The Singer's Gun

by Emily St. John Mandel

  9.

  Anton sometimes stood on the balcony of his hotel room on Ischia and thought about the span of oceans that divided him from Brooklyn, and the thought of being four thousand miles away from his family was exhilarating but the days on Ischia were endless. There were contentious phone calls to New York. The sea changed from blue to gray and back again. Anton wandered the narrow streets of Sant’Angelo (he had a hard time thinking of them as streets, these narrow corridors between villas and walled gardens that turned into staircases every now and again), talked to himself by the harbor, read the English-language newspapers and stared out at the sea. He called Aria every third or fourth day and listened to her tell him that the package was still delayed and then hung up on her, which was satisfying the first few times and later tedious. He convinced her to pay him seventeen thousand dollars in consideration of the delays; she agreed but was furious. He tried to call Sophie sometimes, but her phone rang endlessly. She never picked up.

  There were a number of brief storms during which Capri vanished from the horizon and wind moaned around the edges of the hotel and came in through the shutters. When the weather was nice he drank endless cups of coffee in the piazza and read the International Herald Tribune and worried about the transaction.

  “Why are you paying me so much?” he asked her once, when he’d been on Ischia for four weeks.

  “Because you’ve forced me up to seventeen thousand dollars,” she said.

  “But why did you agree to pay me that much?”

  “Because it’s important that I move into a new business,” she said. “It’s worth it to me. You don’t need to know why.”

  Sometimes Sant’Angelo started closing in on him, so he took the bus to Ischia Porto and drank cappuccinos at an outdoor café and watched the ferries come in from Napoli for a while. Once he took the bus all the way around the island, but he remained unmoved by the unchanging paradise of his surroundings and didn’t get off until the bus came full circle and reached Sant’Angelo again. By the middle of October the tourists were thinning out; the only other regulars on the piazza were a grim-faced German couple who drank beer and stared at the water without speaking to one other and a man staying in Anton’s hotel who always had paint on his clothes and always seemed to be either sketching something or doing a crossword puzzle.

  Anton couldn’t find any English-language books in Sant’Angelo, which was at first an annoyance and then a genuine problem. He’d been reading two or three books at a time for his entire life, and he was unsure what to do with himself in the vacuum. He made inquiries here and there—a waiter at his favorite café in the piazza, the woman who ran the newsstand, a girl who spoke English in a clothing store by the harbor—and they all told him the same thing: the closest English-language books were in Napoli. At the end of the sixth week of waiting he took the bus back to Ischia Porto and boarded a ferry to Naples, blue Tyrrhenian, drinking a cappuccino on deck as he watched the city approach. It’s a civilized country that sells cappuccinos on the commuter ferries, Anton thought, and an affection for the place swelled inside him like music.

  For almost the first time he began thinking of later, of after the transaction, of a job somewhere and an apartment in Sant’Angelo, or perhaps just a rented room. Napoli sprawled bright on the hills over the harbor. He made his way inland in stages, basking in the exuberance of being off Ischia—an hour in a café reading a newspaper, time spent browsing in innumerable little shops, a long interval on a bench in an ancient piazza with dread-locked university students playing drums nearby, seagulls sidling up to the café tables. There were two blissful hours in a bookstore near the university; Anton emerged near sunset with a hundred euros’ worth of fiction in a heavy paper bag. No reason to go back to Ischia just yet. The ferry ran late.

  He stopped for pizza at a brightly painted little place near the water. Sometime past nightfall he climbed a flight of stairs up to the elegant sweep of Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the lights of boats in the Bay of Naples glimmering far below and Mount Vesuvius a blunt shadow against the southern sky. He looked up at the Hotel Britannique, at the balcony six floors up where in a previous lifetime he’d turned away from the lights of boats and islands and watched Sophie emerge from the shower. He was thinking about the night they’d arrived in Naples, the way the city had seemed an undifferentiated chaos of gray buildings and broken plaster and lights spreading up over the hillside, Sophie’s blue linen dress, the singer in the restaurant. He glanced at his watch and decided he had more than enough time for a drink before the last ferry to Ischia.

