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“Stop it!” says Jane.
“Your aunt Magnolia was an operative for the American government.”
“She wasn’t,” says Jane. “She was an underwater photographer. She was not a spy!”
“She did underwater photography too,” says Mrs. Vanders. “It was the cover for her work as an operative. In our circles, spy is, in fact, a rather derogatory term.”
“Oh, come on! This is preposterous!”
“It may be preposterous,” says Mrs. Vanders, “but it’s entirely true. It’s why I knew Magnolia. ESF helped her from time to time. I’d like to know how you feel about it, because we’re always recruiting.”
Behind Jane, a door opens and Ivy steps in, tall and easy in her ratty blue sweater. At the sight of Jane, she stops, a stricken look coming to her face. “Janie?”
In Ivy’s eyes, Jane sees concern, misery, guilt. She sees the truth. Her heart plummets. This is real.
“What is it, Ivy-bean?” says Mrs. Vanders harshly. “You can go ahead and say it in front of Jane.”
Ivy clears her throat. “I’ve looked into that man who’s calling himself Ji-hoon,” she says. “I’m not sure, but Phoebe could be right.”
“Very well,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Until we know for certain, we can’t do anything extreme, but we can make damn sure he gets nowhere near the children. Please ask Phoebe to come see me at her earliest convenience.”
“You can’t really ask more of Phoebe, can you?” says Ivy. “She’s a British operative. She doesn’t work for ESF.”
“The Brits benefit if we get the children away,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Everyone benefits, and Phoebe knows that. She’ll do what I ask.”
“All right,” says Ivy, then hesitates, looking at Jane.
“Ivy,” says Mrs. Vanders, not without a sudden, surprising touch of tenderness. “Go. Ji-hoon and Grace are both in the house; we can’t take risks.”
Ivy goes.
“You needed food?”
Jane casts about for a grip on what Mrs. Vanders is saying. “What?”
“Come,” says Mrs. Vanders. “I’ll help you collect some things.”
“Okay,” Jane says automatically, not caring. As she follows the housekeeper into the pantry, a staticky noise emerges from one of the shelves.
“Sweetie?” says the deep voice of Mr. Vanders.
Mrs. Vanders reaches for a walkie-talkie sitting atop a fruit basket. “Go ahead.”
“I found the fish,” says her husband’s voice. “I’ll bring it up to your studio. It badly needs cleaning.”
Mrs. Vanders releases a breath of air. “Thank heaven for small blessings.”
“Are you still worried the Vermeer’s been forged?” says Mr. Vanders’s voice.
“Ravi hasn’t noticed anything wrong with it. We talked for ten minutes standing right in front of it.”
“Have you had it out of the frame?”
“Not yet,” says Mrs. Vanders. “I’ll do it after we’ve moved the children. If it has been forged, it’s nothing to do with the children or any of this, so I simply can’t spare it a moment’s attention right now.”
“Don’t blame yourself for putting it on the back burner,” says Mr. Vanders.
“I do blame myself,” says Mrs. Vanders. “If the Vermeer has been forged, it’s a calamity. You know how seriously I take my responsibilities to the family. Ravi’s already so upset about the Brancusi.”
“He’ll have his Brancusi back in a week’s time, none the wiser,” says Mr. Vanders. “And you’ll be able to give the Vermeer your fullest attention after the children are safe. Which will be soon, now that we have the Brancusi in hand. The gala is tomorrow. This is almost over.”
“Thank you, Arthur,” says Mrs. Vanders. “I suppose it always gets like this before the galas.”
“There is always something,” says Mr. Vanders with a chuckle, then a sneeze. Then the static cuts out. Mrs. Vanders shoves the walkie-talkie back onto the fruit bowl and reaches for a cutting board.
“Which cheese do you prefer,” she says, “muenster or gruyere?”
“What?” says Jane. “Cheese?”
“I’m making you a sandwich,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Do you like chicken liver pâté?”
“Are you—” Jane’s head is aching. “Are you using the Brancusi sculpture to pay someone to move the Panzavecchia children out of the house? Because of something to do with smallpox?”
