Round Robin (28 page)

Robin had awakened that morning with the firm intention of pushing the troubles of Herr Welk and Fraulein Krump aside for the day. With the rush of events, she had succeeded completely in meeting that goal. Now, she gave her father a quick summary on why a social call wouldn’t be such a good idea at the moment.

“That’s terrible,” Dan said. “Poor kid.”

“Yeah.”

Robin was tempted to tell her father that she’d read her mother’s card ... but she couldn’t quite get it out.

“Well, say hello to him for me, anyway, okay? Give the kid my condolences.”

Dan pulled to the curb in front of Robin’s house.

He kissed his daughter’s cheek.

Then he stared off through the windshield and shook his head.

“Life is just too damn short.” He looked at Robin. “You gotta make the most of it.”

Chapter 26

Manfred had taken the day off of work.

He let Bianca sleep late. He was in no hurry to have to tell her the bad news. She’d been through enough as it was. He was still undecided as to whether he should lie about the circumstances of Ulrike’s death. The last thing he wanted was for Bianca to think that she had been responsible for her mother’s shooting death.

Having lived under the thumb of Communist tyranny, Manfred had always hated the way the Party would revise history to suit its purposes. But now he was thinking that possibly a tram had run over Ulrike. Perhaps, as with most lies, the deception would not last forever, but it should serve long enough to spare Bianca’s feelings while she was still a child.

When Bianca did awaken, it was with a scream.

Manfred ran to the bedroom at the same time that Bianca flung the door open and burst out of the room. The little girl bounced off her father’s massive legs and landed on her bottom. She was looking up at him with her head spinning when he scooped her up into his arms. He held her head to his shoulder and crooned to her in their native tongue.

“Es ganz recht, alles recht.”
It’s all right, everything’s all right

Bianca’s breathing, which had been rapid, calmed down. The comforting weight of Manfred’s huge arms enfolded her from shoulders to knees. He rocked her back and forth until he thought she’d fallen back to sleep, but then she lifted her head from his shoulders and spoke to him — in English.

“Put me down, please.”

Manfred looked her in the eye. She was no longer afraid, so he put her down.

She walked to the sofa and sat. Then she extended her hand to him. He sat next to her and took it. They regarded one another.

“Are you really my father?”

“Yes,” Manfred said, not
ja.

“Were you really a traitor to the state?”

“Yes.”

“Was that a bad thing?”

“No, it was a bad state.”

“Then why did Mama send you to jail?”

“She was angry with me. She thought I was seeing another woman.”

“Were you?”

“No. I was seeing a spy.”

“Is that worse?”

“Sometimes it is enough to send you to prison.”

“I will stay away from spies then.”

Manfred nodded.

Bianca bit her lip, seemed to think deeply and frowned.

“I was not seeing anyone else, not even a spy, but Mama tried to send me away with that terrible man. I do not understand why she was so angry with me.” The little girl’s chin began to tremble. “All I wanted was the money that should have been mine, and Mama was the one who taught me how important money is, so why did she want to send me away?”

Bianca’s tears began to flow, but she cried silently.

Manfred put his arm around Bianca and drew her close.

She said, “I will stay with you forever, Father. I will never go back to Mama again. I wish she was dead.”

Manfred moved off the sofa, knelt before his child and took both of her hands in his.

“Bianca, you must never blame yourself for what I am about to tell you, and you must remember that for most of your life your mother tried in her own way to care for you.”

Manfred took a deep breath and found the strength he needed to continue.

“Bianca, your mama
is
dead.”

Bianca looked at her father and made a leap of intuition. Any hope of disinformation on Manfred’s part was kaput.

“That nasty man killed her, didn’t he? He was so angry. And when he couldn’t find me, he killed Mama.”

Manfred nodded.

“Will he come after me now? Will you let him?”

“He is dead, too. Horst killed him.”

“The Bear?”

“Yes.”

“Am I safe then?”

“Yes.”

Bianca looked at Manfred a long time before asking her next question.

“Will you ... will you ever send me away?”

“Never.”

“Will anyone ever take you away from me? Send you to prison again?”

Manfred stroked her cheek, loving his child so much he thought his heart would break. He used virtually the same words of reassurance that Dan Phinney had given to his daughter two floors up in the same building.

“Only God will take me from you.”

“Will he do it soon?” Bianca asked with a sniffle.

“I pray every day that He will not.”

“I will learn to pray, too. I will pray that we will always be together.”

Manfred took his daughter in his arms so she would not see him weep.

“Vati?”

“What?”

“May I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Could we... ”

“Could we what?”

“Could we find a new place to live?” Bianca asked. “I do not like it here.”

Manfred brooded for two days. He brooded as only a German can. His barometric pressure dropped so low it was only a matter of time before storm clouds gathered around his head.
Sturm und Drang
was the forecast for his soul.

How could he fail to do anything within his powers to make his daughter happy?

Yet ... he didn’t want to go.

