The Chapel (21 page)

I paged through my abortive
Journal of Discovery
and then sorted through the mess on the desk, hoping to turn up something worth pasting in. I took a picture with my phone of the two-euro Dante coin, which seemed better than having no record of T. at all. Beneath my folded-up copy of the itinerary for the rest of the EurWay tour, I found the three packs of postcards Pietro had purchased for me at the Venice train station. They seemed promising, but after I had torn apart the three pleated sets along the perforations and separated them into piles, I discovered that the sets were identical, somebody's idea of ten iconic Italian images arranged in three different sequences—somebody else's scheme for stretching the truth.

I opened the desk drawer and pulled out the printed labels Mitchell had prepared. I tagged ten cards with ready-made addresses for Rachel & The Boys, ten with Sam & Susie labels, and though I thought of sending the other set to Mitchell at his former home in Cambridge, even by my miserable standards that seemed just too maudlin, so I left them blank, hoping I could come up with ten living people who might want to know where I had been.

The top of each pile was a postcard of a solitary sheep standing at an odd angle on a verdant hill. Above the crest of that delicious meadow, unseen by the happily grazing sheep, lay the red-tile roofs and noble domes of Florence. That was as close as either of us would get. I turned over all the sheep, and on those three cards I wrote, “Padua seems perfect to me. Much love. E.”

The rest, if I ever sent them, would all be postmarked at the Venice airport, or else in Cambridge, but maybe Sam and Rachel wouldn't notice; maybe I could really hide out in my house until July and get used to life alone while the boys jumped off that diving board, and Sam shopped for real estate, and Rachel commuted between her once and future homes. In any case, the challenge of matching the remaining postcards to my imagined destinations seemed more promising than dragging Mitchell's Dante business from underneath the bed.

I wrote single-sentence greetings from Florence, Pisa, Sienna, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, Assisi, Rimini, and Ravenna. Some matches were easy—the Colosseum and the Leaning Tower. Others required a little more imagination. Which city was southerly enough to merit a photograph of meatballs and spaghetti?

By ten-thirty, I was wide awake and ravenous. The restaurant downstairs closed at ten, but I was hoping someone washing dishes might be willing to slip me a salami sandwich or direct me to a nearby store where I could buy a bag of something salty.

When I made it to the lobby, the glass door to the dim restaurant was open. The dining room was empty, but I spotted Sara sitting at the little bar. She was wearing an oversized violet V-neck sweater, skintight white jeans, and a pair of navy blue sandals with high heels so spiky that just staring at them almost gave me stigmata. Her long pink fingernails were spread out along the wide rim of an old-fashioned martini glass. And then I noticed the crisp blue linen blazer hanging from the back of the empty barstool beside her. I backed away.

For a few minutes, I got marooned in the lobby, where an oversized gilt-framed mirror made me look even more pathetic than I felt. I didn't know if it was the unnecessarily bright light in the lobby, or if the rough canvas of Rachel's bag had impressed itself on my skin, but the contours of my face were unfamiliar, washed out and wrinkly. I thought,
She has started to drink in the middle of the day. I hope she soon has the good sense to put a noose around her neck.
Then the elevator dinged down, so instead of killing myself, I made a beeline for the front door.

I wandered in widening circles around the almost empty piazzas, smiling at the couples who stood aside to let me pass in the narrow alleys, young people huddling close to each other, unmindful of my admiring gaze, of my turning around to watch them amble down into darkness, envying them their immediate and far futures. When I turned into a long and unfamiliar alley, I spotted a reassuring brightness at the other end and two-way traffic zipping back and forth along a main street. I paused because something in front of one of the dark doorways near the other end started moving, and as I stood there, a group of several men, maybe six or seven, disaggregated themselves, spreading out like a squid in the darkness. Each of them was dragging a little suitcase on wheels. From the far end of the alley, a much taller man approached the others, and then he bent toward the door and, a moment later, led the men inside. Before I moved, the latecomer reappeared and bent again to lock the door, and then he walked right toward me.

