Page Turner Pa

by David Leavitt

  He shut his eyes. To that demigod that promises (falsely) to fulfill the selfish wishes of the young, he prayed that his mother might be spared until they got back from Italy.

  A few minutes later, as if in answer to his prayer, head-lamps bloomed in the dark. He recognized the familiar trim of her station wagon, stood up, climbed in.

  "What happened?" he asked.

  Pamela had on her dark glasses. She sat huddled over the steering wheel, shoulders hunched, her hair held back with a rubber band.

  "Mother?"

  She didn't move.

  "He's not coming," she said.

  "Who?"

  "Your father."

  "Not coming where?"

  Switching off the ignition, she laid her head against the steering wheel. "God, it's just like him. Waiting until the day before a trip to spring the news."

  "I don't understand. What's happened? Dad's not coming to Italy?"

  "Your father is having an affair," Pamela said. "Is—has been for years. It all came out this afternoon. I had the feeling he's just been bursting to tell me. So now the plan is that you and I go off to Italy by ourselves like nothing's happened, while he and the woman shack up stateside, nice and cozy—"

  For air, Paul rolled down the window.

  "The bastard."

  "Mom—"

  "The fucking bastard."

  "Don't say that!"

  She beat her fists on the steering wheel.

  "Mom—"

  All at once she switched on the ignition, pulled fast out of the parking lot.

  "Where are we going? Careful!" She had raced a yellow light.

  Veering onto El Camino, she drove up to a motel, its red VACANCY sign brazen in the dark.

  "Mother, we can't stay in a motel. I have to pack."

  "He named the business after it," she said. "Because it was where they met on their lunch hours all those years. That's why he named the business Summit Printing. The bastard."

  She started crying.

  Through the windshield Paul read the words SUMMIT MOTOR LODGE in green and white neon.

  He said nothing. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for this moment. Still, some instinct told him to reach out a hand and steady his mother's shoulder. She flinched it away. Probably she understood that if he wanted to comfort her, it was not for her sake at all; it was because he could not bear for her to show weakness in his proximity.

  Finally she opened her purse and took out a tissue.

  "Well," she said.

  "What are we going to do?" Paul asked.

  "What are we going to do? Go. You think I want to stick around here and watch? He's the past."

  Paul shut his eyes.

  She reversed out of the Summit Motor Lodge parking lot and headed into traffic. "Yes, in the end I'll probably be relieved," she said. "In the end I'll probably decide it was for the best."

  Paul stayed quiet. A few minutes later, they were pulling into the familiar driveway. "Is he here?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "He won't come back until after we're gone."

  They went in through the garage. Under Paul's feet, the floorboards were reticent. The doors creaked. The kitchen kept to itself, like a beaten child who fears reprisal.

  Suddenly he no longer enjoyed looking forward. He simply wanted to be in the future, remembering misery, instead of in the present, remembering having looked forward to joy.

  Taking a dish of sugar-free Jell-O out of the refrigerator, Pamela sat down at the kitchen table and started a crossword puzzle.

  "Aren't you going to pack?" Paul said.

  "In a minute," Pamela said. "Honey, you know everything about music. Composer Maurice—"

  "Ravel," Paul said.

  "Ravel," Pamela repeated. "Yes, that's fine. Yes, that'll fit in perfectly."

  3

  FORTY SOME ODD HOURS LATER, in his hotel room in Rome, Paul opened the letter his father had slipped inside his suitcase. "It's okay for you to hate me," Kelso concluded, "as long as it motivates you to take care of your mother. Remember, I won't always be her husband, but you'll always be her son, so make sure she doesn't do anything you'll regret."

  After he'd folded the letter in eighths and stuffed it inside his jeans pocket, Paul opened the window. A soppy world confronted him, the air colorless and woolly in the damp. Nearby, in her own room, his mother slept off jet lag and grief. He himself wasn't tired at all, even though he hadn't been to bed in what felt like days. So he took his old umbrella and went out walking.

