Evil Eye Read Free

been more—a half hour, at least. We had a Danish au pair girl but she had the afternoon off. I was—away. Ines hadn’t really wanted a baby and she’d had a difficult pregnancy. She’d been just starting to get good film offers, and pregnancy and a new baby sabotaged her career. I think it was a Polanski project she’d had to decline—just a supporting role; but the pregnancy happened, she didn’t ‘believe’ in abortion, nor did I—at that time, in such circumstances. Yet after Raoul was born, Ines was devoted to him, though very superstitious, wearing amulets against the ‘evil eye’ on a silver anklet. Ines also cultivated a neurotic fear of the number thirteen—do you know there’s a word for this phobia, which isn’t uncommon?— triskaidekaphobia —as if that could explain anything! There was—there is—no explanation for this sudden infant death—‘crib death’. . . .” Austin spoke rapidly, as Mariana had never heard him speak before. His ruddy face was damp with perspiration and heat seemed to exude from his fleshy chest. He’d been pacing about the room and now he seemed to have wandered out into the corridor just as a phone began to ring in his study; Mariana didn’t know if she should follow him into the study. She thought But this happened twenty-five years ago. But she thought I am his wife, I must comfort him.
    But when she caught up with Austin in his study he’d thrown himself into a leather swivel chair in his usual way and was laughing into the phone. When Mariana tried to touch him he pushed her away without glancing at her.
    â€œHenry! Bloody hell! Are you still in—is it Dubrovnik?”
    Quickly Mariana retreated. Such conversations Austin had with old friends could last a long time.
    And she had preparations to do: Ines and the “cellist” niece were due to arrive in two days, the first houseguests of Mariana’s married life.
    â€œMariana. You must not be alone for now, my dear.”
    So Austin Mohr had told Mariana, simply. And so it was.
    She’d been midway through her first-year residency as a fellow at the Institute when her life collapsed.
    First her father had died in December. Then her mother had died in early March.
    The first death had not been entirely unexpected, but it had come far more swiftly than anyone might have predicted: Mariana’s father had had surgery to remove a malignant growth from his prostate, but he’d contracted a hospital infection from which he had never recovered.
    Mariana had had to leave the Institute to spend time with her grieving mother. She’d taken work home with her to Connecticut and immersed herself in her work as a distraction when she wasn’t in her mother’s immediate company. Gradually, her mother had seemed to be recovering—she’d urged Mariana to return to San Francisco. But after Mariana returned to the Institute in early March, her mother had a collapse of some kind, possibly a mild stroke, followed a week later by a massive stroke that had killed her.
    The stress of grief Mariana was told.
    Your mother has died of a broken heart.
    Mariana wondered if her mother’s use of prescription drugs had contributed to her death. Barbiturates to help her sleep, tranquilizers to help her endure the day, sometimes washed down with the remains of her husband’s small cabinet of whiskey and bourbon.
    Neither of Mariana’s parents had ever drunk much. The bottles were old, dating back for years. Yet several had obviously been depleted. Mariana told no one, nor did Mariana’s mother’s doctor or anyone in the family bring up the subject.
    Now Mariana, too, was stricken in the heart. Her grief was sharpened by her sense of incredulity— This can’t have happened! Both my parents . . . gone.
    Wandering her parents’ house as if looking for them. Yet in terror of glancing into a