When Dan and Marcy got
off the train in Lugano, they stepped from air conditioning into a
wall of stagnant humidity. Sweat soaked their clothing by the time
they reached the station steps and looked up at the grey sky
suffocating the city. Dan squirmed in the stiff back brace, unfastened
two more shirt buttons, swallowed his pain, and sucked in air,
openmouthed.
Marcy looked miserable
too, dragging the wheeled luggage across the platform. Her damp hair
was matted to her forehead, flat against her temples. Because his
dislocated sacroiliac made him helpless, she had to be the one to
hoist their bags up and down from luggage racks while he blushed
embarrassment, hoping the world would sense his
debility.
"This is hell," she said.
"I picked Lugano because it's
supposed to be so beautiful." He tried to imagine the city without the
grey haze--the palm trees under brilliant sun, lush gardens, mountains
out to the horizon, a glimmering lake in the harbor
below.
Marcy's eyes were red, her
round face drained of color. Yet, s miserable as she looked, Dan felt
himself drawn to the curve of her tight white slacks. He desired her
there in that heat, pain stabbing across his hip and down his left
leg. He couldn't stop desiring her. She gave him a sad smile, and his
heart plunged like a stone.
For the week before he flew to
Zurich as part of the company team for a trade show, Dan had tossed
sleepless with expectation, Beatrice's weight on the mattress beside
him, their children in rooms across the hallway, his nights filled
with imagining Marcy. On the plane, alone, Marcy gone ahead for final
preparations, her presence was so real he felt that he had only to
reach out and embrace her. She was his palpable future. With his long
hours and frequent travel, he only saw the kids on weekends anyway.
And what kind of a life was it for Beatrice--married to a man obsessed
with someone else?
In Europe, for
the first time in all the months they had been lovers, they would
finally spend the night together. At home, he had a wife waiting. On
their domestic trips together, she treated him as no more than a
co-worker, fearful of her reputation in the company. Dan couldn't
bring himself to tell her what the men in the cafeteria said as they
sat by the windows watching her run the paths outside in jogging
shorts, joking that the speed of her promotions came in direct
proportion to the length of her legs. Even before he had loved her,
she figured in his fantasies--a lithe divorcee with a beachfront condo
and a red Jaguar. Afterward, he had to swallow his fury at the others'
innuendo, caging the impulse to lash out in outraged
pride.
They had spent whole evenings
planning their European tryst, Marcy insisting on reviewing every
detail of the strategy. They would arrive separately for the trade
show, book into different hotels, speak only of business, never share
meals unless part of a group, spread stories that he would extend this
trip for a weekend in Paris, she for summer skiing on Jungfrau. Dan
chose their true private destination, recalling Lugano as the
honeymoon site of a couple he had met once on a plane.
Dan opened the city map he had been
studying throughout the train ride as a futile diversion from the
torture of his back. "The hotel's only a block
away."
She pointed at the rooftops
directly beneath them. "Straight
down."
The train station sat on a
steep hill overlooking the city. To the right Dan could see the dome
of the cathedral, to the left the sign for their hotel. Twisting steps
chiseled into the rockface led down to the street below. It was a
sheer drop from here to there.
Marcy stood beside their luggage at the curbside, her feet in narrow
sandals bound with thin white straps, the toenails gleaming red. Dan
looked at the shape of her feet and wanted to weep. Swallowing, he
signaled for a taxi.
Marcy counted
the suitcases as the driver loaded them in the trunk. They could
abandon everything for all Dan
cared.
The taxi ride to the hotel
was a series of tight downhill curves that kept lurching their bodies
together in a contact that sent a twist of agony down his left leg. He
closed his hand on her thigh to brace himself. She covered it with a
light touch of fingertips, cool despite the heat of the
day.
"How long has the weather been
like this?" Dan asked the driver.
"All month, signore. Most always this is the most beautiful time of
the year."
"When will it
break?"
The driver shrugged. "Who
knows, signore. Let's hope you and your signora bring good fortune."
