Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (80 page)

She put a hand on my head. “You have wonderful hair. I had hair like that once. Both of us, Mercedes and I. Black, thick, strong. But the years fly by and then one is gray from top to toe.”

She drew me in.

“D’you know,” she said, in a conversational tone, “I’d give everything I have, which is substantial, to be your age again. There’s no gold like the gold of youth. Some day you’ll know that too. Everyone, sooner or later, comes to know that.”

I was installed in my great-aunt’s room: it was as large as my entire apartment in New York, with french windows opening out to the garden, a variety of tables with marble tops, bureaus and an enormous armoire. There was a high, comfortable-looking bed. Mrs. Wadley fussed over me and, later, had me meet the cleaning woman, a cheerful creature in her forties, named Lucrezia, who folded fresh, fluffy towels in my bathroom, told me where there were blankets and insisted on unpacking for me.

She didn’t have to insist very hard, in any event. I had gotten a headache, probably from too much sun, I thought. Or perhaps it was over-excitement; new sights, new sounds … travel was tiring … and there was admittedly something almost macabre about being in this house that had belonged to a relative I’d never known.

Everything had happened so quickly, so unexpectedly.

Mrs. Wadley came to see if I had everything I needed, chatted for a bit and then said she was going to take her siesta. She had been sitting on the edge of the bed and she got up rather stiffly, wincing a bit. She saw my questioning look and told me that she suffered cruelly from sciatica.

“One of the penalties of growing old,” she said, making a face. “It’s my right hip and it disturbs my sleep, don’t you know. I must lie on my left side, but sometimes I forget. If you should hear me screeching, it’s only that, my dear. It’s like being on the rack if I land on that poor, crippled hip.”

She patted my arm. “Enjoy your nap, love.”

And then went off.

I had no intention of observing siesta. However, I did want to rid myself of my headache, so I took some aspirin and lay down for, I told myself, only a bit, just until the nagging ache in my head was banished.

But lying down made me dizzy, and I sat up quickly. There was a sudden, violent pain in my head, really violent, and a wave of nausea swept over me. I broke out into beads of perspiration. For a moment the whole room whirled about me and then I got to my feet, clutching at the coverlet of the bed and, making a dash for the bathroom, reeled against the door jamb. I knelt down on the cool tile and leaned over the bowl.

I retched, dryly at first, and then vomited.

It left me spent. I felt like a dishrag. Disconsolately, clutching my clammy forehead, I thought, oh my God, I’ve got the travel bug. On the third day of my vacation! What a kettle of fish.

At the thought of fish I retched again.

When I finally crawled back to the bed I didn’t even get undressed. I kicked off my shoes and lay down. The room swam, I groaned, tears came to my eyes. I felt so sick.

I can’t be sick on a holiday, I told myself, protesting. I don’t have that much time.

And then I dropped off.

• • •

I woke bathed in my own sweat.

I felt weak as a cat, but my headache was gone. I sat up warily, but the nausea was gone too. Yet the thought of food sickened me, and I knew I would eat no dinner that night. Perhaps there was some clear soup in the house. I felt faintly feverish, as if I had a touch of the flu, so I took some more aspirin. They stayed in my stomach only a short time, and then sent me to the bathroom again. Only a thin stream of water dribbled past my lips … bile … I could taste the bitterness of the medicine, the aspirin.

I heard movements outside my closed door and opened it. Lucrezia was arranging fresh flowers, from the garden, in a terra cotta bowl. She was disgustingly cheerful.

“The signorina slept well? So, now you have some cheese, ham,
si?
Something cold to drink?”

“Nothing to eat,” I said wanly. “But yes, I’d like a cold drink. I’m thirsty. But as for food, uh uh. It seems I picked up a little something. My stomach.”

I put my hand on it. “Empty,” I said. “I threw up. And I thought I was such a hardy sort.”

She was businesslike and helpful. “Ha,” she said. “Sit down, signorina, I bring you something.” She snapped her fingers. “You will be better, fine, like that. Sit, please, I come right back.”

She was as good as her word. She returned with a tray on which was a bottle of Fiucci water, a tall glass, and a small box from which she extracted two large, brownish lozenges. She filled the glass with the bottled Fiucci water, told me to open my mouth, popped the two lozenges into it and then gave me the water.

