Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood [56]
She opens her file drawer and takes out the Z file, the same one with the glossy in it, and turns a few pages. There it all is, the skeleton of the skeleton in the closet: days, hours, places. It still hurts.
Why not use the same detective, less explaining to be done, and she was super good, Harriet, Harriet Thing, Hungarian but she WASPed her name – Harriet Bridges. Used to say she got to be a detective because if you were a Hungarian woman dealing with Hungarian men, you had to be one anyway. Roz finds the number, picks up the phone. She has to go through a gatekeeper to get through – Harriet must be doing better if she has a secretary, or probably it’s one of those service-sharing offices – but she wheedles and pushes, and Harriet is finally not in a meeting any more, but there on the line.
“Hi, Harriet, this is Roz Andrews. Yeah, I know, it’s been years. Listen, I want you to do something for me. Actually, the same thing you did before, sort of. The same woman. Well, I know she’s dead. I mean, she was dead, but now she isn’t. I saw her! In the Toxique.…
“I haven’t the faintest. That’s where you come in!
“If I were you I’d start with the hotels, but you can’t count on her using her own name. Remember?
“I’ll send over the photo by courier. Just find her. Find out what she’s up to. Who she’s seeing. Phone me as soon as you know anything. Anything! What she has for breakfast. You know how nosy I am.
“Mark the bill Personal. Thanks. You’re a doll. We’ll do lunch!”
Roz hangs up. She ought to feel better but she doesn’t, she’s too keyed up. Now that she’s set the thing in motion she can hardly wait for the results, because until she knows exactly where Zenia is, Zenia might be anywhere. She might be outside Roz’s house right now, she might be climbing in through the window, gunny sack over her shoulder to carry away the loot. What loot? That’s the question! Roz is almost ready to go out there and do the rounds herself, mooch from hotel to hotel with her precious glossy photo under her arm, lie, insinuate, bribe the desk clerks. She’s impatient, she’s irritable, she’s avid, her skin is crawling with curiosity.
Maybe it’s menopause, now wouldn’t that be nice for a change? Maybe she’ll get that surge of energy and joie de vivre they’re always talking about. It’s long overdue.
Or maybe this isn’t raging hormones. Maybe it’s sin. One of the Seven Deadlies, or rather two of them. The nuns were always keen on Lust, and Roz has thought recently that maybe Greed was the one with her own name on it. But here comes Anger, blindsiding her; and Envy, the worst, her old familiar, in the shape of Zenia herself, smiling and triumphant, an incandescent Venus, ascending not from a seashell but from a seething cauldron.
Let’s face it, Roz, you’re envious of Zenia. You always have been. Envious as Hell. Yes God, but so what? Judas Priest, what do I do about it? Down on your knees! Humiliate yourself Mortify your soul! Scrub the toilet!
How long do I have to live before I’m rid of this junk, thinks Roz. The garage sale of the soul. She’ll go home early, have a snack, pour herself a small drink, run a bath, put in some of the stuff Charis keeps deluging her with, from that hophead store where she works. Ground-up leaves, dried flowers, exotic roots, musty-hayfield aromas, snake oil, mole bones, age-old recipes brewed by certified crones. Not that Roz has a thing against crones, since at the rate she’s going she’ll soon be one herself.
It’ll relax you, says Charis, though Roz, you have to help out! Don’t fight it! Go with it. Lie back. Float. Picture yourself in a warm ocean.
But every time Roz tries this, there are sharks.
BLACK ENAMEL
17
All history is written backwards, writes Tony, writing backwards. We choose a significant event and examine its causes and its consequences, but who decides whether the event is significant? We do, and we are here; and it and its participants are there. They are long gone; at the same time, they are in our hands. Like Roman gladiators, they are under our thumbs. We make them