  It was another long-rehearsed moment that would only come once: his first walk, alone, through the streets of Rome. And yet like most longed-for things, the Pantheon was simply there, sinking wonderfully into the mist. Inside, the rain seemed to fall in slow motion through the oculus. A camp of vagrants, complete with dogs and guitars and blankets, sheltered under the portico. He listened to the ground bass and trill of rain.

  Turning left, Paul wandered down a succession of ever-narrowing streets. Churches faced him at every corner. He stepped into one of them. A congested light filtered through the old windows, clogging the vast interior with shadows. Behind a half-open door a nun ironed altar cloths.

  He sat down. White candles burned in corners. All around him gloomy frescoes rose: Santa Agatha with her breasts on a plate, Santa Lucia with her eyes on a plate. Then an old woman entered the church, crossed herself, stepped into one of the confessionals. He heard her muttered litany. From under the curtain the priest's black shoe tapped a beat.

  He thought, It's not supposed to be like this; he thought, My mother's tragedy is not my tragedy. After all, he had taken a lifesaving course once, and therefore knew that the greatest risk in trying to save someone is that that person will climb atop your shoulders and drown you too.

  Still, he could not help remembering how in the taxi, when the driver had overcharged them, she'd said, "It's okay, Paul. One of the only pleasures I have left is wasting your father's money."

  Once the rain had eased, Paul left the church and, following the signs, walked toward Piazza Navona. Soon the smell of coffee drew him into a shop with a sign that said torrefazione. There were no other customers. The handsome barman, redheaded and hairy-armed, was taking advantage of the lull to polish his instrument with a white cloth.

  "Prego," he said.

  "Un cappuccino," Paul said, for the first time putting into practice the Italian he had been studying in his room for weeks.

  "Va bene," the barman said, and slapped a saucer down onto the marble counter. His machine was an impressive piece of engineering, part plumbing and part cookware. Mosque-shaped, formed from beaten brass and steel, it had two little balconies hanging off its sides, on one of which the cup was placed to receive the coffee's slow drip. The milk he foamed with a limblike extension, from which hot blasts of steam issued.

  "Un bel cappuccino caldo," he repeated, depositing the cup on the saucer.

  "Grazie."

  "Tedesco, lei?"

  "Americano."

  "Where are you from?"

  "California."

  "Ah, California. Beautiful girls, eh?" He made a gesture in front of his chest to indicate large breasts.

  Paul's face flushed in the warmth. He drank. The barman was telling him the story of his life, which was elaborate. He was from Cefalu, he said, in Sicily. In Rome he lived with his girlfriend. But now they were thinking of moving to America because she had relatives who owned a restaurant in Cincinnati. He said he liked the name of that city because it included the toast cin-cin. Would he like a grappa? the barman asked, and Paul said yes.

  "Sono Paolo," he said. They shook hands. The barman did not offer his own name. Instead he picked up a bottle shaped like a pear and poured out a tiny glassful of clear emulsion, which he handed to Paul. "Thank you," Paul said. "Cin-cin." He toasted the air. The barman smiled. A thin thread of gold disappeared into his collar, Paul noticed: and what hung at the end of it? A cross, probably. Or a corno to ward off the ev
il eye.

  The grappa was stronger than anything he had ever tasted. It made him purse his lips. Could the barman get into trouble for giving alcohol to someone who was underage? In America, certainly. And yet it was becoming every moment more evident that he was in another land.

  After a few sips of the grappa Pauls chest felt warm, as if someone had been rubbing it with Ben-Gay.

  The barman kept talking. He told a long story about a child who had fallen from a tower, but because the child's mother had had the good sense to invoke the name of San Francesco di Paola, instead of crashing down, the child had wafted gently to the earth like a leaf. Then he put his elbow on the bar, rested his cheek in his palm, and said, "Insomma." In sum, Paul translated mentally. "Insomma, poi, niente." He drew circles on the marble with his forefinger. No language has more ways of saying nothing than Italian.

