The Grey Beginning, page 1
The Grey Beginning
ELIZABETH PETERS
WRITING AS
BARBARA
MICHAELS
To Linda,
without whom this book and a number of others
might not have been completed on time
I know my own way back.
Don’t fear me! There’s the grey beginning.
—Robert Browning, “Fra Lippo Lippi”
Contents
Epigraph
Chapter 1
From the Piazzale Michelangelo you can see all of Florence.
Chapter 2
The weary contempt in her voice was not directed at…
Chapter 3
“He’s here. I saw him last night, from my window.
Chapter 4
I said, “I don’t believe it.”
Chapter 5
Sunlight might have improved my state of mind, but there…
Chapter 6
I woke up sneezing. I had not caught cold; there…
Chapter 7
My anger wasn’t of the speechless variety this time; I…
Chapter 8
I called Sebastiano the following morning to thank him for…
Chapter 9
Out of the chaos, faces slowly took shape. Alberto, cradling…
Chapter 10
I still have nightmares occasionally—not about Bart, but about that,…
Chapter 11
Angelo was at the desk. I had assumed he would…
About the Author
Praise
Other Books by Barbara Michaels
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter
1
FROM THE PIAZZALE MICHELANGELO YOU CAN SEE ALL of Florence. In the sunlight of late afternoon it looked like one of the pietra dura inlays at which Florentine craftsmen excelled—a picture shaped from antique gold and semiprecious stones, amber and carnelian, topaz, heliodor, and chrysoberyl. Few cities are as beautiful; few can boast such a heritage. The names ring in the mind like trumpets—Michelangelo, Leonardo, Brunelleschi, Fra Angelico.
I sat sullenly in the car with my back turned to the spectacular view. I didn’t want to be there. I had done my damnedest to avoid the place, and Florence itself. On the map the route looked simple. Leave the Autostrada del Sole at Firenze Est, cross the Arno by the first possible bridge, and head north toward Fiesole, skirting the inner city. I never even made it across the river. The map didn’t show the sprawling suburbs with their mystifying mazes of streets and their inadequate signs. At least when I reached the Piazzale Michelangelo I knew where I was. I stopped there because I had a feeling that if I turned the steering wheel one more time I would keep on turning it, around and around, in circles, till I ran into another car or a tree or somebody’s front door.
Finger by finger I unglued my sticky hands from the wheel. The weather wasn’t hot. It was early spring in Tuscany, crisp and cool despite the brilliant sun. My hands were slippery with perspiration and stiff with cramp. I had held that wheel in a death grip all the way from Rome. But I had made it—so far. If someone had told me three months ago that I would be in the hills above Florence, Italy, after driving a rental car all those miles from Rome, I would have laughed—and laughed, and gone on laughing till a nurse came and gave me a shot.
It had happened, more times than I cared to remember. Even now I wasn’t sure what had shaken me up and out of what Aunt Mary called “Kathy’s high-priced crazy house.” Dear, tactful Aunt Mary. Nobody in our family had ever had a nervous breakdown. Only weaklings had nervous breakdowns. That was how Aunt Mary referred to it; the newfangled jargon of psychiatry was not for her. Call it a crazy house or a nursing home or a psychiatric institution; call it a nervous breakdown or severe depression—or melancholia, as the Victorians did; it hurt just as much by any name.
Aunt Mary was smugly sure that it was her “down-to-earth, no-nonsense” lecture that had shamed me into getting my act together, after weeks of lolling around feeling sorry for myself. Dr. Hochstein took the credit for “curing” me with his new, advanced methods. Dr. Baldwin didn’t think I was cured. “We haven’t reached the root of the problem, Kathy. Four or five years of intensive psychotherapy….” Baldwin and Hochstein belonged to opposing schools—Baldwin the traditionalist, Hochstein a firm believer in encounter therapy: Never mind what caused the problem, face it and learn to deal with it. Theoretically I’ve nothing against that approach, but the application of it in my case almost killed me. The first time Hochstein got me into a car I just sat there behind the wheel and sobbed till he let me get out. The second and third times weren’t much better. I hated Dr. Hochstein, but it worked for me. I had just proved that it worked. Even in my carefree pre-breakdown driving career I’d have had qualms about driving on an Italian autostrada in a rented car.
I picked up the car at the airport outside Rome, avoiding the city traffic. But it had not been an easy drive. I had to concentrate fiercely on every movement I made and keep a close eye on the movements of other cars, all of which appeared to be driven by people even crazier than I was. I concentrated so hard I was able to forget, for minutes on end, the memory that haunted me—the bright-red Torino looking like a child’s toy in the distance, spinning off the road, lifting in dreamlike, impossible flight before it dropped, down into the trees below. Then the sound, splitting the winter stillness, and the leaping column of flame and smoke.
