The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales (3 page)

2

But Fabrizio Naccarelli, whether Margaret Johnson had cared to master his name or not, was not one to be underestimated. He was very much at home in Florence, where he had been born and his father before him and so on straight back to the misty days before the Medici, and he had given, besides, some little attention to the ways of the
stranieri
who were always coming to his hometown. It seemed in the next few days that he showed up on every street corner. Surely he could not have counted so much on the tie they might decide to buy for Signor Johnson.

Clara invariably lighted up when they saw him, and he in turn communicated over and over his innocent pleasure in this happiest of coincidences. Mrs. Johnson noted that at each encounter he managed to extract from them some new piece of information, foremost among them, how long would they remain? Caught between two necessities, that of lying to him and not lying to her daughter, she
revealed that the date was uncertain, and saw the flicker of triumph in his eyes. And the next time they met—well, it was too much. By then they were friends. Could he offer them dinner that evening? He knew a place only for Florentines—good, good, very good. “Oh, yes!” said Clara. Mrs. Johnson demurred. He was very kind, but in the evenings they were always too tired. She was drawing Clara away in a pretense of hurry. The museum might close at noon. At the mention of noon the city bells began clanging all around them. It was difficult to hear. “In the piazza,” he cried in farewell, with a gesture toward the Piazza della Signoria, smiling at Clara, who waved her hand, though Mrs. Johnson went on saying, “No, we can’t,” and shaking her head.

Late that afternoon, they were taking a cup of tea in the big casino near Piazzale Michelangelo, when Clara looked at her watch and said they must go.

“Oh, let’s stay a little while longer and watch the sun set,” her mother suggested.

“But we have to meet Fabrizio.” The odd name came naturally to her tongue.

“Darling, Fabrizio will probably be busy until very late.”

It was always hard for Mrs. Johnson to face the troubling-over of her daughter’s wide, imploring eyes. Perhaps she should make some pretense, though pretense was the very thing she had constantly to guard against. The doctors had been very firm with her here. As hard as it was to be the source of disappointment, such decisions had to be made. They must be communicated, tactfully, patiently, reasonably. Clara must never feel that she had been deceived. Her whole personality might become confused. Mrs. Johnson sighed, remembering all this, and began her task.

“Fabrizio will understand if we do not come, Clara, because I told him this morning we could not. You remember that I did? I told him that because I don’t think we should make friends with him.”

“Why?”

“Because he has his own life here and he will stay here always. But we must go away. We have to go back home and see Daddy and Brother and Ronnie—” Ronnie was Clara’s collie dog—“and Auntie and all the others. You know how hard it was to leave Ronnie even though you were coming back? Well, it would be very hard to like Fabrizio, wouldn’t it, and leave him and never come back at all?”

“But I already like him,” said Clara. “I could write him letters,” she added wistfully.

“Things are often hard,” said Mrs. Johnson in her most cheery and encouraging tone.

It seemed a crucial evening. She did not trust Fabrizio not to call for them at their hotel, or doubt for a moment that he had informed himself exactly where they were staying. So she was careful before dinner to steer Clara to that other piazza—not the Signoria—once the closing hour for the shops had passed. Secure in the pushing crowds of Florentines, she chose one of the less fashionable cafés, settling at a corner table behind a green hedge that grew out of boxes and over the top of which there presently appeared the face of Fabrizio.

She saw him first in Clara’s eyes. Next he was beaming upon them. There had been a mistake, of course. He had said only piazza piazza. How could they know?
Difficile
. He was so sorry. Pardon, pardon.

There was simply nothing to be gained by trying to stare him down. His great eyes showed concern, relief, gaiety as clearly as if the words had been written on them, but self-betrayal was unknown to him. Trying to surprise him at his game, one grew distracted and became aware how beautiful his eyes were. His dress gave him away if anything did. Nothing could be neater, cleaner, more carefully or sleekly tailored. His shirt was starched and white; his black hair still gleamed faintly damp at the edges; his close-cut, cuffless gray trousers ended in new black shoes of a pebbly leather with pointed toes. A faint whiff of cologne seemed to come from him. There was something too much here, and a little touching. Well, they would be
leaving soon, thought Mrs. Johnson. She decided to relax and enjoy the evening.

