“I have a remarkable memory,” he says. “I use mnemonic devices.”
Phoebe watches Jane and Ji-hoon walk away.
* * *
After Ji-hoon uses Jane’s bathroom, he takes his leave, bestowing upon her the parting gift of a recitation of “I Hear America Singing” by Walt Whitman. It’s a little weird, but by now Jane is beyond expecting anyone to be anything but weird. Ji-hoon holds her eyes for a moment, nods briskly, then goes.
Scratching her head, Jane goes back to her Aunt Magnolia Coat umbrella, filling her hands with metallic and iridescent fabrics, letting her work tug at her, and thinking things through. Espions sans frontières. Spies without borders. Jane is no expert on the world of espionage, but she’s pretty sure spies wouldn’t even exist if there weren’t any borders.
Maybe she heard Grace wrong.
Before too long, her stomach informs her it’s lunchtime. Jane has no idea if Tu Reviens has an official lunch hour and she decides it doesn’t matter. She’ll go to the kitchen and bring something back to her rooms. She’ll eat while she’s working.
“Hungry, Jasper?” she says to the bed as she walks through the bedroom. Jasper pushes an inquisitive nose out into the light and snorts. “I’m going to the kitchen, if you’re interested.”
He bolts out eagerly, sticking so close to her that Jane feels a bit unsafe on the stairs and holds hard to the banister. On the second-story landing he almost trips her. “Jasper! I need my feet to walk. I can’t walk when there’s a sixty-pound dog attached to them. I want your company, you banana-head, but we can’t actually occupy the same space, do you get that?”
He hops on his front legs once, in a manner heralding an ominous intention to charge. Jane’s instinct takes over and she legs it across the bridge. But he doesn’t charge. He stays there on the east landing, hopping around in front of that tall umbrella painting, howling delicately, like an opera singer holding herself back before the big climax.
“Fuzzball,” Jane calls across to him, “you fit right in with everyone else in this house.” Then she continues on into the west wing, because she’s just had a thought. If the Thrashes and guests are currently at lunch in the banquet hall, Jane wants nothing to do with it. If there’s a back entrance to the kitchen, it might be at the bottom of the staircase at the end of the west wing. She’ll try it.
She isn’t paying much attention to the art on the walls, until something familiar brings her up short. It’s Aunt Magnolia’s photograph, blown huge.
Backing away to get a better vantage point, Jane soaks it up.
A tiny yellow goby peeks out from inside the cavelike mouth of a big gray fish. Aunt Magnolia took this photo in the waters near Japan. Jane remembers. And she feels like the little fish right now, bright and determined, but not altogether safe.
Jane is so proud of Aunt Magnolia, she could burst.
Then her perspective shifts and she notices a bulge in the matting behind the photo, as if the matting is way too small for the print. She’ll have to mention it to Mrs. Vanders. A framing mistake like that will damage the print, and Aunt Magnolia’s work deserves better care.
* * *
Jane was right about the back entrance: At the bottom of the staircase is a big metal door that deposits her into the kitchen. The dumbwaiter and a pantry are to her right. Two huge appliances to the left, presumably a refrigerator and a freezer, block her view of the rest of the room. She eases around them, then stops.
Patrick and Mrs. Vanders stand near the stoves with their backs to Jane, blocking her view of the person they’re speaking to. But Jane recognizes the voice of Phoebe Okada.
“Yes,” says Phoebe. “I think he’s the one. He says he’s South Korean, but I don’t believe him.” Then Phoebe hands a distinctive black thing to Mrs. Vanders that Jane also recognizes: Ivy’s camera.
Mrs. Vanders peers down at the camera and says crisply, “Yes, I’ve wondered about him. Patrick, find out what Ivy’s learned.”
“Now,” says Phoebe, “what about my appointment?”
“Mr. Vanders is busy,” says Mrs. Vanders. “He’s digging holes.”
“I saw,” says Phoebe. “Why, exactly?”
“He’s pretending to garden,” says Mrs. Vanders.
“So, my appointment is canceled because Mr. Vanders is playing make-believe?” Phoebe says blandly.
“We got a tip that Grace might’ve buried it in the garden or the backyard,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Mr. Vanders is looking for it.”
