The Lover From an Icy Sea (32 page)

*  *  *

They walked on, down off the Ponte Sesto and into Trastevere. It wasn’t long before they found a place called the Trattorìa da Lucia, walked in and announced their intention to the Maître d’. He greeted them solemnly—as Kit might’ve expected from a man whose position contrived to inure him to the sight of a beautiful woman. Yet even this Maître d’, for all of his self-control, could not defeat an automatic reflex as Daneka stepped up to his desk to ask for a table. Nostrils once again flared at the smell of her sex that now, like some kind of savage perfume, seemed to pervade the air of the entire restaurant. One by one, the faces of both men and women turned in her direction as she and Kit followed the Maître d’ back to their table. Kit knew the cause of it. If Daneka did as well, she was giving no hint either of pride or of embarrassment at its effect on the other diners.

The Maître d’ chose to seat them in a corner of the trattorìa as far removed from himself and from the rest of his
clientèle
as possible. He wanted to avert a riot—at least a riot of the senses. He noted that other women in the restaurant were looking conspicuously unexcited as their male consorts—husbands, lovers, even sons—squirmed in their seats.

She’s a fucking aphrodisiac!
Kit thought to himself. There was apparently no limit to the effect she could have not only on him, but on every member of his sex who still possessed senses and organs alive enough to react with. But there were limits, he realized—even in Rome; or maybe especially in Rome. In any case, he hoped the two of them would survive this night and get out of town intact. And for the future, he would never again suggest that she walk out into a public space without panties on.

*  *  *

The next hour would prove to be among the most memorable of Kit’s life.

Their waiter had to come back four times to get their order. He broke two pencils in the process, yet still managed to get it wrong in the end. Busboys dropped bread, pitchers of water, plates, glasses. The same busboys then broke two brooms in their effort to clean up the mess. A constant stream of visitors walked past their table on the way to the men’s room—sometimes, the same men two or three times. What had been any number of quiet dinner conversations when they’d first entered the
trattorìa
turned into brawls. Women yelled at their men. Men yelled back at their women, then marched off to the men’s room. The few children present may’ve had no understanding of what was going on, yet they happily contributed their share of noise to the general uproar until distraught mothers picked them up and walked out with them. One couple had been unfortunate enough to bring along a baby, who now wailed ceaselessly. At long last, the mother picked the baby up and dropped it like a stone into her husband’s lap. She then picked up the check and wrapped it in a soiled diaper. On her way out of the trattorìa, she flung it at the Maître d’.

The restaurant was verging on hysteria and breakdown. When desert finally came, Kit felt it expedient to ask for the check.

The waiter came back flustered: he couldn’t find the check; there was no check; there was no evidence of their having eaten anything. Kit offered to review with him again what they had eaten and let him write out a new check.

At that moment, the Maître d’ appeared at their table. He looked like a much older version of the very composed gentleman who’d greeted them upon their arrival. It was very kind of Kit to offer … but there would be no need … no need at all … compliments of the house, the chef, himself, the entire wait staff. Did they need a taxi? He could have one at the front door in seconds. He knew the man personally. Very dependable—his brother, in fact. ‘Would take them anywhere in Rome—anywhere at all.

He’d taken out his cell phone and had already started dialing when Kit told him it wouldn’t be necessary, that they could walk back to the hotel. The man visibly withered and seemed to age even further as he stood before Kit and Daneka imploring them to leave with every body part except his mouth, which simply couldn’t pronounce the actual words. He was crumbling. His restaurant was crumbling. All of Rome was crumbling.

Daneka went on munching. Kit recognized that a crisis was at hand. He had no desire to be the cause of the second fall of the Roman Empire. He suggested to Daneka they could finish desert in the hotel. She apparently didn’t understand what all the fuss was about or why the rush.

“
Trust me, darling,” he finally said to her as he took the spoon out of her hand and put it down on her desert dish. “It’ll be better this way.”

Kit stood up and pulled Daneka’s chair back. The Maître d’ looked at him with tears of gratitude; his restaurant might yet be saved thanks to this man. Rome, too. He mumbled words about a “second liberation” as he ushered them out: Daneka, like an unruly puppy on an invisible leash; and Kit, understanding better this man’s sense of urgency—and so, coaxing Daneka along from behind. At the door, both received a final “
Grazie, grazie
” and “
Buona Notte
” before the Maître d’ closed the door behind them, sat down on the floor and wept.

*  *  *

“
What in the world—?” Daneka said, apparently ignorant of the part she’d just played in the near demise of a family business of multiple generations. “My, but these Romans are a lively bunch!”

Kit didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This woman, otherwise and in every instance entirely self-aware and consequently aware of the effect she could have on others, obviously had no clue about the near-chaos she’d just caused—and not, this time, exclusively because of the way she looked, but much more because of the way she smelled. He thought, however, that the situation called for discretion.

“
I just don’t know what got into those people. Do you, darling?” she said to Kit as she looked at him through big, round eyes.

“
I don’t know either, Daneka. But you know how temperamental Italians are—at least by reputation. Maybe there was something in the food. Or in the wine. Or maybe even in the stars,” Kit said as he looked up at the sky, trying desperately to suppress a guffaw. “You don’t suppose there might’ve been something in the air?” he asked.

“
In the air?” Daneka said. “You mean, like pollen?”

“
Well, related.”

“
Related? How related?” she asked.

“
Well, darling. There’s pollen and then there’s the pollen receptor—the pistil or stigma. Surely, you remember enough from botany, or from biology, or from whatever you called it in Denmark at the time you were of an age to study it at school.”

“
Yes, of course. But I just don’t see the connection. Are these pistils, like pollen, in the air? And do they somehow cause people to act a little strange?”

