The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [122]
“Maybe she was.”
“Maybe. Although it’s hard to say—she’d been in prison since 72, so there wasn’t really time to do much damage.”
“I guess if she’d killed fifteen people, they’d be looking for another martyr,” Phoebe said.
Wolf grinned, the first real smile she’d seen on him all day. “Irony,” he said, “from the lips of Phoebe O’Connor.”
“See what you’ve done?” she said.
They passed beach town after beach town: Viareggio, Lido di Camaiore, Marina di Pietrasanta, Marina di Massa. Rarely could Phoebe see actual beaches; it was enough to glimpse palm trees, a pastel-frosted slice of old hotel. The tang of salt air mingled incongruously with the smell of pine trees. Phoebe craned her neck to seize glimpses of the sea, boats rising and falling on it like buttons on the vest of someone sleeping, and a familiar excitement overtook her, a sense that something tremendous hovered just ahead. In spite of Wolf she felt alone, a solitary traveler. This troubled Phoebe. She left her seat and curled suddenly in his lap, crushing the German newspaper he’d bought in Pisa. Wolf held her, surprised and pleased, the ladies beside them looking away in embarrassment.
As the land grew more mountainous, they began hitting tunnels, inside which the train made loud plunging noises as though boring straight through rock. A dank wind filled the compartment. Phoebe endured these interludes, anxious for the sea to reappear. Her gaze and Wolf’s rocked together in the half-dark, but even as they smiled, some tension hung between them. Finally Wolf left the compartment and went out in the aisle to smoke.
They made a long stop in La Spezia. By now it was dusk, the air a phosphorescent blue. Young girls in summer dresses climbed from the train into the arms of much older men in white shoes, men with silk scarves bunched at their tanned, loose necks. Phoebe thought at first these might be fathers greeting daughters, then realized that of course they were not. As the girls smoothed their dresses and looped their thin arms around the men’s elbows, Phoebe watched, riveted by a sense that what she saw was forbidden yet, in some mysterious way, attractive.
La Spezia was followed by a wilder stretch of coast. The hordes of passengers thinned. Wolf returned to the compartment smelling of tobacco. “We’re almost there,” he said, sitting back down and gathering Phoebe’s hands in his own, which felt icy. He looked at her deeply, seeming to verge on speech, yet said nothing.
“I wonder if it’s pretty. Corniglia,” Phoebe said. Wolf let her hands go.
They sprang from the car in Vernazza, where the train barely paused before burrowing back into the mountain’s flank. The town was wedged in a crevice between two bulges of mountain, its pale stone houses groping partway up the cliffs. Phoebe waited outside a bar with the luggage while Wolf inquired about rooms. An eerie festivity permeated Vernazza, a mix of riotous laughter and desultory music. The orange-tinted light appeared car-nivalesque. Wolf emerged, key in hand, and they followed a steep, cobbled path twisting sharply up the cliffside, barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast.
Their door was already open. Inside, a man chased a small curly-haired girl through the front hall. Sand fell from her legs on the dark tiles; her feet made a wet slapping noise. From other parts of the house Phoebe heard loud conversation in Italian.
Their own small room smelled of ammonia. Phoebe heard splashing, shrieks of the little girl being given a bath. Wolf opened the shutters to admit a wet, oceanic smell. The window faced a weave of empty clotheslines dotted with damp pins. “What a weird place,” Phoebe said.
Wolf smiled wryly and sat on the bed. “Agreed,” he said. “Let’s split.”
Phoebe sat next to Wolf and he wrapped his arms around her, but to her amazement she felt nothing, not the slightest stirring of desire. It was as if someone else were describing the scene and she was listening, with interest and detachment. Wolf quickly withdrew. He lay flat on the bed, arms folded at his chest.