Fortune's Deadly Descent (13 page)

I introduce Oliver and they shake hands. “It is a pleasure to speak American English,” Madame Moreau says. “I studied art at Yale many years ago. I don’t often get to use English in Saint-Corbenay.”

She leads us into the front room, a long, elegant affair with a winding staircase at the far end. Classical music wafts about from an invisible sound system. “You’re in luck,” Madame Moreau says. “I finished working already. It’s much easier to start early in summer.” She rubs her hands together as if putting on lotion, but I’m guessing it’s the residual energy from painting—I do the same with my temples and eyes after writing for hours, massaging away my alternate world for the day.

“Please,” Madame Moreau says, pointing to the red wingback chairs flanking a marble fireplace.

We take a seat and she sits across from us on an oversize leather sofa.

“Would you care for some coffee or tea?”

I’m struck by a painting spanning a large wall; its jagged abstract cliffs and geometric shapes remind me of Cézanne. But after a moment, the forms take the shape of a man on top of a woman, in flagrante. I stop my eyes from giving away the discovery, but it’s clear that Oliver has seen it too.

He turns and swipes his palms down his knees. “Coffee would be great,” he says.

I nod in agreement.

“Alexandra?” she calls toward the adjoining room I take for the kitchen. The only other word I understand is
café
.

I picture Inspector Moreau living in these rooms with this woman. It’s not the grandeur of the place that elevates the way I see him, so much as the atmosphere of love and art, of living with grace.

“We’re sorry to bother you,” I say. “But has your husband returned yet from Zurich?”

Madame Moreau leans into her chair. “No. In fact, it is only now that I’m learning where he’s been.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No need. There isn’t always a chance to share what we’re doing. He said he would be gone for a couple of days…I forgot to ask where he was going. But he did speak to me about your case.”

“Oh?”

“I’m very sorry about your son. Has he been found?”

“Thank you. No. I’m afraid not.”

A young woman appears through the doorway with a tray of coffee, cups, sugar, and cream. “
Merci, Alex
,” Madame Moreau says. “This is Alex. She helps me in the house.”

It occurs to me that if I’d had steady help in my house they might’ve noticed something, maybe even
prevented
all of this from happening.

Alex shyly dips her head as she sets the tray on the coffee table. She appears Russian, perhaps Czech, strong cheekbones and pale, brittle arms. She quickly ducks into the kitchen.

“My husband is very upset with this case. He is…
consumed
?”

“Yes,” I say.

I’m wondering if this is perhaps the biggest case Moreau has ever worked on. Whatever the cause of his determination, my affection for him grows.

“I appreciate what he’s trying to do,” I say. “He told me this man on the train may have been the same one who spoke to your daughter on the street some months ago.”

“Yes. It’s very frightening to think about it.”

“He asked her…personal questions, your husband said?”

“A grown man speaking to a young girl by herself, in a familiar way—just that alone, but yes, he asked about her parents, he asked if she lived on the hill here.”

“That sounds—” Oliver says, catching her eye.

“Yes.
Très inquiétant
,” Madame Moreau tells him. “But it’s what Arabelle said,” she goes on to us both. “
I didn’t like the way he looked at me
. Strong words for a child.”

“
Très inquiétant
,” I say after a moment.

She nods, mother to mother, accepting my stab at her language as a token of goodwill. “It’s no wonder your husband is so concerned with this case,” I say.

Madame Moreau again nods, meets my eyes long enough for me to understand she’s working out the English of a difficult thought, or perhaps debating how
much
to say.

“Any father wants to protect his daughter, of course,” she begins. “But, as well, his concern comes from his own
tragédie
, you understand.”

Oliver and I trade confused looks.

“I see he didn’t tell you this. I thought he must have. He’s a man who, as you say in English, wears his heart on his sleeve. I love this saying. It describes him exactly.
De toute façon
, this story is no secret, everyone here knows…though it changes over time, I think, like
une légende
.”

She pauses to take a sip of coffee and motions for us to do the same.

