“Oh! Really? What is it?”
“Well, do you know Maestro Luciano?”
“The drunk?”
“Elisa! Che maleducata, that’s so mean!”
Elisa threw up her hands to shield her face. She yelped, “Well, it’s true! It’s not mean if it’s true!”
Fatima glared at Elisa, who looked away, scowling. Elisa wondered, was it mean? If Fatima said so, it must be. A moment’s reflection convinced her that she wouldn’t want one of her brothers called a name, even if it were true. “I’m sorry, Fatima, I don’t know him. It’s what my parents say. And doesn’t he smell like old wine?”
“Well, maybe,” Fatima conceded. “But he wasn’t always like that. You don’t remember?”
Elisa screwed her face up in concentration. “Yes, that’s right. It’s been so long I thought he’d always been this way, but he used to be different.”
Fatima nodded. “Maestro Luciano taught my family Italian when we moved here. But then all these bad things happened, and since then he’s been like sink water going in a circle. I don’t know how to say that in Italian.” Fatima made a slow circular motion with her finger and then made the circle faster and tighter.
Elisa nodded that she knew what Fatima meant.
Fatima shrugged, “I want everyone to be nice to him.”
Elisa thought about this, imagining that shuffling old man patiently teaching Fatima Italian, which, now that she thought of it, was really good compared to Elisa’s English that she’d been learning in school for years. She felt sad for him. And for Fatima. She wondered what the bad thing was that happened to him but supposed it didn’t matter.
Goodness, children can be aggravatingly non-curious. An adult would have rabidly pushed for details and then nodded over this juicy bit of backstory.
Elisa said, “I’m really sorry.”
The girls stood against the damp wall of the school. The rain had lightened, and eased away over the course of the day, and now the blue-tinged afternoon light warmed their upturned faces.
“Fatima?” Elisa ventured, “Why are we talking about Maestro Luciano?”
“Oh! Right, I forgot.”
Elisa grinned, “That’s okay. I know all about that.”
Fatima gently shoved Elisa’s shoulder. “Basta!” She laughed. “Anyway, I like to visit him after school. He has a house with a garden. Sometimes I pull up the bad plants. He loves it when I bring sweets.” Her rough little laugh rang out. “Maybe you can come with me. If it’s okay with your parents. We could cut the shirt you brought me!”
Elisa scrunched her eyes at the sun that was hiding again behind a navy rimmed cloud. “Maybe. Sometimes my mom notices and sometimes she doesn’t. I guess I could tell her I was getting tutored. She’d definitely believe that.”
“Yes! Great idea. Actually, I bet he can tutor you. He’s a great teacher and that way it won’t be lying.”
“I don’t mind lying to my parents.”
“You don’t?”
“No. Why? Do you?”
Fatima stared at her feet. “Well, yes. My family is always honest. Always. My parents say that without honesty we can never believe each other or trust each other. Or love each other. “
“Oh. So you tell them everything?”
“No.”
“No? But—”
“I don’t lie to them. But there are some things I don’t tell them.” Fatima flushed, wondering if her friend could read the secrets written across her face—the hours logged beside the hushed radio memorizing pop song lyrics, the catch in her chest when she caught Mario looking at her, the longing to one day belong to a band of young adults who gathered around the tables of l’Ora Dorata to eat whatever they wanted while sipping currant-red wine, the dreams of one day breakfasting on pastries as the sun rose over the Seine and at sunset gazing out over a Japanese temple, like the one she saw in a book at Luciano’s.
“There are some things I don’t tell my parents either.” Elisa hoped Fatima wouldn’t ask what. That coin burned in her pocket still, a reminder of the bundle of euros in her underwear drawer. Not enough, still not enough. Stefano would start hounding her soon if she didn’t give him the money. If only she could pass her classes, maybe it would be okay. If Luciano could really help . . .
She ventured, “Fatima, do you really think Maestro Luciano could help me? I mean, whenever I see him, he looks so . . . well, foggier than me.”
“He has good days and bad days,” Fatima said, firmly. “He is so nice, and he has the best stories. He knows everything. Plus, he talks to me like I’m a grown up.”
“Do you think he’ll actually be okay with you bringing me? I don’t want to be mean, but he doesn’t look very friendly.”
“I know what you mean.” Her face wrinkled in thought. “But it’ll be okay. I think he’d really like you. I bet he’ll be glad to help! This could really be good for him.”
“You think so?”
“I do. Anyway, just in case, I’ll bring sweets.”
Hundreds of rolling hills away, Florentines scoff at the Roman belief that Rome is the unassailable birthplace of the civilized world. What is a crumbling, glorified fighting pit in comparison with Dante and the creation of the world’s most beautiful language?
Unfortunately, Isotta could take no solace in the fact that her footsteps might well be treading in the same arc as Michelangelo’s and the breath she drew could well be laced with the same dust as Brunelleschi’s. She was simply a young woman waiting for the phone to ring. When it did, she startled violently, which seems at odds with how fervently she’d been wishing for this call. But then, Isotta was not used to getting what she wanted.
She ran into the bathroom before answering with a breathless, “Pronto.”
“Buona sera, cara.”
Isotta’s hand gripped the phone, and she involuntarily double checked to make sure the bathroom door was firmly locked.
She whispered, “Buona sera.”
On the train, she had convinced herself that her encounter with the tall, brooding stranger was a delusion, born out of her desire for a love interest of her