He didn’t think it was because he actually loved Robin. No, he was sure he didn’t love her, but he found her ... worthy. Of him. And of much more than she would ever allow herself to be without his help. She was strong in many ways, but he could help her understand that strength was more than simply lashing out. It was also the ability to absorb the worst blows the world could deal out to you and not let that punishment change who you were inside Not let it disfigure your character.

As he ruminated, a ray of levity momentarily penetrated his gloom. This Robin had humor. True, her wit often had the bite of a fresh radish, but he enjoyed radishes. A crisp radish and a good strong beer — as he might consider himself — made a wonderful combination. Moreover, she was a passable cook. And with her improving physique and new hairstyle, she was becoming very
ansehnlich.

Achh! Who was he kidding?

Of course, he loved Robin.

And one of the most important reasons to stay was he had to prove himself worthy of her.

But how could he persuade Bianca to stay? And how ... how could he convince her that Robin should be her new mother?

For that matter, how could he win over Robin to the idea of making Bianca her own child?

These were weighty problems to say the least. Fortunately for Manfred, he was one of the world’s great power lifters. He racked the three-hundred-pound barbell he’d been bench-pressing for the past quarter-hour and went to his office to start making phone calls.

That afternoon the group gathered, at David Solomonovich’s suggestion, at the Lincoln Park Conservatory. Outside it was eighteen degrees and a powdery snow was falling. Inside the huge glass structure of the flower house, the heat and humidity of the tropics prevailed. The scents of dozens of exotic blooms filled the air.

Manfred, Bianca, David, Nancy and Dan Phinney gathered at a bench next to a wishing pond that was carpeted with coins. Bianca ran her fingers through the water, then she turned and looked at the adults who surrounded her. Her father and Mr. Phinney stood on either side of her. David and Nancy stood in front of her.

Bianca knew instinctively they were forming a united front — against her.

“This is a beautiful place you have brought me to,” she told them. “What have I done?”

Manfred took her hand and sat with her on a nearby bench.

“It is beautiful here. Does it remind you of any other place?”

Bianca had no intention of playing coy.

“The Magic Garden.”

Manfred nodded.

He asked, “Why would anyone build her own Magic Garden when this beautiful place is only a few kilometers away?”

“I don’t know,” Bianca said. “Why?”

Manfred didn’t know either, but he was betting that Nancy or Dan Phinney did and that one of them would see where he was going and would help him out. He looked at Nancy and then at Dan.

They looked at each other.

Uneasily.

Then Nancy sucked it up and went down on one knee in front of Bianca.

“When Robin was young, she was very beautiful, and very gentle, and very giving. Unfortunately, she was also far too trusting. Even when she was twenty years old, she probably didn’t know as much about who to trust as you do now.”

Nancy glanced over at her father, wanting to know that she was about to do the right thing. He nodded his assent.

“Robin wound up trusting the wrong person. He turned out to be a monster, and he hurt her terribly.”

Perhaps because she’d so recently been through her own monstrous encounter, Bianca was able to empathize, and was curious.

“Is that why she built her Magic Garden? To hide in it?”

Nancy nodded.

“What did the monster do to her?”

“He ... stole something from her.”

Things were moving onto very delicate ground, and Nancy knew she couldn’t even look to her father for help now. Whatever she said from this point on would have to be her responsibility. And from the way both Manfred and David had inclined themselves toward her, Nancy knew that the kid wasn’t the only one who was interested in this story.

“What?” Bianca asked. “What did the monster steal?”

Nancy needed a minute to decide how to answer.

“He stole Robin’s ability to ever like herself. Or forgive herself. He might as well have cast an evil spell on her.”

David drew a sharp breath, and everyone looked at him.

Not that he had ever said a word about it, not that he ever could, but Nancy’s words made him think of his idea that some evil sonofabitch had turned Robin into a frog. Now, Robin’s own sister was telling him that he’d been right.

Only what could he say to the four people who were staring at him?

Bianca took him off the hook. Sort of.

She said, “David made a drawing of Robin. He says it’s how she looks inside. Maybe it’s how she looked before the monster cast his spell.”

Everyone returned their attention to the boy.

The drawing was in his art pad that was in his backpack which was on his back. Of course, the other drawings were there, too. The erotic ones he wasn’t going to let anyone see.

“Just a minute,” David said.

He moved a few steps away, and obscured by a screen of green leaves he was out of sight for several seconds. When he returned, hoping with all his heart that he wasn’t blushing, he held the drawing of Robin in his hand. He’d torn it out of the art pad.

He handed it to Bianca and the others crowded around for a look.

Nancy and Dan Phinney looked at the image and then, in wonder, at the boy who had rendered it.

“The drawing is pretty,” Bianca said, “but maybe David just made it the way he wanted it to look. He has a crush on Robin.”

At that, David did blush.

But nobody noticed because, without a word, Danny Phinney took his wallet out of his hip pocket and opened it to the photo he’d carried for decades. Robin’s high school graduation picture. He held it up next to the drawing David had done.

David leaned in to look at the photo and now it was his turn to be astounded.

The images were all but identical.