Alice

II. Conrad

They had directions for getting there. Conrad had sent them to Alice in Berlin the old-fashioned way, by mail: the address, telephone number, and a little sketch of the house in which he and Lotte lived, a white rectangle, and the yellow house south of it. Conrad’s handwriting was delicate and shaky, already familiar to her. How quickly you can get to know someone’s handwriting, Alice thought, much more quickly than the person himself. The sketch was in her lap. She was wearing a crumpled, flowered skirt and sitting in the passenger seat. Anna was sleeping in the back, her head leaning against her backpack, her arm over her face. The Romanian was driving. Ever since they had crossed the border into Italy, he had been speaking Italian. Seemed to have become another person. He asked, Know what the word for cream is in Italian? Alice said she didn’t know. Why of all things, cream? Incomprehensible.

And the other way round — from Italian into German — macchiato? Latte macchiato?

I don’t know, Alice said Aren’t you listening to me? I don’t know it the other way round either.

Stained milk, the Romanian said. Stained milk.

They took the Rovereto Sud exit. Continuing in the direction of Riva, still thirty kilometres to Gargnano Bogliaco. Then the mountains opened up to a view of the lake. Glorious. Dark blue. Countless white sails, a flotilla. It got hotter and yet at the same time cooler — all you had to do was look at the water. The water is ice cold; it’s a mountain lake, after all, said the Romanian who had been here before.

Frosta or something, Alice said irritably.

Something like that, the Romanian said, smiling to himself. He’d also been holding the wheel differently since they’d crossed the border, more relaxed, with just his left hand, steering with just his left hand into a tunnel. Its blackness took her breath away until she realised that she ought to take off her sunglasses. Anna, in the back seat, woke up. They were gliding out of the tunnel again — cypresses to the right, the lake to the left, blinding light and very sharp turns, then another tunnel. Can you sense your pupils contracting, Alice said to Anna, turning round, and she felt how sweaty she was.

This is crazy, Anna said. We’ve got to stop, right now. I feel really sick.

They stopped after a bend in the road. Anna and Alice stood next to each other beside a stone parapet and looked out over the water, so misty in the distance, you couldn’t see the other shore. Palm trees. Lemon trees. The mountains, dark and gloomy. There was nothing but the mountains, then the road, then the water. Actually no landscape, little space for people, cramped and spacious at the same time.

Do you think this is beautiful? Anna asked.

I don’t know, Alice said. It probably is very beautiful. Isn’t it?

The Romanian, standing somewhere behind them clicked the shutter of his camera. They could hear it. A panoramic view: Anna and Alice at the lake.

OK, Alice said, you have to keep your eyes open now. I think we’ll be there soon. Attenzione, capito?

Five o’clock in the afternoon on the road between Gargnano Bogliaco and Toscolano-Maderno. Seen from above, a little car on the road that runs along the shore of the lake — Anna in the back, the Romanian and Alice in the front, baggage in the boot, water bottles rolling around on the floor and ashtrays full of cigarette butts, paper ice-cream wrappers and foil from packs of cigarettes. The excitement now infects all three, the car windows are open, Anna holding her hand out of the window into the air rushing by, and Alice calls out: Turn right! Here. Bear right, up there on the right towards that restaurant, keep to the right, go past it. Right, exactly. We’re almost there. Fifty metres from here, Conrad had written, there’s a spot where five roads come together. Take the one that leads through the forged-iron gate, the ‘fifth road’. It leads to the yellow house.

The fifth road is a dirt road. To the left a little stream, an olive grove, and among the trees, goats raising their heads, indifferent. The car rocks from side to side. They pass Lotte and Conrad’s house, a large, old, converted barn in the bend of the road on the side of the mountain, tall windows facing the lake, shutters closed tight. Ahead, at the end of the road, the yellow house. An Italian palazzo. Shuttered up, ivy, two balconies, one facing the mountain, the other the lake. A terrace, fig trees, agaves, and bougainvillea. From the back seat Anna says, You can actually hear the cicadas. There is rapt amazement in her voice. They get out of the car, leaving the doors open and going off in different directions.

Alice walked up the dirt road to Conrad and Lotte’s house. Pebbles in her sandals. She looked up at the black mountain behind the house and ducked. She climbed the broad steps between huge, tropical lavender bushes. Cardinal beetles, bright red, their little bodies chained to each other. In a hurry. And a rustling in the trees, a light breeze. Lotte was sitting on the terrace, which was empty except for a green hose on a drum, a grey stone sphere and the chair in which she sat. Three doors on the lower part of the house, two of them closed, the middle one slightly ajar. Lotte got up as Alice reached the terrace and came towards her; they greeted each other with a tentative embrace, cautiously, as if, at a touch, the other might dissolve into thin air.

There you are, Lotte said. She smiled and then stopped smiling. When she wasn’t smiling the creases around her eyes were white. Lotte was seventy years old. Conrad too. More than twenty-five years older than Alice. Did everything go all right. Lotte said. Did you have a good trip. She asked the questions so that they sounded like statements but still she expected an answer.

Yes, Alice said. Everything went well. It was strenuous, but now we’re here, and we’re happy to be here. Lotte, I’m so very happy.

Lotte said, Conrad is sick. Unfortunately he’s sick, nothing serious, only a little fever, but he’s in bed.

She indicated the middle door; it was dark behind the door, not a sound to be heard.

He doesn’t want you to see him lying in bed; he doesn’t want that. He’ll come to see you later, Lotte smiled again, a smile somewhere between irony and sadness. She was tanned from the Italian sun, wore a lightweight linen dress, unwrinkled, pale violet, falling in precise folds, and a necklace of silvery, smooth beads. She looked neat and rested; Alice thought of all the motorway rest stops of the past ten hours, of the radio music in the toilets, the smell of urine and disinfectant, the broken soap dispensers, of her own exhausted face reflected in a mirror of scratched tin. She was glad she didn’t have to say hello to Conrad just now; he would be able to retain his image of her arrival: a picture of an arrival.

