All These Things I've Done (28 page)

I sat up on the sofa. Then I got up and moved to the red chair.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

I knew that it would be better to tell him that it wasn’t working out, that we weren’t compatible, that there wasn’t always a reason for these things. Unfortunately, I didn’t do this. ‘Win,’ I said. ‘You can’t be my boyfriend right now.’ I laid out my case to him just as I already have to you: I really, really liked him
(NB: I did not use the word
love.) but my family was more important than my feelings, and now that my grandmother was dead, I couldn’t risk having his father in my life, etc.

And then he talked me out of it. Or maybe I let myself be talked out of it. Maybe I wanted to be talked out of it. He told me that he loved me and I loved him and that was the most important thing. He told me that I didn’t get to make this decision by myself. He told me that his father wouldn’t bother with me and that he could control his father if his father ever tried to interfere with my family. (Even then, I knew this to be a ridiculous lie – I mean, I had met Charles Delacroix.) He told me that love was the only thing that really mattered in this world. (Another lie.)

But I was in a weakened state, and lies can sound awfully pretty when a girl is in love with the person telling them. The truth was, I couldn’t, at that moment, bear the loss of Win, too.

We heard the front door open. It was only one o’clock, and I hadn’t expected everyone back for at least another hour. I walked to the foyer. Leo blazed past me, running straight to his room and slamming the door behind him. Imogen, Natty and Scarlet stood in the hallway, taking off their coats.

‘What happened?’ I asked them, feeling guilty that I hadn’t dragged my pox-ridden self to the wake. ‘Why are you back so early? What’s wrong with Leo?’

Scarlet answered, ‘We aren’t sure. We were all together, but Leo went off with some of the guys he works with at the Pool. I thought it would be OK. But the next thing I knew, there was yelling, and Leo had a black eye—’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Leo has a black eye?’

‘I should go put something on it.’ Imogen excused herself to the kitchen.

‘Yes,’ Scarlet continued. ‘I didn’t see it happen – none of us did – and he wouldn’t say who did it. And then Yuji was telling all of us to get into a car.’

‘Yuji?’ I asked. ‘Yuji Ono? He was there?’

‘He’s
here,
’ Natty added.

And that’s when I noticed Yuji Ono standing in the doorway, wearing a black coat.

‘I was still in the States, so I came to pay my respects,’ Yuji said.

‘I . . .’ I pulled my bathrobe tighter around myself and wished for a veil to pull over my head. ‘I hope you’ve had the chickenpox.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was warned.’

Win was standing behind me. The foyer was getting incredibly crowded. Win held out his hand for Yuji to shake. ‘I’m Win.’

‘He’s Annie’s boyfriend,’ Natty added.

Yuji nodded. ‘I saw you at the wedding last weekend. Nice to meet you.’

‘Let’s all go into the living room,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Yuji, bowing his head slightly. ‘I must go. I wondered if you might have a moment for us to talk alone before I depart. I was hoping to see you at the funeral, but I didn’t know of your illness.’

‘Yes, of course. I—’

‘Annie!’ Imogen called me from the hallway. ‘Can I speak to you?’

‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I’ll only be a second.’ I scurried down the hallway. Imogen was standing outside Leo’s bedroom door carrying a bag of frozen peas. ‘Your brother’s locked himself in, and he won’t open the door. I need you to pick the lock.’

I knocked on the door. ‘Leo, it’s Annie. Please let me in!’

No reply.

I removed the fine nail that we kept above the door frame for exactly this purpose, and began to work on the lock. Despite the fact that my mind was occupied with questions, it only took me fifteen seconds. I hadn’t lost my touch. I took the peas from Imogen and told her I would go in by myself.

Leo was seated on his bed, facing the window. He wasn’t crying, which I considered a good sign.

‘Leo,’ I said softly, ‘you should put something on your eye.’

He didn’t reply, so I sat down next to him on the bed. I raised my arm to put the frozen peas on his face. He jerked his body away from me. ‘Annie, leave me alone!’

‘Please, Leo. You don’t have to talk. Just let me put this on your eye. With your medical history, I’d feel better knowing your head isn’t swelling too much. I don’t want you to have a seizure.’

‘Fine!’ Leo grabbed the peas from me and held them up against his face.

‘Thank you. You are very important to this family. To me,’ I added. ‘And you have to take good care of yourself.’