  After a while Paul announced that he had to go to the bathroom. He was shivering a little. And why? Nothing had happened. And what was he expecting anyway? That the barman would follow him into the bathroom, that they would pee side by side? (The thought excited and shamed him.) But instead he just stood there and drew circles, and said, "Insomma." As far as Paul could tell his friendliness had neither conditions nor expectations attached to it, which surprised him. He had never before encountered friendliness for its own sake, friendliness that formed like a skin over the surface of the moment, only to break when the spoon plunged in.

  Returning from the bathroom, he asked how much he owed. "One thousand five hundred," the barman said, ringing up.

  "And the grappa?"

  "Niente."

  "But—"

  "Niente."

  It seemed futile to argue when faced with such an edifice of masculine will. Thanking him, Paul picked up his umbrella and left.

  Outside, the rain seemed finally to have let up. Cold leftover drops fell onto his hair from balconies. Somehow he knew that back at the hotel, his mother had woken.

  Ignoring the maternal tug, he kept walking. Against the wall of a brooding palazzo a beige poster drooped in the damp. He went to study it: RICHARD KENNINGTON, PI ANOFORTE, it declared, CHOPIN, BRAHMS, RAVEL...

  He searched for the date, saw that the concert had taken place the night before.

  Suddenly a strangled sensation seized him, anguish holding exultation in its scissors grip.

  "Fuck," he said. An old lady smiled. "Shit." A boy with a heavy backpack rode by on a bicycle.

  Finally he said, "Nothing works out for me" (he was his mother's son), then, breathless, hurried back to the hotel. In the dim lobby an old woman sat knitting in a rocking chair, her attention fixed on a black-and-white television that chattered near the ceiling. Behind a bar, a sullen youth was wiping a plate with his apron. A signora, Valkyrian in aspect, occupied the front desk in much the same way that large countries occupy small countries during a war.

  Thunder broke in the distance. The yellow lights wavered, steadied.

  "Buona sera, signorino."

  "Buona sera." He took his key.

  Upstairs, more light escaped from under his mother's door, on which he knocked.

  "Who is it?" she asked timorously.

  "Paul."

  She opened for him. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so glad it's you. Where have you been? I was frightened."

  "I took a walk."

  He stepped into her room. The chandelier shone loudly. It was not a comforting light. In it, his mother looked suddenly very small to him, almost birdlike. And he was still young enough to be a little shocked by how much he'd outgrown her.

  He sat down on the iron bed. Over its various posts and bars Pamela had draped her underwear and nylons. "I tell you, the bathroom's been a real adventure," she said. "First the hot water was on the side of the sink that the cold water was supposed to be on. And then to make things even more confusing, the cold side said 'F' and the hot side said 'C.'"

  "Caldo and freddo."

  "Right, and caldo means cold."

  "No, caldo means hot."

  "Well, anyway, it basically was cold. Lukewarm at most. And instead of a proper tub, there's just a showerhead on the wall and a kind of drain thing on the floor. I nearly flooded the place. And the toilet—"

  Paul lay back. His posture told Pamela to shut up about the bathroom.

  "So, are you hungry?" she asked instead, and looked at him cautiously, as if to gauge his emotional temperature.

  Paul shrugged. "Not really. You?"

  "I could eat. I mean, I should eat. We need to adjust to the schedule over here, and probably the best way to do it is just to pretend we're not tired when we're tired, pretend we're hungry when we're not hungry."

  "You go," Paul said.

  "You mean alone?"

  "You eat. I'm exhausted."

  Pamela frowned. "But Paul," she said. "It's our first night—"

  "Mother, I just want to make one thing clear. I'm happy to be on this trip with you, I'm happy to be seeing Italy with you, only if we're going to get along, you have to give me time by myself. I'm eighteen now. I'm an adult."

  "I know that, Paul. And of course the last thing I want is to burden you. But this is our first night, and anyway, I don't understand the money, your Italian is so good—"

  "Just go downstairs and have some supper in the hotel restaurant. The waiters speak English and they'll put the charges on the bill. I have to sleep."

