Seven Letters

by J. P. Monninger

  “We go,” he said, holding out his hand to show us the way. “Nice table.”

  We passed through an intimate, cozy dining room. It was crowded, despite it being off-season. Our gentleman led us to a tiny table near the center of the room. He held our chairs out for us and pushed them under us when we sat. Milly caught my eye and smiled. From an American man, holding out chairs and being mildly chivalrous usually seemed strained; the Italian gentleman who seated us did not give it a moment’s thought. It’s what one did.

  “Your waiter, Emilio,” the gentleman said, introducing a broad, bustling waiter who might have popped up through a hole in the floor so quickly did he appear at our gentleman’s shoulder.

  “I am Emilio,” Emilio said, smiling, “Americanos?”

  “Yes,” Milly said. “Americanos.”

  “Good, good, good,” Emilio said. “Delicious dinner ahead. Full speed ahead.”

  We did not order well. Or rather, we did not order fluently. We settled finally on a seven-item fish tasting menu, with wines selected by Emilio to compliment the dishes. It limited our decision-making and gave us a chance to absorb the ambience of the restaurant.

  “What is it about Italy?” Milly asked, her eyes roaming around to pick up all the details she could discover. “It’s beautiful, of course, but it’s silky somehow. American seems like a coarse, cotton napkin by comparison.”

  “The climate, maybe.”

  “Everybody eats outside … the cafés, and the lights. I don’t know. At least in New England where we live, everything faces inside.”

  “I once read that Europeans go out to be social, and home to be alone. In America, we do the opposite. We go out to be alone, to climb a mountain or kayak a river, but we go home to be social. Strange, isn’t it?”

  Before Emilio returned with our first course, Milly leaned across the table and took my hands in hers. She shook them slightly and got me to meet her eyes.

  “How are you feeling? Is this too much pretend?”

  “No, no, I like it. I like being here with you, Milly. It’s just…”

  “That the man you loved drowned in the Mediterranean.”

  “Yes, I guess so. It’s not as if there’s anything I’m going to be able to do about it. Or know about it, really. I just feel I need to go to wherever he was in his last days.”

  “I understand. Are you numb?”

  “A little. Sometimes. More haunted than anything else. Does that make sense?”

  “By Ozzie?”

  “By Ozzie, by how easily I let it slip away. By how I didn’t fight for our marriage as I should have. I was hasty.”

  “But you had your reasons, didn’t you?”

  “I had my reasons. I’m not even sure I made the wrong decision. It’s not about the decision. I remember talking to a friend who got divorced, and before she did, she went to hours and hours of couples’ counseling with her soon-to-be ex. She knew she wanted a divorce, but she went anyway. She wanted to be sure she had done everything she could. She wanted to sweep all the corners. She didn’t want to wake up five years down the road and realize she had made a horrible mistake. Or that she hadn’t investigated every possibility.”

  “I get that.”

  Emilio returned with two other younger waiters in tow. They pushed a small service tray. Emilio poured us wine while the other two busied themselves with our first fish course.

  “Pan-fried cod fillet with polenta mousse, anchovies, si? And fried capers with candied tomatoes … yes?” Emilio asked.

  “Yes, wonderful,” Milly said, letting my hands go as she sat back. She repeated a line that she had obviously memorized. “There’s no cure for love but to love more.”

  “It’s good to be here with you, Milly,” I said, raising my glass.

  “To a perfect day in Rome.”

