The Tulip Eaters (8 page)

All he knew was that by the time he checked out, he had racked up almost a hundred dollars’ worth. Luckily, when he learned that Isaac had gone to Houston, he had raced to his bank and almost emptied his savings account to exchange guilders into dollars. He now had just over a thousand dollars in cash, not knowing how much he’d need to get Isaac back to Holland. There had been no time to get traveler’s checks. Now he was glad he had cash. If he had used traveler’s checks, he would have had to countersign them using his passport, putting him at further risk. Ariel wondered if any of it would be left when he got home.

Back at the motel, he put Rose on the bed, buffered by pillows, and hauled his purchases into the room, including a large suitcase he had bought. No way he could fit Rose’s new wardrobe and paraphernalia into his overnight bag.

The first order of business was that diaper. He made short work of changing it and won a smile of approval from Rose. He warmed some formula on the stove, put it into a bottle and let it cool until a splash on his wrist let him know it wasn’t too hot.

Thank God he did have some experience with kids. Leah had been heartsick when she found out that she couldn’t bear a child. In the past few years, many of their friends had had babies. So she and Ariel had become babysitters. A bittersweet chore.

A few minutes later, he sat in an armchair with Rose in his arms. She stopped crying the moment he put the nipple into her mouth. She sucked greedily, all the while fixing him with her big blue eyes.

“What a good girl!” He held her up and laughed. “You’re perfect, you know that?” When he lowered her into his arms, her sweet, milky cheek swept against his bristly one. He was shocked by the joy that filled him.

But guilt stabbed him as he thought of the grandmother—killed by his father’s hand. It all flashed before him again: Isaac’s humiliation of Anneke, her frantic denials, holding Rose to her breast, begging, begging for Rose’s life. The bloody hole in her forehead, the fearsome scarlet blood on the white carpet.

Ariel tried to wipe away those images and held Rose even closer to his chest, as if to protect her from further harm. But she’d finished the bottle and fallen asleep. He rose and burped her. The sweet weight of her in his arms made him want to weep. Ariel buried his face into Rose’s neck before he laid her back on his jacket.

But the promise! Papa’s dying wish!

How could he fulfill it? His father had been crazed, in agony, near death. It didn’t matter. He remembered Isaac’s fierce eyes and his cold fingers clutching his wrist, the agony receding only when he had agreed to take Rose back with him.

“No!” he cried out loud. He must take this child and return her immediately. He couldn’t imagine the terror her mother must feel—his cousin, he now knew. He was not a criminal, someone who would steal a child and deprive it of its mother’s love. He lay Rose back upon the sofa cushions.

So how in hell should he do this? Drop her off at a hospital with her name pinned to the pink blanket he had bought her? Or leave her here, call the woman at the desk from a pay phone and tell her who Rose belonged to?
But now she could identify him and the police would think he was involved in the murder.

And Leah? How could he ever explain any of this to her?
He looked at the phone by the bed.
Should he call her?
All she knew was that he had chased after Isaac. He thought back to what he’d told her. When he hadn’t been able to reach Isaac all day, he’d let himself into his father’s apartment, where he’d found the Houston address, Isaac’s flight details and his passport. There was a hole where Isaac’s photo should have been. Because of Ariel’s job in Immigration, he knew instantly that Isaac had procured a black-market passport to travel to the U.S.

Leah had begged Ariel not to go. But he’d had to try to stop his goddamned father. Ariel remembered telling her he feared the worst. Who knew what Isaac would do to satisfy a lifetime of obsessive hatred? The last thing he remembered was the outpouring of love in Leah’s embrace at the airport and the faint lavender of her perfume that stayed with him down the runway. No, he couldn’t call her now. She would be frantic, even more worried when he told her what had happened. And what he had done.

A hunger pang returned him to the present.
Shit.
He’d forgotten to buy food for himself. But not now. He had to think this through.

Even if he gave Rose back, he’d still be arrested, charged, put away in prison for years. All he knew about American prisons was that they were terrifying. And who would believe he hadn’t taken part in the murder? Or that he’d never dreamed of taking Rose? Damn it. He was trapped, as he always had been, in his father’s life.

