“That’s enough!” Giuliana says.
“Let’s end this conversation right here,” Carlotta adds.
“What? We’re all family here! Okay. So, Romeo, you know anything about Chianti?”
“ ‘Traditionally, Chianti is a light wine of high acidity with a slightly bitter but fruity taste and berry aromas,’ ” I quote.
“Ma che! What have you been doing, reading the Michelin Guide? ‘Traditionally’—you sound like that gay florist now!”
Even Carlotta has to laugh at that.
“I confess. I checked Google.”
They laugh even louder.
I stand up then, and I am pleasantly soused enough to take liberties. “Say, Sal, I’m a little bushed. You mind if Carlotta and I take the master bedroom upstairs, and you can take the couch? I’ll fetch you a blanket. Oh, and you got any PJs?”
The table erupts. Salvatore tosses his napkin and then Carlotta’s, and both splat me in the chest. Even Giuliana is crying with laughter, and she and Carlotta break out in supportive applause.
I am happy to be with Carlotta in her home, and it feels like exactly where I should be. I could envision this kind of family interaction going on forever.
35
THE GRAPES OF ROMANCE
I stay in the small stone house reserved for guests. Carlotta is somewhere preparing for the festival. After that long bike ride and then the wine, I welcome some repose. Around six in the evening, I hear a knock on the door.
“Rodrigo?” It is the voice of Salvatore, and it is the first time he has called me by my name. “You up?”
“Yes. Be right down.”
“I want to show you around.”
“Great.”
Salvatore and I take a stroll through the vineyard. Once he gets out of eyeshot from the main house, he lights up a cigarette and gives one to me. “Mamma doesn’t like me smoking.”
We walk down a corridor with grapevines piled high on either side. The corridor seems to go on for miles.
Salvatore reaches over and pulls on a bunch, and he hands me the entire bunch, pregnant with grapes. “We’re harvesting next week. Sangiovese—the blood of Jove.”
I pick one, rub it in my palm, and chew on the deep blue-purple grape.
“They’re ready. Are you?” he says.
“Sir?”
“I know why you’re here.”
“You do?”
“Sì.”
“How do you know?” I stop chewing. I have the self-conscious image of myself eating his fruit. And all it implies.
“I’m a lot of things, Rodrigo, and not all of them good. I have gotten along on my wits and my ability to read people. There’s a reason Machiavelli is from Tuscany. I’m all that. Maybe more, maybe less. But I see it in your eyes. And more important, I see it in hers.”
I realize then that he wanted me to taste the grape. With intent. I gaze deeply into his irises, and there is a hint of desperation. And I don’t know why.
“So—are you ready?”
“I am, Salvatore.”
“You know, I’ve been a provider, maybe even a good one. I’ve been a good father. I instilled my daughter with a work ethic. And drive. But I haven’t been a good husband. There are some things I wish I could take back. I’ve hurt people. And I’ve hurt myself. It’s no one’s fault but my own. Carlotta’s mother is the salt of the earth. There’s never been any other woman for me. And that’s what has saved my marriage more than anything else.
“I did my research on you, as much as one can, sitting on fields of dirt in the middle of nowhere. But I know you are a man, or were a man, who liked to have a good time. I’ve seen all the photos of you globe-trotting around with all those beautiful ladies next to you. You have great taste, I might add. In that way, I’m not a whole lot different than you. I understand all that. Takes one, as they say. Which puts me in an awkward position. My instinct is to—has always been to—”
“Protect your daughter.”
“Correct.”
“But I have a good feeling about you. You had an advantage over me.”
“How so?”
“The times. Nowadays you can sow your oats to kingdom come before settling down. Men marry in their forties and fifties. Women marry in their thirties and forties. We were kids compared to that. Babies. Bambini. And me being me—again, no excuses—I was too young, too weak, that way. And too damned selfish. It was something deep within me burning. And I couldn’t stop myself. I hadn’t lived enough life to my selfish specifications.
“But I think you have, Rodrigo. You’ve been able to let it all hang out for years. And I know it does get empty. And lonely. For a while you’re thinking, Hey, isn’t this great, I can fuck whom I want whenever I want, and no strings attached. And you think you’re the freest guy on the planet, to the point where you’re really not free anymore. Much less happy, because you’re not free. You’re trapped. It becomes another cage.”
“Yes, it does.”
“You’ve avoided one cage but found another.”
“Ecco.”
“And that’s when you pay the piper. Because the piper always gets back more than you took. And you’re given a life sentence and waltz around homeless for the next fifty years. Unless you’re lucky. And you’re lucky. You found a gem. Oh, that Carlotta, she is a gem.” I can see the tears rush to the man’s eyes. But he doesn’t blink. “And perhaps she’s found one, too.”
“I’d like to think so,” I say. I bend down and respectfully place the bunch of grapes I’m holding in my hand flat to the earth. Then I rise back up.
“I thought you liked my fruit.”
“I do.”
“So, you have anything you want to say to me?” he asks, and that charming grin breaks hopefully across his face.
