Текст книги "Alibi"

Автор книги: Joseph Kanon

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Now she was leaning over me, propped up on one arm, touching my face.

“We still have this, don’t we?” she said, not waiting for an answer, bending down to kiss me.

“You’re all red,” I said, reaching up and running my hand over the tops of her breasts, still flushed, as if she had a birthmark.

She smiled a little, feeling my fingers, her eyes on mine. “You should marry me.”

“Okay.”

“We could spend our wedding night here.”

“We could,” I said, my fingers still tracing a line across her chest.

For a second she gave in to the stroking, closing her eyes. Then she opened them again and stared down at me. “You’re not sorry?”

I shook my head, turning my hand over, brushing her with the back of it. “I’ll marry you again,” I said. “Would that do it?”

She nodded. “For all the other reasons. For those.”

I let my hand drop, then reached up with both arms and pulled her to me, kissing her, and for a while it really was the same again, but different.

We tried to sleep, lazy after sex, but the voices from the Lista di Espagna funneled into the calle, seeping through the window like dust, and neither of us really wanted to stay. Instead, like real honeymooners, we took a gondola, winding through the back canals until we lost our sense of direction, content to watch people crossing bridges over our heads, moving at their land pace while we drifted below. Sometimes they stopped to look at us, pointing at Claudia’s corsage, so that, mirrorlike, we became part of each other’s scenery. By the time the gondolier got back on the Grand Canal the sun was setting, the water gold and pastel, and he threw out his arms in an ecco gesture, as if he had arranged it for us, a wedding gift.

After the Gritti lunch, it seemed extravagant to go out, but the house in Dorsoduro felt confining, filled with ghosts, and Claudia said she wanted to do something American, so we ended up going to Lucille’s, just behind Campo San Fantin. The club had opened during the occupation, a little piece of home, and the customers were still mostly soldiers, on leave from bases in the Veneto or attached to one of the Allied offices that hadn’t yet packed up and gone. It had the borrowed, pretend quality of places like it in Germany—America till you walked out the door—and most of the locals avoided it.

When we got there, it was only half full. The band was finishing its first set, so the house lights were down, the other customers just shadows in the smoky darkness. At the table next to ours everyone was in uniform, drinking beer. Lucille, the colored singer who fronted the place, was doing “Easy Living,” trying to pass as Billie Holiday, with a flower in her hair. The soldiers next to us stared at Claudia when we sat down, someone approachable, the kind of girl who went to jazz clubs, and for a second I stiffened, then laughed at myself, a cartoon reaction: That’s my wife.

Lucille finished, and through the applause I heard one of the soldiers say, “Hey”—not flirting, trying to get our attention.

“Hey,” he said again, “remember us?” Moving his finger between him and his friend. “The island that was closed. Jim and Mario.”

“Torcello,” Claudia said, smiling. “Yes. You’re still here?”

“Last day,” one of them said. “Hey, let us buy you a beer.”

Claudia held up her left hand, wiggling her ring finger. “Ask him,” she said, nodding to me.

“What did I tell you?” one said to the other, then leaned forward, taking me in. “That’s great. When?”

“Today.”

“Today? Fucking A,” the GI said, then dipped his head in apology to Claudia. “Congratulations.” He signaled the waiter, then moved his chair closer, half joining us at the small club table. We shook hands.

“I have to tell you, I knew it. I said to him, what else would they come out here for? I mean, with the restaurant closed. We cleared out, remember?”

“I remember.”

Claudia, who seemed to be enjoying herself, shook hands with both of them.

“Mario?” she said.

“Calabrese. My grandfather.”

“Ah,” she said, pointing to herself. “Romana.”

The beers arrived, hers in a glass. She lifted it to them. “Salute,” she said, smiling, the party we hadn’t had at the Gritti. “So they sent you here? You speak Italian?”

