The Chapel (27 page)

Typically, my discovery of Mitchell's elaborate scheme to orchestrate my Grand Tour would have occasioned several days of depression and reflection, a lot of reverse engineering, and then damage control. This time was different. Although I was humiliated, I was also very hungry, and one of the unadvertised benefits of the afterlife seemed to be a kind of reverse polarity that made me more attentive to me and less interested in the impression I made on others. Plus, while reviewing my dining options, I realized that as long as I avoided Matteo's
pizzeria, there was little chance of my encountering anyone I knew, which took the sting out of the public aspect of my shame. And, frankly, after I'd shimmied back into the stretchy jeans and hazarded a glance in the mirror on the back of the closet door, it was hard to maintain a sense of indignation about anyone else injuring my pride. The damage was done.

My phone dinged, and I couldn't think of anyone who wouldn't feel alarmed or betrayed if I admitted I was still in Padua, so I dug into my suitcase for a dining companion and pulled out the paperback of
The Name of the Rose,
which I had yet to even pretend to read. Mitchell had put that book in my Christmas stocking—“Background reading for the layperson in anticipation of the Italian Journey.” He had nestled it in with a collection of mind-numbing herbal teas and a tiny halogen Don't Wake Your Neighbor bedtime reading light. When my phone dinged yet again, I ditched Umberto Eco, grabbed the CPOCH folder, and headed for the hotel dining room.

The restaurant was almost empty, but there were only a few spots for me to choose from, as most of the tables had been reserved, strung together in front of the windows and set with gold chargers, red napkins, and green bottles of prosecco tilting in silver ice buckets. As a waiter approached, I shuffled through the folder to be sure I wasn't accidentally inviting myself to the CPOCH dinner Sara had mentioned. I was relieved to discover the conference dinner was scheduled for eight in a restaurant near the basilica, so I was safe on that score, but I did turn up a blue-and-white ID badge with Mitchell's name printed in bold italic script, and after I was seated next to the only other solo diner, I also found a copy of a registration form completed by Mitchell in November with details of his Harvard affiliation, his status as a “Scholar/Sustaining Member” of the Centre, and the time and location of lectures and panel presentations he had elected to attend.

Mitchell had never mentioned CPOCH or the conference. Had he hoped I would travel ahead to Florence while he indulged the fiction of himself as a Dante scholar? I looked through the other stapled papers, but I didn't find any more evidence of his intentions. What surfaced instead was the memory of watching T. lean in toward Ed as I approached from the café down the street on the afternoon of Ed's disastrous lecture. They hadn't wanted me to know what they'd been discussing, and I guessed now that Ed had tried to persuade T. to tell me the truth about Mitchell's role in our meeting. When I thought about our conversations on Tuesday, before and after our lunch with T., I was sure that Ed had wanted to confess but couldn't bring himself to betray T.'s confidence. That was hardly a sin. It simply meant he was a better friend than T. deserved or a better priest than I understood. These memories gave way to Matteo and our chance meeting in the alley. It was easy to imagine Matteo's version of that event, his thinking he had stumbled into an opportunity to do exactly what T. had asked him to do—be kind to the old girl. I couldn't fault Matteo for seizing his chance to bestow on me his biggest favor.

It was T. who mystified me. Not his secrecy—he hadn't told me his name, so I wasn't surprised that he'd kept quiet about his private arrangement with Mitchell. But I just could not imagine what Mitchell and T. had found to say to each other for four months.

A man said, “Skipping the dinner?”

I fumbled for the menu and said, “I'd like pasta. Is there a special?” When I looked up, I caught the glance of a waiter far across the room, and he smiled and came swiftly to my side, blocking my view of the diner at the next table, who must have asked the question that startled me.

The invisible man said, “The tagliatelle is supposed to be great.”

The waiter nodded his agreement.

I nodded.

The waiter said, “
Tagliatelle al ragù
.” He was eyeing two younger waiters fussing with the flatware on the banquet table, obviously envying them their assignment. “
Vino?
”

That I understood. “No. Water is fine.”

The man said, “It's Bolognese.”

I said, “The tagliatelle?”

The waiter said, “
Si, si, si. Tagliatelle.
You get these flat spaghettis with meat sauce. You like. Everybody like all the time.
Insalata?
”

I nodded.

The waiter said, “
Castelfranco, finocchio, caprese?
”

I said, “
Si?
”

The waiter said, “No.”

The mystery diner at the next table leaned forward so we could see each other. He was the army captain, out of uniform. He said, “The three salads are explained in English on the other side of your menu.”

I nodded and leaned toward the waiter and whispered so the captain wouldn't hear me. “Capistrano?”

The waiter said, “
Si, si, si. Castelfranco. Bellisimo
.” He walked away.

The captain said, “I hope I haven't misled both of us with the Bolognese. It got raves on TripAdvisor.” He seemed to think we were meeting for the first time. “I noticed your folder. My wife is attending the conference, as well. I hope my pasta gets here soon, because I am on kid duty at nineteen-forty-five. You're skipping the conference dinner, I see.”

“Guilty as charged,” I said. “Convene the court-martial, Captain.”

“How did you know I'm army?” He rubbed his close-cropped gray hair as if he were petting a dog. He was more pleased than surprised. He was older than he'd looked on the balcony, and I figured the four-year-old boy was a part of the deal he'd made with a second wife. The brand-new jeans and yellow polo shirt he was wearing were definitely her idea. Baseball might be the national pastime, but a surprising number of American women want their husbands to dress like caddies on
the junior varsity golf team. “Was it my head or the shiny shoes?” This was the last question he asked me. “Usually, it's one end or the other that gives me away. Sometimes the fingernails.” He showed me his manicured hands, holding them up like a surgeon who'd just scrubbed.

