Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

“I wish you everything, Gilly,” he said. “I wish you everything in the world.”

He kissed her once more, gently, and then dressed and quickly left the room and the stranger on the bed.

The office was in an old Roman building, solid with the dignity of time. He located the lawyer’s name on a brass plaque set into one of the building’s entrance columns and then walked upstairs to the second floor. A blond Italian girl was sitting behind a desk in the small reception room. He told her who he was, and she went into Fabrizzi’s office, returned a moment later, and motioned for David to follow her.

Fabrizzi was standing behind his cluttered desk, a man in his sixties with a full head of shocking black hair, and piercing brown eyes, and a large hooked nose. A thin, angular man, he extended a large hand and pumped David’s hand energetically and said in good English, “Sit down, Mr. Regan. I’m sorry I was away, but the heat...” He shrugged philosophically. “This rain is welcome,” he said. “Rome is only for animals in the summer.”

He smiled as David sat. Watching him, David became suddenly nervous and frightened, nervous because he knew immediately he had been wrong about Fabrizzi, frightened because he knew Fabrizzi would tell him what he wanted to know. He sensed this in the man’s cordial welcome and easy attitude, and he wondered all at once if he really wanted to know at all.

“Do you know why I’m here, Mr. Fabrizzi?” he asked.

“I think so, yes,” Fabrizzi answered, nodding.

“I want to find out about my mother’s will,” David said. He spoke very softly and very slowly.

“That is understandable,” Fabrizzi answered, speaking softly and slowly in return.

He felt suddenly that he knew Fabrizzi very well, felt as if this were an old friend he had come to for advice, a friend with whom he could speak without caution, completely relaxed.

“My mother left half her estate to you in trust, Mr. Fabrizzi,” David said. He hesitated a moment. “The will mentions a separate agreement, an agreement that specifies how the trust is to be handled. Are you familiar with this agreement, Mr. Fabrizzi?”

“I am.”

“And you know, of course, that my mother died last month.”

“Yes. Please accept my deepest sympathies, Mr. Regan. She was a fine and noble woman.”

“You knew her?” David asked, surprised.

“No, not personally. But I have had dealings with her for a great many years. Through her attorney, of course, Mr. Tulley.”

“What sort of dealings?” David asked.

Fabrizzi smiled. “The payments. The checks she sent every month.”

“What payments?”

“Your mother sent a hundred and fifty dollars to me every month,” Fabrizzi said.

“Why?”

“I want to know, Mr. Regan, what you intend to do with whatever knowledge you receive from me. I want to know whether or not you plan to contest your mother’s will.”

“Well, I...”

“Because if you do, Mr. Regan, our conversation is ended, and there is nothing more to be said.”

“I came to Rome because—”

“Yes, I know why you came to Rome. Mr. Tulley called me before you arrived and said I should be expecting you. We had a long talk, he and I, debating the advisability of letting you know anything more than you already know. The will is legal, and so is the accompanying document. We’re not worried about the will surviving the test of legality. But your mother went through a great deal of trouble to—”

“Is that why you went out of town? Because Tulley warned you I was coming?”

“No, no, believe me.” Fabrizzi smiled. “My wife can’t abide heat. I went to the mountains with her and my son and his family. No, believe me, I was not trying to avoid you. But you haven’t answered my question.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do,” David said. “I just want to know what this is all about. I have a right to know! I’m her son! ”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Will you tell me?”

“If that will be the end of it. If then you will let it drop, why yes, then I will tell you.”

“I can’t promise you that.”

“Then I’m afraid we have nothing to say to each other, Mr. Regan.”

“Look, you don’t understand. I—”

“I do understand, Mr. Regan. Those are my terms.”

David sat still and silent for a long time. Then he nodded and said, “All right.”

“This is the end? I have your promise? There will be nothing further said or done?”

“Nothing. You have my word.”

“There is a girl, Mr. Regan,” Fabrizzi said.

“What?” He stared at Fabrizzi, who stood before the rain-streaked window. “What do you mean?”

“A girl,” Fabrizzi repeated, “a girl born in Rome on July 26, 1939.”

“Well, what about her? How...?”

“The girl’s name is Bianca Cristo.”

“What’s she got to do with—”

“She is your mother’s daughter,” Fabrizzi said.

He tried to understand what Fabrizzi was saying, but everything seemed confused and impossible all at once. My mother’s daughter, he thought. Bianca Cristo, he thought.

“She was born to your mother and a man named Renato Cristo in a room off the Via Arenula. Cristo’s sister, a woman named Francesca, served as midwife. Cristo was a soldier. He had been a farmer before he went into the army, but he died as a soldier in 1943 when the child was four years old. She was living with Francesca at the time. She is still living with her, though of course she is no longer a child.”

“Are you saying my mother—?”

“Yes, I am saying your mother gave birth to a daughter in Rome in 1939, that is what I am saying. I am saying she began sending monthly checks to me for Bianca’s support in 1943 when Renato was killed. I am saying that half of your mother’s estate is being held in trust by me for Bianca Cristo until the time she is twenty-one years old, which will be on the twenty-sixth of this month, that is what I am saying to you, Mr. Regan.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Ahh, believe me, Mr. Regan.”

“No! My mother—”

“Believe me.”

“Why would she leave half to... to a... a girl who... who...?”

“Her daughter,” Fabrizzi said.

“No! What the hell are you telling me? You’re telling me my mother and an Italian soldier—”

“Would you like to see a copy of the agreement, Mr. Regan?” Fabrizzi asked.

The office was silent except for the sound of the rain outside.

“Yes,” David said, “I’d like to see it.”

He left the office with nothing but anger inside him.

Now he knew. Now he knew what he had come to Rome to discover, now he knew what his mother was, now he understood everything, the long delay in 1939 while his father wrote frantic letters to her, now he understood, now he knew that his mother was nothing but a slut who produced a bastard child in Rome, that was his mother, that was Julia Regan, his mother, now he knew. And knew, too, why his father had died that day on the lake, and hated this woman who had returned from Rome, this woman who had dropped a bastard sister in a grubby room off the Via Arenula while her lover, a farmer, a soldier, a cheap...

Oh God, he thought.

Oh my God, I wish I didn’t know.

Anger and hatred, anger and hatred, repeated in each sloshing stamp of his feet against the wet cobbles. This was where it had gone, oh yes, this was where the love had gone, first to a soldier, and then to a daughter, and nothing was left for the son in Talmadge, nothing but a whore mother who planned on her return, Every year since the end of the war, I’ve made plans to go back to Italy , nothing but a whore who play-acted the part of mother, there was no thunderclap.