19

“The hospital where she works is on a tiny island called Tiberina. It’s the only island in the Tiber River and it juts into the current like the prow of a ship. Two stone bridges lead to the center of Rome on one side and to Trastevere, where my daughter lives, on the other.”

Pecheur and I sat facing each other in the leather armchairs. I had filled our after-dinner cups of coffee and carefully removed his old recording of A German Requiem from its album cover and placed it on the turntable. The grave majesty of Brahms’s music filled the room. It had taken Pecheur several months to plan his trip to Rome, and then he had extended his visit and traveled to France and Holland. He looked thinner and paler than when he had left, and for his first dinner home, I had welcomed him with salmon in a sauce spiced with cumin and coriander.

“The bridges date back to the time of Caesar,” he continued, “but even when those bridges were built, the island had already been a healing sanctuary for centuries. Pilgrims came to be cured by Aesculapius. They had to purify themselves before they could enter the god’s sacred precincts.”

“What kind of purification?” I asked.

“Bathing in the Tiber,” he answered, “fasting or abstaining from certain foods, giving up wine, cleansing themselves with oil and smoke.”

“Smoke?”

“In a ritual using aromatic woods and herbs. The smoke rises to the heavens.” He sipped the coffee. “I felt like a pilgrim myself. There’s always been a church on the site of the ancient temple. Today it’s called St. Bartholomew of the Island. The altar is a magnificent porphyry bathtub that dates to Roman times. Beneath the altar are the relics of St. Bartholomew.”

“His bones?” I asked.

“Yes. Well, bones believed to be his. In front of the altar is the medieval well that served as the temple’s sacred spring. It’s covered over now.”

He paused and brought his cup to his lips. In the silence I listened more closely to the requiem. It had been recorded by the Berlin Philharmonic with a stately tempo that intensified its majesty. The swelling voices of the Choir of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral surrounded us. Pecheur returned the cup to its saucer with a clink and set them on his side table.

“I spent many hours sitting in the nave of the church. At first I was impatient, eager for the workday to end so I could visit with my daughter. But after a while I began to feel calmer. I studied the murals that portrayed the highest spiritual drama. I let my thoughts drift across the span of my life. Here I was, spending my evenings with a woman I had seen born and whom I had watched grow from infant to adult. Maybe not being with her for a while made me think like this. I felt the force of life, the changes that bring us from one age to another.”

“You had wanted to speak with her … ”

“Yes, we discussed what we had to.”

I waited for him to say more.

“It’s curious, the way the island became a place for healing. The Romans wanted to quarantine people infected with plague. The best way was to separate them on an island like Tiberina. Only after they brought together so many sick people did they begin trying to heal them or to ease their suffering. Our hospitals grew from these ancient healing centers.”

“The hospital is near the church?”

“Yes. It’s called Fatebenefratelli. My daughter is in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She took me everywhere, like a tourist. To the Colosseum, the Forum, and the Pantheon; St. Peter’s Basilica, the catacombs, and the Trevi Fountain. I was in Rome half a century ago. So much has changed. The crowds of visitors! The lines. She drove me out of the city to Hadrian’s Villa and the ancient seaport of Ostia Antica. To have the past so much a part of the present—it gave me an odd feeling. So many lives have passed in that city. Seeing where they lived and worked, I could imagine the people who filled the streets and then passed on, as others came to take their place, to have their turn in the Eternal City.”

“Here nothing is that old.”

“No, of course not.” He smiled and shook his head. “It was very sweet to be with my daughter.”

I nodded.

“In the church,” he continued, “when I had sat long enough, I could feel the water rising from that ancient spring.”

“You said the well is capped.”

“Yes, that’s true, yet I sensed its movement up from the depths, flowing through a maze of cracks and tiny niches. In my mind, it filled the porphyry vessel with water that had been holy for thousands of years. Imagining this pooling of the sacred water soothed me in a way I can’t really explain. At some point I began to recall a place I had visited many years before, a château in France.”

“Which one?” I asked.

