Cutting the Cord Read online

  Minette doesn’t respond for several seconds. ‘I don’t understand. Why would your father do that?’ Her voice is tremulous.

  ‘I can’t explain properly over the telephone or in an email. Please believe me when I tell you that you may be in danger.’

  There is silence.

  ‘Please, Minette, leave your house.’

  ‘But why? You might not be my daughter.’

  ‘Yes, I know. What matters is that my adoptive father thinks you are my mother and views you as a possible threat.’

  ‘But my children were stolen; they weren’t adopted.’

  ‘Perhaps I was taken and then for some reason dumped at an orphanage. That’s where my adoptive parents found me.’

  ‘What about James?’ she asks weakly.

  ‘I don’t know whether I have a twin brother,’ Amira replies.

  ‘But how do your adoptive parents know about me? Why would they want to harm me?’

  ‘My adoptive father has contacts. He found your name somehow.’

  Minette’s breath sounds rushed. ‘I don’t understand. He has my address? My phone number?’

  ‘Minette, please. You must take me seriously. It would take me hours to explain everything I know to you. He could easily find your address and number on the internet, on a phone directory perhaps. I know this sounds absurd and I don’t want to scare you, but I must be honest.’

  ‘I should go to the police?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes.’ Amira can feel her blood seizing, like ice, through her body.

  Minette hesitates a moment before speaking. ‘Are you in danger?’

  ‘Ah … yes, I am.’

  ‘From your father?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  Amira ponders how best to answer the question. ‘I can’t give you his name.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t give your contact details out to anyone else – even if they claim to be your child,’ Amira continues. ‘Please check into a hotel for a few days. I will call your mobile as soon as I arrive in Sydney.’ Amira grips her elbow and rubs an upper arm. ‘This first conversation between us isn’t …’ Her breath hitches.

  ‘Don’t think of such things,’ Minette says, her voice quite soft with a mixture of concern and awkwardness.

  ‘I’ll call you. Probably sometime Monday morning.’

  It takes her several minutes to gather herself again. So who is Minette? Whoever she is, Amira has to get to her before the One.

  Amira arrives in Sydney early Monday morning, jet-lagged but energised by adrenaline. She passes through immigration, customs and security without incident. As she waits for her luggage at the carousel she checks the German news from her phone. The police are searching for a missing woman in the Cologne pub murder. They have a sketch, which has a faint resemblance to Amira. The description is equally vague and can apply to one-tenth of Cologne’s female population. There is also an article about the fire at her apartment. No-one is injured. Police are asking residents of the building to come forward and they mention her by name – Anika Vollmer. Forensics are analysing the scene for what may have caused the fire.

  She collects her suitcase, hires a car using Amira Knox’s Australian driver’s licence, and steps out of the airport into the foggy, draughty morning. The Australian winter momentarily chills her. Taxis and cars bustle along; the sky is grey and the air laced with petrol fumes. The city looks as impenetrable as a black hole. It will either destroy her or give her life. As arranged, she calls Minette again. It is barely 6 am.

  ‘It’s Anika here. I’ve landed at Sydney airport.’

  ‘You have?’ There is the sound of a TV playing in the background. Then a man’s voice asking where his socks are.

  She is suddenly alarmed. ‘Minette, are you still at home?’

  It takes her a moment to answer. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The police were no help without the name of the person who had threatened me. I gave them your name and said you may be in danger, too.’ Her voice sounded anxious. ‘All they could do was write up a report.’

  Her shoulder blades pulled together tensely. ‘You still should have left your home.’

  ‘My husband has to work. I’ve taken the day off, but I should be working. The past two days haven’t been easy for either of us.’

  ‘We need to meet,’ Amira says. ‘Should I come to your place?’

  There is a long silence until Minette breaks it, her voice quiet.

  ‘The person who snatched my children is a criminal. That’s why what you’ve told me actually makes sense. Yes, you can come and visit me.’

  Minette gives Amira her address.

  She is in Liverpool. As Amira drives west on the M5, she keeps looking in the rear-view mirror, scanning for any signs of police or Members. Nothing.

