The Missing Italian Girl

by Barbara Corrado Pope

  Clarie relented and offered a meager conciliation. “In any case, you needn’t worry. I do not plan to see ‘that woman’ again. But I will insist on my right to see Francesca if I think I can help her.” When Martin did not respond, she raised her hand toward the kitchen. “I’m going to get my son and read to him.”

  “And I’m,” Martin stuttered, not knowing exactly what to say, “I’m going for a walk until dinner.” He went out the foyer and closed the door quietly behind him. They’d talk more when both of them were calm.

  15

  ALL DURING THE NIGHT AND through to the next morning, Clarie played the argument over and over again in her head. She wished she had been more conciliatory, even admitted she was wrong. But admitting she was wrong would have required her to know how she had been wrong. Although she hadn’t lied to Bernard about seeing Séverine, she was well aware that not telling was a form of lying. But what crime against marriage and society had she actually committed? Had it been wrong to seek out Séverine, to meet her one night, even to go to that wretched café? What sins, except the sin of doing something, anything, that had nothing to do with her child or her profession or Bernard. “Hah,” a quiet troubled retort escaped from Clarie’s lips as she pictured yesterday’s confrontation. It was obvious why she hadn’t told him. He would have tried to keep her from doing what she thought was right.

  Clarie pulled out a piece of stationery from her desk drawer. She wanted their lives to return to normal. Inviting Bernard’s mother to come as soon as possible would be a first step. Then he would see that Clarie intended to put Séverine and all her ideas aside for the time being. No police, no “consorting with loose women,” no anarchists. Clarie slumped back in her chair. Normal. What did that mean for her?

  “Maman!” Jean-Luc came running out of the kitchen.

  “Darling,” Clarie answered as she reached down and scooped up her son.

  “Did you drink all your milk?”

  Jean-Luc pursed his lips, puffed out his chubby cheeks, and nodded, trying hard to put on a serious mien. Rose, who had followed him into the parlor, rubbed his back and said, “Yes, our Luca was a very good boy.” Then she stepped back and looked at Clarie. “Is everything all right, Madame Clarie?” she asked. Undoubtedly she had heard the shouting and noted the silences at last night’s dinner.

  “Yes, Rose. I’m going to write Monsieur Martin’s mother today. I expect she will be here soon. You think we can be ready?” Clarie said, hoping to insert some levity into the morning. Adèle Martin was a very demanding personage.

  “Of course,” Rose bowed her head. The humor had fallen flat.

  “Well, then, this is Luca’s time to go to the park. We,” Clarie said as she bounced her son in her lap, “are going to go on the swings and, if we are lucky, we’ll meet some new friends.” She gently nuzzled her nose against his, as he reached for her ear.

  “Good, enjoy yourselves,” Rose said as she retreated into the kitchen.

  The sound of her housekeeper’s sad, worried voice made Clarie’s heart shrink. Perhaps she should have confided in her. Rose had been a pillar when Henri-Joseph died, sitting quietly by Clarie as she mourned; offering food, sympathy, devotion. Clarie kissed her son as she tried to quell the sadness in these memories. She shook her head as she rubbed noses again with her son. No, no matter how faithful Rose had been, Clarie could not get her housekeeper involved in her differences with Bernard. Resolved in her decision, she set Luca on the ground and told him it was time to go.

  After more than an hour of swinging and trying to introduce Jean-Luc to a few other little boys in the park, Clarie was ready for a rest. Most of the children were in the charge of nannies, whose close-fitting hats signaled their profession. They banded together, happy to be out from under the eyes of their mistresses. Mothers, gathered in twos and threes, seemed to know each other too. Had Clarie been less distracted, had it not been getting so hot, she might have tried to penetrate one of the closed circles. At noon, the sun beat down on the playground and on the new church atop Montmartre, making it as white and shiny as an alabaster moon. “Let’s sit down and see if we can figure out when they will finish Sacré-Coeur,” Clarie said to her son as a way of getting him to join her on a bench in the shade, some distance from the others.

