When the Night (14 page)

“She’s so little, Manfred.”

It was almost as if she were talking about herself: I’m so little, Manfred, I’m a girl, I want to wear nice clothes, play house. I’m tired of this life you want me to lead.

I became impatient. After the baby was born, Luna changed, but I didn’t adjust.

If you’re not careful with girls, bad things happen. Just look at this one. I have the bloodstains on the tablecloth to prove it. She has to confess. Why was there blood under the table? How did the baby end up there? Marco is in danger; it might happen again. I have to tell the father, separate them.

“There is the crucifix. We can stop here and have something to eat.”

They nod.

It will be hard for Marco; no matter what she does, you always want your mother. He cried when we went up the mountain without her.

“Mamma coming?”

He’ll suffer, but then he’ll get used to it.

THE TRAYS OF venison are in the oven, and there are sweets and crêpes on the tables. I feed Marco in a corner of the kitchen. He’s tired from playing with Silvia. Gabriel pulled him around in a wheelbarrow, and he laughed until he couldn’t stop.

I SEE MY sisters once a week, on Saturdays; we go to the park. We live far apart, and each of us has her activities. Sometimes I’ll stay over on Sunday night with Marco. We have dinner, and I put Marco to bed with his cousins. I feel happy, as I do now. I’m overwhelmed by responsibility when I’m alone; he depends on me, and if I make a mistake it’s the end. Mario doesn’t understand. He’s tired of the routine.

“We go every weekend!”

He thinks I act like a little girl, incapable of spending a Sunday at home, that I need to grow up. Maybe he’s right. When it’s just the three of us, it seems like the day lasts forever. He plays with Marco, takes him to the park while I prepare lunch, and in the afternoon we go out, or if it’s raining we stay home. The baby comes between us rather than uniting us; I can feel it but I can’t bring myself to explain it. Sometimes, when Mario finds me distracted and strange, he asks me, “Are you tired?”

“Exhausted.”

He looks at me without knowing quite what to say.

“You wanted this baby, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes.”

I have thoughts that I can’t explain, all the time, with no rhyme or reason. I wanted Marco, but I didn’t know. I love Mario, but I hate him because he doesn’t understand.

So instead I put on music so we don’t have to talk; a song from the time when we met, that way maybe everything can go back to the way it was before.

MARCO IS FALLING asleep, spoon in hand.

“Darling, you’re tired, let’s go to bed. You’ve had enough.”

I pick him up and wipe his mouth. The young woman stirs the polenta and looks over.

“Are you leaving today?”

“After the party. Will there be music?”

“Of course. They eat, drink, and play. For the tourists, so they’ll come up and have dinner here. Look at Marco’s mountain climber cheeks.”

“Yes, the mountain air has done him good.”

I kiss his rough, tanned skin.

I pick up his plate and cup.

“Don’t worry, I’ll do it. Take him to bed; he can barely keep his eyes open.”

As we go up the stairs, he puts his head on my shoulder.
When I reach the second floor I see Albert coming out of his apartment.

“Good morning, how are you?”

“Very well. He plays, sleeps, and eats.”

He laughs and pinches Marco’s cheek, like Manfred.

“So, the kids like it here, eh?”

“It’s true.”

“Tonight I’ll take you down in the jeep. Bianca told me.”

“Thank you.”

He runs off.

Words are more important when they are few. You have to work to understand what they mean to say, really. He was referring to the first time we met, when I came into the dining room, after Manfred had left me on the mountain. I had said, “They must not have many friends to play with up here.” I had almost added, “and no mother,” but I didn’t want them to know I had been asking about them in the town.

I wonder if Manfred still thinks about his mother; if he would like to see her, or if he hates her so much that he doesn’t even think about her. I hold Marco close. How would he manage without me? If I went away, or if I died, or if they took him away from me? I wonder how they explained it to Manfred when he was little; how do you explain a mother who goes away with another man and leaves her kids?

Marco is asleep. I put him down on the bed; he never wakes up at this stage.

I have to wash my hair, and then I’ll dry it with Bianca’s hair dryer. My hair is long and the sink is small. When I was little,
my mother used to wash my hair and dry it, and then comb it vigorously.

“You’re hurting me!”

“Your hair is long, and we have to comb it, otherwise we’ll have to cut it!”

I don’t want to cut my hair; I like it long, and so did Marco, my first love. He was seven years old. He used to pull my hair; that was how he told me he loved me. I named my baby after him, but I didn’t tell Mario. Seven is young to be in love, but I was.

I thought about him at night in bed and put my finger in the slit between my legs. My mother told me to stop.

“Your hands are dirty and it will get infected. It’s delicate.”

It’s true, it would get all red when I rubbed it, but afterward I’d fall asleep.

The men in my life have all had names beginning with M. Mario, Marco. And my name, Marina.

I WRAP MY hair in a towel and put lotion on my skin. It’s sunblock, the only lotion I have up here. I go over to the window. There he is, on the terrace, wearing his plaid shirt, carrying a backpack and an ice axe. He just arrived and he’s looking around, speaking to a group of people, pointing to some tables and the mountain. Suddenly he looks up and sees me. I take a step back and the towel falls to the floor; I can feel the wet hair against my back.

SHE FLEES MY gaze; she’s afraid. She’s washing her hair, making herself beautiful. I’m hot, sweaty. The ice on the mountains is melting. I’ll be more circumspect this time; I want her to fear my silence. Then I’ll tell her that I was wrong about her, that she’s all right. In fact, I’ll act like I’m attracted to her; I’ll flirt with her a little bit. That’s what she wants. Then I’ll wait for the right moment, when she’s relaxed and vulnerable. They gave her our room, of all the rooms up at the lodge.

I go inside to talk to Albert. Bianca is at the counter, as always.

