The Train to Orvieto

by Novelli, Rebecca J. ;

  “You’re probably right, but you still haven’t answered my question. Would you sell me your drawing?”

  She laughed and went on with her work. “Why do you want it?”

  “It reminds me of a fresco,” he said.

  “Why don’t you buy a fresco then?” she said.

  “Do you have one?”

  “Yes, but Gabriele would never sell it.”

  Just then Gabriele appeared. “Sell what?” he said.

  “This gentleman wants to buy some wine and see the fresco.”

  “It’s not for sale,” Gabriele said to Losine.

  “Yes, your wife made that clear,” Losine replied. “I’m interested in ancient artifacts—photographing them—and I would welcome an opportunity to examine it.”

  Gabriele led him down a stairway to a subterranean storeroom lit by a bare bulb. Moisture beaded on the whitened walls. Losine felt the heaviness of the air in his lungs. Amid a profusion of wine bottles, some empty and others full, he could see shards of pottery, several amphorae, a large piece of fresco depicting an early version of the goddess Flora, and an exquisitely sculpted box the lid of which had been fashioned as a head. Losine recognized all of the pieces as Etruscan. He knew they were priceless. “These belong to my family,” Gabriele said.

  “And you don’t want to sell them.”

  “But I do,” Willa said. Her response made him cautious.

  “Why, if they belong to your family?” Losine asked.

  “We could use the money to make repairs and improvements, and for capital to expand our business.”

  “You sound like a good businesswoman.”

  “Willa has no head for business,” Gabriele said.

  “Have you set a price on the artifacts?” Losine said, glancing away as if something more important had caught his attention.

  “No,” Gabriele said. “We don’t have a license.”

  “But here they are,” Willa said. “They’re ours. How would the authorities know?”

  She’s clearly willing to sell them. “If you change your mind about these or the old Orvieto, I might be interested,” Losine said.

  “We’re not interested,” Gabriele said. “My wife has crazy ideas.”

  4

  At half past two in the morning Losine awoke abruptly. His ears rang. He had a headache. He was thirsty, his leg numb. He stretched out under the cold sheets and then withdrew his leg to a warmer spot in the bed. Outside, the wind moaned in the eaves, and rain tapped on his window. A familiar sense of emptiness, of dread, engulfed him. Against the darkness of the room, his failures stood out in relief. He replayed his decision years before to allow Greta and Paul to go to Munich. He retraced his steps to the train station, to the platform, the train, to the moment he had gotten on with them, helped them settle in their compartment. There had still been time, even then, to save them.

  Outside the hotel, a noisy crash brought a momentary halt to his self-critique. He closed his eyes and pulled the duvet close to his chin, hoping for sleep. The din continued. He had been cavalier. And stupid to do business with a mere jewel thief. Profligate. Why had he not thanked Father Enrico years ago? He was rude. Why was he not maintaining his health? He was imprudent. As the night wore on, his shortcomings mounted. He chided himself for the triviality of his work and for his own irrelevance. Another hour passed. He was seized by the image of himself adrift in a dark ocean, a white figure flailing in the moonlight.

  At last, he threw off the covers and rolled out of bed. His feet touched the icy floor. Startled, he sat back on the mattress and reached for the oil lamp, but couldn’t find his matches or his lighter in the dark. The cold room seemed to him an extension of his own body. He got up and went to the radiator under the window, ran his finger across it. He remembered that it had been silent earlier and surmised that the hotel heating system remained another wartime casualty. He saw himself as he was: middle-aged, alone in a shabby room, a stranger in a village, his whereabouts and existence unknown to anyone save himself and a hotel clerk, his purpose lost, his life shattered. Before he succumbed beneath the dark waters of his own making, would he catch a piece of wood or debris floating on the current and manage to stay afloat long enough to save himself? Beggared and lost, he dared not hope for a life raft or his own man Friday.