Once our dinners arrived, he told me that his wife—he referred to her as “the new wife”—had put her teaching career on hold for their two kids. He was stationed in Germany at the Conn Barracks, just outside of Schweinfurt.

I told him I didn't know the map of Germany very well.

He said, “A hundred miles east of Frankfurt.”

I said I'd never been to Germany.

“About two hundred miles southwest of Leipzig.” He just couldn't believe I didn't have any useful coordinates for locating his base camp. A little heatedly he added, “Seventy-five miles northwest of Nuremberg.”

“The Nuremberg trials,” I said, hoping to shift the subject from geography to history. I felt a kind of camaraderie with his first wife. When had she understood that she had fallen off his map? I said, “It's amazing to me how many marriages fail when you consider that we managed to patch things up with the Germans.”

He didn't say anything. He was examining his cuticles. I couldn't tell if he was pouting or if he had actually forgotten that I existed.

For a few minutes, we concentrated on the Bolognese, which tasted like bits of veal and tomato stewed in something illicit, like duck fat. It was not a generous portion, and I wanted to savor it, and my only other entertainment option was a folder full of scheduled events that represented Mitchell's dying wish to spend a few days without me in Italy, so I said, “Was it the Germans who bombed Padua?”

The captain snapped to attention. “In World War I, it was the Austrians bombarding the place,” he said. “During World War II, it was the Allies.”

I said, “Napoleon's troops tore down a lot of the better buildings
in town, as well.” I hoped I was quoting Ed nearly correctly. “They tore down Enrico Scrovegni's palace.”

The captain said, “It's a miracle your little chapel is standing. That's what I said to Cheryl this afternoon. Look at what happened to the cathedrals at Coventry and Dresden.” I could tell he was gauging my reaction, and whatever he saw encouraged him to keep going. “That church right next door to Giotto's chapel was blown to bits,” he said.

“The Church of the Eremitani,” I said.

“I don't know the name of it,” he said. “But most of this town from there to the old train station was leveled. Once Mussolini lost control in 1943, Padua hosted the Nazis, so the Allies bombed this whole sector nearly out of existence.” He seemed pleased by these facts, or maybe I was more receptive than his young wife to his history lesson. “I see I didn't lead you wrong with the pasta.”

My plate was almost as clean as it had been before I'd been served. “I'm glad I ordered that salad.”

“You should look for Cheryl tomorrow. You can't miss her. She's blonde, and I'm biased, but she'll be on everybody's radar.” He stood up. He was done with me—almost. “Thing is, she probably won't approach you.” This was what he had wanted to say since he'd spotted my CPOCH folder. This was why I was worth talking to. “She's feeling of out of her league. She didn't even want to go to the dinner tonight.”

I said, “Neither did I.”

He said, “That's different.” He didn't bother to explain how.

I took a guess. “I'm old.”

“Yeah,” he said, glancing at his watch, “for you it's just another dinner. She's not a professor of anything, but she is teaching an art appreciation course for wives at the barracks, so you might ask her about that. Or maybe don't let on that we met and see if you can get her talking about her art class. That's it. That's better. Just do me a favor and seek her out. Cheryl Stamford. I'll get them to rush that salad to you.”

The captain collared a waiter on his way out, and my salad arrived within seconds. That was a genuine favor, as several elegantly dressed young couples were taking their places at the big table by the window, and I was beginning to think the only way to avoid looking like a party pooper in my droopy old cardigan was to pull a Shelby and wrap myself in the tablecloth. Instead, I tucked into the salad. It looked like a plate of pale Boston lettuce, the creamy white leaves streaked and spotted with the blood redness of radicchio. It tasted like a hybrid, too, the mild tang of the unidentifiable greens offset by salty shards of Parmesan and maybe some anchovy in the dressing. It was the perfect aperitif. It made me happy, and it made me sad. It reminded me of all the bad salads I'd eaten instead of pasta, hoping I might be worth looking at if there was less of me, all those heaps of aspiring compost dressed in ascorbic acid, the bitter diet of the disappeared.

B
ACK IN MY BIG ROOM
, I
FOUND THREE HANG-UPS FROM
Rachel and two new emails. I drew the curtains and crawled into bed before I read them. I'd left
The Name of the Rose
on the white bedside table, and I set Mitchell's Swiss Army watch on the cover. That little shrine didn't lift my spirits, so I turned on the TV and muted the commentary on the soccer game. After a few dizzying minutes, all that running around and the sudden close-ups of sweaty shirts made me feel guilty, so I forced myself to sit up and do at least ten forward bends. The idea of this self-torture was to renew the spine and hamstrings by leaning over your outstretched legs and grasping the soles of your feet. Even at the height of my yogic powers, this wasn't pretty. I took a couple of deep breaths, and I stayed still until I recalled the proper name for this exercise. It dignified the project to tell myself I was performing paschimottanasana.

After the tenth forward bend, my spine didn't seem much
improved, but it didn't hurt. My hamstrings never got involved, probably because I couldn't extend my outstretched hands past my knees. The soles of my feet might as well have been in Schweinfurt.

I grabbed my phone and scrolled down to an email from Anna.

Mrs. Berman: Per your request for a daily photograph, my sister sends you this very accurate view of the exterior of the hotel in Florence, where we are temporarily residing. Sincerely, Anna