At first, Leo didn’t say anything. ‘This stings,’ he said, moving the peas from his eye and setting them down in his lap. I finally got a good look at his eye. The lid was swollen shut, and a pinkish-purple mark was spreading across his cheek. The skin was bleeding a little near his temple.

‘Oh, Leo,’ I said. ‘Who did this to you?’

He pulled the bag up to his eye again. ‘I hit him first.’

‘Who? Who did you hit?’ When he’d first been injured, Leo had had trouble controlling his anger, but this hadn’t been a problem for years.

‘Annie, I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘I need to know who you hit in case I need to do something about it,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t have to be a big deal, but we might have to apologize, or at least talk to people, explain about your condition.’

Leo threw the bag of peas at the window and the bag broke open. Peas rolled in every direction across the floor. ‘
Shut up, Anya!
You are not the boss of me and you don’t know everything.’

‘OK, Leo. You’re right. Please, just tell me who you hit. I need to know.’

‘Cousin Mickey,’ he said.

You’ll no doubt remember that Mickey was Yuri Balanchine’s son and likely successor. Apologies would most certainly need to be made and, ideally, as soon as possible.

‘Why, Leo? Did Mickey do something bad to you?’

Leo’s gaze floated to the upper-right corner of the room. I peered up to see what was there, but I saw nothing. ‘It’s his fault Nana’s dead,’ Leo said finally.

‘Come again?’

‘If we hadn’t been out of town for his stupid wedding, Nana wouldn’t have died. She’d be here now, and I wouldn’t be . . . Why did we even have to go to that wedding?’

‘Nana wanted us to, remember? She thought it was important for us to show respect to the rest of the family.’

Leo wrung his hands. ‘It’s a lot of pressure. It’s too much pressure. It’s a lot of pressure.’

‘What is?’ I asked.

‘Being in charge of you and Natty. I miss Nana. I want Nana back. And Daddy!’

‘Oh, Leo! You aren’t alone in any of this. I’m here.’

‘But you’re my little sister. I need to protect you.’

I smiled. In a way, it was touching that he saw me that way. ‘Leo, I really can take care of myself. I’ve been taking care of myself for some time.’

Leo said nothing.

‘Can you lie down for me, Leo? I think it would be good if you rested.’

Leo nodded. I loosened his tie and took off his bloodstained dress shirt, and then he lay down. ‘Do you think everyone is going to be mad at me?’ he asked.

‘Don’t worry about any of that right now. I’ll explain everything. Everyone understands how hard Nana’s death has been on us.’

I walked out of the room. Imogen was still standing in the hallway so I asked her if she wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on Leo for me. ‘I had already planned on it,’ Imogen said.

Though Win, Natty and Scarlet had gone into the living room, Yuji Ono had remained in the foyer.

As I retied my bathrobe, I wished very much that I’d gotten dressed that morning. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I know you’re in a rush.’

Yuji waved his hand dismissively. ‘I’d like to speak to you in private,’ he said. ‘Can we be heard here?’

I suggested we go out on to the balcony. We walked through the living room, past the others, to get outside. Win looked at me questioningly, and I smiled slightly to let him know that I was fine.

‘Why weren’t you at the wake today?’ Yuji asked after I’d closed the balcony doors behind us.

I told him that I’d been ill and that I’d feared infecting other people.

Yuji studied my face and this made me uncomfortable. As I was only wearing my bathrobe, I began to shiver so Yuji offered me his coat. I declined, but he insisted, taking the coat off and placing it over my shoulders.

‘What happened to make Leo strike Mickey?’ I asked.

‘I am not sure I know. One moment Leo was speaking to his friend, Yuri’s illegitimate son with the prostitute – I cannot remember the young man’s name?’

‘Jakov Pirozhki,’ I said. ‘Jacks.’

‘And the next moment, Leo was running across the room to deck Mickey. The reason I wanted to talk to you was because I was concerned that perhaps this Jacks has an unhealthy influence on your brother.’

‘It’s possible, but I don’t think Jacks put Leo up to striking Mickey Balanchine, if that’s what you mean. I’m afraid one of our lawyers put the idea in Leo’s head that, if we hadn’t gone to the wedding, Galina would still be alive,’ I explained.

