Ugo beamed. "Sure, sure. Wait till you see my—my—" He was jiggling with excitement. "I have a surprise for you. Don't I, Massimiliano?"
"Surprise?" Max said, frowning. "Oh, Jesus, you don't mean—"
"Sh, sh!" Ugo's thick forefinger wagged in front of his lips. "Don't tell him."
"Ugo," Max said, with a sort of pained kindness, "I'm telling you. That picture isn't good enough—"
"Don't tell him!" Ugo was bouncing up and down. "It's a surprise!"
"But I already told you," Max said patiently. "Amedeo already told you—"
"I believe you, all right? But if Cristoforo's coming to Sicily, then I say what does it hurt if he looks at it? Let him make his own decision."
Max shrugged and raised his eyes to the ceiling.
Ugo looked at me suspiciously. "Hey, do you know what we're talking about?"
"Not a clue," I said honestly.
"Good!" He thumped his thick fist on the table. "Massimiliano, you come, too! Come with Cristoforo Saturday. I'll show you Sicily. We'll eat, we'll drink! We'll have a wonderful time, just like in the old days."
I wasn't sure of just which old days he was talking about, but at that point it sounded like a great idea to me. Ugo was like a breath of fresh, honest air after the rarefied conversation of art connoisseurs, and Max was good company, too.
"Come on. Max," I said. "Why not?"
He grinned. "Why not?" he echoed to my surprise. "All right, I'll come, I can use a little time off."
"Wonderful, wonderful!" boomed Ugo, and hammered his fist on the table some more.
The waiter thought he was calling for another round and hurried over with three more grappas, which we accepted. Then we proceeded to sink happily into a sentimental swill of good fellowship.
I'm afraid we were a little on the riotous side by the time we started for the train station. I blush to admit it, but I think we were bawling "Santa Lucia" as we crossed the deserted Piazza Maggiore, and I seem to remember a chorus of "0 Sole Mio" in there, too, but I wouldn't swear to it.
"Guess what. I'm changing my name," Max announced somewhere on Via dell'Indipendenza. "I am soon to be signor Massimiliano Caboto."
Ugo frowned tipsily at him. "You were always signor Massimiliano Caboto."
"I mean legally. Max Cabot no longer exists. But you," he said, turning that gap-toothed grin on me, "may still call me Max. A special dispensation."
"A papal dispensation," Ugo said, choking with mirth and convulsing the rest of us, which gives you a pretty good idea of the state we were in.
"It's my way of righting an old wrong," Max said. "Did I never tell you that I am a direct descendant of John Cabot, the English explorer who discovered North America?"
"No, you never did," I said.
"Who's John Cabot?" Ugo asked.
"And did you know," Max went on, "that John Cabot, the English explorer who discovered the North American continent, wasn't born in England?"
"No," I said.
"Who's John Cabot?" Ugo asked.
"Well, it's true," Max said. "John Cabot was Italian, not English. Born in Genoa in about 1450, and his real name was Giovanni Caboto. You can look it up."
"Really?' I said.
"Oh," Ugo said. "Giovanni Caboto. Why didn't you say so?"
I don't remember too much more until we had seen a still- chortling Ugo off on the 1:04 and started back toward the center of town. Of the great old cities of Europe, Bologna is probably the most walkable. The pavement on the ancient downtown streets isn't cobblestones, or rough-hewn granite blocks, or even concrete, but a glassy terrazzo tile, easy on the feet and as smooth and level as an ice-skating rink. More than that, most of the sidewalks are arcaded, protected from the elements by the colonnaded porticos that were a standard feature of Bolognese architecture for five hundred years.
A misty rain had been drifting down for an hour and the city was almost deserted. The big Piazza Medaglia d'Oro fronting the railroad station, usually swarming with cars, was so empty we strolled across it without bothering to wait for the green AVANTI sign. Once back on Via dell'Indipendenza, the only sounds we heard were our own heels clicking on the tile and the occasional restrained hum of a small car in no particular hurry.
We walked slowly, shielded from the rain by the porticos, stopping now and then to look absently into a darkened shop window. I had passed from fatigue through hilarity, and was now in a state of mellow calm, content to let the still- exuberant Max carry the conversation. He was giving one of his glories-of-Italy lectures.
"Chris, just think for a moment where a city like Bologna fits in the great scheme of things! Guido Reni, Galvani, Marconi, the Gregorian calendar ... Look at this, look at this!" He gestured vaguely about him. "Some of these buildings date from the 1300s."
"True."
More vague arm movements. "This colonnade we're walking in, this building I can reach out and touch—" He demonstrated. "It was standing here when Columbus discovered America. Think about that!"
Well, not quite. The "imprisoned" columns of this particular building's facade, the finicky, corrugated texture of its walls, marked it as late Mannerist, somewhere around 1590. But why argue? It obviously made Max happy to think otherwise. Besides, what was a hundred years in the great scheme of things?
"Chris, I'd never go back to the Land of Round Doorknobs, never. Not to live. I've never regretted moving here, not for a minute."
"Mm." When he got like this, I was never sure which of us he was trying to convince.
"Do you realize it's practically midnight, and we're walking the streets in complete safety? Can you do that in America?"
"You can in Winslow," I couldn't help saying. I wasn't so sure about Seattle or New York. Or Bologna, when it came down to it, considering the stories at dinner. I glanced nervously around. Across the street a man and a woman, arms wrapped around each other, were quietly mooning along, walking the other way. Half a block behind us, in the darkness, a car coughed softly and started up. It couldn't have been more peaceful.
"Ah, Chris," Max raved on, "just think about it. How do you compare two and a half thousand years of history to— to Michael Jackson and—and McDonald's?"
In some deeply buried vault, patriotism stirred. "Now wait a minute, Max, you're comparing unlike things. Besides, I think the Italians would be happy to trade in some of that history if they could."
"Oh, you mean Mussolini? The Borgias?" He dismissed them with a wave. "Every culture has—What are we stopping for?"
I pointed to the street sign on the corner of a building. "Via Montegrappa. My hotel's down here."
"Oh." He was crestfallen. "You wouldn't want to have one more drink?"
"No, thanks." Overeating, overdrinking, and jet lag had finally, irrevocably, caught up with me. All I wanted to do was fall into bed. "You want to come in and call a cab?"
He shook his head contemptuously. "To go six blocks?"
Max lived on the other side of Via Marconi, in a section where big, block-like, modern apartment houses had replaced buildings destroyed in World War II. "You going to have time to get together again for dinner in the next couple of days?"
"Sure, anytime."
"Day after tomorrow? Come by the gallery about six, and we'll go from there."
"You're on. See you then."
I turned onto the unlit Via Montegrappa, which was more medieval alley than Renaissance boulevard, while Max continued down Indipendenza. After a quarter of a block I stopped abruptly, listening hard. I wasn't sure what had alerted me. Something. I stood stock-still. What had I heard? No, nothing. Behind me, on Indipendenza, an automobile had driven slowly by, that was all. I'd heard the engine purring, the tires crackling on the pavement.