  Reluctantly, his mother slunk off to consume her solitary meal, while Paul hurried to his own room. To get there, he had to walk down a corridor overlaid with a thinning Persian runner, across a loggia draped with flowers, up a short staircase, through a foyer with a piano, down another short staircase, through the lobby and up the main stairs to the top floor. Here there was no carpeting at all. The corridor was as narrow as a vise. Still, he liked the room, which had a sleigh bed and writing table, and reminded him of the one Van Gogh had painted in Aries. The walls were patterned with fading violets. (Or was it a pattern of faded violets?) There was even a genuine architectural oddity: a window that started halfway down the wall and ended at the floor. When the weather improved, he thought he might sit in this window, dangling his feet amid the red tiled rooftops, in the river of the world.

  Having combed his hair and put on his jacket, he hurried back to the lobby. From behind the desk, the massive signora smiled at him without showing her teeth. Altogether she seemed upholstered: an upright, walking sofa.

  He requested, and was given, a telephone directory, as well as a copy of the day's newspaper, on the culture page of which a review of Kennington's concert featured prominently.

  Appropriating a little black phone in the corner booth, he started dialing all the five-star hotels, asking at each one for the room of Richard Kennington. "No, I'm sorry," the operators told him in their careful English, "No, there's no one here by that name," until finally, at the Bristol, the voice said, "One moment." Then there was a pause, another ring.

  "Hello?"

  Paul hung up. Returning to the front desk, he asked the signora how to find the Via Veneto.

  He didn't know exactly why he was going, or what he'd do once he got there: only that having missed the concert, he must not miss Kennington himself.

  The Bristol proved to be a very grand place indeed. The lobby had marble floors, porters, men in somber suits fussing behind inlaid wood counters.

  "I'm here to see Mr. Kennington," he told the concierge.

  "May I ask your name?"

  "Porterfield. Paul Porterfield."

  Looking slightly suspicious, the concierge picked up a telephone. "Mr. Kennington," he said in English. "There is a young man to see you. A Mr. Porterfield. Sorry? Yes? One moment."

  He handed Paul the phone.

  "Hello?"

  "Mr. Kennington—Richard—this is Paul Porterfield. Do you remember me?"

  "Who?"

  "I turned pages for you a few months back in San Francisco. The chamber music concert. You played the Tchaikovsky trio, the Ar
chduke, then as an encore—"

  "Oh, yes. What are you doing in Rome?"

  "I'm here with my mother on vacation. And I saw the poster for your concert. I could kick myself! We only got in today." He lowered his voice. "I called all over the place looking for you. I'm amazed I found you. I wondered ... well, you may have forgotten, but after the concert in San Francisco you suggested we might ... we never had the chance then, but now—"

  Up in his room, Kennington, who had been in the midst of writing a letter to Mr. Mansourian explaining his intention to retire from live performance forever, brushed his hand through his hair. Sometimes at the least expected, most painful moment, the world presents you with an opportunity for relief.

  "Give me five minutes," he said. "Then come up. Room 611."

  He hung up the phone. Hurrying to his closet, he pulled on jeans, a white oxford broadcloth shirt. He brushed his teeth, splashed some Acqua di Parma on his neck.

  Exactly five minutes later, a knock sounded on the door. Kennington opened it.

  Yes, it was the same boy. He still had his hair parted perfectly.

  "Hello," Paul said.

  "Well," Kennington said.

  He held the door open, and Paul stepped through.

  4

  "HELP YOURSELF to something from the minibar," Kennington said, opening the little refrigerator under the television.

  "Thank you." Paul peered inside. There were rows of miniature liquor bottles of the sort his father collected, Toblerone chocolate bars, cashew nuts.

  After some consideration he chose pear nectar, while Kennington poured himself a glass of bourbon from a large bottle on the windowsill. Paul looked around. It was easily the fanciest hotel room he'd ever been in. The walls were upholstered in some sort of creamy silk fabric he would have liked to caress. Chintz curtains patterned with roses met over the windows. The dark walnut of the armoire matched that of the bedstead, which encased a big double mattress, its sheet folded over neatly in one corner. Yet what impressed Paul even more than the luxury of the room was that Kennington had thrown his things around as casually as if it were anywhere at all: a can of shaving cream on the dresser, a bruised wallet and some change on the side table, a skinny black sock draped over a chair.