  And why the hell is she wishing Lukas were beside her?

  Minette lives in a quiet cul-de-sac. Amira pulls up alongside a kerb under the shade of a gum tree. She glances up at the everdarkening sky over the trees. The weather is stormy, but of the kind that will hang in the air for hours. There are no individuals waiting in cars, lurking behind trees. Perhaps Minette isn’t really her mother. Amira partly hopes she isn’t.

  Amira looks across the street at Minette’s red-brick home. The garden is filled with barren creeping roses, wattle trees and a leafless jacaranda with open seed pods like mussels scattered around the base. A ute in the driveway.

  In the rear-view mirror she catches the pale image of her face, made dull by the cold, foggy morning. Peering closer, she wonders how she has become so gaunt and emaciated. She smiles, trying to forge some semblance of vigour, some quality of lovability. Have realistic expectations. Life isn’t a fairy tale.

  Suddenly the front door opens, then the screen door. Minette stands at the porch, her skin the colour of pale honey. She is in her forties, has thinning brown hair and wears a pale pink cotton shirt. She looks just like the lady in her picture. There are no sharp angles on her face; her lips are full and she has a cute button nose and she doesn’t appear to wear make-up. She gazes at her.

  ‘Sofie? Is that you?’ she calls out. Her eyes are wide, hands clasping her chest.

  Overcome with a sudden unexpected gut wrenching, Amira unfastens her seatbelt and steps out of the car, her feet falling on the asphalt.

  Minette turns to her. ‘Sofie?’

  She races to her, and their eyes lock. Minette stares at her hair, her lips, slowly taking her in. The penetrating gaze makes her uncomfortable, and she looks away.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Minette says.

  ‘I know I’ve scared you. I’m sorry,’ she replies, trembling.

  Minette’s arms fling around her. A sob breaks from the older woman’s mouth. Amira’s knees feel boneless.

  ‘Come in. Come inside,’ Minette says. ‘You’re freezing.’

  They walk into the hallway, and on the right is a glass cabinet filled with china dolls, crystal bowls, and a chess set made of bone. On the left is a coat stand, a basket filled with children’s hats. A barometer that reads much rain hangs on a wall.

  ‘I’m a family day-carer,’ Minette says, watching Amira. ‘I look after children in my home for a living.’

  Suddenly Amira is close to tears; all these years, her mother has been looking after other children.

  ‘We have a visitor,’ Minette calls out.

  A man with skinny legs, a pot belly and boyish curly hair comes into the living room. His skin is well tanned.

  ‘I’m Anika.’

  Minette shuffles her feet and offers a weak smile. She’s sad now. Is it because Amira has a different identity apart from the one given to her at birth, one other than Sofie?

  ‘This is Jack, my husband.’

  He laughs. ‘Well, look what the cat dragged in.’

  Minette flushes pink and shakes her head. ‘Jack, don’t be rude.’

  Jack greets Amira with a firm hand
shake. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  Amira mumbles a greeting.

  ‘Why don’t you make us a cup of tea?’ Minette asks him.

  Jack’s eyes light up. ‘Kicking me out? That’d be right. Something exciting happens for once in our lives and I’m sent to make the tea.’

  He gives Amira a big grin. She smiles in return.

  ‘Jack, please,’ Minette’s tone is clipped, one eyebrow raised.

  ‘All right, all right.’ Jack scuffs his feet out of the room.

  Minette clasps Amira’s hand and squeezes it. ‘You are beautiful.’

  The words are difficult for Amira to absorb. She looks down at their hands together, their skin, and she is at a loss for what to say or do.

  ‘Let’s go into the lounge room,’ Minette says, leading Amira while they wait for Jack to make the tea.

  Amira studies the two green suede sofas, the matching recliner, the Turkish rug beneath her feet, the boxes of toys lined up under the large bay window, the children’s books scattered on bookshelves, the flat screen TV. Everything about the room speaks of warmth, and children’s laughter.

  She sits in the soft recliner. Minette sits on one of the sofas next to her. There is silence, neither of them knowing where to begin.

