Not ringing the doorbell at my mother’s house was starting to be a habit with me. The only difference between this visit and the last one was that it was broad daylight. I stuck my key in the lock and pushed the door open. No sooner had I done so than I heard my mother call out, “Who’s there?” It pleased me to hear the uncertainty in her voice.
I walked down the hall to the living room, where I found my mother sitting on the sofa with a newspaper she must have been reading spread out beside her. She stared up at me, startled.
“It isn’t very nice to have someone just come walking into your house, is it, Mother?” I said. “It must be pretty scary to hear a key turn in the lock when you’re home alone and not expecting anybody. Or have you never had that feeling? Do you even have any feelings?”
“Jesus, Iris.” My mother pressed her hand to her heart in a theatrical gesture. “You just gave me a heart attack! What were you thinking, waltzing in here right in the middle of the day? You know I want you to ring the doorbell before you come in.”
“I do know that. Actually, there are lots of things I know about you.”
“Excuse me? Are you starting that again? You’ve got to stop, do you hear me, Iris? I’ve had enough of this nonsense. I’d appreciate it if you’d leave. Now.”
I heard a noise in the kitchen, as if something were being shoved aside. I froze, and listened. Silence. I must have been mistaken. The empty space where the aquarium had stood all those years caught my eye. You could still see the outline of it; the wall would have to be repainted. “Isn’t it great, Mother, that Ray has his aquarium again?”
My mother didn’t answer.
“So noble of you to let him have it. I know how fond you were of those fish. Especially the dead ones. I do wonder, though—how did you persuade the lab in Utrecht to send them back to you? What did you tell them? That you wanted to bury them in your backyard, with a nice little gravestone and flowers?”
“What are you talking about?” My mother picked up her newspaper and pretended to read. But I could see her eyes drifting emptily down the page.
“Or did you tell them the truth? That you needed those poor fish to trick your own son?”
She lowered the newspaper. “Now you’re going too far. I’ve had enough of this nonsense. You may be my own flesh and blood, but don’t think I’ll hesitate to call the police if you don’t leave my house.”
“No, you wouldn’t hesitate to turn in your own flesh and blood. We know that now.”
“I’m calling the police.” But she didn’t move.
“You do that. You and I can have a nice little chat while waiting for them to show up. Because I’ve come to know some interesting things about you these past few months. I found out you have a son. And that that son has a father. And that the father’s name is Antoine van Benschop. And that when you got pregnant, Antoine van Benschop paid you off with a nice nest egg. And that he also—and I must thank you, Mother—did me a favor when I got pregnant, by arranging a convenient little job for me. Have you two stayed in contact this whole time? Do you still see each other?”
“Stop it,” said my mother. “Stop it, stop it, stop it.”
“I won’t, sorry. I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the fascinating secret life of Agatha Antonia Boelens.”
“Which is none of your business.”
“You’re wrong about that. It is my business. Not because I’m your daughter, but because Ray is my brother.”
“Spare me the sentimental claptrap. You don’t know the first thing about Ray.”
“I think I do. And I’ve come to realize that you and Rosita are two of a kind. Just like her, you fell for the charms of a married man and got knocked up at a very young age. Was that why you despised her so?”
“Amateur psychology.” My mother picked up the newspaper again, but I could see her hands shake.
“Why don’t you tell me the truth for once in your life? What do you think you are doing? Bribing the staff at a criminal mental facility? Threatening a patient? Those are punishable offenses. We’re talking prison, Mother. Are you still in touch with Antoine van Benschop?”
“Yes.”
“Where, when, how often?”
“Not as often as before. But we’re still in touch.” She said it with palpable reluctance.
“Were you sleeping with him while you were married to Dad?”
“Yes.” She stuck out her chin defiantly.
For a moment I was speechless, thinking of my kind-hearted father. He’d worshipped my mother, always did everything she asked of him, to the irritating extreme. “How did you manage it? How long has this been going on?”
“Forty-five years,” said my mother, with a tinge of pride.