He rubbed his eyes and looked hard at Rose again.
Beautiful, heavenly child.
Maybe there was a way. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. But this baby could be the answer to his and Leah’s prayers. Could he possibly take her back to Amsterdam, make sure she was raised as a Jew, as Isaac had begged him to? After all, little Rose was family, Abram’s granddaughter. There was a bizarre symmetry to it, despite the Nazi horror and tragedy that had spawned it. This sweet, precious girl could be brought back into the family. She had not only been denied Abram, but Isaac, as well. If he had lived, Rose could have eased Isaac’s bitterness, seeing part of Abram live on, despite what her grandmother did.

His rationalizations rang hollow even as he thought of them. But he was scared. They couldn’t stay in this country. Who knew what clues he may have left? Any minute the police could be at his door.

He bent over, kissed Rose lightly on her soft forehead and then stood. He crossed to his suitcase and pulled his passport from its side pocket. Sitting at the small desk, he opened it and scanned the lines on the page across from his photo.

He knew what to do. Under Dutch law, children under eight were not required to have a passport but could travel under a parent’s. He ran his finger down to the appropriate box, then hesitated. He stared at the pen on the desk. No, he had absolutely no choice. He picked it up and filled in the space.
Jacoba Rosen.

He sat back and breathed heavily. The die was cast. He was now traveling with his daughter. But they couldn’t fly back to the Netherlands from Houston. Isaac probably had the false passport on him, which meant the police would be looking for a Dutchman flying from here to Amsterdam with a tiny baby. But what if the fake passport wasn’t Dutch? They could be looking for a Romanian, a Russian—who knew?

He shoved everything he had brought with him into his carry-on, and then packed the things he had bought for Rose into his suitcase. He glanced at the collapsible stroller, satisfied with his purchase. He couldn’t carry Rose everywhere he went.

He was glad he had taken a taxi to the woman’s house until he realized that the police could already have tracked down the driver, who may have been able to describe him. His face could already be splattered all over the television, in newspapers:
Houston Woman Murdered, Baby Kidnapped, Artist Rendering of Suspect!
If so, surely the police had passed his likeness to Houston and Amsterdam Immigration.

First he had to ditch Isaac’s car, rent another one and get the hell out of town. The documents in the glove box showed that the car had been rented from Hertz near the airport. Ariel called other rentals nearby. They didn’t take cash, he would have to pay with a credit card. It was 1980, they said. Firm policy for the past five years. Ariel panicked. He didn’t have one; no one he knew in Amsterdam used them. Finally he located a small company a block away from the Hertz lot. They told him they would take cash if he put down a three hundred dollar deposit.

When the sun fell over the towering Houston skyline, he woke a now-quiet Rose, put her, his suitcase and her small stroller into Isaac’s car, and drove to the rental company. Rose looked up at him. He hated to do it, but he couldn’t run the risk of taking her into the office. Even if they didn’t have a description of him, the first thing the police would have done was to send Rose’s photograph everywhere. Surely they would have alerted all rental offices to be on the lookout for a foreign man traveling with a six-month-old. Holding Rose with one arm, he put his suitcase on the front seat, zipped it open and snuggled her into his clothing. It wasn’t a car seat, but it would have to do. He lowered the windows a bit to let the warm breeze in. She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide and curious. He kissed her again. “Be good,” he whispered. “I’ll be right back.”

He pulled the brim of his hat low on his forehead and got into line. Someone at the far end of the counter was not happy.

“I don’t give a
shit
what that machine of yours says,” bellowed an angry young man in a white starched shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. “I reserved a Cadillac and a Cadillac is what you’re goddamned well gonna give me.”

The older female agent glared at him, pulled out a reservation form and pointed to a few lines of text. Her voice was sharp as cactus needles. “There it is—in black and white. We said we’d give you the car of your choice
if
it was available.” She crossed her arms and smiled at him as if pleased to give him the news. “And it ain’t.”

The cowboy’s face turned purple. “Listen, lady. I got a sweet little Mexican girl waitin’ for me down in Nuevo Laredo and then we’re hoppin’ a plane to Acapulco. How do you expect me to drive that far in some shitty little compact?”

