I’m in here, the note said. An arrow pointed at the door to Hannah and Horace’s part of the house. Love, Vivi was scrawled at the bottom.
She thought of going upstairs and calling from the apartment to tell Vivi to come home, but that seemed ungracious. She rang the Fields’ bell. Vivi opened the door. Her daughter was clearly at home there.
“Love your mustache,” Charlotte said.
Vivi wiped the crumbs off her upper lip and kissed her mother on both cheeks. “We made brownies.”
“So I see.” Charlotte brushed a last crumb off her daughter’s chin.
“They’re going home with you,” Hannah said as she came down the stairs from the kitchen and crossed the area that served as the waiting room for her office. “I don’t need the temptation. And brownies are Vivi’s favorite.”
“Since when?” Charlotte asked without thinking. The last she’d heard, her daughter was partial to macarons and biscotti, but then she hadn’t made either in a while. By the time she got home from work, she had all she could do to get dinner on the table. Besides, what teenage palate isn’t more attuned to gooey brownies than austere biscotti?
“Since Aunt Hannah taught me to make them. Want a bite?” She held the half-eaten brownie out to her mother.
“At this hour?”
“My fault,” Hannah said. “But if I know Vivi, it won’t ruin her dinner.”
“Of course it won’t,” Charlotte said. If it does, she thought, I’m coming back and personally ramming the entire batch down your smug little gullet.
Hannah went upstairs to the kitchen, returned with a plate of brownies covered with waxed paper, and handed it to Vivi. “Don’t forget your coat and books.”
“I’ll take them.” Charlotte scooped up Vivi’s things from one of the chairs and started for the stairs.
“Take the elevator,” Hannah said.
“The stairs are fine.”
“Let’s take the elevator, Mom. I don’t want to drop the brownies.”
They took the elevator.
“I didn’t know brownies were your favorite,” Charlotte said as the cage climbed past the first floor. How petty could she get?
“They’re not exactly my favorite. I like chocolate chips and your biscotti and macarons, too. But I didn’t want to hurt her feelings when she said they were.”
Charlotte unlocked the door and held it open so Vivi could carry in the plate. “You’re a nice kid,” she said. “Mendacious but nice.”
“Mendacious?”
“Less than truthful. Also, in this case, kind. What were you doing down there besides making brownies?”
“Nothing much.”
Something about the offhand way Vivi pronounced the words made Charlotte think whatever her daughter and Hannah had got up to was something very much indeed, but she wasn’t going to ask a second time.
“Why don’t you attack your homework. I’ll call you when it’s time to set the table.”
Vivi didn’t wait for her mother to call her. She came into the kitchen while Charlotte was sautéing the chicken and perched on the tall stool in the corner. Charlotte recognized the position. Her daughter was working up to something. She wondered what Hannah had dangled before her now. A new phonograph that played LP records? A few pearls to add to the necklace Charlotte had started for her? Pierced ears? No, Hannah would never offer something she knew Charlotte would disapprove of. She was too scrupulous for that.
“Remember the article Aunt Hannah gave me a while ago? The one by the woman in Paris who helps people who were separated during the war find one another?”
“I remember.”
“Aunt Hannah offered to help me write to her.”
Charlotte pretended to concentrate on turning the chicken pieces. “Why would you want to do that?” she asked carefully.
“To find people, of course.”
“There isn’t anyone left to find.”
“Aunt Hannah says that’s what a lot of people who came out of the war think. Then they go to this woman or some other agency and find out they have some relative, even a close relative, they thought was dead.”
“Vivi, sweetheart, I’m sorry, but your father did die in the war.”
“I know that. I’m not talking about him.”
“His parents died in the bombing of Avignon. The details about my father are murkier—he was a good socialist, and the Nazis didn’t like that—but friends in Grenoble wrote to me after his funeral.”
“I know that, too, but what about others?”
“Your father and I were both only children.”
“You make it sound as if you and my father were the last two people on earth. There must be relatives. For all we know, all over France great-aunts and -uncles and second cousins and cousins once removed are dying to meet me.”
“That’s unlikely.”
“But you don’t know for sure. We could at least try to find out.”
Charlotte turned the flame off under the skillet and faced her daughter. “I understand it isn’t easy being stuck with just me and an honorific aunt and uncle downstairs, but do you really think you’re going to feel an instant connection to a total stranger just because you share a few ancestors? I’d trust Hannah’s affection, and Horace’s, too, more than blood.”
“Maybe, but I don’t see how it could hurt to find out. What’s so terrible about wanting a family? Pru McCabe spends a month every summer in Maine with her grandparents, the ones on her father’s side, and a whole bunch of cousins and aunts and uncles. They have something she calls a compound, but she stays in the room her father grew up in, and she sails the boat he learned to sail on. She even has his old fishing rod.”
“You want to learn to fish?”
“Mom!” She pounded the counter with her fist. “I’m serious.”
“I know you are.” She took a step toward her daughter to put her arm around her, but Vivi slid off the stool and took a step back.
