The Conversion

by Joseph Olshan

  “What do you mean?” I say in English. “You describe where it goes quite plainly.”

  “No one has ever tried to come into the house in this way … the Jewish way,” she clarifies angrily.

  “Well, now obviously somebody has. In fact, we both should have thought of this before. Especially while Stefano was alive and under threat.”

  Marina clasps her hands together and announces, “And now I must go back into the party. I will see you in a few minutes!”

  I walk to the front of the villa and sit down on the limestone steps that Marina and I first sat on after she confessed her fear that the men who had broken into our hotel room were looking for her rather than for us, when she pointed out the convent where Puccini’s sister once lived. One of the caterers has just finished lining the driveway with potted candles and is now kindling the last of them in a curving kilometer of flickering light; the sweeping scene is eerie and somehow pagan. I think back over my afternoon with Lorenzo. It certainly is not lost on me that he chose the moment we were parting to deliver the news about the man who tried to break into the villa. Obviously he elected to orchestrate such a diversion, making it easier to go off without having to intimate whether or not we’d be getting together again. I can’t help wondering if I hadn’t detailed the denouement of my relationship with the priest would Lorenzo have told me earlier about the thief’s confession? I guess it doesn’t really matter.

  Soon it’s one o’clock in the morning. After having dined and danced, the last straggling guests are leaving. From where we sit in the library, Marina and I can hear the sound of the departing cars crunching over the gravel that sometimes gets sprayed when somebody, probably a bit too inebriated to drive, leans heavily on the gas pedal. A few of the caterers are still completing their cleanup, packing their trucks with the hired plates, glassware, and cutlery, periodically crisscrossing, white-jacketed, in the background. Marina has decided to change into her bathrobe and bedroom slippers. She is saying, “Russell, my book has been read by many thousands of people all over the world. No has ever dared to try and come in here by that means. Ask Carla, she will tell you!” She pulls the folds of her bathrobe more tightly around herself.

  And I tell her, “If you go back and look at what you’ve written, you’ll see that it’s all described very carefully.”

  Marina shakes her head. “I know my own work.”

  “I’ve read it a lot more recently than you. At this moment I think I probably know it better,” I am bold enough to say.

  Marina dismisses my statement. “You know, I find it alarming that since you’ve arrived, many odd and unusual things have happened. You have brought strangers into the house. A rock has come through the window. And now this crazy news.”

  “But neither the rock nor this news has anything to do with me.”

  “The villa has always been a safe place.” Now she stares at me fixedly.

  In the jittery silence, I begin to realize how angry she is and wonder if it has less to do with the “odd and unusual things,” the strangers brought into the house, than the fact that I’ve pronounced Stefano’s novels too provincial and unconvincing to have an alternative life in another language. My honesty was something Marina had demanded; and yet, in light of a very pressing obligation to her dead husband’s legacy, she must be bitterly disappointed in my unwillingness to help her with the translations. I suppose it could be argued that I’ve taken her generosity for granted; or worse, still, that I’d taken a cavalier attitude toward Stefano’s work. Indeed, for she suddenly says very simply in English, “Maybe it would be better if you went on to your next destination.”

  Shocked, I feel my face flushing. I hear myself stammer, “I … can do that. I can even leave tomorrow if you want me to.”

  “There’s no rush,” she assures me with a brittle smile. “Just figure out where you’d want to go next.” With that, she gets up, kisses me on the cheek, retires to her bedroom, and shuts the door behind her.

  Shamed and humiliated, I sit there in the beautiful library, my favorite room in the villa, feeling like a small, insignificant worm. I keep watching her door, thinking that Marina will surely have second thoughts about having dismissed me in such a way and will soon come out and capitulate. How could she be asking me to leave when, just a few days ago, she was warmly encouraging me to stay? Soon the bar of light showing in the gap between her door and the floor is extinguished.

