Anna was lying on the bed, on the coverlet printed with fig leaves. She was lying on her side, sound asleep. Alice tiptoed downstairs and found the Romanian in the kitchen. They had obviously been shopping; the refrigerator was crammed full, on the pantry shelves there were many small bottles containing a red liquid, net bags of lemons.
What’s that?
Aperol.
It’s what we were supposed to drink in Salò.
In the freezer compartment, water was freezing in little pink and blue moulds, hearts and shells. The whole kitchen smelled of basil, olives, sage.
This kitchen has everything you need, the Romanian said. This family has thought of everything. Lotte’s thought of everything. Would you like a coffee?
Oh yes, Alice said. I’d like that.
Her eyelids felt swollen, and she was tired, as if drugged; it was impossible to leave the Romanian. She would have liked to cling to him, she had to stay with him in the kitchen, to be near him. She pulled a stool over to the kitchen door and sat down, half in, half out, her back against the wall. Countless ants were scurrying across the threshold. The Romanian put a cup of coffee into her empty hand. She gazed out into the garden, towards the evening-tinged mountains, back to the kitchen and the Romanian who, barefoot on the red and white tiles, was cutting the melon Conrad had put into the refrigerator, first in half, then quarters, and then slices. The juice of the melon ran over his wrists. He was humming. Io cerco la Titina, Titina, Titina. A little old man came walking up the dirt road. Barely lifting his feet. Walked past Lotte and Conrad’s house, on to the yellow house, towards them.
Someone’s coming, Alice said.
The Romanian nodded. I think it’s the gardener. He was with the goats before and mowing the lawn, and he took something up to Lotte.
Alice got up. The old man was walking slowly and calmly, his eyes fixed on the ground, his hands in the pockets of his black trousers. He wore a sleeveless white undershirt and a straw hat. Alice closed her eyes. Maybe he’d be gone when she opened them again. Fata Morgana. He was the messenger bringing news. She opened her eyes; by then he was nearly at the door.
The Romanian soundlessly put the knife with which he’d been slicing the melon on the cutting board. He wiped his hands and wrists on his torn jeans. Alice looked at him. Then she turned and looked at the old man. The old man took his hands out of his pockets and with his left hand took off his straw hat. Snow-white hair. He said, Lui è morto. Signor Conrad è morto.
What did he say, Alice said. She had understood what he said; but even if she hadn’t understood the words, she would have understood the gestures he made: the old man, with the straw hat under his arm, had raised his hands, showing them the calloused hard palms. Empty and white.
Alice stepped out into the garden. The Romanian did too. The old man moved aside, giving them room. The three of them stood next to each other. The old man said something; the Romanian nodded, Si, si, yes, yes, capito, he had understood. The old man shook hands with him, then with Alice. With a motion of his head he took in everything around him: the olive grove, the wall, the house, the oleander, the orange trees, the silent, slender cypress.
He said, Vita brutta.
Again Alice said, What did he say.
And the Romanian replied, repeating what he said, He said – Ugly life. That’s what he said.
Next morning Alice went up to Lotte’s house.
The three outside doors all led into the same room. The room was large and dim; behind some screens a bed perhaps, perhaps it was the bed Conrad had been lying in with a fever, a tropical infection. His heart had beaten too fast for too long. Lying in this bed he had heard them arrive, Alice and the friends he didn’t know. The Romanian and the dark Anna, both of whom he never got to know, which was too bad but didn’t matter at all. Fever. Alice’s voice through the half-open door. We’re here now, Lotte, and we’re very happy to be here. Lotte’s voice.
Lotte was upstairs. Alice went up the spiral staircase to the upper floor; the shutters were wide open, the glass doors were pushed aside, everything was light and bright, and the view extended far across the lake. Lotte was sitting at a table by the window. A German newspaper lay on the table. A silver letter opener. A bowl of eggs, a bowl of zucchini blossoms. Lotte, pointing to the eggs and the blossoms, said, Fulvio brought them, our gardener; look, isn’t that nice? She was pale, tall, and tired. She sat ramrod straight and looked questioningly at Alice for a while, as if waiting for something to occur to her, as if trying to remember something. Then it came to her – Alice, dear. She pushed the chair next to her away from the table and Alice sat down. They sat like this, next to each other, in silence for a while. Then Alice said, Lotte, you must tell us what we should do. Should we leave or stay, I don’t know what we should do.
