by Joseph Kanon
“Where, then?”
We were strolling past the empty cafes.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go to Murano and make glass. Maybe Quadri’s,” she said, pointing to the frosted windows. “Somebody must do the dishes.”
“Not tonight,” I said, looking in. An old woman in a fur coat, nursing a drink. Two men at the bar.
We went under the arcade and out of San Marco, past the back basin where the gondolas tied up. Guido’s was a small restaurant, cozy in the winter, with windows overlooking the Rio Fuseri and a long antipasto table filling the far end of the room. In the summer it would be filled with foreigners, sent by the big hotels with walking maps, but now it was only half full, romantic with shaded lamps and a pleasant murmuring of Italian.
Claudia saw them first. I was handing the coats to a waiter near the door, the eager maitre d’ hovering nearby, and felt her grab my arm. Gianni’s back was to us, so it was my mother who looked up, startled for a second, then smiled.
“Darling, what a surprise. Look, Gianni, it’s Adam.” She stopped, finally taking in Claudia, her eyes darting nervously to the rest of the room, uneasy. “I wish I’d known,” she said in her social voice. She motioned her hand over the table, only big enough for two. “But maybe they can move one.”
Gianni turned in his seat, then got up slowly, hesitant, not sure how to react. It was, as Claudia had said, a kind of fear. But of what? An awkward moment in a restaurant? Her face had hardened, and she was glaring at him. For a few seconds nobody moved, not even the maitre d’, waiting to see how we wanted to be seated.
“Adam,” Gianni said. “You brought her here? Why do you do this?” Annoyed, but keeping his voice even so that no one around us heard anything unusual in it. He looked at Claudia. “What do you want?” he said, almost pleading, exasperated.
“From you, nothing.” She turned, gripping my arm more tightly. “Let’s go.”
“Darling,” my mother said, drawing it out so that it was like a hand reaching over, insistent. She looked around the room again, then at me, a signal to behave. “It’s no trouble. About the table.”
Now her voice reached Gianni, stopping the unguarded look on his face and bringing him back too. He stared at Claudia for another second and then nodded to my mother, trying to please her, or deciding that the only way to deal with the situation was to pretend it wasn’t happening.
“Yes, join us,” he said, a little unsteady, still not sure, but gesturing graciously to the table. “I can recommend the polenta. If you like that.” Now even a polite, forced smile.
“With you, never,” Claudia said, her voice low.
Nearby the maitre d’ waited. Gianni looked around. No one was paying attention. We were still just a group of foreigners saying hello.
“But perhaps you would rather be alone with your friend,” he said to me.
“Oh darling, this would be such a chance to talk things out,” my mother started, then stopped, caught by Gianni’s sharp glance, the first time I had ever seen him look at her this way.
“Grace,” he said, cutting her off.
“Is that what you want?” I said. “To talk about things? Old times?”
Before he could answer, Claudia said something in Italian, her voice still low but edgy, even the sound of it unpleasant. Gianni’s face clouded. The couple at the next table looked up.
“Adam, don’t,” my mother said. “Please.”
“She lost her job today,” I said to her, then looked again at Gianni. “Want to talk about getting it back?”
“Why Gianni?” my mother said. “What are you talking about?”
“Tell her,” I said to Gianni.
Claudia said something more in Italian, rapid-fire, too fast to catch. Gianni’s face darkened again.
“Enough,” he said in English. “First the father, now your job. Everything that goes wrong in your life you blame on me? Why?”
“You made the call, didn’t you?” I said. “Tell her.” I nodded to my mother, then put my hand on Claudia’s back, ready to go.
“Listen to me,” Gianni said before I could turn, almost in an undertone, just English to the rest of the room. “We are almost finished. We will take our coffee elsewhere. Sit over there with your friend. In a few minutes we’ll be gone. No scenes.”
“Do you think I would stay in the same room with you?” Claudia said to him in English.
