Infrared (29 page)

Not a word passed my lips. When I bowed my head, it was neither an acquiescence nor an avowal, simply a way of cowering, shrinking away, trying to disappear…But Rowan was kicked out of the house the very next day.

Double Noctran.

No dreams, thanks to the sleeping-pills.

Lying in bed, Rena calculates how long it will be until her plane lands in Paris. Only twenty-seven hours to go…

Aziz was supposed to come and meet her at Roissy…but with everything that’s going on in France, will he be able to?

It’s past nine by the time she walks into the breakfast room. The minute they set eyes on her, Ingrid and Simon can tell something is off.

‘You’re white as a sheet,’ Ingrid says in a worried voice. ‘Didn’t you sleep well?’

She tells them.

‘Oh, you poor thing!’ her stepmother exclaims. ‘Look: here’s the number to block your Visa card. Quick! Go ask if you can use their phone; it’s a free call.’

Five minutes later, it’s taken care of.

‘You’re right not to have gone to the police,’ says Simon. ‘Given car theft statistics in Italy, it’s probably not even worth filing a complaint. It would only mean endless paperwork, with no real hope of finding the culprits.’

‘But how will we get back to Florence?’ Rena says. ‘You haven’t driven since your cataract operation, isn’t that right?’

‘Yes, but my dear wife can drive.’

Rena turns to Ingrid. ‘Do you have your licence with you?’

‘Of course. Wouldn’t be caught dead without it.’

‘Oh.’ (Why hadn’t it occurred to Rena to ask Ingrid if she wanted to drive?) ‘And you’re not afraid of dealing with Italian driver machismo?’

‘Not to worry. An hour and a half on the highway should be
do-able. And since we didn’t put a second driver’s name on the contract, I’ll pass the wheel back to you just before we get to the agency.’

Rena stares at Ingrid in amazement. Does she always think of everything?

‘The worst loss by far,’ says Simon, ‘is your Canon.’

‘Not to worry,’ says Rena in turn. ‘I can always buy another one. No, the worst loss is what was
in
it—your photos of me.’

It’s ten o’clock. The blonde, efficient young owner comes over and starts clearing away their breakfast things.

‘Well,’ says Rena. ‘Shall we be off?’

‘Wait,’ says Simon. ‘Why don’t you come up to our room so we can talk over our plans for the day?’

The question kills her.
(Life? Oh, that was what / went by while we were busy / making all those plans.
A haiku written by Simon himself, long years ago.) Even if they leave right this minute, Rena doesn’t see how they can possibly squeeze in everything they’re supposed to do today: drive back to Florence, return the car, schlep their luggage over to the hotel…and they wanted to spend at least a few minutes at the Uffizi, failing which they can scarcely claim to have visited Florence. Right now, they’re not even packed, so if they have to sit down and discuss plans…No, thinks Rena. No, time will stop, I’ll never see Aziz or Kerstin, Toussaint or Thierno again. I’ll be stuck here forever in a B & B on the outskirts of Siena, with my father… his wife…his confusion…and his love…

‘Coming, Rena?’ says Ingrid.

She comes, and her pointy little ass barely touches the windowsill as she sits down.

Methodically, Simon goes about removing maps, clothing and books from the room’s only chair.

‘Have a chair,’ he says. (Need me.)

‘I’m fine, Dad. Don’t bother.’ (I’d sooner die!) ‘But you’ll be cold, so close to the window.’ (Let me love you!) ‘I’m forty-five years old, Dad. I know whether I’m cold or not. Trust me.’ (Leave me alone!)

‘But you’re my guest, I want to make you comfortable.’ (Whatever happened to my loving little girl?)

‘Dad, how long do you plan to push me around on pretext of making me comfortable?’ (Get off my back!)

Everything goes smoothly.

They speed across the Tuscan countryside, Ingrid driving masterfully. At last Rena can credit the idea that this ordeal might actually come to an end.

So this is…this was…this will have been…it?

Ingrid chirps and warbles as she drives. ‘Isn’t it a gorgeous day? Oh…I hope that car theft won’t spoil your whole memory of the trip. You’ve given us such a marvellous holiday…Right, Dad?’

‘I should say so!’ Simon says. ‘From now on, I’m going to turn seventy every year.’

They talk of going to Rome the next time around. Greece, too—oh, yes! Some other year…They talk and talk, believing not a word of what they say.

