Are We There Yet? (20 page)

Elijah and Julia go to a French movie with Italian subtitles. Then, as the languages intermingle in their memory, they return to the hotel.

That night, the rhapsody of
us
returns, in physical form. They have a conversation of movements, silent from the moment they walk in the door. They undress each other completely—tracing, gliding, holding. Only the bodies whisper. Breath signals. Fingers entwine.

It is almost like floating. It is that simple, that understood.

Elijah closes his eyes. Julia kisses his eyelids. He flutters them open, and Julia whispers
“no.”
So he closes them again, and the moment continues.

Elijah feels colors, and wonders if he's in love.

The next day is July 4th. Danny wears a red-and-white Polo shirt and a pair of blue shorts. He can't help himself.

In the morning, he heads to the ruins. He thinks he will beat the midday heat, but in this he is wrong. The day is scorching, the lack of shade relentless. Danny loses interest quickly. The area he sees, with its rows and rows of broken columns, must have once been grand. But now it is only rows and rows of broken columns. They are not even beautiful. They are merely, admirably, old. Danny takes a few photos, but it's more for historical reasons than out of any visual pleasure.

It is soon unbearably hot. Danny throngs to a streetside vendor in search of Evian. The line is long, but Danny doesn't see he has a choice. As he waits, a hand taps him on the shoulder.

“Danny Silver?” a voice asks.

Startled, Danny turns—and is even more startled to see Ari Rubin, from Camp Wahnkeemakah.

“Ari?”

It must be—what—seven years? More?

“So it
is
you. That's unbelievable.”

Ari looks amazing. Tan, tall, his hair no longer in a bowl cut.

From Camp Wahnkeemakah. Ages ago.

He doesn't look at all the same. Except it's recognizably him.

“What are you doing here?” Ari asks.

“Vacation,” Danny replies, still stunned. Ari was his best friend for three straight summers. They were pen pals for two summers after that, and then drifted apart.

Seven years? More like ten.

Danny has to turn away to buy his bottles of water. But when he turns back, Ari is still there, beaming.

“And what are you doing here?” Danny asks.

“Working.”

“Business?”

“Pilot.”

Danny laughs.
Of course
Ari is a pilot. Ari, whose mother would send him a new model airplane every week. Ari, whose bunk smelled like Krazy Glue and balsa wood.

A pilot.

“I can't believe I recognized you.”

“Me neither.”

They lost touch because Danny lived in New Jersey and Ari lived in Ohio, and neither of them liked to talk on the phone. But when they'd been at camp, they were nearly inseparable. They planned all their activities together, requested the same bunks, and even tried to be on the same Color War teams. There was one time, the second summer, when Danny had been stuck in the infirmary with a flu bug. The only thing to do in the infirmary was watch videos. Which would have been an unparalleled delight, except the only two movies they had were
Annie
and
Predator.
Danny would have gone absolutely bonkers if Ari hadn't come to his window at every available break, telling him what was going on and making jokes to count away the hours.

Danny can see that Ari is as amazed by this surreal reunion as he is. They lost touch because of the distance between New Jersey and Ohio. Now they meet up in Rome. Of course.

Ari seems genuinely thrilled, but there's also a flicker of worry, a consciousness of time in his eyes.

“You have to be somewhere?” Danny guesses.

Ari nods.

“Now?”

“Yes—but…are you free tonight?”

“Absolutely.”

Dinner arrangements are made. Danny cannot stop shaking his head at the coincidence of it all. Ari says goodbye, and as he leaves, Danny can see that he's shaking his head, too.

Still smiling, Danny heads to the old Jewish ghetto. For at least another fifteen minutes, he doesn't even think about the heat.

Elijah awakens to the sound of rain. Or at least he thinks it's rain. It's really the hotel's ancient air conditioner, struggling unsuccessfully against the heat of the day.

Julia is nowhere to be found. It is eleven o'clock in the morning, which means Elijah slept for at least four hours. The bathroom door is open and all the fixtures are silent—Julia is not in there, either. Elijah rolls over and throws on some clothes. After a few minutes of vague worry, he hears the key in the door. Julia walks in.

“Where have you been?” he asks.

“Thinking,” she replies, and it is to Elijah's credit that he realizes:
To Julia, thinking is indeed a place.

He remembers that it's July 4th, but that seems like a rude thing to mention to a Canadian. So instead he wishes her a very happy Friday, and she in turn looks at him with an almost resigned curiosity.

