What We Become (2 page)

He is about to turn into Corso Italia when the memory crystalizes with full force: a face, a voice. A scene, or a number of them. Suddenly Max's surprise gives way to astonishment, and he slams on the brakes, inviting another blast from the car behind, followed by angry gesticulations from the driver as the Jaguar turns sharply to the right, braking once more before pulling up alongside the curb.

He removes the key from the ignition and sits there motionless, staring at his hands still resting on the wheel. Finally, he gets out of the car, puts on his jacket, and crosses the square beneath the palm trees, heading toward the terrace outside the bar. He is nervous. Afraid, perhaps, of confirming his suspicions. The trio is still there, talking animatedly. Max tries to stay out of view, pausing beside the shrubs in the landscaped area. The table is ten yards away, and the woman in the tweed hat is in profile, talking to the others, unaware
of Max's intense scrutiny. No doubt she was once extraordinarily attractive, he confirms, as her face still shows traces of a faded beauty. She might be the woman he thinks she is, he concludes tentatively, and yet he can't be sure. There are too many other women's faces in the way, both before and long since. Watching from behind the bushes for any details that correspond to his memory, Max reaches no satisfactory conclusion. Finally, aware that he will eventually draw attention to himself standing there, he circles the terrace and goes to sit down at a table at the far end. He asks the waiter to bring him a Negroni, and for the next twenty minutes he observes the woman in profile, studying each of her movements and gestures to compare them with those he remembers. When the trio leaves the table and crosses the square again toward the corner of Via San Cesareo, he has finally identified her. Or so he believes. He rises and follows them, at a distance. His old heart hasn't beaten this fast for centuries.

The woman danced well, Max Costa realized. Easily and with a certain boldness. She followed him confidently when he tested her ability with a more complicated, inventive sidestep that a less nimble woman would have stumbled over. He guessed that she was about twenty-five. Tall and slender, with long arms, slim wrists, and legs that seemed to go on forever beneath her dark taffeta dress with violet overtones, cut low at the back. Thanks to the high heels she was wearing, which set off her gown, her serene face with its well-defined features was on a level with his. She wore her ash-blond hair crimped according to the prevailing fashion that season, and cut in a short bob that exposed her neck. As she danced, she kept her eyes fixed on a point above the shoulder of her partner's tailcoat, where her left hand adorned with a wedding ring was resting. Their eyes had not met since he'd approached with a polite bow, offering to lead her in one of the slow waltzes they called a
Boston. Hers were the color of liquid honey, almost translucent, enhanced by a perfect application of mascara (no more than was necessary, the same as with her lipstick) beneath the fine arc of her plucked eyebrows. She was nothing like the other women Max had accompanied that evening in the ballroom: middle-aged ladies reeking of musky perfumes such as lily and patchouli, or awkward young girls dressed in light-colored dresses with skirts below the knee, who bit their lips as they struggled to keep in step, blushed when he placed a hand on their waist or clapped to a hupa-hupa. And so, for the first time that evening, the ballroom dancer on the
Cap Polonio
began to enjoy his job.

Their eyes didn't meet again until the Boston (called “What I'll Do”) was over and the orchestra launched into a rendering of the tango “A media luz.” They had stood there facing each other for a moment in the middle of the half-empty dance floor. At the first bars, realizing she wasn't intending to return to her table (where a man in a tuxedo, doubtless her husband, had just sat down), he opened his arms wide, and the woman instantly responded, impassive as before. She placed her left hand on his shoulder, extended her right arm slowly, and they began moving across the dance floor (
gliding
was the word, Max thought), her eyes once more gazing past the ballroom dancer without looking at him, even as she shadowed his movements with surprising precision, his slow, sure rhythm, while, for his part, he endeavored to maintain the proper distance, their bodies touching just enough to perform the figures.

“Was that all right?” he asked after a difficult figure eight, which the woman had followed effortlessly.

At this she finally afforded him a fleeting glance. Possibly even the semblance of a smile, which faded instantly.

“Perfect.”

In recent years, the tango, originally Argentinian but brought into vogue in Paris by the Apache dances, had been all the rage on both sides of the Atlantic. And so the floor was soon filled with
couples twirling more or less gracefully, linking steps, embraces, and releases, which, depending on the dancers' ability, could be anywhere from passable to grotesque. Max's partner, however, responded with ease to the most complex moves, adapting to the traditional, obvious steps as well as to the occasional embellishments which, increasingly sure of his companion, he would improvise, always in that slow, restrained style, introducing breaks and delicate side steps, which she followed effortlessly, without missing a beat. It was obvious she too was enjoying moving to the music, from the smile she graced Max with each time they performed a difficult turn, and from her bright gaze that would occasionally stop staring into space and alight for a few seconds, contentedly, on the ballroom dancer.

