by Ann Gosslin
Do let us know when you’ll next be in Paris so we can find a time to meet. Eveline greatly enjoyed our evening together and sends you ‘gros bisous’.
Bon courage,
Bertrand
He placed the copies of the student records side by side on his desk. How young the boys looked, with their earnest faces and shaggy brown hair. The first boy, Alejandro, was born and raised in Uruguay. On the second boy’s file, a water stain had smudged the ink, so it was difficult to make out his country of origin. The first letter, A, was legible, though that hardly narrowed it down. Albania, Argentina, Algeria, Afghanistan, Australia? It could be any of those. The third boy, Zivko, was Yugoslavian.
Gessen turned back to the second file and studied the boy’s eyes and the curve of his jaw. This one felt right, somehow, and when he saw the name, he smiled. Malik Sayid. Not Milen or Mikhail, or Miguel, but Malik. Somewhere, in the deepest recesses of his brain, he had always known the right name, but the memory, slippery as a minnow, had hovered tantalisingly out of reach. Malik Sayid. He leaned back in his chair and smiled again. Progress at last. He’d have to proceed carefully, but the moment had arrived. It was time to confront Vidor with what he knew.
41
Vidor stubbed his toe as he stumbled out the door and into the biting air, trying to shake off the effects of another bad night.
Ragged clouds, buffeted by the wind, sped through the high peaks. Snow had fallen in the night and was heaped on either side of the path that led to the dining hall. On a bench near the fountain, drained for the winter, he passed Hélène, bundled into a dark green parka, with a glossy, Russian-style Cossack hat pulled down over her ears.
‘You’re white as a ghost,’ she proclaimed, as he drew closer. ‘You haven’t seen an owl this morning, have you? I saw a female just the other day, winging through the pines. A bad sign, you know. My eldest sister, may she rest in peace,’ Hélène said, ‘was quite the ornithomancer. A walking encyclopaedia of titbits about the meaning and lore of birds. I wonder if anyone spotted an owl just before that poor boy died. What was his name? But you look all right, so no harm done.’ She tilted her head and examined him with a sharp eye. ‘Too early for bourbon, but a strong cup of tea will fix you right up. Come with me.’ She stood and looped her arm through his, careful not to jostle the Chanel bag, and steered him in the direction of the main building. He’d been hoping to avoid the place, not wanting to run into Gessen, but her grip on his arm was surprisingly strong.
‘Nothing to be afraid of,’ she said. ‘It’s the library we’re heading to, not the dungeon in the cellar.’
‘Dungeon?’
She tweaked his exposed wrist. ‘What a scaredy cat you are.’
They entered through a side door and climbed a flight of stairs. The sounds of their passage down a long corridor were swallowed up by the thick grey carpet.
‘Here we are.’ She turned the knob on a heavy carved-wood door and led him into the room. Whatever Vidor had expected, it wasn’t this. Mullioned windows, painted ceiling. The hushed atmosphere of a cathedral was created no doubt by the plush chairs and book-lined walls. Why had he never been in here before? It was like stumbling upon an Aladdin’s cave, hidden behind a secret panel.
‘Lucky for us we have the place to ourselves.’ Her voice was brisk. ‘You sit over there, while I ring for tea.’
The bossy manner was new. Was it thwarted maternal instinct that drove her to treat him like a truculent child? Vidor relaxed into a wingback chair near the fire crackling in the grate. It was all very bewildering, as if he’d been transported by magic to a country house in the Sussex Downs.
He’d been dimly aware there was a library on the grounds, clearly listed amongst the clinic’s offerings in the patient information packet. But he’d preferred the sanctuary of his own room, rather than risk unwelcome contact with the other patients.
As Hélène fumbled in the depths of her bag, he turned away, expecting the worst, but what she pulled out was not a doll as he’d feared, but a glossy square of paper. ‘I don’t show this to just anyone,’ she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. She unfolded the square and smoothed it out on her lap. ‘These are my children. Well, two of the three anyway. Lucinda and Marcel, aren’t they beautiful?’ She passed him the sheet. ‘Careful, it’s quite fragile.’
