So they made love on the couch with the film still running. It seemed to Miranda that they were making a lot of noise, and she thought of Father Arnold, back in Mount Pleasant. She imagined that God was looking down on them, looking down at her over Guido’s shoulder, or listening, and she wondered what He was thinking. She thought of Margot and Sandro and of Woody and Margot, fucking in the morning, and trying not to make noise and then laughing. And then the montage of kisses came on at the end of the film, and the voices inside her grew quieter. It was dark and warm. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the TV screen was dark. The only sound was the whirring of the video rewinding automatically. Then, for a while, nothing at all.
And then, after a truly satisfying orgasm, it was time for a cigarette, but neither of them smoked. Miranda had fallen in love lots of times. She thought that this time would be different. But that’s what she always thought. She knew the drill.
“Was what we just did a cliché?” she asked.
“It didn’t feel like a cliché,” he said. “It was like the director got up the courage to get right up close to the big emotions without going over the edge, you know what I mean? Without getting sappy or sentimental.”
“I know what you mean,” she said.
Beryl and Zanni climbed the campanile (which had fallen down in 1902 and been rebuilt), admired the Basilica of San Marco, went for an expensive gondola ride all the way out to San Michele, passing a black and gold funeral gondola on the way. They drank tea in the Chinese room at Café Florian, where Zanni was recognized by the owner. They walked along the Lungomare Marconi, but the Cinema Palace and the casino were closed, and their view of the Adriatic was blocked by the fences that kept the private beaches private. At the Accademia, Beryl was disappointed to discover that the Michael Sweerts self-portrait she wanted to see was in restauro, and then delighted to find, in the lobby at the end of their route, an entire exhibit devoted to Giorgione, including many works from other museums. She had seen so many reproductions that she’d forgotten how brilliant the original was—The Tempest. And yet it didn’t compare with the bodily ecstasy she experienced, like Psyche, in the dark of night at the Hotel Buon Pesce.
It wasn’t till they went to the Guggenheim Museum that she found what she was looking for, something to challenge the supremacy of bodily ecstasy as the ultimate good, the way fresh sweet corn challenges the supremacy of the finest French dishes. She was taken by surprise as they sat in front of Jackson Pollock’s Alchemy, where she and Michael had sat thirty-five years earlier, after The Lady with the Pet Dog had been screened at the film festival. She could sense Zanni’s impatience, but she wasn’t going to be hurried.
After all of the old museums, full of annunciations and Madonnas-and-child and crucifixions and depositions, the Guggenheim was like a breath of fresh air. When she had visited with Michael, she’d been shaken. She had always disapproved of modern art in general and Jackson Pollock in particular. It was too easy. Anybody could splash paint. But in the Guggenheim you could see, you could feel, why modern art was necessary. What she remembered most clearly was sitting on this bench with Michael. Anyone could splash paint, but not everyone could splash paint like this. And Michael had held her hand. They’d been married only six months; their future stretched out before them. The shoots in Hollywood and other exotic places—Rome and Algeria and West Africa; the ups and downs, good reviews and bad reviews; after the kids were gone. Reading in bed together. Traveling with the dogs. This was their story, the story they’d written together. Zanni was only a footnote.
In the glass that covered the painting, she could see the reflection of the palazzi on the opposite side of the canal. Superimposed. And then a guard came and pulled the blinds. And then it was time to go back to the hotel. It seemed so far away.
“I need to go back to Florence tomorrow,” she said to Zanni.
He took her arm. “Of course,” he said.
In the morning at the train station they learned that there was a strike on one of the train lines, and they had to change their tickets and take an interregional train instead of the express. The train was very crowded and they had to stand in the aisle, and they didn’t arrive in Florence till almost eight o’clock. Beryl kissed Zanni good-bye and took a taxi from the station to Via Pietrapiana. She’d been thinking about this moment all day, but she didn’t know what to expect, and she didn’t know what she’d do or say if any of the things that might happen happened. What did she want to happen? She wasn’t sure, but she rather thought she’d like to be scolded. If God wasn’t going to scold her, then at least Michael could scold her. She didn’t think she’d be able to bear it if he were magnanimous, or if he pretended that nothing had happened. She wouldn’t know what she’d do till she did it. She’d just have to surprise herself.
