So perhaps it was, again, some futile, half-conscious attempt to excise his influence, to mark herself out as an independent mind, that she allowed herself to be so moved by the painting. It was a tumult of suffering and beauty, each cluster of characters busy in its own drama. And the nailed Christ, winged and crowned with light against the stony sky and gazing down from his cross at his executioners, radiated such serenity that Sarah found herself filled with a confused and nameless longing.
Behind her glasses her eyes began to brim but she managed to keep the tears from spilling. She was sure, however, that the young man at her side noticed. He had been saying something about Tintoretto’s habit of putting a self-portrait into his pictures but he broke off and walked away a few paces to study another painting. Sarah was grateful. If he’d tried to touch or comfort her she would certainly have lost control and started to sob. And she had done enough crying these past few years. It mystified, even slightly angered, her that a mere picture could bring her so close to the brink and she used the anger to chastise and compose herself.
Stepping again into the sunlight was a relief. They wound their way to the Grand Canal just in time to catch a vaporetto to the Rialto Bridge where Angelo said he knew a good little restaurant. Venetians ate there, he said, not tourists. It turned out to be a modest place, halfway along a narrow alley. White-coated waiters, all of whom seemed to Sarah curiously small, scurried between the tables with trays stacked with fresh seafood and steaming pasta. The one who took their order did so with a curt politeness.
She told Angelo to choose for her, that she liked almost everything. He ordered a salad of sweet tomatoes, basil, and buffalo mozzarella and then some grilled whitefish whose name meant nothing to her but which, when it arrived, looked and tasted a little like striped bass. They drank a whole bottle of white wine which he said was made from grapes that grew along the eastern shore of Lake Garda. It was cool and creamy and Sarah drank too much of it and began to feel a little light-headed.
She had never felt comfortable talking about herself. It was a subject about which she felt there was nothing to say that could possibly be of interest to anyone. Of course, after Benjamin left, she had gotten a lot better at it. Iris and the handful of close friends who rallied around her hadn’t given her much of an option, urging her to explore with them the failure of her marriage, examining every wretched corner and wrinkle of it until there seemed to be nothing left to say and they all grew sick of it.
And yet long before that, almost as long as Sarah could remember, when she and Benjamin had been—at least, as far as she was concerned—happily married, she had developed a simple technique to avoid revealing too much about herself. She would ask questions instead and soon discovered that the more direct and startlingly personal the question, the more likely it was that the person asked (especially if it happened to be both a stranger and a man) would start talking about himself and forget to ask her anything. And this was what she was now doing with Angelo.
She asked him about Rome, about his studies, about what kind of architecture interested him; about his aunt (whose sickness, surprisingly, seemed to be authentic); and finally even got him talking about a German girlfriend called Claudia to whom someday he hoped to be married. At which point, the disparity between his confessions and her almost total reticence became so great that he placed his palms upon the white crumb-strewn tablecloth and demanded a few answers from her.
He asked if she worked and she told him about selling the bookstore and what a relief it was after all these years to be free of it.
“You didn’t like it?”
“I loved it. Books are my great passion. But small independent stores like we were have a hard time competing nowadays. So now I don’t sell them, I just read them.”
“What are your other great passions?”
“Mmm. Let me see. My garden. Knowing about plants.”
“And now you have sold the bookstore, you can enjoy all these things. You are . . . How do they say? A lady of pleasure.”
“I think what you mean is a lady of leisure.”
Sarah smiled and looked at him over the rim of her glass while she took another slow sip of wine, realizing as she did so that she was flirting. It was about a hundred years since she had felt like flirting with anyone. She thought she’d forgotten how to. But she was enjoying it and, in that moment, had he asked her if he might come back with her to her hotel room for a shared siesta, she might even have found herself saying yes.
“So you were married,” he said.
“Correct.”
“But no longer.”
“Correct.”
“For how long were you married?”
“A lifetime. Twenty-three years.”
“And you live in New York.”
“On Long Island.”
“And you have children?”
She nodded slowly. Here it was. The most compelling reason to avoid questions. She felt pleasure draining from her through the hole he had just unplugged. She cleared her throat and replied quietly in as level a tone as she could.
“One of each. A boy and a girl. Twenty-one and twenty-three.”
“And what do they do? They are students, yes?”
“Uh-huh.”
“At college?
“Yes. Kind of. Can we get the check?”
She needed to leave, to be outside again. And alone. And she saw that, of course, he was puzzled by this abrupt change in her. How could the mere mention of children so snap a woman’s mood? It was the subject above all others to which they normally warmed. The poor boy would misinterpret it, naturally. He would probably assume she was embarrassed to admit that she had children not much younger than himself. Or conclude that she wasn’t really divorced at all, just out for a good time and that the mention of children had struck some chord of guilt. She felt sorry for him and sorry too for fracturing what had been so easy and pleasant between them. But she couldn’t help it. She stood up and took a credit card from her purse and placed it on the table in front of him, ignoring his protest. Then she excused herself and walked off to find the restroom.
