Without Reservations (38 page)

Asolo’s beauty was astonishing. But it was the quiet serenity of the place that appealed to me most. Sometimes at night I would get up and walk through the terraced gardens just outside the door to my room, listening to the silence. Rising in the morning, I would open the heavy wooden shutters and hear only the sound of bird-song or the soft thud of raindrops dripping from the roof above to the grass below. Beyond the gardens was the view I looked out on each morning: pale blue hills, and beyond them, the snowy Dolomites, their peaks ringed like Saturn with bands of swirling mist.

In Asolo I purposely fell into a routine; I wanted to make one day indistinguishable from the next. Breakfast was taken on the terrace outside my room or in the main villa: espresso, fresh fruit, and a slice or two of panforte, a bread made with raisins and nuts. Then I walked into town, stopping to peer in every window and study each building along the way. One day a British tourist staying at the villa accompanied me on my walk, pointing out the house where Eleonora Duse, a great actress born in Italy in 1858, had lived. She, too, was buried in Asolo.

Occasionally, I would stop to pick up a paper before heading for Caffè Centrale in the main piazza. There, in front of the imposing fifteenth-century water fountain, under the fierce gaze of the stone lion of San Marco, I would try to decipher the news by matching the Italian words with the accompanying pictures. More often, I simply sat drinking espresso while observing the townspeople as they went about their daily routines.

In Asolo there were no cell phones ringing or motorbikes whizzing by; no harried commuters on their way to jobs that occupied most of the space in their lives; no weary-looking tourists with timetables to meet and must-see churches to visit. The tourists in Asolo at this time of the year, mostly English travelers and well-to-do Italians from Milan, seemed to have no agenda—except to relax and enjoy themselves.

In Asolo, life went on in a quiet fashion. Children played around the fountain, splashing one another with water that still flows through a Roman aqueduct. Mothers pushed babies in strollers. Men sat reading the papers, halos of pipe smoke rising above their heads. Women walked home from the market, carrying bags of fresh fruit and vegetables. Once I saw a wedding party walking to the church, the bride’s white veil blowing up from her head like gauzy wings.

The piazza was home base for me. Often I ate lunch there; soup, usually. The
pasta e fagioli
, a thick pasta-and-bean soup, was my favorite. Then in the afternoon I’d explore the small, fascinating shops in the arcaded walkways, stopping in at the embroidery school and pottery shop to watch the artisans at work.

At night, after dinner, I would stroll up to the square and have a glass of Ferrari, a sparkling white wine from the Alto Adige. Often on such evenings I thought of my sons.

Sometimes I found my mind roaming over the past, briefly returning to me the two boys who used to live in my house. I saw them sitting at the table, one building airplane models, the other arranging his baseball cards in stacks. I saw them playing with the cats—Pussums, Graysie, Pussums, Jr., Mittens, Pumpkin, Tasha—who still, in their minds and mine, formed a feline map of our past together. I saw the boys waving good-bye from the bus that took them to summer camp and saying hello when they came home from
college for Christmas. It never occurred to me then to mark such seemingly ordinary moments before they slid into obscurity. After all, how was I to know that somewhere a clock was quietly ticking away, moving the three of us into the future?

More often, though, I tried to imagine what the future held for my sons. Although I used to think I had a pretty good handle on who they were and where life would take them, now I was less sure. To my surprise, I liked my new attitude better. It seemed to signal a letting-go of the notion they were set on some immutable course that could not be changed. That left me to face the problem of how to give up my desire to keep them close to me in a way I still needed but they didn’t.

What a long, painful process it is, letting go of those you love, I thought, walking back to the villa one night. Still I knew that slowly it
was
happening. The odd thing is, letting go of the two young boys I loved didn’t make me feel as lonely as I had feared. It seemed to be freeing up more space for the men they had become.

One morning, while loitering near the entrance to the villa, I watched the arrival of two new guests in a chauffeur-driven car. Along with several pieces of expensive luggage, the couple—a tall, regal-looking woman with silver hair and an impeccably dressed younger man—moved toward the receptionist’s desk. I, naturally, moved along with them, curious to learn what I could about this rather intriguing couple. Were they mother and son? I wondered, although the gap between their ages seemed too wide for that. Was he a paid companion, perhaps, for a wealthy woman? A nephew? Maybe a grandson?

Pretending to study a brochure about sightseeing in Treviso, I took up a position near the reception desk. The check-in procedure yielded several pieces of information. One, they were British; their accents definitely patrician. Two, the woman—in her seventies perhaps, but quite striking—did most of the talking. Three, the young man—in his early thirties perhaps—had quite a pleasant demeanor. Four, they were staying in separate rooms.

What I planned to do with this information I hadn’t a clue. But they were by far the most interesting people I’d seen at the villa. And they spoke English. Who knows? I thought, perhaps our paths will cross. Perhaps we’ll meet one morning at breakfast. Or in the village. Or in the garden.

A day later I did meet the British couple. But not in any of the likely places. We met at Asolo’s graveyard, the cemetery attached to the small church of Sant’ Anna. It was the place, I had been told, where Freya Stark was buried.

The walk to the graveyard, situated on a high spot outside the town’s center, took about thirty minutes. When I reached the tidy little cemetery, I was out of breath and slightly dizzy from the altitude. I seemed to be the only visitor. Looking around at the rows and rows of tombs crowded together, I realized I had no idea as to the actual location of Freya’s grave. But what the heck, I thought, that wouldn’t have stopped Freya and it won’t stop me.