“You’re mad! What were you thinking? Did you think he’d ever turn his back on the shipping business to be with you?”
“No. I always knew he never would.”
“And yet you went on seeing him. Why?”
“Because I love him,” she snapped.
I shook my head. “I find it hard to believe you’re capable of loving anyone. You dumped Ray in a home, you never showed me any real affection, you cheated on your adoring husband all those years and . . . oh, I guess there is Aaron. You do love Aaron, don’t you? If it weren’t for that, I’d think you were a robot.”
My mother didn’t show any reaction. She didn’t even blink. I had the urge to slap her in the face. Hard.
“Fine, don’t say anything. I can fill in a great deal of what’s missing myself.” I took a deep breath, speaking slowly and stressing every word. “You don’t want me looking into Ray’s case because you are afraid certain things will come to light that are . . . inconvenient. Your affair with Antoine van Benschop, for one. But is that the only reason? You know, killing someone with a Börja knife isn’t easy. Ikea quality—not so good, you know? After putting it to the test, the applied sciences research lab has established that it’s impossible to stab someone in the chest fourteen times with that knife. By the seventh or eighth jab, the blade will usually snap off. And anyway, Ray’s knife had already had its share of action, when he used it to slash the tires of Victor Asscher’s Jag. No, Mother. The murder weapon used was probably a top-quality chef’s knife similar in size and shape to the Början. Forensic Services thinks it would have been a Wüsthof, the twenty-three-centimeter Le Cordon Bleu Chef’s Knife, to be precise. Forged from a single piece of steel. Indestructible. So when I read the report, I thought to myself, ‘Shit, I know someone who owns one of those fancy German knives.’ ”
My mother sat on the sofa, motionless.
“Please talk to me. What am I supposed to think? I need your help, Mom. Please explain how this all happened. I know you know. Did you tell Ray to kill Rosita? Did you give him the knife? Or . . .” I could not imagine the alternative.
My mother was still sitting there not blinking an eye. Again, I felt the urge to slap her in her face, if only to make her react.
“We are done here. You’re done.” It wasn’t my mother’s voice. It was a male voice. I nearly fell backward on the glass coffee table.
Antoine van Benschop stepped out of the kitchen holding the twenty-three-centimeter chef’s knife from Wüsthof’s Cordon Bleu series. “Is this, perhaps, the knife you mean?”
I tried not to show how startled I was to see Antoine here, in my mother’s house.
Antoine stepped closer. I wondered if I should make a run for it, but I couldn’t believe the old man would actually attack me, especially with my mother present. I decided to try to stay calm. Cool. Collected. Panicking would only make the situation worse, I decided.
“Listen, Iris, your mother is not a murderer. She just did what she had to do,” Antoine said with an authoritative voice that reminded me of his son Peter’s.
“What have you done, Mother?” I asked. “Were you the one who stabbed Rosita? And her little girl, too? Little Anna with the angelic blond curls?”
“I had no choice,” my mother finally said. “I wish it were different. I wish I could change it all, but Rosita left me no choice.”
My legs started shaking. “You killed her. You?”
“Rosita was blackmailing us. Asscher had told her everything about us. She was threatening to tell Antoine’s wife and his father-in-law. Don’t you see that everyone’s life would have been ruined? My life, Antoine’s life, the Van Benschop family’s life. Even your life, Iris. And what about the shipyard? The whole goddamn company would have been ruined! So yes, she needed to be stopped. But what worried me the most . . .” My mother paused for a second, seemingly overcome with emotion. “What worried me the most was the way that dirty little whore was driving Ray up the wall. I could tell it was just a matter of time before he’d snap. And you think you know Ray, but you don’t. You don’t know what he can be like when he loses it. I just couldn’t let that happen.”
“So you did it all for Ray? You honestly expect me to believe that you had his best interests at heart? That’s a little hard to believe since he’s serving your time, locked up in a mental institution, and . . .” I could hear my voice tremble.