When they reach Florence’s ring road, Ingrid stops at a petrol station, fills up, and passes the wheel to Rena. Putting on her glasses, she guides her stepdaughter skilfully through the one-way streets around the Piazza Ognissanti.

The agency’s elegant Francophile comes out to check the car.

‘I hope everything went well, ladies and gentlemen?’ he asks them in French.

‘Si, si, grazie, naturalmente,’
Rena says, handing him the keys.

The rental was prepaid; it’s all over. Rena feels free, light-hearted, almost giddy.

That theft was basically a stroke of luck, Subra tells her. Look at all the things you don’t have to feel guilty about anymore! Not taking pictures, not calling your son who’s soon to be a father… Even Aziz’s silence has stopped torturing you: he might be trying to reach you, but you have no way of knowing it. So it’s not your fault: you’re innocent, completely innocent! Nothing to
do
with Beatrice Cenci, I tell you!

On the way to the Hotel Guelfa in a taxi, Simon startles them by telling the driver to stop. At once, car horns start honking indignantly.

‘What’s up, Dad?’ asks Ingrid.

Without a word, he gets out of the car and disappears into a shop. Craning her neck, Rena sees it’s an international bookshop. Incensed, she launches into a series of rhetorical questions: ‘Is this the right time to buy a book? Does he think this is the right time to buy a book?’

Her father comes out of the store a few moments later. ‘Got a little something for you’, he says, handing her a plastic bag. She peeps into it: he has replaced her
Guide bleu: Italie du nord et du centre.

Though the sour-tempered proprietor seems less than overjoyed to see them again, checking into their old rooms at the Guelfa feels almost like a homecoming. Ah, that adorable Room 25! So narrow, so original…

It’s past two o’clock; they’re starved.

They stride familiarly down Via Guelfa until its name changes to Via degli Alfani, then turn right into Via dei Servi. Soon come to
an end, this perpetual searching for restaurants.

‘This one look all right?’

‘No, the music’s too loud.’

‘What about this one?’

‘Nope. Too bad; they’ve stopped serving lunch.’

‘Look—over here!’

Sudden perfection. A secret alleyway. A terrace. Sunlight. Lunch tables set up just opposite a tiny twelfth-century basilica. A smiling young waitress comes and goes, bringing them food.

But when Ingrid turns to Rena and asks if Aziz deals with her absences better than Alioune used to—shaken, perhaps, by the loss of all her identities—Rena doesn’t appreciate it.

‘He deals with them,’ she says. And lights up a cigarette in the middle of the meal, knowing how much Ingrid detests cigarette smoke.

‘Uncanny,’ Simon breathes, ‘the way you blew your smoke out through your nostrils just now, dragon-style…Your mother used to do that. For a minute, you looked exactly like her.’

‘What’s so uncanny about it?’ Rena retort. ‘Does it bother you that I resemble my mother in some ways? Who knows, maybe I inherited a few of my traits from her! My hand gestures…my green eyes…my ability to carry projects through to completion? Is that a flaw, in your opinion?’

‘Rena!’ says Ingrid.

‘Yes, I did have a mother once, in case you’ve forgotten…And I don’t have one anymore. And you have the nerve to ask me about
my
absences, when…when…’ She doesn’t know when what.

‘For heaven’s sake, Rena,’ Ingrid says in a louder voice. ‘Don’t spoil our lovely holiday by dredging up all those old accusations…’

The more her stepmother raises her voice, the more Rena lowers hers.

‘Who’s making accusations?’ she says in a whisper. ‘Is someone making accusations?’

Suddenly overwhelmed by memories, Simon sets down his fork and weeps.

Whose fault was it? Mine? Rena asks Subra in despair.

No, not yours, Subra murmurs soothingly.

I mean, all right, Rena goes on, I’m the one who pronounced the words Portobello Road and Sylvie and vintage dresses and London, I don’t deny it, the words slipped through my lips and no one else’s—but
the facts
—the facts, Daddy—who was responsible for the facts? Me? I was sixteen and you were forty…I was alone with my mother that day, and when the words escaped me I saw your marriage of twenty years—everything you’d built together, a complex construction she still believed in, despite your money problems and your quarrels—slowly and spectacularly collapse. Yes, I saw the catastrophe in her green eyes…not because her husband had been unfaithful to her—that was banal—but because…because of me…because of the complicity between her husband and her daughter…their silence against her…the enormity and the duration of their betrayal…and then…even as my words went on exploding in different parts of her brain like tracer bullets, skewing her judgment, freezing her limbs, blurring her vision, confusing her thoughts, accelerating her heartbeat, Lisa went storming out of the house…She got into her car, that day, in the state she was in, and turned on the ignition…

Rena shoves her plate away, unable to swallow another bite.

