The Clairvoyant Countess

by Dorothy Gilman

  “ ‘Model father,’ it says,” put in Pruden.

  “Yes,” said Madame Karitska sadly, “but what, after all, is a model, and who makes one? I suspect that at Christmas holidays Gavin sensed a change, a terrible change to despair. He sensed violence hanging over the house.”

  “But surely something could have been done—”

  “How? Would you have believed him if he was capable of explaining?”

  “But he wanted to go back—”

  Madame Karitska sighed. “Because he is a very warm-hearted boy who loves his family, but if he had gone he would be dead too. I wonder if I have done him such a favor after all. So many gone!” She shook her head. “What will happen to Gavin now?”

  “Well, I visited the school and they plan to offer Gavin anything he needs: legal guardianship, a scholarship, counseling, surrogate parents … a rather nice outfit, Bonaventure’s. The Princeton police tell me there’s an uncle too—his mother’s brother—in the Peace Corps somewhere in Africa. He’s flying back to handle things, but under the circumstances I believe Gavin’s life will continue uninterrupted at Bonaventure’s.”

  She nodded. “At least you can assure them, Lieutenant, that there will be no more thefts at the school. I can safely guarantee that now.”

  Pruden looked at her in astonishment. “You mean Gavin did—? You mean he—? But I thought you said—”

  “When I first saw the list I began to wonder,” she said. “I thought at first of someone with a fetish. Did you not find it odd that so many of the stolen objects were crosses? Perhaps you assumed they were stolen only because they had monetary value. Gavin took them for protection, not for profit.”

  “Protection?”

  “The cross is still believed to be a protection against evil, is it not? Gavin believed he was doomed to die, and by some kind of demonic violence. Oh, he stole several other items to make it less obvious, but he stole the crosses to carry about with him on his person.”

  “But with all that he would have gone willingly home?” protested Pruden. “For God’s sake, why?”

  “How is your father these days?” asked Madame Karitska gently. “I trust he is recovering well?”

  Pruden looked startled and then thoughtful, and was silent.

  Chapter 6

  Madame Karitska was going shopping this morning at Banmaker’s, a delight very new to her, and although she intended to buy only a few yards of silk she had arranged her adventure as if it were a trip to Europe. She agreed with Gurdjieff, whom she had known at one point in her life, that one of the most important foods, second only to plant foods, was the ingestion of new impressions to stimulate and nourish the spirit. She chose to walk to the store by a route that was colorful to the eye, and upon arriving at Banmaker’s she stood transfixed at the entrance, absorbing the marvels before her: broad aisles, brilliant lights and colors; books in bright jackets with letters fairly catapulting from the page to catch the eye; purses of leather and velvet and tapestry heaped in piles; a ribbon counter dazzling with stripes of fuchsia, melon, scarlet, pink, orange, blues.

  Like a bazaar in Samarkand, she thought, taken back to her youth for a moment. Dreamily she began to stroll the aisles in search of her silks until bolt after bolt of rich fabric caught her eye near the Eighteenth Street entrance. As she moved toward them her mind was already sketching the long skirt she would cut and stitch out of an as-yet-unmet rainbow color. The essential problem behind frugality and poverty, she reflected, was that it denied such whims as these small ventures into elegance. She planned to feel very elegant indeed soon.

  She fingered the materials: there was a taffeta that moved with a sound like running water, a velvet that lay warmly, solidly, in the hand.… Abruptly Madame Karitska turned, aware of a crackling hostility in the air, an almost physical feeling of tension nearby.

  She saw a man standing not far away from her in the niche beside the elevators. He was solidly built, coatless, and narrow-eyed. He wore a dark suit with a carnation in his lapel and he stood his ground with an air of authority. His gaze was fixed upon someone in the aisle beyond. Turning further, Madame Karitska followed his gaze to the next aisle and saw that it was the jewelry counter. At one end a sleek woman in mink was slanting her head to study more closely the effect of a glittering bracelet on her wrist. The salesclerk fluttered over her effusively. At the other end of the counter a young man stood in front of a display of ornate necklaces.

