2002, Paris
They sit on the couch in their suite in what is turning into their go-to position, the waitress leaning against its arm on a heap of pillows, her feet in Z’s lap. Z squeezes a foot and lifts it, admiring her ancient pedicure, the paint mostly missing, the polish picked off. He kisses those toes, and he loves those toes.
“Do you know where you messed up, Jewish boy?” the waitress asks.
“No,” is Z’s answer. He cannot fathom where, along his pitiable route, that might be.
“It’s believing a Jewish mother would be able to get you out of a problem this big. If you need the world to spin in the other direction, get an Italian girl to ask her father. That’s when you’ll see what an overprotective Calabrese can do.”
“Ha!” Z says. “You’re serious?”
“I am. You should meet my dad. He could help.”
“Because he’s rich?”
“No, not because he’s rich. Because of how he’s rich. He owns a small media empire—which is still quite large.”
Z rubs a foot. He offers nothing in response beyond “So?”
“You really don’t know anything about our country, do you?”
Z, apparently, does not.
“In Italy, if it’s ‘media,’ Berlusconi owns a piece. My father has the prime minister’s ear, and a good amount of his money.”
“That’s the plan? Your father?”
The waitress takes her foot back and sits up at Z’s side.
“Do you have one better than living in this hotel forever?”
“There are worse ideas,” Z says, of their palatial digs.
“If you have one better, let’s hear it. Anyway, I still don’t understand why you don’t take a taxi to the airport and just go.”
Z smiles at her sweetly and pats her leg.
“I’m starting to hope they catch you,” the waitress says.
“Sorry,” he says, sincerely not intending to condescend. “I don’t run, because I don’t have diplomatic cover. I’m just someone with a bad passport, who has broken a lot of laws. If Israel tips off France and then denies knowing me, I rot in jail here. If they have me flagged and take ownership, I get deported and sit in prison there. In both cases, I lose. Only, Israel also loses, because I come with a sizable international incident attached. And so we’re in a standoff. Which leaves me stuck here, trying not to give my colleagues the chance to have me slip in the shower or break my neck on the stairs. My only out is to get to America, where, for a bucket of reasons, it becomes worth it for all of us to just walk away. Maybe I look over my shoulder a bit more, but at least at home I fit in and the Israelis stand out. If we’re playing the odds, I still likely win.”
“But you can’t get there.”
Z practically hoots at the sad truth of it.
“No, I can’t.”
“Then it sounds like your best bet is to come to Italy with me. You can throw yourself on my father’s mercy—something he very much enjoys.”
“Since when are you going to Italy?” Z says, caught off guard yet again, which, occupationally, really shouldn’t happen to him so much.
“Since always. It’s high season on Capri. We never miss it, my family,” the waitress says. “It’s not the trip that’s sudden, it’s your knowing that is.”
She stands now and, looking toward the staircase to the bedroom, extends a hand, which he takes.
“Were you just going to leave me?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
No, is what Z thinks, getting up. He really wouldn’t leave her.
As for the great throng of people lining up to rescue him, the waitress is offering the only option he has. Access to someone with access, it could help.
“What if we get there and your father doesn’t want to get involved? What if he turns me in?”
“To who? The hotel bartender? This is what excites him in a life where little does. He’ll be thrilled. In any event, you haven’t broken any laws in Italy, which makes you better off there than here. And if they catch you on the island a week from now, instead of here tomorrow? At least we can fuck the whole time while we stay in the finest hotel I’ve ever seen.”
Z chews at his lip.
“Better than this?”
“By far! There’s more to look at out the window than some old obelisk. Have you ever seen the Faraglioni up close?”
“No,” Z says, he hasn’t. “Your plan, it actually kind of does make sense.”
“Because of the fucking?”
“Yes,” he says. “Because of that. Only, how am I supposed to get there? The passport issue is the same.”
“You really are the worst. They must have trained you at some point.”
“Logistics was not my strong suit. I was best at knowing when I was being followed. Paranoia is where I shined.”
“Well, we can drive all the way,” she says. “Right up to the ferry. There’s no reason to stop us in a car, if you can manage not to look as terrified as you do right now. Paris to Naples. EU country to EU country, with a little luck we won’t even have to slow down at the border to wave. I bet we can do it in twelve hours, not much more.”
“Like New York to Chicago?”
“If you say so. Either way, chi non fa non sbaglia.”
“What does that mean?”
“If you don’t try, you don’t fail.”
“That’s not exactly calming considering the consequences. Do you have something better?”
“Vedi Napoli e poi muori,” she says. “See Naples and then die.”
2002, Paris
“You said you’d come home! You said you’d be by my side.”
“Please, Mother, please.”
“I’m dying, and you’re not here.”
“Complications, Mother. I’m on my way.”
“You keep saying that, but you don’t show, and the days tick by. The doctors. The prognosis. I won’t be here long. And you, waking a sick woman in the middle of the night.”
Z waits and he waits, and he really can’t tell, is no longer sure.
“Are you really dying, Mother? Was the news really that bad?”
“Who lies about such a thing? What kind of monster?” Here she begins weeping. “I tell my own son I’m dying, and still he doesn’t come.”
“I’m on my way, Mother. You can’t imagine what’s gone wrong.”
“So tell me.”
Z doesn’t tell her. He doesn’t say a word. Not about the hotel room in which he stands, or the car parked outside, or the woman he is smitten with, who waits impatiently at the door.
He offers the waitress a hangdog grimace and holds up a finger, he needs just a minute more, pacing with the hotel phone.
Let his pursuers track it. Let them see where he’s calling from. When they arrive, he’ll already be gone.
“Hello? Are you still there?” his mother says.
“I am, Mother. And I’m doing everything I can to get home. You cannot know.”
“What I know is that my only child isn’t here. And at a time like this! I told your father, we should have had a second. Back in the seventies, what family only had one? I told him, I told him when I was nice and fertile. What if the first is a rotten egg?”
“Please calm down, Mother, I’m doing my best.”
“Your best will have you showing up to put me in the ground. Your best will get you a welcoming kiss from your mother after her lips have turned blue.”