Florence in Ecstasy Read online

  “Hannah?” A voice came from the end of the corridor and I hurried out into the gray summer evening without looking back.

  I choose my evening meals in Florence carefully. Early on I made the mistake of going to a traditional spot, candlelit, with couples who eyed me suspiciously. I had not anticipated such stares. Disapproving and reproachful, they presented a uniform front, said, This place is ours, as I took too long reading the menu, inevitably falling on the contorni—the side dishes—and then ordered quickly, avoiding the waiter’s skeptical gaze: È tutto? Yes, that’s all. When my small plates arrived, the stares returned, the pairs glancing up from their own dishes piled high with meat or pasta—glistening, those items stared at me, too. I took in their stares and ate quickly.

  So I choose carefully. There is Fuori Porta, or “Outside the Gate,” a wine bar just beyond one of the city’s large doors, the last lit building in a trendy quarter before the road winds up into the dark hills. Between six and nine each night, appetizers line the counter. I dine on pickles and carrots. I drink three glasses of wine. I listen to the hum. When the young bartender asks if I would like a fourth glass, I smile and say no. I’m meeting a friend for dinner, I think, for all he knows. I always leave Fuori Porta feeling better. Something in the walk home through the silent streets, past the dusty buildings, and across the Ponte alle Grazie—bridge of thanks—leaves me lighter.

  And then there is Shiso, a sushi place where I go when I feel alert enough to face conversation with the owner, Dario. Tonight I turn the corner to find him arguing with one of the drunkards who fill the square outside—their hair is stringy with grease, their eyes drained of color. Sometimes I feel their hot breath as I pass and a phrase is thrown my way, but they go no further. I am no threat to them. And there is something of them in me, too.

  “Dai! Dai!” Dario shouts at one of these shades, a cigarette hanging from his hand. When he catches sight of me, he drops his voice low and presses something into the man’s palm. Then he throws his shoulders back and inhales deeply, looking off into the distance as the man disappears down the alley. He’s pretending he hasn’t seen me.

  “Ciao,” he says, overly familiar once I’m upon him. “Come stai?”

  “Bene. How are you?”

  “Busy, always busy,” he says with a sigh. This is his mantra, though there are never more than a handful of people in the restaurant. I am, I believe, his only repeat customer.

  He puts out his cigarette and opens the door, placing a hand on my elbow to guide me in. The interior is steel and red, about a decade too late to be modern. This place is his passion, opened after his travels in Japan. He explained it all to me one evening. Very good, I lied, picking at the small strips of overpriced fish. Because it’s good, sometimes, to be known. I let him walk me home one night, let him kiss me outside my door. But not tonight. Tonight will be different.

  There is only one table occupied—a young American couple—and the waitress, unsmiling, doesn’t move from her post by the kitchen. Dario wipes down the counter and pours me a generous glass of wine.

  “A good day?” he asks.

  “Very good,” I say, meaning it for the first time.

  “You are lucky to be on such a vacation. For me it is always work, always busy. What is your work—in Boston?”

  It catches me off guard. “I do fund-raising,” I say, as though it were still true. “For a museum.”

  “Cosa?”

  “I work with art.”

  “Ah. An artist.”

  I don’t correct him. What would be the point of explaining that my job had nothing to do with art—though that was why I’d taken it—and everything to do with money. I was good at it at first. Pretending that I gave a shit, I mean. Pretending that it mattered.

  “Then you understand what it is,” he continues, “to be always busy.”

  I nod. His confidence is aggressive and catching, and I, too, act as though I don’t see the empty tables, the waitress’s frown as she takes my order, the sweat that beads on Dario’s forehead and scalp where his hair is thinning. I accept a second glass of wine and eat slowly once my food arrives, thinking back on the day. Dario crosses his thick arms and commences a fresh monologue.

  “I have this place for three years, you know. Tre anni, almost.”

  As he speaks, I begin my necessary ritual—the list. I construct it carefully in my mind.

  “I think, sometimes…”

  The coffee this morning—no milk, no sugar.

  “…è brutto, Hannah. Davvero.”

