The Italian Party

by Christina Lynch

  “Via, Gina,” said the carabiniere, falling back to address the woman as the car passed and the procession moved on. Through the windshield Scottie saw him shooing her away up the street.

  12.

  Finally, the oxen stopped. Scottie quickly pulled up the emergency brake so the car didn’t roll backward and bump the heels of the poor beasts.

  She stepped out of the car and smiled at the crowd. The men smiled back, but the women frowned and pulled away, ambivalent about this latest invasion of foreigners, and the group dissolved into the doorways and alleys of the medieval city.

  * * *

  “Piazza del Campo,” announced Signor Banchi, doffing his battered fedora and grinning with a sparse array of yellowed teeth, eager himself to get home to a bowl of ribollita.

  * * *

  As Michael continued to look through his wallet for documents Scottie was fairly certain were not there, one of the oxen lifted its tail and a stream of liquid excrement came out, splashing onto the paving stones. Michael gasped as his shoes and trousers were spattered. Scottie covered her mouth to make her laughter look like sympathetic shock. Oh, Leona, the look on his face. Michael caught the edge of her smile and frowned, hurt by her mockery. She was, she thought, really not a nice person, and now he knew it. She had an urge to tell him everything, but quelled it. Maintain the façade, she told herself.

  * * *

  Tenente Pisano decided the foreigners had been suitably punished and no judicial action was immediately necessary.

  “You will present yourselves at the Questura with your documents,” he said, and strode purposefully off toward his plate of pici.

  * * *

  Scottie pulled a huge colorful wad of lire out of her purse. She couldn’t remember what the exchange rate was—1,300 lire to the dollar? Or was it 130? So confusing, and the money looked like something in a board game.

  “Where is the nearest riding stable?” she asked the old man as she tried to figure out what to offer him. “Horses?”

  “Horses! I love horses!” said Robertino. “You know Palio? I am barbaresco for Istrice in July! I will be fantino in August!”

  Scottie had no idea what he was talking about. “What’s a barbaresco?”

  “Groom,” said Banchi, shooting Robertino a look. “The Palio is a horse race run in July and August. I know some nice horses for sale. Come to farm outside le mura. Ask for Banchi.”

  “Sì,” she said eagerly.

  Michael blanched. “Darling,” he said, the term no longer affectionate. “Slow down. I haven’t sold a single tractor yet.”

  “Oh, but you will, darling,” she said. “You’ll sell hundreds of them, I know you will. Italians love everything from America.” She wasn’t sure if she was saying it to convince herself or him.

  She finally just offered Signor Banchi the whole wad of money.

  Signor Banchi, offended, frowned and waved the money off. “Di niente, di niente,” he said, and disappeared around a corner with his massive beasts, after saying, “No more incastrati.”

  Abandoning their defeated car, Scottie and Michael turned to find they were gazing out at a huge, shell-shaped stone piazza that sloped down to a squat building with a tall, slender brick bell tower. The space was alive with activity—people strode purposefully across and around the piazza, the tables in front of the bars and restaurants that lined the square were full of gawkers enjoying the continuous spectacle while attacking elaborate ice creams, and everywhere scooters buzzed to and fro. Tiny delivery trucks like toys honked, and women shook rugs out of second- and third-story windows. Rows of windows of every shape—arched, square, rectangular, columned—lined the square, and Scottie’s eye found the ones the property manager had circled in the photo, a series of six tall brown shutters looking out over the piazza.

  She wasn’t sure what to say, so she said, “There!” brightly and pointed.

  Michael seemed to be of the same mind, that it was best to pretend none of this had happened. “Yes,” he said, nearly matching her fake enthusiasm. “Number 5. There it is.”

  13.

