“But no matter. We spoke with your brother-in-law, what’s his name—ah yes, Richard.” He says it the French way. “And he told us about a certain discovery your little girls made—well, he told us some other things, too, but that was between boys….” He winks jocosely. “Anyway, it’s all clear now. You pay us our share, and we forget all about it….”
“Oh, shit,” Isabelle cries. “The doll!”
“What are you talking about?”
“In the box, with the account number! I let the girls have it!”
Eddie gives us an encouraging smile. “Et voilà! Now you understand: We’ll take cash or a check.” He winks again.
“Excuse me,” I say, “am I missing something?”
“I’ll explain later,” Isabelle snaps, then turns to Eddie. “I can’t believe you used Albertine like that; don’t you have any scruples?”
That’s a good one, I observe to myself.
“No,” Eddie says, his eyes turning cold.
“Hey, guys!” a voice calls out—Jim, ambling across the courtyard toward us, his mouth stretched in a loopy grin.
“Merde! What’s he doing here?”
“Hey!” I call back enthusiastically.
“Just thought I’d check on you. Eddie, what’s up, dude?” Jim raises his hand in a high five, which Eddie reflexively returns, though with a somewhat puzzled expression.
“Wow,” I exclaim, looking at my watch. “I didn’t realize it was this late!”
“Yeah, well, Odette was worried, you know how she gets…. Did you find Richard?”
“He had a few too many,” Isabelle says. “They’re letting him spend the night.”
“Oh, that’s cool. So, you girls ready to come home?”
“Yes!” Isabelle cries.
Jim looks hesitant. “Shouldn’t we check on Richard?”
“He’s fine,” Isabelle says briskly, lacing her arm through his and tugging at him. “Come on, let’s go.” Without really thinking about it, I take his other arm.
“Be seeing you around, Eddie,” Jim says.
But Eddie ignores him.
CHAPTER forty
Albertine made me think of Emma Bovary. Clutching the sheet to her chest, she had a kind of furious dignity, an expression in her eyes that seemed to say, You can’t take this from me. Maybe in her fantasies she’d turned Richard into someone worth making a fool of herself over. Or so I told myself last night when I finally got to bed and, unable to banish the image from my mind, picked up the book to try to put myself to sleep. Maybe I’m surprised I feel sorry for her, though my Christian charity doesn’t extend to Richard, who as far as I’m concerned just got what he deserved. It’s only as I drifted off that it occurred to me to wonder why neither Jiri nor Philippe came looking for us.
As you might expect, the first thing I do in the morning is corner my sister for a little heart-to-heart. I find her in the bathroom, applying gel to the dark circles under her eyes.
“Bad night?” I say sarcastically.
She dabs away. “What do you think?”
“Maybe your conscience was bothering you. Here’s your chance to unload: I’ll be out back.”
When Isabelle joins me a few minutes later, she looks serene and refreshed. It’s amazing what you can do with makeup: Those high-tech wrinkle creams and toners and glow lotions, the fruit acids and plankton extracts and, of course, Botox—they all work. If I were a stockbroker, I’d tell everyone to invest in cosmetics.
“I’m going to tell you everything,” she announces.
“Oh, good.”
She sits down next to me on the bench and assumes a serious expression. “Remember how you were asking me about Belgium? Dad used to go there all the time. He’d started a business with a man called Jacques Van Langendonck—yes, Yolande’s husband. He had all these contacts in what used to be the Belgian Congo and he was selling mining rights or something; I’m not really sure of the details. Anyway, they were doing really well for a while—that was when Dad bought the East Hampton house—and then the market slumped and they had to start scrambling. Well, Yolande’s husband knew people in the diamond business, and next thing you know, he’d got Dad into it, bringing diamonds out of Africa to Antwerp, which is where the cutters are. I think it might have been legitimate at first, but the way Dad put it to me, it was Africa…. All these countries were going to war with each other, and they needed weapons. Nobody in their right mind was going to sell arms to Sierra Leone or Angola, or at least own up to it, but the Bulgarians and Romanians, and the Czechs, were more than happy to—it was still communism back then, not that things changed that much afterwards—so they came up with this thing called arms-for-diamonds, smuggling the guns out of Eastern Europe and the gems out of Africa, and running the money through phony bank accounts in places like Switzerland and Belgium. They’ve got all these embargoes now, but they didn’t back then, and Dad knew his way around the Eastern Bloc from his days in Russia….
