by Liska Jacobs
The heat hits us before we’ve made it to the top, the cicadas buzzing like electric saws.
Paul wants to stop in the gift shop with the rest of the tourists. Junk, cheap religious trinkets. Gold-plated pendants, devotional cards and pens emblazoned with an image of the Pope. I talk him out of buying me a souvenir book. “Don’t you want to get something for Guy?” he asks, flipping through it so I can see the catacombs once more. “No, thank you,” I say. On the cab ride back into the city, I try to replay that image of Donato in his window.
“What did you think?” Paul interrupts me.
“Of the catacombs?”
He motions to the scenery passing by. Hannah has fallen asleep on my shoulder. “The whole thing.”
“It’s amazing, unreal.”
“That’s truer than you realize. Men on their Grand Tour expected to see the Rome of the Neoclassical period—the stuff of Piranesi, and James Barry, Jacques-Louis David. Those cypresses and stone pines.” He points. “They were planted to add to the evocativeness. You can’t tell the real Rome from the fantasy.”
A set after all, at least partially. I’m oddly comforted by this, a familiar artificiality. I look out my window, the sun is beating hard against the glass. Unmarked slabs, ruins, more ruins, arid fields. It feels urgent that I remember last night. I close my eyes. His bedroom light turns on—and for a moment his body is in silhouette. Then sleek, hard lines. I can hear my bra unclasping. How serious his expression was, and those large hands gripping the windowsill. I replay it over and over—afraid, because already the memory feels insufficient.
* * *
Marie’s treat is an afternoon at a day spa, a hammam, in the Jewish Ghetto. When Paul drops Hannah and me off after the catacombs, she and a girlfriend are already waiting for us.
“We were at school together,” Marie explains to me. “And our sons are in school together. We are old friends.”
“You know Donato?” I ask.
“She doesn’t speak very good English,” Marie says. The front desk attendant sells me flip-flops and a pair of gloves. Hannah and Marie and Marie’s friend have brought their own. In the locker room there is classical music playing and it’s warm, warmer than it was outside.
“I love humidity as long as I’m naked,” Hannah says, pulling off her shorts and shoving them into a locker.
“Was it a very long tour?” Marie asks. She helps her friend unhook her bra.
“Ugh, endless.”
They slip out of their clothes without a whiff of self-consciousness, as if they’ve been naked around each other a hundred times before.
“Do you need help?” Marie offers, because I’m not as quick to undress as them. I realize I’m wearing the same bra from last night, when I exposed myself to her son.
“No, no, I’m fine,” I say, waving her away.
They’ve wrapped themselves in towels, and after I’ve done the same, we file through the far door and continue down a set of stairs, where it’s darker and warmer. We emerge in what looks like an ancient underground church. The walls are concave brick, there is incense burning, frankincense and amber. And another, mustier smell, similar to the catacombs, to Rome after a rain shower. Candles give the illusion of a place for pagan worship. Everywhere are naked women. Short, tall, dark, white—every color in between.
Some are old, much older than me, their breasts sagging painfully, their areolas enormous, their nipples pinched and shriveled.
I watch Marie and her friend lie on their towels. I don’t think either of them has ever waxed. There are dark patches of pubic hair between their fleshy thighs. Marie has a slight paunch to her stomach, a few long, angling stretch marks. Her friend has a similar round body. I imagine they were pregnant at the same time, only Marie’s friend looks like she’s had more than one child. When she lies back she makes a grunting sound as if all her bones were settling. She has many stretch marks; there is a sunburst tattoo around her navel.
Emily developed terrible striae when she was pregnant. She tried every lotion and balm, but nothing helped. It’s caused by the tearing of the dermis, she told me, running a hand over her bulbous stomach. Her breasts were so large and tender, it hurt to wear a bra at all. Her ankles and calves swelled.
An attendant squeezes a gooey substance into my hand, speaking in Italian.
Hannah whispers, “Black olive soap. Rub it on your body, but not on your face.”
