Tailwinds Past Florence

by Doug Walsh

  Outside by the tent, Kara paged through a French phrasebook, refreshing her memory, as Edward approached with a bottle of wine. Their titanium coffee mugs dangled from his finger.

  “I couldn’t let us spend our first meal in France without some vino.”

  Kara smiled, opting not to remind him they weren’t in Italy. “Were you carrying that all day?”

  Edward laughed. “I’m flattered, but you think too highly of me. I asked Louis if I could buy a bottle from him while you were showering.”

  “Louis?”

  “The guy who owns this place. Anyway, he refused my money. Says it’s local.” Edward removed the cork with his teeth and sloshed two generous portions into the mugs, which he set on the grass. “He also gave us this.” Edward unveiled a block of cheese from his pocket.

  Kara warmed with delight. This was the France she knew most Americans never got to see. The generosity, the desire to share. And she was so happy Edward could experience it. “See what happens when we slow down?”

  Edward nodded thoughtfully, then took a sip of the wine. He smacked his lips. “That’s really good.”

  Kara took the flimsy plastic cutting board and knife from the bag of kitchen supplies and sliced the cheese as Edward scooted next to her. He took another gulp of the wine and turned to face her square on, anxiousness written all over his face.

  “So, I was thinking—”

  “I can tell.”

  He laughed. “That obvious, huh?”

  She nodded.

  “I was wondering if you’d want to head through the Alps after Paris, instead of going through the Pyrenees.”

  “The Alps?”

  “Yeah, it’ll give us more time in France,” he said, plucking a piece of cheese from the board. “And we can try some of those big climbs in the Tour de France. Maybe Alpe d'Huez. Doing it fully loaded would be tough, but we can handle it,” he said, giving her leg a squeeze.

  “What about Spain? You know how much I want to see Madrid and Barcelona.”

  Edward paused. It was brief, but Kara noticed it, like a derailleur slow to shift gears. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Of course,” he said apologetically. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Forget I said anything.”

  Kara watched as Edward forced a smile onto his face. Was it an honest mistake? Had he just been buttering her up this past week, hoping she’d agree to forfeit the one destination she wanted most to visit?

  She rolled the mug of wine between her palms as she questioned her own intuition, wondering why his request so unsettled her.

  Chapter 20

  Friday, May 15 — Florence, Italy

  Alessio rushed through his evening duties, restocking toilet paper and wiping sinks and mirrors with the haste of a schoolboy scribbling his homework so he could play. Now he stood behind an empty table, his grip tight on a plastic tray as he watched the cafeteria door. Why did Hiromasa insist on inviting him to dinner if he wasn’t going to be punctual?

  Worse, it was too early to eat. The tourists haven’t even wandered in yet, but Hiromasa had taken to suppering as soon as he finished his work. His landscaping efforts left him ravenous and he liked to turn in early, he often said. Their disparate schedules were exacerbated by the start of the campground’s high season, and they seldom saw one another for more than a few minutes each day.

  Alessio scowled at the mound of pappardelle with Bolognese sauce heaped before him, sprinkles of pancetta clinging to the ribbons of pasta. He twirled his fork in the noodles with disinterest, having grown as bored with food as he had with what he’d come to consider his twenty-first century imprisonment. His freedom to venture beyond Florence (and go where?) offered no comfort. He was as much inmate as jailer, tarrying for God’s pardon.

  Hiromasa entered five minutes later, appearing freshly showered, his black hair damp against his head, a clean uniform shirt tucked into pants free of grass stains. Alessio shifted uncomfortably in his seat, the residue of the day’s toil clinging to him.

  “Not eating?” Alessio asked, as Hiromasa approached empty-handed.

  “The pizza oven isn’t ready. But don’t wait for me. Eat.”

  “Only the elderly eat at this hour.”

  Hiromasa waved Alessio’s comment away with a flick of his wrist and laughed. “Oh, Alessio, you’re always so grumpy.” He shook his head in a tsk-tsk motion. “You should enjoy life.”