And then…the speeding car…the pounding of her heart…the strangeness of her body…the sense of lightness in her head…the coldness of her hands…the speed…the bridge…her right leg shaking
so badly that the car advanced by fits and starts…my words…the car…the bridge…my green eyes…you’re the one who taught me… her green eyes…how to drive, Daddy, and…sinking…my mother… those words…down…speeding…to the bottom…heartbeats…of the river…its waters…icy in that…Saint-Lawrence…season…San Lorenzo…him again…

What is old?
This waitress has been around for twenty years, my pain for nearly thirty, the ivy-chewed bricks for eight hundred, the sun for four billion…yet all of it is now. New. Raw.

‘No, Rowan, no, it’s not my fault, I swear…’ ‘Whose fault is it, then? Why did you tell her? Couldn’t you keep your big mouth shut? Why did you denounce our father?’ At twenty, my brother, comfortably ensconced in his gay lifestyle on the West coast, had already made a name for himself as a jazz violinist even as he finished up a brilliant course of studies at the Conservatory. He never touched me anymore; only his words fire-branded me now. ‘She was
my
mother, too, Rena…And you started taking her away from me the minute you were born. She was
my
mother, too, and you killed her…’ ‘No, Rowan, don’t say that. Don’t say that…’ ‘I only say it because it’s true…’ ‘No, it’s
not
true—she had an accident!’ ‘The accident was
you,
Rena! You’re the only accident our mother ever had.’

Looking around at the other customers on the terrace, Rena soberly reminds herself that each and every one of them contains a Thebes, a Troy, a Jerusalem…How do we manage to go on putting one foot ahead of the other, smiling, shopping for food, not dying from the pain?

Having licked her plate clean, Ingrid pats Rena on the hand with which she has just stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Don’t you think we
should drop the subject? Let bygones be bygones. Look, it’s already quarter to four. If we want to see the Uffizi, we should be on our way. I’ll go take care of the bill and pay my little visit to the ladies’ room…’ She enters the restaurant.

Simon, his eyes red with tears, seeks out Rena’s gaze behind the dark glasses she stubbornly refuses to remove. But when he stretches both hands out to her over the remains of their meal, she gives him hers, and he squeezes them so hard it hurts.

‘Daddy…’

‘I’m sorry, little one. I’m so sorry.’

She pulls her hands away and tries to smile, hiding her embarrassment by drawing out the
Guide bleu
he just bought for her.

‘The place is humungous,’ she mutters. ‘We should choose which galleries we want to visit…’

‘Oïe vey,’
Simon says. ‘I’m not sure I’ve got the strength to deal with the Uffizi.’

‘Okay,’ Rena laughs. ‘To hell with the Uffizi!’

Ingrid returns. ‘The restrooms are impeccably clean here,’ she announces. ‘Everything’s taken care of. We can go.’

‘Just a second,’ Simon says. ‘Rena’s looking for something less exhausting than the Uffizi.’

‘Oh…’ Ingrid says, crestfallen. ‘So many of my friends told me it was a must.’

‘Listen to this,’ says Rena, reading aloud from the guide. ‘San Marco: impossible not to be spellbound by the atmosphere of the place. The Dominican monastery which houses the museum is one of Tuscany’s finest architectural jewels.’

‘That sounds perfect!’ says Simon.

‘And it’s close by,’ Rena adds, ‘whereas the Uffizi is a good twenty minutes’ walk away.’

That clinches it for Ingrid; she gives in and their wobbly procession starts off again.

Rena goes on reading from the guide as they advance towards the Via C. Battisti. ‘Monks’ cells decorated with frescoes by Fra Angelico…a library built for Cosimo the Elder by Michelozzo… to say nothing of Fra Bartolomeo’s famous portrait of Savonarola!’

‘Who’s that?’ Ingrid asks.

‘You know,’ Simon says. ‘The fanatical prior we mentioned the other day. Railer and reviler, impassioned orator, demented igniter of bonfires of the vanities…’

‘Oh, yes,’ mutters Ingrid. ‘I remember now.’

‘When he arrived at the Duomo for his sermon,’ Simon goes on, ‘the crowds of the faithful would drop to their knees and chant,
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
A thousand foreheads would hit the floor at the same time. Imagine!’