Love is Just a Moment (2 page)

He laughed, a rich joyful chuckle. “I like that,” he said, “that is how it should be. Get on the bus and let the rest take care of itself, yes?”

“Something like that,” Rebecca smiled, feeling self-conscious now.

“No, I mean it,” Piero continued, “life is so short before it ends and you never know when it may—you should live it completely while it is still with you.”

“Exactly,” Rebecca nodded, as if that had been her attitude all her life, instead of one she was right now trying desperately to learn.

“Rebecca,” Piero said, “I have come to this village under dark circumstances. I do not know if I will leave it again. Not while I am alive at least.”

Her eyes widened. What, exactly, did he mean by that? “Oh,” she said, not being able to think of anything else to say, “I’m sorry to hear…”

He waved his hand dismissively and smiled again, though this time with a darker fire in his eye. “Please,” he said, “don’t be sorry. It is just how it is. It is, how you say, destiny perhaps.”

Rebecca considered this. He
had
just said that he thought he might die here, right? She hadn’t been imagining things? Surely he couldn’t be serious.

“Yes, it is true,” Piero said, his taut dark-skinned jawline tilting slightly as he gave a single, stoic nod. “You see Rebecca I have come here seeking vengeance against the men who inflicted a terrible grievance upon my family, many years ago, and because this is my destiny, I know I may not live to see another morning. That is why I am so glad that you are here, that I could have one more moment to experience the incredible beauty that this world can bring to us, even if it
is
only for a moment.”

Before she had time to answer, the old woman returned with a silver tray and two cups of rich black Italian coffee. It smelt wonderful, but Rebecca, staring open-mouthed at the man before her, barely noticed.

3

Did she believe him? Perhaps he was just amusing himself with the naivety of this awkward, flustered American student who’d wandered like a fish out of water into this remote and beautiful mountain village that he himself probably knew so well. After all, he did seem like the kind of guy who could readily get lost in a fantasy world of his own design (and, lord, how she wished he would take her with him there too), but somehow she felt that he might be telling the truth here. He seemed so honest and open about it, almost as if he truly was at peace with his own death now. The thought terrified her, not least of all because now that she’d met him she wanted the chance to spend many more days and perhaps even weeks in his company, if that was even remotely possible. But regardless of the attraction, no matter who he was, she couldn’t let another person walk willingly into the face of death like that.

Maybe she should just make her excuses and leave, she considered. I mean, he probably wasn’t serious anyway, was he? It was too absurd, he had to have been messing with her. She looked up at him, lost in his own thoughts as his clouded eyes peered out across the countryside towards the sea, and she knew in that moment that she would stay. Regardless of whether it was the truth or not, she would stay with him at least for the time-being and learn more about what circumstances had brought him here. And if he
was
telling the truth—then surely it was her duty to do whatever she could to dissuade him from making such a tragic mistake, wasn’t it?

“What are you thinking about?” she asked him and Piero, smiling as he was jerked with a gentle awareness back to the present moment, turned back to face her.

“I am thinking about how my father used to take us to the beach when I was young. He was such a strong, powerful man, but he was noble too and, oh, how he liked to laugh. When we went out on these trips he brought such joy to me and my mother. I remember when I was a child, no more than four or five, I was paddling in the water when I looked back to see if they were watching, but they were not looking at me. They were looking at each other, with such love and passion—some lovers lose their passion when they have children but not my parents—it was the intensity of true and burning love. And though I did not know exactly what it was, not in those words at least, I remember how I felt—how happy I was to have two parents with such love and joy in their lives to share with me. I did not feel annoyed or jealous for the attention, because even though they weren’t watching me then, I knew that they would always have enough love inside them for all of us and more.”

Squee!
Ok, it was clear then, he was a poet, even if he didn’t actually write poetry, the way he spoke… this guy had a soul as deep as the sparkling blue ocean beneath them. Piero tilted his head as he looked at her with sly inquisitiveness.

“What is it?” he said.

