Joseph Kanon - Alibi

His forehead wrinkled for a second, then cleared. “Ah, in the box. Who are they? They made an impression on you?”

“The other way around. I don’t think they approved. They left early.”

Gianni laughed again. “They always leave early. They come for the interval, to see her friends. The music?” He brushed away the idea with his hand. “Ah, the crabs,” he said, leaning back for the waiter.

“I just wondered who-” I began, but he’d moved on from the Montanaris, speaking before I could finish.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he said and then stopped. He sipped some water, hesitant, as if he were putting the words together in his head. “You know I admire your mother very much.”

I waited.

“Very much,” he said again. “We have a love for each other. This seems strange to you, maybe. At your age, I remember, it is impossible to think this happens after-what? Thirty? Forty? To have these feelings. But we do. Sometimes even more so. We can’t be so careless anymore, we know how valuable, to find someone. You’re embarrassed, that I’m talking this way to you?”

“It’s not that.”

“Yes, embarrassed, I think. It’s my English. What I want to say-”

“Look, the point is, you don’t have to say anything. If you and my mother-it’s none of my business.”

“But now, yes. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It is your business now. We want to marry.”

“What?” Blurting it out, as if I hadn’t heard properly.

“Yes, to marry. You’re surprised?”

“But why?” I said, another involuntary response, not even thinking.

“Why? Because we have a love for each other.”

“Yes, but-I mean, why not just go on as you are?” While it lasts.

“You don’t understand my feelings for her. Do you think I have no respect for her position?” Affronted, as if I’d stepped over some cultural divide.

“It hasn’t bothered you up to now.”

He raised his eyebrows, then softened. “That’s what you think-I take advantage. You know, we are not children. Maybe it was-a convenience for both. Now it’s something else.”

“When was all this decided?”

He shrugged. “Some days ago now. You don’t decide all at once.”

“And she didn’t tell me?”

“Don’t be angry with her. I wanted to tell you. She was a little nervous, how to say it. And you know, it’s traditional,” he said, smiling, “for the man to approach the family.”

“You’re asking for my blessing?”

“I’m asking you to be happy for us. It’s important to Grace for you to be happy. It’s important to me too.”

This last was a question. He was looking at me, waiting for me to nod, give some assent.

“When is all this supposed to happen?”

“As soon as we can arrange it. While you are still here.”

“And you’ll live here?”

“Of course. It’s my home. And now yours, whenever you like. I know you’ll be in America, but you’ll come back sometimes. Where we live there is always a home for you too.”

On her money. The thought, always buried somewhere, now flashed to the surface. Would they stay at Ca’ Venti? No, he must have his own, the family house, plaster crumbling, untended these last few years. The daughter with bills in Bologna. Cognacs at the Monaco. All paid for now, taken care of with the scratch of her pen across a check. He was smiling at me again, intimate, the same easy charm that must have taken her in. Gray hair, sober suit, not even young-no warning signals at all.

“You don’t say anything.”

“I’m just trying to-it’s a lot in one gulp. I didn’t expect-”

“You know, neither did we. Not at first.”

“It all just seems a little fast. To decide something like this. I mean, it’s only been-” I let it hang there, waiting for him to finish, but instead he smiled again.

“Only the young have so much time. At our age it’s better to hurry. And you know, the wedding, that’s your mother’s idea, to have it before you go back to America. She wants you to-such an expression-to give her away.”

“The father does that.”

“Well, the family. Why not the son?”

I shrugged.

“Good. She’ll be pleased.”

But it was Gianni who was pleased, smiling broadly, and I realized that in his mind I had somehow consented, given in, and could now be brought into the planning. There would be an engagement party. A friend had offered to perform the ceremony. I picked at my crab and half listened to one detail after another, the whole impossible scheme already worked out, discussed while I’d been somewhere else. Now there was nothing to be said.

And later? I saw the sensible talk with my mother back at Ca’ Venti, straining to stay calm, the inevitable hysterics. Bertie would be better-one of his bracing heart-to-hearts. I wondered if he already knew, could get to her before things spun completely out of control and sense became a kind of public embarrassment.

Gianni was ordering espresso, another endless meal, and talking about a trip. But perhaps it was better just to stay in Venice. There were so many details to arrange. To get the house ready for my mother, repairs he wanted to make, a new decorating scheme they’d discussed. It might be better to go away later, a long trip, somewhere new. What they must have talked about over brandies, their new life together.

“Maybe even America,” Gianni was saying. “It’s many years now since I was there. Many changes.”

She’d give a party to introduce him to her friends. The whispered conversations later: Did you see what Grace picked up in Italy? No longer just impulsive, a figure of fun.

“I went all the way across to California. A wonderful country.”

He had put some bills on the saucer and was standing up, smiling at me.

“And now Americans in the family,” he said airily, and as I folded my napkin, trying to smile back, I felt the real implications of his news rush over me, like a prickling of the skin. Not just a folly, not just one of those things. All our lives changed, one way or another.

Outside, the sun was shining just enough to brighten the marble on the church. We started back toward the hospital, Gianni full of more plans. I tried to keep up, an eggshell politeness, but my mind was elsewhere, so distracted that I didn’t even look at the group of GIs coming over the bridge, just felt the sudden hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, Adam? I didn’t recognize you in your civvies.”

I blinked for a second, taking in the breezy American voice, the sound of my own life coming back.

“Joe. What are you doing here?”

“Seeing the sights. I’m over in Verona, but they let us out once in a while.”

“Still chasing rats?”

“Rat files. Some of Kesselring’s boys. They come up for trial next month and they left a paper trail all the way to Verona, so somebody’s got to look. You know. But you-what is it, a month now? Two? What the hell are you still doing over here?”

“My mother lives here.”

“Lives here? People live here?”

“For now, anyway,” I said, then stopped, suddenly aware of Gianni at my side. “Oh, sorry. Joe, this is Dr. Maglione. He’s-” Who was he now, exactly? My mother’s fiance? My new stepfather? Looking at Joe’s open GI face, I felt Gianni’s foreignness for the first time. Was she prepared for this? Years of not quite getting jokes, living half in translation. “A friend of my mother’s,” I said. “Gianni, Joe Sullivan.”

“Lieutenant,” Gianni said, decoding the bar on his collar and shaking his hand. “You see, people do live here, a few of us.”

“Sorry. I didn’t-”

“Oh, no. Sometimes even I think we’re all visitors here. Of course, Verona, it’s different. You’re enjoying it there?” Now he was charming Joe, second nature.