Nostalgia

by Jonathan Buckley

  ‘I hope you’ll visit us again,’ he says, reopening the door.

  She finds herself answering: ‘I will,’ and if this is not quite a definite intention, it doesn’t feel like a lie either. She gets into the car and winds the window down; she puts her arm on the sill, and Gideon pats it, once.

  ‘OK,’ he says. ‘Back to work,’ he cajoles himself, with a sigh of mock-reluctant compliance. She will never see him again.

  12.8

  Marta received a call less than half an hour ago, from Ilaria, in Florence, from a new number. ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ Ilaria had said at the end, but Marta was so annoyed by what Ilaria had told her that she didn’t feel obliged to keep her promise. And even if she hadn’t been annoyed she would have had to tell someone and that someone would have been Sofia. As soon as she’d finished talking to Ilaria, she gave Sofia a call; Sofia was at the museum, chatting to her sister, doing nothing. ‘Can you come to the Torre?’ asked Marta. ‘Something interesting has happened.’

  Sofia is wearing a dress – sky-blue, with thin straps – that Marta has never seen before, and she looks so lovely that Marta’s heart does a stutter at the sight of her. The past few months have been a sweet misery, because she has come to realise that she loves Sofia and cannot do anything about it. Sofia has been a friend for years, but Marta now knows that what she feels for Sofia is more than friendship, and you could say that she’s been able to accept that she loves Sofia because of what happened with Ilaria last year, in a way. Ilaria had argued with her boyfriend and had drunk a lot of wine before she met up with Marta; they bought a bottle and went out into the fields, and they ended up messing around. For Ilaria it meant nothing; it was just some fun, as Marta knew. And for Marta it was fun too – that’s all it could be, with Ilaria. Those kisses with Ilaria, though, were what changed everything: they turned a suspicion into a fact; she now knew why no boy had ever interested her as boys were meant to interest a girl. But it was one thing for Marta finally to understand and accept herself – it was something quite different for her family, her friends and the town to understand and accept. ‘Not a word to anyone,’ Ilaria had said, and Marta had said nothing. It hadn’t been too difficult to keep the secret: but now, with how she feels about Sofia, it’s very difficult.

  She and Ilaria had hardly ever spoken about their evening, but they didn’t regret what they’d done; they weren’t even embarrassed about it. And they had stayed friends – better friends than ever, in fact, which is why, every day since Ilaria disappeared, a dozen times a day, Marta has been trying her number. Every day Ilaria’s phone has been switched off – and now, suddenly, here she is. She’s sent a picture of herself in Florence, up on Piazzale Michelangelo, with a man who looks about forty, with eyes like a lizard and a mouth like a gash. ‘He’s wearing eye-liner, and he’s a hundred years old,’ Sofia comments, with a disgusted flicking of her tongue against her teeth, as if trying to scrape off a horrible taste.

  As Sofia says, the man looks like a pimp, but Ilaria says he’s a photographer and he knows loads of people in television. ‘His name’s Uli,’ says Marta.

  ‘Uli,’ Sofia repeats, making it sound like the most ridiculous name a man has ever had.

  ‘That’s right. A lot of girls on TV have this guy to thank for their first break, apparently.’

  ‘According to Ilaria.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That girl’s an air-head,’ says Sofia. She takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes, as if the stupidity of what she was hearing were giving her a headache. ‘So Lizard-Face is the reason she ran?’

  ‘And she wanted to give the old folks a scare.’

  ‘The old folks and her friends,’ says Sofia.

  ‘That’s what I said. But she thought I’d tell the parents if I knew she was OK.’

  ‘Are you going to tell them now?’

  ‘Don’t know. If I do, she’ll never talk to me again.’

  ‘You have to tell them,’ says Sofia. ‘It’s not fair. Her dad’s a pig, but it’s not fair, even for a pig. If you don’t tell them, I will.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ says Marta. ‘I promised her I wouldn’t. If you tell them, she’ll know I told you. She says she’s going to call them.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Soon could mean anything,’ says Sofia. ‘Enough is enough. Ring her back, right now. Tell her that if she doesn’t call them tonight you’ll call them yourself. It’s just not right.’ She picks the phone off the table and places it in Marta’s hand. ‘This is a stupid game to be playing. People are worried. Call her.’

  ‘I’ll ring her this afternoon.’

  ‘No, Marta. You’ll ring her now.’

  She rings, and it goes to voicemail; she tells Ilaria to call her back, because they need to talk.

