Lost Children

by Willa Bergman

  He went to the well-stocked drinks cabinet in the corner of the room and poured himself a large drink of something. Then he looked at me and asked if I’d tried alcohol yet. It was a strange question because he knew I’d often drink wine at mealtimes with the family, this was the French countryside. But alcohol was still a novelty and a treat to me at fourteen so I was happy to take it when I could get it. He poured me a large glass of the whatever it was he was drinking.

  “Do you know what I did today?” he asked me.

  “Drank?” my teenage sarcasm already firmly in place.

  “No. I drank tonight. But today, I worked. I worked and I got paid.”

  At which point he unzipped his jacket and produced two large packets filled with bank notes and threw them down in front of me.

  He’d won it playing cards. There was a lot of money there on the table, though not in the grand scheme of things. What lay on the table amounted to scraps from the banquet that the gambling dens dined at, just enough of an offering to their devoted follower to keep him hungry for more. The house wins.

  “Well, that should at least keep the creditors happy for another week.” Arnaud didn’t like this comment. I hadn’t spoken to him like that before, never talked about the money problems.

  “What makes you say that? You think I can’t pay what I owe?”

  I didn’t back down.

  “Why on earth would I think that? I’m sure this place is empty just because you wanted a more minimalist look for the place.” As I said those words my mother walked into the room, she must have heard Arnaud arrive and wanted to check on him.

  “If I’ve got any money problems it’s not my fault. Why are you even here if I’m such a waste of space?! Why don’t you all just fuck off back to whatever hole you crawled out of to ruin my life and find the next idiot you’re going to feed off?”

  My mother moved towards him to try and calm him. I remember she didn’t look directly at him, clearly she’d seen this side of him too many times already. “Darling, you’re tired, you need some rest. Why don’t you lie down?”

  He didn’t move. And then suddenly, he exploded.

  His first strike caught her full on across the face, I can still remember the horrible sound it made. At first I don’t think I understood what was happening, I just stood there in shock. But then he came at her again and the reality of it hit me full on. I guess I knew he’d been beating her before, but until then I was still kidding myself that he wasn’t. This was the first time I’d ever seen him do it. It was horrific, savage and terrifying. I wanted to close my eyes, I wanted to run away, but he was beating my mother, it felt like he was going to kill her. I ran at him, jumped on his back and tried to tear him off her, but he was far too powerful. He pulled me off him as if I were just a heavy cloak and threw me across the room. He then turned back to my mother.

  In shock but still able to move, I got up. That’s when I saw Jack, he was standing just outside the room. He’d heard the commotion and wanted to know what was going on, but when he saw it all he was scared and hid behind the door. He didn’t understand what was happening or what to do. I grabbed his hand and we ran into Arnaud’s study, where I knew Arnaud kept his hunting rifles. The gun cabinet was locked but Jack knew how to open it. I took out Arnaud’s two-bore. I’d never hunted but Jack had and knew how to handle a gun. He took the rifle and loaded the cartridges, then handed it back to me.

  I ran back to where my mother was, her screams now even louder than before. When I entered the room I fired one of the cartridges into the air blowing a hole in the ceiling, that stopped Arnaud. He turned around and looked at me. I lowered the gun and pointed it at him. My voice shaking, I told him to leave our mother alone. He raised both his hands slowly and stepped away from her. I didn’t know what to do next. I told Jack to go and get some water for mother. I looked back at Arnaud, he suddenly seemed more sober now and had moved closer to me. He asked me to put the gun down. I told him to stay where he was. He said he knew that I wasn’t going to shoot him, again he moved closer.

  I shook with fear and anger. Arnaud kept walking slowly towards me, telling me to give him the gun. I stepped backwards telling him again to keep back but he continued walking. I reached the wall behind me, nowhere else to go. Too close to him, I gave him one final command to stop. He stopped. He was calm. Then in one sudden bolt he jumped forward knocking the rifle’s nose away from him with one hand and then wrenching it out of my hands with the other. I fell to the floor in fear. He towered over me and all that anger I saw before returned to his eyes, but now it was focused on me.