“I am sorry for your confusion,” he said deliberately. “A misunderstanding. Some other time we will discuss it.”
“Darling, do please stop,” my mother said. “I don’t know what this is all about. Gianni doesn’t even know her. I told you.”
“Is that right?” Claudia said to him. “You don’t remember me? Shall I describe it for her?”
“Adam, you can see what she’s like,” Gianni said. “Take another table. People are beginning to look.”
“You don’t remember her?” I said.
“Go to the table,” he said in a hard whisper.
“That’s right. You forget things. You don’t remember her father either, your friend from med school. Do you remember the Villa Raspelli? Your friends there? I found somebody today who remembers you.”
“Adam, really-” my mother said, but the rest of it faded, only a sound in the background, because at that instant I saw Gianni’s face shift. Not just a scowl, a narrowing of the eyes, but a look of such pure hatred that for a second I couldn’t breathe, trapped in it, the way a victim must feel just at the end. He wanted me dead. In that one look I saw that everything Claudia had said was true, that he was capable of it. What I hadn’t seen in the photographs or behind the smiles over a lunch table: the eyes of someone who could kill. Steadily, without hesitation, just getting something out of the way. And then it was gone-the eyes blinked, adjusting themselves.
“I remember the Villa Raspelli,” he said, staring at me, then shifted again and bowed, an elaborate courtesy. “I’m sorry you can’t join us. Perhaps another time.” He sat down, turning his back to us. The effect was to make people look at us, wondering why we were still standing there.
“Oh, Adam,” my mother said quietly, dismayed.
“Ask him about it over coffee,” I said to her. “Since he remembers.”
“Sit down,” she said, almost hissing.
“No, we’re leaving,” I said, turning to the puzzled maitre d’ for our coats.
“You don’t want a table?” the maitre d’ said, flustered, sensing a moment gone wrong.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said, taking the coats. “Tomorrow.”
Since this made no sense to him, he just stood there watching us go. Everyone watched, in fact, except Gianni.
In the street I gulped some air, then helped Claudia into her coat and pulled up the collar. Guido’s had an antique lantern over the door, and we stood in its light for a minute, breathing streams of vapor in the cold air.
“Never mind,” I said. “There’s another place near La Fenice.”
“He thinks I’m following him,” Claudia said.
But it was Gianni who followed us, suddenly opening the door, coatless, and stepping into the lantern light.
“Who told you about Villa Raspelli?” he said.
“What does it matter who? Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“You think you know something. You don’t know anything.”
“But I’ll find out.”
“More fairy tales,” he said, looking at Claudia. “Why do you stay in Venice? With your bad memories. Or you,” he said to me. “Go home. You are making trouble here for no reason. Go live your own life. Leave us in peace.”
“You sent me away once,” Claudia said. “Do you think you can do that again?”
“Me? I don’t send anyone.”
“But you could arrange it. Like that,” Claudia said, snapping her fingers.
“Yes, like that,” Gianni said, nodding, a kind of threat. “Easy.”
“Not so easy this time. Thi
s time we don’t go like sheep. We know.”
“More melodrama. Why do you listen to her? Such a scene.”
“Is that what you came out here for? To tell us to leave town?”
He looked at me steadily, then sighed. “No, for your mother. To make peace.”
“Peace.”
“I’m a patient man, but not a saint. She wants that, but you-what do you want? I wish I knew. Not peace. To make trouble maybe between us. So I will tell you something. You will not stop this marriage. You will make your mother unhappy, but you will not stop it. Do you think I would let these stories get in the way of that? She will leave Venice,” he said, indicating Claudia. “So will you. And your mother and I will live here. If you have sense, you will go back and sit and talk to her. Apologize for making a scene.” He looked at Claudia. “You, I don’t care what happens to you. I’m sorry for your trouble, but now it’s enough craziness. Leave me alone. Go away.”
