Arkansas

by David Leavitt

  “I envy Mauro’s girlfriend,” I said. “The world needs more gentlemen.”

  “Yes, she’s very lucky.”

  “What’s her name, by the way?”

  “Angela.”

  “And have you met her?”

  Nathan shook his head. “Celia has, though. She says she’s very pretty, and very shy.”

  Having reached the end of the autostrada, we now trailed Mauro and Celia onto a narrow two-lane road that wound through treeless hills. The plowed fields seemed upholstered in variegated shades of beige velvet. “So beautiful,” I said for the thousandth time, and for the thousandth time Nathan answered “Yes.” You see, we were not so much acknowledging beauty as our shared incapacity to absorb it, to feel included or involved by it as Celia seemed to feel included and involved by it. For the hard truth, growing harder as departure neared, was that we would never be of this place. Our home was elsewhere. Though eventually we might take in the landscape, it would never take us in.

  We drove silently for a few minutes. Then Nathan said, “About Mauro, do you think ... I mean, if you can see, then maybe Celia can too, and she just isn’t saying anything.”

  “See what?” I asked.

  He paused for a moment. “That I’m in love with him.”

  “Ah.”

  “Are you shocked, Lizzie?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. I’ve never fallen in love this hard in my life,” he added informationally.

  “And have you told Mauro how you feel?”

  “Of course!”

  “Now that surprises me.”

  “But why wouldn’t I tell him? He’s my beau ideal, the great love of my life. Also, you can’t keep things from him. He guesses.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said he felt honored. And he said he loved me too, in his way..."Tears brimmed Nathan’s eyes.

  After a week ? I didn’t ask.

  “And then he said that even though he couldn’t reciprocate my feelings on a physical level,” Nathan continued, “he hoped I’d stay his friend. As if I could ever be anything but his friend!”

  “Celia did say he was invincibly straight.”

  “Oh, I’m not convinced of that! He’s Italian, after all. He’s had experiences with other men. No, the only reason he won’t reciprocate, he says, is loyalty to Angela.”

  “You mean if he were single, he might?”

  “I think so. That’s what torments me. I can’t be sure. He has this way of talking that’s both very precise and very vague. And I almost resent him for it, for dangling, ever so subtly, that carrot. I mean, if he said, you know, I’m just not remotely attracted to men, it would be easier. But he won’t say that. He’s too rigorously honest. And so we go on, talking and talking, and what makes it all worse—or better, depending on how you look at it—is that he’s absolutely immodest with me. For instance, after we play soccer, we go downstairs—we share a bathroom, you know—and he strips naked in front of me. Completely. Then he showers with the door open.”

  “How interesting.”

  “I’ve been tempted—but no, it’s too shameful. Or shameless.”

  “I’ve heard your locker room story.”

  “Of course.”

  Ahead of us, now, Mauro’s Alfa turned left. Down an unpaved road we followed him, past abandoned brick farmhouses and fruit orchards, before finally parking at the entrance to a dirt path, where he and Celia climbed out of the car.

  “It’s just down this way,” she said, summoning us on.

  Mauro bent down and picked a few clover-shaped green leaves that were growing close to the ground. “Taste,” he said, handing one to each of us. “Can you say what the flavor is?”

  I closed my eyes and chewed. What was that flavor? So familiar, yet the texture was wrong.

  “I give up,” I said finally.

  Then Nathan said, “It’s walnut. How extraordinary!”

  “Bravo, Nathan! You win the prize. This is walnut grass. Erba noce.”

  “And what’s this?” Nathan pointed to an overgrown tangle of what I would have automatically taken to be weeds.

  “Mentuccia, melissa. Herbs for roasting. And here—tonight’s salad.”

  “Come on, guys!” The voice, remote, was Celia’s, and we moved on.

  At the end of the path, in a little clearing, she stood before the Olivone. It was much bigger than I’d expected, with twisted, ancient arms. Not far, across a rusted tangle of wire, some cows looked at us.