  Her heart ached as she realized that they had entered a new phase of their marriage. From now on they would be cautious of each other. She had smelled his weakness and fear, and he had caught a glimpse of her cruelty. She felt nostalgic for a time only fifteen minutes earlier, but she remembered that she had not been honest with him then, either. She had never been honest with Michael. She had not told him that she was pregnant with another man’s child when they met. That she had married Michael so that she would not be “ruined.” Any day now, she would tell him she was pregnant, and would pretend it was his.

  When she looked at Michael she had the sense there was something she was forgetting, like in dreams where she realized she had a dog she hadn’t fed in months and woke up shouting.

  14.

  Scottie and Michael made their way toward a massive wooden doorway set between a souvenir shop and a restaurant. It was blocked by a short, dark-haired, dark-jawed man in a blue sport jacket, blue tie loosened, with a bullhorn, who was addressing a small crowd standing in front of an ornate marble fountain just under Scottie and Michael’s future apartment. He looked like a soccer star about to launch into an unlikely discourse upon the beauty of the Fontana Gaia, with its snow white marble friezes of Adam and Eve being tossed out of Eden.

  There was, Scottie thought, a very animal appeal about the man. He was the sort that she and Leona would have giggled over, back when they were schoolgirls together—in other words, a month ago.

  Michael ducked into the tabacchi, a small store with racks of newspapers outside.

  “Impedite la truffa elettorale,” the man with the bullhorn shouted over the din of the scooters, his basso voice echoing around the square and causing a flock of pigeons to rise up and circle above them. “Votate Comunista.”

  The people nodded, and some of them clapped. The man made eye contact with Scottie and smiled for longer than seemed quite right. Michael reappeared at her side, a pair of gigantic antique keys in his hand, each six inches long.

  “That man just said…,” whispered Scottie.

  15.

  Having endured the mortification of the Ford being rescued by oxen, Michael found himself in Piazza del Campo staring at the squat man with the bullhorn. Ugo Rosini, mayor of Siena. Communist. The man at the center of his mission. The man he needed to bring down. He had never seen a real live Commie before in the flesh. This guy looked physically strong, which was unnerving, and confident, which was worse. The man’s eyes landed on his, and Michael felt a cool sweat and his heart raced, as if he were facing a bear about to charge.

  His heart raced out of more than just fear—Ugo was, as Scottie noticed, a very masculine man, and Michael had a terrible secret. He wanted to kiss some men, touch them and be held by them. He found certain men beautiful, exciting, wonderful, but also terrifying, the way that small children felt about airplanes and dinosaurs. It was awful. There were many names for this, scientific and less so, but no matter how you sliced it, it was forbidden. He could see that in the eyes of his father, who had yelled at him when he was a child not to swing his hips when he walked. At Yale any man who wasn’t utterly hearty and manly in every way was taunted for being a fairy. Sometimes it was much worse than that. It was illegal for homosexuals to work for the United States government. If his truth were known he would go to jail for it. So Michael had kept his tastes a secret from everyone except one person.

  And that person lived in Rome.

  16.

  “Mayor Rosini said we are tired of being mired in corruption, tired of back-room deals, tired of foreigners interfering with our elections,” a woman in a peacock blue suit and a pearl pin standing next to them said politely in English, smiling and handing them each a red leaflet with a hammer and sickle in the corner. She had a boxer dog on a leather leash studded with brass cows.

  “Well, I would be, too,” said Scottie. “That’s just not right, is
it? Lovely boxer.”

  The dog bounced up and down happily as Scottie petted her.

  “We’re new here,” Scottie started to say to the woman, but Michael cut her off.

  “Darling,” he said, then with a quick and elegant movement lifted her in his arms, his eyes locked on those of Mayor Rosini, as if they were in some sort of Old West duel. She was shocked and also quite pleased by the gesture.

  “Permesso.” His voice was low, as his father had demanded. He nodded to the door the mayor was blocking.

  “Ah, scusate,” said the mayor, politely stepping aside with a courteous wave and a smile so that Michael could carry his beautiful American bride across the threshold of their new home, accompanied by the cheers of Siena’s Communist Party.

  “Viva l’amore!” they cried.

