L'America Read Free

those artists, all of them, Raphael and da Vinci and Michelangelo, Cellini even, if they could only have felt the freedom to paint secular subjects. Just imagine what their imaginations would have created. That ache, that pain, it is subject enough."
    "It's fate all the same," Elena said suddenly, surprising herself. She was usually not so bold with her opinions. "If it is God's hand or Zeus's claw or the will of the boy to leave or be left—it is fate." And for an instant she imagined the world without the great religious works of all those artists and in that moment of emptiness she was certain that Cat did not attend mass every Sunday.
    What Elena also knew was that her son would inflict that pain upon Cat's daughter. Francesca was the kind of daughter-in-law the Cellinis would expect and want, but Elena knew that Cesare and Francesca had found each other too young and their relationship would not last. She knew the outcome. She knew good-looking boys always had the advantage. In some small way, though Elena was not malicious, this knowledge made her feel triumphant.
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    The exquisite pain: the early hours of the morning, a calm Sardinian sea, a hundred little boats rowing off to the horizon, eager for the daily catch, all the faint noises of such movement, the bells of buoys, the swish and clunk of sailboats rocking in the sway of the water, the creak of ropes. It is a green Smeralda morning: seagulls ride on the back of a light breeze, calling sharply; the
forno
smell of brioche floods the dawn with the promise of something warm and a little sweet. Francesca is looking for Cesare. She has been up all night. Barefoot, she wears only her nightgown. Her round face and enormous eyes are marred by worry and exhaustion. It has occurred to her slowly through the night, the thought rising like the break of day, that this is the end. Eight years—a long run. She is innocent but no fool. He will be cold and mean because who knows how to end love well? It is the Dutch girl, Francesca knows, from last night's party. The one with the short black pixie and the strappy black dress and all the height, the one who spoke English to Cesare as they drank a little too much wine. The one who cocked her head with flirtatious drunken sloppiness. The one who laughed pre-posterously. The beauty of him, of Cesare, his smile widening for another girl—Francesca had studied it, noting his black hair receding at the temples, his dimples deepening with the curl of his lips as he bowed toward the Dutch girl.
    Francesca's feet ache, the right one
is
scratched above the instep, enough to cause a little bit of blood to pearl. This romance will be insignificant for Cesare, for the Dutch girl, too, but not for Francesca. For Francesca it will mark the threshold of her adulthood. She sits down on the steps leading to the marina. Her hair is a mess. She has not brushed her teeth. She remembers being fourteen, imagining extraterrestrials finding
Pioneer
10, the ship shipwrecked on some gorgeous star, the plaque inside with the picture of Man and Woman designed by Carl Sagan. The naked man waving his hand, inviting aliens to realize he is friendly. They had laughed, she and Cesare, at this simple notion and all the potential of such an expedition. Their futures rose just as bright and grand, full of the places they could someday be. All admiration and curiosity was she for Cesare's passion for America.
    She has found him. She knows where he is. Down there in the marina, among the hundreds of yachts, in the sailboat belonging to her family, the cabin light is on. And he is inside with the Dutch girl, both naked like the figures on the
Pioneer
plaque, but intertwined, ruining everything and nothing. She sits on the cold cement steps, bougainvillea flowering hopefully all about, and the world smelling of brioche and honey, and she knows any ecstasy they enjoy is because of her, because of her sitting here watching them, their knowledge of her eyes on