The following evening, back at Lark House, while Jacques was enjoying his ritual martini, Irina, her eyes red rimmed and with dark circles beneath them from lack of sleep, went to find Lupita to confide the mess she was in.
“There’s nothing new about that, child. We’re always discovering the residents in someone else’s bed. And not just the grandpas; the old women too. With so few men around, they have to make do with whatever they can find. Everybody needs company.”
“With Mr. Devine it’s platonic love, Lupita.”
“I have no idea what that is, but if it’s what I think, then don’t you believe it. Frenchie has a penis implant, a plastic sausage that inflates with a pump hidden between his balls.”
“What on earth are you saying, Lupita?” said Irina, laughing out loud.
“You heard me. I swear it’s true. I haven’t seen it, but Frenchie demonstrated how it works to Jean Daniel. It’s amazing.”
The good woman told Irina what she had observed during the many years she had worked at Lark House: that in itself age doesn’t make anyone better or wiser, but only accentuates what they have always been.
“A person who is tightfisted won’t become generous with age, Irina; they only become more miserly. I’m sure Devine was a rake, and that’s why he’s a dirty old man now.”
Since she could not return the scarab brooch to her suitor, Irina took it to Hans Voigt. The director told her it was strictly forbidden to accept tips and gifts. This rule did not apply to the possessions Lark House received from dying residents, or to the donations accepted under the counter so as to allow a family member to jump the queue, but these matters were not discussed. The director took the hideous topaz insect, promising to return it to its rightful owner. In the meantime he would keep it in a drawer in his office.
A week later, Jacques presented Irina with a hundred and sixty dollars in twenty-dollar bills. This time she went straight to Lupita, who was in favor of simple solutions: she restored it to the cigar box where the beau kept his cash, certain he wouldn’t remember having taken the money out or how much was in there. This allowed Irina to solve the problem of his tips, but she could not prevent Jacques sending her passionate love letters, inviting her to dine in expensive restaurants, or using a string of pretexts to summon her to his room, where he boasted about conquests that had never happened, and finally proposed marriage. Normally so skilled in the arts of seduction, Frenchie had lapsed back into a painful adolescent bashfulness, so that instead of making his declaration in person, he gave her a perfectly comprehensible letter, written on his computer. The envelope contained two pages full of circumlocutions, metaphors, and repetitions, which all amounted to: Irina had restored his energy and his will to live; he could offer her a wonderful lifestyle, in Florida for example, where the sun was always warm; and that when she became a widow she would have no money problems. Whichever way she looked at it, he wrote, it would be to her advantage, especially since the difference in their ages was so much in her favor. His signature looked like a scrawl made by mosquitoes. Fearing she would be sacked, Irina did not tell Voigt. Nor did she reply to the letter, hoping that it would soon slip her suitor’s mind, but for once Jacques’s short-term memory did not fail him. Rejuvenated by passion, he kept sending her increasingly urgent missives, while she did her best to avoid him, and prayed to Saint Parascheva for the old man to turn his attention to the dozen or so octogenarian women chasing him.
The situation grew so tense it would have been impossible to hide, had an unexpected event not put an end both to Jacques and with him to Irina’s dilemma. That week Frenchie had left Lark House twice in a taxi. This was very unusual for him, as he used to become very confused out in the street. One of Irina’s duties was to accompany him, but on these occasions he sneaked out without saying a word about what he was doing. The second trip must have exhausted him, because when he returned to the home he was so lost and frail that the taxi driver almost had to carry him out and hand him over to the receptionist like a package.
“Whatever happened to Mr. Devine?” she asked.
“I don’t know, I wasn’t there,” came the reply.
After checking him and finding that his blood pressure was within normal limits, the duty doctor advised there was no point sending him back to the hospital, but recommended bed rest for a couple of days. However, he also told Hans Voigt that Jacques Devine was no longer in a fit mental state to remain on the second level. The time had come to transfer him to the third, where he would receive twenty-four-hour care. The next day, the director was gearing himself up to tell the old man of the change, something that always left a bitter taste in his mouth, as everyone knew that the third level was the waiting room for Paradise, from which there was no return. He was interrupted by a grief-stricken Jean Daniel, who informed him that when he went to help him get dressed he had found Jacques’s body stiff and cold on the floor. The doctor suggested an autopsy, because when he had examined him the previous day there had been nothing to suggest such a dramatic outcome, but Voigt was against the idea. Why arouse suspicions over something as natural as the death of a ninety-year-old man? An autopsy could sully Lark House’s impeccable reputation. When she heard the news, Irina could not help weeping, because in spite of herself she had come to feel affection for her pathetic Romeo. At the same time, she felt both a sense of relief that she was free of him, and shame at feeling so relieved.
