A Summer In Europe

by Marilyn Brant

  Gwen followed her aunt into a very small enclosure and, to their left, was a large, round, facelike orb with a thick crack running from the upper-right side to the right eye and lots of lines around the facial features, giving off the impression that it was a very old man. The oraclelike thing was attached to the wall, and a handful of Asian tourists were taking pictures of it. A few of them posed by it, sticking their fingers into its open mouth and giggling.

  Odd. Gwen turned to her aunt. “Why are they doing that?”

  Aunt Bea whispered, “Legend has it that if you place your fingers into the Mouth of Truth but have been untruthful, it will bite off your hand.”

  Gwen squinted at the marble orb. Bizarre belief. Then again, ancient people thought the world was flat and there were dragons lying in wait at the edges of the ocean, too. Aunt Bea would, of course, like some strange sculpture like this. Gwen shrugged and pulled out her camera. “Okay, Aunt Bea. I know you’re truthful. Why don’t I take your picture by the Mouth thingy?”

  Her aunt shot her a wicked grin. “Of course, my dear. After you.”

  Gwen swallowed and walked up to it, patting the face with the tips of her fingers. The marble was shaded and cool, and the whole piece was larger than she’d thought. She slipped about half of her hand into the mouth but, for some reason, didn’t want to put it in any farther. She knew her hesitation was completely irrational. There was no magic or anything here. She could see how solid the wall was behind the Bocca. Nothing was there to bite off her hand.

  Aunt Bea was fiddling with her camera and making more comments about Uncle Freddy. “He just thought the whole idea of it was so funny. He mugged for pictures, just like Gregory Peck did, and made everyone around us laugh.” She sighed. “Well, maybe you’ll come here with your husband someday and he’ll do the same thing.”

  “With Richard?” she blurted before she could stop herself. It was hard to imagine Richard even visiting Rome, let alone putting his fingers into the mouth of some pagan oracle. There had to be a ton of germs in that mouth, what with all the hands touching it. Richard wasn’t big on germs.

  “Do you think he’ll be your future husband?” Aunt Bea asked, holding up the camera finally. “Do you love him?”

  Gwen froze, thinking about it. She respected Richard very much, appreciated his levelheadedness and his constancy and his security. Those were traits that she knew inspired love, so she must, indeed, love him. It was just ... well, a little hard to be absolutely positive about it since she hadn’t experienced the sensation with anybody else. But she felt so close to Richard, closer than to any other man she’d ever met. She wanted to marry him. She’d expected them to marry. They shared so many values and goals that she knew they’d be good partners in life. To Gwen, this qualified as a very mature kind of love—not some lustful adolescent thing or a soap-opera-like relationship drama.

  “I think so,” she said, but she pulled her fingers a little farther away from the back of the marble mouth.

  “I know he didn’t give you a ring, but did he propose? Informally?” her aunt asked, clicking a few pictures while Gwen pursed her lips into a half smile for the benefit of the camera. “You’d tell me if he did, right?”

  Gwen pulled her hand out of the mouth altogether and stepped away from the orb. “Of course I’d tell you, Aunt Bea. And ... no. No, he hasn’t proposed. Not really.”

  Her aunt eyed her curiously and posed for a couple of pictures herself by the Bocca. “What do you mean by ‘Not really,’ dear?”

  “Well, fall is a more serious and reflective time to talk about marriage than summer is,” she heard herself say aloud. A part of her couldn’t believe she was parroting Richard’s words, but she had to say something. She had to give her aunt an immediate explanation, and that was the only one she could come up with at present.

  Her aunt laughed. “That’s nonsensical!” She laughed some more, stroked the side of the Bocca lovingly and then kissed its cheek. “For a smart girl, Gwennie, you say the silliest things sometimes.”

  Gwen refrained from commenting on anything for a while after that.