Oh, you ought to stay a little longer, Lotte said. Stay. It’s good for me if you stay, why should you leave now. Your friend is very nice. He can take me to the hospital, and pick me up. You ought to stay. Conrad would have wanted that too.
Not looking at Alice she said, You’re the last person who spoke to him, you know that.
Yes, Alice said. I know.
And how did that go, Lotte said.
He said he had thought he was invulnerable, Alice said. Grateful that she was able to say that much, and grateful that Lotte now laughed, softly, but still.
He said that Lotte said. She shook her head.
That’s what he said, Alice said.
They have laid him out in the hospital; that’s one of the good things about Italy. I’ll go there and sit with him. There are other dead people in the room too, a small chapel, other families, it’s actually quite wonderful. He can stay there like that for two days. Or three. Wouldn’t you like to go with me?
No, Alice said. No. I can’t.
All right, Lotte said. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to.
Come with me, Lotte said, I want to show you something.
They stood next to each other on the large terrace with the chair and the stone sphere. Lotte pulled the green hose from the drum, turned on the water. She aimed the broadly fanned glistening stream into the lavender bushes; it took a little while. Lotte said, Wait. Then cardinal beetles began pouring out of the lavender bushes by the hundreds, a redand-black-spotted flood of fleeing insects, seemingly endless. They inundated the terrace, running in all directions.
Look at that, Lotte said. Just look at that.
In the middle of the night, long past midnight, maybe already in the grey of dawn, the Romanian went up the stairs from the terrace to the first floor in the yellow house, past his own room and up to the second floor, through Anna’s room, into Alice’s room. Conrad’s room. Alice’s room. He closed the door softly behind him. The room was dark because Alice had closed the shutters tight. In the dark the Romanian groped his way to Alice’s bed. The narrow bed with the metal frame. Alice stretched her hand out to him; it was the most affectionate of gestures. Because she knew that this would be the most affectionate gesture, she guided her hand as explicitly as possible, explicitly for her and explicitly for the Romanian, whose hand was small and familiar. She couldn’t see his face. He couldn’t see hers. She took his hand with all the expressiveness she had. Drew him to her. The rest was rough and angry, unrestrained.
That afternoon they took a boat. Anna, Alice, and the Romanian. They had only a few days left, but no one cared. The lake remained dark blue, ice cold, sometimes misty, occasionally a clear view. Aggressive swans, ducks with four, five, six, or seven ducklings, the water always soft. Every hour the ferry went from west to east and back again, and the pebbles on the beach got hotter and hotter. That afternoon Anna wore a grey dress with green flowers, sandals with cork heels, her hair in a child’s pigtail. Alice wore a white blouse and a lilac-coloured skirt. The Romanian had on a light-coloured shirt and the torn jeans with traces of melon juice on the seams. The boy at the boat-rental place next to the Mussolini villa with the pretentious view of Monte Bal
do and its cloud-enveloped peak felt he had to finish his apple and fling the core to the swans before he could hand over the oars for a boat. A flag hung limply in the shadow of his little boathouse, and the clanking of the chain with which the boats were tied together scared away the swans. The Romanian rowed the boat out of the little harbour, confidently and almost elegantly. Alice saw the boy raise his eyebrows before he sank back into his plastic chair. The Romanian rowed the boat far out, probably dangerously far out; there was no one there who could have told them anything about it, but they could clearly feel the current. A wind had come up, water splashed into the boat, they were all quite exhausted anyway. The Romanian ignored Anna’s oblique references to their distance from shore, showing a casual indifference that didn’t suit him.
Who’ll go swimming?
Not me, Alice said.
With his back to Anna and Alice, the Romanian took off his shirt, then his jeans. Standing naked in the prow of the boat he bent his knees for a moment. Alice looked at him, his back, his arms. Narrow shoulders, slender neck. Bite marks, scratches. Black and blue marks all over. Then he jumped into the water, dived down, and was gone.
Good heavens, Anna said, raising her hand to her mouth; she was truly shocked. Good heavens. Did I do that? An insect had drowned in the milky foam of Alice’s latte macchiato on the terrace of the café in Salò. Alice had felt it on her tongue – very light, a multi-legged body concealed in the white foam. Gagging, she’d spat it out, sticking her tongue far out, had spat it back onto the spoon. What are you doing there? Anna asked, leaning forward, interested and sympathetic but disgusted at the same time.