The soap is oily, with a dense, earthy perfume. I watch Hannah spread it along her slim limbs, over her flat stomach and pert backside. Such confidence. Emily was the same way. Unfazed by being looked at, whereas I was more inhibited. One of us had to be. Hannah even has the same narrow hips and slight bowleggedness. She shaves the pubic area, which looks bumpy and chapped, like just-plucked chicken skin.
I stay seated on my towel and work the soap down my neck, feel the mole at the base, the delicate skin in the front. My collarbone feels more protruding than usual, and my breasts, loose. How embarrassing. Had I really shown them to Donato? I try to remember how it felt when I was young and naked in front of Guy. But usually it would happen without me having to get undressed. He could slip my underwear off easier if I was in a dress or skirt, which was how he liked me. Those first two years of our relationship there was a sense of the clandestine, as if my nakedness were tinged with danger. We cannot get caught, he would breathe. Hurry, hurry, let me help you. He continued to prefer me that way, even after we told my parents about us. I remember how puzzled I was by my mom’s reaction. Dad frowned a little and said nothing. But Mom, she looked surprised, in the way that someone is surprised by their own strength. It made her feel good, I think, to have a young daughter who could romance a man whose career was just taking off. It was the only time I felt disgusted by the whole thing.
I look at Marie, who is standing now, and lathering her body with the soap—that belly, which had once carried Donato. Her extra weight is sensuous. There is no denying it. Other women steal glances in her direction. She’s short, with petite hands and feet. Maybe she was a runner at some point, she has beautiful calves, a plump round ass. Her breasts are larger than mine, the areolas dark. How easy it is for her to be naked. Casual in her manner, luxurious in her lathering and rubbing of herself. It is erotic watching her. Vo-lup-tu-ous.
After a few minutes we dip gold bowls in the running water, pouring them over one another. No one talks, we do not even make eye contact, except fleetingly. The attendant collects us one at a time. I go first, following her to another side room. She tells me to lie down and, using the gloves I bought, scrubs my arms and legs until my skin is electric and tingling. At my stomach she hesitates and then is so gentle she might as well be tickling me. What does she see there? That I’ve never had children? She’s just as careful around my breasts, and I wonder how they compare with others she’s seen. What did Donato think when he saw me? I replay that dark expression, uncertain now. I feel my face flush, but the lighting is so dim I don’t think she can tell. “Turn over,” she says. I’m obedient, and she quickly scrubs my backside. When she’s done she tells me in stilted English to shower.
After, I’m led into a third room with a large pool. The attendant hangs a robe on one of the hooks, motioning that it’s for me. When she leaves, I’m alone except for the sound of water, which cascades from a lion’s mouth. I have not swum naked since Emily was alive. When she was pregnant she wanted to swim in the Pacific during the full moon. How could I say no? She was so uncomfortable, swimming was the only thing that gave her any relief. At the water’s edge she coaxed me into undressing. Don’t worry, Cilla, she said. We’re the only ones here. We walked into the surf, Emily hesitant and awkward because of how large she was. Give me your hand, I said. She followed me out for once. How free it felt, cresting a wave in the nude, the moon lighting up the water and our bodies like diamonds.
I hear splashing. Marie’s friend smiles timidly. “Ciao,” I say. “This is very relaxing.” She nods.
“Your
son went to school with Donato?” I try again.
“Donato, sì,” she says. “Un bel ragazzo.”
She motions to my stomach, speaking in Italian. I imagine she is asking if I have children. I shake my head. “Zia,” I tell her.
She gives me that look, the one that says there is a divide between women who have children and those who do not. She is privy to something I can’t understand. But I was there for Emily’s labor. I know what that part of it was like. They gave her Pitocin almost the moment they got the IV in. Hours went by, the nurses coming in and out to check her dilation. Paul trying to keep her breathing even. Then they put a balloon in her cervix. She was in a tremendous amount of pain. She kept looking at me as if I might be able to do something. I took her hand, talked nonsense into her ear. About the baby, about the new menu at the restaurant we liked on the pier. Anything, because they could not get her epidural in and she was crying and digging her nails into my hand. The drugs helped, but only for an hour or two.
