The Truth About Death

  “What about head lice?”

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “Pidocchi del capo.”

  “I had head lice when I was in fifth grade,” she said. “I had to put Vaseline on my hair. It was horrible.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Ordinary shampoo doesn’t work at all.”

  “You must be a good person.”

  “It’s part of my vocation. ‘Vocation’ means ‘calling,’ you know. Not just a job …”

  “I know what ‘vocation’ means,” she said. “I’ve got one too.”

  They ate a Roman dish, cacio e pepe—spaghetti with pepper and Pecorino Romano.

  “Why not Parmesan?” she asked.

  “Not enough bite.”

  Hildi held her fork vertically and twirled a little bundle of spaghetti strands from the edges of her bowl, working her way in toward the center, the way Marcella had taught her. They ate without talking, and when they’d finished she wiped her plate clean with a piece of bread.

  They both ordered stuffed squid for a second course. And a salad.

  He told her that his father owned a Stearman biplane and that his father had gone to Galesburg with his girlfriend two years ago to the Stearman Fly-In.

  Hildi wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not.

  “You’ll see,” he said, and he began to speak of members of his family as if she already knew them, as if she were a part of this world: “Don’t be put off by Cousin Gianni … Ask my aunt Lotte about the time she went to New York … Don’t mention my mother to my father and his girlfriend. She’s living in Milan now. My mother, that is … You’ll like my sister. You can pet her Seeing Eye dog, but ask first.”

  “She’s blind?”

  “That’s why she has a Seeing Eye dog.”

  “I get it.”

  “She went to a special school for the blind, but you don’t get a dog till you’re eleven or twelve. She’s a singer. We could go to hear her sometime. She’s going to be at Club Dante next week, on Vicolo del Piede, behind the piazza. She has a new voice coach now, and she’s sending out demos, but the competition is fierce. Today you can hook your computer up to a synthesizer and all you have to do is hum along.”

  Hildi excused herself to go to the bathroom, and when she came back the waiter had brought their squid and their salads. When they had finished they each had a bowl of fruit—called a macedonia because the fruit is chopped up like Macedonia—and then they went for ice cream. They ate their little cups of ice cream in front of a mask store, Maddelena Atelier, with a NO FOTOS sign in the window. Checco knew the owner, Salvatore, and his daughter, Maddelena. He would be happy to introduce them. “Salvatore is very famous. He exhibits in Venice at Carnevale—all over the world—masks for Carnevale, for the theater, for collectors. But they’re very expensive.” And Checco pointed out masks modeled after Maddelena’s face. “Maddelena’s very beautiful, but not in a conventional way.”

  “Nobody’s beautiful in a conventional way anymore,” Hildi said. “Why is that? Why can’t a woman be ‘conventionally beautiful,’ and if she’s not, why does she have to have a ‘special something’? I mean … isn’t it enough just to be what you are?”

  “You’re expecting me to say something about you?” Checco put his hand on her arm.

  “Yes,” she said. “Something nice.”

  “You know,” he said, “a little makeup really can make a woman more beautiful. When you were in the bathroom … you did something … nice.”

  “It’s just a little blusher,” she said, “and I freshened up my lipstick.” She pointed at a double mask in the window. “That’s your face too, isn’t it?” she said. “You and Maddelena.” The two faces were turned toward each other, red lips almost touching. “Can two people wear the mask at the same time?”

  “Just one,” he said.

  “You and Maddelena,” Hildi said. “You were lovers.”

  He didn’t say no right away, and she knew she was right.

  “In my new life,” she said, “I’m not going to say I’m going to do something if I’m not going to do it; I’m not going to tell a man I love him if I don’t, not even if we’re having sex, and I’m not going to pretend that a one-night stand is anything but a one-night stand. And I’m never going to put Parmesan cheese on spaghetti alle vongole.” (She wagged her finger the way Marcella wagged her finger.)

  “Is that what you call ‘a warning shot across the bow’?”

