Joseph Kanon - Alibi

And this? There was Bertie in his jewel box, red wallpaper and gilded moldings, the whole room gleaming with gold, dimming now, people hushing. In a minute there would be music and Rodolfo would find Mimi and we’d sit back, annoying the Montanaris, and no one would find it fantastical at all, perfectly normal. I thought of Bertie’s party again, rich foreigners entertaining one another in rented palazzos, another Puccini world. And yet it was Rosa and her friends who didn’t seem real. The orchestra started. Only a mile away someone might be firing a gun.

I shifted in my seat again, wishing I could smoke, and looked around for Cavallini’s wife-it would be a nice touch if she could say she’d seen us-but the darkness made it hard to find anyone beyond the first row of the boxes. The train would be leaving the station in a few minutes, halting unexpectedly for the signal. Unless that was no longer the plan, something Rosa had made up to make me chase the wrong scent. But it had to be the yards if they expected to stay in Venice. Maestre would favor the police. Maybe it was all exactly the way she’d told me it would be. But which story had Cavallini been told? There are many ears in Venice. How much easier now for Rosa to be betrayed, with the Germans gone, the partisan groups out of hiding. Nobody could be that careful; there was always something to give you away. How many guards did he have on the train? They wouldn’t suspect anything in the yards-they’d be bored with the delay, their guns not even drawn. Still, how long would it take to get them out, fire into the surprise?

Something moved over my finger and I jumped. Claudia’s hand, reaching over just to touch. She didn’t turn her head, and I saw that her eyes were shiny, her whole attention given to the music. Now I heard it too, Rodolfo’s love song, so beautiful that it seemed no one could have written it, just found it, floating somewhere above the ordinary world. If this was possible, anything was. I looked down at her hand. We could be happy. Why shouldn’t it work? Rosa knew what she was doing. Gianni was gone and we had an alibi. The Germans had gotten away with murder, the whole world. Even in Venice, as beautiful as the music, everyone had an alibi, somewhere else when the air raid sirens covered the sounds of people being dragged off. I didn’t know. I didn’t realize. I had my own life to consider. And of course everyone did.

I checked my watch. They’d be in boats now, streaming off to Maestre or wherever they were really going. Later we’d go home and not know whether they’d been there or not. I put my hand over Claudia’s, hearing the music again. Why shouldn’t it all work?

Signora Montanari developed one of her headaches after Act I and they left, with apologies and improbable hopes of seeing us again. Instead we had champagne with Bertie.

“I don’t blame them a bit,” he said, watching the Montanaris go. “Act I is bliss and then everything goes wrong. Think how it ends.” I sipped more champagne, uneasy again. “Of course the good monsignor loves the death part,” he said, nodding toward the priest, now talking to someone else. “Divine retribution, I suppose, for all that lovely sin. What is going on? Filomena will be furious. She hates being reminded he’s in the police.”

I followed his look past the priest to the bar, where Signora Cavallini had been approached by two policemen, their uniforms so showy that for a second it seemed they were part of the opera. She was frowning, putting down her glass to leave.

“What is it, do you think?” I said quickly. “Find out.”

“Adam,” he said, pretending to be offended.

“But maybe something’s happened.”

He looked at them again, debating, then tapped his champagne glass. “I could use a top-up. Right back.”

He hurried to the bar, just in time to catch Signora Cavallini. They talked for a second, then he put his hand on her arm, reassuring, and shooed her away with the uniforms.

“They’ve taken him to hospital.”

“He’s been shot?”

Bertie blinked. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would he be shot? In Venice? It’s probably nothing-they check in here with a sneeze. Shot.” He peered over his glasses. “This flair for melodrama. Ever since you joined the force.”

“I should go. Maybe he’s-”

“Adam,” he said, his tone like a physical restraint, a hand on my chest. “Stop being a ninny and finish your drink. His wife is with him.” He drank some champagne. “I’d no idea you were so close.”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it? I think all this business has gone to your head. Unless it’s the wine. I think I’ll finish that,” he said, taking my glass and pouring some wine into his own, and then, before I could protest, “You don’t have to sit with the monsignor.”

There was more of this, even a few dull minutes with the priest before the warning bell rang, and I didn’t hear any of it, my head buzzing with shots. Why else would Cavallini be taken to the hospital? But it was Cavallini who’d been shot. Which meant that Moretti might have gotten away. Unless they were all still there, littered across the yards, everything gone wrong.

In our box, lights down, I tried to focus on the stage, but now even the music was drowned out by the buzzing in my head. Instead of the Cafe Momus, I was seeing the train doors closing, the smooth glide out from the platform, then the jerky stop in the yards for the light, then-then what? The worst of it was not knowing. But Bertie had been right, catching me in time, before an absurd rush to the hospital. How would I have explained that? A hunch? I checked my watch again. They’d be long gone from Ca’ Venti by now, assuming they’d ever come. Why not do what I was supposed to do, enjoy the opera? While the house sat there, open and waiting, like an overlooked piece of evidence.

“Do you want to go?” Claudia said at the next intermission.

“We should stay. See it through.”

“Scratching your knees and squirming in your seat. Do you think I’m seeing it either?” She reached over and touched me. “If Cavallini’s shot, maybe they got away. Come on. Everyone has already seen us.”

“And what excuse, if anybody asks?”

“You think only the Montanaris get headaches?”

We took the traghetto near the Gritti, standing up as we crossed, looking toward Mimi’s dark landing. I thought of the footmen and umbrellas and torches leading the guests into the hall, the jumpy apprehension I’d felt then too, not knowing if it would work.

Our calle was quiet and the door was locked, as it was supposed to be. Only a single night-light, so Angelina wasn’t back yet. I turned on the hall lights, the sconces shining all the way to the stairs. Beyond, through the wrought-iron and glass door, the water entrance was dark, maybe untouched. I walked down the hall and opened the inside door, putting my hand up to the light switch.

“No, no lights.” Rosa, crouching in a corner, a disembodied voice from a dark pile. “They might see. Help me with him.”

I went over to the pile-Moretti, with his head leaning on her. In the dim light coming from the hall I saw the cloth she was holding against him, blotched with blood.

“My god.”

“Do you have a towel? I’m using my slip. The worst of it has stopped. So not an artery.”

There was a whimper behind me. Claudia stood still for a second, her mouth open, as if she were about to scream. “What are you doing here? You said no one would be here. Lies. I knew it.” Then she took in the bloody cloth.

“A towel,” Rosa said again.

“A towel,” Claudia said, a faint echo, her eyes still wide.

“And something to clean the wound. I couldn’t leave him.”

But Claudia was already running down the hall to the stairs.