That morning, back in Zurich after
the trade show ended and all the others had boarded limousines for the
airport, Dan rushed to Marcy's hotel the second she called. In her
room, he twisted the bolt and fixed the chain, murmuring his love the
whole time, tearblinded with joy at the press of her body, her arching
gasp of pleasure.
Afterwards he put
a hand on her chest to feel her pulse subside. When she was calm, he
leaned over her and touched his lips to her forehead. She closed her
eyes. "I just want to go on like
this."
"For the rest of our
lives."
"I mean taking one day at a
time."
Dan stared down at her,
elbows locked, arms rigid, as if his limbs had turned to stone. "I
want to marry you." He had meant to give the words the force of his
conviction, but they came out as a
plea.
She still would not look at
him. Tears eased out from under her eyelids. He watched them spread
down her cheeks. "So much could happen," she said. "It's such a huge
risk."
"I'll take it. Nothing else
matters."
"I don't want you to ruin
your marriage for me."
"It's ruined
without you."
"You don't know," she
cried. "You're not seeing clearly. Everything is so
complicated."
She shook with sobs
and Dan began to kiss her tears, at first slowly, tasting salt, then
harder and faster, Marcy clinging back until they were making love
again. But when it was over, before he could speak, she said,
"Nothing's changed."
"What about
Lugano?"
"We'll be wonderful in
Lugano, and then we'll go home."
The bellhop, a small, furtive man
with a thick black mustache, couldn't undo the straps on their luggage
carts, turning them sideways and upsidedown in an effort to free the
suitcases. "Never mind!" Marcy cried. The man dropped a cart with a
thud that snapped the straps loose. Dan gave him a double tip and
pushed him out the door.
"Look at
this room." Marcy threw up her hands.
With the luggage on the floor,
there was barely space to maneuver around the bed. The dark floral
wallpaper clashed with the heavy striped drapes. The carpeting was
worn, the faded brown bedspread dotted with cigarette
burns.
"And it's not even
airconditioned," she added.
"I'll
open a window."
She seized his arm.
"Don't you move. You'll do something else terrible to your back. I
can't stand to see you suffering this
way."
"I try not to talk about my
pain."
"Your face gives you away.
It's nothing but one constant
grimace."
For the first time, it
struck Dan that she might be annoyed with him.
At midday, after he left Marcy's
room to pick up his luggage at his own hotel, stomach fluttering as if
a terrified bird were trapped inside, Dan had dislocated his
sacroiliac stepping into the elevator. As he shifted weight to his
left leg, something tore in his side, a sensation that his innards had
ripped loose, so painful he had to grip a handle for support and then
stand hyperventilating for five minutes before he dared try to reach
his room, hugging the walls and dragging his leg all the way.
Once inside he immediately applied
icepacks, unwilling to call Marcy and tell her what had happened. I'll
be all right for the trip, he kept reassuring himself, although he
knew weeks of agony lay ahead.
An
hour before train time, he had stared at the ceiling with burning,
sleepless eyes, wondering how he would be able to engineer himself up
from the mattress. Despite his resolution to grit his teeth and stand
on the carpet with one thrust, he could barely lift his shoulders from
the pillow, and had to slide his legs across the sheet and down along
the side of the mattress, then grip the headboard and hoist himself
into a sitting position. The maneuver left him whimpering. He counted
to ten, but his nerve failed, then counted again and threw his feet to
the floor, amazed at the courage it took to reach a vertical position.
Standing, he hobbled to the closet, retrieved the brace he hadn't had
to wear in two years, but packed at Beatrice's insistence, a wide
canvas belt with a Velcro fastening and a hard plastic insert that
wedged against the middle of his spine. When he strapped it on, he was
able to take short, slow steps without the sensation of molten steel
at his nerve endings.
"I need a nap," Marcy announced.
"This heat is exhausting."
She
kicked her slacks into a heap at the foot of the bed, then yanked her
top over her head and stretched out in bikini underwear, forearm
shielding her eyes.
