Hill Towns (27 page)

scope of gold and gemstones and satin and light. I had no sense that this great republic had ever had serious concourse with reality; nothing with this sort of wealth and fantasy in its national treasury was truly of earth. Air, perhaps; water, certainly. But hardly of the earth. Even its totems were fantastical creatures: winged lions, dragons, unicorns, chimeras, mermaids, serpents, sea monsters. It did not seem to matter so much, when you were in the midst of it, that most of the literal and figurative jewels of Venice were booty, spoils, plunder from a dozen cultures and civilizations. Here they had found their true spiritual home, halfway between water and sky.

“What did you like best?” Sam said, as we trotted toward the Europa and Regina, where we had agreed to meet Joe and Ada for lunch. We were late, and I could barely keep up with his long stride.

“Oh, the horses,” I said. “I loved the horses. They were—well, you know, I think lovable is the word. Like good carousel horses, that like giving pleasure.”

We went through the dark cave of the Europa’s lobby, I pausing in front of a mirror like a deep, wavy pool to push the wet strands of hair off my forehead and bite my lips, Scarlett style, and then we went out onto one of the terraces that fronted the white glitter of the Grand Canal. It was so bright, after the dimness of the lobby, that for a moment I could not see, and then I did see them. Joe and Ada sat under an umbrella at the far corner of the terrace, their heads together, talking without smiles, and I thought, It was a bad morning. He’s disappointed with the Lido and angry with himself for insisting.

I don’t know how I knew it, but I did.

When we got closer, I saw that his face and arms and 222 / ANNE RIVERS SIDDONS

the V of his open shirt were scarlet with sunburn, and even Ada Forrest’s seemingly impervious white satin skin was washed with plum color. She had pulled her white gauze peasant blouse off her shoulders and tied up her silvery hair, and I looked at Sam and winced silently. It was the sort of sunburn that spoke of serious pain later. Ada did not seem to notice it; she talked quickly and earnestly. Soothing.

Smoothing.

Sam did not return my look. He was staring without expression at his wife. At her shoulders, to be exact. I looked again. On the backs of her upper arms, just above the line of the white blouse, were the distinct white prints of fingers, just fading from her burnt skin. Fingers that had pressed and held. I knew they could not have been her own.

“Miss a lot if you’re late to lunch in Venice,” Sam said.

We ate cold soup in near silence. It was not a day for lunching alfresco; even under the umbrella in that choice corner of the Europa’s terrace, the heat was as palpably present as an unwanted guest. There was no wind, and the glare off the Grand Canal smote the eyes like tiny glittering knives. I could think of little to say that I knew would not anger Joe. Everything that came to mind smacked of I-told-you-so. I spooned up soup that I did not want and did not look at Ada’s bare arms, though the fingerprints had long since faded. I thought, though, that it would be a long time before those white stigmata faded from my mind. On the Mountain I would have teased Joe about it and gotten a soft, laughing, perfectly natural explanation. I could not do that here. I knew the unexplained fingerprints would slide into the

HILL TOWNS / 223

stew of festering strangeness that seemed to be overlaying us like amber.

We should not have come, I thought. Not to Venice, and probably not to Italy.

When the waiter took away the soup plates and brought the cold lobster, Joe seemed to make an effort to shake off his mood. He smiled at me, a thin, stretched smile, and said,

“You were right to pass on the Lido, Cat. It was godawful.

Wall-to-wall people, and not a decent stretch of beach to swim from unless you paid a fortune to rent a beach hut at one of the hotels. The water at the public beaches is a sewer, and the Grand Hotel des Bains is an old whore. From now on I’ll trust your instincts.”

“But you got a lot of sun,” I said. “You must have finally found a good spot to swim. Lord, Ada, I hope you’ve got something to put on your back and shoulders.”

Joe made a small disgusted sound, and Ada laughed ruefully.

“We got the sun walking from the vaporetto stop over to the beach. It took twenty minutes. We couldn’t get a taxi, and the hotels won’t send a car for you unless you’re staying there. I’d forgotten about that. I’m afraid the Lido fiasco is as much my fault as anybody’s. I should have checked about the hotels and the taxis. I’ve never gone over in July before.”

“It’s none of your doing,” Joe said. “It’s all mine. God, the traffic! And the Germans. I think they deport German felons to the Lido in July.”

