He sighed and opened the window to his balcony. Outside, the winter sun was bright on the Grand Canal, noisy with boats.
“What does she say about all this?”
“Nothing. She refuses to talk about it. She spends all day getting her dress fitted.”
“So I heard.”
“What?”
“Mimi. She’s in a perfect snit about it. The dressmaker. None of her friends can get a look-in, and there’s the ball coming up.” He turned and smiled at me. “I know, all very silly. And here you are, still fighting the good fight.” He opened the window wider. “Oh, how I wish you’d go.”
“That’s what Gianni said. He can’t wait to get me out either.”
“Not just you. All of you. Even Grace. She’s a darling, but look at her now. Everything all fraught. You make everything so messy, all of you. I hate it.”
“No, you don’t. You love it.”
“Oh, for five minutes’ gossip? You think so? I don’t, really. I’m selfish. I suppose it’s wrong, but I can’t help it now. Look at that,” he said, waving at the view down the canal. “Did you ever see anything so beautiful? The first time I came here, I knew it was all I wanted in my life. To see this every day, just be part of it. And then you all come charging in, making messes right and left. In a way I think I preferred it during the war. Nobody came.”
“Except the Germans.”
“Well, yes. All right. The Germans,” he said, the phrase taking in more. “And now you want to bring it all back. God knows why.”
“Things happened here, Bertie. You can’t make them go away just because they spoil the view.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. They will go away. Nobody wants to live with them, over and over. Why do you? They did this and they did that-you don’t even know who they are, you just know who you want it to be. I don’t like this, Adam, any of it. I don’t like what you’re doing. Neither will you, in the end. Ach.” He stopped, out of steam, and closed the window, his eyes glancing over to see how I was reacting.
“Will you talk to her?” I said calmly.
“Oh, and say what? ‘You might reconsider, darling. Your son thinks he’s Himmler.’ ”
“She’ll listen to you.”
“You keep saying. I don’t want to be listened to. I want to be left alone.”
“With your view.”
“Yes, with my view.” He came over to the coffee table and lit a cigarette. “All right. All right. Getting married. You’d think once would be enough for anybody.”
“They’ll find it, Bertie. Evidence. It’s there somewhere.”
He looked at me. “Let’s hope not.”
The next day Claudia’s landlady asked her to leave. An official from the housing authority had come to inspect. There had been reports of immoral behavior.
“That’s you,” Claudia said with a wry, fatalistic smile. “You’re the immoral behavior.”
“He can’t do this.”
She shrugged. “Venice is famous for denunciations. You can still see some of the boxes where they put the notes. For the doges.”
“Five hundred years ago.”
“Well, for me, this week.”
“She can’t just put you out.”
“She was frightened-an official coming here. So I have till the end of the week. At least it’s better than the Accademia, not the same day. He asked if she’d seen my residency permit. So they’re going to make trouble about that.”
“Don’t you have one?”
“Everything was taken at Fossoli.”
“So get another. You were born here. They’ll have records.”
“Yes. In the end, I’ll get it. But meanwhile-” She opened her hand to show the weeks drifting by.
“He’s not going to get away with this. Stay here. I’ll be back.”
She touched my arm. “I’ll go with you.”
“Not this time. My mother wants us to talk, so we’ll talk.”
I zigzagged my way past the Arsenale and through the back-streets of Castello toward the hospital. Over the bridge at San Lorenzo to the Questura side, where a few policemen were loitering in the sun with cigarettes, not yet ready for their desks inside. Did it only take one call here too? Maybe the policeman we’d met at Harry’s, ready to do a favor. San Zanipolo and its dull red brick, then the vaulted reception room of the hospital, following the guard’s directions down the stone corridor to the doctors’ offices. Not running, but walking so fast that people noticed, thought maybe I was hurrying to a deathbed. I brushed past the nurse in the outer office and opened the door without knocking. Gianni was sitting behind the desk in a white coat, his pen stopping halfway across a form when he saw me.
“I want you to leave her alone,” I said.
The nurse rushed up behind, flustered. “ Dottore — ” she started, but Gianni waved her away, gesturing for me to sit.
“What have I done now?” he said.
“Scaring the landlady. Is that your idea of a joke? Charging Claudia with immoral behavior.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said. “A woman like that doesn’t change. I made inquiries about her, after the party. When she made such a spectacle of herself. I thought maybe she was deranged.”
“She’s not deranged.”
“No, a whore. Do you know what she was at Fossoli?”
“Where you sent her.”
“Do you know what she was? Did she tell you?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, the camp mistress. This is the woman you bring to your mother’s house.”
“She was forced.”
“No one forces a woman to be a whore. A man like that, at the camp, do you think he would have kept her if she didn’t please him? No one had to force her.”
“You really are a sonofabitch, aren’t you?” I said quietly.
“Oh, now names. I try to help you, show you what she is, and you call me names.”
“Just call off the dogs, Gianni. The police or the housing authority or whoever the hell you called this time.”
“For your information, I didn’t call anyone. Another of her fantasies.”
“Who else would have done it, Gianni? Who else?”
“A landlord finds a new tenant, he gets rid of the old one. It happens all the time.”
“Leave her alone.”
“I see. She scratches my face in public. Waits outside the hospital, like a beggar. Makes scenes in restaurants. But I am bothering her.”
“Just call them off. She’s not leaving Venice.”
“She has no permit.”
I smiled grimly at the slip. “Something you just happened to know?”
He glanced away. “I told you, I made inquiries. It’s not for me to decide. It’s a legal matter.”
“Not if I marry her,” I said, not even thinking, just returning the ball.
He looked up at me, genuinely shocked. “You can’t marry her.”
“Why not? My mother’s marrying you.”
“A woman like that? It would be a disgrace. Think of your mother. It’s impossible.”
“What a piece of work you are,” I said slowly. “You send her father to die. She ends up in the camp, raped, and now she’s a disgrace, not fit to enter your house. You did it and she pays? Not anymore. I don’t know how you live with yourself.”
He stared down at the papers, not saying anything.
