The Savage Garden

    'If we don't disapprove, then the young have nothing to fight against and the world will never change. It cannot move on.'

    'I'd never thought of it that way.'

    'I should hope not; you have better things to think about.'

    'Such as?'

    'Oh, I don't know'—she waved her hand vaguely about in the air—'Elvis Presley.'

    'I'm impressed.'

    'Antonella keeps me informed of these things.'

    'And you dutifully disapprove.'

    'Elvis Presley is clearly a young man of questionable morals.'

    'Based on your knowledge of his music.'

    'And his films.'

    'Which you've seen?'

    'Of course not. You don't understand. The old people are allowed to argue their case from a position of complete ignorance. In fact, it's essential.'

    Adam laughed, as he often found himself doing when in her company. 'Maybe she likes what she does,' he said. 'Maybe she's good at it.'

    'My friends who know about such things tell me she has a great talent. But I always saw her as more than just a seamstress.' 'I'm sure there's a lot more to it than just sewing.'

    Signora Docci gave a low sigh. 'You're right, of course. Ignore me. I think I am still a little angry.'

    'Angry?'

    'You should have seen her before, before this.' Her fingertips moved to her forehead. 'She was so beautiful. Now she hides herself away in a back room and works with her hands. La poverina.'

    Her words riled him, especially the last two, replete with pity: the poor thing.

    'I disagree,' said Adam. 'I can't see her hiding herself.'

    'No?' Her tone was flat, skeptical.

    'I know I've only met her once, but it's what struck me most— that she's not ashamed, not embarrassed. The way she wears her hair, the way she carries herself. She's not hiding.'

    'You think she doesn't look in the mirror every morning and wish it was different?'

    'Maybe. I don't know. But she's more beautiful because of it, because of the way she is with it.'

    'You really believe that?'

    'I do. Yes.'

    At first he took her look for one of weary sufferance, and he suddenly felt very young, he suddenly felt like a person in the presence of someone who has spent considerably more time on the planet. But there was something else in her eyes, something he couldn't quite place. He only realized what it was when a slow and slightly wicked smile spread across her face.

    'You're playing with me.'

    'It's nice to see you defending her. And you're right—she is more beautiful because of it.'

    'How did it happen?'

    'It was near Portofino, at night. Her mother was driving. She was also lucky. She only broke two ribs.'

    Signora Docci had not elaborated. In fact, she had terminated the conversation then and there on some doubtful pretext, banishing him back downstairs to his books.

    Maybe that's what the problem was, mused Adam, strolling back past the grotto: the routine, the rigmarole, long periods of study broken by conversations with a bed-bound septuagenarian. Toss the pitiless heat into the pot, and it was little wonder he was losing his grip.

    He climbed the steps sunk into the slope behind the grotto, resolving as he did so to break the pattern, to introduce some variety into his life, maybe eat out one night, cycle off somewhere for half a day, or even hitch a lift into Florence—anything to add some variety, jolt him out of his folly.

    He stopped at the base of the amphitheater and stared up at Flora on her pedestal near the top. He would never be able to see her as he had that first time. Antonella's words had irrevocably colored his judgment. When he looked on the goddess twisting one way, then the other, he no longer saw the classic pose borrowed from Giambologna, he saw a woman contorted with some other emotion, he saw the provocative thrust of her right hip.

    Why put her there, near the top but not at the top? In fact, why put her there at all, in a nine-tiered amphitheater? And why nine instead of seven tiers? Or five for that matter? What was so special about nine? The nine lives of a cat? A stitch in time . . . ? The nine planets of the solar system? No, they hadn't known about Pluto back then. Shakespeare, maybe—Macbeth—the witches repeating their spells nine times. Not possible. Shakespeare couldn't have been more than a boy when the garden was laid out. Close, though.

    And the occult connection was interesting. How had the witches put it?

    Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,

    And thrice again, to make up nine.