“See now,” Mrs. Vanders says, pausing in her swift slicing of thick, dark bread to peer at Jane keenly. “This is what I mean. If you’ve managed to figure that out, it suggests to me that you have instincts for our kind of work.”
“But—it’s not your Brancusi,” says Jane. “You’re stealing the Brancusi?”
“We do not steal the family art,” says Mrs. Vanders. “We borrow it, to use as collateral while we act as go-betweens. I give a picture or sculpture to Person X. Person X releases an item to me—an agent I’m trying to save, information, goods—and I deliver that item to Person Y. Person Y pays me with the thing Person X needs—again, an agent, information, goods—and I deliver that thing to Person X. Person X gives me the picture or the sculpture back. A masterpiece is an excellent cash alternative. Recognizable, with undeniable value, and harder to trace than cash, which isn’t an option anyway, because we don’t have it.”
Jane feels herself stupidly nodding. She’s heard of this strategy. “But Ravi doesn’t know,” she says.
“No one in the Thrash family knows about ESF,” says Mrs. Vanders. “I’ll tell Ravi I’ve taken a picture away to clean it, or that I’m doing some sort of research on it.”
“You’ll lie,” says Jane.
Mrs. Vanders piles cheese and pickles and pâté onto bread. “People want to hurt these children,” she says. “There’s a woman who’s offered to move Grace and Christopher Panzavecchia for us, in return for the brief loan of our Brancusi and also our Rembrandt. She’s a peculiar woman. It’s not about money or information for her; it’s about having various pieces of art in her collection, briefly, from time to time. And she never asks for anything easy. The Rembrandt picture is big and heavy, painted on wood, and the Brancusi sculpture so fragile, but those are the only two pieces that’ll do for her this time. We’ll have them back in the house within a week.”
“Why are the Panzavecchias so important?”
“I can’t answer that,” says Mrs. Vanders. “ESF provides protection, to political agents who are exploited,
kidnapped, left to fend for themselves. If their loyalties come into question, we provide exit strategies, safe passage for them and their families. Often our services require the help of third parties. These third parties don’t help us out of the kindness of their hearts. They require payment. We’ve learned to use whatever’s available to us.”
“By lying to people in this house who trust you implicitly,” says Jane.
“What should I be doing instead?” she says, exasperated. “Should I never lie, which would endanger countless people? Should I not risk the house art, when it can ensure the safety of two children?”
“I need to go now,” says Jane.
“Don’t say anything to anyone,” says Mrs. Vanders. “Grace and Christopher Panzavecchia are only eight and two. You’ll endanger their lives if you speak of any of this to the wrong person. Would you like that on your conscience? A dead child?”
“Why should I believe you’re trying to help them?” says Jane. “If you’re being so helpful, why does Grace keep trying to sneak away? Why did she break the sculpture you need so badly to ‘rescue’ her?”
“Grace is a traumatized child who’s been torn from her family and desperately wants to go home,” says Mrs. Vanders. “She doesn’t understand that home no longer exists. She’s trying to create problems for us, draw attention. She’s acting out! But even she knows where the line is!”
“Why does home no longer exist? What happened?”
“That is far more information than you’re in need of at this juncture,” says Mrs. Vanders.
“Where’s Baby Leo?” Jane asks. “Why is no one talking about him?”
“The baby is safe,” Mrs. Vanders says. “Here’s your sandwich, some grapes, and a kumquat.” She shoves a plate at Jane so forcefully that grapes go diving off the edge, rolling into unknown and unreachable parts of the pantry.
“I can’t believe you lie to Ravi,” says Jane. “And Kiran too. Every single day. How can you do that?”
Mrs. Vanders’s face is made of granite. She shoves a doughnut onto Jane’s plate, causing more grapes to go flying. “We’ll be keeping an eye on you,” she says. “We’ll know if you start wandering the house. And we have ways of knowing if you’re engaging in mobile phone or Internet activity. If we decide that we can’t trust you to keep your mouth shut, you’ll find yourself deeply regretful.”