  Back in my room, I lie awake for hours trying to figure out what my next move should be and where I can go. I’m now in a bind; just the day before I’d informed the tenants who were subletting my apartment in Brooklyn that they could stay from six to nine months longer. Although I know I might have to, it seems unfair to call back and renege on my agreement. Then I admit to myself that I’m just not ready to go back to America. Especially in such a state of rejection: first Lorenzo, and now Marina.

  When the clock finally strikes six A.M., unable to restrain myself any longer, I fish out the number Michel gave me, phone Paris, and wake him up. He sounds delighted to hear from me, and I’m actually able to make mindless conversation for a few minutes without mentioning my predicament.

  Michel informs me that I can take the train from Tuscany to Milan and then northward to Paris and that I’m welcome to stay with him until I figure out what to do. What other choice do I have but to accept his offer on the spot?

  Yes, I’m relieved to have an alternative, but I’m still distressed and angry over Marina’s directive that I move on. Needing an activity to channel this feeling of suddenly being persona non grata, I begin gathering together my belongings and packing my suitcase. When I finally finish it’s close to seven A.M., and I manage to doze off until noon.

  I shower and shave and find Marina in the kitchen making a champagne risotto, assiduously stirring a pan filled with arborio rice while alternately adding chicken broth and some leftover Dom Pérignon. The aromas are delicious and momentarily comforting. When I come in, she smiles warmly as though nothing untoward has happened. Looking at me fondly over a pair of pewter reading glasses, she assures me she is no longer cross with me. “I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. Of course I don’t want you to go rushing off anywhere!” she exclaims. “You are more than welcome to stay as long as you like.”

  But now, hurt and angry, I try to convince myself that I can no longer take Marina at her word, that this great show of civility is merely her way of smoothing things over. The probability is she still wants my stay at the villa to come to an end. And so I tell her I’ve arranged to go back to Paris immediately.

  Her eyes widen. “To be with the Frenchman?”

  I look down at my feet. “I can’t afford a hotel.”

  “So, as I told you, remain here at villa,” she insists. “I apologized to you already, haven’t I?” Marina now exudes infinite patience.

  I look at her squarely. “I already told him I’m coming.”

  She nods stiffly at the news, and then, resuming her vigil over the risotto, warns, “That Frenchman is a viper. I saw him. And I can assure you he’ll never leave his wife for you.”

  “I know he won’t ever leave her,” I say. “But it’s going to be very different now.”

  Still staring down at her rice, she says, “Yes, you’re going to be staying with him, that’s how different it’s going to be!”

  “What other choice do I have, Marina?”

  “Well, if you don’t want to stay here, you can go back to America.”

  “I don’t have the plane fare.”

  She now looks at me kindly. “I can easily lend you the money, no problem at all. I’d rather see you do that than go back to Paris.”

  I tell her that I’m just not ready to go back to America and that my apartment is still sublet.

  She approaches me and now I can see the gloss of a tear in her eyes. She takes my hand. “I know that I’ve insulted you, that I made you feel unwelcome.”

  “But you also got me thinking, Marina. I re
ally can’t stay here forever. At some point I have to start considering what I’m going to do workwise, moneywise. I certainly can’t count on getting any of Ed’s insurance money, not that I necessarily want to.”

  Marina turns away for a moment to put down the wooden spoon and then faces me again. “Well, if you must, go to Paris. But once you get settled there, you should begin trying to write again. Find yourself a routine and work every day. I think that if you write your way directly into what has happened during the last year, it may even help you figure out the rest of what you don’t already know.”

  This sounds terribly pat. And I have to refrain from saying so, from declaring it a nervy suggestion from somebody who has trouble admitting to a certain truth in her own work. Hugging me, Marina once again takes up her wooden spoon and taps my shoulder with it like a magic wand. “Lunch should be ready soon.” Then something seems to occur to her. “Oh, and by the way, a courier came earlier this morning with your computer. It’s in the library. You certainly couldn’t have gone off without that.”

