In the Night Room

glances, as if I had neglected a hypothetical duty to create accurate representations of things that existed outside of fiction. The lounge where she’d dealt with Tee Tee Rowley was on the wrong floor; the Ping-Pong table we glimpsed on our way past the game room was on the wrong side of the room; the dormitory was all wrong, since it had individual rooms instead of being a big communal barrack.

And the “real” Children’s Home in Willy’s mind had no matron, because I had neglected to supply it with an administrative staff. The Children’s Home on South Karadara Street, however, came splendidly equipped with the regal, kindly Mercedes Romola, who welcomed us into her spare little office, sat us down, and spoke the magical words “Mr. Underhill, it appears you are in luck.”

The very sight of Mercedes Romola told Tim that Lily Kalendar’s life could have been very little like the one he had fashioned for Willy Patrick. The matron exuded warmth, practicality, and common sense; she had iron-gray hair, a comfortable skirt and jacket, and a level, intelligent gaze. She was like the perfect fourth-grade teacher, a woman whose natural authority did not inhibit a sense of humor that, in its sly appearances, hinted at the existence of a private life more raucous and freewheeling than could be revealed in the public one. The matron instantly conveyed a sense of solidity and specificity that transferred itself to Lily Kalendar. Her life had contained no missing transitions or amnesiac passages: it had been lived minute by minute, in a way that made a pantomime of fiction.

“In fact,” she told him, “you are in luck in several ways. As you would expect, we do not release information concerning our present and former charges without obtaining permission beforehand. And in this case, the special circumstances surrounding the child’s transfer to the shelter, especially the notoriety of her father, make us wish to proceed with a great degree of caution.”

“She was here, though,” Tim said. “Lily Kalendar.”

“She had literally nowhere else to go. As I told you on the phone, she was taken into care at the age of nine. According to her father, the girl’s mother had run off two months earlier, and he could not cope with raising two children. The son was being trained as a carpenter, but the girl gave him problems he couldn’t solve. The caseworkers agreed, and she came to us. Later, we thought he’d sent her away to save her life. And maybe it was the only way he could stop abusing her.”

“I knew he loved her,” Willy said.

“What exactly is your role here?” asked the matron.

“Willy is my assistant,” Tim told her. “She’s been very involved with this project.”

“And you say the project is a book about Lily Kalendar. My first question is, will it be fiction or nonfiction?”

“Probably some combination of the two.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Underhill, but what is the point of mixing genres? Doesn’t combining fiction with fact merely give you license to be sloppy with the facts?”

“I think it’s the other way around,” Tim said. “Fiction lets me really get the facts right. It’s a way of reaching a kind of truth I wouldn’t otherwise be able to discover.”

She smiled at him. “Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but I’m a big fan of your work. I love those books you wrote with your collaborator.”

He thanked her.

“Let’s go back to the subject of your good fortune. As you will surely understand, I have to be very scrupulous. We make our records open to the public, which includes researchers like yourself, only if the person in or formerly in care, or the legal guardian, gives us permission to do so. Your first bit of luck was that one of your readers is the head of this institution. I made two phone calls on your behalf. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s worth two hundred dollars to our Big Brothers Big Sisters program.”

Tim nodded, forcing himself to appear relaxed.

“As a result of these calls, I can give you the following information.” She opened a folder on her desk. Then she put on a pair of reading glasses and peered down. “The Kalendar girl was first taken into care in 1974. The matron in those days was Georgia Lathem, and she made some unusual notations in the girl’s file. It seems Miss Lathem found the girl exceptionally closed off, emotionally numb, prone to acts of violence against the other children, liable to nightmares. She also observed that the girl was extraordinarily intelligent and strikingly beautiful.”

She looked up. “Now, you see, Miss Lathem and all the rest of the staff would have been quite aware of the Kalendar girl’s background. I don’t mean murder, because in 1974 no one knew about that, but the site inspections had made it pretty clear that the child had been raised by a very disturbed man.

“We are always looking for good foster parents for the children in our care, and Miss Lathem eventually came upon a couple that seemed perfect. Guy and Diane Huntress had successfully fostered three children some years before—they seemed to specialize in turning around some of our most damaged children. Miss Lathem arranged a meeting, the Huntresses agreed to take Lily into their home. Things went on, lots of ups and downs but mainly ups, until 1979, when Guy Huntress unexpectedly died.”

Mercedes Romola looked directly at Tim. “And what else happened in 1979, Mr. Underhill?”

“Joseph Kalendar was arrested for multiple homicides. The police found only a few fragments of the bodies, because he burned most of his victims in his furnace.”

“The Kalendar scandal exploded. Mrs. Huntress feared what might happen to the child in school. It seemed to her that Lily would fare better back here in the shelter. But children can be so cruel—she went through two really lousy years. It’s no fun being an outcast. She was humiliated over and over. Face in the toilet, things like that.”

“What school did she go to?” Willy asked, with the air of one sticking an oar into a swiftly running river.

“While she was with Diane Huntress, Grace and Favor Elementary School in Sundown, Slater Middle School, and Augment High. Why?”

“I was under the impression she went to Lawrence Freeman.”

“The elementary school down in what they used to call Pigtown? Why would you think she went there?”

“Sorry, sorry, my mistake,” Willy said.

The matron looked back at her papers, then glanced up with the suggestion of a smile on her face. “At this point, an unusual event took place. Diane Huntress came in for a talk with Miss Lathem and said she wanted Lily to come back to her as a foster child. In my considerable experience, this kind of thing is more or less impossible. Foster relationships are terminated for all kinds of reasons, some worse than others, but they are never resumed.”

“But she went back,” Tim said.

“She went back. And in her way, she flourished. And when I spoke to her an hour ago, she told me that although she would not assist you in any way during the writing of your book, she would not obstruct you in any way, either. She says she’d be willing to talk to you, on one condition, if you wish to speak to her. On the whole, she’d prefer not to, but the choice is up to you.”

“What’s the condition?” Tim asked.

“That first you meet with Diane Huntress, so that she can decide the next step. Mr. Underhill, do you know what this means?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It means that Lily Kalendar trusts Diane Huntress absolutely. In spite of the fact that Diane had returned her to us, and left her here for two awful years. Lily knew why she had done it, she understood. And when she went back to Diane, it was with the feeling of coming home to a mother who had been ill, but now was well again. People like Lily Kalendar, not that there are very many, seldom trust anyone at all. You realize, what happened to that child was immense. Immense.”

Underhill felt the word sink into him, widening out as it did. The comprehension of that immensity seemed the point behind everything that had happened since his sister had thrust herself through the mirror to shout her silent command. Even getting close to understanding Lily Kalendar’s experience was the other half of fulfilling Kalendar’s demand: he would acknowledge the bizarre mercy Kalendar had shown his daughter, but he also had to wrap his imagination around the price Lily had paid for his mercy. For a moment, it felt like the task of his life. Then he looked at Willy, and his heart moved at the recognition of her plight. She was listening to a woman talk about the person she had been supposed to be. What could that be like?