by Doug Walsh
The comment caught Edward by such surprise he barely avoided showering the women with a mouthful of beer. How long had it been since Cobain died? He couldn’t remember, he wasn’t even ten years old when it happened.
“So, what about you? Where are you going?” Kara asked, a bit too anxious to be on the listening end for once, Edward thought.
“I rented the RV for three months—my boyfriend is meeting me in Seattle, actually. But I may keep it the whole year. Your country is so big.”
“Yeah, tell us about it.” Kara said with friendly sarcasm.
“Ah, that’s funny. Because of your bicycles.”
“I’ve never met a foreigner touring the U.S. in an RV before. What do you think?” Edward asked.
“I only started in Chicago, but the scenery is so beautiful and the people are much friendlier than I expected. We hear so much about guns, and I know many people in Germany are scared to travel to America, but—”
“Well, we’re not carrying one,” Edward interrupted. “Chips?” he asked, passing the Pringles.
Ineke peered in the can then passed it to Kara, her lips pursed.
“Not a fan?” Kara asked, tipping a small stack of powder-coated orange chips into her palm.
Ineke scrunched her face up like a ball of aluminum foil and shook her head. “I am having a hard time digesting your American food.”
Edward settled in with his beer as the conversation shifted to the state of food in America: the over-priced, low-quality produce, the same restaurants in every town serving greasy, sauce-slathered meals. As a captive member of Kara’s congregation, he’d heard her sermon numerous times before.
“The key is to not eat at any restaurants that advertise on television,” Kara said.
“But I don’t have television.”
“Then you have to follow my other rule. Stay away from restaurants near highway exits.”
An epidemic. That’s what Kara called it the last time they went to visit her family. Her favorite pancake restaurant had gone out of business. Now the only place in town serving breakfast was a Subway. Even Edward had to admit, seeing the town’s old-timers squeezed into a yellow laminated booth, solving the world’s problems over cups of coffee at a Subway, felt wrong.
“Places like Applebee’s and Chili’s? They’re just McDonald’s with waiters,” Kara continued.
“Hey, I like McDonald’s,” Edward teased.
Kara rolled her eyes. “Ignore him.”
Ineke laughed, eventually. As if she couldn’t decipher Kara’s sarcasm. The group stared at the campfire and fell into brief silence, save for the pops and snaps of the embers.
Kara was the first to break the peace. “Tell us more about your trip. How long will you be in the States?”
“I’m on sabbatical for one year.”
Edward and Kara recoiled in surprise and offered their congratulations.
“The university where I teach lets us take every fourth year off in exchange for paying less of my salary. So every four years, I travel. This year I’m seeing the United States.”
“You get to take every fourth year off?” Edward asked.
Ineke smiled. “Yes.”
“But you’re not getting paid, right?”
“I still get paid. But instead of collecting all of my paycheck every year, they deduct twenty-five percent and let me take every fourth year off.”
“That’s amazing.” Kara said. “I wish we could do that.”
“I don’t know. That sounds crazy to me.”
“Most professors don’t do it,” Ineke said. “They think they need the money.”
“Don’t your colleagues get mad? And what about your students? You must be an adviser to some of them?”
Ineke shrugged. “If they get mad, they never say anything to me.”
“But still, what about your responsibilities? Your research?”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t do it if it was frowned upon,” Kara said, giving him her best dial it down a notch look.
Fair enough, he thought. He was drinking her beer, after all. No reason to be rude. “Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fantastic,” Edward said, slowing his cadence. “I don’t think I could do it.”
“What about this trip you’re on? Isn’t cycling around the world going to take you away from your work for several years?”
“This was Kara’s idea,” he said with a laugh. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t get passed over for a partnership.”
One sentence. So concisely worded. So easily avoidable. He knew it before the words ever left his mouth.
“Well,” Ineke said, rising from her chair, “I guess Kara should thank your former employer for her good fortune.” Edward watched Ineke give Kara a sly, almost pitying glance, her eyebrows raised. And in Kara’s return glance, he realized Ineke merely said what Kara had been thinking ever since that night in the American Legion.
