"No one's ever died of adolescence" was another of Willie Vander Hoorst's hopeful refrains. "It is very hard for two Dutch women to occupy the same house comfortably. You will understand what I mean when you are a married woman with a daughter of your own."
Elli hoped her father was right, but it seemed a long time to wait and a high price to pay for enlightenment. She vowed it would be different between her and her own daughters. I'll never be like my mother.
* * *
"Excuse me," called the man in the trench coat. "Can you tell me the way to Prinsengracht?" He spoke in broken Dutch.
"Do you speak French?" Elli asked.
He made a gesture of futility.
"English?"
"Some," he said with a relieved smile. "I can't seem to find Prinsengracht on my city map."
"You're not far," Elli answered. She often encountered foreigners in the neighborhood, all wandering around in search of Anne Frank's house. She once told her father, "I could make a handsome living sitting by the canal, giving directions to tourists." She had read The Diary of Anne Frank so many times and visited Anne's house so often she could give guided tours.
"Let me see your map." Elli pointed to a spot in middle-right portion of the street map. "We are here. See? And there's Prinsengracht over there. Just follow this street to the second canal and turn left." Even with her precise directions, the man seemed confused. When he didn't move, she laughed. "It's easy to find, I assure you. You won't get lost."
"It's not your fault." He looked left and right, as if getting his bearings from a scent carried on the chilly breeze. "I lack all sense of direction. It is an imposition, but do you think you could walk part way with me? That way I'll be sure not to get lost again."
Elli hesitated. Her father had warned her against being too accommodating to strangers, especially men. But, how could anyone who wanted to visit Anne Frank's house possibly be a danger to her?
"All right," she consented. "Only part way, though. I'm late as it is."
"Thank you. You're a lovely girl."
His voice was paternal, but not exactly fatherly, Elli thought, without enough concern for the distinction to clarify it for herself. When they came to a place opposite her home, she allowed herself a quick glance across the canal at her house. The narrow white building looked as if the builder had squeezed it into a spot too small. It survived only by inhaling deeply and holding its breath--forever. If she had hoped to see her mother's worried face in the window, a sign of remorse for her part in her daughter's tantrum, Elli was disappointed. Apparently, God did not give such easy satisfaction.
At the top of Herengracht, she paused. "You'll find Prinsengracht easily from here. It's a short--" The stranger's knees buckled. He reached for her arm. "What's the matter?"
"I-- I don't know." His left hand went weakly to his forehead. "Just a bit dizzy."
"You'd better sit down. There's a bench over there."
"I'll be fine in a minute," the stranger assured her. "It has been happening lately. It goes away. Please, do not trouble yourself."
"Did you eat today?" A shrug of his shoulders told her he had missed his midday meal. "You mustn't skip meals when you are away from home," she admonished mother-hen fashion.
"Rest a minute. Then, I'm taking you home with me for dinner. My parents won't mind."
"I can't possibly impose," he objected, "but perhaps I had better forget about visiting the Frank house today. There will be time before I leave Amsterdam. I won't hear of going home with you."
"Are you sure?" Elli's maternal instinct kicked into high gear. "It's no imposition."
"I have acquaintances who live not far from here. I will spend the evening with them and take a taxi back to my hotel later." His large, watery eyes became beggars. "Will you help me find their house?"
"I shouldn't." Elli glanced over her shoulder in the direction of home. "I told you, I'm late." The man swayed and looked as if he might faint right there in the street. "All right. Let's go," she relented. "Where do they live?" He removed a crumpled piece of paper from his coat pocket. Neatly printed block letters identified an address on Warmoes Straat, near St. Nicholas Church and Central Station. "It's a bit of a way. Are you certain you can make it?"
"I feel stronger already. The worst is past." Sure enough, his step had quickened. His grip on Elli's arm tightened the farther they walked to the southeast, away from her neighborhood. They spoke little on the way.