Come, said Lotte softly. I’ll unlock the yellow house for you.

She held up two small keys that she had probably been holding in her hand all the while. She had been sitting on the terrace, holding the keys, waiting for them. And, Alice thought, it was really Conrad who had invited them. It had been his invitation; of course he must have discussed the invitation with Lotte, but it had been his idea. Come and visit us and bring along whomever you like. Alice decided to ask Anna, she didn’t want to go anywhere without Anna. And she picked the Romanian because he was always polite and knew how to behave. Maybe also because she wasn’t in love with him. As far as she knew, Anna wasn’t in love with him either. She had suggested their names to Conrad, and he had agreed. And now he was sick. A fever. He would have unlocked the yellow house and shown it to them. Alice knew he would have enjoyed that very much. She followed Lotte down the stairs, Lotte’s slow, measured steps, not turning to look again at the middle door. The cardinal beetles scurried out of their way and vanished into the cracks between the stones.

The yellow house had three storeys and six rooms. Alice chose the room under the eaves, the room Conrad used to live in, before he and Lotte converted la stalla. The room was square, windows on two sides, a narrow bed, a cupboard, a red carpet with a black pattern woven into it and, in its exact centre, a table. From there Alice could see the peaks of the mountains on the other side of the lake. Anna took the room next door. Fig leaves on the coverlet over the wide bed, a door leading to the second balcony and another to a bathroom with a bathtub, shiny fixtures, blue tiles, and two sinks in front of two mirrors. A stairway led down to the first floor, no banister, instead a golden cord along the wall which slid softly through Alice’s hand. The sheets, starched and ironed, were in a chest under the stairway. The Romanian took the smallest room for himself. Its window was shaded by ivy; it had a metal bed with a small table next to it, polished wood, delicate inlaid work. On the ground floor: the kitchen, a dining room, a living room, low sofas in front of the fireplace and on the bookshelf were games for rainy days: Monopoly, Ludo, chess. On the walls hung framed drawings by their children, Lotte and Conrad’s children, three. And drawings by the grandchildren, five. A guest book next to the telephone. In the large pantry behind the kitchen was a refrigerator into which Conrad had put a watermelon the day before. Alice went from room to room pushing open all the shutters, then the doors to the balconies; the curtain rings clattered softly against each other. Sunlight on the table in Conrad’s old room, and fine dust.

Anna opened her backpack, threw everything on the bed: white skirts, dresses, and blouses with red roses on them. Suntan lotion. Books. Three pairs of sunglasses. From downstairs the Romanian called up to them: Campari! It was really quite unbearable.

Leaning against the door frame of Anna’s room, her naked feet crossed and her arms across her chest, Alice asked, Do you suppose we’ll still be going for a swim today?

Well, naturalmente, Anna said, what do you think!

One of the kitchen doors led to the outside, the other into the dining room. Seventeen steps from the kitchen to the dining room, living room, and a white French door to the terrace. The terrace was the seventh room; it had a stone parapet with red cushions on it, three columns, a cypress. Alice sat down on the bench outside the house next to the kitchen door. Lizards on the house wall, their mysterious rustling in the ivy. No breeze now. Nothing. She sat there like that for a while. Then she got up and went into the kitchen, walked past the Romanian without saying a word, and the seventeen steps again to the terrace where Anna was sitting on the stone parapet on the red cushions, leaning against a column, holding a glass in her left hand, her knees drawn up, her head to one side, and her matted hair tied into a child’s pigtail. She smiled at Alice, showing her broken left front tooth. What a relief to see her.

What a relief to see you, Alice said. You have no idea, you just wouldn’t believe it.

And what if I do? Anna said.

That doesn’t change anything, Alice said.

After the sun had set, they walked along the dirt road, past the goats, through the great forged-iron gate, and down to the restaurant on the lakeshore road. Nuovo Ponte, it was called. Lotte had said they should have supper there, drink a glass of wine, and leave the shopping until tomorrow. She asked Alice to introduce Anna and the Romanian to her, but seemed absent-minded and rather apathetic, giving them only a quick and knowing glance. She had apologised for Conrad’s indisposition and had postponed their celebratory meal together until the following day. The Romanian had been exceptionally obliging and charming, Anna had been, too; she just wasn’t able to hide her preference for leaving all this, to desert so she could be on her own. Lotte had taken note of this, casually but accurately. She also took note of the pigtail. The broken tooth. The neckline of Anna’s dress, and what all these things said about Alice. All three of them had revealed themselves.

They walked peaceably next to each other. The Romanian in the middle, Anna on his left, Alice on his right. And you’ll order for us, Alice said. You’re going to take care of all that. Wine and olives and sardines and bread. And tomorrow you’ll go to the barber. And have your hair cut. By a barbiere. Alice felt her head would burst if she couldn’t immediately have a glass of wine to drink. The Romanian handled everything with ease. Playfully. Ironically. He picked a table near the street, a round table with a white tablecloth, set under a lemon tree on the pebble strip in the small garden in front of the ristorante. He greeted the waiters and answered their stock phrases, buon giorno, come va, bene, grazie, bene, grazie, benissimo; he flipped open the menus and closed them, recapitulated the vineyards, vintages, grape varieties. Alice closed her eyes. Then drank the red wine. They ate sardines and peppers and little slices of white bread soaked in olive oil. The Romanian talked about his childhood summer holidays. Weeks spent on the eastern shore of the lake, on the opposite side, at a campground. They had stayed in a caravan with a tent and plastic chairs, waking every morning, getting up, and heading straight for the lake, swimming far out. Thunder, the gathering and passing of thunderstorms. Black mould on the walls of the caravan, like filigree blossoms. Rubber boots, rain jackets, and instead of sweets, sucking grainy Instant Tea powder till your tongue was thick and bloated. Suntan oil. Algae on the water. Fog. Once they had gone up the mountain in the cable car, actually finding snow on top, a lunar landscape, grey rocks and the air very thin; then, back down in the cable car, into the insane certainty of the heat. In the evening, playing canasta with cards swollen from the humidity. Rummy. Bridge. Clammy sleeping bags. Mosquitoes swarming around the camping lantern and the smell of paraffin, the smoking wick.