I recognized his head, backlit and shiny. It was the pizza man who'd lent me his eyeglasses. I remembered from T.'s message that his name was Matteo, and I had the absurd idea that he might think I had been following him, but instead of backing away or simply walking past him, I stood right where I was, where nobody but a stalker would stand alone in the middle of the night.

He was holding his black eyeglasses in one of his hands. When he
was near enough for me to see him smile, he said, “Are you following me?” He sort of purred when he spoke, as if he'd studied English by watching American movies with Dean Martin and Tony Franciosa playing Latin lovers.

I said, “Is that against the law?”

He said, “I will maybe have to arrest you.”

I said, “I'm lost.”

He said, “I know,” but I wasn't sure if he understood exactly what I meant. “I want to show you somewhere,” he said. He slipped out of his blazer, and as we headed toward the light, he arranged it over my shoulders.

I said, “I'm not cold.”

He said, “For me, then.” The buttoned-up front of his white shirt was shimmering, as if it were new-spun silk. Plus, I hadn't noticed when I was sitting in his restaurant that he was just a few inches shy in all directions of being a giant. He walked so close to me that my back was cradled in his torso. “This is the chapel of my family,” he said. He put his arm around my shoulder. “In honor to the very special Madonna della Misericordia.”

Through the wavy glass panels in an ancient wooden door, I could see a statue of the Virgin Mary surrounded by dozens of pink roses. The room was only slightly bigger than a phone booth. It was a mystery where those men were hiding. I said, “What does her name mean?”

He said, “Mother of Mercy.”

“The chapel is so small,” I said. “Are those men tourists?”

“These are working men with love for the Madonna,” he said.

“It looks tiny in there,” I said. I still wasn't sure he'd understood, so I said, “Very little.”

He said, “One morning, I will show you a painting also in our very little tiny chapel. For now, we lock her up in the nights and turn the—” This was the first time he seemed to be reaching for a word.

I said, “Key?”

He said, “Bells?”

I said, “Alarm?”

He said, “You are safe with me.”

My eyes welled up. I was so confused by this reflex, so certain that something other than sadness had occasioned it, that I actually said, “You could make a woman swoon.”

He smiled and said, “Soon.” He lightly turned me with his hand and led us toward the bright corner.

I said, “You are from an old family?”

He said, “Everybody is, no?”

I said, “I am going home tomorrow.” I was thinking of my old family, which was disappearing. I was also regretting my swoon comment, so I said, “I really am lost,” as if that might clear things up.

He said, “T. is telling me your name is E.”

I was sure he'd meant that as a question, but I said, “He told me your name is Matteo.”

He slowed us down and stretched his arm around my shoulders. “
Permesso
,” he said. He reached down into the interior breast pocket of his blazer, a space occupied by my breast, and tucked away his eyeglasses. He must have also found a mint, which he popped into his mouth.

I felt lightheaded, and either I fell back against his chest and hip or he just sort of scooped me up as he resumed our earlier pace. I managed to stay upright.

He said, “Cool air coming to us.”

At the moment, thin streams of sweat were speeding down my arms and legs. He smelled like wood smoke, an occupational hazard, I guessed. We turned onto the well-lit street, and I recognized the big stone buildings from my walk with Ed and T. after the lecture at the Church of the Eremitani. The hotel was only blocks away. Maybe it
was the proximity of my bedroom, or maybe it was the heat of his chest against my back, or maybe it was the lingering memory of those seven shadowy men and their seven suitcases, but I had a clear and miserable vision of Matteo on top of me on top of the bed on top of Mitchell and all of the Dante memorabilia I'd stuffed into his suitcase, so I said, “I have some work to do tonight,” which made no impression on Matteo, so I added, “Piles and piles of paper I have to deal with before I leave Padua.”

He said, “We say
Padova
.”

I said, “
Padova
.”

He said, “Almost.
Padova.
Like you mean it.”

