Chapter 24: The Chair at His Right

"Don't you dare fight me" turned out to mean a Saturday in September and the garden room under the glass.

I stood in the doorway at the end of it in a plain white dress, with my hair twisted up in a knot.

My aunt said a woman should get married looking like herself.

We'd done the church at three.

It was short and loud, and Dora cried through the whole thing and blew her nose on the priest's handkerchief.

Now it was seven, and the long table ran the length of the room again, set for eighty under the candles.

The same captains. The same wives.

The same old men who used to kiss Luca's cheek.

They stood when I came in.

I hadn't expected that.

Eighty people pushing back their chairs at once makes a sound.

"Sit down," Dora yelled from the head of the table. "She hates that. Sit, sit."

They sat, laughing.

The little old Saturday woman was halfway down the table in her church hat, with her cardboard sign folded in her handbag.

She'd shown it to me at the church.

WHERE IS KLARA.

"I'm keeping it," she'd said. "Now I know."

My aunt sat near the top in a purple dress she said made her look like a bishop.

My Berlin boss sat next to her, in the only skirt she owned, already arguing with a captain about bread.

And across from them, at the middle of the table, Konrad.

He'd flown in on Thursday with his daughter, who was wearing a red dress and holding the yellow taxi.

He stood up when he saw me looking.

He came down the room and met me in the doorway before anyone else could.

"You look like yourself," he said.

"My aunt's orders."

"She's right. She's always right. It's unbearable." He looked down the table, then back at me. "Are you happy?"

"Yes."

He looked at my face for a long second, checking the room for smoke.

"Good," he said, and meant it. "She wants to sit next to the gangster. I said she could if she doesn't teach him German swears."

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