  Grey twilight entered the room. Losine went to the sink. The faucet ran only cold water, and he hadn’t reserved a bath. He washed as quickly as he could, added extra layers of clothing, anticipating the thick, hot coffee and the bread that would surely be waiting in the dining room. Pastries too. He would ask the waiter for some food to take with him. He assembled his camera, light meter, tripod, measuring tape, notebook, film, and a thermos for coffee and put them in a large leather knapsack, which he slung over his shoulder. Today he would search out the Etruscan Temple of Belvedere and confirm to his own satisfaction whether or not it actually reflected the sacred geometry of the school of Pythagoras, as some art historians had claimed. Afterwards, he would move on to the necropolises. He looked at his watch. Quarter to eight. Late, if he intended to photograph both the Temple and the necropolises and then call on Father–no, Monsignor—Enrico afterwards.

  When he had finished breakfast, he left the hotel, crossing the Piazza della Repubblica and the Corso Cavour. His headache had abated. Just hunger, he thought. Though it was out of his way, he turned right at the Via Duomo and continued past the Marcheschi wine shop, which was still shuttered. The emerging sun drenched him in light and gilded the edges of the few remaining clouds. At such moments, he missed Greta and Paul most deeply. By now, Paul would have been a young man. Losine had often tried to imagine whether the boy would have most resembled Greta or himself and thus had two images of his son. The day was warming quickly even though it was almost winter on the calendar. He stopped to remove his scarf, folded it, keeping the corners even, and put it in his knapsack before continuing on his way.

  Near the Piazza Marconi, where the Via Soliana becomes the Via Postieria, the image of his wife and son boarding the train once again tumbled through his mind. Again and again, it copied itself in his dreams, waited for him when he awoke, insinuated itself into his day. He dreaded the wave of despair that invariably accompanied it. He closed his eyes against the unwanted vision and stumbled over the curb of a small public water fountain in front of the Chiesa di San Bernardino. He fell to his knees in a puddle with the contents of his knapsack scattered about him. The tear in his pants exposed the cut on his left knee. He touched it. Superficial. Bracing himself with his cane, he tried to push himself to his feet. A sharp pain shot through his weaker leg. He dropped back onto the street and looked up to see two boys observing him from the other side of the Piazza as they might observe an upended tortoise or an insect whose carapace had become its prison. When they realized that he had noticed them, they ran away laughing.

  Losine turned over on all fours, pushed himself part way up with his hands and then used the cane to regain his balance. Once upright, he leaned on the cane and brushed himself off with his free hand. The sun disappeared under a cloud. His pants and shoes would dry soon enough, and who would see the tear? No need to bother going back to the hotel to change. He gathered up his supplies.

  “Hello.” He turned toward the voice. “I’ve decided to help you after all.” Willa Marcheschi. The artist manqué. A pleasant surprise, even in my present condition.

  “As you can see, you’re just in time,” Losine said, mustering a laugh. Together, they continued toward the Piazzale Cahen and from there they entered the park. Now, the sun reemerged at an angle that caused light to pass through and around objects, giving them the fluidity of a dream. The warm rays on the damp ground surrounded them in quiet vapor as they set up his equipment at the Temple.

  “Very little is left of it, as you can see,” Willa said. “Just a few broken columns and some steps.”

  Surprised by the unexpected warmth of her presence, he felt attracted to her. Immediately, he adopted
a firm, businesslike tone. “Hold this tape, please.” He went about his work treating her as if she were in his employ. He instructed her to stand at each corner while he measured the length of the sides, the placement of the columns. Afterwards, they sat together on the steps, and he made his final calculations.

  “I believe this temple follows exactly the ideas described by Pythagoras,” he told her. “Though they are eighteen hundred years apart, this temple and the Duomo are based on the same mathematical principles.” The sun disappeared again. “This demonstrates that knowledge of mathematical concepts in architecture must have spread both farther and earlier than is commonly believed.”

