Authors: Roberta Latow
‘And there have been many.’
‘Yes, very many. I have always lusted after women. My libido demands it.’
‘And you always will.’
‘You know me too well. Well enough to deal with that?’
‘I don’t have to, darling.’ She kissed him on his chin, at the corner of his lips and slid the tip of her tongue between his and licked his mouth, under the cover of dim light and with other people dancing near them on the small dance-floor. She felt him tremble under her sensual advances. He stopped dancing, slipped his hand from her naked back where he had been holding her to caress her breasts briefly before walking her from the dance-floor to their table.
Their closeness overwhelmed them. They sat at the table listening to Eddie Duchin at the piano playing Cole Porter, Mabel Mercer singing romantic songs that put a catch in the throat. They hardly spoke except with their eyes, the warmth of their bodies, caresses. They knew how to excite each other in the most intimate way without being crass.
Barbara had no idea when it happened, the realisation that they were still so very hungry for each other. That neither of them had been sated by their extravagant, very much out of control sexual encounter that afternoon. That that side of their nature had taken over. Their lusty feelings were not making a sham of their evening. That had been wonderful, equally exciting in its own, clearly romantic way. They had shared the evening, but it was growing dim in the light of another kind of need: the impulse to be more sexual, more intimate with each other.
He called for the bill. She could feel the onset of an intense sexual tension between them. It was thrilling, so acute that she was trembling long before they reached the door to his suite. She tried to suppress her restless sexual hunger for him. It was that same hunger she had experienced in front of the Venetian mirror in her bedroom that afternoon. Barbara was just a little frightened that her libido should take over her life. She had never till that moment realized how compelling her sexual drives were. Always she had thought that it was her lovers who were more powerfully sexual than herself. She saw it all so clearly
now. That had not been the truth of it.
They entered his suite of rooms and Barbara was aware that Karel’s own voracious libido, his passion for sex and love for women, an innate male sureness of his sexuality, triggered in her those very same things. He, as the supreme sexual adventurer, a libertine, gave Barbara sexual freedom to be those things herself. Only with Karel did she willingly relinquish her heart and soul to Eros. It seemed natural with him to abandon herself to sex beyond the control of either, to go as far as they could together in search of sexual oblivion.
She turned around to face him. He was still standing by the door watching her. He was aware of that. She divined it in his look. He knew exactly where they were with each other. It was no small thing, what they had together. It made her heart race. She bit her lower lip to remain silent, to hold back. They gazed into each other’s eyes. There it was – lust. His every movement was a sensual tease, a sexual taunt, a subtle priming of her. She was stunned into standing rigidly still, like a fallow deer caught in a car’s bright headlight. Just waiting for his move on her.
She saw him remove the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign. It needed to be on the outside now. She watched him close the door and actually jumped, she was so tense, when he double-locked the door. He walked towards her, removing his jacket and dropping it on the sofa. She kept her distance by continually backing away from him. He pulled on the black silk bow-tie, loosened it and left it hanging around his neck. He removed the sapphire studs from a plain, Egyptian cotton dress shirt and dropped them into an empty ashtray. She was riveted by his every movement, but continued to back away from him. She imagined she could feel the heat of his ardour. He all but tore his shirt from his body, so ready was he to be naked for her. She watched him step out of his shoes, raise his feet one at a time to peel off his socks.
He held her enthralled. He was stalking her, was going to
take her as she had never been taken by any other man. The way he always took her, abandoning the norm for anything that excited their sexuality. He removed the remainder of his clothes. Breathless with desire for him, still she backed away. It was very nearly a shout when she called out, desperation in her voice, ‘I’m afraid.’
He looked up at her and laughed, ‘Never.’
‘Yes,’ she told him.
‘Of me?’ He seemed merely amused, a smile lingering on his lips.
‘No, not afraid of you. Afraid of me. How you affect me.’
‘And me? What about me?’ he asked as he walked up to her. There was no more backing away from him. She had come up against the wall. He grabbed her tightly. ‘This was not in my plan. You have to know that. You have to know that I never planned what is happening to us. You have to believe that.’