  We haven’t much time, Amira tells herself. Get it over with. Speak the truth.

  ‘You’ve come from Germany?’ Minette asks.

  ‘Yes, Cologne,’ Amira says uselessly.

  Minette nods her head lightly, a bright smile now on her face as though a daughter – no matter what kind of a person – is better than none at all. If Minette were more hard-nosed, colder, less genuine (more of an Elga Hinkel or a Selena), then it would be easier for Amira to unburden herself. But to tell this woman will shatter her. Minette crosses her legs and tugs at her pale pink sleeve.

  ‘We need to talk about your father.’

  Amira sits with her hand wedged between the recliner and the bottom of her thigh and she pinches herself. How can she utter words that will rip her mother away from her? A mother that she has just found? She is glad she is sitting; otherwise she is sure her legs would buckle.

  Jack comes in then; his coarse lizard hands balance a tray with a teapot, cups, saucers and a plate of biscuits. ‘Here you go,’ he says with a wink in Amira’s direction. He puts the tray on the coffee table, tucks a stray curl behind his ear. ‘Want me off at work?’ he asks Minette. ‘Or out in the shed?’

  ‘Why not stay a bit?’ Minette says.

  He sits down next to her on the sofa.

  ‘Sugar?’ Minette asks Amira.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Milk?’ Minette asks.

  ‘Yes, please.’ Amira pinches her thigh harder. She should not be sitting having tea and biscuits. But how easy it is to watch Minette pour the tea with her plump hands, to accept a floral porcelain teacup from her. A cup that would be easy to break.

  ‘These cups are from Germany. The porcelain is from Meissen, near Dresden. They belonged to my mother. We hardly ever use them. Only for special occasions. Biscuit?’

  She offers the plate of assorted biscuits. Amira selects a chocolate-coated one and takes a bite. She could have gorged on all the treats. Minette pours Jack a cup of tea without offering him any biscuits.

  Then their eyes are on Amira and the biscuit becomes difficult to chew. She takes a gulp of tea to help the sludge down.

  ‘Tell me, what happened to your twins?’ she asks.

  Minette shifts in her seat and, for the first time since she has seen Amira, the smile disappears from her face. ‘I had my twins when I was eighteen. A boy, James, and a girl, Sofie. But I need to begin earlier than that. Let me see.’ She pauses and tugs on an earlobe. ‘I grew up here in Sydney. One of three girls. I was the youngest. When I was a teenager, I went a bit hippie. I had a few casual relationships … for a period of time.’

  ‘Anyway, at seventeen I worked as a waitress in a cafe. That’s how I met David.’

  ‘David?’ Amira asks.

  ‘Yes. He is James and Sofie’s father. He was sitting at a table by himself reading a novel. He was extremely handsome with lovely dark features, very intense and passionate. We spoke about the book he was reading: George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. He was very intelligent.’

  Jack rubs his nose up and down. He seems to have inched towards the biscuits.

  ‘David came in a few times and he eventually asked me to a movie and dinner and we started seeing each other,’ Minette continues. ‘But after a while – no, it was only after a short time, really – I felt like he was only really interested in me for one thing, if you know what I mean.’

  Jack’s neck looked stiff.

  ‘We had an attraction, you see, but we had different beliefs. David was, I would say, strongly communist, or something, and believed in world revolution. But I associated that with cruel dictators like Stalin.’

  Amira woodenly swallows some biscuit.

  ‘Does that make sense?’ Minette asks.

  Father’s words echo in Amira’s mind: ‘You must be careful who you have flings with. Romances that are light and fun at first can become heavy and burdensome, and before you know it, they can destroy you and everything that you and our family have worked so hard to achieve.’

  ‘That makes sense to me,’ Amira says, placing her tea and the remains of her biscuit down on the coffee table, feeling a sudden loss of appetite.

  ‘There were other problems, too. He kept our relationship a secret. He didn’t introduce me to his friends. If we went out, then it would only be the two of us. Then I found out I was pregnant with twins.’ Minette lowers her blue eyes to her stomach, as if she is remembering the life that once grew inside her.

