The Detour

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

  The road was so black, we couldn’t see far ahead, and when something did appear, it appeared suddenly: here, a sheep; there, a white-plastered shrine, forcing Cosimo to swerve or step on the brakes. But then he would accelerate again, aggressively.

  “Is there some particular place we are looking for?” I finally asked.

  In unison, Enzo and Cosimo answered: “Yes.”

  Enzo cleared his throat, affecting a casual tone. “There is a place, soon enough, a turn-off that is signed Monterosso. There is a shrine and a good place behind it to park, with a water tap. It is a well-known good place.”

  Cosimo added nothing.

  “And this,” I pressed for confirmation, “is where we’re stopping for the night? There are no other options, even if we are making good progress?”

  They were waiting for the right moment, anticipating a brothers’ showdown, long and slow in coming. But perhaps, it occurred to me, the battle could be thwarted.

  “Enzo, let me have the ring.”

  “Maybe later. When we park.”

  “If I hold onto it until we get to the border, there might be less temptation to make any additional side-trips. We might avoid a difficult situation.”

  “No, grazie. It is not helpful.”

  Cosimo took his eyes off the road briefly, glancing at me, and then, more skeptically, at his brother. A realization dawned; a decision was made. “At least you can show it to him, fratello,” he said, ridicule sharpening his voice. “Let him appreciate your romantic intentions.”

  Enzo returned Cosimo’s skeptical glance, then dug slowly into his pocket, inhaling, as if even he had doubts about the forces he was unleashing. The ring, cradled in the crease of his palm, was gold, set with a very small diamond and flanked by two even smaller glittering chips.

  “There,” Enzo said, speaking past me to his brother’s unreadable face, all cards on the table. “Is this what you wanted? Are you satisfied now?”

  We passed the sign to Monterosso. We passed the shrine. Still, no one spoke. Twenty minutes later, Cosimo found a small, dusty turn-off more to his liking—some compromise between conforming to an earlier plan with Keller and Enzo, while still exerting his own driver’s prerogative, unaware of the original parking place’s full significance. He pulled off the road. Then, spotting a larger tree, he continued a little farther, snugging up into the soft shoulder, under the low-hanging branches, refusing to set the brake until he had parked just where he wanted to park. “Va bene.”

  The rasp of Enzo’s hand against his unshaven jaw was audible. No one hurried to step outside.

  “You bring a razor in your suitcase, Mister Vogler?”

  “It was left behind at the pensione, when I wasn’t given the opportunity to pack my own things. But that was understandable. The statue was awaiting transport and we were in a great hurry,” I said, hoping now to communicate that sense of urgency we’d all shared not so very long ago. “Do you remember?”

  Enzo exited the truck, stretching and brushing the crumbs off his white shirt. Cosimo and I followed him around back. Enzo opened the back door, set up a wooden plank, and wheeled his scooter out of the truck. “More room for sleeping.” He gestured. “There.”

  But Cosimo was watching, too—wordlessly, arms over his chest.

  I was waiting for the confrontation, waiting for Enzo to admit what he was planning, waiting for Cosimo to demand more explanation and impose our shared opposition. But maybe I’d been misunderstanding Cosimo all along. Maybe, deep down, he did share some of Enzo’s way of thinking. If Enzo believed this was the best possible night for testing Farfalla’s love, Cosimo seemed to think it was the best possible night for testing Enzo’s fraternal loyalty.

  I tapped Cosimo on the arm and gestured for him to follow me around the side of the truck where we could talk privately.

  When we got there, he spoke first. “It isn’t Mamma’s ring. All that time in the truck, but he didn’t explain.” His voice was low and stern. “Hers was a simple band. No diamonds.”

  This should have been good news. There would be no argument over which brother should have the right to their mother’s ring. As for who had a right to Farfalla, that was another matter, but far beyond my influence.

  “You do plan to tell him again that he can’t leave us tonight.”

