“Well, yeah.”
“But relieved.”
“God, yeah.”
Fin sat down in the chair next to Biffi. They both faced the square, both with their legs stretched out in front of them, crossed at the ankles.
“You’re taller,” Biffi said.
“You’re not.”
Biffi gave a short laugh. “No. Not taller. Just the same. Same old Biffi Deutsch.”
“Biffi Spumoni Deutsch.”
Another short laugh.
“Thank you for coming,” Fin said.
“I told them someone died. I’m at the funeral. Do you know what service life is like? It is softball games. That is a form of baseball with a bigger ball. Softball games and basketball games. That is another form of baseball with an even bigger ball.”
“Better than killing people in a jungle. Or being killed. So you translate stuff? From what language to what language? What stuff?”
“It is confidential.”
“Yeah? Hey, you’re a spy.”
Biffi modestly nodded in agreement. “For now.”
Fin took Biffi out on the boat. They motored past the Faraglioni, the three rocky stacks poking up dramatically from the calm blue water. “I’ll give you a tour,” Fin said with some pride. “But also, you never know where she’ll turn up. She stalks around. She’s so erratic. I guess she’s always been erratic, but in ways you kind of expected. But now she’s like, I don’t know, like someone else.” He had turned the boat around and sailed along the coast until they reached Monte Tiberio. “She stopped smoking. She stopped drinking. Because of the baby. But she also stopped eating. She’s spooky. She wears a big straw hat.”
Fin cut the motor and dropped the little anchor. He pointed up to the top of the cliffs. “Villa Jovis. Tiberius built it. He built twelve palaces.”
Biffi closed his eyes. Leaned forward, his head on his bent knees. “It seems so long ago.”
“What does?”
“Lady.”
“It’s been a month. Two months.”
“A long time ago and a long way away.” He sat up and put his arm around Fin’s shoulders. “Tell me,” he said.
So Fin told him, told him about Michelangelo, about his photographs and his darkroom and Lady’s plans to get a gallery show for him in New York and how that plan dimmed the longer Lady stayed on the island and then vanished completely when she started to take her own pictures. He paused. Should he tell Biffi how happy she had been? How serene? How she had danced with Michelangelo, spinning and spinning, when there was no music but their laughter?
“What?” Biffi asked. “Tell me.”
“She was different. From New York, I mean.”
Then, dancing around, Lady and Michelangelo tripped over the champagne bottle on the ground and it rattled along the tiles and a cat howled somewhere and Fin started laughing and Lady reached down and pulled off a sandal and threw it at Fin. He could tell that part. That was recognizable. But the other? The sleepy, enchanted romantic face turned to Michelangelo?
“You’re worried for me?” Biffi said when he paused again. “No, no, I must know what is the situation. Say, go on, say what you mean.”
“Well, she was kind of happy, I guess.”
“In what way happy?”
“Quiet happy. Not insisting on being happy. Just softly happy.”
Biffi let his hand fall into the water. Little splashes. It reminded Fin of Suetonius and the little fishes.
“Did you ever read Suetonius?” he asked Biffi.
“Naturally.”
“Remember the little fishes? Tiberius? In Capri?”
Biffi colored. “Has this man bothered you, Fin?”
“No. Gross. Just, do you think it’s true? Little boys underwater? Swimming between his legs? Doing that to Tiberius? And then he threw people from a cliff. That cliff.” He pointed. “Michelangelo said it’s not true. That Tiberius was a great warrior and ruler.”
“Why did you read Suetonius? You read Latin now?”
“No. Lady gave me a translation.”
Biffi said a few things in Hungarian. Unless it was Greek. Fin had no idea.
“Your mother is nice,” Fin said when the diatribe had finished. “Except she thinks the Odyssey and the Iliad were written by a Hungarian.”
“Talk to me more about Lady. No more diversions. My mother is peculiar. Suetonius is outrageous. Talk to me about Lady.”