  “Something like that. But across my bow, not yours.” When he didn’t say anything, she said, “ ‘Tutored by bitter experience.’ It’s a line from Chekhov. Josh used to say it all the time. My ex-husband.” She paused. “Except he never seemed to learn anything from his bitter experiences.” She paused again. “But then, maybe I didn’t learn anything either.”

  She liked the fact that he didn’t try to argue with her, didn’t insist that she was too young to talk like that, that she had her whole life ahead of her, and so on, and she started to laugh at herself.

  Hildi didn’t want anything to change. She’d stepped outside of ordinary linear time and was standing at the center, where she could feel the world revolving around her: Bar Belli, the museums and galleries, the shops, tea or coffee with Marcella or Roberto or Griet or the Russian cleaning lady, Carlo Menta with Checco. But when Nana reminded her that the next day, November fifteenth, was the halfway point of their trip, linear time started up again, rolling down a straight track, unstoppable. She got out Nana’s camera and skimmed through the manual. She’d refused to carry the camera earlier because she hadn’t wanted to look like a tourist, but now she didn’t care. Maybe because she didn’t feel like a tourist and maybe because she wanted to capture everything, starting with the mask store—Maddelena Atelier.

  She got up very early one morning to take pictures. On Via della Lungaretta metal gates were rumbling open. The street was being transformed. She wanted to send some photos to her father, wanted to persuade him to buy masks for the funeral home. The NO FOTOS sign was on the inside of the window, so she couldn’t move it. The store itself was dark like a cave. She couldn’t see very far into it. And the sun reflected off the glass, making it difficult to see anything but her own reflection. She wanted a shot of the Caravaggio Medusa mask for Nana, of the light reflecting off the gray-and-black backs of the snakes. The original was in Florence, not Rome, so they wouldn’t get to see it, but maybe this was better.

  She was looking for just the right angle when a woman called to her in English: “No fotos. Can’t you see the sign?”

  “I’m not hurting anything,” Hildi said, and then she added, “You’re Maddelena. It’s very early. It’s not even seven o’clock.”

  “It’s my shop. I can come and go as I please.”

  “I want to send some pictures to my father,” she said. “I’d like to buy some masks for our funeral home.”

  “Ah. You’re Checco’s friend, the one who’s going to be an impresario funebre.”

  “Right.”

  “Funny, you look like an ordinary American tourist.”

  “I suppose I am. But I want something for the visitation room—where everyone gathers to look at the body and say good-bye.”

  “You mean a camera ardente—a burning room, an ardent room, a passion room?”

  “I suppose. Something that tells the truth about death. Right now my father’s got sentimental sunsets and inspiring sunrises. Don’t you think the masks tell the truth about death? Some kind of truth, anyway. Some kind of recalibrated reality. They’re not lugubrious, not Victorian, but they’re not a stupid ‘celebration of life’ either. They’re something else. I’ll have to figure it out. Whatever they are, they speak to me. Are they expensive?”

  “Recalibrated?”

  “Transformed.”

  Maddelena nodded. “Some of the half masks that just cover your eyes—fifty euros. The bigger ones—two, three, four hundred euros. But you’re in love with Checco? He’ll buy one for you. It’s wonderful, isn’t it? Love. Till
you get to know each other. I give it about six weeks.”

  “ ”I’ll be gone by then,” Hildi said. “But tell me about the Caravaggio Medusa mask. My grandmother wants to see all the Caravaggios in Rome.”

  “Caravaggio’s Medusa’s in Florence,” she said. “And my Medusa mask is four hundred euros.”

  Hildi put her camera back in its case. “You’re joking.”

  Maddelena laughed. “About the mask? No. About love? No. How long are you going to be in Rome?”

  “Another two weeks.”

  “Perfect. You’ll be fine. And you’ll be looking for a nice present for Checco. How about a mask of your face?”

  “I’m hoping my father will buy a lot of masks.”

  “Maybe he won’t. But he’ll buy one modeled after you for sure, and you can buy one for Checco so he’ll be able to remember you, at least for a little while.” She took out a large ring of keys from her large purse and unlocked the door. Three locks.

