What We Become (47 page)

“You're a handsome devil.”

She touched his nose, which was still bleeding slightly, and then left a red fingerprint on one of the small embroidered napkins on the bar.

“And you are a dream,” he said.

He took a sip of his drink: chilled, perfect. Adolfo had an extraordinary talent for making cocktails.

“I dreamt about you when I was a little boy,” he added, wistfully.

It sounded sincere, and it was. Mecha looked at him intently, lips parted, breathing with quiet agitation. Max had placed his hand on her waist, and could feel the perfect curve of her hip beneath the mauve fabric.

“Nothing in life comes free,” she jested, folding the napkin away.

“Well, I hope I've already paid, otherwise the bill will be ­ruinous.”

She placed her fingers on his lips, silencing him.

“
Goûtons un peu ce simulacre de bonheur
,” she said.

They were quiet again. Max was relishing the cocktail and her closeness, his physical awareness of her skin and flesh. The silence associated with their recent pleasure. This wasn't a simulacrum of happiness, he told himself. He felt truly happy, lucky to be alive, to have encountered no further obstacle on the path that had led him there. That long, perilous, interminable path. The thought of leaving her felt like an unbearable wrench. Verging on fury. He wished he could be far away from the two Italians and Fito Mostaza. He wished they were all dead.

“I'm hungry,” said Mecha.

She was looking at Adolfo in the way of someone used to having everybody, servants included, at her beck and call. Accepting her abrupt tone as part of his job, the barman apologized, adding that everything was closed at that time of night. But, he said, after hesitating for a moment, if the lady and gentleman would come with him, he could fix up a little something for them. Then, with a knowing look, he switched off the lights and beckoned them to follow him through the back door, down a poorly lit staircase into the basement. They went after him hand in hand, enjoying the unexpected adventure, and made their way down a long corridor toward the deserted kitchen. On a table next to a stack of shiny pots and pans was a cured Spanish ham (all the way from the Alpujarras, Adolfo declared proudly as he removed the cloth that was draped over it).

“Are you any good with a knife, Mr. Max?”

“First rate. I was born in Argentina, you know.”

“Then start slicing, if you don't mind. I'm going to fetch you some burgundy.”

No sooner had they returned to the room than Max and Mecha tore off their clothes again, coming together with renewed urgency, as if for the first time. They spent the rest of the night in semislumber, embracing whenever they awoke, each responsive to the other's insistent desire. Finally, as the first light of dawn began to filter through the window, they plunged into a deep, exhausted sleep. They lay calmly side by side until Max opened his eyes and, without looking at his watch, went over to the window, where a pale light and the sound of the still-falling rain penetrated through the curtains. A lone dog was scampering across the pebbly beach. Through the windowpane, speckled with raindrops running into tiny trickles, the sea was a misty gray sheet, while along the Promenade the palm fronds drooped mournfully toward the glistening tarmac. Max turned to gaze once more at the beautiful, naked woman asleep facedown amid the rumpled sheets, and he knew
that this dull blue light, smeared by the autumn rain, was a sign that he was about to lose her forever.

According to information from the hotel receptionist, Spadaro, Mikhail Sokolov occupies the penthouse in the apartment building housing the Soviet delegation. His spacious apartment has a balcony from which—above the centenary pines, beyond the main hotel buildings along the cliff top—he has a view over the entire Bay of Naples. That is where the world champion resides and prepares his chess games together with his team of helpers.

Sitting beneath an ivy-covered bower with a pair of antique Wehrmacht Dienstgläser that Captain Tedesco has lent him, Max is studying the apartment building while pretending to bird-watch. And what he sees is far from encouraging: entry by the conventional route seems impossible. He spent the afternoon convincing himself of this, and told Mecha about it after dinner, sitting in that same spot in the garden.

“Sokolov's entourage occupies the lower floors,” Max explained, pointing toward the lit windows. “There is a single staircase and elevator in the lobby from which to access all floors. I've made a few inquiries and they always have a man on guard. No one can get into Sokolov's apartment without being seen.”

“There has to be some other way,” insisted Mecha. “There's a game this afternoon.”

“Too soon, I'm afraid. I still don't know how to do it.”

“They play again the day after tomorrow, and it'll be dark when they finish. You'll have time, then. And closed doors were never a problem for you. Haven't you got . . . I don't know. Tools? A picklock or something?”

There were years of professional poise in the way Max shrugged his shoulders.

“The problem isn't the locks. The one downstairs is a modern
Yale, easy to pick. The one to his suite is probably even simpler, the old, conventional type.”

He fell silent, gazing up at the gloomy building with a worried look. Like a mountaineer contemplating the difficult part of a rock face.

“The problem is getting up there,” he said. “How to get past those damned Bolsheviks without being seen.”

“
Bolshevik
.” She chuckled. “No one uses that word anymore.”

A flash. Mecha was lighting a cigarette. The third since they had been in the garden.

“You have to try, Max. You did it before.”

A silence. The faint odor of tobacco wafting through the air.

“In Nice, remember,” she said. “At Suzi Ferriol's house.”

Funny, he thought. Or ironical. That she should use that as an argument.

“Not only in Nice,” he replied calmly. “But I was half the age then that I am now.”

He remained silent for a moment, calculating even the unlikeliest probabilities. In the silence of the garden they could hear distant music coming from a bar on Piazza Tasso.

“What if they catch me . . .”

