The Love of My Youth_ A Novel - Mary Gordon [93]
“Hemingway,” the man says.
Miranda hears the name Hemingway and is outraged. “You must tell him that is impossible. Hemingway could not possibly have written that poem.”
“I will tell him, Miranda, but it won’t do any good. Italians feel that if they don’t know something and tell you so you will be disappointed. And he doesn’t want to disappoint you. He knows Hemingway was an English writer, so he tells you Hemingway wrote the poem.”
“But he must stop giving out that kind of misinformation,” Miranda says, really irate now.
“He probably won’t,” Adam says. He tells the man that he is sure Hemingway didn’t write that poem. The man looks at him regretfully, shakes his head, opens his hands in a gesture meant, Miranda guesses, to indicate helplessness.
As they leave, they pick up a single Xeroxed page headed “Guardians of the Departed.” It is a request for funds from an organization that cares for the cats who make their home in the cemetery. Miranda reads aloud: “ ‘Shielded from the outside commotion, the cats are safe from harm here. The green tangle of vegetation creates a secure haven for these little friends of the departed. As territorial animals, each cat has his adopted turf, overseen with pride. These feline guardians provide loyal companionship to the deceased, giving at the same time life and vitality to their resting place.’ ”
“I can’t bear thinking of these English spinsters devoting their lives to the cats. I much prefer the plates of spaghetti left randomly for the cats around the Forum, with no notion that they are ‘little friends of the departed,’ ” Miranda says.
“Perhaps it gives the English ladies a sense of meaning and purpose.”
“Well, Adam, that’s truly grim. Let’s get away from all this gentility and take a walk on the rough Roman streets. Maybe we will be lucky and someone with a switchblade will demand our wallets.”
“Let me show you this,” he says. “This hill is made of the shards of old amphorae. The port was here and after people had used the oil from their amphorae, they didn’t know what to do with them, so they just broke them up and made a hill of shards.”
“I wonder if Keats knew about this,” she says. “I wonder if it depressed him that this is what lasted. All those broken things no one wanted.”
They stop for a coffee. On a wall that must, she thinks, be ancient, a young man and a young woman are affixing political posters. For a few minutes, the young man makes desultory efforts with a brush and a pot of paste. Then he puts down his pot and brush and waves his arms around, giving animated directions to the young woman, who works faster now, attaching to the stone the bright-colored posters: a middle-aged man with a lot of teeth, representing a party Miranda has never heard of.
Adam sees she’s entirely absorbed in the comedy across the road. She isn’t thinking of Keats or Bach or Beethoven or the English spinsters. She puts her head in her hands. He doesn’t understand why she is weeping. Then he sees, she isn’t weeping, she’s laughing. She takes her hands away from her face, throws her head back; her whole body is taken over with her laughter.
“Hemingway,” she says, hardly able to catch her breath. “Hemingway.”
“Down, girl,” he says, reaching across the table, pretending to take her pulse. “You’re going to have a heart attack.” He is a little alarmed at her hilarity; he remembers now that he was always a little frightened when she laughed like this. Perhaps because this kind of laughter took her somewhere else, somewhere far away from him.
“Well, so maybe I’ll die laughing. That wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Not on my watch, please,” he says. And he is struck, as he is more and more lately, with the simple fact. At some point we will not be here. On this earth. At some point, Miranda and he will be … where. Not here. He takes her hand and kisses it, and they are both embarrassed, so he drops it quickly, and calls the waiter for the check.
What will I remember of this day? she wonders. Will it be Keats