The Sonnet Lover (6 page)

“Italy? There’s no proof Shakespeare ever went to Italy.”

“There’s no proof he didn’t, eh?” he asks, winking at me. “According to Robin, there’s a legend at La Civetta about a woman poet who lived there in the sixteenth century who some people believe was Shakespeare’s Dark Lady.”

“He must mean Ginevra de Laura,” I say, finishing my Greek God-dess in an unwisely large swallow and looking around for an exit strategy. In a minute he’ll be telling me that Shakespeare didn’t write the sonnets. “I’ve heard of her. She was the mistress of Lorenzo Barbagianni, the villa’s owner, and said to be a great poet, only all her poems were lost, so that’s really just speculation. I’ve never heard this rumor about her being the Dark Lady, though.”

“But, see, at least you know who she was,” Balthasar says, waving his glass in the air. “That’s why we want to get you aboard as a writer on the script. With your credentials—”

“There are plenty of academics with better,” I tell him.

“But none,” he says, clicking his half-full champagne glass against my empty one, “who also writes sonnets. You see, we want the poet’s sensibility, not one of these dry-as-dust academics’. Of course, the money will be a little better than what your average academic publisher pays.” He leans in even closer so that I can smell the sweet orange liqueur on his breath and mentions a figure that’s roughly ten times larger than the advance I’d gotten from the university press that’s publishing my book on the Renaissance sonnet.

“And that’s just for six weeks’ work this summer,” he says rocking back on his heels. “All expenses paid, of course, and first-class airfare.”

“Airfare?”

“To Italy. I’m doing the preliminary location scout in July and then, if everything checks out and we’ve got a script, we’d start shooting at La Civetta in August.”

It’s the second time today I’ve been invited to La Civetta, and although I have no intention of accepting this offer either, I suddenly have the uneasy feeling that, like a hero in a fairy tale enduring some test of will, I will find the third time the offer is made the hardest to resist.

“Thank you, but no thank you,” I say, putting my empty glass on a table and holding my hand out to shake his. He takes my hand, but instead of delivering the firm shake he’d greeted me with, he pulls me in closer to him.

“You’ve got my card,” he says. He makes it sound almost like a threat. Like I’d taken something that belonged to him. “We’ll be in touch.” Then he lets me go and turns away. I see him go out the door to the west side of the balcony, which—once breached by Mara—has now filled with cigarette smokers. I turn back to look for Robin. The nucleus of white-suited men has acquired an outer ring of film students in their uniform of black jeans and black T-shirts. Robin, at the center of this circle, is beginning to look a little wilted. If the movie people around him are anything like Leo Balthasar, I’m surprised there’s any air left to breathe in the room. When he sees me he throws me a desperate look. I see him mouth the words “save me.” A bit dramatic, I think, reminding myself that Robin is one of the drama crowd now—a group well known for their histrionics. I’m worried, too, that Robin has been talking about me to these film people. What impression must he have given for Leo Balthasar to refer to him as “my boy”? But still, I can’t leave without at least congratulating him.

As I head toward Robin, I tell myself that once I’ve fulfilled my promise I can go home. I pick up another Greek Goddess on my way and pause to listen to the comments of some nearby partygoers. I overhear two young men condemning Robin’s film as overly sentimental and a girl with lime green hair earnestly explaining to three other girls, who, like this girl and Zoe, have dyed their hair in various fruit shades (tangerine, pink grapefruit, kiwi), why the winning film wasn’t by a woman. “It’s a boy’s club at Graham’s villa,” she complains. “They get all the best equipment and first pick of the prime locations. And the best rooms. The girls were all stuck in an old convent with bars on the windows and no ventilation. It was like an oven.”

I’m tempted to stop and commiserate with the girl—I’ve been in the “little villa,” as the old convent is called—but I intercept another desperate look from Robin and I’m afraid that if I don’t get to him soon he might begin calling my name aloud. As I get closer to Robin, the comments I overhear grow more favorable, but there’s still an edge of resentment to many of them. Near the center, a skinny boy in torn jeans, cowboy boots, and an Invader Zim T-shirt asks Robin whether he didn’t feel as if his film was derivative. “I mean, the words weren’t your own, man. You were just quoting some dead white guy.”

