Italian Fever

by Valerie Martin

  Catherine took the olive pit from her pursed lips and dropped it into the bowl. She can even make that look appealing, Lucy thought. “DV and I didn’t get along. I found him”—she shrugged—“oppressive.”

  “He was a difficult man,” Lucy agreed.

  “And then I read his novel.”

  “The ghost novel?”

  Catherine nodded. “And that did it.”

  Lucy laughed, albeit guiltily; she thought it cruel to be merry at DV’s expense. Catherine laughed, too, nodding and rolling her eyes heavenward with an exaggerated expression of pain and pleading that delighted Lucy; it so perfectly expressed what she felt when she read DV’s prose. “Oh,” she whimpered, struggling against a rising giddiness. She failed in this effort and succumbed to a gale of laughter, which started Catherine up, and then they both laughed until tears stood in their eyes.

  “Oh, Lord,” Catherine said at last, when they were too weak to go on and lay panting for breath in their armchairs. She held out the wine bottle, which Lucy accepted, pouring her own this time. “You see,” Catherine continued, “I’d never read anything of his before. I don’t know why I hadn’t. I don’t read as much as I’d like.…” She gestured toward the wall of paintings—there was her reason. “I knew he was a popular writer, so I wasn’t expecting Proust, but …”

  “He really had no gift,” Lucy suggested.

  “Oh, it was worse than that,” Catherine protested. “It was embarrassing. And so mawkish, so self-indulgent, all that stuff about how the Italians love this guy, this Max Manx—was that it?—my God, what a ridiculous name. Do people really buy that stuff?”

  “Well,” Lucy explained. “He had a good editor. But the answer to your question is yes, they do, by the millions. And not just in America, either.”

  “I don’t understand it.”

  “No,” Lucy agreed. “I don’t, either.” They fell silent for a moment, musing over this impenetrable mystery, the popularity of shabby work. DV wasn’t really taking advantage of anyone, Lucy reflected. He gave his audience exactly what they wanted and he always did the best he could. He worked hard; he got excited about his work. When any criticism came his way, he fretted over it, but of course for the most part that didn’t happen because he was protected from it by the combined efforts of his publisher, his editor, his agent, and Lucy herself. She had always understood it was part of her job not to discourage him, to allow him the carefully maintained illusion that he was, in every important sense, the real thing. “Did you tell him what you thought?” she asked.

  “I did,” Catherine said. “How could I not? I was appalled.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him he should stop. I told him he was a hack, a prostitute, that he should do something else, sell real estate, or just something useful, like gardening.”

  “Jesus,” Lucy said. “How did he take it?”

  “He was furious. He said I was just a neurotic painter who didn’t understand his work, which was really laughable. What was there to understand? I said, ‘I understand it perfectly. You make up stories about how you wish your life was, about what a sensitive, interesting guy you are, and how much everyone likes you, how much Italians like you, for God’s sake. Now that is really rich, because Italians can’t stand you. Italians do not like drunks.’ ”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Lucy said again.

  “So his response to that was to get drunk for several days and we had to go through all the scenes, the anger, the tears, the threats, the promises. I was really sick to death of him by the time I got out of there and I didn’t care what happened to him—though I didn’t want him to die, of course. I thought he would just go home and write another stupid book about how I was crazy and he was crucified on the altar of love.”

  Lucy smiled ruefully. “He never went home,” she said.

  “No,” Catherine agreed. “He never went home.”

  “And he never finished the book. I’ve looked, but there’s nothing.”

  Catherine’s eyes flickered away, settling on the bowl of olive pits. “It doesn’t seem a great loss,” she said.

  “No. I suppose not,” Lucy agreed. “But his editor finds it odd, and I do, too, that there wasn’t more. DV never had trouble writing. He usually wrote a thousand pages a year.”

  “Maybe if he’d written less, it would have been better.”

  “Doubtless,” Lucy said. Catherine ate another olive. She looked petulant; perhaps she was bored. Lucy decided it was time for a leading question. “So Antonio Cini helped you to get away,” she said.