  “You think the world is a pretty place. But this is what it is. You’ve lived in this little fairy tale your whole life and are totally unprepared for the real world. But don’t worry, it doesn’t matter, I’m going to help you. I’m going to show you all the secrets of the world.” Then he began to beat me, while my mother cowered next to us in a heap on the floor, bloodied and bruised and barely conscious. Over and over he struck me with such savage ferocity and anger that I’ve never known. I tried to fight back but he was far too strong for me. So I screamed. I screamed as loud and for as long as I could. His punches and kicks rained down on me, each one like an anvil and there was nothing I could do about it. But just as I started to black out there was a loud noise and everything seemed to stop. At first I couldn’t see anything behind Arnaud’s hulking frame, but then he slumped to one side and there stood Jack holding the rifle, the barrel still smoking slightly from the shot he’d put in our father.

  I could barely move. Jack tried to give me some water but I told him to go and help our mother. I managed to pull myself upright against the wall. I looked at Arnaud, he just lay there motionless on the floor. All he was now was a dead body on the floor. It took a while but our mother eventually came to. When she saw Arnaud though, bloodied and lifeless on the floor, she panicked. She was terrified what the police would do. This was still Arnaud’s town, she was the outsider. She thought they would take us away from her, that they would charge her or worse Jack with Arnaud’s murder. She made us pack one bag each and then we left less than half an hour later, never to return.

  Arnaud called us all murderers. Many times I’ve asked myself if that’s what we are. As I ask it again I still don’t have an answer; I guess he isn’t dead, so maybe we’re only attempted murderers. The truth is though I would have killed Arnaud, but I wasn’t strong enough, I was too much of a coward. Jack was the only one of us who found the strength to do it. That’s why I trust my brother more than anyone, because he fought for me when no one else would, not even my mother, and no matter what the cost to him. He saved us in more ways than one that night. He saved us from Arnaud, but he saved us from killing him too. He took it upon himself and shouldered that burden so we didn’t have to, that was his sacrifice. For all his flaws Arnaud was still the only father Jack had ever known and he had to put him down like some farmyard animal. That is the debt I owe him that I can never repay.

  So there it is. That’s the reason for my nightmares. That’s the reason I stand apart from the world. That’s the reason I am the way I am.

  PART III

  1

  Two roads lie before you, neither is a road you want to take. On one road you must help a man who has wronged you so completely, so horrifically, that you hate him with every fibre in your being; a man who makes you burn with rage and fear and hatred just thinking of him. But to walk the other road you must give up everything you hold dear. They say you always have a choice. But what is my choice here? The choice between hurting the ones I love, or helping the ones I hate.

  What if I don’t do what Arnaud says? Then I have to go to the police, I have to give myself in and confess it all. And what if I do, what do I tell them? Hand myself in and tell them Arnaud is still alive? Where is my proof? And to confess is to condemn my mother, brother and I to our final fall from grace. Maybe it’s all we deserve, but I’m not going to let my mother live out her final years in a ja
il cell. Or maybe there’s a third road, going back on the run and starting a new life all over again. But how? I don’t have the funds or the contacts to set myself up with a new identity. And what about my mother? Jack is pretty much off-grid already, I could run with him, but there’s no chance I could bring our mother with us, she needs too much help. And I’m not leaving her behind.

  No.

  I am left with only one choice, even though it’s a choice I do not want to make. I have to find the painting and I have to return it to Arnaud, its rightful and terrible owner.

