A Roman Rhapsody

by Sara Alexander

  Leonardo swung in beside them, wrapping his arms around both.

  “Well look at this pair of talent!” He kissed each on their chilled cheeks. “Even managed to get Mr. Aloof to come along. Maybe with some wine in his bones he might break into song.”

  Natalia laughed, grabbed Leonardo’s chin, and kissed him.

  “You see the effect I have on intelligent, talented women, Alba?” Leonardo teased. “It really is a liability.”

  Vittorio stepped into line with Alba. She noticed his pace stall a little, not his usual determined swing, separating them ever so from the group of other students.

  “Stringers can’t hold their drink too well. Percussive players have much more stamina,” he said.

  Alba turned her face toward him. His smile was oblique without the usual harsh angle. They walked without talking for a moment, noiseless but for the scuff of their soles on the frigid cobbles beneath.

  “I left my body,” he murmured, puncturing the quiet.

  His words were a light. She noticed the temperature of her cheeks change.

  “I’d never felt like that before,” she replied, the words escaping before self-consciousness could trap them inside.

  Their footsteps kept time, whilst the sensations rattling around Alba’s body zapped in opposing directions, a frenetic syncopated improvisation scuffing against the melody, both searching and dodging harmonic conclusion.

  “Come on, divas!” Leonardo yelled, twisting back toward them. “The owner won’t hold the table if we’re late!”

  They sped up and slipped back into the group.

  * * *

  Zio Umberto’s was a rattling cave, stuffed with too many tables for the miniscule space and too many hungry bodies talking at the same time, clinking their glasses, hauling the oversized serving plates across one another as they each filled their own from the communal sharing dishes. When they’d arrived, the owner told them what to order. There were no menus, no prices, nothing other than the rough promise that they wouldn’t be spending more than about ten thousand lire and that would include enough wine to make them forget everything and make everyone’s jokes louder, faster, and funnier. Vittorio sat at the opposite end of the table, surrounded by Leonardo’s classmates. Alba twisted the thick homemade spaghetti strands around her fork, the cacio e pepe oozing Parmesan and cracked black pepper sauce filling her with a depth of savory delight she’d never experienced. All the while, trying to convince herself she couldn’t feel Vittorio’s stare cut across the noisy table in her direction.

  Natalia swapped stories with the other young men and women around Alba, but the sensation of having her every move committed to his memory persisted in her peripheral. It was the wine making her cheeks flush, that was all, the intense pleasure of the food, nothing more, the adoring company filling her with compliments and questions and queries on how she survived Goldstein. She even remembered, in the fog of the third glass of wine, discovering that she thought he was one of the best teachers she’d ever had, that he understood music on a profound level, cosmic even. That made the table erupt in laughter. On the outside he may have once appeared a brutal man, she persisted, to jeers, intent on making his students jump through hoops, but that was his quest for the truth and nothing short of that. The words rippled out of her in an unaccustomed string of effortless tales, twisting through the air to the obvious delight of her crowd.

  More dishes appeared and disappeared at a hungry student rate. Someone passed her a shot of aquavit. She thought of her brothers’ expressions should they have been there, then knocked it back. When all the tables were empty but theirs, and the owner Umberto had cracked a few more jokes, then told them to bugger off to where they’d come from, the singing group spilled out onto the small courtyard beyond the door. They began a roving zigzag toward the main square of Trastevere in the direction of Leonardo’s.

  Alba felt a hand slip into hers.

  “This way,” Vittorio whispered in her ear. A shiver skated up her arm. She followed his gentle tug.

  He sped up now, his hand cradling hers.

  “What’s happening?” Alba asked, trying to cork her laughter and failing.

  “Whiskey at mine.”

  Their feet tip-tapped the silent streets, a half skip through the giddy replay of their night. They reached his palazzo’s door. It creaked open.

  “Don’t start any Sardinian singing, okay?” he teased, looking back at her. “I have neighbors to think of, si?”

