Backlight, page 18
He put the map in and reached for her cigarettes. "I'm taking these," he said, putting them in his back pocket.
"Go ahead," she said.
THEY WALKED TO THE water taxi and took the short trip down the canal to Dorsoduro. Francesca found the cafe she had remembered, on a quiet, residential square next to a Catholic school. They lingered over cappuccino and croissants, watching the locals duck in, drink their espresso standing at the bar, leave coins in the saucer and go on with their day. They did the same, walking out of the cafe bundled against the Venetian winter.
"Where are you taking me now?" Bruno asked, following her as she wove through the neighborhood.
"Punta della Dogana. Have you been?" He shook his head. "I think you'll like it. Francois Pinault restored the building to house part of his art collection. It's brilliant—lots of installation pieces, lots of space. You'll appreciate the architecture."
They passed shops selling carnivale masks and Murano glass souvenirs, galleries for tourists with oil paintings of the Grand Canal. And then they were on the Grand Canal, looking across at San Marco, standing in front of the Santa Maria della Salute. She pressed him to buy roasted chestnuts from a vendor near the church, and they sat on the steps and ate them, tossing the shells at pigeons.
"I'm assuming you like contemporary art," she said in between chestnuts.
"Some, yes. The good ones."
She laughed. "What do you consider good?"
"I like Abstract Expressionism. I can't stand pop art. I like Giacometti, I can't stand Dali. Does that help you?"
"You have very distinct opinions," she laughed. "I went to art school and I haven’t formed such definite thoughts."
"Miro," he said. "I'm not much for Miro, either."
"Most of what you've named is modern art. These collections are contemporary. Think Pierolari."
"What's that?"
"Luca Pierolari. He does a lot of things with fluorescent bulbs and welding and scraps of wood. I think if you like Abstract Expressionism and you like Giacometti, you may like his work. There's something beautifully severe and stark about it. He was part of the Arte Povera movement."
"Who's Wikipedia now?" Bruno asked, smiling.
"He taught a semester at my school." She felt her face reddening.
"Now you're blushing. Why?"
"I'm not telling you," she said. Then more softly: "I don't want you to get jealous."
"I've not been jealous of a professional footballer or a professional womanizer; why on earth should I be jealous now over some eccentric old artist?" He got up from the steps and offered her a hand. They walked towards the entrance to the Punta della Dogana.
"You're not jealous of them?"
He shook his head. "There's no need. You've changed since then."
She envied his certainty.
They walked the halls of the Punta della Dogana, the big, vaulted, rough-beamed open spaces, the installation rooms, the point jutting out into the lagoon. They had conversations about the art—not just judgments, 'I like this, I hate that'—real conversations, where they could articulate what they thought about the pieces. And silence, too, that comfortable feeling of standing beside someone and not having to say a word, just being close. When they ended up in the gift shop, they bought a book and a postcard of the Louise Bourgeois piece she'd liked the best.
They were outside again, walking along the fondamente, overlooking the Grand Canal and the palazzi on the other side.
"Do you want to go to the Peggy Guggenheim? Or Palazzo Grassi?" she asked.
"Wherever you want to go," he replied.
"I'd like to go to both," she said. "It's been such a long time since I've been here, and I don't know when I'll be back. But I don't want you to be bored."
"I don't expect I'd be bored; you know I love art. I'm happy to go to both of them."
"We're right near the Guggenheim, let's go there first, and see how you feel afterward," she said.
The Peggy Guggenheim collection was another of her favorite museums—a home turned into its owner's modern art collection. She remembered visiting in school, and being mesmerized by a Clyfford Still painting titled "Jamais", her teenaged self feeling a deep connection to the starkness of the gash, the idea of never. It was her first exposure to Abstract Expressionism, the first time she had a physical reaction to a piece of art, the tightening in her chest when she looked at the canvas. After that trip she became obsessed with Still, spending hours in the library of the arts college devouring old catalogues. When she traveled, she sought museums with his work—in Barcelona, in New York, in San Francisco. A reference to a person she was.