  “Two thousand years old,” Celia said. “Can you imagine? That means that this tree’s been being cultivated since before Caesar. Since before Caesar, Lizzie!”

  I simply stared. Clots of trodden olives smeared the ground under our feet. To the left, a severed branch lay in the brambles, itself the size of an ordinary olive tree.

  “Three families own it,” Celia went on, “and divvy up the proceeds from the oil. That branch came off a decade ago, in a thunderstorm. That same year when we were all living in New York, and you had the slumber party at your mother’s house. Remember?”

  “I’d prefer not to.”

  “Also, the bark is supposed to have medicinal properties.” She picked off a piece, almost as if it were a scab. ‘You’re supposed to chew it. Only I can’t remember what it cures.”

  “Toothache?”

  “That’s Howards End. And look! Where the lightning struck the branch, there’s a face. Two eyes, a mouth. A perfect mask, as if the branch were joined to the trunk by the face, and after the lightning, for the first time in two thousand years, that face could see! Isn’t that amazing, Nathan?”

  But Nathan, who was standing at a distance from the tree, looking rather pale, didn’t answer.

  Clouds moved in overhead. It started to drizzle.

  “We should probably go,” Nathan said, while Mauro gathered up the last of the mentuccia.

  “All right,” Celia answered, clearly regretful to be parted from her Olivone.

  How well I remember, now, that scene! Celia enraptured by the tree, the cow across the fence, Nathan trembling to leave.

  And Mauro picking salad. And me, of course, watching.

  Not implicated.

  The rain thickened, and we piled back into the cars.

  We waited out the storm at a little restaurant the owner of which was a friend of Celia’s. She fed us beet gnocchi in pumpkin sauce, accompanied by a local red wine called a Morellino. The oil on the salad, needless to say, came from the Olivone.

  After the rain eased, we went home, where Celia opened a bottle of Spumante. “I want to celebrate,” she said, not specifying what—her anniversary, perhaps?—while Mauro declared happily that for supper he was going to prepare a pardelle sul'lepre, noodles with hare sauce, a declaration that led, in turn, to all sorts of jokes along the lines of “Waiter, there’s a hare in my sauce!” The boys cut up, and cut up the herbs Mauro had gathered at the Olivone, and Celia and I got drunk and prepared the pappardelle. The expertise—not to mention the celerity—with which she transformed a crater of flour filled with eggs into tidy, hand-cut ribbons of pasta, I must admit, made me envious as well as doubtful of her earlier assertion that she possessed no culinary talent. Obedience—wasn’t that the secret of great cookery? And hadn’t she herself told me that—it seemed now a decade ago?

  Thus the afternoon melted into evening. We cooked, and Celia opened a second bottle of Spumante, and as we drank it, Mauro told more bad jokes and bossed us around. As I was quickly learning, in the kitchen, his element, he commanded. Everyone, even Celia, leapt to his call, paying to him that automatic deference that is the proven expert’s due. And how fastidious he was! His hair, even when he was bending over a pot, still fell in perfect black waves. Yes, it was difficult not to be entranced by Mauro’s manner, in which a coat of good breeding veneered a certain wildness, even a savagery. He was like one of those tigers Victorian ladies kept for pets: radiant in his jungle sexuality despite the perfum
ings and bejewelings to which he was subjected—but by who? Certainly not Celia. Angela, then? Or was his aura of elegance, even of cultivation, his own choice? I felt fairly certain of the latter. I also felt fairly certain that if I’d had a chance to investigate, I’d have discovered that he didn’t pull his shirttails through the leg holes of his underpants.

  In the event, Celia was just putting the dinner together—just “throwing the pasta,” as the Italians say—when we heard wheels crunch the gravel outside. All at once everyone quieted.

  “Expecting someone?” I asked.

  “No.” Celia moved uneasily toward the window.

  Heavy footfalls sounded. Then the kitchen door opened, and a big interruption walked in.

  “Seth!” she said.

  “Hi, honey, I’m home.”

  He kissed her.

  Mauro turned away.