“Where would I go? To Fossoli again? You didn’t think anyone would come back. But one did.”
He looked at her, cool, absolutely calm, then turned to me. “Don’t do this again. It upsets your mother.”
“Tell her about Villa Raspelli. Then see how she feels.”
“And what would I tell her? I was a doctor doing his duty.” He narrowed his eyes in the same menacing stare I’d seen in the restaurant. “You think you know. You don’t. But you will not stop this marriage.”
He brought his hands up to straighten his tie, and I watched, fixated, as he tightened the silk. Large, square hands, a sharp pull on the fabric. For an instant, oddly, I saw my mother’s soft throat in the Monaco lounge, imagined him putting his hands around it. Not in violence, not some improbable tabloid crime, but strangling the life out of her, choking her spirit bit by bit until only a gasp was left. He looked at me, with his hard eyes, and I realized he was capable of this too, a different killing. With no one around to interfere.
He glanced back through the glass of the door. “Your mother is waiting.”
“What will you tell her?”
“That you are embarrassed and she is mad,” he said, glancing toward Claudia. “The truth.”
“The truth,” Claudia said. “The truth is that you sent me to die. Sent me to be a whore.”
He patted his tie, then looked at her, weary. “No. That’s something you did yourself.”
CHAPTER SIX
Bertie refused to help at the Accademia.
“You overestimate my influence. I couldn’t. Not now. Anyway, I wouldn’t. She may be the most wonderful thing since sliced bread, but she’s been terrible for you. Just look at this mess, Grace all weepy and Gianni snorting around like a wounded bull. And for what? Some whim of yours.”
“She’s telling the truth.”
“I don’t know that. And neither do you. You’re just thinking with your pants. It’s one thing in the army, that’s all anyone thinks about, but you’re not in barracks anymore. So much for a civilizing influence.” He waved his hand toward the city outside his long windows. “And if you ask me, the sooner you get yourself out of her clutches, the better.”
“Her clutches.”
“Her charm, then. I must say, she’s the most unlikely siren,” he said, pronouncing it “sireen” for effect. “Still.”
“He put her in a camp, Bertie. Her father died.”
“He did. Himself.”
“Don’t split hairs.”
“Rather important hairs, don’t you think?”
“Not if he’d done it to you.”
“Oh, Adam, first he’s after Grace’s money, now he’s working with the SS. Does he look like SS to you? This is all mischief.”
“Why does everyone want to protect him?”
Bertie peered at me over his glasses. “Nobody’s protecting anybody. Nobody’s proven anything, either.”
“I will.”
“How, may I ask?”
“I still have friends in the army.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning they like to know who kept company with the Germans. They keep lists. Testimony.”
Bertie looked at me for another minute, his face slack with surprise. He got up and walked over to the window. “Well, isn’t that lovely? What do you intend to do, put him on trial?”
“He didn’t do anything, according to you.”
“Never mind according to me. Keep me out of it. I can tell you now that nothing’s going to come of it but tears and more tears. Adam, for heaven’s sake, let them be. They’re going to marry, whether you like it or not, so let them get on with it.”
“You don’t think I’d let him marry her.”
“Well, as you keep failing to grasp, he didn’t ask you and you haven’t accepted. The invitations are out, you know.”
“Help me, Bertie. She’s your friend.”
He sighed and opened the window to his balcony. Outside, the winter sun was bright on the Grand Canal, noisy with boats.
“What does she say about all this?”
“Nothing. She refuses to talk about it. She spends all day getting her dress fitted.”
“So I heard.”
“What?”
“Mimi. She’s in a perfect snit about it. The dressmaker. None of her friends can get a look-in, and there’s the ball coming up.” He turned and smiled at me. “I know, all very silly. And here you are, still fighting the good fight.” He opened the window wider. “Oh, how I wish you’d go.”
“That’s what Gianni said. He can’t wait to get me out either.”
