She advanced cautiously, aware that a child, if there was a child present, could well have an adult confederate. At least it seemed, at a cursory glance, that her clothes and furs were untouched, as was her makeup case. Dara, the leading lady, had boasted that the people of Latveria were so poor one could buy a strand of natural pearls or a sapphire pendant for a handful of lipsticks or the price of three hot dinners, and often showed off what she acquired on her days off—the real hallmark of poverty there, 'Robin' thought cynically, was that one had to bring one's own supply of toilet paper, and keep it under lock and key.

A variety of unfamiliar smells met her nose—fresh vomit, and unwashed bodies. She glanced in the bathroom, seeing no-one at first, but hearing stifled sobs. Stepping in, she beheld a puddle of vomit on the floor—either out of fear or from too much rich food eaten in haste, one of the 'rats' had thrown up all they had eaten. Still, she saw no one.

She opened the cabinet under the sink--and there they were. Two small children, pitiful in more than their terror—stinking, unkempt, filthy, ragged—and thin. Their arms and legs showed through rents in their clothing like little sticks. It was impossible to tell what gender they were—their hair was too snarled and matted, their clothing too old and shapeless.

"It's all right." she told them, still speaking German. "I'm not angry, and I'm not going to hurt you. Truly. You can come out. I think you must have been very hungry."

It hurt that children should be so suspicious, but she persevered, speaking gently to them, until at first one and then the other untangled themselves and came out. "Now, what are your names?"

"I'm Pietro," mumbled the one who seemed to have lighter hair, under the grime. "'M Wanda." said the other. The 'W' was pronounced with a 'v' sound, of course, 'Vanda.'

"I like your names." She said. "Which of you was sick?"

"That was my brother." blurted out the little girl. "He ate too fast."

"And where do you—?"

"Oh, Miss Rowan!" Madelaina was back, and she had brought help. "Don't get so close to them, you don't know what diseases or vermin they might have! Get them out of here at once, man!"

"What are you doing, breaking into hotel rooms and stealing things, you filth? I am sorry, Vreulen." Said the room steward. "I am sure they come from the orphanage down the street."

He made a grab for them—they both seized on her. "Please, don't let him take us, don't send us back there!" Their faces were buried in her shoulders, and they wept.

"AHah!—Got you!" The man swooped down and plucked them off her like a couple of unripe pears. "I am so sorry, Vreulen. I will send the housekeepers up immediately to put your rooms in order.:

"But—." He straightened up, a child thrashing under each arm, wailing and holding out their arms toward her. Her heart was not easily touched these days, not since she had left the family of her birth, after…That was another memory too painful to recall. Yet these children did reach somewhere in her soul.

It was too late. He was gone.

"Oh, Miss Rowan! Your suit!" She looked down. The children had dirtied the lapels.

"It should come out with some rubbing—you're so good at such things, Madelaina."

"And your hair. Let me wash it right now, Miss, with the special shampoo. I wouldn't be surprised if they had lice…"

The moment of compassion she had felt seemed to come and go just that easily, and she turned herself over to the ministrations of her maid.


The next morning, however, her manager came by. He was a sweet man, one of those who preferred other men to women, and consequently she felt safe around him, knowing he would never try anything with her.

"And the title will be Stolen Hearts. This is what you're going to love: It's a Preston Sturgis script! Oh, he's not directing, somebody else is doing that, but I think it will be a great breakout role for you. The character is a shoplifter—Darling, aren't you listening to a word I'm saying?"

"What—Oh, Simon, I'm sorry. It's just that last night…" She explained about the children.

"Robin, I don't know what I'm going to do with you. What a fantastic opportunity for publicity, and all you're doing is mooning about it! Two little orphans break into your hotel room just so they can meet a real Hollywood movie star, that' s too good to pass up!"

"I don't think they had any idea who I am, Simon, I think they were half starved."

"By the time I'm done with this story, dear, that's what will have happened. Now you aren't needed on the set today, so let's go with it. Go change into that blue-grey dress with the white spots and the Peter Pan collar—and that cartwheel hat, they'll look matronly—which is to say, maternal. This will show the world a whole new side of you! I'll have my secretary find you some toys to give the little brats, along with some signed photographs, while I round up the photographers. I wonder who's least hung-over this morning? And use Fire and Ice lipstick, nothing pink!"

Soon she was at the head of a small army of people, swooping down upon the orphanage in question, a package of trinkets and photos under her arm. She had serious misgivings about doing this, especially since Simon had waved off any suggestion that the director of the children's home be notified first. "We don't want this to look staged.", he said, airily. "The genuine reaction, that's the thing."

The building which housed the orphanage was dark, grim, and squatted at the end of a row, next to a beer bottling plant.

"If there are so many children here, why can't we hear them?" she asked, as Simon rapped on the door for her.

"Because they're in class?" he wondered.

"On a Sunday?"

"Sunday school, then…It's not locked! Well, we'll just go on inside." He was getting nervous about this, too.

Inside was worse than the outside. It reeked of unwashed bodies and rank cooking grease, of sewage and mildew.

"I didn't think it would be like this…" Simon looked around, deflated.

"What were you were expecting? Everything to be all clean and tidy? I told you what condition those children were in. Weren't you listening to a thing I said?" she looked at him. Followed by the press, they went in search of someone, some adult, in charge.

It only got worse. There were bunk beds everywhere, some in the wider hallways, with thin straw mattresses and moth-eaten blankets on them—no pillows, no sheets. Most of them were occupied now, at mid-day, by children with the vacant, snubby faces of physical retardation. They had been strapped down. A dreadful, fecal odor wafted off them,

"For heaven's sake, don't photograph this!" Simon protested as one of the studio photographers raised his camera. "People don't want to see this kind of thing."