  Willa drew her jacket up around her chin. “Is that remarkable?” She blew on her hands, stood up and stamped her feet, shivering. “Right now, I’m more interested in how they kept the temple warm.”

  Losine pointed at the thermos. “Would you care for some coffee?” Vapor wafted around them. She nodded and blew on her hands again. “As soon as the sun comes out again, I can shoot, and then we’ll leave.” He opened the thermos, poured the steaming liquid into the dented metal cup and handed it to her. “Not very elegant service, I’m afraid.”

  Willa drank without comment and returned the empty cup to him, then stood to one side, waiting. He had expected her to want more from him. She had seemed so needy the day before. Now there was something so distant and self contained about her that he was uncertain. Perhaps he had only imagined her need of him, of anyone. Had he mistaken his own need for hers? He took the camera out of his knapsack and mounted it on the tripod in what had been the courtyard at the entrance to the Temple. The sun came out from behind a cloud and immediately disappeared again. “Will you show me the necropolises when I’ve finished here?”

  “I’ll show you where it is, but I don’t want to go in those places,” she said. The sun emerged again, this time for good.

  As Losine completed his photographs, he handed the film to Willa. “If you’ll put these in the container, please.” He smiled at her, anticipating a response. She complied silently. “Caring for the film properly determines whether you get good pictures or bad ones,” he continued. “That’s why having a careful helper is important.” Still, she didn’t reply. He set up again and took several more shots at the side of the Temple and some of Willa when she wasn’t looking, before announcing that they were finished. It was nearly ten. Willa sat down at the entrance to the Temple and helped herself to more coffee and a bit of bread.

  Losine sat down beside her. “A successful shoot,” he said lightly. “Thank you for your help.”

  “What do you think about when you’re taking all these pictures?” she said.

  “I think about the pictures.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Very well. What do I think about then?” She had asked for more than he was willing to disclose. He wanted to dislike her, find her ordinary, unlike Greta. A little high strung with an inarticulate desire for something more in her life. Certainly more than he could give her, he thought. Still, she was attractive, though perhaps not beautiful. Average, he decided, surprised that he found average appealing. Greta, her purity of intention, her spirit, represented for him a kind of excellence without which he found life nearly intolerable. Perhaps he was cold-hearted, but it was hardly a fault to have uncommon standards. As he grappled with his conflicting thoughts, the silence between them grew until Willa seemed to him to be floating away from him, never to return. Perhaps he had been wrong. He was relieved when she spoke.

  “Tell me, then, what do you do with your photographs?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why do you take them? What purpose do you have in all this measuring and setting up and taking down?” She looked directly at him. Under her gaze, it occurred to him that she understood the emptiness of his photographic expeditions, that they were instrumental and pointless. She had noticed so quickly. Is it that obvious? Are others just too polite to say so? Perhaps. I appear merely foolish, he thought.

  He felt the heat creep up the back of his neck. He stood up and began to repack his supplies. “I think the work speaks for itself.”

  “No, it doesn’t, at least not to me. What do you do after you finish taking pictures?”

  “I develop them.” He took a sip of coffee from the cup, considering whether he would continue to take any photographs at all.

  “And then?”

  “I organize them and file them.”

  “Why?”

  Relentless, he thought. “Let’s just say I have my reasons,” he replied, aware that he had neither a purpose nor a choice.

  “Such as?” He could not tell her that failure to complete an expedition amounted to cowardice, bad faith, a capitulation. Perhaps she guessed something from his expression. “Really, I sincerely want to know why you do this.” The sun disappeared again. He felt a chill enter his bones. He feared she might withdraw again.

  “Because I refuse to give in.”

  “To what?”

  “To nothingness.” She reached for his hand and kissed it as if he were someone she recognized after a long separation.

  “Why don’t you show me where the necropolises are now?” he said. She got up, and together they walked along the ramparts to the old gate and then along the narrow dirt road that wound below the walls of the city to the base of the outcropping. She led him to an overgrown path that was nearly invisible from the road. He limped behind her, using his cane to maintain his balance amid the roots and rocks, dodging branches that caught on his knapsack, avoiding the tall grass that made his eyes itch and his nose run. He felt his leg weaken, but he was determined to go on.

