The Devil's Madonna

by Sharon Potts

  She flipped on the light switch in the front bedroom. She’d been up here a few times since she’d moved away for college, but she was still caught off guard by the changes. The walls, bedspread, and throw pillows were all white, just like when this had been Kali’s mother’s room. Kali had painted the walls tangerine and used a comforter the color of sunflowers when she lived here, but Lillian had returned everything to its original, colorless state.

  The dark wood floor creaked as she stepped into the room. Candles with blackened wicks lined the windowsills and bookshelves, and a choking smell hung in the air. Seth hadn’t come up here to open the windows, after all.

  There was an old air-conditioning unit installed in the wall, but Kali had always preferred fresh air, even if it was warm and humid. She went to one of the casement windows and tried to turn the crank. It stuck. She applied more pressure until the window popped loose. Then she went to open the other window that also looked over the street, and the one that faced Neil’s parents’ house. She noticed there weren’t any lights on in the Rabins’ upstairs bedrooms.

  A muggy breeze circulated through the bedroom, carrying the scent of night-blooming jasmine. In the chest of drawers, Kali found a stretched-out T-shirt and sweatpants that had been her favorite in high school, relieved that Lillian hadn’t disposed of her old clothes. Despite the familiar oak furniture—the chest, student desk, chair, and bookcase—the room felt like a stranger’s. Only the gold-framed high-school-photo portrait of Kali’s mother, which still hung above the rocking chair, reminded Kali that she’d spent five years of her life here. She stood in front of it, just like she had every night before going to bed. Framed behind nonglare glass, the photo had a matte finish and the colors were gently muted. There was a barely perceptible horizontal line, which probably only Kali with her artist’s eye would notice, that passed through the bodice of the off-the-shoulder dress her mother was wearing. Her mother’s dark hair was in a bouffant, combed away from an angular face, and her blue eyes stared directly into Kali’s. Her lips, shiny with pink lipstick, were slightly parted as though she was about to say something.

  A sense of deep loss nagged at Kali. She changed into her old clothes in the bathroom, then returned to the bedroom, folding the white bedspread and placing it on the rocking chair. When Kali couldn’t sleep as a girl, she would hunt around the room for hints of her mother. At first, she found no trace, no evidence that her mother had spent her childhood in this room. Except for the framed graduation photo, it was almost as though her mother hadn’t existed. Then one day, Kali noticed that the camouflage-pattern contact paper on the inside of the closet door had come partially unglued. Kali pulled it away and discovered a painting of a fairy hovering over a flower. The contact paper had probably been Kali’s mother’s attempt at concealing her artwork from Lillian. Kali knew her grand-mother’s irrational dislike of art from her own experiences, so the hidden painting made complete sense to her. Kali had been careful to restick the contact paper.

  It had been years since Kali had looked at her mother’s painting, and she had an urgent need to see it again. She remembered the fairy—her delicate wings, two pairs of graceful arms bent at the elbows and radiating from the torso, hands flat and open. Just like the fairies Kali now drew. How come she’d never made the connection before?

  She opened the closet door, noticing a vague smell of fresh paint, and ran her fingers over the white latex finish on the inside of the door. The camouflage contact paper was gone. Her mother’s painting was gone. Gone. She felt a weakness in her limbs, as though she’d just been told her mother was dead.

  Kali turned off the light and climbed into bed. The sheets and pillowcase smelled musty. She remembered her mother standing at the foot of her bed in their old house, watching her, blowing her a goodnight kiss. One day she was there, then the next, she was gone. And there was no one to talk to about her.

  Secrets. Locked doors, hidden paintings, her mother’s death, and dozens of strange candles. Maybe there was something to Seth’s suspicions. But even if not, Kali was tired of being in the dark. She needed to understand her roots; what made her the person she was. Not just for herself, but for the child who was growing inside her. And only Lillian could tell her these things. Now, before her grandmother was gone and her secrets went with her.

  8

  Lillian couldn’t sleep. She rarely went to bed before two or three in the morning, but tonight with her granddaughter in the house, she felt like a guest in her own home. She padded across the soft rug in her bare feet, ignoring the familiar ache of arthritis in her neck and back. Ordinarily, when she was restless, she’d sit in the rocking chair in Dorothy’s room, below the high school photo that Dorothy had detested, but which captured a sweetness in her daughter’s blue eyes that reminded Lillian of her own mother.

  The smell of smoke and burnt wax hung in the room. Someone had blown out the candles that still sat on the windowsills and tables. Lillian could have opened the windows, but she preferred breathing in the reminder of her sins.

  How could she have been so stupid? All these years living a quiet, inconspicuous life, staying beneath anyone’s radar, and then practically announcing herself to the world.

  But maybe seventy years of guilt had become too much to bear. Maybe like the murderer in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, she had no choice but to acknowledge her sins.

  She thought about the shooting flames that had danced up the drapes and how they had hypnotized her. For the first time, she considered what might have happened if that Rabin boy from next door hadn’t barged into the house and put out the fire. Would that have been so awful? She’d lived with her nightmare for over seventy years; when would it finally be over? Never, she knew. It would never be over.