  Finally, they strolled slowly through the most ancient part of Rome until they reached the Trevi Fountain. When they got there, Aunt Bea dug into her small handbag and pulled out three different coins—a ten euro cent, a twenty euro cent and a fifty euro cent—all golden in color. She pressed these into Gwen’s hand. They looked and felt peculiar to her. Very foreign. While inspecting them up close, she was overcome by a wave of homesickness. It was the littlest of things that made her realize just how far away from the familiar she really was.

  “You need to make three wishes,” her aunt commanded. “Face away from the fountain, use your right hand and toss each coin over your left shoulder. Two of the wishes can be whatever you want. The third wish should be to return to Rome.”

  “But why?” Gwen asked, genuinely surprised. “I’ll have seen every major site in the city after today.”

  Beatrice responded by rolling her eyes in exasperation. “Just do it.”

  “Okay, okay. I will... .”

  She held the three euros in her palm and, as her aunt commanded, faced away from the fountain. Pedestrians were milling about the piazza, everywhere, it seemed. Many were doing the very same thing, and the swarm of people—the noise of their laughter and chattering—kept Gwen from being able to concentrate on thinking up her wishes.

  She spotted a few people from their tour group, hanging at the periphery of the piazza. Those two inseparable British women babbling at a couple of men, probably Italians. One of them—a tall, sort of sandy-haired guy—wore an amused expression as he scanned the touristy crowd. Just as Gwen was preparing to make her first wish, his gaze met hers, and he held it.

  She blinked him away, or tried to. He had an unusually intense stare, which both intrigued and puzzled her. But she blindly tossed the first coin, the one worth the most, into the Trevi Fountain with this silent wish: I want to know for sure if I’m in love. Then, with the middle coin, she made her second wish: I want to stop being afraid of life. And, finally, with the coin of the lowest denomination, and only because she didn’t want to break the rules, she sent into the water her last wish: I want to return to Rome someday.

  “All right. I did it,” she told her aunt, who’d tossed a set of coins into the fountain herself and was waiting for Gwen to finish.

  “Good,” Bea replied. “I hope every one of them comes true. Now, let’s celebrate! There’s a dessert you just have to try.”

  “All right,” she murmured, noticing the gaze of the tall, sandy-haired man still trained on her as she followed her aunt’s footsteps in a beeline toward a gelato stand.

  The only thing Gwen knew for sure was that the distinctly uncomfortable sensation she suddenly felt low in her abdomen was not caused by hunger and certainly not by some great desire for Italian ice cream, no matter how flavorful Bea professed it to be. She suspected she could eat a whole tub of the creamy stuff and not extinguish this troubling feeling. But, like the stirrings of any new awareness that might signal change, she wasn’t yet prepared to dig deep enough to identify its origins.

  That night at dinner, they got to sit next to Connie Sue and Alex, who were discussing their tour guide. It was hardly sparkling conversation but, after her long day of sightseeing, she appreciated a low-key meal with people she didn’t have to explain herself to all evening long. From across the room she could see the honeymooning Bentleys having a pleasant chat with Zenia, Davis and the father-son pair. She was pretty sure sudoku was one of the topics of discussion. Davis had his workbook on hand, and the boy had an electronic version of sudoku he was demonstrating to the adults at the table.

  Alex said to Gwen, Aunt Bea and his wife, “I really like our guide, but his name is funny. Even if he is Austrian, imagine getting stuck with some old emperor’s name.”

  Connie Sue shook her head. “No, honey. You’re thinking of Franz Joseph, not Hans-Josef. I don’t think our tour gui
de is a Hapsburg.”

  Alex shrugged. “Anything’s possible.”

  “Well, maybe you can ask him tonight,” Connie Sue proposed. “At that tarantella show we’re going to.”

  “Oh,” Aunt Bea said. “I think Guido is leading that excursion. Hester told me it’s Hans-Josef’s night off. She said she wasn’t going anywhere if he wasn’t leading. Said she’d dance the tarantella only in her dreams.”

  Connie Sue looked disappointed. “Aw.”

  “Still can’t wait to go out anyway, though,” her aunt continued. “Maybe we’ll run into the Pope. Not at the show, of course, but somewhere else.”

  “Eating gelato, maybe?” Connie Sue suggested.

