Joseph Kanon - Alibi

“What was that all about?” I said when she’d left.

“She knows I’m a Jew,” Claudia said.

“Don’t be silly. How could she possibly know? She just doesn’t want to share the box.”

“No. She knows. Once you see the look, you don’t forget it.” She picked up the fan, opened it, and put it against her face. “Well, so much for this. Let’s go.” She reached for her coat.

“Later,” I said. “Right now we’re going downstairs and have some champagne. Then we’ll come back and listen to the rest.”

“She doesn’t want me here.”

“Well, I do. Would you rather please her?”

She looked up, a small smile. “One grandfather. It’s easy for you. But for me, it’s not-comfortable.”

“I’ll sit between you. Come on, let’s have some champagne.” I held out my hand to her. “Tell me the rest of the story. Why they’re pretending to be Albanians.”

Another smile.

“It’s our box,” I said, taking her hand. “We’re not leaving.”

In the end it was the Montanaris who left, midway through the second act, after Fiordiligi sang in the garden by the sea. Signora Montanari had taken the rail seat next to Claudia, and it may be that she finally realized, distressed, how they must appear from below-one young, her pale skin catching the stage lamps, the other expensive and brittle, attractive now only to men on Monopoly cards. Or it may be this was just my idea, the story I made up as Signor Montanari nodded off at my side. But when Fiordiligi finished and Signora Montanari made an apologetic headache motion and slipped out with her surprised husband under the applause, I felt as if we had won something. I moved down to the rail seat.

“We’ve run them off.”

Claudia shrugged, a wry smile. “One victory for the Jews.”

But she seemed happier now, relieved, and the music went with her, buoyant, heading into the finale. As things sorted themselves out onstage, something for everyone, it seemed to me that we had gotten our earlier mood back, frothy again, like the interval champagne.

Outside it was cold and damp, and I put my arm around her as we walked.

“You looked lovely, just sitting there, waiting it out like that.”

“It didn’t feel lovely. Bitch. Probably a Fascist too.”

“No, there aren’t any, haven’t you heard? Same thing in Germany. All disappeared somehow.”

“You think it’s funny.”

“No, but I spent months chasing them, so I know what it’s like. Anyway, she’s gone, so let’s have a drink. The Gritti’s right up here-they’ll be open.”

The street was filled with people coming from La Fenice, wrapped in coats and furs, like the shuttered stores.

“No, it’s late.”

“All right, I’ll take you home.”

“No,” she said, putting a gloved hand on my chest. “I’ll go. It was wonderful, the opera.” She looked up. “So, shall we meet tomorrow?”

“I want to go home with you.”

“Why? You can’t wait?”

“Not for that.” I stopped. “It’s not that.”

“What?”

I put my hand up to the side of her neck. “I don’t want to skip anything. I want to take you to dinner. Out, like this. I want to spend the night with you. See you sleep, what you look like. Wake up. Make coffee. All of it. Not skip anything.”

“Don’t say that,” she said softly, lowering her head. “I don’t want that.”

“Yes, you do. Everybody does.”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t.”

“You mean, not with me.”

She looked up, then turned away. “It’s not enough for you? Just to-”

“What?”

“You know.”

I smiled. Something she couldn’t say, not even in the hotel, where anything was possible. A well-brought-up girl.

“Go to bed,” she said, still not saying it. “It’s not enough?”

“No.”

“Ha. Since when? You were happy enough to-”

I brushed back a lock of her hair. “Things change. I want to be with you. That’s all.”

“No, I can’t,” she said, moving my hand away. “I don’t want anybody. Oh, what a judge I am. I see you, I think, yes, nice-looking, American. They never stay. They go home. No problems.”

“You want me to leave?”

She looked down, biting her lip. “No. Oh, it’s difficult.”

“Explain it.”

“Explain it. So easy. Some little talk over a drink.” She met my eyes. “I don’t want anything more. It’s better for me.”

“How could it be better?”

“It’s better. Safer.” She hesitated. “Sometimes, do you know what I think you see? Another one of your cases, back in Germany. You want to make everything all right again. Maybe that’s why you want to be with me. You think you can change what happened. But do you know how it really was? When people think you’re going to die, you don’t exist for them anymore. You disappear, become nothing. That first train, none of them even looked. I thought, this is what it’s like, there’s nobody else. Then not even you. So you live here,” she said, pointing to her skin. “And here.” Her eyes. “Food, whatever makes you feel alive. Reminds you what it’s like. Even pain sometimes. Just to feel it. But not here.” Now her chest. “Nothing here. You have to stay safe.”

“From what?”

“The others. Everybody. They’ll leave you alone if you’re playing dead. You think you can get through the rest of it if you do that. But then it’s hard coming back, you can’t do it all at once. Just seeing things. Eating. Simple things, that’s all I can do. Not people.”

“It’s not like that anymore.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. Anyway, how do you know? It didn’t happen to you.”

“No.”

“To know that everyone wants you dead.”

“Your friend didn’t.”

“No, he didn’t want me dead. He wanted-” She stopped, then breathed out, almost a snort. “People. You know what he wanted? He wanted me to like it. It wasn’t enough for him, just to do it. He wanted me to like it. To like him. What he could do to me. He wanted to hear it.”

“So you pretended.”

“Well, we can do that. Make sounds. It’s what they like. So.” She looked down. “And then sometimes it would happen. Even with him. I could feel it in me, beginning, and I couldn’t stop it. With that pig. I’d feel it anyway-you couldn’t take your mind far enough away, it would happen. And he knew. He wanted it like that. At first I was so ashamed, and then-then it was a way of being alive. So I let it happen. Maybe that’s worse. Knowing it can happen with anyone. Like animals. So what does it matter who? Does it matter where food comes from? It’s all the same.”

“It doesn’t feel the same to me.”

“No?”

“No. It’s not like with anyone else.”

“Ha, how many-”

“Don’t,” I said, stopping her. “I’m not him.”

“No? You think it’s so different? You want me to like it too.”

“Yes.”

“All right, I do. I like it with you. So you can be happy. Tell your friends in New York.”

“I’m not him,” I said again, holding her shoulders. “It’s different.”

She looked down. “But I’m not. I’m the same. I’m the same. In Fossoli.”

“No. What happened to you-”

“It’s still happening to me. All those feelings. The hate. At first you want to kill all of them, and you can’t even kill one. Not one. And then you know what happens, I think? You start killing yourself. You have to kill someone and there’s no one else.”

“Stop,” I said, placing my finger in front of her mouth without touching it.

“Yes, stop,” she said. “What’s the good of all this?” She twisted her mouth. “Not what you expected, is it? Such talk. A girl you met at a party.”