  It took Anton some time to reach the restaurant where he’d dined with Sophie. When he stepped through the door the girl who had been singing that night was onstage again, midsong, and the déjà vu was startling. She wore the same dress as before, tight silver, and she was singing in the same languorous style but something was wrong with the microphone; her voice had a wavery, underwater quality, and it was difficult to make out the words. The restaurant was nearly empty.

  Anton took a stool at the bar. The bartender brought the wrong drink. A brief argument ensued. His scotch was set down on the countertop with somewhat more force than was strictly necessary and it didn’t taste quite right, but he sipped it anyway and turned in his stool to look at the stage. The girl was singing a song he’d never heard before.

  “What’s her name?” he asked the bartender. “Uh, the girl, the singer, sua nome? Parla inglese?” The bartender ignored him. The girl was leaving the stage. It wasn’t her night, or perhaps the sound quality was to blame. The applause was merely polite. Anton paid quickly and left the restaurant. The night air was cool. The stars were blacked out over the sea, a bank of clouds moving in from the distance. He found the side entrance and waited there, pacing, until the door opened and the girl came out.

  “Excuse me,” he said.

  She drew her breath in sharply and reached into her handbag.

  “Wait,” he said, “I’m sorry, please don’t pepper-spray me, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just enjoyed your performance, I don’t know anyone here and I wondered if I could buy you a drink. That’s all.”

  She considered him for a moment. Up close she was wearing too much makeup.

  “I wasn’t going to pepper-spray you,” she said. She removed her hand from her bag. He would have guessed her to be somewhere in her early to midtwenties, but she had a voice like a twelve-year-old with an indefinable accent. “Just a drink?”

  “Just a drink,” he said. “No strings. I just want to talk with someone who speaks English for a while. We’ll talk about the weather if you’d like.”

  “That’s sweet of you. I know a place near here.”

  “I’m Gabriel,” he said. “Gabriel Jones.”

  She smiled, and the hand she extended was so warm that he wondered if she had a fever. “Arabelle,” she said.

  “Arabelle? That’s a beautiful name.”

  “Isn’t it?” She sounded pleased. “I made it up just now. Here, it’s further up the street.” She was leading him away from the sea, farther around the endless curve of CorsoVittorio Emanuele. They walked for a few minutes in silence, an arm’s length away from the street’s murderous traffic.

  “What’s your real name, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Kara,” she said.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Saskatchewan.”

  “Saskatchewan?”

  “Here we are,” she said. And he followed her into a low-lit room, a new-looking place with a red-tiled floor and candles flickering. The tables were unoccupied. A lone bartender was polishing glasses behind the empty bar, and there were faint notes of paint and varnish in the air.

  “This is a nice place,” he said. She didn’t answer. She was leaning over the counter to greet the bartender, who kissed her on the cheek and said, “Ciao, Kyla.” Anton pulled back a barstool for her. Her skirt rode up above her thighs as she climbed onto the bar-stool. Anton looked away and caught the barten
der’s eye. There was something in the man’s amused expression that he didn’t entirely like.

  “Kyla,” Anton said, “not Kara?”

  “It’s Kyra, actually,” she said, and ordered a drink in Italian. “No one can pronounce it here.”

  “Due, per favore,” he said to the bartender, who nodded and turned away. “What did I just order?”

  “You’ll like it. It’s grapey.”

  “Excellent,” he said. But the drinks were the color of ultraviolet light and they tasted like sugar and lighter fluid; he swallowed his first sip with difficulty and set the glass down on the bar.

  “It’s a grape martini,” she said. “I think they invented it here. Isn’t it something?”

  “It’s certainly something, but I’m not sure it’s a martini. Listen,” Anton said, “don’t be offended, but I’m going to ask you your name one more time. Just for fun.”

  “My name’s Carrie,” she said.