I reached for my cigarettes. I’d quit smoking years ago, started again after…Baldwin protested. Baldwin didn’t believe in crutches. When he lectured me about emphysema, heart trouble, lung cancer, I laughed and quoted Alfred E. Newman. What, me worry? Why should I worry, Dr. Baldwin? Who cares about heart trouble thirty years from now? The young lives are snuffed out too soon, mangled and crushed and burned. I saw it happen, Dr. Baldwin.
I moved so fast I bruised my knuckles getting out of the car. It was the only way I knew to stop that train of thought. Do something, anything, and do it fast.
I knew what I would see. I had read the brochures and seen the photographs. The view from the Piazzale is the view of Florence. But I didn’t know it would be so beautiful. I couldn’t see crumbling mortar or flaking paint. I didn’t know the soft mist in which the city floated like the fairy land of Lyonnesse was auto exhaust. I wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told me. It was not a real city, it was a legend suspended above the earth; Avalon, swathed in veils of cloud.
I hung over the parapet for a while playing tourist with the other tourists, trying to see how many landmarks I could identify. Brunelleschi’s great dome, with Giotto’s bell tower beside it; the slender crenellated tower of the Palazzo Vecchio and the spires of Santa Croce and the Bargello. The gentle curves of the Arno, gilded by sunlight, and the Ponte Vecchio.
The sinking sun furnished me with the excuse I had been unconsciously seeking. I couldn’t walk into a house of strangers so late in the day—not on an errand like mine, at any rate. Given my obviously inadequate sense of direction, and the fact that I had only the vaguest idea where I was going, I was bound to get lost again—and again. It had been a wild idea anyway, to plunge in without some preliminary reconnaissance. I’d never have considered doing it if I had not been driven and possessed. Get it over with, get it done—a childish approach to a dreaded but necessary task. I wasn’t a child. I was twenty-three, independent, self-supporting, and—relatively—sane. No matter what you say, Dr. Baldwin.
The city became more bewitching with every change of light. Shadows of mauve and lavender and opalescent gray dimmed the rooflines, and I reluctantly turned from the parapet and bade farewell to the two amiable Danish ladies with whom I had been playing “identify the monument.”
“I have to find a place to stay,” I explained.
The ladies were scandalized. “But, my dear, don’t you have reservations?” one asked. “You should have made them in advance. Never travel without reservations.”
If they weren’t somebody’s aunts, they should have been. Their lecture had the familiar ring, but I couldn’t resent it. Their concern was too genuine. After they had done fussing at me they admitted that the less time I wasted discussing the problem the sooner I could get to work on it. They insisted on giving me the name and address of the pensione where they were staying. It was filled by the tour group of which they were members, but if I found myself in a bind I must come to them, they would think of something.
I had forgotten strangers could be so kind. “Strangers” was the key word; I’d had too much concentrated solicitude from my family, from my doctors—smothering me, imprisoning me in a muffling featherbed of concern. It’s easier to accept favors from people you will never see again. Hello, good-bye, it’s been nice knowing you. I thanked the Danish ladies and drove away, ready to face the horrors of Florentine traffic at what would have been rush hour back home and probably was here, too.
There is no such thing as rush hour. The traffic in Italian cities is horrendous all the time. I didn’t exactly lose my way. I kept seeing things I recognized; it was like a family reunion where there are all those people you’ve encountered in old photograph albums—“Good Lord, that must be Cousin Jack!” “Good God, that’s the Medici Palace!” But I didn’t want the Medici Palace, I wanted a hotel. The first two I checked were full up. I was beginning to think I would have to sleep in the car or cast myself on the generous (in every sense of the word) bosoms of the Danish ladies when I got los
I rushed to the desk. “I’m double-parked,” I gasped. “Have you got a room?”
The man behind the desk looked up from the magazine he was reading. Its cover depicted a mostly unclad female in the hot embrace of a masked man with a knife.
“For you, signorina, there is a room. All the rooms are yours. For one person or…” He paused. “For two?”
“I’ll take anything. I’m double-parked—”
A delicate flick of his fingers dismissed the problem as unworthy of consideration. “If you expect a friend, you will want a room for two.”
I was about to say I was not expecting a friend when I caught the dark eyes fixed on mine. He was barely a man—seventeen or eighteen at a guess, though his expression of weary cynicism would not have been out of place on an old roué. I hesitated.
Why did I hesitate? I wish I knew. There were several theories. Aunt Mary’s is the simplest: “That girl is the worst liar I’ve ever met.” Sister Ursula took a more charitable view, which was rather nice of Sister Ursula, since she had been fighting for twenty-some years to combat the varied vices of the tenth graders of Our Lady of Sorrows High School. It was an uphill fight, and might well have soured her outlook on life. A frown of perplexity wrinkling her smooth, pale brow, she would say, “I’m sure you don’t intend to lie, Kathleen. You simply tell people what you think they expect, or want, to hear. But you must overcome this weakness—you really must. One of these days it will get you in serious trouble.”