I said it very slowly. “
Pa. Do. Va
.”

“
Suona come uno di noi
.” He leaned into me, delighted. “Like one of us. Now, what are these papers that make you busy this night?”

“Bad memories, mostly,” I said. I couldn't tell if Matteo really believed I had work to do, or if he was just being gracious about letting me retreat to my room alone. Either way, it was a relief. “I wish I could just burn it all,” I said. “Start fresh.”

Near the hotel, he stepped in front of me and grabbed the brass handle of the plate-glass door. When he tugged, the glass whinnied and wavered. The door was locked, and he'd almost pulled it off its hinges. Before we could locate an intercom or bell, a buzzer sounded, and he ushered me into the lobby.

Ricardo was standing at his post, leaning forward, hands pressed against the desk, looking like a stoic steward on the deck of the
Titanic.

When I turned to say good-bye, Matteo said, “I take the papers now for burning.” He put a hand against my back—his blazer, my back—and led me to the elevator. “This is my best time.”

Ricardo said, “
Buona notte
.”

Matteo said, “
Notte
.”

I said nothing. Since I'd felt the press of his big hand against my
back, I had been practicing my Pranayama, deep yogic breathing. This kept me upright in the elevator, and my hand didn't even shake when I stuck the key into the electronic lock and led Matteo into my room. But when I got as far as the bed, I stopped—walking, breathing, thinking, being.

He slipped his coat off my shoulders, tossed it back toward the red chair near the door, and stood behind me, inching in until I could feel the soft press of his chest and belly, my hips against his thighs. He ran his hands down my sides beneath my arms.

To steady myself, I said, “I am leaving tomorrow.”

He said, “I have been following you in my heart.” His hands had reached my waist. He pressed in closer, wrapped his arms around me, and starting at my waist, he undid the buttons of my dress, which were as compliant as a zipper. He worked his way swiftly up to my neck, and then he gently pulled the dress apart until it slipped off my shoulders. He kissed my neck. He said, “Mmm.”

The aroma of wood smoke was more profound than ever, tinged with yeast and garlic. I had a brief flirtation with the possibility of passing out, overcome with desire—but for him or a pizza? I could already imagine how my sheets and hair would smell when I woke the next morning. The moment reeked of aftermath. I was suddenly wide awake. I clumsily pulled up the sleeves of my dress.

Matteo said, “What?”

If he'd had an arugula pie in his pocket, I might have let him finish what he came to do. My appetites were all mixed up at the moment. “I really am going home tomorrow,” I said, doing up a few buttons, hoping he understood that I was pretending we had agreed this was a mistake.

He said, “We are here now.”

A very T.-ish thing to say, I thought. I could feel him towering over me.

Graciously, ungrudgingly, he said, “What do you need to burn?”

This provoked a grade-school memory of Joan of Arc, flames flying up her body, head tilted toward the sky. I said, “It's just some paper.”

“Okay,” he said. “Paper burns.”

Handing over that suitcase seemed more intimate than anything that had happened yet between us. But if I left it under the bed, I knew the idea of it would haunt me, as if I had abandoned a lame animal in a wooded darkness, or bolted the door behind me as I walked out of the home of a dying man. Or maybe I knew a maid would discover it, and Ricardo would call me in Cambridge, and I would begrudgingly pay the exorbitant price of shipping Mitchell's unfinished business to my doorstep—thus preserving Mitchell's greatest failure and my status as the aggrieved widow, burdened by his losses and mine.

I bent down beside the bed and reached in under the sideboard. By the time I got the suitcase out and had its handle in the air, Matteo was pulling something from the inside pocket of his blazer, as if he might have to put on his glasses and examine the documents to be sure I was not involving him in a crime. I rolled the suitcase to him. He bent down and kissed me, which totally surprised me. His tongue was huge. He reached around my back, but I stiffened when I realized the suitcase had become a currency, and he now felt I owed him something for his willingness to do my bidding, that I was in his debt.