The Chapel

by Michael Downing

  “Lucky,” Sara said, “you will also see in the Bargello how Giotto painted a portrait of Dante.”

  A woman who’d found time to curl her hair into a perfect platinum flip asked, “But isn’t the Bargello museum in Florence?”

  “Both of these great artists were, how you say, Fiorentino.”

  The same woman said, “We actually say Florentine.”

  “Si, si, si, Firenze,” Sara said.

  “No, no, no, Florence is what we say. Like you say Padova, we say Padua.”

  Shelby swiveled in her seat near the front of the room. “Potato, Padova. Let’s call the whole thing off.”

  “Agreed.” The blonde conceded the point with a shake of her flip. “But we still don’t know whether we should refer to it as the Arena Chapel or the Scrovegni Chapel.”

  “I will show you next this church of the Eremitani,” Sara said, her voice a little shakier now. “Next, not walking too far,” she stumbled on, sliding her finger down the map, “we will enjoy this ride on the tram for visiting the very holy basilica with the very holy tongue of St. Anthony looking even today almost like new, saving time to stop in many other famously beautiful chapels along the way.”

  This went on for fifteen minutes. The frustration in the room was palpable, but it was held in check by the anxiety evident in Sara’s earnest performance. Shelby shot me a couple of exasperated looks from the front of the room, and I nodded, but I wasn’t eager for the event to end. I was dreading my dinner with strangers, and then sitting alone Monday morning with some panicky assortment of sweet rolls and exotic-fruit nectar from that breakfast buffet, so I was hoping Sara would talk until Tuesday.

  I felt someone’s hands on my shoulders.

  “Have I managed to miss absolutely every tedious detail?” As I turned, the silver-haired doctor slid into the chair beside me. He had changed into a blue linen blazer and a starched white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar. He was at least six feet tall, and his taut, pale skin was deeply etched around the eyes and mouth with tiny, dark age lines. When he leaned toward me, his severe, angular profile widened into a delighted grin. He whispered, “At this moment, we are the only people in Italy not having a drink.” I got a whiff of gin and lemon and instinctively looked at my watch. It was almost seven. He nodded.

  “Is there some questions at the back of this room?” Sara was peering at me.

  Very loudly, the doctor said, “I suppose it might just be me, but—” He paused so everyone had time to turn around. He leaned back, rocking a bit in his chair, staring at Sara. “I’m a little bit on pins and needles back here. I just know, at any moment now, you are going to toss away those eyeglasses, shake your hair loose, and turn into Gina Lollobrigida. You are so very beautiful.”

  One of the husbands yelped, “Exactly!” He started a round of applause that caught on as everyone laughed and nodded in agreement. Relief swept through the room like an unexpected wave, and as it receded, one of the wives said, “It really is true, Sara. You’re just lovely.”

  Sara leaned back against the table and waved her hand. “We can go enjoy the evening now.” Soon, she was surrounded by the couples, and the doctor wagged his head, which was suggestive enough to make me follow him to the hotel bar, a counter with six steel stools tucked into a dark alcove between the kitchen and the restaurant.

  “Gin okay?”

  I nodded.

  He nodded at the bartender, who pulled down two tall glasses from a shelf, scooped a tablespoon of frozen lemonade into each, added an incautious amount of gin, topped it off with tonic water and a slice of lemon, and shoved them our way. The doctor clinked his glass against mine and said, “To so-and-so, who invented this perfect marriage of sour and bitter.”

  It was a very good cocktail. “Who is so-and-so?”

  “Long story,” he said.

  I said, “What’s the drink called? It’s delicious.”

  “We have time for two,” he said. “St. Shelby volunteered to escort the two elderly sisters with the wigs to the restaurant, and that won’t be a quick trip. The drink is called a Perfect Marriage. Is it Elizabeth or Betsy or Liz or Mrs.?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Me?” Either he talked too fast or I was drinking too fast.

  He said, “I’ll go with E. until further notice.” He waved at the bartender.

  I panicked. “You’re not serious about a second?”

  He urged the bartender to mix up another round. “Let’s just agree that you’re sad and I’m sad, and we’re both old enough to have our reasons.”

