Well, it's been a while since I wrote any fanfic and I may be rusty.
This is an idea I had that ties in with Hannibal Rising and Hannibal.
Usual disclaimers apply.
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An Iron Discipline
There's a mansion in Buenos Aires where morale is high among the servants, but there is an iron discipline among them. "Them" refers to a skeletal crew of four – just as many as are necessary to keep this exquisite beaux arts style building looking exquisite. One cook, one handyman/landscaper/driver/jack-of-all-trades, and two maids are enough. They rotate shifts and don't work every day, but they're all very generously paid considering they're technically all part-time employees.
The cook is Julio Rosales, a fairly recent graduate of the Mausi Sebess Instituto de Gastronomía Profesional Culinary School in Buenos Aires. He's a thin, handsome and rather effeminate young man who clearly loves his work. He prepares meals at this mansion an average of two evenings a week, since the man who employs him enjoys doing most of the cooking himself. This is fine with Julio. It allows him to also work at the San Babila Trattoria when it suits him. In his free time, he enjoys juggling… especially knives and skewers.
Eduardo Messina was born in Brazil but has lived around Buenos Aires since he was a child. Now in his early fifties, his manual skills still make up for his lack of education and intellect. In this house, he comes when called to fix plumbing problems, mow the lawn, tinker with one of the cars, or whatever other task needs his attention. Despite the menial nature of most of his duties, he is always treated with respect and appreciation. He is paid well enough so that his robust wife can stay home all day eating alfajores and watching reruns of Simplemente Maria.
The youngest of the two maids is twenty-eight-year-old Marisol Velez, a deeply religious, chubby, semi-illiterate high school dropout with a strong work ethic. She lives with her parents and grandfather in a moderately sized apartment in the city, thanks to the generous salary she's paid. In between literacy classes and husband hunting, she cleans on the lower level and helps out in the kitchen of the mansion two or three times a week.
Finally there's Rina Ortiz. With the unspoken title of "head maid", Rina (or Katerina as is her full name) is probably the employee who spends the most time at the mansion, and is the most trusted. The widow of an Argentinean dairy farmer, she was born in France and raised in poverty since the age of four, the age she was when her father was murdered. Her maiden name is Kleber.
This hodgepodge of domestic servants has many traits in common, the strongest of which is the unquestionable trust and confidence of their employers. Handpicked by the couple who own this mansion, the servants have little interaction with each other or their employers; they know what's expected of them and they go about their business. These servants normally didn't see much of Mr. and Mrs. Elias, as they were known; they exchanged pleasantries and acknowledged instructions mostly by telephone. They were told what days to do the work, they did it, and were paid. It was a simple arrangement for all.
On this particular sunny Saturday afternoon, Julio and Marisol had the day off, Eduardo was waging war against one of the downstairs toilets with plunger in hand, and Rina has been summoned to the top floor of the mansion by the lady of the house. Rina silently followed Mrs. Elias to the master bedroom and awaited instructions.
"Rina, we're going out for the rest of the afternoon so we'll be out of your way if you wouldn't mind doing a thorough dusting up here, especially around the frames of the paintings and in all the nooks and crannies. Could you move things around and get all the dust from behind the furniture?"
"Si Senora, of course."
"Thanks Rina. Normally I wouldn't ask, but it's allergy season and dustier than usual. Just don't try moving anything heavy on your own, Eduardo won't mind helping you. We'll be back late so just lock up when you're done."
And with that, Mrs. Elias ran down the stairs and out the door, and Rina was left to her work. And what work there was – the room was messier than usual. Clothing, shoes, empty cardboard boxes and books littered the plush carpeted floor. And Mrs. Elias was right; there certainly was dust. Lots of it. As classy and perfect looking as they were, the couple was, after all, human.
Rina started picking stuff off of the floor. The clothing went into the laundry bin, the books were placed in a neat stack on one of the night tables by the bed, the shoes were lined neatly in a row on the floor of the walk-in closet, and the empty cardboard boxes were broken down and folded. When the floor was reasonably cleared, Rina took up the feather duster and started to dust around the frames of the many exquisite paintings that lined the walls.
Crash! The heavily framed Picasso reproduction came crashing down from the wall when Rina ever so slightly touched it with the duster. At least it didn't shatter when it landed on the carpeted bedroom floor. Rina was about to pick it up, when she noticed something on the wall where the painting had hung. It appeared to be a wall safe. This itself was nothing unusual; she knew of at least two safes in the house where jewelry was kept. Nor was it unusual for the door of the safe to be left ajar; Mrs. Elias was known to be scatterbrained and sloppy when she was in a rush.
Being raised in poverty and having a mostly miserable childhood, Rina had plenty of justification to end up being bitter and dishonest. However, she was neither. What she was going to do was secure the door to this safe, replace the painting back to its place on the wall, and continue dusting.
Her hand was on the small door of the wall safe about to push it shut, when she shifted her feet and felt herself stepping on something hard. Looking down, she saw a small, round, gold shape on the floor. No doubt dropped when the lady of the house was rummaging through the safe for one of her emerald necklaces. Rina reached down and scooped it up. She stood still for a moment, holding the small circlet of gold in her palm. It appeared to be a child's bracelet. Small, perfectly round and engraved with a tiny "M" on the inside. Odd. The couple had no children. Yet the bracelet looked and felt strangely familiar…
A voice from long ago echoed in her mind…her father's voice, from the year before he was killed.
"Katerina...you're a big girl now. Three years old and Papa has a special present for you…."
Along with the voice echoed the sensation of something cool and firm being slipped over her thin, three year old wrist. A perfect, shiny circle of gold, and when she turned it over, she saw the little 'M" on the underside.
"Papa, what is the 'M' for? My name is with a 'K'!"
" 'M' because you're 'My Katerina'." The three year old thought that made perfect sense.
The middle-aged, present day woman standing in the sunlit bedroom on the second floor of a stately mansion in Buenos Aires, however, thought that this made no sense at all.
This bracelet is mine. And I want it back.
To be continued