Mike Maden - River of Gods

And then they started all over again.

Pearce woke again with the afternoon sun high in the windows. He pulled on a new set of clothes and sped down the wide marble stairs to the kitchen.

Cella smiled at him over a glass of wine. She was frying fish and green beans in olive oil in a pan over the stove. She wore a tight sweater and formfitting jeans. He tried not to stare at the sheer beauty of her, but failed. He approached her. She kissed him. He could taste the wine.

“Hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. We’ll eat, and then I’m taking you somewhere.”

“I think you already did.”

She blushed.

That surprised him.

They walked hand in hand along the waterfront promenade of Bellagio. The buildings were ablaze in afternoon sunlight, each painted in glowing yellow, or ocher, or blue beneath red clay-tiled roofs. The buildings ascended from the water to the side of the forested mountain powdered with snow. Tall cypress stood guard like sentries over the sleepy winter harbor, mostly empty save for the few white sailboats of the intrepid locals.

Troy and Cella strolled past the high-end stores and shops tucked beneath the awnings, then turned up the narrow alleys, climbing the worn stone steps past more shops and an auberge. Cella led them higher up and then to a stone gate overlooking the town. With the mountains in the background and the red-roofed steeple in the middle, Pearce thought he might have been looking at a painting.

“I wish it were spring.” Cella sighed. “You should see the colors with all of the flowers, all along the harbor, and up here, too, in the hotel gardens, and spilling out of every house garden, too.” She touched a twisting vine climbing the stone wall. “This wisteria hangs like a thick cluster of purple grapes.”

Pearce tried to imagine the splashes of color. He’d seen pictures of this place but never imagined he’d ever visit. He glanced past Cella’s shoulder and caught the eye of one of her bodyguards trying to remain inconspicuous in the distance. In the summer it would be easy to hide in the crowd, but now the village was nearly empty. Even some of the shops had closed for the winter.

At sunset she took him to her favorite restaurant. She was greeted by the owner with a kiss on each cheek and offered a private balcony overlooking the lake. They feasted on lake mussels bathed in butter and garlic, peppered beef filets, and risotto. They took dessert, cognac, and coffee, too, and waved away Sforza’s silver Levante for the long walk back to the villa.

The evening ended the way the day had begun, and they fell asleep in each other’s arms again, wordlessly.

Cella took Troy out on her private boat the next day and they visited a few of the other lake villages, as picturesque as Bellagio, though smaller and less well known. The day after, Sforza arranged a ski trip at Madesimo, near the Swiss border. Cella and Troy insisted, however, that the bodyguards join them on the slopes. What was the point of trying to remain hidden on a downhill run? The snow was powdery and wet, and neither gave ground to the other as they carved their way down the long runs. When the sun finally fell, they drank buttered rum in the lodge by a roaring fire. After a long, hard day of skiing, Troy and Cella were both exhausted, but hot showers and mulled wine revived them and they wrestled the night away again.

“Do you have religion?” Cella asked, standing in the Duomo di Milano, Milan’s famous soaring Gothic cathedral. They stood at the left of the altar beneath the feet of San Bartolomeo, towering over them.

“You mean, like this guy?” Pearce pointed at the Renaissance statue, perfect in its rendition of a man flayed alive, his skin hung about his shoulders like a shawl. The forlorn saint looked like an illustration for musculature in Gray’s Anatomy .

“He is the patron saint of tanners. Men with knives. He would be a good saint for you. He is a martyr.”

“No, but thanks. I’ve seen what martyrs can do.” He admired the artistry of the work, but grimaced at the horror of it.

“San Bartolomeo was a man turned inside out by the world that hated him. You could use an intercessor like that.”

He glanced at his feet. The red, white, and black marble was cut and shaped in the form of flowers. The soaring columns were forests of stone that climbed high into the arched vault above. Brilliant stained glass filled the long window frames. Pearce had never been in a church this large or ancient before. It was overwhelming. He felt small in there. He supposed that was the point.

“Let’s go.”

Cella showed Troy the best of Milano, her hometown. She was proud of it, the way Italians are, especially Milanese. She showed him Leonardo’s famous Last Supper fresco at the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and took him shopping at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, which with its beautiful glass dome and carved marble floors seemed to Pearce to be another kind of cathedral. She made him spin on the testicles of the Torino bull for luck, and bought them both formal evening wear on her account at Biffi, then took him to the magnificent Teatro degli Arcimboldi to see Otello , apologizing profusely that she couldn’t take him to La Scala because it was closed for renovations, as if she and Milano had somehow sinned against him. Pearce loved the opera, his first, and the evening they spent together at the Grand Hotel. She slept in his arms as he stared at the ceiling with images of the flayed Christian martyr standing in the center of Daud’s ruined village, beckoning him with skinless fingers and a lipless smile. Or maybe it was Daud.

Why?” Cella asked. She was confused. They had spent a perfect week together. Heaven.

Pearce folded his favorite shirt and tucked it neatly into his pack. He wouldn’t need the others, or the suitcases.

“Orders. I don’t have a choice.”

She sat on the bed. “That’s a lie you tell yourself. You choose to obey orders. You can also choose to disobey them.”

“If I disobey them, they might shoot me.”

“If you obey them, someone else might shoot you.”

“That’s the life I chose.”

“Then choose another.”

“I would if I could. But I’m a soldier. I have a duty to my country.”

She took his hand. “Let me be your country.”

Pearce smiled. “Don’t tempt me.”

“I will tempt you.” She kissed his hand, then pointed at the magnificent view of the lake. “All of this will be yours. And more. This is nothing, believe me. My father has houses all over the world. Stay with me, and we’ll see them all.”

Pearce sat on the bed next to her and took her hand in his.

“Tell me, why did you leave all of this? My whole house growing up would fit inside just this bedroom, with room to spare.”

“These are just things. People are what matter most, don’t you think?”

“And that’s why you came to the same place I did.”

“We weren’t in the same place, you and I. Not really. I went to heal. You went to kill.”

“And if I stay here with you? How many more operas will you take me to before you’re bored? Before you decide you have to go back to Afghanistan?”

“I will never go back to that place.”

“At least we have that in common.”

“What do you mean?”

Pearce stood. “I just got the call. I’m heading somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I can’t say. It’s classified.”

“It’s Iraq, isn’t it?”

Pearce tried not to convey his surprise. How did she know?