Playing With Fire (9 page)

When I arrive home after my visit to Gerda, I see Val’s Ford Taurus parked in our driveway and Rob’s Lexus is already in the garage. I don’t know why Rob is home so early, or why they’re both standing at the front door when I walk into the house. All I know is that neither one of them is smiling.

“Where the hell have you been?” Rob demands.

“I went to see Gerda. I told you I was going to visit her.”

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Was I supposed to be home earlier? I don’t remember talking about it.”

“Jesus, Julia. What is
wrong
with you?”

My aunt interjects: “Rob, I’m sure she got busy and just lost track of time. There’s no need to get mad about it.”

“No need? I was about to call the police!”

I shake my head, baffled by this conversation. “Why on earth would you call the police? What have I done?”

“We’ve both been trying to reach you for hours. When you didn’t show up at the preschool, they called me at work. Val had to rush over there and pick up Lily.”

“But I’ve had the phone with me all day. No one’s tried to call me.”

“We
did
call you, Julia,” says Val. “It kept going to voice mail.”

“Then something must be wrong with it.” I dig the cellphone out of my shoulder bag and stare in dismay at the screen. There they are, all the missed calls and voice mails. From the preschool, from Rob, from Val. “It must be the ringer,” I say. “Maybe I accidentally turned it off. Or something’s gone wrong with the settings.”

“Julia, are you still taking the Vicodin?” Val asks quietly.

“No. No, I stopped it days ago,” I mutter as I fumble through the phone menu, trying to find out how I accidentally muted the ringer. My fingers feel clumsy and I keep tapping the wrong icons. I have had nightmares just like this, when I am frantically trying to call for help and I keep dialing the wrong numbers. But this is not a nightmare. This is really happening.

“Stop,” Rob says. “Julia, stop.”

“No, I need to fix this
now
.” I keep tapping through phone menus, even as Lily runs into the hallway, even as her arms encircle my leg like smothering vines.

“Mommy! I miss you, Mommy!”

I look down and in her eyes I suddenly glimpse something poisonous, something that ripples like a serpent to the surface of those still waters and dives once again out of sight. I jerk away from her so sharply that she gives an anguished wail and stands with imploring arms, a child abandoned by her mother.

Val quickly takes my daughter’s hand. “Lily, why don’t you come stay with me for a few days? I could really use some help picking tomatoes. Mommy and Daddy won’t mind if I steal you away, will they?”

Rob gives a weary nod. “I think that’d be a very good idea. Thank you, Val.”

“Lily, let’s go upstairs and pack a suitcase, okay? You tell me what you want to bring to my house.”

“Donkey. I want Donkey.”

“Of course, we’ll bring Donkey. What about some other toys? And what do you think of spaghetti tonight?”

As Val takes Lily upstairs, Rob and I remain in the foyer. I’m afraid to look at him, afraid to read, in his face, what he thinks of me.

“Julia,” he sighs. “Let’s go sit down.” He takes my arm and leads me into the living room.

“There’s something wrong with this goddamn cellphone,” I insist.

“I’ll take a look at it later, okay? I’ll figure it out.” That’s always been Rob’s role in our family. He’s the fixer. He checks under the hood and tests wires and finds a solution to every problem. He sits me down on the sofa and sinks into the chair across from me. “Look, I know you’re under a lot of stress. You’re losing weight. You’re not sleeping well.”

“I’m still having back pain; that’s what’s keeping me up. You wanted me to go off the Vicodin, and that’s what I did.”

“Sweetheart, Val and I both think you need to talk to someone. Please don’t think of it as therapy. It’ll just be a conversation between you and Dr. Rose.”

“Dr. Rose? Is this the psychiatrist you told me about?”

“She comes highly recommended. I’ve gone over her qualifications. I’ve looked into her background, her physician ratings.”

Of course he has.

“I think she could help you a lot. She could help our whole family. Guide us back to the way we were before all this happened.”

“Rob?” Val calls out from upstairs. “Where can I find a suitcase for Lily’s stuff?”

“I’ll get you one,” Rob answers. He pats my hand. “I’ll be right back, okay?” he says and heads upstairs to find a suitcase.

I hear him moving around in our bedroom, and then the sound of suitcase wheels rolling across the wood floor. I focus on the living room window, which faces west. Only now do I register how low the sun is in the sky, far too low for three o’clock in the afternoon. No wonder my back is aching again; my last dose of Tylenol was far too many hours ago.

