The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [127]
She pressed her palm to Wolf’s forehead. It was cool, wet. “Maybe you’re sick,” she said.
He shut his eyes. “That’s good,” he said. “Your hand.”
The sea had clarified with the light, deepening to turquoise. The sky looked flat as tile. Phoebe kept her hand on Wolf’s head, and for a moment it seemed they could stand there indefinitely, wind pouring against them.
Finally they resumed walking. The wind quickened, warm, laced with bracing veins of cool. The clear, salty air stung Phoebe’s eyes. They circled the bay, rounded the far point. And there it was.
Corniglia lay across another bay, draped over a cliff like a cat on a banister, legs and tail dangling, looking ready to slide off at any moment. Its colors were pale and luminous, opalescent pinks, whites, a flash of orange tile.
Phoebe stared. The light hurt her eyes. She thought of salt, of San Francisco, its bleached, dry colors. “Do you think that’s it?” she asked Wolf, suddenly fearful it might not be.
“Yes, I do,” he said.
Phoebe grinned, she couldn’t help it. “It looks exactly how I thought.”
They headed inland, cutting around the bay. Wolf led, moving mechanically, his eyes fastened to the town. The thud of wind on Phoebe’s eardrums mingled with the rhythm of their steps: I’m almost there I’m almost there I’m almost there I’m almost there. They passed a few dusty chickens in a coop, a small soiled goat on a chain. A white cat, milky fur sliding over its delicate spine as it picked its way downhill. A bell tolled noon as they rounded the bay. Gradually the path eased into a paved street and lifted them into Corniglia.
Tall houses shaded the town’s steep streets, giving it a cool, cellar-like feel. Corniglia was crowded, but unlike Vernazza the feeling here was of residents rather than visitors. Women sat outside tiny produce shops, bright tomatoes and striped squash gathered around them like skirts. Bakers adjusted yellowy loaves in their windows. A riot of laundry flapped overhead, sheets and shirts and ladies’ slips strung between the windows of opposing houses, flecked with sunlight. The laundry billowed and snapped in the wind like a thousand welcoming banners.
They took whichever streets led them higher, scaling the town like the slope of a pyramid. At last they reached an open, tree-lined square. It faced a church. To the left rose the mountain; to the right was nothing but sky. The perennial cluster of women in black sat huddled outside the church. The echoes of bells still hung in the air.
Phoebe stopped, wondering where to go next. She hadn’t seen any cliffs. Wolf’s skin was gray. A curious blankness inhabited his face, as if his mind had disengaged and drifted off. Behind him Phoebe noticed a smaller church in a spot higher than where they now stood. The church was hunched-looking, as if from years of battling the wind. Phoebe pointed to it but Wolf seemed not to react. She walked past him toward it.
The church was abandoned, its windows boarded up. It faced the sea, its small courtyard partly enclosed by a salt-encrusted cyclone fence, candy wrappers tangled in its wire. A damaged-look-ing water fountain jutted sideways in front of it. Phoebe leaned over and drank, surprised the thing even worked. The water was warm. Wolf caught up to Phoebe and took her hand.
A low concrete wall divided church and courtyard from the sea—a ledge, really, no higher than Phoebe’s waist. She peered over it. Directly beyond lay a tuft of dry weeds choked with cigarette butts, then nothing. The land simply fell away. Far below lay the ocean, seething white around chunks of rocks as if the rocks were dissolving in it.
They stared at the drop. Phoebe glanced left and right for comparable spots, fearful of being taken in by someplace meaningless. Wind tossed and flung her hair. She couldn’t see another place. “I think this might be it,” she said.
Wolf nodded. There were dark circles under his eyes.
Gently Phoebe touched the wall. The plaster