And up there, said Robert, pointing, as if it would help, up there behind one of the closed shutters she undressed for the first time in front of her lover, while her husband lay vomiting on one of the other floors because he had eaten some oysters he should have left well alone. Yes, said Lucca. In the afternoon, most likely, with the slanting sunrays from the shutters caressing their young, curious bodies just as in a film. And cut! All of a sudden her life was changed, she loved someone else, and no one in their wildest dreams could have imagined that her story would take such a completely different turn. By chance, said Robert. Yes, she responded. I’m an accidental girl!
The light was fading as they left Viareggio and drove east through hills covered with pines and olive groves. One crest appeared behind another in the twilight. The hills resembled the moveable scenery in a puppet theatre with minute silhouettes of wide pine crowns and pointed cypresses. It was dark when they arrived in Lucca. He drove around the town along the city wall and through one of the gateways to the old quarter. They parked in the square in front of a church. The marble façade shone yellow in the light from the street lamps. She was silent. He wondered whether this was the church where Giorgio had sat when he had his photograph taken one day in early youth, happy and unaware while the low-flying swallows threw their whirling shadows on the marble façade. They continued on foot along a narrow street without traffic. People thronged the street, the shops were still open. The walls resounded with steps and voices, and beneath their murmuring he heard the tip of her slim stick when it grazed the cobblestones. He asked if he should describe the town to her. No, she said, slightly irritated. Have I ever asked you to describe yourself?
They went into a café, she ordered espresso and grappa. He was surprised to hear her speaking Italian. He asked for a beer. They had been quiet for a while when she rose to her feet. I’m going for a walk, she said. Should he come with her? She would rather he didn’t. And if she got lost? She shrugged her shoulders. Then he’d have to look for her. As he sat alone watching the inhabitants of the town in their winter coats coming in to sit at the bar, he began to understand why she did not want to know what the place looked like.
He could have described the square tower with trees growing on top of it, or the church façade consisting of columns of which not a single one matched the others, some with animal reliefs or geometric patterns, others twisted or carved to look as if they were tied in knots. He could have described the angel standing atop the gable looking down on passers-by with a teasing smile, and he could have mentioned the narrow staircase on the back of the gable, apparently gratuitous unless it was meant for the angel to climb because he didn’t want to terrify people by flying. But all of this would have been nothing but pictures to her, his own pictures, of which she could only form vague and imprecise ideas.
Why should she be interested in the beauty of the town? After all, she could not see it. He thought about what she had said. It was true, she had never asked him what he looked like. Only when he went to see her the first time without his white coat and she wanted to know what he was wearing. She had no inkling of his face. To her he was a voice and what the voice told her, and the expectant, listening silence in which she herself could speak. Her town must be like that to her. A name and the echo of steps and voices blending with her thoughts among the invisible walls. He remembered how he had stood at the door of Lea’s room the previous day looking at her because he thought she was asleep. Her own face was no longer of any concern to her. She had come to regard it as something outside herself. Like a mask, he thought. You don’t see it when you wear it. Why worry yourself about it if that’s the only one you’ve got?
He pictured her walking around with her tapping stick among the other pedestrians in the narrow old streets, how she noted each street corner and marked it on a plan in her memory. When he had waited half an hour he began to get worried. He paid and went in search of her. The shops were closing, traders let down the shutters in front of the windows and he thought she must be able to hear the same rattling sound perhaps only a few streets away. The moon had come out, almost full, above a medieval tower whose only decoration was a white clock-face of marble. The moon and the clock looked like images of each other. He would have liked to describe the likeness to her, and for a moment felt sad at the thought of her prohibition of pictures.
He had been walking a long time up and down the streets, growing more and more anxious, when he caught sight of her, framed in a gateway with a strangely curved façade. The entrance led to a square surrounded by terraced houses, all painted yellow, with small windows at different heights. She stood perfectly still among the passers-by in the middle of the square, face raised. He stayed at the entrance. He remembered reading about the square in a guide book. Once it had been a Roman arena, and later on houses had been built in a circle following its circumference. There was nothing remarkable about those houses. They were quite ordinary, with washing hanging on lines and shutters open to apartments where people were cooking or watching television. The remarkable thing about the space was its long elliptical curves.
He closed his eyes and listened to the steps approaching or withdrawing in fleeting, contrapuntal figures. The walls behind the open windows resounded with voices, squealing chair legs, domestic machines and churning television sets, and the sounds blended into a complex murmur above his head. It probably sounded like that every evening, when the occupants of the houses had come home. A scooter crossed the square. It was an ordinary evening in Lucca, with nothing particular happening. An evening when they would just be together, the people who lived here, whether they were happy or unhappy or something in between. Robert waited until the scooter had passed before going up to her. She turned towards him and smiled. Well, there you are… He took her hand. I can find my way very well, she said. I know you can, he answered.