Without Reservations

by Alice Steinbach

  “But that is as close as you can get, signora. If you know turquoise you know this is a good match.”

  “But I have seen turquoise in just the shade of my bracelet,” Vivian said.

  “Well, perhaps, signora, you should buy that turquoise,” the salesman said curtly, removing the turquoise earrings from the black velvet pad. He was dismissing Vivian. And she knew it.

  “That would never have happened if I’d been with Hal,” she said, walking back to the hotel. “Or if I were a younger woman.” She sighed. “That’s the worst thing about growing older. People dismiss you. As though you were a child.”

  “Oh, Vivian, you’re much too much of a force to be dismissed,” I said. My reassurance, however, did not cheer her. For the first time on the trip, she looked tired.

  As I lay in bed that night I thought of Vivian’s remark about optimism. Or, more to the point, her observation about the difficulty of maintaining optimism as you grow older. I thought about the bittersweet feelings I had in Milan as I watched Carolyn go off to begin a new life. Everything was ahead of her, I had thought then. Including the idea of time as an infinite presence. Unlike me, she had not yet heard the faint sound of a clock ticking.

  But as I lay in bed in Venice, thinking about the people I’d met on this trip and the challenges and excitement that each day brought, I heard no ticking. Instead I thought about how I had surprised myself this year by jumping in to reshape my life before life stepped in to reshape it for me.

  And, I reasoned, if I could reinvent myself once, I could do it more than once.

  The next morning brought a surprise. When I arrived at Florian’s for my cappuccino, the Piazza San Marco was almost entirely under water—in some places by as much as a foot. To allow pedestrians to cross the square, catwalks had been set up on metal trestles that rose a few feet above the water. Fascinated, I watched as people struggled to navigate the narrow wooden planks. Since pedestrian traffic flowed in both directions like a two-lane highway, crossing required not only balance but nerve. Particularly disadvantaged were the new arrivals to Venice, those just deposited by vaporetto and searching for their hotels. They had the added burden of dragging their luggage with them across the makeshift platforms.

  “It’s the acque alte,” said the waiter, standing next to me in the arcade outside Florian’s. “The high waters from the lagoon.”

  I had read about the acque alte. I knew that each year, usually between October and April, exceptionally high tides poured through the three gates and into the city. The Piazza San Marco was particularly vulnerable, the waiter told me, because it is the lowest point in Venice.

  After watching for several more minutes, I mounted a plank that would deposit me near the less-crowded Castello neighborhood. The group was leaving for Florence after lunch, and before we left I wanted to check out an inexpensive pensione recommended by a friend. I already knew I wanted to spend more time in Venice, and this place sounded quite nice.

  Sadly, I never got there.

  Halfway across the catwalk a major pile-up occurred when some school kids, out for a joy walk, decided to play a version of “chicken” on the narrow planks. After placing themselves on a collision course with oncoming tourists, they would wait to see who would give way first. Naturally it was always the adults who chickened out, jumping into the foot-deep water. When my turn came I decided it was better to jump than fall. Several tourists behind followed me, like lemmings, into the water. A big splash ensued. I got soaked.

  Later, sitting in my room, my clothes hung on a chair to dry, I consoled myself with thoughts of what a good story it would make when I got home. Although it wasn’t exactly like Katharine Hepburn falling into a canal—I did jump, after all, not fall—there were some similarities. It involved Venice, for one thing, and water, for another.

  In the next few weeks, as the group worked its way south, the days and the towns passed by quickly. We were like a touring company of actors: always on the move, packing and unpacking, checking in and checking out of hotels, catching trains and buses on a schedule that allowed us to wake up in Perugia, have lunch in Rome, and go to bed in Sorrento.

  And like any group thrown together in a strange situation, we developed the sort of we’re-in-this-together, for-better-or-for-worse camaraderie that I found appealingly familial. It was something I missed, the sense of sharing those small, daily experiences that, as far as I can tell, are really what life boils down to.

