We follow Elena into three more caves, one a terra-cotta factory, the other an olive oil mill. “But why? Why this ceiling is different from that? Pay attention…But why? Why have to make the oil here? Pay attention.”
“She’s not exactly fluent, is she?” Pam whispers to me partway through.
“Fluency’s overrated,” I whisper back, because I like our guide.
In the last cave Elena tells us about Giacomini Nazzarino, a businessman who opened the Quarry of Pozzolana in 1882. He dug out the tufo and sold it as material to construct the homes and businesses in the city above. Ten years later, all the quarries were closed.
“But why?” Elena asks, her eyes large. “Pay attention.” And even the two children stop their chase. “They dig under to build on top.” She illustrates her words with her hands. “Dig under, build on top.”
“They were digging out the foundation,” Peter whispers. “No wonder.”
“The city on top begins to…” Elena mimes the city caving in. “Allora, they stop quarrying”—she lays her hands flat, palms down, and then points upward, and we all look up to the ceiling—“to save the city.”
Back at the train station, Peter studies the yellowed schedule through fogged glass. “Well, we can stop in Cortona, but we won’t have long there. The last train back is at seven forty-five. That’ll give us about an hour, though.”
“Enough time for a glass of wine,” Pam says.
He puts his arm around her and squeezes. “That’s right. Your wine tour.”
She smiles up at him. “And then I can say I’ve been there.”
As our train pulls into Cortona, an old woman opens the door to the station’s coffee bar and turns on the lights. She’s opening it just for us—there’s no one else here—and she eyes us as she takes a seat on a small plastic chair outside.
Like Orvieto, Cortona is built on a hill, but there is no tram to take us to the town and, according to the schedule, the last bus of the day has already left.
“Figures,” Pam says.
“I’m not giving up yet.” Peter walks over to a small board with TAXI written across the top. “Wow, these are numbers for individual people. Cortona’s five taxi drivers! Who should I call—Pietro or Angela?”
Pam sighs, looking at her watch. “We’re not going to have any time. What’s the point?”
“Okay, Angela it is,” Peter says, opening his phone.
Pam sits down on the curb, her eyes following him. “Nothing gets to Peter.” She looks up at Cortona. The city has become a tease. “Doesn’t it drive you crazy? Not Peter, I mean. Italy. It’s so inefficient. I could never live here.”
The old woman has given up and begins to close up the little coffee bar again.
“Waiting all the time,” Pam continues. “I didn’t even want to come to Florence.”
“What are you doing here then?” I ask, pleased to be able to throw her question back at her.
“My parents thought it would be good for me. I think they just like saying their daughter is studying in Italy. Or maybe they wanted to get me away from my boyfriend. It’s not like we haven’t already been tons of places. But my father says there’s nothing like really living in a place, getting the ‘full experience’ or whatever.”
“Guess you’re proving him wrong.”
“I’m working on it, anyway.” She’s smiling, though. “Is your family glad you’re here? I mean, I know it’s not the same. You’re grown up.”
If only she knew. “My parents aren’t really in the picture,” I say, and this is true. “My father has another family—kids.”
“And your mother?”
“We’re really different.” Pull yourself together is what she would say. Is what she had said, in fact, the last time I saw her. In June. She was in town on business and we met in the lounge at her hotel, which, it turned out, was hosting the Mini Miss Patriot pageant, and it felt as though the universe was laughing at me. Girls between the ages of four and six skirted around the halls caked in makeup, striking provocative poses whenever they encountered a mirror. They were towed along by parents, most of whom were overweight and many of whom were angry. I had walked into the lobby to see one of the contestants cowering in a corner as her father screamed at her.
My mother was in a suit, ready for the meeting she had after this meeting, the subject of which was my weight. I kept looking over at her and nodding, but I could not take it in. I nodded when she said “doctor,” nodded when she said “therapy.”
“Is everything all right?” the waiter asked. My mother waved him off.
