EIGHT

The Do-Good Sister of Via Margutta

WE ALWAYS DECEIVE OURSELVES TWICE ABOUT THE PEOPLE WE LOVE—FIRST TO THEIR ADVANTAGE, THEN TO THEIR DISADVANTAGE.

—Albert Camus, A Happy Death

In a blue-curtained cubicle, the doctor flicked her glossy chestnut hair over her shoulder like a model in a television commercial. She applied a third and final stitch to the cut on Alec’s forehead while he studied the amber flecks in her hazel eyes, trying not to flinch unmanfully.

“Breathe. You’re not breathing,” she said, concentrating on tying off the thread.

Alec realized that he had indeed been holding his breath. He let go, surprised by how much better he felt. He became conscious of her breath on his forehead, steady and warm. She stepped back and shifted focus from the wound to the man.

“You’ll have a small scar,” she said, “but this is a face that can carry a scar.”

“You mean so ugly it doesn’t matter?” said Alec, secretly alarmed but not wanting to appear vain.

“No, that’s not what I mean,” she said, looking boldly at him.

Alec felt his body stir and quicken. He smiled and discovered it hurt to smile.

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

“Um, some place off Piazza del Popolo.”

“That’s just near me. Near my apartment.”

Behind the doctor Meg appeared, bearing two espressos in white waxed-paper cups. “Your English is excellent!” she said with an edge intended to communicate that she had intercepted the doctor’s attempted flirtation with her husband.

“Thank you,” said the doctor, rounding her vowels crisply. “That would be because I am English.”

Alec piped up with an introduction. “Meg, this is Dr. Stephanie…” he faltered, remembering her first name but not her last.

“Cope,” she said. “Stephanie Cope.”

“Dr. Cope, this is my wife, Meg.”

“You’re married,” said the doctor.

“To each other, yes!” said Meg merrily.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize.” Stephanie briefly contemplated stabbing herself with the stitching needle or nearest scalpel. Will I ever develop a capacity for self-editing? she despaired.

“Oh, don’t be sorry,” said Meg. “We’re really very happy.”

They all laughed, but Meg laughed the hardest because she was the most hilarious. She downed her shot of espresso. Then she downed Alec’s shot for good measure.

As Dr. Stephanie put a bandage over Alec’s stitches, he took great care not to look at her.

“I’ll take the stitches out in a week or so,” said the doctor.

“We’ll be back home by then,” said Meg.

“We’re only here for a day,” said Alec.

“Only one day in Rome?” said the doctor.

“You know us Americans. Very short attention spans,” said Meg, marveling that she had never pursued a career in stand-up. They all laughed again.

Dr. Cope discharged Alec and, as it was the end of her shift and she would be heading home, offered them a lift to their hotel. Alec accepted, and Meg declined, then Meg declined on behalf of both of them. Out in the waiting room, Meg told a triage nurse to order a taxi. The nurse was so taken aback that it did not occur to him to say no.

Outside, the sky had intensified to a deep brilliant blue, electrified by the setting sun. Having absorbed the heat of the day, the stones of Rome were now radiating it back in eddies. They waited with their bags on the small pedestrian island in the parking area until it became clear that no taxi was coming. Meg tried calling one from her cell but could not understand the stream of Italian that poured forth, so she hung up. She called back again and shouted instructions over the top of the person speaking, but this had no effect either. Eventually, Alec persuaded her to cross the small bridge that connected the island to the rest of the city and try their luck on the busy Lungotevere where traffic was passing all the time.

Despite assurances that he was perfectly fine, Meg forced Alec to sit on their luggage while she attempted to wave down a taxi. A powder-blue Fiat Bambino slowed, and Dr. Cope wound down the driver’s window. “Come on,” she said. “You’ll never get a cab at this hour.” Meg begged to differ; it had been her experience, with the right dress and shoes, that she could hail a cab in Rome at any time. Nevertheless, she accepted the offer with a smile.

It soon became apparent that the only way to squeeze the three of them and their bags into the silly little car was to wedge Meg in the backseat and feed the bags through the sunroof on top of her. Alec pretended to be concerned for Meg’s comfort, but she could tell that he was loving the sight of her with limbs enfolded, face squished against the side window. You’ll keep, she thought.

As Stephanie negotiated the traffic like a rally driver, it occurred to Meg that she was one of those annoying women who did everything well. In the front seat Alec was thinking exactly the same thing about the pretty doctor, only he didn’t find it annoying at all.

“This is very kind,” said Alec.

Stephanie flashed him a smile in return. “Actually, you’re doing me the favor,” she said. “I can’t tell you what a relief it is to be able to prattle away in English for a while.”

“So what brought you to Rome?” he asked.

Dr. Stephanie sighed. “I spent the last few years in a medical unit in Gaza, and before that I was at an orphanage in Baghdad,” she said. “So I guess I’m going through some compassion fatigue. I guess that’s what you’d call it. Anyway, Rome seemed like the perfect place to recoup. That sounds very self-indulgent, doesn’t it?”

“Not at all,” said Alec, delighted that his wife was listening.

With her face pressed against the window, Meg was still able to roll her eyes.