  I said, “How old are you?”

  “Jesus, I thought we were friends,” he said.

  I said, “I don’t have friends anymore, so I’m out of practice.” To make myself stop talking, I polished off my drink, which did not work. “I’m fifty-six,” I said, as if that qualified as a boast. It was a lie. “Fifty-seven, I mean. What year is it? I’m at least fifty-six.” To stem my rising anxiety, I just kept telling myself, He’s a doctor, he’s a doctor, he’s a doctor.

  “I would have guessed younger for you. Honestly. I’m fifty-four.”

  I was into the second drink. “What’s your name?”

  He said, “T.”

  I said, “As in T-shirt?”

  He said, “Before we go any further, I should warn you. The great restaurant in the Piazza del Erbe doesn’t have a table for us. We’ll be dining on pizza in the Piazza dei Fruitti. If that doesn’t put you off, let’s take one more sip and head out.”

  And we did.

  We threaded our way through a couple of arcades and several short, tilty cobblestone streets that justified my espadrilles if not a third day in the block-print dress. The streets were filled with ambling families and pairs of men with their heads bent toward each other, often staring intently into a plate-glass window of a small shop selling ties or cheese or shoes or cell phones, and then we were in a vast courtyard, and T. turned us toward a collection of ten square tables under a yellow canopy and waved. “They look very happy to see us, which can’t be a good sign.”

  That was the first sentence either of us had spoken outside of the hotel, as if we really were old friends already.

  The elderly sisters were both wearing neat dark suits, and Shelby seemed to have herself wrapped in a maroon sari, though it might have been a twisted-up shawl and slacks. I felt a little rush of something as we approached the others—disappointment, or the gin—as if the best part of the evening was ending. But T. held up his hand, and a waiter shoved another table toward the one Shelby had chosen, and T. rearranged everyone, seating the sisters together, and Shelby and I at his sides opposite them, as if we were three journalists assembled to interview two celebrities, a fair summary of how the evening went.

  Shelby and T. settled on the house wine and five varieties of pizza for sharing, most memorably a crispy cracker of a crust with ricotta salata and anchovy oil, and a sweet tomato, provolone, and baby artichoke pie. I sobered up on sparkling water and the heavy air of an almost-summer night. I mightn’t have said anything at all, but T. occasionally prompted me to ask a question by bumping his knee against mine.

  The sisters had been born in Malo, just a few miles northwest of Padua, but Anna, the slightly taller and slightly younger of the two, had married an American when she was twenty. She lived with her son and his family in Tallahassee now that her husband was dead, and this was her first time coming home to Italy. The trip was a gift from her six children. Here, the older sister, Francesca, held up both her hands, extending three fingers on each, looking wowed. She spoke almost no English, but whenever Anna or T. translated bits of the conversation for her benefit, she would retranslate the essence into a little pantomime. Anna told us that, as a girl, she had never even traveled as far as Florence or Pisa, and Francesca leaned sideways in her chair, as if on cue. Both sisters broke out in laughter. Francesca had once been to the States, when Anna’s husband was still working for Ford in Detroit, and after a brief pause, Francesca took hold of an i
maginary steering wheel. “Uffa, you and your big Ford cars.” She pointed to the piazza. Every citizen of Padua was walking by. “Better, no?”

  Shelby took the lead, asking the sisters about the kind of food their mother cooked and recipes she’d passed on, until the bill came. It was only then I learned that Francesca still lived in Malo, with her husband, and this was her last night with her sister until Anna circled back up north with the tour at the end of the month. Apparently, this was not news to Shelby or T., but I was surprised enough to thoughtlessly ask, “Wouldn’t it be lovely if you were able to see the whole country together?”

  Francesca understood that much English. She held up her hands, rubbed her fingers together, and shrugged.

  I was humiliated. “Of course, it is expensive. Forgive me.”

  Anna shook her head, not happy.