I took a sip of my coffee. The lounge looked over the swimming pool, where the tiny queens were children again, their hair wetted back. From where we sat, the water was blue, their faces were white, and the only indication that anything was off were their raccoon eyes, mascara streaming down their cheeks as they bobbed around the shallow end. Up close, I imagined their eye shadow, foundation, blush, and lipstick mixing in the water like a dirty cup holding brushes at the end of a day of painting.
“It’s disgusting,” my mother said. “You don’t expect to see these kinds of things—not here. Do you want to go somewhere else?”
I shook my head. She put her hand on mine, waited for me to look at her. Her face was pained but something else, too—embarrassed? Ashamed? I wanted to look away but her eyes held me. “Honey, you have to pull yourself together. This isn’t you. This isn’t us.”
Us, she’d said. But I’d never been like her. I’d never had her hardness, her resilience, her ability to just keep going, marching along with her two daughters trailing behind her, looking back with sadness when we couldn’t keep up. She had survived. Why couldn’t we? That’s not right. Kate had. Kate did. Kate knew how to manage it all.
“Your sister told me she’s been trying to help you.”
You’re not helping.
“You have to listen to her, Hannah. You have to pull yourself together. Are you hearing me? This isn’t you.”
“We don’t speak much,” I tell Pam.
But she must hear something else behind my response because her face softens.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Look, I know I sound spoiled—I should be grateful that my parents give a shit. And it really is amazing here. But it’s not real.” She sighs.
These things are real, I want to say: the ancient tunnels, the tufo dust that clings to us, the bar owner trying to survive on a train schedule and a handful of tourists.
“College doesn’t even feel real. It’s just playing. I’m ready to get on with things, you know? I’m ready for the rest.”
I consider this for a moment. She’s almost a decade younger than me and she already knows exactly what she wants. She has a clear road map and anything not on the main route is extraneous. My path has become twisted, a series of detours. I’m in a country I should have left in an apartment I haven’t paid for. I know nothing anymore, not even what I want. Except maybe to survive. And to move forward, toward… I don’t know what.
“It’s good,” I say, “to be ready for the future.”
“Well, I’m only nineteen.” Her voice warms a bit. “What the hell do I know?”
“Good news and bad news,” Peter announces. “Angela is sick, but her uncle Paolo is coming with his cab. I feel like we already know everyone in Cortona. God, I love this place!”
A few minutes later, a white car pulls to a stop in front of us. Paolo, an older man with a hooked nose and bright eyes, greets us warmly and it feels, oddly, like we’re coming home. When he finds out that we have only an hour in the city, he races up the hillside, pointing out the sites as we pass them: two churches, Santa Maria delle Grazie to the south and Santa Maria Nuova to the north; Lake Trasimeno; ancient burial grounds; the Roman walls and, within them, the Etruscan walls; his small house at the edge of town. When we reach the center, it is clear why there are only five cabdrivers. Cortona is tiny, a crush of medieval buildings, and the narrow streets make driving nearl
y impossible. Paolo crawls along one of the ancient paths, and the people closing up shops or strolling to dinner move slowly out of his way like livestock. He leaves us at the small main square, Piazza della Repubblica, promising to return a half an hour later.
There is magic here. I feel it as soon as I step into the square. Like most of the cities in Italy, the church sits at its center. The sun is too low to reach us here, and already the cafés and restaurants—some at ground level, others in second-story loggias—are lit by candles. Though the tables are filled, the buzz of conversation is overpowered by the shrieks, whistles, and chirps of birds that dive and dance, ducking in and out of the bell tower, circling the scene. I wonder what it is that makes Cortona a magnet for birds.
“Gross,” Pam says.
“Extraordinary,” Peter replies.