A tip that Grace buried something? Jane saw Grace herself, digging holes in the rain. Jane mentioned it to Mr. Vanders this morning; she said to him, “I saw a little girl digging in the garden yesterday.” Then Mr. Vanders froze in astonishment. So is it Jane, then, who provided this “tip”? About what?
“You’re kidding,” says Phoebe.
“No,” says Mrs. Vanders dryly.
“She’s a clever pain in the ass, isn’t she?” says Phoebe. “How old is she, eight?”
“She’s taking years off my life,” says Patrick proudly.
“Regardless,” says Phoebe, “I scheduled this appointment weeks ago. I need to talk to Mr. Vanders.”
“There’s nothing we can do,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Someone needs to look for that sculpture. If we can’t put it back together, our contact isn’t going to help us move the children.”
“Well, you’ve made an inconvenient choice as to who’s the gardener.”
“Mr. Vanders is no happier about it than you are,” says Mrs. Vanders. “But he’s trying to approach the digging as a meditative activity. He would not otherwise have time to meditate on a day like today. Meditation improves his sessions.”
“Well, that’s no use to me if my sessions are canceled, is it?” says Phoebe.
“You could go dig with him.”
Phoebe makes a scoffing noise. “Sure. No one would think it was out of character with my snob persona if I dropped to my knees in the garden next to the butler and started digging. Why isn’t Patrick digging? Are you too pretty to dig, Patrick?”
“Patrick also has his hands full at the moment,” says Mrs. Vanders. “It’s the day before a gala, Phoebe. I appreciate your needs, but I’m certain you appreciate ours as well. Everyone at Espions Sans Frontières is making sacrifices. Cook has barely had time to touch his saxophone and my yoga has most certainly suffered.”
Then Mrs. Vanders shifts to one side and Phoebe and Jane are looking straight into each other’s faces.
Phoebe smiles, with a sincerity Jane’s never seen in her face before. “You keep popping up,” she says, “don’t you. You have a talent for sneaking.”
Patrick and Mrs. Vanders spin around. Their faces are unsurprised, unreadable.
“I’m not sneaking,” Jane says. “I wanted some food. So I came to the kitchen.”
Patrick glances at Mrs. Vanders, then walks toward Jane, past her, almost brushing against her. “You’ve got an awfully quiet tread,” he says, “for someone your size, and wearing those boots.”
“My aunt Magnolia taught me not to push myself onto any environment,” Jane says, earning a small chuckle from Phoebe.
“Tell me when Mr. Vanders is free, please, I beg you,” Phoebe says to Mrs. Vanders, then turns and exits through the kitchen’s main door. Patrick has also made his exit, through the back door.
Jane is alone with Mrs. Vanders. She lifts her chin and holds the housekeeper’s steely eyes. There’s no more point in pretending.
“I know Grace Panzavecchia is in this house,” says Jane. “I know she took the Brancusi sculpture. I know Phoebe and Philip Okada aren’t who they’re pretending to be, and neither are you.”
Mrs. Vanders stares at Jane, with a silence so obstinate that it’s somehow aggressive. “Tell me,” she says, “how do you feel about it?”
“What does it matter how
I feel?” cries Jane. “Is this a therapy session or something?”
Mrs. Vanders smiles, grimly. “It could be, if you wanted it. Mr. Vanders is a licensed psychologist, specializing in these things.”
“Specializing in what things? People who lie?”
“Specializing in the needs of political agents and government operatives,” says Mrs. Vanders.
“Oh, come on,” Jane spits out, truly at the end of her patience. “You’re all playacting some silly game.”
“Well, playacting is part of the job, it’s true,” says Mrs. Vanders with another grim smile. “Your aunt Magnolia was quite good at it.”
“Aunt Magnolia didn’t playact,” says Jane automatically.
“Your aunt is dead,” says Mrs. Vanders. “It’s time you knew who she really was. I’ve meant to get in touch with you for months now, but I guess I’ve had too much on my plate. Magnolia would be furious at the delay, rest her soul.”
Jane has this strange feeling, as if she’s in a car, careening in slow motion toward a tree. “Stop it.”