It was dark by the time they reached the section of Warmoes Straat where his friends lived. A damp mist had settled on the city with the early evening, making it hard to read the numbers on some of the buildings. Elli made two attempts to find the address, before grumbling, "Are you positive this is the right number?" She shivered from the cold and wet, now, and no longer felt very motherly or helpful. She wanted to go home.
"It's the number all right," he said, not in broken English, but in barely accented German.
The granite quality of his voice sent a chill of sudden, horrifying understanding through his guide. "You're not ill, are you? You've been pretending." Terror clutched at Elli's insides, triggering a sudden need to relieve herself.
De los Reyes moved his head heavily from side to side in a negative response.
"Nor a tourist."
"You are a sharp young woman, Elli."
"How do you know my name?" Panic sent alarms to all parts of her body, but flight was impossible.
"Of course I know you." Before she could cry out for help, a massive hand covered her nose and mouth making it difficult to breathe. "If you want to see your parents again, you won't do that. In fact, the only thing you will do exactly what I tell you to."
De los Reyes dragged his hostage along the wet street. Elli despaired when she realized that the few pedestrians they passed dismissed them as an angry father hauling his recalcitrant teen-ager home where she belonged at the dinner hour.
Their route took them away from the residential neighborhoods and down to the banks of the Ij. Constantly checking to be sure no one was watching them, de los Reyes pulled Elli along a poorly lighted street. They came to an abandoned storefront-warehouse, to which her kidnapper easily gained access. Dragging his unwilling partner, de los Reyes entered the building. He moved cautiously through the darkness toward a back office, threading his way between rows of empty wooden crates. Pointing to the far corner of the room, he ordered Elli to sit on the floor.
The darkness frightened her as much as the nameless peril awaiting her. "W-What are you going to do with me?" The words squeaked from her throat. What she really wanted to know was "why?" What have I done to deserve such punishment? I love my mother. Honest, God, I do. Their fight earlier today-- Had it been today? It seems ages ago. So, they had argued? All my girlfriends fight with their mothers. Isn't it part of growing up? It means nothing. I don't deserve this. From somewhere in the shadowed room, her young voice cried in protest, "It's not fair!"
"You are a very pretty girl, Elli. No, not a girl anymore . . . a woman, almost." He forced her chin from her knees and touched her cheek. "Your skin is soft. I like soft skin."
"Please, let me go. I won't tell anyone. You won't get in trouble. I prom--"
"You have it wrong," de los Reyes corrected. "You are the one in trouble."
"What did I do?"
"Oh, child," he said with a chuckle that almost approached genuine affection, "you didn't do anything. Your father got you into this."
Elli's eyes opened, wide and demanding. "Papa? How?"
"He meddled in the wrong person's business. Now, he must pay. When you're gone, he will think twice before he maligns someone again."
"'Gone'?" Elli whimpered. "I don't understand!"
"I don't like that part very much myself."
Was she to be murdered by a man who did not want to kill her but who had to teach her father a lesson? "Sir, my papa will do anything for me. Ask him. He'll give you money, lots of it. Please . . . don't . . . ." Her
voice trailed off in despair when the frigid eyes looking back at her gave no reason to hope.
De los Reyes removed his topcoat and tossed it on a plain wooden table that in better times must have served as the manager's desk. His wrinkled suit coat followed, then his tie. "In my country, we believe no woman should die without knowing pleasure with a man, at least once in her life. You've never been with a man intimately before, have you, Elli? You know, made love to any of your young boyfriends?" De los Reyes's eyes never left her face.
Instinctively, Elli tucked her skirt tight around her ankles. When her abductor removed his pants, she closed her eyes and sobbed. He took her face in his hands, but she failed to notice or be impressed with his attempt at tenderness. His hands went to Elli's wrists, which she had locked to her ankles.
"Don't make this difficult," he said. "I don't want to hurt you."
Although the tone was soothing, the threatening circumstances contradicted what Elli heard. She glanced toward the door. On television, this was the moment the hero crashed into the room, rescuing the beautiful heroine from the bad guys. Only silence. Darkness. No splintering of wood and glass. No last second, blasting-guns rescue at five to the hour. Is it because I'm overweight and not pretty enough? "Don't," she whimpered.