And I still remember what it was like, the Romanian said. It’s long ago, but I remember exactly what it was like. Alice thought that the Romanian was a happy man in Italy. She didn’t know why, but it was easy to see. He went into raptures. His ears stuck out; his face glowed.

It’s just the way of life here, Anna said, shrugging; she raised her glass of wine and said, Salute, and, Look, there’s Lotte. She pointed to the street, where Lotte was just getting out of her car in the orange light of the street lamp.

Alice pushed her chair back and got up, but remained standing by the table until Lotte reached them. In the crunching of the pebbles and the sound of the other diners’ voices there was a lane of silence, through which Lotte walked towards their table. Lotte gestured with her left hand for them to stay, Don’t get up, please. It’s nothing, she said, but Conrad is feeling somewhat worse; we’re driving to the hospital. They’ll probably send us home again. Still, I feel better going there. His fever is very high … What did you have to eat? Aha, sardines. The sardines are very good at the Nuovo Ponte. But next time you have to order squid, grilled.

Can I talk to Conrad, just briefly? Alice asked.

Of course, Lotte said.

Conrad was sitting in the front seat, the seat back had been lowered to a reclining position; he was lying rather than sitting, but he wore a neatly pressed, elegant, light-coloured shirt and smiled mockingly at Alice’s worried expression. She opened the car door and they shook hands. He held her hand in both of his. His hands were dry and hot. Dear Alice. He said, We didn’t imagine it would be like this, did we? Seeing each other again, I mean. But that’s just the way it is, and tomorrow things will be better. It’s such an odd coincidence. Perhaps I got too excited about your arrival.

Alice said nothing. She let her hand remain in his. He looked past her towards the table where the Romanian and Anna were sitting, and said, So there they are, the friends I don’t know. He squinted slightly. Dark Anna and the Romanian. We’ll say hello tomorrow. Are you all right?

Yes, Alice said, her voice serious. All drunkenness, exhausted nervousness, and irritation were suddenly gone. We’re doing fine, Conrad. I only wish you were feeling better.

I am feeling better, Conrad said. The admissions people at the hospital will send me right back home again. Lotte’s worried, that’s all.

Lotte got into the car, closed the door, pulled the seat belt over her shoulder and turned the key in the ignition. A transparent rock hung down from the key chain, shaped like a large teardrop. Conrad let go of Alice’s hand.

All right, then, see you soon.

Yes, see you soon, Alice said. She straightened up, closed the car door as gently as possible and watched the car as it rolled down the street, turned into the lakeshore road, and was gone.

Lotte came back in the middle of the night. Half past one. Or half past two? They couldn’t remember precisely. They had been at the Nuovo Ponte till closing time. What Lotte hadn’t known was that none of them would be able to stop at just one glass of wine. The usual drinking rituals — just one more goodnight grappa before leaving, and another, and then one last one. They took two bottles of wine along with them, paying a whopper of a bill. And then back through the forged-iron gate along the dirt road, past the dark house on the side of the hill and towards the yellow house where they had left the lights on and the doors open. There it was, waiting for them, enchanted and silent. Which spot was really the most beautiful? The bench outside the kitchen. The balcony facing the lake with the trembling lights on the far shore, the Romanian’s camping site, the paraffin lamps of his childhood. Or Anna’s balcony, the compact opacity of the mountain, a black massif against the night sky. The three of them were completely drunk. They sat down on the terrace — it was the best spot, this seventh room with its stone parapet, three columns and the cypress, sharp-edged and closed, like a feather.

They opened a bottle of wine, which took a while. The Romanian couldn’t deal with the corkscrew, but by now Alice’s impatience had diminished, throbbing only a little now and then as if to itself. They sat together in a triangle, the bottle, glasses, and a carafe of water between them, a saucer as ashtray; the candle flickered in the draught, and fat fireflies darted about in the meadow down below. They talked about this and that, nothing important. Telling each other stories. Alice said something to Anna, and Anna replied while the Romanian listened; they were gentle with one another, exhausted and gentle.

Lotte might have been standing on the two steps that led from the terrace into the garden for quite a while before they saw her. At some point she said something and came over to sit with them on the edge of the parapet. She said they had kept Conrad in the hospital after all; the fever had been too high for too long. No cause for concern, only a routine evaluation of test results tomorrow morning during the first doctors’ rounds. She said she’d like to be there for that, to talk to the doctors, shortly after seven o’clock; would it be possible for one of them to drive her to the hospital? She was very tired, not able to concentrate on the road.

Of course, said the Romanian. Of course I’ll drive you to the hospital. He was so drunk that he almost babbled, but it didn’t matter; despite that he was reacting well, appropriately, confidently.

All right, then, Lotte said. I’m sorry. Till tomorrow. We should leave at six fifteen.

She got up. Alice thought she was very tall, an erect, straight figure. Severe-looking but forbearing. Loyal.

Good, said the Romanian, he got up too. Till tomorrow, then, at a quarter past six.

Lotte left. She disappeared as soundlessly as she had come, having turned down their offer to accompany her to the house on the hill, those hundred steps on the dirt road and then up through the lavender. No, thanks.

What time is it, Alice asked. How late is it? You’re completely drunk; how are you going to drive the car tomorrow at six fifteen? How’s that supposed to work?

Well, should I not drive her? the Romanian said coolly.

Yes, yes, you should, Alice said. She was panicky, wide awake. Did Lotte really know. Just now, did she realise what’s going on here, how completely drunk we are.