Alice said, If it’s a spider, I’ll scream. It wasn’t a spider. It was something else, maybe a cricket, or a cicada? Small, black, cute, with little bent legs and a shiny abdomen. Il caldo, il tempo, the waiter had said, pointing up into the sky, shrugging and removing the plate, the spoon, the foam and the little animal from the table. Didn’t bring another coffee. Maybe I almost swallowed a cricket, a cicada, a head-cricket, Alice thought. What was the difference between them again? Conrad would surely have known. But Conrad was morto. Lui è morto. He was being taken to Germany by cargo carrier across the Alps, in July of all times.
Strange. Anna said, We didn’t even get to know Conrad, the Romanian and I, we never even saw him. What was he like? What had he been like?
While … To think that while they had stopped at the petrol station, and while the Romanian was looking up into the sky at a falcon, an eagle, or a buzzard. While Alice was sliding open the top of the chest freezer, and Anna said the word cornetto, and the gas station attendant was drumming with his fingers on the counter and Lotte was sitting in the car, unmoving behind the tinted windows, her profile outlined against the mountain, and Alice’s hand was deep in the chest freezer, in slow motion tearing open a cardboard box full of ice-lollies, raspberry, lemon and sweet woodruff – What flavour is it? the Romanian had asked. And Alice had replied Dolomiti – Conrad had passed away. In a hot room at the end of a corridor with glittering light, his heart had at first fibrillated and then stopped beating, just like that, and no goodbye, that was all. While they paid, walked out into the dusty plaza in front of the petrol pumps, nettles and grass growing between the stones. Thinking about it. Over and over again. I can’t tell you what Conrad was like. I can no longer tell you.
One afternoon Alice packed her suitcases, then sat down for a long time on the chair at Conrad’s table, gazing at the guest book, finally took the pen and managed to draw a dash on the paper; even that was embarrassing. Drinking a last Aperol on the terrace with the red cushions, the cold-blooded lizards, the unbearably beautiful view of the landscape. The Romanian and his indifferent, unchanging politeness. Should I marry you now or what; but we’re much too old to get married – Alice asked herself and came to no conclusion. Go for another swim. One last time. Sandals in hand, she walked to the little dock near the wall and the gate to the overgrown garden. When Alice, alone on the beach, undressed completely, and went cautiously into the water, tripping on the slippery stones, she remembered what Conrad had said about the lake, back then when he invited her to come for a visit. He had said, the lake was always ice cold, she would have to force herself to go into the water. He had said, But you’ll go into the water in spite of that. And you won’t regret it. You’ll never regret it.
What did he mean by that? And what did it mean for everything else? Alice’s feet left the bottom; she dove down and swam out.
III
Richard
Margaret phoned saying she needed cigarettes and water. Otherwise nothing, but she really did need the cigarettes and the water. It was urgent.
What kind of cigarettes?
Those long, slender ones, for women; Slims. And carbonated water.
Nothing else, really?
No, really, nothing else. Thanks.
I’ll be over in about an hour, Alice said. I’ll hurry.
It was an afternoon in early summer. A Saturday. Actually Alice had been intending to do something else, nothing specific, just something else. It was also Raymond’s day off. I have to go now, she said to Raymond, and Raymond who was lying on the bed, reading, only nodded absent-mindedly and didn’t ask any questions. She put on flat shoes and a light-coloured jacket. She didn’t really need the jacket, didn’t know when she’d be back, maybe late; it might be colder by then. She stood next to the bed, looking down at Raymond’s bare back, at the band of tattooing on his left arm, decorations and words in indigo blue on his always-pale skin. She said, Raymond – he turned round – I’m leaving now.
He nodded. Don’t come back too late. Give them my best wishes.
