Abroad (22 page)

There was an antipasti course of four different types of shaved ham, surrounded by carved melon so sweet its curves pooled with juice; bufala mozzarella made that morning; pecorino, slightly oily, with cold fresh fig compote. Fried zucchini flowers, still hot and spilling over with fresh ricotta. Goose pâté laced with pine nuts. After that: large trays of fresh fettuccini in oil topped with shaved truffles and cream. A fillet of beef so rare it bled, served with a trio of pink, white, and black salts. A salad of arugula tossed with virgin olive oil, toasted hazelnuts, and vinegar. Another platter of cheeses, shot through with blue mold and truffles, served with fresh figs, pears, and plums. And finally, a panna cotta, cold and quivering, topped with sap-colored honey from the castle’s hive. Each course was served with its own wine, so that by the third course, the lot of us were not only full, but pleasantly drunk.

Anna was holding back, terrified as she was of Professor Korloff, but Luka was quite cozy with her new friends from Rome, who were thrilled by her intimate knowledge—real or not—of the private life of Rupert Everett, a “close personal friend of her father’s.” Next to them, Jenny was letting old Roberto lean in cozily, affording a generous view of her ample bosom.

As I watched them, I had the acute feeling that I didn’t fit in. I did know some of the celebrity gossip from Luka, but I didn’t want to sound distasteful, so I tried to switch the topic to the politics I’d been studying in the paper.

“And what about Berlusconi? When he runs again, will he have a chance?”

“Tabitha is one of my brightest,” Professor Korloff said. “Though she doesn’t know that politics aren’t always fodder for parties.”

“Not at mine,” Samuel said. I would later learn that Samuel was a personal friend of the prime minister. Still, the gentle reprimand reinforced the feeling that I was a fly caught on the wrong side of a pane of glass.

I was seated next to Samuel, who did not bother to talk, but glanced up from time to time at the table with a sad, rather hopeless expression, then turned his attentions back to his dinner. It was an awkward place, sandwiched in between Jenny and Roberto’s obvious oncoming affair and the sullen proprietor. Finally, when the limoncello bottle was empty and all that was left of the panna cotta were sticky plates, I broke the silence.

“Do you miss your wife?”

“No.”

I nodded, and looked desperately down the table.

“Poor lamb, that was not what you were counting on.”

“Oh, no. I—”

“There was a time when I would have said yes. I bought this place for her, you know. She is an ace of a woman. Legendary, really.”

“I saw pictures. When I was looking around.”

“And there’s Ben, of course. But she and I are so sick of each other now, I’m afraid. It’s a hazard of long marriages. We’d divorce, but it’s so tiresome.”

“My parents are the same way. Apart but not divorced.”

“Are they? How interesting.” He said this as if it were the least interesting thing he’d ever heard. “We’ll get around to it, I suppose. Eventually. Luckily my life affords us much time apart.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t. You’re all of … what? Eighteen?”

In the candlelight, his face was gray and waxy. I couldn’t begin to guess how old he was. Younger than the professor, but not by much.

“Twenty-one. I’m nearly graduated.”

“Congratulations.” He turned away, dismissing me. “Ben, what now? Are you children going to town?”

“I suppose so.”

“I’ll get our things,” Anna said quickly, and disappeared, I suspected for a cigarette out of sight of the professor.

“Ben promised us a ghost,” Raffie said. “You can hear her walk in the dark.”

“How wonderful,” Professor Korloff said.

“Oh, you don’t want to take these girls poking about the dank rooms. It’s morbid.”

“No, we’ll love it,” Jenny said, who was now practically sitting in Roberto’s lap. “Really.”

“It
would
be fun,” Pascal said.

“Don’t you want to take them into Gubbio, Ben? Fabrizio can drive you.”

“I don’t think the girls want to go where we tend to go, Father.” Ben poured himself a drink from the grappa bottle, which had mysteriously appeared while I wasn’t looking.

“Here, let’s let this one decide,” Raffie said, nodding to Anna, who had returned with our purses. “Mediocre club in Gubbio, or a private ghost tour in a haunted castle?”

“Is there even a question?” Anna asked.

“Excellent!” Professor Korloff bellowed, beaming at his protégée. Samuel pulled out a cigar and waved us on. The rest of us trotted after Ben, leaving the remnants of our dinner—smears of cream, pools of bloodred balsamic on white plates, the pits and stems of sucked brandied cherries.