“Right around the same time, I met Jiri. He came to Bennington as a visiting poet, which was kind of a joke, because all he did was smoke dope and sleep with his students, including me, but it made the college look good to have a real Eastern European dissident on staff…. Anyway, I did wonder at the time why Dad was so thrilled—I mean, about my going to live in a Marxist country with a penniless poet—but I guess it all sort of makes sense now. Not that he didn’t like Jiri—they really hit it off, but you know, I think he was really in over his head. He’d just married Daphne, and he owed money to a lot of people—”
“And he had to pay for Bennington.”
“Yeah, very funny, it’s all my fault. Let’s just say he wasn’t really himself. You know Dad, he’d always been kind of reckless, but … anyway, he started coming to Prague all the time, then he’d disappear for a few days. He said he was looking into turning one of those old Bohemian castles into a hotel. I didn’t really believe him—Dad, in the hotel business?—but I didn’t think about it all that much, either. You know how he was: He would bring crazy presents for the girls, and he’d invite twenty people for dinner…. Jiri thought he was great—he used to call him The Big American. What he was really doing, of course, was setting up these arms deals with Lupa Romesco, who was basically a broker, and other people who’d either come over to Prague or he’d go off to meet them at some Party resort in the Tatras…. I know what you’re going to ask: No I never met her, but I’d seen stories about her in the paper and kind of started figuring things out when she turned up here.” She draws a breath.
“You must be wondering what any of this has to do with Santerre. Well, all of a sudden communism ended and the corrupt officials Dad was dealing with got thrown out, and even if he could’ve made new connections, nobody wanted to mess around with shady deals anymore, they all wanted to get in to the European Union. Well, Odette—she and Dad were together by then—had always wanted a house in Santerre, and guess who was here already: Yolande. Of course, Odette didn’t know anything—she really thought Dad was indulging her…. This is where Eddie comes in. Yolande’s husband had done some smuggling deals with him—hash from Morocco, mostly, in his fishing boat—and he wanted to get into the bigger stuff. Meanwhile, the Belgian police had caught wind of Jacques and Dad’s operation. They’d been using a little airport near Ostend as a hub, flying the diamonds in from Africa and the arms from Eastern Europe; it was all organized by some Bulgarian pilot Lupa knew. Something happened, though—I guess they confiscated a shipment, and Yolande’s husband was almost arrested. You’d think he would’ve gotten scared, but instead he decided to move the operation here: He figured it was perfect, right between Europe and Africa, surrounded by water, and full of thugs for hire. They would smuggle the stones in and then use Belgian tourists as couriers—the tourists had no idea; Yolande would ask them to take a little package to her aunt in Antwerp. The arms came from Yugoslavia through Albania and Italy and then were relabeled as crates of Santerran produce and loaded on the car ferries. That
was the part that Eddie handled. I’m not sure how much the mayor knew—I think quite a bit, but he was willing to look the other way as long as it was good for tourism.
“I had no idea of any of this for a long time, but then Yolande’s husband was killed in Angola. That really freaked Dad out. He was staying with us in Prague, and he did something Id never see him do: He got drunk. We were sitting at my kitchen table at three o’clock in the morning and he started telling me things, like he needed to get them off his chest. I couldn’t believe it; I mean, I always wondered about some of the stuff he was involved in, how legal it was—but guns? But he was in so deep by then, he was afraid he was going to get murdered too. They never really figured out what happened to Yolande’s husband, by the way, if it was the secret police or just some angry warlords…. Anyway, there was Dad, left with the whole mess and a couple deals still pending.”