The woman looked him square in the eyes, held up a set of keys and shook them. “Guess you better get goin’ then. You got about a six hour drive ahead of you to Laredo. Once you get there, you can just walk over the border, you know.”

It was Ariel’s turn. The young man facing him at the counter barely noticed him. His eyes were riveted to the argument. Ariel mumbled his request for a car—any car. The man nodded, looked at Ariel’s drivers license and didn’t seem to notice that it was foreign. When Ariel asked to pay cash, the agent waved the manager over. He glanced at Ariel’s passport and then his face. “Three hundred deposit. You got that?”

Ariel fanned the cash on the counter, his heart pounding.

The manager turned to the agent. “Okay.”

Ariel signed the rental papers quickly and had a sudden thought. “Where is Nuevo Laredo?”

The young agent looked at him curiously. “Not from around here, are you?”

“No,” he mumbled.

The agent stamped the first page of the rental form, ripped it off and gave Ariel the copy and a set of keys. He reached under the counter and handed Ariel a map of Texas, and pointed. “It’s a lousy town on the Mexican side of the Texas border. All it’s got is booze, bad food and easy hookers.” He jerked his head toward the cowboy, who was still arguing with the woman behind the counter. “Anybody can walk across the border and get some of what he’s after.”

“Without a passport?”

The clerk shrugged. “Nobody gives a damn who goes into Mexico. We just care who comes back. Lots of wetbacks tryin’ to sneak in.”

Ariel collected the rental papers and rushed back to Rose.
Was she still there? Was she all right?
He unlocked and opened the car door. There she was, sleeping, a soft smile on her face. Incredible relief shot through him. Before he lifted her out of Isaac’s car and walked to the one he had just rented, he had a final thought. He used Rose’s blanket to wipe off his fingerprints from the steering wheel, car handles and the keys, which he then threw under the driver’s seat. “I am a criminal,” he said softly to himself. But there was no time for moral reflection now.

Once in the car, Ariel turned the key and drove into the night. Just before they arrived in Laredo, he used a pay phone to make a reservation on the next Aeroméxico flight from Nuevo Laredo to Amsterdam via Mexico City. He would pay for the tickets at the airport.

The clerk had been right. He and Rose had just walked across the bridge from Laredo into Mexico with the other pedestrians. It was crazy. After the hour-long flight to Mexico City, they arrived at the airport. While he waited for the flight to Amsterdam to board, he placed a collect call to Leah.

“Ariel?” He heard the hysteria in her voice. “Where are you? Why haven’t you called me?”

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. God, I’ve never been so happy to hear your voice.”

“Are you all right? What has happened?”

“God, Leah, I don’t know where to begin.”

“Did you find Isaac?” Her voice lowered to a fierce whisper. “Amarisa is frantic! She made me tell her where Isaac went and why.”

Dread filled him. “Where is she now?”

“Here, in the other room,” she said. “She says she’s not budging until Isaac comes home. God, Ariel—
hurry.
You know how she is.”

“Don’t tell her anything.”

“But you’re bringing Isaac back with you?”

“He’s—dead.” The word choked in his throat.
“Dead?”
He heard the terror in her voice. “But how—”

“He killed—”

Ariel turned. A short young woman with two noisy toddlers in tow stared at him, her black eyes wide. She had obviously wanted to use the telephone but thought better of it and scuttled away as quickly as her entourage would permit. Ariel lowered his voice and whispered into the receiver. “I can’t talk now—it isn’t safe. I’m sorry, I know you’re worried.”

“But
murder?
Oh, God—”

Rose began to whimper. Ariel hoisted her higher on his hip.
“Niet huilen, schat.”

“Who is that? A child?”

“Yes,” he said quickly. “I have to catch my plane. Will you pick us up? Eight tomorrow morning.”

“Us?” she cried. “Who is us?”

“Leah, I’ll explain it all later, I promise. Whatever you do, don’t say anything to Amarisa. Just tell her I’m coming home and you don’t know anything else.”

“But—”

“Please, darling, do what I say. I’ll handle her when I get back.”

“I’ll try, but—”

He heard his flight announced over the loudspeaker. “I have to go now, sweetheart. See you tomorrow.”

“Just come home!”