She could think of nothing, believe nothing, because after he spoke he placed a long, passionate and hungry kiss upon her lips. Then he swept her up in his arms and conveyed her towards the bedroom. Violently, he kicked the doors open and carried her to the bed.
The two men stood opposite each other. For several seconds they said nothing. Finally, ‘It’s been a long time, Karel.’
‘Long and tough, David.’
They shook hands. David Rawlings Peabody and Count Karel Stefanik brought the formalities to an end with an emotional hug. They stepped back and took stock of each other. Maybe the years had not done too badly by them. Again a firm handshake. Karel told the banker, ‘There was never a time, David, that I didn’t think we would meet again. I always believed the day would come for me to claim Mimi and begin a new life for us both. More modest than I had hoped for, I’m afraid, but a life nevertheless.’
‘Not so modest, Karel. You’ve done very well with us here at the bank. They have at least been financially prosperous years for you on this side of the Atlantic. Your buildings are safe and secure. They generate a more than reasonable income. The bank followed your instructions. We invested a third of the income in blue-chip Stocks. You will be amazed how they have soared. Your money has been achieving compound interest for years. Some would consider it a modest fortune. Something substantial, anyway, to begin again with. How have things been in Czechoslovakia?’
‘From a business point of view, disastrous. Financially, I’m wiped out.’
‘The lot?’
‘The lot. And some.’
‘Are the properties still there, intact?’
‘There, yes. Some intact, others needing fortunes to repair them. I still hold the deeds to my property, but that doesn’t give me possession of my estates. The Germans occupied the palace in Prague and shipped most of its contents to Germany. The Russians helped themselves to what was left. All they could find, that is. And my own countrymen claim they have no idea what has happened to the rest of the family’s possessions. I have heard appalling things from long-time faithful servants and farm workers. Until the country finds its feet again, men like me are going to be heroes to some, villains to others. Depends how they stand politically. I am not happy with the way things are going in my country. One day I’ll go back, when it’s the sort of democracy that will hand me back what’s mine, gratefully, out of a sense of respect for a man’s rights. Till then, I see communism and Russia looming over our future. It’s no place for Mimi and me to try to catch up with those horrible lost years. I’m leaving Czechoslovakia behind for a while. I’m going to try to put my family together again.’
The charm, the intelligence, the good looks, the basic belief in man’s right to live and be free, seemed still intact. But, for a few seconds, David saw something that had not been there before. Karel Stefanik was a deeply disillusioned man. He simply covered it up rather better than most. Others tended to carry their disillusionment like a cross on their back for all to see and weep over.
Several men were brought into David Peabody’s office. They presented Karel with a detailed report of his assets. He was surprised when David estimated the value of Karel’s holdings assigned to Mimi at $1,650,000. It was beyond anything he could possibly have hoped for. So quickly and so recklessly had he moved to get money over to America in those few months before Hitler made Czechoslovakia a German protectorate, he had actually forgotten how well he had done. He tended never to look
over his shoulder at what he had been through: the pain was always too sharp to live with. He had done what he had to for himself and Mimi to stay alive. It seemed to him a miracle that he had done so well under such horrendous circumstances. Others had fared catastrophically.
Once they had dealt with their business Karel relaxed back in the chair and lit a cigar. ‘And now I have everything: all the pieces put together to give me and my family a secure home.’
‘Will you remain here, then?’
‘Oh, yes. That’s why I wasn’t in touch sooner. I had to make sure that, when I did find Mimi, I had everything in place for us to become a family. Thank God for the day you and I met in Paris before the war, David. A long time ago now. What were you then? A very unsophisticated New York trainee-banker on a two-year stint at the family bank in the Place Vendôme. I don’t know where I would be without the advice and care you and the bank have given my finances since. Not to mention the security I have had about Mimi all these years knowing that if she, Mashinka or Tatayana needed anything you would have handled it for them. Tomorrow I will go to Chicopee Falls for Mimi. The address, David?’
‘I never had an address.’
‘What?’
‘They never sent an address.’
‘They never asked you for further funds? How did they live? By God, I owe that fellow a lot, that brother of Mashinka’s, if he has supported them all these years.’
