Tender at the Bone (28 page)

We had no word from Milton, but he was always with us. We collected things for him as we traveled. Doug took pictures of fountains and sinks and telephone wires and I wrote down little stories about the people that we met and the food that we ate. We tried to see everything as he would, and by the time we got to Rome we were bursting with things to tell him.

I wondered if Hilly would be there, but when we got to the fifth-floor apartment where Milton was staying, he was alone. When he kissed me his nose was an icicle against my cheek. “It’s got a wonderful view,” he said, “but there’s no heat. Let’s go have coffee.”

We went back down the stairs and around the corner. The scent of beans was so powerful we could smell it from two blocks away, the aroma growing stronger as we got closer to the café. It was a rich and appealing scent, and it pulled us onward and through the door. Inside, burlap sacks of coffee beans were stacked everywhere and the smell of coffee was so intense it made me giddy. Thin men lounged against a long bar, drinking tiny cups of espresso. The coffee was smooth and satisfying, a single gulp of pure caffeine that
lingered on the palate and reverberated behind the eyes. I felt lightheaded.

“Okay,” I said, “you win. It
is
the best cup of coffee in the world.”

We left the café and started walking. We walked for days. Milton knew every inch of Rome and he offered it to us as if it were his to give away. “Come,” he would say, leading us to the back of a small, dark church. “There is a single Caravaggio …” And there it would be,
The Madonna of the Pilgrims
, hung among the other paintings, unlit and overlooked. He knew gardens and twisting streets and odd collections of art. He knew what time the bells rang at each of the churches and which cafés had the best panini.

“If only Milton didn’t seem so sad,” I said at night to Doug when we were back at our pensione. “I wish we could make him happy.”

“Yes,” he said, “yes, I know.”

The woman who ran our pensione loved Milton. The first morning she brought him a cup of coffee when he came to get us. The next morning she brought coffee and cake. The following morning there was brioche with the cake, and some homemade jam. The offerings became more elaborate each day; I thought she had a crush on him, but he said she just felt sorry for him because he had no woman.

He had not mentioned Hilly; I wondered if she were coming later, or maybe not at all, but I did not quite know how to ask. Then one day at lunch I drank so much I finally broached the subject.

It was at a restaurant called Marco’s, on the edge of a small square. We went down a few steps and found antipasti winking and glistening on a table in the front, as beautiful as jewelry. There were eggplants the color of amethysts and plates of sliced salami and bresaola that looked like stacks of rose petals left to dry. Roasted tomatoes burst invitingly apart and red peppers were
plump and slicked with oil. Great gnarled porcini sat next to tiny stewed artichokes and a whole prosciutto was on a stand, the black hoof and white fur still clinging to the leg. The proprietor was cooking over an open hearth but when he looked up and saw us his face erupted into a smile. He ran over to throw his arms around Milton and kiss him on both cheeks.

We drank endless liters of wine with the antipasti, and more with the food that came afterward: plates of pasta were followed by whole chickens and platters of fish, shrimp, mussels, and crabs. Finally, when we were eating chunks of parmigiana, I took a deep breath and asked, “Is Hilly coming?”

Milton didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he pulled a letter from his pocket and began to read. It was a tale of a madcap journey from Spain to England in a broken-down car. It was hilarious and, of course, she was not alone.

“The man sounds quite mad,” said Milton. He laughed sadly, as if such madness were a wonderful thing.

“I have an idea,” said Doug that night. “Let’s fill a Christmas stocking for Milton and leave it on his door in the middle of the night.”

“It
is
the middle of the night. And it is Christmas Eve. Where are we going to find anything? Nothing’s open.”

“We’ll find something,” said Doug with maddening assurance.

“We don’t have a stocking.”

“Don’t we?” asked Doug. And he made big scooping motions with his arms, like Ephrosike on the hill.

The proprietress beamed as we left; I think she thought we were going to midnight mass. In a way, I guess, we were.
“Buon Natale,”
she shouted as we left. The night was very black and filled with stars and the air was so brittle it felt as if it might shatter into icy shards around us. The street was deserted.

“I feel like Mary and Joseph wandering around Bethlehem,” I said.

Doug took my hand. “You’ve seen too much religious art.” We trudged on, looking for something to buy. Nothing was open.

“You were right, it was a stupid idea,” Doug finally admitted, “we’ll never find anything.”

“There must be something, somewhere,” I said. “Let’s try the train station.”

