Cliffs of Fall Read online

  “The hotel wanted our room before lunch—I hope we’re not too early …” She let Vittorio take the typewriter. “Thank you. This is Jonathan.”

  Vittorio, silent and shy, led them along the corridor to where Giuseppina was making final adjustments to the bedroom. It was a large, lofty room, with walls of a spent green. The domed ceiling was white, and in one or two places flaking. The furniture, so heavily rooted as to appear a natural out-cropping of the floor, was of dark wood, and the bed was so wide it was almost square. The coverlet was the same faded gold as the central square of carpet, which lay on a floor of worn red tiles. On one wall, over a bookcase, were two framed photographs of Greek heads, and above the bed hung a worn reproduction on wood of a painting by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. The dark-green shutters were half closed against the morning sun; in the opening between them, at each of the two windows, was suspended a strip of Tuscan countryside.

  The four of them stood in the middle of the room, like early guests at a party, trying to gauge affinities. Jonathan took the typewriter from Vittorio and put it on the floor by the bed.

  “I hope you’ll be comfortable,” Vittorio said. “If you need anything, you will let me know?”

  There was a murmur of thanks. Giuseppina, excused by the incomprehensible language, preceded him from the room.

  Vittorio returned to his study and closed the door. He sat down at the desk, clasping his hands idly on the papers fanned out over the blotter, and waited for a feeling of imposition to overtake him. Apart from the occasional visits of his elder brother, Giacomo, who came from Rome on business connected with family property near Siena, he had not shared his house since Teresa’s death. In England, the privacy of his lodgings in the house of a retired Indian Army major had been scrupulously respected; the major, indeed, had relaxed this principle on only one occasion, when he crossed Vittorio’s threshold to press upon him a jar of hoarded chutney in celebration of the victory at El Alamein. Upon his return to Siena, Vittorio had entered the ordered seclusion of a celibate scholar. The greater part of each day was spent on his work—a third volume on aspects of classical Greek—and in the evenings he read. His social life was conducted almost exclusively in the café, where he could in the course of an hour or two meet everyone in the town whom he might wish to see. His friends were of his own condition—men of cultivated minds, distinguished manners, and diminished circumstances. The possibility of worldly success had never, by them, been entertained; they conjectured only as to the form their failure would take.

  Three years earlier, Vittorio had bought a second-hand Topolino, and this extended his activities. From time to time, he drove into the hills to the south of Siena to inspect his family’s villa, the house where he had spent his childhood and youth; closed and empty since the war, it was now the property of his brother Giacomo.

  Vittorio was fifty-nine. He had considered and spoken of himself as an old man for so many years that his sixtieth birthday seemed long past, and he found it strange that he had yet to attain it. He dated his old age from the death of his wife twenty years before. Had it not been disloyal to Teresa, he would have admitted to himself that the date might be set even earlier; he could scarcely recall ever having felt sensations that might pass for youth. A childhood burden of family disturbances had, by his early marriage, been exchanged for the sorrow of Teresa’s long illness, and subsequently for the lonely anxiety of his exile. His manner of living since his return to Siena represented the first true peace he had experienced; he could not willingly envisage any conclusion to it other than decrepitude and death.

  Because he recognized these things in himself, it surprised him to find that the arrival of the Murrays, caused him, as yet, no pain. Distantly, through the closed door, he could hear sounds of luggage pushed along tiled floors, and the raised voice of Giuseppina; and once, into a silence, flickered Mrs. Murray’s laugh. He took up his pen and lowered his hand to the page, but still did not write, so greatly was he surprised by his own pleasure and by an agreeable echo of what he presumed must be excitement.

  The spring that year was cool and wet, terminating in a week of blinding heat that announced the summer. Tourists wandered in the city’s curving, shadowed streets and climbed its narrow towers, and ultimately slumped into chairs in the piazza, demanding iced drinks. Jonathan Murray complained that his work in the museum was interrupted by the monologues of German students and the reluctant tramp of busloads of visitors. Isabel smiled and, walking about the town, grew browner and seemed at ease.

  In the mornings, as she had told Vittorio, she and Jonathan usually drove out of the city to visit some nearby church or museum. Giuseppina took coffee to their room at an early hour, and before long Isabel would return the tray and its emptied dishes to the kitchen. Sometimes Vittorio was there discussing the day’s housekeeping when she came in, dressed in her white robe, and stately because of the burden of the tray, her hair hanging down her back in a heavy plait that was frayed and flat from sleep. Leaning with both hands on the kitchen table and laughing at her own halting Italian, she would chat with Giuseppina, and Vittorio, watching her, wondered why all women didn’t wear long hair.

  When they returned after lunch, Jonathan went to the museum and Isabel rested through the early afternoon. At four o’clock, she took tea with Vittorio, although the ceremony of the cake was never repeated. He had thought his long, solitary afternoon essential and immutable, and was almost shocked to discover that a new habit could be so quickly, faithlessly formed. He found himself preparing for her with little imagined conversations that never came to birth, and afterward he wondered what they had talked about. Her presence seemed an immoderate, contrasting luxury in his room. As on the first day, she sat across from him, the shuttered light striping her hair and her burnished arm and distorting the colored pattern of her dress.