Karel stood up abruptly. ‘If you have no address how am I going to find them?’
‘Mimi’s not in that place, Chicopee Falls. She’s here in New York, Karel.’
He sat down again. He seemed calm and unemotional about it. ‘You’d better explain.’
‘I never heard anything from them. And then, four years
ago, Mimi arrived. She was holding a red envelope which she claimed you had given her for an emergency. She was with an FBI man. They had had a terrible time with her. They had almost to force the child to accept that the time had come for her to open the envelope. Then an even more difficult time getting her to come here to the bank and hand over the envelope for safe keeping.’
‘I don’t understand. How did the FBI get involved with Mimi?’
‘A coincidence. They were protecting an exiled European royal family. From what I understand, Mimi was a house guest. They helped her at the Queen’s request.’
They were interrupted by a knock at the door. The safe-deposit box was brought in. David Peabody felt relieved by the interruption. He did, however, advise Karel, ‘I’m Mimi’s guardian. Made so by default, so to speak, but a guardian only until your return. Please don’t press on about this until you have seen, and spoken to Mimi. I would prefer it that way, Karel.’
He hesitated. None of this was as he had expected. But, as David Peabody suggested, he dropped the subject. The safe-deposit box was opened. The contents of the red leather envelope were handed over to him. He opened first the slim tin box. The jewels sparkled in the light on the desk. He opened the drawstring pouches and spilled their contents out on to the desk. It was all there. All that was left of four centuries of one of the finest collections of jewels in Europe.
He made no comment about the jewels. It seemed to the men in the room that it took him some time to collect himself. Seeing them again overwhelmed him. He asked for them to be replaced in the safe-deposit box. He stood up.
‘Where is Mimi, David?’
‘At half-past three this afternoon she’ll be skating with my daughter in Rockefeller Center. Karel, she doesn’t know that we were friends, even that I know your real
name. When she speaks about you, she refers to you as “my father, Mr Kowalski”. It was a matter of confidences, you understand. Both the child’s, to keep yours, and mine, to keep both of yours. And, of course, it seemed a better idea for your safety as well as Mimi’s.’
‘It seems as if I have asked a great deal of a casual friend. I will always be in your debt for this, David. I’ll not press you, but I don’t understand any of this. I assumed they were safe and happy in Massachusetts, not living in New York.’
‘There is no “they” any more. But Mimi should tell you all about that, not me. I know hardly anything about it. She came to us a very secretive child, about you, and about her past. She confides in no one on all that, Karel. When you see her, how happy and well she is, what a good life and a good time she is having, you will understand why we never pressed her about her life before she arrived at Beechtrees to stay with that royal family. She is a quite remarkable and lovely child, you will be proud of her. She is the only one who will be able to tell you about her life. All that matters is that you did the best for her, and you will see she is really well, really happy. I promise you she is. There has only been one thing for Mimi: the day her father would come for her. That’s what she lives for, and now you’re here.’
For Mimi the day was like any other day. She had no premonition that her life was about to be turned upside down yet again. She awoke at five in the morning as she always did, and sat with Sophia in the kitchen drinking hot cherry tea, a habit the cook and the child had never been able to break since they left Beechtrees. They talked about their plans for the day and then Mimi went back to bed for an hour. There Sophia brought her breakfast: poached eggs on toasted brioche, and slivers of baked ham, hot milk lightly flavoured with coffee and a hint of cinnamon.
Mimi bathed, dressed in her school uniform and gathered
up her books. With Sophia she waited in front of the building for the school bus to come by and pick her up. She talked to the doorman, Morris, and greeted people she knew from the building rushing through the entrance doors to get to work. She petted Mrs Schermerhorn’s three poodles, out for their morning walk with her maid Ruby, just as they were every morning. Then the school bus arrived, honking its horn and bearing her classmates, who were waving to her and Sophia, eager to see if the cook had a box of her bite-size buttery filo pastry apple pies for them, which she did. The door hissed open and Mimi climbed aboard. Only just in time did she pop her head out to remind Sophia to meet her at Rockefeller Center with her skates at 3.30 before the door hissed shut again. She passed the box to Debbie in the first seat and made her way to the rear of the bus where she always sat. She waved until Sophia was out of sight and continued chattering with her school friends until they poured out of the bus in front of the Upper East Side school just off Fifth Avenue.