“Ciao.”

“Ciao, how are you?”

“I left my clients at a table outside. Where’s Albert?”

“Fixing the boiler with Christian and Gabriel. It keeps breaking down. Luckily, it’s a hot day.”

I walk around the house, keeping an eye on the window. But she doesn’t look out; she knows I’m here.

Albert has opened up the boiler; he’s struggling with the tools. Christian follows his every move. Gabriel kicks a rock.

“Ciao.”

“Ciao, Uncle.”

“Ciao, Manfred.”

“You’ve got to replace that boiler.”

“Maybe next year. In October I’m having the kitchen redone. Bianca has been nagging me about it for years.”

“Women are obsessed with redoing the kitchen.”

Albert is a good repairman. He used to watch his father, like Christian does now. I kicked rocks, like Gabriel, and
wanted only to run off into the mountain. Maybe it was because I wore those damned glasses when I was little. My father used to say, “With those eyes, you’ll never be a mountain guide.”

The more he said it the more I was determined to do it.

Albert keeps working, and then glances over. “Your friend is happy here.” He smiles mischievously.

“Who do you mean?”

“She and Bianca have become friends.”

“I’m happy for her.”

“Bianca likes her; she says she’s straightforward, and scared.”

“I don’t know her. You should ask her husband.”

He laughs. “You’re an odd one, brother. How is Dad?”

“He’s coming up with Stefan.”

“You went to visit him in town.”

“Yes. He was already in his pajamas at eight.”

Albert looks over at the boys. “So Stefan is wrong; he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

“Sooner or later I’ll catch him.”

“You’re on everyone’s trail, Manfred! So what if he’s seeing someone?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it, but he should say so.”

Albert used to be tough, but he’s gone soft. Suddenly, I feel rage rising in me. “He used to go on and on about women! He says Stefan is right to stay unattached, and that who knows how long Bianca will last up here!”

Christian looks at me furtively and Gabriel stops playing with the rock. Albert stops working. He takes a dirty rag, wipes
off his hands, and says to the boys, “Go play.” They run off toward the house. He speaks slowly, as he used to when something made him angry. “Manfred, how can you say that in front of the boys?”

“I wish he’d said it. At least that way we would have been prepared.”

He stares at me coldly. Now I recognize my brother, the one who used to say, “Dad let someone run off with his wife.”

The hardness of his eyes deflates my anger.

“Has it ever occurred to you, Manfred, that one can be more closely bound to a woman than to a brother or a father? I don’t give a damn about what happened to you, to us. Don’t ever bring that up again in front of my family.”

His family: him, her, the three kids. The three of us, and our father—that’s all over.

I WALK AWAY, but I can feel him staring after me.

I don’t care about you, Albert. Or about your family, or about our father who sits around watching TV and has sex with some lady, and says about our mother: “I’ve talked about it with your brothers.”

You can adjust however you like, but my life is fine the way it is, even without any of you.

IT’S EVENING, AND the dining room is full of voices and laughter. At a table a group of musicians eats venison ahead of the others, because soon they have to start playing. The two
girls go back and forth from the kitchen. Bianca and Albert take orders, open bottles. Every so often they sit with us for a minute or two.

Bianca put us at their table. I meet Gustav, Manfred’s father. His eyes are so pale that he looks almost blind. He shakes my hand and his gaze cuts right through me without seeing; he must be the same with every woman. He is seated next to me, but he has not once turned toward me. He is telling his granddaughter Silvia about a woodchuck that used to visit him every morning when he lived here.

Stefan, the youngest, made sure to sit on my right. He tells stories about the town and pours wine.

Marco sits with the other children; Christian and Gabriel have adopted him, and he’s already tired of Silvia. He wants to be with the boys.

Stefan is the most attractive of the three brothers; the woman at the pastry shop was right. He’s suave; the opposite of Manfred. He talks and smiles.

“There are no new women in town; you have to travel to meet new people.”

“People around here must always marry among themselves.”

“Not always, but usually.”

“Do you travel often?”

He has dark eyes and nice lips. He’s not fair like his father and brothers. Maybe he looks like his mother; she must have been beautiful.

“I can’t leave during high season because of the shop. But during the slow months, I travel.”

“In Italy?”

“And other places. Last year I went to the States. Part of my family is there.”

I pretend not to know. “Oh, really?”

“My mother’s there, with her husband and three other kids. I rented a car and drove from the East Coast to the Pacific, and I stopped to see her.”

So he went to see her.

“You have three American brothers?”

“Two brothers and a sister. All strangers, like my mother. I saw her for the first time last year.”

“Amazing. How long had it been?”

“My whole life. I had no memory of her.”

I turn toward his father and it occurs to me that we’re talking about his ex-wife. Stefan whispers into my ear: “He doesn’t hear well, don’t worry.”

He smiles again. He wears the mask of the ladies’ man, detached and calm.

“After all, many years have passed. My mother is an old woman. She lives in a little house in the suburbs, like all the other little houses, with her famous American. Her children are grown up and live far away. Her daughter has a child. When I went to visit, they all came to meet me. In the garden behind the house, my half-sister pushed a child on the swing, and he looked just like Simon, Manfred’s kid. It was quite a shock.”

“Have your brothers gone to see her as well?”

“Albert and Manfred? No, Albert never goes anywhere. And Manfred is an odd duck, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

I smile. “Yes, I’ve noticed.”

“I didn’t even tell him I’d gone to visit her. He wouldn’t have taken it well.”

I look over at Manfred, on the other side of the dining room. I’ve been avoiding him all evening. He is sitting with the tourists he brought up. He has his back to me, and never looks my way.

“Can I ask you something? Perhaps it’s indiscreet?”

“Indiscreet? Sounds interesting.”