Menu Turistica, Episode IV

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A line of tourists dropped one by one onto the sidewalk from the high steps of a bus. They hardly touched solid ground before checking their camera settings. Viewfinders against their eyeballs, they swarmed around Elena, carrying her from the street into the museum, colliding off of her like June bugs. The museum entrance was rather unassuming, the foyer shabby and well trodden. Signage and hallways forced visitors toward Michelangelo and his masterpiece, the David, and Elena felt sorry, in a way, for the other art at the museum, which was forced off into small side rooms, just another Virgin and child, one more altar triptych, a further room of sculpture. They barely contributed to the place’s moniker of museum rather than renaissance amusement park. The crowd carried her along the museum ride, their boat/train/teacup flanked on either side by Michelangelo’s most mysterious sculptures, the slaves that he left unfinished, writhing in their marble. She-half expected one of them to leap out at her. She thought she heard the echo of a recorded conversation, a plinkety-plink tune on a repeating reel.

She found a bench at the edge of the main room. Even from her low vantage, she could see David’s face and his torso above the crowd. His shoulders reminded her of riso gelato at Vivoli, panna cotta, or an uncooked round of sourdough. His marble skin seemed to stretch over a body of real substance. He seemed like a nice boy. She recognized the expression on his face—fear, awe, determination, anger, resignation. He looked like a case of post-traumatic stress disorder waiting to happen.

The room resounded with foreign accents and mechanized shutterclicks. The click and whir only faintly resembled the sound it was meant to recall. Elena’s mind wandered over the concept. A film camera had a shutter that opened and closed. It made a particular sound. Humans came to associate that sound with the taking of a photo. Cameras no longer had shutter. They no longer needed to click and whir. Yet humans needed some message that their camera has taken a photo. Click and whir had become so closely associated with taking a photo that manufacturers replicated in a device that had no need for it. Other tourists had joined the tour group, and Elena had heard at least three different languages while sitting on her bench against the wall. Yet their cameras all made the same sound, and everyone knew what it meant. It was a strange language of familiarity. And when Elena finally rose from her seat and walked toward the statue, one of the tourists asked her in a series of universal gestures and unfamiliar words for Elena to take a photo of her, her husband, and her two young teenagers. An impossible photo: the 13-foot statue was placed on a high pedestal, nearly level with the father’s head. She framed up family and feet, then family and knees, then family and family jewels. Click and whir. Not exactly an appropriate Christmas card photo. They mistook Elena’s grin for generosity and admiration. They peered at the screen on the back of the camera. Yes, all were smiling, no eyes closed. Only later, when looking closer—

The tourists were annoying and the statue was too perfect. She needed another destination. Elena headed back down the hallway, pulling her guidebook out of her bag. It slipped from her hand and dropped to the floor, only to be retrieved in a flash by a man standing next to her. In that moment, she realized that in the crush of the tour, she had dismissed the most interesting part of the museum, the hallway that led toward Michelangelo’s David. Posted on either side were Michelangelo’s slaves, a series of supposedly unfinished statues. They were rough and rogueish, not caricatures. They moved and writhed and lived within their marble—pain and desire and even hunger. She stopped, shifted her weight to her back foot and crossed her arms, then let out and audible “Hm.”

“Extraordinary energy and beauty,” the man said as he handed her the book. He had a deep accent.

She assumed he was referring to the statues. “I think they are very p-p-p-p powerful, unfinished.”

“That’s what the critics say. Michelangelo was lucky that the government ran out of money. You know the story?”

She shook her head.

He explained these marble slaves had been meant to adorn the tomb of Pope Julius II. Contractual disagreements and money issues stalled the project. Therefore, Michelangelo left the slaves in this state so as to turn to other work.

He had pure white hair and wearing a bright red sweater, so she asked him: "Are you a docent?”

He laughed. “No, I am Luigi.”

What an unfortunate name, she thought. He held out his hand to her, and she shook it. He was handsome as old Italian men would be handsome. His face was smooth. His sweater looked to be cashmere. He also wore gray slacks and beautiful shoes. “The marble for this is from a quarry called Pietrasanta, near the famous Carrara. I grew up not far from those quarries. You should visit while you are in Italy."