  When they settled down, Jean-Luc pointed his finger. “I wanna see. I wanna see.” She nestled him on her lap as they both looked up toward the growing church and its scaffolding.

  “Perhaps one of these days we will climb that big mountain and you will get to see it. For certain we will go when it is all finished.” She tousled Jean-Luc’s hair. Bernard would argue against introducing a child to a building he considered the very symbol of reaction. But then he would give in. After all, the finished basilica, in all its ornate grandiosity, promised to be the kind of place that would amaze a little boy. Clarie sighed. How nice it was to have that kind of disagreement. One that had Bernard grumbling and her coaxing, and both of them ending up in laughter. Clarie patted her son’s sturdy thigh. How different from what was happening now.

  Suddenly a strange hand brushed Jean-Luc’s head. “What a beautiful child.”

  Startled, Clarie looked up and gasped. The scars that rippled up one side of the tall, thin intruder’s face were so deep and severe that his eye had almost disappeared. Her shock seemed to please him, and the pleasing frightened her.

  “I’m sure you love him very much. And want him to be safe.”

  “Go away.” Two words were all she could muster against the intruder. Her heart began to pound as she recognized the raspy voice of the man at the back of the café. There, she had not seen the terrible burns on his face. She put a protective hand on her son’s head and hugged him to her breast. She was desperately grateful that Jean-Luc had his back to the terrifying apparition.

  “Beautiful day, isn’t it? Just like the day of the Charity Bazaar fire. Horrible, don’t you think, what happened to those pretty, high-born women and girls?”

  “Yes.” She inched to the edge of the bench.

  “They screamed and ran but they could not escape the fire roaring toward them. And the smell. Oh, the smell of burning flesh.” His hand trembled over his right cheek.

  He should have stopped, just gone away. Instead, he added “And yet they were doing what women—ladies like you—should do. Work for charity. Not slumming.”

  Clarie jumped up from the bench, holding Jean-Luc tight against her, wishing she could cover his entire body with her arms. “Please leave me alone.”

  “I’m only trying to warn you,” he said, and laughed.

  She turned her back on him and rushed toward the playground. As soon as she reached a group of women, she swirled around to see if he was following. But he had disappeared.

  “Are you all right?” a short woman in a plaid dress asked. “Here, sit down.”

  Clarie must have looked a fright. She was damp with perspiration and felt faint. She collapsed onto a bench, still gasping for air. “I’m sorry, a strange man was very rude to me.” The women peered back to where Clarie had been sitting. “He’s gone,” another taller woman offered. “Would you like one of us to walk home with you?”

  “No, no, thank you. I’ll be fine.” Clarie got up and set her wriggling child on his two feet. “Perhaps tomorrow we can sit and chat.” She tried to sound bright and optimistic. “I should not have let him bother me so.”

  The women seemed unconvinced. But it wasn’t them who needed convincing. Clarie had to find the courage to walk through and out of the park. She smiled again at the women before saying good-bye. Holding Jean-Luc’s hot, sticky little hand, she urged him forward, talking to him, trying to sound happy, while being utterly aware of every branch that stirred, every shadow crossing her path. When they got to the end of the block that comprised the park, they had only to cross the street and soon they’d be home, safe. She picked up Jean-Luc and wove her way through the traffic. When she reached the other side, she almost broke into a run
. She didn’t care if people stared or had to step aside.

  Entering her courtyard, she spotted the darkening shape of an unfamiliar shadow. When Séverine stepped out to meet her, Clarie fell against the wall of the building, panting.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “You shouldn’t come here.”

  “I had to see you, my dear. The concierge told me that you had gone out. So I waited. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “You talked to the concierge?” Clarie grimaced. If Mme Peyroud knew that a notorious woman had come to visit her, who would not know by the end of the day?

  “We can’t talk now.”

