She"s the one who says it first. This is an instinct in her as old as any she possesses: knowing when and when not to finish her twin brother"s thought.
"Yes, right. So I was driving up to this tollbooth yesterday and the car in front of me is this enormous what are they called... minivan like everyone drives in the States. But I"d never seen one quite this big, or maybe it"s just because in... in... Italy, in Italy what I"m used to seeing are those toy cars, speeding around. That and the... the..."
"Motorinos. Vespas."
"Motorcycles. But yes, motorinos. Motorini motorinos. Motorini? Anyway, this thing was really strange."
"I"ve seen so many American cars this trip," Kate says. "Many more than ever before." But as she speaks, she isn"t sure that"s true. She doesn"t actually remember noticing cars one way or the other since arriving the day before. She"s had other things on her mind.
"I suppose that"s right," Arthur says, though in fact he has noticed no more than she. "Blame it on the global economy and all. Cable television. American imperialism. All the usual suspects, right?" He lifts yesterday"s Herald Tribune Herald Tribune to his face. He"s read through it once already on the plane, but it"s better than nothing. "It feels," he says from behind his shield, "seeing that van, that minivan... it feels..." to his face. He"s read through it once already on the plane, but it"s better than nothing. "It feels," he says from behind his shield, "seeing that van, that minivan... it feels..."
Another pause begins its unmistakable stretch.
Peering over the paper, he finds her pale blue eyes, his own pale blue eyes, staring back. These seconds, the empty ones, move slowly for him. Knowing she has what he wants. Preferring to produce the word himself. It"s funny how this, the language thing, has never bothered him as much with anyone else as with her. He squints as though he might find the words written on her face, and Kate, who has lived with this look, with its silent, insistent pressures for over six decades, begins suggesting possibilities to him.
"Wrong?" she asks. He shakes his head. "Not foreign enough?" No. Not that either.
"Sad," he p.r.o.nounces-the cloud lifting this time. "It just feels sad."
"Oh, it is sad," she agrees, though she barely remembers now what the it it in question is. So much is sad these days, Kate is willing simply to a.s.sent to the word and leave it there. in question is. So much is sad these days, Kate is willing simply to a.s.sent to the word and leave it there.
"So, we"re off to Orvieto today?" he asks, back behind the Trib Trib.
"I"d like that. I"m still feeling jet-lagged and not too ambitious. Unless you have work you need to do. I"d like to sit together in the square and watch the pa.s.sersby. Maybe talk." She stands, tightening the belt on her travel robe, silk-not for its luxury, but for its negligible weight. "I"d like to talk."
"I think that sounds perfect," he says, and puts the paper down. "Work can wait. I didn"t come on this trip to work. I came to be with you. Half an hour?"
"Yes. That sounds right."
"I"m looking forward to seeing the... the..."
But it"s gone.
"Cathedral?"
He shakes his head and slowly moves his hands together in the air, as if signaling a tighter focus.
"The facade?"
"Yes. That"s it. Thank you. The facade. I"m looking forward to seeing the famous facade."
As a child Kate suspected that it was her own umbilical cord, and not his, that had wrapped itself around Arthur"s neck, depriving him of oxygen for just long enough. No one ever told her this. No one ever told her much of anything about why Arthur spoke the way he did, why his otherwise razor-sharp brain seemed to have these holes in it, lacunae into which words would disappear. Their parents chose silence on the subject of Arthur"s odd silences as the kindest and maybe the easiest course, and left it to their daughter to glean what little she might from bits of private conversations slipping out from under closed doors, or from relatives who gossiped, neighbors who thought they knew. The cord had gone around him three full times. An older cousin whispered this when Kate was five, maybe six. And he had been completely blue at birth. As blue and as silent as a blueberry.
Kate pictured it, a single image of the rope, thick and twisted, the kind sailors use, uncoiling from out of her own infant stomach, twirling itself around, around, around his neck.
In the shower upstairs, she soaps her body, wishing she"d remembered the razor still in her suitcase, by the bed. Not for her legs. The hairs come in finer and spa.r.s.er now; and anyway, she"s quite sure no one is paying much attention to her solid, matronly legs or, for that matter, to the area between them, where the hair has grown strangely lush in the months since Stephen left. Untended. Unseen. But under her arms there are bristles, sharp among the pale, pouching skin, and standing there, in a just too cold shower, she cannot bear the thought of herself as a woman of a certain age, deserted by her husband, traveling with her brother, a woman whose underarms have grown visibly unkempt.