  ‘Good,’ says Sofia, and Marta feels as stupid as Ilaria, and for a moment hopeless, because Sofia is so decisive, and right, and so gorgeous, and whatever happens she is about to lose Ilaria as a friend.

  That afternoon she speaks to Ilaria, who can only give her a few minutes: she’s waiting for Uli and he’ll be here any minute. In the background there’s an announcement for a train. ‘You have to talk to your family,’ pleads Marta. It is cruel what you are doing.’ Ilaria, losing her temper, promises she’ll call them.

  Four days later, Sofia passes Ilaria’s mother on the Corso, and, seeing immediately that the poor woman still knows nothing, tells her all she knows. Eight days after that, Ilaria returns to Castelluccio. True to her word, she refuses to have anything to do with Marta. She’s seen in town a few times, but never in the Torre; none of her former friends gets a call from her; neither does Gideon.

  One morning, unloading a van, Giovanni Cabrera comes face to face with her, and she looks at him, he says, as if she’s searching for someone to murder. ‘How are things?’ he asks. Things are terrible, she says. Her father has hit her and her mother yet again has done nothing, just standing there and wringing her hands and whispering her weepy little prayers, as if she thinks Saint Zeno is going to come flying out of the clouds to sort things out, after a few hundred years of unemployment. But Ilaria has plans, she says.

  And some time in October she leaves again; her mother, failing to avoid Sofia on Piazza del Mercato, informs her curtly that Ilaria has gone, and that her departure is best for all concerned. And that’s all we know, though Giovanni Cabrera hears a rumour in March that Ilaria is dancing in a club outside Florence and is making a lot of money, ‘because men really go for a redhead’.

  On a foggy morning in November, not long after Ilaria’s second and – it is safe to assume – irrevocable departure, Gideon is setting off for his morning walk with Trim when he sees in the murk a lone figure sitting on the bench by the loggia: it is Marta, in a blue tracksuit. They chat for a few minutes. She’s been for a run, she tells him; she’s taken up running because she needs to lose some weight.

  ‘No you don’t,’ Gideon replies.

  She loves this kind of weather, she says, running her hands down Trim’s back. ‘Everything is familiar but a bit wrong. Like a dream.’

  ‘It is,’ he agrees; Marta seems glum. ‘May I sit down?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course,’ she answers.

  They sit side by side, facing the foggy square. The Redentore is a dark cliff; footsteps traverse the piazza; someone moves from left to right, like a big slow fish under muddy water.

  ‘It really is like a dream,’ says Gideon.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ says Marta. There is a strange kind of intimacy to the situation, sitting together on the cold bench, in the quietness, with ghostly people passing through the fog in front of them. ‘Ilaria has gone,’ she says. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘I’d heard,’ says Gideon.

  Marta admits that she is disappointed – not that Ilaria has left, but that she was not, in the end, a real friend.

  ‘I never understood her,’ says Gideon.

  ‘But she was fun, sometimes,’
says Marta.

  ‘I can imagine,’ says Gideon.

  Trim trots off into the greyness, dwindling in seconds to a no-coloured dash. ‘She wasn’t happy at home,’ says Marta. ‘Her father – he wasn’t a good father.’

  ‘So I believe.’

  Then Marta, as though talking to herself, utters the words that run through her mind a hundred times a day: ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  Gideon turns to look at her; his smile is kindly, and his eyes are very tired. ‘Go on,’ he says.

  The dog returns, its coat gleaming with beads of water; she brushes his brow. She is sure, as Ilaria had been sure, that Gideon is gay, so he will understand; and the fact that his Italian isn’t great makes it easier too. So now she says what she has said to nobody else: ‘I’m in love.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Gideon replies, and the smile does not change. He knows what she’s about to say, because of what Ilaria had once told him, no doubt thinking she’d give the old man a bit of a jolt.

  ‘With a girl,’ says Marta.

  ‘That’s good,’ he responds. ‘But she doesn’t know – is that it?’

  ‘Nobody knows anything,’ she says, with a long look to make sure he understands exactly what she’s saying.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘My mother thinks I have no luck with boys.’ She laughs, and for a moment Gideon joins in. ‘I don’t know what my father thinks,’ she adds.

  ‘And this friend – you think she doesn’t feel the same way as you feel?’

  ‘I know she doesn’t. It’s not possible.’

  ‘Nothing is impossible.’

  ‘No. Believe me. It is impossible.’

  ‘OK,’ he says, ‘but you want to tell her?’

