Текст книги "Alibi"

Автор книги: Joseph Kanon

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“How?”

“The date. I need the date when he gave them the Jew, when the SS were there. In the autumn, yes, but when? Exactly. Do you know?”

“She would, I guess.”

“Good. When I get the hospital records, I can match the dates to the names.”

I looked at her, puzzled. “Why? What slip?”

She smiled slightly. “A man whose brother is Order of Rome, who visits SS, who reports Jews, this same man tells you he does this to save a partisan. How would he know? How would he know a man was a partisan?”

I said nothing. Not just the lie, the kind of lie.

“The man told him,” I said weakly, taking his side to see how it would fit.

“Who would tell him? Do you know how we lived? Other people’s names, identities—everything was secret. We trusted no one. And then you tell a man like that? With his sympathies?”

“But how would they know his sympathies?”

“Then you would not trust him. Unless you knew. Not with a life. You would not tell him.”

“But somebody must have.”

“Yes,” she said, lowering her head, “someone must. It’s possible, the SS. If they already knew. ‘Help us make the trap. Watch him. Tell us when to follow.’ Of course, it’s possible it was someone else. And he tells the SS, his new friends. But in the end they know. Who helps them?”

“If the partisan was there at all. Maybe he just made it up—something to tell me.”

“Such a story to make up,” she said. “A man who wasn’t there. It’s more usual, yes, to take the truth and bend it a little. Easier to answer questions, if you have to. Anyway, no matter. We’ll see if he was there. There were two people in that house from Venice.” She looked up. “And one of them had been wounded. I didn’t know he had been in the hospital, he wouldn’t have said. To protect whoever helped him. But I know when he came to us, so we match the dates. I know what name he used. What name did Maglione tell you?”

“He didn’t remember.”

“Ah,” she said, “a patient without a name. Then I find out, who did Maglione see at Villa Raspelli? I look at them, their files. And somewhere there’s a connection. If we’re lucky, someone alive. A witness. The Germans talk now—they like to tell us what their friends here did. You see? Not just us. It was the war. The Italians were no better.” She nodded. “We’re very close now.” She sat back, pouring more tea. “And for that I have you to thank. It never occurred to me to track the brother, and then one day Joe tells me he was reporting Jews. It’s like a chain, one thing to another, but you were the start.”

I looked out the rainy window, uncomfortable.

“You’ll give testimony, yes? And the daughter?”

“You intend to put him on trial?”

“Intend? Hope. It depends what we can prove.”

“You can prove he gave up Abramo Grassini.”

She shook her head. “Well, you know that was the law, to turn over the Jews. And the proof—whose word? I’m sorry. I don’t say it’s right, I say what is. But the one thing leads to the other, so it’s a help. With you, of course, it’s different. A credibility. For you to testify against him, what he told you—”

“But it’s hearsay. He’ll deny it.”

She leaned forward. “Let me tell you how they work, these trials. The victims are dead. So what do we have? Records, of course.” She held one up, a court exhibit. “Circumstances. Sometimes a witness. It’s difficult. We have to show the chain. The daughter knows something. You know something. A German knows something. Another. We make a chain of circumstance.” She put down the folder. “Sometimes a chain of lies. He lies to the daughter. He lies to you. Why? And then you see the chain and you pull it.” She moved her hands in a tugging gesture. “And you have him.”

“But technically—”

“These are special trials. The technicalities are different. It’s not the cinema, a murder trial.”

“It’s about murder.”

“No. Reputation. Maybe even social justice. There’s always that hope. But not murder.”

“Then they’ll get away with it.”

“They did get away with it,” she said quietly, so that the words hung over the table. “There’s no retribution after you’re dead. But people don’t know. And that they won’t get away with.” She sipped more tea, watching me over the cup. “You’re worried?”

“No,” I lied, suddenly seeing the tribunal table, my mother in the makeshift courtroom, Gianni glaring at me from the stand. “But I don’t like throwing mud in public either. If it’s just mud. I saw it in Germany. Nobody comes out looking good—you get just as dirty.”

She put down her cup. “Yes,” she said, a quick nod of agreement, “but I’ll still need you there.” She looked over at me. “It won’t be just mud.”

“And if you can’t prove it?”

“Well, I think I will. And it’s important, to have these trials. Otherwise—”

“Otherwise what?”

“The partisans find their own proof.”

