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The trio pauses in front of a store selling souvenirs, postcards, and books. Although in Sorrento some of the shops and restaurants and even a few of the luxury boutiques on the Corso Italia close at the end of the summer, the old quarter around Via San Cesareo remains a tourist haunt all year round. The street is narrow, and Max keeps a prudent distance, hovering outside a salumeria where a chalkboard propped on an easel in the doorway offers discreet protection. The girl with the braid enters the store while the woman in the hat stays outside talking to the young man, who has taken off his sunglasses and is smiling. He is dark-haired, good-looking. She must be fond of him, because on one occasion she strokes his face. Then he says something and the woman laughs out loud, the distinct sound reaching the ears of the man spying on them: a clear, forthright laugh that makes her seem much more youthful and awakens precise memories from the past that set Max aquiver. It is her, he concludes.
Twenty-nine years have passed since he last saw her. A light rain was falling then on a coastal landscape, in autumn: a dog was scampering across the wet pebbles on the beach, beneath the balustrade on Avenue des Anglais, in Nice. Beyond the white façade of the HÔtel Negresco, the city melted into the gray, misty landscape. All the years that have gone since then could confuse the memory. And yet, the ex-ballroom dancer, current employee, and chauffeur to Dr. Hugentobler is no longer in any doubt. It is the same woman— the identical way of laughing, of tilting her head to one side, her composed gestures. The casual elegance with which she keeps one hand in the pocket of her cardigan. He would like to move nearer, to see her face close up, but he does not dare. While he wrestles with his indecision, the girl with the long braid emerges from the store, and the three of them walk back the way they came, past the salumeria where Max has quickly taken refuge. From inside, he sees the woman in the hat go by, studies her face in outline, and is absolutely certain. Eyes like liquid honey, he notes with a shiver. And so, carefully, at a safe distance, he follows them once more across Piazza Tasso to the hotel.
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He saw her again the next day, on the boat deck. It was pure chance, as neither he nor she had any business being there. Like the other employees on the Cap Polonio who were not part of the ship's crew, Max Costa was supposed to steer clear of the first-class area and promenade decks. In order to avoid the passengers in teak and wicker deck chairs taking the sun as it shone on the starboard side (those playing skittles and quoits, or skeet shooting, occupied the port side), he decided to climb a ladder to another deck, where eight of the sixteen lifeboats stood lined up on their chocks alongside the liner's three gigantic red-and-white smokestacks. It was a peaceful place, a neutral area few passengers used, for the lifeboats were an eyesore and blocked the view. The only concession to anyone wanting to go there were a few wooden benches. On one of these, as he passed between a hatchway painted white and one of the huge ventilation outlets that sucked fresh air into the bowels of the ship, Max recognized his dance partner from the previous evening.
It was a bright, clear day, pleasantly warm for that time of year. Max had left his cabin without a hat, gloves, or cane (he was dressed in a gray suit with a vest, a soft-collared shirt, and a knitted tie) and so as he walked past the woman he simply bowed politely. She wore a smart flannel suit: a three-quarter-length jacket and a pleated skirt. She was reading a book resting in her lap, and as he walked in front of her, momentarily blocking the sun, she looked up at him, her oval face framed beneath the narrow brim of her felt hat. Perhaps it was the glimmer of recognition Max thought he detected in her eyes that made him pause for a moment, with the discretion appropriate to the situation and to their respective positions on the ship.
Excerpted from What We Become by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Copyright © 2016 by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Excerpted by permission of Atria Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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