  I particularly enjoyed being around Marta and Bernie. Often we shared meals together, using the time to agree on or argue about books, politics, personalities, and what we liked or didn’t like about the trip. If I had to pinpoint what drew me to Marta and Bernie, beside their humor and interest in the world, it was this: the three of us just liked one another. And we all knew it.

  It was in the hill towns of Tuscany and Umbria, however, that the depth of Marta’s character began to reveal itself to me.

  Because Marta’s weight limited the amount of walking she could do on the steep streets of towns like Amalfi and San Gimignano, she sometimes spent the afternoon sitting in a café or on a hotel veranda with a view. There, with the town’s activity going on around her and the olive groves stretching out beneath, Marta sat, taking in the essence of that particular place. Sometimes, when I grew weary of long lectures inside museums and churches, I would abandon the lecturer—as Whitman had abandoned his “learned astronomer”—to join Marta outside in her quiet vigil of the Italian countryside.

  On one such occasion in Assisi—a town with streets so steep it was like walking up the face of a cliff—Marta said, “I know some of the others think I shouldn’t have come on a trip that involved so much walking and climbing. But I don’t feel I’ve missed a thing. Just look out there.”

  It was late afternoon and we were sitting in the warm sun of the Hotel Subasio overlooking the Umbrian countryside. Beneath us, stretched out as far as we could see, was a patchwork quilt of hills, olive groves, and terraced vineyards.

  “You’re right, Marta,” I said. “I can’t imagine anyplace I’d rather be.”

  The hotel just outside the city walls of Siena looked fabulous. An historic sixteenth-century villa surrounded by olive groves and gardens, it was the epitome of Tuscan charm. It was a little after six in the evening and we were lined up at the receptionist’s desk, waiting to check in. We were all tired and hungry and not looking forward to the predictable delay that accompanied the processing of a late-arriving group.

  “I hear the rooms here are lovely,” Vivian said, as we stood in the lobby waiting to be shown to them. I could tell she was anxious. It was becoming clear to her that single travelers, despite paying a surcharge, did not get the best rooms in the house. Although I thought the practice of penalizing someone for traveling alone was unfair, I’d grown used to it. Vivian, on the other hand, had not. It distressed her to be assigned to what usually amounted to a small room with little or no view.

  When our turn came to follow the bellhop to our rooms, he ushered us, along with the third single woman in the group, through a door leading away from the main hotel. After climbing a flight of steps and crossing a hallway, we found ourselves in a modern annex. There was no sign of any other guests in this part of the hotel. The bellhop stopped to open one door, and then another and another. I stepped into mine. It was a dreary room with a musty smell. Since it was dark outside I couldn’t tell if it had a view.

  Oh well, I thought, it’s only for two nights. I started to unpack; in an hour we were to drive into Siena for dinner. I heard a tap on my door. It was Vivian. “Is your room as bad as mine?” she asked. I could tell she was upset.

  “Maybe worse,” I said, waving her in. She looked around but said nothing. “So, what do you think?” I asked.

  “It’s just like my room. Dreary and depressing. I’d call down and ask them to move me but I’m just too tired.”

  I put my arm around her. “Vivian, what you need is a great dinner and some good win
e. So go change your clothes, put on some fresh lipstick, and we’ll hit the road.”

  After Vivian left I looked around the room. She’s right, I thought. It is a depressing room.

  To my surprise, Vivian was in fine form by the time we sat down to dinner. We had been joined by four others at our table: Marta and Bernie, and a couple from Chicago, Betty and Herb. The restaurant, located near the breathtaking Piazza del Campo, was casual and charming, with delightful food and local wine. It turned out to be the perfect antidote for travelers’ fatigue, a malady that, to a greater or lesser degree, we all felt. For three hours we sat, eating and drinking and talking and laughing. With each course we raised our glasses and toasted each other: Cin cin! Then others in the small restaurant began joining in, calling across the room, Buon appetito. Cin cin!