  They stepped into the black. She felt him fumble for his apartment door key. It creaked open. A streetlight’s shaft skewered across the darkened space through the half-opened shutters, traveling up and along the furniture; divergent pathways through the night.

  He stopped. His hand slipped around hers.

  The silver light danced across the visible half of his face. Their heartbeats filled the shadows between. His face edged closer. Alba didn’t move. She felt his lips brush the narrow space where her jaw met her neck. She felt the strength of his elegant fingers cup her cheeks. His forehead pressed against hers. Their breaths plaited.

  He lifted her face. She reached forward and felt the surprising softness of his lips play against hers, sending ribboning pleasure down her spine. Her mouth opened. His tongue wove around the tip of her top lip, then played inside, curious, ardent. His hands eased down her arms then around her back, tracing the base of her neck, playing through her thick hair. It sent a shimmering ripple around her skull.

  She didn’t remember every moment of the dance that followed. Only that it was legato, smooth, free, an improvised duet. She wouldn’t forget the way he peeled away her clothing with care. The way he’d let his lips taste every inch of her bare body. The way he’d stopped her hand when she’d tried to do the same to him. She remembered the feel of the silver light tracing the outline of her bare breasts. The way his touch felt like he was savoring the texture, temperature, and contours of her body with the sensitive precision of a musician’s hand.

  The bare wall pressed against her. He moved his fingers down her stomach to the crisscross of her pubic hair. She let herself feel the tingling waves rise up through her, feeling the rhythm of his hand merge with that of her body. His breath was hot in her ear, yet patient. Here was the timeless space Celeste had spoken of in their lessons, the stretch of infinity essential to seek and revel in at the heart of a piece. Here was the roaring silence, the blinding light in the dark.

  She let herself be played.

  Her body was a spark that took flight.

  Then the quiet curled in, a dying wave stroking wet sand. He held her naked body against him. She felt the wetness at the top of her thighs press against his trousers. She pulled away, a piercing vulnerability tensing her muscles, but he reached round to the small of her back and pressed her harder against him. His tongue traced her ear. His fingers eased down onto her sacrum, smoothing a figure of eight.

  Their chests rose and fell, breaths hiding in the shadows. A further release bubbled up from her middle; waves of surprising tears that she let score out of her.

  He tightened his hold. Wordless. Warm.

  “The whiskey was the only thing I’d planned,” he whispered into her ear, “honest.”

  She laughed into the crook of his neck, sobs jutting through in between breaths. She pulled away. He reached for her hand. She retracted from his and picked up the pile of her clothes crumpled at her feet, at once her nudity a stark nakedness she wanted to escape.

  “I think I should go.”

  His eyes flinted a shade of disappointment, fast-moving clouds on a changeable day. “I would love you to stay. It’s your choice, of course.”

  She bent down, fumbling with her clothes, wishing both that the light were on and hoping he wouldn’t flick the switch.

  He stepped forward. He lifted her chin with a gentle finger. She felt his mouth on hers. She dropped her clothes. Her hands wrapped around his face, filling with the width of his jaw. The heat in her chest burned
past pleasure; a white heat, opening her up too much, too soon, too deep. It was as if he had stepped inside her. Revealed herself to herself, like shining a torch around the cavern of her body into the mercurial crags where her soul hid with an unforgiving light. It was a brutal awakening, one she hadn’t practiced nor prepared for.

  She pulled away again and jerked back into her clothes, though her body ached for more, muscles alight; the sensation of running whilst standing in utter stillness tripped through her bones.

  She picked up her coat and scarf and, without putting them on stepped outside of his door meeting the frigid dark of the corridor. Her footsteps scuffed the dark. She heaved the main door open. It shut behind her. The sound of the closing lock traveled down the corridor beyond. Alba sent the memory of the last hour away from her along each tiny wave of the rippling echo.

  Piazzale Centro Storico,

  Cagliari

  Sardegna

  December 16, 1975

  To my dear Alba,

  Thank you so much for your last letter. What a special week. I need to meet this Vittorio. You’ve never described someone’s music that way.