The page had been torn from a magazine, a glossy tabloid by the looks of it. Tatler, perhaps, or Paris Match, magazines he’d only seen when buying a newspaper at the kiosk. An advertisement, apparently, for a brand of high-end clothing, depicting a beautiful young woman with gazelle-like limbs and a cascade of sleek blonde hair, gleaming white teeth, green eyes. The boy next to her, leaping onto a pile of autumn leaves, boasted the cheekbones of a Greek god. Behind the dazzling pair, a blue sky framed the distant hills. Wealth, beauty, privilege. A glass-fragile world, easily broken. Look but don’t touch.
Poor woman. What had gone wrong in Hélène’s mind that she believed these two perfect specimens of the human form were her own children? A type of dementia, surely. And perhaps the rumours were true. Her child, or children, had died, and in her grief, she had projected their spirits onto the fashion models in a lifestyle magazine.
He handed her the page, worn and creased with age. ‘Your daughter is the spitting image. And your son, what a charmer.’ Getting trapped in the web of her delusions was the last thing he needed, and he sought an excuse to get away. Was he the only sane one amongst the bunch? But it was too late. A tea tray arrived, brought in by a woman who Vidor recognised as one of the staff from the dining hall. For the first time, he saw her as a person, rather than a nameless member of staff, and smiled as she set the tray on the table. ‘Thank you, Miss…?’
‘Kamila.’ She smiled. ‘Can I get you anything else?’
Her glossy black hair hung in a plait down her back, and her warm eyes were lively. For some reason, his vision today was sharper, his hearing more acute. Of course, Isabelle, his art guru, would take credit if he were to admit to his heightened senses. But that was nonsense, it had nothing to do with art. The film that had separated him from the world, dulling his senses, was indeed scrubbed away. But that was surely due to a change in medication. Or perhaps they’d replaced his daily tablets with sugar pills. That could only mean one thing: he was going home.
Hélène poured out the tea and passed him a cup. ‘Try the lemon cake,’ she said. ‘It’s a speciality of the house.’
The assertion blithely made, as if they were taking tea at a five-star resort and not a heavily guarded loony bin. But he accepted the offer. The cake was delicious and for a moment, he pretended he was in one of the private dining halls at St Catharine’s. That when he was finished and the tea tray cleared away, he could gather his things and return to the hum and buzz of his laboratory, his students busily working on their research projects. Their journal club meeting set to discuss the most recent publications.
‘Now, tell me what’s going on with you,’ she said, tapping him on the wrist with a manicured nail. ‘From the look of things, you need to shape up and ride straight, or you’ll be stuck here forever.’
Vidor was mystified by her change in character. A complete pivot from bonkers to bully in the space of a millisecond. He’d always thought her a harmless old thing, what with those bats in her belfry. Now, she was tart as a school mistress. Perhaps her meds had been changed as well.
Vidor’s gaze skittered away from her piercing look. The silence stretched out awkwardly.
‘You know, I’ve felt funny the past few days. Ever since I was attacked by that man in the village. I’ve been having strange dreams, and during the day I feel like I lose chunks of time. I’ll look up to find the sun has gone down or that I’ve finished my breakfast, but I can’t recall having eaten it.’
‘What you need is to start facing your fears,’ Hélène said, handing him another slice of cake. ‘Get at the root of the matter. Face whatever it was that brought you here.’ She met his eyes. ‘Otherwise y
ou’ll end up like me, no longer the master of your own fate.’ She sank into the depths of the chair until her face was in shadow.
The firelight gleamed on the emerald stones in her ears. Her hair, the colour of summer wheat threaded with grey, was freshly styled, as if she’d come straight from the beauty salon. How long had she been a patient? Rumour had it she’d been here for years. At the thought of spending the rest of his life in this place, his heart jerked oddly, like a frightened creature struggling to break free. No, absolutely not. He would not end up like Hélène, forever locked in a gilded cage. He eyed the Chanel bag at her feet, and his panic evaporated. She was mad, of course, and only a crazy person would listen to a madwoman’s advice. Even if her counsel made sense, he had no idea how to heal the so-called wound he was supposedly cursed with.
