The Gilder (27 page)

When Marina had realized she couldn’t turn to either Thomas or Sarah for help, she’d fabricated a tale about her father needing an operation that might require her to make an emergency trip home. Her plan was to visit her parents, have an abortion, and then return to Florence and pick up where she’d left off.

“He’s doing fine, but my mom wants me home. She’s bought me a ticket for the day after tomorrow. I really need to get going, I have so much to do before then, and I haven’t even told Sauro yet.”

“But you have to eat. Come out with us and I’ll come and help you pack tomorrow.”

“No, really, I’m not feeling that great. I don’t think I’d be good company right now.”

Sarah put her arm around Marina’s shoulder. “You’re always good company. But I understand. I’m just being selfish. Of course you should go and do what you need to and I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”

Marina looked over Sarah’s shoulder as they hugged good-bye, but Thomas was nowhere in sight.

For years she’d thought back on that night and wondered what would have happened if she had confronted Thomas, but in the end, it always came down to the same thing—not hurting Sarah.

The sculls were now gracefully skimming back and forth on the river, each rower balanced and in perfect unison with the others. How did they do that, remain perfectly balanced on something that looked so unstable? She checked her watch and, seeing it was almost time for the tour, headed back toward the Palazzo Vecchio.

Vasari himself met their small group in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio. He was dressed in full fourteenth-century garb made up of a tunic, tights, and a black velvet hat set at a rakish angle on his head. Marina groaned inwardly but dutifully followed along as he shepherded them next door to the Uffizi Gallery and through its west wing, passing the works of Botticelli, Caravaggio, da Vinci, Titian, Filippo Lippi, and others. When they reached the second floor, he led them to an impressive doorway through which they descended a wide, stone stairway, thus entering the Corridor proper. The Corridor was surprisingly wide, which, according to Mr. Vasari, was to accommodate the horses that the resident nobility rode through the passageway rather than mingle with commoners at street level. As they went along, he gave a running commentary on the paintings that lined the Corridor, predominantly from the Medici collection and rarely seen by the public. They traversed the top of the arcade that ran parallel to the river, then took a sharp left over the Ponte Vecchio.

When they reached the midpoint over the apex of the bridge, they stopped in front of a large window. Mr. Vasari began a story about how Mussolini had used this window to keep an eye on things during his occupancy, but Marina was drawn to the opposite window, where she looked upriver to see the rowers still hard at work. The sound of the tourists on the bridge down below, as well as cars, buses, and mopeds traveling along the embankments, was barely audible through the stone and glass. How nice, she thought, to live so far removed from the confusion of everyday life. She’d worked hard to keep her life tidy, and in the process had created more chaos than she could ever have imagined. Behind her, the group began to move again.

At the end of the bridge, the Corridor narrowed, twisting its way around a tower, then continued along the front end of Santa Felicita. Here it was possible to look down into the chapel from the Medici’s private box (again, avoiding contact with the unwashed masses). From here they continued a short distance to where the Corridor ended, and exited through a small door into the Boboli Gardens. Marina stepped into the chilly shadow of the looming Pitti Palace and pulled her coat closer. She stood with the group as they milled around, gravel crunching underfoot, each waiting their turn to thank their guide for his time.

Marina checked her watch and saw that she still had time before her rendezvous with Josh to take a quick spin through the gardens. Now, barely a few weeks before Christmas, nature had stripped itself back to the bare essentials but remained starkly beautiful even without the embellishment of bright hues and textures. She chose a path at random and followed it to the amphitheater, its grass center still brilliant green against tiers of pewter stone. In spite of the sun, it was too chilly to sit, and she continued her meandering, past boxwood hedges, mammoth terra-cotta pots, elaborate fountains, and balustrades. For a moment, she imagined bringing Zoe here and the pleasure it would give her to share this magical city, but like a cloud moving across the sun, a question presented itself: Would she
want
to bring Zoe here when all was said and done? She couldn’t imagine Sarah taking her news other than badly, leaving Florence forever an exquisite wound that would need to be left alone if it was ever to heal. She had not yet decided how or when to tell Sarah the truth, and had mixed emotions about their upcoming dinner at Anita’s. She couldn’t imagine laying it out on the table during dinner. As well, she wanted to catch up a bit more before risking a confrontation. Perhaps if they took a walk after dinner, she might broach the subject—a subject that might better be tackled under the cover of night.

