Girl in the Dark

by Marion Pauw

  Where did my mother get this? A pen like this was too expensive to be handed out as a freebie. Someone must have given it to her. I picked up my mother’s address book and redirected my focus. What was the name of the old man I’d met in Victor Asscher’s parking lot again? I found him under the A’s. Antoine, without a surname.

  “Aha,” I said out loud. How many Antoines could there be? I took out my cell phone and dialed the number. After a couple of seconds, I heard an old man say “Hello?” I quickly hung up and thanked myself for having a restricted number.

  My mother knew Antoine van Benschop. The Van Benschop family was one of Bartels & Peters’s biggest clients, going way back. Had my mother asked Antoine van Benschop to get Bartels & Peters to take me on? The perfect job: practically around the corner from where I lived, and part-time to boot. In hindsight, the way I’d been hired was almost too good to be true. Before I’d had Aaron, it wasn’t unusual for me to be approached by headhunters on behalf of competing firms. Once I got pregnant, the offers had dried up completely.

  My mother had urged me to look for another job. I’d reluctantly put a few feelers out, but it seemed that no law firm in the land was just waiting for a young single mother wishing to work part-time. Just before I went on maternity leave, however, Lawrence had called. He just happened to be looking for a part-time associate. I was too delighted and relieved to be surprised. My colleagues were envious. “You’re going to work part-time at a firm? Really? Unbelievable.”

  The more I thought about it, the more certain I grew. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that I was offered this job. Martha had dropped hints about it, Rence was indirectly acquainted with my mother, and Van Benschop had reacted like a cornered dog when he’d heard my name. The question was: How did my mother know Antoine van Benschop, and what made her able to demand favors of him?

  The two hours Aaron had been in Binnie’s care had passed without calamity. He’d just woken up briefly, and she’d given him some juice. I was delighted.

  “All I can do is guess,” I said after filling Binnie in on my visit to my mother’s house. “The question is, how well does my mother know him? I’m beginning to think . . .”

  “. . . that Antoine van Benschop is Ray’s father.”

  “Hard to believe, but it’s beginning to look that way. What do you know about this Antoine? Didn’t you do some research on—what did you call them—your ‘future in-laws’?”

  Binnie put her hands to her temples—it helped her think, she said—and closed her eyes. “Antoine van Benschop . . .” she muttered a few times. “His name isn’t originally Van Benschop, for starters.”

  “What?”

  “He had a different name originally, something along the lines of Blumenveld, Parrotpiss or whatever, doesn’t matter. He took his wife’s name when they got married.”

  “Well! I assume he had a good reason?”

  “What do you think? Pop van Benschop, Barbara’s old man, insisted that his sons-in-law take the family name if they wanted to take over the family business.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “It’s coming back to me now,” said Binnie, letting go of her temples. “I also remember that Antoine had been employed at Van Benschop, and was just about pushed into Barb’s arms by Pops.”

  “True love.”

  “True love,” Binnie agreed.

  “Who would ever turn down the Van Benschop Shipping Co. as a dowry?”

  “I wouldn’t, anyway.”

  “My mother used to work as a secretary. Maybe she worked there. Maybe she met Antoine van Benschop that way.”

  “But what are you going to do? Confront your mother? Call Antoine?”

  “I may do both.”

  “You know what’s such a weird idea?” said Binnie. “If Antoine is Ray’s father, then Ray is Pissing Peter’s half-brother.”

  I grasped my head in both hands and groaned.

  “Don’t worry, at least you’re not related to him by blood,” Binnie added with a laugh.

  At nine thirty the next morning I was put through to a secretary. “Mr. Van Benschop only comes in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I’m afraid you’ll have to call back next week.”

  “I must speak to him urgently,” I said. “Perhaps you’d be kind enough to tell him that Iris Kastelein of Bartels & Peters would like to speak with him about an important matter.”

  “I’ve made a note of it. But I can’t promise anything. Mr. Van Benschop makes up his own mind.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  Antoine van Benschop returned my call the same day. The exchange was brief. Before I had a chance to explain what I wanted with him, he said, “Stay out of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. If you’re a sensible girl, you’ll leave well enough alone.”

  “Well! Going by the vehemence of your reaction, I almost have to conclude you are Ray Boelens’s father.”

  “There is absolutely nothing to conclude,” he said, and hung up.

  CHAPTER 51

  RAY

  On entering the visiting room, my mother didn’t say anything. She gave me a curt nod and sat down in the chair across from me. The first thing I noticed was the huge gold bee pin on her red sweater. Then I saw that her hair was a bit shorter than the last time I’d seen her. It framed her face in tight little waves. I wished I could reach out and touch it.

  She folded her hands together and parked her elbows on the table. “You must be wondering what I’m doing here.”

  I realized I was shaking, and pushed my hands under my thighs so they wouldn’t flap and hover. Was she going to hug me? Was she going to tell me I was her son and she’d always be there for me, even if we did no longer live together?

  “I understand you’ve met your sister.” She gave a little laugh, but I didn’t think it was a genuine laugh. “And that she’s offered to help you with your case.”

  I nodded. Iris Kastelein. My little sister.

