“She was innocent and yet . . . wise . . . graceful and beautiful . . . he loved women, the most beautiful women . . .”
“What are you talking about?” Elisabetta began to worry in earnest. Her father was looking at her, but he wasn’t seeing her. He never acted this way, even when he woke up drunk.
“Look at her, they’re blue . . . knowing, yet innocent . . . and the blue, it’s the color of truth itself . . .”
“Papa, wake up.” Elisabetta jostled him gently.
“Only Raphael could do it . . . and the Madonna of the Meadow . . . masterful . . . the sfumato, a perfect example . . .”
Elisabetta realized he was talking about the painter Raphael and sfumato, the technique of blurring the shadows in a painting. It was one of his favorite subjects, but she didn’t know why he was talking about it now. She felt a bolt of alarm that something was seriously wrong, and just as she had that thought, her father’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his head dropped to the side.
“Papa!” Elisabetta shook him, frantic. “Wake up! Wake up!”
“I’m fine,” he mumbled, his eyelids fluttering again.
“Should I get Dr. Pastore?”
“No, no.” Her father waved her off feebly, but didn’t come to full alertness. He had never looked so ill, his pallor having gone from yellow to gray, and Elisabetta made a decision.
“Papa, I’m going to get the doctor. I’ll be right back.” Elisabetta sprang to her feet and hurried from the room. She didn’t want to take any chances, and the doctor’s office was only a few blocks away.
She flew out the apartment door, frantic. She ran down the street as fast as she could, her heart in her throat. Men moved out of her way, women gave her a wide berth, and children clung to their mothers’ skirts.
Elisabetta realized she looked crazy, but she didn’t care. She kept running, and her breath came ragged. The doctor’s office was in a small brick house ahead, with pink geraniums in the window boxes. A bicycle veered into her path, but she jumped to the side, hurried to the doctor’s, and flung open his door. Two men in the waiting room looked up from their newspapers, startled.
The receptionist at the desk frowned. “What are you—”
“Where’s Dr. Pastore?” Elisabetta hustled to her desk. “My father needs help—”
“Sorry, Dr. Pastore is with a patient.”
“I can’t wait!” Elisabetta ran past her to the examining room at the end of the hall, where she threw open the door to find short, bald, and bespectacled Dr. Pastore with an older man who sat on the examining table, in his clothes.
“Elisabetta?” Dr. Pastore recoiled, disconcerted.
“Dr. Pastore, you have to come!”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“My father woke up and he’s not making any sense! You need to come right away!”
“No, you must leave this instant.” Dr. Pastore threw up his hands. “Can’t you see I’m with someone? You shouldn’t be in here.”
“But there’s something really wrong, I can tell! Please, he can’t wait!” Elisabetta grabbed Dr. Pastore’s arm, but he wrenched it from her grasp, and his patient shifted away from her on the table.
“Yes, he can. Control yourself. His disease progresses slowly. He’ll have spells now and then, as ammonia may be building up in his body, altering his mental status as a result of the decompensated cirrhosis. It’s nothing to become alarmed about. Now, please leave.”
“You have to come with me! It’s an emergency!”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is!”
“Go home, and I’ll be there at lunchtime. You saw, I have patients waiting.”
“No, now!” Elisabetta could feel a nurse materialize behind her.
Dr. Pastore sighed heavily. “Okay. As soon as I’m finished with this patient, I will come. That’s the best I can do. Now, leave or I’ll have you thrown out.”
“Thank you, but hurry!” Elisabetta turned around and flew past the disapproving nurse, then raced from the office and out of the doctor’s house. She took a right when she hit the cobblestone street and ran home as fast as she could, pushing open the front door.
“Papa!” Elisabetta bolted through the kitchen and back to the living room, where her father lay on the couch, shifting onto his side. “Papa, the doctor will be here very soon. I want him to look at you.”