“The servants of Tu Reviens are a secret espionage-advocacy group,” says Mrs. Vanders. “We provide confidential, non-partisan services for agents, operatives, and assets of all political loyalties, mostly during this house’s seasonal galas. We’re called Espions Sans Frontières, Spies Without Borders. Your aunt Magnolia—”
“Stop it!” says Jane.
“Your aunt Magnolia was an operative for the American government.”
“She wasn’t,” says Jane. “She was an underwater photographer. She was not a spy!”
“She did underwater photography too,” says Mrs. Vanders. “It was the cover for her work as an operative. In our circles, spy is, in fact, a rather derogatory term.”
“Oh, come on! This is preposterous!”
“It may be preposterous,” says Mrs. Vanders, “but it’s entirely true. It’s why I knew Magnolia. ESF helped her from time to time. I’d like to know how you feel about it, because we’re always recruiting.”
Behind Jane, a door opens and Ivy steps in, tall and easy in her ratty blue sweater. At the sight of Jane, she stops, a stricken look coming to her face. “Janie?”
In Ivy’s eyes, Jane sees concern, misery, guilt. She sees the truth. Her heart plummets. This is real.
“What is it, Ivy-bean?” says Mrs. Vanders harshly. “You can go ahead and say it in front of Jane.”
Ivy clears her throat. “I’ve looked into that man who’s calling himself Ji-hoon,” she says. “I’m not sure, but Phoebe could be right.”
“Very well,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Until we know for certain, we can’t do anything extreme, but we can make damn sure he gets nowhere near the children. Please ask Phoebe to come see me at her earliest convenience.”
“You can’t really ask more of Phoebe, can you?” says Ivy. “She’s a British operative. She doesn’t work for ESF.”
“The Brits benefit if we get the children away,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Everyone benefits, and Phoebe knows that. She’ll do what I ask.”
“All right,” says Ivy, then hesitates, looking at Jane.
“Ivy,” says Mrs. Vanders, not without a sudden, surprising touch of tenderness. “Go. Ji-hoon and Grace are both in the house; we can’t take risks.”
Ivy goes.
“You needed food?”
Jane casts about for a grip on what Mrs. Vanders is saying. “What?”
“Come,” says Mrs. Vanders. “I’ll help you collect some things.”
“Okay,” Jane says automatically, not caring. As she follows the housekeeper into the pantry, a staticky noise emerges from one of the shelves.
“Sweetie?” says the deep voice of Mr. Vanders.
Mrs. Vanders reaches for a walkie-talkie sitting atop a fruit basket. “Go ahead.”
“I found the fish,” says her husband’s voice. “I’ll bring it up to your studio. It badly needs cleaning.”
Mrs. Vanders releases a breath of air. “Thank heaven for small blessings.”
“Are you still worried the Vermeer’s been forged?” says Mr. Vanders’s voice.
“Ravi hasn’t noticed anything wrong with it. We talked for ten minutes standing right in front of it.”
“Have you had it out of the frame?”
“Not yet,” says Mrs. Vanders. “I’ll do it after we’ve moved the children. If it has been forged, it’s nothing to do with the children or any of this, so I simply can’t spare it a moment’s attention right now.”
“Don’t blame yourself for putting it on the back burner,” says Mr. Vanders.
“I do blame myself,” says Mrs. Vanders. “If the Vermeer has been forged, it’s a calamity. You know how seriously I take my responsibilities to the family. Ravi’s already so upset about the Brancusi.”
“He’ll have his Brancusi back in a week’s time, none the wiser,” says Mr. Vanders. “And you’ll be able to give the Vermeer your fullest attention after the children are safe. Which will be soon, now that we have the Brancusi in hand. The gala is tomorrow. This is almost over.”
“Thank you, Arthur,” says Mrs. Vanders. “I suppose it always gets like this before the galas.”
“There is always something,” says Mr. Vanders with a chuckle, then a sneeze. Then the static cuts out. Mrs. Vanders shoves the walkie-talkie back onto the fruit bowl and reaches for a cutting board.
“Which cheese do you prefer,” she says, “muenster or gruyere?”
“What?” says Jane. “Cheese?”
“I’m making you a sandwich,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Do you like chicken liver pâté?”
