Fury

4

Marlene dabbed halfheartedly with her paintbrush at the canvas on her easel. She couldn't quite get the dark green-gray ocean around the pier right, though she was reasonably satisfied with how she'd roughed in the Coney Island Ferris wheel in the foreground of the painting.

The day had fortunately warmed up quite a bit since the morning, but the sun was weakening and clouds were moving in; she was still starting to feel the cold seep beneath her parka as she stood on the boardwalk. A little hot tea would hit the spot, she thought, recalling the Russian teahouse she'd seen when she arrived in Brighton Beach a quarter mile or so down the boardwalk from where she had set up her easel.

She was working on her latest assignment in the painting course that she was taking through New York University. "A landscape," the professor had demanded, "only I want you to work objects into the foreground to get better acquainted with depth of field." Hence the Ferris wheel…and she planned to insert a beachcomber between it and the distant pier. It was really too cold to be painting; she kept the tubes of acrylic paints in a shirt pocket inside her parka but could put only a dab on her palette at a time or it would stiffen too much to use.

Marlene didn't really know why she'd chosen this location. Probably because of the discussion she'd had with her husband that morning about the rape case. But she'd also needed to take her mind off her visit to her parents' house that morning and she didn't want to go home.

Her parents still lived in the same house in Queens where she and her five siblings had been raised for most of their lives. It was a modest four-bedroom, three-story (including the basement) brick that epitomized the postwar era in which it was built-solid, family oriented, a celebration of middle-class values. There was a small backyard where her father had erected a metal swing set, taking inordinate pride in how he'd used Folger's coffee cans filled with cement to anchor the legs. It was still there-although rusted and unusable, her father had never been able to bring himself to take it down.

All of her life her parents had tended to their home and yard as proof of a good life well spent. But lately she'd noticed the signs of neglect: peeling paint inside and out that her father would never have allowed in bygone days; dirty windows; and little things that didn't work, like doorknobs. The gardens that her mother would have in the past carefully cleared of detritus and turned with fresh compost in preparation for the next spring were filled with the golden-brown husks of weeds, leaves, and bits of paper and other trash left by the passing wind.

When she entered the house, she found her father panicked as he trotted around, looking beneath couch cushions and under furniture. "My car keys," he said, his voice choking with tears, "I can't find them. Help me find them, Marlene."

"What's the rush, Pops? What's the matter?" Marlene asked, unsettled by the wild look in her father's eyes and the tears that rolled down his cheeks.

"Your mother, she's gone," he shouted. "I think she wandered off again…and in this cold she'll freeze to death." He overturned another cushion, and not finding his keys, began to sob.

Marlene moved quickly across the room and put her arms around him. "It's okay, Pops," she said. "When was the last time you saw her?"

Although she was determined to remain calm for her father's sake, there was some cause for alarm. Her mother suffered from Alzheimer's, and of late she'd taken to leaving the house-ostensibly to visit a neighbor or check on her gardens-but once outside she'd forget where she was going and then where she'd come from. She'd just wander off and was not always properly clad for the weather, which on a day like that one could be dangerous for an eighty-four-year-old woman.

"Maybe an hour ago," her father said. "I went back to our bedroom to take a little nap… I'm so tired, so tired…she keeps me awake, you know, just gets up out of bed and wanders around the house. I just wanted a little nap. But when I woke up she was gone. Mary, Mother of God, please help me find my keys."

Marlene grabbed her father's hands and forced him to look into her eyes. "Pops, look at me…have you looked everywhere in the house?" Once they'd found her mother curled up in a ball in the linen closet; she said she'd just been looking for someplace safe from a mysterious "them" who were watching her.

Her father nodded. "I've looked everywhere…everywhere." But the pressure of Marlene's hands had the desired effect of helping him calm down. He brightened. "Except the basement," he said. "She hasn't gone down into the basement in years, but maybe…would you check the basement for me?"

Marlene gently guided her father to his favorite chair and told him to stay put. She then went to the doorway leading down into the basement. As a child she'd been afraid to go down into the musky, dark, damp basement, which was more of a root cellar. She was sure that if she walked down the wooden steps, something would reach through and grab her ankles…and that would be that, she'd disappear, never to be heard from again. The recollection sent a chill down her spine.

Get over it, Ciampi, she scolded herself. No monsters were down there, at least not the type that carried off little girls. A monster was carrying off her mother, but it was not dangerous to Marlene. She stood at the top of the stairs and, listening carefully, thought she heard some sort of furtive sounds coming from below. Putting aside childhood fears, she walked down the stairs.