Fatigued
himself, the painkillers she carried in a little golden case numbing
only his brain, he lay flat beside her, fully clothed, still in shoes
and brace to avoid the burden of dressing later. Marcy rolled onto her
side, facing the wall. He didn't think he would sleep but two hours
later awoke disoriented at the roar of her blow dryer. She stood at
the wall mirror angry with her hair for frizzing in the
humidity.
"We'd better think about
dinner," she told him.
Dan groaned
inwardly. Now he would have to get up, and he was ashamed to ask for
her help.
Clutching the edge of the
mattress, he slid off onto the carpet, raised himself to his knees,
and groped out toward the dresser for
leverage.
"For God's sake, here!"
Marcy gripped his elbows and pulled him upright. The aftershock that
spasmed through his back muscles made him bite down on the insides of
his cheeks. He didn't let himself cry out, but it took several minutes
before he could catch his breath.
"Thank you," he said. "I'm sorry to be such a
bother."
"I'm sorry you're suffering
so much," she said, but he saw she was gritting her teeth.
When they got back to their room,
Dan realized he had finished almost the entire bottle of dinner wine
himself, while Marcy picked at the label with a fingernail. He
sprawled back on the bed and couldn't keep his eyes from drooping
shut. When Marcy pulled off his shoes, he tried to speak, but the
words came out as a moan.
The next
thing he knew sunlight was dazzling him and his head throbbed behind
his sinuses. Marcy had thrown open the drapes. Behind the bathroom
door the shower was hissing, then stopped with a wrenching in the
pipes. She stepped back into the room drying herself, naked, water
drops beaded on her flesh, breasts bobbling as she rubbed the towel
across her back.
"You'd better get
ready," she said. "We can't spend the day trapped in this
place."
"Please, help me
up."
She dropped the towel and
reached her arms toward him. He gripped her shoulders while she lifted
with a grunt, then sank against her until the back spasms subsided.
She supported his weight inertly. He could feel her nipples against
his chest. All he had to do was tilt her face up and kiss her. And
then what? He was terrified at the thought of a sudden twisting.
This is crazy, he kept thinking
with each deep breath. For months his desire had conjured moments like
this. And now her embrace was only first
aid.
In the shower he couldn't bend,
just soaping his arms and chest and letting the water float the suds
down his legs. Marcy was already dressed when he got
out.
"It wasn't worth it," she
said.
"What
wasn't."
"Bathing. Nine in the
morning, and I'm already soaked with perspiration. It's like living
inside a sponge."
"Listen," he
offered, "we could check out now and head north somewhere. Up into the
mountains."
"It's only a few days,"
she said. "We'll stick it out."
Dan wanted to try walking down the
twisting narrow streets that led from their hotel to the center of the
city, but Marcy insisted on a cab. "You don't have to prove anything,"
she told him.
The cab took them down
to the central piazza, a large cobblestoned square of shops and
umbrellaed cafe tables. Dan paid the driver, then thought to ask,
"What's the best way to stay cool?"
"The lake, signore. You and the signora will find pleasant breezes on
one of the steamers."
Marcy wanted
to look in the jewelry store windows first, at the glimmering rows of
rings and bracelets and earrings. As they approached the glass, Dan
saw his reflection, a man moving with slow crabbed steps, hunched over
and listing to one side. When she sought his opinion of a gold chain,
he offered to buy her something.
She
stiffened at the suggestion. "That's not why I
asked."
"I just wanted you to have a
souvenir."
"I'll remember this city
without one."
The quay for the lake
steamers was only a short walk from the square, across a wide
boulevard thick with speeding cars. From the lakefront Dan could look
back at the tiered levels of the city behind the spray of a large
fountain. The peak of Mount Bre was barely visible in the haze, little
more than an outline, like the shore across the
lake.
Although the steamer wasn't
scheduled to leave for another twenty minutes, Marcy wanted to board.
"There's no point in waiting out on the street." He agreed. The cabin
was stifling, so they took a bench on the stern, the first passengers
of the trip.