  “I can’t speak to him. Let him speak to me.”

  Behind us, the scooter started up.

  “He’s leaving right now,” I said, turning toward the scooter, which had—I realized only now—no functioning headlamp. Wherever Farfalla’s family farm was located, on steep side roads climbing into the black hills, it would be a long, dark trip on a moonless night. “We have to get going in the morning, early. What if he doesn’t come back tomorrow? What if we need his mechanical skills and the truck breaks down?”

  I took a few steps toward the scooter, a few steps back to Cosimo, pacing. “He went into that food shop and stayed for a half hour, and that was just flirting with a pretty stranger, never mind proposing to a woman and then trying to leave her family, her bed …”

  The scooter motor died; Enzo pushed it onto the kickstand with a metallic groan before approaching. I exhaled, so relieved I wanted to embrace him. But he walked past, ignoring me. He stood next to Cosimo, muttering into his shoulder, requesting something. Without making eye contact, Cosimo shrugged himself out of his own jacket and handed it to Enzo, took Enzo’s jacket and pulled it on, looking miserable.

  It took me a moment to find my voice. Enzo was already behind us again, back on his scooter, revving it.

  “Cosimo—you gave him your jacket? He’s still leaving, and you traded jackets?”

  “Mine was cleaner, maybe.” Dragging his hand across his nose, Cosimo angled his face toward the black sky as if willing the new moon into a fuller phase. “Maybe he’ll change his mind. He drives a little while, in the dark; he thinks a little while. I would change my mind.”

  “You told me how different you are. Two roads going two different ways, remember?”

  “Only the outside. Inside, we are almost the same.”

  “He isn’t changing his mind, Cosimo. He’s on the scooter.” I stubbed my foot against the gravel of the road’s shoulder. “Keller shouldn’t have tempted him. There were other routes, other places to park. Keller knows about Enzo’s girlfriend?”

  Cosimo nodded. His eyes met mine, alight with a recognition he wouldn’t share, except to say: “I can’t stop him. I’ve never been able to stop him.”

  But it was too late for that, anyway. Our ears filled with the sound of spitting gravel, the whine of the scooter’s motor, and then the fading mosquito buzz of Enzo’s departure, leaving us both in silence on the road, only gradually aware of the insects chirruping, only gradually aware of the penetrating cold of a night in hilly country.

  Cosimo offered me the front cab, but I didn’t want any favors and I was edgy about being too far from the statue. I insisted on taking the back of the truck.

  First, though, I excused myself to empty my bladder, a little ways down the road. When I returned, Cosimo was in the back, pulling at wisps of straw sticking out of the crate. The slats were extremely narrow; he managed to harvest only a few wisps. In his hand was the burlap bag that had come with the lemons, with barely a handful of straw at the bottom.

  So this was why Enzo had to hurry off to propose, I thought to myself, less than charitably. And this was why, perhaps, the Italians were better off selling some of their national art. Because they too often thought: What’s the difference? A few kilometers off the main road, a few hours off schedule, a few pieces of straw from the crate. Everything was flexible, everything emotional. Decay and disaster, one small step at a time. There was no hard reasoning: the packing material had been there for a reason, just as the schedule had been there for a reason. One more bump and the statue might shift, an outstretched marble finger might make contact with wood—and break. That finger, Cosimo, outlasted the rise and fall of civilizations, o
utlasted attacks by barbarian hordes. But it might not outlast your brother’s desire to get under a woman’s skirt on a moonless night.

  “A peace offering,” Cosimo said, handing me the straw-filled burlap bag, a rough, pathetic imitation of a pillow. “Buona notte.”

  Cold toes and stiff legs. A hip wedged painfully against the hard floor. A piece of straw, as sharp as a porcupine quill, poking directly into my cheek. The memory of my father’s voice: “You haven’t felt cold until you’ve slept in a wet trench in November. You have no idea what discomfort is.”

