The Conversion

by Joseph Olshan

  “Well, what about Calasso? What about Eco?” I ask.

  “What about them?”

  If Stefano had been long admired by these giants, perhaps they could use their literary influence to help secure an English-language publisher.

  Marina nods. “They admire his work, or so they say.”

  “Well, they came to visit and pay him homage, right?”

  “Ah, but he was also a very influential critic. Perhaps they say they love his work merely to curry favor,” she switches to English for the last two words. Then back to Italian. “We will certainly find out the truth when I ask both of them for help. If they don’t come through, then it will prove that their acquaintance with Stefano, and their flattery, was purely about their own gain.”

  I find myself turning toward the window where the rock came through, where a new pane of glass has replaced the broken one. Noticing this, Marina says wistfully, “At least we don’t have to worry anymore about threats against him.”

  Silent for a while, I then say, “Maybe all those threats were overstated.”

  She shrugs and admits, “Quite possibly. We think—Carla, my friend in Intelligence, and I—that the rock was an unrelated event; probably it was thrown by some children. It somehow doesn’t seem serious. These things can happen.”

  “But I mean, what about your conspiracy theory? What about the break-in in Paris? What about the men who supposedly wanted to harm your husband? Do you still believe in any of it?”

  Marina shrugs. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. But I don’t have to commit myself. Obviously it doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, it still matters to me!” I remind her. For what had happened in Paris probably ended up causing Ed’s death.

  Marina crosses her arms in what I interpret as a defensive gesture. “Yes, this is quite true, I am sorry to say.” She looks at me fondly. “Unfortunately, Russell, it might have to remain a mystery. Can you live with that?”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “I suppose you could go back to Paris and try to find out more.”

  “I could, this is true. But just remember, my point has always been that one threat probably had absolutely nothing to do with the other. That Ed and I were the victims of circumstance.”

  “That’s certainly a possibility,” Marina now concedes.

  I wait a moment and then say, “In fact, you might not have invited me here if you didn’t think that Ed was mistaken for Stefano.”

  Before Marina has a chance to answer, the side door buzzes. She looks at me meaningfully and goes to answer it. From well in the distance, I can distinguish Lorenzo’s unmistakably baritone voice blending in with Marina’s, both speaking English—Lorenzo, albeit, haltingly. Hearing him, my stomach knots and burns. Soon she returns to the living room followed by my dashing carabiniere in a crisply pressed uniform and the American consular attaché, a sandy-haired man with a puffy, florid face and a small port-wine stain beginning on the left side of his mouth and ending at the bottom of his chin. He is dressed in a tight sharkskin suit and looks tired and bored. I imagine him living a life of back-to-back official functions and daily alcoholic dissipation. The conversation progresses in English.

  “Russell Todaro?” he says to me with the accent on the third syllable. Correcting his pronunciation to accent the first, I identify myself. He reaches into a briefcase and hands me a document with a very official-looking United States of America seal and letterhead. Three paragraphs of legalese demand I hand over both my computer and the unfinished memoir manuscript of the late Edward J. Cannon.

  I excuse myself to fetch my laptop computer enclosed in its carrying case. Returning to the library with it I say, “When can I get this back?”

  “We should be able to get it to you in a few days, once we go over all your activities on it and look for hidden or deleted files.”

  Marina glances at me knowingly when the man mentions “deleted files.”

  The American official resumes, “There is also a demand for the manuscript.”

  “I’ve already told them I don’t have a copy of the manuscript. As far as I know Mr. Cannon mailed it back to the United States.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Marina bristling. When the appointment was rescheduled, she’d tried once again to convince me to give up the manuscript, which I refused to do. She’d finally capitulated, telling me that I could say and do whatever I wanted when the official came, promising not to interfere.

  Now she actually surprises me. “There are no manuscript pages in this man’s possession. I know this because he was not well at all when he first came here to the villa. Because of the death of his lover.”

  I can’t help but glance at Lorenzo when the word lover is uttered and can actually see him flinch.

  Marina goes on, “This, of course, was a terrible shock to him, and when he arrived here he slept a great deal because of it. My housekeeper unpacked all his belongings for him. She tells me there was no manuscript among his possessions. She is here, in fact, and if you’d like I will call her. However, she speaks in a Tuscan dialect. So this man”—she points to Lorenzo—“might have to translate your questions and her responses.”

  It’s a brilliant performance. The only problem is in light of what I’ve already told him, Lorenzo now knows she is lying. I search his features for a sign, but he remains poker-faced. I deeply regret having confessed anything. For how can I be sure that he’s completely trustworthy? Beyond his assurances, knowing how conflicted he is about his sexuality, I can’t help wondering if he might betray me out of some kind of self-denial, or maybe even self-hatred. The fact that his face looks so expressionless, eyes without any sort of luster, frightens me.

  “Well, yes, that would be a good idea,” says the official. “Then I will have it for the record.”

  There is a tremor of silence and Lorenzo finally smiles at the official and responds in Italian, “I don’t think you will want this. To question a person who works for her would require approval from the central office.”