  ‘I want her to know how I am. Maybe not that I love her. But I want her to know me. I need her to know who I am. If I can’t tell her, I’ll explode.’

  ‘But if you tell her, it’s possible she will not stay a friend.’

  ‘Exactly. Ilaria is bad enough. I can’t lose two.’

  He cradles the dog’s head and gazes into its eyes. ‘If she does what Ilaria did, she’s not a friend,’ he pronounces, then he turns to her again. ‘You have to tell the truth, Marta. And if you love her, I’m sure she’s a good person. So tell her. Tell her how you are. Perhaps don’t tell her everything. If you think it’s too dangerous to tell her that you love her, don’t say it. Perhaps later. See how it goes. But don’t explode, Marta. The Antica Farmacia needs you,’ he jokes, and he puts a hand on her knee and gives it a small squeeze. He stands up, wincing at the effort of straightening his legs.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, releasing her gratitude with a rough rub for the dog.

  ‘See you tonight,’ says Gideon, and he walks into the fog.

  So a month or so later she finally tells Sofia that she is not attracted to boys, and Sofia doesn’t miss a beat: she had suspected as much – more than suspected, to be honest. They talk for hours, and in the end Marta has to confess that she has deep feelings, very deep feelings, for Sofia. ‘I’ve sometimes wondered,’ says Sofia. But she’s totally frank with Marta: it can’t happen, she tells her; she’s touched; she’s flattered; but she likes boys. If Marta can live with this situation, though, so can Sofia. They talk into the night, and it’s all OK. Sofia swears she’ll not say anything about what Marta has told her, not even to her boyfriend. They remain good friends. But at the back of Marta’s mind, as she admits to Gideon, there lurks the notion that maybe, after all, something will happen one day. Sofia has boyfriends, it’s true, but Marta has heard about situations where a woman one day wakes up and realises she’s not what she thought she was. ‘A person is a river, not a monument,’ Marta tells herself; it’s a phrase of which she’s very fond; she heard it from Gideon.

  She tells her family, and they are fine about it: they had guessed, says her father, and her mother nods, not overjoyed. Her father gives her a mighty hug, and that’s that. Marta loves her father, and her mother, and could not bear to live far from where they are, yet she knows she will have to get away from Castelluccio some day soon. London is where she wants to live, she thinks; she is thrilled by the idea of a big city, and of this big city in particular. In London she could be herself with no hassle at all. She once talked to a DJ who had lived there, and he’d made it sound fantastic. But what would she do in London? She lacks the courage of Ilaria, and has no talents that could help her. People tend to like her, she knows. She is a good waitress: she does not make mistakes and can smile at people she doesn’t much like. The thought of being a waitress in Castelluccio when she’s thirty, however, makes her despair.

  She says as much to Sofia, sitting outside the Torre. When she was up on that wire, she tells her, with the whole town spread out below her and the cemetery beyond, she’d felt a great wave of dread. Looking down, she’d seen all those faces smiling up, and it was as if someone had thrown a net over her. To loud applause, and the flash of dozens of cameras, she’d descended to Piazza del Mercato, feeling ill with the thought that sliding down a wire on a Sunday afternoon, dressed up like a fairy, was the most exciting thing that was ever going to happen to her. She gazes through the gates through which Gideon’s niece has just been driven. ‘I can’t stay here forever,’ she tells Sofia, thinking: But I love you.

  12.9

  The Falling Boy

  2011

  Oil-tempera on canvas; 100cm x 212cm

  Dexter Rutherford collection, Albuquerque, New Mexico

  In what turned out to be his last interview, with Gary Yerolim, for Yerolim’s Brushwork blog, Gideon Westfall remarked that if he were to be told that he was going to die the next morning and, in accordance with the convention of granting a condemned man his final request, were to be allowed to spend the coming night in the presence of one painting, that painting would be The School of Athens. Several times since moving to Italy he had gone to Rome primarily to study that picture. It was, he thought, the Renaissance’s ‘supreme masterpiece of anachronistic verisimilitude’, a work of ‘the most subtle strangeness’, in which the ‘wildest invention is perfectly reconciled with the rules of harmony’.

