Farewell to the Flesh Read Free

earlier, Dora occasionally thought she could see the flutter of dark-gray cloth through the opening. One time when she had come to the dining room earlier than usual, she had heard a voice droning something indistinguishable. A prayer? a homily? the life of a martyred saint? There had been no way for her to tell but it had given her an uneasy feeling.
    No, Dora didn’t feel at all comfortable staying at the Casa Crispina. She hated it when some of the sisters referred to it by its old-fashioned name, the Hospice, because even though she knew this was supposed to evoke memories of the religious lodgings for the weary in the Holy Land of long ago, all a nurse like her could think of was pain and the end of life.
    So much seemed peculiar here. For example, even though it would have been easier for the women from Mestre to bring the food directly from the kitchen to the guests’ dining room through the nuns’ refectory, they instead made circuitous trips down a corridor even though the nuns had long finished dinner.
    As Dora was trying to figure out once again why the door between the two areas was always partly open if no one went through it during meals—was it to tease them all with fleeting glimpses of a better life or to allow the sisters to keep an eye on their guests?—she heard someone approaching. It could be her brother, Nicholas. He had been seeing to their mother in her room, making sure that she really didn’t want to come out to dinner, that she didn’t want to be coaxed into joining them. Nicholas had more patience with their mother than she did. Dora was already dreading returning to Pittsburgh alone with her.
    When she looked away from the door, it wasn’t Nicholas standing there but the handsome photographer who had been so nice to her since she arrived.
    â€œThinking of joining the sisters? They could use some young blood.”
    He had a soothing, well-modulated voice, one she could have listened to for hours. It was the kind of voice she associated with the best bred of Englishmen.
    Dora felt herself blushing. She looked down at her napkin, stained from the meals of previous days.
    â€œYou should be careful. The sisters might hear you, Mr. Gibbon.”
    â€œJust Val, remember?”
    â€œVal—that’s short for…?”
    He gave her a dazzling smile. His eyes were as dark as any Italian’s but his skin was whiter than hers.
    â€œGuess.”
    â€œI couldn’t—unless—”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œCould it be Valentine?”
    His quick laugh made her feel foolish. She dared not look up right away but busied herself with her napkin. When she felt strong enough to encounter his dark eyes again, however, she saw that they were no longer alone. Xenia Campi, the Italian woman who lived at the pensione and claimed to be able to see into the future, was standing next to Val, a frown on her heavily made-up face.
    â€œExcuse me, sir.” Stout, black-haired, and in her mid-forties, the Italian woman spoke deliberately in heavily accented English. She put her hand on the top of the chair behind which Val Gibbon was standing. “This is my seat.”
    â€œExcuse me , signora! Everything in order here in the convent. What would happen if it wasn’t, even during Carnival—or should I say especially during Carnival!”
    Val Gibbon moved aside so that the woman, wearing a plum-colored, robelike dress with voluminous sleeves, could take her accustomed place next to Dora. Before he went to the other side of the table, the photographer bent down close to Dora’s ear and whispered, “Nothing as romantic as that, I’m afraid, but thank you for thinking so. It shows you have a tender imagination.”
    He went to sit down near the end of the table, his back to the partly open door. As he unfolded his napkin, he looked over at Dora.
    â€œA very tender imagination,” he added with a smile.
    Dora looked away. She had been