  “It’s like Aladdin’s cave,” Hildi said. “A place where you might run into magicians or maybe a genie. But wasn’t Aladdin’s cave booby-trapped?” Maddelena didn’t know the expression, and Hildi had to explain. “But you’re okay if you have a magic ring.”

  “That’s always a problem, isn’t it, the magic ring?”

  Hildi looked around at the masks. Masks covered the walls; masks hung from the ceiling; masks were propped up on tables.

  “These aren’t empty symbols, you know,” Maddelena said. “They have power; they confer authority; they change you. They can hide you, or they can reveal your true self.”

  “Is that why they’re so expensive?” Hildi didn’t think her father would be too enthusiastic, and she didn’t know about Nana’s credit line on the credit card, and didn’t really want to ask.

  “They’re so expensive because they’re beautiful, and they’re a lot of work. You want to try one?” She took the Medusa mask off the table and handed it to Hildi. Hildi put it on and tied the strings behind her head.

  “Can you feel the difference? Look in the mirror.”

  Hildi had trouble seeing through the little eyeholes, but finally managed to locate her reflection.

  “How strong you are, how much power you have.”

  Hildi made a noise.

  “No, no. You’ve got to accept your power. You’re Medusa. You’ve gotten a bad deal—a ‘bad rap,’ don’t you say? You’ve been mistreated, misunderstood all along. Look at this man Checco. You shouldn’t be afraid of him. You think you’re afraid of him, but in fact …”

  “I’m not afraid of him.”

  “No? Did he tell you how he goes to the school and checks the little children for head lice? He tells all his girlfriends what a nice man he is, how kind to the little children.”

  “He is kind.”

  “You shouldn’t be afraid of him, because I can tell you that he’s afraid of you. You terrify this man. Look at him.” Hildi started to look around. “No, no. Not here. But you need to be careful too. Italian men can’t imagine a strong woman who isn’t a monster—or their mother. Don’t let that happen to you. You don’t need to explain yourself. You turn them to stone because they’re afraid, because they refuse to look into your eyes. Tell him not to be afraid. Tell him that if he looks into your eyes, it will be like looking into a lake. He’ll see himself drowning. Or swimming.”

  Hildi could feel a surge of power as Maddelena talked to her, but she was a little bit angry too. “You know something, Maddelena?” she said. “You’re just like all the Italian women I’ve met. You’re very nice, very confident, and very helpful, but you think I need to be tweaked. Checco’s the only person I’ve met in Italy who thinks I’m okay just as I am.”

  “Tweaked?”

  “Made better, improved.”

  “Ottimizzato,” she said. “Optimized. Good. I see you’re not afraid of me either.” She laughed—a nice, rich, dirty laugh.

  Two days later Maddelena made a plaster cast of Hildi’s face. Salvatore himself was there but only stayed long enough to ask Hildi a few questions. He spoke in Italian, and Checco translated while Maddelena mixed the plaster.

  “Are you afraid of the dark?”

  “No.”

  “Claustrophobic?”

  “No,” she said, though she was a little claustrophobic.

  “Hai mai avuto una risonanza magnetica?” asked Salvatore.

  “An MRI,” Checco said.

  “No, but my brother and my cousin shut me in a coffin once in the room over the garage. They banged on the lid and wouldn’t let me out. It was horrible, and I was glad that my grandfather whipped them both with a strap.”

  “But you want to go ahead?”

  She nodded.

  They were not in Maddelena Atelier but in a nearby workshop behind one of the restaurants in the piazza. It was a real workshop: sculpting tools of all kinds on pegboards, buckets full of slushy liquids and sacks of plaster on the floor, jars of Vaseline. Cans of paint on a worktable. Hildi was lying on her back on a long table with a couple of blankets on it.

  Checco was there, partly because Hildi didn’t trust Maddelena, and partly because she wanted him to take pictures with her camera to capture everything.

  “ ‘If you start to panic,’ ” Checco translated for Salvatore, “ ‘just wave your arms and Maddelena will stop. Do you understand?’ ”

  “Sì.”

  “It’s just like getting a haircut,” Checco said.