I couldn’t resist it.

“I thought Aschenbach was a German,” I said.

He looked at me with his light eyes. The laughter that would have crinkled them back at Trinity was not there.

224 / ANNE RIVERS SIDDONS

“Thomas Mann evidently knew a better class of German,”

he said.

“And even that one died,” Sam said equably, attacking his lobster with gusto. “Was it plague or sunstroke?”

“General stupidity, I think,” Joe said. His school voice was back. I knew he loved
Death in Venice
and taught it in some of his small seminars as an allegory of the corruption and death of art when the world comes in upon it. I wondered if Sam Forrest had read it or merely heard of it; I wondered what he made of it if he had. He was as much in the world as any artist I could think of, but unlike Aschenbach’s his art seemed to surge and boom with health and vitality. The thought struck me that perhaps Sam should not stay too long in Venice. Maybe none of us should.

“You know,” I said, “I wonder if maybe we shouldn’t just pack up the newlyweds and go on over to Florence tomorrow. We’d only lose one day of Venice, and in this heat I can’t imagine anyone doing any serious sightseeing. It’s bound to be cooler in the hills. Or whoever wanted to stay on could come with Yolie in her car. I just think Joe and Ada ought to stay out of the sun, get up into the hills—”

“Aren’t you having a good time in Venice, Cat?” Joe said.

“I was,” I said, looking straight at him. He of all people should know whether or not I was having a good time; he, who could read me like a long-loved book. “I was, until today.”

He flushed under the sunburn, and I knew he was remembering what he had said at breakfast, about my fear and Lacey’s blindness. I knew, too, that he was sorry, and was probably thinking of a way to let me know without apologiz-ing before other people. But he would not apologize now.

HILL TOWNS / 225

“Too bad,” he said. “Maybe you ought to go on ahead; I’m sure the bride and groom will be happy to see another set of walls. Maybe Sam will drive you, or Yolie. But Ada and I are meeting some people for lunch tomorrow that I’d like to know, so I’ll be staying.”

We all looked at him. Ada and I? He flushed again.

“Actually, we’re all invited,” Ada said, looking from Sam to me. “I thought I remembered that David and Verna Cardigan were going to be here sometime in July, so I called the Gritti, and they’re there and have asked us all to lunch tomorrow. I accepted because I thought you’d like to see her again, darling”—she smiled at Sam—“and because he said he’d like to finance a new show for you in London if you’ve got something going. I said I thought you did, or would have, soon.”

She turned to me.

“David and Verna Cardigan. Lord and Lady Cardigan, if you insist, though they certainly don’t. Passionate Sam Forrest collectors and investors; he painted Verna years ago and David liked it so much he gave Sam one of the most successful shows he ever had, in London, with the portrait as a centerpiece. I told him Sam was painting you, and they’re dying to meet the original of the new Forrest. As I told you, there are very few in the world. Verna’s is my favorite of Sam’s portraits, but of course I haven’t seen yours yet, and I’ll bet you haven’t either. Nobody sees them till they’re finished. So…of course we won’t bully you if you really do want to go on to Florence, but I wish you’d stay and meet them. They’re really very nice. And you know, I thought how unusual it would be, to have you and Yolie and Verna all together, three Sam Forrest portrait women, in the flesh. The English papers would just love it. Of course 226 / ANNE RIVERS SIDDONS

Sam isn’t going to let me call them, but it would be extraordinary, just the same.”

I looked at Sam, who grinned and said, “Extraordinary is right,” and then at Joe. Joe smiled at me; I thought he had to force it, but it
was
a smile, so I smiled back.

“You could dine out on it for years on the Mountain, Cat,”

he said, and I knew he wanted very much for me to stay and meet Lord and Lady Cardigan, and be exclaimed over by them as the centerpiece of Sam’s new London show, and would not be overly aggrieved if the English press did indeed get word of it.

Who on earth are we turning into, Joe? I thought, and said, “Of course, then. It was nice of them to ask us. I just thought the two of you looked so sunburned and uncomfortable—”

“I’ll send Joe home with a jar of some wonderful stuff I get in Rome that will take the fire right out of him,” Ada said. “That and a nap will do it. I plan to spend all afternoon at a very discreet little salon off the Campo San Angelo.