A below-garden window allowed in a diffused light; there was no other illumination. But Marlene could see the back of a tiny, gray-haired woman facing a wooden workbench in the corner.

"Mom?"

The woman turned and when she saw Marlene, she smiled and asked in her slightly accented English, "Josephine? Is that you?"

Marlene moved closer, although she knew the misidentification had more to do with the Alzheimer's than the lighting. "No, Mom, it's Marlene, your youngest daughter. Josephine was your oldest."

The old woman's face took on a confused look. "Marlene? I don't have a daughter named Marlene…or do I?"

Marlene suddenly found herself struggling against tears. "Yes, Mom, me. Marlene. Your youngest. What are you doing down here? You had Dad worried. He thinks that you wandered off again."

"Nonsense," her mother said with a cheerful laugh. "I'm just down here canning peaches. Would you like to help?"

Marlene walked over to her mother and looked at the bench. In years gone by, she had happily assisted her mother in canning peaches and snap peas, as well as putting away jars of olives. All she saw now were dusty old mason jars and rusted lids, but no peaches or paraffin. Her mother's birdlike hands, however, fluttered away with invisible ingredients. "Remember when you were a little girl and we would can peaches, and you would sing to me the songs you'd learned in school?"

"Yes, Momma, I remember," Marlene said. She had seen a lot of cruelty in the world, but she had never known anything as cruel as Alzheimer's. Bit by bit it took the human being-the wife, the lover, the mother, and friend-who had occupied the body and left some replacement, like one of those body-snatcher science fiction movies.

As a result, a marriage that had been as solid as the rock beneath Manhattan and remained warm and loving through sixty-five years was crumbling before Marlene's horrified eyes.

She would never have thought it possible. Her father, Mariano Ciampi, and mother, Concetta Scoglio, met in the main hall on Ellis Island in 1936, both just off the ships that brought them from an Italy that was plunging headlong into fascism and war. He was twenty, she was seventeen, and it was love at first sight. However, her parents had hustled her away from the barbarian who hailed from Sicily, "that land of gangsters and sheepherders," pointing out to the protesting girl that she came from Florence, a civilized city. Oil and water, her parents said, but the young couple managed to stay in touch, and six months later-under threat of elopement-her parents gave them permission to wed.

Mariano had found work at a fruit and vegetable store in Washington Heights, delivering orders and eventually running the store for the owner. His benefits included getting to take home all the bruised fruit he and Concetta could eat, as well as free rent in the tiny flat above the store. They'd scrimped and saved and eventually he bought the store from the owner. Over the years he had purchased other fruit and vegetable markets from Washington Heights to Little Italy and the Village.

The only interruption in their upward mobility was when Mariano volunteered for the army, feeling it was his duty to fight for his adopted country. He'd been wounded at Anzio and honorably discharged, returning home quietly with a Purple Heart and a piece of a German grenade still in his shoulder, ready to resume building his fruit and vegetable empire, which Concetta had proved adept at running in his absence.

In the first four years of marriage, before he shipped out, he and Concetta had produced three babies-one of whom, Frankie, had died at age three of a childhood illness. The war had briefly interrupted the production line, but by the time Marlene was born in 1948 (something of a surprise to all involved) she was the sixth (living) child.

When they moved to the house in Queens, Mariano and Concetta handled the prejudices of the predominantly Anglo population-the snide remarks about being "connected" to the Mafia, the wop jokes, and comments about "dirty Italians"-with grace and dignity that eventually won the respect of even their most acrimonious neighbors.

Naturalized as citizens, they'd emphasized the importance of good citizenship and education to all of their children. Instead of vacations, new cars, and a bigger house, they'd put their discretionary income toward sending their children to the best parochial schools and colleges.

Marlene thought her parents had the most perfect marriage of any she had ever encountered. Yes, Mariano and Concetta could fight like bantam roosters. Her mother was no wallflower or shy, mail-order bride from the old country. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind, and if Mariano stepped out of line, he was bound to hear about it. But their love was just as passionate, and the rhythmic squeaking of their old bed echoing throughout the house at night was as reassuring to Marlene and her siblings as family dinners.

She'd even caught them making out in their bedroom at their sixtieth anniversary party, having escaped the well-wishers and family members. "Your father, he still turns me on." Her mother had shrugged at Marlene's teasing. Just a few years later, that woman was disappearing like a lost ship into fog banks, and for the first time in Marlene's life, her father spoke of her mother in words other than adoration.