  “We must.”

  Clarie caught Séverine’s eyes with her own and led them toward her son.

  “Oh.” Séverine shrugged. “I can wait.”

  Clarie wasn’t sure what to do. It seemed impolite not to invite Séverine to her apartment, yet that would bring Rose into it. Jean-Luc was struggling to get out of her arms. When she let him down, he started toddling toward the stairway, announcing his need to make pee-pee. That helped her to decide. “I’ll take my son upstairs,” she said to Séverine, “and then we can meet at the café.”

  Séverine shrugged and nodded, not at all interested in the requirements of maternity. Clarie grabbed her son and carried him up the stairs. Her mind was racing as she pounded on her door. When Rose answered, she explained that Jean-Luc had to go to the potty and she had to talk to Mme Peyroud. A good story—one always had reason to talk to the concierge—and, of course, dear Rose readily accepted the deception.

  Descending the cool, dark stairway gave Clarie time to compose herself. At the bottom she took out her handkerchief and dabbed her forehead and cheeks. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say to Séverine, the woman who had gotten her into so much trouble. One thing for certain, they should not meet again. That resolved, Clarie strode out of her courtyard, holding her head high, in case she passed someone who had witnessed her unseemly homecoming.

  Séverine was at an outdoor table already enjoying a coffee. “Join me?” she asked.

  “No, I really can’t stay.”

  “Your husband found out, and he’s angry,” Séverine said, before she took a sip.

  “The police too,” Clarie said coldly.

  “Oh! And they told him. My, my.” Her eyebrows reached almost to her impertinent too-blond curls. She set her cup in its saucer.

  “It was unfair that he had to be humiliated in that way,” Clarie saying to Séverine what she should have said to Bernard.

  “What did they tell him?”

  “That he should control his wife. That I might be in danger.”

  “Anything else?”

  Clarie was stunned. Didn’t Séverine understand how difficult she had made life for her? No apologies, just questions?

  “Sit. Listen. I came here to warn you about someone.”

  Clarie pulled out a chair. “Warn,” the second time she had heard that word today. The fear that she had felt in the park came back in turbulent waves. “What do you mean?” she whispered, as she sat down.

  Séverine leaned toward Clarie. “I’ve made inquiries along two lines. About the two street musicians and about the men I suspected of being provocateurs.” She laid her hand over Clarie’s. “One of them was not. And he may be a little mad. Moreover, according to my sources, he may live in your neighborhood.”

  “The man with the scars on his face.” Clarie stared across the way to the Square d’Anvers.

  “Yes. You’ve seen him?” Séverine gripped Clarie’s hand more tightly, trying to retrieve her attention. “Oh, poor dear. That’s why you were so frightened in the courtyard. He’s approached you already?”

  “Yes. Today. In the park.”

  “What did he say?”

  Clarie thought for a moment, wanting to explain, not only what he said, but how he had said it. “He warned me. Suggested that a lady should not do the things I do. He touched my child’s head. And when I told him to go away, I could see he was enjoying himself, enjoying frightening me.” She wriggled her hand free.

  “Oh, dear.” Even Séverine seemed a little nonplussed.

  A waiter came up to them. “A coffee for Madame,” Séverine said quickly, “Or,” she turned to Clarie, “would you like some brandy in it?”

  “No, just milk.” Brandy is not what she needed for fortification. Information, assurances, that’s what she needed.

  “Une crème,” the waiter shouted toward the interior of the café.

  Clarie closed her eyes, waiting for him to leave.

  “You think he lives near here?” Clarie asked as soon as they were alone.

  “Yes, in the special housing for the employees of the Gas Company on rue Rochechouart.”

  “Oh, no.” Clarie’s chest caved in as if someone had knocked the wind out of it. If this were true, he lived only a few blocks away. She could have crossed his path a hundred times. “How do you know?”

