THAT FRIDAY IN JANUARY when the state of New York was paralyzed, the cook and her daughter did not turn up for work. Cheryl, Evelyn, and Frankie stayed cooped up in the house. The media had been forecasting the storm since the day before, but when it arrived it was worse than predicted. The wind lashed at the windows and Evelyn closed the blinds and curtains to protect Frankie as much as possible from the noise. She tried to take his mind off the storm by switching on the TV, but it proved useless because the rattle of the wind terrified him. When she finally managed to calm him, she put him to bed hoping he would fall asleep, unable to distract him with the TV anymore because the satellite signal was so awful. Anticipating a possible blackout, she had gathered up a flashlight and some candles and filled a thermos with soup. That day Frank Leroy had left at dawn in a taxi to the airport, heading for a golf club in Florida, content to ride out the storm if it struck. Cheryl spent the day in bed, sick and tearful.
On Saturday, Cheryl got up late in a panic, with the distraught expression of her bad days. But unlike on other occasions, she was so quiet that Evelyn grew worried. At around noon, after the gardener had arrived to clear the snow from the driveway, she left in the Lexus for an appointment with her psychiatrist. She returned a couple of hours later, very upset. Her hands were trembling so badly that Evelyn had to open the bottle of sedatives, count the pills, and serve her a large shot of whiskey. Cheryl took the pills with three big gulps of the drink. She said it had been a dreadful day, her head was about to burst, she didn’t want to see anyone, least of all her husband. It would be best if that heartless sonofabitch never came back, if he disappeared and went straight to hell, it was no less than he deserved for being mixed up in what he was doing, not that she cared what happened to him or that bastard Danescu, the enemy in her own home. “Damn the pair of them, I hate them,” she muttered, feverishly gasping for breath.
“I’ve got them where I want them, Evelyn. If I choose to, I can talk, and then they’ll have nowhere to hide. They’re criminals, murderers. Do you know what they’re up to? Human trafficking. They transport and sell people. They bring them from other countries on false pretenses, and they put them to work as slaves. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard about that!”
“I have heard something . . . ,” the girl admitted, scared of the expression on her employer’s face.
“They make them work like animals. They don’t pay them, they threaten and kill them. Lots of people are involved in it, Evelyn: agents, trucking companies, police, border guards, and even corrupt judges. There’s never any shortage of clients. There’s a lot of money in it, if you understand me?”
“Yes, se?ora.”
“You were lucky they didn’t get hold of you. You’d have ended up in a brothel. You think I’m crazy, don’t you, Evelyn?”
“No, se?ora.”
“Kathryn Brown is a whore. She comes here to spy on us; Frankie is only an excuse. My husband brought her here. Did you know she sleeps with him? No, how could you, child. The key I found in his pocket is to that whore’s place. Why do you think he has it?”
“Se?ora, please . . . how can you be sure where the key is from?”
“Where else could it be? And do you know something more, Evelyn? My husband wants to get rid of me and Frankie . . . his own son! He wants to kill us! That’s what he’s after, and that Kathryn Brown must be his accomplice, but I’ve got my eye on them. I never lower my guard, I’m always watching, watching . . .”
At the limits of her strength, befuddled by alcohol and pills, Cheryl let Evelyn lead her to her room, leaning heavily on the walls as she went. Evelyn helped her undress and lie down. Cheryl had no idea Evelyn knew about the relationship between Frank and the physical therapist. Evelyn had kept the secret inside her like a malignant tumor for months now, unable to let it out. Thanks to the fact she was regarded as invisible, she listened, observed, and drew conclusions. On several occasions, she had caught them whispering in the corridor. She had heard them planning vacations together and seen them shut themselves in one of the empty bedrooms. Mr. Leroy often appeared in Frankie’s room when Kathryn was making him do exercises, and they always sent Evelyn out on some pretext or other. They made no attempt to be careful in front of the boy, even though they knew he could understand everything. It was as if they wanted Cheryl to find out about their relationship. Evelyn supposed Mr. Leroy must be in love with Kathryn, because he looked for excuses to be with her, and when he was, his tone of voice and his expression changed, and yet she found it hard to understand why Kathryn should want to be mixed up with such an evil-hearted person who was a lot older than her, a married man with a sick son. Unless of course she was attracted to all the money he was supposed to possess.
According to what Cheryl had told her, Frank could be irresistible when he put his mind to it. That was what he was like when he won her heart. If Frank Leroy got an idea about something, there was no stopping him, she told Evelyn. They had met in the elegant bar at the Ritz, where she had gone to have some fun with two female friends and he had come to clinch a deal. As she told Evelyn, they glanced at each other a couple of times, sizing each other up from afar, and that was enough for him to come over with two martinis and a determined expression on his face. “From that moment on, he wouldn’t leave me alone. I couldn’t escape, he trapped me like a fly. I always knew he would mistreat me, because it started before we were married, but back then it was like a game. I never thought it would get worse and worse, and increasingly frequent . . .” In spite of the terror and loathing he inspired in her, Cheryl admitted he was attractive, with his good looks, his exclusive clothes, his air of authority and mystery. Evelyn was unable to appreciate any of these qualities.
That Saturday afternoon as she was listening to Cheryl’s incoherent rambling, Evelyn caught the smell from the adjoining room warning her she needed to change Frankie’s diaper. Just like her hearing and intuition, her sense of smell had become sharper since working for the Leroys. Cheryl was supposed to have bought diapers but had been in such a state she had forgotten. Evelyn calculated that the dozing boy could wait while she rushed to the drugstore. Pulling on a sweater, a parka, rubber boots, and gloves, she left the house ready to face the snow but discovered that the van had a flat tire and Cheryl’s Fiat 500 was at the shop being repaired. There was no point calling a taxi, because it would take an age to arrive in this weather. Waking up her employer was not an option either, because by now she would be comatose. Evelyn was about to give up on the diapers and resolve the problem with a towel when she saw the keys to the Lexus where they were always left on the hall table. That was Mr. Leroy’s car, and she had never driven it, but she thought it must be easier than the van. The journey to the drugstore would not take long. Cheryl was in limbo and would not even notice she had gone, and the matter would be solved. She checked that Frankie was fast asleep, kissed him on the forehead, and whispered that she would be back soon. Then she carefully drove the car out of the garage.
Lucia
Chile, 2008–2015