“Are you—” Jane’s head is aching. “Are you using the Brancusi sculpture to pay someone to move the Panzavecchia children out of the house? Because of something to do with smallpox?”
“See now,” Mrs. Vanders says, pausing in her swift slicing of thick, dark bread to peer at Jane keenly. “This is what I mean. If you’ve managed to figure that out, it suggests to me that you have instincts for our kind of work.”
“But—it’s not your Brancusi,” says Jane. “You’re stealing the Brancusi?”
“We do not steal the family art,” says Mrs. Vanders. “We borrow it, to use as collateral while we act as go-betweens. I give a picture or sculpture to Person X. Person X releases an item to me—an agent I’m trying to save, information, goods—and I deliver that item to Person Y. Person Y pays me with the thing Person X needs—again, an agent, information, goods—and I deliver that thing to Person X. Person X gives me the picture or the sculpture back. A masterpiece is an excellent cash alternative. Recognizable, with undeniable value, and harder to trace than cash, which isn’t an option anyway, because we don’t have it.”
Jane feels herself stupidly nodding. She’s heard of this strategy. “But Ravi doesn’t know,” she says.
“No one in the Thrash family knows about ESF,” says Mrs. Vanders. “I’ll tell Ravi I’ve taken a picture away to clean it, or that I’m doing some sort of research on it.”
“You’ll lie,” says Jane.
Mrs. Vanders piles cheese and pickles and pâté onto bread. “People want to hurt these children,” she says. “There’s a woman who’s offered to move Grace and Christopher Panzavecchia for us, in return for the brief loan of our Brancusi and also our Rembrandt. She’s a peculiar woman. It’s not about money or information for her; it’s about having various pieces of art in her collection, briefly, from time to time. And she never asks for anything easy. The Rembrandt picture is big and heavy, painted on wood, and the Brancusi sculpture so fragile, but those are the only two pieces that’ll do for her this time. We’ll have them back in the house within a week.”
“Why are the Panzavecchias so important?”
“I can’t answer that,” says Mrs. Vanders. “ESF provides protection, to political agents who are exploited,
kidnapped, left to fend for themselves. If their loyalties come into question, we provide exit strategies, safe passage for them and their families. Often our services require the help of third parties. These third parties don’t help us out of the kindness of their hearts. They require payment. We’ve learned to use whatever’s available to us.”
“By lying to people in this house who trust you implicitly,” says Jane.
“What should I be doing instead?” she says, exasperated. “Should I never lie, which would endanger countless people? Should I not risk the house art, when it can ensure the safety of two children?”
“I need to go now,” says Jane.
“Don’t say anything to anyone,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Grace and Christopher Panzavecchia are only eight and two. You’ll endanger their lives if you speak of any of this to the wrong person. Would you like that on your conscience? A dead child?”
“Why should I believe you’re trying to help them?” says Jane. “If you’re being so helpful, why does Grace keep trying to sneak away? Why did she break the sculpture you need so badly to ‘rescue’ her?”
“Grace is a traumatized child who’s been torn from her family and desperately wants to go home,” says Mrs. Vanders. “She doesn’t understand that home no longer exists. She’s trying to create problems for us, draw attention. She’s acting out! But even she knows where the line is!”
“Why does home no longer exist? What happened?”
“That is far more information than you’re in need of at this juncture,” says Mrs. Vanders.
“Where’s Baby Leo?” Jane asks. “Why is no one talking about him?”
“The baby is safe,” Mrs. Vanders says. “Here’s your sandwich, some grapes, and a kumquat.” She shoves a plate at Jane so forcefully that grapes go diving off the edge, rolling into unknown and unreachable parts of the pantry.
“I can’t believe you lie to Ravi,” says Jane. “And Kiran too. Every single day. How can you do that?”
Mrs. Vanders’s face is made of granite. She shoves a doughnut onto Jane’s plate, causing more grapes to go flying. “We’ll be keeping an eye on you,” she says. “We’ll know if you start wandering the house. And we have ways of knowing if you’re engaging in mobile phone or Internet activity. If we decide that we can’t trust you to keep your mouth shut, you’ll find yourself deeply regretful.”