Chapter 28

“PLEASE,” HE SAYS, “JUST try to walk without running into something or scaring someone else away.”

I know the voice.

It’s the waiter who helped me out earlier this afternoon. Once more he’s leading me through the dining room of the quiet indoor café to the back, where the office is. He sets me down in a chair and gets me a drink of sherry, which he puts in front of me, placing my right hand around the stem. As if I need him to do this for me.

“Drink,” he insists. “It will calm you down.”

I do it.

I allow the alcohol to settle in before saying anything.

“What’s your name?” I ask after a time.

“Giovanni,” he answers. “Why did you come back here?”

“I saw him, Giovanni,” I say. “I saw the man who took my wife.”

“What did he look like?”

“He’s a tall man in a long brown overcoat. This afternoon he was wearing sunglasses. But tonight he was without them. He has black eyes. Striking black eyes, as if there is no retina. Do you know the man?”

“I see lots of men come and go through this café every day. Inside and outside. He could be anyone.”

“You would know him if you saw him. He is memorable. Like a dead man who is alive for only one purpose. To steal my Grace.”

He pours me another sherry, tells me to drink.

“And what is your name?” he poses.

I tell him.

“Nick,” he says. “It’s possible I know this man. I recall a man who matches that description standing around the café this morning, this afternoon and tonight. Never does he sit down to eat or drink. But always just standing. Like he is expecting someone.”

“Like me, for instance, Giovanni.”

“Yes, like you, Nick.”

I drink the sherry, set down the now empty glass. Looking up into the light, I discover that my blindness is no longer absolute. I’m not enveloped in darkness like I was during the blind periods. Instead, I am seeing shapes and the blurry movement of those shapes. It’s as if every time I experience a bout of eyesight, a little bit of the blindness disappears.

“I take it you have been talking with the police,” Giovanni adds. “They have been here off and on all afternoon. And someone from the US Embassy. A well-dressed American who was accompanied by the detective.”

I recall Dave Graham. He never mentioned his visiting this café. Why would the distinguished diplomat keep that kind of information from me? And why would he come here at all if he was so convinced that Grace’s disappearance was simply a police matter?

The calming effects of the sherry are kicking in enough to slow my beating heart to almost normal levels. That’s when something dawns on me.

“Giovanni,” I say. “Why are you helping me like this? Why not just call the police and be done with me?”

He goes silent for a moment. Through a hazy blur I see him fill the sherry glass once more. Only, instead of handing it to me, he drinks it down. Setting the empty glass onto the desk, he exhales.

“Because I found something,” he says. “Something that must be very important to you. But before I show it to you, I suggest another sherry.”