As they twirled around the dance floor, Max studied the husband with the steady eye of a professional hunter. He was accustomed to observing the husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, and lovers of the women with whom he danced. Men, in short, who accompanied them with pride, arrogance, boredom, resignation, or other similarly masculine emotions. There was much useful information to be gleaned from tiepins, fobs, cigarette cases, and rings; from the thickness of wallets opened as waiters approached; from the quality and cut of a jacket, the pleat of a trouser leg, or the shine on a pair of shoes. Even from the way a tie was knotted. All these details allowed Max Costa to elaborate plans and goals to the rhythm of the music, or, expressed in more mundane terms, to progress from ballroom dancing to more lucrative prospects. Time and experience had finally persuaded him of the truth of the comment Count Boris Dolgoruki-Bragation (second lieutenant in the First Regiment of the Spanish Foreign Legion) had made to him seven years earlier in Melilla, a minute and a half after regurgitating an entire bottle of cheap brandy in the backyard of Fatima's bordello:

“A woman is never just a woman, dear Max. She is first and foremost the men she once had, those she has, and those she might
have. Without them, she remains a mystery . . . and whoever discovers that information possesses the combination to the safe. The access to her secrets.”

When the music had finished and he accompanied his partner back to her table, Max took a last, closer look at the husband: elegant, self-assured, in his forties. Not a handsome man, yet ­pleasant-looking with his dapper mustache, curly hair flecked with gray, and lively intelligent eyes that missed nothing, including what was taking place on the dance floor. Max had searched for his name on the reservations list before approaching the woman, when she was still unaccompanied, and the headwaiter had confirmed that he was the Spanish composer Armando de Troeye, traveling with his wife. They had a deluxe first-class stateroom and a table reserved in the main dining room next to that of the ship's captain.

“It has been a pleasure, Madam. You dance magnificently.”

“Thank you.”

He bobbed his head in almost military fashion, a gesture that always pleased the ladies, as did the graceful way he took their fingers and drew them to his lips, but she responded to his gesture with a quick, cold nod before sitting on the chair her husband had pulled out for her. Max turned around, smoothing his sleek, black hair back from his temples, first with his right hand then his left, and moved away, skirting around the people on the dance floor. He walked with a polite smile on his lips, his gaze directed at the room, all five foot ten of him in his impeccable tailcoat (on which he had sunk the last of his savings before boarding the liner with a one-way contract to Buenos Aires), aware of the female interest coming from the tables where a few passengers were already standing up to make their way to the dining room. Half the room hates me right now, he concluded with a mixture of boredom and amusement. The other half are women.

The trio pauses in front of a store selling souvenirs, postcards, and books. Although in Sorrento some of the shops and restaurants and even a few of the luxury boutiques on the Corso Italia close at the end of the summer, the old quarter around Via San Cesareo remains a tourist haunt all year round. The street is narrow, and Max keeps a prudent distance, hovering outside a salumeria where a chalkboard propped on an easel in the doorway offers discreet protection. The girl with the braid enters the store while the woman in the hat stays outside talking to the young man, who has taken off his sunglasses and is smiling. He is dark-haired, good-looking. She must be fond of him, because on one occasion she strokes his face. Then he says something and the woman laughs out loud, the distinct sound reaching the ears of the man spying on them: a clear, forthright laugh that makes her seem much more youthful and awakens precise memories from the past that set Max aquiver. It is her, he concludes.

Twenty-nine years have passed since he last saw her. A light rain was falling then on a coastal landscape, in autumn: a dog was scampering across the wet pebbles on the beach, beneath the balustrade on Avenue des Anglais, in Nice. Beyond the white façade of the H
Ô
tel Negresco, the city melted into the gray, misty landscape. All the years that have gone since then could confuse the memory. And yet, the ex-ballroom dancer, current employee, and chauffeur to Dr. Hugentobler is no longer in any doubt. It is the same woman—the identical way of laughing, of tilting her head to one side, her composed gestures. The casual elegance with which she keeps one hand in the pocket of her cardigan. He would like to move nearer, to see her face close up, but he does not dare. While he wrestles with his indecision, the girl with the long braid emerges from the store, and the three of them walk back the way they came, past the salumeria where Max has quickly taken refuge. From inside, he sees the woman in the hat go by, studies her face in outline, and is absolutely certain. Eyes like liquid honey, he notes with a shiver. And
so, carefully, at a safe distance, he follows them once more across Piazza Tasso to the hotel.

He saw her again the next day, on the boat deck. It was pure chance, as neither he nor she had any business being there. Like the other employees on the
Cap Polonio
who were not part of the ship's crew, Max Costa was supposed to steer clear of the first-class area and promenade decks. In order to avoid the passengers in teak and wicker deck chairs taking the sun as it shone on the starboard side (those playing skittles and quoits, or skeet shooting, occupied the port side), he decided to climb a ladder to another deck, where eight of the sixteen lifeboats stood lined up on their chocks alongside the liner's three gigantic red-and-white smokestacks. It was a peaceful place, a neutral area few passengers used, for the lifeboats were an eyesore and blocked the view. The only concession to anyone wanting to go there were a few wooden benches. On one of these, as he passed between a hatchway painted white and one of the huge ventilation outlets that sucked fresh air into the bowels of the ship, Max recognized his dance partner from the previous evening.