Eyes of a Child (18 page)

‘At three a.m.,
I
might not answer, either. For all we know, he's turned off the ring mechanism as well as the machine.' Chris's voice had a slight edge. ‘Who knows – by tonight, he may be weary of tormenting you. There's only so much fun a man can stand.'

By tonight, Terri thought, she would call the school, she had almost forgotten who she was with.

‘Care for lunch?' Chris asked.

‘Not yet.' She took his arm. ‘Do you mind if we just walk for a while?'

Quiet, they strolled along the Grand Canal. The spacious walk was busy but not crowded; the wind was fresh, the sea smell light but pleasant. The people were a mixed bag of Venetians and tourists with cameras, stopping at the curio stands and sidewalk restaurants. Many of the tourists were Italian, reminding Terri that few Americans could travel in the way that Chris was sharing with her. It made her feel grateful and uneasy all at once: thinking of Elena, Terri wondered if she could stay in Italy.

Chris had stopped, gazing at a street artist drawing pen-and-ink portraits of whatever passersby would let him. The man had parlayed a red scarf and a handlebar mustache into a remarkable resemblance to Salvador Dalí: his work, Terri thought wryly, was a bit more mundane. But his execution, complete with brush flourishes and dramatic pauses to gaze narrowly at his subject, a middle-aged German woman with bleached-blond hair, was delivered with the almost comic solemnity of a master. Terri could see that this scene had softened Chris's mood: he had a warmer sense of people – even their foibles and vanity – then Terri had at first known.

‘He's wonderful,' Chris murmured. Terri knew that he did not mean the drawing; Chris found something admirable in the brio and sense of self that impelled this man to get up every morning, wax his mustache, and venture forth with his artist's kit to become the Dalí of his chosen piece of sidewalk.

With a certain ceremony, he presented his drawing to the German woman. She did not seem pleased. Some haggling over the price ensued; when it was over, the woman went off without a word of thanks. The artist looked glum: left without a subject, he sagged, and his search for fresh customers bore a trace of humiliation.

‘Care to perform a service?' Chris asked Terri.

Terri did not feel a fitting subject for art. ‘
Me?
'

‘A keepsake,' Chris said lightly. ‘I've wanted your picture since the first day I saw you.'

The artist had discovered them standing behind him and was eyeing Terri with an air of hope. ‘The thought never occurred to you,' she told Chris. ‘And I hate my nose. If I volunteer to do this,
I
pick the closet it hangs in.'

‘It's going in my bedroom,' Chris answered, and went over to the artist.

Terri sat for him patiently, purse at her feet, while the artist complimented her and smiled at Chris, a man who could appreciate another's good fortune. Terri began to enjoy herself, to take pleasure in
Chris'
s enjoyment.

After a time, another man stopped to watch – a young Italian, by the look of him, curly-haired and slight. He stood behind Chris; his eyes moved from Terri to the painting, as if critically comparing portrait to subject. ‘A fine likeness,' Chris told the artist. ‘Even better than I'd hoped.'

Squinting at his palette, the artist smiled at this compliment. ‘A pleasure, sir. Your wife is beautiful.'

Chris caught Terri's eye: given their circumstances, the mistake was so ironic that she could not suppress her mischief. ‘He needs to hear that,' she told the artist. ‘I go for days without the smallest sign of affection.'

Chris turned to keep from smiling. There was a sudden blur of motion; Terri flinched, startled, and then saw the young Italian snatch the strap of her purse and begin running.

‘
Chris
 . . .'

But Chris had seen him. ‘Wait here,' he snapped, and started after the thief.

The purse snatcher was ten yards ahead. But he had not counted on a tourist with Chris's passion for fitness.

Instinctively, Terri ran after them.

The man burst through a clump of tourists, scattering them with open mouths and startled faces. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Chris behind him; the thief's legs churned faster, carrying him away down the broad sidewalk. Chris followed in a path cleared by the man's own flight. There was something lethal in his pursuit, a release of anger so intense that Terri could see it in his lengthening strides. Their figures grew smaller.