  Catherine gave her a guarded look. “Yes, Antonio helped me. He knows people here who helped me to get set up. I would have preferred Florence, but there were various reasons not to go there. Too easy for DV to get to me, for one thing. All the interesting artists are in Florence. The show I have up now, the gray men in the doorways, he’s a Florentine. Rome is really something of a backwater.”

  “Did DV know you were here?”

  “Oh yes. I fully expected him to show up sooner or later, but he didn’t. I was angry at first; later I didn’t care. It certainly never occurred to me that he was dead.”

  “He knew you would leave,” Lucy said. “He predicted it in the novel. Did you read that part?”

  “Yes,” Catherine said.

  “I thought that part wasn’t bad.”

  “He knew I would leave because he was suffocating me,” Catherine protested, so hotly that Lucy assumed she felt guilty. “I wasn’t working and he was always on me about it, though the truth was that he couldn’t have cared less about my painting.”

  “I see,” Lucy said.

  “I had no choice, really,” she concluded. “I could not survive as an artist in such an environment.”

  Lucy was silent for a moment, looking about the charming, comfortable, light-filled environment in which, it seemed, Catherine was able to survive. “So you’ll stay here awhile?” she said.

  “I think so. I’m working a lot, all the time, actually. I’ve never worked so well. That’s the most important thing to me. I’d live in hell if it meant I could work. It’s really all that matters anymore.”

  “But you wouldn’t be able to work if you were in hell,” Lucy pointed out. “That would be how you would know it was hell.”

  Catherine gave her a puzzled look. “I guess so,” she said. “Would you like to see some paintings?”

  “Volentieri,” Lucy replied. Catherine got up and began carefully sliding the last canvas from the stack against the wall. Lucy paused to refill her wineglass. “When I was packing up DV’s things,” she said, “I found a drawing you left behind.”

  Catherine looked up from the picture. “What drawing?” she asked.

  “It was of DV. It was quite powerful, very scary, actually. He was—”

  “Baring all.” Catherine laughed. “I did that one night when he was going on about how much he needed me. He just would not let up.”

  “Oh,” Lucy said. “Do you want it back?”

  “No. You can keep it.” As Catherine spoke, she turned a large canvas to face the room. It was a forest, very dark; what light there was seemed to be coming from the ground. In the shadows, two figures, a man and a woman—or was it two men?—lurked ominously. Was one in pursuit of the other?

  “It makes me think of Adam and Eve, after they got kicked out of the Garden.”

  “It’s Dante,” Catherine replied, “lost in the wood.” She pointed to the more shadowy figure in the background. “That’s Virgil,” she added, “about to offer him the guided tour.”

  Chapter 17

  YOU WERE a long time with your friend, Lucy. Did you find out what you wanted to know?”

  She had not been in the hotel room two minutes before the phone rang and Massimo’s world-weary voice greeted her with this question. She threw her purse on the bed and collapsed in the room’s only chair, which was an ugly tufted affair crammed into the tiny space between the phone and the door. “Why did
you run off like that?” she said.

  “I had some business to attend to.”

  There is no point in asking him such questions, Lucy thought. She tried another tack. “Where are you now?” She was, she realized, still giddy from the wine.

  “I am in my office.”

  “Oh,” she said. She kicked off her shoes and began unwrapping her ankle. “I wish you were here.”

  “You have been drinking,” he observed.

  “A little,” she admitted. “Not that much. Can you come?”

  He was silent for a moment, as if he was consulting some schedule, though Lucy suspected he was only checking the ever-fluctuating barometer of his whim at the moment. “Yes,” he said. “I will be there in ten minutes. But I cannot stay very long.”

  “It shouldn’t take too long,” she replied coyly, for the sound of his voice saying her name, the timbre of it, the way he put the stress on the last syllable, had released a tide of desire that was nearly painful. She could feel her blood rushing around trying to accommodate it, gorging in her mouth and groin, draining from her fingertips. And Massimo had heard it, as well, for he said, “I think Rome is going to your head, tesoro.”

