I brought him to the hospital in a taxi: with cash from his wallet, naturally. Explained that he’d had a fall on his moped near his apartment, got a pretty bad head injury. Said he’d made it back to his place and collapsed there, totally out of it, until I turned up and saved the day. It raised a few eyebrows—crazy English tourists—but they’ve treated him.
“Thanks,” he says, suddenly. “I can’t believe what you went through. I knew I should have told you not to come and stay—”
“Well, thank God you didn’t, right? Because I wouldn’t have been able to save your life.”
He swallows. I can tell he doesn’t like hearing it. It’s uncomfortable, acknowledging that you need people. I know this.
“I’m sorry, Jess.”
“Well, don’t expect me to rescue you next time.”
“Not just for that. For not being there when you needed me. For not being there the one time it really mattered. You shouldn’t have had to find her alone.”
A long silence.
Then he says, “You know, in a way I’ve always been jealous of you.”
“For what?”
“You got to see her one last time. I never got to say goodbye.” I can’t think of anything to say to this. I couldn’t have imagined anything worse than finding her. But maybe a part of me understands.
Ben glances up.
I follow his gaze and see Theo in a dark coat and scarf, hand raised, on the other side of the windows. I might have lost my phone but luckily I still had his business card in my stuff. With his split lip he now looks like a pirate who’s been in some sort of duel. He looks good, too.
I turn back to Ben. “Hey,” I say. “Your article. You still have it, right?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Yes. Christ knows what they did to my laptop, but I’d already backed it up to my Cloud. Any writer worth their salt knows that.”
“It needs to come out,” I say.
“I know, I was thinking the same thing—”
“But,” I hold up a finger. “We have to do it right. If it publishes, the police will have to look into the club. And those girls who work there—most of them will get deported, right?”
Ben nods.
“So it’ll be even worse for them than it is now,’ I say. I think of Irina. I can’t go back . . . it wasn’t a good situation. I think of how she spoke about wanting a new life. I promised that if I found Ben, I would find a way to help her. I’m definitely not going to be responsible for her being sent home. If we get this wrong, only the vulnerable will get screwed, I know this.
I look at Ben and then at Theo as he crosses the room to join us. “I have an idea.”
Sophie
Penthouse
The cream-colored envelope trembles in my grip. Hand-delivered to the apartment building’s postbox this morning.
I tear it open, slide out a folded letter. I have never seen this handwriting before—a rather untidy scrawl.
Madame Meunier,
There was something we didn’t get a chance to discuss. I think we both had other things on our minds? Anyway, I made you a promise: I haven’t talked to the police and I won’t. But Ben’s article about La Petite Mort will publish in two weeks’ time, whether you do anything or not.
I catch my breath.
But, if you help, it’ll have a different emphasis. Either you can be part of the story, take its starring role. Or he’ll make sure you aren’t named, that you’re left out of it as far as possible. And your daughter won’t be mentioned at all.
I grip the letter tighter. Mimi. I’ve sent her away to the South of France, to paint, to recuperate. This went against every maternal instinct; I didn’t want to be separated from her, knowing how vulnerable she was, how angry. But I knew she couldn’t stay here, with the shadow of death hanging over this place. But before she left I explained it all to her, in my own words. How much she was wanted when she came into my life. How much she is loved. How I have never thought of her as anything other than my very own. My miracle, my wondrous girl.
I have also tried to make her see that in the circumstances she did the only thing she could that night. That she saved a life as well as taking one. That she, too, acted out of love. I did not tell her I might have done the same. That for a brief time he was almost everything to me, too. But I suspect she knows, somehow, about the affair—if that is what one can call those snatched few weeks of selfish, reckless, glorious insanity.
I know that things may never again be the same between my daughter and I. But I can hope. And love her. It is all I can do.
I, too, would leave this place and join her—given the choice. But my late husband is buried in the garden. I have to stay. It is something I have made my peace with. This may be a gilded cage, but it is the life I have chosen.
I keep reading.
Nick won’t be mentioned either. Maybe he’s not a bad guy, underneath it all. I think he just made some questionable choices. (P.T.O.)
Nicolas has also left, along with the few possessions he kept here. I don’t think he’ll be back. I think it will be good for him to leave this place. To stand on his own two feet.
My other stepson remains here and while he isn’t the most congenial of neighbors it is better having him where I can keep an eye on him. And he is a less threatening presence now. I don’t think I’ll be receiving any more of his little notes. He seems diminished by everything, by the grief he feels for a father who was rarely anything other than cruel to him. In spite of myself I feel for him.
I turn the letter over. Read on:
Here’s what I’m asking you to do. Those girls? The ones at the club? The ones who are your daughter’s age, who are being screwed by rich, important guys so that all of you can live in that place? You’re going to do right by them. You’re going to give every one of them a nice big chunk of cash.
I shake my head. “There’s no way—”
I suppose you’ll say the building, all that, is in your husband’s name. But what about those pictures on the walls? What about those diamonds in your ears, that cellar of wine downstairs? I’m not exactly an expert, but even by my modest estimate you’re sitting on quite a fortune. I’m telling you now that you should sell it to someone who doesn’t want a paper trail. Someone who pays cash.
I’ll give you a couple of weeks. It’ll give the girls a chance to sort themselves out, too. But then Ben’s story has to go to print. He’s got an editor who’s expecting it, after all. And that place needs to disappear. La Petite Mort needs to die its own little death. The police will have to investigate, then. Maybe not as hard as they might do, considering they’re probably tied up in it.
I’m asking you to do all of this as a mother, as a woman. Besides, something tells me you wouldn’t mind being completely free of that place yourself. Am I right?
I fold the letter again. Slide it back into the envelope.
And then I nod.