The Invitation

by Lucy Foley

  She calls back to him. ‘You are not Italian, are you?’

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘I’m not.’ Half-Italian – but he won’t say that. The less you say, the fewer questions you invite. It is something to live by.

  ‘Even more interesting. Do you know how I guessed? It is not because of your Italian, I should add – it is almost perfect.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because of your suit, of course. I never make mistakes about tailoring. It is English-made, I think?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ His father had it made up for him by his tailor.

  ‘Excellent. I like to be right. Now, tell me why you are here.’

  ‘My friend had an invitation. He thought I might want to come instead of him.’

  ‘No, Caro. I mean to ask why you are in Rome.’

  ‘Oh. For work.’

  ‘People do not come to Rome for work. There is always something more that drives them: love, escape, the hope of a new life. Which is it?’

  Hal meets her eyes for as long as he is able, and then he has to look away. He felt for a second that she was seeing right into him, and that he was exposed. He understands, suddenly, that he won’t be able to get in without answering her question. He is reminded of the myth of the Sphinx at Thebes, asking her riddles, devouring those who answer wrongly.

  ‘Escape,’ he says. And it is true, he realizes. He had told himself Rome would be a new start, but it had been more about leaving the old behind. England had been too full of ghosts. The man he had been before the war was one of them; the spectre of his former happiness. And of all those who hadn’t come home – his friend, Morris, among them. Rome is full of ghosts, too – centuries of them. There is perhaps a stronger concentration of souls here than in any other place in the world: it is not the Eternal City for nothing. But the important thing is that they aren’t his ghosts.

  She nods, slowly. And he wonders if he has made the exchange, given the thing demanded in return for entry. But no, her questions haven’t ended yet.

  ‘And what do you do here?’

  ‘I’m a journalist.’ As soon as he says it he decides he should have lied. People in her sort of position can be obsessive about privacy. She doesn’t seem disturbed by it, though.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Hal Jacobs. I doubt that you will have—’

  But she is squinting at him, as though trying to work something out. Finally, she seems to have it. ‘Reviews,’ she says, triumphantly, ‘reviews of films.’

  But no one read that column – that was the problem, as his editor at The Tiber had said.

  ‘Well, yes, I did write them. A couple of years ago now.’

  ‘They were brilliant,’ she says. ‘Molto molto acuto.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he says, surprised.

  ‘There was one you wrote of Giacomo Gaspari’s film, La Elegia. And I thought to myself, there are all these Italian critics failing to see its purpose, asking why anyone would want to look back to the war, that time of shame. And then there was an Englishman – you – who understood it absolutely. You wrote with such power.’

  Elegy. Hal remembers the film viscerally, as though it is in some way seared into him.

  ‘After I read that,’ she says, ‘I thought: I must read everything this man has to write on film. You saw what others didn’t. But you stopped!’

  Hal shrugs. ‘My editor thought my style was … too academic, not right for our readership.’ It had been replaced with an agony aunt column: ‘Gina Risponde . . .’ Roman housewives writing in to ask how to get their whites whiter, lonely men asking how to conceal a balding pate, young women eager to work in the capital asking whether it was really the immoral, dangerous place their parents spoke of.

  The Contessa is shaking her head, as though over some great wrong. ‘But why would you work somewhere like …’ she seems to be searching for the name.

  ‘The Tiber?’

  ‘Yes. You should be writing for a national magazine.’

  It must be nice, Hal thinks, to live in a world in which things are so easy. As though one might merely walk into the office of one of the bigger magazines and demand a job. There had been interviews. But nothing had come of it. And his work for The Tiber has – just about – allowed him to pay his rent, to feed himself.

  ‘I work there because they’ll have me.’

  ‘I wonder if they know how lucky they are.’ She looks at him thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps when my film is made you can write a review of that. Only a good one, naturally.’

  He remembers, now, Fede saying something about a film. ‘When will it be made?’

  ‘When I can afford it. It is why I am throwing this party – to try and persuade others they want to see it made too.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I need to use all my powers of charm.’ She smiles, suddenly. ‘Do you think I can do it?’

  He says, honestly, ‘Yes, I do.’ Because she does have it, a charisma beside which the charms of youth or beauty are so much blown thistledown.

  She laughs. ‘I am suddenly delighted to have you at my party, Hal Jacobs.’ And then she beckons, with one beringed hand. ‘Please, follow me.’

  Now they are reaching the top of the staircase where the final door stands open to reveal a seething crowd. As Hal steps into the room, his first thought is that he is surrounded by people of extraordinary beauty. But as the illusion thins, he realizes that this is not the case. There is ugliness here. But the gorgeous clothes and jewels and the very air itself – performed with scent and wine and expensive cigarettes – do a clever job of hiding the flaws.

  As the Contessa steps toward the crowd, the energies of the room extend themselves toward her. Heads turn and several guests begin to make their way in her direction, as though drawn on invisible wires. She looks back at Hal.

  ‘I’m afraid that I am about to be busy,’ she says to him.

  ‘Of course. Please, go to your real guests.’

