Alibi: A Novel (53 page)

“Leave, then.”

He paused, looking down at his hat. “I’m still something to you, I think,” he said. “You wouldn’t—you’ll keep that to yourself?” He motioned toward the letter.

“And not show it around? I thought nothing mattered to you anymore.”

“Not to me. But you know, people don’t like to remember. There might be a certain social stigma—”

“And that still matters to you?”

“I live here. I don’t want to spend my last days alone.”

His voice caught me, tentative, almost wispy, and I looked up. Not the dark figure in the transcript anymore, whispering into Gianni’s ear, just a slight old man with half-moon glasses, whom nobody ever loved back.

“No,” I said. “It was just for me.” When I’d wanted to know. When we had gotten away with it.

Cavallini took us to the station in a police launch, heading away from the hospital toward the Rialto, because Claudia said she wanted to go up the Grand Canal. The sun was out, bright as it had been on our wedding day, and she sat in the back, just as she had then with her corsage, not smiling this time, just taking it all in, fixing it in her memory. Cavallini and I had exchanged slings—his had been snipped away, mine put in place that morning—and I still felt a little wobbly, off-balance. He sat up front with the driver, pointing to buildings from time to time, a tour guide. Palazzo Foscari. Ca’ d’Oro. Ca’ Pesaro. The fairy-tale city everyone knew, untouched by the war.

At the station he dealt with the porters and luggage, to give us time alone, but even with him gone it seemed we were playing out a scene he’d arranged, an ordinary couple saying the usual things on the platform: You’re sure you have your tickets. Enough money. Something to read on the train. Then we said nothing, waiting for a cue.

“There’s not much time,” she said. “I’d better get on.” Beginning to turn, so that I saw it was really happening.

“Don’t go,” I said. She hesitated, letting me take her by the shoulders with my good arm, facing me again. “Don’t go.”

She smiled faintly. “I wondered if you would say it. Thank you for that.”

“Tell me what else to say. What do you want to hear? Anything.”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I can’t, Adam.” A loudspeaker blared behind us, announcing the train. “I can’t stay here.”

“No, I fixed it with Cavallini. Even about Vanessi.” I looked down. “It’s all fixed.”

“All fixed,” she said, and when I raised my head again her eyes were moist. “With Cavallini.”

“You don’t have to worry.”

“You did that for me?”

I said nothing, waiting for her.

“You’ll pay for it, you know.”

“Rosa paid for it.”

“And now we’ll pay for her,” she said quietly. “On and on.”

“No, it’s over. You don’t have to be afraid.”

“No. Just when you look at me, what you see. And me, when I look at myself. I want to go somewhere people can’t see it. Do you understand that?”

“We can start over.”

She shook her head. “Not after this. We know about each other. What happened. So how can it change?” She put her hand on my chest. “Shall I tell you something? When I asked you, what did you think, when I had the gun? And you said you didn’t know? I didn’t know either. So that’s who I am now. I didn’t know either.” She brushed her hand over her eyes. “Oh, so stupid. Well, at the station. The one place.”

I held out a handkerchief.

“Do you know how it used to be? My father was a doctor. He sent me to London. We were people of—standing. And now? A murderer. Shooting a woman. And I could do it. So how did that happen? I still don’t know.” She sniffled, blowing her nose. “Look, he’s coming.”

I gripped her tighter. “But I love you.”

She reached up, putting her hands on the sides of my head. “I know,” she said, staring at me, her fingers trembling. “But it’s not safe for me here.” She darted her eyes toward Cavallini. “Say good-bye. He’s watching.”

I kissed her on the mouth, feeling her lean against me. “You’re my wife.”

But she had pulled away, stroking the side of my face. “Yes. My father would be so proud.” Her voice soft, saying good-bye.

“A rich American,” I said.

“And that,” she said, smiling a little.

“Here,” I said, taking an envelope out of my pocket. “My mother doesn’t have any—she just talks big.”

“Adam, I can’t see her. How could I do that? It’s just what we say here.”

“Take it anyway.”

“You give me money to leave you?”

“It’s marked. It’ll make it easier to find you.”

