“I suppose no gold star?” I murmured, daring to look at her.
“On the contrary – this is one star you’ve earned. Now, get your things.”
“Where now?”
“As if I have to tell you! The rack, Alice!”
A brochure was taken out of the rack and I winced and nodded.
Of course.
“See you,” I muttered, going out the door. Joan of Arc smiled at me as we passed and she whispered, “It really wasn’t supposed to happen like that at all, Alice.”
“And be quick about it! The week is almost up!”
Stomping her well-shod foot and roundly pointing out the door with the snap of a finger, the Proprietress sent me on my way.
Chapter 7
The street looked the same: the same ochre walls and flower boxes dangling out of windows set in buildings so close neighbors could kiss if they leaned out a bit, the same smell of diesel and garlic, the Vespas and Alfa Romeos crammed on narrow streets that twisted and stretched until they reached the Piazza Bra. The cobblestones were shiny with rain, and people walked arm and arm in passaggio as the sun fell below the hills and evening came to Verona in late September.
As I walked by a shop window, Romeo and Juliet dolls displayed against a backdrop of medieval Verona caught my attention and I shook my head.
“At least we didn’t die…” I sighed.
I knew the path from the Vicolo Tre Marchetti to the Via dal Cappello as if it were a path I’d walked all my life even though the time spent in this the city of my dreams had been a year, no more.
The house was exactly as I remembered it: the gate house with its passageway off the street opening into a courtyard of ancient brick and stone that was ivy covered and fragrant with roses. The bench was still there, facing the house and the balcony. The gauche souvenir shops hadn’t existed when I first visited Verona in 1973, but here they were four years later – a magnet for tourists.
The museum guard pacing the courtyard looked up and smiled when I entered and sat on the bench, nodding as I sat down and took out a notebook.
“Every night, Signorina,” he greeted in English.
“I brought supper – enough for two. Are you allowed…?” I took a sack lunch out of my bag and offered a sandwich. The guard looked about and accepted it, murmuring “Grazie, Signorina. Molto grazie.”
We dined silently. The guard paced back and forth and began humming a song while I sketched the courtyard between writing sentences and watched the light change as the sun dropped and glinted off the windows.
“Now is the time for lovers,” the guard commented, nodding toward a couple that came through the passageway and now stood before the modern bronze of Juliet.
“Do it, James!” the woman giggled in an American Midwestern accent. “It’s supposed to bring good luck!”
“Touch her boob? Ah hell, I’d rather grab yours!” the man teased as he reached for the woman. She jumped away and started to laugh. Finally, the man touched the statue’s right breast and then stepped back, as if waiting for a lightning bolt or divine intervention. Rays of light sparked off the metal, highly polished from the hands of tourists and curiosity seekers over the years. The couple noticed this and embraced, enjoyed a kiss in this, the most romantic of places in Italy. It gave me a pang of melancholia.
I glanced over and saw that the guard had shone a penlight on the statue.
“It makes people happy,” he shrugged. “No harm in a bit of fun.”
“What’s happier than love?” I murmured, going back to my sketching.
“I think that any man with you, Signorina Alice, would be happy to death.”
“I don’t know what that means, but thank you.”
The guard nodded and sighed that it was time to go home to his wife. “Don’t forget to turn out the lights and lock the door,” he teased as he went into the office and the couple retraced their steps to the narrow street. No sooner had they left than a man entered the courtyard and stopped just under the balcony and glanced up.
“Not fourteenth century,” he grumbled aloud. “Not part of the original house.”
He took only a moment’s reflection there, and then pivoted on a foot and looked at me, surprised to find someone there.
“Some say it’s a horse trough,” I spoke up, pointing with a carrot stick. “Wait, no, that’s Juliet’s tomb. This they think was added on in the nineteenth century. I’ve heard it said, read it.”
He stared at me for the longest time, and the serious expression on his face softened to a smile.
Now he studied the ivy-covered walls, the pastiglia medallions on the façade of the house, the graffiti someone had left, and after every review he would turn slightly and look at me intensely and smile, as if waiting for a comment. It was a beautiful smile.
But it wasn’t Quinn’s.
He was Dr. Donovan Trist, archeologist, emphasis on the doctor, and this was where we met.
Donovan approached me and then stopped, spun about, and took a camera from his pocket – one of those skinny Instamatic cameras with the flash bulb larger than the camera itself – and looked around, as if trying to make a decision.
“If you stand at the entrance of the gate house, that passage leading out into the street, you’ll get a better shot – just over there, you see,” I suggested. “The light comes down, and the mist – better in the morning, though.”
He glanced over, waiting.
“Take the shot now while the light’s good,” I said as I gathered up my things and started out. “Buon notte, signor.”
I heard his footsteps in the passage and didn’t turn to respond to his calls until I was out in the street and halfway to the Scaligeri Tombs.
“You wouldn’t happen to know of any other good places to shoot?” he asked, breathless.
“A few – this one’s pretty good.” I gestured towards the tombs.
“Donovan Trist,” he introduced himself, a hand extended.
“Alice Martin.”
“You’re the first person I’ve run into that knows anything about Verona.”
