The Chapel

by Michael Downing

  The man said, “It’s Bolognese.”

  I said, “The tagliatelle?”

  The waiter said, “Si, si, si. Tagliatelle. You get these flat spaghettis with meat sauce. You like. Everybody like all the time. Insalata?”

  I nodded.

  The waiter said, “Castelfranco, finocchio, caprese?”

  I said, “Si?”

  The waiter said, “No.”

  The mystery diner at the next table leaned forward so we could see each other. He was the army captain, out of uniform. He said, “The three salads are explained in English on the other side of your menu.”

  I nodded and leaned toward the waiter and whispered so the captain wouldn’t hear me. “Capistrano?”

  The waiter said, “Si, si, si. Castelfranco. Bellisimo.” He walked away.

  The captain said, “I hope I haven’t misled both of us with the Bolognese. It got raves on TripAdvisor.” He seemed to think we were meeting for the first time. “I noticed your folder. My wife is attending the conference, as well. I hope my pasta gets here soon, because I am on kid duty at nineteen-forty-five. You’re skipping the conference dinner, I see.”

  “Guilty as charged,” I said. “Convene the court-martial, Captain.”

  “How did you know I’m army?” He rubbed his close-cropped gray hair as if he were petting a dog. He was more pleased than surprised. He was older than he’d looked on the balcony, and I figured the four-year-old boy was a part of the deal he’d made with a second wife. The brand-new jeans and yellow polo shirt he was wearing were definitely her idea. Baseball might be the national pastime, but a surprising number of American women want their husbands to dress like caddies on the junior varsity golf team. “Was it my head or the shiny shoes?” This was the last question he asked me. “Usually, it’s one end or the other that gives me away. Sometimes the fingernails.” He showed me his manicured hands, holding them up like a surgeon who’d just scrubbed.

  Once our dinners arrived, he told me that his wife—he referred to her as “the new wife”—had put her teaching career on hold for their two kids. He was stationed in Germany at the Conn Barracks, just outside of Schweinfurt.

  I told him I didn’t know the map of Germany very well.

  He said, “A hundred miles east of Frankfurt.”

  I said I’d never been to Germany.

  “About two hundred miles southwest of Leipzig.” He just couldn’t believe I didn’t have any useful coordinates for locating his base camp. A little heatedly he added, “Seventy-five miles northwest of Nuremberg.”

  “The Nuremberg trials,” I said, hoping to shift the subject from geography to history. I felt a kind of camaraderie with his first wife. When had she understood that she had fallen off his map? I said, “It’s amazing to me how many marriages fail when you consider that we managed to patch things up with the Germans.”

  He didn’t say anything. He was examining his cuticles. I couldn’t tell if he was pouting or if he had actually forgotten that I existed.

  For a few minutes, we concentrated on the Bolognese, which tasted like bits of veal and tomato stewed in something illicit, like duck fat. It was not a generous portion, and I wanted to savor it, and my only other entertainment option was a folder full of scheduled events that represented Mitchell’s dying wish to spend a few days without me in Italy, so I said, “Was it the Germans who bombed Padua?”

  The captain snapped to attention. “In World War I, it was the Austrians bombarding the place,” he said. “During World War II, it was the Allies.”

  I said, “Napoleon’s troops tore down a lot of the better buildings in town, as well.” I hoped I was quoting Ed nearly correctly. “They tore down Enrico Scrovegni’s palace.”

  The captain said, “It’s a miracle your little chapel is standing. That’s what I said to Cheryl this afternoon. Look at what happened to the cathedrals at Coventry and Dresden.” I could tell he was gauging my reaction, and whatever he saw encouraged him to keep going. “That church right next door to Giotto’s chapel was blown to bits,” he said.

  “The Church of the Eremitani,” I said.

  “I don’t know the name of it,” he said. “But most of this town from there to the old train station was leveled. Once Mussolini lost control in 1943, Padua hosted the Nazis, so the Allies bombed this whole sector nearly out of existence.” He seemed pleased by these facts, or maybe I was more receptive than his young wife to his history lesson. “I see I didn’t lead you wrong with the pasta.”

