“Mamma?”
Zoli shuffles across and takes her daughter's elbow. “I need some money. Some French money.”
“Of course, Mamma. Why?”
“I need to get a taxi. I need to go home. Your home. Hurry.”
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing, precious heart.”
“Who was that man you were talking to?”
“That was Swann,” she says. She is surprised at herself. She wanted to say: Nobody. To shake her head and shrug. To cast it off, pretend indifference. To stand there, a picture of ordinary strength. But she doesn't, and instead she says it again: “That was Stephen Swann. He has some journalist with him.”
“Oh, my God.”
“I just need some money for a taxi.”
“What did you say to him?”
“What did I say? I don't know what I said, Franca. I need to go.”
“What's he doing here?”
“I don't know. Do you know?”
“Why would I know, Mamma?”
“Tell me.”
“No,” says her daughter. “I didn't know.”
“Just give me the money, please. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I beg of your sweet eyes, Franca.”
She sees a light sweeping over the valley, a bird through treetops, a road rising white in front of her eyes, then she feels herself sway. Francesca takes her elbow and places the other hand tight around her mother's waist. The rush of hotel wallpaper. The quick glint of light on glass. Fingerprints at the low corners of the windowpanes. Swann is leaning against the wall, framed by two cheap prints, his chest heaving. The journalist stands beside him, head bent, scribbling in his spiral notebook. Swann looks up as they pass. He raises his hand again.
“Don't turn,” says Zoli. “Please don't turn.”
They move towards the revolving door and the sound of taped birdsong. Francesca presses money into her hand.
“I swear, Mamma, I had no idea. I swear on my life.”
“Just take me out to the taxi.”
“I'll go with you.”
“No. I want to sit alone.”
She catches a brief waft of her daughter's perfume as she slides into the backseat. “Keys!” shouts Francesca, and Zoli rolls down the window, takes the key ring in her palm.
She can see Francesca mouthing something as the taxi pulls away-I love you, Mamma-and in the rear of the reception area, shuffling, trying to get through the crowd, is Swann, rail-thin, quivering. He looks like the sort of man who can't afford to leave, and doesn't want to stay, and so he is doing both at once.
Zoli sits back against the warm plastic of the seat and looks out to the alarming beauty of the sky as the taxi swings away from the hotel.
She takes the elevator without a second thought, places her head against the cool of the wooden panel, and recalls the noise of his cane, the shine of light on his forehead, the contours of his brow.
For a long time she forgets to push the button.
The chains clank and she rises. The elevator opens on another floor. A young woman and a dog step in to take her place. She walks the final flight of stairs. Turns the key in the door. Negotiates the long corridor in the dim light. She drops her dress to the floor and the metal spoon tumbles out of her pocket. Her underclothes fall behind her. She stands naked in front of the long mirror and gazes at her body-a paltry thing, brown and puckered. She reaches up and unloosens her hair, lets it fall. All the ancient codes violated. She walks into the living room and picks up the photograph of Enrico from the shelf near the window, takes it from the frame, returns to bed, lifts the covers, curls up under the sheets with the photo just beneath her left breast.
She wishes for a moment that she had waited to hear the things that Swann might have had to say, but what would he say, what could he say, what would ever make sense? Zoli closes her eyes, grateful to the dark. Patterns passing, crystal patterns, snow now, gently settling. There are no days more full than those we go back to.
She wakes to the sound of people coming into the apartment. The clicking of bottles and a hollow boom of an instrument in a case being banged against a wall. She sits up and feels the photo pasted against her breast.
“Mamma.”
She is startled to see Francesca at the end of the bed, curled up, knees to her chest. The room seems familiar now, almost breathing.
“You'll take the life from me, precious heart.”
“I'm sorry, Mamma.”
“How long have you been there?”
“A little while. You were sleeping so well.”
“Who's there? Who's that? Outside?”
“I don't know, that asshole is bringing people here.”
“Who?” says Zoli.
“Henri.”
“I mean who's with him?”
“Oh, I don't know, just a group of drunks. The bars are closed. I'm sorry. I'll kick them out.”
“No, leave them be,” says Zoli. She pulls back the sheet and shifts sideways on the bed, puts her feet to the floor. “Can you give me my nightdress?”
She stands with her back to her daughter and pulls the dress over her head, rough against her skin.
“You were sleeping with Daddy?”
“Yes, how silly is that?”
“Just silly enough.”
A series of shushes come from the living room, then one clink of a bottle cap falling to the floor, rolling across the hardwood, and a series of stifled laughs.
“Mamma, are you okay? Can I get you something? Hot milk or something?”
“Did you talk to him? Swann?”
“Yes.”
“And he said he was sorry, didn't he?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say what he was sorry for?”
“For everything, Mamma.”
“He's always been an idiot,” says Zoli.
The low sound of a mandolin niters through the apartment and then a harsh piece of laughter, followed by the faint pluck of a guitar.
“Come here beside me.”
Her daughter swings longways across the bed, spreads herself out, takes a piece of Zoli's hair and puts it in her mouth. In so many ways, her father's child. They lie side by side in the intimate dark.
“I'm sorry, Mamma.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.”
“I had no idea.”
“What else did he say?”
“He lives in Manchester now. He got out in ‘68, the whole Prague thing. He says he thought you were dead. There were bodies found along the border. He was sure that something bad had happened to you. Or that you were living in a hut somewhere in Slovakia. He says he looked for you. Searched all over.”
“What's he doing here?”
“He said he likes to follow things. To keep in touch. That it was a hobby. He still uses the word Gypsy. Goes to a lot of conferences and things. The festival down there in Santa Maria. All over the place. He says he owns a wine shop.”
“A wine shop?”
“In Manchester.”
“Nobody lives where they grew up anymore.”
“What's that?”
“Just something he said to me once.”
“He said he was heartbroken, Mamma. That's what he said. That he's been heartbroken ever since.”
“He lives alone?”
“I don't know.”
“Swann,” Zoli says with a slow, sad laugh. “Swann. A capitalist.”
She tries to imagine him there, amid a row of wooden racks, learning to count prices, the bell on the doorframe tinkling. He stands and greets the customer with a small bow of the head. Later, stooped, he shuffles to the corner shop to buy his half-liter of milk and a small loaf of bread, then goes home to a small house in a row of small houses. He sits in a soft yellow chair and looks towards the window, waiting for the light to disappear so he can have his evening meal, wander off to bed, read the books that will make up his mind for him.
“He wants to see you again, Mamma. He said that his ideas were borrowed, but your poems weren't.”