  It’s eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, the night after the Empire State Building. I’m sitting in a corner of a small café on the corner of Fifth and Park Avenue, still trying to process everything that’s happened. I’m a wreck and I look it, but this new reality is too hard for me to bear. I have no more fight against the pressures bearing down on me like a massive crashing wave; I give in and I burst into tears. The café is pretty empty which makes my sobs all the more noticeable for the few people in it. I don’t try to hide it, I’m too far gone to care. No one comes to comfort me. I’m just the crazy lady in the corner. It’s a cry for help but there’s no one here that can solve my problems. The tears give me little cathartic relief but after a while even my tears start to run dry. My mind starts rebooting and going into autopilot, showing me all of the pieces of the impossible puzzle I somehow need to solve.

  What I have to do is… even as I say it in my head I know it can’t be done. First and foremost I have to find the Portrait of the Lost Child, something which so far I have completely failed to do and with no obvious leads to pursue the possibility of me finding it in ten days is a fantasy. Then, if by some miracle I do manage to find this painting which hasn’t been seen for fifteen years, I somehow have to acquire it without any funds whatsoever. Unless whoever has it decides to give it to me out of the goodness of their heart, something even I in my desperation am not deluded enough to think could happen, then the only other way to get it would be to steal it; and while it is a stolen painting so some of the ethical arguments could be overlooked, I am not about to John Robie my way out of this. Cat burglary is not a skill on my CV.

  I’m not going to get any further with this here so I pay up and leave. The barista gives me an odd look, clearly unsure how to deal with the girl who’s been sobbing in the corner for the last half hour. I don’t care, I’m not looking for his support. I pay up and walk out into the street.

  The air is cool and the sky overcast. The streets are noisy with the eternal sound of New York City. I walk along the street a little before coming to a small garden square where I decide to pause for a moment. There’s an unoccupied bench which is catching the few rays of sunshine coming through the clouds so I go over and take a seat. From the bench I can see out through the park gate to the street beyond. There’s a constant flow of people hurrying past the gate, it’s like I’ve jumped off a treadmill that they’re all still on.

  The flowers in the park are still in bloom and looking at them gives me some small distraction from my troubles. There’s a pleasant mix of hydrangeas and roses that a fastidious city gardener has carefully landscaped. It’s only after I’ve been staring at the flowers for the better part of twenty minutes I realise that my mind has still been whirring away in the background trying to work out what I’m going to do. Even here it seems I can’t escape my demons. I just go over the impossible options again and again: theft is not going to be an option, firstly because I wouldn’t know where to begin and secondly I don’t fancy being on the hit list of whoever it is who has the painting. I could find it and go to the police to get it for me, my original plan. That would still sort of work here, in that Arnaud was the last known recognised owner of the painting and so would have a genuine legal claim to the painting. Except that he doesn’t want the police involved. So if neither of those options is available to me, that means buying the damned thing. But how am I supposed to do that? I don’t happen to have millions to spend in my current account so I simply can’t do a straight purchase.

  Getting nowhere, I’m almost relieved when my phone rings to bring me some welcome distraction, but then I see that it’s Jack calling. I hesitate as to whether I should pick up. I haven’t spoken to him since Arnaud revealed himself, Jack doesn’t know he’s alive.

  It keeps on ringing, seemingly unwilling to go to voicemail. Reluctantly I answer, knowing I can’t avoid him forever. I hear Jack’s voice on the line, but as he speaks I don’t hear a word, all I can think about is ‘how do I tell him? how can I?’.

  He needs to know. It’s not safe for him and he should know. But I’m worried what he’ll do when I tell him.

  He keeps on talking, for some reason he’s in a chatty mood. He won’t admit it but I realise he’s calling to check up on me, to see if I’m okay. It reminds me when he used to call me when I was at university, it was the first time I was on my own and he’d call me almost every day. It was always him, not our mother, who called me.

  I tell him there’s something important I need him to do for me. I ask him to go to his friend Tommy’s place and stay there for a few days to lie low. I tell him not to ask me why, that I’ll let him know when the time is right. I know he’s worried about me, and he’s right to be. And he’s angry that he can’t help me. Boys’ binary minds: what’s the problem and how do I fix it. If only it were that simple. He tells me he’ll go to Tommy’s tonight if it makes me feel better. I tell him it does and thank him. I tell him I need to go but will call him soon.