She smiled, so that Cavallini, joining us, thought everything was fine.

“So, all arranged,” he said, handing her a claim stub. “The rest is in your compartment.”

“Thank you.”

He bowed, kissing her hand. “It’s hard, these good-byes,” he said, “but now you must hurry.”

I walked Claudia over to the train and held her hand as she climbed the steps. She glanced down the platform toward Cavallini.

“Thank you, then. For Vanessi.”

“So it’s true.”

She made a wry half smile. “Even now you have to know. So important to you, to know. Was Maglione a good man? No, he couldn’t be. So you could be.”

“Is it true?”

She took her hand way. “He tried to—” She stopped. “Yes.”

“That’s what you were afraid of all along. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t.” She shook her head. “How could I tell you? Then we’d both know. To trust someone with that. You can’t—it’s one thing you learn, after. When we knew, did we trust each other?”

A door slammed at the end of the platform.

“And maybe I wanted you to think I was—I don’t know, the way I used to be.”

“You are. You just can’t see it. I can. That’s what I see.”

Doors were slamming along the line now, the loudspeaker crackling.

“He’s waiting for you.”

The conductor was closing the next car. I pulled myself up the train steps, taking her arm and kissing her.

“No, go,” she said, turning away.

Then, as I took a step back, she clutched my jacket and pulled me
to her, just touching her face against mine for a second before moving away again, looking at me. “Would we have been happy, do you think? If none of it had happened?”

“We can still be happy.”

But in her eyes, shiny and fluttering, wounded, I saw that it wasn’t true and that I had become a kind of cage. I dropped my arms.

“Signore.” The conductor, asking me off. The train lurched. I nodded and stepped down to the platform, and stood there watching until the train began to move, only then taking in the gray suit, the same one she’d worn when I first noticed her standing alone at Bertie’s.

“The suit!” I shouted, but the train was loud now and she just smiled and then raised her hand, not quite a wave, a letting-go. Finally free.

Both of us. I watched the train rush out into the yards. Two people and a secret, the impossible equation. I could close up the house now and go. Anywhere. I walked down the platform. At the end Cavallini was leaning against a pillar and reading a newspaper.

“An old picture,” he said, showing it to me. “From those days.”

Rosa, looking young and pretty in an off-the-shoulder blouse, before she was always cold. I read some of the Italian—driven by political vengeance—and handed it back. On and on.

“You see, they believe it already,” he said. “There won’t be any trouble at the inquest.”

He put his hand at the small of my back and guided me into the main hall. “I had the boat wait,” he said.

“Not back to the hospital,” I said. Where Gianni had nodded in the ward. “Would you drop me at Ca’ Venti?” The canal entrance, with its mossy steps, no sign of blood.

“I thought we would visit Giulia.”

“Giulia?”

“Yes, if you’re not tired? She has been so worried about you. I’ve been keeping her informed. You know she has a very high regard for you.”

But both of us would be there, one of us working his way from the family pew to the lunch table, protecting all things Maglione.

“Signora Miller was happy to go?” he said.

“Yes.”

“It’s not a long trip. Very beautiful, in the mountains.” We were passing out of the hall to Mussolini’s broad steps. “It’s all arranged? She’s easy in her mind?”

I stopped for a second, squinting in the bright light at the boats on the Grand Canal, watercolor Venice. Then I shivered, suddenly chilled even in the sun, maybe the way Rosa had felt.

“You’re ill?” Cavallini said, solicitous.

I shook my head. “All arranged. She understands.”

“Good.
Va bene
.”

“I suppose I should thank you.”

He shrugged. “She’s your wife.”

“Yes,” I said to myself, mocking, my voice bitter. “How can I ever repay you?”

But evidently he had heard me. He helped me into the boat with my good arm. “Ca’ Maglione,” he said to the driver, then turned to me, an odd smile on his face. “Don’t worry,” he said, his hand still holding my arm. “These things arrange themselves. We’ll think of something.”

JOSEPH KANON is the author of three previous novels,
The Good German
,
Los Alamos
, and
The Prodigal Spy
. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a book publishing executive. He lives in New York City.