“No. Reputation. Maybe even social justice. There’s always that hope. But not murder.”
“Then they’ll get away with it.”
“They did get away with it,” she said quietly, so that the words hung over the table. “There’s no retribution after you’re dead. But people don’t know. And that they won’t get away with.” She sipped more tea, watching me over the cup. “You’re worried?”
“No,” I lied, suddenly seeing the tribunal table, my mother in the makeshift courtroom, Gianni glaring at me from the stand. “But I don’t like throwing mud in public either. If it’s just mud. I saw it in Germany. Nobody comes out looking good-you get just as dirty.”
She put down her cup. “Yes,” she said, a quick nod of agreement, “but I’ll still need you there.” She looked over at me. “It won’t be just mud.”
“And if you can’t prove it?”
“Well, I think I will. And it’s important, to have these trials. Otherwise-”
“Otherwise what?”
“The partisans find their own proof.”
Afterward I crossed back to the Dorsoduro side, uneasy, feeling things spinning out of control. All I’d wanted was to get my mother out of a mistake. Now it was something else. How could I testify against him? It would be terrible for everyone and justice for whom? Rosa was right about that, anyway. He had already gotten away with it.
A little past San Ivo a canal was being dredged, a dirty job saved for winter, when no visitors were here to see. Wooden planks dammed each end so big rubber hoses could pump out the water, leaving a floor of mud, just a few feet down, where workmen in boots were shoveling muck and debris into carts. The mud covered everything, spattering the workers’ blue coveralls, hanging in clots on the canal walls, just below the line of moss. Gianni’s great fear: mud would stick if someone dredged it up. I thought of him on the terrace at Lake Garda, having drinks with the men who’d ordered the trains. I’d met them in Germany, men still unsure why they were being accused. But those were the ones in cells, worn and frightened, out of their protective uniforms, awaiting judgment. The others, in the street, just went about their business, so ordinary there was no way to know, no haunted looks, no furtive tremor from unwanted memories. The crime hadn’t stuck to them. They had gotten away with it, free to walk around, even marry a rich woman. They smiled over the dinner table. Nobody knew. And that they won’t get away with, Rosa had said, asking for help.
But a trial. I imagined the courtroom, me on the stand, Claudia on the stand, and I knew my mother would- what, break? No, she was more resilient than that. But a body blow leaves a bruise. You survive, but not quite the same. She had survived my father’s death, with a stray look of sadness that never quite left her now. Those first years, bright for my sake, she worked hard at making us happy, putting part of herself aside, as if it were something she could stow away in a closet for later. But of course it was gone, spent on me. And now there’d be another blow, leaving her bruised and reeling again, harder this time to come back, already weakened, never expecting it to come from me. She’d get over Gianni, but not that, not a trial.
But then he’d get away with it again. I watched the workmen sliding in the wet muck. In a few days they’d be finished, the garbage and the smell gone, and the water would flood back, the surface a mirror again, dazzling, so that when you came to it, around the corner, you felt you were stepping into a painting. I stared down at the mud, unable to move, as if my feet had actually sunk into it, still trying to find a way out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mimi was lucky in everything but the weather. Il Gazzettino was already calling the ball the first important social event since the war, the one that would restore Venice “to her place in international society.” People were coming from London. There had been a gratifying squabble over invitations-our marchesa upstairs, not one of the lucky ones, went to visit her sister in Vicenza. Peggy Guggenheim said she was coming from New York and then didn’t, which allowed Mimi to use her name in the columns without having to put up with her. A generator was found to keep the palazzo blazing with light if there was a power failure. The food arrived on time. And then it rained.
She had planned on a spring evening, one of those first mild days softer in Venice than anywhere else, but the air stayed cold and it rained off and on all day. The special torches at the water entrance on the Grand Canal had to be covered, an awning set up. Footmen with umbrellas would help guests from their boats to the door, but inevitably clothes would get wet. The photographers had to be moved indoors, away from the entrance shots with San Marco in the background. All this my mother learned in a series of phone calls that got more frantic as the afternoon wore on. Finally Mimi insisted that my mother go there to dress.
“Like bridesmaids,” my mother said. “She says my hair will be a mess otherwise. Can you imagine? A little rain.” But she was helping Angelina with the garment bag, carefully smoothing out any folds in the long skirt.
“She’s nervous,” I said. “She wants company.”
“Mimi doesn’t have nerves. She just can’t stand anyone making an entrance. Easier to have them already there. Well, I don’t mind. To tell you the truth, it does frizz up when it’s like this,” she said, touching her hair. “Anyway, I’d rather see everything. Gianni’s always late, and you can’t say a word because it’s always medical. At least this way I won’t miss anything. Darling, would you call the hospital and tell him to meet me there, at Mimi’s? I couldn’t get through before. He’ll probably be pleased-now he can be as late as he likes without someone harping at him. But not too late. I can’t dance by myself. Would you?”
“All right,” I said. We were still living in the temporary peace of pretending nothing had happened.
“I’m taking Angelina, but you can fend for yourself, can’t you?” Mimi had already borrowed the rest of the staff for the day.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m going out.”
“I wish you’d change your mind. Everyone in Venice is dying to be there and you go to the movies.”
“We’re not going to the movies.”
“Well, wherever you’re going. I can’t imagine wanting to miss this. You know Mimi, if there’s one thing she-” She stopped midstream, asked Angelina to take the garment bag away, then turned to me. “It’s that girl, isn’t it?”
“You don’t want me to bring her to Mimi’s, do you?”
“Well, not if-but I thought all that business was over and done with. Gianni said it was. He said you’d talked.”
I looked away. “She doesn’t have a dress.”
“Well, you can borrow a dress. That’s not a problem.”
“Some other time.”
“What other time? A thing like this? She’d probably enjoy it, you know. Anybody would.”
“I don’t think Gianni would.”
“Ask him. If he doesn’t mind, then-” She looked up at me. “I’m so glad things are better. I knew if you would just-Well, I’m off. She’ll be calling again. Funny how her lines never go down. Don’t forget the hospital. And I’d ask him about the girl. He might surprise you.”
“All right.”
“Oh, look, it’s starting up again. Poor Mimi.” She giggled. “Well, it is unfair. You know, we used to come to Venice for the beach. You never saw a drop one week to the next. And now look.”
An hour later the phones were clear and I reached Gianni in his office, but I didn’t ask him about Claudia and I didn’t tell him to go to Mimi’s. Instead I said my mother wanted him to come for her earlier than they’d planned. And where was she now? At the hairdresser’s. Of course. Easy lies. After another twenty minutes of busy signals and scratchy connections I got the hotel where I’d moved Claudia and left a message that I’d be a little late. Then there was nothing to do but wait, the house growing quiet around me, not even the faint sound of maids’ slippers in the back rooms.
The rain stopped, then started again, a light drizzle that covered the Giudecca across the channel like a scrim. I stood at the window looking at the Redentore and thinking what to say. I wanted it clear in my mind so that it would come out as easily as a white lie about the hairdresser. One chance to make him believe me, finally