  And now, what if her foolishness made the news? What if someone had been watching and waiting for her to break? What if he had finally found her?

  Oh, how she wished Harry was here to protect her, to tell her everything would be all right.

  She picked up the photo of her husband that she kept on the rose-wood chiffonier and sat down on the edge of the bed. The picture had been taken when Harry was in his seventies. He looked very jaunty with his cap perched at an angle over his bald head, a cigar hanging from the side of his mouth. Just like the first time they met.

  December 1938. She couldn’t think of that winter without feeling chilled. Although the climate in the English Channel Islands was considered mild, no matter how she bundled herself, the wind seemed to cut through her cloth coat and the scarf she draped over her head. Perhaps at another time in her life, the walk along the path down the hills from her boardinghouse to the town of St. Aubin would have been beautiful, but she had been overwhelmed with frustration and fear since arriving in Jersey weeks before. After catching a train out of Berlin that dreadful night, she had made it to Paris and into the temporary safety of the people her brother had told her to contact in an emergency. They had helped her out of France, then here to Jersey with a new name.

  There was little she could do but wait for news, keeping as low a profile as possible in such a small community. Although there had been no sign that he had sent anyone to hunt her down after she’d fled Berlin, she remained alert. She knew what he was capable of and there was no way he would simply let her go.

  Leli—that’s how she still often thought of herself—spent her afternoons at a tea room, craving the warmth of the close bodies surrounding her as she sipped her tea.

  That day, she had taken a seat against a fabric-covered wall near the back of the room, after glancing around for anyone suspicious looking. There were mostly locals, whom she recognized from other days, and a few families who appeared to be on holiday from England, but she kept to herself. She noticed that the tension from the mainland didn’t seem to have touched this small village.

  She ordered a pot of tea and tried not to think about the hunger pangs in her stomach. She took off her scarf and patted her hair in place. She had dy
ed it brown a few weeks before and wore it off her face in a severe bun. She knew that anguish had hardened her features and altered her general demeanor, as well, and it wasn’t likely anyone would associate her with the pretty, vivacious, curly haired blonde she’d once been.

  Leli slipped her coat onto the back of her chair and crossed her legs. She wore silk stockings and they looked flirtatiously incongruent with her plain gray wool suit. She checked her purse for money, although she already knew there was almost none left. How much longer could she continue like this? Perhaps she should sell the painting, but then she’d have nothing.

  She became aware of a man approaching her table. He was wearing a tweed suit, holding his cap in front of him, and she realized he’d been sitting across the restaurant watching her since she’d come in.

  “Excuse me, miss,” he said with an American accent, his cigar hanging out of the side of his mouth. “Would you mind terribly if I joined you?”

  He had a dashing manner, like many Americans. As though they were above the problems of the rest of the world.

  She looked away from his hazel eyes and thinning brown hair, conscious of his easy good looks.

  “I hate to intrude,” he said, “but I would really appreciate talking to a local to get the lay of the land.”

  An American was safe, Leli thought. Perhaps he could even help her. She nodded at the chair across from her.

  “Thank you,” he said, adjusting his jacket as he sat down. “That’s very kind of you.” He placed his cigar in the ashtray and extended his hand. “Harry Campbell.”

  Leli hesitated. “Astrid Troppe.” It was the name on her papers.

  He looked surprised. “You aren’t English?”

  She shook her head.

  He laughed. “I was certain you were with your china-doll skin and blue eyes. I even pictured you tending flowers in an English garden.”

  She picked up her teacup and took a sip. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

  The waiter came by and Harry ordered a tray of sandwiches and another pot of tea. Leli didn’t protest. In fact, her empty stomach grumbled in anticipation.

  He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs. Long American legs. Solid and strong. “So are you on vacation?” he asked. “Wait. That’s not how they say it here. Holiday, they call it. Are you on holiday?”

  How to answer that? What else would she be doing on the island of Jersey in the middle of winter? She nodded. “And you?”

  He had a wide, toothy smile. “I’m a businessman. What you might call an enterpriser. I’m scouting out opportunities.”

  “For what?”

  “Banking, foreign exchange, that kind of thing. But the details would probably bore you.”

  The waiter put a double tier of sandwiches and scones on the table and set down the teapot, jam, and cream.

  Leli had to hold herself back from reaching for a scone.

  “Go ahead,” Harry said. “Help yourself.”

  He sipped his tea as he watched her slather Devonshire cream and jam on the scone and gobble it down.

  “Have some sandwiches,” he said. “They look awfully good.”

  She took one of each and ate them eagerly. It hadn’t been so long ago that she turned away sweets worrying that they’d ruin her figure.

  They tasted delicious, but a moment later, her stomach, unaccustomed to so much rich food, rebelled against them. She waited until the nausea passed, then ate the next sandwich more slowly.

  “Astrid Troppe,” he said, as though to himself. “Are you German?”

  She shook her head. “Austrian.”

  “You speak English well.”

  Leli couldn’t help but smile. “How could you know that? I’ve hardly spoken.”