  She smiles. ‘Hal Jacobs,’ she says. ‘I will remember.’ And then, before he can ask exactly what she means by this, she winks. ‘Enjoy my party.’ Then she walks into the crowd and is enveloped by it, lost from view.

  Hal wanders through the throng, picking up a flute of spumante from a waiter and sipping it as he goes. One of the things that strikes him is the number of different nationalities in attendance. A few years ago, he was in the minority as an Englishman. Holidaymakers were only allowed to take £35 out of the country with them. Most stayed at home. Now, they are returning – and perhaps in greater numbers than before. He isn’t sure how he feels about this.

  The thing that unifies this crowd, across nationalities, is the same thing that gave that initial impression of beauty. They are all of a type.

  He attempts to catch the eye of the guests that pass him, but every gaze slides over him and then on, in search of more important fare. Several times, he launches himself forward into a group, tries to enter the conversation. He just needs that one opening, then he feels certain he will be able to make things stick. And yet it does not come. Mostly he is ignored. It is something that happens in increments: a guest steps slightly in front of him, or a comment he attempts to make is ignored, or the circle simply disperses so that he is left standing on his own. At first Hal can’t decide whether it is intentional or not. But on a couple of occasions he is quite actively frozen out. One man turns to give him a terrible stare, and Hal is so bemused by the impression of something like hatred, that he takes a step back. Apparently this set do not take well to newcomers. He is a cuckoo in the nest, and they know it. Usually, though it would be arrogance to admit it, Hal is used to being looked at by women. He has always been lucky in that respect. But here he is not given a second glance. Here something more than good looks is being searched out, something in which he is lacking. He is less than invisible.

  Eventually, tired of the repeated humiliation and the noise and hot crush of bodies, he makes for the doors visible at the far end of the room, open onto a
fire escape. He will finish his drink, he thinks, have a cigarette, and then go back in and make another attempt, buoyed by the alcohol. He will not leave here empty-handed; he merely needs a little time to regroup.

  Outside he discovers a flight of stairs leading up, not down, to the roof of the tower itself. Curious, he climbs them. He is astonished to discover himself in the midst of a roof garden. Rome, in all its lamplit, undulating glory, is spread beneath him on all sides. He can see the dark blank of the Roman Forum, a few of the ancient stones made dimly visible by reflected lamplight; the marble bombast of the Altare della Patria with its winged riders like cut-outs against the starlit sky. Then, a little further away, the graceful cupola of St Peter’s, and further domes and spires unknown to him. A network of lamplit streets, some teeming with ant-like forms, others quiet, sleeping. He has never seen Rome like this.

  For a vertiginous moment, he feels that he is floating above it all. Then the ground reforms itself beneath him; he begins to look around. There are palms and shrubs, the smell of the earth after the rain. He gropes for the word for it: petrichor.

  He hears running water and discovers a fountain in which a stone caryatid, palely nude, pours water from her jug. Nearby, a bird caws, and with a great flustered commotion takes wing into the night. He peers after the black shape, surprisingly large. A parrot? An eagle? A phoenix? Any of these seem possible, here.

  He appears to be quite alone. Clearly the opportunities presented by the crush inside are too good for the other guests to miss. He looks toward Trastevere. Somewhere down there he has gone to sleep every night since his arrival in the city, utterly ignorant of the fact that such wonders existed only a few miles away.

  ‘Hello.’

  He turns towards the voice. It is as though the darkness itself has spoken. But when he looks closer he can make her out – the very pale blonde hair first, gleaming in what little light there is, then the shimmering stuff of her dress. Now he sees the fiery bud of a cigarette flare as she inhales. He is struck by the strange notion that she was not there before, that she has just alighted here like some magical winged creature.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says, and leans forward so her face is caught by the light spilling from the interior. His breath catches. He had somehow known from the voice that she would be beautiful, but had not been quite prepared for what has been revealed. And something strange: he feels the fact of it go through him like a sudden coldness.

  She has sat back again now, and immediately he finds himself hoping for another look at her face. There is an intonation that he can’t quite place. American, but something else to it, too. Perhaps, he thinks, it is the accent of one who has lived in this rarefied sphere for a lifetime.

  ‘I’m Hal,’ he says, to fill the silence.

  ‘Hello, Hal,’ she says. A slender white arm appears then, and he sees the wink of diamonds about the fine bones of the wrist. ‘I’m Stella.’

  He takes her hand, and finds it surprisingly warm in his.

  She stands then, and comes to stand beside him at the rail. Now he can detect the scent of her: smoky, complex – a fragrance and something hers alone.

  ‘Look at it,’ she says. She is looking out at the city, leaning forward hungrily. ‘Don’t you wish,’ she says, ‘that you could dive in and swim in it?’ She really looks as though she might, he thinks – plunge off the side and into the night, like a white feather falling through the blackness.

  For a few moments they gaze down in silence. The sounds of the nighttime city float up to them: the blare of a car horn, a woman’s laughter, a faraway trickle of music.

  ‘Do you know the city?’ he asks.