Yuji stretched out his hands, then took a deep breath and bowed his head. I could tell he was debating whether to speak his mind. ‘Anya, what I am about to say, I say with the greatest respect for you and for your family and especially for the relationship between our beloved fathers, now deceased.’ He paused to clear his throat. ‘It is time for you to set your house in order.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You have allowed things to get out of hand here, but it is not too late. I feel sure that your brother has come under the influence of Jakov Pirozhki. But it is more than this. The reason I made this trip to America was on behalf of the big-five chocolate families. Do you know who they are?’

I nodded. ‘The Balanchines here. You guys in Asia. The . . .’ And here I paused. I honestly wasn’t sure which families would be considered the other three.

‘Yes, I was like you once,’ Yuji said. ‘I’d spent my whole life living in the shadow of this business without really knowing anything about it: in what climates chocolate thrives, what the factories look like, why it became illegal in parts of the world, the people who make their livelihoods growing and distributing it, the—’

‘Enough,’ I interrupted him. I could tell I was being insulted. ‘Why should I know anything about it when I have no plans to ever work in it?’

‘Yes,’ Yuji said, ‘I thought that once, and I, too, resisted. But, Anya, people like you and me, we don’t get a choice. We were born into these destinies. You will be in chocolate whether you want to be or not. You are the oldest child of Leonyd Balanchine, and—’

‘I am not! Leo is!’

‘Leo was,’ Yuji insisted. ‘You are a smart girl, and I know you understand what I mean by this.’

I said nothing.

‘Can you honestly tell me that you consider it a wise strategy to have nothing to do with your family’s business? Why were you in prison last fall? And why did your boyfriend end up poisoned and missing a foot? Why is your father dead and your mother? And so many in my family as well? Why is your brother the way he is? Anya, you are nearly a grown woman now, and it is time.’

‘Time for what?’ I demanded.

‘For you to accept your birthright and make the best of it,’ Yuji said.

‘What about Yuri? And Yuri’s son? Don’t they run the Balanchines?’

‘Not wisely. Not well. The other families perceive the weakness and the turmoil here. They see opportunities. And your uncle has made many enemies. He never should have become the head of the Balanchine family, and everyone knows it. Back when your father was killed, everyone thought your grandmother Galina would become the interim head of the Balanchine family, but she opted to care for you and your siblings instead.’

I had never known that.

‘It’s a very dangerous situation for you, Anya. More people will end up dead. Trust me. The Fretoxin poisoning will only be the beginning of it.’

‘I have responsibilities,’ I said. ‘The best way I can protect my family – by which I mean Natty and Leo – is by keeping all of us out of it.’

Yuji looked me in the eyes. ‘If I understand correctly, chickenpox is only contagious before the spots scab. You could have been at Galina’s wake today, but you chose not to be. It seems to me that you chose to spend the morning making out with your boyfriend instead.’

‘That isn’t true.’

‘Isn’t it, though?’ Yuji asked.

‘What do you want from me?’ I asked.

‘I’m here because I’m a friend of your family and that is why I was chosen to make a report to the other families on the dealings of the Balanchines since the poisoning debacle.’

‘What will you say?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ Yuji replied. ‘In my opinion, your family is on the verge of great internecine turmoil. On the one hand, what may be in the best interest of the other families is to allow this to occur, and once it’s over, we’ll all swoop in to divvy up the Balanchines’ share of the market.’

I wasn’t sure what
internecine
meant. I’d have to look it up later.

‘On the other hand, I believe that it is better for the chocolate business to have strong partners. Your father was a great leader. And I believe that you could be a great leader, too.’

‘You’ve become as warped as the rest of them. My father was no great leader. My father was a common criminal. A thief and a murderer.’

‘No, Anya, you’re wrong. Leonyd Balanchine was a simple businessman, trying to make the best of a bad situation. Chocolate wasn’t always illegal, and it could be legal again some day, too. Soon it may not even be about the chocolate.’

‘What
will
it be about?’

‘This is a longer discussion, I’m afraid. Perhaps child labour. But I believe, as do many others, that it will be water. We are running out of it, and the person who controls the water supply will control the whole world.’

‘I can’t do any of this!’ I said. ‘I’m just a girl and I have to take care of my brother and sister. I’d like to finish high school, maybe even go to college. What you seem to be asking of me is impossible.’