The Romanian giggled.

She did, Anna said. Of course she realised it; you couldn’t miss it. But so what? We’ll all go; we’ll set three alarm clocks. It’ll work out. We’ll manage. Calm down, Alice.

You’re the one least likely to wake up when the alarm goes off, Alice said. Well, good night, I have to go to sleep right now.

Alice went upstairs. Concentrating hard. Keep your wits about you, she thought, pull yourself together. She thought: Conrad. She climbed the stairs to the first floor, to the second. She washed at the left sink. Leaving the light on over the mirror for Anna, she walked through Anna’s room into her room, Conrad’s room. She opened the window, closed the curtains, and pulled her dress off over her head. She set the travel alarm clock for five thirty, and didn’t count the hours till then. She got into bed, closed her eyes. She could hear the voice of the Romanian downstairs, then Anna’s voice, both low and mysterious.

Dog days, the Romanian said. Look up there. Pegasus and Andromeda. Cassiopeia and Cepheus. And the Big Dragon keeps moving around the sky and never sleeps. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to see Jupiter.

How does that old saying go? Anna said.

Which saying?

Oh, the saying we used to remember the planets by when we were kids. You never heard of it? — My very enthusiastic mother just served … and so forth and so on.

My very enthusiastic mother just served us noodle pudding, the Romanian said. His voice so calm, Anna’s voice too, they were saying it together now: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Have we got them all? Anna asked.

It all depends, the Romanian said.

Whatever, Anna said, and Alice knew exactly the kind of face she was making, an expression of contentment and warmth on her round face. Saturn is in my seventh house. In the sign of the zodiac, do you know what I mean? The seventh house is the house of doors. Through which people come to you and leave you. The planets move slowly but they make their transits, and then your whole life changes, it changes whether you want it to or not. Now Saturn is coming. He moves in opposition to Uranus. And everything, everything will be different.

She laughed, the Romanian didn’t. Alice turned over on her side, stopped listening. One moment more. Then she was out of it.

Dawn came at half past five in the morning. The Romanian was standing at the stove in the kitchen, turning down the gas as the coffee began to rise, hissing, in the espresso maker. He had heated some milk in a little pot with a wooden handle. He poured the coffee into two round white cups, remembering that Alice drank hers with milk and no sugar, adding the milk, the foam at the end. Had he slept? He looked awake and rested. Handing Alice her cup, he made a noise that sounded vaguely like the mewing of a very small kitten. Alice was at a loss. They sat down next to each other on the bench outside the kitchen door. The sky over the mountain turned blue. A light was on in Lotte’s house. Ice-cold bird voices and the smell of lavender. The Romanian was listening to something, then he said, Did you know that birds with the largest eyes sing earliest in the morning?

No, I didn’t know. Sounds odd.

The Romanian nodded. Sounds odd, yes. But that’s the way it is. The more light, the more singing.

Alice blew on her coffee. She cleared her throat and said, What’s Anna doing?

Still sleeping, the Romanian said. I think you ought to wake her up, better do it with a wet flannel.

I’d do it if I knew where she was, Alice said irritably.

In my room, the Romanian said.

How come? Alice said.

Yes, I’d like to know that too, the Romanian said. He apparently found it highly amusing. She seemed to think we’d have an easier time being awakened by the alarm clock if we were together.

You wake her up, Alice said. I don’t feel like it.

The Romanian said nothing. He drank his coffee in delicate sips, calmly sitting on the bench, one leg crossed over the other. When he got up he briefly, lightly touched Alice’s hand.

They drove into town in Lotte’s car. A white BMW, air-conditioned, with tinted windows. The Romanian drove, Lotte sat next to him, Anna and Alice slumped in the back seat, both wearing sunglasses. The landscape slipped by noiselessly, lakeshore, pebble beaches, classicist villas, pilgrimage churches, greenhouses up and down the hillsides. Lotte and the Romanian were talking about growing lemons. Thirteenth-century. Franciscan monks. Zardi de limú, the Romanian said, cheerful and polite, and then Lotte’s voice, refined, very cultivated, subtly and gently pointing at the hillsides.

Limonaie.

Or Limonare?

The Romanian wasn’t sure either; he said, Up there, see those masonry posts they used to put wood and glass panes on top of them in the wintertime — protection for the lemon trees against the cold. Today they’re just ruins, he was saying this to Anna and Alice, looking at them in the rear-view mirror. Alice returned his look and knew that he couldn’t tell she was doing so because of her sunglasses. She wished he would look into the rear-view mirror once more, would look into it again a little later without saying anything about masonry posts. A silent look. But he didn’t.

There were boats on the lake, probably red ones, and bougainvillea growing over the balconies of the houses, probably purple; the tinted windows swallowed all colour. Nobody said anything about Conrad. Lotte didn’t ask how they had slept. Alice couldn’t have answered the question. She hadn’t slept. She was out and then she was back again as though someone had hit her over the head. She looked at Anna and knew it was the same with her, and she had to laugh. Holding up her hand, Anna tried to get Alice to stop laughing, then put the hand to her forehead, indicating she had a terrible headache. We’ll get some Coca-Cola, Alice said softly. Soon. They left the lakeshore road, drove through an intersection, mundane traffic lights, suddenly everything actually did seem to be grey. Lotte gave directions matter-of-factly. A large parking area in front of the hospital. Lotte opened the car door; the sky was white. Go swimming, Lotte said. Come back at noon to pick me up. Straight-backed, her head held high, an elegant but empty-looking braided bag over her left shoulder, she walked across the car park, past a little gatehouse, a closed barricade. She looked like a young girl. Didn’t look back. The Romanian turned the car round.

