Rena moves to the counter to place their order, and when the proprietor mutters that cappuccino and caffè latte are the stessa cosa, she goes into more detail, explaining that what the couple would really like is a pot of weak coffee with a jug of hot milk on the side. This she obtains. The couple is flabbergasted.
‘But…you speak Italian!’ exclaims Ingrid.
No, not really, it’s just that…communication’s so much easier between strangers.
‘Easy to be a polyglot,’ says Ingrid, pursuing her reflection on Rena’s linguistic gifts, ‘when you’ve been married to a whole slew of foreigners and travelled to the four corners of the Earth for your profession.’
Yeah, Subra snickers, so don’t go putting on airs.
Right, Rena sighs. No point in reminding her, as I’ve already done countless times, that my four husbands—Fabrice the Haitian, Khim the Cambodian, Alioune the Senegalese and Aziz the Algerian—were all, thanks to the unstinting generosity of French colonisation, francophones…as, indeed, were my Québecois lovers—all the professors, truck drivers, waiters, singers and garbage-men whose t’es belle, fais-moi une ‘tite bec, chu tombé en amour avec toué graced my teenage years…I much preferred them to my anglophone neighbours and classmates—far too healthy for my taste, approaching sex in much the same way as they approached jogging (though usually removing their shoes first), interrogating me in the thick of things as to the nature and intensity of my pleasure, and dashing off to shower the minute they’d climaxed.
Maybe that’s when you started thinking of the English language as a cold shower, jokes Subra.
Could be. I’m not a Francophile but a Francophonophile—I have a foible for the French language in all its forms…Still, I get by just fine in Italian.
‘Funny expression, when you think about it,’ muses Simon, ‘the four corners of the Earth.’
‘It’s a figure of speech!’ Ingrid says defensively.
‘Yeah, but it must date from before Columbus, don’t you think?’ insists her husband. ‘When people still believed the Earth was flat.’
‘Uh…’ Rena dares to interject. ‘Don’t you guys want to go out?’
They can’t say no, she adds, in an aside to Subra. I mean, they can’t cross their arms and say, To tell you the truth, Rena, we prefer to spend our week in Tuscany locked up in cheap hotel room without a view.
Rena clings to Subra, the imaginary older sister who, these thirty-odd years, has been sharing her opinions, laughing at her jokes, blithely swallowing her lies (feigning, for instance, to credit the idea that she and Aziz are already married) and assuaging her anxieties.
Cro-Magnon
Scarcely half an hour later, they emerge into the Via Guelfa.
When she sees that Simon has donned a bright blue baseball cap and Ingrid a fluorescent pink dufflecoat, Rena swallows her dismay. Okay, I’ll go the whole hog, she thinks. I’ll drink the bitter cup of tourism to the dregs—why be embarrassed? That’s what we are. She gets a hold of herself by gently drawing the back of her hand over the faint trace of Aziz beneath her jaw.
Their first destination is the Basilica of San Lorenzo, but before they’ve gone half a block, Simon’s gaze is drawn by something in an inner courtyard. What is it?
‘What did he see?’
‘A pair of legs,’ says Ingrid.
‘Legs?’
‘Yes,’ cries Simon. ‘Come and see!’
The two women have no choice but to cross the courtyard. He’s right—beyond the filthy windowpane of some sort of workshop is a pair of human legs.
‘Weird, isn’t it? What do you think it is?’
I have no idea, Dad—and besides, who cares? This isn’t Florence…
They approach. There’s no denying it’s weird. The legs are naked but full of holes, hollow inside, and surrounded by animal furs. Weirder still, they’re upside down, spread apart and bent at the knees…
‘It almost looks like a woman giving birth, doesn’t it, Dad?’ says Ingrid.
‘Yeah, except that they’re men’s legs,’ Simon points out.
‘Don’t you want to take a photo, Rena?’
‘I don’t photograph weird things.’
Oh, I see, says Subra, again imitating Ingrid’s voice, you don’t photograph weird things. Three hundred and fifty Whore Sons and Daughters—there’s nothing weird about that, of course. Mafiosi, hooligans, traders, sleeping nudes—just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill stuff.
Rena moves closer to the window and peers beyond the pair of legs inside the workshop, then recoils with a gasp.
‘What’s wrong?’
