The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [116]
“Since when are you the expert?”
“Expert, hell. That’s what nostalgia is: you see layers of meaning you never dreamed were there at the time.”
“But you did see the meanings at the time,” Phoebe said. “The bell and all that—you just said.”
“We thought we saw meanings.”
“Well, if you saw the meanings then, and you see them now, when you look back, how can you tell they weren’t really there?”
“Huh,” Wolf said, grinning suddenly. There was a long pause. “The weird thing about that time,” he said, tentative now, “is in a way we were nostalgic for it even while it happened. I think it had to do with constantly watching ourselves, on drugs, the whole out-of-body thing, but also on TV, in the papers. We were news. Whatever we did felt so big, so unbelievably powerful, almost like it was happening in retrospect. I’ve never felt anything like that, before or since. It wasn’t real life. Which I guess is what made it great.”
“I wonder what we’ll say about this someday,” Phoebe said. “You know, right now.”
“Right now is good right now,” Wolf said.
The moment felt odd, precarious. “Maybe you’ll say it was fate. That I found you.”
“That’s possible,” Wolf said.
From a distance Lucca rose above the land like a gigantic fortress, surrounded by thick formidable walls. Phoebe and Wolf left the Volkswagen outside its ramparts and walked hand in hand into the town.
Inside, rich green lawns ran flush along the tops of the city walls, like an emerald moat on the verge of overflowing. There was a good view of the dry surrounding hills. I’m with my lover, Phoebe thought, and had a longing to be seen, as though the presence of witnesses would seal some final bond between herself and Wolf.
Mansions lined the narrow streets. For centuries, Wolf said, rich Florentines had made their second homes in Lucca. Old villas sprinkled the countryside, some converted into museums. Phoebe noticed Rolex watches in the shop windows.
They stopped at a beautiful church called San Michele in Foro, tiny animals carved in its façade. Inside the church Wolf drifted away from her, exploring the vaulted corridors. Phoebe watched him, making favorable comparisons between Wolf and the other male tourists. She especially loved his gait, athletic yet so elegant, the opposite of that chimplike trot of high school athletes. Naked or clothed, Wolf walked like that. My lover, Phoebe thought, but the word did not seem right. She’d heard it too often in high school, employed by girls who wanted to advertise the fact that they were sleeping with their boyfriends. What was it called—what she and Wolf had? Phoebe watched him arch his back to gaze up at a relief of the Madonna and Child, and for an instant Wolf looked like a stranger, a man she had no claim on. Phoebe waited anxiously at the door for him to finish.
Back on the street Wolf was quiet. Phoebe sensed his thoughts traveling far from her, but was unsure how to reclaim them. In the privacy of their room she would have rolled against him or left the bed to shower, fetch a glass of water, and by the time she returned he would be there, waiting. But without this physical recourse, Phoebe felt powerless. As they wandered the streets, she engaged in a frantic mental dialogue: Weren’t fluctuations normal in a relationship? Hadn’t the whole point of coming here been to ease their intensity a little, exist in the world like two normal people? But the world proved too distracting, it rushed in like static, invading the space between them. Phoebe no longer knew what to say, how to act with Wolf. Too many subjects seemed off-limits.
They stopped for lunch. The restaurant looked like a cloister; a fountain bubbled in the courtyard. A waiter ceremoniously disengaged the bones from their grilled fish. Their fellow diners were oldish and bejeweled. Phoebe and Wolf exchanged smiles at their expense. Still, a silence tugged at them. What did they normally talk about? Or had there always been these silences, and Phoebe was just too happy to notice? Her awareness of all that Wolf had given up for her sake seemed to turn on Phoebe