The Exchange: After The Firm

When Anita realized her husband had a girlfriend, she was crushed and ran to her teenage daughter for support. Giovanna wasn’t prepared to deal with such chaotic emotions and pushed her away. For a long time she avoided her father, but there was always the nagging suspicion that she really couldn’t blame him for looking around. To get away from both of them, she embraced the idea of boarding school.

When Luca’s second marriage blew up, Anita was elated and wished him even worse luck. Giovanna was turned off by her mother’s gloating and tried to ignore both parents. During her last two years of boarding school she did not see either one. When they mentioned attending her graduation, she vowed to disappear and hide.

With time, most of the pain and anger dissipated. Luca, always quite the statesman, managed to patch things up with Giovanna. He was, after all, paying her college bills. When she started talking about law school, he was elated and made sure the right doors were opened. Anita found happiness in a serious boyfriend, a slightly older man with more money than Luca. He was Karlo, a wealthy Greek, and he had been through enough marriages to understand the need for tranquility. He would never marry again, but he, like Luca, would always adore women. He insisted on meeting Luca, and eventually brokered a truce between the exes.

Luca and Anita sat on the veranda, under quilts and sipping tea as the sun set. The night air was chilly but pleasant. The wide doors were open and, just inside them, in the breakfast room, Karlo played backgammon with Bella, Luca’s current companion. All spoke in low voices, and for long stretches of time the only sound was the tumbling of dice across the board. It was all so civilized.

As always, Luca had not been entirely forthcoming with Anita. He admitted he had pulled strings to get their daughter assigned to the Lannak case, but he had said nothing about encouraging Mitch to take her to Tripoli. Nor would he.

For Anita’s benefit, he was projecting the image of the wise old veteran who knew Libya inside and out and was confident Giovanna would survive this ordeal. Whether or not this soothed her mother was not clear. Anita was high-strung, emotional, and overly dramatic. Perhaps age, along with Karlo’s steady influence, had softened some of the edges and settled her down. Perhaps it was the pills she was taking in the bathroom. Whatever the reason, she had surprised Luca hours earlier with the phone call, said she was in Rome with Karlo and thought it was important for the parents to support one another. Could they stop by for a visit and maybe dinner? Luca thought it was a wonderful idea.

And so they sat together as the day turned to night, and recalled warm and funny stories of their little girl. They did not dwell on what was happening to her now; that was too awful to contemplate. With long pauses in their conversation, time to reflect and remember, they dwelt on the past. And they had regrets. Their tumultuous breakup was entirely Luca’s fault, and he had said so before. He’d made a mess of his family. His selfishness had led to Giovanna’s desire to leave home and get away from them. Contrition, though, was not his strong suit, and he would not apologize again. So much had happened since then.

At least she was alive. And she was no longer being held in a tent in the desert. Her first two nights in captivity had been unpleasant; sleeping on a dirty mat on top of a dirty quilt that served as the floor; watching the sides of the tent ripple and shake in the howling wind; surviving on one bottle of water and nothing to eat; cowering when her masked kidnappers entered her little space. After that they wrapped a coarse fabric around her head and led her outside to a vehicle where they shoved her under boxes and began moving. They drove for hours, the only sounds being the engine and transmission grinding away. When they stopped she heard voices, the quick, sharp exchanges of men under pressure. When they stopped again the engine died and the men dragged her out quickly and led her a few steps to a building. She could see nothing, but there were sounds. The honk of a car horn. A radio or television in the distance. Then they untied her hands and left her so she could remove the shroud. Her new room had a floor that was not sand. There were no windows. There was a narrow bed of the size and design of a military cot and a small table with a dim lamp, the only light. In one corner there was a large tin pot where, she guessed, she was expected to relieve herself. The temperature was neither warm nor cold. The first night she assumed it was dark, though she had no idea. She slept off and on but hunger pangs kept her awake. Occasionally she heard muted voices in the hall, or whatever was out there.