I go into the downstairs bathroom, open the medicine cabinet, and shake out three extra-strength caplets. As the cabinet door swings shut again, I’m startled by my reflection in the mirror. I see uncombed hair, puffy eyes, washed-out skin. I splash cold water on my face and run fingers through my hair, but I still look all wrong. The strain of dealing with Lily has turned me into a ghost of myself. This is the dark side of motherhood that no ever warns you about, the part that’s not all hugs and kisses. They don’t tell you that the child you once nurtured in your womb, the child you thought would bring you such love, instead begins to gnaw at your soul like a little parasite. I stare at myself and think:
Soon there’ll be nothing left of me.

When I emerge from the bathroom, Rob and Val are back downstairs in the foyer, right around the corner from me. They’re talking so softly I can barely hear them, so I move closer.

“Camilla was the same age as Julia is now. That’s got to be significant.”

“Julia’s nothing like her,” Val says.

“Still, the genetics are there. Her family history of mental illness.”

“Trust me, this is
not
the same situation. Camilla was a cold-blooded psychopath. She was self-centered and clever and manipulative. But she was
not
insane.”

They’re talking about my mother. My dead, baby-killing mother. I’m desperate to hear every word, but my heart pounds so hard it threatens to drown out their voices.

“All the psychiatrists who saw her agreed,” says Rob. “They said she had a psychotic break, lost all touch with reality. These things do run in families.”

“She had them fooled, every single one of them. She wasn’t psychotic. She was
evil
.”

“Mommy, hold me! Hold me!”

I whirl around to see Lily standing right behind me. My daughter has exposed me. She looks up at me with perfectly innocent eyes as Val and Rob come around the corner

“Oh there you are!” says Val, trying to sound casual but not quite hitting the right note. “Lily and I are just about to leave. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

As Lily clings to me in a goodbye hug, I can feel Rob watching me for signs that I’m a danger to my daughter. I know that’s what worries him, because he brought up my mother’s name, a name that’s never spoken in my presence. Until he said it, it hadn’t even occurred to me that I’m the same age my mother was when she committed the most unforgivable sin a woman can commit. I wonder if some twisted remnant of her is now stirring to life inside me.

Is this what she felt in the days before she killed my brother? Did she look at her own child and see a monster staring back?

December 1943

From the back room of his father’s luthier shop, Lorenzo heard the tinkle of the bell on the door and he called out: “If you can wait just a minute, I’ll be right out to help you.”

No one answered.

He had just applied glue and was now clamping the violin’s belly to the ribs. This was a delicate step, one he could not rush, and he took care tightening the clamp and confirming the angles. When he finally emerged from the back room, he saw his customer crouched before the display case of cello and viola bows. Only the top of her hat was visible above the counter.

“May I help you?” he asked.

She rose to her feet and smiled at him. “Lorenzo,” she said.

Five years had passed since they’d last spoken to each other. Although he’d glimpsed her several times on the street, it had always been from a distance, and he had never approached her. Now he and Laura Balboni stood face-to-face, with only the display case between them, and he could not think of a single thing to say. Her blond hair was short now, cut in the stylish bob that was so popular among female students at Ca’ Foscari. Her face had lost its girlish roundness, and her cheekbones were more prominent, her jaw more sharply defined. Her gaze was as direct as ever, so direct that he felt pierced to the spot, unable to move, to say a single word.

“It needs to be rehaired,” she said.

He looked down at the cello bow that she’d set on the countertop. The frog end was scraggly with broken horse hairs. “Of course, I’ll be happy to do this for you. When will you need it back?”

“There’s no rush. I have another bow I can use in the meantime.”

“Will next week be soon enough?”

“That would be fine.”

“Then you can pick it up on Wednesday.”

“Thank you.” She lingered for a moment, searching for something more to say. With a sigh of resignation she went to the door. There she stopped and turned back to him. “Is that all we have to say to each other?
Pick it up on Wednesday. Thank you
?”

“You look wonderful, Laura,” he said softly. And she did; she was even more beautiful than he remembered, as if the passage of five years had burnished her hair and face into this shimmering version of the seventeen-year-old girl he’d once known. In the gloom of the shop, she seemed to shine with her own light.

“Why haven’t you come to see us?” she asked.

He looked around the room and gave an apologetic shrug. “My father needs my help here. And I teach the violin. I have ten students now.”

“I sent you half a dozen invitations, Lorenzo. You never came. Not even to my birthday party.”

“I did write to you with my regrets.”

“Yes, and all your notes were
so
polite. You could have come to tell me in person. Or just stopped in to say hello.”

“You were off to study at Ca’ Foscari. You have new friends now.”

“Which means I can’t keep my old ones?”

He stared down at her bow, its frog end bristling with broken hairs. He remembered how vigorously she attacked the cello strings with that bow. No timid strokes for her. A player as fierce as Laura would quickly snap strings and wear out bow hairs. Passion had its price.