“Two words, maybe. My father didn’t want us to—”

He stopped, afraid of offending, and just then Lucille stood up again, this time for a comic, sexy version of “The Frim Fram Sauce,” flirting with the audience, coating each word with innuendo. Claudia tried to follow it, taking her cues from Jim and Mario, who laughed at all the right places, but inevitably her reactions were late, one step behind, foreign.

“What’s chiffafa?” she asked Mario as we applauded. “A vegetable?”

He laughed. “It’s just jive,” he said, almost shouting. The band had started playing, without Lucille, so people talked above it, the small room noisy. He pointed at Claudia’s wedding ring. “So does this mean you’re going to the States?”

“What do you think, will I like it?”

“Like it? You’re gonna love it. It’s the States.”

“Yes? Which one are you from?”

I sat back watching, not really listening. New York had everything—the big shows, everything. It never stopped, not like here, where they rolled the streets up—well, canals, rolled the canals up. Jim laughed, trying to picture this, then both soldiers turned to Claudia to tell her about things she had to see, things she’d like because they liked them. GI talk. America now a movie to them, shinier than anything they’d ever known. And why not? I smiled to myself, enjoying the breezy descriptions, Claudia’s face as she listened, pretending to be wide-eyed, the sort of girl they might want to take back themselves. There were more drinks. Mario asked her to dance, if it was all right with me.

“You’re a lucky guy,” Jim said, stuck with me now. “Want us to clear out?”

“No, she’s having fun,” I said, looking at her on the floor, doing a foxtrot with Mario.

“Some place, huh? Like being home.”

I looked at her again, my chest suddenly tight. My wife. Of course we’d have to go back sometime. But even in this ersatz version in San Fantin she seemed out of place. America was about easy happiness, chiffafa, as casual as picking up a girl in a club. I thought of the look in her eyes that afternoon as she had stared across the empty campo. What would she do with it there, her old life? Pretend it didn’t exist, like Bertie, until it started to grow inside her?

Mario finished with a surprise twirl, so they were laughing as they came off the floor. When her laugh stopped suddenly, cut off, we all looked at her, then followed her gaze toward the back of the room.

“See a ghost?” Jim said.

“No, no, sorry,” she said, sitting down. “It’s nothing.”

But my eye had caught him now too, the mustache neatly brushed, sitting against the wall in a double-breasted suit, on the town. A woman was with him, her back to us, and I tried to look away before he saw me. Not Signora Cavallini. Maybe a friend from Maestre. Lucille’s was a kind of Maestre—no one his wife knew would come here. I felt embarrassed, as if I had opened the wrong door by mistake.

“He’s coming over,” Claudia said.

I turned, expecting some version of a man of the world wink, an elbow nudge, but instead he was smiling, delighted.

“Signor Miller. So you like the jazz too? All the young people, it seems,” he said, waving his hand toward his table, where the woman had turned to face us.

Giulia. For a second I simply stared, too surprised to move, then she was nodding and I had to nod back. She was dressed for a night out, lipstick and earrings, no trace of mourning. To see Cavallini? In a place where no one would see them. But neither of them seemed disconcerted by our being there. Cavallini was taking Claudia’s hand, greeting her.

“Please, you’ll join us?”

“Oh, but—” Claudia fluttered, spreading her hands to Jim and Mario, clearly unnerved by the idea of sitting with Cavallini.

“That’s okay,” Mario said. “We were just having a beer. You go sit with your friends. I mean, what the hell, your wedding day.”

“How?” Cavallini said.

“Claudia and I were married today,” I said to him.

He looked at me, speechless for a moment, then fell back on form, taking up Claudia’s hand again with a flourish. “Signora Miller. My very best wishes,” he said, the English sounding curiously like a translation. He turned to me. “So. You didn’t wait for your mother?”

“We didn’t wait for anybody. We just thought it was time.”

“Yes, I know how that is. Everything for the family, and really you want to be alone.” I thought of his wife, an unlikely candidate for elopement. “And now here we are, more people. But at least have some wine with us to celebrate?” He glanced at the table of beer bottles.