Alice put on her sunglasses before she stepped outside. She hadn’t been out of the house all day. The street was teeming with people; she held her breath. Lots of people, sitting at long rows of tables under awnings or sun umbrellas beneath the heavy green trees. Talking to one another, without let-up. Nodding, talking, gesticulating people. Loud laughter. The wooden ship in the middle of the park was occupied by a cluster of children. Crying, screaming, overheated children. A nimbus of mothers sitting on benches surrounding the ship. Alice walked by, her hands in the pockets of her too-warm jacket; there were coins in the pockets, her keys, the cellphone, an old movie ticket, sweet wrappers. The sound of basketballs hitting the fence of the basketball court, a sound that, now that it was summertime, could sometimes be heard as early as six in the morning – at six a.m. somebody was already on the court tossing a ball into the basket or against the fence, again and again. Sometimes it woke Alice up. Still tired but astonished at the morning light on the white walls of the room.
The way to Margaret’s, to Margaret and Richard’s, led past the flower stand in the Prenzlauer Allee station. The station hall was large, and there under its arched windows were flowers in plastic vases, an amphitheatre of flowers, in front of which, on a folding chair in the exact centre, sat the Vietnamese flower seller. Sitting there day in and day out. The hall was shadowy; the colours of the flowers were dark, the dark white of lilies, the dark pink of gerbera daisies, and dark iris purple. Chamomile. Snapdragons. Sunflowers. The Vietnamese flower seller was asleep. She slept the sleep of travellers; whenever her head would fall to one side, she would straighten up again with her eyes still closed. In her dreams, Alice thought, the trains come and go; it must be a constant vague noise. Alice stood there, undecided; waking up the flower seller was out of the question. Actually she didn’t want to bring any flowers today, only water and cigarettes, nothing else. There was nothing else she could bring them.
The last time she visited Richard and Margaret she’d bought peonies at this same stand, having first thought about it for a long time: Seven peonies, please, and don’t add anything. An uneven number, a superstition. Five were too few, and she didn’t have enough money for nine. Richard didn’t have a vase. Margaret, who was now staying with Richard all the time in his apartment and never far from his bed, had put the
peonies into a milk bottle and pointed out to Richard how beautiful they were. Richard said peonies were his favourite flowers. Alice believed him; he wouldn’t have said it if she’d brought him narcissus or tulips. A coincidence. All three were pleased about it. How long ago was that? Two weeks. It was two weeks ago. Richard had got out of bed; they’d been able to sit in the living room together for an hour. At the oval table in front of a shelf full of books. Richard sat with his back to the books. He was wearing pyjamas and whenever Margaret asked him to, he drank from a glass of water. He was smoking slowly and carefully; too late to stop, it would have made no sense for him to give up smoking now. Alice sat facing him, Margaret between them. Margaret talked, crying and smiling through her tears. Richard didn’t take his eyes off her. As if that were what he still had to do – to look at Margaret.
When she came back from this visit, Alice had asked Raymond, Would you rather die before me or after me? After you, I think, Raymond had said. It had taken a while before he could answer; he seemed to consider the question itself impossible. Why? He asked. He wasn’t quite sure. And you?
She’d shaken her head and put her hand over his mouth. She couldn’t answer him.
Alice crossed the intersection, obeying the signals; there were days when she felt she had to be careful, to be more cautious than usual. She couldn’t say where that came from. Raymond, too, had days like that. Both of them did.
Take care of yourself.
And you take care too.
She waited for the light to turn green; then she walked on. On her left the tram. Overhead the elevated train, rumbling downward, underground. Cars stopped in choreographed rows, seemingly meaningful, following a synchronised set of rules. Beautiful light signals. Above it all, the pale sky. Alice took off her sunglasses and used her elbow to push open the door to the newsagent’s. Barricades of plastic boxes full of sweets. Vampire teeth, white mice, liquorice snails, and behind them the shop’s fat proprietor, feeble movements, breathing and rustling, a heavy animal in its cave. Drums containing lottery tickets. Boxes of chocolate bars, bags of sweets, chocolate surprise eggs. Information, advice, little blinking bulbs, announcements. You could put all this on exhibition, Raymond would say when he stood inside shops like this. Just as it is, transport it to a museum. Alice put some paper money on the little tray in the middle of everything and said, Two packs of Slims, please. It had been years since she last bought cigarettes, and her hands trembled. Two bottles of water? The fat newsagent pointed wordlessly to a shelf next to the counter, and Alice picked out two bottles of Spree Spring Water from among the seven varieties. Did Margaret want the water for herself or for Richard? And did it matter? She wasn’t sure. It could all be very important or not important at all.
Alice Page 6