"That"s not fair, Arthur. I"ve had a lot to deal with recently."
"I don"t mean to be unfair." He doesn"t. "I"m only trying to help you... move on."
And for a moment there"s a pause, another pause, and Kate wants him to fill this one. She has wanted to fill this very silence since suggesting that they travel together to mark their sixty-fifth birthday, wanted him to express rage at what has happened to her life, outrage that her husband, certain as ever, has left her to be alone-when she can think of nothing she has done to earn that punishment. She wants her brother, her twin brother, to insist that she recount in detail how awful these last ten months have been. She wants him to call Stephen names, wants him to offer to call Stephen out. Wants him for once to find the right words, the ones powerful enough to carry her rage.
Rain starts to fall, hard.
"It"s probably better," Arthur says, "if you do slow down a bit."
But the warning comes too late. The speeding Fiat skids on a slick patch of road, hits a truck whose own brakes have been slammed, and the pa.s.senger side of the car is crushed.
II.
When the children were little, Kate would sometimes wonder what strange hypotheses they were concocting within themselves. What guilts did they carry? Of what imaginary crimes might they hope future lovers could absolve them? Martha, Ellen, and Dave. s.p.a.ced at two-year intervals, their bonds to one another had always seemed oddly loose to Kate. Loose and unburdened. They were playmates at times, sworn enemies at others, and it all seemed to wash out by the end of any day.
On the day following the crash, all three call her several times in the hospital where she has been kept for observation overnight. Nuns shuffle in and out of her room, crossing themselves, taking her pulse. The sisters speak in whispers, but the children"s voices on the phone are loud and insistent. They declare themselves frantic. They declare themselves disbelieving. Committed to their jobs, to their families, they declare themselves unable to come get her, and she catches a whiff of the neglect she felt from them in the aftermath of their father"s betrayal. They won"t be rushing to her aid. Nonetheless, she must come home. They declare themselves agreed.
That evening, her right arm bandaged, walking with a cane, she returns to the empty farmhouse-because she doesn"t know where else to go-and the children call her there. They insist again that she leave Italy. They have had a day now to take all this in. They have spoken to one another, many times. They have compiled a list of available flights. She should not be alone. She thanks them all for their concern-it all feels so strange-but she doesn"t tell any of them the truth, which is that she cannot go home. An investigation is under way and the police have asked her not to leave. Speaking to her own children, she thinks her voice sounds oddly resolute, when what she really feels is caught caught.
On the third day, her sixty-fifth birthday, they each call again, but not one of them mentions the occasion, and she is grateful to them for that. She drinks herself through the day, Chianti, and when that"s gone some unearthed vermouth that tastes like lacquer but gets the job done. Dispensing with the cane, she moves haltingly from room to room, touching Arthur"s belongings with her good hand. His battered leather suitcase. His smooth, steely laptop. His shirts. The large bed in which he slept, and which he left so carefully made, the pillows plumped up in a row.
The owner of the farmhouse, a stick-thin Italian woman, comes by with a stew and some bread, enough food for two days at least. She asks Kate what else she needs. But Kate can"t think of a single thing.
Late that night, Martha, the eldest, the lawyer, the practical one from their their nursery years, calls back to tell her mother that a decision must be made-about Arthur. The body can be flown home, preferably with Kate, or he can be cremated there. Either way, it can"t be put off endlessly. Does she realize this? He"s left no instructions. No will that anyone can find. Since Kate is his sister, it"s all her decision. So Kate says she will decide. Soon. She"s decidedly drunk as she answers-only sober enough to hope that she doesn"t sound drunk. nursery years, calls back to tell her mother that a decision must be made-about Arthur. The body can be flown home, preferably with Kate, or he can be cremated there. Either way, it can"t be put off endlessly. Does she realize this? He"s left no instructions. No will that anyone can find. Since Kate is his sister, it"s all her decision. So Kate says she will decide. Soon. She"s decidedly drunk as she answers-only sober enough to hope that she doesn"t sound drunk.
"I think you must still be in shock," Martha says. "It doesn"t sound like this has. .h.i.t. I can"t imagine why you"re still over there, Mom."
"No, it may not have hit. You may be right. But I do feel tired. I should go get some sleep."
On the fourth day, Stephen calls. The rental car company has notified him-she is still on his insurance. Or the children have. Or the police may have found his name still on the emergency card in her wallet. She has the sense that he may have called her right away that first night when she was still woozy, but she can"t remember clearly. It feels oddly like trying to remember the pleasures of their early years together, distant and doubtful, called into question now. His concern for her is offered in unmistakable tones of detachment, a man phoning his own past to offer condolences. The iron cage of shock begins to fail. Tears flow freely now. Arthur is dead. She is at fault. And Stephen is unable to make it right. Little squeaking sounds escape her.
