A ring of numbers circle the knob. I trace the grooved numbers with my fingertips.
Cramped in an old closet, in the basement of this charming boulangerie, I realize I’ve known the combination to open this vault my whole life.
It takes only one pass to unlock it.
The vault creaks open. On the floor, wedged between the sides, are several metal boxes. After I match the right lock with the right code, the first box unlatches.
I scan the contents: stacks of files and envelopes, an abecedarian list of names, sealed documents.
Some files are in Cyrillic, some in German, Farsi, Hebrew … most are in English.
I open the next box. It’s the same. Frustrated, I unsnap the Longchamp backpack and shake it open. I dump the contents from the first two boxes in.
I open the third, larger box and blink.
I pick up a brick of euros, calculating quickly … 500,000 euros—I scan the other half—and 450,000 American dollars.
I gather enough cash out of the third box to fill the bag and leave the rest. I snap the lids shut, twist the locks, open the vault door, and step back into the closet.
Upstairs, the boulangerie is bustling. I walk to the door, with my backpack tight around my shoulders.
“Mademoiselle, attendez!”
I turn on my heel. Claudette motions me forward sternly.
She pushes a white carton into my hands. “You forgot your order,” she reprimands.
Inside the carton, set on ivory doilies, are three warm pains au chocolat.
CHAPTER 48
I half expect to be stopped, apprehended, arrested, but ten minutes later, we are at the train station.
“Why did you send me in alone?” I ask my mother. “You could have done that.”
Her azure eyes stare reluctantly into mine. “Claudette’s orders were to lead you to the vault.”
“But why alone?”
“Don’t you see, Sophia? You aren’t alone. You have a network, our network, so that if something were to ever happen to both of us—”
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” I snap, irritated.
“—you have contacts. You will be looked after,” she finishes.
My father takes a clean stack of euros and buys three tickets at the kiosk.
“Why Vienna?” I inquire, staring over his shoulder.
“We’re tracking where Bekami gets his money. We find out who funds his network? We find him.”
“And this person is in Vienna?”
“Nearby. In Odessa. There was a money transfer there last night. It’s our best lead.”
At 11:38, we give the boarding agent our tickets and file down the train to the last remaining enclosed compartment.
Separating us from the aisle, two Plexiglass doors enclose the row seats.
Once the train departs, my father unwraps his cashmere scarf and tosses it aside in a heap.
My mother takes the Longchamp backpack from me and removes the contents, dispersing the items from the safe between her bag and my father’s duffel. Standing up, she tucks all our bags onto the metal luggage rack above our heads.
We eat the pains au chocolat. All afternoon and into the evening, I try to sleep, but it comes in restless chunks; every time I fall asleep, I wake up thinking I am back in Waterford and the pain hits all over again.
Why do I have to go along with this? Why do I have to stay with them? I watch the front of the train twist around snow-covered mountain peaks. The intercom announces we have passed into Austria. We speed by signs marking the road to Hallstatt, an old village with timber houses, chocolate shops, and a church whose reflection shines in the lake beneath it.
When I first arrived in Waterford, it reminded me so much of these alpine towns. Now the alpine towns are near again, and Waterford is across the world.
“I want to go back,” I say. The intercom has announced dinner. We are all awake. “I’ll tell a story—we had to unexpectedly visit your dying aunt—and unless our house is gone, I’ll stay there. After you find Bekami you can come back too.”
“You can’t go back,” my mother rebukes me. “Not yet.”
“ ‘Not yet’ as in it’s a possibility? Or ‘not yet’ as in never?”
A woman wearing a maroon uniform and jaunty hat opens our compartment doors, pulls down the collapsible table, and delivers three entrées of beef bourguignonne, three bottles of San Pellegrino, and a bowl of demi-baguettes.
“Did Aksel ever tell you about his parents’ plane crash, Sophia?” My father tears off a piece of baguette and dips it into the rich wine sauce. My mother sits quietly, writing into a notepad, ignoring the food for now.