  On top of it I place the toast—two slices, choked down.

  “Sicilia. Penso di…”

  The salad, after my walk, is more challenging.

  “…è sempre la stessa cosa.”

  I nod. Dario pauses, refills my glass.

  “Allora I go on vacation…”

  I start over: break the list up into compartments, slide the toast to one side, put the wine in its own square—a larger square, it’s true. Alcohol counts, isn’t air, I know this. But it gets me through, so I account for it. Leave room.

  “…è diverso…”

  I return to the salad. Take it apart. Compress the pieces.

  “…che cazzo…”

  A roll of green. Slivered tomatoes. A sheet of cheese, almost translucent.

  “…non voglio ma…”

  There is no place for the almonds, a handful this evening before going out.

  “…è un casino.”

  Finally the salmon. Five pieces. Slimy. I feel them already swimming in my stomach.

  “She says to me, ‘Dario…’”

  Then I stack the items, one on top of the next. They become a tower, tall and spindly.

  “Che posso fare?”

  But it does not feel spindly, this tower. I feel the weight of it.

  “Così è la vita…”

  The almonds sit to the side, disturbing. I cannot place them on top.

  “…però in futuro…”

  I dare not.

  “…credere—” Dario’s phone rings. “Cazzo,” he bellows, picking it up and walking quickly to the corner of the bar.

  I look again at the tower. Close my eyes. Try to figure it out. Start over.

  Giggling behind me. I open my eyes. In the mirror I can see the American couple—they are looking this way, the woman with her hand over her mouth. Why? I look at my reflection. What does she see? A woman, almost thirty, older than her, I must be older than her, my face drawn and serious. My hair is limp. I blew it dry before going out, in spite of the heat, and it should frame my features, dark. But it didn’t work and it’s gone limp, sits flat, hangs to my shoulders in strings. Like the men outside. Like dribble. Strings of dribble.

  There is something I’ve forgotten to do. Somehow during the day, over the course of this evening, I lost it. I try to focus, to grasp it, but it’s gone, out of reach, disappeared. Why can’t I hold on to anything? Always it slips and slips and slips.

  A voice shouting. Is it mine? No. Outside. A man is shouting at someone or something in the street.

  “Magari.” Dario sighs loudly. “Hai visto? What I have to do. Always busy.” He disappears outside, and I open my purse and leave money on the counter. Too much I think, but I’ll go. Before Dario comes back and I let him walk me out, I’ll go. I glance quickly for the waitress, but she’s disappeared as well. There’s only the smug couple now.

  Outside it is dark, but still the air sticks. I hear raised voices behind me and they chase me on. The stones catch my heels, echoing loud each time. There is something I’ve forgotten to do. My street is empty and the music from the club beats loud. The door of the building feels heavy, the air in the lobby is heavy, too. I hit the switch of the timed light and, with a click, the stairwell illuminates but goes dark by the time I reach the third floor. I put my hand on the wall and find my way up, my steps loud and clumsy, and somewhere below a door opens.

  “Signorina?” The landlady—what else does she want
from me?—and I speed up, catch my thigh on the edge of the banister rounding the corner. It feels hot, spreads, will bruise. I hear the phone ringing, shrill, as I get to my landing.

  Yes, that’s it. I’ve forgotten again. Four, five, six rings. I find my door, put the key in the lock. Turn one, two, three times. The ringing continues. Seven, eight, nine. The door swings in and the sound pierces. Ten, eleven, twelve.

  “Hannah?” My sister’s voice hits like cold water, pulls me in. Even this far away, I feel pulled. Weighted. I breathe in, breathe out.

  “Honey, are you okay?”

  I nod. I will not cry.

  “Hannah?”

  “I’m fine. I just hurt my leg.”

  “What? What do you mean?” Kate is suspicious. She is always suspicious.

  “Nothing. I don’t know. I just got home.”

  “The list, Hannah. It’s been five days. You didn’t—”

  The list. My inventory. The tower swims in front of me now in the dark. Laughter bubbles up from downstairs. “Bastardo!” a man shouts. More laughter.