While Pam and Peter have a glass of wine on the square, I wander the side streets. They climb sharply up and then down, curling abruptly one way and then another. If there are people beyond the main piazza, I don’t see them. I could be the only one here. I follow signs for the church of Santa Margherita—Cortona’s saint, Paolo had told us—but I must take a wrong turn, because the signs disappear. Cortona is a magician, the constantly bending streets hiding what is ahead and what came before. It absorbs past and future, absorbs people, absorbs sounds, except for the continuous calls of the birds. With the fading light, the tan stone buildings are blue. They lean in, their small overhanging roofs like hands curled just at the fingertips. Poof. I imagine those hands make me disappear as I round another curve.
Eventually one of the roads leads to the edge of the city, where couples out for an evening stroll, una passeggiata, parade slowly along the wall, silhouetted against the setting sun. I join them, the only single body, and look out over the land. The birds are plentiful here as well, climbing up from the countryside to dance across the roofs of this town. To the right is Tuscany and to the left, Umbria.
I strain to see anything that looks like Orvieto, but everything is blurred with the haze of evening. But why? our guide had asked. I keep hearing her question followed by her demand. Pay attention. I keep thinking about Giacomini Nazzarino and his foolish plan to quarry the undercity: carving out the foundation, building the city with its innards, digging Orvieto its own grave. It gives me chills. Couples wrap their arms around each other and several cameras flash as the sun begins its final descent. It seems to pick up speed once it touches the horizon. This, too, is a trick, and in almost no time, it has disappeared and the crowd has vanished along with it. I find my way back to the central square in the dark.
Paolo is right on time and he speeds down the hill to make sure we don’t miss the last train. He even insists on getting out of the taxi to deliver us to our track on foot.
“A Firenze,” he says, nodding. Rather than the standard kisses, he hugs us and makes us promise to return. He seems truly sorry to see us go.
“Let’s get some wine for the ride,” Pam says as soon as he leaves.
“Why not?” Peter shrugs.
“I’ll be back.”
He follows her with his eyes as she marches down the track toward the little glowing bar, where the old woman is slowly folding up her sandwich board again. Then he turns and smiles at me. We’re the only people in the station and, except for the neon bar and the dim lamps along the platform, it is dark.
“Sorry about Pam,” Peter says. “She’s a little intense, but she’s cool when you get to know her.”
“I can see that,” I say. “Are you two…” I let my voice trail.
“No, not really. Sort of. You know.” He smiles apologetically.
“Sure.” I give his smile back to him. I’m an almost-thirty-year-old gossiping with a college kid. Who should be sorry?
“You going to the club Monday?” he asks.
“Probably. I’ve been trying to go every day.”
“That’s great!” His enthusiasm hangs in the air for a moment before he continues. “Have you seen Francesca at all?” His voice cuts in half, revealing him, and I hear the question he doesn’t ask.
“I haven’t,” I lie. I had seen Francesca a few times in the locker room, but she’d said nothing about Peter. Only talked about her parents who were visiting and insisted on staying with her family.
“She must be busy. Francesca, I mean.” He holds her name like a glass sphere, passing it delicately to me in the dark. I remember the power of saying someone’s name and of hearing it on the lips of others, and so I say, “Francesca’s been nice to me,” and Peter smiles.
Francesca. Three syllables rising and then falling. Like the city of Cortona, there is a magic to it. I don’t feel lonely, then, but grateful. Grateful to be this single body, untethered and free of that magic, breathing into the dark.
“This was fun,” he says. “I’m glad you came, Hannah.”
“Me, too.” And I am. I could be in Rome right now, about to leave. And instead I’m here.
“Perfetto!” Pam returns with three mini-bottles of wine as the light of the train appears in the distance. She links arms with Peter and shivers slightly. “You know, I bet I’m the only customer that woman’s had all day.”
That night, Signora Rosa and I do our same dance. She knocks and knocks, and I hide and hope that she will not use a key to open my door. She doesn’t. Not yet. As if sensing my desperate game, my sister calls. She’s been trying to reach me since she got my message. And she’s been opening my mail. Do I know how high my credit card bill has gotten? Do I know what my balance is? Of course I know. It’s my money.