“Drink … quick … it’s a good girl.”

The tablets had a kind of licorice taste. “What are they?” I asked.

“Entero-vioform. Good for stomach business. In half an hour I give you two more. And now keep sitting, because I bring you some Fernet Branca. Is the best thing. Then you begin to feel better.”

When she brought the bottle of Fernet Branca, she poured about a jiggerful into a small wine glass. It smelled horrid and tasted even worse. She watched me grimace and laughed. “Not nice? Americans no like. Italians? We drink if for aperitive. Is good for digestion.”

For a moment I thought I’d have to escape to the bathroom again, but once the Fernet Branca was down the taste evaporated.

“Thanks, Lucrezia,” I said.

“Prego
, is nothing at all. Now you see, signorina, you feel better
subito.”

And after a while I did begin to feel better. I told Lucrezia so, but said I wouldn’t want any dinner, and was wondering if there was some kind of thin broth in the house. She said yes, there was, and that I was very wise. “Also,” she warned me, “you don’t drink the tap.” She tapped the bottle of Fiucci. “You drink this. Better for you, until the stomach, the digestion, is well again. Now you have your color back again, signorina.”

She pulled me up. “Now go out and breathe the air. The best thing for you.” She went back to her flowers. “The signora, she gets up soon anyway.”

I went outside, through the french doors, into the warm, glorious sunlight. There was an umbrella table, like that of the Monteverdis, and I sat down under it, sighing. Wondering if there would be more headaches and more nausea. But after a while I started feeling more like myself again, and, stretching out in a lounge chair, closed my eyes.

It was just what the doctor ordered, I thought. This incredible sun, and the faint breeze in the trees. Oh, dear Lucrezia. She had cured me!

I was half asleep, I suppose, because first I thought it was a dream, hearing the voice calling out. In my dream someone was saying something … from far off …

I opened my eyes and heard it again.

“Ecco … signorina …”

“What?” I mumbled, and then was wide awake.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Gianni peering over the wall between the gardens. He smiled dazzlingly and raised a hand. “Hello, are you asleep?”

“I was,” I said. “But someone woke me up.”

“Oh, you mean me,” he said disarmingly.

“What is it, Gianni?”

“Come,” he said. “I paint you.”

“Not in my present condition.”

“What means that?”

I got up and walked across the lawn to him. “It means I have a touch of the wobblies,” I told him. “Traveler’s Trouble. I lost my breakfast and for a while thought I might be dying. But Lucrezia gave me some pills and something ghastly called Fernet Branca and now I feel better.”

“You don’t like Fernet Branca?” he asked, surprised.

“Let’s say I can take my medicine like a man, and that’s as much as I can offer in favor of Fernet Branca.”

“Hum, that’s funny,” he said, frowning. “Here, we like it very much. It’s wonderful for the digestion.”

“Which is why I took it.”

We were both leaning on the top of the brick wall. If the wall hadn’t been between us, our heads wouldn’t have been so close. As it was, his face was so near to mine that I could feel the waft of his breath. “Your eyelashes are too long,” I said, perhaps because of a sudden silence that had fallen on us, perhaps because he was looking intently at my mouth. Perhaps because he had a certain magnetism I found a little overwhelming.

He looked a little astonished and then he laughed. “Shall we measure them, then?” he asked. “Yours and mine?” He put out a finger and swept it across my own lashes.

“Like stars your eyes are,” he said.

“Nonsense.”

“You come let me paint you?”

“No, but if you’re painting I’d be interested to see.”

He pointed to the gate near the adjoining wings of the house. “I meet you there,” he said, with mock solemnity. “You won’t be late?”

“Gianni, you’re an idiot,” I said, laughing, and we faced each other a second later at the aperture of the open gate. “So,” he said. “Right on time.” He pretended to consult his watch. “American girls aren’t so bad after all.”

Laughing, feeling much better, I walked through the gate and across the lawn with him. There was an easel set up near the table where that morning I had had coffee. A partly finished canvas, of the view below, was on the easel, and there was a small, rickety table with brushes in jars, and a paint-smeared palette.