Edward finished the night in silence, wishing he could float away in the tendril of smoke rising from the campfire. He listened as Kara and Ineke traded travel dreams and discussed Kara’s work as a graphic designer, counting down the minutes to when he’d silently steal out of the tent to use the restroom, the phone tucked in the pocket of his shorts.
Chapter 12
Tuesday, February 17 — Florence, Italy
Alessio sat at the table, a forkful of pasta raised to his mouth, when he heard the key slide into the lock. He knew this moment would come. Three days ago, he returned to the apartment and found the bed made and fresh towels in the bathroom. Since then, he slept in his clothes, kept what little money he possessed on his person, and only took his boots off to sleep. He even knocked when returning. Just in case.
The key turned, then stuck. Alessio could hear the key being jiggled, then turning freely in the other direction. He bit down on the bucatini, savoring the taste of the garlic and tomato, and in that fleeting moment that hung between his domestic life and homelessness, he said a silent prayer, thanking God for the days he had in the apartment.
A young couple entered, as tall as trees with hair like corn silk. Matching suitcases trailed behind them on wheels the size of coins. Alessio twirled the pasta on his fork and spoon and took another bite, refusing to leave unfinished what might be his last warm meal. The couple startled, their smiles vanishing from their angular, confused faces. They spoke rapidly, in a guttural language Alessio didn’t recognize, but one he pegged as Scandinavian. Maybe Dutch.
He finished the last bites of pasta, brushed his hair behind his ears, and stood.
“Me scoozy, pour fa four,” the woman said in mispronounced Italian. “Me scoozy?”
Alessio scanned the room to ensure he wasn’t about to leave anything behind, then slid the chair under the table.
“Is there a conflict? We have a reservation,” the man said in English. “The host said the apartment was ready.”
The couple parted as Alessio approached, leaving a current of tension swirling in their wake. Alessio had every intent of walking silently out the door as if the couple wasn’t even there, but he couldn’t help himself. He turned to the woman and repeated the words mi scusi twice, conducting the pronunciation with his hand, an invisible baton clutched between his fingers, rising and falling on each syllable.
He could smell the pizza on her breath.
Alessio reached for the woman’s suitcase, holding her gaze, and grasped the handle, his finger brushing hers. He turned and thrust it toward the man, letting go in one swift move. The bag wobbled back and forth as Alessio eyed the taller man. “A gentleman carries his lady’s luggage.”
Alessio descended the stairs as the couple’s awkward laughter faded into his ever-expanding past. At the door, he counted his money. The thirty-five euros were enough for a few meals, but not much else. Though he tried to be frugal, he expected this nightmare to have been over by now. But it had been five days since he awoke in the future, five days without indication he was returning home, to Malta, to the ninetee
nth century. He needed somewhere to stay long term, maybe a job too.
Alessio knew where to go, but not even the heat of the midday sun could warm him to the idea. He’d find a place to stay in the ghetto. Public decree corralled the city’s Jews in a perpetual state of poverty, but there was always room for more. Thieves, prostitutes, and drifters called the area home as well.
With his hands balled inside his jacket pockets, Alessio made his way north along the via, then took a deep breath and turned west. The serpentine alleyways of the old quarter felt familiar, but something was amiss. The area had been swept of its filth and poverty. In its place stood clothing boutiques and neon-lit hotels and restaurants bearing Anglicized names.
Alessio couldn’t be certain—after all, he hadn’t been to Florence since 1845—but he suspected he hadn’t gone astray. Nevertheless, not only had the decrepit Mercato Vecchio been erased, but the entire Jewish ghetto along with it.
Alessio’s hand trembled as he approached a merchant selling leather bags and journals on the edge of a large square. “Excuse me, what is the name of this piazza?”
“Piazza della Repubblica.” The man replied without looking up from the flashing device in his hand.