There is no way around it. It would have been so much less painful had she lost Stephen to death, rather than to Rita. It wouldn"t have been a referendum on her, on her marriage, her s.e.xual worth. It wouldn"t have been fun or easy; but it would have been possible-in a way that this is not.
The pressure is low and it takes some chilly minutes to rid herself of suds, step out, towel off. Before she dresses, she slips the razor from her bag. Standing naked at the sink, Kate lifts first one, then the other hand above her head, and shaves. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, slack and neither practical nor pleasurable anymore, stare out at her from the mirror like uninvited guests.
Arthur prefers to drive and Kate lets him, though the rental car is in her name, as is the two-week lease on the small farmhouse. In the elaborate, sixty-five-year-long allocation of traits between them, she has long been acknowledged as the practical one, which at times strikes her as odd, since he he has gone out into the world and made a good living doing whatever it is he does with stocks, while she has moved seamlessly through the decades, dependent first on her parents and then, without pause, on Stephen, and even now, even discarded, is still dependent on the monthly checks Stephen sends. Yet with Arthur, when they are together, she is the practical one, the roles of the nursery, early ascribed, early learned, proving immutable despite what other truths a greater world may have revealed. has gone out into the world and made a good living doing whatever it is he does with stocks, while she has moved seamlessly through the decades, dependent first on her parents and then, without pause, on Stephen, and even now, even discarded, is still dependent on the monthly checks Stephen sends. Yet with Arthur, when they are together, she is the practical one, the roles of the nursery, early ascribed, early learned, proving immutable despite what other truths a greater world may have revealed.
The July day is hot and still. The dove-gray sky seems to be holding its breath, ready to exhale a storm. Arthur speeds and Kate tells him not to. Like a wife, he thinks, aware of his own unkindness. A nagging wife. The kind of wife who gets herself left. He denies speeding while slowing down, and then of course speeds up again.
"Just try not to kill anyone," she says as they pa.s.s the emptying buses just outside the town.
"I"ll do my best."
He finds a parking s.p.a.ce, though the lot appears to be full and Kate has told him it isn"t worth a try. And now, he notices, Kate withholds all comment. She sits there beside him, frowning.
These are the moments at which it"s hard not to feel some sympathy for old Stephen.
"Do we have enough gas to get back?" she asks.
"Yes. I think we do. If I am reading the... the... well, the thing, that thing." He points to the dashboard, but Kate"s attention is now directed to her purse.
"I don"t suppose you have change?" she asks.
"As a matter of fact, I do."
They are silent as she deciphers the mysteries of the parking meter. They are silent as they climb the outdoor steps from the lot to the cathedral, then continue their way alongside the vast white building, silent as they weave through groups of other tourists, silent until they reach the front.
"Jesus," Arthur says. "I never saw such a thing. It"s... spectacular."
Kate says nothing, only looks. Bright gold and blue and red, it is is spectacular. A part of her knows that he"s right, though to her, on this day, it looks more improbable than beautiful, sparkling against the darkened sky as if lit from within. She thinks it looks spectacular. A part of her knows that he"s right, though to her, on this day, it looks more improbable than beautiful, sparkling against the darkened sky as if lit from within. She thinks it looks fake fake. That"s the word in her head, though she questions the thought even as it appears. What can it mean? The word makes no sense. Yet the cathedral seems like confection to her, spun sugar. Sprinkle water on it, and it will melt. Like a promise that can"t possibly be kept.
"Does it still look the same?" Arthur asks.
"Yes. It does. Strangely so. Just the same."
Almost forty years ago, Stephen declared this structure his favorite in all of Italy, while Kate said it was a little gaudy for her taste. She felt more kinship with the dark weight of the cathedral in Siena. She could have hidden for hours in the twilight of that building. But this was an optimist"s facade, and Stephen was an optimistic man.
"I could use a drink," she says.