  “What are you doing here?” Celia asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “Why does something have to be wrong? I just thought I’d surprise you. After all, it’s nearly our anniversary.” Leaving her aside, he turned and smiled at me. “Hello, Lizzie.”

  “Hi, Seth,” I said, accepting his hand. “Nice to see you again.”

  “Likewise. And Nathan.”

  “Seth.”

  They shook manfully.

  “Mauro.”

  Mauro’s gesture was to a nod what a sliver of moon is to a moon.

  “So how was your drive?”

  “Traffic hell. Say, is there anything to eat? I’m starved.”

  “Actually, we were just getting supper ready—”

  “Great. Then if you all don’t mind, I’ll go wash up and be back in five minutes.” And he lumbered out of the kitchen, a tall man, not unattractive, in a bearded, mountainous way, though a bit too much of the Bill school for my taste.

  “Well, isn’t this a nice surprise,” Celia said when he’d gone, and poured herself another glass of Spumante.

  “A very nice surprise,” I echoed.

  “I suppose we should set a fifth place at the table,” Nathan threw in nervously.

  “Never mind.” Mauro was taking off his apron. “I won’t be here.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “You know that I am eating with Angela and her mother tonight.”

  “But if you want to stay—”

  “What do you mean, Celia? We’ve made just enough for four. Anyway, Seth has a big appetite.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I don’t need to eat.”

  “You’d better watch out or the pasta will overcook. Well, goodbye, Lizzie. Goodbye, Nathan.”

  “Bye, Mauro.”

  “Ciao.”

  “Mauro!” Rather frantically, Celia was draining the pasta. By the time she had finished, he had already walked out the door.

  In Mauro’s absence, we couldn’t talk to each other. We were at a loss for language, and in battered silence, Nathan and I slunk into the dining room and took our places.

  “I’m afraid it’s overcooked,” Celia announced a few minutes later, hauling the steaming bowl into the dining room. “I’m sure it’ll be delicious,” I said.

  She sat down. Seth returned. “Mm, pappardelle,” he said, smacking his lips and clapping his hands. “I’m starved for some good cooking. Say, where’s Mauro?”

  “He left.”

  “He’s eating dinner with Angela,” Nathan added.

  “Oh, sure. You know I’ve never met Angela?” Seth took Mauro’s place at the head of the table.

  Celia served. We all tasted.

  “Celia, this isn’t like you,” Seth said. “It’s overcooked.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Seth, but you walked in just after I’d thrown it, and—”

  “I think it’s delicious,” I thrust in.

  “Me too,” Nathan echoed.

  “Also, the sauce is too salty.”

  “Speaking of too salty,” I said, “did I ever tell you about the time when everyone in my family thought that no one else had bothered to salt the lima beans and so we all salted them and then we couldn’t eat them?” I laughed. “Kitchen disasters. I could write a book. You should too, Celia.”

  “Or a cookbook,” said Nathan. “Have you thought about it?”

  Celia took a sip of wine. “Actually, I’ve had offers.”

  “All of which she’s turned down,” Seth said. “And I’ve never understood why! I mean, when we started this business—what, three years ago?—it was never to run it forever. Instead our plan was to do it just long enough to pay for the renovations, which we did after six months. And still she teaches, and still she complains, Too much work, too much food—”

  “I do not complain!”

  “Yet every time I suggest to her that she just go and make a deal with one of those publishers, she shushes me away. And it would be perfect, really! We could have kids and live an idyllic life, me doing my translations, her inventing recipes—”

  “I told you, there’s no point. None of the recipes are mine.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “It’s just the old tradition. I’d be lying if I made any claim to It.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first,” Nathan said.

  “Originality is a joke where cooking is concerned,” Seth agreed.

  He had cleaned his plate, as had Nathan. (How fast men eat!) Now Celia got up to clear, and I followed her.

  “Are you all right?” I asked in the kitchen.

  “I’ll be all right,” she said. “I just wasn’t expecting him.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not bad,” she amplified. “Don’t think I think it’s bad. Just ... something to adjust to.”

  She scraped her portion of the pasta, largely uneaten, into the garbage.