Outside, bewildered, he asked her if she would like to visit another gallery and she said no and apologized, pretending that the wine had made her feel unwell, that she wasn’t used to it. She thanked him for being so sweet and such a fine guide and for all the wonderful things he had shown her. He volunteered to accompany her to the hotel but she said that, if he didn’t mind, she would rather go alone. She said good-bye and offered him her hand and he looked so forlorn that instead she put both hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek, which only seemed to confuse him more. When she walked off he looked quite bereft.
Back at the hotel, the lobby was quiet. A young British couple was checking in. They had the shy felicity of honeymooners. Sarah collected her key and walked toward the elevator, her heels clacking sharply on the white marble floor.
“Mrs. Cooper?”
She turned and the concierge handed her an envelope. She pressed the elevator button and while the cables clanked and whirred behind the glass door, she opened the envelope. It was a message from Benjamin in Santa Fe where he now lived with that woman. He had phoned at eight that morning and again at ten. He wanted her to call him back. It was urgent, he said.
FOUR
Ben and Eve had been in bed watching an old Cary Grant movie on the TV when Agent Kendrick called. It was a little after nine. Eve had lit candles and the flames were catching a draft from somewhere, sending shadows tilting and wobbling on the rough whitewashed walls and across the paintings and swaths of cloth that hung there. Pablo was asleep in his bedroom next door. Ben had only a short while ago looked in on him and stumbled through toys to tuck another blanket around his skinny shoulders. The boy shifted and murmured from some unknown corner of a dream, then settled again, his long dark curls spread like an aura on the pillow.
It was Saturday and they’d had the kind of perfect spring day that seasoned re
sidents of Santa Fe took for granted but Ben continued to find miraculous. The dry desert air laced with the scent of lilac and cherry, the sky a clear deep blue and the light—that vivid, washed, almost shocking New Mexican light with its shadows sharp across adobe walls, the kind of light that could make even a color-blind philistine want to pick up a paintbrush—still, after four years of living here, could induce in him something close to euphoria.
The three of them had driven out in the Jeep for a late breakfast at the Tesuque Village Market then browsed the stalls of the flea market, Pablo running ahead of them like a scout, finding things and calling them to come and look. Eve bought an antique dress in purple and brown and orange swirls, cut on the bias. There was a hole under one arm and she haggled the woman down to thirty dollars and whispered as they walked away that it would be easy to fix and was worth at least a hundred.
In the mellowing sun that afternoon in the little backyard, the cherry tree groaning with an absurd overload of pink blossoms, they barbecued tuna steaks and sweet red peppers and zucchini while Pablo played chasing games with the little Swedish girl from next door. Eve’s house was one of an enclave of six that stood on the south-facing side of a valley of sage and pinyon that funneled down into the town’s west side. It was on one floor and made of cracked adobe, its angles rounded and its doors of ancient, grizzled pine. Both house and yard could have fit three times over into the house on Long Island where Ben had lived all those years with Sarah and where she now lived alone, but he already preferred it. He liked its spare, worn functionality, the way it belonged to the land that surrounded it. He liked it too because it was Eve’s and even more because it wasn’t his. It made him feel—as Pablo also made him feel—unencumbered, that his association was entirely of his own choosing. And this, of course, made him feel younger and more footloose than a man of almost fifty-two years deserved.
Just when the food was ready to be served the children came running up the path, all excited, saying the hummingbirds were back. They had seen one down by Eve’s studio where the yard became more jungle than garden. Eve asked them what kind they thought it was. It was too early for the rufous, she said, and from what they were able to tell her they concluded that it must have been a black-chinned. After supper, with Pablo bathed and in his pajamas, they rummaged for the feeder jars in the closet and filled them with sugar water then hung them from a low branch of the cherry tree.
Pablo wanted to wait up to see if the birds would come and while Eve took a bath Ben sat with his arm around him on the couch, reading Treasure Island and breathing the warm, sweet smell of him, another man’s child he had come to love as his own. The boy was nearly eight but small and skinny and looked younger. The hummingbirds never came and when it was dark Ben carried him slack and sleeping to his bed.
It was Eve who answered when Kendrick called. And Ben knew from her face and from her voice what kind of call it was. She handed him the phone and muted the TV. She sat up and swung her legs out of the bed and Ben reached out to try to make her stay. She always moved away and found something to do when his other life called. When he had once mentioned this she said it was only to give him space, but he suspected it was also to protect herself. She whispered now that she would make them some tea and be right back.
Special Agent Dean Kendrick worked out of Denver and had become Ben’s main contact with the FBI. There had been others with whom he had talked during the past three and a half years that Abbie had been on the run and many more, he was sure, who had watched him and followed him and bugged his phones and e-mails and monitored his bank accounts, faceless men and women who probably knew more about his habits than he did himself.
The ones whose names he knew and whom he had called for news every few weeks were civil enough though rarely friendly. But Kendrick was different. He seemed genuinely sympathetic and had almost become a friend, though Ben had only ever met him once. They even called each other by their first names now. Maybe he was just better at his job than the others. He certainly made Ben feel more at ease and, of course, if he felt that way, he might more likely let something slip, some secret snippet of information that might help them catch and convict his daughter. Ben only wished he had such a secret.