  And in this interview he expressed some regret that he had, as he put it, ‘imposed too much constraint’ on his own powers of invention. He acknowledged that he had been discouraged by the reception given to some of the more overtly imaginative works of his early career, such as Epicurus in Hell. One particular journalist’s response to this painting had, he did not mind admitting, wounded him deeply. Several years had passed before he had attempted anything in a similar vein, and he had destroyed this painting before completing it. Later ‘experiments’ had likewise been adjudged, by himself, to be unsuccessful. As many as a dozen canvases had been destroyed. But he had come to wonder if his judgement might not have been clouded by too great a concern to preserve the overall cohesion of his work. These forays into the fantastic were perhaps rejected chiefly because he’d known they would have appeared to a future public as outcrops that disrupted the landscape of his oeuvre, so to speak, like boulders in a meadow. He now wished that he had found the courage to spare more than one of these ‘erratics’. The one that had escaped the cull – the Landscape with Dead Horse – was, in his opinion, one of the half-dozen works on which his reputation would depend. The Falling Boy, recently finished, was another.

  Of the paintings that had been destroyed, he regretted the loss of three: The Laureate (1987), in which a procession of black-gowned men and women, in double file, some involved in intense argument, crossed a wide and moonlit square, following an elderly man who wore a laurel crown and white gown and had the look of a criminal on his way to the scaffold; The Gathering (1992), set on a grassy hill, swathed in mist, with a crowd, backs turned to the viewer, gazing towards an isolated figure that was all but lost in the fog of the upper slope; and The Somnambulists (1999), another nocturnal scene, in which – seen from a rooftop vantage – a street and two small squares were occupied by twenty or thirty fi
gures, a few in small groups, most alone, some clothed, some naked, some with eyes open, some with eyes closed, a few weeping, most expressionless, and one – a young woman, clad in a blood-red robe – looking directly at us, with preternaturally large eyes and a ghastly smile. The circumstances in which this last detail had been added, he revealed, were most unusual, for him. After a long day’s work on The Somnambulists he had gone to bed at one or two o’clock, drained; at some point in the night he had got up and gone into the studio, where he’d stayed for he didn’t know how long; when he woke up again, he was conscious of having returned to the painting in the middle of the night, but had no idea of what he’d done to it; with some trepidation he went up to the studio, and found that he’d created the figure in the blood-red robe. ‘The picture,’ he told Gary Yerolim, ‘had told me how it should be completed.’ He sometimes wished, he confessed, that he had more often surrendered himself to such subconscious promptings.

  There are several points of resemblance between The Somnambulists and The Falling Boy, most obviously that of viewpoint. A parade is crossing Piazza Sant’Agostino and we are looking down on it from a position in space that is opposite the church, at about the same height as the ceiling of the nave; in reality, no viewer could occupy such a position. The people in the parade are all wearing their everyday clothes, but some are carrying flags and banners which are adorned with images of the boar of Saint Zeno; others are playing trumpets or beating drums; at the head of the procession is a priest, who holds aloft a silver chalice, tarnished. The stones of the piazza and the façade of Sant’Agostino are brightly lit, and the celebrants cast stark shadows on the ground, yet the portion of the sky that we can see, in the alleys that flank the church (alleys that are not in reality there) is ominously dark. A look of stern concentration, like that of soldiers on parade, is on the face of most of the participants, and it is as though an invisible rope were tightly encircling the procession, so closely packed are the bodies: the trumpets are almost touching the shoulders of the people in front; one man has put a hand out to create more space for himself; a woman is about to tread on the priest’s golden surplice. Only one person – a portly man, balding, an unidentical twin of the artist – has room in which to walk unencumbered: he is preceded by a void which is as conspicuous as a missing tooth. A figure who is unequivocally the artist – this painting’s sole portrait of a citizen of Castelluccio – appears elsewhere, among the crowd that lines one side of the piazza; standing at a slight remove, with a mudcaked dog at his feet, he is the only person among the throng who is not applauding or cheering: his gaze is directed into one of the alleys, at the end of which, displaced from its true location, rises the Torre del Saraceno. Silhouetted against the pale stone, a tiny figure is falling from the tower, observed by nobody else; no saint is swooping out of the oily sky. And in the mouth of the alleyway, herself detached from the crowd on that side of the piazza, stands a young woman in a red gown, fixing us with a look that is perhaps desperate, or accusatory, or deranged; above her head, the alley is spanned by a stone arch, and into this arch is set a stone plaque, inscribed with a text in letters so small that a lens is needed to read it. The text, in Latin, may be translated thus: We must first descend if we wish to be raised. There are two other isolated figures in the scene: on the extreme left, in a doorway, a skulking man, with a rolled newspaper sticking out of a jacket pocket, holds a bloodied handkerchief to his nose; and on the opposite side, visible through a window, a bearded man sits at a paper-strewn desk, with a pen in one hand and the other resting on a mandolin.