Love is most nearly itself

When here and now cease to matter.

-T. S. Eliot

BOOK FOUR.

Chapter Sixty-Three.

Henry Bliss finally woke up in the late morning.

He opened his eyes and for a moment was unable to place himself. Then he remembered that he was in Sicily, in a small town.

Through the old lace curtains above his bed, morning seemed especially clear.

Then the sound of George laughing.

Then talking.

As Henry dressed, he noticed that George had left a shirt and tie out for him on the inside door handle.

Henry knotted a four-in-hand and hurried into the living room.

George replaced the telephone handset.

"That was my wife," he said. "Are you hungry?"

Under a plastic umbrella, George and Henry ate Sicilian hamburgers of horsemeat with ketchup and mayonnaise from a burger van.

They talked in depth about Professor Peterson and his new project in Turkey-and then about how George and his wife, Kristina, were planning to visit him there for Christmas.

Then suddenly, the sound of a cannon firing. Henry jumped in his seat. George chewed. It was another wedding, he explained. There was one almost every day in the summer. Another deafening boom resounded through the town.

George described his own wedding. The bra.s.s band that followed them through the piazza. The trailing families, then tourists at the rear, enchanted by the public custom of a Sicilian marriage.

A few birds pa.s.sed over their heads, perching finally on a headless statue at the edge of the square.

Then George asked Henry why he had really come to Sicily.

Henry's gaze rolled over the uneven terra-cotta roofs.

"I suppose I don't know. I wanted to see you, of course-but I don't know why beyond that. It was saving Delphine from choking that finally got me here. But I don't know why."

"Sometimes it takes a while," George said. Then he admitted that his love for Rebecca was different than Henry's-a truth he realized only after he met Kristina.

"Back then, I just wanted someone I could care about-and who cared about me-isn't that silly?"

"Not if you've never had it, George."

George smiled. "Well, I've got it now and more. Are you happy for me?"

"Blissful," Henry said.

"Why don't you stay a month then?"

"Why?"

"Because it's probably the last time you'll ever have the freedom to stay somewhere for a month on a total whim."

Henry nodded appreciatively. He would have to call his parents. They would protest and he would have to convince them he's feeling better or has found work.

"How did you meet your wife, George?"

"She drove over my foot here in the piazza."

"Is that how you meet everyone, George? They run you over."

George laughed. "You'll see."

Then a man came over with a small Tupperware box. He shook the box and George dropped a coin into it. And then another cannon shot boomed through the town, and the sky was a tangle of birds-like seeds thrown against blue porcelain.

The street was beginning to fill up.

"Let's go to a cafe in the very center of town for coffee. It's where I told Kristina we'd meet her."

George stood up and waved to the tall man clearing tables. He was wearing a plastic ap.r.o.n and had a long nose. The man shouted something and waved them off.

"He's been here for decades," George said. "He does a roaring trade, but will never open an actual shop. It's just not the way they do things here."

In the distance, down the Via Luca, a bra.s.s band played.

Henry laughed. "Is it the same one that played at your wedding?"

"It is," George said. "It's like so much here-unsophisticated but sincere."

They walked in silence for a little while, and then George said, "I know what you're thinking."

Henry turned and looked curiously at his friend.

"You're wondering how I can live here," George admitted.

Henry smiled. "I don't think I want to know."

"You couldn't live here, could you?"

"No, I couldn't," Henry said. "But I didn't know why until I saw you."

"Oh?" George remarked.

"Because I need more than love."

George smiled. "Is it that obvious?"

The bra.s.s band in the distance was getting closer. A teenager with one arm pa.s.sed quickly at a trot, beating his only fist in the air to the blasting trumpets.

George stopped walking. The bra.s.s band was suddenly upon them, going in the opposite direction.

The off-key trumpet players were at the back, and the procession was trailed by babies being pushed in strollers, a suited man walking alone with flowers, friends, family, endless cousins, a gang of young children-two of whom were dressed for a mock wedding-and then finally, two carabinieri in blue uniforms, trailed by a clothes rack on wheels with rows of inflatable Spider-Man helium balloons.

George led Henry to a cafe in the center of the village, and they sat down.

Before the waiter came to take their order, several children who had been sitting quietly on the steps stood up and called over to George, who pretended to ignore them.

"I think those children are calling you," Henry said.

"Try and ignore them," George whispered.

"They look persistent."

"Don't make eye contact. If you do then we're finished."

"I think I already have because they're coming over."

"Oh dear."

They came over in a small pack, saying "Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao" in a church voice to the tourists they brushed past at the rickety tables set up on the cobbles in front of the cafe.

They surrounded George and Henry like a band of outlaws.

"Questo e il mio amico Henry," George said, presenting his friend. The children smiled respectfully.

Then one of the smaller children said, "Welcome, old man!"

George reluctantly raised his hand to the waiter, and the children cheered. The waiter cheered too, and the children ran off into the cafe and emerged a few minutes later-each with a cone of gelato.

"Just when I think I've lost them," George said. "They pop up somewhere."

"Who?"

"Those little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," he said pointing. They see him gesture in their direction, but their mouths are too full to say grazie, so they wave the same way George waves when saying good-bye to people.

"You're going to be an amazing father one day, George."

George shrugged. It was a new habit of his that Henry noticed was particular to the Sicilians.

And then the bra.s.s band appeared again-this time going in the other direction, and fighting with a larger crowd of people.

Henry noticed a woman in a wheelchair behind George's chair, about to get swallowed up by the procession.

"Excuse me for a moment," Henry said.

The woman smiled when she saw him.

"Thanks so much," she said in a heavy Italian accent.

The wheelchair handles were made of ostrich leather. The chair was a handsome dark green.

"You speak English?" Henry said.

"Of course I do."

"Sorry," Henry said, not really knowing why.

"I'm the one who is sorry," she remarked, "for not being here to meet you yesterday."

"Kristina?"

"Oh, Henry. Isn't that why you came over?"

"No."

"George was right then," she said. "I am going to have a crush on you."

Chapter Sixty-Four.