Dr. Merlonghi read the paper, which had a billing address at the Grand Hotel in Rome, to “20th Century Fox special production assistant Michael Deane.” He turned the sheet over and saw there was nothing on the back. Then he looked up. “Do you know how a young woman suffering from stomach cancer would present to a physician, Pasquale?”
“No.”
“There would be pain in the esophagus, nausea, lack of appetite, vomiting, perhaps some swelling in the abdomen. As the disease progressed or the cancer spread, other systems would be affected. Bowels. Urinary tract. Kidneys. Even menstruation.”
Pasquale shook his head. The poor woman.
“These could be the symptoms of stomach cancer, yes. But here is my problem: what doctor, when encountering such symptoms, would conclude—without endoscopy or biopsy—that the woman has stomach cancer, and not a more common diagnosis?”
“Such as?”
“Such as . . . pregnancy.”
“Pregnancy?” Pasquale asked.
The doctor shushed him.
“You think she’s . . .”
“I don’t know. It would be too early to hear a heartbeat, and her symptoms are severe. But if I was presented with a young female patient complaining of nausea, abdominal swelling, heartburn, and no menstruation . . . well, stomach cancer is extremely rare in young women. Pregnancy . . .” He smiled. “Not so rare.”
Pasquale realized they were whispering, even though Dee Moray wouldn’t have understood their Italian. “Wait. Are you saying that maybe she doesn’t have cancer?”
“I don’t know what she has. Certainly there is a family history of cancer. And maybe American doctors have tests that haven’t reached us. I’m just telling you that I couldn’t determine that someone has cancer based on those symptoms.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“No.” The doctor seemed distracted. “I told her nothing. After all she has been through I don’t want to give her false hope. When this man comes to see her, perhaps you can ask him. This . . .” He looked at the paper again. “Michael Deane.”
This was the last thing Pasquale wanted to ask some American movie person.
“One other thing.” The doctor put his hand on Pasquale’s arm. “Isn’t it strange, Pasquale? With this film being made in Rome, that they would send her here?”
“They wanted a quiet place with a view of the sea,” Pasquale said. “I asked if they wanted Venere, but her paper said Vergogna.”
“Yes, of course. I don’t mean this isn’t a fine place, Pasquale,” said Dr. Merlonghi, hearing the defensiveness in Pasquale’s voice. “But a town like Sperlonga is almost as quiet, and is on the sea, and is much closer to Rome. So why here?”
Pasquale shrugged. “My aunt says the young never die in Porto Vergogna.”
The doctor laughed politely. “You’ll know more after this man has visited. If she’s still here next week, have Tomasso the Communist bring her to my office.”
Pasquale nodded. Then he and the doctor opened the door to Dee Moray’s room. She was asleep, that blond hair swirled like butter on the pillow beneath her. She was cradling the big pasta bowl, the carbon-copied pages of Alvis Bender’s book on the pillow next to her.
4
The Smile of Heaven
April 1945
Near La Spezia, Italy
By Alvis Bender
Then spring came, and with it, the end of my war. The generals with their grease pencils had invited too many soldiers and they needed something for us to do and so we marched over every last inch of Italy. All that spring we marched, through the chalky coastal flats below the Apennines, and once the way was cleared, up pocked green foothills toward Genoa, into villages crumbled like old cheese, cellars spitting forth grubby thin Italians. Such a horrible formality, the end of a war. We groused at abandoned foxholes and bunkers. We acted for one another’s sake as if we wanted a fight. But we secretly rejoiced that the Germans were pulling back faster than we could march, along that wilting front, the Linea Gotica.
I should have been pleased merely to be alive, but I was in the deepest misery of my war, afraid and alone and keenly aware of the barbarism around me. But my real trouble was below me: my feet had turned. My wet, red, sick hooves, my infected, sore feet, had gone over to the other side, traitors to the cause. Before my feet mutinied, I thought primarily about three things during my war: sex, food, and death, and I thought about these every moment that we marched. But by spring, my fantasies had given way entirely to dreams of dry socks. I coveted dry socks. I lusted, pined, hallucinated that after the war I would find myself a nice fat pair of socks and slide my sick feet into them, that I would die an old man with old dry feet.