Terri's heart pounded. ‘
Chris
,' she called out.
‘It's all right
.'

Chris could not hear her. She saw the man glance over his shoulder again, a pantomime of fear. When the thief suddenly swerved through the umbrellas of an outdoor restaurant, knocking dishes to the cement, Chris hardly broke stride.

Terri ran faster.

Bursting past the last umbrella, the thief disappeared between two buildings, down a side street. His only hope, Terri thought, was to lose Chris in the maze of Venice. Part of her hoped he would.

Chris vanished down the side street.

Terri ran along the walk and through the restaurant. An old woman had fallen to the cement, food scattered in her lap. There were shouts and cries; broken plates crunched beneath Terri's feet.

Entering the side street, she spotted a man running twenty yards ahead – Chris disappearing down an alley to the right. Terri was panting now; as she started running again, her side ached and her head pounded, and the feeling in the pit of her stomach was like morning sickness.

Turning the corner, she entered a Venice that startled her. The alley was a slit of light, a shadowy passage between stone buildings and an inky canal, still and faintly rancid. There was mold on the walls; laundry hung like rags from the windows above her head. It was a world so cramped and dank that Terri felt entrapped.

In the iron doorway of a house with boarded windows, Terri saw two profiles.

Chris had his hand on the thief's neck, shoving his head against the door. Their faces were inches apart.

Terri ran toward them. ‘
No
,' she called out.

Chris did not turn. His forehead glistened with sweat; he seemed scarcely to breathe at all. The man stared back at him, angry and frightened. Terri's purse still dangled from his hand.

Chris gazed into the thief's face as if he were not human. ‘From his breath,' Chris said, ‘he's a smoker. Otherwise I never would have caught him.'

He could have been discussing a dead animal. Terri felt their tension: the rich American, filled with a repressed anger that only Terri could understand; the purse snatcher who must despise him. The thief's curly hair reminded her of Richie.

He spat in Chris's face.

Chris's expression did not change. Just a slight turn of the head, as if interested that the man had understood him.

‘Let him go,' Terri pleaded softly. ‘Please.'

Chris's hands seemed to tighten. ‘Check your purse,' he told her. ‘Make sure you've got everything.'

As she took her purse from the thief's fingers, Chris twisted the collar of his T-shirt. She could see the man's Adam's apple work, his spittle on Chris's face. Chris's hand still looked swollen.

Terri did not look into the purse. ‘It's all here,' she said quickly.

Chris jerked the thief by the neck. Then, as if they were partners in a dance, he turned the man, dragged him a few feet, and bent him backward over the canal – knees flexed, feet on the sidewalk, back and head above the water. The man began struggling, face contorted.

‘If I let you go,' Chris inquired softly, ‘do you think you can keep your balance?'

Terri froze at something in his voice. Even the thief stopped struggling. Then he gave a belated shrug, pretending that he did not understand.

‘That's too bad,' Chris said, ‘because I guess we'll never know,' and gently pushed him into the canal.

There was a splash. For the first time, Chris turned to Terri.

She was staring past him into the water, at the thief. The man's hair was soaked; his arms paddled randomly.

‘Can he swim?' Chris inquired.

‘Yes.'

‘Perfect justice, at last,' Drained of his anger, Chris sounded weary. ‘Better this than calling the police. Or, for that matter, American Express.'

Terri took a last look at the thief, who was clambering awkwardly into a motorboat at the foot of the wall, and then she dabbed Chris's face with a tissue. Looking at her, his eyes were troubled, as if he had returned to himself.

‘Let's go,' she told him. ‘We never paid the artist.'

They made their way back through the side street. Stopping at the restaurant, Chris apologized and left some lire for the damage. Then they returned to the Grand Canal. Except to thank him, Terri found little to say.

When they saw the artist, Terri held her purse aloft. The artist smiled his delight. But as he presented Terri with her drawing, the face she saw was not hers but Chris's, filled with an anger he had never let her see.