* * *
Frenchie’s death united the club of his admirers in an outpouring of widows’ mourning, but they were robbed of the comfort of planning a memorial service, because his family members opted for a quick cremation. He would have soon been forgotten, even by his admirers, had his family not raised a storm. Shortly after his ashes were scattered without any great show of emotion, the would-be heirs learned that all the old man’s possessions had been bequeathed to a certain Irina Bazili. According to the brief codicil attached to the will, Irina had brought tenderness to the final days of his long life, and therefore deserved the inheritance. Jacques’s lawyer explained that his client had dictated the changes by telephone, and then had come to his office on two occasions, the first to check the documents, the second to sign them and have them notarized. He had seemed quite clear about what he was doing. His descendants accused the Lark House administration of negligence regarding the old man’s state of mind, and Irina Bazili, whoever she was, of willfully stealing from him. They announced their intention to contest the will, to sue the lawyer for incompetence and Lark House for damages and compensation. Hans Voigt received the horde of frustrated relatives with the outward calm and courtesy he had acquired over many years of being in charge of the institution, yet inside he was fuming. He had not expected such treachery from Irina Bazili, whom he had thought incapable of hurting a fly, but you never learn, you can never trust anyone. He took the lawyer aside and asked how much money was involved: it turned out to be a few parcels of desert in New Mexico, as well as some stocks and shares whose value had yet to be assessed. The amount of available cash was insignificant.
The director asked for twenty-four hours to find a less costly solution than going to court and summoned Irina to his office at once. He had intended to treat the matter with kid gloves, as there was no point making an enemy of this vixen, but as soon as she came in, he lost control.
“I want to know how on earth you managed to bamboozle the old man like that,” he accused her.
“Who do you mean, Mr. Voigt?”
“Who do I mean? Frenchie, of course. How could this have happened right under my nose?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mention it because I thought the problem would sort itself out.”
“Oh boy, it did sort itself out, didn’t it? How am I going to explain it to his family?”
“They don’t need to know, Mr. Voigt. You know very well that old people fall in love, even if it shocks people outside.”
“Did you sleep with Devine?”
“No! How could you suggest
that!”
“Then I don’t understand. Why did he name you as his sole heir?”
“What?”
To his astonishment, Voigt realized that Irina had no idea what Frenchie was planning to do, and was more surprised than anyone at the contents of the will. He was about to warn her she would find it extremely difficult to lay her hands on any of it, because his legitimate heirs would fight down to the last cent, when she announced point-blank that she didn’t want a thing, because they would be ill-gotten gains and would be bound to bring her misfortune. Everybody at Lark House knew Jacques was not in his right mind, and so it would be best to sort things out quietly: surely a diagnosis of senile dementia from the doctor would be enough. Irina had to repeat this twice before the dumbfounded director could take it in.
Their attempts to keep the situation quiet soon came to naught. Everybody in Lark House heard about it, and Irina became an overnight sensation, admired by the residents but criticized by the Latino and Haitian staff, for whom it was a sin to refuse money. “Don’t spit into the sky, it’ll only fall on your face,” Lupita warned her. Irina couldn’t figure out how to translate such a cryptic proverb into her native Romanian. Impressed by the lack of self-interest of this humble immigrant from a country hard to find on a map, Voigt offered her a full-time contract with a higher salary. He also convinced Jacques’s descendants to give Irina two thousand dollars as a token of their gratitude. In the end, she never received the promised reward, but as she could not even imagine such a large sum, she soon forgot about it.
ALMA BELASCO
The intrigue and commotion surrounding Jacques Devine’s inheritance brought Irina to the attention of Alma Belasco, and once all the fuss had died down, she asked to see the young woman. She received Irina in her spartan apartment, seated with imperial dignity in a small apricot-colored armchair, with Neko, her tabby cat, curled in her lap.
“I need a secretary. I want you to work for me,” she announced.
This was not so much an offer as an order. Since Alma barely acknowledged her whenever they passed by each other in the corridor, Irina was completely taken aback. Besides, half the residents lived modestly on their pensions, occasionally augmented thanks to help from their families, and had to strictly make do with the services provided, because even an extra meal could ruin their meager budgets. None of them could afford the luxury of a personal assistant. The specter of poverty, like that of loneliness, always hovered around them. So Irina explained that she had little free time, because after finishing her day at Lark House, she worked in a café and also went to people’s houses to wash and groom their pet dogs.
“How does this dog thing work?” asked Alma.
“I’ve got a partner. His name is Tim. He works at the same café as me. He’s also a neighbor in Berkeley. He owns a van equipped with two tubs and a long hosepipe; we go to the houses where the dogs live—I mean where the dogs’ owners live; we connect the hose and wash the clients—I mean the dogs—in the yard or out on the street. We also clean their ears and trim their nails.”
“The dogs’ nails?” asked Alma, hiding her smile.
“Yes.”
“How much do you earn an hour?”
“Nine dollars in the café, and twenty-five per dog, but I split that with Tim, so I get twelve and a half dollars.”
“I’ll take you on trial at thirteen dollars an hour, for three months. If I like the way you work, I’ll raise it to fifteen. You are to work for me in the evenings, as soon as you finish your duties at Lark House, two hours a day to start with. The hours can be flexible, depending on my needs and your availability. Do we have a deal?”
“I could quit the café, Mrs. Belasco, but I can’t leave the dogs. They already know me and are expecting me.”