De los Reyes pushed Elli's dress up around her hips and rolled her underpants down her milk-white thighs, which spasmed at his touch. Slipping the garment over her ankles, he brought it close to his face to inhale its female fragrance, then tossed it onto the table with his clothes.
"It would please me, if you would enjoy this with me."
By then, however, Elli had slipped away from the damp room in the back of the abandoned warehouse to a happier time and place. She was a little girl from the big city, visiting her Uncle Piet's dairy farm in the wet, green lowlands southeast of Amsterdam, near the German border. The lush grass tickled her bare toes. The morning sun crowned her thin golden hair. The sweet smell of freshly mown hay delighted her. She was safe, happy, secure.
A cloud darkened the yellow disc of the sun. Elli could scarcely breathe. A weight pressed her body against dusty floorboards, crushing her breasts. The air around her mouth and nostrils became dense and foul. A wildfire raged between her legs.
She was back home on Herengracht, in her room, among familiar jeans and dresses and stuffed animals. Soon, her father would come through the front door, assuring her all was well. Within minutes, he would sit mother and daughter down for one of their famous, tearful reconciliations. Peace would return to the Vander Hoorst household. At least, until the next domestic flare-up. Her father's voice didn't echo up the narrow staircase. It was so dark, the blackest night Elli could remember.
Someone entered her room, uninvited. A stranger. A man. He wanted Anne Frank's house but had wandered into the Vander Hoorst home by mistake. Or had it not been an error? Was she not Elli Vander Hoorst, after all, but in fact the young Jewess? Has someone betrayed my hiding place? Will I never see my parents again? Have the Nazis already shipped them to the death camps? Of course! She was there now--in the hands of the dreaded Gestapo. I've heard that German officers do shameful things to young girls, before they gas them.
Elli sobbed again. The fire in her loins burned out of control.
* * *
When Elli failed to come home at dark, her parents became worried. By ten, o'clock Gertrude Vander Hoorst frantically berated herself for letting a minor triggering incident get out of hand. At midnight, Elli's despairing father reported her missing.
"You say your daughter had a row of some sort with her mother?" the desk officer said.
"Yes." Willie had never admitted the existence of a domestic problem to anyone outside their home.
"I wouldn't worry too much. The best we can do, under the circumstances, is list your daughter as a runaway."
This didn't satisfy Willie. The policeman was more interested in saving the night shift extra work than in finding Elli. "I know my daughter. She would never run away from home!"
"You just said she had a nasty argument with her mother."
"Yes, but--"
"Mr. Vander Hoorst I will put her name on the bulletin board here at the precinct," the officer said. "That's always the first step. If you wish, you can bring down a photograph. That would be helpful."
"Yes, I will bring a picture." Even this small activity restored some feeling that he was taking positive action, rather than waiting passively for news at home.
* * *
At dawn, a barge pilot found the body of a young woman floating in the Ij. The description matched that given by the Vander Hoorsts. Homicide Inspector Vanderveen invited Willie to meet him at the morgue for a possible identification.
"Yes." Willie hissed the tight-lipped response. He wanted to vomit at the sight of his once beautiful daughter lying like a side of beef on the cold slab, her bloated face a purple-gray mass of bruises. Her assailant had slit her throat from ear to ear. "Has she been--?"
The coroner's assistant nodded. "I'm afraid so, sir." He produced a plastic bag containing the remains of Elli's clothing. "The shoes and her undergarments are missing. Otherwise everything's here. There was no identification on the bod-- on her."
"She left the house--" Willie choked back a sob. "Quite suddenly, you know."
"This was in her skirt pocket." Inspector Vanderveen dropped a silver medallion into Willie's palm, a bas-relief of an angel with fiery sword upraised against an unholy enemy. "Are you Catholic?"
Willie puzzled over the shiny oval. "No. I've never seen this before. I am sure it wasn't Elli's."
"Are you positive?"