  “Well, at least he didn’t forget your anniversary,” I said for stupid comfort.

  “No, he didn’t do that.”

  “Wood, right?”

  “Traditionally. The modern equivalent is silverware.” Taking Mauro’s salad out of the refrigerator—that salad most of which (it seemed eons ago) he had picked near the Olivone—she carried it back to the table.

  We all went to our rooms fairly soon after that miserable dinner had ended—all of us, that is, except for Seth, who announced he was going to sit a little while in the garden.

  In the bathroom, I performed my ritual ablutions. To be truthful, everything about the evening—Seth’s arrival, Celia’s unhappiness at Seth’s arrival, Mauro’s rather abrupt departure—bewildered me. It was as if Seth’s mere presence had thrown off some delicate balance in the podere; yet why was that? He didn’t seem to me to be such a bad fellow. A bit arrogant, yes; still, well-meaning, enthusiastic. Nonetheless Mauro clearly despised him, while Celia, in his presence, changed completely, became awkward, inept. And why should that be? Why should this husband to whom she professed indifference, this husband she barely ever saw, still hold such power over her? I didn’t know the answer, though I suspected that if Bill had walked in while we were cooking, his unexpected arrival might have reduced me, too, to a state of anxious incompetence. Love’s poison, I’ve noticed, has a way of lingering in the body even years after love itself has withdrawn its fangs.

  In bed, tired out from the expedition to the Olivone (not to mention all that Spumante), I fell asleep at once. Then I was in the middle of having a complicated dream about Bill when a loud crashing sounded, and I leapt up in bed. What I’d experienced is known technically as a myoclonic jerk, and in my dream it had taken the form of a leap off a mountain into an abyss from which the arms of waking seemed to trapeze me upward. I looked around myself, saw the crystal diodes of the alarm clock glowing. One forty-four A.M. Then the noise—more like furniture moving than a crash, my refining mind noted—sounded again.

  I listened. I heard a voice, deep-throated. Like the furniture-moving noise, it came from downstairs.

  “Si, cost. Cosi.”

  Well, I’ll be damned, I thought. Maybe Nathan’s ma
naged to get him after all.

  A door slammed. From the hallway voices broke out.

  “Celia, stop!” (This in a whisper-scream.)

  “Let go of me!”

  “It’s none of your business, Celia!”

  “I said let go of me!”

  Scrapings and thumpings. Alarmed, I switched on the light, pulled on a bathrobe, and stepped into the hall, where as expected, I found Seth in his pajamas, struggling to restrain a maniacal Celia in a Lanz nightgown patterned with little lambs. Their futile efforts to keep their voices down only made the battle seem more surreal, as if it were taking place in slow motion.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Lizzie, will you please try to talk some sense into her? She’s going nuts.”

  “Celia, what’s the matter?”

  She kicked Seth and fled. “Shit!” he said, “I give up,” and returned to their bedroom. Meanwhile I followed Celia down the stairs, through the living room, and to the bottom floor, where she rapped loudly on Nathan’s door.

  “Get out!” she shouted. “Both of you! Get out! Seth thought it was you,” she added to me, “if you can believe it. I knew better.”

  The door opened. Nathan, pulling on his pants, stepped into the hall.

  “Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I could ask you the same question. Now get out of my house. You too, Mauro!”

  “Quiet!” Nathan pulled the door shut. “Anyway, he won’t hear you. He’s out.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “No, I mean drunk.”

  “Then wake him! Throw water on him!”

  “Celia, please!” Nathan grabbed her by the arm. “What’s gotten into you?”

  Kicking him hard, she ran into the kitchen.

  “Christ!” Nathan said. “That bi-” He made a fist. “This is really the last straw, Lizzie. What, does she have to spoil the best night in my life because seventeen years ago I wouldn’t fuck her—”

  “Were you and Mauro—”

  “So what if we were? Is there something wrong with that?”

  “I’m only asking so I can figure out—”

  We stepped through the kitchen door.

  “I said get out!” Celia screamed, throwing a plate at Nathan.