“Finding images to evoke Shakespeare’s sonnets is no easy feat,” I say, feeling I’ve arrived just in time to speak up for Shakespeare as well as Robin. Of course, it’s only Robin who can reward me with those bow-shaped lips curving into a smile. “I thought the film was lovely,” I say, raising my glass to Robin. “Worthy of the Bard.”

A few people join me in the toast, including Gene Silverman, who calls out, “Here, here,” and claps Robin on the back. His hand slides off Robin’s shoulder and somehow manages to find its way onto Zoe’s arm. He’s probably just drunk, but I find myself wondering whether there’s anything to Mara’s suspicions. I take a long sip of champagne to drown out the thought, and as I’m lowering my glass, Leo Balthasar, returned from the balcony, turns to me.

“And what did you think of the last sonnet, Dr. Asher? Worthy of the Bard, as well?”

“It’s hard to judge on a single hearing, but I found the last sonnet”—I pause and stare past Balthasar’s amused smile to the windows as if looking for the right word in the lights streaming along Fifth Avenue, but really I’m remembering again that final image of the lemon trees behind glass—“moving. The comparison between the lemon trees surviving the winter and the endurance of a betrayed love was…” I stop because I see Orlando Brunelli entering the room. How in the world did he get in? I’d thought for sure that Mark would alert the security guards to his presence. “Um, very nicely developed. The rhymes were exact and the iambic pentameter consistent,” I finish lamely, glancing around the room to locate Mark. Orlando has spotted Robin and Zoe and is walking straight toward us. “Although I’d have to see it in print to make a more considered evaluation.”

“But could it have been written by an Elizabethan poet?” Balthasar asks. “By Shakespeare’s Dark Lady, perhaps?”

I laugh. “I don’t see any reason to think so. The poet seems to be offering his or her beloved the gift of a
limonaia
—which is sort of an Italian greenhouse for lemons. And if we take the
limonaia
as a synecdoche—”

“Oh, I know what that is,” Zoe calls out. “It’s when a part of something stands for the whole thing, right?”

“Very good. So here the
limonaia
might stand for the whole villa. In which case, the poet intends to make a gift of the entire villa to the beloved. If Shakespeare had inherited an Italian villa, I think we would have heard about it.” A few people laugh and I’m glad to have diffused the situation with a joke. Glad, too, to see that Mark has managed to intercept Orlando and is talking to him now—until I see Robin’s expression. His pretty lips are curving downward and he looks stricken—just as he had when I’d accused him of plagiarism. And yet in this case I’m not saying that I don’t believe he wrote the poem. In fact, I suddenly realize that the opposite is probably true, that Robin wrote the last poem of the film and is claiming that it’s a poem he found. In our little talk about plagiarism, the focus was all on taking credit for someone else’s writing,
not
pretending something you wrote was written by someone else. Is that what Robin’s up to—presenting his own poems as the lost poems of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady?

“Did you write the poem?” I ask Robin gently. “I’d like to see a copy of it.”

Robin stares at me for a moment, his eyes glassy, his skin an unhealthy color. He takes a step toward me and stumbles. I reach forward to catch him and he presses something into my hand. “Here it is,” Robin says, beginning to stutter, “w-w-watch.”

The envelope he presses into my hand is thick and lumpy. I realize it must be my watch that he went to fetch for me. I start to thank him but then he leans his face against mine. For one terrible moment, I think he’s going to kiss me, but then he only whispers, “I need to talk to you alone.”

“Well, tomorrow’s Saturday,” I say, slipping the envelope into my purse. I feel somehow ashamed of the transaction, as if Robin were passing drugs to me. “But if it’s really important I could meet you in my office.”

“‘Tomorrow,’” Robin says, rearing back on his heels, his eyes full of disappointment, “ ‘and tomorrow, and tomorrow / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.’ ” His speech is no longer stuttering, now that he’s reciting Shakespeare’s words. When he turns away from me, he sees Or-lando. He suddenly looks as if he’s going to be ill. Orlando tries to approach Robin, but Mark has a hold of his arm.

“Lascia me,”
he says, wrenching his arm out of Mark’s grip. “I only came to get what belongs to me. The last poem in the film…he stole it—”

“I-I-I-,” Robin stutters.

“Any accusations of plagiarism will be taken into due consideration,” Mark tells Orlando in a loud, firm voice, “but this is not the time and place for it.”