At the Guggenheim they saw the Clyfford Still that had struck her as a teenager, and it seemed smaller than she'd remembered, not so overwhelming, not so all-encompassing. She didn't want to be obsessed with "never". Not any more.
Apart from "Jamais", they saw a Capogrossi retrospective that she liked, happier, more exuberant pieces; they saw some Chillida sculptures they both admired. They ate lunch in the cafe overlooking the sculpture garden, simple panini. Bruno's nose was pink from the cold, but she was surprised she noticed with all of the other colors splayed across his face. He could be an abstract expressionist painting himself. She took her little Leica point-and-shoot from her bag and snapped a photo.
"What did you just do?"
"I was feeling inspired." She grinned. "You look like a piece of art."
"I've probably got spinach in my teeth."
"Your face is a mess, too."
"That's sweet." He reached for the camera. "Let me see." She passed it over to him. "Oh, wow. It looks really bad in that shot."
"It looks really bad in real life, too," she said. She raised her hand to attract the waiter's attention.
"What do you need?" Bruno asked. She was only half finished with her sandwich.
"I'd like another espresso. Since you took away my cigarettes."
He smiled. "And look, you're fine."
"I'm not fine. But I will be."
They left the Guggenheim and crossed the Accademia bridge, winding streets leading them to the Palazzo Grassi. The first thing they saw when they walked in was a giant Koons, a shiny balloon-sculpture poodle.
"I suppose you don't like Koons, either," she smiled.
"It seems like a joke to me," Bruno replied. "It's not appealing."
They paused in front of a piece covering one entire wall, an El Anatsui, from afar a drape of multi-colored fabric, like Kente cloth, but up close, flattened metal caps from liquor bottles, threaded together in an intricate pattern. Francesca loved it. In a dark little room, a Francesco Vezzoli video played; they were the only ones to see it.
Outside, they watched the lights on the canal. She shivered against the damp cold but maintained a distance between herself and Bruno. She was afraid to touch him. He must hurt all over, not just the bruises she could see. He didn't act like he was hurt. A little stiff, maybe, a little sore. He hadn't acted like he was hurt last night; he'd been as capable and confident as always. Like a winner.
Like a stranger? She wondered. If he could do that to another man, well, she didn't know him at all. And it was happening all over again, her falling in love with someone she didn't even know. She shivered again, and he took her kid-gloved hand and held it.
"You're cold. We shouldn't stand out here any longer," he said.
"We can take the traghetto across the canal to San Polo and walk through there." She had a bar in mind, a place near the Rialto for aperitive. At the end of the street, there was a wooden dock with gondolas. Not fancy tourist gondolas, with striped-shirted gondoliers; working-people's gondolas, with weathered boatmen in parkas. They boarded the traghetto and stood for the short trip across the canal. When the boat bumped against the dock at San Toma, Bruno held Francesca firmly and kept her from falling.
The mist was settling in over the canal, obscuring the lights of the Rialto in the distance. Francesca turned them inland, away from the canal and towards the maze of San Polo. They passed a paper goods shop, the window still lit, the shop still open, the window teeming with hand-printed notecards and wrapping paper, postcards and bookplates, and the notebooks that had caught her eye.
The shop was warm and cluttered, and Francesca studied the prints—woodblock dachshunds, the famous winged lions of Venice, whole city scenes. She paused at a shelf of blank books, all different sizes, miniature address books all the way up to sketchbook size.
"I think Leo would like coloring in one of these," she said, picking up a large book with a Venetian knight print. "Do you see any pattern he'd like better?"
"The knight is good."
"I'm getting one for you, too. So you can remember our trip."
"You don't need to do that. You don't need to get me anything."
"I want to," she insisted. "You may run out of room in the other one, the rate we're going."
She brought the books to the shopkeeper, an older man in glasses and a sweater vest who wrapped each book individually, in ribbed brown paper with a gold seal.