“That would be nice,” I said, shooting a look at Claudia.

Cavallini extended the invitation to the GIs too, but they begged off, so it was just the four of us at the little table in the back.

“Giulia, what do you think? Married today,” Cavallini said, waving his hand at us, then summoning the waiter for more chairs.

“Yes?” Giulia said to me, taken aback. And then, for an instant, a look that was more than surprise, a question mark, a change of plan. “So. That’s wonderful. You didn’t tell anyone?”

“Ah, no secrets from the Questura,” Cavallini said, joking. “You see how we find you out, even here.”

I laughed, but Claudia barely managed a smile. When the chairs were brought, she sat at the edge of hers, as if she were afraid of accidentally touching Cavallini’s leg. It was an awkward table. Giulia talked about jazz, popular at the university because it had to be clandestine, almost a link with the Allies. Cavallini asked about the wedding. Finally the bottle arrived and Cavallini made a toast to our future.

“Yes, the future,” Claudia said, edgy.

“And what will it be?” Cavallini said pleasantly.

Claudia shrugged.

“You don’t know? But women always know. They’re the ones with the plan. The men—” He opened his hand, all of us feckless.

“America, I suppose,” she said. “It depends on Adam.”

“Ha, already a wife. My wife too. Everything depends on me, as long as it’s what she wants,” he said, raising his glass to Claudia.

I glanced quickly at Giulia, surprised he’d mentioned his wife. Maybe not a girl from Maestre after all.

“You could leave Venice?” Giulia said. “You know, I thought I could, and then at university I missed it. Terra firma, nothing moves. I missed the water.”

“Not everyone likes the water,” Cavallini said. “Maybe it’s different for Signora Miller.” He nodded at her new name. “When you can’t swim—”

“How do you know that?” Claudia said, off-guard.

“I’m sorry,” he said, genial. “It’s not true?”

“No, it’s true, but how do you know? You asked someone that?”

“No, no, Signor Miller mentioned it. We were talking about boats. He said you didn’t like boats, only the vaporetto.”

“She’s getting better,” I said, jumping in. “Today we took a gondola ride and she wasn’t nervous at all.”

“So you think I’m always the bloodhound?” Cavallini said, amused.

“Your men were asking questions at the hotel,” I said, explaining. “Checking times.”

“My men,” he said, blushing a little, as if he’d been accused of being clumsy.

“Any news? About the boat?” I said, moving him away from Claudia.

“No, it’s very difficult.” He sighed. “But not tonight. Tonight the bloodhound is not official. Just a wedding guest. The bride will permit me a dance?”

He held out his hand, smiling, so Claudia had to raise hers and get up before she could think of any excuse not to. She glanced at me, then let Cavallini take her elbow, following him to the dance floor like someone being led away for questioning.

Giulia took out a cigarette and waited for me to light it.

“You really like jazz?” I said.

“You mean, what am I doing here? Don’t worry, it’s not what you think.”

“It’s none of my—”

“I asked him to bring me here. He wanted to have dinner—you know, where everyone can see—and I thought, no, why not here instead. I like the music, and alone, it’s not possible for me to come.”

“Why dinner?”

“Oh, he said to explain to me what was happening. About my father, the man they caught. Of course, the real reason—”

“I can guess.”

“No, it’s not that,” she said. “Just to be seen. Be helpful. You know his wife is my mother’s cousin, so he thinks he’s a Maglione. I’m the family now, the son. It’s useful for him if people think I want his counsel, that he has influence with me. You know, he has political ambitions. So it’s useful.”

“He does?” I glanced toward the dance floor, where he was chatting with Claudia.

“He’s always been ambitious. Why else would he marry Filomena?”

“You mean she’s rich?”

“No, but a good family. A step for him.”

“Maybe he married for love.”

She looked at me. “Did you?”