  The door swung open before Alessio could respond, and Hiromasa turned anxiously to look. A young couple entered and waved. “Pardon me,” he said to Alessio. Then, motioning to the pasta, “Go on, before it’s cold.”

  Hiromasa approached the couple as if they were long-lost friends. He shook the man’s hand and hugged the woman, smiling his toothy grin as they kissed cheeks. The couple nodded along as Hiromasa gestured helpfully in various directions.

  Alessio didn’t know which bothered him more: that Hiromasa seemed to make friends so easily, or that he acted as if he’d been here his whole life.

  Alessio forked a crisped chit of pancetta and recalled their talk amongst the rose bushes. Hiromasa had sailed to Italy in 1615 from Nagasaki, a translator with the Keicho Embassy. He and the other Japanese Catholics aboard the ship were baptized in Mexico, then continued on, over land and sea, to the Vatican. Hiromasa remained in Italy to further his language studies, eventually learning English in a pontifical college in Rome.

  Hiromasa described falling in love with a Florentine woman named Isabelle, his perfect companion. “I felt our souls melding as one, like the Chinese yin and yang of harmony,” he said when telling the story. Alessio remembered himself nodding, innately knowing what was meant even if he himself didn’t understand the exotic phrasing.

  Now he stared as Hiromasa joked with the cook rolling the pizza dough. The Chinese reference was still lost on Alessio, but the sentiment had been echoing in his mind for weeks. As were the specifics concerning Hiromasa’s appearance in modern Florence.

  After much prodding, Hiromasa had also divulged how his relationship with Isabelle unraveled. Though he had considered the clergy’s suppression of life’s greatest joy to be unhealthy (a comment that made Alessio blush, recalling his own celibacy), he respected their rules prohibiting marriage despite having never been ordained. And when Isabelle forced him to choose between her and his future in the church—

  “Well, here I am,” Hiromasa had said, snapping a rose stem.

  “Here you are,” Alessio repeated, lost in the memory.

  “Yes. Sorry to keep you waiting. Wine?” Hiromasa placed a carafe between them and slid a glass over.

  Alessio looked from the wine to Hiromasa, not noticing his return. “You perplex me.”

  “Really? How so?”

  Alessio leaned over his plate and whispered. “You’ve overcome an additional two hundred years of change and are more at home here than I will ever be.”

  “Must we really discuss this again?”

  “How can you not be curious about our situation?”

  “You’re mistaken. I’m very curious. I spend my entire day asking questions, learning, studying.” He scanned the room in a quick motion and lowered his voice. “Sometimes I sneak into the office to use the computer. There’s a machine called the Internet—”

  “That’s not what I’m referring to,” Alessio interrupted.

  Hiromasa sighed. “Yes. I know.” He took a sip of wine and licked his lips. “Perhaps it’s my Buddhist upbringing that separates us. But, I have chosen to accept that which I cannot control.”

  Alessio shook his head and retreated to the state of palpable ennui he’d been cultivating for weeks.

  “You must learn to accept this new reality for what it is,” Hiromasa said.

  Alessio rolled his eyes, thankful he hadn’t burdened his earlier life with such well-intentioned friends. “What reality?” he challenged.

  Hiromasa spread his arms across the table and smiled.

  “This isn’t real,” Alessio countered, locking eyes wit
h Hiromasa, finally deciding to see what Hiromasa thought of his theory. “We didn’t one day wake up in the future. This is purgatory. We’re dead—being here is our soul’s punishment.”

  Hiromasa’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what you believe?”

  “Nothing here is real. This food,” he said, inverting a forkful of pasta, “We eat out of habit, not because our bodies need nourishing. We work to earn shelter from cold, but not because we will freeze to death. We’re already dead. We just don’t remember dying.”

  “Then why do we not see the glow on others?” Hiromasa reached his hand across the table toward Alessio. His blue energy arced toward Alessio, as if his aura was trying to bond.

  Alessio pulled his arm away.

  “What is this sin you feel you’re being punished for? I ask not out of curiosity, but because I am here with you. And for all that is holy, I cannot see a reason why God would penalize me.”