“Château de Chenonceau. It’s built across the Cher River. Arches rise up from the river to support its structure. If you look from the riverbank, you can see the reflection of the château on the water. The arches blend together to make ellipses, half-real and half-mirrored. Many times I’ve thought I would like to sleep in a place like that, suspended above water, the current flowing beneath me. In the quiet of the church, I kept thinking of it again and again. Finally I decided to call the son of an old friend, who works in Paris for the Ministre de l’intérieur. I asked if he could arrange for me to spend one night in the château.”

“What did he say?”

“At first blush—impossible. Then I explained that all my life I had wanted to do it and that I didn’t know how much longer I might have to undertake such an adventure. He promised to try, though he sounded dubious. Two days later he called with the news that I would be allowed one night in the François I bedroom. I could hardly believe he had done it. The bedroom is named after the French king who slept there on two visits to the château. I scheduled my visit so I could go directly from Rome. I hadn’t fully recalled the château’s splendor—the extensive gardens that include a circular maze, the Renaissance furniture, the tapestries from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the masterpieces by artists such as Rubens, Tintoretto, Rigaud, and van Loo. In my bedroom was a large walnut cabinet carved with a mastery that I, as a model maker, especially appreciated and admired. The cabinet’s two front legs are shaped as a sea god and goddess. They have lion claws for feet, cornucopian legs and lower torsos, though their chests, arms, and heads are human. Each holds an outstretched arm to take the hand of the other.

“Alone in this ancient castle, at first I wandered through the hallways and chambers, too excited to sleep. When fatigue came over me, I settled in my bed and listened for the musical murmur of the Cher’s current. I heard nothing. The château had been built too well, or too high above the river, for me to hear the water running. Disappointed, for a moment I doubted the wisdom of my visit, of my choice to make real this fantasy that in itself had always given me such pleasure. Then I slipped into sleep like a swimmer relaxing into the inky blackness of the depths. The next thing I recall is a dream so vivid that when I woke I sat up in the canopied bed.”

He tipped back his cup to drink the last of the coffee.

“Would you like some more?” I asked.

He waved his hand to indicate no.

“What kind of dream?” I asked.

“I floated high above the dark side of the earth. I could see the flares of erupting volcanoes spewing lava and fiery gases like the explosions of enormous bombs. The burning inside of the earth was finding gaps to burst through to the surface of our world.”

“If it was night,” I asked, “could you see continents and oceans?”

“I could only see the line of volcanoes like a string of lights. The floating was pleasant, but I felt unready to be there. I can’t explain why, but it was urgent that I not remain at that height. Then the dream shifted, and I found myself on a small island surrounded by the vastness of the ocean. I stood on a peak, the rest of the island falling away in dense tropical jungle. On one side I saw high cliffs with enormous waves crashing against them. On the other side a wind blew with tremendous force. I could barely stand against it. I looked for a sign of human habitation, but there was nothing. No structures, no cultivated land, no boats.”

“Lonely,” I said.

“I was alone,” he answered, “but in the dream I didn’t feel lonely. I was … curious.”

“About what?”

“The forces, the waves and winds that buffeted this island. After I woke, the dream continued to work in me. I had the strongest impression that I could learn something from the island. Yet the dream didn’t tell me what, and the island appeared to offer nothing.”

I seldom remembered my dreams and, in any event, gave little thought to them. Clearly Pecheur believed in the significance of this dream.

“Slowly,” he continued, “I realized where I was, in an antique bed in the François I room in the castle of Chenonceau. And I knew something else—I knew the location of the island. I had to wait a minute to make sure I wasn’t still dreaming. I turned on the light they’d placed by the bedside and stood up. I recalled reading about such an island. It’s in the Pacific, at the farthest boundary of the United States. Many ships have wrecked there because it’s surrounded by reefs and mist. Between the heat, the constant wind, and the rainstorms that come every day, it’s one of the most inhospitable places in the world.”

“How did you know it was the same island?” I asked.

Pecheur studied me, his brow knit.

