“Now really, Aunt Marie! You can’t call my father a drunkard and then just leave it at that!” Wanda looked the very picture of innocence. “Or is there perhaps something that I ought to know about my father?” She put an accusing note into the question.
“Marie?” Ruth’s eyelids were fluttering now. She was clearly disconcerted, and her rouged cheeks had turned pale. “What . . . what have you told her?”
That was odd—Mother’s voice sounded so thin and strange! She also seemed to have forgotten entirely that she was supposed to be angry at Wanda. A strange feeling knotted at the pit of Wanda’s stomach.
Harold cleared his throat. “Wanda, my dear, I suggest we bring this conversation to a close. Shall we dance?” He offered her his arm gallantly. Please don’t make any more trouble, his eyes pleaded.
Wanda glared at him. “Well really! I hope that I may expect an answer to a simple question. I’m becoming quite tired of your treating me like a fool. I may be young, but I’m not stupid!”
“Perhaps not, but you seem not to realize that one simply does not pry into one’s parents’ past indiscretions,” Harold replied.
He had a cheerful grin on his face, which just irritated Wanda all the more. Don’t cause a fuss; don’t make trouble—that was so typical of Harold! He could take her side once in a while, just for a change. If not, she would just have to speak up for herself!
“Past indiscretions . . .” she said, trying out how the phrase sounded on her lips.
“Nonsense!” Marie laughed shrilly. “We had no time for indiscretions back in Lauscha; we had to grow up fast. Faster than we wanted to . . . isn’t that right, Ruth?”
Wanda was horrified to see the look her mother shot Aunt Marie.
Leave it. Take Marie’s arm and act as though she never said anything, said a voice inside her.
Why? asked another voice simultaneously. If you act as though nothing has happened, you will be just like Mother!
Wanda looked from her aunt to her mother. She felt as though she were watching a play onstage but also acting in the scene at the same time. And the drama was about to reach its climax. All the actors were in place and waiting for the next cue. Was it her line? Suddenly every word she spoke, every move, seemed fraught with huge significance.
Why did her mother look as though she’d been caught breaking into a safe?
Why did Aunt Marie look as though she wished the ground would swallow her up?
She had only wanted to distract their attention from the debacle of the failed dance recital . . .
Father, a drunkard? Never. There was something wrong here. Very wrong.
“. . . we had to grow up fast. Faster than we wanted to.”
Wanda turned to face Marie slowly, excruciatingly slowly. She was as stiff as a marionette on strings. It was as though she wanted to put off the next moment as long as she could.
“Marie . . . perhaps you weren’t actually talking about . . . Steven Miles?” Her voice failed her.
Nobody said anything.
Wanda felt her throat tighten. Her mouth was so dry that her tongue was stuck fast to the roof.
“Why . . . why are you behaving so strangely? Mother? Marie? What is it?”
Ruth’s eyes were fixed somewhere far off in the distance, and Marie had frozen like a statue. Neither of them could say a word nor move a muscle.
Wanda felt dizzy. Why was it that all of a sudden she could read their thoughts so clearly?
“Steven isn’t . . . my father? Mother, tell me that’s not true!”
“It’s the heat, Signor de Lucca! The heat . . .” The man pointed outside as if accusing the summer air.
Franco was pacing up and down the length of the wooden shack that served as an office. Five paces from the desk to the shelves, five paces back.
“I can see for myself that it’s hot!” he said, stopping abruptly. “Why didn’t you call me? We could have begun unloading earlier!”
“But Signor de Lucca! You gave the order yourself that we were not to start unloading until the right men were on duty at customs . . .”
Franco began to pace again. Damn it all, the man was right!
“Everything worked out in the end, this time at least,” he snarled. But it had been a close call, closer than last time. One of the boys was in poor shape. And as for the grandfather—he might not even last the night . . .
The other man cleared his throat. “Now that the cargo is taken care of . . . will there be anything else? Does the count have any particular wish?” He pushed aside the hair that hung down over his forehead and looked toward the door, waiting for his chance to get away.
Franco waved a hand impatiently and sent the man scurrying off. Enough talk. It was no good blaming the wrong man. They had made a mistake back in Genoa; there was no doubt about it. Too many barrels. If they had loaded ten or twenty fewer, there would have been more air for the men. They could have opened the hatches earlier as well; it was the height of summer after all!