Alibi: A Novel Read online

  “No. Did they take you that night?”

  “Later. In the fall.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “At Fossoli? You want to know that too? Everything?” She hesitated, then looked directly at me. “Yes, all right. Look how easy I say that. I told no one. Now some stranger at a rich party, and—” She stopped again. “Why was I lucky? One of the men who ran the camp raped me. Of course he didn’t call it rape. Only I thought that. Every time. So. Is there anything else you want to know?”

  I said nothing. She drew on the cigarette, watching me, as if she were expecting me to turn away.

  “No?”

  “Yes. Why you wanted to meet me.”

  She smiled a little. “That too? All right. I don’t know. Maybe I liked the look of you.”

  I smiled back, surprised. “No one’s ever said that to me before. Are you always so—” I paused, not finding the word.

  “You prefer the old Venice? The masks? The notes? I used to want that. How wonderful to look over your fan at La Fenice. So romantic. But now it’s what you say—everything’s different. I came back and it’s all different. So now I’m like this.”

  “My mother came back because she thinks it’s all the same.”

  She dropped the cigarette and ground it out with her shoe. “Good night,” she said. Then she looked up at me, studying my face. “Are we going to be lovers, do you think?”

  I met her stare. “Yes.”

  “You think so.”

  “Don’t you?” I reached up my hand, but she stopped it with hers, letting our fingers touch.

  “I don’t know yet. Maybe. But not the first meeting. I can’t do that.”

  I leaned closer and lowered my face to hers. A tentative kiss, on the lips, a hint of salt water; then another, longer this time, our mouths slightly open; then more, taking our time until we were moving over each other, open and excited, and she broke away with a small gasp.

  “Can I come in?”

  “No, it’s too soon. Go home, think who I am. Then, if you still want to, we’ll—see each other.”

  “Over fans at La Fenice.”

  She smiled. “That’s right. Over fans. Do you know how to get back?”

  “Walk toward the water.”

  I waited while she put the key in the door.

  “When will you know?” I said.

  She made a teasing face. “When I know you better.” She made a shooing motion with her hand. “Just follow the canal—you’ll see the gardens.”

  On the boat back, I stood at the deck rail. As we moved in and out of the fog, toward the lights, then away again, Venice seemed more than ever dreamlike, something not really there. But once there had been sirens and dogs. Think who I am. Not just another folder on my desk in Frankfurt. More disturbing than that, here, tasting a little of salt. At home, staring out the dark window, for the first time in weeks I didn’t sleep.

  It took hours for the room to fill up with light, reflecting off the water, then moving along the walls in ripples. I opened the window, listening to the canal sloshing against the house. Too late for sleepwalking but too early for open shops, anything else. I dressed and headed for the Accademia, but it would be hours before the tall doors opened. I could walk out to the Dogana, my usual morning seat, but all that now seemed to have happened weeks ago, somewhere else. How could anyone just sit, looking? I started up the broad wooden steps of the bridge. Over to Santo Stefano. A coffee and a newspaper. But that was idling. Who could sit? The point was to keep going, now that I had somewhere to go.

  The sun held all the way through San Marco and along the Riva, bouncing off the white marble and back against the water. I walked faster. Even the air, after weeks of mist and damp, was sharp and dry, as if it too had cleared its head and decided what to do. And then, like a sudden shift of mood, it was over. The sky began to fill with clouds again, blown back in from the west, and by the time I reached the funfair at the far end of the Riva the shuttered caravans and children’s rides were as drab and dismal as they’d been all winter. The brick towers of the Arsenale, glowing like kilns a few minutes before, had turned gloomy.

  I crossed the last bridge before the vaporetto stop suddenly feeling foolish, still hours early, the idea of coming here at all like something out of a song lyric, silly in the gray light. The sensible thing would be to catch the next boat back and go to the Accademia at lunch hour. Instead I waited, smoking on a bench near the floating dock, not willing to waste a morning. What time did the staff get to the Accademia? A few people were opening umbrellas. I felt a light drizzle on my face and took shelter inside the vaporetto station. So much for the expansive gesture, sunshine, and open arms. Now I was hunched over with a damp collar.

  It didn’t matter. She came onto the quay and it was just as I imagined it would be—the same direct walk, a glance up from under the umbrella, a sudden stop, and her surprised face, unguarded, absolutely still until something turned over inside, loosening an involuntary smile. She was wearing the same wool coat and sharp-lapeled suit—her only one?—and for a second I saw how she would take it off, just the jacket, nothing else, sliding it back from her arms while she stared straight at me, taking it off for me. Now she hurried into the shelter, folding her umbrella, eyes still wide, disbelieving.

  “Have you been here all night?” she said, laughing a little.

  I shook my head. “I get up early.”

  “But what are you doing here?”

  “I want you to get to know me better.”

  Her face softened. “At this hour?”

  “I thought we’d better start. I don’t know how much you want to know.”

  She said nothing, her eyes still reading my face, pleased.

  “I like risotto. Any kind of fish.”

  She laughed. “Do you think I’m going to cook for you?”

  “Okay. We’ll go out.”