It was especially tough on Marlene as she was the only child in easy commuting distance. Two other siblings had died-Lieutenant Angelo Ciampi in Vietnam during the Tet offensive of 1968, and Josephine, a chain-smoker, of lung cancer in 1986. The others were scattered about the country, none closer than a day's drive. So it had been left to Marlene, the baby of the family, to shepherd their aging parents through what were supposed to be their golden years.

Standing at the workbench, Marlene's mother leaned toward her and spoke in a conspirator's low voice. "You know, the man upstairs, he isn't really your father. Your father was never bossy like that one. That one keeps telling me what I can and can't do." She sighed. "I don't know what they did with dear Mario, but that's not him."

"Who is 'they,' Mom?" Marlene asked. When there was no answer, she continued, "Mom, that really is Pops. He's just tired, and you really should let him know where you are. He worries when he can't find you." It's you who's lost, Mom, she thought. Come back, Mom, please. "Let's go upstairs and make Pop some breakfast."

"Good idea, we'll take him some peach preserves," Concetta said, grabbing a cracked and empty jar. "He always loved my peach preserves."

Marlene whipped up a breakfast of eggs and Italian sausage and tried just as hard to whip up a festive "everything's normal" conversation, talking about the twins and Lucy and Butch's campaign. But there was little if any response, and eventually she stopped trying and they ate in silence, until Concetta looked up and asked Mariano if he'd liked the peaches.

Mariano had stopped eating and stared at her for a moment, blinking his eyes rapidly. "I can't take much more of this," he finally replied and stood up from the table. He stalked off into the living room with Marlene running along behind him.

"She's crazy," he said as Marlene helped him into his coat. Part of her purpose in coming over was to give him a break so that he could spend a few hours down at the local VFW post.

"She's not crazy, Pops, she has Alzheimer's, it's a disease…like cancer. She can't help it," Marlene replied.

"If she just tried a little harder…," he said, but his voice trailed off as the tears sprang to his eyes. He hugged Marlene and headed out the door.

Marlene returned to the kitchen, where she found her mother still sitting in her chair, staring at the half-finished meal. "I'm tired," she said. "Would you help me to bed, Josephine?"

Sighing, Marlene did as asked. She was grateful that her mother slept for the next few hours. She used the time to return to the basement, where she located the big cardboard box marked Christmas and brought it upstairs. Inside was the old, plastic, three-piece Christmas tree her parents purchased in the 1960s and had kept ever since as a "family tradition." She set it up, strung it with lights, and hung ornaments. All in all, it was a pretty sad excuse but better than nothing.

When Concetta woke and came into the living room where Marlene was reading a magazine, she clapped her hands at the sight of the tree. "Well, hello, Marlene. I didn't know you were visiting. Mario should have come and told me. But at least he finally set up our tree. Now, I'll have to get to my shopping to have something to put under it. Christmas trees just don't look right without presents."

Happy for any little sign of her mother, Marlene smiled back and patted the couch next to her. "Pops is off talking to his buddies at the VFW, and I figured you could use the rest," she said.

"How many times do they need to hear the same old lies," Concetta replied, and they both laughed.

They were still sitting on the couch laughing as they pored over the photographs in one of the family albums that Concetta had so carefully put together when Mariano returned home. "Hello, my darling," Concetta said when he walked in the door. "How dare you leave me for those boys at the club."

"You go on now," Mariano said, winking at Marlene. "We'll be all right. Come Concetta, my love, say good-bye to our beautiful daughter and we can sit on the couch and watch some golf on the television."

Concetta nodded. "I'll see her to the door, Poppa. You turn on your golf game."

Happy that at least for the moment her mother's ship appeared to have sailed back into the sunlight, Marlene hugged her mother at the door. But just as she was breaking the embrace, Concetta whispered in her ear.

"If I disappear, you'll know I was telling you the truth about that man," she said, then hurried back behind the door.

Marlene went home and was glad that her husband and the boys were still gone. She didn't want to talk to anyone or have any reminders that the picture of a stable family might, in the end, be an illusion. She gathered her painting supplies and headed out before anyone got home.

While in New Mexico, and much to her surprise, she'd discovered that she had a talent for painting, and she also found it meditative and relaxing, especially after a morning like the one she'd just had. But it wasn't until she was in a taxi that she decided to go to Brighton Beach, and from there walked down the boardwalk to Coney Island.