  “He has to go out for ice cream sometime, right?” Bea said hopefully. “Everybody—even the Pope—loves ice cream.” No one dared to disagree with her.

  Gwen found her aunt’s sudden interest in the Pope odd, given that neither of them was Catholic. But, then again, they were in Rome, and she wanted Aunt Bea to have fun looking at (and for) whatever pleased her. She, however, was going to pluck a card from Hester’s deck and spend tonight going to bed early again. She’d expected her aunt to be relieved to get a little break from her, but Aunt Bea just looked deflated by the news when Gwen told them she’d be staying in.

  “Are you sure?” Aunt Bea asked.

  She nodded. She’d originally planned to go to see it—where there was dancing, there would be music—but she’d gotten so much sun that day and was just too tired to keep her eyes open for much longer. “We saw lots and lots of great stuff today,” Gwen said, refraining from mentioning that she’d secretly checked off every single item on her list. In her estimation, Rome had been completed. “But, much as I’d love to see this show also, I just don’t have the energy for another activity tonight.”

  “Of course, maybe you just want to stay in with Hans-Josef, too,” Connie Sue suggested, grinning. “He’d be quite a catch, that boy.”

  Alex laughed. “And he’s been watchin’ you, Gwen.”

  “What?” Gwen said. This was news.

  Aunt Bea swiveled around in her chair, nearly knocking over the bottle of sparkling water and sending the bowl of olives teetering. She looked jubilant to the point of elation. “Really?” She didn’t stop scanning the dining room until her gaze landed on Hans-Josef, who was, indeed, looking at their table. Specifically at Gwen. Of course, with four sets of eyes staring at him, he abruptly glanced away.

  Her aunt beamed waves of delirious joy at her. “Yes, dear. You should stay in. Get some rest.” She turned to Connie Sue. “What’s his room number?”

  Gwen endured their teasing and pointless speculation about her possible “evening with the emperor” until they finally left on their special night excursion. Hans-Josef was on hand in the lobby, helping the tour members onto the bus with Guido at the helm and fielding any last-minute questions.

  After the final person going on the tour had been ushered to the bus, Hans-Josef surveyed the lobby and caught her eye. “Are you not going to the tarantella?” he asked politely.

  “I don’t think I could handle an evening out right now,” she admitted. She couldn’t help but notice he looked fatigued, too. It was obvious he needed a quiet night off—perhaps even more than she did. She smiled warmly at him, deciding to chat for a few moments just to appease her aunt, who’d be pleased to know tomorrow morning that her niece at least talked to the handsome tour guide, even if she didn’t end up going to his room. Ha! Imagine.

  “I cannot handle an evening out either,” Hans-Josef agreed. He took several deep breaths and seemed to be studying her, perhaps trying to decide whether or not she’d welcome further conversation.

  She returned the light scrutiny. He was, after all, rather nice to look at. Mid-thirties. Very toned and trim physique. Impeccably groomed and dressed. Empirically speaking, he was a considerably attractive man.

  She felt a sudden pang of guilt on Richard’s behalf for thinking these thoughts. Then again, Hans-Josef reminded her of Richard in a number of ways. As with Richard, she was comforted by Hans-Josef’s precision and the sense of security he seemed to effortlessly emit. Richard, too, was a reasonably attractive, well-dressed man. But, above all, it was the air of competence that united these two men in Gwen’s opinion. Her tour guide, she realized with a start, was a German-speaking version of her almost-fiancé.

  Gwen was about to excuse herself to go up to her room when the Britsicles appeared, all decked out in fancy eveningwear—clothing not suitable for a mere tarantella show. Clearly, they were headed somewhere ritzier. They were met at the door by the men they’d been talking to at the Trevi Fountain earlier that day. One of the two men—that taller, sandy-haired one—sent her another of his uncomfortably inquisitive glances before winking at her and striding away with the other three. It disrupted her train of thought and messed with her senses to such a degree that she completely missed Hans-Josef’s question.

  “Pardon?” she asked him.

  “Well, I said I am going into the bar for a drink. You will join me, ja?”

