On the Tuesday after I returned, Uncle Edward took a call at ten in the morning. He was rather subdued by the time he hung up. While I waited to pump him for information, Mrs. Gillman called to me.
“I’m sorry to bother you, my dear. There seems to be a delivery for you at the front door,” she said kindly. “I think you should come and see to it. It’s really not something I feel comfortable handling.”
I walked to the front hall with her. There, sitting on the old oak church bench Uncle Edward found at a second-hand shop up in Montreal, was a young girl no more than seven or eight years old. Her hair was a mass of brown curls the color of warm mahogany. Her eyes were almost turquoise. She wore a flower print dress with a white pinafore, red Mary Janes over crisp, white socks, and the saddest expression I had ever seen on a child’s face. As much as my heart ached, I had the ability to reason through my pain, to embrace those around me and find some semblance of courage, fleeting though it might be. Looking at the forlorn figure now sitting in the hallway, I instantly recognized a kindred spirit, whose wounds went far deeper than my own. She was a stranger in a strange land, far from family and friends, cut off from everything she had ever known. As miserable as I was, Wardah suffered more than I, and I hadn’t thought that possible. I knelt before the child, studying that tiny face with great intent. Looking past the deep sadness, I found myself comparing her features to those of Fatima’s. Something didn’t fit. Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew it all the same.
The humorless middle-aged woman who brought the little girl to the Bard’s Bed & Breakfast introduced herself as Mrs. Warrent. Never before had I seen someone so ill-equipped to handle a child. Mrs.Warrent was devoid of any smidgen of mirth. Not once did she gaze down compassionately at the child and offer a reassuring smile. She resembled a pork sausage in her dull brown, no-nonsense gabardine suit, with the thick-heeled orthopedic lace-up shoes. Faced set in a constant sneer, she looked like she had spent a lifetime smelling bad fish, and she had a perpetual frown etched into her brow that I thought was almost deep enough to drive a bus through. For a child already traumatized by war, Mrs. Warrent’s company must have been frightening. She handed me a stack of papers that needed to be signed, stating I was accepting responsibility for the child as a temporary legal guardian. I hesitated briefly, thinking I must be out of my pea-picking mind to take on this task, but then my eyes went from that tense, tragic girl on the bench to the rather dour, taciturn Mrs. Warrent. If I said no, was I condemning the child to a future with a crotchety adult who would stick her in some dreary Washington office by day, where the little girl would never see sunlight again or hear the sound of laughter? Hadn’t little Wardah had already experienced more than enough horror? Who was I to send her off with a woman who clearly had never experienced anything in life that tickled her fancy? I was pretty sure Ms. Warrent had never been in love with anything, be it a well-baked apple pie, a great book, or a lover whose touch sent her senses reeling. I shuddered at the thought of what Mr. Warrent was like. I wasn’t sure if I should pity him or slap him for being dumb enough to marry this so-called woman. They probably slept in twin beds and she wore curlers to bed with her sensible flannel nightgown, a baseball bat under the bed to deter nightly visits from her spouse.
She handed me a complete dossier on the child that contained her health records, Wechsler test results, psychological evaluations, and an assessment of her likes and dislikes, including a list of the foods the child was known to willingly eat. I glanced over it. It was a very short list. Peanut butter and jelly. Pancakes and doughnuts. Oreo cookies. She was a “sweets” girl.
There were two suitcases of clothing, but no toys or books. I shook my head in disgust. I resolved that the first thing I would do as her guardian was give her back her childhood. One way or another, she would be returned to the world of innocence that had so rudely and brutally snatched from her.
As much as I had fought this intrusion on my life, I now welcomed it, for in Wardah I found someone whose heart had been injured even more gravely than mine. I suddenly understood Ben’s need to go to Damascus. I didn’t like it. In many ways, I didn’t even want to accept it. But I finally understood it. That’s what a few hours in the woods with Yuri will do for you.