“That night, at the competition,” he said quietly, “everything changed for us.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“For
you
it didn’t.” Suddenly angry at her obliviousness, he looked straight at her. “For me, and for my family,
everything
has changed. But not for you. You’re allowed to study at Ca’ Foscari. You have your new friends, your pretty haircut. Your life goes on, happy and perfect. But mine?” He looked around the shop and gave a bitter laugh. “I’m trapped. Do you think I’m here in this shop because I
choose
to be?”

“Lorenzo,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

“Come back for your bow on Wednesday. It will be ready.”

“I’m not blind. I know what’s going on.”

“Then you also know why I stay away from you.”

“Is it to hide? To keep your head down and stay out of trouble?” She leaned in, confronting him across the countertop. “
Now
is the time to be brave. I want to stand with you. No matter what happens, I want to—” She stopped as the doorbell tinkled.

A customer walked in, a thin-lipped woman who merely nodded to them, then slowly circled the shop, eyeing the violins and violas hanging on the walls. Lorenzo had never seen this woman before and her sudden appearance made him uneasy. His father’s luthier business survived only because of a small but devoted clientele. New customers almost never came through the door, but favored the luthier shop down the street, where the words
Negozio Ariano
were so prominently displayed in the window.
Aryan Store.

Laura seemed to share his uneasiness. Avoiding the woman’s gaze, she quickly turned away and proceeded to rummage in her purse.

“Might I assist you, madam?” Lorenzo asked the woman.

“Are you the proprietor of this shop?”

“My father is. I’m his assistant.”

“And where is your father?”

“He went home for lunch but he should be back soon. Perhaps there’s something I can help you with?”

“No, nothing.” The woman looked around at the instruments and her upper lip curled in distaste. “I simply wondered why anyone would choose to patronize this business.”

“Maybe you should ask a musician,” Laura said. “Since I assume you’re not one.”

The woman turned to her. “Excuse me?”

“The finest violins made in Venice come from this luthier shop.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Professor Balboni’s daughter, are you not? I saw you perform last month, at La Fenice. Your quartet was excellent.”

“I’ll tell them,” Laura said coolly. She looked at Lorenzo. “I’ll be back to pick up my bow on Wednesday.”

“Miss Balboni?” the woman called as Laura opened the door to leave. “You really should take a look at Mr. Landra’s shop, down the road. He makes very fine instruments.” It was not merely a suggestion; there was the dark note of warning in her voice.

Laura glanced back, a retort on her lips, but she said nothing as she walked out. She closed the door so hard that the bell gave a sharp clink.

The woman followed her out of the shop.

Lorenzo could not hear what was said between them, but through the window he saw the woman stop Laura on the street. Saw Laura give a contemptuous shake of her head and storm away. And he thought:
How I’ve missed you. After five long years, we finally speak again, only to have it end on such a bitter note.

He picked up Laura’s bow from the countertop. Only then did he see the folded piece of paper, which she had tucked under the frog. It had not been there earlier; she must have slipped it under the bow while he and the woman were talking. He unfolded the paper and saw what Laura had written.

My house, tonight. Tell no one.

As instructed, Lorenzo told no one. He said nothing about it when his father returned to the shop after lunch, nor did he speak of it that evening, when his family gathered at the supper table for bread and fish soup, a meal cobbled together from discarded scraps that Marco had brought home from his job hauling crates at the market. It was a hard and dirty job that Marco was lucky to have, thanks to the fishmonger’s blatant disregard for the laws against hiring Jews. Throughout Italy, thousands of employers like the fishmonger continued to conduct business as usual, scornful of the new laws, willing to slip young men like Marco a bundle of lire for a hard day’s work. Five years ago, how different the future had seemed for Marco, who had dreamed of a career as a diplomat. Now he sat slumped and exhausted at the supper table, smelling of sweat and the permanent stink of fish. Even fiery Marco had been defeated.

The years had beaten down Papa as well. Bruno’s clientele had dwindled to only a few customers a week, none of them in the market for a new violin. They purchased only necessities like rosin and strings, which hardly justified keeping the shop open, but six days a week, Bruno would be at his worktable stubbornly carving and sanding and varnishing yet another fine instrument that he could not sell. And when his dwindling supply of seasoned maple and spruce was used up, what then? Would he sit idle in his shop month after month, year after year, until he dried up and crumbled into dust?

The years have changed us all,
thought Lorenzo. His mother looked gray and tired, and no wonder. Since her father Alberto’s stroke four months ago, Eloisa spent every day at the nursing home spooning food into his mouth, rubbing his back, reading him books and newspapers. Alberto’s chair sat empty and waiting for his return home, but that seemed less likely with every passing week. Certainly there would be no more grandfather-grandson violin duets, no more shared tunes and musical games. Alberto could not even control a fork, much less a violin bow.