“Everything you’ve said is absolutely true. I did the dance. I did it hard. But I’m over it. The music plays for one person now. Carlotta. She has made me a better man. In many ways. In every way. And I thank the gods of all religions that she came into my life. And therefore, I thank you. Salvatore, I would like to marry Carlotta. And I would like your blessing. And Giuliana’s.”
The man stands there with tears streaming down his face. “I never thought of it until now.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m saying good-bye to Carlotta.”
“You’re wrong, Salvatore. Where I come from, you’re saying hola.”
We embrace warmly, and the man cries into my shoulder, softly weeping at first, but then he ruptures into deep heaves. Not for the symbolic departure of his daughter but for the many things he has done in his life that hurt people. And I can tell that he is sorry. Whatever this man has in his soul, he has revealed it to me. There is honor and dignity in that. And I appreciate it more than he could ever imagine.
He pulls away from me and stumbles sideways, then pivots around and walks back down the corridor of grapes beneath a sky bathed in fuchsia-orange by the setting Tuscan sun. It is an image I know I will paint.
I stay there awhile and count my blessings and give thanks.
I hear him yell to me, deep in the distance, “You have my blessing!”
“Grazie!” I shout back.
“But no slippers!”
“Flip-flops?”
“Get outta here!”
36
NEW BRIDGE
We are back in Ronda, having breakfast on the terrace, with a single purple-blue iris stem in a vase between us. I snap a photo of the iris in my mind to use for another portrait. An homage to Vincent, of course. I have always loved his iris paintings. Carlotta is going over the recent rush of orders for the new vintage that have piled in as a result of the successful tastings at the Chianti Classico festival. I got up early to do one of the Damas Goyesca portraits. Carlotta’s. I have not let her see it yet. It is the only one I haven’t allowed her to see ahead of time.
“Let’s go into town,” I say.
“What for?”
“
I want to go to the market, pick up a few things.”
“I just went shopping.”
“I feel like taking a break. Will you come with me?”
She angles up from her paperwork. “Certo, amore.”
We wind down the hill and motor toward town. I downshift just before we cross the old bridge that connects the old and new towns.
The bridge, Puente Nuevo, was built in the 1700s on top of the four-hundred-foot cliffs of El Tajo gorge and the Rio Guadalevín. Hemingway used the cliffs and the bridge—and events that really happened there—as the basis for a scene in For Whom the Bell Tolls. In the novel, set during the Spanish Civil War, fascists in a small town were rounded up, clubbed, forced to walk a gauntlet of townspeople, and thrown from cliffs to the jagged rocks far below. But that horrifying fact is not the reason I have parked the bike and gone for a stroll across the bridge with Carlotta.
Bridges have always had significant meaning for Carlotta and me; I often recall our meeting at the Old Bridge, the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, where I first observed her attraction to the panther as she looked at the one in the silversmith’s window, and where I presented her that morning’s sketch of the flower. The Ponte Vecchio was also where our relationship, after a disastrous beginning, turned for the better.
On this “new bridge,” the Puente Nuevo in Ronda, I hope our relationship will take yet another turn. We hold hands while striding to the middle of the bridge. We stand by the cement wall and peer over the edge into the chasm and the river far below, flourishing deep in the bottom of the canyon. Beyond, we can see a verdant valley smothered in Spanish firs, and behind that, the magnificent sweeping view of the untamed and majestic Serranía de Ronda mountain range.
I stand before mi amore and extend another iris stem. The three large outer blue-purple petals, the falls, have soft hairs along the centers, forming a crested ridge. Atop the three inner upright petals, the standards, lies a diamond ring.
“Per te,” I say, indicating that the ornate silver band is for her.
She gasps, bringing her hands to her face. “Rodrigo, amore! Dio mio! Incredibile!”
I extend the stem to her, and she softly teases the ring from the flower petals. There is a small eagle on one side of the silver band and a panther on the other, with a diamond stone set high in between, firing shards of reflected sunlight in all directions.
I drop to one knee. “Carlotta, will you marry me?”
Her face is radiant and her smile dazzles across it, but in an instant her expression changes. It is in her emerald eyes, a hint of confusion, even disorientation.
“Yes, I think so . . . But I need time . . . to be sure.”
I rise up. It is not what I expected. But it’s close. For now, that will have to do—at least it wasn’t an outright no.
“Will you do me the honor of accepting the ring until you decide?”
“Sì, amore. I will.”
We kiss then, in the midday sun, high up on the New Bridge.
part three
DREAM NO MORE
37
ROME TO NEW YORK
I think I found him.”
“Where?”
“I’m in Rome on a photo shoot and saw a picture of him in a magazine. It must be him.”
“What magazine?”
“¡Hola! The European gossip rag, Spanish version.”
“Where is he?”
“I think it was him, in the stands of a bullfight in Ronda, Spain.”
“How come you’re not sure?”
“He was wearing a freaky hat. One of those Russian military hats. And he had on Ray-Ban sunglasses. And an eighteenth-century something-or-other jacket. Almost like he was trying to be in disguise. But it wasn’t a disguise at all, because with those crazy clothes, he stood out even more! Everyone in the stands was dressed up . . . but not like him . . .”