“Some things the guide books don’t tell you – you have to read histories.”
“On vacation?”
No, I wasn’t. Once more, I was trying to forget…again…
“Yes,” I lied.
I looked at my watch and down the street, as if I was waiting for someone. Donovan was smiling down at me, for he was tall, and he was handsome with J. Crew, dark, leading man handsome looks that were identical to Quinn’s, right down to the athlete’s body. Quinn had a few inches in height on him, though.
I knew who and what he was.
Would I receive a gold star for what I was feeling in my heart and soul right then?
“I’m here for a conference,” Donovan said. “The Congress of Antiquities is meeting – you wouldn’t happen to know anything about the excavations at the Castelvecchio? I could use some more material for my lecture tomorrow.”
His attempt at a jest failed to amuse or impress me. “Sorry, I haven’t been able to visit the castle.”
“Would you like to come to the lecture?” he blurted out.
“Can’t, I’m working on a paper.” Well, it wasn’t truly a lie now; I was working on my Ph.D. thesis – in my head. “I’m also doing research on the della Scala – that one.”
I pointed to the tomb over the door of Santa Maria dell’Antica, the chapel outside the ornate, gothic funerary monuments of the family that had ruled Verona in the Middle Ages.
“Ah!” That answer won me a few points. “Historian?”
“Graduate student – medieval studies.”
“Harvard, Yale?”
“Berkeley.”
“I spent a summer in Berkeley – a seminar with Doctor Charles Gordston – a dig in Sepphoris.”
“Yeah, the town near Nazareth; the one destroyed by the Romans in the first century. We’ve got some of the artifacts.”
His face brightened. “You’re
an archeologist!”
“Sorry, no. Are you?”
“Yes, I’m in the History department at Brown.”
Yes, Brown – the chair he fought and clawed his way to when his father’s power and position in Rhode Island couldn’t or wouldn’t help him; the excavations in the Middle East: these were his great passions and mistresses. Remembering how the conversation continued, I wanted to turn and walk the other way, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dennis, the Proprietress, Richard the Third and Joan of Arc standing across the street, watching. They shook their heads ‘no’ one at a time.
I forced a smile and extended a hand. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Trist. Enjoy your stay in Verona.”
I was at the corner of the Via dal Cappello and heading towards the Piazza dell’Erbe when I heard the footsteps again, this time, my name was shouted and an elderly gentleman passing by chuckled, “Amore, amore!” to himself.
“Alice!” Donovan was panting for breath. “Alice, if you’re not in town with anyone, or seeing anyone, have dinner with me tomorrow night,” he suggested. His face was earnest, boyish, and sweet. “That is, if you can spare time from your paper. I’m staying at the Albergo Dante; we could have dinner there. So…?”
Again, I looked up and down the street – perhaps looking for the Amtrak train or the Curiosity Shop. He was waiting; his expression hadn’t changed. I was ready to turn him down, to avoid regret and unhappiness, hopefully return to a happier life, when Dennis held up a sign that read, “Changing history entirely is never a good idea…”
“What time?” I asked brightly.
Donovan wore a look of shock on his face.
“What time should I meet you?” I said slowly, making sure he understood me.
“Five o’clock.”
Dennis, Richard the Third, Joan of Arc and The Proprietress now held up a sign that read, “Well done, YOU!” Ignoring them, I nodded goodbye to Donovan and found myself looking back.
He waved and turned to go, and did a “look back” of his own.
My heart felt lighter and my step quicker, a smile came easily to my lips, yet in the deepest recesses of my heart, I ached and was full of uncertainty, feeling as if I were going to commit the worst kind of betrayal.
Why did I care?
Quinn, I thought – and rationalized – was undoubtedly making up for lost time. I was under no obligation to him.
He never came back for me!
He made assumptions on that disastrous Saturday coffee date and never came back for an explanation, didn’t ask for one. Instead, he disappeared to England…
While I showered, I washed away the hurt, but not the memory. As I took my time selecting an outfit, I took off the silver rose for the first time in years and wore a strand of opalescent crystal beads in its place.
“It takes one love to appreciate and mend another,” Joan of Arc whispered in my ear as I closed the door to my hotel room. “Two wrongs make a right!”
“Whatever does she mean?” I asked myself in the elevator.
The Albergo Dante was not far from where we stood the evening before, off the Piazza dell’Erbe as it happened, a fourteenth century townhouse converted into a lovely first class hotel. My arrival was met with smiles from the desk clerks and a large bouquet of white roses. One of the clerks almost tripped over himself to escort me to the dining room where I was told Donovan waited. He leapt to his feet and stared when I entered – gaped was a better word, I suppose, for I’d decided against my usual co-ed look of sweater, jeans and clogs, and wore a shirt-waist dress of plum silk with pumps and a light woolen-lace shawl, and carried a simple evening bag. The dress was unbuttoned just enough to reveal a silk camisole underneath and a bit of cleavage. My hair was swept up in a chignon. I had decided to make this sacrifice worth my while – and his.
“Alice!” he exclaimed. “Wow! You look, well, wow!”
