L'America (34 page)

The lobby had high ceilings, a dilapidated grandeur, peeling paint and plaster, regal portraits of long-forgotten royalty, gold paint flickering in the dull light, a marble staircase with a red velvet runner. She stood there, small, hoping he had seen her, too, hoping he would follow her inside, swoop her up in his arms, and all the clutter of the past nine years would vanish, turning the moment into what she had always imagined. She waited for what seemed to be a long time but may well have been only a minute or two. Though it was hot outside she shivered in the cool lobby. When she walked back to the pool he was gone and she wondered had he seen her, too?

 

A year like every other: George W. Bush had become president of the United States of America in one way or another. He was speaking about tax cuts and Star Wars and Iraq. The economy was in a slump. An earthquake in Gujarat, India, had killed nearly twenty thousand people. The FBI agent Robert Hanssen had been arrested for spying for the Russians; Slobodan Milosevic surrendered to police to be tried for crimes of war; Tony Blair was reelected; for the first time a blind man reached the summit of Mount Everest; in China, Zhonghua Sun was put to death by the People's Republic because she refused to be sterilized. In June there was a total eclipse of the sun. In July, Hunter, Beth, and little Valeria, four and a half years old, flew off to Italy.

The trip was a present to Beth from Hunter and her first return to Italy since 1992—the year of her final break with Cesare. They stayed for six weeks, traveling in a rented car to a fifteenth-century castle converted into a hotel in Spongano, Puglia, surrounded with orchards of lemon trees and bordered by a pool the size of a small lake. The owner, a friendly man, loved Americans and made Beth and Hunter and Valeria elaborate dinners of local fish every evening. They ate beneath the stars, the table lit with citronella candles to keep away mosquitoes. There were carafes of local wine,
vino bianco un po frizzante.
They spoke of politics and Bush and Berlusconi and of the American taste for large bathrooms. "I had to design the rooms with big bathrooms in mind, all first-class comforts, if I wanted to attract Americans," the owner told them.

They were alone at the castle, but Beth wondered what kind of Americans these guests would be, marveling at that defining characteristic. Later she asked Hunter if he cared about the big bathroom. "It's better than a small dirty bathroom," he had said, lounging in a tub with a whirlpool. He patted the water. His smile invited her to join him. The memory of sleeping in the Athenian park flitted in front of her, of the bordello in Barcelona, of the dirty, small bathroom located down the hall shared with all the other guests. How long ago was that? Nineteen years? It was hard to accept that she could be of an age where she could talk about nineteen years ago.

The castle at Spongano, the owner told them, had been owned by his great-grandfather, a man with twelve grandchildren. It was bequeathed to his eldest son, as was the custom. The son died childless and so it went to the next eldest son (two daughters lay between the sons). This man, too, remained childless, but he had a dog that he loved more than any child he could have had. He would have left the castle to the dog, but of course that was not possible. Instead, one of his younger brothers had a son who had a special affection for the dog, fed the dog prime cuts of meat and prepared risottos for him in a way the dog liked, with fresh butter and sage and parmigiano. Upon his death, the man left the castle and all its land to this nephew. This boy (a teenager when he inherited the property) was the father of the man telling the story.

"No wonder you love Italy," Hunter said, walking through the groves of lemon trees, the castle glowing in the moon's light.

Having been told that Puglia's coast was among the most beautiful in Italy if seen from a boat, they hired one to ferry them along it, and admired the black rocky shores glistening in the strong sun. "The Amalfi Coast without the Amalfi," one friend had said of a particularly hilly and scenic drive skirting the coast. And Beth remembered Cesare, knew she would not see him here. Remembered the giant ferry moving away from the Brindisi docks, remembered that she had commented on the beauty of the coast they were leaving in their wake as the ferry moved toward Greece on one of their many trips there. "
Terroni
vacation there," he had said.
Terroni:
a pejorative term describing those from the south of Italy, those of the land, who worked the land, ate from the land, were the land. It was a moment, she remembered, when Cesare had defined himself, a small part of him, in a way she found unflattering. His comment revealed the truth beyond his seeming graciousness, revealed his belief in hierarchy, and it had made her suspicious of him for a moment—if this was his attitude toward an Italian, what about an American? A clue, she could see in retrospect, to their future. The rocky coast had big
grotti
the boat could enter, dark caves that echoed their voices and the slap of the swells that smashed against the caves' walls, rocking the boat violently.