Alessio repeated the name as he scanned his surroundings. The deplorable conditions he expected to find ringed by a haphazard array of plaster-coated tenements were gone. The ramshackle dwellings had been torn down, their foundations leveled to make room for canopied cafés. Palatial buildings now surrounded the square, walling off the area, funneling one’s attention to an arch bearing an inscription.
L’ANTICO CENTRO DELLA CITTA
DA SECOLARE SQUALLORE
A VITA NUOVA RESTITUITO
“The ancient center of the city restored from age-old squalor to new life,” Alessio read aloud. Age-old squalor. The only remnant of the ancient center was the stone Column of Abundance. Alessio didn’t so much as sit on the column’s base, as much as the stone pedestal caught him as he stumbled backward, the strength gone out of his legs, the oxygen abandoned his head.
Alessio scanned this one-time hovel in disbelief. One hundred seventy years had passed and the only constant was the paving stones. As gray as his mood and loose in their mortar, they wiggled nervously with each footfall, as if they too were trapped out of time, wishing escape.
Tourists shuffled along as old men fed pigeons where urchins once begged. Alessio considered the quiet an affront to the boisterous souls that once called this area home. Across the piazza, a red and gold contraption with obscenely painted horses sprang to life. Music echoed across the square as the horses spun gaily round and round, whisking children in circles.
Alessio tensed as he realized the world had moved on, obliterating the memories of the past. Thousands of people had taken shelter here—their singular refuge—and the only acknowledgment of their struggle was a sign commemorating their poverty? “Squalor,” he spat. “That’s their legacy?”
Infuriated, he swiped at a nearby pile of leaflets, sending them fluttering to the ground. A woman strolling past in a fur coat gave him a disapproving look, and Alessio glowered at her.
A flyer landed faceup between his feet, an advertisement for a nearby hotel with rooms for ninety-nine euros per night. He stared at the impossible price, reminded of his impoverished state, and realized he too had left no mark—or descendants to call upon.
The oblique reminder of his failed love affair stirred up old emotions, like an anchor dragged along the seafloor. He reached for the flyer, an effort to swim free of the murky memories, and chafed upon seeing the hotel named after Michelangelo. For even in the future, there was no escaping the master’s shadow.
As a young artist, Alessio struggled to market his own style during a time of the Renaissance’s growing popularity. So he took to imitating the styles of Titian and Giotto and, yes, Michelangelo. But this too failed to produce steady income. So he turned to outright forgeries.
When incurable tremors negated his skill with a brush, he transformed his studio into a gallery and made thrice-annual pilgrimages to Italy. His time in Florence had always been short, washing ashore from Malta on business for a month at a time, on the hunt for hidden talent. His years as an art dealer had been profitable, but all-consuming.
Alessio recalled the paintings he had sold and flattered himself, believing he may have imbued those who visited his gallery with some artistic appreciation before returning home to England. Perhaps, some of his earlier, less scrupulous wares had survived the years. He smirked, imagining one of his fakes still hanging in a family estate, proudly shown to guests, passed as an original.
“Tourists could be so gullible,” he said, shivering as the statue he sat upon sapped his warmth.
The comment sparked an idea, a path to shelter. Alessio crumpled the leaflet and tossed it into the rising wind, knowing he had to act before nightfall, or rain. Before the tourists scattered for the evening. He hurried back along the main thoroughfare to Piazza del Duomo, envisioning what he must do.
From atop the cathedral’s steps, he studied the crowd of tourists, hawkers, and locals coming and going. Amongst the chaos, patterns emerged. The tourists meandered, their heads craned to take in the cathedral—or tilted downward, focused on the rectangular devices in their hands. Some clustered near the baptistry, foreigners packed shoulder to shoulder, gawking at the intricately carved eastern doors. It was a perfect trap, and Alessio soon had his mark.
A lone man, probably British, pushed his way through the crowd, his knapsack partially unzipped and dangling from one shoulder as his wallet bulged in his rear pocket.