  If Jonathan returned from the museum in time, he walked with Isabel to the piazza in the evening, but more often she went alone and waited for him in the café. Like other tourists, they read foreign papers in the fading light, and watched the crowd, and lived vicariously the pleasant life of the town. Jonathan inclined his head to Isabel’s talk with a detached, indulgent smile, and sometimes Isabel, too, fell silent. Every evening, they dined out in Siena, and when they left the piazza in search of a trattoria they walked away with slow, grave purpose, like members of a procession.

  If they were still in the café when Vittorio arrived before dinner for his ritual Campari, he sat with them until it was dark, or when he was with friends stopped at their table to exchange greetings. He found Jonathan rather solemn for an Englishman, and almost defensively earnest about his work. His knowledge, which was considerable, seemed sheltered within reticence, as though it were too precious to be made a source of general pleasure. Vittorio wondered whether life were ever difficult for Isabel. He understood that they had been married for four years.

  One evening, he did not find them when he arrived at the café, although a mild, beautiful day had brought him there earlier than usual. The café was on a slight elevation commanding the paved shell of the piazza, and he looked about with a tender, habitual pleasure at the ripe rose and gold of the buildings and the soaring rocket of the campanile. The open space fluttered with bright dresses and blue shirts and indolent pigeons. One or two passers-by raised their hands to him in greeting, and the waiter, approaching the table with a tray under his arm, made him a little bow and wished him good evening.

  “Buona sera, Sergio,” returned Vittorio. “Come va?”

  “Eh, Professore, si tira avanti; si tira avanti.”

  They contemplated the view for a moment together before Sergio disappeared to fetch Vittorio’s Campari. Vittorio put on his reading glasses and took up his newspaper. As he did so, he thought he saw Isabel coming toward him across the square, and he paused, the folded paper in one hand. He could not be sure that it was she, and as she drew near he removed his glasses, crinkling his eyes into the late sunshine. When she was sti
ll some paces away, he stared at her and said, quite loudly: “You’ve cut your hair!”

  She sat down beside him and laid her parcels on the table. Her hair, which exuded a singed, scented smell, framed her face in two Ionic curves just above her shoulders. She balanced one foot on the rod beneath the table.

  Vittorio placed his paper and glasses on the cloth before him. “But why?”

  She made a small, incompetent gesture. “Well, you know. It gets hot in summer, and when you wash it, it takes so long to dry. And then—Jonathan complained that there were long hairs over everything …” She touched her head curiously. “I expect it will grow again.”

  “How long did it take to grow before?”

  “Six years.” She looked grave for a moment, and then began to laugh, partly at his agitation.

  The waiter came up with Vittorio’s Campari and looked at her mournfully. “Si è tagliata i capelli, la signora.”

  Vittorio, glancing at her lowered, reddened face, gave Sergio a commiserating nod and, taking up his paper once more, ordered for her.

  “I didn’t think there would be such a fuss,” she said.

  He smiled. “The whole town will know by tomorrow.”

  “Hello,” said Jonathan, making his way among the tables. He sat down on the other side of Isabel. “I got the Observer—I thought you might have bought the Times already. Have you ordered yet?” He looked around for Sergio. “You’ve had your hair cut.”

  “What do you think?” she asked, again raising her hand to her head.

  “I suppose it’s more practical.” He leaned back in his chair, surveying the square.

  Vittorio, absorbed in his own newspaper, avoided Sergio’s eyes.

  Jonathan spent the following morning at Asciano. Isabel stayed behind, promising to complete his card index, but she soon left the unsorted cards on the salotto table and went out shopping. She had lunch in the town, and Jonathan, returning earlier than expected, missed her and went to lunch alone. In the afternoon, he went back to the house on his way from the cathedral to the museum, and was told by Giuseppina that Isabel had come in some time ago and was having tea with Vittorio.

  That evening, he left the museum before it closed and went straight home. He entered their room quietly, and closed the door behind him.

  She was sitting at the mirror, painting her nails. She smiled into his reflection, but when he bent to kiss her she cried out: “Oh, be careful—my nails!”

  He turned away impatiently and sat down on the bed, his hands on his knees.

  She got up and came to him. He moved his feet apart to let her come between his knees, not lifting his hands. She rested her wrists on his shoulders, the fingers stiffly extended to dry.

  “For God’s sake, stop thinking about your nails. I’ve been looking for you all day.” He looked up at her crossly. “Do you love me? An absurd question, as you’re hardly likely to say no, even if you wanted to.”

  “It could be important that I went on pretending, couldn’t it?” she asked. “That might be a kind of love.” She frowned. “I don’t much care for this conversation, though; couldn’t we have a shot at something else?”

  “The thing is,” he went on, “that I need you. You know that, I suppose?”

  “And you resent it.”

  “Yes,” he said, “of course. But it could be worse, couldn’t it? I mean, I don’t shout at you or anything.”

  “You have no reason to.”

  “There wouldn’t have to be a reason,” he explained, reasonably. “What would you do if I did?”