The first night, Wardah never stirred from her chair at the dining room table. She picked at her macaroni and cheese, moving it about the plate until she saw us eating. I had tossed baby spinach with some sliced strawberries and tossed it with strawberry vinaigrette. We adults talked as we ate, often smiling at the child. I realized that she had been treated as a separate dinner guest wherever she had been, and I wanted her to feel she was a part of the Bard’s Bed & Breakfast. When we had cleaned our plates, I served vanilla ice cream, Uncle Edward’s homemade caramel sauce, and whipped cream for dessert. Uncle Edward regaled us with tales of his Parisian days, when he worked in a hotel kitchen while assisting the French resistance. One of the chefs had taught him to make pastries. I promised I would put him to work as dessert chef and let him have at it as soon as we had guests again. Despite a residual limp, he was itching to get back into the kitchen. Who was I to refuse him?
At bedtime, I led Wardah up the long staircase and showed her into the one accommodation that seemed best suited to a child, the Messina room, right next to the room I shared with Ben. Soft yellow walls and white moire window shades gave it a warm glow. The brass queen-sized bed was covered in a colorful cotton quilt and lots of pillows. It was the most cheerful room we had, and I hoped some of that would rub off on the little girl.
She sat on the bed silently while I unpacked her suitcases and hung the little dresses in the closet. I found a long nightgown among her wardrobe. She didn’t fuss when I removed the flowered dress and pinafore, nor did she protest when I pulled the gown over her head. I thought she would drown in all that fabric. No doubt it was a hand-me-down from Mrs. Warrent’s collection of fetching lingerie from Frederick’s of Hands-Off-Me-You-Brute.
Settling Wardah in for the night was like putting a doll to bed. She allowed me to brush her teeth and wash her face without fidgeting, rarely making any eye contact. When I finally tucked her between the sheets, those turquoise eyes finally looked up at me with a silent plea I could not ignore. Sliding onto the bed, I curled up next to her, propping myself up on the pillows and wrapping her in my arms. We lay there together for the better part of an hour, not speaking. Oberon joined us, parking himself on the foot of the bed for a bath. Titania padded in on her little cat feet, took one look at her vain consort and snuggled up in the narrow space between me and the young girl, contentedly purring. Wardah’s little thumb went into her mouth and she sucked on it rhythmically, desperate for nurturance from her absent mother,. I considered pulling her finger from her mouth, but thought better of it. Let her teeth go crooked if it helped her to self-soothe. Wardah needed all the comfort she could get. I stroked the top of her head, trying to wipe away at least some of the accumulated sorrow, but I wasn’t sure I had any success. My thoughts were with Ben, so far away, as I lay on that bed. Eventually the thumb slipped out of her mouth, her breathing became regular, and before long, she was asleep in my arms. Ten minutes later, I extricated myself carefully, reluctantly, and turned on a little night light for her before padding down the hall. As I left, I heard the sound of cat feet following me down the hall. It was Titania. Oberon had stayed behind, no doubt to cast his faery spell upon the sleeping child.
Those unusual eyes continued to haunt me well into the next morning. I remembered Fatima’s face and I found it difficult not to compare the two girls. From their coloring to their facial features, nothing seemed to match up. It was hard to believe these two were sisters.
I mentioned it at breakfast to Uncle Edward, who was reading the newspaper while he consumed the first of two blueberry muffins and his first cup of coffee.
“Perhaps she has a different mother,” he suggested.
“No, Fatima and Wardah are siste
rs,” Mrs. Gillman said. She had read the entire dossier, cover to cover. “Jamil and Azeezah are their parents.”
“I don’t think so,” I continued to insist. “Something is just not right about this.”
“You only saw Fatima briefly,” Uncle Edward pointed out, as if to dismiss my concerns as being of no importance.
“That’s not technically true,” I confessed, explaining that she actually first appeared in the Ephesus Suite, which led to Ben and I moving her to the car. Yuri snatched the body and moved it to the cabana, where it was officially found. “I actually had an opportunity to study her face when we wrapped her up and swung her over the balcony.”