Marie is in the pool now. She speaks to her friend in Italian.
“How was your treatment, Cilla?” she asks me.
“Wonderful,” I say, and pretend to be so relaxed I have to keep my eyes closed.
After the epidural everything happened quickly. There was blood, a lot of blood. Paul turned white. The doctor ran into the room, shouting orders to the nurse, and then Emily was carted away for an emergency C-section.
“Oh, that was heavenly!” My niece splashes into the water.
I keep my eyes shut. I don’t want to remember how after the birth Emily would not hold the baby. She could not change her diapers. Then Hannah developed thrush and gave it to Emily. They had to be kept separate while the medicine did its work. Emily tried pumping, but the milk was sparse, an hour of pumping produced only an ounce of milk. Her nipples started to bleed. She eventually abandoned breastfeeding altogether.
I remember sitting in their master bedroom, watching Emily change her soiled nightgown. I still leak, she said with disgust. I didn’t know if she meant from her breasts, or the incision, or from her vagina.
She was examining herself in the full-length mirror. Her belly looked like loose-hanging dough, a grotesque gash stitched across her lower abdomen. She was wearing mesh hospital underwear. I could see the oversize pad, the tiny spider veins along her upper thighs. Her breasts were tightly wrapped in an effort to dry up the remaining milk. Ruined, she said, examining herself. She has taken everything from me. I thought she might cry, but instead she laughed.
“Do you think my skin will look like that when I’m old?”
I open my eyes and Hannah is sitting next to me in the water, examining her arm against mine.
I must give her such a look, because she says, “Jeez, I was just wondering.” I swim to the steps and get out, saying something about being dizzy. But I did not want her to keep looking at the sunspots, the freckles, the thin crepey skin. I don’t want to see Marie and her friend’s nakedness anymore. I don’t want to be reminded of the differences between us.
* * *
Club Fluid is subterranean, beneath the Villa Borghese Gardens. I can hear the bass thumping from the parking lot. Marie and her girlfriend are in line beside me, speaking in Italian excitedly.
Isn’t it awkward to go to a club with your son? I had asked Marie, who had showered quickly when we got back from the spa and returned to Paul and Hannah’s in a breezy wrap dress. I was struck again by her overwhelming femaleness. Her full breasts and petite waist. Her skin was glowing.
Romans love to have a good time at any age, she’d said, twin chandelier earrings almost brushing the tops of her shoulders.
“I’m so excited,” Hannah says, grabbing my hand. Her two British girlfriends are here too, towering over us in their stilettos.
“Papa never lets me go out this late.” She kisses me on the cheek. “It’s only because you’re here.”
It’s a mild evening, but the air is electric. It’s as if every young Roman was cooped up during the hot afternoon, and now the boys have slipped into their starched dress shirts and tight designer jeans—the girls in anything that will flatter their long, slim limbs and robust cleavage. Nearly everyone is smoking.
I almost didn’t come. During dinner I was tired. I had trouble keeping up with the conversation. When Marie’s friend got a phone call, I watched her face brighten and I thought, with interest, maybe it was a lover.
Her son, Marie said, leaning toward me. He’s already at Club Fluid with Donato.
I imagined seeing Donato there, with Marie nearby. I made an excuse—I was exhausted from the spa, from the morning spent at the catacombs. But Hannah pleaded with me. Please, please, Cilla. Please.
And then Donato texted as I was getting out of the shower.
—Coming tonight? it read.
—Who is this? But already I suspected. That warmth stirring.
—Donato.
I grasped my towel tighter, looked across the courtyard at his window. But it was dark.
—There are VIP tickets at the front for you all.
Heat in my chest as I wondered how to respond.
—See you soon, Hannah replied, adding a kissy emoji.
I had been so thrilled to see a foreign number, I hadn’t noticed she’d been included too. Nevertheless I could not resist going. I even let Hannah do my makeup.
“There’s Donato!” Hannah cries, pointing and trying to get his attention.
I spot him at the front of the line with the bouncers. Silvia is with him, her hair brushed into a pomp; the halter dress she’s wearing has cutouts at the waist. Donato’s arm is casually draped over her shoulders. His crisp collared shirt is very tight; I can make out every lean muscle.
