Mark Mills - The Savage Garden

"I'm sorry you're leaving, but I understand."

It was a simple enough statement, but her gaze had faltered, as if with embarrassment, as if she had revealed too much of herself. Had there been something provocative in that bashful glance? It wasn't impossible. Their relationship had hovered somewhere between easy familiarity and flirtation since their very first exchange, when she had corrected his Italian with a wry little smile. Over the past days they had joked, he had flattered her, and she had found any number of pretexts on which to playfully chide him. It wasn't exactly a remarkable relationship, but there was no denying a certain alchemy.

When he headed downstairs for dinner, there was nothing in Signora Fanelli's manner to suggest that any of these thoughts had ever occurred to her. She was too busy to show him to his table as she usually did. Instead, she pointed to the terrace and barked, "Outside." And when she finally got around to taking his order, there was none of the usual banter while he prevaricated (far more than was ever necessary). She insisted that he start with the cacciucco, whatever that was, then hurried off.

Cacciucco proved to be steamed mussels in a spicy red sauce. It was excellent, certainly too good to do anything other than eat, not that the messy operation allowed for a book on the table, let alone three. The moment the debris was cleared away, he opened The Divine Comedy. Many of the words didn't even appear in his dictionary, and it soon became depressingly clear that he could spend the rest of his time in Italy toiling through the text and still not reach the end. He persevered, though, the thrill of the breakthrough fresh in his mind.

He had punished the evidence, but everything still pointed to a clear link between the garden and Dante's Inferno. Just like Dante, Federico Docci had constructed his own multilayered Hell, and by placing Flora on the second tier from the top he was sending out a message about his young wife, he was saying that she was an adulterous whore.

It was no longer a question of whether or not Federico Docci had made this damning declaration, but why? Why bother laying out a garden to her memory at all if that's the way he felt about her? It didn't make sense, not unless there was more to the story, more that Federico had buried away in the rest of the cycle.

This called for a close examination of Dante's poem; it demanded a thorough search for any further associations with the garden; it meant ploughing on regardless. Which is precisely what he did—right through the main course of spit-roasted Val d'Arno chicken, a warm and windless night descending on the terrace.

Dante and Virgil had barely breached the Gates of Hell when Signora Fanelli arrived at his table with a complimentary brandy.

"You work too hard."

"Feeling better?" he asked.

She gave a coy and contrite smile. "I'm sorry. It's been a bad night. I'll tell you later."

She never got a chance to. Some late diners and the usual diehards at the bar meant she was still working flat out when he finally headed upstairs to bed.

He was awoken by a swath of light cutting through the darkness. There was a figure silhouetted in the doorway of his room.

It was Signora Fanelli.

He closed his eyes, feigning sleep, his mind struggling to digest this new development. So he hadn't been wrong, after all.

"Adam," she whispered, creeping toward him. Her hand settled gently on his shoulder. "Adam."

He did a poor job of pretending to stir. "Yes ... ?" he croaked weakly.

"It's 'Arry," she said. "On the phone."

Harry went straight in without so much as a "hello," and from that moment on Adam was behind in the story, struggling to make up ground.

It had something to do with being in Milan and meeting a girl at the station and the girl was Swiss and she was lost and it was late and she had an address of a hotel nearby and they went there and it was a cheap place with no porters and Harry had carried her bag upstairs for her while she checked in and when he came down he found that she had checked out. Permanently. With his bag. The one he'd innocently left in her company. The one with all his money in it.

It was not unlike a number of stories Adam had heard from Harry over the years.

"Harry, what time is it?"

"What, late for the fucking opera, are we? Christ, it's late, okay, and I'm stuck in this shitty hotel in Milan with a suitcase full of newspapers belonging to a Swiss girl."

"I doubt she was Swiss."

"You doubt she was Swiss!?"

"I doubt it."

"Well, she didn't have pigtails and a bloody great milch cow on a leash, if that's what you mean!"

"Calm down, Harry."

"You calm down. You're not the one in Milan with the suitcase full of newspapers."

"Do you have your passport?"

"Of course," sighed Harry indignantly.

"Any money?"

"Not enough to buy a ticket out of here or I wouldn't be calling."

"Where are you phoning from? The hotel?"

"Yes."

"Do they speak English?"

"They think they do."

"Okay, listen. This is what I suggest. . . ."

As Adam talked, he watched Signora Fanelli going about her business, closing up for the night. She bolted the shutters to the terrace but left the doors open so that the cool night air could circulate. She was wiping down the counter when he finally replaced the receiver on the cradle.

He was suddenly aware of himself standing there barefoot in his pajama bottoms and the grubby T-shirt he'd pulled on hurriedly.

"Problems?" she asked.

"Do you have a brother?"

"Yes."

"Is he a disaster?"

She laughed. She laughed some more when he related the story of Harry's plight. She then poured them both a nightcap and apologized for being so short with him earlier in the evening. Lucrezia, one of the cooks, had shown up drunk again. Signora Fanelli sympathized—Lucrezia's husband was a violent brute, he had always been a violent brute, even as a boy—but the drinking was getting out of hand. She didn't know what to do. They talked her quandary to a standstill before making their way upstairs to bed.

Adam's room lay on the corridor leading to her apartment. When they reached his door, he said good night to her. She didn't walk on, though; she didn't even reply, not at first. She stared at the floor, then looked up at him and said, "Iacopo's not here tonight. He's staying with a friend."

He knew what the words meant—her son was away, she was alone—but he didn't know what she meant. And he wasn't going to risk making a fool of himself.

He didn't have to. She took him by the hand and drew him into his room, closing the door behind them.

There was nothing urgent in her actions, not at first. She led him through the darkness to the bed, then eased his shirt up and over his head, discarding it on the floor. She ran her hands over his skin, her fingers tugging at the desultory thicket that almost qualified as chest hair. When she raised her face toward his, he stooped to kiss her. Her tongue was small, pointed, inquisitive. She must have felt him stirring against her belly, because she placed a hand in the small of his back and drew him closer.

They stood like this, kissing, for quite some while. His hands roamed, enjoying what they felt through the cotton dress, her nipples hardening beneath his touch.

Slowly, she dropped to her knees and drew his pajama bottoms down over his thighs. He felt her breath against him, and for a moment she seemed to be contemplating what to do next. Then she closed her lips around him.

She did almost nothing; she just let him grow there in the moist warmth of her mouth, the palms of her hands resting gently against his thighs.