I said nothing for a second, thrown by the directness of it, her eyes on me.

“Yes.”

She tapped her cigarette on the ashtray. “Then it’s good. You’ll be happy.” She glanced up. “I hope you will be,” she said, softer now, a kind of apology for having asked.

“So Cavallini gets seen with the Magliones. And what do you get out of it, a night out?”

“Well, a friend in the police, it’s always good. And to thank him for solving the murder. Of course, I know it was because of you. But he listened to you. Would the others have done that?”

“Do you really think this case can be tried? You’re a lawyer.”

“Not for crime. Business, you know. Contracts. Anyway, in this case I’m a Maglione. The police get the man, brava. But now the important thing—well, that it all goes the right way.”

“What way is that?”

She leaned forward, businesslike. “The best, of course, is that there’s no trial at all. He confesses, it’s an end. But if it has to be, then I want him on trial, not my father.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “A tragic mistake. My father gives him medicine—a humanitarian act, at that time even a brave one. And he thinks it’s a betrayal. Foolish, but he acts.”

“But the defense will say it was a betrayal.”

“And the more they say it, the more they make him look guilty. Vittorio says—”

“Vittorio?”

“Inspector Cavallini,” she said, surprised I hadn’t known his name. “He says this is the trap—if they talk about my father this way, it gives Moretti more motive. So maybe they won’t.”

“They have to say something.”

“They’ll say the police are mistaken. That it’s political, the government is trying to put the Communists on trial. And of course it’s true—a convenience for them, a case like this. But at least then my father’s name—” She broke off, crushing her cigarette, her mouth drawn, as if putting on lipstick had hardened it, aged her. I thought of her at the memorial service, pale, when her father’s good name had not even been in question.

“You’ve thought about this.”

“Of course. It’s my name too. That’s why it’s so important, with Vittorio. To make it all go right. So I make him feel part of the family.” Her eyes slightly amused but determined, Gianni’s face at the Monaco.

“By bringing him here.”

“Well, I’m the son but not the son. I know what people say. We go to Harry’s and I’m his mistress. Nice for him, maybe, but not for me. So I bring him here. Who will know? Some soldiers.”

“And me.”

“Yes, now you. But you know everything. You’re the other son. He thinks of you that way, you know.”

I made a noise, shrugging this off.

“You almost were.” She smiled to herself. “Maybe it’s close enough for him. He has a great respect for money.”

“Then he’s wrong again. I don’t have any.”

She picked up her wineglass. “Then she married for love too,” she said, not looking at me, casual, as if the phrase were a stray thought.

I waited a minute. “I hope so.”

She finished her wine, then looked at the dance floor. “It’s true, you’re going to America?”

I opened my hands. “I’m American.”

“You know, if things had turned out differently—if my father had lived—I think he would have offered you a place in his business.”

“I doubt it,” I said easily. “I don’t know anything about business.”

“But I do,” she said, looking up. “I know everything about our business. I was raised for it.”

A trumpeter stood up on the bandstand, holding a note, the end of the song. No one spoke, so that the moment seemed suspended. Giulia’s eyes were still, and I felt an almost physical pull, being drawn in, like Cavallini. Making us both part of the family so things would go right. The father’s daughter.

“More than Gianni did, then,” I said, trying to be light.

“No, he knew. Often he did things—because of the business,” she said, her voice remote, something she was still debating with herself.

People on the dance floor were applauding the trumpeter.

“Anyway, I’m not his son,” I said. “So—”

“But you avenged his death,” she said quickly. “I’m grateful for that.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Maybe Moretti’s just convenient for everybody. A feather in your cousin’s cap. But what if he’s innocent?”

“You don’t believe it’s him? Why did he say he was glad, at that bar?”

“I don’t know—a million reasons. Maybe he hates businessmen.”