But more than this was in it.

When she finally sat back from her excellent meal, lighting a cigarette and setting down her little cup of coffee, she glanced from the distance of her age toward the two young people. It was an advantage that Clara knew no Italian. She smiled sweetly and laughed innocently, so how was Fabrizio to know her dreary secret? Now Clara had taken out all her store of coins, the aluminum five- and ten-lire pieces that amused her, and was setting them on the table in little groups, pyramids and squares and triangles. Fabrizio, his hand-some cheek leaning against his palm, was helping her with the tip of one finger, setting now this one, now that one in place. They looked like two children, thought Mrs. Johnson.

It was as if a curtain had lifted before her eyes. The life she had thought forever closed to her daughter spread out its great pastoral vista.

After all, she thought, why not?

3

But, of course, the whole idea was absurd. She remembered it at once when she awoke the next morning, and flinched. I must have had too much wine, she thought.

“I think we must leave for Rome in a day or two,” said Mrs. Johnson.

“Oh, Mother!” Clara’s face fell.

It was a mistake to set her brooding on a bad day. The rain that had started with a rumble of thunder in the early morning hours was splashing down on the stone city. From their window a curtain of gray hung over the river, dimming the outlines of buildings on the opposite bank. The
carrozza
drivers huddled in chilly bird shapes under their great black umbrellas; the horses stood in crook-legged
misery; and water streamed down all the statues. Mrs. Johnson and Clara put on sweaters and went downstairs to the lobby, where Clara was persuaded to write postcards. Once started, the task absorbed her. The selection of which picture for whom, the careful printing of the short sentences. Even Ronnie must have the card picked especially for him, a statue of a Roman dog. Toward lunchtime the sun broke out beautifully. Clara knew the instant it did and startled her mother, who was looking through a magazine.

“It’s quit raining!”

Mrs. Johnson was quick. “Yes, and I think if it gets hot again in the afternoon we should go up to the big park and take a swim. You know how you love to swim, and I miss it, too. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

She had her difficulties, but when they had walked a short way along streets that were misty from the drying rain, had eaten in a small restaurant but seen no sign of anyone they knew, Clara was persuaded.

Mrs. Johnson enjoyed the afternoon. The park had been refreshed by the rain, and the sun sparkled hot and bright on the pool. They swam and bought ice cream on sticks from the vender, and everyone smiled at them, obviously acknowledging a good sight. Mrs. Johnson, though blond, had the kind of skin that never quite lost the good tan she had once given it, and her figure retained its trim firmness. She showed what she was: the busy American housewife, mother, hostess, cook and civic leader who paid attention to her looks. She sat on a bench near the pool, drying in the sun, smoking, her smart beach bag open beside her, watching her daughter, who swam like a fish, flashing here and there in the pool. She plucked idly at the wet ends of her hair and wondered if she needed another rinse. She observed without the slightest surprise the head and shoulders of Fabrizio surfacing below the diving board, as though he had been swimming underwater the entire time since they had arrived.

Like most Italians he was proud of his body and, having made his appearance, lost no time in getting out of the water. He was in truth
slightly bowlegged, but he concealed the flaw by standing in partial profile with one knee bent.

Well, thought Mrs. Johnson, it was just too much for her. She watched them splash water in each other’s faces, watched Clara push Fabrizio into the pool, Fabrizio pretend to push Clara into the pool, Clara chase Fabrizio out among the shrubs and down the fall of ground nearby. Endlessly energetic, they flitted like butterflies through the sunlight. Except that butterflies, thought Mrs. Johnson, do not really think very much about sex. The final thing that had happened at home, that had really decided them on another trip abroad, was that Clara had run out one day and flung her arms around the grocery boy.