  ‘Do twins run in your family?’ Amira asks.

  Minette’s eyes meet hers. ‘Yes, my mother was a twin.’

  ‘How did David react to news that you were pregnant?’ Amira asks.

  ‘He broke up with me.’ Minette sips her tea. ‘Said he didn’t want anything to do with my mess.’

  ‘A charmer,’ she says.

  ‘So I had my twins, and stayed at home living with my mother – my father had died a year earlier.’

  Amira stares blindly down at her lap. Had David brought her to Father? Do her parents know she is stolen?

  Minette puts her teacup on the coffee table. Jack pats her on the back in a reassuring way. ‘Go on, love,’ he says.

  People outside the Movement could be kind and loving. They aren’t always mindless, complacent slaves.

  Minette continues. James was a bit of a handful, always wanting to be fed and not sleeping properly. Sofie was an easy baby by comparison but James would sometimes wake her up. They shared a room. Then one morning, when the twins were barely two, they were gone from their beds. There was a search party that uncovered nothing. Police searched for David, too, but could not find anyone with his identity. The police said he must have lied.

  ‘But why would he have done that?’ she asks. Her voice is raspy, as she pulls out a scrunched-up tissue from her sleeve and blows her nose. Amira can’t speak. She pinches her thigh harder.

  ‘There was a large media campaign. But none of it was any use.’

  ‘Was there ever a ransom?’ Amira asks.

  ‘No.’

  Is it possible Minette is her mother? Is Amira the little girl that was snatched from her cot? Amira looks into the older woman’s eyes searching for certainty, wondering whether she is the Woman.

  ‘Do you have photos?’ Amira asks Minette.

  Minette points to some photographs next to the television. ‘There are some. I’ll get more.’

  Amira edges towards the photos on the chest, images that are largely washed in a discoloured tan from years of exposure. There is a picture of a snowman and Minette holding two children. The little girl is wearing a thick red coat and the little boy is in a blue one and he has matching gloves with an embroidered steam train. Both children are smiling and Minette looks delig
hted. The snowman has a carrot on his nose and carrot eyes. Amira looks closer and the boy has what looks like pink and white marshmallows in his hand. She sways unexpectedly and she has to sit back down.

  ‘You look very pale,’ Jack says. ‘Are you all right? Can I get you anything?’

  Amira shakes her head.

  Minette returns to the room holding three large photo albums. They start leafing through the first. There are many old photos that Amira doesn’t recall. But the face of James is familiar to her. He is the boy in her memory. Near the last pages, a photograph falls loose of a young man sitting at a cafe drinking a coffee, smiling. He is looking at something in the distance as though he is unaware of the camera.

  Amira picks up the picture and her head jerks back.

  ‘That’s David,’ Minette says. ‘That’s the only photo I have of him. He didn’t know I had it. A friend took it for me. The police put it in the papers when they were looking for Sofie and James. But he never came forward.’

  ‘I know this man,’ Amira says.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘This is Father, the man who adopted and raised me. Only his name isn’t David, it’s Henry.’

  Minette blinks several times before her eyes widen in shock.

  Jack’s shoulders suddenly hunch up, his neck looks like it has turned to steel. ‘You tell me where he is. He needs to be shown his place.’

  Minette places her hand on Jack’s arm.

  ‘Taking children like that. He’s nothing but a criminal.’

  ‘Jack, please. He is Sofie’s father.’ She turns to Amira and gives a pained smile. ‘So that’s how your father knows who I am.’

  Amira is groggy. Her entire life is based upon a lie. Father has lied about everything. Why hasn’t she seen this coming? She glances at the little boy in the photograph with the snowman. If Father had taken her, what did he do with James? She remembers feeling separated from her birth brother.

  ‘I suppose David is worried I will go to the police, is he?’ Minette asks. ‘Have him arrested for kidnapping? But why would he tell you who I was?’

  ‘He knew I’d come for you.’

  Why didn’t Father tell her she is his daughter? All this time, he knew that she yearned to know who her real parents are.