“And this is one of them. I have worked in shops, also, and now I have a house-cleaning business, with three girls working for me, but once upon a time, a long way from here, I was a whore, and to some people that is always what I am. To Victor, for instance. Who is nice enough person, but does not understand that people are not always the same.”
He decided he didn’t want to know how Victor had discovered her previous profession. “When did you come back here?”
“After some years. Ten, eleven? Things become bad in the city, and I decide it is better to return with what you call it, a tail between the legs, than stay there. But it is only because my father is dead that I am able to come back.”
River nodded. “And Patrice?”
“All that time Yevgeny has him, at Les Arbres. My parents never see him, my father because he does not want to, and my mother because my father. But Yevgeny sends her photographs. I have these pictures still. I will show them to you.”
But she made no move to rise. Instead, she said:
“I went there, of course. To Les Arbres. But they do not let me in. Yevgeny, he comes out. He tells me I am not welcome, that I am no longer Patrice’s mother. That he has a family, and does not need me.”
“I’m sorry,” River said.
“I too. Because I know he is right, I am not Patrice’s mother. I give him birth, that is all. But still, I want to see him, I demand to see him, and then Frank comes, and Frank, he is very clear, very direct. He tells me that unless I leave, he will have police arrest me. He will tell them that not only am I a prostitute but a drug addict also, and other things like that. Threats.”
River knew better than to ask if she had been a drug addict.
For a while, Natasha sat gazing into her past, and then she rose and crossed the room, opened a drawer, retrieved something and returned. It was an envelope, unsealed. When she tilted it, several photographs slithered out; more than several. They seemed to be in order already, the topmost one the earliest. It showed a man with dark Russian looks, holding an infant.
“Yevgeny,” Natasha said. “With Patrice.”
More followed. The child grew older, learned to stand on his own feet; sometimes in the company of other children.
“Who are these?”
“The eldest two, they were at Les Arbres from the beginning. I do not remember their names. And here,” and she plucked a photo from the pile of her son at five or so, with another boy, slightly younger, “this is Patrice with Bertrand. Bertrand is Frank’s son.”
“Where did he come from?”
“I think the usual place,” Natasha said.
“I meant—”
“I am teasing. There are six or seven children in the end. All boys. The first two, and then Patrice and Bertrand and two or three more. All I know is what I hear, and what I see from photographs.”
“Yevgeny kept sending them, then.”
“While my mother lived. When she died, he stops. The last picture I have of my son is ten years old.”
This was said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“And the mothers, they were living there too?”
“Never for long. There were some Russian women, and a French girl, I think. An Englishwoman too, a different one. But they never stay long. Only the children stay.”
“Why do you think they left?”
“Once there was a rumour that bad things had happened, that the women were . . . killed or murdered or something, but the police, they make enquiries, and afterwards the rumours stop. The women, they move away because they are not happy there. They return to Moscow or London or wherever, and they leave their children behind, because this is how they like things to be. But I think it is how Frank likes things to be. Like with my own father, he says how he feels about things, and that is how the things become. They are the law. I think, at Les Arbres, Frank makes the law.”
River looked through the remaining photographs. Patrice grew older, Bertrand did the same, and in one shot the latter stood under a tree, the expression on his face familiar to River, though he couldn’t think why. And again the thought struck him that this boy was dead now, and whatever future he might have had when this was taken was now an irretrievable mess on a bathroom floor. And even that presumably cleaned away by now; nothing more than a stain, an afterthought.
Another photo showed Patrice and another boy with two adult males.
“Who are they?” he asked, certain he already knew half the answer.
“That is Frank. The other, that is Jean. The Frenchman.”
Frank was tall, fairish, though not enough to be called blond; broad-shouldered and—here, at least—unshaven. He wore a short-sleeved shirt, and his arms looked strong and capable. He wasn’t smiling. Rather, he seemed to be questioning the value of having his picture taken at all; as if he felt little need to have his presence confirmed by outside agency.
“Who’s the other child here?”
Natasha said, “That is Yves. He is called Yves.”