The lake was ice cold. The water clear as glass. When Alice dived in, it took her breath away, an incomprehensible, ecstatic suffocation. Everything was different. Everything was perfect. She extended her entire body underwater, a long stretching from her fingertips to her toes, then she spread her arms and swam. She swam submerged for a long time, and when she came up again she was far away from the shore. Turning, she saw the dock above the choppy surface of the water, behind it a wall of red stone, a gate in the wall, cedars behind the gate, then the mountain. On the dock, a very small Anna. In a blue bikini. Lying on a towel. Next to a bright yellow bottle of suntan lotion. To her right and left, the deserted white pebble beach.

How am I going to tell her what it looks like? Alice thought. How can I show her, how can she know how beautiful it is?

She raised her hand and waved while treading water, spat, out of breath. Anna waved back, calling out something incomprehensible. The Romanian was even further out than Alice; actually she couldn’t see him now, his little head. Short, choppy waves on the lake. It was as deep as the mountains surrounding it were high. Alice turned and swam back.

What’s the difference between a cicada and a cricket?

Is that supposed to be a joke?

No, I’m serious. I don’t know the difference. But there must be one. I once had a wooden box with a cricket made of metal inside. It made a cricket noise when you raised the cover. Something to do with the light. The light making the metal vibrate? From a Vietnamese. From the Vietnamese market.

Aha, Anna said. She yawned, and turned from her back onto her stomach. She gazed out over the water, cupping a hand above her eyes. I think cicadas are big and crickets are small. Are cicadas green and crickets grey? Do only the females chirp? What’s the name of the mountain on the far side of the lake? I think I’ve got to go into the water again, right now. I can’t stand it. Everything’s hot here. The pebbles. Even the suntan lotion is hot. Stop smoking, Alice, it’s unbearable.

Monte Baldo, the Romanian said. The mountain is Monte Baldo. In our country it’s called a head cricket, it crawls into your skull and causes insanity and death. We’re surrounded by them. Cedars and crickets wherever you look. If you want to go in again, you ought to do it now. Right now. We have to get back. It’s almost noon.

Anna repeated his words, disparagingly. A head cricket. She grimaced in disgust, pursed her lips. Alice fished for her sunglasses with her toes, put them on and looked at the Romanian. His narrow shoulders, hips, ankles, feet. Everything. He had held out the suntan lotion to Alice and Anna; it was a question. Alice had turned away; Anna had rubbed the lotion on the Romanian’s slender back. The Romanian hadn’t met Conrad yet. Neither had Anna. They didn’t share her worries. But the Romanian was very attentive, and Alice was grateful for that. She got up, slipped skirt and blouse on over her bathing suit, picked up her sandals with her left hand, climbed down from the dock, and walked back across the pebble beach to the street. She felt weak. The pebbles were glowing hot, and every step hurt.

At the hospital Lotte was sitting right in the middle of a long bench in front of the lifts, her bag in her lap, and facing a panoramic window with a view of the car park. The lift disgorged Anna, Alice, and the Romanian with a plucking, mechanical sound. Lotte was smiling as if she were asleep; she didn’t get up, scarcely moved at all. Alice looked at the clock above the lift doors — a little after twelve. Is that what Lotte meant when she said they should come around noon? Simple arrangements, made just once, had something confusing about them. Lotte was used to making decisions, Alice could sense that. A decision maker. She looked more rested than she had that morning, more calm. Now she turned to Alice; Anna and the Romanian deferentially took a step back.

He’s doing much better, Lotte said. The fever has gone down; he’ll come home soon; but they want to keep him another night to be on the safe side. An infection? She raised her eyebrows and thought about the word; it seemed to be the right one. They suspect it’s an infection. That happens sometimes here; after all, the climate is almost tropical. She gave a dry laugh, then she got up. Well, he wants to see you now. It’s the room at the end of the corridor.

She pointed down the long corridor; it was glistening, bright. It seemed like more than one could handle. Did you go swimming?

Don’t you want to come along? Alice asked, her heart pounding in her throat.

No, Lotte said. I was with him all morning. Go on. Go by yourself.

Alice started down the corridor. She heard the Romanian taking up the thread of the conversation — Yes, we went swimming. Down at that little bathing spot, a private beach? Very romantic. A little dock. In front of the red wall with the gate leading to a neglected garden.

Conrad was lying in bed, near the window. A green, half-drawn venetian blind; the room filled with rulers of light. No air conditioner, only a ceiling fan. Come, sit next to me, Conrad said. He lightly patted the bed. Alice sat down on the edge of the bed. Conrad was naked, a white, thin sheet covering his loins, that was all. Alice, seeing him naked for the first time, was amazed how beautiful he was, an old, naked man with white chest hair and brown skin, a little lighter in the soft bends of the arms and at the neck; he looked solid; there was nothing fragile about him. She thought, If he weren’t sick, I would have seen him like this for the first time when we went swimming, and she didn’t know which she would have preferred: Would it have been his nakedness in this bed? Perhaps.

Conrad’s breathing was shallow; he gazed steadily at Alice, searchingly, proud. He said, What a lot of nonsense. What nonsense that I should be lying here and just when you’ve come. It’s high time for all this to stop. I’m going home tomorrow. It’s unbearable this way. You know I want to see you in the water, you have to go swimming with me, did you go swimming today?

Yes, Alice said. Truthfully and obediently. We went swimming. Near your place, down at the beach near the villa.

Was it cold?

Yes, it was cold.

Conrad nodded; it seemed to be very important to him that the water was cold. Alice thought it important too.

And which room are you sleeping in?

In your room, Alice said. She added, Anna is sleeping in the room next to it. The Romanian in the little room near the stairs. She was sure that Conrad would be enchanted by Anna. By the lightness below her dark side. Platonic affection, tendernesses — like those for people in books, imagined feelings.

Well, Conrad said. You should drive to Salò today, and have a drink on the lake promenade, that red stuff. Lotte will tell you what it’s called; it’s what everybody drinks here in the afternoon. With ice and lemon. You do that. I’ll be home tomorrow.

All right, Alice said.