  “You can’t do this, Hannah.” I see her seated on a stool by her counter, dialing and redialing, intent on mending. She is a mender.

  “I’m fine.” I see the words and then say them. “I’ve just been busy.”

  “With what? What do you do all day?” She stops. “I’m sorry. How are things?”

  “I went out to dinner,” I say. “And I was going to write you, but I forgot.”

  “Hannah, you can’t forget. That’s the deal.”

  That is our agreement. Every three days: the list. That and no scales—but Kate doesn’t know about the orange scale, purchased on my first day here. And I do send the list. Today was different, though, and my words begin tumbling now, spilling out of me as I explain—the meal, the wine, the men, the shouting, the wad of money left on the bar. “Too much, but I needed to leave before Dario came back. And then I forgot to write you. Because of everything that was happening.”

  I’ve fucked it up. I know it before she speaks.

  “What are you talking about? Who’s Dario?”

  I think through it. The mirror, the almonds, the shouting. There’s an answer in it I can’t find. It slips and slips and slips. I give up—it won’t make sense to her. Kate breathes in sharply, and I can see her looking out her window as though she can see me all these miles away.

  “We’ll talk about it next week,” she says. “When you’re back.”

  And now I’ll have to tell her. “I’m not leaving.”

  “What? Are you—”

  “I’m staying. A little while longer. I already changed it—my ticket. It’s done.”

  “Are you sure? Don’t you think it’s time to come home? To start looking for work? Have you started looking? Or don’t worry about that. You can stay with us.”

  “No,” I say quietly.

  “Hannah—” Her voice catches. “You can’t just disappear.”

  That’s what she’s afraid of, my total erasure. I am disappearing. But not anymore. Not anymore.

  “This was supposed to be a break,” she pleads. “A break. That’s what you said. But it’s been a month. What are you going to do for money? How are you going to live?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, focusing on the words.

  “I don’t understand this. I don’t know what to do.”

  It is the same voice I heard months ago, when I had gone as deep and as low as I would go. The voice that reflected back to me the rock bottomness of my existence.

  “Won’t you come home?”

  My anger surges up, cuts through the fog, and I’m surprised at the growl in my voice when I say, again, “No.” It doesn’t sound anything like me. It’s mine, I want to say. I don’t know what it is, but it’s mine.

  Kate is crying now. I need something—something to convince her. And then an image emerges from the fog of the day. The woman on the water, her body at peace.

  “I’ve been rowing,” I say. “I joined a rowing club. It’s helping. It’s beautiful on the river. Quiet.” And it’s not really a lie—not if I make it true, which I will. If I can just get past this call, get to sleep, get to the next morning with its clean slate.

  “That sounds nice,” Kate says softly. Then, “Call tomorrow. Call tomorrow when you’re feeling better.”

  I hang up the phone and take off my skirt, my body racing. I lie down on my bed. Dinner seems far away now. The club seems far away. Home, farther still. I am propped up here without a backdrop. I am stiff, straight. Not soft like my sister, as I should be. She is a question mark, I think, before I fall asleep. Miles away, curled in the dark, she is a question mark and I am an exclamation point. And it seems to make everything come clear that all I need is to become a question mark again.

  Tomorrow, I will begin to bend. I will begin tomorrow.

  Chapter Two

  A gymnasium. Three girls lined up, standing at attention—why? The boy, smirking. I dreaded this boy who went down the line pointing his finger, labeling our breasts. Flat as a board. Mosquito bites. Melons. He was no taller, no stronger, and still we took in his smirk and watched him take in our blank faces, our failure to respond. His smile grew, became something I couldn’t find my way around. He walked away then, satisfied. We did not look at one another. We did not speak of it.

  But that’s not right. That was a story people told me. This is where it begins, they said, pointing at screens and billboards and smirking boys with sharp fingers who would become men who lose the smirk and do not point and yet both are felt. But that is not where it began. Not for me. Still, years later when I saw school groups at the museum, I waited for this boy to emerge with that same small smirk. I watched as he circled girls like me, wanted to silence him before he could speak, wanted to follow him into the cluster and make them all scatter like birds. Would that have helped? Children do this, after all. Children do this and they don’t end up like me.