  I’m looking forward to Christmas and dreading it at the same time. It’s nice to get a break from the professor’s interrogations (you don’t miss them, do you?) but the idea of being around the table with Mamma and Papà while he drills me on every aspect of my university life is a dirge. He knows a couple of my professors, so even though I’ve had a taste of freedom it’s like he’s always watching me.

  Do you want me to pass on any message to your folks? What shall I tell them if they ask? Papà says your father doesn’t talk about the fiasco. Those first weeks of panic and anger are smoke. I think he’s too proud to let on to anyone.

  I’ll be thinking of you when everyone’s parading in the central square showing off their new furs. I’ll remember the time you reminded me they were the skins of corpses.

  I miss you more than I’d like to admit. Write again soon.

  Your Raffaele.

  PS I’ve met someone. I want to be able to try and describe him with the detail and elegance you did your friends but I’m not ready to do that yet. I might jinx it before anything starts.

  PPS Stop smirking.

  15

  Amabile

  a directive to a musician to perform the indicated passage of a composition in a charming, gracious, or amiable manner

  Alba boarded an early train from Termini station toward Venice and from there followed Natalia’s directions, catching two local buses up to the mountain town of Revine in the northern province of Treviso, where her parents had extended their invitation for her to join them at her grandparents’ home. Natalia met her at the bottom of the driveway, her cheeks flush against the snowy meadows surrounding them.

  “Dear God, is that the only coat you have, Alba? Hurry in, you’ll freeze!” Natalia wrapped her arm around her friend, and they dodged the deeper parts of the snow along the path, bursting through the door with an announcement introducing the arrival of their new guest. An older woman appeared from the doorway that led off the entrance hall, wiping her hand on a tea towel. Her hair had the same effusive quality of Natalia’s but was flecked with white. She moved across the space with the same easy grace of Natalia but void of the skittish diverging attention, and kissed Alba on both cheeks. Natalia took Alba’s suitcase out of her hand.

  “I’m Violetta,” said the woman. “Natalia’s mamma.” Alba was struck by the gentle upward angle of her eyes, inflecting her face with curiosity and sagacity, their color lying somewhere between the sparkling blue of Natalia’s and a warmer indecipherable auburn. Alba tried to stop staring.

  “We’ve heard a great deal about you,” Violetta continued, her voice assured, warm, void of the nervous energy that bristled her own mother’s when new people arrived at their home, always the waver of insecurity at its fringes, desperate to pass the newcomer’s presupposed judgment of her. “I’m so glad you decided to join us.” There was an echo of an accent she couldn’t place, something angular about the vowels, which didn’t sound Italian.

  Violetta signaled for her to follow. “Was your journey easy? I know things do get busy this time of year.”

  “It was beautiful. I’ve never been up here.”

  “I hadn’t either,” Violetta replied, “until I met Giacomo, Natalia’s father.” Her tone shifted then, a slide into languid adagio, then snapped back into the previous timbre just as Alba noticed it. “Now we come whenever we can.”

  “It’s glorious in the summer, Alba. We get naked by the lake!” Natalia added, taking Alba’s case out of her hand and into hers.

  Violetta laughed with a shake of her head. “It’s a choice, Alba,” she said, registering Alba’s expression, “not a requirement.”

  They stepped into the stone-floored kitchen. Francesca was standing at the table shelling chestnuts and chopping them into small pieces. Another young woman was beside her, hair scrunched up in an untidy bun, wisps falling onto her face. They wore thick knit jumpers the same shade as the nuts they were cracking. Francesca looked up and walked over to Alba.

  “I’ve got nutty hands, sorry!” she said, kissing her on each cheek. Alba assumed she’d earned this newfound warmth by attending the rally. “This is my girlfriend, Anna.” She reached out her arm toward the other woman, who looked up and smiled. Alba had never been introduced to another woman’s girlfriend. She hoped her face didn’t register the initial shock. Her mind flitted to Raffaele. What would he do to be able to stand amongst his own family and be open like this? Her island felt distant, locked in a different time.