“But didn’t they mention his name?”
“No! He was in the background, in the audience. The photo was of the matador and the bull in the ring.”
“Ronda makes sense. He used to go there as a boy. And we’ve traced him as far as Madrid. No wonder we couldn’t find him.”
“Did you contact law enforcement yet?”
“No. Private investigator.”
“Smart. Are you going to fly over?”
“I’d like to. But by the way he was acting the last time I saw him, I think he’d resist me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. There’s so much riding on this . . . Julia, you may have an easier time of it. You might be able to persuade him. He listens to you. Would it be possible for you to go there?”
“Damn. I don’t know, Rafaela. If I get involved . . . I mean . . . how do we even know he’s there?”
“We don’t. But it’s a start.”
After a long pause and a huff: “Okay, of course I will . . . but I won’t be finished here for several days . . . But—I could maybe take a flight from Rome to where—Madrid . . . ?”
“I’m checking now . . . no, Málaga.”
“. . . on Monday. And then what? Bring him to New York?”
“Yes. He has to come back.”
“This is so freaky . . .”
“I’d be so appreciative if you’d go and collect him. But please don’t tell anyone.”
“Why would I ever say anything? I don’t want to be mixed up in this mess, either!”
“I know. I’m sorry . . . I know you’d never say anything. I’m not thinking straight.”
“It’s okay. You’ll get through it. What will you do with him once he’s back?”
“Depends on what condition we find him in.”
38
COME IN, RONDA
You’re not going to believe this—”
“You found him?”
“Well, no. He’s gone.”
“No!”
“But he was here.”
“Where?”
“I found his house. I’m in it now. And this is the insane part. The walls are filled with his new paintings, and I have to tell you, Rafaela, they’re incredible! For as much as I know art, and it may not be that much, but—these look like masterpieces.”
“How did you find where he lives?”
“I checked with some real estate brokers in town to see if anyone had rented an apartment with his description. The third broker I spoke to said finally, ‘You mean the poet? Vladimir? The fool on the hill?’ And he laughed, because that’s what they called him, and they’d been singing the Beatles song. He’s been the talk of the town all August—”
“Did he do anything bad?”
“No, I don’t think so. They didn’t say so, anyway. I mean, no cops or anything.”
“Good.”
“But the owner wants to break the lease. He wants him out. They think he’s been eating all the flowers. And he lives on churros and bocadillos. They’re all over the kitchen. And coffee. The place is a total mess. It looks like it hasn’t been cleaned once. There’s stuff everywhere. And where there are no canvases hanging, he painted—”
“The walls?”
“Yes. And the grass is high. Apparently, he fired the groundskeeper. Thought he was . . . what did the guy say? A ‘spy.’ Oh, and get this—he rides around on a Harley—he bought it from a teenager. It’s a small town, everyone knows everything.”
“What’s this about being a poet?”
“He introduces himself around town as ‘Comrade Vladimir, the surf poet. In a town where there are no waves.’ He crashed a poetry reading and got thrown out. And he talks to himself, and he has an imaginary girlfriend named Verushka. And he wears that crazy Russian hat, the one I was telling you about.”
“I saw online.”
“And he rarely goes out. But, Rafaela, I’m telling you, these works are so good. And it’s not just a few. They’re all over! Upstairs. Downstairs. The stairwell, the kitchen, in all the bedrooms. There must be forty or fifty, I’m not kidding, each one mo
re amazing than the last—”
“Here’s what to do. Can you stay in a hotel tonight? Or better yet, stay there tonight?”
“I booked a room already, but sure, though it’s a little creepy. These paintings are intense. They glare at you.”
“Just wait a day. Or a couple days if you can. Until he returns.”
“If—”
“He has to be around somewhere. No matter how far off the deep end he is, he’d never leave his art. Take pictures.”
“I will. Maybe something happened to him.”
“My God, this is so crazy.”
“I did see the motorcycle.”
“You did?”
“It’s on its side on the grass.”
“How did you locate the house?”
“The broker drove me. They could tell I knew him. And he recognized me, too, from my modeling work.”
Julia gave herself another tour of the house and private showing of the art. She took some pictures with her digital camera, then walked down the main staircase and passed through the sunken living room. The French doors were flung open, and she moved out to the terrace, where the dining table and chairs, as well as the pool furniture, were toppled and haphazardly angled.
She stepped into the backyard, past the devastated garden, and spotted a lone flip-flop lying in the grass. She looked deeper into the backyard expanse and saw a leg extending out from behind the towering Spanish fir tree. She made a quick dash and saw the notorious surf poet lying flat on his back, his spiral notebook and ushanka hat lying beside him.
“Oh my God! Rodrigo!”
She rushed to him and, falling to her knees beside him, checked for his vital signs. He seemed comatose, but after she prodded him aggressively, he emitted several groans. He looked terribly unwashed, and it appeared he’d been wearing the same jeans and T-shirt for a considerable amount of time—they were paint-splattered, soiled, and form-fitted to his body.
“Rodrigo—?”
39
TOKYO IN ’20
The Beautiful Dream of Life Page 20