  There’s no way to sleep, I thought, trying to rearrange my jacket over my shoulders. The temperature in these hills was surprisingly cold once the sun was down, even in summer. No way even to nap, I thought, no way …

  And then it was morning. Warmth heating up the metal floor of the truck. A crack of bright light alongside the bottom of the retractable door.

  I sat up suddenly, squinting into the light. What had happened to our early start? What had happened to dawn? I rarely managed to sleep through a night at home, and this was when insomnia finally took its vacation, on a night when I should have stayed alert?

  I scrambled to climb out of the truck, still trying to orient my senses while telling my bladder it could wait just a moment, seeing as it had made no effort to get me up any earlier.

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” I demanded of Cosimo, who was pacing the road’s shoulder, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lip. “Where is Enzo?”

  “It is light two hours already.”

  “Precisely!”

  “Something is wrong.”

  “Yes, something was wrong as soon as Enzo decided to run off last night.”

  “No. Something is more wrong.” He rubbed a hand against the bristles sprouting from his jaw. “Maybe last night I should have told you. When we traded jackets, Enzo said to me, ‘Don’t worry. Just go along.’ ”

  “Just go along? Well, that’s precisely what you did. You didn’t even argue.”

  “I am afraid there is more. I have been thinking about it all morning. I’m afraid it is worse.”

  I prepared for our debate: drive north and leave Enzo behind versus drive toward Monterosso and wake the young Romeo from his blissful and irresponsible slumber. But Cosimo was in no mood to argue. He walked to the truck cab, and I followed several paces behind. He started the ignition before I slammed my passenger door.

  “The back is secure?”

  “Yes, but you may not make any decisions without me.”

  “It is not a decision. There is no choice.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I had a dream, early this morning.” He was struggling with the words that had been haunting him since before dawn.

  “It was a dream about my brother. He is lying down, looking peaceful—”

  “I think we know that he is lying down.”

  “But there is tall green grass all around him, and he is alone. He is not in any bed. And he is saying, ‘I am sorry, brother.’ ”

  “That’s all?”

  “ ‘I am sorry. Look in my pocket.’ ”

  CHAPTER 6

  A rusty, pale blue Fiat slows down alongside me and a local man in a black wool vest and a matching billed cap rolls down the window, startling me out of my reminiscences. He asks whether I need a ride into town, still several kilometers away. I tell him grazie, no, the weather is fine, I really don’t mind walking, I’m in no rush. It’s only when he catches my accent that he leans back into his seat, upsetting his cap, which he pats back into place with a quick, embarrassed tap.

  “The shops close in less than an hour.”

  I try to smile. “That’s not a worry.”

  “They stay closed for most of the afternoon,” he says, as if to discourage me from walking into town at all. “If you plan to go to a shop or a café, you may be disappointed.”

  “Not a problem, thank you. I will walk until they open again.”

  Who knows what an accent like mine means to him, where or under what conditions he might have last heard it, how close or distant, how forgotten or eternal the war that ended three years ago seems to him now.

  He takes a while to engage his clutch and drive past, watching to see whether I really mean it—whether I am to be trusted ambling past these rural fields and modest vineyards, whether I am really enjoying my walk. I feel like a fraud, trying to inject some lightness in my step, when just moments ago I was strolling furiously, head down, overwhelmed completely by my memories—by memories of memories, really, a paired set of mirrors in which one could get lost and never return.

  Back in Munich, I’d thought of my 1938 trip so often that it had seemed more vivid than the present. But even so, more than I realized, some of the details were lost after all, only recoverable here, where the light and the smells and a thousand other things I cannot name bring so much more back: perhaps the scuff of my shoes against the warm, chalky path underfoot, or the slim shadow thrown by a cypress rising up toward a heartlessly blue sky. Now I pass a hand along a low stone wall covered with a trailing, woody plant that looks like rosemary. And yes, rosemary it is—there, pungent and undeniable, but quickly fading from my fingertips—and I am struck by both the power of the scent memory (I remember in a flash what I have allowed to remain forgotten for so long: the desire to be rid of a revolting smell and to replace it with something cleaner and more sweet) and the fact that I am now a different person, unable to entirely reinhabit the past, unable to step into the same river twice.