  “That’s what I’ve come to speak with you about.” My mother was looking at me sternly through her blue eyes edged with black. She had never been fooled by my size. She knew exactly how small I was on the inside.

  “But first, let’s discuss something else. Am I to understand that you’re allowed to keep your aquarium in your suite?”

  “Yeah! Next week.” I suddenly started feeling anxious. “I can, Mother, can’t I?”

  She smiled. “Of course, darling. You can have your aquarium. As long as you’re good, and you’re not breaking any rules.”

  “I am. I really am.”

  “Good. I know you’re doing your best, Ray.”

  “Yes.” I pulled my hands out from under my legs. They remained calm, resting in my lap.

  “But there are some new rules you’ll have to follow. Rules you don’t know about yet.”

  “Okay.”

  “Would you mind getting us some coffees?” my mother asked André.

  “Fine,” he said. He left the room with the guard. It surprised me. Mo never got visitors anything to drink. And he would never leave the room, either.

  “The new rule, Ray,” said my mother slowly, “is that you’ve got to stop telling everyone you’re innocent.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. “But I am innocent, Mother!”

  “The new rule,” my mother repeated, calmly and emphatically, “is that you say you did commit the murder. That’s the condition for keeping the fish. Do you understand?”

  I shook my head and shoved my hands under my legs again, just in case.

  “Ray, you killed Rosita and Anna. You’re going to write that down, in a note to your sister. You’re going to tell her she has to stop her ridiculous snooping. And that it’s best if you don’t ever see each other again. Never.” My mother took out a notepad and pen and slapped them down in front of me. “Write down what I said.”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t do it. I really didn’t do it! You know that. And
I don’t want to write a letter to Iris Kastelein, either. I want her to go on helping me.”

  She stared at me coolly. “Very well, then. I didn’t want to have to do this, but you leave me no choice.” She leaned down to take something else out of her bag. It was a cookie tin.

  Where was the social worker with the glasses? Where was the guard?

  My mother lifted off the lid and took out a frozen icepack. Underneath was something wrapped in a paper towel with pictures of little kittens. She unfolded it. “You asked for it.”

  A mutilated fish fell out. Even though it had been sliced open on both sides, I immediately recognized it. It was Hannibal, and I could see his intestines.

  The next fish she rolled out of the paper towel was King Kong. He, too, had been cut open. I couldn’t look. Not King Kong! Not my majestic King Kong, the one I’d bought for Anna!

  “Now you will write down exactly what I tell you, or there won’t be any fish left in your aquarium.” I knew my mother meant it. This was the Last Warning.

  As my mother dictated the letter and I started writing down the words without even thinking what they meant, I tried not to cry. King Kong! Hannibal! My best, my most beautiful fish. They’d always been there for me, swimming around calmly in their perfectly calibrated world where the pH levels were exactly right and they got fed every day the exact same amount of fish food at the exact same time.

  “Here we are,” I heard André say. He walked in, followed by the guard. My mother had just told me to sign the letter.

  I wrote my name at the end of the note.

  André coughed, staring with raised eyebrows at the dead fish on the table. My mother quickly rolled them up in the paper towel and stuffed them back in the tin.

  “Are you done, Mrs. Boelens?” asked André.

  “Yes, indeed.” My mother’s voice sounded completely normal. She picked up the notepad and tore off the top page. “There, that goes in the mail.”

  My mouth opened and a bellowing sound came out. I banged my fists on the table. “No! No! No!”

  “You’d better give him something to calm him down,” said my mother. She got up and put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s best this way. Believe me, Ray. In a few days you’ll have your aquarium and you’ll have forgotten about this whole thing.”

  She strode out of the room with André close behind.

  The guard let me bawl for a while longer. Finally he tapped me on the shoulder. “Time to pipe down.”

  I couldn’t, not even when I tried following the steps I’d been taught in therapy at the Mason Home. First I took a deep breath in through my nose. Then I blew it out of my mouth. I breathed in and out a few times like that, trying to calm down. It worked for a few seconds, but then I started screaming again, banging my fists on the table.

  “Stop it!” The guard started shaking me. “Stop it, damn you!”

  I nodded and tried to stop, I really did, but I was just too upset.

  The guard slapped me in the face. I hadn’t seen it coming. My head snapped back and my hands went up to the spot where he’d hit me.

  “There,” he said. “Now we’ll get you back to your suite.”

  CHAPTER 52

  IRIS

  “I just don’t get it,” I said to Mo. He moved up a little closer and touched my hand. It was sweet of him to come right over after I called. Though it was strange to see him sitting here on the stained couch in my living room. Aaron had already gone to bed. Luckily he’d fallen asleep with no problem this time. “Why would Ray not want to see me anymore?”

  “Yeah, hard to understand.”

  “Did something happen? In the unit? In his session with the shrink?”

  “Not that I know of. On the contrary, he seemed to be over the moon about getting transferred to another floor.”

  “Which floor?”

  “The autism unit. You’ll see, he’ll be much happier there. The residents are much calmer there; they keep to themselves more. Besides, Ray can keep his aquarium in his room.”