  Twenty minutes later I’m back outside the apartment building. Inside I’m greeted by piles and piles of files from work all about the Lost Child which I had couriered over from the office. My plan had been to spend today going over everything that Kim had sent me, all the files of the known collectors who would be interested in the painting. But there’s just too many of them. The person I’m looking for is in those files, I know it. If I had six months and I cleared my schedule just for this, I could probably find whoever it is. But I have ten days. The files are all but useless to me now. All I have is New York, but I honestly don’t know if the painting is still here or even if it ever was. Everywhere I’ve looked, everyone I’ve spoken to, everything has led to a dead end. The most honest people I’ve spoken with have just said they can’t help me. The rest have been various iterations of someone who knew a guy who worked for a guy who had heard something about it, which is also as good as useless to me. It feels like I’m chasing an urban myth. I don’t know where it is and I’m out of ideas for what to do next. The time has come for me to recognise that my fate is out of my control. I can’t do what Arnaud is asking of me and what that means is the life I’ve led these past fifteen years is over. I guess part of me knew this day would come one day. I’ve got a bit of money saved up but it won’t last long.

  My phone beeps. I’ve got a message but it’s not from a number I recognise:

  “I’m sorry, I promise this will be my only text. I got your number from Hiroki, don’t be mad with her. If you ever change your mind and want to meet up, just call me. Tom.”

  I’m too tired and I don’t have the energy to work out if I’m bothered by the fact that he’s now got my number. He’s sent a picture too. It’s the group photo he took from the first night when I arrived in New York. I never saw the picture that night and it’s nice to see it, it already seems a lifetime ago. It’s strange too seeing the photo, seeing the night through someone else’s eyes. We were all there but we all experienced it in different ways. I look at the photo, there’s eleven of us in the picture and we’re all smiling and laughing. We’re already all a little drunk. As I look at the picture something starts to catch my eye. On one of the buildings in the background, printed in big bold letters on the red brick wall are the words ‘Galkin Matches’. It’s one of those old school adverts they still have on some old buildings here. I zoom in onto the bottom part of the ‘G’ in the lettering, there’s something about it that I can’t quite place.
Then I realise what it is. It’s the wrought iron bar in the corner of the picture of my mother with Carlos. Except it’s not an iron bar, it’s a printed letter on the wall, I just couldn’t make it out clearly in the picture. I never made the connection that night on the roof because I didn’t see the photo and I was too preoccupied with the people around me to notice it when I was there.

  I take out the picture of my mother from my purse and look at it again, comparing it with the one Tom sent me. The writing is a match and you can see the corner of the letter in my mother’s picture is the ‘G’ of ‘Galkin’. I don’t want to get too excited, the Galkin in Tom’s picture is not the same as the one in my mother’s photo, it’s clearly a different wall. And even if I can trace Carlos’ photo it may not tell me anything I don’t already know. But it is something, it’s a new piece of information that I didn’t have, a new lead to follow, and after a series of dead ends this bit of detective work suddenly feels like a lifeline.

  I google the Galkin Matches company and find that it’s no longer in operation. It closed in 1984 along with half the other US match manufacturers at the time following the invention of disposable lighters, but there’s still a lot of material about the company online because of their advertising slogans that are still on walls in a number of different US cities. Several of their larger adverts painted on the sides of commercial buildings have been deemed historically significant and are now listed. This means there’s records of them all.

  The New York public archives are housed in the main branch of the New York Public Library in Bryant Park, it turns out it is an actual working library and not just a tourist destination. This is my next stop. Frustratingly the archives aren’t open on Sundays and even worse when they do open on Monday I can’t just turn up off the street to use them. I guess it’s to stop the hordes of tourists that wander through it every day from making pointless curiosity requests and getting in the way of the actual research work they do there. But I have a genuine research request and I do not have time to wait in line.