  “Cut my throat, perhaps?” she suggested.

  He lowered his head against her arm. “That would ruin my whole life.”

  “And mine, too, presumably.” She leaned against him. “Jonathan.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did anyone ever call you Jon?”

  He thought. “In the Army they called me Jon. I rather liked that. It made the whole thing seem more unreal than ever.”

  “It’s funny to think of you in the war. Being brave and everything.”

  “It helps,” he responded dryly, “if you remember how much younger I was.”

  She half smiled. “You know what I mean. Explosions and death, and so on. It all seems too … immediate, for you.”

  “You should have married someone—immediate, as you say.” He was silent for a moment. “I was thinking that yesterday, in the piazza. You know, when I showed up and everyone was dying for me to make a scene about your hair?”

  “I understood about that,” she said.

  “Well, perhaps that’s your trouble; you understand too readily. It makes it so easy for me. Anyway, I thought, Yes, that’s what she needs. Someone who would make a scene. Someone who would make her his life’s work. Someone like old Vittorio.”

  “What do you mean?” she said, not moving.

  “What I mean, darling, is that the poor old chap’s head over heels in love with you—in his quaint, Old World way, I hasten to add.” He raised his head. “Did you realize that?”

  “Well, yes, I did,” she replied, “of course.”

  He shut his eyes. “That’s what I can’t bear about women. They always know everything first. They behave as though men were—Americans in Europe.” He looked at her again. “Well, don’t look like that. I’m not suggesting it’s reciprocated. Hardly. It’s just that he’d really be so much better for you, mutatis mutandis.”

  She drew away from him, clasping her hands vaguely against her breast, her nails forgotten. “What did you do today?” she asked.

  “I went to Asciano, to see the museum at the church,” he said. “And I saw a Sassetta in a private collection.”

  “Was it nice?” she inquired politely.

  He smiled. “Well … it was a Sassetta.”

  She went back to her chair and took up the little bottle of lacquer. Jonathan watched in the mirror the uneven strokes of her hand and the sealed calm of her brow. He raised his head to speak again, but did not, although Isabel’s hand paused at the abrupt intake of his breath. Presently he lay back across the bed and closed his eyes.

  One hot afternoon at the end of July, Vittorio was returning from his brother’s empty villa. He usually inspected the house every three or four weeks, sending Giacomo a note about anything that had to be done. The responsibility was something of a burden to him, for his visits left him dispirited, less by the nostalgia they evoked than by its insufficiency. He had always been resigned to the course of his life.

  Driving into the city, he was obliged to circle the large piazza at the post office, and as he slowed at its central plot of garden he saw Isabel at a café table, reading in a patch of shade.

  He drew the car up under a red and blue umbrella marked “Punt e Mes.” “Mrs. Murray!” he called. “Mrs. Murray!” She did not hear him. He turned off the engine and, getting out of the car, went up to her table.

  She was so startled that she splashed coffee into the saucer as she set down her cup. She looked up, shading her eyes and pointing with her other hand to the chair beside her.

  He shook his head. “I’ve left the car over there, in the street. I’ve been to my brother’s house. I wondered if you’d like a lift home.”

  “It would be nice,” she said, as if she meant to refuse. But she rose and took up her handbag and book. Vittorio called the waiter.

  Opening the car door, he cleared away a week-old copy of La Stampa and helped her in. They left the shadow provided by “Punt e Mes” and moved patiently into the main street, which was choked with its afternoon tide of cars and scooters and incautious pedestrians.

  “Was it a long drive to your brother’s house?” she asked.

  “It only takes about twenty minutes by the Grosseto road,” he told her. “When I was a boy, of course, we were much more isolated. It was considered a real journey to Siena. People didn’t drop in—if they came at all, they stayed. And then, my father, as he got older, was more and more withdrawn from the world.”


  “What did he do?”

  “He was a classical scholar—a good one.” He smiled, not quite painlessly. “My name is the same as his, and I am always asked if I wrote his books. Giacomo—there were only the two of us—became an archaeologist, but it was understood that I should be a classicist; just as some families put one son into the Church. Though, as it happened, it was what I would have chosen.” How boring this must be, he thought, especially to the English, who don’t discuss themselves in this way. They had come to a standstill in the traffic, and, turning to confirm his dullness in her expression, he found her watching him, instead, with gentle concern. He smiled at her and added: “So you see, it didn’t matter after all.” He scarcely knew himself what he intended by the remark, except that all the obscure concessions of his life seemed with a deliberate, perverse extravagance to have brought him into her company.

  They moved forward and were halted again, a little farther on, by a traffic light. “You will be leaving soon,” he said, with the air of making an announcement.

  “Early next month,” she replied.

  “That is sad.”

  After a moment, she said: “Perhaps we’ll come to Italy again next year.”

  “I meant, for me.” She doesn’t know, he decided.

  “Yes, I know,” she said.

  He thought, because at that moment he felt he could bear it, of how they would go away in a week or two; they would write him, together, one nice letter and perhaps a few post cards. The light changed to green, and he turned the corner into his own short street.