  My plate was almost as clean as it had been before I’d been served. “I’m glad I ordered that salad.”

  “You should look for Cheryl tomorrow. You can’t miss her. She’s blonde, and I’m biased, but she’ll be on everybody’s radar.” He stood up. He was done with me—almost. “Thing is, she probably won’t approach you.” This was what he had wanted to say since he’d spotted my CPOCH folder. This was why I was worth talking to. “She’s feeling of out of her league. She didn’t even want to go to the dinner tonight.”

  I said, “Neither did I.”

  He said, “That’s different.” He didn’t bother to explain how.

  I took a guess. “I’m old.”

  “Yeah,” he said, glancing at his watch, “for you it’s just another dinner. She’s not a professor of anything, but she is teaching an art appreciation course for wives at the barracks, so you might ask her about that. Or maybe don’t let on that we met and see if you can get her talking about her art class. That’s it. That’s better. Just do me a favor and seek her out. Cheryl Stamford. I’ll get them to rush that salad to you.”

  The captain collared a waiter on his way out, and my salad arrived within seconds. That was a genuine favor, as several elegantly dressed young couples were taking their places at the big table by the window, and I was beginning to think the only way to avoid looking like a party pooper in my droopy old cardigan was to pull a Shelby and wrap myself in the tablecloth. Instead, I tucked into the salad. It looked like a plate of pale Boston lettuce, the creamy white leaves streaked and spotted with the blood redness of radicchio. It tasted like a hybrid, too, the mild tang of the unidentifiable greens offset by salty shards of Parmesan and maybe some anchovy in the dressing. It was the perfect aperitif. It made me happy, and it made me sad. It reminded me of all the bad salads I’d eaten instead of pasta, hoping I might be worth looking at if there was less of me, all those heaps of aspiring compost dressed in ascorbic acid, the bitter diet of the disappeared.

  BACK IN MY BIG ROOM, I FOUND THREE HANG-UPS FROM Rachel and two new emails. I drew the curtains and crawled into bed before I read them. I’d left The Name of the Rose on the white bedside table, and I set Mitchell’s Swiss Army watch on the cover. That little shrine didn’t lift my spirits, so I turned on the TV and muted the commentary on the soccer game. After a few dizzying minutes, all that running around and the sudden close-ups of sweaty shirts made me feel guilty, so I forced myself to sit up and do at least ten forward bends. The idea of this self-torture was to renew the spine and hamstrings by leaning over your outstretched legs and grasping the soles of your feet. Even at the height of my yogic powers, this wasn’t pretty. I took a couple of deep breaths, and I stayed still until I recalled the proper name for this exercise. It dignified the project to tell myself I was performing paschimottanasana.

  After the tenth forward bend, my spine didn’t seem much improved, but it didn’t hurt. My hamstrings never got involved, probably because I couldn’t extend my outstretched hands past my knees. The soles of my feet might as well have been in Schweinfurt.

  I grabbed my phone and scrolled down to an email from Anna.

  Mrs. Berman: Per your request for a daily photograph, my sister sends you this very accurate view of the exterior of the hotel in Florence, where we are temporarily residing. Sincerely, Anna

  Anna was a woman of her word—minced as it was. Fortunately, Shelby was next in my lineup.

  I mailed the first set of postcards to your children in the Padov
a train station and that made me miss you like crazy. You are probably in Cambridge already but I am still wishing you were here. Everyone else is already complaining about the crowds in Florence as if they thought they’d rented the whole city for a private party. I was here for all of half an hour before I had to run out and see Himself. I hope you admire a six-pack as much as I do! Mailed the Firenze postcards on my way to dinner. Missed you even more. XOXOXOXO

  Shelby’s sweet note soured the pleasure of my secret exile, and after a few minutes it was clear that I was on my way to spending the entire night awake, trying to formulate a genuine response that was not a lie but did not blow my cover. I shopped the minibar for a sedative, but the tininess of those rows of little nips of gin and scotch and rum did me in. It looked like a drunk’s dollhouse. I emptied my suitcase and Rachel’s bag, looking for one of the magazines or newspapers I had read on the airplane. All I came up with was the envelope from Matteo. Then my phone dinged with a new text. It was from T. I didn’t read it. I climbed back into bed. I stuck Matteo’s note into Umberto Eco, as if I might need a bookmark, and I coiled the rosary beads on the nightstand next to Mitchell’s watch. That seemed all wrong. I flicked on the bedside lamp.