“Not just you. All of you. Even Grace. She’s a darling, but look at her now. Everything all fraught. You make everything so messy, all of you. I hate it.”
“No, you don’t. You love it.”
“Oh, for five minutes’ gossip? You think so? I don’t, really. I’m selfish. I suppose it’s wrong, but I can’t help it now. Look at that,” he said, waving at the view down the canal. “Did you ever see anything so beautiful? The first time I came here, I knew it was all I wanted in my life. To see this every day, just be part of it. And then you all come charging in, making messes right and left. In a way I think I preferred it during the war. Nobody came.”
“Except the Germans.”
“Well, yes. All right. The Germans,” he said, the phrase taking in more. “And now you want to bring it all back. God knows why.”
“Things happened here, Bertie. You can’t make them go away just because they spoil the view.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. They will go away. Nobody wants to live with them, over and over. Why do you? They did this and they did that-you don’t even know who they are, you just know who you want it to be. I don’t like this, Adam, any of it. I don’t like what you’re doing. Neither will you, in the end. Ach.” He stopped, out of steam, and closed the window, his eyes glancing over to see how I was reacting.
“Will you talk to her?” I said calmly.
“Oh, and say what? ‘You might reconsider, darling. Your son thinks he’s Himmler.’ ”
“She’ll listen to you.”
“You keep saying. I don’t want to be listened to. I want to be left alone.”
“With your view.”
“Yes, with my view.” He came over to the coffee table and lit a cigarette. “All right. All right. Getting married. You’d think once would be enough for anybody.”
“They’ll find it, Bertie. Evidence. It’s there somewhere.”
He looked at me. “Let’s hope not.”
The next day Claudia’s landlady asked her to leave. An official from the housing authority had come to inspect. There had been reports of immoral behavior.
“That’s you,” Claudia said with a wry, fatalistic smile. “You’re the immoral behavior.”
“He can’t do this.”
She shrugged. “Venice is famous for denunciations. You can still see some of the boxes where they put the notes. For the doges.”
“Five hundred years ago.”
�
��Well, for me, this week.”
“She can’t just put you out.”
“She was frightened-an official coming here. So I have till the end of the week. At least it’s better than the Accademia, not the same day. He asked if she’d seen my residency permit. So they’re going to make trouble about that.”
“Don’t you have one?”
“Everything was taken at Fossoli.”
“So get another. You were born here. They’ll have records.”
“Yes. In the end, I’ll get it. But meanwhile-” She opened her hand to show the weeks drifting by.
“He’s not going to get away with this. Stay here. I’ll be back.”
She touched my arm. “I’ll go with you.”
“Not this time. My mother wants us to talk, so we’ll talk.”
I zigzagged my way past the Arsenale and through the back-streets of Castello toward the hospital. Over the bridge at San Lorenzo to the Questura side, where a few policemen were loitering in the sun with cigarettes, not yet ready for their desks inside. Did it only take one call here too? Maybe the policeman we’d met at Harry’s, ready to do a favor. San Zanipolo and its dull red brick, then the vaulted reception room of the hospital, following the guard’s directions down the stone corridor to the doctors’ offices. Not running, but walking so fast that people noticed, thought maybe I was hurrying to a deathbed. I brushed past the nurse in the outer office and opened the door without knocking. Gianni was sitting behind the desk in a white coat, his pen stopping halfway across a form when he saw me.
“I want you to leave her alone,” I said.
The nurse rushed up behind, flustered. “ Dottore — ” she started, but Gianni waved her away, gesturing for me to sit.
“What have I done now?” he said.
“Scaring the landlady. Is that your idea of a joke? Charging Claudia with immoral behavior.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said. “A woman like that doesn’t change. I made inquiries about her, after the party. When she made such a spectacle of herself. I thought maybe she was deranged.”
“She’s not deranged.”
“No, a whore. Do you know what she was at Fossoli?”
“Where you sent her.”