  There was no doubt that it was the young man who was under surveillance, and certainly his presence at such a counter was conspicuous. He wore bleached, mended blue-jeans and a wrinkled, navy-blue wool shirt. When he turned his head—rather furtively, thought Madame Karitska, as if to be sure no one was watching—she noted an unkempt dark beard. There was also a great deal of unkempt hair above the nape of his neck. He looked as if he had not washed in a week; he definitely looked as if he lacked the money to buy his lunch, yet he was rooted squarely in front of an array of semiprecious stones set artistically into silver. Oh, very suspicious indeed!

  Impulsively Madame Karitska moved toward him, following silks into wools and then cottons. She arrived beside the young man just as he leaned over the glass surface that protected the necklaces, and just as he boldly pulled out half a dozen from beneath. His movement was so swift, so sure, that the necklaces were almost in his pocket before Madame Karitska could reach him.

  Very sweetly she said, “Oh, thank you!” and firmly held his elbow to arrest the movement of necklaces to pocket. “Thank you so much,” she said, forcing his arm into the air, where the necklaces dangled conspicuously. “I can see them so much better now.”

  She was aware of the young man’s blind and frustrated fury, his catch of breath, and she was aware too of the floor detective’s presence beside them. She continued to speak, saying thoughtfully, “Which do you think, Miroslav? The sapphires are lovely but a little too—shall we say, too baroque in that setting? The semiprecious stones are—” She paused and said to the store detective, “I beg your pardon, am I in your way?”

  “He was stealing those,” the man said accusingly.

  The boy whirled, his anger turning to fear as he saw the man. A dark flush colored his cheeks. When he had finished looking at the store detective he turned back to Madame Karitska, his eyes baffled.

  “I’ll have to ask you both to come to my office,” said the man.

  Madame Karitska stood her ground. With equal coldness she said, “With or without the necklaces? If you think that Miroslav was planning to steal them, will you not count them, please? Here,” she said contemptuously, drawing the necklaces from the young man’s grasp. “Here, I insist that you count them. I shall not move. No, I will not, until you have made certain they are all here.”

  The detective gestured to the salesgirl. “The clerk will count them,” he said stiffly, and handed them over to her. “My office, please.”

  “Look,” said the young man awkwardly.

  “Sssh,” said Madame Karitska coldly, and preceded him to the office, where the detective asked for their names and addresses.

  “John Painter,” said the young man in a dispirited voice.

  The store detective glanced up at Madame Karitska sharply. “You implied that you were shopping with him and yet you definitely called him by another name. And it wasn’t John.”

  “No,” said Madame Karitska calmly, “I called him Miroslav. I know his parents, and when they emigrated they Americanized their names, but actually he is Miroslav Khudoznik. Khudoznik is the Russian word for painter.”

  The young man stared at her in astonishment and then had the good sense to wipe all expression from his face except for the faint trace of a grin that proved more difficult to erase.

  “And your name?”

  Madame Karitska gave it to him squarely. “The Countess Marina Elena Provovnitchek Gaylord Von Domm Karitska.”

  His eyes narrowed. “May I see some identification?”

  Madame Karitska
handed him her library card, her social security card, and her card of membership in the Balalaika Society.

  “This address,” he said, pointing to it. It was obvious that it subtracted a great deal from any impression a countess could make.

  “Does my address or my integrity matter the more to you?” she asked coolly. “Ah, you want perhaps a voucher? Detective-Lieutenant Pruden of the Forty-first Precinct might be so kind as to speak for me.”

  For just a moment the detective’s face looked human. He said dryly, picking up the telephone, “I only hope to God you didn’t meet him professionally.”

  “But I did,” Madame Karitska assured him blandly.

  Half an hour later Madame Karitska and John Painter were allowed to leave the store, the young man having volunteered to have his pockets searched, and Lieutenant Pruden apparently having verified Madame Karitska’s respectability. The store detective remained baffled but impotent.