Of them all, Pia was the only one whom the years had not diminished. She was blossoming into a slender, dark-eyed beauty who would someday catch many a boy’s eye, but at fourteen she was too timid to flaunt that beauty. With the schools now closed to her, she spent most of the week helping Mama with Alberto, or reading alone in her room, or daydreaming at the window—about her future husband, no doubt. That much about Pia had not changed; she was still the romantic, still in love with love.
If only I can keep her this way,
thought Lorenzo,
protected from the world as it really is. If only I can keep us all just the way we are right now, together and warm and safe.

“You’re so quiet. Are you all right, Lorenzo?” Pia asked. Of course she would be the one to notice that something was different; with just a glance, she always knew if her brother was tired or troubled or feverish.

He smiled. “Everything is fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“He just said he’s fine,” grumbled Marco. “He didn’t have to haul crates of fish all day.”

“He
does
work. He has students who pay him.”

“Fewer and fewer.”

“Marco,” warned Eloisa. “We all do our part.”

“Except me,” Pia sighed. “What do I do except mend a few shirts?”

Lorenzo patted her on the cheek. “You make us all happy just by being yourself.”

“A lot of good that does.”

“It makes all the difference, Pia.”

Because you keep us hopeful,
he thought, watching his sister climb the stairs to bed. Marco had left the table with little more than a grunt, but Pia hummed her way up the stairs, an old Gypsy tune that Alberto had taught them when they were children. Pia still believed there was good in everyone.

If only that were true.

It was well after midnight when Lorenzo slipped out of his house. The December chill had driven most people indoors and a strange mist hung in the air, a mist that stank of fish and sewage. Seldom did he venture out this late at night, for fear of encountering the thuggish Blackshirts who regularly roamed the streets. Two weeks ago Marco had stumbled home covered in blood, his nose broken, his shirt ripped to tatters by just such an encounter.

It could have been far worse.

Lorenzo kept to the shadows, slipping quickly through the smaller alleys, avoiding the lamplit piazzas. At the footbridge into Dorsoduro he hesitated, because crossing the canal would put him out in the open, with no place to hide. But this night was too cold and miserable for even the Blackshirts to venture out in, and he saw no one. Head down, his face buried in his scarf, he crossed the footbridge and made his way to Laura.

These last five years, the grand house on Fondamenta Bragadin had called to him like a siren’s song, tempting him with a possible glimpse of her. Again and again he’d found himself standing on this same footbridge, lured toward the street he’d so happily walked on before. Once, he could not even remember how he’d arrived at the bridge; his feet had simply carried him there of their own accord. He was like a horse that knows its way home and will always turn toward it.

Outside her house he paused, looking up at windows that on earlier visits had blazed with light. Tonight the house seemed far less welcoming, the curtains tightly drawn, the rooms dimly lit. He swung the brass knocker and felt the wood tremble like something alive.

All at once there she was, backlit in the doorway, her hand grasping his. “Quickly,” she whispered, pulling him inside.

The instant he stepped across the threshold, she closed and latched the door behind him. Even in the dim alcove he could see her cheeks were flushed, her eyes electric.

“Thank God you made it here. Papa and I have been so worried.”

“What is this all about?”

“We thought there was still plenty of time to arrange things. But after that woman came into your shop today, I knew there
was
no time left.”

He followed her down the hallway to the dining room, where he’d enjoyed such happy evenings with the Balbonis. He remembered laughter and countless glasses of wine and talk of music, always music. Tonight he found the table empty, with not even a bowl of fruit. Only one small lamp was burning, and the windows facing the garden were tightly shuttered.

Professor Balboni sat in his usual chair at the head of the table, but this was not the dapper, cheerful gentleman Lorenzo remembered. This was a somber, weary version, so different that Lorenzo could scarcely believe he was the same man.

Balboni mustered a semblance of a smile as he rose to greet their guest. “Fetch the wine, Laura!” he said. “Let’s have a toast to our long-lost violinist.”

Laura set three goblets and a bottle on the table, but as Balboni poured, the mood in the room was far from celebratory; no, there was a grimness to his face, as if this precious bottle might be the last they would ever enjoy together.

“
Salute,”
said Balboni. He drank without pleasure, set down his empty glass, and looked at Lorenzo. “You were not followed here?”

“No.”

“You’re certain?”

“I saw no one.” Lorenzo looked at Laura, then back at her father. “It’s going to happen in Venice, isn’t it? The same thing that happened in Rome.”