  This was bad enough, so to torture myself further, I conjured a little ramshackle stone hut with a thatched roof, a chicken in the living room, Francesca bent over a black cauldron of soup. Feeling in need of an ally, I turned to T., whose gallant nature had apparently been diluted by the wine. He just raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Denaro, denaro, denaro.” Anna spit out the words. “Troppo denaro when it’s something for her. Her Mario is a rich man with his boats and two-thousand-year-old brandies and suddenly he comes down with this fever about how she has to save for the future? He is the reason I never visit my home. I promise you, no money will be enough money if this one dies. Mario will have to hire ten nurses, and two cooks, and a secretary and a gardener to replace her. Him, he’s been to China and Dubai. Right, Francesca? Francesca? She’s never even seen Rome.”

  Francesca ignored her sister. She held her wineglass toward T. for a refill. He did the honors. She pointed at Anna’s empty glass, and though Anna told T. she’d had all she wanted, Francesca took the bottle and filled her sister’s glass. She said, “Anna, Anna, Anna. Abbiamo questa sera.”

  Anna’s face softened. “She says we have this night.” She leaned into her sister’s shoulder and said, “Ecco, ecco, ecco.”

  T. tilted toward me, pressing his arm against mine, as if goodwill was circuiting the table, bringing us all into contact with each other.

  We traded partners for the walk home. Francesca grabbed my hand, and Anna looped her arm around Shelby’s, and T. patiently followed, alone. As we neared the hotel, he said he felt like Father Goose. One of the green-vested valets held open the door. T. waved us all inside and didn’t even pause to pretend that he would follow along.

  Shelby stopped in the middle of the lobby and said, “We’ve lost our guide. Where did he go?”

  Anna said, “Oh, handsome men.” She led us to the elevator and waited until the door slid closed to say, “At night, they are forever young.”

  III

  I woke early, and warm, and absolutely convinced that Mitchell would turn up at any moment with two coffees and an English-language newspaper. Delusions like this were often the high point of my day, and I had learned to lie still whenever I sensed the possibility of him, which was real but evanescent, like a single note struck on a piano. Had I been at home, I would have eventually rolled off the sofa and followed the well-worn path to the kitchen or the mailbox, but in Italy every next thing involved strangers, and street maps, and translations, and confusion, and two huge suitcases to pack and unpack and repack. I didn’t want to think about what came next every hour on the hour for the next thirty days.

  I had done my duty. Veni, vedi, pizza. Now, I wanted to go home.

  For a few grim minutes, I forced myself to lie there in bed, eyes closed, trying to imagine how I would explain my return to Rachel. But even that excruciating inevitability seemed inconsequential next to the delightful image of me standing in the lobby beside a young man in a tuxedo with my suitcases, waiting for a taxi to take me to the airport in Venice.

  I was going home. The only obstacle in my way was breakfast.

  I opened the window, and the hum and buzz of traffic poured into my room, followed by a stream of cool, damp air that soon chased me right into the shower. All went well until I had to choose a blouse or pullover for the long day of travel ahead. After rejecting the obvious options, I caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door. My damp hair was dark, and the expensive new layers and soft fringe of my semi-permanent caramel-brown dye job were clinging to my neck and forehead like a black tattoo. I was slimmer than I’d been in years, thanks to a diet of coffee, Cheerios, and a weekly plastic vat of yogurt-covered raisins (I was in mourning). Still, the overall impression was not improved by the godawful walking shoes, which made it clear I was not really five foot five as I liked to believe, and the stretchy jeans weren’t doing my thighs any favors. But what did me in was the superfluous sheath of skin that drooped like a sausage casing from just beneath my bra and pooled up at the pleated-elastic waistband. If I’d seen me in those jeans in the changing room before yoga, I’d have nixed the raisins.

  Thus the invention of the shirtdress. I unrolled the three I’d packed and hung them in the closet. Beneath them, I lined up the espadrilles, the open-toed pumps, and the leather wedge sandals. This improved my spirits. I didn’t immediately choose the navy blue, beige, or lilac. I unhitched Rachel’s clever red canvas bag from its wheels, tossed in my wallet, cell phone, and reading glasses. I dried my hair, occasionally glancing at the dresses in the closet, as if conferring with three girlfriends. After I strapped on the Swiss Army watch Mitchell wore every day of his working life, which fit me like a bangle, I stuck my hand out the window. It was still cool, so I opted for the navy blue and the espadrilles.