I saw at once that Gianni’s work was excellent, strong yet sensitive. I looked at it admiringly. This young man had inherited, from his forebears, the great talent of the region. It was in the blood, I told myself, passing on from generation to generation, from century to century.

“Oh, Gianni,” I said, and didn’t think it necessary to say more.

“It’s all right?”

“You must know,” I said. “It’s sublime. Oh, how I envy you.”

“Florentines paint,” he said negligently. “Or they work in metals, like Cellini. I would be a sculpter, sooner than this, but — ”

He raised his shoulders.

“No abilities there,” he said. “Just the brush, and the knife.”

“It’s enough,” I said. “It’s wonderful, what you can do.”

“I can do portraits too,” he said. “I paint you, yes?” He put a hand to his cheekbones. “These are good,” he said, and from his own face transferred his hands to mine. “Fine planes, like marble,” he murmured. “Now, when I see a face like that, if I could take the stone and drive the chisel into it … and sculpt such lovely features …”

He took his hands away.

“But I can not. It’s not the same with brush and oil. The colors fade, the canvas rots. I am only a
little
painter. They won’t hang me in the Uffizzi.”

“Maybe they will.”

He brightened a bit. “Maybe they will,” he agreed. “My master, Antonioni, says maybe they will.” He laughed infectiously. “You know? When I am dead for a hundred years. One hundred years from now maybe Gianni Monteverdi hangs in the Uffizzi. But,
cara
, I won’t know!”

He made me sit down in a chair. “I’ll make a sketch of you,” he said. “Quick … fifteen minutes. You want to see how you look? I show you.”

“Gianni, I feel like a rag doll,” I objected.

“Forget. I don’t draw a rag doll. I sketch a good, pure face. And I sign it, give it to you, and some day, who knows, you make money with it.”

He chuckled again. “One hundred years from now.”

His laugh was deep and vital. I thought, Italian men
were
different from American men. Oh, yes. They were so damned
masculine.
They looked at a woman in a different way, had strange, exciting voices, were assertive, dominating. They were
men
, and you were a
woman.
I sat, posing for Gianni Monteverdi, and I swear I
felt
beautiful, felt like part of the sunlight, like the dazzling, multi-colored dragonfly that flitted through the air only a few yards in front of me.

Finally he threw down the crayon.

“Okay,” he said. “Come and look. Tell me if you like it.”

I got up and went over to the easel.

“Gianni, it’s a wonderful sketch. But it’s too flattering.”

“Is?” He squinted at me and then looked at the sheet of sketch paper again. He shook his head. “No, darling, not at all. You look better than this.” He picked up a piece of charcoal, signed the sketch with a flourish. Then tore the sheet off the sketch pad. He presented it to me.

“From Gianni,” he said. “With love.”

“I’ll keep it,” I said, “forever.”

“And you think of me when you look at it?”

“Certainly.”

He gazed into my eyes. Put a hand on my hair. “You could say thank you,” he said, huskily.

“Thank you, Gianni.”

“It’s the best you can do? Say a few words?”

And, without knowing how I got there, I was in his arms. His lips were on mine, warm, questing. His hands threaded through my hair. “Caw,” a bird said, in flight, and there was the tinkling knell of a cowbell somewhere. A light breeze shivered the leaves in the trees.

Agitated, I dropped the sheet of drawing paper.

“Oh, goodness, am I
de trop?
” a light voice asked, and we sprang apart. It was Francesca, in a lovely, lime-green dress, her hair piled high on her shapely head. She had gardener’s shears in her hand, and a big, fan-shaped basket of rattan.

“I didn’t mean to make an interference,” she said. Her pretty face was mischievous.

Gianni looked sheepish. I’m sure I did too. Francesca walked past us, clicking her shears. And then her daughter, little Eleanora, came out of the house. She saw Gianni and then me, and ran over to us, found the sketch Gianni had done of me.

“Ah,” she said softly.
“Bellissima. Che bella, bella.”

“Isn’t it nice?” I said, when she handed it back to me. “And now I must go. My hostess won’t know where I am.”

“I’ll come with you,” the little girl said.

“Fine, darling.”

She put her hand in mine. The ubiquitous basket was hooked over her arm. And when we went through the gate to the other side of the house, she looked up at me thoughtfully and then said, “Signorina, would you like to see my secrets?” She tapped the basket.