Alessio knew from the delinquencies of his youth that the rear pocket pinned a wallet close to the body and was ill-suited for lifting. But not this time. The man’s pants drooped at the waist and the pocket sagged open, torn at the corner.
“Forgive me, Father,” he whispered as he waded into the crowd. Alessio approached the baptistry doors, feigning awe, as if he too had never seen the site before.
The onlookers crushed against one another, man and woman alike, each pushing forward for a closer look, their photographic devices raised overhead. Alessio neared the man with the opened backpack and stumbled forward, intentionally. As he bumped the target’s shoulder, his hand darted out, plucking the wallet from the slack pocket. The man turned around, alarmed. Alessio apologized, and having surmised that English had become the de facto language of the tourist circuit, added, “Your bag is unzipped, you should close it before something goes missing.”
Alessio glanced at the bronze doors, and his eyes, as if pulled by a higher power, settled on the panel depicting the story of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. He squeezed his eyes shut, defiant. What choice did you leave me? He slipped between the onlookers behind him and hurried toward the north side of the cathedral, the wallet clutched tight within his jacket sleeve.
His heart raced as he skirted a leather shop and several cafés, bypassing the line of visitors waiting to climb to the dome. He pulled open the door to a hotel and, trying his best to fit in, slowed his pace and followed a red carpet down a lengthy hallway to the lobby.
“Buon Giorno,” he said with a terse nod to the clerk before taking a seat on a leather couch behind a partition. Alessio knew the key to being discreet lay not in trying to be invisible, but in perfecting an air of the ordinary.
His palms were sweating. He hadn’t picked a man’s pocket in years. How many? Forty? Ten? Two hundred?
Was it always this easy? Would it be worth it? He dropped his hands between his knees and carefully unfolded the wallet, his legs shielding his gains from view. Alessio extracted the slippery currency from the billfold as a man settled onto the chair across from him.
Alessio did his best to affect an air of nonchalance. He slid the wallet into his pocket while stealthily stuffing the cash into his jacket. He offered a polite smile, as if the two were waiting for a train, the only passengers on an otherwise empty platform.
The man
appeared Oriental, probably no older than Alessio but it was hard to tell due to his closely shorn hair. He was dressed in blue denim, a heavy wool sweater rolled at the neck, and thick-soled boots. The man stared with his head canted to the side, a bemused look on his face, and his hands folded loosely in his lap.
Alessio stood to leave, only to see the man rise in unison, his gaze fixed on Alessio. Wondering if he had been caught, his string of petty thefts ran through his mind, lashing him with guilt: the cleaning fee, the boots, and now a wallet. You call yourself a Catholic?
Like a cornered dog, Alessio stared back with menacing eyes. On the verge of demanding to know what the man wanted, he thought better of it. He softened his expression, nodded politely, and turned to retreat to the crowded streets beside the Duomo. That’s when a hand grabbed him by the wrist.
“I believe I can help you,” the Oriental said in whispered Italian.
“Who are you?” Alessio demanded, wrenching his arm free of the Oriental’s grasp. He puffed out his chest and glared at the shorter man.
“My name is Hiromasa. Please sit so that we may speak.” His voice was sweet yet firm, like chilled honey, and he smiled with a disarming innocence as he motioned to the couch.
Alessio wanted to berate him for his insolence, but was trapped, stunned by a shimmering light radiating off the man, fringing him in blue, like a holy aura. He wondered how he hadn’t seen it earlier. Alessio’s eyes watered as he stared at the angelic glow, entranced. Fearing he might be experiencing a migraine, he sat—and immediately cursed himself for having done as told.
Hiromasa sat alongside him with a pitying look often reserved for idiots. “I’m sure you had a noble reason for stealing that man’s wallet.”
Alessio felt himself stuttering as his heart raced. He’d been caught. But he was at a loss for words, spellbound by the light.
“Never mind the wallet,” Hiromasa said, exposing a mouth of crooked, yellowing teeth, “Though I suppose if you’d like to confess your sins, I may be able to accommodate you.”