There, inches away from her face, lying on his back—a living man. Smouldering dark eyes, slightly yellowed teeth, flaring nostrils, low forehead, reddish beard, hairy arms—a Cro-Magnon male, alive.
No. But for an instant, yes. She receives his presence, the heat of his body. No. But for an instant, yes.
Simon points out a dusty sign tacked to the workshop door, and she translates: ‘Taxidermy, Moulding.’
‘Must be some sort of wax figure they’re making for an installation at the Museum of Natural History,’ Simon speculates. ‘When they finish with the legs, they’ll rotate him through a hundred and eighty degrees and set him on his feet.’
‘But he won’t be erect,’ Ingrid objects.
‘Yeah, well, he’ll be sort of hunched over—to light a fire, say.’
That mystery more or less satisfactorily solved, they hobble back across the courtyard. The wild man continues to smoulder within her, though. What is it? Like what? A disturbing twinge of some far-off thing…
Simon comes to a halt. ‘I wonder what the cavewoman felt,’ he says, ‘when the caveman grabbed her by the hair and dragged her down the path to shtup her in the cave.’
Rena laughs to be polite, even as she heaves an inward sigh.
‘I mean,’ her father goes on, ‘it can’t have been much fun to go bouncing and scraping along on the pebbles and rocks like that. To say nothing of all the thistles and nettles and spiky plants that would have been growing amongst them. After her deflowering, the woman would probably cut her hair real short, to let the other men know—okay you guys, from now on: shtupping yes, dragging no. No more of that dragging crap.’
‘What I wonder,’ says Rena, joining the game out of habit, ‘is why he had to drag her to a cave in the first place. Why wouldn’t he just shtup her out in the open? I mean, were the Cro-Magnon as modest as all that? Was shtupping already a private activity back then?’
Ostentatiously, Ingrid holds her tongue. She detests conversations like this between Simon and Rena. Finds it abnormal for a father and daughter to indulge in this sort of banter, as if they were buddies. With her own father…God forbid! Had a single syllable on the theme of sex ever passed her lips in his presence, he would have turned her to stone with a glance. To stone!
Try as she might, Rena can’t stop. ‘Besides,’ she insists, ‘why would he have had to grab her by the hair? I don’t get it. Didn’t she feel like shtupping? The virginity taboo didn’t come along until much later, right? In the Neolithic?’
No man ever had to drag you by the hair, that’s for sure, says Subra in Ingrid’s voice. That Rena is boy-crazy!
True, concedes Rena. All a man needs to do is put his hand on the small of my back and my will dissolves completely, my blood tingles like quicksilver, my skin grows a million small soft glittering scales, my legs become a fishtail and I metamorphose into a mermaid. There’s something so hypnotic about a man’s desire…its imperiousness…A violent thrill of fright and euphoria goes through you when you sense he’s chosen you…at this instant…Surely the cavewoman would have felt the same melting, the same tingling…
They start walking again. Some fifty yards along, Simon comes to a halt. ‘Maybe the cavewoman didn’t mind being dragged by the caveman,’ he says. ‘Maybe her brain released a bunch of endorphins so she wouldn’t feel the pain. A bit like when a fakir walks barefoot on hot coals
.’
‘That’s conceivable,’ Rena says.
‘But maybe the fakir’s pain makes itself felt later on,’ suggests Ingrid, in a rare attempt at humour. ‘I mean, maybe he nurses his burns in secret after the performance, when no one is looking. Right, Dad?’
‘No, no,’ says Simon. ‘There are plenty of scientific studies on fakirs—the soles of their feet are perfectly smooth and pink at the end of the ordeal. No doubt about that.’
They start walking again.
When did my father lose the ability to talk and walk at the same time? wonders Rena.
She makes every effort not to rush them, telling herself there’s no reason to advance at one speed rather than another. (‘Why is my little Rena always in such a hurry?’ Alioune often asked her, when they were still married…‘What Makes Rena Greenblatt Run?’—the title of an article about her in some Parisian magazine, ages ago.) But here, today, her impatience is intransitive. Existential. A solid, flourishing psychic reality, eager to apply itself to any activity that might come along in the course of the day.