  Alessio ran a hand across his face. “It wasn’t my fault,” he said through clenched teeth. Alessio balled his fists and glared at Hiromasa, his eyes stinging with fury while his nails dug into the meat of his palms.

  Hiromasa tipped his head and affected a look of kindness. “Perhaps confession could ease your burden?”

  “You’re no priest.”

  “No, but certain allowances can be made for our situation.”

  Alessio looked around the restaurant. The young couple had left and the cooks were either in the kitchen or outside smoking. They had the room to themselves. But why confess? He was being punished for another’s sin—he had neither knowledge nor consent.

  Hiromasa prodded gently, as if trying to coax a skittish squirrel out of doors. “Tell me.”

  Alessio took a deep breath as his reluctance crumbled. “She made a fool of me.”

  “Sylvia?”

  He winced at the sound of her name. “Yes.”

  “Were you together long?”

  “We met the prior year, in 1844. I traveled to Florence twice annually, to gather art and supplies for my gallery in Valetta. We endured the time apart knowing it made the reunion that much sweeter, but …”

  “Pre-marital relations are not uncommon, my friend.”

  Alessio shook his head. “That wasn’t it. She wanted me to stay. Before I left in the spring.”

  “I’m sure she knew she would miss you.”

  “Perhaps, but I couldn’t ignore my gallery. I had nine trunks filled with paintings. Early summer was my busiest season. I had to be there before the British boarded the steamers heading north.”

  “So you returned to Malta. And Sylvia?”

  “She stayed in Florence. I promised I’d only be gone a few months, like usual. And I stayed true to my word. I returned in August and called for her.” Alessio reached for the wine and drank deeply as he replayed the memory of their rendezvous, the emerald gown she wore, the scent of her violet perfume. “She accompanied me straight to the guest house—”

  “The one where you awoke in February?”

  Alessio stared into his lap as he searched for the words. “The time away made me realize how much I needed her in my life. I decided to propose to her, hoping she’d overcome her reluctance to move to Malta if she were my wife—”

  “Did she say yes?”

  Alessio looked up after several seconds, dizzy with anger. He could feel his chest growing hot, his nape on end. “We made love. Afterward, I was helping her fasten the hooks on her dress, when, with my hands on her hips, she reached into a pocket and slipped a ring onto her finger. ‘I married,’ was all she said.”

  Hiromasa exhaled a long, pitying breath.

  “She pulled on her hat, collected her purse, and left me standing there. I could barely breathe, let alone speak. From the doorway, she hesitated and, without turning to face me, said, ‘I still love you, Alessio Argento, but I will not come second to your gallery.’”

  Tears blurred Alessio’s vision, but he refused to acknowledge them. “Sylvia walked out of my life forever that afternoon, with no idea that in my attaché was a most splendid engagement ring.”

  Hiromasa slumped in his chair, solemnly shaking his head. “Your Sylvia and my Isabelle made the same choice.”

  “She made me an adulterer!” Alessio roared, slamming the table, causing the plates to jump and the carafe to wobble. “I would have never bedded a married woman.”

  Hiromasa recoiled, but kept quiet.

  “And now I’m stuck here. Was it not enough to wake that morning having to experience the heartache anew? After decades alone, replaying every moment and decision that led to her rejection, now I’m stuck in this future world—a Florence of foreigners!”

  “You must remember to trust in the Lord with all your heart—”

  “God’s will be damned,” Alessio hissed. Guilt forced him to reflexively seek forgiveness for his shocking words, but he stopped halfway through making the sign of the cross. Piety was getting him nowhere.

  “Perhaps there’s a way back to our own times, although I must admit that I find the notion of voluntary time travel absurd.” Hiromasa tented his hands and tapped his fingertips as he thought. “But it is curious that we are here together, in unison. There must be a reason for our shared reincarnation.”

  “Reincarnation? Time travel?” Alessio was disgusted. “As a Catholic, you ought to know better.”

  Hiromasa shrugged. “Do you?”

  Alessio took a deep breath. No.