At the end of an hour I still hadn’t located what I’d come to find. Tired, I sat on a tombstone to rest. It was then that I saw them approaching, the British couple from the hotel. Embarrassed to be caught sitting on top of someone’s gravesite, I jumped up and blurted out, “Hello. I’m an American and I’m staying at your villa.”

The silver-haired woman smiled. “Well, I wish it
were
my villa,” she said. “But, alas, it’s not.” Up close, she appeared even older than I’d imagined, but still quite lovely.

“Are you looking for someone special?” asked the young man.

“Yes, I am. Freya Stark.”

The mention of her name drew an instant response from the silver-haired woman. “Oh, my, what a dear old gal she was. Wonderful woman, Freya Stark. Is she buried here?”

I told her yes, I thought so, but that I hadn’t been able to find her.

“Did you know that just last month a memorial service was held for her in London?” the woman asked. “At St. James’s Church. In Piccadilly. I heard it was really beautiful.”

I knew that church; I had visited it three months earlier. Quite by accident I’d popped into the modest-looking building to take a rest after a long walk through Piccadilly and Mayfair. From a plaque posted at the entrance I learned that Sir Christopher Wren designed the church in 1674 and, after its destruction by bombs in 1940, it was completely rebuilt.

When I walked inside the church I saw a choir about to rehearse a hymn. I sat listening as they began to sing:

If I closed my eyes now, in Asolo, I could still see St. James’s interior: a vast, simple space surrounded by two-tiered windows beneath a barrel-vaulted ceiling. It struck me that St. James’s, an edifice plain on the outside but soaring and beautiful within, was the perfect place to honor Dame Freya.

The British couple, unlike me, had found the site they’d come
looking for: the grave of Eleonora Duse. It was set apart from the rest of the cemetery, they told me, in a small patch of woods.

I had planned to stay for another hour or so, searching, but the light was fading and so was my energy. I walked back to the main road with the woman and her friend to their parked car. A chauffeur stood beside it, smoking a cigarette. Seeing them, he quickly stamped it out.

“Could we give you a lift back to town?” the young man asked.

“That would be very nice,” I said. He held open the door and I climbed in.

“By the way, I’m Jack Upton,” he said, holding out his hand. “And this is Mrs. Margaret Spenser.”

“I’m delighted to meet you,” I said, introducing myself and wondering, even as I did, what to say next. For some reason I felt the burden of conversation lay with me. As I rummaged through my head looking for something interesting to say, Mrs. Spenser broke the silence.

“Have you been enjoying your stay in Asolo?” she asked.

I told her I was enjoying it immensely, especially the quiet, pastoral setting.

“Yes, it’s quite restful, isn’t it? Particularly after the crowds we found in Venice. I must say, though, I find Venice simply charming. Have you been?”

“Yes, I have. And it is beautiful. No wonder painters could never get enough of Venice. I’ve read somewhere that the light in Venice actually changed the course of painting.”

My remark seemed to interest the two of them, particularly Jack. “It has been said you can classify Venetian painters by the light they preferred,” he said. “Bellini liked morning light, Veronese the midday, and Guardi the evening.”

“Are you a painter?” I asked.

“No, but I am interested in art.”

“Jack is too modest,” Mrs. Spenser said. “He’s quite an expert on Renaissance drawings.”

I was about to ask more when the car pulled up in front of the villa. Jack spoke to the driver in Italian, then helped Mrs. Spenser and me from the car.

“I told him to pick us up tomorrow afternoon at two,” he told Mrs. Spenser. “Maser is only four miles from here and Villa Barbaro is only open in the afternoon.” He turned to me. “One of the reasons for our visit here is to see the Palladian villas in the region. Particularly Villa Barbaro. Some think it’s Palladio’s masterpiece.”

“Yes. I’ve read about the Villa Barbaro. It’s on my list, too.”

We walked into the small lobby together. They were staying in the villa; my room was in a smaller, more modest building nearby. We said our good-byes and parted, going off in different directions.

That night I broke my usual routine. Instead of going to the square after dinner for a glass of wine, I sat in the garden thinking about Venice. About Venice and about Naohiro.

Just before leaving for Asolo I had spent my last weekend in Venice with Naohiro. When he arrived by plane from Paris on a Friday afternoon I was there at the small, crowded airport waiting for him. As usual, I was excited by the thought of being with him.

I spotted him first. He wore a black leather jacket and was moving quickly, but with his usual elegance, through the crowd. Watching him, I felt it: the leap of the blood. I wondered—no, I
hoped
—that he would feel it, too.

Naohiro, I could tell, had seen me. He walked to where I stood
and put his suitcase down. Then in traditional Japanese fashion, he greeted me by bowing his head. In similar fashion I returned the greeting. By now I was used to the formality that surrounded our meetings in public places.

“I trust you are well,” he said, stepping close to me. He smelled of fresh pine needles.

“I am. And you?”

“I am very well. And very happy to see you.”

We took a water taxi from the airport to Venice. In the small speedboat we sat side by side, our bodies touching. When finally the city of Venice began to take shape on the horizon, Naohiro put his arm around my shoulder. He had never done this before. It was such an American gesture and so foreign to Naohiro’s usual public demeanor that it caught me off guard. I found it endearing. And exciting, too.