“It’s beautiful,” Rebecca replied, her voice quiet and careful, “what you said, that’s really beautiful. It sounds like they loved you very much.”

“Yes,” Piero smiled, “they
did
. We were not wealthy, in fact you could say that we were poor—if money was the only measure, but in that case I would say it was the one who measured who was truly poor—but I never wanted more than what we had. My father was a great man and I could only hope to achieve half that greatness in my own life. If I did I would die a proud man.”

“He’s not with you anymore?” Rebecca asked, feeling a pang of pity that was surprisingly painful to her.

“No,” Piero said, “he is dead ten years now, longer even. I am twenty-two and I have lived twelve years since his life was stolen.”

“I’m sorry.”

Piero looked pained himself now, but not because of grief for his father, more because he seemed upset at Rebecca’s reaction. “Please,” he said, “I did not mean to make you sad, we should be happy. It is a beautiful day, the island is glorious around us and we are alone with each other up here in the mountains in this wonderful little village with coffee so fine you could get it nowhere else. If you do not smile for me now, I will be very sad myself and I refuse to spend my final hours on earth in sadness and regret.”

How could she refuse? She smiled for him, and it was a genuine smile, one that widened as she saw his own smile in return, but it was also tinged with uncertainty and concern for this tragic figure before her.

Piero brought his cup to his soft lips and sipped his coffee. “Ah,” he sighed with satisfaction, “see for yourself, it is delicious. Tell me you could not get it anywhere else?”

Rebecca took a drink from her own cup and she had to admit that he was right. She’d never tasted coffee so rich and fresh and tangy and delicious. “It’s true,” she giggled, “I don’t think I could get it anywhere else.”

“Ahh, see?” Piero smiled, “even as darkness approaches there is always beauty to be found.”

“Yes,” Rebecca answered, “but does there have to be darkness? Can’t we just have the beauty, the joy?”

Piero shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “The darkness is the price. It is the only thing that lasts. All else is just a moment—love is just a moment, all life is just a moment—only death is forever.”

Well, Rebecca considered, her companion may have been able to enjoy life with such a pessimistic outlook at the forefront of his mind, but for her it definitely took away from the beauty of the moment. She placed her cup back on the table and considered him thoughtfully.

4

“But enough talk of such things—death and darkness—why focus on it now when there will be time enough later? Tell me about yourself Rebecca, tell me what brings you here to Montagna Del Mare, without even knowing why you have come?”

Ooh, good question. Was it one she could answer? Even now, she wasn’t fully sure herself just what she was doing here, but it seemed clear to her at this stage at least that if there was anybody who would understand it would be Piero himself. She wasn’t sure why, but somehow she just knew. Rebecca cleared her throat quietly and prepared herself to speak.

“Well,” she said, “I guess it’s kind of a long story…”

“We have time,” Piero smiled.

“Yes, I suppose we do. Well…” Rebecca felt a wave of discomfort as she prepared to open up to another person—a person who was in fact a complete stranger to her—which was something that she didn’t think she’d ever been able to do for all the nineteen years that she’d lived. Clenching her fingers tightly against the anxiety, she determined herself to just go ahead and take the plunge. After all, she might never even see him again after today. What did she have to lose?

“A few months ago, I came here on an exchange program from CCU, Chicago City University, where I’m enrolled back home. I’m studying Italian, though my grasp on it is a whole lot worse than your English. I’m almost embarrassed…”

“Ah yes, but here in Europe we must know English,” Piero smiled with a knowing tilt of the head, “how else would we fully enjoy the music?”

“Ha, I guess,” Rebecca smiled, “you’ve got to know the words before you can sing the blues, something like that?”

“Exactly,” Piero laughed.

“Well anyway, I thought it would be this amazing, life-changing experience for me, like somehow all the problems I had in my life back home would just disappear and I would discover my true self. I don’t know, something corny like that...”