Even on Christmas Eve, even in Rome, the train station was bustling. In the waiting room a little girl was sitting on her mother’s lap, a huge basket of food next to her, moaning,
“Digestivo, Mama, digestivo.”
Her mother went to the kiosk and bought a bottle of Cinar. We were right behind her; we put a bottle of the deep red liquor into our bag, along with newspapers in four languages and some oranges and chocolate bars.

“It’s mostly food,” said Doug dispiritedly.

“Milton likes food,” I said.

But we were certain that if we looked hard enough we would find the perfect present. We roamed the station. Suddenly Doug stopped, stock-still, staring. I looked at what he was focused on: a sterling Saint Christopher medal.

“It’s perfect,” I agreed.

“It’s very expensive,” said Doug. I took out our last two traveler’s checks.

“Almost all we have left,” I agreed.

“We can’t stay forever,” said Doug, and I handed the checks to the man behind the counter.

He smiled and his big mustache twitched. “The perfect gift,” he said, “for a lonely traveler.”

Milton woke us early the next morning. “Get up, get up,” he said, “I have borrowed a car. Now that I’m under the protection of Saint Christopher I’m taking you to the mountains for Christmas.” He was dressed in his usual corduroy pants, with a wool jacket and a cap.

We did not ask where we were going, or for how long. But when Milton said, “Tuscany is beautiful this time of year,” it occurred to me that we would not be back for dinner. We drove north for a long time and then headed into the mountains, stopping for lunch at a house by the side of the road.

The dining room was large and square, with bare walls and stone floors that held the cold. We were the only guests. The proprietor rushed in to light a fire in the enormous fireplace and we drew our chairs so close we were sitting almost inside it. Smoke began to fill the room, burning our eyes and attacking our lungs.

“It will get better,” said Milton optimistically. “The wood is just a little damp.”

The man came back, wearing an apron this time, carrying a bottle of wine, some glasses, and a wheel of bread. He began hacking slices off the bread and waved the smoke away until he could see the grill in the middle of the fire. He set the sliced bread on top of it and went off again. When he came back he was carrying a clove of garlic, a bottle of olive oil, and a big cracked bowl. He danced into the fire and snatched the bread from the flames, turned the charred side up and left the bread for the count of ten. Then he pulled the slices off the fire, rubbed them with the clove of garlic, brushed them with olive oil, and heaped them with the contents of the bowl.

He handed us each a slice. “Bruschetta with chicken livers,” said Milton, taking a bite. “Now you will see why I have brought you here.”

It was extraordinarily good, the livers tasting faintly of anchovy, capers, and lemon, but mostly of themselves. I had a second slice, and then a third. I was feeling warmer and the smoke was starting to clear. A sense of languorous well-being came over me.

By the time the proprietor came back with bowls of steaming pasta mixed with nothing but garlic, oil, and cheese, the smoke had cleared entirely. The proprietor said something to Milton and left.

“He says,” Milton translated, “to eat slowly. He has gone to catch the trout and the fish are not biting well.”

“You mean he’s going to catch our lunch now?” I asked. “It could take hours!”

“We have time,” said Milton mildly. “We are not expected until dinner.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, taking a bite of the pasta. The strands of spaghetti were vital, almost alive in my mouth, and the olive oil was singing with flavor. It was hard to imagine that four simple ingredients could marry so perfectly.

“To visit my friend Gillian,” said Milton. “She lives in the mountains, in the most beautiful town I know.”

I was glad there was a woman.

When we walked outside it did not feel so cold. We drove up for a few kilometers and then around a deep curve. As the tires squealed I began to see creatures carved into the rocks around us. I rubbed my eyes and wondered if I had had too much wine at lunch. I looked at Milton but his eyes were firmly focused on the road. Was it my imagination?

Then I looked at Doug and knew that it was not. We both stared, mesmerized, out the window; it was as if some magic force had waved a wand across the countryside, liberating animals from the rocks in which they were trapped.

Milton drove on, oblivious. The creatures were becoming more fantastic. None of us said anything until we passed a small house. A wiry man was seated on a bench in front, so still he might have been another stone creature. Then I noticed that one hand held a chisel and the other a mallet, and that there was a rock in front of him. The stonecarver did not look up as we drove past but Doug shouted, “Stop!” so loudly that Milton stepped on the brakes and we skidded into the side of the road.

“What?” he asked.

Doug just opened the door and got out. Milton and I followed. The stonecarver stood up as we walked toward him; he was small and so weathered it was impossible to tell how old he was. As he greeted us the chisel never stopped moving against the rock. Then he put it down and beckoned. We followed him around the hillside and deep into the woods.