I tried. I really did, and I would like to believe that Sister Ursula’s interpretation, not Aunt Mary’s, was correct. Sometimes, though, I lied out of cowardice instead of kindness. My reply to the young man behind the desk was compounded of both elements. He so wanted me to have a lover. He expected me to have a lover. And I was afraid that if I said I didn’t have one, he would take it upon himself to supply the missing necessity. It was so much easier to say, “My friend has been delayed. For tonight, a single room.”
“Delayed? Not coming?”
“Not till later.”
“He is a foolish man.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying not to laugh. “You are very kind. Are you the manager, Mr.—?”
“Angelo. To you, signorina—Angelo. I am everything. I do all things, to learn the business of the hotel. Someday I will own my own hotel. Very fine, very expensive hotel.”
After I had registered he carried my suitcase upstairs. The Grande Albergo had no lift, which may have accounted in part for my success in finding a room. Then he asked for my car keys, saying confidently but rather vaguely that he “knew a place.” As I unpacked I wondered what other hats Angelo wore besides those of bellboy, desk clerk and car-park attendant.
He was also the waiter—the only waiter. The dining room was small, only six tables, but he was kept busy whizzing back and forth with aperitifs and the endless courses that constituted an Italian dinner. I guess the food wasn’t particularly good—in fact I was soon to learn that it was not—but it was all new to me and I enjoyed it. After I had devoured spaghetti alla bolognese, scaloppine, salad, and crème caramel, and finished half a carafe of wine, I began to realize how tired I was. When I looked out my window and saw silver tinsel streaks of rain against the pane, my vague intention of taking a walk was forgotten. I fumbled out of my clothes and fell into bed, confident that tonight at least I would sleep.
I dreamed, of course, but this time I was lucky. I didn’t remember the dream.
II
It was still raining next morning. The streaks on the window weren’t silvery tinsel now, they were just rain tracing paths through the dirt on the panes. I was worn out from dreaming and in no mood to face the crowd of twelve in the dining room, so I took advantage of the “service of the room” Angelo had proudly mentioned. “Press the bell, signorina,” he had said, indicating the topmost of a row of buzzers next to the door. “And ecco—la colazione.”
The buzzers must have dated from an earlier era when hotels had larger staffs. There was one for a chambermaid, one for a porter, and one bafflingly designated “tutti lavori.” I pressed the top button as directed, and ecco, breakfast duly arrived. Angelo, of course. He probably answered all the bells, including the one marked “tutti lavori.” He gave my wash-and-wear robe a hurried and conventional leer—obviously part of the service. “What hours do you work?” I asked, genuinely curious, as he deposited the napkin-covered tray on a table.
Angelo came to a dead halt. He didn’t do any of the obvious things that betoken surprise—roll his eyes or purse his lips or wrinkle his brow—but I could see he was stunned by the question. “Hours?” he said.
“Thank you, Angelo.”
“Prego, signorina.”
The food was foreign enough to tempt my appetite. Two steaming pots, one of coffee and one of milk; rolls hard as a rock on the outside, but silky soft within; strawberry jam thick as glue, and excellent sweet butter. There was also a glass of canned orange juice, as a concession to American tastes. I enjoyed it, even the canned juice, but I was impatient to be on my way. If the sun had been shining I might have been tempted to put off my errand a little longer and play tourist, see some of the sights I had looked forward to seeing under far different circumstances. But if matters went as I expected, I would have plenty of time for sightseeing later. She might refuse to speak to me. I had not been able to reach her by phone. Extracting an unlisted number from Information in a foreign city may not be literally impossible, but it was a complication I had not been able to cope with. She hadn’t answered my letters. That in itself suggested that she was unable to face the truth, or that she preferred to have no dealings with a lunatic American. Admittedly, the letters had not been very coherent. Yet I could not dismiss the possibility, however remote, that the mail had gone astray. That she didn’t know. I had to make one last effort, for my sake as well as hers.
It was Angelo the omniscient and indispensable who gave me the directions. If I’d stopped to think sensibly I would have realized I could never find the place on my own. I had not been thinking. I had been reacting to stimuli like an animal whose brain is wired to electrical probes.
When Angelo finally replaced the telephone after a long and unintelligible conversation, he appeared slightly perturbed. “Why do you go there, signorina? Is it to look for your friend?”
This time I was not tempted to slake Angelo’s thirst for romance. I said wryly, “I don’t expect to find a friend, no. It’s something I have to do.”
“It is very far, signorina. Very hard to find. Stay here. See the beautiful city. I give you a better room, a cheap rate, not expensive. And if you are lonely—”
“That’s kind of you. Later, perhaps. You understand, Angelo. It’s a job I must do—like all the work you are doing now so that someday you can own your own hotel. How do I get there?”
It wasn’t so very far. It might indeed prove difficult to find—I was dismally aware of the fact that maps don’t show the complications of actual landscape—but Angelo’s directions were clear and concise. I didn’t ask him why he had tried to dissuade me. Perhaps if I had…But it wouldn’t have made any difference, in the end.