It was Mike, who had aspirations beyond glamour and publicity shots. "Like hell I won't," he declared. "They need to see it." The other photographers followed his lead, and started snapping.

"It's as bad as Auschwitz," commented one.

Everywhere they went was filth, squalor, and starvation. The few children who were loose hid, frightened, when these strange adults approached. There were no classrooms, no playrooms, only rooms where beds warehoused children like pallets of factory seconds.

I sent them back to this. 'Robin' thought. Without thinking. Without protesting.

They found the staff down in the kitchen, a fetid hole where cockroaches speeded around underfoot—three women and two men. They were drunk. Questioning them, 'Robin' got directions as to where the facility superintendent's office was. She also lied to them, vengefully, telling them the group was a delegation from an American children's charity, and every single staff member would be fired without a reference by the end of the week.

She left the photographers behind her as she headed down the hall. "Wait up, dear!" called Simon, but she left him to catch up.

When she opened the superintendent's door, he started, taking his hand out from under the smock of a half-grown girl, guiltily. She jumped away from him, and ran, her dirty face striped with tears. "What do you want?" he barked. "There are no visitors allowed without an appointment and a reference!"

"I wonder why not?" 'Robin' said. "Last night two children escaped from here and took refuge in my hotel room. The night manager at the hotel brought them back here, but that was a mistake. I want to adopt them." She had made her decision while walking down the hall. She could not save all of these children. Perhaps she could get no one to listen to her tale of conditions in that terrible place, but those two, the two who had pleaded not to be sent back, those she would rescue.

"Oh, you do, do you? You're one of those American movie stars, aren't you? These things can be arranged—for the right price." The man leered at her.

Simon reached the door and stood there, panting. "Robin, what are you doing? Did you say 'adopt'?"

"I did," she told him, and to the superintendent, "I am sure they can, but not in this case. Many American photographers and reporters have been all over this building today, and between what they have seen and what I saw just now, I believe you will facilitate the adoption of these two for nothing."

"You're going to report us? To King Stefan's ministers? They don't give a shit!"

"No, to the World Health Organization, who will. The children's names were Pietro and Wanda, and they're brother and sister. I don't know their last name."

"You want them? Truly? Hell, lady, I'll fill out the paperwork this hour. Those two, they're wicked. This is the fifth orphanage they've been in, and they're only four." He began scrabbling in his desk.

"I find it hard to believe that at the age of four, they can be as wicked as you. What is so bad about them."

"Things…happen when they're around. Their mother killed herself, that was the beginning of it. These gypsies took them in for a year, but they died in an epidemic. Disasters follow them like their shadows—and if you take your eyes off the boy, he's gone, just like that." The man snapped his fingers.

"Robin, darling, I think you should think about this." Simon hissed.

"Simon, I don't know what I'm going to do with you. What an unparalleled opportunity for publicity. A real Hollywood movie star rescues two children from Hell on Earth." she returned, furious with him.

"Oh," Simon said. "Oh! You're right—this will get you major coverage!"

"Here. I need witnesses. Then they're yours."

"I want to see their birth certificates, the parents' death certificates, proof of immunization, medical—." She would need those things to get them passports.

The superintendent whooped with laughter. "Proof of immunization? Lady, there aren't any such creatures in this place. Only the rich can afford that kind of thing here. You're a movie star, you get them immunized if you want it done."

"I will!" she snarled at him.

"Here's the birth certificates, though. And the mother's death certificate. Who knows where their father is, he's thought to have been sent to a Soviet gulag. Disappeared eight months before they were born."

She took them. "Pietro and Wanda Lensherr, children of Magda and Erik Lensherr…"

"Of course, you could look for him in hell, because those children are the devil's spawn if ever there were." he concluded.

Two of the staff were sober enough to witness the adoption, and Robin attested to her good moral character and ability to support the children financially. The photographers caught up, and kept snapping.

"Come on," one of the boozy witnesses. "I'll show you where those two hide. You'll wish you hadn't worn that dress, it'll be ruined..."

Their choice of hiding place at the hotel seemed to be instinctive. In one of the orphanage bathrooms, there was a hole where the pipes went into the wall, and a dank smell drifted out of it, of mildew and slime.

"That's where they'll be. They're all yours now; have fun." With a coarse laugh, the woman disappeared.

How can they have possibly fit in there? 'Robin' knelt down on the floor, aware of the abhorrent state of the floor, but ignoring it. Mike snapped a shot of her as she did so.

"Pietro? Wanda?" She heard a knocking sound, as if someone had shifted and bumped a pipe. "Do you remember me? Last night, I found you in my room. You ate my chocolates until Pietro got sick. I came back and found you. You asked me not to let the man take you back here, but I did. I—I'm sorry. I didn't know what this place was like, but now I do. I came for you. I'm your mother now, and I'm going to take you away with me, to my hotel for a while, and then home to America."

Her throat was growing close with tears she could not suppress. "You'll like it in America. I have a house there, where it's warm and sunny all the time, and my kitchen always has lots of good things to eat. You can have chocolate everyday, if you like. Please come out." She was starting to feel foolish. "And tricycles. A red one for Wanda, and a blue for Pietro, I promise. Lots of other toys, too."

There was more knocking. A little face appeared in the hole, winced at the flash of cameras, and disappeared once more. "No, it's all right. Don't be afraid. No one's going to hurt you. I won't let them. And no one will take you away from me ever again."

Two faces appeared this time. "Mama?"

"Yes, my loves. Mama."