  “It’s a very romantic city,” she agreed.

  When she hung up, she sat for a moment savoring the novelty of her situation. She recalled something Catherine had said, when she had confessed—how easily, almost eagerly she had confessed—to this affair: “Well, so you are having an adventure.” It was true. She said it out loud into the empty hotel room: “I’m having an adventure.”

  Then, banishing every concern but the imminent arrival of her lover, she went into the bathroom to look at herself in the mirror. She looked fine, flushed from her walk, a little fatigued around the eyes. She made a few adjustments, lipstick, penciling of the eyebrows, then decided to change her blouse; it was too severe, too buttoned-up. She chose a thin black sweater with a scooped neck. When she removed the blouse, she caught sight of herself in the dresser mirror. Her bra was one of the three she usually wore for comfort, not unattractive, but rather plain. Rome, she had noticed on her walk, had a lingerie shop every hundred feet and the garments on display in their windows were uniformly expensive and seductive. Nothing practical was even considered. She went to the dresser and pulled out the black lace underwire bra she had purchased some time ago because it was both beautiful and on sale. She seldom wore it because it was killingly uncomfortable. It was designed to make her small breasts look larger, another feature she had found interesting in the fitting room but impossible on the street. She had worn it once to a party and spent the evening with the unsettling sensation that she was standing behind her breasts, as if she was presenting them for inspection. But this, this hotel room tryst, was the perfect occasion. With any luck, she wouldn’t be wearing it long enough to become uncomfortable. She attached the band around her waist and lifted the stiff cups over her breasts. Why, she wondered, had she packed this thing? Had she had some intuition, or was it just a fantasy, a not entirely unconscious wish that somehow she would be transformed into the kind of woman who would routinely choose allure over comfort? Certainly she hadn’t intended to wear it to DV’s funeral.

  She pulled the sweater on and went back into the bathroom to brush her hair. Had she been transformed? She studied her reflection. How glittery her eyes were, how unusually clear and delicate her skin looked, almost translucent. This was doubtless the result of her illness. And how full of appetites she was, how hungry for everything, for food, wine, art, but especially for Massimo. He had noticed her eagerness that morning and had attributed it to their brief separation. Though he was perfectly willing to join her in the rush to the bed, both of them throwing their clothes off in every direction, afterward he had teased her. “So you are no longer so shy with me?”

  She lay on her stomach, her face turned away from him, which was good, she realized, for he couldn’t see the flush that burned her cheeks. “Did I make a lot of noise?”

  She could hear him fumbling on the nightstand for his cigarettes. “You were quite noisy, yes, I would say.”

  “God, I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I got carried away.”

  “Don’t apologize,” he said. “It is a compliment to me.” She heard the snap of his lighter, then the slow intake of his breath. “Perhaps you will become insatiable.”

  “I don’t think that’s in my character.” She felt his hand drop across her shoulder, then move up, lazily riffling through her hair. “Perhaps you do not know what is in your character, Lucy,” he said.

  As she recalled this remark, Lucy gave her reflection a flirtatious smile and tossed her brush into her travel bag. Then she rushed into the bedroom, for she heard his soft knock at the door.

  Chapter 18

  THE PALAZZO THAT HOUSES the Galleria Borghese may have an impressive facade, or it may not. Doubtless there are living Romans who have seen it, but their children must rely on parental reminiscence if they want some idea of the exterior. Lucy came at it from the park, picking her way around the warren of scaffolding, catwalks, plastic sheeting, and corrugated tin that have, for so many years, hidden the venerable stone from view. It had turned chilly, the sky was overcast, and a damp, gusty wind made her hunch her shoulders and pull her shawl tight. She entered a rickety walkway that funneled her into a court piled high with lumber, steel, and rolls of plastic sheeting. Here she found the inauspicious door and the hand-lettered strip of cardboard that has for more than a decade now designated it as the Entrata. Beyond this, in a narrow chamber, a haughty public servant lounging behind a makeshift counter reluctantly exchanged five thousand lire for a generic museum ticket. Passing through another doorway, Lucy stepped into the high, wide expanse of the first salon.