  Suddenly, everything seemed to be out of place.

  I pulled Matteo’s note out of the book and read his instructions.

  Hang on the neck, keeping the Holy Cross on the backbone, to be curing the lonely nights.

  I turned off the light, hung the rosary around my neck, and gave the Virgin of Misericordia permission to work her magic. The beads didn’t cure my loneliness, but as I lay in the darkness, they did feel cool against my skin. After a few minutes, I reached out and finally located Mitchell’s watch and slipped it back on my wrist. I was starting to feel like a medium conducting a séance, a gathering of everyone who was not there. It seemed mean not to invite T. to the party. I slapped around the duvet until I found my phone. Doing all of this in pitch blackness preserved the supernatural aspect. And then I read T.’s text.

  I see Florence from the balcony

  and Cambridge in the beyond.

  I could clearly see something. For starters, I had seen that balcony before. I knew it came with a little single bed. T. and I were apparently sharing a room in a city where we weren’t. He hadn’t gone to Florence. He had downloaded the same photo that Rachel had forwarded to me from the hotel website.

  T. was here.

  II

  I skipped the buffet breakfast at the hotel on Thursday morning so I wouldn’t run into Cheryl and feel responsible for her and the future of the NATO alliance all day long. The bar at Café Metro was jammed, but almost all of the tables were unoccupied. I sat in my dark corner near the arcade and waited for a waitress. Apparently, someone had put out a casting call for elegant middle-aged men in expensive blue blazers. There were so many plausible T.s among the comers and goers that he’d have to have worn his stethoscope for me to make a positive identification.

  A young woman with a big beehive hairdo planted herself behind the crowd at the bar and started sweeping her way toward me with a fury that made me think she was often stuck doing the dirty work. She was backing up swiftly, so I stood to clear a path for her. When she felt me looming, she stopped and smiled.

  She said, “Vuoi qualcosa?” She was dressed in a shiny black blouse, black tights, and teal-blue high heels—more Ronnie Spector than Cinderella.

  I said, “Latte macchiato?”

  She said, “Grande?”

  I said, “Si.” This was going so well, I added, “Panini?”

  She said, “Panino?”

  I said, “Pane?”

  She said, “Tramezzino?”

  That made me worry we’d left snacks and headed into the entrées. I tried, “Pastry?” I pointed at the display case, hoping I wouldn’t end up with a punch bowl full of tiramisu.

  She said, “Si, si. Cornetti.”

  It was roulette, but this sounded smallish. I said, “Si, cornetti.”

  She said, “Con crema?”

  I said, “No, grazie.”

  She said, “Marmellata?”

  I didn’t want marmalade, but she was looking so hopeful that I nodded my assent and went back to my table. Instead of looking for T. at the bar while I waited, I scrolled through my camera’s memory and found the picture of the two-euro coin Ed and I had exchanged. Two days ago, Dante had looked like a ringer for T. But the image didn’t tally with my memory of him now, even when I covered up the peculiar chin. I didn’t know if I should delete it or save it. Would it appreciate in value if I never saw him again?

  My coffee arrived with two little knots of brioche and a pot of red-currant jam. I gave the sweet server a twenty-euro note and never saw that beehive again.

  I had no new email, but I did owe a few, and as I dunked the pastry into the jam and poked around in my mailbox, it occurred to me that I was rather rich in the currency of confusion. Why not spend it?

  Sweet Shelby—

  How lucky I am to have met you. I will think of you every year at this time, just when these beauties bloom in my Cambridge backyard. Grateful forever.

  Rachel, my dear, dear girl—

  I would rather dunk my head in the Arno than get into the middle of your business. A thousand apologies from this old girl, with love as ever.

  Oh, David—

  I wish I could say the right thing. Be brave like your namesake? (And might you be able to squeeze the truck into my garage? Rachel knows where I keep my car keys, and you can park me in the driveway.) My best to you.