Anna, Luka, Professor Korloff, and Pascal were at the front, engaged in lively conversation about trapped spirits. They were followed by Jenny and Roberto, who were now holding hands. Fraught with unreasonable melancholy, I trailed behind, looking idly into the different chambers. After a while the others disappeared around a corner, but I could still hear them, so I stepped into the music room to look at the portraits there.

There were eight of them, oils at least ten feet tall, of what appeared to be the family in the eighteenth century. There was a small boy in a powdered wig, posing proudly by his mother, a romantic background of trees and sky behind them. There was a woman in her thirties, sumptuously dressed in red-and-silver brocade, her shoulders white and sloped, her face limited by an incongruous nose and close-set eyes, even under the kind brush of the commissioned artist. There was a severe-looking cardinal, dressed in black, bald with a long gray rather sharp-looking beard, inexplicably holding a tiny horse in his hand. And there was a pretty little girl, again in a powdered wig, in an intensely uncomfortable-looking, elegant dress of blue silk. At her feet was a little dog, jumping up on her hem.

So they had dogs
, I thought.
Were they pets? Or were
—

And then, everything went dark.

I gasped and stumbled toward the door. The lights, as far as I could tell, had been turned out throughout the castle. There was no moon, though some sort of dim light was coming from the hallway. An emergency light. I made my way to it, clutching the wall. My hand brushed a ceramic vase and it crashed to the ground, shattering. I could hear my friends’ laughter, but it was very far away now, and I was too frightened to try to find the stairs to get out. I thought about those portraits, those dead faces on the wall, and slid down to the floor, put my head on my knees, and waited.

“Ben!” Samuel’s voice, angry, burst up the stairs. Thinking of the vase, I pushed myself away from it. “Ben, that’s enough of this foolishness! Turn on the breaker!” He was on the landing now, marching forward. His foot crunched the shards of pottery.

“Damnit! Ben—is someone there?”

He turned on his torch and shined it into my face.

“Ah. The Indian princess.” He laughed a bit scornfully. “Well. Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I said, embarrassed. I got up, brushing off my skirt. “I just got a little scared, is all.”

“Ah.” He softened a bit. “You’re all right. Why aren’t you with Ben?”

“I just stopped to look at the portraits.”

“Hmmm.” Samuel sighed. “They aren’t very good, but they’re interesting. Well. My charming son and his friends appear to have switched off the fuse for effect.” He swung his light toward the center of the castle, but the weak light made only a feeble attempt to fend off the darkness. “Are you having fun?”

“I’m not Indian,” I said.

“Pardon?”

“My mother is Israeli.”

“You’re nice-looking, whatever you are. That’s what’s important.”

“It is?”

“In your current situation, yes.”

I was drunker than I thought. “That’s—I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean that you, and your compatriots, are here to offer charm and beauty to the party. Arthur brought Elena and me some young things to make us feel relevant. She donates an exorbitant amount of money to his research, so it’s certainly fair. You are part of that decoration committee, my dear. As it happens, you are the most interesting of the four.”

“I don’t think so.”

“There’s no question, actually. Not a classic beauty, but interesting. There are channels in there to be tapped.”

We stood there in the dark, that fading man and I, breathing together in the bowels of his house. We could hear the others giggling in the rooms above. Jenny’s shriek ricocheted down a stairwell.

“Let’s go somewhere with lights,” he said. “I’m too old for this. Come to my study, it’s on a different breaker. We’ll wait out their idiocy and get my ass of a son to turn the lights back on.”

I paused. It wasn’t appealing, following this man to his private rooms. But neither was waiting in the dark.

“This way,” he said, stepping ahead.

*   *   *

Samuel led me to a living room behind a closed door, more sumptuous than the rest, with velvet wallpaper and deep sofas. He walked to a sideboard, took two crystal glasses, and poured us both some brandy. I took it tentatively and stood by the window, afraid to sit down.

“They should be down soon,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried.”

“You are, and it’s fine.”

He took a book from the shelf and began to read, not seeming to mind that I was standing there, doing nothing. After a few minutes of pretending to stare out the window, I sat on the sofa and took a large swallow.