“What will you do there? Do you need me to lend you money?” she asks.
“No,” I say, trying to stay calm. But I’m angry with myself as well, because these weeks have distracted me from what I’ve known since I arrived. Without a plan—a real plan—the only place I’m going is home.
“Well, you’ll need to figure something out,” Kate says. There is a long pause, and then, “Also, I should tell you…”
“Tell me what?”
“Julian called here—a few times—asking about you.” She goes on but I don’t hear her.
The seasons with Julian. The hard-edged seasons. The crisp rush of autumn when there was happiness, real happiness, when every corner was a new place to be together and every street that had not witnessed us walking side by side demanded it. My life was full, sated.
But by winter, I felt it already—the old ache returning, the sadness creeping in. And I felt the gulf between us, could see the moment when this would grow stale and I would be, again, alone. Julian asked for words as I folded into myself. Why won’t you talk to me? Why do you keep everything inside? Was it then that I began to whittle myself down?
By the time spring exploded on the East Coast, he was gone and I was still disappearing. I was carving away the outside, I was carving away the inside.
“Hannah, are you there?” Kate asks now.
“I’m here.” I can’t go back there. I can’t.
“He wanted your number, but I didn’t know if you’d want to speak with him. I wish you’d tell me what happened.”
“Well, thanks” is all I say. “For not giving out my number. Thanks.”
I find the crumpled napkin on the kitchen table. Luca picks up after the first ring.
“Pronto?”
“Ciao, Luca. It’s Hannah. It’s too late?”
“Hannah! Come stai?” He sounds surprised, but his voice is warm.
“I was just calling about dinner. To see if you want to have dinner with me.” I take a breath in and hold it, but his response is as relaxed and fluid as everything else he does.
“Sì, certo. When are you free?”
“Wednesday?”
“Perfetto. Wednesday. Five forty-five—it’s okay? We can drive someplace?”
“Va bene. Do you know where I live?”
“Sì, of course,” he says. “Ciao, Hannah, ciao ciao.”
Chapter Nine
The bui
lding looks like a small Italian palace, fortified with caged windows and rough-cut stone. It is right on the river, crouching heavy between the taller structures beside it. As soon as I step through its thick door, I am swallowed in darkness, and I feel as though I’m back in Orvieto, entering a cave, cool and quiet, its edges unknown. Even under my blazer, my skin crawls. I’m in an empty lobby. Another hidden place in this city. I find the staircase and climb the stone steps, daylight growing with each level, until I see plastic letters pressed into felt: BIBLIOTECA SERRONI. An arrow points down a hallway that is open on one side to a courtyard below, the source of this ethereal light. The other side is lined with paintings, all portraits: a man seated high on a horse, a somber child clutching a bird, two more men with matching widow’s peaks, and, at the end of the hall, a woman, her face an elongated heart, her hand resting on an open book. She looks straight out with bright green eyes.
“Buongiorno.”
My eyes dart around—a large room with high ceilings, shelves and shelves of books—before they land on the source of the voice. An older woman, petite with spectacles. She is tucked behind a wide wooden desk in the corner.
“Posso aiutarla?”
“È—is this the Serroni Library?” I stutter, breaking my vow to use only Italian.
“Come in. Have a seat.” She speaks with a British accent and says this flatly, all business, gesturing to the chair across from her.
Everything about her is smaller up close: her sharp chin, her green eyes, her hands folded on the desk. But she doesn’t seem fragile. She is solid, a fortress. A knot of dark hair is perched on top of her head, unmoving. A nameplate—LORENZA RICCI—faces me.
“I’m Hannah,” I offer.
“You’re American,” she says decisively. “Are you a student?” She wears the same expression as the woman in the portrait, aloof but curious.
“No—I mean, yes, I’m American, but I’m not a student. I’m looking for work.” My voice is too loud and I’m starting to sweat, but this is my last, best chance.
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