GRACE UNDER PRESSURE

Chapter 6 Truce

"How did you know we were here?" I demanded. "Have you been stalking us?"

"He hasn't," put in Michel unexpectedly. "He and I met here, when he explained the incident at the lake to me. I suppose he guessed we would come here again."

"Si," said Antonio.

"So what do you want this time?" I asked.

"La peni--"

"Penance again," groused Marghareta. "You must really be looking forward to dropping dead and going to Dante's Purgatory."

"Let him talk," said Michel.

"I have, as Americans say, screwed out," said Antonio. "I thought that, by demanding a trial of my attackers, I could persuade Beppo not to get even. But I did not know that they would require voi to describe being, ahem --"

"A nudo culo, right," I said. "I don't need another bottle of wine."

"I was going to offer more. You like visiting Tuscany, si? My brother and I have a farm at the base of the mountain. I invite you to spend a day there--"

"And hope we'll dip our skins again?" demanded Marghareta.

Antonio looked confused at the phrase, but the general meaning must have been clear. "No, you misunderstand. Michel may come too. Gracia can bring her lover. They can see that nothing's wrong. Beppo is away in France looking at horses to buy; he won't bother you."

"What about Francesca?" I asked.

He frowned. "She is not included. This problem is partly her fault."

"All right, we'll think about it," said Marghareta.

I let things slide after that. Next day I was back at work. Fellow workers wanted to know how the trial went, and I gave them a very vague version. I was too embarrassed to mention the whole matter of "varying stages of undress", and it occurred to me that I was not close enough to anybody at work to talk of really intimate stuff. I might have been able to confide in Joan, had she been here, but I was afraid that Luke could find anything I sent her. In the meantime, in Luke's Emails, I kept hearing how life was going on without me.

We contacted Dr. Begh about the horse, and he came up with a simple solution: the rabbi could trade Polly back to him for a more docile mount of the same value, then the rabbi could donate the new horse to the camp. Joan said she'd take care of the paperwork; she's had AP Law, and besides she thinks the whole thing was her fault for trying to ride Polly in the first place. It's too bad Jews and Muslims and others can't communicate so well more often, don't you think?

What it boiled down to was that I had two friends on the spot, Michel and Marghareta. Could I really afford to reject offers of friendship from another guy? On Wednesday I called Michel to ask his opinion of Antonio.

"I think Antonio is an honest fellow, always wanting to do the right thing. It's just bad luck, the way we met. I told Marghareta that I was willing to accept."

If anyone should be suspicious of Antonio it should be Michel, and if he was willing to give Antonio a chance--? I decided to go up with my friends.

Saturday morning I attended the synagogue, in gratitude for the rabbi for giving me good advice. Besides, I reminded myself that High Holy Days were coming up in September and I wanted to familiarize myself with the place, some of whose practices differed from those at home. It was somewhat ironic that during the service I understood the liturgical Hebrew better than I did the conversational Italian.

After lunch we took a train to Florence. Antonio picked us up in an old car. Think unpretentious car, I told myself. It's better than some guy trying to wow me with a new Ferrari.

His course took us through the village where Francesca lived, at the foot of the mountain. On the far side the houses got more and more spread out; Antonio's seemed to be the last, with fields extending beyond them. It was smaller than the Cavalo's farm, but after all this was Europe, with less land available for agriculture, and it was apparently tended by no one but the two brothers. On one side of the carpark was a field where horses were grazing, on the other an old stone farmhouse that was at least a century old. Across the road, the slopes of the mountain began. Adam or Mrs. G would love painting this tableau, I thought.

Antonio served as an excellent Italian lunch -- no, dinner would be a more appropriate word. Then he gave us a brief tour of the house. Michel found an old spinning wheel whose inner workings, seemed to fascinate him, while Marghareta admired other antiques in the room.

"If you'll excuse me, I must go feed the animals," Antonio said.

"Can I help?" I asked. As the others turned to me in surprise, I added," I'm studying agriculture, and I worked on a farm last winter. I know how to tend animals."

"You are a guest," Antonio insisted. "I will do the work."