She didn’t know what else to say, but she didn’t want to get up either. She wondered if Conrad might still have a bit of fever; heat seemed to be rising from his brown skin, but maybe it was only the heat in the room. Midday heat, the tropical climate. Conrad raised his hand and touched Alice’s face. He had never done that before. He put the back of his hand briefly on Alice’s cheek, pinched it slightly as if she were a child. He said thoughtfully, You know, I thought I was invulnerable. That’s what I thought.

He shook his head and looked towards the window, towards the light between the green slats of the blind; then he looked again at Alice and said, All right, then, till tomorrow. Drive carefully.

Till tomorrow, Alice said. She got up, stood by the bed, raised her shoulders and lowered them again. They both smiled. Alice left the room, went down the long, brightly lit hallway back to the lift. They were now sitting next to one another, Lotte in the middle between Anna and the Romanian, and Alice stopped in front of them. The Romanian looked out at the car park. Anna looked at Lotte. No one said anything.

He’s feeling better, isn’t he? Lotte said.

I think so, Alice said. He’s feeling better.

OK. Then let’s go home, Lotte said. She pointed to the lift. I already said goodbye to him; we can leave.

They stopped at a petrol station halfway between the town and Lotte’s house. Grass and nettles growing between the pumps; the windows of the kiosk where you paid were pasted over with black foil. The attendant came out of the door, yawning. Please fill the tank, Lotte said to the Romanian. In the course of the day an unusual intimacy seemed to have developed between them, affection, a silent understanding. Wordless.

The Romanian took the money Lotte handed him; got out of the car, doing everything slowly as befitted the temperature, simple movements. Would you like some ice cream? Lotte asked Anna and Alice. Anna and Alice got out too. Lotte stayed in the car. Inside the kiosk cold air came out of the chest freezer like a net, palpable. A cornetto? Anna said, leaving the sliding door on the chest freezer open. Or an ice-lolly? The attendant drummed his thick fingers on the scuffed countertop, next to the cash register, worn from coins being pushed across it. Arabic music from a radio. Air-fresheners. Alice looked at the white BMW standing between the rusty petrol pumps, Lotte’s unmoving profile unfocused behind the tinted windows. The Romanian had finished filling the tank. He was looking up at the mountain, holding his hand over his eyes, probably watching some bird, an eagle, a falcon, a buzzard. Under certain circumstances, Alice thought, you can feel jealous if another person merely looks up at the sky. She selected an ice-lolly and closed the freezer chest. The cashier pressed keys on his till. This, this, and that. Anything else?

The Romanian strolled in, put a banknote on the counter, chatted a little longer, parlando: Come stai? Molto bene, grazie, arrividerci. As always, Alice wouldn’t touch the wooden stick of the ice-lolly, she had to wrap the paper cover around it. Sweet woodruff, raspberry, lemon. What flavour is it? the Romanian asked. Dolomiti, Alice said, as if he were hard of hearing. Anna belligerently showed the cashier her broken front tooth; inciting him. He banged shut the cash-register drawer so that it shook. In the car, Lotte smiled when they climbed in again. No sign of impatience. She was at peace with herself.

The last stretch was familiar. This village, the next village, the church tower, the Via dei Colli, then the Ristorante Nuovo Ponte, already familiar and consequently no longer of interest; they had sat there, so that was that, walked there, still beautiful, but no longer strange. And Lotte no longer gave them directions; she assumed the Romanian knew his way by now. The Romanian gently turned off the highway, the tic-tic-tic of the indicator, and then they were driving past the Nuovo Ponte which was not yet open for business, the chairs folded up and neatly placed against the tables under the blue awning. Then the road up to the five-way intersection and through the forged-iron gate, past the goats which didn’t react in any way to the white BMW, and up to the stairs to Lotte and Conrad’s house, next to which there was a space for the car, overgrown with blooming oleander. The Romanian parked the car in the space, just so, turned off the engine, and the hum of the air-conditioning faded and stopped. Gradually, one by one, outside noises came into the car. The bleating of a goat. The shrill call of a bird. Up in the house the telephone was ringing.

See you later, Lotte said. Thanks for coming with me. She climbed up the stairs, with deliberate haste, while the ringing in the house did not stop, the sound coming through the closed shutters. They could still hear it on their way to the yellow house, and it stopped only as Alice took the key from the flower box outside the kitchen window. Anna sat down on the bench, stretched out her legs and closed her eyes. Alice went into the kitchen and through the dining room and the living room to the French doors, pushed back the bolt, opened the doors wide, and stepped out on the terrace. Lizards darted across the tiles. Two butterflies rose up. The Romanian, close behind her, put his hand between Alice’s shoulder blades. They stood there like that for a moment, undecided. Listening. Heard the car engine start up again, saw Lotte driving along the dirt road, past the goats, and through the gate. Then she was gone. Anna came out of the garden to the terrace stairs, and Alice took a step to one side.

Does that mean something. Anna said. What does it mean?

In the afternoon Alice retired to Conrad’s room. She closed the shutters and lay down on the narrow bed without pulling the blanket over herself. It was dark except for one spot of light the size of a penny, a knothole through which the afternoon sun came in. The spot of light was golden. It wandered slowly along under the table and across the red carpet with its woven black pattern. A sundial. Alice lay there, her eyes open. She was thinking: Conrad had lain on this bed in this room with the shutters closed, back then, more than thirty years ago, when he was younger and the children were still small and the house on the hill was still a barn full of sheep and goats, when he was the same age as Alice was now — he had seen this spot of light wandering just as Alice now saw it wandering. Back then he had seen the same thing Alice saw now. Something significant seemed to be concealed behind this simple detail, and she couldn’t immediately work out what it might be.