Afterward I crossed back to the Dorsoduro side, uneasy, feeling things spinning out of control. All I’d wanted was to get my mother out of a mistake. Now it was something else. How could I testify against him? It would be terrible for everyone and justice for whom? Rosa was right about that, anyway. He had already gotten away with it.

A little past San Ivo a canal was being dredged, a dirty job saved for winter, when no visitors were here to see. Wooden planks dammed each end so big rubber hoses could pump out the water, leaving a floor of mud, just a few feet down, where workmen in boots were shoveling muck and debris into carts. The mud covered everything, spattering the workers’ blue coveralls, hanging in clots on the canal walls, just below the line of moss. Gianni’s great fear: mud would stick if someone dredged it up. I thought of him on the terrace at Lake Garda, having drinks with the men who’d ordered the trains. I’d met them in Germany, men still unsure why they were being accused. But those were the ones in cells, worn and frightened, out of their protective uniforms, awaiting judgment. The others, in the street, just went about their business, so ordinary there was no way to know, no haunted looks, no furtive tremor from unwanted memories. The crime hadn’t stuck to them. They had gotten away with it, free to walk around, even marry a rich woman. They smiled over the dinner table. Nobody knew. And that they won’t get away with, Rosa had said, asking for help.

But a trial. I imagined the courtroom, me on the stand, Claudia on the stand, and I knew my mother would—what, break? No, she was more resilient than that. But a body blow leaves a bruise. You survive, but not quite the same. She had survived my father’s death, with a stray look of sadness that never quite left her now. Those first years, bright for my sake, she worked hard at making us happy, putting part of herself aside, as if it were something she could stow away in a closet for later. But of course it was gone, spent on me. And now there’d be another blow, leaving her bruised and reeling again, harder this time to come back, already weakened, never expecting it to come from me. She’d get over Gianni, but not that, not a trial.

But then he’d get away with it again. I watched the workmen sliding in the wet muck. In a few days they’d be finished, the garbage and the smell gone, and the water would flood back, the surface a mirror again, dazzling, so that when you came to it, around the corner, you felt you were stepping into a painting. I stared down at the mud, unable to move, as if my feet had actually sunk into it, still trying to find a way out.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mimi was lucky in everything but the weather. Il Gazzettino was already calling the ball the first important social event since the war, the one that would restore Venice “to her place in international society.” People were coming from London. There had been a gratifying squabble over invitations—our marchesa upstairs, not one of the lucky ones, went to visit her sister in Vicenza. Peggy Guggenheim said she was coming from New York and then didn’t, which allowed Mimi to use her name in the columns without having to put up with her. A generator was found to keep the palazzo blazing with light if there was a power failure. The food arrived on time. And then it rained.

She had planned on a spring evening, one of those first mild days softer in Venice than anywhere else, but the air stayed cold and it rained off and on all day. The special torches at the water entrance on the Grand Canal had to be covered, an awning set up. Footmen with umbrellas would help guests from their boats to the door, but inevitably clothes would get wet. The photographers had to be moved indoors, away from the entrance shots with San Marco in the background. All this my mother learned in a series of phone calls that got more frantic as the afternoon wore on. Finally Mimi insisted that my mother go there to dress.

“Like bridesmaids,” my mother said. “She says my hair will be a mess otherwise. Can you imagine? A little rain.” But she was helping Angelina with the garment bag, carefully smoothing out any folds in the long skirt.

“She’s nervous,” I said. “She wants company.”

“Mimi doesn’t have nerves. She just can’t stand anyone making an entrance. Easier to have them already there. Well, I don’t mind. To tell you the truth, it does frizz up when it’s like this,” she said, touching her hair. “Anyway, I’d rather see everything. Gianni’s always late, and you can’t say a word because it’s always medical. At least this way I won’t miss anything. Darling, would you call the hospital and tell him to meet me there, at Mimi’s? I couldn’t get through before. He’ll probably be pleased—now he can be as late as he likes without someone harping at him. But not too late. I can’t dance by myself. Would you?”

“All right,” I said. We were still living in the temporary peace of pretending nothing had happened.

“I’m taking Angelina, but you can fend for yourself, can’t you?” Mimi had already borrowed the rest of the staff for the day.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m going out.”

“I wish you’d change your mind. Everyone in Venice is dying to be there and you go to the movies.”

“We’re not going to the movies.”

“Well, wherever you’re going. I can’t imagine wanting to miss this. You know Mimi, if there’s one thing she—” She stopped midstream, asked Angelina to take the garment bag away, then turned to me. “It’s that girl, isn’t it?”

“You don’t want me to bring her to Mimi’s, do you?”