  “A rich American.”

  “I live in Dorsoduro. My room has a view of the Redentore.”

  “I’m not going to your room. In your mother’s house.”

  “Then I’ll find something else.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, except to work.”

  “That’s why I’m here. We can talk on the way.”

  “To come here like this, at this hour. You must be crazy.”

  “Must be. What time do you get off for lunch?”

  “You’re so sure of this?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked away. “Here comes the boat.”

  I reached up and moved her chin with my hand. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  Only a few people got on with us, but the boat was already packed with commuters coming from the Lido, reading newspapers or just staring out the windows. We stood away from the rain but wedged near the gangplank gate, pressed against each other.

  “Just like the bus,” I said, but of course it wasn’t, dipping with the shallow waves, even a morning commute turned into an excursion. The water gave everything in Venice this playful quality. Ambulances were boats, so not quite ambulances. Fire boats and delivery barges and taxis—all the same, yet different, bobbing on the water, somehow looking half made-up. “We should have a gondola, like the old days.”

  “No, they frighten me. So unsteady. I can’t swim.”

  “In Venice?”

  “Nobody swims in Venice. Where, in the canals?” She made a face. “It’s not so unusual. Even gondoliers.” A city people, rooted to pavement. “Anyway, I never learned. So I don’t go in boats. Only these,” she said, waving her hand toward the crowd.

  “I’ll take you out. I’m good with boats—that’s something else to know. You’d be safe.”

  “Oh, you have a gondola?”

  “Actually, I do. One came with the house. But no gondolier, so it’s up on supports. There’s a boat, though. We could take that. With life jackets. Go and have a picnic.”

  “In this weather.”

  “Well, when it�
�s nicer.”

  “And you’ll be here when it’s nicer.” She turned to me. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “What?”

  “Act like this. Take me on boats. Take me anywhere. Picnics. Like the films. So romantic. It’s not like that anymore.”

  “No?”

  “Not for me.”

  “What do you want me to talk about, then?”

  “What you’re thinking. Not this—what?”

  “Flirting?”

  “Playacting. It’s not serious.”

  “No. It’s supposed to be part of the fun.”

  She looked away, then stepped back to let some passengers get near the rail. We were pulling into Salute. She moved farther away, not wanting to talk with anyone close by, pretending to look at the church. Even in the drizzle, the baroque curves were bright white, like swirls of meringue. When the boat swung out again, she turned to find me looking at her.

  “Now what? More picnics?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “What I’m really thinking?”

  She nodded.

  “What it would be like. You, taking your clothes off. What you would be like.”

  For a moment she said nothing, her look embarrassed, no longer direct.

  “I’m sorry. You said no more playacting. It’s what I was thinking—what it would be like.”

  She nodded slightly. “All right,” she said, and turned to the rail.

  Which meant what? Anything. But her back was to me, like a finger to the lips, and I said nothing. We rode that way, both facing the palazzos. After we tied up at Accademia, I took her arm and we crossed the gangplank. In the open square in front of the old convent, we stood bareheaded, surrounded by umbrellas.

  “What time do you get off for lunch?”

  “One. Go and look at the pictures.”

  “All morning.”

  She smiled. “Some people take days. And now it’s the best time—no one’s there. You can stand in front of The House of Levi as long as you want.”

  “A Jewish picture?”

  “No, the Last Supper. But Veronese put in a drunk and dwarfs and the pope said it was—what? profane?—so he changed the title.”

  “Italian accommodation.”

  “Hypocrisy. Well, we had good teachers.” She looked up at me, serious. “It won’t be like that with us, will it? No pretending. Just what it is.”

  I nodded. “So you’ve decided.”

  “When I saw you this morning.”

  I leaned forward. “Don’t go to work.”

  “No, one o’clock,” she said, then reached up and put her hand on my chest. “Get a room.”

  I felt a twitch, like a spurt of blood.

  “My house is—”

  “No. Somewhere no one knows us. Not here. Near the station. One of those places. You can afford that,” she said with a small smile. “You’re a rich American.”

  I bent over to kiss her, but she stopped me, pushing against my chest, her eyes playful. “Later,” she said. “You can think what it will be like.”

  We became lovers that afternoon in one of those hotels off the Lista di Spagna that put up students with backpacks and salesmen from Padua. The vaporetto ride had seemed endless, dripping umbrellas and anxious looks, not talking, the few blocks on foot worse, umbrellas forcing everyone to walk single-file in the narrow calles. In the room, past the sour desk clerk, we were suddenly shy, like the students who usually stayed there, and then she slipped off her jacket with the sliding movement I’d imagined, and hung it in the armoire and turned to me, and I understood that I was to unbutton her blouse, and I began fingering it, feeling the warmth underneath, until finally she put her hand over mine, guiding it to each button so that we did it together.