He seemed well-traveled, as if he’d lived elsewhere. Someone who lived in one place all their life had a base familiarity to them, as if they no longer had to dress up because there was no one left to impress. Luigi could have been a successful international businessman on a day off or even a priest. She suspected that he was in his 50s, though he could very well have been older.

"You are studying here?"

No harm in lying. “I’m on a break.” She changed the subject. "Do you still live there, in Carrara?”

"We live in Fiesole, oh, fifteen miles away, but it's always nice to see a bit of home.” He gestured toward the statues.

“What are the marble quarries l-l-l-like?”

“Extraordinary, really. May I tell you about them?” He checked his watch. “Come. Let us have a caffé”

Strange invitation, she thought. Why would an older gentleman want to spend time with a foolish young woman like herself? He must be tired of her. Was she tired of him? Well, yes, he was tiresome as older men are tiresome, but she also had an insatiable curiosity to find the Florence that tourists did not see. The only path to this was to follow a tiresome old man into a coffee shop. In Italy, having a coffee with a stranger was really no different than standing in a museum talking to one. So why not?

“Come come,” he said, holding his arm out toward the door as if gesturing her toward her seat at the theater. She felt obliged to float in that direction. And she could think of no reason not to go where he directed. “Parli italiano?” He asked her?

“Si, un po,” she replied.

“Molto bene. Vuole practicare? Si?”

“Si vuole. Bene. Grazie.” As she followed him, practicing her Italian, she again wondered whether she was tiring him. Wasn’t he anxious to be home with his family, his attractive wife with dyed hair, maybe his son or a daughter—yes perhaps a daughter and Elena reminded him of her. Surely that was it.

“I know the best caffé in Florence." He led her through the narrow streets and then ducked into one of the bars that lined the streets. “Molto famoso.”

“So kind of you to show me around.” She said. He glanced at her, a pensive half-smile on his face, a strange expression in his eyes.

“It’s nothing,” he said and chuckled.

She was used to the grungy and bright bars of Firenze. They had little character other than the personalities of those who ran them. In some, one could obtain a sandwich or pastry as well as a caffé. The tables were usually mismatched and cracked; the clientele stood up at the bar and sucked down their coffees quickly. She loved these places, the fact that they offered her satisfying victuals, a crunchy sandwich, salty with cured meat, at the moment she seemed ready to faint from her hunger.

But Luigi escorted her to a place where bright yellow cloths covered small round tables, and the waiters wore black tuxedo vests over starched white shirts. One came around to the table and took their order—two caffè macchiati. While waiting for their order, Elena learned that Luigi taught English at a high school in Florence and sometimes stopped at the museum after work. He seemed a good teacher, gently correcting her Italian, so that she didn’t mind at all. And he patiently answered her when she asked him “Come si dice quarry” or some other such vocabulary word that momentarily escaped her. He also explained to her how they had removed marble from the quarries, by inserting wooden pegs into cracks in the marble, then soaking the pegs with water. As the wood swelled, it would cause the cracks to fissure around a block intended for the sculptor's chisel.

"Yes, you should visit Carrara, or near there. And I know just the man to contact. An old professor of mine. Rents apartments to Americans." He took a piece of paper from his pocket and ripped away a rectangle, where he wrote an email address. "If I remember right, this should be it."

He pushed the paper across the table to her, and Elena picked it up, hardly focussing on the small letters, gpuzzo was the handle, and then a domain she did not recognize.

"It's out in the country, but very beautiful. Vineyards all around. Living for a month in an Italian hill town is the best way to learn the Italian way of life. Fewer people speak English, so it will help you with your studies."

"My studies?" The waiter brought two small cups to the table. "Oh, yes," she said quietly. "My studies."

Luigi picked up his spoon, dropped three sugar cubes into his cup, and began to stir. “So, you like Michelangelo.”

"It's difficult not to like Michelangelo, don't you think?" How interesting that she was not stuttering in Italian. Sometimes her own condition fascinated her.