“Donato, Donato,” Hannah calls, waving.
He comes over to us, kisses his mother and her friend on their cheeks. They laugh and smile, slapping him playfully when he flatters them in Italian. I can tell Hannah is waiting for her turn. She blushes when he spins her.
“Bellissima.” He whistles.
When he looks at me it’s with the same calculated charm. Only he’s quick about it, he does not mention the silk crepe dress I’m wearing, the one from the shop on Via Condotti. He does offer me a cigarette.
“Cilla doesn’t smoke,” Hannah reminds him.
He smirks. “Ah, sì. I forget. Ready to go in?” He gives us wristbands that will get us free drinks, and then ushers us from the line, past the bouncers and into the club.
It is an instant assault of grinding bodies, of a thick, not unpleasant heat. Flashing lights—blue, white, pink, purple. I can’t make anything out. And then Hannah and her girlfriends are gone. Donato too. I look around, but I’ve been left with Marie and her friend.
“Donato reserved us a booth,” Marie shouts to me, and signals that I should follow her.
I push my way through the crowd. Everywhere are women, most not older than thirty, all of them red-lipped and kohl-eyed, with delicate sloping noses, bare shoulders and legs. They are dancing almost on top of one another, their teeth bright white and perfect. A bartender comes by with shots for anyone who will kiss him. Marie’s friend leaves a fat lip print on either cheek. Bacio, bacio, she mouths to me. I shake my head. No, thank you.
A waitress takes us past a velvet rope, to a big round booth where a bottle of champagne sits in a bucket of ice. Marie and her friend are beaming.
Marie leans over to me. “Is this like Los Angeles clubs?”
I nod my head, although I have no idea.
Just then sparklers are lit, and the DJ stops the music. Cristiano is standing on the bar, friends on either side of him. Marie’s friend is hollering and whistling and waving frantically.
“The one on the right is her son,” Marie tells me. “Donato’s best friend.”
He isn’t as good-looking as Donato; his eyes are smaller and closer together. Even in the poor light I can see acne. I recognize him, though, as one of the boys at Silvia’s, when we were drinking on
her terrace. I can’t remember his name, maybe something biblical.
I want to go to Malibu and eat at Neptune’s Net, he had said to me when he learned where I was from. Like Keanu Reeves in Point Break.
The boy motions for the crowd to cheer, and they do. It is thunderous. Silvia is in the DJ booth now, I recognize that outrageous pomp. She plays what must be an Italian rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Everyone is singing along. Waitresses saber bottles of prosecco, spraying Cristiano. Silver confetti falls from the ceiling. The music launches again, and the sleek young mob dances feverishly, arms in the air.
My head throbs along with the bass. Why had I agreed to this? I plug my ears with my fingers. I feel ridiculous beside these twenty-somethings. Marie and her friend apparently do not. They’re drinking the champagne and bopping their heads to the music. I watch a group of girls pucker for a photographer. They’re practically falling out of their tops.
I hear Emily’s voice. Prude.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I tell Marie, and slide out of the booth. And I’m thinking of those catacombs, seemingly endless. I can see Emily, the version of her in that coffin. Embalming, the displacement of blood and interstitial fluids by embalming chemicals. I had looked the process up, after Mom insisted on a viewing. She was so beautiful, she cried. I want to see her one more time. The body is washed in disinfectant, limbs are massaged and manipulated, eyes glued closed, mouth and jaw secured with wires. The embalming solution contains dye to simulate a lifelike skin tone. A warm peach tone, the funeral director told us. I could barely stand it.
I make my way to the second floor, where the music isn’t techno, only sultry R&B. There are couches tucked away from the dance floor. I can sense bodies roiling atop them. I look away when I realize I’m staring.
“Cilla.” Donato slips his arm around me. “You don’t have a drink.” He hands me his, which is bright blue and frothy.
“Thank you,” I say, and drink the whole thing because I can feel the heat of his hand through the silk of the dress. “Where’s my niece?”