"Go ahead. I"ll just be a minute. Pick a cafe, any cafe. Somewhere around the square. I"ll be right there."
"Take your time." And then, "Stephen loved this place."
"When you were here?" he asks, his gaze fixed ahead. "You and Stephen? When was that? Exactly? Was that your honeymoon?"
"No." She steps toward the cathedral, so he sees only her back as she speaks. "The honeymoon was a long weekend in Maine. We were still poor. Italy was the year before Martha was born, our last hurrah before the children began to arrive."
She doesn"t say any more than that. The word that occurs to her next is happy- happy-but she can"t bring herself to say what she might. That they had been happy then, and she had thought it would last. That"s all. It doesn"t need to be said.
When she turns around, her brother sees the sadness on her face, the eyes seeming only to stare backward, the trembling mouth, and he takes pity on his sister, throws his arm around her back. "Come on, lady," he says. "Let"s go find ourselves a table and tie one on."
Arthur knew that Stephen was leaving long before Kate learned. For nearly a month he kept the secret, believing she should hear it from Stephen himself and trusting his brother-in-law of nearly forty years, a man he had always rather liked, to handle the thing as well as it could be handled.
"As much as I hate doing this to her, I just can"t agree to being unhappy for the rest of my life," Stephen told him over lunch. "I have no desire to hurt her. But I haven"t loved her, not in any real way, for many years. I"ve puzzled the thing through and through, but I just can"t see what"s to be gained by giving up on, well, on moving on."
And Arthur knew what his sister would want him to say. He could feel her words in his mouth-condemning Stephen, urging for counseling, for second and third honeymoons if that"s what it would take. But his brother-in-law"s eyes, gray and narrow, were already devoid of any hope. His voice was saturated with the rather cool directness that had always characterized him. Only when he spoke about the new woman in his life did he exhibit any animation. She was everything Kate was not-he never said that, not in so many words, but the message was clear. She was largehearted, loving, fun. Always on the lookout for an excuse to be kind. She was admirable in her generous spirit. And Arthur knew it had been years since his sister had been anything of the sort.
"I thought if I told you first, you"d be better able to help Kate when it happens," Stephen said. "She and I aren"t happy. She may not know that, but we"re not. I"m not denying that we were, but not for many, many years."
For most of the lunch, Arthur only listened. But before the meal was over, he cleared his throat. Looked away. "You know, Stephen," he said. "For what it"s worth, I think you"re... given everything... I know I shouldn"t say this, but I think you"re probably doing the right thing."
And as if Stephen understood that for this to be expressed, it must fade as rapidly as possible in the air, he only quickly nodded and said nothing in response.
The girl who brings them their carafe of local wine takes them for a married couple. "Will you and your wife like to eat?" Neither sibling corrects her. It"s a natural enough a.s.sumption: a couple, not a pair. As children, they had unmistakably been twins, their matching blue eyes large on their faces, both with almost white-blond hair, often dressed in coordinating clothes. People always knew. But adulthood had soon distinguished them, blurring the likeness with more obvious contrasts. Kate, short and somewhat squat, took to dyeing her hair a reddish brown, while Arthur grew tall, very tall, took up tennis and squash, stayed lean. His hair turned silver early. They no longer matched; though now, on this trip, Kate has noticed odd similarities resurfacing. Arthur"s older-man arms sport the same cl.u.s.terings of moles and freckles as hers. Her hair, no longer colored, has emerged the same bright silver as his. His eyelids droop at the outer corners with an identical, sloping crease, exactly her own, as though time, which made them different, decided to change its course and erode those distinctions, revealing the ways in which their very textures are the same.
The waitress"s English is good. Kate offers up her own guidebook Italian, but the girl seems to prefer the play of a foreign tongue. "No, no, I can do English. You will see." Something-maybe the sight of the cathedral, maybe the emergence of the word happy- happy-has solidly soured Kate"s mood, and she can feel the familiar tension, the Arthur Arthur tension, each time the waitress has to struggle for the right word or phrase; and indeed when Arthur himself can"t come up with the word tension, each time the waitress has to struggle for the right word or phrase; and indeed when Arthur himself can"t come up with the word bread bread it seems almost like a pretense, a chivalrous gesture on his part to make the girl feel less self-conscious, the host dropping his own fork on the floor. "Could you please bring us a basket of... of..." it seems almost like a pretense, a chivalrous gesture on his part to make the girl feel less self-conscious, the host dropping his own fork on the floor. "Could you please bring us a basket of... of..."