  “That’s great! But maybe that’s why he wrote the letter. He doesn’t feel the need to be a free man anymore now that he’s finally getting his fish back.”

  “Possibly. But why would that make him want to stop communicating with you? I had the impression he was starting to enjoy your visits.”

  I felt myself blushing, even though it wasn’t a real compliment. So I focused on rereading the letter Ray had sent me; it still didn’t add up. After insisting all along that he was innocent, here, suddenly, was his confession to the murders in black and white, on a sheet of A4 paper, with the request never to contact him again. “Do you think I did something wrong?”

  “Of course not. You were great. I thought the way you talked to him was just right. He was trying so hard to relate to you and answer your questions, even though it was very hard for him. In all these months, you’re the only one who’s come to see him. That’s something he won’t soon forget, believe me.”

  “But I failed.” It came out sounding more dramatic than I’d intended, and to make matters worse I felt my eyes well up. Crying in Mo’s presence was the last thing I wanted to do.

  You could tell this was someone who was used to dealing with emotional people. He shook his head and patted my arm. “You haven’t failed. Why would you even think that?”

  I let out a tremulous sigh. “I guess I’m just tired.” I hadn’t realized how stressed out Ray’s case had made me.

  “Who wouldn’t be? Look at what you’re dealing with. It’s a lot to take in. Can I make you a cup of tea or something?”

  “That would be great!” I think my exclamation embarrassed us both. I felt the blood rush up to my cheeks again, and Mo suddenly wasn’t looking my way. “Uh, I’m sorry,”

  He cleared his throat. “No need to excuse yourself. I . . .”

  I don’t know what came over me. Whether it was because it was the first time I heard some uncertainty in his voice, or because it occurred to me this might be the last time I’d ever see him, I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

  For a moment we just stared at each other. Then he took me in his arms and kissed me back. It felt good. We kissed some more and for the first time in years I felt like I was someone different than a stressed-out, single, working mother.

  “Mommy?” We both looked up to see Aaron standing in the room with a teddy bear in his arms. “What you doing?”

  I didn’t have a clue what to say. “I . . . uh” was all that came out of my mouth.

  “You must be Aaron,” said Mo. “My name is Mo. I was just going to make Mommy some tea. Would you like something to drink, too?”

  Aaron didn’t say anything. He just stared at him.

  Mo stood up and went to the kitchen as if it was the most normal thing in the world. A little while later he returned with a pot of tea, two mugs, and a glass of apple juice on the hideous plastic tray my mother brought back for me from her last spa vacation.

  “Here you go,” he said to Aaron, handing over the juice.

  Aaron accepted it, and seemed perfectly happy sipping his drink next to me on the couch, with my arm around his shoulder.

  “The autism unit, huh? So Ray has a social disorder?” I asked, to get the conversation going again.

  “That’s one way of looking at it. Autism is a complicated thing. Recent studies show that people with autism aren’t able to filter the way we are. Imagine what it would be like if you were constantly aware of the clock ticking, the neighbor’s television blaring, the bright color of that pillow there, that that vase over there contains exactly twenty-three flowers, and . . .”

  “Twenty-seven,” said Aaron. “I want to go back to bed.” He got up and started walking back to his bedroom, so I followed and tucked him in. I wondered if I should say something about Mo, but Aaron’s eyes were already shut and his breathing was getting heavy and slow. I looked at his sweet face and realized that I really, really loved him, and whatever happened I would never let him go.
I didn’t care anymore if I would lose my job or what the girls at the day care thought. We belonged together. I touched his soft hair and hoped he was dreaming a happy dream.

  When I came back, Mo was sitting on the couch again. I sat down next to him. “Sorry about that,” I said.

  “He seems like a great kid,” Mo said.

  “He really is.”

  Then he leaned over and stroked my cheek. “I’m not in the habit of making house calls, you know.”

  I felt myself blush. “I understand that. But you know what’s so ironic? I never had any concrete evidence of Ray’s innocence. No matter who I spoke to, no matter what I found out, everything still pointed to Ray as the likely culprit. But the moment I stumble on a lead, or, rather, my boss does, Ray changes his mind and I have to stop.”

  “You don’t still think he’s innocent, do you?”

  “Yes. I still do. I just can’t imagine he lied to me. I don’t think he’s even capable of lying. What do you think?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t lying; maybe he truly did believe he was innocent. But just think it through a sec, Iris. Of course he did it. It does all add up, doesn’t it? A man who’s developmentally delayed, a neighbor who drives him off his rocker, and a mean mother who keeps tormenting him, to this day.”

  “What do you mean? My mother hasn’t had any contact with Ray in years.”

  “Actually, she did visit him just recently.”

  “What? Why wasn’t I told about that?”

  “Why, what’s so strange about that?”

  “Everything, believe me. But how did you hear she was such a terror? Who told you?”

  He shrugged. “Stephen, my colleague, gave me that idea.”

  “What did he say exactly?”

  “I just remember the general drift. Which was that Ray’s mother—your mother, too—is an awful witch. Sorry.”

  “What makes him think that?”

  “I believe he was there when she came to see Ray.”

  “But why would he say my mother’s a witch? Wasn’t she being nice?”