“Well, not if—but I thought all that business was over and done with. Gianni said it was. He said you’d talked.”

I looked away. “She doesn’t have a dress.”

“Well, you can borrow a dress. That’s not a problem.”

“Some other time.”

“What other time? A thing like this? She’d probably enjoy it, you know. Anybody would.”

“I don’t think Gianni would.”

“Ask him. If he doesn’t mind, then—” She looked up at me. “I’m so glad things are better. I knew if you would just—Well, I’m off. She’ll be calling again. Funny how her lines never go down. Don’t forget the hospital. And I’d ask him about the girl. He might surprise you.”

“All right.”

“Oh, look, it’s starting up again. Poor Mimi.” She giggled. “Well, it is unfair. You know, we used to come to Venice for the beach. You never saw a drop one week to the next. And now look.”

An hour later the phones were clear and I reached Gianni in his office, but I didn’t ask him about Claudia and I didn’t tell him to go to Mimi’s. Instead I said my mother wanted him to come for her earlier than they’d planned. And where was she now? At the hairdresser’s. Of course. Easy lies. After another twenty minutes of busy signals and scratchy connections I got the hotel where I’d moved Claudia and left a message that I’d be a little late. Then there was nothing to do but wait, the house growing quiet around me, not even the faint sound of maids’ slippers in the back rooms.

The rain stopped, then started again, a light drizzle that covered the Giudecca across the channel like a scrim. I stood at the window looking at the Redentore and thinking what to say. I wanted it clear in my mind so that it would come out as easily as a white lie about the hairdresser. One chance to make him believe me, finally put an end to it. Be careful about everything, even eye contact. Still, what choice would he have?

It was a while before I realized the room was getting darker. No more umbrellas on the Zattere, just people hurrying home with packages. A few calles away, Mimi and my mother would be looking into mirrors, finishing their makeup while the maids stood by with their pressed gowns. Mimi’s palazzo was just up from the Dario, so the vaporettos stopping at Salute would see the lights coming on, the chandeliers in the great front rooms reflecting out on the canal. You could walk there from anywhere in Dorsoduro in minutes, but everyone would want to go by water and be seen. It occurred to me that Gianni would probably have a boat too, and I went downstairs to open the water gate and turn on the lights in the murky entrance where Claudia and I had kissed that night. Same gondola up on its storage rack, the pile of paving stones under a tarp, the utility boat bobbing outside near the mossy steps. If we’d followed the kiss, just left the house instead of climbing the stairs—but we hadn’t.

I left the connecting door open and put on the lights in the hall, once a single room that ran the length of the house, water to calle. Off it were some smaller rooms we never used, presumably old offices or receiving rooms, now just extra work for the maids. Good enough, however, for a conversation. It was already dark upstairs. Why bother with the chandeliers if I was about to leave too? No need to be polite—a few minutes, not even a drink.

I lit a cigarette and sat waiting in one of the chilly side parlors. Where was he? Now that I’d decided what to do, even convinced myself it was right, any delay seemed to stretch out the time, make it seem even longer than it was. I looked at my watch. Always late, my mother had said. I began to fidget, impatient, picking at the fraying upholstery on the arm of the chair. Maybe she’d called him after all, told him to go to Mimi’s. And maybe he was just late. I got up and walked toward the water entrance again, moving to keep warm. No sound of rain outside. Mimi might be lucky after all.

The street bell made me jump, the sound bouncing off the marble floors, jarring in the quiet house. Another ring, insistent, to make Angelina run for it. He had his finger up to ring again when I opened the door.

“Adam,” he said, surprised. He looked toward the dark stairs. “Where’s your mother? Am I so late?” He glanced down at his watch.

“No, she went over earlier to hold Mimi’s hand.”

“But you said—”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Ah,” he said, noncommittal, still at the door.

I opened it wider. He was dressed formally, white tie, everything crisp and shiny. Even in the halfhearted hall light the shirtfront glowed. I had never thought of him as handsome before, but formal clothes brought out the best in him. The slicked-back silver hair, bright eyes, smooth-shaven skin—everything looked dressed up, stage romantic. When he reached into his breast pocket, I almost expected to see a silver cigarette case, but it was only a pack, not yet opened.

“So I’m not in the doghouse,” he said, pulling off the cellophane. “She says it’s terrible how I’m late. You’re expecting someone by boat?” He looked toward the water entrance, the dark canal beyond.

“I thought you might hire a gondola—for Mimi’s.”