And she was surprised, because when she entered the apartment, Michael wasn’t there. She checked the wardrobe in the bedroom. His clothes were still there, so he hadn’t walked out on her. The suitcases were still stored in the little passage that went from the bedroom to the front hallway. She opened the window and looked up and down the street.
She kept looking out the window, though it was cold. She turned the television on and then turned it off again. She put on water for tea, but turned the kettle off before it boiled. She tried to read Margaret Forster’s biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Had Elizabeth even gone to Venice? Robert had died there, but that was later. In Ca’ Rezzonico, on the Grand Canal. Zanni had pointed it out to her from the vaporetto. As she was drifting off to sleep it occurred to her that this is what it would be like when Michael was gone, dead. Their story was almost over. They didn’t have much time left to work out a good ending.
On the way to Severiano, conversation was awkward. Woody had come along to have a look at the Etruscan site. He sat in the back of Margot’s little Fiat, which must have been fifteen years old. Margot had called the rabbi and convinced him to invite Esther to the Seder. Esther didn’t want to know what she’d said to him. She was having second thoughts.
“We couldn’t afford a flood,” she said, out of the blue.
“I don’t give a damn about the flood,” Margot said. “But how could you keep Sandro around?”
“I’ve already told you. Think of all the romantic comedies you’ve seen, Margot. The male lead has to be there at the end.”
“Romantic comedy? My life was a romantic comedy? No wonder you got it all screwed up. What were you thinking?”
Esther was starting to cry. “Of course it was a romantic comedy. What else could it be? I was thinking that you were my daughter. The daughter I never had. I wanted you to be happy. That’s why I did what I did. I’m sorry. I just wanted you to be happy.”
Woody, who was sitting in the backseat with the dog, reached forward and massaged Esther’s shoulders.
Margot said, “I had a boyfriend at the end. Tony. From Sotheby’s. I was happy. Why didn’t you just let me be happy with Tony? I could have married Tony, but I didn’t want to move to London.”
“You couldn’t have a second lover,” Esther said, back on familiar territory. “Not in a romantic comedy. It would violate Hollywood morality.”
Margot exploded: “Hollywood morality? Isn’t that like Army Intelligence?” But then she laughed, and Esther started feeling better. She was worried, though, about the rabbi. He didn’t speak English, and he was ultraconservative. She wasn’t sure what she’d gotten herself into, and she was thinking she’d like to go back to Florence. She didn’t want to ask, it would be too embarrassing, but she asked anyway. “I could take you out to dinner,” she said.
“Enoteca Pinchiorri again?” Margot said. “You still owe me a thousand dollars. Why don’t you pay up?”
“I don’t know, Margot. I think that maybe if I still owe you the money, we’re still connected. There’s still a bond between us.”
“I already talked to the rabbi,” Margot said, “and I talked to his wife. She’s a nice woman. Y
ou’ll like her. She speaks English. She’s Lithuanian, but she learned English in Israel. That’s where they met. It’s just family and a few friends. Some of them speak English too.”
Margot and Woody stayed in the car and waited while Esther went up to the door and rang the bell. Esther felt the way she’d always felt when her parents had dropped her off at Camp Alonim. Someone buzzed the door open and Esther went in. She was greeted by the rabbi’s wife, whose name was Lital. She was a solid woman, like Esther herself. Margot and Woody drove off. She and Lital stood under a cloisonné mezuzah, like the one in her grandfather’s house. Esther looked around. Lumber was stacked on the floor. Sheets of drywall leaned up against the wall.