  She was absorbed in her thoughts, which were not particularly satisfying, and with the grumpy business of being physically miserable—she was chilled and her ankle throbbed from the long walk—but the scene before her canceled all preoccupations. Now this is something, she thought, this is grandeur. She was to see marvels in a marvelous setting. She leaned upon Antonio’s stick, taking in the high vaulted ceiling, the gleam of marble and gilt, the spare furnishings supporting various busts of imperial Romans. The doorway to the next room was a wide one, and through it she could see two carefully positioned large works, the nearest of which she recognized with a gasp of delight. It was Bernini’s David. Oh, she thought, this is here, too.

  There were a few other people in the rooms, scattered in groups of two or three. Some studied the laminated informational cards they had discovered on a side table. The cards detailed, in various languages, the contents of the rooms. Though there was the buzz of conversation, it was subdued. The enormous proportions of the palazzo seemed to weigh upon the speakers, constraining them to hushed, even reverent, tones.

  Lucy went through to the smaller salon, found a place before the intent coil of the figure of David, and gave herself over to the pleasure of encountering a famous work she had previously admired only in books.

  He had been captured in stone at the exact moment when all fear gave way to the necessity for calculation. The polished rock, his weapon, was closed in the tight grip of his left hand. He held it down, flexing the strap of his slingshot back over his thigh with his right, his right knee slightly bent. He was taking the measure of his opponent. Lucy experienced a shiver of excitement as she felt the size of the giant at her back, for David’s burning gaze was fixed upon his enemy’s temple, where the stone must find its mark. She looked behind her at the coffered ceiling—he was that big.

  How did he do it? she thought. Her question did not refer to the legendary subject, but to the sculptor, whose task, to take up his chisel and hack from obdurate marble this startling vision, had certainly been the equivalent of bringing down Goliath with a slingshot. She glanced at the date on her card, 1623—this marble youth who appeared to be holding his breath had been holding it for quite some time. Bernini himself had been a youth when he made
the David, and with youthful exuberance he had used his own face for a model, scowling into a mirror held for him, the story went, by his great patron, Cardinal Borghese. For several minutes, Lucy took in the stone a bit at a time, from the head down. “Wonderful,” she said before turning away.

  She went out into the next room. Two children, a boy and a girl, came running past her, shouting at one another in Italian, shouted at in turn by their father, who had just turned away from the luscious seminude figure of Pauline Borghese, Napoleon’s sister, reclining on her marble couch. The man was handsome. His black eyes flashed as he hurried out after his children. Lucy approached Pauline, who smiled wryly at some point across the room. She was smiling at the sculptor, Lucy speculated, the great Canova. She remembered the exchange—she’d read it in school—between Pauline and a friend who had voiced dismay about the statue. “How could you model like that, before that man, without your clothes?” the friend had complained, to which Pauline had replied, “Why? His rooms are heated.”

  She did look comfortable. The couch was richly cushioned; her smooth limbs left soft impressions upon it, at the elbow of the arm raised to her head, and beneath her lovely pampered right foot. She was the opposite of the athletic David, though, in her way, just as prepared for a contest. Her beauty was her weapon; her face was the challenge. Who would have the temerity to find her lacking?

  Not Canova, Lucy concluded as her eyes wandered over the indolent marble woman. Her thoughts drifted, as well. The shouting father had reminded her of Massimo. Did he come here, now and then, with his children? Did he stand here before this voluptuous woman, admiring the full curves of her breasts echoed in the smaller but equally perfect globe of the apple she was holding? The apple was the prize Paris had given her, for she was not just Pauline but Venus, too, and she had never been in doubt that she would win it.