“I'm OK now,” says Mickey. “You don't have to cry.”
“I know.”
Rachel looks up at me and then at Sacha, who thumps his chest trying to clear his throat. The young Russian policemen have gathered around Aleksei's body, running fingers over the collar of his handmade shirt and feeling the softness of his cashmere overcoat. Dmitri has unclipped the wristwatch and compares it to his own.
Meanwhile, the snow whispers down, swirling in eddies and whirlpools, turning shades of gray into black and white.
Another country. Another mother and child.
Daj is in a wheelchair with me alongside, enduring one of those long silences that other people find awkward. She is wrapped in a white shawl that she holds together with her curling hands as she stares motionless out the window like an ancient malevolent bird of prey.
Behind us a flower-arranging class is setting up on the tables. Blue rinses and gray heads hum, coo and twitter to each other, as they sort through greenery and blooms of different colors.
I show Daj the front page of a newspaper. The photograph is of Mickey and Rachel, embracing for the cameras in the arrival hall at Heathrow Airport. You can just see me in the background, pushing the luggage cart. Perched on the top suitcase is a hand-painted babushka doll.
Joe is in the photograph, too. Standing next to him is Ali out of her wheelchair, leaning on his shoulder for support. She's holding a poster saying, “Welcome home, Mickey!”
“Remember that missing girl, Daj—the one I tried to find all those years ago? Well, I found her. I brought her home.”
For a brief moment Daj looks at me proudly, curling her long fingers through mine. Then I realize that she doesn't understand. Her mind is answering a different statement.
“Make sure Luke doesn't go outside without his scarf.”
“OK.”
“And if he rides his bike make sure he tucks his trouser bottoms into his socks so he doesn't get grease on them.”
I nod. She lets go of my hand and brushes a nonexistent crumb from her lap.
From now on I will visit her more often—not just at weekends but in the evening, too. I know that most of the time she forgets I am here. She labors to remember but it's beyond her powers and fading strength.
Villawood Lodge is expensive and most of my savings are gone. For the briefest of moments I contemplated keeping a handful of the diamonds or perhaps giving some of them to Ali as compensation for what she's been through. She wouldn't have taken them, of course, and I can understand why. They're covered in blood.
Harold, the gardener at Aleksei's house in Hampstead, found the stones and gratefully accepted a reward. He was even photographed by the newspapers, leaning on a sundial and pointing to where he discovered the four velvet bags.
Daj turns her head and listens. Someone is playing the piano in the music room. Outside an exercise class power walks through the garden, a platoon of swinging arms and swaying buttocks. The leader lifts her knees and glances over her shoulder to make sure she hasn't left any stragglers behind.
“I can see all the lost children,” Daj whispers. “You have to find them.”
“I can't bring them all back.”
“You haven't tried.”
She is looking at me now—recognizing me. I want to hold on to the moment because I know it won't last. Something will stir the breeze and her mind will scatter like dandelion seeds.
I am not a believer in fate or destiny or karma. I don't think everything happens for a reason and that luck evens itself out over a lifetime. The law and order of the universe is breathtaking—the rising and setting of the sun, the seasons, the positioning of the stars. Without such certainties the heavens will fall on our heads. Society has laws, too. My job was always to keep them. I know that's not much of a philosophy on life but so far it has been enough for me.
Kissing Daj on the forehead, I take my coat and walk down the hard smooth corridor toward the entrance of Villawood Lodge. In the foyer there is a public phone that takes plastic. Committed to memory I have the numbers for Claire and Michael. Some things you never forget.
The receiver feels cold against my neck as I punch the buttons and listen to the ringing. There have been many lost children in my life. I may not be able to bring them all back but I have to try.
***