"Bread?" the girl supplies. "Yes, yes. Of course."
"Bread. Yes, bread. That would be wonderful. Thank you for that."
"And would you and your wife like water, with the bubbles or do you want it... do you want it..."
"Still?" Arthur asks.
"Just the wine is fine," Kate says. "For us both. And two menus, please."
"Yes. Of course. I"m right back."
"She"s very pretty, isn"t she?" Arthur asks as she disappears into the cafe. It is a comment Kate has been expecting. Because she is is very pretty, with dark, great brown eyes, and that expression of easy good humor on her face, and because Arthur considers himself a connoisseur. Over the years, he"s regaled her, and Stephen too, with stories-some hilarious-of his exploits in that regard, and she"s laughed at his conquests and misadventures, and Stephen laughed too; but then in private they had raised the possibility of feeling a little sorry for Arthur. Despite all the fun of it. It had to grow lonely sometimes, they had agreed, skipping from woman to woman like a skillfully tossed pebble over the surface of a stream. very pretty, with dark, great brown eyes, and that expression of easy good humor on her face, and because Arthur considers himself a connoisseur. Over the years, he"s regaled her, and Stephen too, with stories-some hilarious-of his exploits in that regard, and she"s laughed at his conquests and misadventures, and Stephen laughed too; but then in private they had raised the possibility of feeling a little sorry for Arthur. Despite all the fun of it. It had to grow lonely sometimes, they had agreed, skipping from woman to woman like a skillfully tossed pebble over the surface of a stream.
"Yes," Kate says. "She"s very pretty. Are there women in Italy who are not?"
"Not many."
The girl reappears with wine and menus, smiling still. "Just call me over when you know. I"m Anna." She leans over the table, more so than is necessary, Kate thinks, revealing dusky, rounding skin.
"Thank you. Anna?" Arthur says. "You"re very..."
"Kind," Kate supplies. "You"re very kind."
"Yes, you are. That"s just what I was going to say."
The corners of his eyes, his lips too, have relaxed-as though he is lost in thought, planning his next move. Twice the girl"s age, more than that, and he is contemplating an approach-and it isn"t even absurd. That"s the unfairness of it all. A man at sixty-five can still do these things. Sixty-five is nothing for the male.
As the girl disappears into the ancient, crumbling cafe building, his face seems to wake up, as though a hypnotist has snapped his fingers. "Too bad she thinks I"m... married," he says. "To my sister."
"That"s easy enough to correct, if you"re serious. I"m happy to clear the way. I have shopping I can do."
"One thing I"m not not is serious. Even if I do decide to... to... to..." is serious. Even if I do decide to... to... to..."
"Make an a.s.s of yourself over a girl a third your age?"
"Hah!" He tips his gla.s.s to her. "Very clever, Kate."
"It"s a bit of a sore point these days."
She looks at him now, one eyebrow raised, and he says nothing-though he knows this is an opening, an opportunity to talk, to talk in the way Kate means when she says I"d like to talk. We"ll have a chance to talk. I think we should talk I"d like to talk. We"ll have a chance to talk. I think we should talk. But he doesn"t know what he can say. And it isn"t the words he can"t find-for once. It"s the sentiment. What he really wants to tell his sister is to get over it, already. Pull herself together. Stop dragging her sorry self around, around such beautiful sights as this, too teary and bleary and just too b.l.o.o.d.y self-absorbed to see what"s before her eyes. Life is short. Too short for this kind of extended misery. Stop wasting your life Stop wasting your life, he wants to say. But this isn"t what she wants to hear, he knows, and he doesn"t want to be cruel. This is Kate after all, his twin, his other self, the girl who threw rocks at the children who made fun of him, sending his torturers scattering.
He raises his gla.s.s in a toast. "To your future," he says.
She takes a sip, then stares out toward the cathedral.
"You know, Kate, if you mean it about shopping, I"m happy to wait here. I read in the guidebook that there"s a ceramic store on one of the back streets that"s supposed to be a cut above the rest. Better even than the stores in... in..."