She put her hand over mine. “How you defend him, my father. Better than a son, maybe. You think he couldn’t have betrayed this man? He could. He betrayed everybody. My mother. Everybody,” she said fiercely, almost spitting out the words. She moved her hand away and grabbed at her glass to steady herself. “You didn’t suspect? No, like me. All my life I thought he was a good man. A moral dilemma—save a partisan? Ha, once. That he tells me about. And what about the rest of it? What was he saving then? The business? Well, he saved it for me, I should be grateful, yes? I should be grateful.”

She lifted her head suddenly, as if she’d been caught talking to herself, then reached for another cigarette, something to do. For a moment I sat still, afraid I’d startle her away, then struck the match and lit it for her.

“What?” I said gently.

“It’s in the notebooks.” She glanced up at Claudia and Cavallini coming toward us, only a table away.

“You figured out the gaps?”

“Yes,” she said. “But not now. Nothing to Vittorio.”

“But if they prove Moretti didn’t—”

“No, they prove he did.”

“They can’t,” I said involuntarily.

She looked at me, surprised, but before either of us could say anything more the others were sitting down, the table a party again.

“I dance like an elephant,” Cavallini said, laughing at himself, and Claudia politely said no, he was good on his feet, and we all drank more wine. Claudia had given me a “Let’s go” look, but now I couldn’t, not until I finished with Giulia, so I ignored it. Instead we drank, a new bottle exchanged for the old. Cavallini drummed his fingers on the table to the music. Finally Claudia got up, saying she’d promised Jim a dance, and left the table, shooting me another look. The dance was obviously a surprise to Jim, but everyone was a little drunk now and he waved a salute to me, grinning. A minute later I led Giulia onto the floor. “These Foolish Things,” slow enough to talk, my hand barely touching her back.

“What do you mean, they can’t prove it?” she said, still turning this over.

I hesitated, trying to think, feeling the sweat at my hairline. “They’re Paolo’s journals, aren’t they? He was already dead when the house was attacked. So how could they prove anything?”

“Oh, I see. No, they don’t say my father gave Moretti the medicine. But of course we know he did. Moretti said so.”

“So what do they say? You figured out the missing pages?”

She nodded. “I found the other books.”

“But he destroyed them. Didn’t you say?”

“Well, a Maglione. He gave them to Maria to be destroyed. The maid, you saw her.” Entering nervously with a phone. “Loyal to Paolo, it turns out. Maybe the only one.”

“She read them?”

“No, she doesn’t read. She can write her name, that’s all.”

“But she kept them.”

“You know you forgot to take the books away, the day Vittorio called. So that night I was looking through them. The missing pages, what did they mean? And she saw me and said, would I like to see the others? My father had told her to burn them, but she thought, these are Paolo’s, the history of the family, and they’re not my father’s to burn.” She smiled. “He wasn’t the first son. She thinks that way.”

I nodded, encouraging her to go on, but there was no reluctance now, almost a rush to get it out.

“Once I had those, it was easy enough to guess the rest. Because I know my father’s businesses so well.”

“His businesses?”

“Yes, it was always about that. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. If he had believed in something—anyway, he believed in this.”

Over her shoulder I could see Claudia signaling me.

“You had to work with the government,” Giulia said. “Everything was like that here. Licenses. Friends.”

“It’s like that everywhere.”

“Yes, but here it was Fascists. And then the Germans.”

“He sold arms? My mother said he didn’t.”

“No, not that. One factory in Turin, it makes forks, then it makes forks for the army. Little things, not the Agnellis. Uniforms. Electrical pieces. Many things. So, the Italian army, that’s one thing, it’s still your country. But then the Germans come. Not your country, but you supply them too. Ha, one partisan. My wonderful father.”

“He worked with the Germans? Paolo says so?” I said, trying to keep my voice calm, finally there.