  And Gwen, in sudden need of a distraction, and justifying her decision by knowing she’d be able to tell her aunt that she actually had a drink with the hot tour guide, heard herself say, “Ja. I mean, yes, Hans-Josef. Yes, I will.”

  3

  A Clash of Philosophies

  Saturday, June 30

  She awoke to the chirping of baby wrens and the lingering effects of what felt like a hangover. This much she remembered: She’d only had two of her own drinks (“Bellinis,” Hans-Josef had called them when he ordered them for her) and just a few sips of one of his, not sure what was in that one, but her tolerance for alcohol was pretty low, and she hadn’t eaten all that much at dinner.

  At some point in her conversation with Hans-Josef, she felt so weary she almost had to rest her head on the counter, much like schoolkids sleeping at their desks. But that wasn’t what actually drove her out of the hotel bar, away from the tour guide and into the safety of her bed ... alone.

  No.

  It was when, in the midst of one of his monologues about his Austrian homeland—something about how he really missed his beloved pet hamster, Rolf, while he was away from Salzburg and giving tours (the rodent in question was currently safe and in the keeping of his sister)—that she heard a melody on the radio in the bar. It was a classical piece, featuring a violin, and it reminded her so much of the music her father used to play when she was little that, for a few precious moments, she tuned out Hans-Josef and just listened.

  She thought of the way her father’s playing had moved her, even as a child. She remembered the way her mom used to curl up on the sofa and invite Gwen to cuddle up next to her as Gwen’s dad practiced, so they could listen together. He was not a professional musician, but he’d been a passionate and dedicated amateur and would sometimes be asked to play at dance recitals and weddings by people in the community. He loved doing that. And he’d loved teaching Gwen to play, too ... for a few years, at least. Until her mom died. Then the house slowly grew quiet.

  When she finally refocused her attention on her tour guide and realized that, indeed, he had not even noticed her lapse in awareness—had not even sensed that her mind had gone on a tour without him—she took a final sip of her drink, felt the heady swirl of the alcohol in her mouth then down her throat and stood unsteadily to leave.

  “You are tired?” Hans-Josef asked, surprised.

  “I am,” she said simply. And because he was like Richard, because she knew precisely what to expect out of him, even after so short an acquaintance, she let him perform his gentlemanly deed of walking her to the stairs and shaking her hand good night.

  “You will go on the trip to Pompeii tomorrow?” he asked.

  “I’m planning on it,” she said, stepping away from him as she spoke, breaking apart the easy connection she felt to him, much like pulling a magnet off of a refrigerator. She couldn’t help but come to the dawning realizat
ion that the slight attraction she felt was not toward the man himself but to the effortless familiarity of being with that man.

  “I will look forward to seeing you then.” Hans-Josef bobbed his head slightly and allowed her to go upstairs by herself and collapse, nearly comatose, into bed.

  But she was awake now.

  For the first time in at least five years, Gwen skipped her morning stretches without good reason. She slid out of bed and got dressed, glancing around the room for Aunt Bea. She didn’t see her aunt, but a note had been left for her, taped to the bathroom mirror with a Band-Aid:

  Off to breakfast! Heard you were in the BAR having FUN last night!! Don’t be late for the bus or you’ll disappoint our tour guide—ha!

  xo,

  B.

  Oh, no.

  By the time she got down to the breakfast room, her aunt had already left—probably off gossiping about her somewhere in the hotel before the morning’s excursion to Pompeii. She didn’t see Hans-Joseph there either, but she knew where she would see him. Checking her watch (7:23 already), she downed half a glass of juice and a small pastry—no time for oatmeal—and grabbed a banana to go. Just twenty-four hours of being with her aunt in Rome, and Gwen was starting to turn into her. A disconcerting trend.

  She hopped onto the bus and spied her aunt waving to her, just moments before Guido was due to depart for the two-hour ride.

  “Good morning, Gwen,” Hans-Josef said from the first seat, his welcome cordial if somewhat reserved. He eyed her with careful courtesy.