This was how things were left, and how a business relationship that was soon to become a friendship began.
During the first few weeks in her new job, Irina went around on tiptoe and was often at a loss, because Alma Belasco turned out to be bossy and demanding about details but vague about instructions. Soon, however, Irina lost her fear and became as indispensable to Alma as she was to Lark House in general. Irina observed Alma with the fascination of a zoologist, as if she were some kind of immortal salamander. This woman was unlike anyone she had ever known, and very different from the old people on the second and third levels. Jealous of her independence, she was not in the least sentimental or attached to material possessions, and seemed aloof toward everyone but her grandson, Seth. She appeared so self-assured that she did not look for support either from God or in the sickly-sweet religiosity of some of the Lark House residents, who flaunted their spirituality and went around preaching ways of reaching a higher state of awareness. Alma had her feet firmly on the ground. Irina assumed her haughty attitude was a defense against other people’s curiosity, and her simplicity a kind of elegance that few women could copy without appearing to have let themselves go. She wore her white, wiry hair short, and combed it through with her fingers. Her sole concessions to vanity were bright red lipstick, and a masculine fragrance of bergamot and orange blossom; wherever she went, its fresh smell covered the faint odor of disinfectant, old age, and—occasionally—marijuana that was typical of Lark House. She had a prominent nose, a proud mouth, big bones, and hands worn rough by hard work; brown eyes with heavy, dark eyebrows and violet rings beneath them gave her the look of a night owl, which even the black-framed glasses she wore failed to disguise. Her enigmatic demeanor created a sense of distance: none of the staff addressed her in the patronizing way they did the other residents, and none could boast that they really knew her, at least not until Irina Bazili managed to penetrate her private fortress.
Alma lived with her cat in one of the independent apartments, with a minimum of furniture and personal belongings. She drove around in a tiny car, completely ignoring all traffic regulations, which she chose to regard as optional. One of Irina’s duties was to pay the parking fines that regularly arrived. Alma’s upbringing meant that she was polite, but the only friends she had made at Lark House were Victor, the gardener, with whom she spent many long hours working on the raised beds where they planted vegetables and flowers, and Dr. Catherine Hope, against whom all resistance failed. Alma rented a studio in a warehouse space divided by wooden partitions that she shared with other artisans. She continued with her silk-screening, as she had done for sixty years, although she no longer sought artistic inspiration in her work, but simply to avoid dying of boredom before her time. She spent several hours a week there, assisted by Kirsten, who despite her Down syndrome was able to fulfill all her tasks. Kirsten knew the color combinations and tools that Alma used. She prepared the fabrics, kept the studio neat and tidy, and cleaned the brushes. The two women worked harmoniously together, without the need for words, intuiting each other’s intentions. When Alma’s hands began to shake and she could no longer grip a brush, she hired a couple of students to copy onto silk the designs she drew on paper, while her faithful helper watched them as keenly as a prison guard. Kirsten was the only person who allowed herself to greet Alma with a hug, or to interrupt her with wet kisses whenever she felt a sudden wave of tenderness.
Without ever seriously intending to, Alma had become famous for her original, brightly colored kimonos, tunics, kerchiefs, and scarves. She herself never wore them: she preferred black, white, or gray loose-fitting trousers and linen blouses that Lupita dismissed as the rags of a tramp, never once suspecting how much those rags cost. Alma’s silk screens were sold in art galleries at exorbitant prices to raise funds for the Belasco Foundation. Her collections were inspired by her journeys around the world—animals from the Serengeti National Park, Ottoman ceramics, Ethiopian lettering, Inca hieroglyphics, Greek bas-reliefs—which she quickly renewed as soon as her rivals began to copy them. She had refused to sell her brand or to work with fashion designers; each of her original creations was reproduced in a limited edition that she closely supervised and then signed. In her
heyday she’d had around fifty people working for her and had produced a considerable volume of work in a big industrial warehouse south of Market Street in San Francisco. Since she had no need to sell anything to earn her living, she had never advertised, but her name had become a watchword for exclusivity and excellence. When she turned seventy she decided to cut back on production, to the severe detriment of the Belasco Foundation, which had counted on this income.
Established in 1955 by her father-in-law, the legendary Isaac Belasco, the foundation created green spaces in at-risk neighborhoods. Although the goals of this initiative had primarily been aesthetic, ecological, and recreational, it also produced unexpected social benefits. Wherever a garden, park, or square sprang up, delinquency rates declined, as gang members and addicts who had been previously ready to kill each other for a packet of heroin or a few more inches of turf now found a common interest in looking after this corner of the city that belonged to them. In some they had painted murals, in others built sculptures and children’s playground equipment; in all of them, artists and musicians gathered to entertain the public. In every generation, the Belasco Foundation had been headed by the firstborn male member of the family. This tacit rule did not change with female liberation, because none of the daughters bothered to question it. One day the responsibility would fall on Seth, the founder’s great-grandson, who could not refuse it even though he had no wish whatsoever to receive such an honor.