Still thinking about the conversation she'd had with her husband about the attack on Liz Tyler, she'd decided to feature the pier and, off to the side and in the foreground, the Ferris wheel. It took a bit of artistic license because the scene in her painting didn't exist, at least not in the perspective she'd drawn it in. But if I wanted accuracy, she thought, I'd have taken up photography.

She didn't really have the heart for it, though, so when the cold started to make it past her coat, she decided to pack it in and go get a cup of tea at the tearoom she'd passed. As she walked back up the boardwalk, she saw several older couples who reminded her of her parents, only these were speaking to each other in Russian.

For decades now, the Brighton Beach area had been an enclave for the Jewish Russian emigre community. The women and some of the men she saw were dressed as they might have been in St. Petersburg-in furs and leather. The antifur crowd wouldn't have lasted two minutes. There were probably a dozen fur shops along Brighton Beach Avenue that boasted-in signs written in both English and Russian-"Real Russian Furs from Siberia…Best Price, Half-Off Sale."

Marlene had just about reached the teahouse when she passed a bench on which sat a young woman with her face buried in her hands. Then she noticed that the woman was crying.

She started to walk on past-she'd had enough emotional turmoil for one day-but she'd never been good at walking away from someone, especially a woman, in trouble. She turned back to the young woman. "Are you okay?"

When the woman looked up at her, Marlene was struck by the exotic beauty created by the wide Slavic cheekbones below jade eyes that gave her face a feline quality. She was somewhat older-early forties-than Marlene had first thought but was one of those women whose looks would change but not diminish with age.

The woman started to nod her head yes to Marlene's question. But then shook it and began to sob. "Nyet," she cried. "Is not okay for me."

Marlene leaned her easel against the wall behind the bench and sat down next to the other woman. "Can I help?" she asked.

The woman shook her head again. "I am sorry, my English is not so good," she replied. "This is not for your concern. But I thank you for asking…showing me…umm…compassionate. I do not have many friends here, so I thank you for kindness." She wiped at her tears with the sleeve of her coat and held out her gloved hand. "My name is Helena Michalik."

Marlene's mind was telling her to stand up and walk away, but her heart kept her seated and she shook Helena's hand. "Marlene Ciampi. It looked like you could use a friendly face." She glanced up and saw the sign for the St. Petersburg Tea Room. "How about we get out of the cold and have a cup of tea," she said, nodding toward the establishment.

Helena hesitated but then sighed and nodded. "Yes, perhaps, some tea to warm my body and my heart."

When they entered the tearoom, it took a moment for Marlene's eyes to adjust to the dark interior. It wasn't just the dimmed lights, either; everything in the place was dark-the woods, the heavy velvets, and the rich carpets. Even the otherwise colorful Russian Orthodox icons seemed dark in tone. The Russians are a moody people, Marlene thought.

The room was long and narrow, and as her eyes adjusted she noticed two large men in monochrome rumpled sweatsuits watching her and Helena from the back of the room on either side of a door marked Office. Bodyguard types. This place must do a hell of a business to need that much muscle, she thought. Otherwise, the tearoom was empty except for the waitstaff.

Marlene looked back at Helena, who was also watching the two men with a worried look on her face. They frighten her, she thought; then she looked down as Helena took off her coat. "Congratulations! You're going to have a baby."

Helena blushed and smiled as both of her hands went to her belly as if to support the small mound growing there. "Yes," she said. "Finally. We have been trying for years. Now we say it must have been the water in America. A child has sprouted."

After a few minutes, an unsmiling waiter emerged from a side door, which, Marlene assumed, led to the kitchen. "You would like tea, no?" Helena asked Marlene as he approached. He came to a standstill in front of the table and just stood looking at them through heavy-lidded eyes as Helena ordered in Russian.

The waiter still hadn't said a thing when he turned on his heel and headed back to the kitchen. A moment later, he emerged with a pot, which he set on the table, and he quietly retreated from whence he came.

"So, want a shoulder to cry on?" Marlene offered.

"I don't understand," Helena said. "You want me to cry?"

"No, it's a saying. I meant, would you like to talk about what was making you cry outside on the bench?"

Helena bit her lip. "I should not trouble you. But I am in a strange country, and I know small number of people…no friend to talk to." The woman hesitated as if weighing Marlene's trustworthiness and apparently decided that she would do. "It is about my husband, Alexis…"

An hour and several pots of tea later, Marlene had the whole story-at least what Helena knew of it. The long and short of it was that Alexis Michalik was a visiting professor of Russian poetry at New York University who'd been accused by one of his graduate students of drugging and raping her one night in his office on campus.