Fin told him then. Told him how Lady had sent for him, how he had found his way from Rome to Capri, how delicious the sandwich was, the greasy salami sandwich he’d bought through the train window. He told Biffi about Donatella, too. He said, “I know I’m only fifteen,” and Biffi said, “Pah! Old enough to love and old enough to suffer.” Fin told Biffi about the walk to the cave and Lady’s announcement. “She was so happy,” he said. “She was so happy for a week, happy to sit still and just look at the sky. It was weird. Really weird.” Biffi did not look angry the way Fin expected him to. He looked wistful. A little smile, his fingers flicking the water. “Go on,” he said. And Fin told him about Lady crumpled on the floor sobbing. It went on for over a week, the sobbing, then she put on her enormous straw hat and enormous sunglasses and began haunting the island like a spook.
“She is angry at this man?”
“No. She’s just sad.”
“She knows? That you wired to me?”
“Good grief, no.”
Biffi smiled. “Good grief,” he said.
“She told me to write to you and Tyler and Jack and tell you all what happened, but when she finds out I asked you to come rescue her, and me, she’ll kill me. She’ll throw me off Monte Tiberio. And you.”
They went back to the house, walked beneath the lemons hanging in heavy dignity, up the worn steps into the living room. Fin called Lady’s name. No answer. He kicked off his sneakers, flopped onto the stiff-backed sofa. The tiles were cool under his feet.
“Who knows,” he said. “She could be anywhere.”
He poured Biffi some wine and himself some water. “I only drink wine at dinner,” he said.
“Do you?” Biffi asked. “In Iraklion it is all beer or ouzo. And hamburgers,” he added brightly.
It was then that Lady entered. “Entered” is perhaps too strong a word. Fin told me that she would just appear in that period, an apparition. She would not be in the room, and then, with no transition, she was there.
She stood and stared at Biffi in obvious confusion. “Biffi!” she said, her voice warm. “Did you desert? You poor man. But you’re safe here. Everyone is safe here.”
He stood up and walked toward her. “Lady,” he said, “Jesus.” He put his hand on her cheek. Her face in the shadows of the straw hat was gaunt, haunted. There were dark circles under her eyes. Biffi had not been prepared. She was still beautiful, but in a fevered way, her eyes too large, her cheekbones too sharp, her smile a grimace.
Now she was self-conscious. She backed away from Biffi, gave Fin a quick, savage look.
“You told him to come?” she said.
“No, no, the boy didn’t know,” Biffi said.
Lady had not even heard him. “You did, didn’t you, Fin? You traitor.” She took off her hat. She was barefoot. “Well, what difference does it make? You’re here,” she said to Biffi. “What shall we do with you?”
“You went out barefoot?” Fin said. “Are you crazy?” He was sorry the minute he said it, because he thought, Yes, she is crazy. She’s gone completely crazy. “I mean, you always tell me not to.”
Lady looked down at her feet. “Oh,” she said. “I guess I forgot.”
“Lady, sit down. I want to talk to you,” Biffi said.
“I won’t give it up,” she said. “I’m a big girl now. I am having this baby.”
“You sound like As the World Turns,” Fin said.
“Shut up, Fin.”
“Lady, just sit down,” Biffi said. “Please.”
Lady sat cross-legged on the floor.
“I don’t feel like taking a walk.”
“My god, Fin, I came from Iraklion to talk to your sister. Go away. Please.”
Fin walked upstairs with as much dignity as he could. At the bend in the stairs he stopped. He listened. It went on for an hour or so. Lady wept and Biffi comforted her. Lady said she was a fool, and Biffi said it turned out she was human, after all. Lady said she would always love Michelangelo, and Biffi said, Yes, she would. Lady calmed down and asked him about being in the air force. Biffi said it was more American on an air force base in Crete than it was in Times Square. “What am I going to do?” Lady asked. “Marry me and be happy,” Biffi said. “You just ruined everything about this visit,” Lady said. “I know,” said Biffi. “I would like to marry you, though.” Lady said, “We’re both fools,” and Biffi agreed.