Her face took on a graceful curiosity, and Luigi noticed, and Elena noticed him noticing. "Mm, " Luigi stopped stirring for a moment.

She concentrated very hard on choosing the right sugar cube, which she dropped into the cup. It landed on the foamy cap and stayed there, obstinately. She took her spoon and tapped out it, then shoved it down so that a little volcano of inky liquid shot up over the milk. Then she, too, began to stir.

"Well, there is one more place you must see," Luigi said almost to himself, stirring. "Yes, veremente..."

He did not seem to be what his name suggested—not slick or slimy. Sure, his attention was unnerving, but the intensity of his stare seemed no worse than that of any of the Italian men she had met so far. It must be a cultural thing, she thought.

So she, stirring, agreed to let him take her to the Piazzalle Michelangelo, but first she asked: “Are you sure you don’t have to go home?”

He did not answer, only said: “if we are to see the Piazzalle at its most beautiful, we should go now,” Luigi said. He stoped stirring and shot his caffe back as an American would drink Cuervo. Elena thought it a bit of a shame not to savor its syrupy bitterness, but perhaps there was something more to it that she did not yet understand, would not understand until she drank many more caffés. She sipped the drink down quickly, liking the bittersweet coating it left in her mouth, like a piece of liquid coffee candy.

They paused only to pay at the counter. When she began to pull out a few coins, he stopped her. “Non!" He waved her money away. "I invited you,” he grumbled. Chastened, she returned the coins to her wallet, his face softened again and his blue eyes became as placid as Lake Como. She couldn’t explain why his paying for the coffee made her feel uncomfortable, and a moment later when he told her a slightly racy story about Cosimo di Medici, he laughed, reminding her of a young-looking Santa Claus. Maybe it was the sweater.

They crossed the Arno. He led her into a parking lot, a bit up and away from the road. As they wove through the cars, she trailed a bit behind him. She couldn’t figure where they were going and parking lots always made her nervous. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket.

“Aren’t we going to walk?” she asked him.

“It’s much too far up,” he said as they approached a Volvo. She again heard her mother’s voice reminding her not to get into the cars of strangers. Dare she tempt fate twice in two days? She hesitated, backing up from the car.

“It is quite steep!”

“I’d prefer to walk,” she said.

His face seemed to age. She saw now that there was perhaps no wife in Fiesole, no son or daughter, or if there were, he preferred to postpone his return to them. He was lonely. And she—she had accepted his offer to go to the bar, to speak Italian, to go the Piazzalle. He had bought her coffee, yet she had failed to consider him a potential suitor. Now she refused to trust him with a short drive to a tourist destination. It was practically impolite. He drove a Volvo, which was a very safe car. He raised his hands and dropped them back at his sides. His frustration did not come across as menacing. It was honest. She felt that he was honest for all that.

She opened the car door and settled inside. After all, she had already tempted fate in Massimo #2’s Volvo. Surely this was no different.

Of course, the magazine articles always say not to get into the car with a stranger. If you get into the car, you’re dead. It doesn’t matter if he has a gun. Run away—at least you have a chance. But don’t ever get into the car. If you get into the car you’re dead.

But Luigi had not shown her his gun. He had merely picked up her book in a museum and offered her a few interesting facts about a historic City. Luigi drove out of the parking lot and onto the street that ran alongside the Arno. They passed a hotel and a few restaurants. Then he turned right onto a road that led up the mountain. Up was the right direction; she knew it from the map. He pretended not to sense her discomfort, and his story-telling left her with her own thoughts. With each turn, the light shifted beneath the canopy of trees—devil, Santa Claus, devil, Santa Claus—

She envisioned herself pulling on the handle and rolling out of the car to safety, but he took the road rather quickly, and she didn’t fancy tumbling onto the side of the road like a tomato flung off of a tomato truck. Swerving around a slow car, he cursed loudly. “Such pazzi on this road.”

Indeed.