Dusk was descending on the narrow, cobbled streets, the magical time when the lanterns lit in doorways and the sky turned a Byzantine purple. A dog, off-leash, bounded down the street and circled Francesca's legs. She saw its owner following, an older man with a leash in his hand and a look of amusement and apology.
"He likes the pretty girls," the man said, petting the dog's head while clipping the leash to his collar. "I'm sorry if he bothered you."
"Not at all," Francesca said. "What's his name?"
"Rocco. Rocco, the ladies' man."
She kneeled to look into the retriever's eyes. That was what she'd always liked about dogs: their tacit acceptance and capacity for love. Implicit forgiveness. At this moment, she needed it. The dog's owner looked at her and smiled; he had nice white teeth and must have been handsome once.
"You're a good boy, Rocco," she said, and stroked his ears.
And just as suddenly as he had approached, the dog was off again, in search of another pretty lady, another treat, another scratch between the ears. Francesca waved goodbye, and the dog's owner smiled.
"You like dogs," Bruno said.
She leaned against the wall, watching Rocco and the man cross a bridge. "They have such a particular kindness," she replied.
"I never thought you rated kindness."
"Maybe I didn't know what it was. I hadn't been exposed to it." Before you, she said with her eyes.
"I'd like to have a dog someday."
"I think I would, too."
"A dog would seem like home."
"Like I'd finally settled down," she interjected. "That's what I'd feel like, too. A dog, a house, a family."
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "All those things you said you didn't care about."
"Maybe I was wrong about that, too." She wrinkled her nose. "Write that down in your book. Francesca was wrong, 6:40 p.m. February twenty-fifth."
"I won't rub it in," he said. "It was a pretty dog."
"It was a pretty thought."
"If that's what you want." He looked serious. "I know a place I want to take you for dinner. Come on, let's go."
AT THE MUSEO DI STORIA Naturale, they caught another traghetto and crossed the canal, hopping out and walking alongside the casino into the depths of the quarter.
He took her arm and steered her down a narrow alley. "I think it's still here," he said as they crossed over a canaletto.
"What's it called?"
"I don't know if I ever knew what it was called. We just knew where it was."
"I've never been in this neighborhood," she said.
"It's sort of off the path." She could tell he was proud of taking her someplace she'd never been, someplace no one else's money or celebrity or power was able to procure for her.
"Where are we?"
"Cannareggio. This part is Ghetto Vecchio—the old Jewish ghetto." He pointed at a lantern's hazy yellow light fifty meters ahead. "Ah, eccolo."
Inside the restaurant was small and cozy, rough-hewn heavy wooden tables worn smooth with use, long communal benches, a fireplace roaring in the corner. A waitress seated them near the fire.
"Scusi," Bruno asked, "does Sara still work here?"
The waitress smiled. "I'll get her," she said.
A slight woman emerged from the kitchen wearing a white apron tied around her waist and a warm smile.
"Ciao, ciao Bruno!" Bruno hugged her. The woman seemed even smaller in his arms, girlish with a braid hanging down her back.
"Sara, meet Francesca."
"What are you doing in Venice?" Sara asked.
"We wanted to get away for the weekend. Somewhere quiet."
"There's nowhere quieter than here, now that carnivale is over." She looked Francesca in the eyes. "I recognize you," she said softly.
"Paolo Romaldo," Francesca said. “Maybe you saw pictures of us together.” She felt heat rising to her face.
Sara punched Bruno's arm playfully. "Good work, Bruno! From Romaldo to you, that's a first."
"We've been friends for a long time," Francesca mumbled. She wondered if there'd been anything between Bruno and Sara.
"No, I'm just joking with you. This man—" and Sara looked admiringly at Bruno now, smiling broadly—"this is one of the best men I know."
"I agree," Francesca whispered.
Bruno smiled, and reached for her hand. "That's not what you said when I showed up last night."
"I used to tell him to stop picking fights," Sara said, and again Francesca wondered about their past. "Again, I'm just kidding," she followed up, breaking her sad face into a goofy smile.
"It's beautiful here this time of year," Francesca said, looking around the nearly empty restaurant.
