Finding Again the World

by John Metcalf

  “There,” said Helen, “what kind of tree is that?”

  I shook my head.

  Frascati.

  The wine was dry and golden.

  Gold in candlelight.

  The marriage of Tony Cranbrook had been celebrated in the village church, frayed purple hassocks, that special Anglican smell of damp and dust and stone, marble memorials let into the wall:

  . . . departed this life June 11th I795 in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection and of the life everlasting . . .

  Afterwards, the younger people had strolled back through deep lanes to the family house for the reception. I’d walked with a girl called Susan who turned out to be the sister of one of the bridesmaids. She’d picked a buttercup and lodged it behind her ear. She’d said:

  Do you know what this means in Tahiti?

  Late in the evening they’d been wandering about the house calling to us to come and eat strawberries, calling out that I had to make another speech.

  Jack?

  We know you’re there!

  Susan?

  Jack and Su-san!

  The larger drawing-room was warm and quick with candlelight. In the centre of the dark polished refectory table stood a gleaming silver épergne piled with tiny wild strawberries. By the side of it stood octagonal silver sugar casters. The candelabra on the table glossed the wood’s dark grain. Reflected in the épergne’s curves and facets, points of flame quivered.

  You will pay attention to your right . . .

  Traffic was thickening.

  Fisher!

  The bus was slowing.

  Susan Fisher!

  . . . above the piazza. The Villa is still owned by the Aldobrandini family. You will notice the central avenue of box trees. The park is noted for its grottos and Baroque fountains.

  “Doubtless by Bernini,” I said.

  “Is that a palm tree?” said Helen.

  The Villa is open to tourists only in the morning and upon application to the officials of the Frascati Tourist Office. If you will consult your watches, you will see that it is now afternoon so we will proceed immediately to the largest of the Frascati wine cellars.

  The aluminum cane with its rubber bulb thumping down, the leg swinging up and to the side, Kojak led the straggling procession towards a large grey stone building at the bottom end of the sloping piazza. A steep flight of steps led down to a terrace and the main entrance. Kojak, teeth bared with the exertion, started to stump and crab his way down.

  “Oh, look at the poor old thing, Jack,” said Helen. “He’ll never manage her on his own down here.”

  I went back across the road to where they were still waiting to cross and put my arm under the old woman’s. She seemed almost weightless.

  “I appreciate this,” he said, nodding vigorously on the other side of her. “Nelson Morrison. We’re from Trenton, New Jersey.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “Not at all. It’s a pleasure.”

  The old woman did not look at either of us.

  “That’s the way,” I said. “That’s it.”

  “She’s not a big talker. She doesn’t speak very often, do you, Mother?”

  Step by step we edged her down.

  “But she enjoys it, don’t you, Mother? You can tell she enjoys it. She likes to go out. We went on a boat, didn’t we, Mother?”

  “Nearly there,” I said.

  “Do you remember the boat in Venice, Mother? Do you? I think it’s a naughty day today, isn’t it? You’re only hearing what you want to hear.”

  “One more,” I said.

  “But she did enjoy it. Every year you’ll find us somewhere, won’t he, Mother?”

  Inside, the others were sitting at a refectory table in a vaulted cellar. It was lit by bare bulbs. It was cool, almost cold, after coming in out of the sunshine. In places, the brickwork glistened with moisture. Kojak, a cigarette held up between thumb and forefinger, was holding forth.

  The cellars apparently extended under the building for more than a mile of natural caves and caverns. In the tunnels and corridors were more than a million bottles of wine. Today, however, there was nothing to see as the wine-making did not take place until September. But famous and authentic food was available at the cafe and counter just a bit further down the tunnel and bottles of the finest Frascati were advantageously for sale. If we desired to buy wine, it would be his pleasure to negotiate for us.

  He paused.

  He surveyed us through the blue-tinted spectacles.

  Slowly, he shook his head.

  The five bottles of wine on the table were provided free of charge for us to drink on its own or as an accompaniment to food we might purchase. While he was talking, a girl with a sacking apron round her waist and with broken-backed men’s shoes on her feet scuffed in with a tray of tumblers. Kojak started pouring the wine. It looked as if it had been drawn from a barrel minutes before. It was greenish and cloudy. It was thin and vile and tasted like tin. I decided to drink it quickly.

  I didn’t actually see it happen because I was leaning over saying something to Helen. I heard the melancholy man, the man who was travelling alone, say, “No thank you. I don’t drink.”

  Glass chinking against glass.

  “No thank you.”

  A chair scraping.

  And there was Kojak mopping at his trouser leg with a handkerchief and grinding out what sounded like imprecations which were getting louder and louder. The melancholy man had somehow moved his glass away while Kojak was pouring or had tried to cover it or pushed away the neck of the bottle. Raised fist quivering, Kojak was addressing the vaulted roof.

  Grabbing a bottle-neck in his meaty hand, he upended the bottle over the little man’s glass, wine glugging and splashing onto the table.

  “Doesn’t drink!” snarled Kojak.

  He slammed the bottle down on the table.

  “Doesn’t drink!”