These problems had been faced; they had been reasoned out, patiently explained; it was understood what one did and didn’t do to be good. But impulse is innocent about what is good or bad. A scar on the right side of her daughter’s head, hidden by hair, lingered, shaped like the new moon. It was where her Shetland pony, cropping grass, had kicked in a temper at whatever was annoying him. Mrs. Johnson had been looking through the window, and she still remembered the silence that had followed her daughter’s sidelong fall, more heart numbing than any possible cry.

Things would certainly take care of themselves sooner or later, Mrs. Johnson assured herself. She had seen the puzzled look commence on many a face, and had begun the weary maneuvering to see yet another person alone before the next meeting with Clara. Right now, for instance—Clara could never play for long without growing hysterical, screaming even. There, she had almost tripped Fabrizio; he had done an exaggerated flip in the air. She collapsed into laughter, gasping, her two hands thrust in her face in a spasm. Poor child, thought her mother. But then Fabrizio came to her and took her hands down. In one quick motion he stood her straight, and she grew quiet. Something turned over in Mrs. Johnson’s breast.

They stood before her, panting, their sun-dried skin like so much velvet. “Look,” cried Clara, and parted her hair above her ear. “I have a scar over my ear!” She pointed. “A scar. See!”

Fabrizio struck down her hand and put her hair straight.
“No. Ma sono belli
. Your hair—is beautiful.”

We must certainly leave for Rome tomorrow, Mrs. Johnson thought. She heard herself thinking it, at some distance, as though in a dream.

She entered thus from that day a conscious duality of existence, knowing what she should and must do and making no motion toward doing it. The Latin temperament may thrive on such subtleties and never find it necessary to conclude them, but to Mrs. Johnson the experience was strange and new. It confused her. She believed, as most Anglo-Saxons do, that she always acted logically and to the best of her ability on whatever she knew to be true. And now she found this quality immobilized and all her actions taken over by the simple drift of the days.

She had, in fact, come face to face with Italy.

4

Something surely would arise to help her.

One had only to sit still while Fabrizio—he of the endless resource—outgeneraled himself and so caught on, or until he tired of them and dreamed of something else. One had only to make sure that Clara went nowhere alone with him. The girl had not a rebellious bone in her, and under her mother’s eye she could be kept in tune.

But if Mrs. Johnson had been consciously striving to make a match, she could not have discovered a better line to take. Fabrizio’s father was Florentine, but his mother was a Neapolitan, who went regularly to mass and was suspicious of foreigners. She received with approval the news that the
piccola signorina americana
was not
allowed to so much as mail a postcard without her mother along.
“Ma sono italiane?
Are they Italian?” She wanted to know.
“No, Mamma, non credo.”
And though Fabrizio declaimed his grand impatience with the
signora americana
, in his heart he was pleased.

A few days later, to the immense surprise of Fabrizio, who was taking coffee with the ladies in the big piazza, they happened to be noticed by an Italian gentleman, rather broad in girth, with a high-bridged Florentine nose and a pair of close-set, keen, cold eyes.
“Ah, Papa!”
cried Fabrizio.
“Fortuna! Signora, signorina, permette
. My father.”

Signor Naccarelli spoke English very well, indeed. Yes, it was a bit rusty, perhaps; he must apologize. He had known many Americans during the war, had done certain small things for them in liaison during the occupation. He had found them very
simpatici
, quite unlike the Germans, whom he detested.

This was a set speech. It gave him time. His face was not at all regular; the jaw went sideways from his high forehead, and his mouth, like Fabrizio’s, was somewhat thin. But his eye was pale, and he and Mrs. Johnson did not waste time in taking each other’s measure. She sensed his intelligence at once. Now at last, she thought ruefully, between disappointment and relief, the game would be up.