Something was going on outside; a car came, another drove away; the goats bleated excitedly and then fell silent again. Anna’s voice on the terrace, the voice of the Romanian. Wind in the ivy outside the window. Very far away, on the lake, the howling roar of a speedboat motor. The Romanian and Anna wanted to go shopping. Lotte would return eventually. If something had happened Alice would find out, whatever it might be, and whether she wanted to or not.

Alice fell asleep. When she woke up again the spot of light was gone. She groped her way to the window and pushed open the shutters; the mountains on the other side of the lake glowed a faint pink; the sun was gone but it was still light.

Anna was lying on the bed, on the coverlet printed with fig leaves. She was lying on her side, sound asleep. Alice tiptoed downstairs and found the Romanian in the kitchen. They had obviously been shopping; the refrigerator was crammed full, on the pantry shelves there were many small bottles containing a red liquid, net bags of lemons.

What’s that?

Aperol.

It’s what we were supposed to drink in Salò.

In the freezer compartment, water was freezing in little pink and blue moulds, hearts and shells. The whole kitchen smelled of basil, olives, sage.

This kitchen has everything you need, the Romanian said. This family has thought of everything. Lotte’s thought of everything. Would you like a coffee?

Oh yes, Alice said. I’d like that.

Her eyelids felt swollen, and she was tired, as if drugged; it was impossible to leave the Romanian. She would have liked to cling to him, she had to stay with him in the kitchen, to be near him. She pulled a stool over to the kitchen door and sat down, half in, half out, her back against the wall. Countless ants were scurrying across the threshold. The Romanian put a cup of coffee into her empty hand. She gazed out into the garden, towards the evening-tinged mountains, back to the kitchen and the Romanian who, barefoot on the red and white tiles, was cutting the melon Conrad had put into the refrigerator, first in half, then quarters, and then slices. The juice of the melon ran over his wrists. He was humming. Io cerco la Titina, Titina, Titina. A little old man came walking up the dirt road. Barely lifting his feet. Walked past Lotte and Conrad’s house, on to the yellow house, towards them.

Someone’s coming, Alice said.

The Romanian nodded. I think it’s the gardener. He was with the goats before and mowing the lawn, and he took something up to Lotte.

Alice got up. The old man was walking slowly and calmly, his eyes fixed on the ground, his hands in the pockets of his black trousers. He wore a sleeveless white undershirt and a straw hat. Alice closed her eyes. Maybe he’d be gone when she opened them again. Fata Morgana. He was the messenger bringing news. She opened her eyes; by then he was nearly at the door.

The Romanian soundlessly put the knife with which he’d been slicing the melon on the cutting board. He wiped his hands and wrists on his torn jeans. Alice looked at him. Then she turned and looked at the old man. The old man took his hands out of his pockets and with his left hand took off his straw hat. Snow-white hair. He said, Lui è morto. Signor Conrad è morto.

What did he say, Alice said. She had understood what he said; but even if she hadn’t understood the words, she would have understood the gestures he made: the old man, with the straw hat under his arm, had raised his hands, showing them the calloused hard palms. Empty and white.

Alice stepped out into the garden. The Romanian did too. The old man moved aside, giving them room. The three of them stood next to each other. The old man said something; the Romanian nodded, Si, si, yes, yes, capito, he had understood. The old man shook hands with him, then with Alice. With a motion of his head he took in everything around him: the olive grove, the wall, the house, the oleander, the orange trees, the silent, slender cypress.

He said, Vita brutta.

Again Alice said, What did he say.

And the Romanian replied, repeating what he said, He said — Ugly life. That’s what he said.

Next morning Alice went up to Lotte’s house.

The three outside doors all led into the same room. The room was large and dim; behind some screens a bed perhaps, perhaps it was the bed Conrad had been lying in with a fever, a tropical infection. His heart had beaten too fast for too long. Lying in this bed he had heard them arrive, Alice and the friends he didn’t know. The Romanian and the dark Anna, both of whom he never got to know, which was too bad but didn’t matter at all. Fever. Alice’s voice through the half-open door. We’re here now, Lotte, and we’re very happy to be here. Lotte’s voice.

Lotte was upstairs. Alice went up the spiral staircase to the upper floor; the shutters were wide open, the glass doors were pushed aside, everything was light and bright, and the view extended far across the lake. Lotte was sitting at a table by the window. A German newspaper lay on the table. A silver letter opener. A bowl of eggs, a bowl of zucchini blossoms. Lotte, pointing to the eggs and the blossoms, said, Fulvio brought them, our gardener; look, isn’t that nice? She was pale, tall, and tired. She sat ramrod straight and looked questioningly at Alice for a while, as if waiting for something to occur to her, as if trying to remember something. Then it came to her — Alice, dear. She pushed the chair next to her away from the table and Alice sat down. They sat like this, next to each other, in silence for a while. Then Alice said, Lotte, you must tell us what we should do. Should we leave or stay, I don’t know what we should do.

Oh, you ought to stay a little longer, Lotte said. Stay. It’s good for me if you stay, why should you leave now. Your friend is very nice. He can take me to the hospital, and pick me up. You ought to stay. Conrad would have wanted that too.

Not looking at Alice she said, You’re the last person who spoke to him, you know that.

Yes, Alice said. I know.

And how did that go, Lotte said.

He said he had thought he was invulnerable, Alice said. Grateful that she was able to say that much, and grateful that Lotte now laughed, softly, but still.

He said that Lotte said. She shook her head.

That’s what he said, Alice said.

They have laid him out in the hospital; that’s one of the good things about Italy. I’ll go there and sit with him. There are other dead people in the room too, a small chapel, other families, it’s actually quite wonderful. He can stay there like that for two days. Or three. Wouldn’t you like to go with me?

No, Alice said. No. I can’t.

All right, Lotte said. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to.

Come with me, Lotte said, I want to show you something.

They stood next to each other on the large terrace with the chair and the stone sphere. Lotte pulled the green hose from the drum, turned on the water. She aimed the broadly fanned glistening stream into the lavender bushes; it took a little while. Lotte said, Wait. Then cardinal beetles began pouring out of the lavender bushes by the hundreds, a redand-black-spotted flood of fleeing insects, seemingly endless. They inundated the terrace, running in all directions.

