“Why don’t we go in and see the movie?” I asked Naohiro suddenly. “I saw it before going up to Oxford and it’s just wonderful. Funny and touching and … well, it’s just wonderful.”
Without hesitating, he agreed.
For the next two hours we sat together in the dark theater laughing and rooting for the “good guy” dancer to win the dance contest. When we stumbled out into the late afternoon light, I was exhilarated and happy. Naohiro’s mood seemed to match mine exactly.
That night, Naohiro and I danced together for the first time. After seeing the movie, I had told him of my first evening in Paris; of watching a young couple dance under the paulownia trees in the place Furstemberg, oblivious to everything but each other. And I told him of how seeing them stirred up memories of my high school prom and the last slow dance with the boy I had a hopeless crush on.
“What does this mean, the last slow dance?” Naohiro asked. “It sounds sad.”
I didn’t quite know how to answer him. In a way, the last slow dance was sad. I tried to tell him about the custom at high school dances of ending the evening by announcing the last slow dance. “In some way,” I said, “it’s what everyone’s been waiting for all evening. The chance to release all that pent-up teenage emotion by holding the other person in your arms.”
“We have nothing like that in Japan,” he said. “But perhaps we could turn on the radio and you could teach me this last slow dance.”
We turned on the radio. The sound of Fred Astaire singing “The Way You Look Tonight” filled the room. Naohiro held out his arms. I entered them. We danced, our cheeks touching. He was an excellent dancer. I closed my eyes, lost in the music and the feel of Naohiro’s arms around me. It was the high school prom all over again. Only much better.
When the music stopped, Naohiro said, “That was not sad at all. It was a very good last slow dance, was it not?”
“The best last slow dance of my life.”
“Well, then, we should make a habit of doing the last slow dance each time we meet,” he said.
An hour after arriving at the hotel in Milan I had unpacked and was ready to hit the streets. I needed a destination and had picked Milan’s most famous attraction: the Duomo, a huge wedding cake of a cathedral, with 135 spires and over 3,100 statues. I marked on the map the location of my hotel; then the location of the Duomo. I drew a red arrow between the two. Maybe I’d get there and maybe I wouldn’t; that was beside the point. What mattered was that when I stepped out of my hotel I knew which way to turn. Once I did that, the flow of the city would carry me along. Perhaps even to the Duomo.
Outside, the rain had stopped and the sun was struggling to break through the clouds. The busy street that ran past the hotel was not very inviting; its gray buildings, mostly offices with a few banks and dreary coffee shops scattered between, depressed me. But I continued to walk, turning one corner and then another and then another. At the last turn I found the Milan that spoke my name.
Before me, at the center of four tree-lined streets, was a small green park, where two young women were walking, pushing babies in their strollers. An old man sat reading the newspaper. Children ran up and down the paths, their high-pitched voices shrieking in delight. A woman sold gelato from a stand, filling the cups with pale green pistachio ice. I bought some.
It was then I heard it; the sound of a tram rumbling around the corner, its clang clang clang as familiar to me as Grandmother’s voice calling me to supper. It was the sound I grew up hearing in Baltimore, where trolleys plied the streets like pleasure boats, ready to take you wherever you wanted to go. They’re gone, now—the streetcars of my youth—but here and there some of the metal tracks still gleam above the asphalt surface of a street.
I stood at the Piazza Quattro Novembre and watched the tram approach. It looked exactly like the Number 8 streetcar that Mother and I took downtown to see the newest MGM movies at the Century Theatre. So strong in my mind was this connection that when the tram stopped to let off passengers, I jumped on without a second thought. What did it matter where it was going? I thought. Getting lost was not a consideration. I was already lost—if lost means not having the slightest idea of where you are.
The interior of the tram was charming. I settled back into one of the polished wooden seats next to an Art Deco lamp and looked through the window. As the streets and shops and neighborhoods slid by—streets and shops and neighborhoods I’d never seen before but recognized anyway—the dislocation I felt dissolved. Odd, I thought, how the past makes its presence known no matter where we travel.