“I don’t hire gondolas. I have a gondola. Anyway, I prefer to walk.” He lit a cigarette, peering at me as he closed the lighter. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I want to make a truce.”

“I thought we had a truce.”

“A new one. Different.”

“Ah,” he said, marking time. He gestured to the staircase. “You want to talk here?”

“It won’t take long. Anyway, you don’t want to crease your tails.”

“All right,” he said, displeased. “So?”

“Here’s the way this one works. You’re going to leave my mother, end it. I’ll take her away—home, if she’ll go. Anyway, not here. You won’t see us again.”

He sighed. “What a nuisance you’ve become. Like a child.”

“I can get her away in a week. Maybe two.”

“And when am I supposed to do this? Tonight, at the ball?” he said, toying. “Another scene? Will your friend be there? For the drama?”

“This week,” I said steadily. “Tomorrow, why not? Maybe you realized tonight, it can never be. Two different worlds—you figure out what to say. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”

He looked away, not rising to this, and started walking slowly toward the water entrance. “And why would I do this?”

“Because I’m going to do something for you.”

He turned. “Don’t do anything for me. I don’t want anything from you.”

“You’ll want this. I’m going to save your life.”

He stopped, staring at me. “What are you talking about?”

“Your trial.”

“My trial,” he said, toneless, waiting.

I moved toward him. “You know, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t started with the first lie. Your old friend Grassini. You didn’t expect it—it was all of a sudden, her coming at you, so of course you’d deny it. Anybody’s first instinct. But then you kept lying about it. Now why was that? Strictly speaking, it wasn’t even illegal. And you wouldn’t have been the only one. But here you are, just her word against yours and everybody happy to sweep it under the carpet, and still you get all excited. Ride it out? No. You try to get rid of her, make her go away. At the time, I didn’t think. I was ashamed for you. I thought this is how anyone would feel, to have this known. But you were never ashamed of that. Your reputation would have survived it. Others’ have. But you had to get rid of her. Now why was that?”

“This is so hard for you to understand? Talk like that.”

“No, that’s not it. You didn’t want people talking at all. Looking into it. Grassini meant nothing to you. But think what else they might find, once they started looking into things. That you had to stop.”

He picked up an ashtray from the hall table and rubbed out his cigarette. “Really,” he said finally. “What makes you think so?”

“Because I did look into it.”

“You did.”

I nodded. “With some friends in the AMG. They do fieldwork for war crimes trials. You scoop up a German, you’d be surprised what else swims into the net.”

His eyes widened. “What else?”

“A brother who ran errands for the SS and got bumped off by partisans. A whole series of cozy dinners at Villa Raspelli—no stethoscopes, just you and the boys in black. They have records. They also have the Germans. Can’t stop talking, it seems. Don’t care a bit what happens to their old Italian buddies. Happy to help out. See, once you start looking into things—”

“Why are you doing this?” he said, his voice quiet, stunned, the earlier smooth polish gone.

“To make a truce,” I said. “To get rid of you.”

“You hate me so much.”

“All of you. Look at you. Fucking Fred Astaire, and a year ago you were putting people on trains. Ever see what happened to them? I’d take you down in a minute if I could, but I’m not going to let you take my mother with you. So you get a break. Which is a lot more than you gave Claudia’s father, and who knows who else. Your famous partisan.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That was good. You explain away one lie with another. What made you think I’d believe the new one? You killed him too.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Had him tracked, I should say. You never pull a trigger yourself. A whole bunch of them this time, thanks to you. They’re preparing the case now. Check with the hospital—see if anybody called about the records, first week in October, 1944.”

“But it’s not true,” he said, pale now.

“You want to know something? I don’t give a shit. I think it is true. And if this isn’t, something else will be. One way or another, they’ll get what they need. They’re good. And you were so close—getting away with everything. Except Claudia came back.”

He stared at me, not saying anything, his eyes still wide.

“The problem is, they want me to testify.”

“Testify? To what?”

“Our little heart-to-heart about the partisan, for one thing. It gives the story a certain heft. Not to mention it’s a confession about Claudia’s father, which isn’t going to win you any friends in court.”

“You can’t prove any of this,” he said, panting a little. “A trial. They can’t prove anything.”

“Well, they might. In fact, I’d bet on it. On the other hand, anything can happen in court. I’ve seen it. You might get lucky. But either way it’ll be a circus. You don’t want me on the stand, and I don’t want to put my mother through it. So this time you really get lucky. No trial. You just go away. No, better—we’ll go away. All you lose is the money.”