The word “plagiarism” echoes around the room as it’s taken up by students and faculty. There’d been a messy plagiarism scandal last year that had resulted in a student’s expulsion. Robin looks at me and I imagine he’s afraid that I’ll bring up the incident of the Oscar Wilde paper. “Dr. Asher,” he says, “I swear—”

“President Abrams is right,” I say. “This isn’t the time or the place, Robin. Maybe you should get some air—”

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” Gene Silverman says, putting one arm around Robin’s shoulder and the other around Zoe’s and steering them both toward the balcony door. Leo Balthasar follows them, taking a cigar out of his pocket. As they pass me I hear the Hollywood producer ask Gene, “Are you sure there’s not a problem with the script?” I expect Mark to tell them that the balcony’s off-limits, but he’s got his hand clasped firmly onto Orlando’s arm and is trying to steer him toward the elevators. I notice that Orlando winces and I feel an unexpected pang of sympathy for him. I consider following them to make sure Mark isn’t being too rough on the boy, but then decide against it. All I need now is for Mark to think I’m trying to defend Bruno’s son. There have been enough jealous scenes for one night.

Turning back toward the balcony, I see I’m wrong. Mara has worked her way around to this side of the balcony and found her husband with his arm around the nubile young Zoe. Since the doors are closed I can’t hear what she’s saying, but from her expression I can guess. Even from here I can see that her lips are white with rage. She’s backed Zoe, and Robin with her, against the edge of the balcony, where they both cower under her assault. The scene has its comical elements—Leo Balthasar, puffing on his cigar in the corner of the balcony, seems to find it amusing—but I’m uncomfortable with the students’ proximity to the railing.

I look around to find Mark and see he’s waiting at the elevator with Orlando and the blond lawyer. As Mark leans closer to hear something she’s saying, Orlando suddenly bolts away from them. He crosses the room in surprisingly few long-legged strides, his black leather coat billowing out behind him and brushing against my leg as he passes me and opens the door to the balcony.

“Shit,” I hear Mark say, close on his heels. I follow them to the balcony door, but it swings shut behind Mark and before I can open it the guard suddenly appears and blocks my way. “
Now
you’re keeping people off the balcony?” I ask incredulously.

“President Abrams said—” he begins, but I push by him and struggle with the heavy door. When it swings open I feel a warm gust of air on my face and hear the sound of someone screaming. It’s Mara, I see, who’s turned away from the balcony, clutching Gene as if she’s afraid the wind will sweep her away. Leo Balthasar is pulling Zoe away from the railing where Mark and Orlando are standing, looking down at the street below. Only when Mark steps back, one arm still around Orlando’s chest, do I really take in the fact that Robin is gone.

CHAPTER
FOUR

T
HE SCREAMS, HIGH-PITCHED AND ODDLY REGULAR, ALMOST LIKE CHANTING
, infect the room with hysteria. A dozen or so people rush by me onto the balcony. I stay where I am: frozen. It still feels like I’m separated from what’s happening by a wall of glass and that if I stay very still, there will be an opportunity to undo what’s happened, and the last five minutes can be rewound and erased.

It is not, I realize now, as if anything can be done for Robin. The crowd that rushes past me out onto the balcony might hope that there’s a ledge on the other side of the balcony railing or a protrusion in the building that could have caught him in his descent. That he’ll pop up from behind the railing smiling—the whole thing a joke, a staged finale to his film. But I am sure there’s nothing on the other side of the railing but a sheer drop to the pavement. I don’t have to see the expressions on the faces of the people who look over the edge, or hear the sirens al-ready moving toward us, to confirm what I know has happened to Robin.

I search the knot of people clustered around the balcony door for Mark, but it’s Orlando who breaks through the crowd. I reach out a hand to stop him, but when he turns to me and I see his eyes—distended and bloodshot like a panicked horse’s—I let go of him. He says something in Italian—I’m almost sure it’s
“Mi dispiace”
—I’m sorry—and then he runs for the stairs. I turn, looking for Mark again, and see Zoe struggling to make her way into the room with Leo Balthasar close behind her, whispering something in her ear. I don’t know how she can hear anything with those screams, which seem to be getting louder—but then I see that’s only because their source is approaching me. It’s Mara, crumpled up against her husband’s side, weeping mascara-stained tears into his sport jacket and emitting those awful shrieks, as desperate in their repetition as those of an animal being slaughtered. Gene sees me and heads in my direction. I look around for some escape, but Gene corners me.