"Beautiful, yes, but very quiet. We only open four days for dinner. Of course, the people who live in the Ghetto Vecchio come in the morning for coffee, for lunch, maybe. But it's quiet for dinner, it's dark and cold, people prefer to be home."
Bruno pulled Francesca close on the bench, engulfing her in his warmth. The waitress brought a bottle of a local red, an Amarone, and Sara served them in short tumblers.
"How long have you been here?" Francesca asked Sara. She ticked off years on her fingers.
"Six years? I think. I came from Rome with my boyfriend. We wanted to open a restaurant, a place where our friends could come and we could have art and music, with traditional Venetian food. He left," she said with a half smile, a wistful look in her deep-set, haunted eyes, "but I stayed. I have another boyfriend, it's okay."
"We grew up together," Bruno explained to Francesca.
"And you?" Sara asked. "No babies, no weddings?"
Bruno shook his head. "This is new," he replied.
If Sara felt awkward, she hid it well. "I'll bring some dinner? Tonight we have a simple menu, a pumpkin soup, risotto with shrimp, and a braised pork. That's okay?"
"It's perfect," Bruno replied, squeezing Francesca's hand under the table. "Can you sit and eat with us?"
"If we're not busy, yes," Sara said. "I can join you."
When she had passed through the swinging doors, Francesca turned and whispered to Bruno.
"Did you ever—the two of you, you know?" She couldn't help her curiosity.
"Are you jealous? How unexpected." He poured them more wine and clinked his tumbler against hers.
"I'm not jealous, I'm curious."
He leaned over and kissed her hair. "Don't be jealous."
The waitress returned with two bowls of a deep orange soup, punctuated with an apostrophe of rich green oil and a dollop of mascarpone; Sara followed with a basket of bread and a third bowl of soup.
"I can sit with you now, to start," she said. "The green in the soup is sage oil."
It was hot, slightly sweet, at once buttery and fresh and creamy; Francesca loved it.
"You're an even better cook now than I remembered," Bruno said.
Sara smiled. "I've learned a few things," she said. She broke off a chunk of bread and offered it to Francesca. "Try this, we bake it here. The grain is from a small farm." Bruno helped himself to another hunk of the crusty, dark bread.
"It's delicious, Sara," Francesca said. She spread her bread with some of the mascarpone from her soup. Bruno nodded in assent.
Two couples walked into the restaurant, and Sara watched the waitress seat them before standing and pushing in her chair. "I have to go cook," she apologized.
On her way to the kitchen, Sara tipped their bottle of wine toward the light to see how much was left. She gestured to the waitress to bring them another.
"So, the two of you?" Francesca couldn't let it go.
"Francie, stop. I'm enjoying torturing you, but stop."
"Because I could understand if you did—she's lovely."
"You're lovely, except you're being a pill about this. Let's just enjoy our dinner." He drank the remains of his wine.
The waitress returned with their risotto and another bottle of wine.
The risotto was a creamy mass of arborio topped with three beautiful pink shrimps. It tasted like garlic and butter and spicy peppercorns, and Francesca ate with abandon.
"You were hungry." Bruno noticed.
"All this walking around," she replied. "And it feels good to eat; Sara's food is like home cooking."
"I eat in so many restaurants, I get so tired of restaurant food. This isn't like that. It's much better."
"You haven't taken notes yet."
He shook his head. "I can never tell whether you're serious or you're mocking me when you bring that up."
"I'm serious!" She protested. "I love that you take notes in your funny little notebook."
Sara came back for dessert, a large tiramisu she brought out with three spoons for them to share. Bruno and Sara drank espresso; Francesca had an herbal tea. The espresso in the tiramisu would be enough caffeine for her. She loved the rich cream, and Sara's tiramisu had a distinct flavor she couldn't quite place, a spice that wasn't cinnamon or nutmeg, even more chai-like.
"It's cardamom," Sara said, preemptively answering Francesca's unspoken question.
"Cardamom," Francesca repeated. "I never would have guessed."