I oblige, but drink so fast I barely taste what I’ve put in my mouth.

“When my husband was a child he and his younger brother, Rémy, were playing in the field near the train stop in Saint-Corbenay.”

I glance at Oliver, then Madame Moreau. “We were just there. You mean the vineyard?”

“Yes, the old vineyard. It belongs to the Moreau family…well, to my husband now, though no one has touched it in many, many years. The grapes have gone to ruin.”

I nod. “We saw.”

The string quartet plays on. As I wait for her to proceed, I imagine Moreau walking through this door into his private life, and I have the strange desire to save him from whatever Madame Moreau is about to say.

She lowers her cup, and draws a long breath. “Something happened there that changed my husband’s life, that put him on
a different path. It was what led him to become a policeman, I’m certain. Rémy was kidnapped. The man tried to get both boys—my husband was older, just strong enough to get free, but not to save his brother.”

Madame Moreau rises and retrieves a photograph from the sideboard, then hands it to me. Two young boys laughing atop a brick wall, legs dangling, both in short dark socks and laced leather shoes, both in caps and tweed jackets.

“It was taken just days before he disappeared. They were on their way to see their grandparents. They stopped for a picnic and the boys climbed the wall and waited while their father fixed an unforeseen flat tire. Their mother took this. It’s one of the loveliest photos of two children I’ve ever seen.”

“It truly is,” I say, hardly able to stand the beauty, the weight of passed time.

Oliver gently takes the picture from me.

“Rémy was never found, not his body, not anything.”

Oliver returns the photograph to Madame Moreau. She places it on the coffee table, facing her.

“The police naturally wanted to solve this mystery, but it became a very old case, a dead case, and eventually my husband’s obsession with it made trouble for him. He used his office for his own purposes, they said. Last year, because of this, he neglected a case he was supposed to be working on…he missed evidence that led to his partner being badly wounded. The man cannot work—it’s very unfortunate for everyone. My husband was able to keep his post only…because he is liked well, I think. He was ordered to do nothing more about his brother. But now, suddenly, here is the case of your son and it looks so much like the old case…Well, I know my husband. He won’t give it up.”

All I can do for a moment is stare.

Madame Moreau looks at us with sympathy. She says, “I know this is all…so much.”

I nod, gathering my thoughts.

But before I speak, she goes on, “I’m afraid there is more to tell you. Since the time when Rémy was taken, other children have also been taken. Not in Saint-Corbenay, but in small towns like this one, in other regions of France. Many children. Dozens. And others from Germany, the Netherlands, Austria. No one knows how many. These crimes were so—” She waves her hand in a way I take to mean
scattered all over
. “It was a long time before the pattern was seen. And now, it appears that there is
un syndicat
devoted to stealing children.”

It’s as if a toxic gas has been released in the room and I’ve breathed a great draft of it in.

“Who
are
these people?” Oliver asks.

“There are only theories. Please keep this in mind. Do you know the Romani? Gypsies, they are often called?”

“Of course.”

“The Romani live in an invisible way, in the streets, or just outside of towns, so one theory is that Romanian criminals use these Romani to steal children. It is the perfect crime, you understand, to hide them in plain sight. The Romani live among us, but at the same time, are not really there.”

“I hate to ask, but what do they do with all these children?” I say.

Just then a young girl who favors Madame Moreau in nearly every way—eyes, hair, long, graceful limbs—bounds into the room and clasps her skinny arms around Madame Moreau’s neck.

“Arabelle,” she says, kissing the top of the girl’s head. Arabelle peers out from her mother’s neck, and then shyly tucks her face back in. Her mother whispers to her, but I’ve already turned away.

When I turn back, the girl is bouncing up the stairway, then disappears.

“I apologize. We have plans—” Madame Moreau begins.

“We won’t keep you,” Oliver says.

But I can’t let this interview end too soon. I ask again why the children are stolen.

Madame Moreau nods and says, “Theories, you understand?”

“A theory is better than nothing,” I say.

“Not necessarily,” Oliver says.