  “Short for Kara?”

  She shook her head. She was wide-eyed, biting her lip like a little girl trying not to laugh before the punch line.

  “So your name’s changed. Are you still from Saskatchewan?”

  “I’m from Albuquerque.” She stared at him for a moment longer and then burst into laughter. Her laugh was high-pitched, silvery, with a hysterical edge that made him shiver.

  “Who are you?”

  “Oh, come on,” she said, “don’t go all serious on me.”

  “Why won’t you tell me your name?”

  “Because everyone wants something. Your name, or a kiss, or your body, or whatever. Haven’t you ever just wanted to disappear?”

  “I have,” Anton said. “I’m sorry. I understand now.”

  “Can I have another grape martini?”

  “Can you at least tell me what country you’re from?”

  She hesitated.

  “Just the name of your country. Your country for a drink.”

  “Mexico.” He held up the girl’s glass and gestured to the bartender. The bartender nodded, and began mixing vodka and something that looked like grape Kool-Aid. Anton tried not to watch.

  “You mind if I ask again?”

  “It’s Mexico. Really.”

  “You don’t look like any of the Mexicans I know.”

  “I’m a gringo,” she said. “My parents moved there from the States.”

  “Can I ask the name of the city?”

  “San Miguel de Allende. The kingdom of fake artists and retired Texans.” She was already halfway through the second martini and her eyes were bright. “How about you? Where are you from?”

  “Brooklyn. How did you end up here?”

  “I shot someone,” she said between sips. He laughed, hoping she was kidding, but she didn’t smile. “Then I took a bus to Mexico City,” she continued, “and then I got on a plane. I’ve been here for years now.”

  “Why Naples, though? I’ve heard it can be dangerous here.”

  “Not for me,” she said.

  “Really.”

  “No, see, look . . .” She was fumbling in her purse for something, but then she caught sight of her drink and seemed to lose track of what she was looking for. She removed her hand from the bag and finished her drink and winked at the bartender, who smiled warily back.

  “It isn’t dangerous here because you have pepper spray?”

  “Oh, I don’t have pepper spray,” she said. She opened her purse and held it open for him. He peered in and saw the dull shine of the Beretta between a Hello Kitty wallet and a pack of spearmint gum. Anton leaned on the bar, shaken, while she finished her drink and then held the glass up to the light in case there might be a few hitherto unnoticed drops remaining.

  “I hate guns,” he said. “I don’t believe in them.”

  “Well, you don’t have to believe in them,” she said. “They’ll still work regardless. Can I have another drink?”

  “Have you ever fired it?”

  She laughed that silvery laugh again and put her glass down. Anton shivered.

  “Is it loaded?”

  “We’re in Napoli,” she said. “Be reasonable. Can I have another martini?” He was thinking of Ischia, of the boats in the harbor, of Elena, of his cat, of putting money on the counter and wishing her a pleasant evening and walking away down CorsoVittorio Emmanuele and never coming back to Naples again as long as he lived, but like a man in a dream he gestured at the bartender, who stepped forward and began mixing another poison-violet drink.

  “Last one,” he said quietly. “Why do you have a gun?”

  “I live alone by the train station. It isn’t really safe.”

  “Tell me your name?”

  She smiled.

  “Your name for a drink. Doesn’t seem that unfair, does it?” Of course it seemed that unfair. He felt horrifically cheap and the evening was spiraling.

  “Jane,” she said. The bartender set the third drink down on the countertop and she lifted the glass unsteadily to her lips.

  “Jane? Really?”

  “Jane,” she said. “I’m serious this time.” She leaned closer to him and beckoned. He leaned in and smelled the alcohol and sweet purple and acetone on her breath. “I’m going to go find the bathroom,” she whispered, “and then we’re going to do something fun.”

  “What kind of fun?” he asked, a little desperate.