“The island in my dream had no latitude and longitude. If it wasn’t the same island, it might as well have been. The next morning,” he continued, “I spent a long time looking out the window, watching the river flow toward me and then beneath me. It made me think of my parents, myself, my daughter, her children. I had known so many rivers when I worked as a crewman after the war. I stood on decks and watched the Rhine, the Meuse, the Waal, the Nederrijn, and so many others flow beneath the ships’ bows. Even the flow of my thoughts seemed to me like a river. I stayed at the window until it was time to leave Chenonceau. As if I were ending a visit with an old friend, I didn’t want to leave. I took the train to Paris. Despite pleasant memories of visits there, or perhaps because my memories were pleasant and best left unchanged, I saw nothing to gain by stopping. I made a connection straightaway for the train to Rotterdam. My parents had lived nearby, in Delft, where china is made. Rotterdam was bombed in the war and rebuilt as a modern city. Delft escaped the destruction and I found it much as I remembered it, an old town with low, quaint buildings interlaced by canals. I started in the central square, following streets that had been familiar to me as a boy.

“My walking brought me to my childhood home, a three-story house of brick with twin peaks at the top of its facade. It stood in a wall of three-, four-, and five-story buildings that face a canal lined with boats on each side. I wondered who owned it now, who lived there. I couldn’t see in because lacy white curtains blocked my view. For a moment I considered knocking on the door, but I didn’t really want to go inside.

“Sitting on a bench, I looked toward the harbor, where a windmill’s spinning arms harvested the currents of air that blew in off the North Sea. Small motorboats moved along the canal. I could almost imagine myself in the house with my father, mother, and sister. I concentrated, to make my memories as solid as flesh, and for a few moments I felt a physical closeness to them. The family life I took for granted as a boy, never considered really, is now so far away. I even had a fantasy that I might buy the building and live there again. As if I could touch the past in that way.”

“What happened to your sister?” I asked. I had seen her in the black-and-white photographs that Pecheur kept on the bureau in his bedroom.

“She died in the Hongerwinter.”

“What is that?”

“The winter of famine at the end of the war.”

Seeing that I still didn’t understand, he continued.

“In September 1944, the Allies controlled the south of Holland. If they could capture the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem, all of Holland would be under their control within weeks. The Dutch government in exile called a rail strike to hamper the German armies, but the Allies failed to capture the bridge. In retaliation for the rail strike, the Germans banned all food transport into the occupied areas. This included Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Haarlem, and Delft. It was terrifying to see the food disappear. By November, when the ban was lifted in part, a harsh and early winter had begun. The canals froze over, so barges couldn’t bring food to us. The Germans destroyed locks and bridges to flood the countryside and stop the Allies, which made our situation worse. And the war had destroyed many of the farms. Even if there was food in the countryside, there was no way to bring it to the cities. My father and I took whatever we had—jewelry, clothing, even furniture—and walked in freezing weather to farms twenty and thirty miles away to try and trade for food. I fished through holes in the ice and trapped for what little I could catch. By February we were eating less than six hundred calories a day. The malnutrition stunted babies in the womb. If it had continued much longer, we would have all starved. At last the Germans allowed the Royal Air Force to drop food to us. By May, when we were liberated, more than thirty thousand people had died. My sister was one of them.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. The music had finished playing. “She was younger?”

“Yes, by five years.”

“It seems so unnecessary,” I said.

“My small room was on the top floor, under the eaves,” Pecheur said, seeming to ignore my remark. “The ceiling slanted to a peak in the room’s center. My father built the wooden table where I pieced together my first model boats and airplanes from balsa wood kits. I slept in a narrow bed under a window that looked over the canal. I loved to watch the purposeful motorboats chugging past and the sailboats gliding by like swans.”

“You remember the house fondly,” I said, “even though you suffered there when you were older.”

“Yes, that’s true.” His blue eyes had a distant, reflective look that reminded me of fire and ice. “I sat on the bench for an hour or more, looking at the facade and remembering. Then I walked along the canal and through the streets until I came to the cemetery where my parents and sister are buried. There isn’t much to say about my visit there, except how much I loved them. I can never thank them enough for what they gave me.”

He bent his head, his eyes glistening.

“Can I do anything?”

“There’s only one thing,” he answered, slowly rising from his armchair.

“Yes?”

“You and I should go to the island.”

“You said it’s as inhospitable as any place on the planet.”

“I feel there’s something for us to learn there.”

“But would you be able to?” I asked.

“If you go with me, I think I can.”

“If you want to go,” I answered, feeling how much I would prefer to go with him to Europe or anywhere that had culture, cities, history, “I’ll go with you.”