Glasses were raised and drinks downed. Feltrinelli stepped off the crate and was absorbed back into his crowd of well-wishers. Moments later, he excused himself and made his way to the restroom. I positioned myself at a telephone in the lobby so he’d have to pass me on his way back.
He did, and I hung up the phone timed to the second he noticed me. “Having a pleasant time, I hope?” he asked.
“A wonderful time. A beautiful night.”
“Unbearably so.” He took a step back, as if to admire a piece of art from another angle. “We’ve never met?”
“The universe hasn’t willed it, I suppose.”
“Indeed. Well, I’m happy the universe has made a point of correcting its grievous mistake.” He took my hand and kissed it.
“You are the reason the book has come to print?”
He placed his hand over his heart. “I accept sole responsibility.”
“The author didn’t have a say in it?”
“No, not exactly. It wasn’t possible for him.”
Before I could ask if Pasternak was in danger, Feltrinelli’s wife—a dark-haired beauty wearing a sleeveless black velvet gown and matching jeweled choker—approached. She took her husband firmly by the arm and escorted him back to the party. She looked back at me once, in case I hadn’t gotten the point.
As the party wound down, the red-jacketed waitstaff began clearing away the mounds of uneaten stuffed mussels, beef carpaccio, and shrimp crostini, along with the copious number of empty Prosecco bottles littered across the room. Mrs. Feltrinelli had left in a limousine moments earlier, and Feltrinelli called out to the dwindled crowd to join him at Bar Basso. As he left, followed by a throng of hangers-on, he turned abruptly to me. “You’ll be joining us, no?” he asked. He didn’t stop to wait for my answer, already knowing what it would be.
A silver Citroën and a small fleet of black Fiats awaited us at the front of the hotel. Feltrinelli and a young blonde who’d arrived just minutes after his wife left got into the Alfa Romeo, and the rest of us piled into the Fiats. Feltrinelli revved his engine and sped away, while we got stuck behind two men carrying dates on Vespas—tourists, judging by the fact that they drove slowly and steadily instead of weaving in and out of traffic like locals.
Our group spilled out of the cars and pushed its way inside Bar Basso, shouting out drink orders at the white-jacketed bartenders. I found a spot along a mirrored wall and scanned the bar for Feltrinelli. No sign of him. A short man with an undone bow tie and red-wine-stained lips passed me carrying an oversized cocktail glass. I recognized him as one of the photographers from the party. “Would you like a drink?” He held out the glass. “Take mine!”
I kept my hands to my sides. “Where is the guest of honor?”
“In bed by now, I imagine.”
“I thought he was coming here.”
“How do you Americans say? Plans are made to be rearranged?”
“Changed?”
“That’s it! I believe he decided to have a more private celebration.” The photographer put his arm around my waist, the tips of his fingers drifting below the small of my back. Shuddering, I removed his hand from my body and left the bar.
* * *
—
I’d succeeded in obtaining the book, which I placed in my hotel room’s small safe before heading back out. But I’d failed at getting more information out of Feltrinelli. It seemed he’d been protecting Pasternak, but why? Was the author in more danger than we thought? The blonde Feltrinelli had taken off with was at least fifteen years younger than I, and I couldn’t help but think if I were that age, I’d have been the woman he pulled into his sports car and told his secrets to.
Taxis passed, but I decided to walk. I wanted to enjoy the fresh air. And I was hungry. My first stop was at a gelato cart attached to an old mule. The teenager manning the cart told me the mule’s name was Vicente the Majestic. I laughed, and the boy said that my laugh was just as beautiful as my red dress and my red hair. I thanked him, and he handed me the lemon gelato, “Offerto dalla casa.”
The free gelato helped soothe my damaged ego but didn’t keep me from wondering if I was getting too old for this job. It used to be so easy. Now my skin glowed only with the application of expensive creams that made more promises than they could keep, and the sheen on my hair came from a bottle of pricey exotic oils bought in Paris. And when I lay down at night sans bra, my breasts gravitated to my armpits.
When I turned thirteen, boys and men alike began to notice me, the anonymity of my prepubescent form having disappeared over the course of one summer. My mother was the first to notice. Once, after she caught me looking at my profile in the reflection of a store window, she stopped and told me a beautiful woman needs to have something to fall back on when the beauty fades, or she’ll be left with nothing. “And it will fade,” she said. Would I have nothing to fall back on? How much longer did I have until I was forced to find out?
Unlike Feltrinelli, my ambition didn’t come from my wallet. It stemmed from a delusion that I was someone special, and the world owed me something—perhaps because I was brought up with nothing. Or maybe we all hold that delusion at some point—most of us giving it up after adolescence; but I never let it go. It gave me an unwavering belief that I could do anything, at least for a while. The problem with that type of ambition is that it requires constant reassurance from others, and when that assurance doesn’t come, you falter. And when you falter, you go after the lowest-hanging fruit—someone to make you feel wanted and powerful. But that type of reassurance is like the brief buzz of alcohol: you need it to keep dancing, but it only leaves you sick the next day.
The lemon gelato tasted like summer, and I told myself to stop the self-loathing. I changed my mind about going straight back to the hotel and stopped in the Piazza della Scala to see the Leonardo da Vinci monument.
The piazza was aglow. A small team of men were hanging white Christmas lights from the trees encircling the monument at the square’s center. One man in brown coveralls was holding the ladder with one hand and smoking with the other, while a man atop the ladder was trying to undo a knot in the wires. The other men stood to the side, arguing over the best way to undo such a significant knot.
A middle-aged couple sat on one of the concrete benches near Leonardo’s feet. Their faces were close and intense, and I couldn’t tell whether they were about to break up or kiss.
I thought of Irina. I thought about how we could never be that couple—kissing, or even fighting, right out there in the open for all to see. The thought came over me like news of someone’s sudden death, and I realized I had to put a stop to whatever was happening between us and just mourn what could have been.