“So you decided to help him out.”
“What else could I do? He was desperate.”
“Yeah, and he must’ve made it worth your while too.”
“You don’t have to get up on your high horse, Constance, it’s not like the business you’re in is any nicer….”
“You mean equity analysis?” I say incredulously.
“No, I mean emerging markets. You just walk into countries and privatize their factories and fire the workers and—”
“Been talking to Marge much?”
“And you don’t even take an interest in the local culture, you don’t go to the theater, or the movies … You’re just like Odette! You’ve been all over the world and nothing has made an impression on you!”
I’m so taken aback by this statement that I pause to consider it. She’s right, I’m really not all that interested in other cultures. I get on the plane, go to my meetings, fly home. After a while, every place starts to look the same, especially if you stay in big hotels, and people are pretty much alike the world over: greedy, scared, confused…. “It doesn’t matter where you go,” I say, “you have to take yourself with you. Look at Dad.”
“Dad was always interested in everything around him, he was open to new ideas, he—”
“He smuggled diamonds. Have you ever read about this stuff? Have you seen those pictures of kids in Sierra Leone with their arms lopped off? For Christ’s sake, it’s worse than drug dealing!”
“I don’t see it that way,” Isabelle says stubbornly.
“No, you wouldn’t. Did Jiri know?”
“Of course not, he would’ve freaked out.”
“I see your point: He may be a bum but he does have a conscience.”
“I don’t mean that. Dad knew a lot of people in the government … Oh,” she says exasperatedly, “don’t you get it? When was the last time Jiri was in jail? Right—ages ago. Dad pulled some strings and the authorities left him alone. If he knew, it would kill him.”
“Yeah,” I have to agree, “it would. There’s one thing I don’t get though: How come you never had any money?”
“Only in the past couple years. We were doing really well for a while.”
“I see, and now that you’re no longer being subsidized, you’re going to fly the coop. It was never about Jiri cheating on you, was it?”
“I have to get out of Prague—you have no idea what it’s like! They think Kafka’s having being born there makes them sophisticated, but it’s like living in a village: horrible, petty, and provincial! Everyone knows your business, and when they don’t, they make up stories about you. And Czech women are the nastiest bitches on earth—stealing husbands is like the national sport!”
“Really? It seems to me you once had a thing about married professors….”
“That was a long time ago. I know you refuse to see this, but I’ve evolved.”
“Into a criminal.”
“It wasn’t like that! I was just bringing messages to Eddie at first, I didn’t know all the details—and by the time I did, it was too late!”
“You knew about that bank account, didn’t you?”
She hesitates. “Well, I knew the money had to be somewhere.”
“Yeah, you just didn’t know you’d need my signature too. Maybe Dad knew you better than you thought….” And counted on me, I mentally add, to sort out the mess.
“What a mean thing to say!” she cries, but she averts her eyes from my gaze.
“What were you thinking, anyway? That you’d abscond with the funds and leave us all here to deal with Eddie and friends? What if he’d tried to kidnap the girls or something?”
“Eddie would never think of that, he’s much too stupid.”
“You are unbelievable!”
“I guess I panicked,” she concedes.
“And I’m supposed to believe Odette didn’t know any of this?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but she really didn’t.” She hesitates. “To tell you the truth, I’m pretty sure Dad was using her as a courier, back when she was a stewardess.”
“You mean he was planting stuff on her?”
“Well, you know Odette, she never would have agreed…. I think she must have suspected something, though, later. I mean, you know how it is when you’re in love: There’s stuff you don’t want to see. But now …” Her voice trails off.
“Well, I hope you realize we’re going to have to tell her everything.”
She gives me a horrified look. “We can’t do that!”
“What are you worried about,” I say coldly, “that she’ll think less of you?”
She stares at her nails. “I don’t want Jiri to know.”