Some twenty yards further on, Simon comes to a halt. ‘On the other hand,’ he muses, ‘it’s altogether possible that the cavewoman’s mother trotted out her herbal pastes and tended to her daughter’s back once the caveman had pulled up his pants and trundled off to shoot a mammoth.’
‘Cro-Magnon didn’t wear pants,’ says Ingrid.
‘Right,’ sighs Rena. ‘Shall we have a look at this church?’
Proroga
Before they can even get close to San Lorenzo, though, the couple asks for a break. They want to rest on a bench for a few minutes.
Simon shuts his eyes and Rena studies him: heavy eyelids, age-speckled hands and cheeks, furrowed brow, wispy grey hair…Her Daddy. And such a big belly now. How heavy he’s become…Whatever happened to the man she’d worshipped during childhood and adolescence, the Westmount years—that slender, handsome young Jewish scientist with his shock of dark curly hair? You, too, Father, once dreamed of Rinascimento. So many botched rebirths, tufts of hair torn out by the roots, tears shed, screams screamed or repressed, years wasted under the sombre reign of doubt…Hey Daddy, it’s a gorgeous day, relax! Sit down, sit back, let this ray of Florentine sunshine warm your face…
When Rena was little, her father would sometimes allow her to creep into his study and watch him read and write. (As for her mother’s study, either it was empty because she was off pleading in court or else she was receiving a client there for some top-secret conversation and no one else was allowed in. Ms Lisa Heyward had foreign origins and a man’s job—two things Rena was proud of. Whereas other kids’ mothers were boringly Canadian and worked as homemakers, schoolteachers or secretaries, hers hailed from Australia and was a lawyer. Not only that, but Ms Lisa Heyward hadn’t changed her name when she married, which was almost unheard-of at the time. As mothers went, she was exceptionally independent, not to say unreachable.)
On good days, Simon would let his daughter come and curl up on the couch across from his desk. How she loved those moments! Her daddy looked so handsome, lost in thought…his glasses pushed back on his high forehead, his sensitive hands holding pen and paper… ‘Mommy’s a lawyer and what are you, Daddy?’ ‘A researcher.’ ‘How come? Do you keep losing things?’ ‘Ha, ha, ha, ha!’
But there were bad days, too, when Simon would stay locked up in his study from dawn to dusk. Silence and absence in the daytime—and at night, spectacular quarrels with Lisa in the course of which Rena would learn new words in spite of herself—pretentious, irresponsible, pseudo-genius, mortgage, immature, castrating princess… Simon would roar and Lisa would shriek. Simon would kick walls and Lisa would slam doors. Simon would overturn tables and Lisa would hurl plates. Rena guessed at this division of labour rather than actually witnessing it, for at such times she had a marked tendency to burrow beneath her blankets, drag a pillow over her head and stick her fingers into her ears…
‘I got talking to this American woman on the train yesterday,’ says Ingrid. ‘She told me two cities were absolute musts for tourists in Italy—Florence and Roma.’
‘She’s right,’ nods Rena. ‘Unfortunately, as I told you over the phone, we won’t have time to visit Rome this time around. There’s plenty to do in Tuscany, don’t worry.’
‘She didn’t say Rome,’ Ingrid insists, ‘she said Roma—didn’t she, Dad?’
Rena glances at her to see if she’s joking, but she isn’t. Finally Simon leans over and whispers into his wife’s ear, ‘It’s the same thing.’
They attempt to enter the church, but—no such luck. They must first purchase tickets—over there, in the passageway that leads to the Biblioteca Laurenziana. There’s a lengthy queue at the booth.
As Simon and Rena settle in for a wait, Ingrid wanders into the courtyard to look at the cloister.
But can she really see it? Rena wonders. Can she feel the beauty of this place? Does she know how to marvel at buildings that date back six hundred years? I do, don’t I, oh, yes, I do, no doubt about it…Oh, Aziz, it’s only the first day and already I’m floundering, sliding towards hysteria…You told me I was armed to the teeth—was it really only this morning you pronounced those words?