He'd admitted "flirting" with the woman but denied having sexual relations with her. Yes, he'd met her at his office that night but, he said, it was at her insistence and to discuss her master's thesis. However, the next morning, the graduate student had returned to his office and accused him of raping her. He said she'd threatened to go to the university administration and the police with her allegations unless he approved her master's thesis and sponsored her admittance as a doctoral student. He'd refused to be blackmailed, and that afternoon, she'd made good on her threats.

Helena didn't know exactly what they were, but apparently this student had "proofs" of her husband's transgressions. They were enough for the NYPD to have arrested him. He'd since been released on bail, but the university had immediately suspended him without a hearing. Meanwhile, the district attorney's office had not yet decided to bring charges, but the Michaliks feared it was just a matter of time.

Although hurt by the confession of flirting, Helena said she loved her husband and did not believe he would have raped a woman. But she was fearful of what would happen. If Alexis did not beat the charges, he would go to prison. And even if he won, it appeared he would be fired and lose his work visa.

"Then we will have to return to Russia," Helena said, "where the only peoples paid less than Jewish professors of Russian poetry are Russian poets." She laughed at her own joke, but her fear was evident in her eyes and shaking hands.

The Michaliks believed that the "mean bitch" who ran the New York District Attorney's Sex Crimes Bureau wanted to make an example of her husband and that the case had not been well investigated before the police and university jumped to the conclusion that Alexis was guilty. In the meantime, the press had got wind of the case-presumably from the accuser-and was having a field day with it.

As Helena talked, Marlene remained largely silent, not volunteering that her husband was the district attorney or that she knew the "bitch," Rachel Rachman; indeed, she'd been another of Marlene's protegees, though they'd since had a falling out. When Helena mentioned the press coverage, she remembered the New York Post's headline Russian Casanova Rapes Student, though she had not read the story.

Marlene wasn't sure what to think. It wouldn't be the first time a college professor diddled a coed, who then thought better of the whole thing. She'd decided not to get involved when she heard herself tell Helena that she might know someone who could look into the case. And then that in fact she, Marlene, could still practice law in the state of New York and was willing to take on the case "on the condition that after I talk to Alexis, I believe him." She was so surprised at what she'd said that she forgot to be embarrassed when the other woman burst into tears, grabbed her hands across the table, and kissed them as she thanked her over and over again.

"Uh, look Helena," Marlene said, taking her hands back. "I should warn you that I might not be able to do much more than represent your husband while he gets convicted of rape."

Helena dabbed at the tears in her eyes with a napkin and nodded her head. "Yes," she said, "I understand. But now I feel at least that we have…um, how do you Americans say it…a fighting chance? Thank you, Marlene. My Alexis…sometimes he is, um, filled with emotions and doesn't think straight, but he is a good man and I love him very much."

Marlene felt the tears in her own eyes welling up. Love was a great thing, she thought, even if something like Alzheimer's came along later and made you fight to hold on to it. All of a sudden, she wanted very much to be back in her loft, curled up on the lap of her husband, watching her twin sons tumbling around on the floor. She dug in her purse and plunked a twenty-dollar bill down on the table.

"I'm sorry, but I need to go. Here's my telephone number," she said and handed Helena an old business card she found at the bottom of the bag.

"Yes, of course, I have kept you too long," Helena said.

"No, it's just time to get home and I-" Marlene was interrupted when she was nearly trampled in the aisle by a thin, pale-looking young man who stumbled in through the door and ran to the back of the room. She noticed that he had only one arm and that the empty sleeve was pinned up near the shoulder.

The two big men in the back had jumped from their seats when the young man blew in through the door. She noted that they both had reached behind their backs-and not to scratch an itch-with one hand while holding up the other to intercept the intruder.

Seeing Marlene's appraising look of the situation at the back of the restaurant, Helena grabbed her by the elbow and steered her out the door. "Those are bad men…is best not to look too closely," she warned.

The younger woman walked her to the avenue and waited until Marlene could hail a cab. When Marlene got in, Helena leaned in the door. "If you change your mind about helping, I will understand. I am a stranger."

"Hey, didn't we just drink three pots of tea together?" Marlene asked.

"Yes?" Helena said, puzzled.

"And didn't I show you photographs of my children and husband…and didn't you show me photographs of your husband and parents?"

"Yes."

"Then we're not strangers anymore." Marlene turned toward the taxi driver. "Crosby and Grand," she said, "and make it snappy, please."