Joseph Kanon - Alibi

“He thinks something’s wrong,” I said.

Claudia looked up from her plate, heaped with food. “What did he say?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry, he doesn’t know anything. Just that something’s wrong.”

“Oh,” she said, putting the plate on the table.

“Not hungry?”

She shook her head.

“Eat something. You can’t put down a full plate. People will notice.”

She shook her head again and I picked up the plate and forked some veal.

“Why would he think that?”

“Why not? Something is wrong. He just doesn’t know what.” I was eating quickly now, almost gulping the food down, no longer nauseated, surprised to find that I was hungry.

“Did you see the way he looked at me? Someone from the back rooms. Not someone who wears necklaces.”

“He’s just jealous.”

“How can you laugh?”

“I don’t know.” I put the plate down. “I don’t know how I’m doing any of it.”

But suddenly it was easier. I felt another surge, warm and full of food, a primitive well-being, filling up with life again after hours of empty dread.

“All right, one more dance to show you off, then we’ll go.”

“Yes?” she said eagerly.

“If he’s not here by now, whatever happened must have already happened. While we were here.”

She looked at me, unsure, but followed me back to the ballroom. Bertie, near the door with my mother, was leaning over to talk quietly, presumably arranging to go. The floor had thinned out but was still lively.

“You know what he was thinking?” Claudia said, looking at Bertie. “ ‘What is she doing here? That type. Ha. Looking for a rich American.’ ”

“And you found one,” I said, smiling. That was safe now too, something I hadn’t thought about before, my mother protected. I glanced toward the door. She and Bertie were talking to Mimi, heading for the stairs. “That’s better,” I said. “You want them to see you smile.”

She looked away, then danced closer, putting her head next to mine, trembling again. “What kind of people are we? To smile now.”

“Don’t.”

“Now I’ve done everything. I thought before it was everything, but now there’s this too.”

I pulled back to face her. “Think what he was,” I said.

She didn’t say anything.

I had said one dance, but then it became two, another. My mother had disappeared, and with her any talk about Gianni. We drifted with the music. I could feel the heat of her through her dress. Maybe this is what happens after, I thought, every sense stronger than before, as if we’d taken some extra portion from the dead. Food, touch, just being alive. In Germany, after combat, the troops were ravenous. Rapes happened then. Relieved not to be dead, proving something.

Around us, the beautiful room spun by in slow circles. Claudia had put a hand behind my neck, pulling us close, so that everything smelled of her. We were no longer pretending, with one eye to the others.

When we left, the crush for coats and umbrellas had begun, so that we were lost again in the crowd. No one noticed us leave, no one looked at the time.

We avoided the boats and walked back through San Ivo, the way Gianni would have come earlier. The calles were nearly empty, just the occasional umbrella bumping into ours in the narrow passages. Claudia was quiet, leaning against me. When we reached San Polo, she stopped under an arch near the hotel.

“Here,” she said, reaching behind and unclasping the necklace. “Take it.”

“You don’t-”

“No, it’s hers. What if something happens? If I lose it.”

“If you lose it,” I said dubiously.

She held it in her hand, looking down at it. “So. No more Cinderella.”

“There’s no rush.”

She pushed the necklace into my hand. “Listen to me. We can’t do this. I knew when he looked at me, Signor Howard. Tomorrow everybody asks questions. The ball, that’s finished now. And who do they question? How do I explain all those things? That night, everybody saw me with him. My job, all those things. Where is he? And who’s the one to suspect? Me. The easy one. Who else? Even if they don’t find him.”

“Without a body they can’t-”

“What’s the difference? It’s still me. And then you.”

“Stop it,” I said, grabbing her. “Don’t talk like that. No one is going to suspect anything.”

Her eyes were darting. I put my hand to the side of her face, as if I could stop her thoughts by touching it.

“They’ll come for me.”

“They’re not going to come for you.”

“Yes, they will. They’ll come.” Her eyes were wide, staring at me.

“No. They can’t. They can never get you.”

“Yes.”

I put a finger to her lips. “Never. Don’t you see? You were with me.” I moved the finger slowly along her lip, then rested it on her cheek. “I’ll be your alibi.”

She started to shake her head, turning it into my hand, but I held my finger there so that her eyes couldn’t move away.

“And you’ll be mine,” I said. “We’ll be safe.”

She stared at me for a minute more, then lowered her head.

“They’ll come,” she said, barely audible.

I brushed my hand down her cheek. “No,” I said, as quiet as she had been. “No,” I said again, a murmur, then suddenly a door slammed, someone leaving the hotel, and she jumped, startled, and reached for me.

“Oh.” A muffled sound, no louder than the water dripping in the passage. She pulled me close to her, turning her face away from the light, holding on to my coat until we heard the footsteps grow fainter in the campo, heading off toward the Rialto.

“It’s no one,” I said, my mouth close to her ear, but she was holding me even tighter, her arms around me, then one hand behind my neck, bending me toward her, kissing my face in a kind of rush, tasting it.

“Oh, I don’t care,” she said, still kissing me, as if the slam of the door had been a shot and she were running away from the evening, from whatever was going to happen. “I don’t care.” Clutching me to her. I felt her breath and then my mouth was open too, moving down to her neck, excited, both of us panting, the promise at the end of the evening, everything finally letting go, feeling the flush in my face again.

“We can’t,” I said, my face in her hair.

“Stay with me,” she said, moving her neck so I could kiss it again.

“I have to know what’s going on there tonight.”

“No, stay,” she said, kissing me. “What we would do. That’s what you said.” She pulled me closer until I knew she could feel me against her, already hard. “A party. And then you didn’t come up?” Moving now, pressing into me.

“Is that what we would do?” I said, kissing her again.

“Yes,” she said, her hands on me, holding me. “Don’t you want to?”

All evening, every sense working up to it. Spurting blood. The bundled tarp splashing into the dark water. My mother’s dressing room, warm with powder. The white skin at the back of her neck.

“The hotel clerk will say we were together,” she said.

“Claudia-”

“I know, I know. How can we do this? After. And I still want to. I want to,” she said, her breath on my face again.

“I can’t stay all night,” I said, my voice sliding away, skidding. “I have to get back. We have to be careful.”

“Yes, careful. A little while then.” She pressed her face against my coat. “Before they come.”

“Nobody’s going to come.”

My mother was still up when I got back, coiled in a chair near the space heater, a full ashtray on her lap.

“You’re a sight,” she said, raising her eyebrows, as if she could see through the rumpled jacket, the loose collar, to the rest of me, still sticky.