  “I think we do not speak, please, until we get outside,” Madame Karitska told the young man firmly.

  “What the hell, I was stealing those necklaces,” he insisted upon blurting out.

  “I know that,” she said calmly. “It was as obvious to me as it was to him.”

  “Then why are you bailing me out?”

  “Bailing?” asked Madame Karitska, frowning. “Helping me.”

  “I liked your emanations,” she explained to him.

  He abruptly stopped, looking thoroughly alarmed. “My what?” he demanded in a shocked voice.

  “Don’t be narrow-minded,” she told him scornfully. “I meant psychic emanations. Vibrations,” she added impatiently. “Did you think I was purchasing your soul? Come and have a cup of coffee in this shop and tell me why you must steal six necklaces worth twenty-five dollars each when you have never stolen before in your life.”

  “How do you know I haven’t?” he asked belligerently.

  “I feel very impatient with you,” she told him. “I have not bought the silks I came to buy, I have had to make up stories about you, and now you ask me how I know you have never stolen before. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you ask? That table over there looks pleasant.”

  They seated themselves in the coffee shop and Madame Karitska ordered coffee and buns for two. “Now—speak.”

  “I could just walk out and leave.”

  She looked at him. “Very true, and very childish. Why don’t you?”

  His eyes glinted appreciatively. “So I won’t. Okay, I wanted to get my guitar out of hock.”

  “Hock,” she repeated. “What is this word?”

  “Pawnshop. My guitar’s in the pawnshop.”

  Madame Karitska brightened; this she knew about. “Go on.”

  He shrugged. “I write songs. I had to pawn my guitar so I could stay home a few weeks and finish writing this new one. I wanted to finish it,” he added defiantly.

  “And did you?”

  “Yeah, but now the rent’s overdue, and I got a chance to play with a group tomorrow and pick up some bread—”

  “Bread?”

  “Cash. And I got no guitar and I’m flat.”

  “Please speak English.”

  He looked at her and grinned. “You think you speak it? Okay—sorry—I’m broke. No food money. No rent money. And now this chance to make a few bucks—dollars, I mean—and I’m trapped. So I thought—hell, all that jewelry. People with money to buy necklaces—well, I mean, what do they know or care about somebody like me?” He shrugged. “So okay, I turned criminal.”

  “Yes you did,” she said calmly, “and one minute more and you would have lost your guitar, your freedom, and your job tomorrow night playing. My dear Mr.—”

  “Khudoznik, wasn’t it?” he said with his quick smile.

  “Painter will do. I have known a few thieves in my day, and very clever ones, but you do not have either the nerve or the imagination for it. Look at you,” she pointed out. “In a store like Banmaker’s you must have been under scrutiny from the moment you entered.”

  He said dryly, “Buy me a suit and I’ll go back and try again.”

  “Would you?” asked Madame Karitska coldly.

  His face closed stubbornly.

  Madame Karitska studied him a moment and then stood up. “Stay here,” she said flatly. “I wish to call someone who might be interested in your situation.”

  She was gone for nearly ten minutes but when she returned the young man was still there. “You are to come to this address at seven o’clock this evening,” she said, handing him a slip of paper. “If you come and met this gentleman—who is a man who may help you—you will perhaps have an opportunity to get your guitar back. I can promise nothing; it’s up to you.” She removed a bill from her wallet. “Get a shave and something to eat and wash your face.”

  He looked at her. “That goes with the deal?”

  “Yes,” she told him. “Do you think you can manage this?”

  He thought about it and then grinned. “Well—not comfortably.”

  She nodded. “Then good-by until seven.”

  “Oh by the way,” he said.

  She turned.

  He appeared to be struggling with something trapped in his throat; it turned out to be a word. “Thanks,” he said.

  Mr. Faber-Jones arrived five minutes before the hour, breathless and a little indignant. “This is insane,” he said. “I don’t know why I agreed to come. You’ve shortened my cocktail hour, delayed my dinner, and why do you live on such an appalling street? Who is this young man, anyway?”