  Anna—

  Thank you for the lovely note and photo. Now, please accept this coin as a token of my assurance that the photographic debt is paid. I will be happy to think that you and your sister are enjoying yourselves too much to bother taking pictures for me.

  Fondly—Elizabeth Berman

  BY TEN-THIRTY, A SERIOUS TEENAGE BOY WITH A CPOCH TAG pinned to his chest was escorting me down a hall in the Arena Chapel visitor center, hushing me all the way. He opened the door to a conference room and pointed to an empty aisle seat. I scooted in, and he disappeared.

  “But I simply cannot agree with my two eloquent colleagues about the chapel bestowing fame upon Giotto. The oft-repeated anecdote characterizing his response to an envoy sent by Pope Boniface VIII might serve as evidence in this informal setting.” The speaker was a big woman with a British accent and a brutish bouffant of white hair. She wasn’t that old, but she looked aggressively old-fashioned in her floral print dress and pink kitten heels, which were standing at either side of her stockinged feet under the table on the dais, where she and two anemic men in pale summer suits constituted the panel of experts for Mitchell’s first chosen event on the CPOCH schedule, In and Out of Favor: Forensic Architecture in Scrovegni’s Chapel.

  “By the age of thirty, although his major commissions had come to him at the favor of his master, Cimabue, Giotto was already being sought out by the Vatican for its renewal plans in advance of first celebration of the Jubilee Year in 1300.” I spun around in my seat, hoping I might spot Ed among the small crowd scattered around me. The woman cleared her throat, as if she’d noted my inattention, and then continued. “The envoy of the pope requested samples of Giotto’s recent work. Giotto demurred. He secured a piece of, let us imagine, vellum, upon an easel, dipped a paintbrush into a pot of red paint, placed one of his hands on his hip, and leaned forward—he was, in effect, turning his body into a drafting compass. Giotto then painted a perfect circle in one go. This, he told the astonished envoy, was his application to the pope. Giotto was granted the Lateran commission, as surely we all recall. But my point is this: Giotto at that moment conferred fame upon himself. He asserted, with that circle, that he was above his competition. He knew it. For heaven’s sake, even the pope knew it. Giotto was famous when he arrived in Padua and surely would have demanded more control over the architectural program for the chapel than has so far been alleged by my colleagues.”

 
“A nod to the inestimable critic John Ruskin might be in order here.” The slope-shouldered man to her left tilted his head forward and surprised everyone when, in a basso profundo, he continued. “‘I think it unnecessary,’ Ruskin wrote, ‘to repeat here any other of the anecdotes commonly related of Giotto, as, separately taken, they are quite valueless.’”

  “Um—all right, okay.” This was the other little man on the panel. He had leaned way back in his chair. “Maybe now is the right time for the ten-minute break we promised everyone earlier.”

  The white-haired woman would not leave it there. “‘Yet much may be gathered from the general tone of these anecdotes,’ Ruskin went on to say, if I recall his words correctly.” She slid back into her shoes, stood up, and soliloquized:

  It is remarkable that they are, almost without exception, records of good-humoured jests, involving or illustrating some point of practical good sense; and by comparing this general colour of the reputation of Giotto with the actual character of his designs, there cannot remain the smallest doubt that his mind was one of the most healthy, kind, and active, that ever informed a human frame. His love of beauty was entirely free from weakness; his love of truth untinged by severity; his industry constant, without impatience; his workmanship accurate, without formalism; his temper serene, and yet playful; his imagination exhaustless, without extravagance; and his faith firm, without superstition. I do not know, in the annals of art, such another example of happy, practical, unerring, and benevolent power.

  She had recited this from memory, or else she had a teleprompter in her shoes. While she waited for the enthusiastic applause to die down, she tilted her head toward the panelist who had attempted to discredit her. It wasn’t clear if she was bowing triumphantly or threatening to ram him with her helmet of hair the next time he challenged her authority. “In short,” she added, “almost from the moment he took up a paintbrush, Giotto di Bondone was secure in his genius and confident of his acclaim. When we reconvene, we shall have the opportunity to examine the physical evidence of the control he exerted over the architectural arrangement of the chapel.” She left the stage.