  * * *

  We saw the lights of Rome from Capitoline Hill. We saw the Coliseum, lit up and beautiful, and we strolled over to the Porticus Octavia, admired it, then continued on, walking in a delicious haze of food and wine and travel. It felt good to be in Italy. Winter was advancing in New Hampshire, and Ireland had been damp and cold, but Rome invited us to take our time, to see everything, to absorb life carefully. We did. We walked the mile from the Coliseum to the Spanish Steps along the Via del Corso and the Via Condotti, and then we stood for a long while watching the night scene spread out against the Spanish Steps. We watched jugglers and flame eaters and sword swallowers, and we watched some of the Italian kids flipping their skateboards on the wide plaza spreading out from the steps. Milly clutched my arm and laughed at every new, shimmering moment of beauty. It felt good to be among people, to be simple tourists with no responsibility but to watch and admire. After the Spanish Steps, we walked to the Trevi Fountain. It’s impossible to see such places without realizing you are familiar with them from movies and documentaries, and it is impossible to stand in front of the Trevi Fountain without feeling like a silly tourist. At the same time, the Trevi Fountain, with its exquisite sculptures, the water spilling over charging horses, feels like a tribute to all that is good in humanity. Beauty, grace, whimsy. I backed Milly onto a bench and together we sat for a long time watching the water play with the lights, the push of tourists and Romans stopping by to toss coins into the fountain.

  “Do you want to make a wish?” Milly asked me after a while.

  “I don’t think my wish can come true.”

  “You never know. What would you wish?”

  “Oh, you know. For a second chance, I guess. For a chance to fix things with Ozzie.”

  “I’d wish to pet a koala bear. I’ve always wanted to do that.”

  I looked at her to see if she was serious. She was. I started laughing. It was such a wayward thought that I couldn’t stop laughing when she bumped her shoulder into mine.

  “You want to pet a koala bear? That’s what you would wish for?”

  “Why, is that strange? I think they’re cute.”

  “They are cute. I wouldn’t mind petting one, but you’d use your chance at the Trevi Fountain to wish for that. I love you, Milly. I love your koala wish.”

  “I’m going to go to Australia and pet a koala one of these days.”

  “I hope you do!”

  “A koala wish makes as much sense as anything else. Unless you want to wish for more wishes. That’s always the best wish.”

  We waited until the crowds thinned before taking a bunch of pictures in front of the Trevi Fountain. The lights had switched from white to gold. It was slightly gaudy, but also dramatic. Milly said the changing light was in keeping with the Renaissance-Baroque character of the fountain. She asked a young Asian girl to take a few pictures of us together, arm in arm, in front of the fountain. The girl took a dozen. We thanked her and then left. It was nearly midnight.

  “Are you ready to go dancing?” Milly asked.

  “I’m not, Milly. But you go ahead if you want.”

  “I am not going dancing,” Milly said. “I am going to climb into bed and sleep and wake to a perfect Rome morning.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “As long as we can tell everyone we went out dancing, okay? Our secret, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  We talked about art in our Uber home. We talked about Rome and how it would be to live there, what it would mean to have so much antique beauty around one. It seemed impossible that people got to live with such grace and art surrounding them. We talked about the bella figura, and about the dolce vita, the sweet life, and about how New Hampshire, as sweet and pure as it was, sometimes felt like a wilderness of cold and bright, brittle days. At some point exhaustion kept us talking, and after we paid the Uber driver and climbed to our room, we opened the windows as wide as possible and fell into bed with the night pawing restlessly against the white sheer curtains.

  I was asleep only an hour, maybe two, when I woke and told Milly I had to go.

  “To the bathroom?” she asked, drunk with sleep.
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br />   “No, to the south, to find what I can about Ozzie.”

  “Yes, of course, yes.”

  Whether she heard me or not, I couldn’t say. I climbed out of bed and sat on the railing of the terrace and watched the night deepen and clutch our little neighborhood of Rome in darkness. Motion still made its claim from the streets, but I could no longer be a tourist. I was sorry that I couldn’t play with Milly for a day, couldn’t give her that, but I needed to search for traces of him. My students had been sending notes and work through email, and I had let it stack up like dishes in a sink. It was time to do what I had come to Italy for; I couldn’t postpone it any longer. I sat and watched the city churn beyond my terrace, the black buildings outlined against the brilliant lights that sometimes caught their reflections on a car window or mirror and sent a beam or two toward the sky, and I tried to picture Ozzie here, tossing his life into the sea, trying to win back his soul after having lost it in the senseless Afghanistan war.

  I went up to the highest hill to see if I could see the boatman. Will you come tonight, or will you come tomorrow?