"It could happen to anyone, Kate," he says. "Accidents are accidents. The children tell me that there was a storm. It"s terrible, but these things do happen. Don"t beat up on yourself."
She doesn"t tell him she had been drinking that day, that she was speeding, that she felt petty and annoyed with her brother for having reached their sixty-fifth birthday in so much better shape than she felt herself to be. That Arthur seemed to be purposely withholding from her the sympathy she craved. That she had been knocked down, winded, by visiting the cathedral Stephen had long before taken for his own. Wishing him him dead. Not Arthur, but him. She only says that she thinks she"s still in shock and none of it seems real. It"s true enough. She forces the tears away and thanks him for calling. She says it will probably hit her soon. But it hasn"t. Not yet. dead. Not Arthur, but him. She only says that she thinks she"s still in shock and none of it seems real. It"s true enough. She forces the tears away and thanks him for calling. She says it will probably hit her soon. But it hasn"t. Not yet.
When they hang up, she lays her head down on the sofa, and sobs and sobs.
On the fifth day, she makes arrangements for Arthur to be cremated.
On the sixth day, she is awakened by a rooster"s cry. The wooden window shutters are half open, yellow light drizzling onto the whitewashed walls. As her feet touch the floor and she pads across the room, the chill of the terracotta streams up into her calves.
The landscape out the window spreads up and over small hills, patchworked into plots of olives, grapes, barley, wheat. The olive trees glimmer their silver green, the grapevines twist tortuously in short, even rows, strung together with black wire.
Italy.
"It"s known as promiscua," promiscua," Stephen called back to her from a similar view all those years earlier. " Stephen called back to her from a similar view all those years earlier. "Coltura promiscua. As in "promiscuous." It means that they chop the land into small bits, don"t cultivate just one crop. They shuffle it around. The Tuscans are not loyal but promiscuous in what they choose to cultivate. Promiscua Promiscua." He rolled the word on his tongue. "Leave it to the Italians! Promiscuity even in their agriculture. Can you see? Here? Olive trees. And here? What looks like a patch of wheat. But in a year it will all have been changed." From the bed, Kate couldn"t see what he was pointing toward, so instead she admired his back, the sunburn on his neck giving way to smooth strong shoulders, leading over and down into powerful arms. His cotton pajama pants slung low around his narrow hips. "It"s an ancient farming technique that prevents the land from exhausting itself," he said, turning back toward the bed, his eyes taking in her body there. "The land," he continued lecturing, untying the drawstring around his middle, "in its promiscuity..." He spoke slowly as she lay back, pushing the covers off herself, "... is never bored."
At the window, Kate draws in a deep breath of air singed with fire, stained with smoke. What has been pruned is now set ablaze. Coltura promiscua Coltura promiscua. How funny it all seemed back then. How very much like a joke at someone else"s expense. She turns from the view and takes a towel for the shower.
Later, the landlady comes by with more food and to ask Kate if she will be staying the second week. There"s an American couple interested in the house. She can have a full refund if she chooses to go home. Without saying that she must must stay, Kate tells her that she stay, Kate tells her that she will will and the landlady looks disappointed-as though Kate is a bad omen she would prefer to have gone. Or maybe she has just quoted a high last-minute price to the other people and is missing the profit. With apologies for imposing, Kate asks her for a ride to the crematorium where Arthur"s ashes now await. and the landlady looks disappointed-as though Kate is a bad omen she would prefer to have gone. Or maybe she has just quoted a high last-minute price to the other people and is missing the profit. With apologies for imposing, Kate asks her for a ride to the crematorium where Arthur"s ashes now await.
"I don"t have a car. I would be very, very grateful for the ride."
"And then?" the other woman asks.
"And then I don"t really know." Kate looks down at her hand, no longer bandaged but still mottled purple. "I"d like to rent a car... but I don"t know if I"m allowed."
Two phone calls later, it turns out the landlady has a brother who will rent her a car-nothing fancy, mind you, but no paperwork, the equivalent of twenty dollars a day. Up front for the week.
She isn"t surprised by the lightness of the ashes. Both her parents were cremated, and her shock at how little of a person can be left came two decades earlier when she was handed her mother, in a similar cardboard box.
"We"re mostly water," Arthur said at the time. "Dry us out, and there isn"t much there. Just... just..."
"Dust?"
"Yes, exactly. Only dust."
On the seventh day no one calls, and Kate feels herself to be alone in the world. She has never been alone-not a twin like herself. But now she is. She lies on the bed in Arthur"s room, under the covers he used and left, the box of ashes by her side, and when she closes her eyes, she sees again the heavy, twisting cord she hasn"t thought about in years.
III.
The sky over Orvieto has no threats to make. The blue looks as though it has been painted there, in one tint. At the cafe on the piazza, the same cafe, Kate sits heavily onto a chair and lets go of the bag in her hand as though it is of no interest to her.