  Marina returns to stirring, her spoon moving gently, almost effortlessly in the thickening risotto. And I have the distinct impression that after apologizing for having irrevocably dismissed me, she is now at peace.

  Part Three

  Fifteen

  Six months later, I’m in New York City, standing at a penthouse window, watching billowing robes of snow swirling in the columns of air between buildings, flakes sticking hard and fast to the frozen ground twenty-six stories below. I’m hosting a cocktail party given at the home of a modern-art dealer to honor a ninety-year-old doyenne, a patron of Italian culture. Moving through the various rooms whose walls hold Kandinskys and Mirós and De Koonings and Pollocks, I’m handing out glasses of champagne and making introductions. I returned to America two weeks ago to begin working in the media department of the Italian Cultural Institute, a job for which Marina had recommended me.

  Several Italians with New York City residences, having heard that I am a friend of hers, have already asked, “What’s she like?” as though inquiring about a legendary actress. “A tough cookie,” I reply, using one of Marina’s favorite American expressions, going on to say that she is frank and assured of her own intelligence and her place in the world.

  “Well, she’s this way because she’s from that family,” somebody remarks, going on to say that the Vezzolis, although hardly aristocrats in noble title, rather are a political aristocracy, which in certain circles has more currency. Marina is reputed to keep her distance from almost everyone; the fact that she has allowed me to get to close to her is quite out of the ordinary. Managing to smile, I wonder if I ever really did get close to her at all.

  I’m ferrying a silver tray of champagne flutes that have just been filled to the brim in the kitchen, placing them down on a linen-covered banquet table when I hear my name called. I turned to find Annie Calhoun dressed in a pinstriped business suit, a pearly-gray scarf loosely wound around her liver-spotted neck. She wears a substantially large diamond engagement ring. Last I knew she was “very single,” as Ed described her. Then again, perhaps the ring is a family heirloom.

  Glancing at my watch, I say, “Hello, Annie. I’m really busy at the moment. I told you I won’t be able to talk to you until all this is winding down.”

  She glances around the party. “I actually have somewhere else to be. Can’t you spare a few minutes to talk to me now?”

  “I can try, but remember, this is work for me.”

  Interlocking her arms and grabbing one elbow with a long, veiny hand, she says with annoyance, “I didn’t realize you’d be employed by the party. I thought you’d be at it!”

  “Why don’t you have a glass of champagne?”

  “I don’t drink,” she informs me.

  “I should have figured that.”

  “Don’t be a wise guy, Russell.”

  “Then let me get one for myself.”

  As I fetch myself a glass of Moët, I feel Annie watching me keenly. When I rejoin her, she says, “I used to drink along with the best of them, but I had to give it up for health reasons. In those days writers drank. Nowadays they work out like you do,” she says somewhat disdainfully.

  I glance around the party, figuring that I might be able to spare a few moments. “So what’s on your mind?”

  Just as Annie is about to tell me, my boss comes over and asks me to make a few introductions to the honored doyenne. Annie looks disgruntled; I promise to return quickly. I finish my various party obligations and grab another glass of champagne. But then I have to wait while Annie chats with the party’s hostess. Finally she breaks away and faces me.

  “I have a copy of a note Ed sent to Maxine Hong Kingston right before he died,” she informs me. “He mentions that you, Russell, were urging him to publish a ninety-page excerpt of his memoir.”

  “That’s correct. Go on.” I begin gulping down champagne.

  “And he wrote that he was going to listen to you and do so.”

  “I told you before that I admired parts of the memoir. This is not news.”

  “But if you thought and if he thought a large portion of the book was ready for publication, then where is it? It would not have just disappeared.”

  “Annie, I already explained to you that toward the end of his life our relationship was deteriorating. And that the more he withdrew from me, the less and less he asked for my advice about work.” Cringing, I say, “I have no idea what happened to any of it.”