Was his ticket out simply a matter of baring his soul to Gessen and facing his fears? As for his psychic wound, did it really have something to do with his father? A man who’d abandoned his family to their fate. In his dreams, he sometimes heard the sound of a crying child. A plaintive cry woven into the wind on the days he remembered that the Earth was nothing but a ball of condensed gases, hurtling towards infinity.
‘Talk to that nice Dr Gessen.’ Hélène rooted in her bag for something, and he flinched, bracing himself, but she merely pulled out a tissue. ‘He’s not the enemy.’
42
Paris, France
April 1969
Stretched out on the bed, his philosophy book opened on his chest, he’s too dreamy and distracted by the balmy air to read the required text for tomorrow’s lecture. For weeks, he’s questioned the choice of his field of study. His professors’ lectures have grown tedious, even pointless, and he sits in the back of the lecture hall, fighting sleep, as the professor drones on about Kant and Descartes. Before the academic year winds down, he plans to transfer to the biology department.
Philosophy will remain a hobby, of course. A lifelong interest. But natural science will be his vocation. It has been calling out to him for weeks.
The door to the flat swings open, and his heart leaps. Rennie, returning home from school. But the clatter of shoes and laughter suggests she’s not alone. Her sister, the next eldest, is with her and chattering excitedly about something. She’s getting married in June, and flits around the flat, singing and giggling. Rennie, the youngest, is the most serious of all the daughters. Sometimes, when it’s just the two of them alone in the flat, he can relax and let down his guard, rediscover his true nature, as they discuss their favourite books and films.
The sisters’ voices float down the hall. ‘I’m going to pop over to the shops,’ Katerina says. ‘Do you need anything?’ He can’t hear Rennie’s reply, but if she’s requested something it will be a pot of strawberry jam. At breakfast this morning, she’d been crestfallen to find the pot empty. ‘It seems to be going fast, lately.’ She giggles. ‘I bet I know who the culprit is,’ she sing-songs. He blushes. Is he eating too much? His board includes breakfast, but perhaps he is consuming more than his share.
His sweet tooth has only grown since coming to Paris, and he can’t seem to get enough of those glass pots of confiture. Strawberry, especially. Though perhaps he should hold back a bit. Act more like a lodger than a member of the family. But the woman they affectionately call ‘Anya’ has become a mother to him as well. Just last week she kissed him on the forehead as he came through the door, laden with vegetables from the market he’d offered to buy, and called him her fogadott fiú, adopted son.
What else but fate has brought him to this place that feels more like home than any he’s known? Though the affectionate and light-hearted atmosphere is punctured at times with a darkness difficult to fathom. Friends from the old country, sipping tea in the front room as they murmur of lucky escapes. Not just from the Soviets, he’s come to understand, but from an earlier, darker time before he was born. The time of the purges and the camps, of families vanishing in the night, never to be seen again.
He closes his book and steps into the kitchen, just as Katerina is heading out the door, and hastily retreats.
Rennie laughs. ‘Don’t be shy. Pull up a chair. You can help me peel the potatoes. Did you know that I’m a women’s libber?’ She cocks her eyebrow. ‘All men should learn how to cook.’
He drops into a chair and gets to work, flushed with an absurd joy at being a part of this family, even in the tiniest way. The son is a different story, scowling at the interloper in their midst, so he tries to stay out of his way.
The door flies open, and the family scion strolls in, his cheeks flushed from the spring sunshine, his hair tipped with gold.
His heart thumps. He knows it’s silly, but he has a strange schoolboy yearning for this beacon of light. Though the son treats the family lodger like dirt, everyone seems to worship him, trailing in his wake, as if hoping to be blessed by a moment’s regard.
The boy’s face darkens. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
He drops the knife. ‘Peeling potatoes.’
‘Foutre le camp! Get the hell away from my sister. She’s not some random chick you can mess around with.’
He stands and ducks as the boy takes a swing at him. Rennie rushes over and whacks her brother on the arm. ‘Are you crazy? Leave him alone.’