There’s a little girl there who will work all kinds of magic on me. There won’t be a trace of red when we have lunch with the Cardigans. Or tonight, for that matter. Sam and I are going to take you and Joe and Yolie, if anybody can find her, to that little place Joe and I had lunch yesterday. What did you call it, Joe? The underbelly of Venice? It’s not that, by a long shot, but it does have an interesting atmosphere, one you haven’t seen before, Cat, and the food is wonderful.

We’ll have to eat early; it closes at eight. But we can find something fun to do after. Maybe Vino Vino, back in your neck of the woods near the Fenice.”

“Well,” I said. “Looks like we’re all set.”

“Looks like it,” Sam said.

HILL TOWNS / 227

Soon afterward we left the terrace, Sam and I to go upstairs for another painting session, Joe to go back to the hotel and restore himself with sleep and Ada’s unguent, Ada to her secret spa. I was nearly limp with exhaustion by then. I could not quite think why. Nothing had happened, really, at that luncheon under the umbrella by the Canal Grande, and yet, in some subterranean manner, a great deal had.

When we got to Sam and Ada’s suite we opened the far bathroom door very quietly and looked in on Colin and Maria. They lay loosely entwined on the great tester bed, fast asleep, a light plissé coverlet drawn up over them. The air-conditioner hummed full blast, and the ceiling fan spun heavily. The bedside radio purred light rock into the big dim room, and a room service tray on a gilt console held the remains of lunch, with three empty wine bottles. Sam closed the far door and locked the other one, which led into his and Ada’s room.

“I’d say they’d made up and are out for the count,” he said.

“They should resurface sometime before midnight.”

I went to my chair and sat down. He moved to his position behind the easel and uncovered the painting and stood for a moment, staring at it. He picked up a brush, then put it down and went and stood for a moment before the French doors, looking out into the blazing canal. His hands were shoved into his pockets, and he rocked back and forth on the big running shoes. The ponytail switched back and forth across the broad, sweat-stained back of his work shirt. I felt the prowling tension in him from where I sat.

“Is something wrong?” I asked. “With the light, or something?”

“No. I mean, yes, the light’s too bright, but I can fix 228 / ANNE RIVERS SIDDONS

that. It’s not anything, except that—Cat, please don’t think there’s anything…going on…between Ada and Joe. There isn’t. I can promise you I would know if there were.”

“I didn’t think that,” I said, but I thought, That’s what
you
were thinking, isn’t it? Or at least wondering. “They’re together so much, is all,” I said. “And he’s been so annoyed with me, or whatever it is that’s eating him. I didn’t mean to imply that Ada would—”

“Ada might,” he said, not turning back to me. But I could hear the smile in his voice. “Ada in fact has, upon occasion.

But this is not one of them. I know her like I know myself; I know when she’s being helpful and when she’s…interested.

What she’s doing now is trying to keep Joe occupied while you’re sitting for me. It’s very important to Ada that I should be painting again. She gets distinctly nervous when I hit a long dry spell. So you can rest easy on that score, unless you think Joe has the hots for her.”

“I don’t think he has the hots for her, as you so elegantly put it,” I snapped. “But I think he may think he does. Joe and I haven’t ever…there’s never been anybody else for either of us, not since we met. And everything’s so strange now, and he’s thrown with her so much, and she’s so very beautiful.

I guess I really don’t know what I think.”

“You ain’t exactly chopped liver, kid,” Sam said, turning around and picking up his brush. “He’s crazy about you; a fool could see that. He wouldn’t be so angry at you if he wasn’t. But he needs to clean up his act. He’d be a fool to drive you away.”

“I don’t think he could do that….”

“Any of us can drive anyone else of us away, Cat,” he said.

“It doesn’t do to take people for granted.”

HILL TOWNS / 229

“It seems to me you take Ada for granted a good bit of the time,” I said.

“On the contrary,” he said. “I may not show it, but I am aware at all times of what Ada wants and needs. They are not always the same thing, but I am never unaware of them.

Have you and Joe really never had anybody else?”

“No,” I said. “We really never have. I mean, I never have ever, and he hasn’t since we met. I guess I don’t really know about before then, for him. Is that really so very strange?

You sound as though you think we ought to be in the
Guin-ness Book of Records
.”