Wunderland(18)

But of course, she knew why. It was the same reason that, a decade before their parting, she’d put a stop to their teenage romance before it had really started. At the time she’d blamed the horrific history they’d uncovered together: Look who my dad was. But it was later, only after a string of disastrous affairs with fast, unfaithful men, that she understood the truth: for in fact Ulrich—brilliant, funny, unconditionally-supportive-from-the-moment-they’d-met Ulrich—had quite literally been too good for her. Too considerate; too gentle. Too altogether safe, at a time when what Ava craved was the breathless distraction of danger and pain.

Now, though, staring up at the paint-blistering ceiling, her sleeping, nonfeverish daughter by her side, she realized just how completely she had changed. Gone were the self-punishing yearnings of her teens and early twenties; the greedy urge to lose herself in a man’s cruel whims. Instead, and for the first time in her life, she needed exactly what Ulrich had once tried to give her.

The revelation was so crushing—and the yearning so potent—that when the bedside phone started ringing her first thought was that it was Ulrich himself, showing up (as he always had) at precisely the moment she needed him. It wasn’t until Sophie whimpered quietly that Ava forced herself back to the moment.

Standing as quietly as she could, she made her way to the bed, her back aching from the hard tiled floor.

“Ja, hallo?” she whispered.

From the other end came a staticky, compressed version of the chaos she’d escaped hours earlier on the streets: people shouting and arguing. Scores of phones ringing in an atonal chorus. A machine-gun tat-tat-tat that at first sounded like a war zone but she quickly realized was merely battling typewriters.

“Is this Ava Fischer?” Gruff and deep, the man’s voice sounded as weary as she felt.

“Yes.” Eyes glued to the sleeping Sophie, Ava slouched onto the still-perfectly-made bed.

“This is Officer Michaels down at the Seventh Precinct.”

She sat upright. “The police?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, with exaggerated patience. “I’m calling because I believe we have your mother here.”

“My mother?” On the bathroom rug, Sophie stirred again.

“Is your mother Elsie Fischer?” the man asked. “German lady? Older?”

“Ilse,” Ava said numbly. “Ilse von Fischer. Yes.”

“We picked her up around five a.m. on the Bowery.”

Ava gasped. “She’s been arrested?”

“Not arrested. She was fighting with a couple looters when our team showed up. She didn’t seem to know where to go, so we brought her along with the group we brought in.”

“You say she was fighting?” Ava shut her eyes, trying to process what she was hearing. Her head felt as though it were stuffed with silt. “My mother was fighting in the Bowery?”

“She’s fine,” the officer said, as though she’d asked the question she should have. “A little shaken up. But not injured in any way that we can see. However, just to be sure, we don’t want her leaving alone. We’ll need you to come pick her up.”

Ava glanced back at Sophie. Now awake, she had rolled onto her stomach and was on hands and knees, reaching for the open bottle of St. Joseph’s that Ava had left on the tub. “Ah, shit.”

The policeman cleared his throat. “Excuse me?”

“Sophie, sweetie. No.” Scooping up the phone base, Ava raced toward the bathroom, stopping short as the cord reached its limit. “Please wait,” she said breathlessly, before dropping the receiver. “Just wait a moment.”

She reached her daughter just as Sophie reached her bottled quarry, scooping infant and aspirin up in one fell swoop. Failing to find the St. Joseph’s top, she tossed the whole thing in the garbage before speeding back to the abandoned receiver.

“Sorry,” she said breathlessly, clamping the device between shoulder and ear and reaching for a pencil. “Where exactly are you guys again?”



* * *





Outside, the morning light was ashy and wet-looking. Across the street from the precinct office a low-end boutique lay ravaged, its entire front window gone, its mannequins stripped and beheaded. Ava picked her way down the debris-strewn sidewalk, stepping carefully around more broken glass, burst bags of garbage, and two sleeping junkies. On Mott Street the Lincolns, Datsuns, and Buicks jostled and screeched, stopping short like irate bumper cars, honking at one another like lowing cattle. A fire hydrant spewed a foaming white jet of city water beneath which a homeless man, naked but for his briefs, appeared to be joyfully showering. Still in last night’s sweat-stiff sundress, Ava momentarily yearned to join him—Snugli, baby, and all.

Inside the precinct office, the chaos seemed only marginally more controlled. Disheveled detainees sprawled on the wooden benches and spilled onto the tiled floor, mostly men, many shirtless, some wounded. An emaciated woman in a plunge-neck romper and red stilettos slumped before the exhausted-looking cop who was taking down her information with two fingers, his slow-pecking pace clearly no match for her rapid-fire Spanish. Scanning the room, Ava felt a shudder of recognition. The last time she’d been in a place like this had been a decade earlier—and unlike Ilse, she actually had been arrested. She pictured Ulrich’s wry face when he came to sign her out and felt her throat tighten almost painfully.