Without Reservations_ The Travels of an Independent Woman - Alice Steinbach [88]
Oh well, I thought, it’s only for two nights. I started to unpack; in an hour we were to drive into Siena for dinner. I heard a tap on my door. It was Vivian. “Is your room as bad as mine?” she asked. I could tell she was upset.
“Maybe worse,” I said, waving her in. She looked around but said nothing. “So, what do you think?” I asked.
“It’s just like my room. Dreary and depressing. I’d call down and ask them to move me but I’m just too tired.”
I put my arm around her. “Vivian, what you need is a great dinner and some good wine. So go change your clothes, put on some fresh lipstick, and we’ll hit the road.”
After Vivian left I looked around the room. She’s right, I thought. It is a depressing room.
To my surprise, Vivian was in fine form by the time we sat down to dinner. We had been joined by four others at our table: Marta and Bernie, and a couple from Chicago, Betty and Herb. The restaurant, located near the breathtaking Piazza del Campo, was casual and charming, with delightful food and local wine. It turned out to be the perfect antidote for travelers’ fatigue, a malady that, to a greater or lesser degree, we all felt. For three hours we sat, eating and drinking and talking and laughing. With each course we raised our glasses and toasted each other: Cin cin! Then others in the small restaurant began joining in, calling across the room, Buon appetito. Cin cin!
Although Vivian clearly was enjoying herself, sometimes I caught her glancing at a table nearby. There, a young couple sat, whispering and holding hands across the table, oblivious to anything but each other.
“Tell me the truth,” Vivian said as we were leaving. “Wouldn’t you give anything to be like them? To be in love and part of a couple?”
The truth was, it had never occurred to me. I was having a wonderful time.
But later that night, alone in bed, I thought of Naohiro and a certain dinner in Paris, one during which nothing existed for me but the man across the table.
In Perugia I had a room with a view. Situated at the top of a winding road that leads up to the old city, the hotel commanded a panoramic view of the Umbrian countryside. From my room I looked down into the tops of the trees lining the road and beyond that to the Tiber valley.
It was early morning, the start of a long day, and I was tired. I’d spent a restless night, dozing mostly between long stretches of wakefulness. At one point I’d gotten up to get a drink of water, only to find I couldn’t remember where the bathroom was. Was I in Siena? Was the bathroom to the left? Or was I in Florence and the bathroom to the right? For a minute or two I stood there, totally disoriented. It frightened me, this black hole in my thinking; I wondered if this was how elderly people felt when unable to retrieve a memory.
Through the window I saw the light of dawn rising, a curtain lifting to reveal the day. I opened the shutters and stood looking out for a few minutes before gazing down into the treetops below my room. There, nesting in the upper branches, were dozens of birds. It was an odd perspective, looking down into the nests of birds instead of up. I felt like a voyeur. Then, as if some secret signal compelled them, they suddenly rose into the air, a graceful white-and-gray squadron. As they lifted off, the branches beneath them swayed slightly and the leaves shivered. The small sound reverberated in the air like a tuning fork as it nears the end of its vibrations.
From Perugia, we were to travel by train to Rome and then to Sorrento. On the bus to the station we were told that a train strike, already affecting travel north of Perugia, might force a change of plan. Of course,