Look at that, Lotte said. Just look at that.

In the middle of the night, long past midnight, maybe already in the grey of dawn, the Romanian went up the stairs from the terrace to the first floor in the yellow house, past his own room and up to the second floor, through Anna’s room, into Alice’s room. Conrad’s room. Alice’s room. He closed the door softly behind him. The room was dark because Alice had closed the shutters tight. In the dark the Romanian groped his way to Alice’s bed. The narrow bed with the metal frame. Alice stretched her hand out to him; it was the most affectionate of gestures. Because she knew that this would be the most affectionate gesture, she guided her hand as explicitly as possible, explicitly for her and explicitly for the Romanian, whose hand was small and familiar. She couldn’t see his face. He couldn’t see hers. She took his hand with all the expressiveness she had. Drew him to her. The rest was rough and angry, unrestrained.

That afternoon they took a boat. Anna, Alice, and the Romanian. They had only a few days left, but no one cared. The lake remained dark blue, ice cold, sometimes misty, occasionally a clear view. Aggressive swans, ducks with four, five, six, or seven ducklings, the water always soft. Every hour the ferry went from west to east and back again, and the pebbles on the beach got hotter and hotter. That afternoon Anna wore a grey dress with green flowers, sandals with cork heels, her hair in a child’s pigtail. Alice wore a white blouse and a lilac-coloured skirt. The Romanian had on a light-coloured shirt and the torn jeans with traces of melon juice on the seams. The boy at the boat-rental place next to the Mussolini villa with the pretentious view of Monte Baldo and its cloud-enveloped peak felt he had to finish his apple and fling the core to the swans before he could hand over the oars for a boat. A flag hung limply in the shadow of his little boathouse, and the clanking of the chain with which the boats were tied together scared away the swans. The Romanian rowed the boat out of the little harbour, confidently and almost elegantly. Alice saw the boy raise his eyebrows before he sank back into his plastic chair. The Romanian rowed the boat far out, probably dangerously far out; there was no one there who could have told them anything about it, but they could clearly feel the current. A wind had come up, water splashed into the boat, they were all quite exhausted anyway. The Romanian ignored Anna’s oblique references to their distance from shore, showing a casual indifference that didn’t suit him.

Who’ll go swimming?

Not me, Alice said.

With his back to Anna and Alice, the Romanian took off his shirt, then his jeans. Standing naked in the prow of the boat he bent his knees for a moment. Alice looked at him, his back, his arms. Narrow shoulders, slender neck. Bite marks, scratches. Black and blue marks all over. Then he jumped into the water, dived down, and was gone.

Good heavens, Anna said, raising her hand to her mouth; she was truly shocked. Good heavens. Did I do that? An insect had drowned in the milky foam of Alice’s latte macchiato on the terrace of the café in Salò. Alice had felt it on her tongue — very light, a multi-legged body concealed in the white foam. Gagging, she’d spat it out, sticking her tongue far out, had spat it back onto the spoon. What are you doing there? Anna asked, leaning forward, interested and sympathetic but disgusted at the same time.

Alice said, If it’s a spider, I’ll scream. It wasn’t a spider. It was something else, maybe a cricket, or a cicada? Small, black, cute, with little bent legs and a shiny abdomen. Il caldo, il tempo, the waiter had said, pointing up into the sky, shrugging and removing the plate, the spoon, the foam and the little animal from the table. Didn’t bring another coffee. Maybe I almost swallowed a cricket, a cicada, a head-cricket, Alice thought. What was the difference between them again? Conrad would surely have known. But Conrad was morto. Lui è morto. He was being taken to Germany by cargo carrier across the Alps, in July of all times.

Strange. Anna said, We didn’t even get to know Conrad, the Romanian and I, we never even saw him. What was he like? What had he been like?

While … To think that while they had stopped at the petrol station, and while the Romanian was looking up into the sky at a falcon, an eagle, or a buzzard. While Alice was sliding open the top of the chest freezer, and Anna said the word cornetto, and the gas station attendant was drumming with his fingers on the counter and Lotte was sitting in the car, unmoving behind the tinted windows, her profile outlined against the mountain, and Alice’s hand was deep in the chest freezer, in slow motion tearing open a cardboard box full of ice-lollies, raspberry, lemon and sweet woodruff — What flavour is it? the Romanian had asked. And Alice had replied Dolomiti — Conrad had passed away. In a hot room at the end of a corridor with glittering light, his heart had at first fibrillated and then stopped beating, just like that, and no goodbye, that was all. While they paid, walked out into the dusty plaza in front of the petrol pumps, nettles and grass growing between the stones. Thinking about it. Over and over again. I can’t tell you what Conrad was like. I can no longer tell you.

One afternoon Alice packed her suitcases, then sat down for a long time on the chair at Conrad’s table, gazing at the guest book, finally took the pen and managed to draw a dash on the paper; even that was embarrassing. Drinking a last Aperol on the terrace with the red cushions, the cold-blooded lizards, the unbearably beautiful view of the landscape. The Romanian and his indifferent, unchanging politeness. Should I marry you now or what; but we’re much too old to get married — Alice asked herself and came to no conclusion. Go for another swim. One last time. Sandals in hand, she walked to the little dock near the wall and the gate to the overgrown garden. When Alice, alone on the beach, undressed completely, and went cautiously into the water, tripping on the slippery stones, she remembered what Conrad had said about the lake, back then when he invited her to come for a visit. He had said, the lake was always ice cold, she would have to force herself to go into the water. He had said, But you’ll go into the water in spite of that. And you won’t regret it. You’ll never regret it.

What did he mean by that? And what did it mean for everything else? Alice’s feet left the bottom; she dove down and swam out.