reaches up and unloosens her hair, lets it fal . Al the ancient codes violated. She walks into the living room and picks up the photograph of Enrico from the shelf near the window, takes it from the frame, returns to bed, lifts the covers, curls up under the sheets with the photo just beneath her left breast.
She wishes for a moment that she had waited to hear the things that Swann might have had to say, but what would he say, what could he say, what would ever make sense? Zoli closes her eyes, grateful to the dark. Patterns passing, crystal patterns, snow now, gently settling. There are no days more ful than those we go back to.
She wakes to the sound of people coming into the apartment. The clicking of bottles and a hol ow boom of an instrument in a case being banged against a wal . She sits up and feels the photo pasted against her breast.
“Mamma.”
She is startled to see Francesca at the end of the bed, curled up, knees to her chest. The room seems familiar now, almost breathing.
“You'l take the life from me, precious heart.”
“I'm sorry, Mamma.”
“How long have you been there?”
“A little while. You were sleeping so wel .”
“Who's there? Who's that? Outside?”
“I don't know, that asshole is bringing people here.”
“Who?” says Zoli.
“Henri.”
“I mean who's with him?”
“Oh, I don't know, just a group of drunks. The bars are closed. I'm sorry. I'l kick them out.”
“No, leave them be,” says Zoli. She pul s back the sheet and shifts sideways on the bed, puts her feet to the floor. “Can you give me my nightdress?”
She stands with her back to her daughter and pul s the dress over her head, rough against her skin.
“You were sleeping with Daddy?”
“Yes, how sil y is that?”
“Just sil y enough.”
A series of shushes come from the living room, then one clink of a bottle cap fal ing to the floor, rol ing across the hardwood, and a series of stifled laughs.
“Mamma, are you okay? Can I get you something? Hot milk or something?”
“Did you talk to him? Swann?”
“Yes.”
“And he said he was sorry, didn't he?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say what he was sorry for?”
“For everything, Mamma.”
“He's always been an idiot,” says Zoli.
The low sound of a mandolin niters through the apartment and then a harsh piece of laughter, fol owed by the faint pluck of a guitar.
“Come here beside me.”
Her daughter swings longways across the bed, spreads herself out, takes a piece of Zoli's hair and puts it in her mouth. In so many ways, her father's child. They lie side by side in the intimate dark.
“I'm sorry, Mamma.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.”
“I had no idea.”
“What else did he say?”
“He lives in Manchester now. He got out in ‘68, the whole Prague thing. He says he thought you were dead. There were bodies found along the border. He was sure that something bad had happened to you. Or that you were living in a hut somewhere in Slovakia. He says he looked for you.
Searched al over.”
“What's he doing here?”
“He said he likes to fol ow things. To keep in touch. That it was a hobby. He stil uses the word Gypsy. Goes to a lot of conferences and things.
The festival down there in Santa Maria. Al over the place. He says he owns a wine shop.”
“A wine shop?”
“In Manchester.”