“You never told us,” Uncle Edward said with a slight air of disapproval.
“We didn’t want to upset you two,” I explained. “Besides, we had a guest coming and we were trying to avoid a calamity.”
“Oh, dear,” sighed Mrs. Gillman. “This could be a complication. What if they sent the wrong child from Damascus?”
“What if there was a bigger security breach than the CIA knows? What if that’s why she was killed, to cover it up something even bigger? Maybe that’s why we haven’t heard from Ben yet -- because it was more than just a trap to lure him to Damascus to take out the CIA station chief? What if that was just a distraction to deflect attention from the real game?”
Uncle Edward said nothing, but his face settled into a grim countenance that was unusual for him. It was easy to forget that he had once served in the OSS as an intelligence officer. Long ago, he had adopted the mantle of ivy league college professor, embracing the role of Shakespearean scholar, but he was still, first and foremost, all about national security. Looking at him now, I saw another, darker side of him, one that was at once dangerous and foreboding. Uncle Edward was no pushover.
Chapter Fourteen --
Because of Wardah’s delicate psychological state, we were focused on getting her settled in the first few days. She had yet to speak a word, despite best efforts by Uncle Edward and Mrs. Gillman to speak and read to her in Arabic, and the consensus was that she was significantly traumatized by what she endured in Syria. It was as if she had withdrawn into herself, sitting and staring all day long, lying awake for hours at night. Not a whimper came from her, something I found quite troubling. And then Titania and Oberon got into a tizzy one morning at breakfast, Puck joined in, and I chased the three of them around my kitchen. At least that was my intention when I started waving my arms and stomping my foot. Mr. Darcy had the good sense to park himself on the sidelines and observe the three-ring circus.
“Bloody hell! Bloody, bloody hell! Bugger it, you little bastards! How dare you!”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized to my horror that Wardah was watching me, eyes as big as saucers. I was about to reassure her that everything was fine when Titania took a swipe at Oberon, who leapt straight up onto the kitchen island to escape her feline wrath, saw Wardah’s plate of pancakes, and began to share them. Puck, seeing the airborne cat, began to bark like a maniac. Titania, seizing an opportunity, swatted Puck’s exposed backside. Startled, the apricot poodle yelped and jumped into the air, aiming to find solace in my arms. Unfortunately, I was not expecting to catch a flying dog, so I went reeling backwards, my left foot sending the dog’s water dish flying. The contents went everywhere, and in my useless attempt to avoid the spill, so did I. Next thing I knew, I was stumbling across the kitchen floor and out into the hallway, all the while trying to right myself. That’s when I heard a stifled giggle. Grabbing the errant Puck, I poked my head into the kitchen. Wardah was laughing and pointing to Oberon, now contentedly having a bath on the top of the commercial refrigerator.
“Down, you little bastard!” I waved my arms at the obstinate Oberon. “We have health laws!”
Titania, knowing full well that she was being a very naughty cat, straddled the chair next to Wardah and began helping herself to the pancakes I had made the child, the same ones Oberon had sampled moments before. This delighted the little girl no end. That’s when I knew Wardah was going to be okay, that I was going to be okay. We would manage to muddle through the long, horrible wait for our loved ones to return to us.
Wardah became my little shadow, following me wherever I went throughout the day. I noticed that she was paying attention to her new world with what appeared to be a growing interest. That was in no small part due to the antics of the constant dog-and-cat show she witnessed daily. No doubt Wardah was afraid she might miss some of the action next time Puck got himself into trouble in an ambush or one of the felines decided to wreak havoc with a paper bag.
Mrs. Gillman went to a great deal of trouble to make the little girl feel at home. The first thing she did was instruct me to call her Lorna.
“I can’t have you calling me Mrs. Gillman and have the girl call me something different, Bea.”
“Lorna is it,” I agreed.