“Paolo worked with them. Paolo was perfect. The older brother. It was his name on the companies, the ones that were all ours, not just a piece. He was already friendly with them—a puppet, like everybody in the Salò government. The worse things got, the happier he is in the books. ‘I presented our proposal to Donati.’ So who is ‘our’? Him? No, my father. ‘I met with Rohrer and told Gianni that the plan had met with approval.’ His plan? No. So busy now, so important. Head of the family. Even his brother praises him, confides in him.”

“Uses him.”

“Yes. It’s my father who’s working with them. But no one knows that. They only see Paolo.”

“And kill him for it.”

She looked away for a minute, just shuffling to the music.

“I don’t blame my father for that. Paolo did that to himself. I don’t know, did Paolo have to do everything he did for the Germans? Help them with—whatever they asked. I think with my father it would have been different. But Paolo didn’t know where to stop. He was important, he liked that. So, you know, it’s his fault too. I don’t blame my father.” She looked up. “But my father did. He blamed himself. Now I understand it, how he was when Paolo died. His fault.”

“And now there was no one to run interference.”

“No. Now he had to deal with the Germans himself. It was too late to back out. If he wanted to. I don’t think he did. He hated the partisans for killing Paolo. Maybe he hated the Germans too. But it was the end, they would be gone soon, and he was still safe, if he was careful. No one knew. He was a doctor, a good man. You know, when the trials came right after the war, no one even thought of him.”

I remembered Rosa at the Bauer, her face filled with excitement, a new quarry.

“Work with the Germans? That was Paolo, it all died with Paolo. So my father survived the Germans, then he survived you.” She waved her hand a little, taking in the rest of the room, the Allied occupation. “With his good name. My god, and now an American wife. And all the money. The money Paolo earned for him.” She looked down. “Sometimes I think I should admire him. It’s not so easy to survive. But then look what he did to Paolo.”

“And this is all in there? The Germans he worked with?”

“That Paolo worked with, yes. And him. I’ll show you. You have to know how to read them, how the businesses are connected.” She paused. “Are you still trying to defend him?”

“I just want to be sure.”

“You think I want this to be true? I wasn’t even going to tell you about them. But it was your idea, wasn’t it? Look through the papers. And what did we find? A man who sells his brother to the devil.” She paused. “And maybe Paolo had his revenge. His friend comes to the hospital. Such a small thing, and then it starts—” She drifted, following the bullet that didn’t stop, her chain of events, unaware that it had been an even smaller thing, a mere nod. I saw Gianni’s face twisted with fury in the entrance hall, thinking I was about to ruin everything because of something so small it hadn’t mattered to him.

“So this is who he was,” she said, her voice unsteady, eyes filling.

I glanced down at her. What I’d wanted to know, but not this way, making another wound.

“Part of who he was,” I said, trying to salvage something.

“Oh, because he was Papa? Well, which part do you pick? You think they’re all the same, all equal?”

“No.”

“No. Those people in the house are dead. Who knows, maybe others. What part was that?”

“We still don’t know he did that,” I said. “Just because he did business with the Germans. It doesn’t prove—”

But she wasn’t listening. “For me, Paolo, that’s the worst. His own blood. My blood. And I never would have known. Nobody would.” She looked up. “And nobody has to know now. Just the family. They can never put him on trial now. Moretti saved us all from that.”

For a second, the back of my neck prickling, I thought how easy it would be to let it happen, let Moretti save all of us, just by being guilty.

“But now there’s his trial,” I said. “It’ll come out.”

“Not if he confesses,” she said, her eyes firm, not flinching, maybe the way they were when she talked to Cavallini. Family matters.

Mario cut in on me at the end of the song, so that both girls were now on the floor with the soldiers. Behind them, others were standing with their drinks, waiting a turn. The band, surprised to find a party, didn’t even break before moving into the next number.

“Well, I’m glad for this,” Cavallini said, watching the dancers. “I wanted to talk to you. That business at the hotel, asking questions about Signorina Grassini—I’m sorry for that. An absurdity. I assure you, not my men.”

“No? Then who?”