From Puglia they traveled inland to the Sassi of Matera, where from their bedroom window they watched the sunset lighting up the small canyon of caves. It was Beth's first trip there even though it was the name of her restaurant. Lying in bed with Valeria asleep and a full moon lighting up the night, Hunter said, "I had to bring you here." That was Hunter, always thinking of what ignited her imagination. So in love with making her happy was he that she could take his love for granted and long for the impossible, protected by the slow and steady creep of that beautiful vine.

From Matera they drove to the medieval town of Castellabate, where they stayed in a hotel a thousand feet directly above the Tyrrhenian Sea. From their patio the panorama included a vast expanse of sea, the islands of Ischia and of Capri, and the Amalfi Coast shrouded in mist, in the thick summer haze. The view made Beth think of Sylvia, still in California but working for a start-up in Silicon Valley, ultimately too practical to rely on an income from writing. The islands floated off shore like myths. After Castellabate came Herculaneum with its well-preserved Roman ruins, temples looming magnificently in the heat, drenched in sun and creeping oleander, and then the Amalfi Coast with, indeed, too much Amalfi. "It's a shopping mall," Beth declared, though a part of her wouldn't have minded drifting the streets to admire the shops. But Hunter would have none of it, so they pushed on to Pompeii, from Pompeii to Maremma, from Maremma to Giglio—a small island just north of Sardegna and just south of Elba.

There, they discovered a small hotel with little bungalows perched on the edge of a cliff, each one hidden by eucalyptus trees. A splendid spot you could get to only by boat, and once there you never wanted to leave because the setting was magical—a cliff rising from the sea to a terrace for sunbathing and eating and drinking, rising to a restaurant, rising to a Jacuzzi, rising to a sloping field upon which roamed goats that were the source of the milk used to make the hotel's own fresh goat cheese, served every evening with
miele di castagna
(chestnut honey). This was an entirely new Italy to Beth. In this Italy she was a tourist. Her old Italy was another country in which she had been called
Signorina
and in which she was decidedly a member, a citizen. But she still spoke Italian and Hunter adored watching her negotiate everything for them while he understood little of what was being said.

"I hate that I'm called
signora
" she told him, looking at herself in a hotel mirror, in one of those American-sized bathrooms. She traced her eyes with a finger, gingerly touching the lines of age. Valeria stood next to her doing the same thing. "My eyes," Beth said to Hunter, holding him in the mirror with her eyes. "My eyes, Daddy," Valeria said, mimicking her mother. But that's all she said to him about the nineteen-year gap, the divide between her Italy and this Italy. She still felt like a girl with possibility lying just in front of her, just within her reach. She bent down and kissed Valeria on the head, "My little monkey," she said. "My little sponge."

"You're my
signorina
" Hunter said, and kissed Beth's ear. His breath sneaked into it and she flinched. She loved him, she did, she told herself. She turned around to kiss him.

"The first time I went to Rome was with Bea and her grandmother," Beth said. "I was sixteen." The memory had just bubbled to the surface, long forgotten. "Bea's grandmother's sister was a very small, very old nun, and she lived in a convent and we went to visit her. It seemed we were there for hours, in a room of old nuns, in their habits speaking in Italian, which I didn't yet understand. The old nuns pinched my cheeks and laughed at me sweetly for understanding nothing and for being American, like I was some sort of rare pet. When they realized I wasn't baptized they weren't exactly scared, actually more curious about how to save me. They were just going to arrange a baptism. They wanted Bea's grandmother to extend their visit so they'd have the time. But that wasn't possible." She thought of Signora Cellini's fright upon learning that she was a heathen.

"So close yet so far," Hunter said, and kissed her sinful forehead.

"You've always loved me, haven't you?" she said.

"Since I first met you."

"Persistent."

"I knew you'd love me."

"Tenacious."

"I took the long view."

"Do you miss earning your own money?"