They went to dinner at a fish place overlooking the Marina Piccola. The waves lapped at the small beach. The moon rose, a crescent. Lady looked a little more like herself. She was animated. She stood up and danced to the music playing on the radio in the kitchen. They could barely hear it, just enough for Lady to dance.
“Thank you,” she said to Fin. “Thank you for getting Biffi here.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Because now I see what to do. You were right all along, Finino mio.”
Fin held his glass up. “To me!” He was giddy, carried along on the giddiness of Lady.
“It was there in front of me all the time.”
“To you!” said Fin.
“All that worry about lemons. What a lot of bother for nothing.”
Biffi held his glass up. “To lemons.”
“To the god of lemons,” Fin said.
“Thank you for understanding me,” she said to Biffi. “For understanding everything about me. For forgiving everything about me.”
“It is because I love everything about you.”
“Me, too,” Fin said. “So, when’s the wedding?”
Biffi and Lady stared at him.
“No wedding, Fin,” said Biffi. “Have you not been listening?”
“But she said I was right.”
“And so you are,” said Lady. “Why should I marry anyone? I have plenty of money. I have you,” she said to Fin. “I have my dearest friend, Biffi. And I have you,” she said, tenderly addressing her belly. “I have everything now. Thank you, Michelangelo. I would wither and die married to anyone. Wouldn’t I, Biffi?”
“Quite possibly.”
“Thank you. You came here and you reminded me why I ran away.”
Biffi sighed. Gave a small smile.
Fin looked at them in horror. “So you’re free? Is that it?”
“Oh good grief, no. I’ll never be free, not with a baby. Why would I want to be?”
She took Biffi’s hand and led him down the steep steps to the darkness of the beach, pulling off his shirt as they went. Fin could just make them out as they dived naked into the water.
Biffi left the next day. Fin walked him to the ferry.
“She is so alive, your sister,” Biffi said. “She makes the sun come up each day, you know. Though even she cannot prevent it from falling down again at night.”
“What the hell happened? Is she really okay?”
“For now,” Biffi said. “I think so. I am like a glass of cold water. Splash! In the face.” He laughed.
“She really is crazy.”
“A little.”
“What about you?”
“I’m crazy, too.”
“Not what I meant.”
“I am to be fine. I am to be Melvyn Douglas.”
“Who?”
“In Mr. Blandings American movie. Do you know nothing about your culture?”
“I know Homer wasn’t American. Or Hungarian.”
“Then you will go a long way in this world.”
They shook hands.
“Don’t shoot anyone,” Fin said. “And don’t let anyone shoot you.”
“Not on Crete. No.”
Fin hugged him. “I don’t want you to go,” he said.
“My dear friend,” Biffi said, kissing his head.
That Baby
They came home on a boat. It was a rough crossing, but if it had been calm as a pond, Lady would have been sick. She and Fin shared a cabin, and at night Fin, on the top bunk, could hear her retching in the bathroom.
During the day, she put a good face on it. “I’m putting a good face on it,” she said. “Do you know why?”
“For my sake?”
“No. Don’t be silly. I’m putting a good face on it because I don’t want the baby to be sad.”
They stood at the rail in the wind. There was a fine, misty rain. Lady breathed deeply. She smiled. “Won’t everyone be surprised?”
“A lot of people won’t approve, I guess, yeah.”
“No, I mean, won’t they be surprised at me? Being so happy?”
Fin was certainly surprised. You’re pregnant! he wanted to say. You have no husband. You are in the family way, wearing your apron high. The man you love went back to Milan to his wife and children. You’re knocked up, like the eighteen-year-old girl you used to be, going back to New York to face the world as an unwed mother. “Are you happy?”
A soft film of rain rested on her pale face. She smiled. Pushed his wet hair off his forehead. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes!” They walked a little. “And no.” Then the wind picked up. “But yes.” The deck got too slippery to walk on. “But I can’t go inside.” Lady looked green. “Ever again.”
There were deck chairs sheltered by an overhang. They pulled wool blankets around their legs. Lady said, “‘If equal affection cannot be / Let the more loving one be me.’” Auden: the poem about the stars who do not give a damn. Fin felt a stab of love and pity and jealousy.
