The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [100]
“I wish you’d say something,” Wolf said as they left the square for darker, quiet streets.
But Phoebe had nothing to say. Her thoughts amounted to nothing, as did Wolf and Carla and all the festive beauty of Munich, nothing beside the spectacle of her sister’s life. Terrorism, suicide; like a fast, beautiful car plunging straight down a mountainside. No wonder their father had watched.
“This is a pretty church,” Wolf said. “You want to go in?”
He led the way. The church was small and oval-shaped, its interior more ornate than any Phoebe had seen in Europe, all whorls and curlicues and gold leaf. It looked like a bribe to God.
They sat in back. The light was dense with gold. “What I told you back there,” Wolf said carefully. “Obviously it upset you.”
“I’m not upset.”
“Phoebe, you’ve disappeared. It’s like you’ve gone underwater.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Thinking of what?”
“I have to leave Munich.”
He stared at her. “Why? Did I—is something—”
“I have to keep going,” Phoebe said, the words a monotone.
“Where?”
“I told you before.” But Wolf seemed not to remember. “Italy,” Phoebe said. “Corniglia. Where she did it.”
The name impacted on Wolf physically. “Will you listen to me, Phoebe?” he said. “Will you be with me here a second?”
The intensity of his gaze brought Wolf into sudden focus, upsetting the drift of Phoebe’s thoughts. She looked away. Wolf exhaled slowly, then stretched, arching his back over the pew, his spine cracking like knuckles.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”
Phoebe frowned.
“I’ll go. To Corniglia.”
“Oh no,” Phoebe said. “No.”
“Pretend I’m not there,” Wolf said. “I don’t care if we speak. But you’re not going down there alone, there’s no way.”
“I’m sorry,” Phoebe said. “I’m sorry, Wolf.” She shook her head, smiling, and it felt like so many other times, disengaging herself from a boy’s car, a party, leaving a football game when suddenly the shouts and bright pom-poms had fallen silent in her mind and she saw the empty truth of them. And then she left them behind. Again and again, she left them. It was only hard for a minute.
“I’m not asking you, Phoebe,” Wolf said.
He watched her eyes, his own flicking back and forth between them as if to find some route inside Phoebe’s head. She felt the warmth of him, Wolf’s physical presence beside her, breathing, watching.
“I don’t want you,” she said, and stood, leaving the pew and then the church, not running, hardly walking even, just releasing herself to the peaceful drift of her solitude. But Wolf was right beside her. On the street he suddenly took Phoebe in his arms, like that first day on the staircase. She held still, hands at her sides.
“Come back,” he said. “Please, Phoebe. Come back.” And she felt the pain in his voice, distantly at first, then right in her chest. She looped her arms around Wolf and rested them there.
They stood in silence. From somewhere came the sweet, oily smell of fried bread. Wolf’s heart beat loud in her ear. Phoebe thought of him hugging Faith, the gun between them, and was stricken by a grinding, painful sense that her sister had gone away, left the two of them here to fend for themselves. And maybe it was right, Wolf coming with her, maybe it would help. His chin rested on top of her head, he was that tall.
seventeen
High in the Italian Alps, midway through their drive, Phoebe and Wolf stopped for lunch. The town was like an afterthought of the road: a single restaurant, a store with shutters tightly closed, a tiny bruised-looking church. The cold dry air pinched Phoebe’s nostrils and throat. She and Wolf stepped from the car into whispery silence, as if the clouds, which seemed only inches away, were gently buffing the tinny sky.
The restaurant smelled of woodsmoke. The proprietress was an elderly woman whose lively face and hands made her age seem accidental, something that had