“I shall need some picture books, drawing paper, crayons, paint, board games....” Lorna had such a long list, we spent a morning in Williston. We started at Walmart, picking up some school and art supplies. I selected a couple of pairs of pajamas to replace Mrs. Warrent’s ridiculously oversized nightgown. When I offered Wardah a choice between a sensible pink cotton pair or its equivalent in blue, she looked at me blankly. Lorna spoke in Arabic, explaining that she could have either of the two, but Wardah just stared. That’s when I saw her eyes shift to a bright orange and raspberry set smothered in cat images of every shape and size. When I held it up, she quickly nodded. Realizing that she was beginning to bond with Titania, Oberon, Mr. Darcy, and the rascal known as Puck, I kept digging until I found a wild pair of lime green poodle pajamas that looked like they were out of a French cartoon from the fifties. As I held them up, she gave me a a definite nod.
We moved on to colorful socks, undershirts, and underpants, some play clothes, sneakers, and sandals before making our way to the toy department, where we found some “Go Fish” cards, a Chutes and Ladders board game, and an assortment of balls. I also picked up a pair of water wings to use with the one-piece vividly striped bathing suit with a ruffled skirt I picked up on a sale rack, something I thought wouldn’t be offensive to her culture. After all, what is the point of living on Lake Champlain if you never dip a big toe into the water there on a hot day?
We also popped into Once Upon a Child, a kiddie consignment shop, where we found some gently used puppets, stuffed animals, and other little treasures to help bring out the inner child in Wardah. There was a metallic blue bike, which Lorna suggested might be fun. We were so busy trying to decide if it was worth the $25 that we didn’t realize Wardah had wandered off.
We found her on the floor, in front of a little wooden Breyer horse stable, displayed with a little playset consisting of a little doll, a cat, a dog, and a pair of horses. One look at her told us she was in love, so we bundled that up, too.
We stopped for lunch at a friendly cafe on the way back, lingering over our sandwiches as we watched the passing parade of summer tourists through the big picture window that overlooked the main street. I noticed Wardah gazing wistfully at the children who passed by, hands clasped by parents. As I watched her watch the other kids, I thought this must be a child who was well-loved by at least one parent, if not both. She knew what it felt like to have her hand held by a parent. She was used to being protected and now she missed it.
And then I remembered that her father had made a deal. He would provide the CIA with information, using his insider position, in exchange for the safety of his two daughters. One daughter came into New York, via London, on a passport marked for Celia Dusquesne. Clearly someone had chosen the alias, and I was beginning to suspect it was Uncle Edward, in tribute to “As You Like It”. Hashim and Jamil were much like Rosalind and Celia’s fathers in the play, feuding. That was why Rosalind and Celia escaped to the Forest of Arden in the play. What if Fatima was the wrong child? She was dead, too dead to question. And Wardah? She was too traumat
ized to speak.
“Lorna, what if we showed little Roselind a photo of Celia?” I asked. The elderly woman’s eyes studied me carefully. “Just on the off chance that Celia isn’t Celia.”
“What would that prove?” she replied slowly. “How would we know for sure that Celia isn’t Celia? What if it’s Wardah who is not Wardah? Do we trust an eight-year-old war refugee?”
“You’re right. What we really need is a DNA sample. Maybe we could swab her cheek. Does the CIA keep track of that kind of thing, so they can identify their informants?”
“I know you’re worried, Bea, that Ben is being deceived, but our work here is to make sure this particular child stays safe. We can’t go sticking our noses where they don’t belong.”
“I have a vested interest in the outcome,” I reminded her. “I want my husband to come back in one piece.”
I again tried to broach the subject with Uncle Edward when we returned home.
“I can see Wardah misses her parents,” I insisted. “And she is beginning to come out of her shell. What if Fatima was a substitute, a doppleganger for Wardah’s sister?”
“Do not trouble yourself about that,” he replied firmly. “You take care of the girl. I will handle the rest.”
Within the hour, Mavis called to announce she was flying up from DC. She insisted that the visit was imperative, so I made up the Navarre room for her, but because I was still annoyed with being roped into babysitting, there was no mint on her pillow. She could turn down her own damn bed linens while she was at it.
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