“Ben, how’re you doing?”
“I’m fine. How are you doing?”
“I’m okay. Do you have someone with you?”
It seemed an odd question, given that he’d just spoken with Eve.
“Yeah. We’re just watching a movie. Why?”
“I’ve got some news. About Abbie. They were going to get one of our guys in Albuquerque to drive up and tell you in person but I thought you’d rather hear it from me.”
He paused. Ben was way ahead of him.
“I’m afraid it’s not good news.”
But still his heart chimed. What was good news or bad news when it came to Abbie? And good or bad for whom? She hadn’t called any of them—not him, nor Sarah, nor even her brother Josh—in almost three years now. If the FBI had caught her that would surely qualify as good news, wouldn’t it? He swallowed.
“Uh-huh?”
“They found her body up on the Front Range in Montana, west of Great Falls. She’d been there awhile. Ben, I’m really sorry.”
Cary Grant was about to get beaten up by two heavies. He was trying to charm his way out but it wasn’t working. Ben’s brain felt closed. His daughter dead? He could see it almost dispassionately as a concept but it wasn’t something he was going to let into his head. It wasn’t possible. Eve appeared in the doorway with two mugs of green tea. She stopped there and stood very still, her loosened hair raven against the pale of her shoulders, steam curling from the mugs, the candlelight dancing in the creases of her peach satin robe. Watching with those still brown eyes, knowing.
“What kind of condition . . .”
Ben couldn’t allow himself to finish the thought. His little girl decaying, a carcass picked at by savage animals. No.
“I mean, are you sure it’s her?”
“A hundred percent. Fingerprints and DNA. Ben, I’m so sorry.”
There was a long silence. Ben felt as if he were watching his world unhinge and twirl slowly away from him. Eve put down the tea and came to sit beside him on the bed. She laid a cool arm around his shoulders. Kendrick waited and when Ben was ready they talked some more. About practical things, from which Ben began to fashion a fragile shield from the shock. Kendrick delicately asked if he should let Sarah know, but Ben said he would do it himself and that, in any case, she was in Italy. From his weekly phone call to Josh two days ago, he knew she wasn’t due home until Monday.
Kendrick said once more how sorry he was and that he would call again in the morning. They could decide then what to do about funeral arrangements and what to tell the media. There would, of course, have to be some sort of statement.
“Yes,” Ben said. “Of course.”
Ben thanked him and hung up and sat there staring at the TV. The credits were rolling. He found the remote and killed the picture. And only then did he start to weep.
An hour later, lying with his head still cradled on Eve’s breast, her nightgown patched with his tears, they began to discuss what was to be done. Ben wondered if it might be best not to tell Sarah until she got back. Spare her all those long hours on the plane with no one to comfort her, cloistered alone with her grief. Maybe he should fly to New York and meet her off the plane and tell her then. But Eve, clearer-headed than he and, as a mother, wiser in such matters, said he couldn’t leave it that long. Sarah had a right to be told straightaway and would hold against him any failure to do so.
In Venice, they calculated, it was now six o’clock in the morning. Too early to call. Let her sleep, Ben thought. Give her two more hours without the pain. Without this new pain. He would phone at midnight. They could then decide between the two of them how to break the news to Josh and the grandparents and whoever else needed to know.
While they waited, he told her what Kendri
ck had said about releasing the news to the media. A couple of years ago, Abbie Cooper, little rich girl turned ecoterrorist, wanted all across America for murder, had been big news. There had been whole TV shows devoted to her, with dramatized reconstructions of what she was alleged to have done. For months Ben had to field half a dozen calls a week from reporters, mostly trying to follow up on some new angle. But as time went by and there was still no arrest, they seemed to lose interest and the circus had moved on. Maybe they wouldn’t make too much of a meal out of her being found dead. Or maybe they would.
At midnight, when he called Venice, he was told that Signora Cooper had already left the hotel. And when he called again two hours later she still hadn’t returned. They waited, fading in and out of sleep, holding each other while the candles burned low and guttered and one by one died. Once, while Eve slept on beside him, facing away from him, a curve of hip warm against his belly, he woke and wept again while a slice of moon traversed the window.
He was jolted from his sleep just before seven. Eve was standing beside the bed, handing him his ringing cell phone.
“It’s Sarah,” she said.
He saw the name on the little screen and so disoriented was he by sleep that for a moment he wondered why she might be calling. Then the leaden reality reassembled. Their daughter was dead.
Eve was already dressed. Sunlight flecked with dust was slanting in through the window behind her. He sat up and took the phone and she kissed his forehead and walked out. She had left a mug of coffee on the bedside table. He could hear Pablo calling from the kitchen. He pressed the green button on the phone and said hello.
“Benjamin?”
Her voice sounded tight and throaty, barely recognizable. She was the only one in the world who ever called him Benjamin.
“Sweetheart—”