Her father comes out of the store a few moments later. ‘Got a little something for you’, he says, handing her a plastic bag. She peeps into it: he has replaced her Guide bleu: Italie du nord et du centre.
Drago
Though the sour-tempered proprietor seems less than overjoyed to see them again, checking into their old rooms at the Guelfa feels almost like a homecoming. Ah, that adorable Room 25! So narrow, so original…
It’s past two o’clock; they’re starved.
They stride familiarly down Via Guelfa until its name changes to Via degli Alfani, then turn right into Via dei Servi. Soon come to an end, this perpetual searching for restaurants.
‘This one look all right?’
‘No, the music’s too loud.’
‘What about this one?’
‘Nope. Too bad; they’ve stopped serving lunch.’
‘Look — over here!’
Sudden perfection. A secret alleyway. A terrace. Sunlight. Lunch tables set up just opposite a tiny twelfth-century basilica. A smiling young waitress comes and goes, bringing them food.
But when Ingrid turns to Rena and asks if Aziz deals with her absences better than Alioune used to — shaken, perhaps, by the loss of all her identities — Rena doesn’t appreciate it.
‘He deals with them,’ she says. And lights up a cigarette in the middle of the meal, knowing how much Ingrid detests cigarette smoke.
‘Uncanny,’ Simon breathes, ‘the way you blew your smoke out through your nostrils just now, dragon-style…Your mother used to do that. For a minute, you looked exactly like her.’
‘What’s so uncanny about it?’ Rena retort. ‘Does it bother you that I resemble my mother in some ways? Who knows, maybe I inherited a few of my traits from her! My hand gestures…my green eyes…my ability to carry projects through to completion? Is that a flaw, in your opinion?’
‘Rena!’ says Ingrid.
‘Yes, I did have a mother once, in case you’ve forgotten…And I don’t have one anymore. And you have the nerve to ask me about my absences, when…when…’ She doesn’t know when what.
‘For heaven’s sake, Rena,’ Ingrid says in a louder voice. ‘Don’t spoil our lovely holiday by dredging up all those old accusations…’
The more her stepmother raises her voice, the more Rena lowers hers.
‘Who’s making accusations?’ she says in a whisper. ‘Is someone making accusations?’
Suddenly overwhelmed by memories, Simon sets down his fork and weeps.
Whose fault was it? Mine? Rena asks Subra in despair.
No, not yours, Subra murmurs soothingly.
I mean, all right, Rena goes on, I’m the one who pronounced the words Portobello Road and Sylvie and vintage dresses and London, I don’t deny it, the words slipped through my lips and no one else’s — but the facts—the facts, Daddy — who was responsible for the facts? Me? I was sixteen and you were forty…I was alone with my mother that day, and when the words escaped me I saw your marriage of twenty years — everything you’d built together, a complex construction she still believed in, despite your money problems and your quarrels — slowly and spectacularly collapse. Yes, I saw the catastrophe in her green eyes…not because her husband had been unfaithful to her — that was banal — but because…because of me…because of the complicity between her husband and her daughter…their silence against her…the enormity and the duration of their betrayal…and then…even as my words went on exploding in different parts of her brain like tracer bullets, skewing her judgment, freezing her limbs, blurring her vision, confusing her thoughts, accelerating her heartbeat, Lisa went storming out of the house…She got into her car, that day, in the state she was in, and turned on the ignition…
San Lorenzo Secondo
Rena shoves her plate away, unable to swallow another bite.
And then…the speeding car…the pounding of her heart…the strangeness of her body…the sense of lightness in her head…the coldness of her hands…the speed…the bridge…her right leg shaking so badly that the car advanced by fits and starts…my words…the car…the bridge…my green eyes…you’re the one who taught me… her green eyes…how to drive, Daddy, and…sinking…my mother… those words…down…speeding…to the bottom…heartbeats…of the river…its waters…icy in that…Saint-Lawrence…season…San Lorenzo…him again…
What is old? This waitress has been around for twenty years, my pain for nearly thirty, the ivy-chewed bricks for eight hundred, the sun for four billion…yet all of it is now. New. Raw.
‘No, Rowan, no, it’s not my fault, I swear…’ ‘Whose fault is it, then? Why did you tell her? Couldn’t you keep your big mouth shut? Why did you denounce our father?’ At twenty, my brother, comfortably ensconced in his gay lifestyle on the West coast, had already made a name for himself as a jazz violinist even as he finished up a brilliant course of studies at the Conservatory. He never touched me anymore; only his words fire-branded me now. ‘She was my mother, too, Rena…And you started taking her away from me the minute you were born. She was my mother, too, and you killed her…’ ‘No, Rowan, don’t say that. Don’t say that…’ ‘I only say it because it’s true…’ ‘No, it’s not true — she had an accident!’ ‘The accident was you, Rena! You’re the only accident our mother ever had.’
Looking around at the other customers on the terrace, Rena soberly reminds herself that each and every one of them contains a Thebes, a Troy, a Jerusalem…How do we manage to go on putting one foot ahead of the other, smiling, shopping for food, not dying from the pain?
Having licked her plate clean, Ingrid pats Rena on the hand with which she has just stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Don’t you think we should drop the subject? Let bygones be bygones. Look, it’s already quarter to four. If we want to see the Uffizi, we should be on our way. I’ll go take care of the bill and pay my little visit to the ladies’ room…’ She enters the restaurant.
Simon, his eyes red with tears, seeks out Rena’s gaze behind the dark glasses she stubbornly refuses to remove. But when he stretches both hands out to her over the remains of their meal, she gives him hers, and he squeezes them so hard it hurts.
‘Daddy…’
‘I’m sorry, little one. I’m so sorry.’
She pulls her hands away and tries to smile, hiding her embarrassment by drawing out the Guide bleu he just bought for her.
‘The place is humungous,’ she mutters. ‘We should choose which galleries we want to visit…’
‘Oïe vey,’ Simon says. ‘I’m not sure I’ve got the strength to deal with the Uffizi.’
‘Okay,’ Rena laughs. ‘To hell with the Uffizi!’
San Marco
Ingrid returns. ‘The restrooms are impeccably clean here,’ she announces. ‘Everything’s taken care of. We can go.’
‘Just a second,’ Simon says. ‘Rena’s looking for something less exhausting than the Uffizi.’
‘Oh…’ Ingrid says, crestfallen. ‘So many of my friends told me it was a must.’
‘Listen to this,’ says Rena, reading aloud from the guide. ‘San Marco: impossible not to be spellbound by the atmosphere of the place. The Dominican monastery which houses the museum is one of Tuscany’s finest architectural jewels.’
‘That sounds perfect!’ says Simon.
‘And it’s close by,’ Rena adds, ‘whereas the Uffizi is a good twenty minutes’ walk away.’