  A younger boy walked in from a door at the far end of the kitchen revealing stone steps beyond which was a cellar. He clutched a bag of potatoes. “These ones, Mamma?” he asked, slamming it on the table.

  “Watch it, imbecile!” Francesca yelled.

  “Easy, Francesca,” Violetta called out, “your brother is helping.” She nodded at her son.

  He noticed Alba. “So you’re the new friend, no? Natalia’s been going on about you. Glad you’re here. I was getting bored of listening to her.”

  Alba felt a laugh escape. “And you are?”

  “Silvio. Try not to let my sisters run your life. They’ve practiced long enough on me.” He ran a lackadaisical hand through his light brown hair, which flopped back from where it came.

  An older man stepped in behind Alba. “Ecco qua, benvenuta, Signorina Alba!” he said. His voice was rich, resonant. The perfect treble-bass balance made the walls vibrate with a round sound. She turned and stretched out her hand.

  “Piacere,” she said.

  He took it and gave a firm shake. “I’m Natalia’s papà, Giacomo. Now listen to me.” Alba couldn’t imagine many people wouldn’t if he was speaking. “This casa is yours too for the next ten days, you understand? Don’t be expecting us to wait on you and we won’t expect the same from you.”

  “Christ, Papà, let the woman sit down before the lecture. I think she knows enough about us to understand we conduct our home with socialist ideals,” Francesca interjected, fingers fast with chestnuts once again. Her girlfriend, Anna, laughed and kissed her on the cheek.

  “If she’s been around you, I think she’s likely not had any choice,” Silvio piped.

  “Alright, that’s enough,” Violetta said, looking up from the large iron skillet in which she was melting finely diced onions. “Natalia will show you upstairs to your room and we’ll have dinner in an hour or so, yes?”

  Natalia left the kitchen and Alba followed, letting the warmth of the home and company heat her. Her Sardinian Christmases felt even further away than before. Along the journey she’d pictured their accustomed rhythms, the weeks of baking in her mother’s tense kitchen, swiping all family members but Alba out of the small room. The women from along the street would be assembled around the kitchen table, rolling and cutting and coating pastries, icing with meticulous care, bemoaning the men in their lives, their
aching backs, the scandals that befell the priests in the next town. Would they bemoan Giovanna’s renegade daughter this year? Or would she remain an unspeakable? The daughter a disappointment so brutal that it would be best to have her remain a secret from a swallowed past, a ghost in the room or preferable even to that, erased? Watching the people around her lit up her own family’s cruelty with stark truths, like the light snapped on in the back store at Calisto that sometimes made the cockroaches scamper to safety. Alba doubted she could bear these sensations much longer than her short stay.

  Natalia led them up the narrow steps, beneath thick wooden beams. The inviting atmosphere from the kitchen wove through the whole house. The colors were muted and mellow, like the building itself was delighted to welcome visitors. There was an alpine aspect to the interior, ceilings aching with age, crisscrossed with thick pale trunks of oak. The windows were small, each framing a square of the white surrounds, undulating hills blanketed, dotted with barren trees, black branches reaching out into the gray frosted air.

  “Natalia, this is beautiful!”

  “I know,” Natalia replied, not slowing her pace, “I absolutely love it here.” She opened a door at the far end of the corridor. “This is you.”

  Alba stepped inside. A wrought-iron bed was plump with a thick pale blue eiderdown. In the corner there sat a ceramic washbasin complete with a jug and a small mirror, and beyond the foot of the bed stood a wood-burning stove, which had a small log smoldering inside. Alba’s eyes lit up.

  “I saved the best for you,” Natalia cooed. “Leonardo will stay with me.”

  “Leonardo?”

  “Yes. We weren’t going to be together for the first holiday and everything. But then we realized it was an insane plan. He’s coming up a few days after Christmas, for the Epiphany. It’s a big deal up here. When I was a kid I lived for the panevin festival. They’ll be burning a huge witch on the massive bonfire of old Christmas trees on the fifth.”