“Enough!” Antoine waved the knife at me. “Your mother warned you to stay out of it, but you just had to go on with your silly investigation, didn’t you?”
It crossed my mind that Rosita had been staring at this very knifepoint just before she was killed. I needed to stay cool. Keep talking. I tried to appeal to my mother. “Why are you letting him threaten me? Why did you let Ray take the rap? We are your children!”
My mother shook her head. She looked sad, but it was hard to trust anything about her. “That was never the intention. I did my very best to keep him out of it. How was I to know he’d leave work early that day? He never came home early. Never. But it’s too late now. Ray can live in the institution with his fish and be safe. And I know you won’t agree, but I promise you that it’s better this way.”
“But what about the little girl?” I said. “How could you do that to her? Not only stab her, but to put out that cigarette on her . . .”
My mother was crying now. “She should have been at day care, like she always was in the mornings. How was I supposed to know that . . . She just came running out and Antoine . . .”
“Antoine?” I looked at the old man standing next to me. Again the resemblance with his son Peter was striking. “You were there, too? You killed the girl and made that cigarette mark on her?”
“He was trying to protect Ray!” my mother exclaimed. “Since Ray hates smoking, we . . .”
“Enough!” said Antoine. “You are leaving us no choice, Iris. Just as Rosita left us no choice.” Then, suddenly, he pounced, putting me in a stranglehold. He was surprisingly strong for his age. I felt the bent tip of the knife graze my throat. Cold steel cutting my skin. It was sharp. It didn’t take much pressure for it to cut. I tried to twist out of Antoine’s grip, but I couldn’t shake free. I looked at my mother. She wouldn’t let this happen—would she? I was still her daughter. Her goddamn daughter.
But my mother was stoically staring straight ahead at the wall.
“Mother?” I was a bewildered fifteen-year-old again, back in the red-light district crack house. “Mom?” My voice was getting more and more panicked.
“I begged you. I begged you several times, Iris. You should have stayed out of this.”
Only then did I realize I was in real danger. I had to try to escape. I jabbed both elbows back into Van Benschop’s rib cage. He didn’t budge. All it achieved was allowing the knife to dig deeper into my throat. I felt something warm trickling down my neck. My heart pulsing against the blade.
“Move. We’re going into the kitchen. So we don’t make a mess in your mother’s living room. Start walking.”
I looked at my mother. She had to intervene. I still could not believe she would let someone kill me. She would step in at the last minute. Just as she had that time in the crack house. But she looked frozen.
Antoine pushed me ahead of him. “Mother?” I pleaded, my voice sounding all choked and teary. “Say something! You can’t let this happen!”
“Shut up.” Van Benschop kicked me in the back of the knees. “You’ve got only yourself to blame.”
I looked at my mother, convinced she would save me. Her mouth opened and then closed again.
I felt myself being pushed into the kitchen. I tried to push back, but somehow Antoine knew how to force me to walk ahead of him. I thought about how easy it would be just to slide the blade across my throat, slicing open the artery. I’d be dead in less than a minute.
Who would take care of Aaron? What would happen to Ray? I felt my whole body go into a spasm of shaking.
Finally, after what seemed a lifetime, my mother spoke up. “No, Antoine,” she said. Her voice sounded weepy, barely convincing. But she did say it. “Stop.”
It was all I needed. Van Benschop’s grip on me slackened for a second. I stomped hard on his foot and managed to slip from his grasp. Then I kicked him in the groin. He crumpled forward, crying like a wounded animal.
I raced out the front door and into the street.
The police arrived within minutes. Neither my mother nor Antoine tried to run.
I stood across the street and watched them being led to a police car by two officers.
My mother looked old and helpless in the bright sunlight. For a second our eyes met. Then she turned away, a final fierce gesture. And with that, the squad car door was closed.
“Are you okay?” asked the policeman who was standing next to me. “The ambulance will be here soon to fix you up. That’s quite a nasty cut you’ve got on your neck there.”
I couldn’t answer, because I honestly didn’t know.