Chapter
18

That evening, Chris and Terri walked back to the Danieli from dinner at Harry's Bar. Other lovers, more carefree, drifted arm in arm beneath the gaslights. Part of Terri wished to join them. But she would have no peace until she spoke to Elena.

When they reached the hotel, she hurried through the ornate lobby and up the staircase, ahead of Chris. Opening the door, she switched on the lights and began jabbing at the buttons of the telephone.

Once more, Richie did not answer.

She put down the phone. From the doorway, Chris watched her. Then he stepped inside, closing the door behind him. In the dim light, Terri looked up at him, silent.

Chris began pacing the room: since the incident of the thief, Terri had understood that his nerve ends were wired to hers.

‘I'm sorry,' she said finally. ‘Maybe I was crazy to come here.'

Turning, Chris looked stung. ‘Maybe,' he answered tersely, ‘you should have left your husband at home.'

‘I'm not going to respond to that. Not now.' Terri looked at him straight on. ‘I'm sorrier about what he's done than you can
ever
know. And maybe he's achieving exactly what he wants – us sitting here quarreling over him, as if he were pulling the strings from seven thousand miles away.' she paused for emphasis. ‘But right now all that matters, Chris, is that I can't find my daughter.'

‘So here we are,' Chris snapped back. ‘In Venice, waiting by the telephone for the sound of Richie's voice.'

His eyes, clear and cold, seemed to stare into the depth of his loathing for Richie. It came to Terri with bittersweetness that, in light of all they had been through, she and Chris fought very little. ‘Sometimes,' she said more softly, ‘I worry he'll just take her.'

Chris looked at her in surprise. ‘Kidnapping? Two weeks before the hearing? I wish he
were
that dumb.'

Terri fell quiet. ‘I'm calling the school in an hour,' she said at last. ‘Either Elena's there or she's not.'

Chris turned to look out at the night. But his gaze seemed absent, meant only to lend him distance from his own hurt. It gave Terri a sense, once more, of the immensity of his self-control, and of the isolation that was its price.

‘Maybe it would be easier,' she said softly, ‘if you just let yourself blow up.'

Chris gave a small shake of the head, more to himself than to Terri. ‘I watched my parents get angry,' he said after a while. ‘They threw vases at each other in boozy rages, said things so wounding that they could never be forgiven. The words, I came to realize, were worse than the crockery – it was the things they
said
that gutted their marriage.' He turned to her again. ‘It's one of the ways that you and I are alike. You believe that anger is sin.' His voice grew quiet. ‘We're the same species, you and I. But I'm not sure you know that yet. Or how important it can be.'

Terri thought of his damaged hand, the purplish hue of his injury, and then of the thief. ‘But have you ever let yourself get angry, Chris? I mean
so
angry that you stopped wanting to control it?'

Chris did not answer; it was as if he had not heard her. ‘I can't make you stay here,' he said at last. ‘But before you call the school, you should at least find out if Rosa's seen Elena. One thing you can't appear, to people like Scatena or Alec Keene, is spiteful or alarmist.'

Glancing at her watch, Terri did not answer. She felt Chris's hand on her shoulder.

Reaching for the telephone, she placed a call to Rosa.

Six rings, then seven. Chris's hand seemed to tighten. ‘No answer?' he asked.

‘No. And my mother doesn't have a machine.'

Chris was silent for a moment. ‘Try her again,' he said. ‘Perhaps you dialed wrong.'

I know my own mother's number, Terri almost snapped. Instead she calmed herself and dialed again. She listened to the telephone ring, her own phone pressed to her ear.

‘Hello?'

The connection was bad; the woman's voice was so thin that Terri could hardly make it out.

‘Mom?'

‘Terri?'

‘Thank God you're home.'

A second's pause, then the echo of delayed transmission. ‘I was in the basement,' Rosa's hollow voice answered. ‘Looking for something. How are you?'

‘
I'm
looking for Elena. I'm worried sick about her.'

Another delay, seemingly infinite. ‘Elena?'

‘Yes. I want to know if you've talked to her.'