  All he knew was that their lives had been upended. Through divine intervention or otherwise, they had been returned to the place where their respective loves had abandoned them. But why together? And why now? Alessio reached his arm across the table and watched the bluish glow concentrate near Hiromasa’s fingertips. “What do you see?”

  “I see the blue energy on your fingers trying to connect with me,” Hiromasa said.

  “As do I, but what is it?”

  “The light behaves like quicksilver,” Hiromasa said, squinting. When Alessio began to speak, Hiromasa raised his finger, silencing him. “Though I cannot see my own skin glowing, I envision the particles dividing and joining seamlessly like liquid mercury.” Hiromasa dragged his spoon through a puddle of sauce on Alessio’s plate for effect. “Do you know what I think?”

  “I have not a guess.”

  “I can’t help but wonder if we are seeing a split soul trying to reunite.”

  Alessio cocked his head and gave a puzzled look, believing he mustn’t have heard him correctly.

  “Think of the similarities between us. Our only difference is the time we lived. Perhaps we are connected not only through circumstance, but because our bodies served as vessels for the same soul.”

  “Are you suggesting you were reincarnated into … me?”

  Hiromasa let loose with a raucous laugh. “I suppose I am. Though probably not directly. There may have been others between us. After all, you were born nearly two centuries later.”

  As interested as Alessio was in hearing Hiromasa’s theories, the idea of his soul being shared with another man disgusted him. “Your blasphemous remarks aside, how could a soul inhabit two people simultaneously?”

  “I don’t know,” Hiromasa said shrugging. “But perhaps that’s why we’ve been brought back to Florence. Look at us. We’re not old men. We were, once, but we’ve returned as young as we were when our beloveds abandoned us.”

  “You sound like a poet. Any more wine and you’ll start quoting Plato.”

  Alessio delivered the quip by instinct, his quick tongue always ready with a sarcastic jab or obscure reference. But the allusion to The Symposium wasn’t in vain. As soon as he said it, he realized the Greek philosopher’s concept of soul mates may have been exactly what Hiromasa was hinting at.

  Hiromasa stared from across the table, his face as wide and bright as the morning sun. “I hadn’t considered it before, but our reunion, at the time and place where they—our soul mates—deserted us, cannot be coincidence.”

  Alessio
mouthed the words, soul mates, feeling the pang of his broken heart return. “Do you believe Isabelle and Sylvia shared the same soul as well?”

  “I do. Isabelle and I. You and Sylvia. I see no reason why their soul and ours couldn’t have found one another countless times over the centuries.”

  “The world is a big place,” Alessio said, unconvinced.

  “But a magical one, would you agree? There could be millions—billions!—of souls in the air, passing time, waiting to join and split.” Hiromasa again placed his hand near Alessio’s “Look. Just like the sky above.”

  Alessio tipped his chin in the direction of a cook approaching with Hiromasa’s pizza. He refilled their glasses with the house red as he waited for the man to leave. “But I still don’t understand why we returned.”

  “If there are others sharing our soul, then perhaps something happened with those properly alive in this time, a trigger that brought us here.”

  The notion that Sylvia may have also returned invigorated Alessio. And even if she hadn’t, Hiromasa’s suggestion made some sense to him. Their souls might be present in this era, inhabiting a couple alive today. It was unlikely, a guess at the unexplainable, he knew, but comforting nonetheless. What if his return to Florence wasn’t punishment, but a trial? What if this was a reward for his devotion. He had to find her: Sylvia or her modern vessel.

  Would he recognize her?

  He looked across to Hiromasa and watched the Japanese man eat his pizza. Sylvia could be anywhere in the world, he thought. Anyone.

  But they were soul mates, as Hiromasa said. Their paths would have to cross.

  With that thought came the kernel of a plan, one that would absolve the wrongs of the past—and in the process return him to his proper time.

  “I’m going to find her.”

  “Who?”

  “Sylvia, of course,” Spittle flew from his lips as he spoke. “She’s the key to my going home. We’ll adjourn to the Florence of my memory. As one.” Alessio vibrated with a purpose he hadn’t felt since waking in February. He stood abruptly, knocking over his chair, and looked into Hiromasa’s stunned face. “Thank you.”