“We’re doing some remodeling,” the rabbi’s wife explained. “My husband got into an argument with the contractor and he stopped coming for a while. We can’t use the kitchen. We can’t sit in the dining room. But don’t worry, Esther. We’ve got everything we need in the cantina. A kitchen with everything, all the Passover dishes and pots and pans—everything, you’ll see— and my grandmother’s Kiddush cups. It’s all ready. There’ll be twenty of us. We’re glad to have you.”
“I’m glad to be here. It’s very nice of you to have me.”
“My husband says you koshered the freeze-drying unit at the produce market for his books.”
“I was glad to help.”
“You don’t forget something like that. He was at his wit’s end. And Signora Harrington, she’s the only one he’ll let touch those books.”
“She’s very good.”
“She says you’re making a movie about her book. I haven’t read it, but it must be very exciting for her.”
“I’m not sure she’s happy with the way it’s turning out, but it’s always that way with authors.”
Lital showed her to her room. Esther wished she’d brought something to read. She went over the shooting schedule in her head, and then over the next week’s shot lists. The loneliness returned to her in her room. There was nothing to read. She sat on the edge of the bed, on the edge of tears. Again.
What had happened to her life? Why was she sitting in an empty room in a stranger’s house? In a little godforsaken town in a foreign country? She remembered the Seders at her aunt and uncle’s. Singing the animal song, the “Chad Gadya” it was called. But the room wasn’t empty. It had been a child’s bedroom, and a tzedaka, or charity box, sat on the dresser. Colorful folk paintings hung on the wall: grandmothers in babushkas, peasants, lions of Judah, doves of peace, stars of David, a picture of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. And pictures of a dog—a golden retriever. The room was full of books, children’s books in Hebrew and Italian, prayer books, dictionaries, travel books, some stacked on their sides.
Lital came back in a few minutes with a plate of challah rolls. “The problem,” she said, as if she were picking up on their previous conversation, “is that when Pesach falls on Shabbat, you can’t eat matzo on Shabbat because you have to eat the matzo at the Seder with a big appetite. But it’s difficult to keep challot for hamotzi in the home on Shabbat when all the hametz has been removed. We’ve been eating all day. It’s a good thing we have time to rest before the Seder.”
Esther didn’t understand what she was talking about. She couldn’t remember any problems caused by Passover falling on Shabbat. “These challah rolls are delicious,” she said. And she started to tell Lital about Harry. How they had no children. Just their films. And now she was a lonely old woman. At odds with everyone. She told Lital how she was sent to fire him, Harry, and then he invited her to go to dinner. In the back lot at Paramount. And now? There’d never been another man in her life to regret. Harry was it. They’d been married in Temple Beth Am in L.A., and now he was sleeping next to another woman. It would have been easier if he’d died, she said. Easier for her, maybe not for Harry. She could have grieved. Everyone would have comforted her. But Harry was alive and kicking. And the woman he was kicking with was her own age, Esther’s age.
Lital put her arm around Esther. “You want to come and look at my table?”
Because it was Shabbat, Lital explained, the Seder wouldn’t begin till nine o’clock. The Seder table in the cantina was as elaborate as the one in the Jewish Museum and as familiar as the one at Uncle Harry and Aunt Pearl’s. The Seder plate at the center of the table. The horseradish and parsley. The salt water. The fruit relish. The roasted shank bone and a roasted egg. There were fifteen adults and five children under twelve. The children spoke English and took turns talking to her, as if she were an unfamiliar aunt, explaining what was going on: Everything was familiar now, but she listened to the explanations. The lighting of the candles, the first cup of wine, the washing of the hands, hiding the bit of matzo as a symbol of the redemption to come.
Esther couldn’t follow the reading of the Haggadah, but she recognized the essential question: Why is this night of Passover different from all other nights of the year? This was the question that Harry always asked when they’d set out to make a new film. Why is this night different from all other nights of the year? Why are we beginning here? Why are we telling this story?
