The gulls were making a hell of a racket out over the bay, mostly because the boats were coming back and they all had fairly good hauls. Falco was standing knee-deep in the stink of mackerel when the blonde walked down the dock and stood looking out over the water. He didn’t notice her at first because he was busy with the fish, and then he looked up and she was standing there silhouetted against the reddish-gold sky, with her hair blowing back loose over her shoulders.
There was a strong wind that day. It molded the silk dress against her, outlining her body. He was holding a mackerel in his big, hair-covered hands, and his fingers tightened unconsciously on the cold fish, and his mouth fell open, and he kept looking at the girl.
She didn’t seem to notice him at all. She just kept staring out over the water, and Falco kept watching her, his palms beginning to sweat, a funny kind of warmth starting at the pit of his stomach and spreading up to his throat where it almost choked him. The wind kept pressing the dress to her body, and he studied every curve of her, thanking the wind because she might have been standing there without a stitch on. Her long blonde hair kept dancing around her shoulders, rising and falling, almost as if it had a life of its own. She had an oval face with high cheekbones burned dark from the sun, and he could see the startling blue of her eyes even from where he stood.
The gulls kept screaming out there, and Donato’s boat pulled up to the dock, and then DiAngelo, the kid he had working for him, threw the lines over and hopped ashore.
“Ho, Falco!” Donato yelled. “You in early today?”
“Nice catch today,” Falco yelled back, but he did not take his eyes from the girl. An upcurrent of wind caught the hem of her dress, flapped it back wildly over the long curve of her leg. She didn’t seem to notice the wind for a moment, and then she reached down and spread her dress flat again, as if she were spreading a tablecloth. Falco wet his lips, and tightened his hands. He had never seen anything like this girl before, had never felt this way before, either. He heard boots clomping on the wooden dock but he didn’t pay any attention to them until he heard Donato’s voice again.
“Ho, Falco! Wake up, hah, boy?”
He looked up as Donato jumped into his boat, and then he said, “You do all right today?”
“Every day should be like this one, Falco. Then I retire a rich man. When the fish run like—”
He stopped because he saw that Falco wasn’t listening to him, and then his eyes followed Falco’s to where the blonde stood on the dock. He appraised her silently, and then he said, “Nice, hah, Falco?”
Falco didn’t answer. His eyes were riveted to the blonde’s body, and there was a tight, grim set to his mouth.
“That’s Panza’s daughter,” Donato said.
“Whose?”
“Panza. You know Panza?”
“The fat one? Panza? With the crooked teeth and the mustache? You’re kidding me.”
“No, no, this is his daughter. Truly, a silk purse from a sow’s ear.”
Falco nodded and wet his lips. Panza’s daughter. He couldn’t believe it. Why, Panza was a slob. And this girl... no, it couldn’t be.
“But a sow’s ear is always a sow’s ear,” Donato said sadly.
“What do you mean?” Falco asked.
“A dummy,” Donato said.
“A what?”
“A dummy. She doesn’t speak, Falco. There is something wrong with her tongue. She doesn’t speak.”
“But she hears?”
“Ah, yes, she hears. But there is no voice there, Falco. Nothing. A dummy, truly.”
“That’s too bad,” Falco said slowly. “What’s she doing here?”
Donato shrugged. “To meet the old man, perhaps. I’ve seen her once or twice already.”
Falco wet his lips. “I’ve never seen her,” he said.
“And you like what you see, hah, boy?” Donato said, and chuckled heartily. “Why don’t you go talk to her, Falco? Go ahead. You’re young, boy, and your arms are strong. Go talk to her. Who knows?”
“No, I couldn’t,” Falco said.
“Faint heart...”
“No, no, it isn’t that,” Falco said.
“Then what?”
“I... I would tremble. I don’t think I’d be able to... control myself. She is very beautiful.”
The wind lifted her skirt again. This time she did not notice it at all because Panza’s red boat was pulling up to the dock. She ran to the edge of the dock, and her legs flashed in the deepening dusk, and Falco watched those legs, with his palms sweating again. Panza came out of the boat and embraced his daughter, slobbering a kiss onto her with his fat mouth and his dripping mustache. She hugged him tightly. Falco watched. Panza said something to her, and she nodded mutely in answer, her lips not moving. And then she and Panza walked away from the boat and down the dock, and past Falco’s boat full of mackerel. And Falco watched her as she walked by, and wet his lips again, and kept watching her until she was out of sight, and even then the picture of her was still in his mind.
She came to the dock two, sometimes three, times a week. He learned from the others that her mother was dead, and that she did modeling, a job where she did not need her voice, only her body. She was always dressed like a queen, always with clothes that showed the firmness of her body. She lived alone with Panza, they told him, though she could easily have afforded a high-class apartment uptown. She preferred to look after old Panza in the shack where he lived near the docks.
The voice, they said, was something psychological, and this Falco could not understand. They said it had happened to her when she was a little girl, something that paralyzed her throat muscles, something with a stumblebum who had come down to the docks shortly after her mother had died, and found the young girl alone. The doctors could do nothing for this voice of hers that was missing, it was all psychological, all part of this something that had happened to her long ago.
But he didn’t care about her voice.
He watched her whenever she came to the dock.
Always, he watched.
And then one day, he came in very early because he knew it was a day she would be on the dock and she was there as always, sitting on a crate near the loading platform, her legs crossed with the sun flashing on them, the skirt pulled back over her knees. Her head was thrown back with the blonde hair trailing over her shoulders. She sucked in a deep breath, and he watched and thought suddenly, Why, she knows I’m here. She knows I’m watching her.
He dried his hands on a rag and climbed up out of the boat and onto the rotted, wooden planking of the dock. He walked over to her, and she did not look at him. She kept looking out over the water as if he were not there at all.
He cleared his throat and made a small sound, but she showed no indication of having heard him, and he wondered about her ears, because sometimes dummies could not hear, but everyone said her ears were all right.
He cleared his throat again and then said, “Are you waiting for your father?”
She turned then and looked at him. Her eyes were very cold, her mouth was unsmiling. She did not answer, not by voice which she could not, and not by any movement of her head.
“Are you... are you waiting for your father?” he asked again.
This time her eyes met his squarely, and her mouth curled into obvious distaste. He had seen that look before. He had seen it on the women in the marketplace the times he had gone down to the fish stand his brother operated. It was a look that said, “You are a fish peddler,” and this girl, this Panza’s daughter, did not need any voice when she could cast looks like that one.