asthma that hit him when he was nervous or angry. Possibly because he believed this, it tended to work. His wheezing stopped while they drank their coffee. The warm sun cheered him up. He said, “I predict they’ll sneak back in short order with their tails between their legs, and three vans of furniture toiling up the hill. They remind me of the people who used to go fleeing off Martha’s Vineyard at the first news of a hurricane. I sat through four hurricanes and thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle.”
Natalie said after he left, “He’s badly shaken.”
“I hope he gets shaken loose from here.”
“Dear, this house will go to rack and ruin if A.J. leaves it.”
“So what?”
“You’ve never owned anything, have you, Briny? Or saved any money. Once you have, you may understand.”
“Look, Natalie, A.J. had a windfall late in life and got carried away and bought himself a big Italian villa for a song, in a lonesome mountain town. All right. Suppose he walks away now? If he offers it for sale he’ll get something for it. Otherwise he can return after the war and put it back in shape. Or he can just forget it, and let it fall down. Easy come, easy go.”
“You see things so simply,” she said.
They were sitting side by side on a white wicker couch. He started to put his arm around her. “Stop that,” she said, catching her breath and deflecting his arm. “That’s too simple, too. Listen carefully, Byron. How old are you? Are you twenty-five yet? I’m twenty-seven.”
“I’m old enough for you, Natalie.”
“Old enough for what? To sleep with me? Don’t talk rubbish. The question is, what are you doing with yourself? I can teach at a university anytime. I’ve got my M.A. thesis almost finished. What have you got? A smile that drives me mad and a handsome head of hair. You’re brave, you’re gentle, but you just drifted here. You only stayed because of me. You’re killing time and you’re trained for nothing.”
“Natalie, how would you like to be married to a banker?”
“A what? A banker?”
He told her about his relatives and their bank in Washington. Hands folded in her lap, she beamed at him, her face aglow in the sunshine. “How does that sound?” he said.
“Oh, fine,” she said. “You’re really facing up to life at last. A stern, serious business, isn’t it? Tell me one thing.”
“What?”
“Tell me when you decided you liked me.”
“Don’t you want to discuss this bank idea?”
“Of course, dear. All in good time. When was it?”
“All right, I’ll tell you. When you took off your sunglasses.”
“My sunglasses? When was that?”
“Why, that first day, when we came into the villa with Slote. Don’t you remember? You had these big dark glasses on in the car, but then you took them off, and I could see your eyes.”
“So?”
“You asked me when I fell in love with you. I’m telling you.”
“But it’s so absurd. Like everything else you say and do. What did you know about me? Anyhow, my eyes must have been totally bloodshot. I’d been up till four, having one hellish row with Leslie. You struck me as nothing at all, dear, so I didn’t give a damn. Now look, you don’t really
He said with an abashed grin, “Well, I did think of one other thing. But don’t laugh at me.”
“I won’t.”
“I thought of the Foreign Service. It’s interesting and it’s serving the country.”
“You and Leslie in the same service,” she said. “That would be a hot one.” She took his hand in a maternal way that depressed Byron. “This isn’t much fun for you, Briny dear, all this serious talk.”
“That’s okay,” Byron said. “Let’s go right on with it.”
For a moment she sat pondering, holding his hand in her lap, as she had in the Swedish ambassador’s limousine. “I’d better tell you what I really think. The trouble is you are trained for something. You’re a naval officer.”
“That’s the one thing I’m not, and that I’ve made a career of not being.”
“You already have a commission.”
“I’m just a lowly reserve. That’s nothing.”
“If the war goes on, you’ll be called up. You’ll stay in for years. That’s what you’ll probably be in the end, from sheer inertia, and family custom, and the passing of time.”
“I can resign my reserve commission tomorrow. Shall I?”
“But suppose we get in the war? What then? Would you fight?”
“There’s nothing else to do then.”
She put her hand in his hair, and yanked it. “Yes, that’s how your mind works. Well, I love you for that, and for other things, but Byron, I’m not going to be the wife of a naval officer. I can’t think of a more ridiculous and awful existence for me. I wouldn’t marry a test pilot either, or an actor, don’t you understand?”
“It’s no issue I tell you, I’ll never be a naval officer — what the devil? Now what? Why are you crying?”
She dashed the sudden tears from her face with the back of her hand, smiling. “Oh, shut up. This is an insane conversation. The more I try to make sense, the wilder it all gets. All I know is that I’m crazy about you. If it’s a dead end, who cares? I obviously thrive on dead ends. No, not now, love, really, no -” She gasped the last words as he firmly took her in his arms.
There was nobody in sight. Beyond the glass there was only the panorama of hills and town, and inside the lemon house silence and the heavy sweet scent of the blossoms.
They kissed and kissed, touching and holding and gripping each other. Soon Natalie happened to glance up and there stood the gardener Giuseppe outside the glass, leaning on a wheelbarrow full of cuttings, watching. With a squinting inebriated leer, he wiped a sleeve of his sweater across his knobbed nose, and obscenely winked.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” she said, yanking angrily at her skirt. The gardener showed sparse foul teeth in a grin and trundled the wheelbarrow away. Byron sat flushed, dazed, and dishevelled, looking after him.
“Well, there goes our little secret, sweetheart. Kissing and smooching
Jastrow called from his study as they came into the house, “Natalie, where is your letter? May I read it?”
“What letter, A.J.? I didn’t get any mail.”
“Are you sure? I have one from your mother. She says she’s written you another and much longer one. Come read this. It’s important.”
He waved a flimsy airmail sheet as Byron went upstairs.
There were only half a dozen lines in her mother’s neat featureless writing, a Manhattan public school script:
Dear Aaron:
We would both appreciate it if you would urge Natalie to come home. Louis took that story of her trip to Poland very hard. The doctor even thinks that it may have been the cause of this attack. I’ve written Natalie all about it. You may as well read that letter, there’s no sense in my repeating the whole terrible story. In retrospect, we were very lucky. Louis seems in no immediate danger, but that’s all the doctor will tell us.
We’re all wondering how long you yourself intend to stay on in Italy. Don’t you feel it’s dangerous? I know that you and Louis have been out of touch all these years, but still he does worry about you. You’re his one brother.
Love,