  I was done with waiting. My stomach felt sick with waiting.

  35

  Porto Salvo in Gaeta is the southernmost town on the Italian peninsula. It is part of the Bovesia Greek-speaking area of Calabria, and it occupies a hilly formation that descends gracefully toward the Ionian Sea. Fishermen leave the harbor early in the morning and return in midafternoon, birds following them, and sell their catches directly from their boats. Local restaurants buy the fish and carry their purchases homeward in small cars or motor scooters. Across the street from the main harbor, a fish market runs until late afternoon and sometimes into the evening. It is all cobblestone and white flashing fish. The air, heavy and moist, never arrives without the scent of the sea embedded in its core. Light from the water falls against the buildings and the sides of boats, and old men mend nets in the afternoon light with bone needles the size of clothespins.

  Milly’s friend, Jennifer, had booked us a room in a private home she knew about in Porto Salvo. It was a stunning stone building overlooking the port. A stout, elderly woman in a black dress came at our knock. Her face shone white, a moon suspended on a magician’s black tablecloth. Her dress came to her knees. She wore black boots on her feet, the sides toothed with bronze zippers.

  “Signora Rici?” I asked, absurdly trying to make my voice sound Italian.

  Signora Rici was the contact person Jennifer had used to make the reservation.

  Signora Rici nodded. She backed away, pulling the door open.

  “In here,” she said in English. “Follow, please.”

  We stepped inside. She shut the door behind us. I put my bag down out of the way. Milly moved forward, took things in, then turned to me with her eyebrows raised.

  It was a stunning apartment. The southern end gave way to French doors that stood open to take in the sea air. White curtains blew back and lolled against the stone walls. Everything in the apartment had been done tastefully. It was modern, with clean lines, and the blond furniture worked in pleasant juxtaposition against the dark granite color of the walls and floors. For a moment, the voice inside my head told me it was too extravagant, too expensive, but then I recalled my settlement from Ozzie. I also remembered that I wanted Milly to have some pleasure in her surroundings. If she had come all this way to be beside me, I couldn’t be stingy. I felt a weight drop off my shoulders as I gave in to the apartment. We wouldn’t be here too long, I noted to myself. It was fine.

  “Bene?” Signora Rici asked, moving her hand to indicate the apartment.

  “Moto bene,” Milly answered, then she spoke in English. “Very beautiful. It’s a dream.”

  “Si,” Signora Rici said. “Only good dreams with the sea so close.”

  “Oh, Kate, I could die happy after this.”

  Signora Rici walked me to the edge of the terrace. It was the most beautiful terrace I had ever seen. It was made of stone, for one thing, with ancient tiles on the floor. Some of the tiles had cracked and splintered, but that only made them more beautiful. A vine—bougainvillea?—climbed everywhere along the stone railing. Beyond the railing, nearly beneath us, stood a busy portion of the fishing docks. To say it was colorful would have been a gross understatement. The boats road merrily dockside, and more boats, hundreds of boats, bobbed in the quiet bay beyond the wood piers. They all pointed in the same direction, westerly, because the wind had pushed them in that direction on their anchor lines. Everywhere else on land, people hurried to transact their business, yelling and laughing, shouting about the night before or the night to come, filling the air with happiness.

  “It’s absolutely beautiful, Signora Rici,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “Good. You comfortable here? Nice, nice. Now, if you like, some coffee? You can take here on the terrace.”

  “That would be wonderful,” Milly said.

  She put her arm through mine again and kissed my cheek.

  “Local boy will go for groceries if you need them. Antonio. You ask and I will send you Antonio.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Now coffee,” Signora Rici said, and bustled away.

  We roamed around the apartment like curious puppies, fumbling and stumbling over our enthusiasm. It was beautiful. Every aspect blended with the next until it achieved a precious harmony. I vowed to buy Jennifer a bouquet of flowers when I got back to the States. It was an incredibly fortunate booking.

  “It’s beautiful, Kate,” Milly said, dropping her bag on the bed in the second bedroom. “Thank you for inviting me. It feels so good to get out of New Hampshire for a while. And to this!”