A pause begins.
Deruta, Kate thinks. She looks back at him and takes another sip of wine.
"... in..." Arthur is staring at her now, brows lowered, eyes squinting. She can feel him bearing down. He wants what she knows. He wants something that she has.
Deruta, she thinks.
"Oh, come on, Kate. What"s the name of that town all the ceramics come from? I know that you know it."
Deruta, she thinks. But she just shakes her head and shrugs.
Stephen was the only person to whom Kate ever confided her in utero crime-the strangulation of her twin. She was a soph.o.m.ore at Wellesley when they met and fell in love. He was simply the most certain person she had ever known; and it turned out that certainty-of all things-was what she then craved. Maybe what she had always craved, growing up in the concentric rings of Arthur"s endless hesitations; though in the end it turned around and bit her, hard. Stephen"s certainty. But as a young woman, she thought him positive in every sense of the word, like a great strong building himself, a shelter she willingly sought. After a semester of serious dating, they spent a night at an inn in Vermont where her virginity was more given to him than it was lost, and after that she confessed, as though all her secrets, all she had been holding close for nineteen years could now safely be revealed. Stephen, then in medical school, a.s.sured her it couldn"t possibly be true-with certainty. A twin could not could not become tangled in the other baby"s cord. Not three times around the neck. It couldn"t possibly ever happen, he said, and in his arms she had believed herself absolved. become tangled in the other baby"s cord. Not three times around the neck. It couldn"t possibly ever happen, he said, and in his arms she had believed herself absolved.
On the way back down the A1, Kate drives. "You"ve had too much wine," she tells Arthur. "And anyway, you speed."
He resists arguing, but as he gets in on the pa.s.senger side he makes a big production out of trying to move back the seat, and as they wind down the hill of Orvieto, they are back in the silence that seems to shadow them. But then, within minutes, Arthur remarks on the selection of meats at the salumeria salumeria they"d both explored, then says that Orvieto was much more interesting than he had expected. She agrees that it was and says that before the week is out she"d like to go back, and he agrees that they should, and only a few minutes later they are both calling the rented farmhouse "home"-just a single day into the trip. He tells her it"s good that they"ll be home in well under an hour, and she says that she"s happy to be spending the evening at home, cooking up some of the pasta that she bought. they"d both explored, then says that Orvieto was much more interesting than he had expected. She agrees that it was and says that before the week is out she"d like to go back, and he agrees that they should, and only a few minutes later they are both calling the rented farmhouse "home"-just a single day into the trip. He tells her it"s good that they"ll be home in well under an hour, and she says that she"s happy to be spending the evening at home, cooking up some of the pasta that she bought.
How seductive domesticity is, she thinks as she drives. How seductively benign it all seems. How easy to fall into a routine with someone you know. So familiar. Even the bickering. And then the quiet, unacknowledged glide into making up. A well-traveled road. Arthur is reading bits and pieces from the guidebook out loud so they can piece together the coming days, and she wonders, as she has from time to time, why Arthur never settled down with anyone. There was only one serious contender, at least whom she ever knew. Her name was Sylvia, an heiress of the old New England variety-complete with farmhouse in Vermont, town house in Boston, place on the Vineyard, skin that had worn a little tough even in her twenties, and a long rope of inherited pearls Kate had coveted at the time. Much better than any Stephen could ever afford.
The speedometer begins to rise and Arthur ostentatiously cranes his head to see it. "Hmm," he says. "Who"s speeding now?"
"I want to get home before this storm comes on. And I"m not close to as fast as you were. But you"re right. I"ll slow down."
"Don"t do it for me. I like the speed. It"s the Italian roads, Kate. It"s Europe. See? Even you. You can"t help but speed. It"s part of the culture here. You shouldn"t be such a... a..."
"Such a what, Arthur? Such a worrywart?"
"No." Though she has. .h.i.t the nail on the head. Why, when he never means to be unkind, does he feel himself continually on the verge?
"Stick-in-the-mud? Is that it?"
"No."
"What then?"
"Pessimist, Kate. That"s all. You shouldn"t be such a pessimist. It makes me worry about you. You only see what"s wrong."