The Zurich Conspiracy

muggy as they walked out of the café.
    “Have you caught the burglars yet?” Josefa inquired, turning toward the ape house.
    “Maybe it was only one guy. Or one woman.”
    She gave him a searching look. He straightened his cap. “No, we don’t have anything yet. There are burglaries all the time, and only some of them get cleared up.” He glanced at her and then changed the subject quickly. “How’s your work going?”
    Josefa regaled him with stories of the rich and famous but left out the events of the golf tournament and her problems with Schulmann. She could tell by the look on his face that he obviously found her job fascinating. Certainly, she took care of some prominent people, and he probably recognized some of the names from the papers or TV. Add the exotic places where she organized those glittering events, and her contacts around the world, and maybe it was impressive. She wondered if he was having trouble reconciling the sloppily dressed woman beside him—T-shirt, jeans, parka, hiking shoes—with the perfume of that beautiful world of luxury? She’d only touched up her face a little, and now some red lipstick stained the paper cup.
    The shrieks of the peacocks and other birds filled the air. Josefa wondered why she was telling him all this. “A policeman’s life can’t deliver that much glamour and excitement,” Sauter said when she had finished.
    “Too much excitement for me at the moment. That’s why I’m going to see the apes.”
    Detective Sauter was just opening the door to the ape house when Josefa astonished herself by saying, “I resigned yesterday.” He turned around quickly and looked her in the face with an expression she found hard to read. His crinkled face was now almost smooth, as if two hands had gently pulled the skin on his temples back. But he didn’t say another word. It would have been hard to hear him anyway over all the noise in the giant hall.
    Rows of visitors were crowded in front of the glass wall; kids sitting high atop their fathers’ shoulders. They’d all come to see the newborn gorilla baby. But something was odd. Many of them were turning away from the glass, a solemn look on their faces.
    Josefa pushed her way into the crowd in order to have a better look inside the enclosure. The mother gorilla was sitting very near the glass with what appeared to be a sleeping baby in her arms. Sauter tugged on her sleeve and pointed to a transparency on the pane: “Kayra gave birth on Saturday to a stillborn baby. We are leaving it with her until she gives it up on her own.” At that moment the gorilla turned its head and looked Josefa straight in the eye and then lowered her head. There was a look of infinite sadness in the mother ape’s eyes that took Josefa’s breath away.
    Her mother is lying in the hospital bed: This is your mother, she hears someone say, but the woman in the bed is a stranger to her. She looks like a ghost, ugly and scary. She is raving, and her crooked lower lip hangs down, saliva drooling from it. Josefa wants to leave; does not want to look at her. That is not my mother. That is not Mama; no, that’s not her, never! Why must Mama take all this medicine? She’s so different from how she was before. If she didn’t take those pills, she would be the way she used to be. My dear, cheerful mother. Why does nobody tell me anything? Why do I always have to show this woman, this stranger, any consideration? It’s been months now. She lies in bed and cries. Because she’s in pain. But I do not want to be here. I want my mama back. She ought to be normal, like other mothers. Why does Mama let them do this to her? Why does she not put up a fight and get out of her sickbed? Why doesn’t she come back home ?
    Josefa does not want to visit this woman anymore. She does not want to see, or touch, her anymore. And then that terrifying Sunday. Papa takes Josefa to the hospital. He does not tell her why. Josefa screams and lashes out in fury. But Papa pushes her up to the bed where her mother is lying; her eyes are wide open, her face sunken. Mama grabs Josefa’s arm so hard that it hurts. She says in a gasping voice: She belongs to me. These words again and again: She belongs to me. Her fingernails dig into the sweater on Josefa’s arm. Josefa tries to free herself. She hears her father say: She belongs to us, cara , both of us. His voice is very gentle. What’s going on here? Why does nobody tell me anything?
    Josefa tears herself loose with