His words hung gloomily in the air. In fact, he was scarcely aware of having said them out loud.

“They would undoubtedly rough you up,” she admitted.

“That doesn't bother me so much.” He smiled to himself, uneasily. “But I've been thinking about it. What scares me is going to jail.”

“How odd, to hear you say that.”

She seemed genuinely astonished. He shrugged.

“It always scared me, but now I'm sixty-four.”

In the distance, the music was still playing. Fast, modern. Too faint for Max to be able to recognize the tune.

“This isn't like in the movies,” he went on. “I'm not Cary Grant,
playing the guy in that absurd caper about a hotel thief. There aren't any happy endings in real life.”

“You were much more handsome than Cary Grant, silly.”

She had taken his hand and was pressing it between hers: thin and slender. And warm. Max was still listening to the music in the distance. Of course, he concluded pulling a face, it wasn't a tango.

“Do you know something? You're the one who reminded me of that woman, that actress. Or she reminded me of you: slim, refined. You still look like her. Or she looks like you.”

“He's your son, Max. Be sure of that, at least.”

“Perhaps he is,” he replied. “But look.”

He had lifted her hand, inviting her to touch his face. To feel the effects of time.

“There could be another way in.” Her touch feels like a caress. “Maybe you should look again tomorrow, in daylight. And you'll find it.”

“If there was another way.” He was barely listening to her. “If I was younger, more agile. Too many ‘ifs,' I'm afraid.”

Mecha withdrew her hand from his face.

“I'll give you everything I have, Max. However much you want.”

He turned to look at her, astonished. He could make out the shape of her face in the darkness, silhouetted against the distant lights and the glowing tip of her cigarette.

“You're joking, of course,” he said.

The silhouette moved. Two shiny copper-colored eyes glinting at Max. Her gaze fixed on him.

“Yes, I'm joking.” Twice the glowing tip burned more brightly. “But I will, I would give you everything.”

“Including a cup of coffee at your place in Lausanne?”

“Of course.”

“And the pearl necklace?”

Another, lengthy silence.

“Don't be silly.”

The glowing tip dropped to the ground, and went out. She was clasping his hand again. The distant music in the square had stopped.

“I'll be damned,” he said. “You make me feel like a foolish lover. You make the years fall away.”

“That's the idea.”

He hesitated slightly. Only slightly, now. His mouth throbbed from keeping back what he was about to confess.

“I don't have a penny, Mecha.”

She waited a few seconds.

“I know.”

Max had the breath knocked out of him. He was shocked and speechless.

“How do you know?” Something burst inside him, a wave of panic. “What do you know?”

He wanted to snatch his hand away, sit up straight. Run away from there. But she restrained him gently.

“I know you don't live in Amalfi, but here in Sorrento. That you are employed as a chauffeur at a house called Villa Oriana. I know things haven't gone well for you in the last few years.”

Thank goodness I'm sitting down, Max thought, his free hand leaning on the bench. Otherwise I'd have keeled over. Like an idiot.

“I made some inquiries the moment you turned up at the hotel,” Mecha said at last.

Bewildered, Max tried to make sense of his thoughts and feelings: humiliation, shame. Mortification. All those days keeping up a pointless charade, making a fool of himself. Pirouetting like a clown.

“You've known from the start?”

“More or less.”

“And why did you play along?”

“Several reasons. Curiosity, at first. It was fascinating to recognize the old Max: the man of the world, deceitful and amoral.”

She paused for a moment. She was still holding his hand in hers.

“Besides, I like being with you,” she said at last. “I always have.”

Max freed his hand and rose to his feet.

“Do the others know?”

“No. Only me.”

He needed some air. To breathe deeply, rid himself of conflicting emotions. Or possibly he needed a drink. Something strong. Which would shake up his guts until they turned inside out.

Mecha remained seated, perfectly calm.

“If Jorge weren't involved, under different circumstances . . . well. It would have been fun. To spend time with you. See what you were after. How far you intended to go.”

She fell silent for a moment.

“What was your plan?”

“I'm not sure now. To relive the old days?”

“In what way?”

“In every way, perhaps.”

She stood up slowly. Almost laboriously, Max thought.

“The old days died. They went out of fashion, just like our tango. Dead, like your boys from the old days, like you yourself. Like the two of us.”

She clung to his arm the way she had twenty-nine years before, that night they had gone to Lions at the Kill, in Nice.

“It's flattering,” she added. “To see you come alive again because of me.”

She had taken his hand and was raising it gently to her lips. A sweet kiss. Her voice sounded like laughter.

“To pretend to look at you again the way I once did.”

The sun already is high in the sky. Max continues to study the apartment block next to the Hotel Vittoria, the binoculars pressed against his eyes. He has just walked around the outside of the
building, looking closely at the entrance leading to the main gate, and has now positioned himself among some bougainvilleas and lemon trees, in order to examine the other side. Nearby is a small pond, and a little pavilion with a bench. He approaches the pavilion, and from there inspects the part of the building that was hidden before. He now has a clear view of the whole of the front, including Sokolov's balcony, the red-tiled cornice and the surrounding gutter, above which he spots a lightning rod. Gutters and lightning rods require maintenance, someone to go up and check they are in working order, Max says to himself. With a flash of optimism, he scours every inch of the façade. And what he sees there brings back his old, youthful smile, which seems to erase the ravages of time from his face: a metal ladder set into the wall and ascending from the garden.