Photo. Photo. Photo. In black and white, she captures Ingrid’s bleached-blonde hair against a background of the cream-coloured Florentine stone known as pietra serena—and, despite the crowds of tourists and her own vile mood, the magic works. The minute she adjusts the focus in the viewfinder, her thoughts settle down and the universe goes still. Always the same elation just before she presses the shutter—the photo may turn well or badly, but whatever happens she will take it, it will happen…Same thrill as in department stores at age thirteen when her hand would tense up, preparing to dart and grab and steal, it will happen…Or as in seduction, when she can tell that yes, it will happen, within an hour or two the man whose gaze has just crossed hers will possess her, rip off her clothes, open her up and bellow…
Through the viewfinder, she can see what escapes her gaze the rest of the time. In the present instance, the distress in Ingrid’s eyes. A swirling abyss of distress and insecurity, which vanishes the second Rena lowers her camera.
‘You still haven’t switched to digital?’ asks Ingrid, returning to join them in the queue.
‘Nope!’
Rena doesn’t even attempt to explain that, seen through a digital camera, reality itself looks unconvincing to her. Or that, in digital, an infuriating fraction of a second elapses between the pressing of the shutter and the recording of the image. Ingrid wouldn’t believe her. She wouldn’t understand. To her mind, reality is something that can be accurately reflected in a photograph, and a fraction of a second is nothing.
‘Doesn’t the magazine get on your case about it?’ Ingrid insists.
‘No, no,’ Rena says. ‘I scan my photos, that’s all—they get their pixels in the end. Besides, they’re not about to complain: my name is one of their biggest assets.’
‘I see…’ says Ingrid.
One of their biggest assets, Subra sniggers softly as the three of them move at last through the portals of San Lorenzo. Schroeder has never given you anything but temporary contracts, and he almost refused to let you take this unpaid holiday—but sure, right, your name is one of their biggest assets…
San Lorenzo Primo
‘Designed by Brunelleschi, the great Renaissance architect,’ Rena hastens to proclaim, having leafed through the Guide bleu on her flight this morning. ‘Look how the sun’s rays light up every square inch of space…’
She can tell Ingrid is disappointed. To her eyes, the church is empty. There’s really nothing much to look at—not even any stained-glass windows. Even the Amsterdam Cathedral is more lavishly decorated than this. Yes, thinks Rena, but you don’t understand. Here, instead of being dazzled by ostentation, overwhelmed by fancy ornament or intimidated by dark shadows, man himself is writ large. Thanks to the light that comes flooding through the
transparent windowpanes, the eye can apprehend the inner space in its entirety. The church’s geometrical structure, its sober hues of blue, grey and white, reassure and respect the individual instead of boggling his mind. This is the very essence of humanism.
She spares Ingrid her spiel, though. If her stepmother wants to be disappointed, why deprive her of that pleasure?
So as father and daughter move through the transept, deep in conversation, Ingrid gets bored, allows her mind to wander and waits for the visit to end. This is how it’s always been.
Rena holds forth a little longer. ‘Lorenzo for Lorenzo the Magnificent, of course—that Medici duke under whose patronage, in the mid-fifteenth century, the arts and sciences blossomed almost miraculously…’
‘But also for poor Saint Lawrence,’ says Simon, who had picked up a leaflet at the entrance, ‘whose martyrdom consisted of being grilled like a hamburger. As the tale goes, he asked to be turned over after a while, saying, “That side’s already cooked!”’
Saint Lawrence’s flesh sputters on the grill, his fat melts and drips, the flames lick, leap, eat…Rena does her best to banish these images from her mind and force her attention back to Brunelleschi’s sober beauty, but no—again and again, grey greasy matter, Saint Lawrence’s brain melting, great fat drops dripping and sputtering in the fire, avid flames devouring them, feeding on them, leaping higher and higher…Such a fine brain it once was. Well-lubricated, pulsing, throbbing, palpitating with curiosity…
The brain, she explains to Subra (the only person in the world who is captivated by her stories no matter how often she’s heard them before), was my father’s passion back in the sensational sixties, when all fields of knowledge—music and biochemistry, poetry and psychology, painting and neurology—were cross-fertilising. Yes, the incredible, unfathomable, untapped potential of human grey matter. The way the human brain contrives to put a self together in the first few years of life, then keep it in place, assign it limits…Even as a child I could sense Simon’s enthusiasm for this subject. Sometimes he’d talk to me about the content of his work. I remember how, looking up at me from the book he was reading, he once declared out of the blue: ‘A self is neither more nor less than the story of a human body, as told by that body’s brain.’ I felt proud when he shared this sort of insight with me, even if it was way over my head.