  At last, they came to a narrow path lined on either side by contiguous, small, flat-roofed stone structures suggestive of row houses for child-sized dwellers. The roofs were covered with earth, grasses, and other vegetation that had taken root centuries before. Heavy, flat stones blocked some of the doorways, while others gaped open. In shady places on the walls and inside the entrances of the structures where water percolated, patches of moss and lichen were well established. The angle of the noonday sun permitted Losine to look into the interiors of some of the open necropolises, small rooms decorated with decaying paintings of sacred and profane celebrations. Around the perimeter of one otherwise barren room he saw carved stone sarcophaguses, one propped open with a funeral urn.

  “People take the artifacts and sell them,” Willa said. “It’s illegal, but that’s how they make money when there’s no work.” Losine set his knapsack on the ground and crouched down. Dragging his leg, he crawled through the opening and into the chamber. Willa followed him. Crouched inside, he inhaled the smell of damp earth, tasted mold, coughed. Gradually, his eyes adjusted to the dim light. The doorway seemed to recede. A profound awareness of his own solitude came over him. Instinctively, he reached for Willa’s hand. She looked at him for a moment and then put her arms around him. He kissed her with an unfamiliar sense of gratitude and then with an urgency that surprised him as much as her eager response. Like solitary wayfarers who meet on a lonely road, he recognized his unexpected kinship with her, a connection he thought he had lost with any other after Greta. It overwhelmed him, filled him with the kind of thanksgiving that honors gods.

  He spread his coat on the ground. She sat on it and began to unbutton her blouse, moving slowly and methodically, as if each button required her to make an individual decision about its fate. She allowed her blouse to slip off onto the ground. He eased himself down beside her. She unbuttoned his shirt first and then his trousers. As she slid each button out of its buttonhole, Losine forgot about himself and his original opinion of her. For once, he wasn’t conscious of anything except the moment. He helped her slide her skirt off, her bra, her panties and then buried his face in her hair and held her against him, her rosy, silken skin a miracle. He opened his eyes. In the faded frescoes of banquets held long ago he recognized his own hunger.

  “I’ve needed
you for so long,” he told her.

  “And I you.” They yielded to one other not as the strangers they were, but as those who have always been together in a continuous beginning. He felt the universe open to accept them in their first lovemaking. Afterwards, they lay facing one another, shy now in their nakedness. She touched the scar on his leg, tracing its depth and length.

  “What happened to you?” He moved her hand away.

  “Not now.”

  “I want to know.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore.” He kissed her nose, found it cold, and helped her to dress. He got dressed himself. She put her gloves on and buttoned her coat.

  “Do we have any more coffee?”

  “Outside in my pack.” He struggled with his jacket, then braced on one leg and using his cane, he got up, grateful that she didn’t move to help him. They crawled out of the opening into the light, she after him. He brought the thermos out of his knapsack and poured out the remaining coffee for her.

  “Do you have anything to eat?” Willa said. He found some biscuits to share with her along with the last of the coffee from their single cup.

  He was curious about her now. “Why have you stayed in Orvieto?”

  “At first, I thought this would be only one of my homes. I thought I would go back to Firenze and later home to America…but, naturally, the children—”

  “A blessing in itself,” Losine said.

  “—and then the war,” she continued, “and after my baby boy died, my dreams, whatever it was I thought I wanted, didn’t matter any more. We had so many people to feed—our tenants, refugees, friends, soldiers looking for their companies. Those poor young men. So sick. Terribly injured. We tried to help them. We would have wanted their families to do the same for our children. The bombs. The explosions. The shootings and executions. It’s hard to say who was the worst—the Germans or the Partisans or the Allies. So many people…so hungry. Toward the end, we had no crops. We went to the black market just like everyone else.”