"So many concerns, my love." He put his hands in her hair and she felt the quality of his that she loved most—his easy adaptability—and how this freed him.

Swimming from the cliffs of the Giglio hotel, a particularly handsome, though older, Italian man joined Beth. He dove in just after she did and followed her a distance out, far enough so that the people lying on the rocks in the sun seemed small. Beth thought that it was strange that this man chose to follow her. He had not been friendly, though most of the other guests at this small hotel had been, and thus he had stood out. All meals were shared and cocktails were enjoyed together at sunset. His wife, a tall aging blond woman with weathered skin, never offered even the slightest smile, though Beth had seen her reading an American novel and suspected her to be American. In the water, however, her husband was clearly following Beth. Beth smiled, treading water, admiring the beauty of the cliffs.
Ombrelloni
for shade had been erected here and there, poking up among the rocks like exotic trees. A child with a snorkel swam about close to shore, lifting his head to shout out the names of creatures he had seen below. On the terrace, a hundred feet up, preparations were being made for lunch, Beth could hear the clatter of silver and glassware. "
Americanina
" the Italian said, and Beth nodded. She imagined, seeing his dark receding hair and his clever eyes, that Cesare would be like this at sixty. "This place is a jewel," he continued in Italian. "It is," Beth agreed, wondering if she had been mistaken about him, if perhaps he was friendly. "I've been coming here for years," he said. "No one knows about this hotel." They bobbed in the water, gentle waves pushing against them. This would have been her life. "A secret," Beth smiled. "Don't tell any Americans about it," he said with a sudden sternness as he swam up quite close to her. For a moment she thought he might try to drown her. "What?" she asked. "Americans, they'll ruin it. Don't go back to New York and tell them all about it. Look what they did to Tuscany after that book, that Tuscan Sun abomination. Destroyed."

Beth swallowed a gulp of seawater and started coughing. She remembered being in Spain a few years back and an old man had recognized Hunter as American and the old man told Hunter that he hated Americans and then he looked at Beth and said, "You're Italian. Italians are good, they make me laugh." She had been proud to be confused for an Italian, but she wanted to apologize for all Americans, their big-bathroom needs and their loud consumptive mouths. Then she hated the little old man for his categorical hate as she hated the presumptuous swimmer now at her side.

"What do you do?" he asked, friendly now, as they swam back to shore. It felt as if she were swimming across some great divide, the impossible. She stopped swimming, looked him in the eye, turned on her back and floated beneath the sun. "I'm a writer," she said.

***

In Pisa, she remembered driving fast in the Maserati, kissing Miki on Forte dei Marmi's jetty—his big hands and his big feet and his big penis. All the surprise of Greece floated unknown in front of her. How fun it had been to be eighteen, driving fast to Parma to eat tortellini and fresh parmesan, knowing nothing of the divide.

Pisa was as far north as she would go this trip. Instead, they turned south again and headed to Florence and a week in a friend's villa in southern Tuscany, in the small town of Cetona: lazy days of eating well and reading and drinking more
vino locale un po' frizzante
broken up by day trips to local markets, and to Assisi and Orvieto and Montepulciano. She surrendered to her new role of tourist, letting the old
signorina
go, and before long the present stopped its kiss with the past.

Then, sitting on the patio of the Cetona villa beneath a grape arbor, looking across a valley to the small hillside town of Città della Pieve, she heard her cell phone ring. It was Bear, calling from Provence. "OK, little darling," he said, upon hearing her voice. "You're in Europe and you're coming up to my little shack in Provence. You're coming just as soon as you can and if you give me any lip I won't help you fund a thing. You're gonna come up here and sell me on Previn or whatever the silly name is, and you're gonna cook me those Indian concoctions and potions and you're gonna seduce me." Bear somehow always reminded her of a Texan even though he was decidedly not a Texan. Rather, he was born and raised in Connecticut and had never set foot in Texas. But he had been a political science major and had studied Lyndon Baines Johnson in particular and, Beth suspected, had adopted some of the president's bravado and swagger. She smiled. Bear knew her too well. "I can just feel you smiling, Beth," he blustered, "and so I know you're coming."