  Love, she thought, looking into her new husband’s face. That’s what I’m forgetting.

  THREE

  IL DRAGO, THE DRAGON

  “MY BURNING HEART BECOMES A MOUTH OF FLAMES”

  1.

  Michael unlocked the apartment’s heavy wooden front door, and they found themselves in a dark and narrow hallway with a series of closed doors off it on the right. There was no overhead light, so they left the door to the stairwell open behind them. Scottie followed Michael as he threw open door after door in turn. She was startled to discover each room was just an equally sized, dark, empty box—no closets, no bathroom or lighting fixtures, no tub, no toilet, no kitchen appliances or cabinets. Five large echoing rooms end to end, all with two windows on the far wall, heavy brown shutters closed.

  “It’s like an empty dollhouse,” she said. She threw open the shutters in the last room, half expecting to discover a giant little girl kneeling in the piazza, peering in at her.

  “This is the best address in the whole city,” Michael huffed, and she realized she had offended him. “The building is owned by a marchese. It was their family palace.”

  “What’s a marchese?”

  “A nobleman. Marquis. Techically they don’t exist anymore, but old habits die hard.”

  She wondered if Michael would mind if she took her bra off. It was feeling pinchy. She wanted out of the girdle, too. How long did she have to be this perfectly put together person for him?

  2.

  Scottie was critical of the apartment, which bothered him. He so badly wanted to please her, to make her happy, to not replicate his parents’ awful yoke of mutual hatred. He had no idea how to do this, except to do what he had always done, to excel at whatever was in front of him—school then, career now—in the hopes that being good at something would make him lovable. He wanted to loosen his tie, undo his shirt collar, but it felt strange to do that in front of her, disrespectful. He stared out the window at the Communists gathered in the square below. He lifted the camera slung around his neck and began taking pictures.

  “The light will be prettier at sunset,” Scottie said.

  He could file a report tonight, a coded telegram from the main office in Siena. Luce and the CIA would be pleased.

  He snapped another photo of the square and the crowd of Communists gathered below. He would go to Rome tomorrow and deliver the report himself. Better.

  3.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. And it was—the sunlight streaming in revealed high-beamed ceilings, white walls and shiny white terrazzo floors speckled with sandy browns and golds. It still had the feel of “palace.”

  “It’s perfect for dancing,” she said, holding up her arms in waltz position. “Nothing to bump into.”

  He looked pained. “I’m a terrible dancer,” he said apologetically. “Two left feet.”

  She was disappointed, but chose to make light of it. “So that’s why you kept me trapped at the punch bowl at that mixer.”

  “You’ve discovered my secret.” They both laughed lightly and made themselves busy.

  One of the rooms, it turned out, did have a distinguishing feature: two short pipes sticking out of the wall. “Is this a bathroom?” she asked.

  Michael looked at the two water pipes sticking out of the wall. “I guess so,” he said. “Or the kitchen. Or the mad chemist’s laboratory.” They smiled at the absurdity of it.

  He followed her back through the rooms as she threw open the shutters, discovering another room with two pipes in it.

  “Which one do you want as the kitchen, and which as the bathroom?” she asked. “Or we could be very New York and have two bathrooms and no kitchen, and just eat out all the time.” Since she wasn’t much of a cook, it was a more than a half-serious suggestion.

  He was staring out the window at the people gathered in the square below. He lifted the camera slung around his neck and began taking pictures.

  “Might have to go to Rome tomorrow,” he said. “Ford Italia’s head office.”

  “Ooh, Rome. I’ve always wanted to see the Pantheon.”

  “Better if you stay here and get us set up, isn’t it?”

  It was her turn to feel hurt, and a little embarrassed. “Of course, of course,” she said. “I’m going to make us a real home here.”

