Dusk and Other Stories

The next day was Saturday. He had the portiere call her number and hand him the phone.

“Hello, Eda? It’s Frank.”

“I know.”

“What are you doing?”

He didn’t understand her reply.

“We’re going to Florence. You want to come to Florence?” he said. There was a silence. “Why don’t you come and spend a few days?”

“No,” she said.

“Why not?”

In a quieter voice she said, “How do I explain?”

“You can think of something.”

At a table across the room children were playing cards while three well-dressed women, their mothers, sat and talked. There were cries of excitement as the cards were thrown down.

“Eda?”

She was still there. “Si,” she said.

In the hills they were burning leaves. The smoke was invisible but they could smell it as they passed through, like the smell from a restaurant or paper mill. It made Frank suddenly remember childhood and country houses, raking the lawn with his father long ago. The green signs began to say Firenze. It started to rain. The wipers swept silently across the glass. Everything was beautiful and dim.

They had dinner in a restaurant of plain rooms, whitewashed, like vaults in a cellar. She looked very young. She looked like a young dog, the white of her eyes was that pure. She said very little and played with a strip of pink paper that had come off the menu.

In the morning they walked aimlessly. The windows displayed things for women who were older, in their thirties at least, silk dresses, bracelets, scarves. In Fendi’s was a beautiful coat, the price beneath in small metal numbers.

“Do you like it?” he asked. “Come on, I’ll buy it for you.”

He wanted to see the coat in the window, he told them inside.

“For the signorina?”

“Yes.”

She seemed uncomprehending. Her face was lost in the fur. He touched her cheek through it.

“You know how much that is?” Alan said. “Four million five hundred thousand.”

“Do you like it?” Frank asked her.

She wore it continually. She watched the football matches on television in it, her legs curled beneath her. The room was in disorder, they hadn’t been out all day.

“What do you say to leaving here?” Alan asked unexpectedly. The announcers were shouting in Italian. “I thought I’d like to see Spoleto.”

“Sure. Where is it?” Frank said. He had his hand on her knee and was rubbing it with the barest movement, as one might a dozing cat.

The countryside was flat and misty. They were leaving the past behind them, unwashed glasses, towels on the bathroom floor. There was a stain on his lapel, Frank noticed in the dining room. He tried to get it off as the headwaiter grated fresh Parmesan over each plate. He dipped the corner of his napkin in water and rubbed the spot. The table was near the doorway, visible from the desk. Eda was fixing an earring.

“Cover it with your napkin,” Alan told him.

“Here, get this off, will you?” he asked Eda.

She scratched at it quickly with her fingernail.

“What am I going to do without her?” Frank said.

“What do you mean, without her?”

“So this is Spoleto,” he said. The spot was gone. “Let’s have some more wine.” He called the waiter. “Senta. Tell him,” he said to Eda.

They laughed and talked about old times, the days when they were getting eight hundred dollars a week and working ten, twelve hours a day. They remembered Weyland and the veins in his nose. The word he always used was “vivid,” testimony a bit too vivid, far too vivid, a rather vivid decor.

They left talking loudly. Eda was close between them in her huge coat. “Alla rovina,” the clerk at the front desk muttered as they reached the street, “alle macerie,” he said, the girl at the switchboard looked over at him, “alla polvere.” It was something about rubbish and dust.

The mornings grew cold. In the garden there were leaves piled against the table legs. Alan sat alone in the bar. A waitress, the one with the mole on her lip, came in and began to work the coffee machine. Frank came down. He had an overcoat across his shoulders. In his shirt without a tie he looked like a rich patient in some hospital. He looked like a man who owned a produce business and had been playing cards all night.

“So, what do you think?” Alan said.

Frank sat down. “Beautiful day,” he commented. “Maybe we ought to go somewhere.”

In the room, perhaps in the entire hotel, their voices were the only sound, irregular and low, like the soft strokes of someone sweeping. One muted sound, then another.

“Where’s Eda?”

“She’s taking a bath.”

“I thought I’d say good-bye to her.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“I think I’m going home.”

“What happened?” Frank said.

Alan could see himself in the mirror behind the bar, his sandy hair. He looked pale somehow, nonexistent. “Nothing happened,” he said. She had come into the bar and was sitting at the other end of the room. He felt a tightness in his chest. “Europe depresses me.”

Frank was looking at him. “Is it Eda?”

“No. I don’t know.” It seemed terribly quiet. Alan put his hands in his lap. They were trembling.

“Is that all it is? We can share her,” Frank said.

“What do you mean?” He was too nervous to say it right. He stole a glance at Eda. She was looking at something outside in the garden.

“Eda,” Frank called, “do you want something to drink? Cosa vuoi?” He made a motion of glass raised to the mouth. In college he had been a great favorite. Shuford had been shortened to Shuf and then Shoes. He had run in the Penn Relays. His mother could trace her family back for six generations.

“Orange juice,” she said.

They sat there talking quietly. That was often the case, Eda had noticed. They talked about business or things in New York.

When they came back to the hotel that night, Frank explained it. She understood in an instant. No. She shook her head. Alan was sitting alone in the bar. He was drinking some kind of sweet liqueur. It wouldn’t happen, he knew. It didn’t matter anyway. Still, he felt shamed. The hotel above his head, its corridors and quiet rooms, what else were they for?

Frank and Eda came in. He managed to turn to them. She seemed impassive—he could not tell. What was this he was drinking, he finally asked? She didn’t understand the question. He saw Frank nod once slightly, as if in agreement. They were like thieves.

In the morning the first light was blue on the window glass. There was the sound of rain. It was leaves blowing in the garden, shifting across the gravel. Alan slipped from the bed to fasten the loose shutter. Below, half hidden in the hedges, a statue gleamed white. The few parked cars shone faintly. She was asleep, the soft, heavy pillow beneath her head. He was afraid to wake her. “Eda,” he whispered, “Eda.”

Her eyes opened a bit and closed. She was young and could stay asleep. He was afraid to touch her. She was unhappy, he knew, her bare neck, her hair, things he could not see. It would be a while before they were used to it. He didn’t know what to do. Apart from that, it was perfect. It was the most natural thing in the world. He would buy