  Annie shakes her head. “I just know you’re lying. And I don’t believe that Marina Vezzoli’s maid went through your things and found nothing. Because she”—the executrix pauses—“would have her own reasons for interfering.”

  “Marina has nothing to do with this!” I insist, nearly giving myself away when I say, “In fact she was actually hounding me to send the whole thing back to you,” and switch gears and amend, “before she found out I didn’t have it.”

  Annie pauses for a moment to collect her thoughts. Her inky eyes drill into me. “Unfortunately, Russell, Marina has you completely fooled here.”

  The words break over me like shards of ice. “What do you mean, ‘completely fooled’?”

  “Marina is married to another writer. Am I correct?”

  “He died at the end of the summer. His name was Stefano Marzotto.”

  “Well, did you happen to know that this Stefano Marzotto met Ed in the South of France at a book panel discussion?”

  I remember hearing something vaguely similar but couldn’t pinpoint from where or whom. And then it dawns on me. During our last breakfast at the Parisian hotel the day he died, Ed had mentioned something about a man at a literary conference introducing himself as a friend of Marina’s.

  “Stefano tried to get Ed to help him find an English-language publisher. But Ed didn’t like his novels and refused to recommend them to any of his editor friends. This apparently pissed off Marina.”

  Now I recall Carla mentioning somebody who might have helped Stefano get his books translated but who “wouldn’t.”

  Totally bewildered, I reply, “But Ed and I discussed Marina at length the day he died. He never mentioned anything about this.”

  “I honestly don’t think the man told Ed he was married to her; Ed didn’t say anything to me, either.”Annie pauses and then resumes. “I think this Stefano Marzotto was probably too proud to use his wife as a calling card.”

  “Okay, then how did you figure out he was connected to Marina?”

  “After I arrived in Paris at your hotel, Marina came up to me. In the midst of everything, she actually was nervy enough to ask if I could help with this translation business. Obviously I had other things on my mind.”

  It was all beginning to make sense now.

  “I do remember Ed telling me the man’s books were appalling,”Annie rejoins.

  “Ed’s Italian wasn’t really good enough to judge the quality of literature in the original,” I point out. “As far
as I know he never read Italian for pleasure the way he read in French.”

  “Perhaps, but I still got the impression that Marina and her husband looked at Ed as their last resort to get the book in translation.”

  Before I became the last resort, I think to myself. So, when I’d asked for clarification of what Carla had said to me the night Stefano died, Marina acted as though she didn’t know what I was talking about. Now I have to reconsider that all of her cynical observations of Ed may have been tainted by the fact that he stymied her hopes to get Stefano’s work in translation. Perhaps Ed was right. Perhaps she had recognized him immediately in the breakfast room at the Hotel Birague and acted as though she hadn’t.

  We are once again interrupted. This time an elderly lady dressed in a navy-blue suit keels over onto the woman who is sitting next to her on a sofa. Even from where I stand I can see that the victim’s face has turned an unnatural shade of gray and she seems to be struggling for breath.

  “Choking,” I hear somebody gasp. “Help her.”

  “Oh my God!” Annie exclaims, watching the proceedings for a moment. “Russell, I can’t stand to watch this.”

  “Is she here with anybody?” another person asks.

  My male colleagues and my boss immediately crowd around the woman. One of the men gets behind, straps his arms under her bosom, and jerks up, trying to dislodge whatever might be blocking her breathing. It doesn’t work and the victim’s struggling grows weaker. I’m only dimly aware of Annie saying, “I want to leave now.” The scene has taken on a ghostly familiarity, bringing me back to the moment when I woke up and found Ed terrifyingly, serenely dead. I now see his death mask as clearly as I see the face of this stricken soul, and for an instant the room reels away from me and I nearly lose my balance. The disequilibrium passes just as the lady is forced to expel a tangled piece of prosciutto that goes flying across the room, the sight of it inducing a few screams.