  She had forgotten she was a wife and not a friend, and that they were not here to have adventures. Michael had a job to do, and so did she. Her job was to love him and take care of him and have his children. For now she was ignoring the child she was already carrying, though her body was making its presence known. She pushed it all away, and told herself it would be fine. She was already into the happy ending part of her story. There was nothing to worry about.

  4.

  They stayed overnight in a genteel but run-down old hotel a few hundred yards from the piazza. The bathroom was tiny and the plumbing whistled and groaned, though neither of them was so impolite as to mention it. They laughed apologetically when they got into the canoe-like bed and rolled toward each other. In the morning they returned to the apartment, where Scottie would await the movers.

  Michael left on the early train. Scottie felt alone and a little frightened when she heard the heavy front door shut behind him, but also pleased that he trusted her to deal with the movers. Two weeks ago she was living in a dorm with a cafeteria and a chaperone, and now she was alone in a foreign country, a grown-up in charge of setting up a household. Leona, I’m playing house for real!

  Somehow, the drivers made it to Piazza Mercato without getting stuck, and the heavy crates of their belongings were shuttled one by one up the slope of Piazza del Campo and into their apartment building, up the stairs and into the rooms. Scottie learned some Italian curse words, and had to laugh at the herd of little boys who gathered to watch the ant trail of boxes make its way across the piazza on creaking handcarts.

  She was moving boxes around, sweaty, dirty, her hair pulled up in an old handkerchief, when she heard a new voice in the hallway: “Permesso?”

  “Come in,” she called, adding in her best boarding school French (that had earned her a C from Madame Soubrette), “Entrez, s’il vous plaît.” She really must learn some basic words in Italian.

  A slim man in his forties appeared, wearing a tweed suit and a brown fedora and carrying a calfskin case. His dark eyebrows, lightly flecked with gray like his short hair, danced above deep brown eyes. He had round glasses and a slightly formal air. “You must be Mrs. Messina?”

  “Mr. Barco?” she asked. She was expecting the property manager. She had a lot of questions for him about fuses, trash collection and a broken shutter.

  “I am Carlo Chigi Piccolomini,” he said, as if the name should mean something to her. It didn’t.

  “Are you a salesman?” she asked cautiously. He did have something of the Fuller Brush Man about him: neat, efficient, friendly.

  “I am”—he gave an embarrassed smile—“the landlord.”

  “Oh!” she said, blushing. “I’m so sorry. You’re the marquis. Do I call you Signor Marchese or—?”

  “Please call me Carlo.”

  He was so elegant, and mature—she felt embarrassed about
her plain dress, her imperfect makeup, a chipped nail.

  “I’m Scottie,” she said, shaking his hand. “Your English is perfect.”

  Oh God, she thought. I’m such an idiot.

  “I went to school in England, but my wife was educated in America, so I’m terrified of pronouncing the word ‘schedule,’” he said. The left side of his mouth twisted upward in a sly smile, and the light glinted off his glasses. She liked him right away—the European aristocrats she had met at Vassar and Ivy League dances were snobs who pulled rank, but Carlo seemed funny and self-deprecating, like Cary Grant in Philadelphia Story, if it were set in Siena. There was something dashing yet familiar about him.

  “I would ask you to sit down, but—” She looked around the apartment, filled with boxes and packing crates. Scottie and Carlo had to step aside as two sweating deliverymen hauled a giant crate up the stairs.

  “Cucina, grazie,” she said to them, pointing, then to Carlo, “I’m afraid that’s the extent of my Italian.” One of the men used a crowbar to uncrate the Hardwick aqua blue gas range.

  “My husband and I went on a mad shopping spree in New York when we found out what ‘unfurnished’ meant in Italy. It was like we had just won a game show.” It had been a truly joyous day, running around with cash from Ford. More fun than their actual wedding day, when Michael had seemed tense, ashamed of his sweet parents, and she had had to deal with Aunt Ida and Leona, neither of whom understood why she was marrying a stranger. But that shopping day she and Michael had genuinely had fun together, choosing the blue fridge, the matching stove, the elegant fixtures.