  “Well,” Séverine stirred more sugar into her coffee, “anarchists are not all one breed, all innocent idealists or union men. Some form tight cells and can be every bit as cunning as the police. I’m in touch with one such group. That’s how I knew what café to go to. Apparently they were suspicious of this man’s story. He appeared out of nowhere about two months ago and told them he hated the bosses because he had lost an eye in an explosion at the gas works. They didn’t think he looked or talked like a stoker. Too weak. Talk too educated. So they followed him home one night. The fact that he lives in company housing gave enough plausibility to his story and enough assurance that he wasn’t a police agent for them to let him be, especially since he seemed to hang on this Pyotr Balenov’s every word.”

  “Two months ago.” Clarie wrinkled her brow. “That’s about the time of the Charity Bazaar fire. He talked about that again. It was so horrible, as if talking about it gave him pleasure.” Clarie shivered. “Could he have been injured there?”

  “I don’t think so. The dead and badly injured were all women.” Séverine took another sip from her cup. She seemed to have regained her calm. In analyzing, in demonstrating her awareness of events, she was in her element. A journalist to the core.

  “But don’t you think there’s a possibility that something about that fire set him off? Made him seek out violent people,” Clarie pressed. She was neither calm nor in her element.

  “My dear, remember, we believe that these people are not violent. Besides, if he talks in an educated way, works at the Gas company and lives in their housing, he’s probably a clerk.” Séverine shrugged. “What was he wearing?”

  Clarie had to think. For one panicked moment, all she could remember were the scars and the voice. “A bowler, yes, and a suit coat, and a vest.”

  “Just as I thought. A mere clerk who leads an unsatisfying life, adding up other people’s bills.” Séverine’s mouth screwed up in distaste before she took another sip.

  Clarie was taken aback by Séverine’s condescending dismissal of men who earned their living as “mere clerks.” She suspected that this disdain extended to all of the so-called petit-bourgeoisie, who exist between the very poor and militant workers Séverine championed, and men of her own class, professionals, or men of wealth or adventure.

  “If he leads such a gray, uninteresting life, why do you think he had the nerve to threaten me?” Clarie challenged.

  Séverine put her cup down. “He could be disappointed in what he has become. He may simply be a man, who, because of his failures in love, hates women. Who knows, maybe those burns are a result of some lover throwing acid in his face.”

  Clarie shuddered. Despite her unfair presumptions, Séverine’s hypothesis made a certain amount of sense. Bernard had told her of incidents in the working-class districts of jealous or angry lovers, mostly women, who used acid as a cheap and effective means of revenge. And if the scarred man really hated women…. “Do you think that he would use acid?” Clarie asked, her voice trembling.
>
  “My dear, I don’t know what to think, except that we need to work it through from every angle. I wouldn’t be worried about you, except….”

  “Except what?” Clarie might have raised her voice even more if the waiter had not arrived with the coffee. She had to stay calm. While he lingered, Clarie sipped on the foamy edges, hoping to gain some comfort in the familiar, warm aroma. But she couldn’t. Her stomach was churning. Séverine paid the bill and sent him off.

  “What?” Clarie insisted.

  “Normally I would assume that someone who approached a beautiful, young defenseless mother in that way was merely a weaselly coward. But there is more. I don’t mean to alarm you, my dear,” Séverine paused, “but my informants tell me that this scarred man is every bit as interested in the musicians and their song as we are. He says he knows the boy.”

  “Maura.”

  “Yes, apparently your Maura. Do you know if there was any other time she masqueraded as a boy?”

  Clarie shook her head. Her lips remained slightly parted as she tried to imagine what all of this could mean. He knows the boy?

  “This is why I think he may be dangerous. Even insane. We know that Angela was stabbed. You say that the girls insisted that the Russian boy was also killed. By a bomb. Two different methods. Someone with a bit of education could pull this off. Now he seems to be on Maura’s trail. But why? As you said, my dear, why kill Angela—or Pyotr—in the first place? If we knew that, we could make a case against him.”