Dan shielded his eyes
from the glare and stared over the side, watching the water slap
against the hull. It struck him that he would have to tell Beatrice
something, how he had injured himself, why he hadn't flown right home.
His real life seemed so vague now, here in this strange city, sitting
beside the woman he had dreamed of loving. Dan didn't look around him
until the boat began to back away from the pier and he discovered the
deck crowded with people.
"Where'd
everyone come from?" he asked Marcy.
"You weren't paying attention."
"They all want to escape the heat."
She nodded. "I've never spent a more unbearable
day."
Despite the discomfort of the
slat bench, Dan knew he had no choice but to sit. When the waitress
came by, he ordered a beer. Marcy wanted nothing. Away from the shore,
though the sun was strong, a light breeze blew over the
deck.
He watched two children play
at the railing, a brother and sister, both blond. The girl, about six
or seven, was very pretty. Someday, he thought, she would be beautiful
and wondered if her beauty would make her happy. The boy, a few years
younger, hoisted himself up and hung over the railing, making sounds
at the birds. His mother spoke sharply in German and pulled him
down.
Dan listened for the languages
around them. The boat was a babel--Swissdeutch, the Italian of the
crew, Japanese, British English. But the French was loudest of all. He
looked behind and saw three women with faces tilted up toward the
sun's rays, one plump and middleaged in what seemed to be a house
dress, one young and plain in shorts, another young and quite lovely
in jeans, her smile very appealing.
These women spoke softly. It was the four men across the aisle who
blared their French, shouting conversation even though they were only
a few feet apart. They swigged beer from bottles, in unison--glass to
their lips, swallows, and arms down. Then they would look at each
other and burst out laughing.
"They're drunk," Dan said to Marcy.
"They're just having a holiday."
"Why are they so lucky?"
She said
nothing.
Like the women behind them,
the men seemed mismatched--the loudest, with thick white hair and
beard, was sunburned and barechested, a pale belly hanging over his
belt; the old shrunken man on his right lit cigarette after cigarette
with trembling hands. The two at either end were both much younger but
total opposites--one impeccable with slick parted hair, hornrimmed
glasses, and a crisply pressed shirt, the other disheveled in an
undershirt and cutoff trousers.
The
barechested man unfolded his newspaper and passed out sheets to the
three others, then gave step by step instructions on folding the paper
into peaked caps. Even the old man made one, though he was slow and
had to refold several times. But the barechested man was very patient.
When all the hats were ready, he signaled that they should put them on
their heads. He stood before them and saluted. They saluted back,
again and again. Dan noticed that Marcy was watching closely,
amused.
The barechested man plucked
the hats from the others and stacked them atop his own. Then he
crossed the deck to the three women, bowed, and adjusted a paper hat
atop each of their heads. For a moment, Dan expected anger: the man
was attempting a foolish pickup and would be abused. But the man
leaned over and kissed the two younger women on both cheeks, the
middleaged on the mouth. It's his wife, Dan realized; they knew each
other.
The women tipped hats to the
other three men, and the men toasted them with beer bottles. Dan tried
to pair them off, uncertain which of the younger men was husband of
the lovely woman. The old man was probably someone's
father.
The barechested man began
walking about the deck, slapping palms against his belly and
exchanging words with half the passengers: the two old women in black
dresses, the adolescent couples at the side railing, the men and women
back by the cabin. People on the benches were waving to each other,
smiling, exchanging sandwiches from their coolers.
"They're all together." Dan spoke
his surprise to Marcy.
"Of course. I
saw that when they got on."
"But who
are they?"
She gave him a puzzled
look. "Tourists like us."
"I
mean--are they one big family? They don't resemble each other. Maybe
they're from the same town. A whole village on an
outing."
"Why does it matter?
They're having a wonderful time."
The man offered peaches and plums to the two blond children. They
looked to their mother for permission, and he patted their
heads.