I spent most of the afternoon riding on trams, hopping off whenever I saw something interesting: a neighborhood, a church, a piazza, a street. By this time I was in love with Milan.
I was particularly drawn to a neighborhood called the Brera. Once the center of Milan’s bohemian life, the Brera now combined an art student ambience with unique shops and galleries catering to the upscale shopper. Bookshops, bars, boutiques, and restaurants of every kind and price dotted its meandering cobblestone streets. After stopping to study the menus posted outside several of the restaurants, I decided to come back to the Brera for dinner that night.
Before returning to the hotel, I walked back through the Brera to La Scala. Although musical performances did not begin until December, guided tours through the beautiful opera house and its museum of operatic memorabilia were offered. I found the museum particularly fascinating. Verdi seemed to be the star here, with more than half the museum space devoted to his career. I studied his scores, in awe of the man who marked down these black notations that expressed so much in such small strokes.
A man’s voice, that of an Italian speaking English, suddenly broke the silence. “He was a wonderful man, a great man, our Verdi.” I looked up and saw an elderly man standing next to me, studying the scores. He was dressed in a dark suit, one that had turned shiny from too much cleaning and pressing, and a white shirt frayed at the collar.
We began to chat about Verdi. “When he died a great crowd turned out in the streets,” the man said. He then went on to tell me of the Rest Home for Musicians that Verdi financed and built. Composers were given preference at the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, followed by singers, conductors, and orchestral musicians. As he spoke I wondered, but didn’t ask, if he was a resident at the home.
Later, on my way back to the hotel, I thought of Verdi’s Rest Home for Musicians and its similarity to Gertrude Jekyll’s Home of Rest for Ladies of Small Means. Perhaps there are similar rest homes, I thought, scattered around the world like an aberrant chain of Hilton Hotels.
In my hotel, I stopped at the door of a room filled with voluminous bridal gowns. Inside, a short, heavyset woman stood ironing the hem of a dress. The deft manner in which she moved the iron across the tricky satin material was as delicate as a butterfly landing on a leaf.
As I stood watching, a pink-cheeked young woman who obviously had been out running—she was wearing a gray sweatsuit and Nike running shoes—paused at the door. “What’s going on?” she asked in a voice that was unmistakably American. I told her about the trade show. “So if you’re looking for a wedding dress,” I said, “you’ve come to the right hotel.”
Just then the woman ironing the dress gently removed it from the board and transferred it to a padded hanger. “Ah, look at that one,” the young woman said. “Bella,” she said to the seamstress. “Molto bella.” The seamstress smiled and replied with a nod. She began moving toward the door, carrying the bouffant gown high above her head. But a struggle ensued in the doorway: she was unable to get both herself and the dress through the opening.
“Avanti dritto,” the American said, taking hold of the front end of the dress and guiding it and the seamstress through the doorway.
“Grazie,” said the Italian woman.
“Prego,” replied the American.
We watched the woman and the dress march down the hallway together, a happy couple who, unfortunately, would soon be parte
d.
“You speak Italian?” I asked, turning to the American.
She laughed. “No. That’s pretty much my entire repertoire. Except for quanto costa.”
She had an easygoing way about her, the kind of outgoing attitude that often is associated—rightly or wrongly—with Americans. Her appearance matched her manner: long, copper-colored hair casually pulled back into a ponytail and no makeup except a pale gloss of lipstick. I judged her to be in her early twenties. I asked if she’d been in Milan long.
“No. I arrived this morning. At least I arrived at the airport this morning. By the time I found my way out of there and got to the hotel it was afternoon.”
“Ah, yes, the enchanting Malpensa,” I said. “I had the same experience when I arrived there today.”
After a few minutes spent in exchanging war stories about Malpensa, she asked if I knew of a good place for dinner. “A place where I would be comfortable eating alone.”