"Think of me as a dude on your ranch," I remarked lightly -- but the joke that fell flat because none of the Italians knew the phrase. Antonio went out without me.

While he was gone Marghareta remarked "It's a relief, that he's not forcing his presence on us too much. I was worried, after all, two weeks ago he was admiring my breasts--"

"But it was an accident, and he went no further," insisted Michel. "And besides, they are lovely to behold."

I turned red, and the other couple switched to Italian to continue their erotic talk. It certainly helped them pass the time until Antonio came back. I was definitely feeling like the odd girl out, and not just because my boyfriend was thousands of kilometers away. This house had clearly been in the family for generations, and I was unused to the weight of tradition. Maybe the original Polanskis in Eastern Europe had a place like this, but all the generations I knew were urban Jews, travelling from one American city to another until they had assimilated to the new country.

When Antonio came back he remarked, "It's a lovely day outside, not too hot for August. We have half a dozen horses; does anybody want to ride?"

"I'd like that," I said.

"I'm afraid I never learnt," admitted Michel. " Tecnico, son io."

Marghareta looked from Antonio to Michel, and it was obvious what was in her head. She liked the idea of riding, but that would mean going with Antonio instead of Michel, and that could easily be misinterpreted. The situation was a little too tense for that. "I will stay here."

"Very well." He turned to me. "Let us go, signorina."

Somewhat dismayed at finding myself alone with Antonio, I followed him out to the stable. When we got there and he chose a horse for me, I insisted on saddling it myself; I didn't want to be receiving too many favors. While doing so I noticed an old-fashioned riding crop sitting on the shelf, and slipped it under my blouse. Not to use on the horse, of course, but just in case--

Once we got outside I swung myself up into the saddle, and felt less nervous after that. If anything went wrong, I could always ride away. "Where are we going?"

"I'd like to show you something on the hill," he said.

I frowned, remembering what we had shown HIM on the hill. But it was paranoid to keep reading things into simple statements. "OK."

He rode down the driveway and I stayed alongside, staying back less than a meter. I was NOT going to look like I was following him. At the road itself we had to rein in our horses as a truck went by. "Do you mind if I ask something?" Antonio asked.

"Depends."

"You are studying agriculture in Rome. But you are Americana, and I know they do things differently there, with more land. So why study here?"

"I won't be working in America. I'm going to be working in the Third World, planting crops to avert famine."

"Missionary work?"

"Sort of, but it's a secular organization. Actually, I'm Jewish."

"Oh!"

"Does that bother you?" It occurred to me that a guy who kept talking about la Penitenza must be heavily into Catholicism. To the point of disdaining other religions? We crossed the road and started riding parallel to it for a while.

"Not at all. They important thing is to do the right thing, and correct myself when I do the wrong thing. For me, the teachings of the local priest seem the best guide. But your religion must have its own way."

"Actually, we do. It's called Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and it falls next month. But most of the emphasis is on adhering to the Law and trying to do good deeds in the first place. The word for that is mitzva."

Antonio turned his horse's head, onto a little worn path that went uphill. The level parts were not very wide, and so I was forced to drop behind him rather than riding at his side. The symbolism no longer bothered me. Concentrating on an uneven trail on an unfamiliar horse took a lot of attention, though, and put a damper on conversation.

Finally we reached a plateau, and Antonio pointed away from the hill. "There."

I reined in my mount and followed the gesture. There in the distance was the city of Florence, dominated by the famous red dome from the Renaissance era. Probably no town in the world provided such a striking tableau at a distance. "It's lovely! And this is the perfect vantage point. Do people come here often?"

"Few. Tourists, they go to Florence itself, no need to behold it from kilometers away. A few villagers know of this. I tried to show it to Beppo once, but non e poetico."

I laughed. "Wouldn't think so. He'd rather look at naked women."

Antonio looked abashed. "I--"

"No, don't say anything. Antonio, you don't have to think terms of la penitenza with me anymore. Let's just be friends."

"Buono. May I call you 'tu'?"

Even he was predominantly speaking English to me, I knew that that was a very important distinction in Italian: deference vs friendship. "Si."

When we went down, my horse was in the lead this time. I appreciated that much symbolism. We were equals.

TBC