  Marina laughs and says in English to the official, “As you know we have a bureaucracy here in Italy that snakes endlessly through the system.”

  “To question the lady you might have to delay by as much as two weeks,” Lorenzo amends.

  “Don’t be so official,” Marina chafes at Lorenzo in Italian. “He can question her now.”

  Why is she pushing the issue? I inwardly cringe. Why can’t she just leave well enough alone? Then again, maybe no approval is needed to question Carla, and Lorenzo and Marina are merely enacting a charade. Indeed, I can see a faint grin on Lorenzo’s face, as though she’s been able to communicate something to him. Marina barrels ahead, “And as if the fact that I was once the mayor of Genoa has any bearing on whether or not I would tell the truth. We all know that some of Italy’s greatest liars were politicians. Don’t we?” she says to the carabiniere.

  “Not your father,” Lorenzo says.

  Marina again addresses the official in English, “He says not my father, which is true.”

  “I know what he’s saying,” the official says in a frustrated tone. “I’ve been following your discussion perfectly. I’m quite fluent in Italian, you know. I’ve been speaking English only because this man is American and I am enforcing American law. Now what is this about your father?”

  “He helped write Italy’s modern constitution,” Lorenzo tells him. “We—the country—mourned him when he died.”

  Marina nods and affirms this.

  Growing fidgety, as though finally realizing he’s completely out of his element, the American official asks me to sign one paper that says I release the computer and then another to warrant there is no physical copy of Edward Cannon’s unfinished memoir/manuscript in my possession. I hate giving an official signature to my lie, and yet I know there is no going back.

  “I will try to give you a call about your laptop within a few days,” the man informs me.

  “You kn
ow the way out,” Marina tells Lorenzo, who leads the official away.

  We wait until we hear the front door close. And the moment it does Carla enters the room, dressed in a roomy two-piece floral suit. She’s lost some weight during the past two weeks and looks pale as she stands before us, pressing her shoulders together as though suddenly uncomfortable in her own skin. “My goodness, but don’t you look lovely,” Marina tells her with great affection. “Too bad today isn’t Sunday. You could go directly to church.”

  “And pray forgiveness for lying,” Carla says humorlessly.

  I can’t help but compare the two women and note that Stefano’s death seems to be taking a greater toll on Carla. Then it suddenly occurs to me, “Oh my God. She was all ready to go on, wasn’t she?!”

  Marina nods. “She takes this very seriously. Even though, as you know, I was all for your giving them the memoir, Stefano was with you … and completely against me. And so was …” She glances at Carla.

  “Stefano is only reason why I help,” Carla blurts out, and continues to stand there looking forlorn.

  Regarding her, Marina says, “We’re really missing Stefano today, Carla and me. Aren’t we?”

  Carla’s eyes blink with tears. “We are,” she affirms in a shaky voice.

  “We were, Carla and I, talking about how you really come to love someone the most exquisitely when they’re dying. The annoying things about them, their pettiness, the difficult parts of their nature are all washed away and they become pure again and adorable. Witnessing someone die is supposed to be the most natural thing in the world, but it becomes something truly incomprehensible, especially the very last moment when everything stops moving and there is supposed to be grace in the final stillness. No, it’s actually horrible to watch.”

  Marina now reaches for Carla’s hand. “And sadly, she and I cannot really give each other comfort about this. Because she’s a believer and I am not.”

  “The signora is lapsed,” Carla explains with a bit of disdain.

  “Lapsed, perhaps, but I would still never enter a church wearing a pair of shorts. Out of profound respect.”

  “So then you don’t believe in God?” I say, fixing my eyes on her.

  Marina sighs and shakes her head. “Nor an afterlife. Stefano did, however, which is quite ironic if you knew him. Something else that he and Carla had in common.” Marina turns to me. “I assume that you’re a believer.”

  “In some form of divine spirit, yes,” I say.

  “Let’s put it this way. I don’t rule it out. I just don’t live as though there is anything beyond the grave.” Then her eyes blink rapidly with what seems to be a new thought. “Although I do think there might be something. Yes, I think I feel it sometimes when I’m out walking the dogs. Just myself and them. Especially if we’re in a wide open space. At that moment it seems to me that there is no longer any hierarchy of being, that we’re all just creatures inhabiting the earth, our soul visible in our eyes. I suppose if I had to say there was something divine, something godlike, it would be what is between my dogs and myself when we go for a walk in the fields.”

  Once Carla leaves us alone again, I mention to Marina, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about something Carla said to me the night Stefano died.”

  Marina frowns, waiting to hear.

  “She said that I actually knew somebody who might have helped Stefano’s books be translated into English, but refused. Who is this?”

  At first Marina looks surprised, but then her brow crinkles in bewilderment. “Ah, yes? Why didn’t you ask her then?”

  “I did, but she didn’t know the name.”

  “Russell, I have no idea what she means. But I certainly hope to find out.”

