The Love of My Youth_ A Novel - Mary Gordon [86]
“But you have too many friends, you said.”
“I do, but this woman, well, she’s wonderful, I’ll learn so much from her.”
“So it will be an educational experience.”
“Yes, like my trip to Rome.”
“No holidays for you!”
“Of course not, Adam. Don’t you remember: I’m a very serious person.”
“So I can’t buy you a gelato here.”
“Yes, maybe you can … that will be an intellectual exercise. To train my powers of discrimination. And increase my vocabulary. Martillo: what’s that, blackberry? You see, I’m learning something. And choosing something completely new.”
“A brave woman you are, Miranda.”
“Yes, a woman of discernment. And what will you order?”
“Strawberry,” he says. “Fragola.”
“Strawberry. That’s all you ever ordered. Here where you could get all these flavors you couldn’t get at home, why ever would you stick to strawberry?”
“Because I like it,” he says.
She punches him lightly on the upper arm. She feels herself leaning into him, and she hears the false note in her voice, in both their voices. She recognizes it: they’re flirting. But she and Adam? Flirting? No. This is wrong. Flirtation. Adam. No, the two words inhabit different universes. He was the love of her youth. There was no flirtation. They loved each other. Simply and directly they acknowledged their love. Simply and directly, they pledged themselves. And then unpledged. Flirtation, no. She tries to breathe more slowly. She tries to stop the vision she has of them walking somewhere. She cannot stop herself from seeing them walking together in a high, dim place she’s never been, a place that could be taken from a dream. Her own or someone else’s.
Tuesday, October 23
THE VILLA BORGHESE
“Vitae Laudae”
Down a path called the Via del Orangerie, they come upon three stone figures: Satyr father, mother, child.
“What a strange statue that is. Or is it a fountain?” Miranda asks.
“A fountain, I think, though not in working condition. That’s a little sad. This is where I feel the failure of my education. I have no idea who these figures are. Those great travelers, those eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Englishmen buried in the Protestant cemetery, they’d know who these people are in a minute.”
“Let’s try to read the inscription. I’ll try to make it out using my pitiful Latin, which you didn’t have to take because you were given a course release to practice.”
“Well, I’m paying for it now.”
“Not at all. I’ve forgotten ninety-eight percent of any Latin I ever knew. I’ll try to pick out these few words. Of course, I don’t know the cases. It’s something about life and praise. Maybe that’s it: ‘Praise life.’ ”
“What kind of life are they praising?” Adam asks, in what she recognizes as his jokey tone. “The father’s a satyr, that tail can’t mean anything good for family stability. And those hairy arms holding all those grapes. The mother has very well-developed calf muscles. She probably supports the family treading grapes.”
“But look at the child. He’s sitting, happy as he can be, clutching grapes, too. Is he a baby drunk? But look at how comfortable he is. They’ve joined hands and made a bench, or a platform for him, of their arms. Perhaps they’re dancing. Just look at this child. He’s perfectly secure. Perfectly stable. A well-adjusted little boy.”
“What if they turn too fast or let go of each other’s hands or drop him?”
“It’s what we think, isn’t it, that pleasure-loving parents will produce monsters. Babies dead in their cradles or splattered on the sidewalk in front of some seedy bar,” Miranda says.
“Vitae laudae. Who could praise life when it’s so full of horror?”
“They obviously don’t think so. We’re the ones who are afraid. I remember on holidays when my cousins got together and my cousin John and I, whom I always loved, whose company has always been a sheer pleasure to me …”
“I liked your