  It was 7:04. Breakfast was now officially not being served at the buffet. But as I walked past the desk in the lobby and turned to the restaurant, three of the touring wives and one husband were blocking the entrance. One of the women turned hopefully to me and then said, “Oh, hello there. I don’t suppose you know where the staff is?”

  “I’m meeting a friend,” I said, and headed for the front door.

  Outside, two green-vested men were smoking, leaning back against the sill of one of the windows of the restaurant. As I approached, they both looked at their watches and said something apologetic.

  “I’m looking for a café,” I said.

  One of them knocked on the window and said, “Free coffee. We come now.”

  The other one pointed to his left. “Il Metro. Per la strada, da questo lato.”

  I said, “Perfecto,” not sure if that was Italian or Spanish or an invention. Halfway down the block, I was relieved to see the steel sign for Café Metro, backlit with blue light, as was the bar inside. It was perched at the corner of the arcaded alley we’d walked through last night on the way to the piazza. Its exterior walls were huge sheets of plate glass, and one pane on the front was pivoted open to a street-side café, where two singles were braving the traffic. I headed inside and veered toward the darkest seats on the arcade wall and hoped the young aproned woman with long henna curls leaning on the crowded bar could be roused into table service. Most of the business seemed to be espresso shots at the bar. After a few minutes of graciously expectant smiling and waving, I pulled my journal out of my bag, as if I’d just had a noteworthy thought, and I immediately realized I hadn’t brought a pen.

  “Don’t ask.” T. was standing beside my table with a tray. He was still wearing his blue linen blazer. He set down something dark with white foam in a clear glass, and then a second. “Latte macchiato,” he said. He pushed my journal to the far corner of the table and then added two tiny cups of espresso. “Shots and chasers,” he explained. Between the beverages, he slid a white saucer with three little biscotti on a white doily. He raised the steel tray in his right hand, and the redhead swung by and picked it up.

  I was so happy to see him, I said, “You were wonderful last night. Thank you.”

  “Don’t look now,” he said, “but every man at the bar is staring at you.”

 
; “Last chance,” I said. Two moon-faced men in dark suits were turned our way, both gazing at T. I sipped from the glass. It was the perfect morning coffee. “I’m going home today.”

  “Oh, did you forget something?” He knocked back his espresso.

  “Yes.” Even in the peculiarly evasive code language we’d adopted, it was a relief to announce my intentions. It made my departure real. I shoved my espresso his way. He hadn’t shaved. “I forgot who I am,” I said. I immediately felt my face redden with shame. It was meant to be a joke, but it sounded a lot like a confession, perhaps because it was true. In the silence that followed, my confession ripened into a plea for help. “I have to be at home,” I said defiantly, which only seemed to highlight the psychiatric aspect of my decision.

  T. smiled—maybe sympathetically, maybe diagnostically—and then he said, “I almost forgot what I wanted to tell you.” He cleared some space at the edge of our table and opened my journal. He flipped through several blank pages. “Oh, very shrewd,” he said. “Invisible ink.” He turned back to the first page and pulled a silver pen from his jacket. He looked up at me.

  “Permission granted,” I said. I really expected him to jot down his home address, or maybe the name of a shrink he knew in Boston.

  He drew this:

  “Roman arch,” he said.

  “Greek to me,” I said.

  “Basis for the greatest empire in the history of the world. Also, the basis of the barrel vault, if you imagine one of them as each end of an enclosed space, like that brick arcade.” He closed the book, pocketed his pen. “What time does your flight leave from Venice?”

  “Let’s find out.” I pulled my phone out of my bag.

  He covered the phone and my hand with his. “It leaves tomorrow,” he said. “I won’t be going with the others to Vicenza. I’m renting a car—a convertible—and we’ll take the scenic route to Venice. You have to see some of the countryside, and I’m dying to see the airport one more time. At dinner tonight, I’ll steal a cotton napkin. You’ll want a hair scarf to tie under your chin.”