Trompe l'Oeil Read Online Free Page A

if they were not words but very slow gestures, or as if she had been repeating them, though she had not. They drove with the windows open—there was a slight breeze—and city sounds seeped into the car amid her words. Pedestrians crossed the road as if itwere the simplest movement, and the chug and purr of motors punctuated the back-and-forth flow of Italian radio. The police said little and walked them into the hotel. A quiet rippling as they entered the lobby, like another pool of silence spreading, though the lobby was already quiet. Cooler air. At the desk she asked in English for the keys to both rooms, the officer beside her speaking rapid Italian to the desk clerk, who waved over the concierge. There was something wrong with her dress, something wrong with her throat. Are you thirsty? she asked Katy and Theo, but Theo shook his head and Katy did not say a word, then or for hours.
    The concierge escorted them. Call me , he said. His thin angular face and large eyes reminded her of goats. Please call, signora, if you need something . In this same room she and James had slept the night before, unaware of anything, had in fact made love. In the morning he’d brought her coffee, and then they’d gathered the kids. She does not remember the lovemaking, only that it happened, and in that room, which was not the room where Molly stayed—though sometimes Molly did stay with them, on bad nights. Shuttered windows opened over a tiled patio, and bougainvillea climbed the side railing, and on the side table they kept a seemingly bottomless carafe of water. A double bed, a painting of a coastal harbor, a painting of women at a café. She told Theo and Katy to take off their sandals, climb up on the bed, Okay? Just stay there . She was parched; they too must have been parched, she wanted to pour them all glasses of water. Katy and Theo were frighteningly pale, and her hands were stained with blood and dirt; she could see now the traces her hands had made on their clothes,her own clothes bloody and damp. How unspeakable the day had become. Just wait , she said. Just wait . She left the bathroom door open and washed her hands. Then she pulled off the bloody clothes, dropped them on the floor. She didn’t know what to do with them. Wash them? The blood was Molly’s. She must have rolled them up—this sensation later returned to her, of rolling her dress and underthings and wrapping them in a towel. There was blood on her body, on her torso, blood that had soaked through, and it was this that she didn’t want the kids to see and that hurried her into the tub. She turned on the faucet. “I’m here,” she said. “Right here. Are you on the bed?”
    â€œYes,” Theo said.
    â€œKaty too?” Nora said, and Theo said, “Yes.” If she turned just so, she could see their feet in the mirror on the door. She washed quickly, rinsed her hair; the water was at first pink, as if she herself had bled into it, and then clear. She watched the water spin down the drain, watched the reflection of the kids’ feet in the mirror. She thought she would be sick, but managed to stave it off, to get herself a towel. “I’m right here,” she said, dried herself and slipped on underthings while standing with her back to the doorway. From the closet she grabbed a clean dress and pulled it over her head. Then she poured glasses of water for Theo and Katy. “Can you drink some of this?” she said. They took small sips, and Katy started crying again, and it seemed she was trying to gulp the air. For a time, the three of them stayed on the bed. In turn, the kids went into the bathroom, but kept the door ajar. She set out the almond cookies and oranges, sat on the bed beneath the painting of the café, peeling oranges.
    Let’s pray . She did say that, on the bed. Though of course they’d just been to a church, at least she, Katy, and Molly had, and she’d