  Madame Karitska beamed at him. “I am indeed happy to see you again. You are still clairvoyant?”

  He looked pained. “Please.”

  “Then you are still hoping it will go away?”

  “Yes—and doing my best to drink away its departure. Now who is this chap?”

  Madame Karitska lifted her voice. “Mr. Painter?” she called, and explained, “He arrived ten minutes ago. I sent him to the bathroom to wash his face. A clean shirt he managed—a tie, even—but not the clean face.”

  “Good Lord,” said Faber-Jones weakly, and sat down.

  The bathroom door swung open and Painter walked into the living room in his same ancient jeans but wearing a blazing pink shirt and purple tie. Madame Karitska looked with interest at Faber-Jones and was not disappointed: a look of absolute horror crossed his face. “Good God,” he gasped.

  “Mr. Faber-Jones—Mr. Painter,” said Madame Karitska, amused and alert. To Faber-Jones she added, “I want you to look at him clairvoyantly, I want to see what you come up with.”

  “Must I?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “But he’s wearing sneakers,” groaned Faber-Jones.

  “So he is, but I doubt that his psyche is wearing them,” she said firmly. “Will you or won’t you?”

  “Will he what?” demanded Painter angrily.

  “Look inside of you with a sixth sense.”

  “God,” said Painter, looking from one to the other, “you’re both kooks.”

  “I happen to be thinking the same of you,” Faber-Jones told him indignantly. “All right, all right,” he agreed testily. “Everybody be quiet and let me concentrate.” He closed his eyes for a long moment and then opened them and narrowed them at Painter. He said in a startled voice, “Well, well!”

  “Yes,” said Madame Karitska. “His very soul has music. He is born to create it.”

  “I saw a gold phonograph record,” admitted Faber-Jones.

  “Oh?” said Madame Karitska. “But the situation is this: he has completed a song and his guitar is in hock—in the pawnshop, that is. He needs bread.”

  Faber-Jones drew out his wallet.

  “I was thinking rather of your forming a record company,” said Madame Karitska blandly.

  “A what?” gasped Faber-Jones.

  She shrugged. “Why not? This would be very good for both of you. Your own business is not going so well,
and could be in serious trouble shortly, yet at the moment you have enough money to invest—”

  Faber-Jones swallowed hard. “How do you know my business has been meeting with reverses?”

  “How indeed?” said Madame Karitska, amused. “Come now, Mr. Faber-Jones, you have been a stockbroker who invests in new things, is this not right? And here is a talented young man who has written a fine song? Have you a copy?” she asked Painter.

  He said uneasily, “It doesn’t sound like anything much without my guitar.”

  “There, you see?” said Faber-Jones.

  “Sing it then,” said Madame Karitska.

  He shook his head. “I can’t sing without my guitar.”

  “Then let us read it,” suggested Madame Karitska, and took the sheet of paper from him. “I’ll read it aloud but of course it won’t be the same.”

  She read:

  “Once in old Atlantis

  I loved a lady pure …

  And then the waters rose

  And death was black and cold.

  Once in Indian days

  I loved a maiden pure …

  But white men shot her through the heart

  And I was left to grieve.

  I saw her once in Auschwitz

  Young, dressed all in black …

  Our eyes met once beside the wall—

  The Nazis shot her dead.

  She’s gone, I cannot find her

  A fortuneteller says ‘Not yet …’

  For life’s a slowly turning wheel

  And this turn’s not for love.”

  There was silence and then Faber-Jones cried agonizingly, “It doesn’t even rhyme!”

  Madame Karitska was looking at young Painter with interest.

  “And yet,” Faber-Jones added in a puzzled voice, “it does have something. The thing is, what?”

  “It’s subliminal, no doubt,” said Madame Karitska. “The subconscious is aware of many more things than we allow ourselves to know. You are intrigued enough to take the chance?”

  Faber-Jones sighed. “I suppose so.” He hesitated. “I don’t doubt what I saw, it’s just my getting connected with—I mean, he wears sneakers.”