  He flicked drops of wine onto the table off the back of his splashed hand.

  “Mama mia! Doesn’t drink!”

  Grinding and growling he stumped off towards the cafe.

  He left behind him a silence.

  Into the silence, one of the women said,

  “Perhaps it’s a custom you’re supposed to drink it? If you don’t it’s insulting?”

  “Now wait a minute,” said her husband.

  “Like covering your head?” she added.

  “Maybe I’m out of line,” said the other man, “but in my book that was inappropriate behaviour.”

  “I never did much like the taste of alcohol,” said the melancholy man.

  His accent was British and glumly northern.

  “They seem to sup it with everything here,” he said, shaking his head in gloomy disapproval.

  “Where are you folks from?” said the man in the turquoise shirt.

  “Canada,” said Helen.

  “You hear that, June? Ottawa? Did we visit Ottawa, June?”

  “Maybe,” said June, “being that he’s European and . . .”

  “It’s nothing to do with being European,” said Helen. “It’s to do with being rude and a bully. And he’s not getting a tip from us.”

  “Yeah,” said June’s husband, “and what’s with all these jokes about women drivers? I’ll tell you something, okay? My wife drives better than I drive. Okay?”

  He looked around the table.

  “Okay?”

  “I’ve seen them,” said the melancholy man, “in those little places where they eat their breakfasts standing up, I’ve seen them in there first thing in the morning—imagine—taking raw spirits.”

  The old woman sat hunched within a tweed coat, little eyes watching. She made me think of a fledgling that had fallen from the nest. Her tumbler was empty. She was looking at me. Then
she seemed to be looking at the nearest bottle. I raised my eyebrows. Her eyes seemed to grow wider. I poured her more and her hand crept out to secure the glass.

  “Jack!” whispered Helen.

  “What the hell difference does it make?”

  I poured more of the stuff for myself.

  June and Chuck were from North Dakota. Norm and Joanne were from California. Chuck was in construction. Norm was on a disability pension and sold patio furniture. Joanne was a nurse. George Robinson was from Bradford and did something to do with textile machinery. Nelson and his mother travelled every summer and last summer had visited Yugoslavia but had suffered from the food.

  I explained to June that it was quite possible that I sounded very like the guy on a PBS series because the series had been made by the BBC and I had been born in the UK but was now Canadian. She told me my accent was cute. I told her I thought her accent cute too. We toasted each other’s accents. Helen began giving me looks.

  June had bought a purse in Rome. Joanne had bought a purse in Florence. Florence was noted for purses. June and Chuck were going to Florence after Rome. Helen had bought a purse in Florence—the best area of Florence for purses being on the far side of the Ponte Vecchio. In Venice there were far fewer stores selling purses. Shoes, on the other hand, shoe stores were everywhere. Norm said he’d observed more shoe stores in Italy than in any other country in the world.

  Nelson disliked olive oil.

  George could not abide eggplants. Doris, George’s wife who had died of cancer the year before, had never fancied tomatoes.

  Nelson was flushed and becoming loquacious.

  Chuck said he’d had better pizza in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where at least they put cheese on it and it wasn’t runny.

  George said the look of eggplants made him think of native women.

  Joanne said a little pasta went a long way.

  Milan?

  After Venice, Norm and Joanne were booked into Milan. What was Milan like? Had anyone been there?

  “Don’t speak to me about Milan!” said Helen.

  “Not a favourite subject with us,” I said.

  “We got mugged there,” said Helen, “and they stole a gold bracelet I’d had since I was twenty-one.”

  “‘They,’” I said, “being three girls.”

  “We were walking along on the sidewalk just outside that monstrous railway station . . .”

  “Three girls, for Christ’s sake!”

  “They came running up to us,” said Helen.

  “Two of them not more than thirteen years old,” I said, “and the other about eighteen or nineteen.”

  “One of them had a newspaper sort of folded to show columns of figures and another had a bundle of tickets of some sort and they were waving these in our faces . . .”

  “And talking at us very loudly and quickly . . .”

  “. . . and, well, brandishing these . . .”

  “. . . and sort of grabbing at you, pulling your sleeve . . .”

  “Touching you,” said Helen.

  “Right!” said Norm. “Okay.”

  “Exactly,” said Joanne. “That’s exactly . . .”

  “And then,” I said, “I felt the tallest girl’s hand going inside my jacket—you know—to your inside pocket . . .”

  “We were so distracted, you see,” said Helen, “what with all the talking and them pointing at the paper and waving things under your nose and being touched . . .”

  “So anyway,” I said, “when I felt that I realized what was happening and I hit this girl’s arm away and . . .”

  “Oh, it was awful!” said Helen. “Because I thought they were just beggars, you see, or kids trying to sell lottery tickets or something, and I was really horrible to Jack for hitting this girl . . . I mean, he hit her really hard and I thought they were just begging so I couldn’t believe he’d . . .”

  “But the best part,” I said, “was that I probably wasn’t the main target in the first place because we walked on into the station and we were buying tickets—we were in the line—and Helen . . .”