"It's possible, of course, but I am fairly certain. It must have been placed on her by--"
"Whoever killed her," Vanderveen said, supplying the awful words. With fraternal tenderness, he took Willie Vander Hoorst's elbow and led him from the room.
19
The American Airlines arrival monitor flashed "On the Ground" beside Flight #131 from New York. The overdue wide-body would soon taxi to Gate 65 and dispense a stream of passengers into the waiting area.
Leah joined the crowd of craning welcomers, eager to get her first glimpse of Jay in fourteen years. A queasy stomach betrayed her anxiety, which matched her eagerness measure for measure. While waiting in the stuffy satellite, she had paced the floor, sat briefly, then resumed her restless wandering. Whether pacing or sitting, her mind free-wheeled. Her musings ranged from puzzlement about the timing of Jay's unexpected reentrance onto the stage of her life to questions about the nature of his mission. Jay represented a lobbying effort she intended to expose as misguided, if not dishonest.
Nothing he can tell me about President Montenegro will change my mind, she affirmed. The man's a savage. With that issue clear, Leah allowed herself a personal admission. I'm really looking forward to seeing Jay again. She liked to keep ties with important people in her life, no matter how tenuous and intermittent the contacts. He had been a major influence at a critical time. More than that, he was the only man other than Walt she had ever loved . . . and slept with.
He'll probably be a great disappointment, Leah thought, as the passengers streamed from the Jetway. It might be simpler all the way around, if he is. She watched a tall man in clerical dress enter from the ramp. He paused a moment to search the unfamiliar faces in front of him. Then, he moved forward uncertainly, nudged along by the crush of deplaning passengers.
It's definitely him. Leah's anxiety and anticipation ratcheting up another notch. Gone was some of the shine of his earlier youth. Narrow streaks of silver had edged their way into the thick black waves flowing back from his temples. The eyes were that same Caribbean blue she once found so unusual and irresistible. The intervening years seemed only to have added to the tender compassion that had always been their trademark. Whether he came as friend or enemy remained to be seen.
"Jay! Jay! Over here!"
"Leah!" he called, closing the distance between them in a fe
w strides. He dropped his carry-on bag and threw his arms around her, kissing her lightly on the lips. "It's so great to see you! I can't tell you how I've looked forward to this."
The unexpectedness and intensity of his greeting left her gasping for breath . . . and control. "I-- I'm glad to see you too. I still don't know if I believe it's happening."
They moved along the giant tube that led them to the terminal hub and American's downstairs baggage area. "When I saw your name on my list, I just about flapped my arms and flew straight across the Gulf of Mexico, all the way to San Francisco."
Leah laughed. "Then you've learned a few tricks since I saw you last. If you were so eager to see me, why didn't you come here first?"
"Orders. Montenegro had my itinerary all laid out, the tickets purchased, everything. All I had to do was show up at airports and lodgings."
At the mention of Santo Sangre's president, Leah's smile evaporated. Our agenda, she reminded herself. In the abstract, it seemed easy to keep Jay, her friend, separate from Jay, Montenegro's front man. Seeing him now, she realized it might not be that simple. Don't forget, they're one and the same. So, in the end, he gets tossed out with his boss.
Jay seemed to sense Leah's sudden shift in enthusiasm. "No Montenegro tonight. Please. We have too much ground of our own to cover. How about it?"
"Temporary truce?"
"Tomorrow, I'll lay out my wares. You can buy or not. I'll have done my job and-- And I'll be off. I'm getting a lot of practice dealing with rejection."
"So quickly?" she heard herself say. She wanted to control their agenda, including when it was time to send him packing.
"What I have to do here won't take long." Jay's words seemed stiff, rehearsed. "I don't want to disrupt your life."
"Okay." Surely, she could let their personal reunion enjoy its hour. "No Montenegro tonight."
* * *
Jay had a reservation at the Westin St. Francis on Union Square. Since he hadn't eaten for hours, Leah took him to Victor's at the top of the hotel. From their table, she pointed out Moscone Center, the Bay Bridge, and other highlights of the nighttime San Francisco skyline.