“Bastard,” he said, trying to control himself. “Keep your money.”

“I will. I guess the usual thing would be to buy you off, but I figure you’re getting a great deal anyway. You go on as if nothing ever happened. Of course I can’t say about later—this kind of stuff has a way of coming out. But I can stop it for now, and that’ll buy you time. Then, who knows? Things change.”

“Stop it how?”

“I’ll get them to close the case. I can do it. I guess it’s obstructing justice in a way, but I’ll do it. That’s the truce. I don’t want a trial.” I looked at him. “And neither do you.”

“Marmocchio,” he said, almost under his breath, a rumbling. “Sei uno stronzo. Cazzo.”

“Not very nice, I guess. Whatever it is.”

“You shit. No, you know sciocco? Fool. You are a fool. I’ve tried everything with you.”

“Then try this. We’ll go away and your troubles will be over.”

“My only trouble is you. Crazy. Maybe that’s it, still crazy from the war. Maybe it affected your mind. You think you’re still in Germany? Always the Jews. Here, it’s another place. Not Germany, not the same. You want to put people on trial? For what, suffering in the war?”

“Not everybody suffered. You look like you’re doing all right.”

“It’s that Jewish whore. She makes you crazy. A woman like that. How many did she sleep with there? They should put her on trial.”

I stared at him, not responding, clenching my hands.

“But right now,” I said finally, “they’d rather have you.”

“You did this. You made this trouble.”

“No, you made it. But I can stop it. That’s the deal.”

He turned to leave. “You can go to hell. Do you think you can come here and put me on trial? Like a criminal? No, it’s a farce. You will be the one with the bad name, not me. A shame to your mother. Saying lies—and then, where’s the proof? Nowhere. No proof. You can’t prove anything.”

“Well, see, that’s the thing. They don’t necessarily have to prove it.”

“What?” he said, stopping.

“Not the people I talked to, anyway. They prefer it—professional pride. But sometimes, with the right guy, it’s enough just to say what they know, go public with it. Somebody else figures out the rest. Old partisans, maybe. Then they take care of it their own way.” He had paled again. “I told you I wanted to save your life. They did it to your brother. They wouldn’t think twice about doing it to you. Not once they know.” I looked at him. “You don’t want this trial.”

“It’s lies,” he said quietly.

“Then you have nothing to worry about.”

“You don’t understand anything here—what these people are like.”

“I thought they were friends of yours. The one you helped—he’d speak for you, wouldn’t he? Or was he in the house that burned?”

“You—” Not finding the word, sputtering.

“Of course, they didn’t know about your other friends, over at Villa Raspelli. What are you going to say that was?” I shook my head. “It’s a great cover until the Germans talk. You know how they are, keeping track of everything. Reports to Berlin. Duplicates here. Verona, I guess. Everything that happened. All their little hopes and dreams. Their friends.” I stopped. “You don’t want this trial. They’d knock you off before you were halfway through. I don’t want any part of that. Not that you don’t have it coming. But I’m not going to be the one to do it. Make the truce.”

“You’re threatening me?”

“Make the truce.”

“Cazzo, make it yourself,” he said, throwing up his hand as he brushed past me so that it accidentally caught my shoulder. I reacted by flinging up my arm to push it away. A flicker of motion, but enough to trigger an alarm in his head. I didn’t even see the hand come up, just felt it on my chest as he pushed me back in a fury, banging my head against the wall. “Don’t you dare raise a hand to me,” he said, panting, holding me.

“Let go,” I said, seeing only the blur of his white front, his hand coming out of a starched cuff. Then his face, clearer now, eyes glaring at me.

“You think I wouldn’t do it? Bah.” He loosened his hold, then dropped his hand. “And make more trouble. So you can run to Mama.”

“That’s right,” I said, staring at him. “You like someone else to do it. Even better when it’s official. When it’s the right thing to do.”

“Go to hell.” He started toward the door, smoothing back the sides of his hair, then turned. “I warn you.”

We stared at each other, a standoff, broken suddenly by the front doorbell. For a second neither of us moved, not yet jolted out of ourselves, then I stepped away from the wall.

“Fix your tie,” I said, brushing past him.

“Cazzo,” he said, spitting it, but he went over to the mirror to adjust himself, public again.

I opened the door to Claudia, looking worried, her hair a little scraggly in the moist air.

“So you are here,” she said. “The lights are out upstairs.”

“Didn’t you get my message?”

