Katherine Carlyle Read Free Page B

When you’re somewhere else you can always imagine exactly what’s happening.
    Later still, Massimo takes me back to his apartment, which occupies one entire floor of a palazzo near Piazza Venezia. Massimo has a Thai manservant who wears immaculate white gloves. Every morning he wakes Massimo with a cappuccino and a copy of
La Repubblica
. Massimo’s living room is the size of a tennis court, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a brown-and-white marble floor. He used to have a brown-and-white fox terrier. Whenever the dog lay down, it disappeared.
    Massimo offers me cocaine. I shake my head. He tosses the see-through plastic packet on the coffee table. Some of the white powder spills. He doesn’t care. He pours me a cognac, then puts on
Kind of Blue
by Miles Davis. We lie at ninety degrees to each other, on matching cream sofas. I sip my drink; my stomach glows. It’s a last night of sorts and I’m only sorry I can’t tell him. The sound of the trumpet is clear as glass, some notes so fragile it’s a wonder they don’t shatter.
    “Is your father in town?” he says.
    “No, he’s away.”
    “Where is he?”
    “I don’t know. Some war zone or other.”
    Massimo smiles. He has always liked the idea of my father. He thinks being a reporter is romantic.
    Sitting up, he runs a hand through his hair, then changes the music. This time it’s Suicide’s “Ghost Rider.” I finish my cognac and slip out of my shoes. We dance back to back on the cool marble floor, our arms lifting dreamily into the air above our heads like a snake charmer’s snakes.
    At three in the morning I tell him I’m going home. He starts to cry. “What if I never see you again?”
    “Don’t be so dramatic.” I push the hair out of his eyes and kiss him on the forehead. “You’re tired. You should go to bed.”
    Outside, as I bend over to unlock my Vespa, a car races down the street, boys leaning from the window, a maroon-and-yellow flag rippling and snapping in their hands. One of them shouts at me. The only word I hear is
culo
. I’m still thinking about the things Massimo said.
You seem different. What if I never see you again?
Sometimes he’s so in tune with me that he can read my thoughts even as they’re forming. Not that I know what lies ahead. All I can say for sure is that a space will open up between us and the temperature will drop. Perhaps he was right to feel sad.
    I ride down to Lungotevere then follow the river. As I pass the Isola Tiburina there is the smell of golden syrup. It’s like a memory from another country, a different time. I pull over to the side of the road. The smell’s still there, but I can’t account for it. There’s no factory, no shop. I accelerate away again.
    Tonight the city smells like England
.
    Though it’s late I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep. It’s almost as if I had the coke he offered me. My body feels wound up like a clockwork toy. I need to be set down, let loose.
    Goodbye, I whisper as I turn away from the river.
    Goodbye, goodbye.
    /
    When my father calls on September 6, everything’s in place and it’s only two days until I act. He’s in the Middle East, he says. InSyria. He’s sorry he’s been elusive recently. I tell him I understand. The line swoops and crackles beneath our words. Sometimes it sounds hollow, as if we’re talking in a cave. Other times, the connection cuts out altogether and there’s an absence that makes me feel queasy, like the numbness you get in your arm when you rest your head on it and fall asleep.
    I ask him how he is.
    He’s fine, he says. He’s not in any danger. Most of the shells are landing in rebel-held suburbs. I say I’m fine too. Rome is relatively peaceful at the moment, I tell him, despite a night of heavy fighting.
    “Have there been demonstrations?” He sounds surprised, annoyed with himself. If there’s one thing he can’t stand, it’s missing out on breaking news.
    “Dad,” I say. “It was a joke.”
    Silence.
    At