The Fiat swept around the great graceful oval of the Piazza del Popolo, past its ancient central obelisk, and headed down the busy shopping strip of Via del Babuino, brimming with Romans and tourists alike. Meg usually thrived in the evening heat, but she was beginning to melt.

“What brings you to Rome?” Dr. Stephanie asked.

“What brings us to Rome?” Alec said.

Meg had no idea which way he was going to go with this. He might confess the true nature of their—what had he called it?—vacuous and unimportant mission, seizing the opportunity to contrast the nobility of the woman in the front seat with the superficiality of the woman in the backseat. Or. He may be too embarrassed to confess the pale motivation for their journey and simply make something up.

Both would have been defeats in Meg’s eyes, so she leaped in before he could say anything more. “We’re here on a secret mission,” she said. “We could tell you what it is, but then of course we’d have to kill you.” It was a tired line, but it was edgy, Meg thought; not quite war-zone edgy, but it did the job.

“Oh, look, this is my street! And yours now,” said Dr. Stephanie. As she turned right from the Vicolo dell’Orto di Napoli into the Via Margutta, she gestured airily to her left. “Fellini used to live down there.”

Of course he did, thought Meg. Of course you live on the most stupidly beautiful street where a famous film director once held court. Of course. Just then, to add insult to injury, all the way down the Via Margutta, the coach lights flickered on. It was a magical sight.

“And I’m in there,” said Stephanie, pointing to a magnificent courtyard draped in Virginia creeper and lanterns of purple wisteria. “It’s just a tiny studio.”

Meg immediately imagined a vast rococo suite, complete with its own walnut-floored ballroom, but if they had stopped to look in, she would have seen that Stephanie was not exaggerating. The studio was tiny. It was also beautiful. It had been a part of a coach house, built into the boundary wall of the garden of a Renaissance villa. The villa had long been divided into flats and studios, once inhabited by painters and sculptors. On the ground floor a few galleries still displayed art, but this was clearly no longer an area for struggling artists—or anyone who struggled, for that matter.

The owner of Stephanie’s building had given her the studio for very low rent in the hope of forging a closer bond with the lovely doctor, preferably every Tuesday and Thursday night, when his wife was at bridge. But Stephanie, oblivious, in her Anglo-Saxon way, to the kind of Latin contract she had unwittingly entered, simply smiled and laughed when her benefactor made the first of several advances. Eventually, he had given up.

Moving slowly now through the press of pedestrians, they approached a wall fountain of two gargoyles mounted on angular stone that gave it an odd, military air. As they passed, Meg saw a girl place a champagne flute under the gargoyle’s stream and fill it with water. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that nothing in Rome, not a single gesture, ever seemed ordinary. The car passed antique shops and exclusive boutiques, jewels gleaming enticingly from subtly lit alcoves. A gallery blasted great splashes of color from huge vivid canvases.

“This is you,” said Stephanie as she pulled into the entrance of the Hotel San Marco lined with terra-cotta pots of lovingly tended Buxus and azaleas. Alec looked up at the magnificent yellow-washed palazzo draped luxuriously in glossy vines. A doorman dressed in a cool gray silk suit opened the door and extracted the luggage through the sunroof so Meg could unfold her sweaty limbs and clamber out of the backseat.

It was not an elegant entrance, but Meg was well pleased with the destination.

“Actually, I’ve got the day off tomorrow,” Stephanie began to say. “I could—”

Meg cut her off. “We’ll be running around like crazy people, but thanks for the offer.”

Alec shook Stephanie’s hand and added, “And thanks for the brain surgery.”

“All part of the service,” said Stephanie. “It was great to meet you.”

“You, too,” said Alec. Without looking at his wife, he added, “Would you like to join us for some supper?”

“Oh, Alec, the poor doctor wants to get home and relax,” said Meg brightly. “Besides, we haven’t even checked in yet.”

Stephanie took the hint and said her good-byes.

“Maybe next time,” said Alec.

He watched the doctor execute an awkward five-point turn and head back down the Via Margutta. Then he went inside and joined Meg, who was checking in.

“I think she wanted to stay,” he said to his wife.

“I think she wanted to have your babies, though Lord knows how she’d schedule it between immunizing the orphans and saving the rebel soldiers,” said Meg without pausing from searching in the recesses of her vast vintage Gucci shoulder bag for their passports.

“I prefer you when you’re jealous,” said Alec. “You get this really interesting edge.”

Meg excused herself from the desk clerk. She took a breath and faced her husband. A summation of her adventure thus far formed in her head: She’d just flown halfway around the world and been in a car wreck that she was partly if not wholly responsible for; a car wreck that had caused the destruction of an irreplaceable and uninsured Chinese urn as well as almost killing him (her husband) and an obese father of eight who worked part-time as a courier. She’d been in an ambulance, taken to hospital, and accosted by a hairy nurse. She was tired and hungry and badly in need of a shower, and she didn’t give a flying fig about some British twit rushing around the world saving everyone.

She was on the brink of sharing all this with Alec when she suddenly thought better of it. Instead she flashed him one of her smiles and said, “Let’s go have an Aperol Spritz, okay?”