  Because the air in Tuscany is so dry, as has been predicted, the temperature does a nosedive in the evening, and the villa is beset by the first hint of autumn, whose official beginning is still a few weeks away. After a very quiet dinner, Marina and I are sitting in the library. The villa’s enormous rooms ache with the early chill, and she has built a fire, which now roars before us. It almost seems that we are both separately musing that Stefano’s death and my computer being seized mark a kind of turning point. Perhaps because of this—and maybe even because of the abrupt change in weather—Marina says, “So what are you planning to do now?”

  Could she be suggesting that my visit should come to an end?

  “You mean where do I plan to go?”

  This seems to catch her unawares, which in turns surprises me. “No. I told you to stay as long as you like. That hasn’t changed.”

  I remind her that that was before Stefano passed away.

  “As if his passing would alter my invitation.”

  And then I realize on the contrary, Stefano’s death might make her more anxious for me to remain. “It’s hard to know. Nobody has ever invited me to stay anywhere this long.”

  “Excuse me. What about in Paris?”

  “Yeah, but Ed had motivations.”

  “Who is to say that I don’t?” Marina winks at me, looking a bit embarrassed.” In Paris when I heard that your Italian was pretty good and learned that you didn’t really want to go back to America, I thought I would invite you here and perhaps at some point bring up doing our translation.”

  “And if Ed hadn’t died?”

  “Moot. You simply would’ve gone back to America with him.”

  This is certainly true.

  Marina goes on, “Now that you’ve signed a paper saying that you don’t have the manuscript and have no more obligations toward it, editorially speaking, what about your own writing?”

  “Well, now I don’t even have a computer.”

  “Don’t be evasive, my friend.” She smiles.

  I ponder this for a moment. “I told you I don’t have any ideas, good ideas I mean, for a book.”

  “And as I told you, I think you’ve distracted yourself from these ideas. Now you must take the risk, try to work on your own material until you can bring it to completion. To face the thing I know that frightens you the most, the terrifying prospect of something you’ve wrought being completely ignored by the rest of the world.”

  “That’s easy for you to say—”

  “Excuse me,” Marina interrupts to inform me, “my first two novels were completely ignored. And remember that my Stefano knew this disappointment acutely. But acceptance and attention is not why we should write. To illustrate this, let me quote my kind, humble Rilke.” She opens up a drawer and pulls out a piece of paper. “This is what I read to myself when I feel I cannot write another word.” She reads in English.

  Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further. The further one goes, the more private, the more personal, the more singular an experience becomes, and the thing one is making is, finally, the necessary, irrepressible, and, as nearly as possible, definitive utterance of this singularity. Therein lies the enormous aid the work of art brings to the life of the one who must make it.

  Without looking at me, Marina opens the desk drawer and returns the piece of paper.

  “Well, I guess that clinches your point, doesn’t it?” I say.

  She shrugs. “I’m concerned that even though you’ve told them you don’t have the memoir, you’re still going to read and reread it, like worrying a wound, and hold on to it like some important relic.” She goes quiet for a moment and then says, “My main reason for wanting you to give it up to them is I knew how afraid you were to let it go.”

  “That’s probably accurate.”

  “Why not write your own memoir about the relationship … and be as truthful as possible. Along the way spice it up with the stories of all your ill-fated love affairs. Then your book could be compared to his. Maybe his book would create an interest in yours.”

  “Nobody’s going to care about my memoir, much less my love affairs. I’m not anybody of note.”

  “It�
�s all in the doing,” Marina instructs. “Ordinary lives can often be the most beautifully rendered.”

  Conflicted, I fall silent, listening to the crackling fire. Maybe I should.

  She gets up from her chair, comes over, and sits down next to me. “You know, Russell, this afternoon I was resting with my dogs and thinking about our conversation earlier in the day. And I actually began to wonder if Stefano’s novels really aren’t as good as I want to believe, and so perhaps should not be translated into English but rather left in Italian, merely footnotes to the literature of this time. And maybe I should stop trying to justify his work to feel worthy of him. Perhaps the same goes with your fascination with married men,” she exclaims at last. “If you’d only choose a more distinct path for your personal life, then you more easily might make the choice to continue with your writing career.”

  Suddenly I make a decision. “Wait here. I’ll be right back,” I tell her.

  I hurry into my bedroom and reach into one of Stefano’s bookshelves, where, behind Italo Svevo’s La Coscienza di Zeno, I’ve concealed the manuscript, whose first and last pages are now dusty with old plaster. I carry it back into the library, the ninety-page excerpt on the top. I hand everything to Marina, who dutifully reads the first page of the excerpt. She smiles, bemused, and hands it back to me. “Why are you showing me this? I told you before I don’t want to read it.”

  “I just want you to take a look, a last look at it.” I glance at the fire and then stare back at her.

  “You’re not going to do anything so stupid?”

  “You told me that I’m holding on to it, that I’m afraid to give it up. Maybe I just need to be rid of it altogether.”

  “Absolutely not! Surrender it to his editors and let them do what they want with it. Let it spur you to write your own version. But no matter what, you cannot destroy another author’s work.”

  “Even if I knew he’d want me to?”

  “In his life he wanted you to!” Marina exclaims.