  “I’d suddenly felt the weight,” said Helen. “The difference, I mean, and I looked down at my wrist and the bracelet was gone. I hadn’t felt a thing when they’d grabbed it. Not with all that other touching. They must have pulled and broken the safety chain and . . .”

  “Of course,” I said, “I ran back to the entrance but . . .”

  I spread my hands.

  “Long gone.”

  “With us,” said Joanne, “it was postcards and guidebooks they were waving about.”

  “Where?”

  “Here. In Rome.”

  “Girls? The same?”

  “Gypsies,” said Norm.

  “Did they get anything?” said Helen.

  “A Leica,” said Joanne.

  “Misdirection of attention,” said Norm.

  “Were they girl-gypsies?” I said.

  “Misdirecting,” said Norm. “It’s the basic principle of illusionism.”

  “I was robbed right at the airport,” said Nelson.

  “It must be a national industry,” said George.

  “They had a baby in a shawl and I was just standing there with Mother and they pushed this baby against my chest and well, naturally, you . . .”

  “I don’t believe this!” said Norm. “This I do not believe!”

  “And while I was holding it, the other two women were shouting at me in Italian and they had a magazine they were showing me . . .”

  “What did they steal?”

  “Airplane ticket. Passport. Traveller’s cheques. But I had some American bills in the top pocket of my blazer so they didn’t get that.”

  “Did you feel it?” said Joanne.

  He shook his head.

  “No. They just took the baby and walked away and I only realized when I was going to change a traveller’s cheque at the cambio office because we were going to get on the bus, weren’t we, Mother?”

  “A baby!” said June.

  “But a few minutes later,” said Nelson, “one of the women came up to me on her own with the ticket and my passport.”

  “Why would she give them back?” said Helen. “Don’t they sell them to spies or something?”

  “I paid her for them,” said Nelson.

  “Paid her?” said June.

  “Paid her!” said Norm.

  “PAID!” said Chuck.

  “Ten dollars,” said Nelson.

  “They must have seen you coming!” said George.

  “They must have seen all of you coming,” said Chuck.

  Nelson poured himself another murky tumbler of Frascati. “It wasn’t much,” he said. “Ten dollars. She got what she wanted. I got what I wanted.”

  He shrugged. Raising the glass, he said,

  “A short life but a merry one!”

  We stared at him.

  “I got what I wanted, didn’t I, Mother? And then we went on the green and red bus, didn’t we? Do you remember? On the green and red bus?”

  The old woman started making loud squeak noises in her throat.

  It was the first sound we’d heard her make.

  She sounded like a guinea pig.

  “It’s time for tinkles!” sang Nelson. “It’s tinkle time.”

  And raising her up and half carrying her to the door of the women’s malodorous toilet, he turned with her, almost as if waltzing, and backed his way in.

  * * *

  . . . not entirely without incident.

  Don’t mention Milan to us!

  . . . except for Helen’s getting mugged

  It all made quite a good story, a story with which we regaled our friends and neighbours. We became quite practised in the telling of it. We told it at parties and
over dinners, feeding each other lines.

  But the story we told was a story different in one particular from what really happened—though Helen doesn’t know that.

  The scene often comes to mind. I see it when the pages blur. I see it in my desk-top in the wood’s repetitive grain. I see it when I gaze unseeing out of the window of the restaurant after lunch, the sun hot on my shoulder and sleeve. I see it when I’m lying in bed in the morning in those drowsy minutes after being awakened by the clink and chink of Helen’s bottles as she applies moisturizing cream, foundation, blush, and shadow.

  Chuck from Grand Forks, North Dakota, had been right. They had seen all of us coming. Easy pickings. Meek and nearing middle age, ready to be fleeced, lambs to the slaughter.

  She’d been the first female I’d hit since childhood. I hadn’t intended to hit her hard. I’d moved instinctively. Her eyes had widened with the pain of it.

  I’d noticed her even before she’d run towards us. Good legs, high breasts pushing at the tight grey cotton dress, long light-brown hair. She was wearing bright yellow plastic sandals. She had no makeup on and looked a bit grubby, looked the young gamine she probably was.

  I’d been carrying a suitcase and felt sweaty even though it was early in the morning. Her hand as it touched the side of my chest, my breast, was cool against my heat.

  When I struck her arm, there was no panic in her eyes, just a widening. There was a hauteur in her expression. Our eyes held each other’s for what seemed long seconds.

  When Helen discovered her bracelet gone, I hurried out of the vast ticket hall but under the colonnade and out of sight I slowed to a walk. There is no rational, sensible explanation for what followed.

  I stood in the archway of the entrance. The two small girls had gone. She stood facing me across the width of the curving road. It was as if she’d been waiting for me.

  We stood staring at each other.

  Behind her was a sidewalk cafe. The white metal chairs and tables were screened by square white tubs containing small, bushy bay trees. The bays were dark and glossy. Dozens of sparrows hopped about on the edges of the tubs. Pigeons were pecking along the sidewalk near her feet. Among them was a reddish-brown pigeon and two white ones. In the strong morning light I could see the lines of her body under the grey cotton dress. She was gently rubbing at her arm.