“You think he hasn’t figured it out? Didn’t you just say something about willfully not seeing?”
“He might try to divorce me, and take the girls away.”
“I doubt it.” We sit in silence. “What are we going to do?” I finally say.
“I guess what Eddie said: pay him whatever Dad owed him. It can’t be that much—he was just a courier.” Isabelle brightens up. “Look, maybe we can still fix this—I mean, without everyone having to know.”
I stare at her incredulously. “You really think that’s going to be the end of it?”
Her hopeful look fades. “I guess not.”
We find the girls crouching in the dirt behind the house. It’s been a while since anyone’s thought of taking them to the beach or giving them a shower. They look seedy and unkempt. Olga has a festering scab on her leg, probably from a mosquito bite she keeps scratching, and a rivulet of snot is seeping out her nose. Isabelle squats down and puts on that conniving face parents get when they’re about to screw their kids over.
“What are you doing?”
“Building a castle,” Sophie says, as if this should be obvious to any moron. She lays a stick across a pile of rocks and studies it.
“Sweethearts,” Isabelle simpers, “remember the dolly Mommy let you have?”
Sophie eyes her with indifference. Olga wipes at her nose, spreading snot across her cheek. Agnes blinks, slowly, like a lizard.
“Well, Mommy needs it back, but she’ll buy you an ice cream to make up for it.” Isabelle grins engagingly.
“We operated it,” Sophie says.
“Excuse me?”
“She had stones in her stomach so Agnes cut her open.”
Isabelle’s smile looks like it’s about to split her face in half. “Wasn’t that clever of you! What did you do with them?”
“We gave them to Yolande,” Sophie says, turning back to her sticks. “She paid us.”
“I see,” Isabelle says, straightening up.
“We already got ice cream,” Sophie adds, but Isabelle can’t hear her. Rage doesn’t become her: The blood seems to have drained from her face, and her hands, I notice, are shaking. I look away, at the castle. It reminds me of an installation I saw once at the Whitney, a huge structure made out of twigs and little Christmas lights that was somehow both monstrous and whimsical. Not unlike our family.
CHAPTER forty-one
Jane doesn’t say a
word as I recount the whole sordid tale to her—just raises her eyebrows and darts an occasional glance at Marge. I wanted to include Lucy in the conversation—kill two birds with one stone, as it were—but nobody could find her. I’ve decided to let Isabelle break it to Odette; I’m getting a little tired of these family conferences.
“A lot of it doesn’t make sense,” Jane says.
“Well!” Marge huffs. “If that’s the only thing that’s bothering you!”
“Frankly, I don’t know what to think.”
“It’s fucking horrendous, that’s what!” Marge explodes. “We should turn your sister over to Interpol!”
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey what? She’s got blood on her hands!”
“I find it hard to believe that neither Odette nor Jiri had any idea of what was going on,” Jane says.
“I don’t,” I say. “I think they both saw what they wanted to see.”
Marge snorts loudly. “Talk about raping the third world—”
“Don’t be so tiresome, darling,” Jane snaps. “It’s not going to solve anything. In a way we’re just as guilty: We’ve all known for years that Ross was a crook.”
Speak for yourself, I think, though I’m really not so sure. I was the executor of his will. How could I have not noticed anything?
“So we’re just going to hush it all up, then?”
“Where is Isabelle?” Jane asks.
“She ran off like a bat out of hell to Yolande’s, who probably has some Antwerp dealer holding a knife to her throat—it’s the only explanation for her grabbing the diamonds like that,” I reason.
“You mean somebody who’d already bought them?”
“That would be my guess, and who’s been waiting ever since. Either way you slice it, that two million dollars won’t even begin to cover everything. Lupa Romesco hasn’t been paid for the arms, either, or so she claims. I guess there’s no way to find out.”
“There must be other accounts,” Jane says.
Marge looks at me, horrified. “You don’t actually intend to make good on these supposed obligations!”
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