“Not really,” I said, explaining I didn’t know Milan at all. “But I walked through an interesting neighborhood today. It’s called the Brera and it’s loaded with places to eat. I thought I’d head back there tonight for dinner.” I hesitated, then decided to go ahead with what I was thinking “Would you like to come?”
“I’d like that very much,” she said. “What time did you want to go?”
I suggested we meet in the lobby at 8:30. She agreed.
“By the way,” she said, putting her hand out, “I’m Carolyn.”
I laughed. “I can’t believe I didn’t introduce myself,” I said, shaking her hand. “I’m Alice.”
“The place we’re looking for is somewhere near the end of a little street called Via Fiori Chiara,” I told Carolyn, after consulting my map. The taxi driver had dropped us off in front of the Piazza della Scala, just opposite the opera house. From there we set out to find the Tuscan restaurant I’d spotted earlier that day.
The streets were pleasantly crowded with both locals and tourists out enjoying the evening. Carolyn and I fell into step, strolling along at a leisurely pace, stopping often to peek into a lobby or bar. We were in no hurry to reach our destination. In fact, we almost jettisoned the Tuscan restaurant plan for a piano bar that served pasta. But when we stepped inside, the noise level forced our retreat back to the street. After walking another block or two we arrived at Via Fiori Chiara. Ten minutes later we were seated in the Tuscan trattoria, raising our wineglasses in a toast.
“Cin cin!” Carolyn said.
“Cin cin!” I echoed, clinking my glass of Chianti against hers.
We decided to share several dishes offered on the menu. Each of us was surprised, pleasantly so, to learn the other ate little meat. After much discussion we narrowed down our choices to bean soup with pasta, baked omelet with artichoke hearts, and “Treviso salad,” a combination of two varieties of radicchio. Dinner was a leisurely affair, with each course separated by as much as half an hour. By the time our warm zabaglione arrived, Carolyn and I were exchanging life stories the way old friends do.
Carolyn, I learned, was twenty-four and a graduate student in art history. She had interrupted her studies, however, to join her boyfriend, Rob, in Italy. They were engaged to be married.
“He’s doing a year’s graduate work in Florence, and it was too good an opportunity for me to pass up,” she said. “Finally, after all the years of looking at pictures and reproductions of Renaissance art, I’ll get to see the real thing.” She planned to spend three days in Milan before taking the train to Florence. “There’s some wonderful art in this city that I’d like to see. And who knows if I’ll have the chance again?”
It was her first trip to Italy, but not to Europe. The daughter of a military man who moved from place to place, she had lived a few years in Germany during her early teens.
We finished our coffee and asked for a bill. The young waiter, who had been flirting with Carolyn all evening, made quite a show of saying in English, “It has made me the most happy to come to the table of so beautiful women.” Later, I told Carolyn it was very smart of him to include me in his flattery; it had earned him a larger tip.
Although it was almost midnight when we arrived back at the hotel, a small band of people were still setting up bridal displays. Carolyn and I stopped again to peek in the door of a room on our floor. A smartly dressed woman was sitting inside, taking bites out of a sandwich and sipping wine. When she caught sight of us, she called out “Buona sera.” Carolyn and I returned her greeting. “Good evening,” we said, almost in unison. To my astonishment, the woman motioned us to come in. Then, in accented English, she said, “Are you here to buy from the show?”
I explained we were just guests at the hotel who couldn’t resist the tempting display of silk and satin gowns.
“Oh, look at this one,” Carolyn said, pointing to a champagne-colored satin dress that was elegant in its simple cut and lack of adornment.
“Yes, that is the right color for your hair and fair skin,” the woman said, rising to pull the dress off the rack and spread it before Carolyn. She turned to me. “Your daughter has good taste.”
Carolyn and I exchanged glances. “Yes,” I said, “even as a little girl she showed a great deal of taste. Remember, Carolyn, how you would never wear frilly dresses?”
“Yes, Mom, I do remember.” She paused. “I always wanted to be just like you.”
Then Carolyn asked the woman a question that surprised me. “What does a dress like this cost?”