At 2.30 she hurried with her best friend, Penny Peabody, to the Peabodys’ Eastside mansion. They changed their school uniforms for skating costumes, and the Peabody nanny and the two girls were driven by the family chauffeur to the Rockefeller Center. There she met Sophia, who gave her her skates and fussed over her. Nothing out of order there. Sophia would have afternoon coffee with the Peabody nanny in the glass-fronted restaurant and complain about the pastries while watching Mimi and Penny skate. Then they would all go home to Central Park West. Here Sophia would give them hot chocolate and petits fours. Sophia looked forward to these Wednesdays, and Mimi sensed nothing different about today from any other day.
David Peabody and Karel Stefanik stood above the rink watching the skaters go round and round to the music. David turned to him. ‘Do you know how you are going to handle this, Karel?’
‘No, I have no idea.’
David Peabody was uncertain. Had it been a good idea taking Karel to see Mimi at the skating rink? He felt concern for them, yes, but also anxiety about father and daughter. What effect might their reunion have upon each of them? It was too fraught with emotional danger. Something the New York Peabodys steered well clear of. There was not going to be an easy way for father and daughter to come together: anyone who knew Mimi’s and Karel’s story, or even a fragment of it, was aware of that. David looked at Karel. He actually studied him for several seconds and concluded that, if anyone was going to be able to handle such a moment, Karel and Mimi were.
Satisfied he was right, David finally gave in. ‘Over there.’ His heart ached for his courageous, heroic friend. He felt Karel’s pain at having watched his own daughter for fifteen minutes and been unable to recognize her. Still Karel could not pick out his daughter from the crowd of young, pretty girls circling the rink. David touched his arm. ‘Karel, over there. The beautiful girl – she’s laughing. With blonde hair. The girl with the soft white beret and the white velvet skating-outfit with gold buttons. She is wearing white fur mittens, her hands chap very easily.’ And David felt embarrassed for having told him such an intimate detail about his daughter. How indiscreet. He sounded more like a father to Mimi.
‘Mimi! God, it’s Mimi. I was looking for her as she was, how stupid of me. She’s beautiful, so grown up.’
He started walking round the rink not taking his eyes from his daughter. David followed close behind. He descended the stairs to get closer to her. And the nearer the two men approached the rink, the faster Karel walked. Now he was practically running. David tried to hold him back. ‘Easy, easy, Karel.’
They were almost at the rails, and the two girls were on the opposite side of the rink, laughing as they practised
their figures of eight. When they had had enough of that, they linked arms and skated gracefully together, picking up speed as they went, faster, faster, until they were whizzing along at a quite dizzying speed. Then they broke from the skaters all moving in the same direction around the rink and skated into the centre, which was almost devoid of people. There they practised their ice-dancing. They laughed at two boys who were showing off, collided and went down in a crash on the ice. Someone bumped into David’s daughter and she lost her balance and went down too.
While Mimi was helping her up, the two girls spotted David Peabody and began to wave. Mimi caught sight of Karel at once. She caught her breath. She had recognized him. Her eyes widened, and her heart beat with a happiness hitherto unknown in her young life. No trauma, no shock: pure happiness. It was her father. She forgot her friend and skated straight for Karel. She was frantic to break through the ten-deep ring of people circling in a solid mass around the rink. She must get to the railings. She tried one place and then another. He smiled and waved. He was thrilled: she knew him still. He broke into a run, rounding the rim of the rink, trying to get to her. He began to cry, pulled the scarf from around his neck. He was waving it at her and calling, ‘Mimi, Mimi.’ The wind ruffled his hair and he was laughing. He wanted her to see him, to know for sure it was him. They arrived at the rail together and banged into each other in an enormous hug. They drew away and she slipped under the rail and into his arms. He picked her up, and kissed her all over her face. He took off her hat, caressed her hair and kissed and hugged her. He tried, but it was impossible for him to stop crying. ‘Mimi,’ he kept repeating.