  “I didn’t. But now I do. Where did you learn English?”

  “At the gymnasium, then the university. My father’s a professor of languages.” She clamped her mouth closed. Too much information.

  He seemed to sense her discomfort. He reached for a sandwich, took it apart, and examined its contents before putting it back together, then eating it. So American.

  As he chewed, he glanced around the room, studying the other customers. Then he leaned toward her, his face serious. “I have friends,” he said in a soft voice. “If you need something, I know people who could help you.”

  The food rose in her gorge. What could he possibly have guessed about her?

  “Why?” she said, finally. “Why would you want to do anything for me?”

  He smiled again, but this time only with his eyes. “Because, Astrid, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life and I believe I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  Lillian could hear a dog barking outside her bedroom window. She listened for the sound of an intruder, then relaxed. It was probably that crazy dog from next door barking for no damn reason.

  She was worrying herself needlessly. Everyone who knew the truth had to be dead by now. No one was coming for her, or for her granddaughter.

  They were safe.

  She kissed her husband’s photo and placed it on the nightstand. Dear Harry. He’d be so angry if he knew she’d almost burned herself and the house down.

  She lay down against the pillows and folded her hands over her chest. The smell of candles scorched her heart.

  But she was safe.

  And Kali was safe.

  9

  Javier Guzman sat in darkness in his small home office, listening to the scratchy sound of Beethoven’s Ninth as the 78 rpm record spun around and around on the old phonograph. Although Javier understood his son perfectly, he felt saddened by the irony of the situation. The deep hatred Gabriel had for him, just as Javier had had for his own father. After all, accepting, or even acknowledging, Javier’s beliefs would forever cast Gabriel as a pariah. Until—Javier took a deep drag on his cigarette—until Javier was able to show the world that they’d gotten it all wrong.

  This had been Javier’s goal for many years. He had seen it as a way to make things up to Vati. To restore his father’s honor and legitimacy. But now, exposing the truth was more important than ever. It was the only way Javier would be able to reclaim his son.

  He leaned back in his desk chair, feeling the brass and tympani echo through his chest as he watched the lights from his computer screens glow in the darkness. Sometimes he imagined himself paddling down the River Styx, enveloped in infinite black broken by flashes of light like electrical arcs on a matrix. In the distance, he could see the looming shadow of a tall, broad-shouldered man. The bill of his cap and strong jaw were visible in profile, and the spitting lights bounced off his leather riding boots.

  The image in his memory was still as powerful as the first time he’d seen his father in his uniform. Javier, a mere child, slipping from the riverside campsite in the darkness, crossing the damp grass to take a piss. He’d screamed at the unexpected vision, believing a monster had risen from the murky waters. But his father had taken the young boy in his arms and told him the story of the fallen heroes who were destined to rise again. “We live in darkness for now,” his father had said, “despised by the ignorant masses, who don’t know better. But one day, they will respect and revere us, just as they once did.”

  Had Gabriel ever experienced such reverence for Javier when he’d been a young child? If so, there was hope.

  Javier put out the cigarette and lit another. The opening lyrics of “Choral” filled the room. “O Freunde! Nicht diese Töne!” the baritone sang. They tore at his heart. How desperately Javier wanted his son back. He had spent the last twelve years watching him grow up raised by a false father, but unable to intervene because of threats by his ex-wife to betray Javier if he ever approached the boy. Fortunately, during the years Gabriel lived in New York, and now in Miami, Javier had been able to search for the woman and the painting that had disappeared so many years ago. True—the woman had been his father’s obsession, but Javier also appreciated the power of the painting to return
society to the core values that had meant so much to his father and now to him. And above all else, Javier knew that if he found the woman and the painting, there would finally be closure in everything that was important to him.

  He leaned forward on his chair and, just as he did every night, clicked through the computer screens glaring in the darkness of his office. Miami Beach, just like New York, was a likely place to find her and Javier was a genius at exploiting the possibilities. He had hacked into the internal communication systems and logs for local 911, fire rescue and hospitals, and read the obituaries daily, hoping for some tidbit about an elderly woman of Austrian origin. Not that he was certain she was here, or that she was still alive, for that matter. But the local populace remained one of several areas that Javier was monitoring.

  He scanned the 911 calls, noting the minor incidents that probably wouldn’t make the news. There were the usual heart attacks, strokes, and drug overdoses, but none involved white women over ninety.

  Cymbals crashed as the music came to an end and the needle scratched blindly in the run-out groove.

  In the fire rescue log, Javier noticed a report of an elderly woman on North Bay Road brought in for smoke inhalation. No details given, but possibly something to follow up on.

  He leaned his chair back against the credenza and turned the record over.

  10

  A dog was barking wildly, jarring Kali awake. Where was she? Darkness. Sweet and sour smells. Her old room. Kali checked the time. She’d only been dozing for a few minutes. She got out of bed and looked down from her window. Through the lacey leaves of the poinciana tree, she saw a man in jeans and a button-down shirt trying to control the dog, which appeared hysterical over something in the bushes. The man’s hands were wrapped in white.

  “Neil,” she called, before she could stop herself.