Are you crazy?” Claudia said.
“Maybe. But this way we know everything they’re doing.”
“Help them. What are you going to do? Help them catch us?”
“The closer I get, the more they look somewhere else. I’m making them look somewhere else.”
“No, digging a grave. Two. Not just yours.” Pacing now, drawing smoke in tight gulps, as if she were angry at the cigarette too.
“We want them to look somewhere else. You don’t want them coming back to that party.”
“Back to me, you mean.”
“Back to either of us,” I said, looking at her. “Either of us.”
“And now they won’t-because you’re there? Maybe they ask themselves, why does he do this?”
“Look, I was a kind of cop. Something like this happens in my family, they expect me to take an interest.”
“Not your family.”
“Close to me, then. They expect me to help. Cavallini asked me. Giulia asked me.”
“Oh, Giulia. The pretty sister. Now, not a sister. So there’s a convenience.”
“Stop.”
“What do you want to do, make it up to her? ‘I’ll find out who did it.’ Ha. Not as difficult as she thinks.”
“Claudia.”
“Maybe you want to show her what he was like. ‘Here’s your father. SS.’ You think she’ll thank you for that, your little sister?”
“Are you finished?”
She turned her back to me. “You said we would leave Venice.”
“We will.”
“Oh, but not yet. Not until it’s too late.”
I put my hands on her and turned her around. “Listen. This is how it works. I show Cavallini what Gianni did. I prove it. So it’s the logical answer, the only place he looks. Not here, not at you, not at me. Some partisan, someone Gianni betrayed.”
“And when there is no partisan?”
“But they’ll think there is. Maybe dead, maybe still out there-they don’t know exactly, we never find out, but we know who it has to be. The kind of crime. So they’re satisfied-it couldn’t be anyone else. And maybe it’s just as well they can’t get him. That way nothing has to come out about Gianni. No scandal. No disgrace. All covered up. Like his brother. All they want is an answer to what happened, something plausible. They don’t want to open anything up. Nobody wants to know.”
She was silent for a minute, then moved away, carrying her cigarette to the table. “Only you,” she said, putting it out. “You want to know.”
“Don’t you? I want to be sure.”
“Sure of what? You want to use the police to prove he was guilty? Why? So that it was right for you-”
“I want to lead them somewhere else.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ll lead them back to us.”
“The closer I am to them, the safer we are.”
She looked up. “Yes? Unless they use you.”
We stopped then, too tired to go any further, but the argument went on in different ways, a general prickliness that began to seep into the days.
Claudia had found a job in a lace shop near San Aponal.
“You don’t have to work.”
“Yes, I have to. What do I do, sit and wait? Besides, after the Accademia, maybe they think I have a grudge. No job. So it’s better.”
“No one suspects you.”
“Maybe I want to do it anyway. What else? Sit with your mother, waiting for her to guess?”
So we saw less of each other, busy being careful in public. I went through reports at the Questura-a staff member to translate, a desk that wasn’t officially mine but was always available-and Claudia made a point of not asking where I’d been. One night, leaving her hotel, I realized that we’d made love because we were expected to, as if our comings and goings were still being monitored, even sex now part of an airtight alibi, something noted for a file.
On Sunday the weather was still fine and we went to Torcello, an excuse to get away. The vaporetto wasn’t crowded-a few families going out to Burano and two American soldiers in Eisenhower jackets who sat inside with half-closed eyes, out late the night before.
The military had been a light presence in Venice during the occupation, and since the official changeover in December soldiers were even less visible, more like tourists passing through than conquerors. In Germany it had been rubble and jeep patrols and lowering your eyes when a soldier passed, keeping out of trouble. Here, in the close quarters of the boat, the Burano families stared openly, curious, as if they were sizing up customers. I thought of the Germans finishing coffee at Quadri’s. Now the Allies. Who might like a little Burano lace to send home.
Surprisingly, however, the GIs got off with us at Torcello. I looked at the sluggish canal, the lonely marshes beyond, and wondered if they’d made a mistake, but after a quick glance at a map they went straight toward the piazza. Claudia hung back, letting them go ahead. No one else was around. Somewhere on the island, on one of the farms, a dog barked. Otherwise it was quiet, no summer insects yet, just the wind moving through the reeds. By the time we caught up with the GIs, they were standing in the piazza, a worn patch of grass, looking as melancholy and lost as the shuttered buildings around it.
“There’s supposed to be a restaurant here,” one of them said. “Locanda. You know where that is?”
I pointed to the closed-up inn across from us.
“That’s the one Harry’s runs?”
“Yes, but only in the summer,” I said. “It’s too early.”
“Well, shit,” he said, then dipped his head toward Claudia, an apology to a lady.
“They didn’t tell you?”
“I never asked. I just heard about it. Shit.” He looked around the empty island. “What’s the rest, a ghost town?”
“No, people live here. Farms. It’s just a little early in the season. You’re welcome to have some of ours.” I pointed to the picnic bag.
“That’s okay, we’ll just catch the next boat.”
“That’ll be a while. You check the schedule?”
He shook his head, then grinned. “Never thought to look.”
We opened the wine and shared out the salami sandwiches, sitting on the steps of the Greek church, Claudia slightly away from us, uncomfortable. They were on furlough, trying to see something worth seeing before they headed back to Stuttgart. It was the usual service talk-where I’d been stationed, where they were from, when their separation papers were coming through.
“And I can’t wait,” he said. “I mean, I can’t fucking wait. They can keep the whole thing.” He spread his arm to take in all of Europe, then remembered Claudia and dropped it, embarrassed. Instead, as if it would explain things, he pulled out his wallet and showed us a picture of his wife, Joyce. Head tilted for the camera, blond, ordinary, holding a baby in her arms.
“A boy?” Claudia said.
He grinned back. “Jim junior. Haven’t seen him yet. Just this.”
“Well, but soon, yes? They’re sending everybody home now. We saw it in the newsreels,” she said. “All the boats.” Thousands of waving soldiers, the skyscraper shot, then running down the gangplank, arms open.
“You from here?” he said, intrigued by her accent, maybe the first Italian he’d met. He looked around. “What is this place, anyway?”
“It was the first Venice, where it started.”
“So what happened?”
“The canals silted up. Malaria too, I think.”