I know he’s right, I know how bad theories muddy the water; all the same, we need to hear this.

I look to Madame Moreau urgently.

“It’s mostly girls,” she says, “for marriages.”

“Marriages?” I say.

“It has to do with
génes
. This is the same word in English, I think.”

“Yes, genes,” Oliver says. “You mean because of inbreeding?”

“Ah, yes. Of course. The Romani are a very closed population. Even their language, with so many dialects. Not many outside can speak it.”

“But Rémy and Benny—they’re boys,” I say. This is making me sick.

“Again, it is only a theory. The children are taken for…more than one purpose. It is thought that the Romani slip back into Romania without being seen, and turn the children over to orphanages, who sell them to couples from the West, as Romanian orphans.”

I think of Benny’s coloring and how easily he could be taken for Romanian.

“This is big business in the United States,” she says.

“No, wait,” Oliver says. “I’m no expert, but Romania’s in the EU now, aren’t they? The borders are open? They wouldn’t need the Romani—”

I’m still stuck at the thought of Benny ending up in the States without me. It’s strangely comforting, and then more dreadful than I can bear when I think of how big a place it is.

“You’re right,” Madame Moreau says. “But this began long ago…it is perhaps a skill passed down to younger generations who continue this
work
because it is what they know. Again, I must say, this is a theory.”

“But there’s no shortage of real orphans in Romania, is there?” Oliver sensibly asks.

“Sadly, this is so, but many are…damaged. Sick, abused, many from addicted parents. Couples in the United States know this, they have these children examined by their own doctors. But the stolen children, with their bright eyes and healthy bodies, they are a kind of prize. It’s a terrible thing to say. No doubt the orphanage comes up with stories of educated, well-traveled parents. The couples are so hungry for a child, the price is…”

She rubs her hands together again, as if she can wipe the stain of all this from them.

“I’ve heard as much as a hundred thousand dollars per child,” she continues. “The couples are very wealthy, and as I say, desperate, and of course they believe they’re doing a good deed, taking in these poor children.”

“But Benny is way too old for this,” I say, my wits coming back to me. “He’d remember where he came from,” I say, “and of course he speaks English and German. And quite a bit of Spanish.”

“We shouldn’t assume this is what has happened to your son, Ms. Hagen. It may have nothing to do with your situation. But I thought you should know
le contexte
, the—”

“The background,” Oliver says.

Madame Moreau nods.

After a moment, she says, “I’ve watched my husband live with this as long as I’ve known him. I know how difficult—”

“To go so long without knowing,” I say.

Madame Moreau nods.

She goes on, “The Romani are always moving, they carry no passports. Their own babies never appear in any birth records—if they did, the government could step in and remove a child if they thought it wasn’t being cared for. No one expects a Roma child to have any identification. And the ones who are stolen and taken to Romanian orphanages are quickly given false passports, adopted, and shipped off. This is part of the appeal for Americans. Quick adoptions. China makes them wait a year or more…and Americans feel better knowing the child has spent less time in a hideous orphanage.”

“Have any of these children actually been found?” Oliver asks.

Madame Moreau glances at the stairway, as if looking to safeguard her daughter from what she’s about to say. “Several who had been taken as very young children and raised as Romani…by the time they were found they were already twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old, teenagers—they were Romani to
themselves
. After returning to their real parents, they immediately ran away. Never to be found again.”

“Dear god,” I say.

“And the others?” Oliver asks. “The ones who were adopted?”

“There is just one story I know, and I’m afraid it is equally sad. My husband met a woman in London who discovered she
was actually a child stolen as a toddler from France, from a lovely village in Normandy. She was so angry that her parents hadn’t asked more questions before adopting her from Romania, especially after she located the records of her birth. She discovered that both of her biological parents had committed suicide several years after she was abducted.”

It isn’t until Oliver is in front of me that I realize I’ve slumped forward, apparently passed out, or something close to it, from holding my breath.

An hour later, I’ve convinced Oliver and Madame Moreau that I’m well enough to leave. Even so, Oliver stays close as we head down the driveway.