  She inclined her head sideways to indicate the bartender, who was leaning against the counter and staring out the open door at the ceaseless traffic. There were still no other customers. She smiled and cocked her finger at Anton and whispered, “Bang. Bang.” She blew on the tip of her finger like a gunslinger blowing smoke from the tip of a gun and then fell against the bar in a fit of giggles. “We’ll be outlaws,” she said. “We’ll be like Bonnie and Clyde.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No no no, this way . . .” She was laughing and could hardly get the words out, “this way we don’t have to pay for our drinks. Relax, there’s no one else in here. This place just opened. Do you see a security camera? I don’t.”

  “Come on,” he said. “It isn’t funny.”

  She winked at him. “Wait here while I go to the bathroom,” she said. She turned away from him and slid unsteadily from the barstool while Anton slipped the gun from her purse into his jacket pocket. Her dress clung to her body like broken glass. She reached for her bag and wavered away from him, sequins glittering down the dim corridor at the end of the room, until her dress flickered out behind a wooden door.

  Anton stood up, opened his wallet, and left three twenty-euro bills on the bar—the bartender called after him, he had drastically overpaid, but he was on his way out the door and could not stop—and he began to walk rapidly downhill toward the Hotel Britannique. After a moment he broke into a run. The sidewalk was narrow in places; he had to dodge around people and heard himself gasping with every breath, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, the words turning into a meaningless sobbing for air, and the traffic was a blur of steel and death and lights at his fingertips. When he looked up he saw that the sky had gone starless. Past the warm soft lights of the Grand Hotel Parker’s, past the Hotel Britannique with its faded lobby full of tourist brochures, and then he darted across the street—horns blared, a Vespa swerved to avoid him—and jogged down the stairs toward the water. At the bottom of the steps he stopped running and settled into a loose staggering walk.

  On the last ferry to Ischia he slumped over a railing on the outside deck, staring down at dark water and trying not to think about anything. The gun was a solid weight in his pocket. He couldn’t stop thinking about the things that might happen to a girl like that, drunk and alone in the seething city of Napoli, making her way home to an apartment near the train station unarmed. He had left the precious English-language books in the bar.

  In the morning Anton woke with a pounding headache. He’d only sipped at the violet drink in the bar, but he felt poisoned. He took a cold shower and lay on top of
his bed for a while before he went down to breakfast, thinking about what it would mean to never return to New York again.

  10.

  Just before Aria’s fifteenth birthday she returned home to her father’s apartment after a weeklong absence, but the locks had been changed and there was a note on the door next to the eviction notice (Went to Ecuador, go stay at your uncle’s place) and from the street she saw that the curtains were gone from the windows. She came back to Anton’s neighborhood quickly, with enormous bravado and shaking hands. She sat at the table while Anton’s mother fluttered around her, bringing her a plate, a fork, some food, some coffee, you poor thing. When Anton’s father heard that his brother had taken off for Ecuador he almost punched a hole in the wall, and for the rest of that week everyone stayed out of his way. He talked to his vanished brother while he worked, while he did the dishes, in any situation where he was more or less alone and no customers were present: a furious muttered monologue about family and responsibility, punctuated by curses.

  But Aria didn’t talk about her father at all. She didn’t talk about much of anything. She disappeared for long hours, she went to school and worked in the store, she listened to music in her room. She was a polite and quiet presence in their lives that year, always on the margins or just out of sight. Anton’s mother did what she could, but Aria was unreachable. After a few weeks there was a phone call from Ecuador. Her father apologized. He just couldn’t bear to be away from Aria’s mother any longer, he said, so he’d sold everything they had to pay for the plane ticket. The furniture. The dishes. Aria’s clothes. All temporary stuff, he assured his daughter. Nothing they couldn’t eventually replace. Aria’s mother had never felt like marrying Aria’s father while they were all in Brooklyn together, but now they were going to be married in Ecuador. They were happy. Sylvia had stopped drinking. It was unbelievable, miraculous, a whole new life. He said Aria was welcome to move to Ecuador and join them, but Aria laughed and hung up the phone.