  Although Vivian clearly was enjoying herself, sometimes I caught her glancing at a table nearby. There, a young couple sat, whispering and holding hands across the table, oblivious to anything but each other.

  “Tell me the truth,” Vivian said as we were leaving. “Wouldn’t you give anything to be like them? To be in love and part of a couple?”

  The truth was, it had never occurred to me. I was having a wonderful time.

  But later that night, alone in bed, I thought of Naohiro and a certain dinner in Paris, one during which nothing existed for me but the man across the table.

  In Perugia I had a room with a view. Situated at the top of a winding road that leads up to the old city, the hotel commanded a panoramic view of the Umbrian countryside. From my room I looked down into the tops of the trees lining the road and beyond that to the Tiber valley.

  It was early morning, the start of a long day, and I was tired. I’d spent a restless night, dozing mostly between long stretches of wakefulness. At one point I’d gotten up to get a drink of water, only to find I couldn’t remember where the bathroom was. Was I in Siena? Was the bathroom to the left? Or was I in Florence and the bathroom to the right? For a minute or two I stood there, totally disoriented. It frightened me, this black hole in my thinking; I wondered if this was how elderly people felt when unable to retrieve a memory.

  Through the window I saw the light of dawn rising, a curtain lifting to reveal the day. I opened the shutters and stood looking out for a few minutes before gazing down into the treetops below my room. There, nesting in the upper branches, were dozens of birds. It was an odd perspective, looking down into the nests of birds instead of up. I felt like a voyeur. Then, as if some secret signal compelled them, they suddenly rose into the air, a graceful white-and-gray squadron. As they lifted off, the branches beneath them swayed slightly and the leaves shivered. The small sound reverberated in the air like a tuning fork as it nears the end of its vibrations.

  From Perugia, we were to travel by train to Rome and then to Sorrento. On the bus to the station we were told that a train strike, already affecting travel north of Perugia, might force a change of plan. Of course, anyone who’s ever taken a train in Italy knows the threat of strike is always lurking about and ignores it. But this strike was genuine. And it was traveling, as we were, from north to south. In Perugia we were able to board the train to Rome. But what would happen in Rome, where we changed trains? All day long we felt as though we were moving just ahead of a giant wave, one that was about to break and drag us under.

  Still, nothing—neither anxiety nor fatigue—could dull the sharp pleasure of the landscape between Perugia and Rome. Through the train window I gazed out at the hills set in bold relief against the horizon. Along the top ridges, rows of tall trees marched in single file like an army on the move.

  In Rome, the train station, as usual, was noisy and crowded; this time, however, an element of chaos was added to the mix. After a long lunch in the city we returned to find that our train to Naples was still scheduled and on time. The train was sleek and fast and like most of the others I slept sprawled across the seat until we arrived. In Naples we boarded a bus headed for Sorrento. But first we stopped at Pompeii.

  Because it was late in the afternoon, Pompeii was almost empty. We wandered leisurely through the ruined city where men and women and children lived in their time as we live now in ours, believing then, as we do now, that death was far off in the distance. We saw where once they slept and baked bread and made love and raised families. Now, only stray dogs, sleeping in Pompeii’s cool shadowy tombs, offered any signs of life.

  But the drive from Pompeii to Sorrento banished the eerie spell cast by the ghostly city. The fertile beauty of the Campania region is a reaffirmation of life itself. We drove as the sun set in a ribbon of light across the shimmering Bay of Naples. Through the windows of the bus I could see olive groves slanting down to the water, covered with gauzy harvesting nets that looked like communion veils. And finally, into view came Sorrento, glorious Sorrento, with its colorful tiled roofs and scent of orange blossoms, perched on sheer cliffs high above the deep blue Bay of Naples.

  I felt we had entered a different country. Here, there was little of the commerce of Milan or the brooding mystery of Venice or the art-filled museums and churches of Tuscany. We had arrived in a country ruled by the Mediterranean climate; by the intense heat and sun that even in October left most of the city streets empty between late morning and late afternoon. Here, everything flowed from that heat: the pace of life, the daily routines, the lush foliage of the palms, crepe myrtle, and orange and lemon trees.

