“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.”