“I told you, some at the Questura, they’re not happy about Moretti. It’s politics, of course, but they don’t say that.”

“So they’re investigating Claudia?”

“No, no. Please don’t upset yourself. Reviewing the case, they say. Going over everything. Why? A waste of time, but there’s Moretti’s lawyer, making trouble for them. So there has to be the pretense. Looking at everything. I tell you this because I know they called your mother.”

“In Paris?”

“Yes, such an expense. And for what? What they already knew in the report. If she mentions it, tell her it’s nothing—some foolishness here, that’s all. She’s well?”

I nodded. “But what do they want to know?”

“If I made a mistake, that’s what. A time wrong, anything. Then they can discredit me. This is typical of the Communists. But do they find anything? No. It’s just as it is in the report. No mistakes.”

“They haven’t talked to me.”

“They will,” he said easily. “This is how things are now. A man who has been like a partner to us. You know, if it were up to the Questore—he knows your service. But even he—”

“I understand. They’re just being careful.”

“Still, an inconvenience. And after all, what can you tell them? You were with me.” He laughed, a joke on the Questura.

What could I tell them? I smiled back at Cavallini, but my mind was racing, the new questions a chance, maybe, to raise doubts about Moretti, open just enough space to let him wriggle free.

Cavallini patted me on the shoulder, a kind of reassurance. “Well, it’s a question of patience. I tell you frankly, though, I don’t like these delays. The longer it goes on, the more this boy becomes a symbol. I told the Questore, we should move him. Jesolo, maybe Verona, a facility somewhere out of sight. As long as he’s in Venice, the parties throw him at each other. This is a crime, not politics. And look how people use it. Well, here come the ladies.”

But they came trailing suitors, so there was another dance before they sat down and another round of drinks before I could rescue Claudia by asking her to dance.

“If you don’t take me home, I’m going to scream,” she said in my ear.

“I thought you were having a good time,” I teased.

“No. You’re having a good time. All your favorite people. The police. The wonderful Giulia. You think no one can see you, with your heads like that? So much to talk about.”

“All right, just a few more minutes.”

“What do you talk about, anyway?” she said. “Her father?”

“Actually, she was offering me a job.”

“What?” she said, the word catching in her throat, the beginning of a giggle.

“In the Maglione businesses.”

“A job? His daughter offers you a job?” she said, shaking now.

“Ssh,” I said, but she pulled back, putting her hand to her mouth, laughing, then gulping, her eyes shiny, and I realized that she was tipping out of control, pushed by drink and tension to somewhere easier, funnier.

“His daughter? His daughter wants to give you money? A reward?”

“Ssh, they’ll hear you.”

“What about me? Do I get something too?”

I pulled her close to me. “Stop it. Go to the ladies’ room—put some water on your face. I’ll get your coat.”

“And go?”

I nodded, my face against hers. “Just don’t say anything. Understand?”

“I know what job. Son-in-law. Ha, too late.”

“Claudia—”

“I know. Ssh.” She put her finger to her lips.

I got her off the floor to the ladies’ room, then stood outside for a second, shaken. Wasn’t this the way it always happened? All the answers, the cross-checked times, destroyed in a careless moment? I went over to the table for her coat.

“Sorry, but we’d better go.”

“She’s all right?” Giulia said.

“A little too much to drink, that’s all.”

“I’ll go see if—” she said, getting up.

“No, it’s fine. Good night. And thank you,” I said, taking her hand, looking directly at her, our secret.

“Yes, but I am the one who pays,” Cavallini said smoothly, a smile in his voice. He held up his hand before I could say anything. “No, I insist. A wedding gift. Here, let me tell the cameriere.” He led me away from the table, ostensibly to find the waiter but really to move out of earshot. “You see how remarkable she is. After losing a father.”

But I wasn’t thinking about Giulia. I looked toward the ladies’ room door, wondering what was happening inside. Was she talking to someone? Being sick? My forehead felt moist again, nervous sweat.