“I don’t understand why you won’t do this. I’m not talking about grandparents in Maine or a sailboat or a fishing rod. All I’m asking for is information. Like the names of relatives and where they lived and stuff like that. There could be people all over Europe, all over the world looking for us. But you don’t want to find them.”
She thought of the letter from Bogotá. “I just don’t see the point.”
“If I see the point, isn’t that enough?”
“I can’t explain.”
“Try.” The word came out as a sob. “For once just try.”
Charlotte reached for Vivi again, but Vivi took another step back.
“You know what you are? You’re a self-hating Jew.”
“This has nothing to do with religion.”
“Then what?”
“Maybe when you’re older—”
“When I’m older!” Now she was screaming. “What is this, the sex talk we have every couple of years? It’ll be too late when I’m older. I want to know now.” She was no longer trying to hold back the tears. She hiccoughed. “Why won’t you let me find out? Why are you so mean? Why does everything have to be a big dark secret?” She was moving toward her room. “I hate your secrets. And I hate you. I wish—” The door slammed before Charlotte could hear what her daughter wished.
She crossed the living room and went down the short hall to Vivi’s room. “Vivi,” she said softly to the closed door.
There was no answer.
“Vivienne.”
Still no answer.
She went back to the kitchen to make sure she’d turned off all the burners, then went into the living room, sat, and looked at her watch. She’d give her an hour, half an hour, she decided, then she’d make her open the door. The only question was what she was going to say once she did.
The idea came to her fifteen minutes into her vigil. She’d help Vivi write to Simone, dredging up names, addresses, all the damaging information from her past. Vivi would be satisfied. She didn’t have to know whether the letter wa
s ever mailed.
The door down the hall opened. She’d known Vivi couldn’t stay angry. But she went on sitting on the sofa. She wanted to give her time, to let her come back in her own way.
Vivi appeared in the archway to the living room and crossed to the front door. She didn’t even glance at her mother as she went through.
“Where are you going?” Charlotte asked.
Vivi didn’t answer. But Charlotte knew.
The phone rang a few minutes later. It was Hannah. “Vivi’s here,” she said.
“Thank you. I’m relieved to know where she is.”
“She’d like to spend the night.”
Charlotte hesitated. She wanted her daughter back. But that was about her, not Vivi.
“I think it’s a good idea,” Hannah went on. “That’s my professional opinion, not my personal one, though the personal side loves having her here. You know that. But I think she needs time to calm down.”
“Did she tell you what’s wrong?”
“Only that her mother is the meanest mother in the history of womankind.”
There was a silence.
“That was supposed to be a joke, Charlotte.”
“She didn’t say that?”
“She said something to that effect, but we both know she doesn’t mean it. She worships you.”
Having another woman tell you your daughter worships you was somehow disconcerting. No, having Hannah tell her that was galling.
“I’ll bring down clean underwear and a blouse and her books for tomorrow. And her pajamas for tonight.”
“Don’t worry about pajamas. I have a drawer full of nightgowns.”
“I’ll bring her pajamas anyway. As long as I’m coming down.”
“It’s okay, Charlotte. They’re flannel Mother Hubbards, not the stuff of Rita Hayworth pinups.”
What kind of a mother was she that at a time like this she took note of the fact that Horace’s wife slept in flannel?
* * *
She was in the kitchen putting away the half-cooked chicken when the bell rang. It took her only seconds to get to the front door.
“I know I’m not the one you wanted to find here,” Horace said when she opened it.
“Is Vivi all right?”
“She’s fine. I came up to see if you are.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sure, and I can dance the Charleston. Do you want company?”
She shrugged.
“That’s a warm invitation.”
“I’m sorry. Come in. Would you like a drink? Or coffee? Or an uneaten dinner?”
“Thanks, but I didn’t come up to be fed, watered, or entertained.”
She sat on the sofa, across from his wheelchair. The tilted mirror above the mantel reflected the scene. She looked like death, her face pale, haggard, washed of makeup, her hair a Medusa’s nest from running her fingers through it for the last hour. Being closer to the mirror, he was visible only from the shoulders up. Even the wheels of the chair didn’t show. The reflection was a cruel joke.
“What’s Vivi doing?”
“She and Hannah talked for a while. Then Hannah settled her in the guest room.”
“Hannah would have made a good mother. She is making a good mother.”
“She likes managing people, if that’s what you mean. But you’re right, she would. You want to know the funny thing about that? She was the one who didn’t want to have a child before the war. I wasn’t exactly campaigning for one, but she was adamant. She said it wouldn’t be fair to the child if I didn’t come back. Now that I have, she does want a child. Just not with me.”
She didn’t say anything to that.
“You want to talk about what happened with Vivi?” he went on.
She shook her head.
“You want me to get out of here?”
She shook her head again.
He sat watching her. “Listen, to paraphrase you on other subjects, you could put what I know about teenage girls on the head of a pin and still have room for a couple of million angels, but isn’t this what girls her age do? Scream, cry, rebel against their mothers? And according to Hannah, canonize their fathers in the bargain.”