A steward offered them steaming cups of beef bouillon. Lady waved him violently away.
She said, “You know, nausea means it’s settling in nicely.”
“Breakfast?”
“The baby, you idiot. I’ve never felt this sick in my life, so it must be a very comfortable baby.” She smiled. “I’m very lucky.”
Lucky? She was violently sick to her stomach, vomiting all day long, carrying a love child, once known as bastard, and an Italian one, to boot. The man she loved, the one man with whom she’d ever fallen in love, was left behind on a noisy dock in Naples.
They told each other they would meet every summer in Capri.
“It’s better this way,” Lady said to Fin. A little unconvincingly. “Capri is where we exist, nowhere else.”
“You think he’ll change his mind? Come to New York?”
“Never.”
“Miss you so much he wants you to move to Milan?”
She hesitated before she said, “No. I guess not.”
The hesitation reminded him of something. Her tone. The resignation. The absence of resignation in the dreamy timbre of her voice. The unconscious shrug. The rueful smile. And then he realized: Lady had become one of them, one of the suitors.
“It’s very romantic,” she’d said to Michelangelo on the dock.
“You are an extraordinary woman,” Michelangelo said to Lady.
She’s dying inside, Fin thought.
That was true. But there was the other truth, the new one: Lady was alive, inside and out. Ever since Biffi’s visit, since their impromptu naked plunge into the bay, she had come slowly back to life, cleansed, born again, like a fish, flapping desperately on the shore suddenly restored to its watery home. Or a Siren. Sometimes Sirens were mermaids, weren’t they? Mostly they were birds with women’s faces. Not very appealing. Not at all like Lady. And yet, like Lady, the chicken-legged ladies lured so many sailors to their ruin.
No accounting for taste.
No accounting for anything.
“Next summer,” Michelangelo said to Fin, slapping his shoulder, kissing his cheeks.
F
in picked up his backpack and his guitar case and headed toward the ship. He had not played his guitar once. He turned to see Lady and Michelangelo in a passionate embrace. He watched as they backed away from each other, each lifting a camera and taking the other’s picture.
“So you don’t think he’s a cad?” Fin had asked as they stood on the deck and waved.
“I suppose he is.”
“Jesus, Lady.”
She laughed. “Who are you more jealous of?” she asked gently. “Michelangelo or the baby?”
Not an easy question. Which room would the baby take over with its spit rags and diaper pail? And whose fault was that if not Michelangelo’s? “I’m not jealous.”
“You will always be first in the hearts of your countrymen.”
“No, I won’t. Anyway, I’m not jealous. I’m concerned. For you.”
“Well, I do have you, Fin.”
“What are you going to do with it? The baby, I mean. I mean, I know you’ll take good care of it, but do you even know how to take care of it?”
“I love Michelangelo,” she said.
“Okay, okay,” he said.
“Anyway, who knows what will happen with him? In the future? Right?”
Fin said nothing.
“And whoever this baby turns out to be, it will know its father. Every summer.”
“Yeah, but…”
“And the rest of the time, we’ll do big things, the baby and I. Things I could never do if I were a hausfrau in Milan, right? First, we’ll go to Japan.”
“By boat?”
“Shut up, Fin.”
“Japan, huh?”
“The baby,” she said with a happy sigh, “will love Japan.”
* * *
When they got back to the house on Charles Street, there were no suitors waiting for Lady, as Fin had imagined there might be. Biffi was not there. He was still a spy in Crete. Tyler had unsurprisingly managed to get out of the draft without benefit of a wife and had quit his law firm, leaving the Hadley business behind him. He was engaged to the daughter of the head of his new firm and was thinking about taking a stab at politics. That’s what his former law partner told Lady. Tyler himself never spoke to Lady again. Jack, too, was out of the picture. He had met a girl dressed in orange robes tapping a tambourine and disappeared for many years.
Fin & Lady: A Novel Page 22
