The American Lady(62)

She didn’t resist as Franco helped her up the stairs. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Pandora looking up at her, but she did not stop.

When they reached the street, Franco released her gently. He lifted her chin and wiped her tears away with his thumb.

“Everything has its price, mia cara. Sherlain must have known that a time would come when she had to pay it, but she went with all those men regardless.” His voice was hard. “Or did somebody force her to behave like a whore?”

Not now. Not that.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Marie said, tired.

He shrugged.

For a while they walked along in silence like two strangers. It had rained earlier and the streets were empty. The light from the streetlamps shimmered dully in the puddles, and rats scuttled across their path. Most nights the rats only ventured out of the shadowy walls of the buildings much later, and Marie screamed in alarm at the sight of them.

Franco spun around, but when he realized that there was no danger he walked on.

Marie tried to tell herself that she was happy he was leaving her alone. But they had only walked two blocks when she could no longer bear the distance between them. She swallowed hard to get rid of the lump in her throat. Then she grabbed his sleeve and turned him around to face her.

His gaze was cool.

“Franco, I don’t want to argue with you. Please . . . I . . .” She screamed again as a rat ran over her right shoe. All of a sudden Marie found everything around her sickening—the streets, the trash on the sidewalks, the shadowy streets, the tall buildings hiding the moon. Ruth with accusation in her eyes. And Wanda, moping and feeling sorry for herself.

“It’s this damned city! It’s the city’s fault that people here don’t know what they’re doing anymore!”

“Do you want me to leave you alone here next week, in this devil’s kitchen?” Franco asked quietly.

“No.” Marie was suddenly certain. “Take me away from here!”

He didn’t answer right away, so she said again, “Take me away from New York.”





PART TWO

The stars dance on your soul, your heart shimmers in moonlight. The sun your sister—and as you go on your way you feel that the truth, if only for a moment, is close by.





1

“How often do I have to repeat myself? I haven’t the faintest idea!” Ruth shouted into the receiver. “At any rate she won’t be going back to Lauscha at the end of September as planned. She’s only told me what she told you in the letter, which is that she’s gone off to Switzerland with this Franco . . . Of course she’s in love with him—what kind of question is that? He’s quite turned her head, this Italian of hers, and don’t ask me how! It’s the only way to explain her behavior, though.”

Wanda tried for the umpteenth time to catch her mother’s attention, but Ruth acted as though she hadn’t seen her.

“Yes, there are two other women traveling with her. Friends of mine?” She gave a shrill laugh. “Great heavens above, no! I don’t even know them. Well that’s not quite true; I once had the dubious pleasure of meeting one of them, since she was Wanda’s dance teacher!” This time she looked straight at Wanda, with disapproval in her eyes. “The other one is apparently a poet. She says they’re her friends! Though if you ask me they’re a pair of tramps! Back in Lauscha we’d have laughed at them in the street!”

“Ask Aunt Johanna whether . . .”

Ruth waved her away again. Her pale cheeks were flushed with hectic red spots and she had pursed her lips.

“My dear sister, I think you have got quite the wrong idea about how Marie behaved during her visit. She couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss what I had to say about anything—most of the time she was just out looking for fun.”

A tinker’s cuss? Wanda had hardly ever heard her mother use such language. Indeed her whole manner had changed, and she had become almost mean-spirited. Wanda sat down on the velvet chaise longue next to Ruth and kept her ears open for her next chance to bring the conversation around to her visit to Lauscha.

It was the first time since the sudden news of Marie’s departure that Aunt Johanna had walked into town to use the telephone at the post office and call them. Mother had been urging Peter and Johanna to get their own phone line for as long as Wanda could remember, to no avail. Johanna stuck stubbornly to the old ways, writing letters that filled reams of paper and expecting them to write back in just as much detail. But the family back in Lauscha had suddenly leapt into action when Marie sent a telegram announcing that she would not be coming back as planned but would instead be traveling to Ascona with a man she had just met to spend the fall at some place called Monte Verità. All at once Johanna seemed to think that a letter simply wouldn’t do in this case.