She looked at him and the gaze he returned seemed to suggest that, in his opinion at least, it wasn’t such a far-fetched idea after all. Not for the first time since meeting him she felt a little light-headed and dizzy. Piero was smart, thoughtful and above all else drop-dead gorgeous, and the two of them had seemed to hit it off instantly. Most of the time Rebecca couldn’t even look at a guy she liked without having a panic attack and withdrawing inside of herself until it was too late and now this? It was unbelievable. Whatever she’d been expecting to find out here it hadn’t been this…

“So yeah,” she said, reminding herself that she was supposed to be the one doing the talking now, “needless to say it didn’t exactly turn out like I’d wanted. I mean I suck enough at making friends back home as it is—in fact besides my sister, my roommate Sandy and my friend Tina, I don’t really talk to anybody much—so you can imagine how it was for me when I got here. How hard I found it.”

Could he? Piero didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would have trouble talking to anybody, it probably wouldn’t even occur to him that there was anything to feel anxious about, so how would he know what she was talking about? She looked at him across the table, her face slightly-pained as she tried to glean from his expression whether or not she was getting through to him.

Piero considered her thoughtfully and then took a slow sip of his coffee. “The pain in my life came to me suddenly,” he said, “before that I didn’t even know what pain was, but when it came it came all at once. It sounds like your pain has been coming to you in drips and drabs throughout your life, never enough to fully force you into action, instead just enough to see you suffer in silence day after day, night after night, and so on. That must be very hard to bear.”

Yes! That was it exactly. Her life wasn’t hell, there were good moments, good people and she had everything she could ever need—which had in fact even made her feel guilty sometimes about feeling sorry for herself—but her anxiety had caused her to suffer at a low-level for a very long time now, for as long as she could remember even. It was its own kind of torment.

“Sometimes it takes great force to remind us we can fight back,” Piero said, “if there is not enough force, you might forget you have such strength to begin with.”

Rebecca smiled and now she let the affection she felt for him show in her face (even if she didn’t have the guts just yet to show the lust as well). So somebody did understand! And even better they didn’t think she was being overly-dramatic or self-pitying in talking about it. Piero looked back at her with a solemn expression and then reached over and softly took her by the hand. She actually felt the pleasure shake her body, as if she’d had a miniature swoon, but if Piero noticed her tremble at his touch he didn’t seem to mind.

“I can see how such a thing would make you tired over time,” he said, gazing deeply, thoughtfully, into her eyes, “but you are
here
. Now, you are fighting back. That to me is as beautiful as anything else that has ever existed in this world.”

Smiling back, her eyes almost drooping with desire, Rebecca reflected that she could think of at least one other contender for most beautiful thing to have ever existed—Piero himself.

5

He released her hand again and took a sip from his coffee cup. That had been one moment that Rebecca hadn’t wanted to end, but with any luck there might be some even better ones coming up. She felt now that he surely couldn’t have been serious about his actual intentions that day. A man like him seemed incapable of harming any other human being, regardless of what they’d done. No, it was probably some kind of poetic metaphor—a way for him to avoid whatever true pain had really brought him there. She told herself that it had to be true. The alternative was too horrible to even think about. She didn’t want to lose him, not now that she’d only just found him.

“Please continue,” Piero said, “it has been a long time coming—I can tell this—and now it must come out. All of it.”

“Well the truth is,” Rebecca said, “it’s been horrible. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t had people to talk to, there are other English speakers at the campus in Naples, but somehow I guess I just shied away. At first I thought it would just take a little time for it to naturally happen, for me to make friends, but it never did. I never got up the nerve to hold a full conversation with somebody. Instead, I watched as all the others became best friends, went on trips together and even hooked-up in some cases. They must have thought I was such a weirdo and it made me so frustrated, because I’m not. I’m just a regular girl… I just… sometimes I just can’t bring myself to feel like it.”

Her voice trailed off as her gaze rested in her lap and her shoulders slumped as if all the emotional weight that she’d been carrying around with her these past months had miraculously disappeared. She felt faint and breezy and incredibly relieved. It was amazing. She hadn’t realized how much pressure it was putting on her just by carrying all that personal pain.