“But she’s so pigheaded,” I said. “What if something goes wrong?”
“Then she’s caught, not you,” Claudia said coolly.
I looked up at her. “And if he’s killed?”
She turned to me, her eyes steady. “Then they’ll never look anywhere else.”
I stood for a moment, vaguely aware of the doorman holding open the door, white gloves on the handles, Claudia walking through, but not really seeing any of it, my stomach lurching as if we had just stepped off something, amazed somehow that no one had noticed us falling.
“Signor,” the doorman said, and then I was in the lobby, watching Claudia hand the box to the man at the front desk, and for an odd moment I felt I was looking at someone else. No longer just covering tracks, wiping away smears of blood. Wishing for someone’s death. So they’d never look anywhere else.
A waiter in the terrace dining room smiled, unaware that anything terrible had happened. Through the window I could see Salute, white and swirling, exactly the way it had been when we’d flirted on the boat, just across the water from where we were now.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Claudia blotted her lipstick at the mirror, then turned and smiled at me. “Okay? You like the dress?” No longer nervous, relieved, as if some unexpected solution had been handed to us, the corner already turned. And hadn’t it? Whatever happened tonight would have nothing to do with us, sitting at the opera. Even if it went wrong. The other solution. Because either way we’d be free.
I nodded, barely seeing it.
“Here, help me with my coat. We don’t want to be late. We want them to see us.”
“Who?”
“The Montanaris.”
“Christ, I forgot. Maybe they won’t be there.”
“You want them to be there. Our witnesses. ‘And was Signor Miller with you? Yes, all evening. And Signora Miller.’ Ha, now what do they say?”
“You’re enjoying yourself.”
“Isn’t that what she wants us to do? As if nothing’s happening?”
She kept her good spirits at the opera, despite my restlessness and despite the Montanaris’ forced cordiality. They must have had the box to themselves since Gianni’s death, because they had already taken Gianni’s front seats and looked awkward when we insisted they keep them. There were vague inquiries about Giulia, the offer of a pair of opera glasses, a halfhearted invitation to join them for champagne at the interval, and then they turned to face the stage, their backs stiff and uncomfortable, self-conscious, as if they felt they were being watched. At least, I thought, they’d remember our being there.
Claudia, using the glasses, spied Bertie and pointed him out, a few seats away from the doge’s box. He was sitting with a priest dressed in satin, and I thought of that first cocktail party, Claudia in simple gray and the priest in scarlet, the best-dressed person in the room. A hundred years ago. I looked at her. She was still scanning the room with the glasses, interested. An evening out, the way it was all supposed to be, while Rosa was doing whatever she was doing. I shifted in my chair. Guns and escape boats and hunched figures darting along the tracks-none of it real somehow, like stories told over drinks.
And this? There was Bertie in his jewel box, red wallpaper and gilded moldings, the whole room gleaming with gold, dimming now, people hushing. In a minute there would be music and Rodolfo would find Mimi and we’d sit back, annoying the Montanaris, and no one would find it fantastical at all, perfectly normal. I thought of Bertie’s party again, rich foreigners entertaining one another in rented palazzos, another Puccini world. And yet it was Rosa and her friends who didn’t seem real. The orchestra started. Only a mile away someone might be firing a gun.
I shifted in my seat again, wishing I could smoke, and looked around for Cavallini’s wife-it would be a nice touch if she could say she’d seen us-but the darkness made it hard to find anyone beyond the first row of the boxes. The train would be leaving the station in a few minutes, halting unexpectedly for the signal. Unless that was no longer the plan, something Rosa had made up to make me chase the wrong scent. But it had to be the yards if they expected to stay in Venice. Maestre would favor the police. Maybe it was all exactly the way she’d told me it would be. But which story had Cavallini been told? There are many ears in Venice. How much easier now for Rosa to be betrayed, with the Germans gone, the partisan groups out of hiding. Nobody could be that careful; there was always something to give you away. How many guards did he have on the train? They wouldn’t suspect anything in the yards-they’d be bored with the delay, their guns not even drawn. Still, how long would it take to get them out, fire into the surprise?
Something moved over my finger and I jumped. Claudia’s hand, reaching over just to touch. She didn’t turn her head, and I saw that her eyes were shiny, her whole attention given to the music. Now I heard it too, Rodolfo’s love song, so beautiful that it seemed no one could have written it, just found it, floating somewhere above the ordinary world. If this was possible, anything was. I looked down at her hand. We could be happy. Why shouldn’t it work? Rosa knew what she was doing. Gianni was gone and we had an alibi. The Germans had gotten away with murder, the whole world. Even in Venice, as beautiful as the music, everyone had an alibi, somewhere else when the air raid sirens covered the sounds of people being dragged off. I didn’t know. I didn’t realize. I had my own life to consider. And of course everyone did.
I checked my watch. They’d be in boats now, streaming off to Maestre or wherever they were really going. Later we’d go home and not know whether they’d been there or not. I put my hand over Claudia’s, hearing the music again. Why shouldn’t it all work?
Signora Montanari developed one of her headaches after Act I and they left, with apologies and improbable hopes of seeing us again. Instead we had champagne with Bertie.
“I don’t blame them a bit,” he said, watching the Montanaris go. “Act I is bliss and then everything goes wrong. Think how it ends.” I sipped more champagne, uneasy again. “Of course the good monsignor loves the death part,” he said, nodding toward the priest, now talking to someone else. “Divine retribution, I suppose, for all that lovely sin. What is going on? Filomena will be furious. She hates being reminded he’s in the police.”
I followed his look past the priest to the bar, where Signora Cavallini had been approached by two policemen, their uniforms so showy that for a second it seemed they were part of the opera. She was frowning, putting down her glass to leave.
“What is it, do you think?” I said quickly. “Find out.”
“Adam,” he said, pretending to be offended.
“But maybe something’s happened.”
He looked at them again, debating, then tapped his champagne glass. “I could use a top-up. Right back.”
He hurried to the bar, just in time to catch Signora Cavallini. They talked for a second, then he put his hand on her arm, reassuring, and shooed her away with the uniforms.
“They’ve taken him to hospital.”
“He’s been shot?”
Bertie blinked. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would he be shot? In Venice? It’s probably nothing-they check in here with a sneeze. Shot.” He peered over his glasses. “This flair for melodrama. Ever since you joined the force.”
“I should go. Maybe he’s-”
“Adam,” he said, his tone like a physical restraint, a hand on my chest. “Stop being a ninny and finish your drink. His wife is with him.” He drank some champagne. “I’d no idea you were so close.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what is it? I think all this business has gone to your head. Unless it’s the wine. I think I’ll finish that,” he said, taking my glass and pouring some wine into his own, and then, before I could protest, “You don’t have to sit with the monsignor.”
There was more of this, even a few dull minutes with the priest before the warning bell rang, and I didn’t hear any of it, my head buzzing with shots. Why else would Cavallini be taken to the hospital? But it was Cavallini