“Vivi doesn’t have a father to canonize.”
“She has a fantasy father. That makes him even easier to prop up on that pedestal.”
“Thanks, but it’s a little more complicated than your garden-variety rebellion. She’s supposed to be furious at me, but she isn’t supposed to have a reason to be furious at me.”
“I don’t suppose you want to explain that statement.”
She shook her head again.
“Okay, I’m not going to pry. But I will say one thing. I doubt very much you could have done something as terrible as you seem to think.”
“Maybe, but according to you, you were off the mark about your own capacity for evil. Why should your take on me be any more accurate?”
He had no answer for that.
* * *
Somewhere around six the next morning, she heard the sound of grinding gears as the elevator rose through the house. She’d been waiting for it for hours. Then she realized the noise wasn’t the elevator. It was coming from a sanitation truck on the street.
Nonetheless, she got out of bed, showered, dressed, and put on makeup. The irony of primping for her daughter was not lost on her, but she remembered her reflection in the mirror the night before and had the feeling it would be easier to love, or at least forgive, a presentable mother than an unsightly harridan.
In the kitchen, she made coffee for herself and poured juice and cereal for Vivi, then sat on the tall stool, drinking coffee and waiting.
After her third mug, she looked at her watch. It was almost eight. She carried her coffee into the living room and stood at the window. A few minutes later, Vivi came out the front door. At the gate, she turned back to the house. Charlotte waited for her to look up. She knew her mother would be watching. She didn’t look up. She waved toward the door. Charlotte read her lips. Thank you. Vivi closed the gate behind her and started down the street. Charlotte’s chest grew tighter as the distance between them lengthened. She made her decision. It had nothing to do with willfully failing to mail letters.
* * *
The scene on the sidewalk outside the school took her back. Mothers and nannies stood, chatting with one another, keeping an eye on the door for their charges. Horace had never objected when, let down by a babysitter, Charlotte had left the office early to pick up Vivi, then worked at home for the rest of the day. She stood watching the younger girls now, some holding hands, others breaking away to run to a mother or nanny, some noisy and demanding attention, others quiet and diffident. She’d give a lot to be back there. It was a cliché, but like all clichés, it contained a nugget of truth. Smaller children, smaller problems.
She should have told Vivi then. But you couldn’t ask a six- or seven-year-old to keep a secret. You might as well put a mark of shame on her forehead: I’m different. I have something to hide. And she couldn’t have made the announcement to the world. It would have amounted to admitting that she and Vivi were in the country under false pretenses, possibly even illegally. They might be sent back. The agency had been trying to save Jews who’d suffered at the hands of the Nazis, not gentiles who’d managed to survive with German help. She didn’t think deportation was likely, but she couldn’t be sure. At the least, Horace and Hannah would have felt duped. Instead of saving a victim they’d taken in an impostor.
She caught sight of Vivi coming out the door with Alice and Camilla. It took Vivi longer to spot her mother. When she did, she turned away. Charlotte crossed the sidewalk to her. She knew she had her trapped. Vivi might complain about her mother to her friends—unfair rules, arbitrary restrictions, unreasonable curfews—but she wouldn’t make a scene in front of them and the whole school.
The other two girls greeted Charlotte. These were children who had learned to shake hands and say they were pleased to meet you sh
ortly after they emerged from diapers. Vivi didn’t say anything. Charlotte offered a lame explanation about being in the neighborhood for a meeting and asked the girls anodyne questions, and the girls replied in kind, then moved off. Vivi stood with her hands in the pockets of her polo coat, staring at the pavement.
“It’s a beautiful day,” Charlotte said. “More like the end of April than the beginning. I thought we could take a walk.”
Vivi went on staring at the sidewalk.
“Or would you rather go for a soda or ice cream?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s a first.”
Vivi didn’t answer.
“Fine, we’ll walk.” Charlotte put her arm through her daughter’s and started west toward Central Park. Vivi let herself be led.
They entered the park at Engineers’ Gate, and Charlotte turned them south. Lemony sunshine poured through the budding trees, dappling the pavement beneath their feet, and forsythia rioted beside the walk. Charlotte dropped her daughter’s arm, but when they reached the path to the Great Lawn, she took it again to steer her in that direction. A baseball game of boys around Vivi’s age was just starting at the near end of the lawn, but Vivi didn’t even glance at them.
They circled the lawn once in silence. Charlotte knew better than to ask about school or anything else. Halfway through the second circuit, she suggested they sit on one of the benches.
“This is boring. Can’t we just go home?”
“It’s a beautiful spring day. And I want to talk to you.”
Vivi flung herself onto the nearest bench with her legs stretched out in front of her, her hands still jammed in her pockets, her eyes focused on the middle distance. “I suppose I’m going to be punished for screaming and talking back to you and slamming out of the house.”
“This isn’t about punishment. It’s about apology.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. You’re not the meanest mother in the world.”
“My apology, not yours.”
Paris Never Leaves You Page 19