“
'Could be, ‘could be,” Kit lied, allowing himself just the hint of a smile. They were once again on the Ponte Sisto en route back to the hotel. However much the little Comedia del’arte they’d just staged was still on his mind, he couldn’t ignore the serious beauty surrounding them. Rome suffered from pollution at least as much as any other big city he knew—and yet the stars were clearly visible. The Tiber flowed beneath them on its steady course towards the sea. Buildings that had withstood the ravages of time, of war and of invasions—some of those buildings for over two millennia—greeted his eyes with the same quiet solidity with which they’d greeted the eyes of countless lovers before them and would no doubt greet as many after them. And somehow, it all worked.

Kit knew he and Daneka were two human beings of no consequence, acting out their insignificant parts on an enormous stage which had as little regard for them as it did for any other pair of lovers. And yet, at this instant, their insignificance didn’t mean a whit to him. If love and happiness meant anything at all in the universe, if some god—or gods—somewhere were not entirely indifferent to it, then he had at last found the only thing worth finding—the only thing that gave his life, or any life, real purpose and meaning. And he had found it with her.

They walked on and eventually arrived at the hotel. The lobby was quiet except for some late-night activity in the reception area. They took the elevator to the fourth floor, got out, opened the door to their room and turned the light on. They undressed quickly; turned the light back out; got into bed. Before he could even wish her sweet dreams, Kit saw that Daneka had fallen asleep.

“
Goodnight, my little Viking princess,” he said to her eyelids and kissed them both.

Chapter 41

The next morning, Daneka and Kit rose early, checked out of their hotel, grabbed a taxi to the airport, retrieved their luggage and rental car, then headed out to the
autostrada
in the direction of Naples—and, ultimately, of Positano—albeit in no particular rush. They simply wanted to be out and away from it all: away from the traffic, the noise, the unrelenting thrum of city life.

Positano was located on the Gulf of Salerno at 40.37˚ north of the equator and just a few tenths of a latitudinal degree south of New York, so daytime temperatures would likely feel familiar. The summer solstice was fast approaching. These would not be the hottest days of the year by any means—either in Positano or in New York. But they’d certainly be warm enough for swimming, for sun-bathing, for taking walks along the beach well into evening.

Kit and Daneka had estimated two hours for the drive if they pushed hard; three hours if they didn’t. The key to their roadmap told them this tiny gem of a village by the sea was about one hundred twenty-five miles south of Rome. As they coasted along with other southbound traffic, Kit let his mind wander. Highway travel was highway travel the industrialized world over: one could practically put one’s vehicle on autopilot; set the accelerator to 70 or 75 mph; then just go with the flow.

His free associations were temporarily interrupted, however, when he noticed their car rapidly gaining on the rear bumper of a slower-moving truck up ahead. As he approached close enough to read its license plate, Kit identified the tell-tale first two letters of the truck’s registration: PA—Palermo. The truck’s exhaust emitted an ugly stream of black smoke, and its rear panel had been gussied up with a pair of nudes. The solid gold silhouettes of two women in provocatively reclining positions faced each other off like some kind of cheap faïence at opposite ends of a fireplace mantle. Poverty, Kit thought to himself, headlined itself in more than kitsch and bad dental care; it could also be read in the absence of catalytic converters.

He checked his mirror for traffic approaching from the rear: only one car—far behind, its headlights curiously flashing on and off—so not a problem. He figured he’d need only a few seconds to get past this truck. He set his blinker, accelerated, and moved out into the passing lane just as he caught sight of a portion of the truckdriver’s face in the vehicle’s exterior side-view mirror. A couple of day’s dark, stubby growth highlighted two or three remaining teeth in the gaping “O” of the man’s mouth as his eyes bulged and his eyebrows shot up into two panicked crescents.

*  *  *

Kit later confessed to Daneka that he had no recollection of the next few seconds. The longer minutes that followed, however, resulted in feelings of remorse such that, from that day forward, he never again drove a car without hands clenched on the steering wheel in equal parts dread and guilt. If it had been possible, he would never have driven again at all.

*  *  *

As Kit pulled out into the passing lane, the car approaching in the same lane from his rear reacted quickly—but not quickly enough for the speed at which it was traveling. There was too little space between Kit’s car and the median for it to squeeze through without side-swiping Kit’s car in the process. The driver consequently swerved to the right to try to reach and then pass on the shoulder. The low front bumper of his candy apple-red Lamborghini caught the rear bumper of the truck and sent it into a tailspin. Kit braked his own car as the truck swerved in front, struck the center median, then bounced back and flipped over. It rolled several times before spilling its cargo and then bursting into flames. As Kit’s car quickly decelerated through 50 mph, leaving a rubber skid mark on the pavement as proof of his effort to avoid colliding with the truck, a detached arm bounced up off the pavement and slammed into his windshield.

In the meantime, the brief handshake of the truck’s rear bumper and the front bumper of the much lighter, much faster-traveling Lamborghini had been sufficient to send it gliding off onto the shoulder like a paper plane, where a cement kilometer marker caught it head on. The marker didn’t budge; consequently, what had to give was the Lamborghini. The energy of its velocity needed to go somewhere, and a simple kilometer marker, small yet robust, refused to yield to close to a ton of steel and fiberglass traveling forward at 120 mph.

The car upended and turned somersaults. When it finally came to a rest, it—like the truck a split second earlier—burst into flames, as its gas tank had separated from the vehicle in the enormous expenditure of energy unleashed by the accident. By the sheer force of the tank’s collision with the cement median, it had broken apart. The result was a fireball that engulfed both sides of the highway.