“Quite a lot,” she answered. “I think in American dollars something like three thousand dollars. Are you getting married?”
“Yes, I am,” Carolyn said. “In Florence. Next month.”
“What a beautiful city to marry in. And what a beautiful bride you will make.”
It was growing late. I could see the fatigue in Carolyn’s face. I didn’t need to look at mine to know I was dead tired. “You’ve been very kind, Signora, to take so much time with us,” I said.
“No, it is my pleasure,” she said. “Tomorrow will come only the buyers shopping for their stores. It is nice to see a real bride.”
We left for our rooms. There were so many questions I wanted to ask Carolyn, but there would be time for that tomorrow. We already had agreed to spend the day together. But I had to know just one thing before we parted. I asked if it was really true that she was to be married in Florence the following month.
“Yes, it really is true,” she said, turning to unlock her door. Then, turning back to face me, she said: “Good night, Mom. See you in the morning.”
Over the next few days Carolyn and I spent most of our time together. We visited museums, reconnoitered the lobbies of expensive hotels, ate in cafés, trattorias, and bars, explored hidden streets, sat peacefully in parks and churches, took a day trip to Lake Como, and, in a moment of heart-pounding madness, climbed the stairs to the roof of the Duomo for a breathtaking view of Milan.
I learned a lot about Carolyn in the days we spent traipsing around the city. First of all, that she was fun to be with. She was the kind of spontaneous traveler willing to ditch a preplanned schedule in favor of seizing the moment. We also shared a number of interests. Art, for one thing. And, for another, a view of the world that was equal parts affection and amused skepticism.
During one of our dinners together Carolyn talked with enthusiasm about her upcoming wedding. “We don’t really have any plans about where or how we’ll get married. The only thing we’re sure of is that it will set the Guiness record for ‘World’s Cheapest Wedding.’ ” She said it matter-of-factly, with no trace of “poor me” in her voice.
I already knew Carolyn was on a tight budget; we factored that in each time we chose where to eat or what to visit. And she had talked a bit about taking a job in Florence to supplement her fiancé’s foundation grant. “I’m thinking about teaching English, but I’ll take any job I can find,” she said. “After all, art history majors can’t be choosers.”
By the time ou
r last day together in Milan arrived I knew I wanted to give Carolyn some kind of wedding gift. What exactly, I didn’t know. But since we had reserved the whole day for a tour of one of Europe’s most fashionable shopping streets, Via Monte Napoleone, my plan was to surprise Carolyn with a small gift of her choosing.
By mutual agreement, Carolyn and I dressed more grandly than usual for the deluxe occasion. Which meant a black suit and white silk sweater for me; and for Carolyn, a nicely tailored khaki pantsuit worn with a white linen blouse. We called them our “power shopping clothes.” Of course, once we hit Montenapo—as the locals affectionately call the street—we laughed at our attempts to look like the gran’ signora and signorina.
The Italian women were gorgeous; the young ones as ripe and luscious as peaches, the not-so-young a glorious combination of elegance and mature sensuality. Draped in the latest fashion and wearing astonishing jewelry, they walked along the streets chatting and gesturing, carrying their shopping bags like badges of honor.
“And ye shall know them by their shopping bags,” I said to Carolyn, as we ticked off the famous designer names imprinted on the chic bags: Versace, Pratesi, Fendi, Armani, Valentino, Bulgari, Missoni.
The shops themselves were imposing monuments to the power of achieving status through fashion. The saleswomen inside were no less imposing. As elegantly turned-out as their customers—some more so—each ruled her domain like a queen, favoring this one with a smile and that one with a look that said “tourist sightseer.” It required a whole lot of Attitude just to enter such a shop. But Carolyn and I hit on an approach. Before pushing open a door, we took a minute or two to slip into the right Attitude. Like actors rehearsing for an audition, we practiced being haughty and dismissive. Sometimes it worked. And sometimes it didn’t.
Without Reservations Page 18