The Invitation(56)

‘He does not look well,’ the Contessa says.

‘No.’

They look at the painting for a time in silence. Then the Contessa leaves, telling him she is going to check in on the photocall. But Hal remains for a while longer, unable to drag his eyes away.

Afterwards he wanders into the city. Some of the medieval passageways that thread their way through the heart of the city are so slender, and the buildings that flank them so tall, that the light barely penetrates the lower reaches, even in the brightest part of the day. A few feet remain permanently steeped in blue shadow. He is reminded of the lower reaches of the ocean, those cold hidden parts of the seabed that remain in constant darkness. Here, he thinks, is history, layer upon layer of it, in all its glory and grime and intrigue.

He wanders without paying much attention to the direction in which he is walking, his mind turning over the matter of the portraits.

‘Hal?’

He glances up, and spots her through the throng. Stella. It is the first time he has seen her properly since his dream. And their conversation of yesterday has caused a shift, too. Something between them has been removed; something else has taken its place.

She is walking fast, and as she nears him, he finds himself taking a step back, surprised by her look of panic. She speaks quickly, her hand worrying the silk scarf at her throat. ‘I was walking Nina – Gaspari asked me to. He said that it would be fine to let her off the lead, because she normally stays close by – but she’s gone.’

‘We’ll find her.’

‘I can’t bear the thought of it. If he lost her …’ Her eyes are wild. He understands the worry, but her anxiety seems out of all proportion. In her, usually so collected, it is all the more marked. He finds himself wondering what else might be behind it: what fragment of memory suddenly dislodged.

‘We’ll find her,’ he says again, soothingly, ‘she can’t have gone far.’

She doesn’t appear to have heard him. ‘I don’t understand it. She was there, and I got distracted by some people pushing past. And then, when I looked down, she was gone. You don’t suppose—’

‘What?’

‘Well, that someone might have taken her? Hal, if she’s gone, I don’t know what I’d do …’

‘No,’ he says, gently, ‘I’m sure that’s not it. She’s probably followed an interesting scent.’

They begin their search, threading their way through the streets, trying to remember landmarks that will help them to find their way back to the start, should Nina return there: a shrine inlaid into the cornerstone of a house, a faded fa?ade, a grocers’ display that fills the air with the wet-earth scent of overripe tomatoes. He has to hurry to keep up with Stella at times – she seems propelled by her anxiety.

At some point the streets grow even thinner, and their surroundings less picturesque. This is a poorer, dirtier part of the city. Washing, strung across the gap above, flutters like bunting in the breeze.

A group of similarly scantily dressed women shift in the shadows like a shoal of exotic fish, murmuring and beckoning. One of them, sitting on a doorstep in little more than a stained pink pegnoir, face so lacquered with make-up that it is difficult to tell her age, leans forward and calls to Hal: ‘Your wife is beautiful, signor, but I can show you things of which she would never dream.’

Amused, he glances at Stella, and sees that she is looking at the woman oddly, almost fearfully.

They call Nina’s name, and the sounds ricochet about them before being absorbed into the stone. In these gloomier passageways the light has taken on a shifting, changeable quality, like dusk. Several times Hal thinks he sees something move in the shadows – only to look again and realize that it was a trick of the eye.

Suddenly, Stella stops.

‘What is it?’

‘I’ve just thought,’ she says. ‘I’ve stopped paying attention to the way we’ve come.’

‘So have I. We’ll ask someone.’

Around the next corner the street opens suddenly, like an exhalation, into a small courtyard, with a stone basin spouting a plume of water. The sudden space is a relief – but it is also a dead end. He is about to suggest they turn back when he hears something. He listens, concentrating on the tiny sound.

‘Do you hear that?’

She listens, intent. ‘Yes, I think so—’

A whimpering, coming from a dark corner of the courtyard. As they look, one of the shadows consolidates and becomes the little dog. She makes as though to run to them, but falters in her step. Stella rushes to her and lifts her into her arms, oblivious to the grimy paw-prints appearing on her shirt. Her relief is palpable. Hal watches as she examines the animal with exquisite care. ‘Her paw,’ she says, showing Hal.

It is a small cut, but smeared with grime. Hal picks her up and tucks her under one arm, and together they wash the wound in the fountain, the dog looking up at them pitifully. Then Stella unfastens the scarf from around her neck to tie about it.

Hal goes to stop her. ‘You don’t need to do that. We’ll find a napkin somewhere.’

‘No,’ Stella says. ‘I don’t like it much.’

He looks at the scarf wrapped about the animal’s paw and sees the word printed in the corner: Hermès. He thinks of the diamond bracelet around her wrist the first time they met, the pale fur about her shoulders. How different their worlds are, he thinks. And how far she has come from that teenager she described, walking barefoot in the dirt with her chickens, foraging for herbs. But then he remembers her catlike agility on the path yesterday, her knowledge of all the wildflowers. Perhaps that girl is there, still, if one is to look for her. And perhaps in the very act of sacrificing a silk scarf for a dog’s dirty paw, she is making herself known.