called Lawrence Cunningham.
“What else was in that backpack, Ola? Maybe there is something else which will bring back memories for me?”
“I just kept that photo, Katya, I’m sorry. I’m not even sure why I kept it, I guess I knew deep down that one day it would mean something to you.”
“Ola, you know what this means don’t you? That woman is my mother.”
“Very well, we will ring this Jane,” said Ola. “We will meet her in secret, maybe at her hotel and we will tell her everything. Well maybe not everything. And then we will have to move very quickly, Katya. If you were abducted there will be criminal charges, Nikolai will be implicated and he will not be slow in getting rid of the evidence. That means your mother. So we must be prepared to leave today if necessary. I suggest that before we meet this Jane, we prepare to leave. Where we go to we will decide later. But we must get out of here fast if you are going to go ahead with this. Think about it, Katya, are you prepared for the consequences?”
Part of me still thought Ola was being far too melodramatic. I knew that Nikolai was a shady character who was not always on the right side of the law but he was Russian. Everyone in Russia who had money ducked and dived their way around the legislation and when that didn’t work they bribed. But this did not mean my Nikolai was some gun-toting assassin about to take out a stranger, possibly two strangers from New Zealand in a 24-hour period. But then I thought about the pink backpack, the photo, the fact that I was obviously loved by this woman and the man in the photo. The warmth I had felt last night expanded and I felt as though someone was pointing a blow torch at my heart. Was there a hole there filling up with hope and love that despite Nikolai’s best efforts I had never received?
I needed to consider what price I was about to pay for this new warmth I was experiencing. Was I prepared to give up my beautiful apartment, my lavish lifestyle and clothes, and my love for Nikolai? Would I regret losing all this if I connected with my mother and ended up back in New Zealand? I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go to New Zealand. I had scrolled through the entries on the internet and could find nothing in its favour except mountains, green fields and a ridiculous looking structure they called the Sky Tower.
Ola was watching me.
“Well, Katya, what will it be?”
“I’m not so sure, Ola. I like my life the way it is. I’m not sure I want it to change.”
“Katya, I wish I could help you but this must be your decision. If this woman had you taken from her then I feel that you should put her out of the misery she has endured for the past 15 years. And for you, you must fill in what is missing in you, discover where you are really from, your family. You may have brothers and sisters, you may even have grandparents, aunts and uncles.
“But I am worried, I have known Nikolai a lot longer than you, my darling. I was there in the prison camp when he made those tattoos on his knuckles, I have seen the other side of him and I don’t want to see it again.
“But I will be with you, whatever you decide,” said Ola. “And perhaps it is time for you to leave this Russian Katya behind for a moment and discover this Kiwi Charlotte Cunningham.”
“You may be right. I feel sick to my stomach, but we must do this. Let’s r
ing this Jane Lyndhurst but first I need to spend some time here, gathering some mementos of a life I may never see again,” I said, suddenly overcome with the enormity of it all.
“And then, Ola, we must go to Saint Eustache and ask the Madonna to help me. She has always given me strength and hope and I know she can do it now.”
The Madonna at Saint Eustache was having a busy time of it.
We spent the morning packing. It was important we left the apartment looking as it always did so as not to arouse any suspicion in Nikolai.
We packed lightly, a small bag each, and then I left a note for Nikolai. It might be the last he heard of me and there was so much I wanted to say. But instead I kept it short:
Nikolai my darling,
We have been called to Bailey in New York. I told him this was not standard procedure but he is in a bad way and needs me. I knew you would understand. We should not be gone for more than 48 hours. Love,
Katya.
I gathered my bag, took one last look at my beautiful bedroom with its pink and blue Venetian chandelier and wondered if I would ever see it again.
Ola hurried me along, anxious to get going should Nikolai call around for an impromptu lunch, which he often did, especially when he hadn’t seen me in the morning. “Perhaps we shouldn’t call the driver,” I suggested to Ola. “Let’s just take a taxi to St Eustache, see Madonna and then we can walk to their hotel. It’s just across the Pont des Arts.”
As we drove off in a taxi I didn’t look back. It was time to meet Charlotte.
28
The wonderful thing about Saint Eustache church is that it gets missed off the tourist guides so often that locals can come here for some peace without the roar of Americans intruding on our solace. It is one of the most beautiful churches in Paris and Ola and I bustled through the doors and made our way straight over to the altar where the Madonna stood holding baby Jesus.
This was a ritual I often did, a hangover from my childhood in Russia where the little wooden church on our estate was a place for retreat and meditation for me, and Ola’s time to chat to her Lord. I didn’t mess about. I got down on my knees and told her in no uncertain terms that if this woman was my mother I wanted protection and her assurance that it would work out. Ola, meanwhile started weeping and wailing at the end of the pew.
The Road from Midnight Page 22