  It had been so long since I’d had sex, at least with anyone I’d wanted, that it felt curiously like a first time—tentative and then urgent, wanting to get it right but too hurried to find a rhythm. We hung up all her clothes, an efficiency that became a tease, then a kind of ritual, and when we were naked I started running my hand over her slowly, wanting to touch every part of her, but when I reached down she was already wet and after that we fell on the bed, both in a rush. Without the suit she was round, her skin soft, but her movements were still direct, the way I knew they’d be, never coy, reaching out to pull me into her. Just what it is. Skin on skin, without nuance, first-time sex, so hungry, tongues and sweat and a hurrying you can’t stop, over too soon. We lay for a minute, finally not moving, still together, panting. Then she reached up and pushed my hair from my forehead.

  “I don’t have to go back,” she said.

  “No?” I said, feeling myself hard again.

  “We have lots of time.”

  “I’m sorry I—”

  “No, no. Me too. Now we can start.”

  And this time it was slower, almost lazy, so that I felt her around me, not plunging in and out, everything slick, but taking the time to feel the moist, hidden skin, the secret part of her.

  Afterward we lay in a tangle, exhausted but not wanting to stop, touching each other.

  “What did you tell them, at the Accademia?”

  “That I was sick. Everyone is sick in Venice in the winter. My god, listen to that. No wonder.”

  The rain had grown stronger, a real downpour now, noisy against the window.

  “But it makes it nice in here,” I said, the cheap hotel room suddenly a refuge.

  “Yes. And freezing,” she said, pulling a sheet up around her.

  “No, let me look at you. I’ll keep you warm.”

  She moved closer, talking into my shoulder.

  “It’s the first time since I came back. You forget how peaceful, after.”

  The perfect happiness of sex, drowsy and full, something you think happens only to you.

  “I feel honored,” I said, teasing. “Why me?”

  “I told you, I liked your looks.”

  “That’s right. My looks.”

  She raised herself on one elbow. “And you. Do you like mine?”

  I shook my head. “Your mind.”

  She looked at me, puzzled, until I smiled. “It’s an American joke. Don’t worry. I like everything. Here. And here.”

  She wriggled away from my hand but stayed close. “Did you have a girl in Germany?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I felt sorry for them. You can’t, when you feel sorry for somebody.”

  “Sorry for Germans?”

  “They were hungry. Living in cellars. So they’d do anything—even make you think they liked you. How would you feel?”

  “Don’t ask me that. I can’t feel sorry for Germans.”

  “Anyway, I didn’t go with anybody,” I said, moving away from it. “Maybe I was waiting.” I brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear.

  “Ha. More romantics.” She was running her fingers across my chest, an idle examination. “No marks. Were you wounded?”

  “No. I pushed paper. Not so dangerous.”

  “So you never killed anybody? No Germans?”

  “No. Did you?”

  “Who would I kill?”

  “I don’t know. The man at the camp maybe.”

  She stopped running her fingers and sat up, turning toward the window.

  “He kept me alive. I was grateful to him. Imagine, being grateful to someone like that. Imagine what the others were.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He was killed. After the Germans left. Maybe by partisans. It was like that, those first weeks.” She turned to me. “You don’t mind about him?”

  “No. Why should I mind?”

  “Some men—” She paused. “I saw his body. Dead. I felt nothing. After all that, nothing. Maybe you get used to it, all the killing. That’s the problem. You think you want to kill them all. Where do you stop? The guard who pushed the children on the train? Yes, him. Then why not the ones watching? Why not everybody
? And then you’re like them.”

  “You’re not like them.”

  She looked up at me. “Everybody’s like them.”

  “No, we’re not,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder and pulling her down to the bed, leaning over her. “Anyway, it’s over.”

  “Yes.” She reached up, touching my neck. “I wanted to know. If it would always feel—the way it was with him.”

  “Does it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Good. Let’s make sure.”

  The afternoon went on like that, stroking each other and then, excited again, grabbing at flesh in a kind of fury, and then dozing off, drugged with sex, hearing the rain in our half sleep. Even when it was finished we kept touching lightly, not wanting to arouse each other but unable to take our hands away. Once, during a break in the storm, I dressed and ran out for a bottle of wine, half afraid that when I got back she’d be taking her clothes out of the armoire, the mood broken, but she was still there, sheet pulled up just over her breasts.

  “I’m sick, remember? I have to spend the day in bed,” she said while I poured the wine. “You’re soaked.”

  “Not for long,” I said, taking my wet clothes off and climbing back in, clinking glasses. “So, a picnic finally.”

  “Oh, on the Lista di Spagna.”

  “You should see the water out there. We’ll be our own island in a few hours.”

  She looked at me over the glass. “That’s nice, to say that.”

  We slept finally, lulled by the wine and the steady rain, her back curved into me, and when I woke the sound of running water was coming from the tub. There was a thin light under the door. I got up and looked out the window. Not really late but already dark, as if the waterlogged city had simply given up and turned out the lights.

  “I don’t know if there’s enough hot water for two,” she said when I went into the bathroom. “It was already getting cool. Do you mind? I thought, at your house—”

  “That’s all right. I’ll just watch,” I said, sitting on the edge of the tub. The room was spare, the bathmat just a skinny towel thrown on the cold linoleum. Whatever steam there had been was now gone from the flat mirror over the basin.