They ate crostini with chopped chicken livers, with matzo for the bread, and then rice and chicken soup with chicken balls instead of matzo balls, and then a boned leg of lamb with potatoes and tomatoes that had been roasted in the oven. The salad was spinach and fennel; the dessert a walnut tort and hazelnut pie. Esther hadn’t eaten so well since she’d come to Italy, not even at Enoteca Pinchiorri. It was one o’clock in the morning by the time they drank the fourth cup of wine. The children were drowsing off. Only one thing disappointed her: they hadn’t sung “Chad Gadya.” Esther asked Lital about it. She spoke to her husband, who was wearing a bow tie. Everyone was merry. Rabbi Kors said that they would sing “Chad Gadya” if Esther would be the goat. The other animals were assigned to the children. They sang the song in Yiddish and then in Italian. Esther didn’t know the words in either language, but she’d had a lot of practice bleating like a goat:
Then came the Holy One, blessed be He, and slew the angel of death that killed the Shochet who slaughtered the ox that drank the water that quenched the fire that burned the stick that beat the dog that bit the cat that ate the goat, that Father bought for two zuzim.
One little goat, one little goat.
When Michael came home on Saturday night, he was surprised to find Beryl asleep on the couch. He’d been to see Zorba the Greek at Cinema Astro—the film that launched a thousand package tours. Was he playing Alan Bates’s Basil to Zanni’s larger-than-life Zorba?
He watched Beryl sleep because he didn’t know what else to do. How quickly it had melted away, his life, their life together. Thirty-some years. Seventeen films. One miscarriage, two children. Marriages went under all the time. He’d left her alone too much. He understood that now. She’d had the church, the PTA, the committees, the charities. But he’d always been preoccupied with the film, whatever it was. There she was, though, asleep on the couch, breathing evenly. Still a beautiful woman. Directors went under too, but he’d always worked, and on Monday morning he’d be on the set in the convent chapel, which had been dressed to look like the Lodovici Chapel in the Badia, and Zanni would strip a fake fresco from the wall.
What he felt was gratitude. That she’d come back. Intentionality is the enemy, he thought. He shouldn’t try to plan ahead too much. He shouldn’t force the story; he should let it unfold by itself.
Esther got a ride back to Florence on Sunday with Rabbi Kors and Lital. By the time she got back to the Excelsior, she knew what she had to do. “You’ve got to get your nashoma back,” Lital explained. “You’ve got to get a Jewish divorce. You were married to the same man for thirty years. Your nashoma is still wrapped around him. You have to call him right away and ask him to send you a get.”
Esther sat on the edge of her king-size bed in the Excelsior and calculated the time in L.A. Five o’clock in the morning. Harry would be at home in bed.
She dialed the number. Their old number. He’d kept the phone number, even though he’d moved out and Esther had kept the house in Santa Monica. She held her breath while the phone rang. What she was really hoping was that he’d tell her that he was all alone and that his film was wrecking and that he needed her to sort things out, but that isn’t what happened. A woman answered the phone. Finally she got to talk to Harry.
“Hefty,” he said, his old nickname for her, “is that really you? What’s going on?”
“Harry,” she said, “I just wanted to hear your voice,” and she started to tell him about the Seder, and the animal sounds, just like at her aunt and uncle’s.
“What’s really going on that you call me at five o’clock in the morning?”
“I wanted to be sure you were home.”
“I’m here; I’m here.”
“Harry, I need you to do for me a mitzvah.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Harry, I need a get. Will you do that for me?”
“A get? You mean from a rabbi?”
“That’s what I mean, Harry.” It was so good to hear his voice. She could picture him propped up on one elbow, scrunching his thick neck to hold the phone in place.
“You find somebody else?”
“No, Harry. There’s nobody else. You were one of a kind.”
“Hefty, I’m sorry. I keep hoping I’ll hear that you’re getting hitched again, a dynamite woman like you.”
“Thanks, Harry. It’s good to hear your voice. I can hear it in my head all the time, but it’s not the same.”
“Hefty, you don’t want to wait till you get back to L.A.?”
“No, Harry, there’s a rabbi here I know. I want him to do it.”
The Italian Lover Page 24