Alice (6 page)

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?