The Godfather's Heartbroken Lover novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Keys
Klara confronts Luca's driver in the street with Konrad at her side and drops the car keys down a drain; Luca texts that he'll come for her himself.
I went down in my coat and slippers.
My aunt shouted something after me about catching my death.
The rain had stopped, but the street still dripped.
The driver saw me coming and rolled the window down two inches.
"Miss Klara."
"Go home."
"I can't do that."
"You've been sitting here since when?"
"Tuesday."
It was Saturday.
Across the road, a man walking a dog had stopped to watch.
A woman on the second floor of my aunt's building leaned out her window with her elbows on the sill.
Berliners don't pretend not to stare.
"He's paying you to watch my window."
"He's paying me to make sure you're safe."
"From what? Bakers?"
The driver looked at me with real pity, which was worse than anything.
"You don't know what it's like for him right now, Miss Klara."
"I know exactly what it's like for him. He's engaged."
The front door of my aunt's building opened behind me.
Konrad came out in his jeans and the navy jacket, like he'd been on his way somewhere.
He hadn't been on his way anywhere.
He stopped beside me on the curb and put his hands in his pockets.
He didn't say anything.
He didn't need to.
He was a head taller than the car.
"Who's this?" the driver asked me in English.
"My neighbor," I said.
"Fire brigade," Konrad said, in English too, pleasantly. "I'm only here for the parking. You can't idle a diesel on this street for five days. The lady upstairs is writing it all down."
The woman on the second floor waved a notebook.
The man with the dog laughed.
The driver's jaw went tight.
"Give me your phone," I said.
"Miss Klara."
"Give me your phone or I'll stand in front of this car and scream in German until somebody calls the police."
He knew me.
He handed it over.
I called Luca on video.
He answered on the first ring, in his office on Shore Road.
He was in his shirtsleeves.
He looked like he hadn't slept.
For one second, my stupid heart turned over.
Then I saw the ruby ring on Elettra's hand on the arm of his chair, just at the edge of the frame.
"Klara," he said. "Go back inside. It's cold."
"Call him off."
"No."
"Luca. People are watching me on my own street."
"Good. Then nobody touches you."
"Nobody here wants to touch me. Nobody here even knows your name."
The hand with the ruby moved out of the frame.
Somewhere behind him a door closed.
"He stays," Luca said. "That's the end of it."
"Say that to them."
I turned the phone around.
Konrad. The man with the dog. The woman in her window with her notebook.
My aunt, who had come down in her robe and was standing in the doorway smoking.
"Guten Abend," my aunt said to the screen.
Luca didn't say anything.
I turned the phone back to my face.
"This is my mother's city," I said. "You don't get it."
I leaned into the car.
The driver grabbed for my wrist and stopped himself at the last second.
He had never once touched me in five years, and he wasn't going to start now with a firefighter standing on the curb.
I turned the key and pulled it out of the ignition.
The engine died.
I walked two steps to the storm drain at the corner.
"Klara," Luca said through the phone. "Don't."
I dropped the keys between the iron bars.
They hit the water with a tiny splash.
The woman in the window applauded.
So did the man with the dog.
I handed the phone back through the window.
The driver sat there with it in his hand, looking at the drain.
Then he got out, locked the car by hand, buttoned his coat and walked away down the street toward the tram.
He didn't look back at my window.
Konrad let out a breath beside me.
"That was a Mercedes," he said.
"It was a rental."
"Still."
"Are you going to lecture me about the drains?"
"No." He rubbed his beard. "I'm going to tell my daughter you did it. She'll want to marry you."
I laughed.
It surprised me so much I put my hand over my mouth.
It was the first time I'd laughed since Shore Road.
My aunt went back upstairs, muttering that she was too old for American television.
Konrad held the door for me.
On the second-floor landing, he stopped.
"If he sends another one," he said, "knock on my door. Any hour. I sleep badly anyway."
"He won't send another one."
"No?"
"He'll come himself."
Konrad nodded slowly.
Then he went up ahead of me, and I heard his door close.
In my aunt's spare room I sat on the bed in my wet slippers.
My phone lit up on the blanket.
Luca.
"Then I'll come and get you myself."
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