And Then You Die Read Online Free PDF Page B

table is ours.’
    Gemma laughed and shook her head.
    ‘Well, at least you’re not boring,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realize you were so well connected locally.’
    ‘I’m not at all. In fact I don’t know a soul here except you.’
    Always tell as much of the truth as possible, he reminded himself . Most liars got caught out unnecessarily falsifying or embroidering quite trivial details.
    ‘And what about you?’ he asked, gazing at her.
    She was wearing an apricot-coloured short-sleeved blouse of what looked like coarse silk, open at the neck to reveal a flat gold chain at her tanned throat. Her auburn-tinged hair had clearly been redone since leaving the beach, and her fingernails were painted a bright orange to match her blouse and lipstick: She’s dolled herself up, thought Zen, using a vulgar Venetian dialect expression. Then he realized that she would naturally have done so, not wanting to look out of place at Augusto’s. There was no reason to assume that it had anything to do with him.
    ‘Oh, I’m just a day tripper,’ Gemma replied. ‘I actually live in Lucca, so it’s easy enough to get here and back.’
    ‘Is it close?’
    ‘Half an hour on the bretella . Quick enough to come back for dinner. Have you been there?’
    Zen was once again glad to be able to answer truthfully.
    ‘Never.’
    The waiter arrived with a bottle of the house white and a platter of insalata di mare . Another of the many traditions of Augusto’s was that if you were too preoccupied to order, as so many important clients naturally tended to be, dishes just arrived at the table.
    ‘It’s a dull little city,’ Gemma went on, ‘but very calm.’
    ‘Is your family there?’
    ‘My father lives dose by, in a nursing home. My brothers and sisters have all moved away. I did myself, once, but I came back.’
    ‘So you live alone?’
    Gemma hesitated.
    ‘Except when my son comes to visit,’ she said.
    Zen nibbled some marinated squid.
    ‘How old is he?’
    ‘Twenty. He’s studying engineering in Florence. That’s where my husband lives. Stefano stays with him. And you?’
    Zen raised his head like a tennis player realizing that what he had thought to be an unreturnable volley was in fact skimming back to his side of the court.
    ‘Me?’
    ‘Family,’ said Gemma. ‘Children.’
    ‘No,’ said Zen.
    Gemma laughed.
    ‘You’re parthenogenetic?’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘Yours was a virgin birth?’
    ‘What? Oh no. My parents are both dead, and I have no children . That’s all.’
    Gemma blushed and looked a little flustered.
    ‘I’m sorry, that must have sounded tactless. I must stop trying to make jokes. It never works.’
    ‘Oh, don’t do that. There’s so little to laugh at as one gets older that even the intention is encouraging.’
    They finished their starters and were silent for a while.
    ‘So where do you live?’ asked Gemma as the waiter came with the dish of lasagnette .
    ‘In Rome,’ Zen replied. ‘I work for one of the ministries, in a mid-level bureaucratic position.’
    ‘Which one?’
    ‘Interior.’
    ‘I thought you statali all got your holidays in August.’
    ‘Well, this is not really a holiday, as such. My mother died recently. I took it quite hard – she was all I had left, really – and the Ministry granted me some compassionate leave.’
    Noting Gemma’s serious expression, he decided to lighten the tone.
    ‘Come August, I’ll be sweltering in my office, the one with the windows painted shut, while everyone else is at the beach or in the mountains.’
    He drank some wine.
    ‘And what about you?’
    ‘I own a pharmacy which I inherited from my father.’
    Zen smiled sourly.
    ‘I’ve always thought that a permit to run a pharmacy or a tobacconist’s was the next best thing to a licence to print money.’
    Gemma smiled aloofly.
    ‘Well, I don’t know about that, but we do quite nicely. The location is excellent, on Via Fillungo, one of the main streets, and I employ three very