The same waitress walks toward her, a smile on her face. "You were here before," she says. "With your husband, yes? A week ago or so?"
For a moment, Kate thinks the girl has her mixed up with someone else, but then she nods. "Yes. That"s right. We were here last week."
"You drank white wine? The local wine? I can bring you some."
"Thank you. Yes. That would be nice. And a carafe. But only one gla.s.s."
"Your husband is not joining you?"
Kate considers her response. "No. My husband won"t be joining me today."
"Okay. I"ll be right back."
"Thank you," Kate says, and as the girl walks away she fans herself with the collar of her blouse.
Jack and Jill went up the hill, to fetch a pail of water.
The rhyme has been stuck in her head all day.
Was it first grade? Kindergarten? Since the accident, Kate has felt oddly submissive to ancient memories, each seeming to grasp her, tenacious for a time, then pa.s.s because another has taken its place. Whatever the year, they were cast as the ill-fated pair. Of course. The tow-headed twins. What teacher could resist them in those roles? Arthur chafed at wearing the green flannel hat their mother made. The water in the tin pail was made of soft strips of blue felt, cut from a moth-eaten blanket.
What odd details remain of one"s life.
Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.
And indeed, he fell with great gusto, Arthur did. Did he hurt himself? Not badly, but she thinks she can remember that he did. Maybe only a bruise or two, but something. Something to show off as an honorable wound. She was the more careful one, tumbling after, arranging herself horizontal on the small ramp set up in their school auditorium. Lying there, she rolled, not in a fall, always too cautious for a true fall, but with her arms tucked tightly by her sides. Dizzy at the end. Dizzy, and essentially unscathed.
The sun has dropped in the sky so the cathedral is ablaze, beautiful in its glow of impossible promise, its illusion of grace; and now its unchanging facade seems somehow victorious to Kate. So much for her fantasy that it might dissolve like so many sugar drops. It was this this when she was happy here with Stephen. It was when she was happy here with Stephen. It was this this when she was bickering here with Arthur. It will be when she was bickering here with Arthur. It will be this this when she leaves. when she leaves. This This if she returns. It stares at her steadily, like the child who can go longest without a blink. if she returns. It stares at her steadily, like the child who can go longest without a blink.
It was probably a mistake coming back. This town has become a scavenger map of her life. Another child"s game. Find the building your husband most loved when he still loved you most; find the table where your brother ate his last meal; find the waitress with whom your brother might be pursuing a holiday dalliance had he lived.
Is this what life eventually brings? The return of one childhood ritual and then another, all newly imbued with a cruel humor of a kind.
The young woman is laughing now with a table full of men. On her black tray sits a large carafe, no doubt meant for Kate; but the men have delayed her, with their jokes, their admiration. Their wives are all off shopping no doubt, as Arthur had suggested that she do. As she has done today, though with little success.
At the ceramics shop, she held first one piece of pottery and then another, certain they would break in her hands. This is what has brought her back to Orvieto, the thought that Arthur would like for her to buy an urn or even just a simple lidded jar at the store he had mentioned. But the first piece she saw was painted with giraffes. The second with snails. It all seemed absurd.
The woman who guided her through the store, the artist herself, was dressed in a lab coat-like a doctor, as though to attend to the aspect of this task having to do with the human body, as though her art might shift seamlessly into science. These animals were traditional to Siena, the animals of the Palio, the woman explained. But they were only a small portion of what she had. She held a slender paintbrush in her hand, waving it in the air as she spoke. She named all the patterns on display, showed Kate what seemed like hundreds of lidded jars. She offered to custom-design anything. She had long, straight black hair and thin, bright red lips, and as her hand moved, Kate, unable to concentrate on the task, the idea of her twin inside any jar repugnant, incomprehensible, pictured this young woman painting her own mouth with the brush. In the end, she bought a lidless vase for a small fortune. Not for Arthur. Just because she had been in the shop for nearly an hour.
"Here it is!" The waitress-Anna-is back with the wine. "The same you drank last week."
"Grazie."
Before the girl even turns away, the gla.s.s is to Kate"s lips. She drinks thirstily, as though the wine might cool her down, and pours herself another gla.s.s. An English family fills the table next to hers. After they order, they set about planning the next week. The parents want to see the sights of course, the children to find a pool.
She realizes she has to pee, and now the waitress is nowhere to be found, so Kate stands and begins to wend her way through the tables. The bathroom can"t be hard to find. It can only be inside the small building. At the doorway, she crosses into darkness and into an unexpected chill. As she pa.s.ses by the kitchen, she hears two voices, a woman and a man. The Italian is too rapid for her, but the anger in the man"s voice is unmistakable.
