The Last Don - Mario Puzo [142]
“What is this place?” Cross asked.
Athena looked pleadingly at him. “Just come with me please for now. Later, you can ask your questions.”
Athena drove to the entry gate and showed a gold ID badge to the security guard. Passing through, she drove to the largest building and parked.
Once inside at the reception desk, Athena asked the attendant something in a low voice. Cross stood back, but still he heard the answer. “She was in a mood so we gave her a hug in her room.”
“What the hell was that?” Cross asked.
But Athena didn’t answer. She took his hand and led him through a long, shiny tile hallway to an adjoining building and into some sort of dormitory.
A nurse sitting at the entrance asked their names. When she nodded, Athena led Cross down another long hallway of doors. Finally, she opened one.
They were standing in a pretty bedroom, large and full of light. There were the same strange, dark paintings as on the wall in Athena’s house, but here they were strewn on the floor. On the wall a small shelf held a row of pretty dolls dressed in starched Amish costumes. Also on the floor were several other scraps of drawings and paintings.
There was a small bed covered with a pink fuzzy blanket, the pillows white with red roses stitched all over them. But there was no child in the bed.
Athena walked toward a large box that was open at the top, its walls and base covered with a thick, soft pad colored light blue, and when Cross looked inside he saw the child lying there. She didn’t notice them. She was fiddling with a knob at the head of the box, and Cross watched as she forced the pads together, almost crushing herself.
She was a small girl of ten, a tiny copy of Athena, but without emotion, devoid of all expression, and her green eyes were as unseeing as those of a porcelain doll. Yet each time she turned the controls to make the panels squeeze her tight, her face shone with complete serenity. She did not acknowledge them in any way.
Athena moved to the top of the wooden box. She switched the controls so that she could lift the child out of the box. The child seemed to weigh almost nothing.
Athena held her like an infant and bent her head to kiss the child’s cheek, but the child flinched and pulled away.
“It’s your mommy,” Athena said. “Won’t you give me a kiss?”
The tone of her voice broke Cross’s heart. It was an abject pleading, but now the child was churning wildly within her arms. Finally Athena gently put her down on the floor. The child scrambled to her knees and immediately picked up a box of paints and a huge cardboard sheet. Completely absorbed, she began to paint.
Cross stood back and watched as Athena tried all her acting skill to establish a rapport with the child. First she kneeled down next to the little girl and was the loving playmate helping her daughter paint, but the child took no notice.
Athena then sat up, tried to be a confiding parent telling the child what was happening in the world. Then Athena became a fawning adult praising the child’s paintings. To all this the child merely kept moving away. Athena picked up one of the brushes and tried to help, but when the child did see, she grabbed the brush away. She never said a word.
Finally Athena gave up.
“I’ll come back tomorrow, darling,” she said. “I’ll take you for a ride and I’ll bring a new paint box. See,” she said, tears welling in her eyes, “you’re running out of reds.” She tried to give the child a farewell kiss but was held away by two small, beautiful hands.
Finally Athena rose and led Cross out of the room.
Athena gave him the keys to the car so