Joseph Kanon - Alibi

“You invite him to your house.”

“He doesn’t pee on the carpet, Adam. He’s a Maglione. Anyway, we were all young together. Your mother, Gianni, his brother-”

“Cozy.”

He looked over his lunettes. “Not like that. Grace adored your father. There was never any question of that.” He paused. “Do you think all the time Gianni-? Hard to imagine him-” He drew on the cigarette, back on the Lido again.

“A long time to carry a torch, don’t you think?”

“All these years,” he said to himself.

“What else?”

“ What what else?”

“I don’t know. Who he is, what he thinks about things.”

“How would I know? He had a wife who died-of natural causes,” he said with exaggeration, raising his eyebrows. “He has a daughter, I think, whom I’ve never seen. An old name. As for what he thinks about things, I haven’t the faintest. Why don’t you ask him yourself? After all, he’s going to be your stepfather, not mine.” He stopped, looking slightly embarrassed, not having meant to become snappish.

“Five minutes ago you were shocked-surprised,” I said quickly, catching his glance. “Now you’re throwing rice.”

“What exactly is it you expect me to do?”

“Talk to her.”

“Talk her out of it, you mean. No. In the first place, people never listen.”

“She’d listen to you.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t even try. She’d never speak to me again. And she’d be right.”

“But it’s possible it’s the money, isn’t it?”

He looked at me, not answering, then lit another cigarette. “Anything’s possible,” he said, then sighed. “You know, it’s possible she’s in love with him.”

“Or something.”

“Well, call it whatever you like. I’m not shy. But she’s happy. So what does it matter?”

“It will. When she realizes.”

“Now I want you to listen to me,” he said. “Very carefully.” He paused, waiting for me to look at him. “If you have any sense, you’re going to take your- qualms, and leave them right here in this room.” He patted the cushion next to him. “Your mother has been lonely for years. And a grown son off fighting the war isn’t much of a substitute- which you don’t want to be, by the way. She comes here, not even sure why, and now she’s in love, or infatuation, or whatever she’s in. Happy for the first time in years. It doesn’t really matter if he’s in love with her or in love with her money. He obviously has some regard for her. The family name’s important to a Maglione. You don’t give it to someone if all you want is a bank loan. He’ll give her a life and he’ll make her happy, whatever his motivations are. And that’s assuming he knows what they are. Do you know yours?”

“I don’t want her to get hurt, that’s all.”

“Well, very nice, if that’s all. It rarely is, in my experience. But never mind. Just pack it up with whatever else is floating around up there,” he said, pointing to my head, “and put it away. He’ll never desert her, you know, not if she’s Signora Maglione, and if he-well, everybody goes through a rough patch sooner or later. But you never know. And here’s a chance and she’s taking it.”

“Even if she breaks her heart doing it.”

“Oh, hearts. They can take a lot of wear and tear. Adam, don’t meddle. She wants you to be pleased. Go home and tell her you’re thrilled to death.”

I got up, walked over to the windows, and looked out at the loggia where you sat on warm days to watch the boats. A city so beautiful even the Germans agreed not to fight in it. What she’d have every day.

“It might be all right, you know,” Bertie said. “It really might.”

I walked back to the couch. “Will you do something for me? Find out what money he has. You can ask around. You know everybody.”

“Not his banker, I don’t. And everything else is just gossip. Let’s hope for the best, why don’t we? Now smile. She’ll be watching your face, to see how you’re taking it.”

I made a face.

“Well, it’s a start.” He giggled to himself. “Mimi. Goodness, she’ll be cross. Now there’s a face I’d like to see.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, then looked at me. “Adam, I’m right, you know.”

“So am I.”

“And if you are, what’s the good of it?”

I said nothing.

“None at all,” he said quietly. “Not for her.”

“Would you find out about the money anyway?”

“And if he’s poor as a church mouse?”

“Then we’ll know.”

“Yes, and you’d be right. And still wrong for her.” Bertie sighed. “What a scourge children are.” He stood up. “You’d better go. She’ll be waiting to hear how lunch went. Smiles all around, right? Happy Families. It’s done.”

Things went wrong with the party from the start. There were no flowers to be found, not even the scraggly winter asters you usually saw in the Rialto market. The weather had cleared and then turned sharply cold, the wind rushing up the Giudecca channel and through the window cracks until even the space heaters felt cool to the touch. One of the power cuts that plagued Italy that season hit in the afternoon, plunging the kitchen into gloom just as Angelina, sneezing with her permanent cold, was trying to arrange the canapes. After I spent an hour rounding up candles, the lights, perversely, sputtered back on, but since there was no guarantee they’d stay on, I spent the whole evening glancing up nervously, Noah waiting for rain.

My mother noticed none of it. Her skin glowed pink, part bath steam, part happiness, while everyone around her turned slowly blue and rubbed their hands by the ineffectual heaters. She looked wonderful-a new dress with a sequined bolero jacket, hair up, every bit of her in place-and as I watched her move through the room, smiling, pecking cheeks, I thought for a minute that everything had to be all right. How could she be this happy otherwise? Gianni, next to her in a double-breasted gray suit, was smiling too, switching from English to Italian and back again, everybody’s friend.

There were Venetians tonight, not just Bertie’s set, and I had a glimpse of what my mother’s world would be like now-Mimi winking over her martini glass, but also the formally polite whitehaired woman holding out her hand for Gianni to kiss, proper as a doge. I wondered how long it could last, the romance of it, and then I looked at my mother’s face, beaming, and thought, why not forever? Wasn’t it what everyone wanted? The fairy tale with no glass slipper.

On her bedroom dressing table I had noticed there were now two pictures, me on one side, in front of a jeep in Germany, and Gianni on the other, bareheaded in the cold on the Zattere. One more than before, not competing, not replacing, just one more. Why not be grateful he’d come along to fill the extra space? Why shouldn’t we all be happy? Even the party, for all the cold and spotty electricity, was working now. Except that Claudia hadn’t arrived.

“No, don’t pick me up-I’ll come by myself. You’ll be busy,” she’d said, but where was she? “I don’t think we should walk in together.” Still reluctant. And now late.

I took another champagne from a passing tray.

“Who are you looking for?” Bertie said.

“Hello, Bertie. I thought you didn’t go out during Lent.”

“I’ll say my beads later. I couldn’t miss this. You should have heard Mimi. Hissing like a puff adder. Oh, these ladies.”

“So she knows?”

“Everybody knows. Grace never kept a secret in her life. But do admit, have you ever seen her looking so well? Not in years.”

“Happy as a bride,” I said, taking a sip of champagne.