  Aside from the later smells that the rosemary effortlessly conjures, what I remember most clearly from that morning of our second driving day is a sense of self-recrimination, perhaps for all the wrong reasons (a narrowly defined duty, a refusal to face certain facts), but self-recrimination nonetheless. It was my fault we’d gotten into such a mess. I had lost my focus. I had become sentimental, allowing Enzo to retrieve the ring. I had failed to keep Enzo and Cosimo dedicated to our task. And then, somehow and suddenly, Enzo had left, forcing us to go in search of him—a detour resisted but not denied.

  As Cosimo steered the truck around each switchback, white dust rising and spreading behind us and painting each passing olive tree a duller silver, the present moment’s worries insisted upon yoking me to other worries I had hoped to leave behind. I did not want to think about Gerhard. I did not even want to think about Enzo. The quickening of my heartbeat and the sour weight in my stomach reminded me of my intolerance for suspense—a poison that my system was no longer capable of handling.

  I hadn’t always been so high-strung, I recall thinking that summer morning, as we rolled along, slower and slower as the road became even rockier and steeper, as the sun beat down on our arms and faces and our eyes burned with the dust, the heat, and the tense effort of looking for something—someone—I didn’t fully expect to find.

  There had been a time, eight or nine years earlier, when to be poised in the starter position, with the full track ahead, was to be ready and eager for an explosion of joy. That anticipatory moment was so exceptional that even after my own serious athletic prospects were irreparably damaged in the summer of 1930, I still wanted to run. I recovered my health. I bided my time over the winter. And that following spring of my seventeenth year, I joined a track team again.

  I remember the first race day, when I took a small spade in my hand and started digging the holes in the cinder track—the little starter holes we used, instead of starter blocks. I pushed the toes of my thin-soled running shoes into the holes, got into position, and prepared myself for the starter pistol, which for some reason was slow in coming, as it sometimes was. Then—suddenly—even before the shot came, a plug was pulled. The happiness drained away.

  I looked to my left at the boys who were stronger than me, who had spent the winter staying in good shape. I looked to my right at the boys who would beat me. I told myself it didn’t matter, I would run just to run, just to enjoy my own relative speed and returning health�
��but I had lost something, some kind of mental steadiness. I told myself it was the starting position, that my body had simply changed, that I’d lost a little muscle and gained a little fat. But that wasn’t it at all. It was my mind that had changed. Now, the anticipation was nearly sickening. And when the pistol went up, I reacted jumpily, like a person afraid of being ambushed—which is indeed how I had felt ever since the previous summer.

  Which is all a long and unwieldy way of saying that I did not like surprises anymore. Ohne Zwischenfall, without incident—that was the preferred state. I did not like waiting and wondering, the strain of not knowing, most forms of conflict or novelty which are essential aspects of many things—competition, for one. Love, for another. The only kind of passion I had managed to sustain was my passion for art, itself a substitution for other losses. And yet it remained to be seen if that passion would itself be my undoing, and if there would be nothing left to hold onto, if even the most carefully carved marble would prove itself to be inconstant, insignificant, ultimately worthless.

  It was a month after I’d quit track altogether, a year after the incident, when I showed up at the library one late afternoon in my seventeenth year. The old man behind the desk was seated with his face just in the shadows. What I could see best were his hands, folded on the desk, underneath the bright glow of his desk lamp. My request was a little odd and I felt out of place, so I concentrated on those hands: soft and powdery white, ribboned with blue veins like tunneling worms.

  “Books—about bodies,” I muttered to the librarian. He scooted a little closer so that his face came into the light. He looked up over his glasses, noting my age, my blotched adolescent skin, my clear discomfort at stating my interests clearly.