  ‘We had a tour … the Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon …’

  He is so struck by her use of ‘we’ that he can’t at first catch hold of what she is saying. She is still going, counting the sights off on her fingers: ‘St Peter’s, the Spanish Steps …’

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘you’ve done the tourist trail.’

  She frowns. ‘You don’t think that’s a good thing?’

  ‘It isn’t that,’ he says. ‘They’re wonders in their own right. But there’s more than that to this city.’

  ‘You know it well?’

  ‘I live here.’

  ‘I suppose there is a side to the city that I won’t ever see.’ She says it with an odd kind of sadness, as though she feels this loss.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I suppose so. You’d never find my favourite things in a guide.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, such as the fact that the best time to see the Forum is at night, when there’s no one else there. And I know a bar where they play the best jazz outside of New Orleans. But I suppose you’re rather spoiled for choice, being an American.’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever listened to jazz before. Not live. What else?’

  ‘A garden … almost completely hidden behind a high wall, a secret place. Unless you know how to find it.’ He catches himself. He sounds like a braggart. It isn’t like him.

  ‘You would show me?’ She says it in a rush, as if she has dared herself to ask it.

  He is surprised. ‘Yes, if you’d like.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Why not?’

  He knows that it would be a bad idea. He should go back in there and make himself known to the great and important. This might be his only chance to mix with these people, to establish some sort of connection with them. And there is something about this situation that strikes him as perilous. He has spent the last few years keeping a careful guard upon himself, living within self-imposed limits. He should politely decline. Except he finds that he can’t quite bring himself to do so.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Good.’

  She doesn’t know anything about me, he thinks, and yet she is coming with me, a complete stranger, into the night of a foreign city.

  ‘Do you need to tell anyone?’ he asks her, remembering the we.

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘I’m alone.’

  They make their way back down the steps and into the warm fog of cigarette smoke, the press of bodies. She attracts admiring glances, he notices, from both the men and women.

  Near the door, his eyes meet the Contessa’s. He thinks he sees her look quickly to Stella and then back again. For a moment she frowns, as if working something out. And then she turns back to her companion.

  *

  Outside in the street her pale head and outfit glitter through the darkness as though summoning all of the light to them. She shields her face with one hand as the headlamps of a passing car strafe across her. The driver, a man, cranes for a view of her through the window. His look is greedy and Hal feels something close to hatred for him, this complete stranger.

  She turns to him, awaiting his move. Suddenly he fears that nothing he can come up with will be enough.

  They walk through the Forum, the dark stones standing sentinel. He points out the remains of the Temple of Saturn, of which only the ribs of the front portico remain. The Basilica Julia. He shows her – he is thankful for the moonlight that allows it – the detail that has always fascinated him more than anything else: the marks where the bored audiences of the trials held there had scratched games into the stone. She has seemed interested by it all, but suddenly he sees her shiver, pulling her wrap around herself.

  ‘You’re cold?’

  ‘No.’ She glances across at him. ‘Do you mind if we go somewhere else?’

  ‘Of course – why? Don’t you like it?’

  ‘Yes – no. I do, but this quiet … it does something to you.’ She takes a cigarette from a tin in her little reticule, and her lighter, and he sees that her fingers are trembling as she tries to trip the flame into life.

  ‘Here.’ He takes it from her and does it himself.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Where do you want to go?’

  ‘I don’t mind. Somewhere – different.’

  He takes her to a bar he
knows, in a certain secret square. The place is full, even at this hour. She steps before him into the warmth of the place. As he follows he sees the glances of the other customers: lecherous, envious, reverential. With her outfit and her pale blonde hair she could be a movie star. But not a Monroe. There is something less immediate, more foreign about her appeal.

  As soon as she has seated herself one of the waiters is hovering, ready to take her order.

  ‘What are you having?’ she asks.

  ‘Oh, I thought I’d have a beer. But please, have anything you’d like.’ If he has the cheap beer, he thinks, he can afford to buy her a couple of the more expensive offerings. But, to his surprise, she says: ‘I’ll have the same as you.’

  In the corner, a small jazz trio – double bass, sax, trumpet – are playing a number so rough and fervent that one can feel the vibrations of it in one’s chest. He watches her as she listens, her head on one side, her eyes half-closed.

  When the beers arrive, the sight of her sipping hers, sitting in her finery, with that diamond bracelet about her wrist, is so incongruous that it makes him smile. She looks at him, venturing a smile of her own.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You look as though you should be drinking champagne.’

  ‘I hate it,’ she says. ‘I never learned to like it.’ She takes another sip. ‘I like this, though.’

  ‘Good. It’s Italian. I always have it here.’ He doesn’t say: because it is the only one I can afford.

  ‘How long have you lived in Rome? For a while?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘For a few years.’

  ‘And where were you before?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘Ah. And why did you come to Rome?’

  What was it the Contessa had said? There is always something more . . . love, escape, the hope of a new life.

  ‘I came here to write,’ he says, and is immediately surprised at himself. He hasn’t admitted this to anyone, not even Fede. Why did he say it, and to a stranger? But perhaps it is the very fact that she is a stranger.