“Let's go to the Colosseum,” she says, and indeed they do. Strangely enough, it is not as intact as Elijah had thought it would be. He'd imagined a full and complex building with part of the rim chipped off. But instead it looks like something unearthed from the Planet of the Apes.

“People died here,” Julia whispers.

Elijah pulls her into the shade and begins to kiss her. Almost immediately, he sees he's done the wrong thing. Although Julia's body doesn't move away, it feels as if she's left it. Elijah says, “Well, then,” and the two of them move on.

They walk through the ancient city without really saying a word. Elijah wants to go to the Pantheon, but that's where Julia went while he slept. So instead they head to the Piazza Navona, in the hope of sitting down to eat. In the hope of conversation.

Elijah can see that Julia is troubled, and it is the core of his nature to want to make it better. Whenever he says
“I'm sorry,”
she tells him it is not his fault. He knows this. But he is sorry just the same.

He blames time, for there are only two days left until he must return to America. Two days left to answer the question:
And now what?

The two of them sit on a bench. Julia leans her body into his and closes her eyes. He takes this as a good sign. Although it is wretchedly hot, the sun feels good as it shines across his face. Careful not to shift away from Julia, Elijah studies his surroundings. The fountain at the heart of the piazza is beautiful, topped by an obelisk inscribed in languages from a different time. A blond boy with a pink teddy bear—he must be about six—points at an overweight couple sitting on slim cafe chairs. There is a breeze. It is nice. A group of fifty or so young Italian women passes by, trailing talk. Another boy chases pigeons. He is running in circles. Elijah closes his eyes and stays still. He and Julia are picture-perfect statues. The fountain splashes in murmurs. The breeze continues. The tourists fade away. A clock that no longer works watches over them.

Minutes pass. Elijah opens his eyes as a bride walks by. Her long gown glides across the stone, picking up the dust of the square. She smiles at Elijah smiling. Or perhaps she doesn't see Elijah at all.

A photographer arranges the full wedding party in front of the fountain—bride, groom, and an assemblage of family members, each with a paper fan to rustle away the heat.

Julia pulls away from Elijah and stands. She stares for a moment at the bride and the groom. The expression on her face is a different language to Elijah. And he cannot ask for a translation, for fear of exposing an ignorance that love can't conquer.

Love?

Julia is walking, then waiting for Elijah to follow.

“Julia,” he says. But she is already too far away.

The Jewish ghetto makes Danny feel hope and sadness. Hope because the Sinagoga Ashkenazita is still there. Sadness because it must be guarded by
carabinieri
armed with machine guns.

After a tour of the Jewish Museum, Danny heads to the Piazza Navona. He has heard that the fountain is beautiful, and it does not disappoint. A wedding party is having its picture taken in front of the obelisk. From the ragged state of their smiles, Danny can tell they've been at it for a little while. The photographer is manipulating the group into preposterous poses, using a lamppost as a prop. The groom lovingly arranges the bride's dress so that she may sit. In this heat, the bride is no doubt wishing she'd worn a miniskirt. The groom is clearly itching to take off his jacket and dive into the water.

Tourists take pictures of the photographer taking pictures.

Danny sits on a bench and watches. In a nearby cafe, a lunchtime guitarist is singing “Knockin' on Heaven's Door,” only the refrain sounds much more like “Knock, knock, knockin' on lemon's door.”

Soon the song turns to another song. And another. Danny sits and listens and watches as the people pass by.

At long last, the wedding photographs are done. Joy returns to the faces of the bride and the groom. He lifts her up and swings her through the air. The photographer fumbles for his camera, but he is too late. As the bride and groom parade back through the square, the bride looks at Danny and gives a little smile and salute. Danny smiles back, and wonders where such familiarity came from.

“Let's get dressed up for dinner,” Julia says. It is the end of the day—all the ruins have been visited, all the squares have been crossed. Elijah is exhausted.

“I'm not sure I have anything to wear,” he confesses.

“Didn't you bring a suit?”

“I'm not sure I own a suit.”

“I'll bet Danny brought a suit.”

“I'll bet Danny couldn't travel without one. Just in case there was, you know, a business emergency.”

Julia pulls a sleeveless black dress from her bag.

“Do you have anything that would remotely go with this?”

“What's the occasion?”

“Isn't it your Independence Day? Or maybe I just want to take you out to a wonderful dinner. Do you think you could deal with that?”

“I think I could manage.” Elijah triumphantly pulls a tie from the bottom of his bag.