A Glancing Light

I was ready for bed, not brandy, but what could I do? Ugo had made a four-hour round-trip just to see me. Besides, after an evening of Di Vecchio's acerbic opinions and the disembodied locutions of Doctor Luca, his robust, down-to-earth conversation would be a relief.

'Fine,' I said. I gestured toward the upstairs bar, where some of the others were already heading. 'Why don't—'

'No, no.' He squeezed my arm and drew me aside. 'Somewhere away from all the gran signori.'

Max overheard. 'I hope that doesn't exclude me,' he said in Italian.

Ugo clapped him on the back. 'No, no, certainly not. Would I accuse you of being a gentleman?' He bellowed with laughter and I realized he too had tossed down a few glasses. 'Come on,' he said, 'I know a place on Via d'Azeglio. Just the three of us. Old friends.'

We spent almost an hour in the Bar Nepentha, where the woman at the piano serenaded us with 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,' a Scott Joplin medley, and similar old Italian favorites. Most of what we talked about I don't recall (I'd had quite a bit myself by then), but I remember how happy Ugo was, telling us about the modern house he'd bought in Sicily on the slopes of Aci Castello, overlooking the Ionian Sea, a few miles from Catania. He was immensely relieved to have left Milan's genteel, cosmopolitan atmosphere, where he'd lived restlessly for seven years, a fish out of water.

'Ah, it's so beautiful there,' he told us rapturously. Bellissimo, meraviglioso. 'The air is clean, the people are real, a word means what it means. A man knows where he stands.' He patted the back of my hand. 'You have to come down and see. My pictures are in a wonderful room, all natural light from the north. You too, Massimiliano. Hey, why don't you open up a shop in Catania? Wide streets down there, not these little alleys. And no Communists around to look at you funny because you make a few lire.'

Max laughed. 'I know; just the Mafia. No, I'm glad for you, Ugo, but I like it right here.'

He more than liked it. He had fallen in love with northern Italy on his first visit, and for fifteen years had dreamed and planned until he could move there. Now, as far as I knew, he never planned to leave, an Italianophile to the core. He had married a petite, black-haired woman from Faenza, but she had died of cancer about two years before. Max had been stunned with grief. I realized suddenly that this was the first time since then that he'd seemed anything like the old, jolly Max. 'Come for a visit, then,' Ugo persisted. 'Next weekend! The two of you. You'll stay with me.'

'Well, I can,' I said. 'I was going to come and see you anyway. We have to work out the final arrangements on the pictures you're lending. And I want to take another good look at that Boursse. You're still willing to let it go for sixty thousand dollars?'

Max almost choked on his grappa. 'Ugo, you don't mean you're selling your Boursse for sixty thousand? I'll give you—'

Ugo chortled. 'Always the businessman. No, Massimiliano, this is a special favor to Cristoforo. For you . .' He rolled up his eyes, pretending to calculate. 'Maybe three hundred thousand?' He leaned back in his chair, shaking with laughter.

'Thanks a bunch,' Max said in English, but he was smiling, too. Max had a big gap between his upper front teeth. When he grinned, which was often, he looked like a mustached, middle-aged Alfred E. Neuman, the What, me worry? kid on the cover of Mad magazine.

'You'll really come?' Ugo said to me. He looked delighted.

'Of course. I've already checked the schedule to Catania. There's an Alisarda flight that leaves at noon on Saturday and arrives about two. How would that be? Could you have someone meet me at the airport?'

Ugo beamed. 'Sure, sure. Wait till you see my—my—' He was jiggling with excitement. 'I have a surprise for you. Don't I, Massimiliano?'

'Surprise?' Max said, frowning. 'Oh, Jesus, you don't mean—'

'Sh, sh!' Ugo's thick forefinger wagged in front of his lips. 'Don't tell him.'

'Ugo,' Max said, with a sort of pained kindness, 'I'm telling you. That picture isn't good enough—'

'Don't tell him!' Ugo was bouncing up and down. 'It's a surprise!'

'But I already told you,' Max said patiently. 'Amedeo already told you—'

'I believe you, all right? But if Cristoforo's coming to Sicily, then I say what does it hurt if he looks at it? Let him make his own decision.'

Max shrugged and raised his eyes to the ceiling.

Ugo looked at me suspiciously. 'Hey, do you know what we're talking about?'

'Not a clue,' I said honestly.

'Good!' He thumped his thick fist on the table. 'Massimiliano, you come, too! Come with Cristoforo Saturday. I'll show you Sicily. We'll eat, we'll drink! We'll have a wonderful time, just like in the old days.'

I wasn't sure of just which old days he was talking about, but at that point it sounded like a great idea to me. Ugo was like a breath of fresh, honest air after the rarefied conversation of art connoisseurs, and Max was good company, too.

'Come on. Max,' I said. 'Why not?'

He grinned. 'Why not?' he echoed to my surprise. 'All right, I'll come, I can use a little time off.'

'Wonderful, wonderful!' boomed Ugo, and hammered his fist on the table some more.

The waiter thought he was calling for another round and hurried over with three more grappas, which we accepted. Then we proceeded to sink happily into a sentimental swill of good fellowship.

I'm afraid we were a little on the riotous side by the time we started for the train station. I blush to admit it, but I think we were bawling 'Santa Lucia' as we crossed the deserted Piazza Maggiore, and I seem to remember a chorus of '0 Sole Mio' in there, too, but I wouldn't swear to it.

'Guess what. I'm changing my name,' Max announced somewhere on Via dell'Indipendenza. 'I am soon to be signor Massimiliano Caboto.'

Ugo frowned tipsily at him. 'You were always signor Massimiliano Caboto.'

'I mean legally. Max Cabot no longer exists. But you,' he said, turning that gap- toothed grin on me, 'may still call me Max. A special dispensation.'

'A papal dispensation,' Ugo said, choking with mirth and convulsing the rest of us, which gives you a pretty good idea of the state we were in.

'It's my way of righting an old wrong,' Max said. 'Did I never tell you that I am a direct descendant of John Cabot, the English explorer who discovered North America?'

'No, you never did,' I said.

'Who's John Cabot?' Ugo asked.

'And did you know,' Max went on, 'that John Cabot, the English explorer who discovered the North American continent, wasn't born in England?'

'No,' I said.

'Who's John Cabot?' Ugo asked.

'Well, it's true,' Max said. 'John Cabot was Italian, not English. Born in Genoa in about 1450, and his real name was Giovanni Caboto. You can look it up.'

'Really?' I said.

'Oh,' Ugo said. 'Giovanni Caboto. Why didn't you say so?'

I don't remember too much more until we had seen a still- chortling Ugo off on the 1:04 and started back toward the center of town. Of the great old cities of Europe, Bologna is probably the most walkable. The pavement on the ancient downtown streets isn't cobblestones, or rough-hewn granite blocks, or even concrete, but a glassy terrazzo tile, easy on the feet and as smooth and level as an ice-skating rink. More than that, most of the sidewalks are arcaded, protected from the elements by the colonnaded porticos that were a standard feature of Bolognese architecture for five hundred years.

A misty rain had been drifting down for an hour and the city was almost deserted. The big Piazza Medaglia d'Oro fronting the railroad station, usually swarming with cars, was so empty we strolled across it without bothering to wait for the green AVANTI sign. Once back on Via dell'Indipendenza, the only sounds we heard were our own heels clicking on the tile and the occasional restrained hum of a small car in no particular hurry.

We walked slowly, shielded from the rain by the porticos, stopping now and then to look absently into a