The Two Deaths of Senora Puccini by Stephen Dobyns

Señora Puccini and her pretense that she was indifferent to all that happened; and I sensed that Pacheco liked to test this indifference, perhaps from amusement or anger or perhaps something else. Also, I’m sure the story was a great presence inside of him. Not that he needed to unburden himself; but rather, it formed a major part of his life and was something, I feel certain of it, that he’d never told another soul. As for us, we were eager listeners. We were hungry for his story in the same way we had been hungry for the dinner at his house. Beyond that, we all had major failures in our lives and so were curious about the strife of others. Perhaps that’s why he told us, because who cares more to hear about the battle than those who have been wounded?
    The three of us waited. Dalakis clasped and unclasped his great hands. Malgiolio plucked a red flower from the nearest vase and idly removed its petals.
    â€œIt began at a concert,” said Pacheco, lighting another cigarette, “one of those small chamber concerts during late spring where the musicians are made up of one’s neighbors. This one was outside. They were playing Brahms’s Clarinet quintet and then something by Mozart. The musicians sat in a white gazebo affair with a lot of gingerbread decoration and a little flag on top. The audience, which was rather small, was seated on lawn chairs in a rough semicircle. It was to have been a larger event but it had rained in the afternoon and there was a threat of rain to come and many people stayed away.
    â€œI had a seat to the side by myself. I’m not even sure why I went. Restlessness, most likely. Just before the music began, Señora Puccini arrived with her aunt and a young man. They sat down slightly behind me and to my right—the girl, the aunt, then the young man. She wore a cream-colored dress, very low-cut. Even so, I scarcely noticed her. Of course, my mind registered a beautiful woman, but I suppose I thought her too young and too . . . well, too clean-looking, as if she weren’t a woman but a doll. Then, after the music began, I reached down and happened to brush the back of my hand against her shoe. It was quite dark among the audience. There were torches or tapers around the perimeter, but otherwise we were in shadow. At first I wasn’t sure what I had touched. I gently felt for it again and my fingers touched the heel, the sole, the narrowness of her foot.”
    â€œWhat’s her first name?” I interrupted. “You can’t call her Señora Puccini if you are discussing a girl of eighteen.”
    Pacheco tapped the ash from his Gauloise. “Antonia,” he said, “but at that time I didn’t know her name. I knew her by sight, but we hadn’t been introduced. For that matter, we were never introduced, not properly at least.”
    â€œWhat happened with the foot?” asked Malgiolio, who with his precise sense of value had a way of keeping all conversations on track.
    â€œAs I say, I had touched it. Actually, I had squeezed it, trying to determine what it was. Once I realized it was a foot, I moved my hand quickly away. For a few moments I listened to the music. You know the piece, how the clarinet drifts and swirls above the strings like a spirit above the earth? Do you also know the Tolstoy story about the Beethoven sonata? Well, this occasion was nothing like Tolstoy’s, yet there was passion in the music. In fact, there was a kind of passion all around us, for in the distance the lightning flickered and there was a faint rumble of thunder and the breeze felt full of distant rain. And then it occurred to me that although I had touched the foot and although she must have felt my hand, she had made no movement.”
    Pacheco paused to sip his wine.
    â€œAnd what did that mean?” asked Dalakis.
    â€œPerhaps nothing, but it roused my curiosity.”
    â€œWhat did you do?” I asked.
    â€œI