“Come in.”
She was sitting up in bed, pulling her long hair into a ponytail. “I can’t believe how long I slept,” she said. “You don’t realize how tired you are until you sleep for twelve hours.” She smiled at him, and in that moment, Pasquale doubted that he could ever bridge the gap between his intentions and his desires.
“You look handsome, Pasquale,” she said. And she looked down at her own clothes, the same outfit she’d worn to the train station: tight black pants, a blouse, and a wool sweater. She laughed. “I guess all of my things are still at the station in La Spezia.”
Pasquale looked down at his feet, trying not to meet her eyes.
“Is everything okay, Pasquale?”
“Yes,” he said, and he looked up, catching her eyes. When he wasn’t in the room with her, he had one sense of what was right, but the minute he saw those eyes . . . “You come down for breakfast now? Is a brioche. And caffè.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be right down.”
He couldn’t say the rest. Pasquale nodded slightly and turned to leave.
“Thank you, Pasquale,” she said.
Hearing his name caused him to turn back again. Looking in her eyes was like standing by a door slightly ajar. How could you not push open the door, see what lay inside?
She smiled at him. “Do you remember my first night here, when we agreed that we could say anything to each other? That we wouldn’t hold back?”
“Yes,” Pasquale managed to say.
She laughed uneasily. “Well, it’s strange. I woke up this morning and I realized I had no idea what to do now. If I’m going to have this baby . . . If I’m going to keep acting . . . If I’m going to go to Switzerland . . . or back to the States. I honestly don’t have any idea. But when I woke up, I felt okay. Do you know why?”
Pasquale gripped the doorknob. He shook his head no.
“I was glad that I’d get to see you again.”
“Yes,” he said. “Me, too,” and that door seemed to open a little—and the glimpse he had beyond the door tortured him. He wanted to say more, to say everything on his mind—but he couldn’t. It wasn’t a question of language; he doubted the words existed at all, in any language.
“Well,” Dee said. “I’ll be right down.” And then, just as he was turning away, she added quietly—the words seeming just to tip from her beautiful lips, spilling like water: “Then maybe we can talk about what happens next.”
Next. Yes. Pasquale wasn’t sure how he managed to back out of the room, but he did. He pulled her door closed behind him and stood with his hand outstretched against it, breathing deeply. Finally, he pushed off the door, made it to the stairs, and eventually to his room. Pasquale grabbed his coat, his hat, and his packed bag off his bed. He came out of his room and down the stairs. At the bottom, Valeria was waiting for him.
“Pasqo,” she said. “Will you ask the priest to say a prayer for me?”
He said he would. Then he kissed his aunt on the cheek and went outside.
Alvis Bender was standing on the patio, smoking his pipe. Pasquale patted his American friend on the arm and started down the path to the pier, to where Tomasso the Communist was waiting for him. Tomasso dropped his cigarette and ground it into the rock. “You look good, Pasquale. Your mother would be proud.”
Pasquale climbed in the fish-gut-stained boat and sat in the bow, his knees together like a schoolboy at a desk. He was unable to stop his eyes from sweeping the front of the hotel, where Dee Moray had just stepped onto the porch and was standing next to Alvis Bender. She shielded the sun from her eyes and looked down on him curiously.
Again, Pasquale felt the separate pulls of his mind and body—and right then, he honestly didn’t know which way it would go. Would he stay in the boat? Or would he run up the path to the hotel and take her in his arms? And what would she do if he did? There was nothing explicit between them, nothing more than that slightly open door. And yet . . . what could be more alluring?
In that moment, Pasquale Tursi finally felt wrenched in two. His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.
“Please,” Pasquale rasped to Tomasso. “Go.”
The old fisherman tugged on the pull-start, but the motor didn’t catch. And Dee Moray called from the hotel patio. “Pasquale! Where are you going?”
“Please,” Pasquale whispered to Tomasso, his legs shaking now.