Rivoire, the grande dame of Florentine cafés, rivaled only by the Caffè Gilli in Piazza della Repubblica, occupied the corner of Piazza della Signoria directly opposite the Palazzo Vecchio. The rich, warm scent of baked sugar greeted Marina as she stepped into the clatter of teacups and silver. Josh waved to her from the tearoom at the back of the café, where he’d secured a table by the window. Once he’d taken her coat and settled her into a chair with a view of the square, they ordered tea and cakes and relaxed into a discussion about the Corridor and, eventually, the conference itself. Josh was pleased with its progress and was eager to hear Marina’s impressions.

She assured him that she was both impressed and enjoying every minute of it, but admitted to having a few nerves about her own presentation.

“I’m not sure that I should say too much about my career. I know you said it would be inspirational, but quite frankly, I haven’t seen very many women in the audience who look like they need inspiration. Everyone seems so accomplished.”

“Certainly there are many accomplished craftsmen in attendance, but there are fledglings in the audience, too. You are speaking on the fifteenth-century techniques as well, yes?”

Marina had just taken a bit of cake and nodded vigorously as she chewed, then swallowed. “Yes, absolutely. I will talk extensively about the evolution of the techniques, and I have slides to illustrate them. As I have it now, my own story brackets that information, and I was thinking that I could leave it off entirely.”

“Absolutely not, my dear. You see, I’ve invited students from the Pitti and a number of the smaller studios to come and hear your talk. I dare say that for them your story will be the more inspiring part of your lecture.”

Marina was dumbfounded. It never ceased to amaze her how much confidence Josh had in her abilities and to what extent he would go to support her. When she’d first opened her own workshop, he brought her work on a regular basis, and she’d always suspected that he sacrificed some of his own business for hers.

“Josh, I don’t know what to say. You are too sweet for words. Thank you.”

She could tell he was pleased, but he brushed her thanks aside. “Just give your talk as you wrote it, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“I’ll do my best. I just wish I’d ended up earlier on the roster so I’d have it behind me instead of ahead. The more presentations I hear, the more impressed I am, and the more insecure I feel.”

Josh patted her hand. “I understand. It’s difficult having to wait until the final day, but just try and let all that go and enjoy yourself. I know you’ll do a splendid job. Are you staying on after it’s over? Do you have friends to visit?”

“No.” She hesitated. “No one. Actually, I’m leaving for the airport immediately after my presentation. I have a late-afternoon flight home. I need to get back to Zoe.”

“That’s a shame, but perhaps you’ll bring her here some day. She’s old enough to appreciate it, don’t you think?”

By the time they left the café, twilight was settling over the city. Marina walked slowly in the direction of her hotel, admiring shop windows along the way, and was surprised to see so many she remembered from years ago. But what was sixteen years for a business that had been around for a hundred or so? She stopped at a window filled with gloves in more styles and colors than she could have imagined: plum suede, turquoise leather, red leopard, mink trimmed, hand stitched. Mesmerized, she entered the tiny shop, no wider than the window itself, the walls lined floor to ceiling with shallow drawers. For half an hour, she immersed herself in color and texture, coming away with gloves for everyone at home: black leather with fox trim for Lydia, tan cashmere-lined for June, dark brown kid for Ben, purple suede for Sasha, and bright blue suede for Zoe. At the last minute, she chose a pair of black fur-lined gloves for Peter to make up for not sending a postcard. The shopping spree finished, she hurried back to the hotel, where she had just enough time to freshen up before her dinner with Sarah.

Marina stood just inside the door wondering if she had made a mistake in agreeing to come to Anita’s, but before she could reconsider, Anita was embracing her, then pulling her face down to kiss her firmly on both cheeks. The top of Anita’s head, even in heels, barely reached Marina’s chin.

“Cara mia!”
Anita exclaimed, pinching Marina’s cheeks and spewing high-speed exclamations and questions.

“See, it’s not so bad being here,” Sarah whispered as Anita led them to a table in the small back dining room that looked out on a deserted terrace where a few determined geraniums clung to gangly stalks in large terra-cotta pots.