  For a brief time, we stayed in Sorrento. Settled into our glorious hotel high above the Bay of Naples, we ate fine food and swam in the pool and visited Capri and sat on the gorgeous terraces sipping cold drinks, thoroughly enjoying the chance to do nothing.

  From Sorrento we rounded the tip of the peninsula and began the drive up the Amalfi Coast, along the Gulf of Salerno. The Amalfi Drive, a narrow winding road that cuts in half the whitewashed villages tumbling down the slopes of the Lattari Mountains, was breathtaking. So were the towns that we visited. Sun, flowers, coves to swim in, turquoise skies, and unparalleled natural beauty surrounded us: it was heaven on earth.

  The problem for me was: I seemed to prefer earth on earth. The Amalfi Coast was almost too much of a good thing. The gorgeous countryside and picture-book villages approached the level of a fairy tale. I yearned for the dark alleys of Venice or the busy streets of Milan.

  Enough is enough, I thought one day upon arriving in yet another sun-drenched whitewalled village dripping with red and white oleander, smart shops, and ten thousand steps to climb. But then I remembered what some philosopher or other had pointed out: you cannot know what is enough until you know what is too much.

  But just when I thought I’d arrived at the point of knowing “too much” apropos the Amalfi Coast, we pulled into our last stop of the trip: a little village called Ravello.

  The road to the medieval village of Ravello rises from the sea and zigzags up a long steep incline terraced with vineyards and lemon groves that, from a distance, look like yellow confetti scattered across the hills.

  Because of its isolated location, Ravello is not as much on the tourist circuit as other towns in the area. The day we arrived, the streets were pleasantly uncrowded; an air of normalcy prevailed as the local villagers went about their daily errands.

  To reach the center of town required a long walk up many steps. I lagged behind with Marta, ducking in and out of tiny shops and peering through gated doorways. In the courtyard of one house we spied a family of cats. A few were full-grown, but most—at least a dozen—were kittens of various sizes. Marta, also a cat fancier, stopped with me to watch the feline circus going on inside the gates. While the adult cats engaged in a hilarious round of territorial strutting, the kittens proceeded to stalk blades of grass, pounce on sticks, bite each other on the neck, tip over pots, and fall into small ditches before dozing off, one on top of another.

  “Makes you homesick for your cat, doesn’t it?” Marta said, laughing at their antics.

  “More than you know,” I said.r />
  Actually, a small breeze of homesickness had been blowing over me for the last few days. I suspected, however, that I wasn’t homesick for anything I would find at home when I returned. The longing was for what I wouldn’t find: the past and all the people and places and cats that were lost to me. I’d been thinking a lot about that lately—the inevitability of separation, in one form or another, from all those we love and, in a different way, from ourselves as we were in the past.

  But there would be time enough to face down those feelings in the weeks ahead; this was my last day with the group and I intended to enjoy it.

  Although I do not believe in love at first sight—not with a man, anyway—I do believe it’s possible to fall instantly in love with a place. As soon as Marta and I emerged from the narrow lane and entered Ravello’s pristine town square, I felt the zing of Cupid’s arrow hitting my heart. I was smitten instantly. But why Ravello? I wondered. Why didn’t I fall for sparkling Amalfi or dazzling Positano? For some reason I found myself comparing the three towns to men. If Amalfi were a man, I thought, he’d be dressed by Calvin Klein and reading Tom Clancy. Positano would wear Armani and carry a book by John Le Carré. But if Ravello were a man—ah, Ravello!—he would be in chinos and a fresh white oxford shirt with no tie, buried in a book by Graham Greene.

  After spending the morning touring one of Ravello’s spectacular cliffside villas, the entire group gathered for lunch. We met at Salvatore’s, a family-run trattoria overlooking the Gulf of Salerno. For me it was a good-bye luncheon; after returning to Rome that night I would be leaving the group.