In her own life, she muses-while using the toilet, washing up-she has never had a voice raised to her that way. She has heard other people fight. She had an aunt and uncle who used to battle, roaring by the end of family meals, but she had been proud of the fact that she and Stephen never did anything like that. She couldn"t remember him raising his voice at her. At the children, yes, but not at her.
Catching herself in the mirror, she wonders now whether this detachment was something for which to feel grat.i.tude or more like a sign of things to come.
It doesn"t matter, though, she knows. It doesn"t matter what warnings there were or were not, or whether she could somehow have averted his departure had she been more aware. That is the problem with the past, she thinks, as she flicks off the light. This illusion that revisiting it might somehow change what has occurred, the same illusion that brought her to Italy a week before, that brought her to Orvieto on this day.
Stepping outside, Kate almost b.u.mps into Anna. There are smudges of wet mascara on the girl"s cheeks, pale streaks down her cheeks. But the girl"s mouth jumps into a smile as she asks Kate what more she needs.
"Wine," Kate says. "I would like another carafe of wine."
As the heat hits her again, she feels a bit faint, and sits gratefully at her table.
"Where is your husband today?" Anna asks, bringing the new carafe. "Will he meet you here?"
"My husband... the man you met..."
"Yes."
It"s ridiculous, this confusion of a comedy braided into her tragedy, but impossible to clarify now. "No," Kate says. "He won"t be picking me up. I"m here on my own."
"You can call him?"
"I can"t call him. Why?"
"You should eat something. It"s not good to drink with no food." She straightens the second chair at the table, wipes at something with her rag. She seems in no hurry to step away. "Where are you staying? At a hotel?"
"No."
The girl doesn"t move, and with a sense of surrender, Kate explains that she has rented a farmhouse. She names the town and answers more questions about the location. Anna says she knows it, she knows the house. She went through school with the children of the spindly landlady. They were an unusual family, she says. All three left the area to study art. One became a very successful painter, living in Florence.
But there is a limit to how much interest Kate can feign. This young woman"s childhood has so little to do with her, she barely believes in it. And the farmhouse can hold no history before the one night Arthur slept within its walls. Just as it will disappear when she goes home. She is relieved when the English family calls Anna over, and she makes quick work of the wine in her gla.s.s.
It"s a good question, she thinks, as she pours herself more, whether she will ever make it home. A policeman was there at the house in the early morning, dressed in uniform, wearing what looked to Kate like an unusually large gun. A little man with a big gun. Still in her robe, she let him in and offered him coffee, which he refused. He then offered her his condolences, which she accepted, though with a sense of impatience.
They sat across from each other at the ma.s.sive kitchen table-just where she and Arthur last sat-and he asked her to describe the accident again. Her answers the other night had not been completely coherent, he said, which was entirely understandable. She noticed a slightly British flavor in his speech. His circular face was bisected by an enormous mustache all but covering his mouth. His brown eyes seemed almost imploring as they looked at her. She had the strong impression that he wanted her case dismissed, that he wanted to send the poor, bereaved American lady home. He smiled as he spoke, prompting her.
"You were the one at the wheel?"
"Yes. Yes, I was."
"And you were driving within the speed limit?"
He nodded as he asked. It all felt like a formality, as though there was an implied response of yes yes. She could almost hear it, the next word he wanted her to say. The word that would make all of this disappear, as if it had never happened. She looked away from him, from his encouraging smile, down at her own bruised arm, her skin lined with small brown moles, galaxies of freckles. Her brother"s skin, on her arm.
"No. No, I wasn"t," she heard herself say.
"No? Do you understand? The question?"
She thought for a moment. "I don"t know the exact speed limit, but I believe I was above it."
"You told us previously that you were not."
She could remember the scene. Her hospital room, the day after. The story she had told was that she had been driving carefully but the road had been terribly slick. Or maybe there had been something wrong with the car. Sitting at the kitchen table, she could clearly recall the sensation of trying to get away with it trying to get away with it, and a chill ran across her flesh. The idea of trying to get away with it had become repugnant. If she killed him, let her pay.
"I misspoke the other night. I know I was speeding, or at least driving very fast. There was a storm coming on and I was..."
"Yes?"
"And I had been drinking."
"This is not what you said before." His features had settled into exasperation.
"It may not be," she said. "But it"s the truth." As she spoke, she tried to shut out the voices of her children, urging her to retract. Retreat. Stop playing this game and just get the h.e.l.l home. The image of Stephen, wild over his insurance bill, wondering what has happened to the wife he so confidently left. "It"s as simple as that," she said. "I wasn"t being adequately careful. And I probably shouldn"t have driven at all." She frowned, as something obvious occurred to her for the first time. "I would much rather it had been me."
The captain scribbled notes. He would have to speak with his colleagues, he said. He would be back in touch soon. It would be better if she stayed in the country for a while.
And so she will stay.
The carafe is empty when Anna returns.