Then the trees and the mountain road gave way to the piazza. She was surprised to see that most of it was a parking lot with a statue at the center and a low wall along one side where visitors gathered to look across the Arno toward the City. He parked and looked at her. She smiled and tried not to act too surprised when the door opened easily under her hand. At least he wasn’t a serial killer who had jiggered his car to trap women in the passenger seat. She was so happy to be out of the car that she smiled widely and nearly skipped toward the viewing area.

Luigi followed her toward the promenade where the mountain dropped below and the sun was beginning to set over the city. She had no idea that the Piazzalle was up so high, or that the hill on which is sat was surrounded so completely by park. It wound around, each tier of roadway separated by a dense trees, thick with trees and tangled bushes.

Laid out before her were the red tile roofs of Florence. The Arno snaked below, frosted on each side by the headlights of little Italian cars. Mopeds grunted. Sheets hung out of windows to dry fluttered and moved as if they were the sheets of pasta fluttering in dark, boiling water.

This was the spot where Italian men took women to seduce them. Elena realized it too late.
Just then, Luigi reached for her hand and took it in his own. When she pulled away from him, he sought her hand again. He tried to wrap it in his arm. He tried again. She pulled away. He tried again…

She: “Non.”

He: “Che cosa?”

She: “Non.”

He: “Perche?”

She, taking her hand back again: “Perche non.” Because you are a dirty old man. She did not say, but her eyes said it.

Because you led me on. He did not say, but his eyes accused her of it. She was so stupid. Of course this was where men took women to seduce them. She knew it while eating tripe. She knew it while drinking green tea. Why had she not known it while drinking espresso? He said: “Don’t you like adventure?” Because I saw the way you were looking at that statue.

“Non.”

“You would prefer to spend tonight alone when we could have a nice evening together?” How dare you put these words into my mouth. I am Santa Claus!

“Si,” she said, still answering his English with Italian. Because I am afraid of you.

“I know a place, a beautiful restaurant, down in a cave, where they serve a fig risotto, which is….” a gift, bait, an invitation against my loneliness, your last meal…
The fig risotto gave her a pause. She’d never even considered such a thing, and it sounded magical. It colored her face, and he moved closer toward her, gestured to reach up and touch her hair. “Which would you prefer, little Elena?” Because I have enough money to buy your affection, if I have to.

It was nice to be called “little Elena,” but Luigi wasn’t the kind of man who made her that hungry. She backed up from him, one step and then two. “I think I will stay up here and then walk back down, alone,” she told him.

His face went from agony to ecstasy and back to agony. “But it is getting dark!” He looked away from her. You prefer to risk the dark path and the strangers that may linger at its outskirts rather than climb into a car with me, rather than go to dinner with me.

She took another step back from him. I don’t trust you. I don’t like you. I don’t want you.
He gave her an unkind look, said something low and unintelligible in Italian, then: “Allora.” These American women! They travel alone and think that this kind of thing won’t happen!

She shook her head and looked down at his beautiful Italian shoes. He spun and walked away from her, his leather soles clattering on the pavement. The sound of his shoes climbed up into her mind and stumbled across the non perche non perche non perche that was still echoing there. She put her hands to her ears. She could not watch him go, although she should have. Instead, she went to the low stone wall and pretended to look out at the view. The light turned from pink to purple, and the dark road slowly merged into the darkness of the park.

She walked along the edge of the wall, past the tourist families, the couples face to face, and one lone man wearing a plaid shirt, who softly watched her as she went by. What was the expression on her face? Confusion, regret, fear. It was the look of a woman learning perspective. To this point, she assumed that the people around her would act with motivations and rationalities that made sense to her. She thought she could read their body language, the expression on the face, the accent, and then make sense of the actions that followed. To find herself surprised by the man’s character after spending an afternoon with him—or perhaps he was kind. Oh, she didn’t know. And now she could not be sure that Luigi had left the parking lot. Was he the kind of man who would stay, in the hope that she might change her mind? Was he full of rage—did he gun his engine down the mountain? Was he vengeful, waiting with some other motive?

She must make her way down the mountain soon, before it grew any darker.

[In the next episode, darkness descends over Florence.]