  “It’s not like that at all,” Maddelena said. “It’s not ‘Do you want it long or short?’ It’s not ‘Do you want it feathered in the back?’ It’s not a question of curling the sections away so you don’t box in a round face.” She shook her head.

  “Her face isn’t round,” Checco said.

  “It’s a little round.”

  “It’s not round at all.”

  Maddelena translated for her father, who said to Hildi, “ ‘You don’t have a cold? Allergies? Anything to interfere with your breathing?’ ”

  “No.”

  And he said to Maddelena, as he was leaving: “Don’t let any plaster get in her nostrils.”

  “Papà,” she said, exasperated, “I’ve done this before, you know.”

  Checco translated.

  “Pull this stocking over your head,” Maddelena said to Hildi. “Pull it down just to your hairline. Then I’m going to rub your eyebrows with Vaseline so the plaster won’t pull them off—I’ve mixed it thicker than usual—and then I’m going to put a piece of foam covered with a sheet of plastic around your face.”

  Hildi pulled the stocking over her head, and then Maddelena ladled the plaster over her face, adding layers, using a palette knife to spread it.

  Hildi was afraid it would run in her nostrils but Maddelena always caught it just in time with the palette knife. Hildi could feel the knife smoothing and scraping. She experienced some panic but kept it under control.

  What she didn’t like was waiting for the plaster to set. She couldn’t see, couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t open her mouth to speak, but she could hear Maddelena and Checco talking in Italian. Were they talking about her? Was her face too round? Not round enough? She couldn’t understand. Or was Maddelena asking Checco about his intentions? Or was she recalling the times they’d made love? Was she touching him? Were they going to kill her? Was she going crazy?

  She couldn’t open her eyes, but she could see the masks staring at her. Unfinished masks in the workshop. Not the beautifully finished ones in the shop. Unpainted. Corpselike. Looking down at her. Demons, elves, clowns, bird heads, the plague doctor, Dante Alighieri. Maddelena’s face was everywhere, crowned with leaves or fruit, shining like the moon, sporting a clown nose, kissing, winking, laughing. She imagined them in bed and started to get aroused. She could move her hand, wanted to move it to her crotch. She had to struggle to keep it at her side, to ignore this arousal and also the itch that was starting to burn her neck like a single fresh mosquito bite. She tried to think
about the horses, Stormy and Salty, but they galloped away, carrying Maddelena and Checco on their backs. She let them go, and the itch resolved itself into a drop of warm oil and then disappeared entirely.

  She was startled by Maddelena’s hand on her shoulder. She’d been asleep. “Just lie still,” Maddelena said. “I’m going to ease the cast off your face. You’ll feel it pull on your eyebrows, but it won’t pull them off.”

  In five minutes she was able to open her eyes, and when she did, she was almost blinded by the light. She was on the edge of tears.

  “What were you talking about?”

  Maddelena and Checco looked at each other.

  “When I had the plaster on my face.”

  “I was saying how beautiful you are,” Maddelena said, brushing her face, scraping off bits of plaster. “I was asking him if he took you to his school where he checks all the little children for head lice.”

  “No, but I’d like to go.”

  “I told you he takes all his girlfriends there. To show them what a good person he is.”

  “He is a good person.”

  “How about flying? Has he taken you flying yet?”

  “We’re going to go on Saturday—”

  “Maddelena finds goodness offensive,” Checco interrupted.

  “That’s only because I’m jealous. Bad people are always jealous of good people, don’t you think? They always are wanting to bring them down. But now I’m going to stop all that nonsense and just be happy for you.”

  On Saturday they drove out to a little airport in Ostia, near Fiumicino. Checco was going to take her up in his father’s Stearman.

  “Did you take Maddelena flying?” she asked.

  “In another life,” he said.

  They were going to meet Checco’s father, Enzo, and his girlfriend, Chiara, in the flight club, and Checco’s sister too. The narrow city streets, crowded with restaurants and bars, apartment buildings, and small shops, gave way to flat, open spaces. The sky was gray, closed. Checco was driving sensibly, but she took a deep breath as they passed an isolated Lottomatica, where you could buy lottery tickets or bet on a horse race or buy minutes for your cell phone.