R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

I could sense the explosion that was occurring at the other end and I smiled to myself.

‘I know, I know, and you have no idea how sorry I am, but I’m okay… I’m fine, and that’s the main thing-’

Another blast from the uncle.

‘Okay, enough, Uncle David. I know you’re pissed beyond belief, but the fact of the matter is that I’m okay and no-one will be any the wiser. You let up on me and I won’t tell Dad that you let me get away from you, okay?’

There was silence for a moment. The girl was bartering for her freedom.

‘Okay, I promise.’

Another few words from Uncle David.

‘No, I promise, I really do. Cross my heart and hope to die… never again, okay?’

Uncle David seemed placated.

‘Okay, I will. Maybe an hour or so. I’ll get a cab and we can have lunch or something, alright?’

There were a few more words and then Emilie wished him goodbye and hung up.

‘You were right,’ she said. ‘He was gonna wait another hour and then call the cops.’ She sat at the table, tucked her legs beneath her. ‘I’ll go back in a bit and get the third degree for a while. Where was I? Who was I with? Where did I stay? All that kinda crap.’

I nodded. I understood the third-degree kind of crap. ‘Your father?’ I asked her. ‘He doesn’t come down here with you?’

Emilie shook her head. ‘He’s like the busiest guy on the planet. Meetings all the time, all sorts of important stuff. I think he’s in the process of buying about eight trillion companies and if he leaves the office for like eleven seconds the world will end.’

‘A workaholic.’

‘A cash-aholic more like.’

Emilie tore a thin strip of bread from a roll and dipped it in her coffee.

I looked towards the doorway and wondered what was taking Victor so long.

‘So you guys here for a few days?’ she asked.

I nodded. ‘Yes, we’re staying for a little while. If Victor likes it here we might stay for some months.’

‘That would be cool. I could maybe come down and see you.’

‘Yes, that would be good,’ I said, and I meant it, for here I believed was someone that would give Victor all that he had become so aware of missing in Cuba.

The door opened and Victor walked through. His hair was wet, combed back from his forehead. He had on a pair of jeans, a white tee-shirt. Somehow he looked older, as if in one night he had gained a handful of years.

‘Could I take a shower before I go?’ Emilie asked.

I nodded. ‘ Me casa su casa ,’ I said. ‘Go ahead, take a shower, and then we will arrange a cab to take you to your uncle.’

Emilie rose from the chair. She touched Victor’s arm as she walked past him. ‘Your dad is cool,’ she said. ‘Hell, I wish my dad was more like yours instead of this Donald Trump thing he’s got going on.’

Victor smiled. He seemed pleased. He turned and watched her disappear and then came to join me at the table.

‘Nothing happened,’ he said as he sat down. ‘I mean nothing happened between me and Emilie.’

‘But one day soon something will,’ I said. ‘And if it isn’t Emilie then it will be someone else, and I want you to understand that such an event will be important and that it is natural and normal and the way life is. My first girlfriend was the cousin of a friend of mine. Her name was Sabina and her hair was longer than anyone’s I’d ever known. It was perhaps the most important day of my young life, and it made me very happy.’

Victor looked momentarily embarrassed. ‘You’re not mad with me?’

I reached across the table and took Victor’s hand. ‘You are happy?’

He nodded, ‘Happy? Yes, I’m happy. I had a great time last night, and I really like Emilie.’

‘Then I am happy too, and she said that if we stay here a while she will come down and visit with us.’

‘We could stay here a while?’

‘Yes, if that is what you want.’

‘For real? We could stay here?’

I smiled. ‘Well, perhaps not right here in this hotel but maybe we will take a house somewhere on the outskirts of the city and stay for a few months.’

Victor smiled, seemed pleased. There was a light in his eyes, something new and youthful, something I had not seen the entire time we had been away from America. He was an American boy, perhaps more than I had ever been, and there were so many more things here that were right for him. Perhaps, truth be known, I had begun to realize that as my own life would come to an end so his would truly begin. Maybe that was now my purpose: to contribute to the life of another instead of contributing to their death.

Emilie reappeared. Her hair was wet, tied back with a colorful band, and she had on her deck pumps.

‘A taxicab,’ I said. ‘We will send you back to your uncle and you will take whatever words he has to give you, alright?’

For a moment she looked irritated.

‘If you are humble and tell him you are sorry then he will let you come back this evening and have dinner with us. Tell him he is more than welcome to join us if he so wishes.’

And so it was done. Emilie Devereau was despatched to the care of her uncle, and within an hour she called the hotel room to say that her uncle wished to speak with me. I introduced myself, told him that I was here in New Orleans for the Mardi Gras with my son, and that his niece would be more than welcome to have dinner with us that evening. He seemed satisfied that it had not been some fabrication by Emilie to rid herself of her uncle for another evening. He apologized for being unable to join us but allowed that Emilie should come. Would I take care to see she was returned safely no later than eleven? I gave my word and the call ended.

Emilie came. We spent some hours together, the three of us, and it seemed for all the world that here were two young people, one of them my son, attracted to one another, enjoying each other’s company, and perhaps, just perhaps, on the verge of falling in love. In Victor I saw myself, in Emilie I saw Angelina, and I vowed that I would do all I could to ensure this thing was preserved as long as it possessed a life of its own.

Emilie was in New Orleans another week. We saw her much of every day, and on two occasions I went with Victor to the Toulouse to collect her. There I met Uncle David, a remarkably serious man, and though he presented no opposition to his niece visiting with us I sensed an air of suspicion. I gave it no credence. It seemed to me that some people were born with such a slanted view of the world, and they were more than welcome to their fears and anxieties. Emilie was in no danger, for through her my son had found the greatest happiness I had witnessed, and for this I would be eternally grateful.

They stayed in touch once she returned home. He wrote often and she replied. On several occasions they spoke on the phone, and an arrangement was made for Emilie to visit once again nearer Christmas.

I rented a house on the western outskirts of New Orleans. I went about my days with nothing to concern me, and for some months it seemed sufficient that this was my life. Victor attended to the latter part of his schooling and enrolled at a college to study architecture. I supported him wholeheartedly, and he learned quickly and well.

Time unfolded quietly and without incident until the early part of 2001. It was then that I became aware of something that served to draw me back to my former life.

I was alone one afternoon. It was the second or third week of January. Victor was at college and I was eating lunch in a small restaurant. I had paid no particular mind to the people sitting at the adjacent table, but when I heard a name mentioned my attention was snapped towards them.

‘Of course Ducane will shake things up. He’s never been one to let these things go too easily-’