  “Thank you for coming, Milly. You’re a friend to do it.”

  “I propose we rest for an hour after coffee. It will be siesta time anyway. Then we can see what we can discover. We’ll check the list of places you have.”

  “It’s probably pointless.”

  “You may not find what you need, honey, but the search isn’t pointless. It’s far from pointless.”

  “I can’t turn away. I have to do it. I have to see a little of it with my own eyes.”

  “Of course you do.”

  When Signora Rici reappeared with coffee, we took it at a wrought-iron table with matching chairs on the terrace. Someone had spread a paisley runner across the circular surface of the table. The sun found us, but it was sliced by the shade thrown by the building itself. By moving the table around the terrace, you could sit all day in perfect comfort. I felt myself caving slowly downward. Perhaps it was the weight of Ozzie’s disappearance, or perhaps I had been traveling so much that exhaustion finally seized me. I felt wrung out. I thanked Signora Rici and picked up the coffee in both hands. I held it tightly for its warmth.

  Milly carried her coffee to the edge of the terrace, then turned and asked me a question that seemed to be troubling her.

  “Do you ever wonder if you could come to a place like this and never leave? Just change your life entirely in one fell swoop? This place makes me believe I could do it. It makes me think I could eat sunlight. I know, I know, I’m getting carried away. I know I’m being silly, but I find Italy appeals to me so deeply, I can hardly separate myself from it. I always thought I would love it, but didn’t know I would feel this way about it. Southern Italy is known as the Mezzogiorno. Did you know that? It expresses a way of life, really. I could live here. I really could.”

  “You can’t live here. I need you in New Hampshire.”

  “It’s so bloody cold there,” she said, coming back to sit with me after casting another look at the sea. “Months and days of little light and cold. Constant cold. We could live here in southern Italy, in the Mezzogiorno, and eat pasta every night. And drink great wine. Wouldn’t that be something?”

  “I’m more drawn to Ireland, honestly.”

  “Because you’re a redhead!” she said, and laughed. “You like freckles and white skin. Give me a swarthy man anytime.”

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sp; I sipped my coffee. I tried to be lighthearted, but it wasn’t in me. Milly reached over and held my hand. She could read me better than anyone.

  “Say what’s in your heart, Kate. You’ve traveled a long way to be here.”

  “It’s all mixed up.”

  “I know, but talk a little. I’m kidding around about swarthy men and redheads while you’re on a fact-finding mission to learn about your ex-husband’s death. Forgive me. I’m just excited about Italy.”

  “I know, sweetheart. Don’t worry about that. We don’t have to go about on eggshells. Ozzie is dead. His grandmother is heartbroken and his dear friend, Seamus, is devastated. I’m not sure they’ll recover. He was their world, really. It most ways, they have a greater claim on his loss than I do.”

  She nodded. To my relief, she simply listened.

  “I have a cottage overlooking the sea, too. Our cottage. I am not sure I can stand being there without him. He’s in every wall and chair. He made it beautiful. It’s a cottage anyone would love.”

  “I’m glad, honey. I’m glad you have that piece of him.”

  “He came down here. I don’t know why. Or I should say, I know why. I just don’t know how he plugged into it, so to speak. How did he know what to do or where to go? I’ve read enough to learn a little, but it feels overwhelming. Some people say anyone with a boat can make a difference. The immigrants are so desperate to leave Africa that they take to sea in horrible conditions. It’s like the Cubans crossing over to Florida, only more tragic.”

  “I’ve heard that. We’ve all heard that. But most of us don’t join the rescue operation. He did. Or at least you think he did, right?”

  “I think so. I’m not even sure of that much. Americans tend to think of the Mediterranean as a little pond, but of course it’s a sea like anywhere else. On the nights in the cottage, after I had the news about Ozzie, I read parts of The Odyssey. Ozzie had an old school copy with his margin notes. I think I read it to see his handwriting as much as anything else. But anyone who takes to the sea around here should read The Odyssey first. That story is filled with storms.”