“She sits,” Samuel said, looking up. “Progress.”

“Sure.”

“So tell me a little about yourself. Tabitha.”

Tell me about yourself.
So few people ever said that to me, or cared. There was Fiona, so loud and vibrant. My athletic cousins, rugby champions both. At home I was drowned out by their voices.
Are you fine?
my mother would ask.
Yes, Ma, I’m fine.

“I’m a student. At Nottingham. Third year.”

“Nottingham … no wonder you wanted to get out.”

“It’s a good school.”

“It’s a factory,” he said. He took another sip of scotch. “And what are you studying?”

“Forensics.”

He laughed. My cheeks flushed uncomfortably.

“What?”

“I can’t see that. I’m sorry, but you’re much too ladylike.”

“Everyone keeps saying that. But you don’t know me.”

“Yes I do. Let me see. You have siblings—sisters, I suppose. You were one of the youngest.”

“One sister,” I said, looking at my drink. “I am the youngest. Yes.”

“Ah. What else? Italy is your first trip abroad.”

“I’ve been to Germany with my father.”

“When you were a child. But Italy is the first place you’ve traveled to as a woman. Am I right? There’s no shame in it. Italy is the very best first trip. You’re young. It will color the rest of your life.”

“I’m not that young. A lot of people have jobs by twenty-one.”

Samuel got up. He leaned over and took away my glass, then walked back to the sideboard. My hands fluttered nervously as his fingers brushed mine. When he came back he sat on the sofa—not close enough to be threatening, but not far enough to be disengaged.

“So what have you learned? From Arthur?”

“Oh, a lot. We mostly talk about the Etruscans.”

“The Etruscans. Yes. Arthur’s favorite mystery.”

“What do you think happened to them?”

“I think they were wiped out by the Romans. That’s what everyone thinks.”

“And their writings?”

“Please don’t tell me you’ve fallen prey to his little fantasy. Oh, he’s gotten far on that, believe me. What scholarly conference doesn’t want a lecturer with a theory that good? A
cooperative
effort to destroy the art … to save it for the next life. It would be impossible. There would be no way an empire of that size—we’re talking twelve cities, my dear. Hundreds of thousands of people.”

“But—”

“The great professor certainly has woken you up, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you walked in here this afternoon, you were just a shy thing. A slip, as they say. Following your friends. But you’ve actually got a mind in there.”

I inhaled sharply.

“Please don’t take it the wrong way. I don’t like it when young women are too bold. It makes them foolish. That blond one will burn out by twenty-five. You’re more cautious, I can see that. I was just happy to see there was something there.”

“Of course there is,” I said. “Goodness. You must be very mean-spirited to think there couldn’t be.”

Samuel laughed. “I’m much less mean-spirited than I’d like to be.”

I took a long sip and looked at him closely. He was older than my father, there was no doubt. His lines were deeper; the whites of his eyes were almost yellow. His hands bore large brown spots, making me think of two sad toads.

“So what else about you then? Where are you from?”

“Outside Dublin.”

“What do you like to read?”

“Mysteries, murder, that kind of thing.”

“Christie?”

“Patricia Highsmith.”

“Mmmm-hmmm. And what do you think of Italy?”

“I can’t say.”

“Why?”

“You can’t think one way of an entire country.” I took another sip. “It’s not a person. I could live here my whole life and not know what I think of it.”

“That’s right,” he said. “The rest of us are too simplistic. We say, oh, the wine! The food! But that’s insulting, really.”

“It is,” I pronounced, feeling rather proud of myself. I was in a black-and-gold dress. I was sitting in a castle sipping brandy, chatting with a distinguished man. My mother would swoon.

Then I felt it, light but insistent. Samuel’s index finger was on my knee. It wasn’t moving back and forth, or fumbling, the way a boy back at Nottingham might do. But he had no intention of removing it. It was a possessive gesture, and, God help me, it wasn’t altogether unpleasant.

“I’d tell you what to do,” he said quietly, after what seemed a very long while.

I looked at the candle, thinking about what it would mean, to be Samuel’s lover. Dresses arriving in blue tissue paper. Maybe some jewels. Mornings in hotels in Rome, espresso and pastries on the terrace. Making love with my head turned, eyes on the ceiling. Skin that would surely feel like that of an elephant, wrinkled, gray.