“Thank you – and thank you for the flowers. I’m partial to white and yellow bouquets.”
“I saw the silver rose you were wearing and I thought, white roses – oh! You're not wearing it.” he said, seating me, and then sat at the opposite end of the table. A waiter brought two menus and discreetly stepped away. “Shall I order for us?” Donovan asked, winking.
I glanced at the menu and shook my head, and motioned with a hand to the waiter who was immediately at my side. “Per il primo corso, vorrei che gli gnocchi, poi, lesso con la peará– fa che vengono con la polenta? Fragole e crema per il dessert.” I said in Italian, adding, “e un bottiglia de Valpolicella, per favore?”
“Subito, signorina!” the waiter answered, smiling and looked to Donovan, whose face had gone dark.
“Si, io sono lo stesso,” he responded quietly.
Once the waiter disappeared into the kitchen I helped myself to the bread and dish of olive oil and looked at Donovan questioningly.
“Oh dear, I’ve already got black marks against me!” I quipped.
“No black marks at all,” said Donovan as he shifted in his chair, leaning closer. “I was expecting someone different.”
“You’ll soon discover that I don’t need someone to order my food, though I enjoy the door being opened for me, or a chair pulled out. I can stand compliments – and I hold my own in a fight.”
“A liberated woman!” Donovan cried with sarcasm coloring the words.
“No, just Alice.”
I glanced around the dining room, pleased that the proprietor hadn’t ruined the simple Italian gothic interior with baroque, rococo, or Victorian décor, and nodded, smiling to myself.
“Interesting room, isn’t it? I wasn’t expecting something so austere,” Donovan commented.
“I’m pleased the owner hasn’t turned this hotel into a baroque wedding cake. I love the simplicity of gothic arches, Romanesque architecture – I’m guessing this townhouse is a little of both,” I said.
“It reminds me of The Cloisters in New York.”
“You’ve been there?”
“It was like a playground for me, growing up.”
“How lucky for you – I’ve wanted to visit since I discovered it existed,” I said. “We have nothing like it in Berkeley – well, there’s the Hume Castle up in the hills – also called The Cloisters – built in the ‘20s. Sorry! Tell me if I’m boring you.”
Why don’t you tell him who lived there, Alice?
“You’re not boring, you’re refreshing. I don’t meet many women with an interest in medieval architecture or history, at least, none as beautiful as you.”
“You’re making points here, Mr. Trist.”
Dinner was brought along with a fine bottle of Valpolicella, a local red wine that I cherished. From the look on Donovan’s face, he was pleasantly surprised at the local dishes placed before him: first gnocchi, and later, boiled meats in a peppery bread sauce. He was even more delighted with the wine, which he poured into two glasses. We dined quietly for a while and then Donovan put down his knife and fork.
“Something wrong?” I wanted to know.
“What if I told you I know a few people at The Cloisters, and could introduce you to the curator? They’ve got fellowships for doctoral students.”
“I couldn’t impose – I want my work to recommend me – I’m sorry, that was rude.”
Donovan sat back in his chair and was regarding me with his dark eyes and mystifying smile – mystifying because I always wondered what he was smiling about. There was no hidden agenda or secret in the way he looked at me now, though.
“No, I don’t blame you. You don’t know me from Adam, and here I am, offering to help. Though, if we were in an interview at Brown, I would make the same offer.”
“But then you wouldn’t get dinner,” I teased now.
“I’d find a way to invite you to a working dinner, a dinner meeting.”
“And I’d probably have to think about it – at least until I knew if your intentions were academic and honorable.”
“The words most men don’t want to h
ear!” he laughed now, charging our glasses again. “We don’t like being just friends or honorable.”
“He says as he fills her glass up with yet more wine…”
Now Donovan guffawed and playfully put the bottle on the empty table beside us. I grabbed it and he laughed even harder.
“You are so different from the girls I grew up with.”
“Where was that?”
“Originally New York. My parents moved to Rhode Island when I was thirteen. You?”
“California. Born and raised in Berkeley, but my dad’s job had us living in England for a while.”
“Diplomatic corps, I guess?”
“Architect. He went over to help rebuild London. And your dad?”
He waited a moment, savoring a bite of the gnocchi I thought at the time, but now I knew he was debating whether to tell me about his family – some of the scariest, richest people on earth. “Senator from Rhode Island,” Donovan sighed and the look on his face told me he regretted that revelation.
“Wow,” was all I could say at first, and then after a moment of thought, “Wait a minute! Is he the guy that stood up on the senate floor and called Johnson all those names and demanded an end to the war?”
“It made him a hero in the anti-war movement.”
“And what were your feelings about that?”
“I had better things to do than worry about getting drafted.”
This was the first revelation of his conservative leanings, which I thought strange for someone who listened to Dylan and the Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish and spent hours stoned. I learned later that it was a clever smoke screen. It didn’t matter then, for I remembered how different my parents were politically and idealistically and theirs had been a match made in heaven.
“Until something went wrong,” The Proprietress commented from her table opposite ours. I glanced to see if Donovan was aware of her presence and he was gone, as was the Albergo Dante dining room when the Curiosity Shop materialized around me.
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