The boat pulled up to a dock
at its first stop across the lake, a village of whitewashed houses on
a green hillside, gardens bright with flowers, sailboats bobbing at a
dozen docks. People sat on the grass at the water's edge. The
Frenchmen shouted greetings and received greetings in return. The man
in cutoffs brought a mock trumpet to his lips and blatted a fanfare;
the immaculate man boomed rhythm as he mimed a
drum.
The French began shifting
places, ordering more beer, passing out food. The two women in black
beckoned the old man for cake. The three women who had been behind Dan
and Marcy moved to a bench in front of the barechested man where Dan
could see them clearly. He watched the lovely one closely, sensing
what a pleasant person she was, how the others seemed to light up when
she gave them a smile. The immaculate man sat beside her and took her
hand in both of his. Her husband; Dan's heart sank. But then the man
in cutoffs moved to a space on her left and took the other
hand.
Dan was surprised at his
relief. He didn't want to know who she was married to. It was pleasant
to sit there in the breeze and believe she was available, that all he
had to do was wait until the two men left and move beside her. She
would smile and touch his face as through they had always loved each
other. In their hotel,she would undo his brace, stroke fingers across
his back, up and down his leg, and he would be
healed.
The Frenchmen began singing,
rounds, voices from all corners of the deck, at first songs familiar
to Dan, like "Frre Jacques," then tunes he had never heard before. The
barechested man took the lead, standing at the boat's stern and waving
arms like a conductor. His voice kept losing the key, but his
enthusiasm was infectious. He lifted the blond boy to his shoulders,
and the boy mimicked his gestures, two sets of arms leading the
music.
Suddenly they all became
quiet, except for a pure, crystal soprano that seemed to echo from the
lake shore. Dan realized it came from the lovely woman sitting shyly
on the bench, hands folded, gazing down at the deck. He felt the tears
well in his eyes, let them flow, not caring what Marcy would think or
say.
Now the Frenchmen were all
singing again, some dancing, the adolescents first, laughing with
raucous steps. The wife of the barechested man resisted his efforts to
pull her up until he began tickling. She slapped at his hands and
finally joined him, the two of them hopping from one end of the deck
to the other.
When the music turned
slow, the immaculate man appeared at their bench and asked Marcy to
dance, bowing deep at the waist and extended a hand. Her acceptance
surprised Dan, and he wondered what he would do if she sat beside the
man when the dance was over.
He
didn't watch them, instead fixed his attention on the old man
shuffling between the two old women in black. When the woman in shorts
sat beside him, he returned her greeting but shook his head and
covered his ears to indicate he did not understand her language. She
laughed and swirled a hand, indicating that she was inviting him to
join the dance. He made an unhappy face and pointed to his brace. "Bad
back." He spoke slowly. "Mal back. Hurts much. Pain." When she
squinted bewilderment, he took her hand in his and touched it to his
brace. He expected her to pull away as if singed; but she patted the
hard plastic insert. "So so," she soothed. The lovely woman was
looking at them, eyes fixed on her friend's hand. Dan tried to meet
her glance.
The barechested man
stood over them. "Vite, vite," he told Dan. The woman in shorts spoke
a long explanation, pointing and touching. The man waved her off,
wrapped his arms around Dan and pulled him up. Dan stood so bewildered
his pain felt distant and detached.
The Frenchman guided him into the midst of the dancers and called to
the immaculate man, who swirled Marcy to a spot directly in front of
Dan and then quickly stepped away. They just stared at each other. The
barechested man arranged them, laughing all the time, placing Dan's
right hand on Marcy waist, his left on her shoulder, wrapped both her
hands around Dan's brace. "Faites danser," he
commanded.
Dan took the first step,
stiff and awkward, his leg cramped, knifepoints stabbing down his hip.
But Marcy followed his lead, and they were dancing, turning a circle
to the Frenchmen's song, the group backing away to clear a space for
them, cheering their efforts. Dan saw the lovely woman's face aglow
with a smile. She was so happy for them.
Fiction from Web del Sol