‘I will not. Can’t you see he’s trying to seduce you?’ The boy’s sneer turns ugly, his voice menacing. ‘I want you out of our flat.’
Sick at the thought of being tossed into the street like a mongrel dog, he wipes the boy’s spit from his face.
‘Today. If you’re not gone by suppertime, I’m calling the cops.’
43
Clinique Les Hirondelles
Saint-Odile, Switzerland
17 December 2008
Ursula burst through the door, waving an envelope over her head. ‘Wait till you read this,’ she said. ‘You won’t believe it.’
She was gasping for breath as if she’d run all the way across the grounds. He took the letter, mildly alarmed by her flushed face. It was addressed to Dr Ursula Lindstrom, with the word ‘confidential’ written on the envelope in block letters with a red marker. Clearly impatient for him to read it, she perched on the arm of the chair.
As the contents of the letter sunk in, he met her gaze. It was sent by the former house attendant at Chalet Est, a man named Aleks, who had gone home to Slovenia in a hurry to care for his sick mother. Or so he said. But now it appeared he had another reason for leaving the clinic. In the time since his departure, his conscience must have got the better of him, and he now wished to confess. Apparently, Vidor had asked Aleks to help him with an experiment.
According to the letter, it went like this: Aleks would remove Vidor’s wrist monitor, with the aid of a special device, and place it on his own wrist. He would then lie down on the floor of Vidor’s bedroom and hold his wrist to his forehead and remain there quietly for thirty minutes. Vidor had told Aleks that he was a prize-winning brain scientist, and that he needed Aleks’ help to prove a theory that people who lived in close quarters were able to synchronise their brain waves. I realise, it was wrong of me, Aleks wrote in a scratchy hand, but it seemed like such a good idea and I didn’t want to disappoint Mr Vidor. He said I was doing him a great service in understanding the brain, and that he would mention my name in the article he published of the results.
Gessen looked at Ursula. ‘Good grief.’
She shook her head. ‘It gets worse.’
Only later did I realise I had helped Mr Vidor with his experiment on the day that Mr Ismail went missing. So, the reason I am writing to you is to tell you that the information on Mr Vidor’s patient log is not correct. I don’t think he did anything wrong, but ever since I left the clinic, it’s been bothering me. I hope you will forgive me for not telling you sooner, and I am sending you this information now with the hope it will not change any facts about the day Mr Ismail died.
Gessen set his reading glasses on the desk. ‘Why do you suppose
he sent this to you, and not me?’
‘I don’t know.’ She hesitated. ‘Maybe he hoped I wouldn’t say anything.’ Ursula twisted the ring on her finger. ‘But we’ll have to inform the police now.’
‘Not yet.’ Gessen slipped the letter in his desk drawer and locked it. ‘You don’t mind if I keep this, do you? The date of Vidor’s “experiment” could just be a coincidence, and there’s no reason to suppose that he didn’t spend the day in his room as he claimed. Even without his wrist monitor as proof.’
‘But how can we—?’
‘I’m not going to lie to the police,’ Gessen said, cutting her off. ‘But first I’d like to question Vidor myself. If he comes clean about the whole “brain-wave experiment”, he probably has nothing to hide. If he doesn’t…’ His unvoiced thought hung in the air between them. Ismail’s fall might not have been an accident.
* * *
Pellets of ice clattered against the window. Not yet three o’clock but the lamps were already lit. One of the dining room staff carried a tray of tea and biscuits into the room and set it on the table by the fire. Vidor eyed the buttery ovals topped with slivered almonds and caramelised sugar.
‘Winter has come to stay,’ Gessen said in an annoyingly cheery voice. ‘The mountains cloaked in snow, the air shimmering like glass. My favourite season.’ He passed Vidor the plate of biscuits. ‘Do you ski?’
Vidor shook his head. He felt heavy and dull, like a tranquillised bear.
‘I was in Paris recently,’ Gessen said in what seemed like a complete non sequitur. ‘A lovely city. After attending an interesting seminar, I met up with some former school chums. We talked about old times, as one does on such occasions. Laughing at the folly of youth and the wild dreams we once had. Our loves and our sorrows.’