“Are you all right?” Sarah touched Marina’s arm. “Sit down.”

Marina sat. “I can’t quite take it all in. It’s overwhelming. I mean, to be here where you and Thomas and I ... I had such happy memories of this place. Isn’t it hard for you to be here?”

“It was hard, of course it was, but it’s been more than ten years. In the beginning, I didn’t come at all. God, it must have been a year, at least, before I stepped foot in here again. But it’s like what I said yesterday—Anita is family, and partly I came back for her. It helped her to see me here, and in the end, it helped me, too.”

Marina looked out at the terrace. She saw the three of them at a table on a mild autumn night, drinking, laughing, Thomas with his head thrown back, nostrils wide. When she turned her attention back to Sarah, she asked, “Can you tell me what happened? I read the clippings you sent, but it’s hard to imagine what really happened.”

Sarah was quiet for a moment. She sipped her water, then took a roll from the breadbasket and broke it open.

“It had been raining all day,” she began. “It was right before his show. He’d been working really hard and had gotten into the habit of going to the studio at night, more than ever. Actually, I realized later ... after he was gone ... that he’d been out at night increasingly in the year or so before that. I’d brought it up a couple of times, but he always blamed his insomnia, saying that it was worse than ever. I tried to get him to see a doctor, but you know how pigheaded he was.”

Marina nodded.

“Anyway, it was around three in the morning, and Giovanni, you remember, from upstairs, pounded on the door until I woke up. We still didn’t have a phone, but he did, and somehow the hospital found him. Maybe Thomas was conscious at some point and gave them the number or his name. I don’t know, I can’t remember the details now
.
”

Anita came to the table, took their order quickly, and retreated. Sarah tore another piece from the roll.

“He was gone before I could get there. A head injury. The EMTs were still there when I arrived. They said the car must have been going pretty fast. He was hit with such force that he landed a good half block away from where his moped went down.”

“How
awful
for you.”

“It was awful. For years I relived those moments over and over again, imagining the impact, what it was like for him to lie in the street. But that’s faded. I don’t experience it in that visceral way anymore. Now I can actually tell the story without falling apart.” She looked up and smiled at Marina. “It’s true, time does heal all things, in one way or another.”

Anita arrived with tortellini in a cream sauce laced with black truffles, which they ate in silence before Sarah finished her story. Evidently no one had witnessed the hit-and-run, which made sense since it happened in the dead of night, but it was inconceivable to Sarah that the driver hadn’t stopped. “And what are the odds of a car going down the very same little street over behind Thomas’s studio at that time of night. Plus, you’d never drive down a street like that at high speed.”

It didn’t seem so far-fetched to Marina—a drunk, wending his way home, out of control. “What are you saying? That it was intentional?”

Sarah nodded solemnly as she finished her mouthful.

Marina continued. “Why would anyone want to hurt Thomas?” She didn’t miss the irony of her words, but she pushed it aside. This was about Sarah, not her.

“It didn’t occur to me right away. I was in shock. But about a month later, Thomas’s studio was broken into and badly ransacked. It was odd. When I went there with the police to identify what had been stolen, I realized that they hadn’t taken anything. At least not anything significant. All the cameras and lenses were accounted for. It would have been so easy, just throw them in a couple of boxes and walk off with a small fortune.”

“So it was just vandalism?”

“No. I think the burglar was looking for something specific, and I think he found it.”

“What was it?”

Sarah put down her fork and wiped her mouth. “You have to see it to believe it. I’ll show you after dinner. Come back to the apartment.”

It was hard to believe it was the same apartment. Marina didn’t see a single thing she recognized. Gone were the brightly woven rugs, the tastefully mismatched furniture, the ornate chandeliers, the paintings and photographs. Now the cavernous room was furnished in a palette of beige, wheat, and gray. The furniture was sleek and low-slung, and huge abstract canvases filled the walls. It was the lighting, however, that brought the room together and saved it from looking like a showroom of expensive, very expensive, modern furniture. Lights hidden behind valences and along the floor washed the walls and ceiling with soft shadows, while pinpoint spots illuminated the artwork.