  The next morning I find the city transformed. The Italians have returned, reclaiming Florence at this early hour, and the city moves, not yet weighed down by the slow stroll of tourist traffic, amoebic and unpredictable. Instead the old stones rumble with cars and rattle with bikes; buses pull up and just as quickly away as suited men and women hop on and off; the mopeds that have lined the curbs in double layers all night zip out one by one and join the buzz over bridges; and delivery trucks sit stubbornly outside grocery stores, bringing whole streets to a roaring standstill. I feel high on the new energy as I cut through the center. This is Florence in September.

  I use a self-service photo booth near the train station, blinking hard each time it flashes. The four photos are identical. My eyes look surprised, my nose large, my smile too wide. Look at you. Is this me?

  But no one hassles me as I make my way to the club. No one sees me, it seems. Not the men in crisp shirts and loafers. Not the women in heels and sleek skirts who dismount their scooters with ease. All weaving in and out of the din of cramped coffee bars—each one a humming polis this morning—before disappearing through doors that must lead to offices and schools, vanishing from the scene before it fills with the second wave, and I’m relieved to be able to join them in my own way as I duck into the club, determined to make true my words to Kate.

  “Per la carta,” I explain to a woman in the office, handing her the photo after she charges my credit card.

  She looks at the photo, doesn’t say, Look at you, only “Sì” with a smile. She slides it into a membership card and hands it to me. “Eccola.” I am official.

  Tracing yesterday’s path, I tunnel down to the locker rooms. Voices echo loud from the men’s room, but the women’s room is empty, tiled in cool white and hushed. I change quickly.

  “Ciao, Anna of Boston,” Manuele says when I enter the coffee bar, full today. Like the city above, the locals have returned, only here they are all men and I’m no longer invisible as eyes dart up. I hurry out into the sunlight. More eyes. Old men—Nico in his unisui
t among them—are parked in chairs on the grass. They peer up over their newspapers and the murmuring begins. It fills me with rage, their whispering. And it makes me want to hide.

  “Attenta, Hannah!”

  I turn and almost collide with a large boat that rests heavy on the shoulders of Stefano and two other men.

  “Buongiorno,” one of them says as they pass, their uneven steps pounding the length of the metal dock. They transfer the boat from their shoulders to their palms, the movements automatic, then rotate the wooden body, gripping its edges before lowering it into the water. Stefano stands up, wiping his hands on his thighs.

  “Aspetta,” he says to his companions. He gestures to me to come down and takes my hands in his, kissing each of my cheeks, and this quiets the grumbling of the old men.

  “Ti presento Sergio.” Stefano grasps the forearm of his teammate, a compact man with uncharacteristic red hair and large teeth who smiles at me broadly.

  “E Giovanni.”

  The third man—tall with a small beard and sparkling eyes—takes my hands: “Per gli amici, ‘Gianni.’”

  I haven’t had this much physical contact in weeks. Not since Kate gripped me tight at the airport, my body stiff in her arms, rejecting the embrace. Take care of yourself, she kept saying. Then, I love you, but it felt like a chokehold.

  These hands aren’t prying or controlling, though—only warm—and I feel elated. As if sensing this, Gianni releases me, spreads his arms wide, and throws his head back. “Che bello giornata, no? Sunshiiiiiine!” he shouts, a tall elegant bird greeting the day in neon stretch pants.

  “Our first day of training since the vacation,” Stefano explains.

  “Ragazzi, che giornata!” A fourth figure emerges from the darkness, four oars gathered on his shoulder.

  “Ecco Luca,” Stefano says.

  Luca smiles, surprised, and I recognize him then as the laughing man I’d met at the club’s entrance the day before.

  “Hannah,” I say, my face hot again.

  “Buongiorno, Hannah. Welcome back,” he says with that same laugh. He doesn’t say more, though, doesn’t give me away. He slaps Stefano on the shoulder and passes the oars to Gianni and Sergio, who slide them into the rings at the boat’s edge. Then he steps into the shell, one hand on the dock, and lowers himself onto the second seat.