“Yes, but it’s late.” She stopped, seeing Gianni in the hall. “Oh.”

“Ha, the whore,” Gianni said. “Now everything is complete. The cazzo and his whore. A perfect couple.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Why is he here?” Claudia said.

“To listen to nonsense. Now I go.”

Claudia looked at me. “What nonsense?”

“Nothing,” I said, drawing her in. “Just a little talk.”

“Talk,” Gianni said. “Nonsense.”

“You’re right,” I said, turning to him. He was elegant again, his hair back in place. “It is nonsense. Why bother? I don’t want a truce either. Not anymore.”

“No? What do you want?”

“I want to nail you. I want people to know.”

“At my so-called trial.”

“That’s right, at your trial. I’m looking forward to it.”

“What trial?” Claudia said. “What are you talking about?”

“More drama for you,” Gianni said. “You like so much to make scenes. Now you can tell everybody where your bed was at the camp. All your special privileges—how you earned them. He wants you to tell everybody. He wants people to know.”

“Stop it,” I said.

“My lawyer will ask the questions. I guarantee it. At this trial you want.”

Claudia moved from the door, backing into the hall. He followed her with words.

“You think I don’t know about you? Someone attacks me, I ask questions. I find out. Vanessi, the man at the camp—you think he would keep a woman out of pity? No. And not once, months. Not forced, a mistress. Someone who liked it. Who liked him, maybe.”

“No,” Claudia said softly.

“So, an actress. Maybe still acting.” He turned to me. “This is what you want? A wonderful witness. The camp whore.”

“Stop it,” I said.

“No, it doesn’t stop, once it starts. How can you stop it? Hold up your hand, like traffic? You think I won’t fight back? You make this trouble and then you think you can stop it. No, not when you like. So you shame her and it doesn’t stop there. Until everybody’s dirty. Then what? Nothing. You will win nothing.”

“I don’t have to win,” I said. “I just have to let them see you.”

He stared at me again for a minute. “I’m not going to let you do that,” he said finally. “Understand that. Never.”

His voice was low and steady, the same calm menace I’d heard in the restaurant, and I felt a prickling. It had already started, beyond fixing now, any polite truce.

“That’s what you think,” I said.

“Never,” he repeated, his voice still low. “Go home.”

“I’m not leaving her. Not with you.”

“You don’t know how it is. You don’t know anything. A fool. Like the father. Just like the father. He saw nothing. Under his nose, still nothing.”

“Saw what?” I said, feeling clenched, as if his hand were pushing me again.

“You think it’s the first time, with your mother? You know nothing. The father’s son. Another fool.”

A snap in my head, like the click of a safety.

“Shut up,” I said. “Just shut up.”

“Both of you, fools.” Each word like a prod with a stick.

“Shut up,” I said, my hands springing up without my being aware of it, pushing him back, away from me.

The shove caught him off-guard, so he staggered before he could catch his balance, his weight pulling him back toward the wall, his head hitting the edge of one of the sconces.

“Adam!” Claudia said, somewhere out of my line of vision.

Gianni put his hand to the back of his head, then looked at it, streaked with blood. I saw the white of his dress shirt, his blank expression, the smeared hand, everything utterly still, and then the blood seemed to jump, alive, as he lunged for me. I reared back, keeping my throat out of reach so his hand struck my chest. Then we were both falling, his hands now pounding at me, wild. The smell of blood. Claudia yelled something.

“Cazzo!” Gianni said, punching me.

I had never fought anyone hand to hand. Combat had always been a few kilometers away, even across a field. Now I could feel his breath on me, that close. I rolled away, not thinking, instinct. Protect your eyes. Get up. Now. No pattern to it, a blur, slaps and grabs and sudden bursts of pain.

I pulled at his shirt, the stiff white front, to draw him closer, immobilize his arms, but he pushed me away, landing one hand on the side of my face. I felt a dull burning and moved back. One of his shirt studs had popped out, opening up a patch of hairy skin in the evening clothes, suddenly primitive, what was real underneath.

I looked at the furious eyes, the disheveled hair, and saw that he was right, it wouldn’t stop now. His hand caught me again, my ear went hot, stinging, and I punched back until both of us were wrestling, close in, falling to the floor again in a heap, pulling each other down the hall, trying to find a position, any kind of advantage. Then his grip loosened and I grabbed a chair, pulling myself up away from him. In a second he was on one knee, then pitched forward, pounding me in the side, a throbbing ache that didn’t go away, that would bruise.