When I got out into the hall I ran down the back stairs and out the side door of the Hotel Nazionale into the street. Then I realized I had forgotten to change out of my traveling clothes. But I ran on around the square to Gino’s studio anyway because I knew if I went back, Mom was still unpacking my stuff and would think I had questions and would want to talk more. Or maybe she would want to pray for a wet dream right then and there.

On the way to Gino s I made sure everything was still where it was supposed to be. It was. Nothing ever changes in Portofino. No one puts up a new apartment building or anything like that. In the church the same old ladies looked up as I took holy water and crossed myself and knelt to pray. In the Boutique Brazilia, the lady remembered me and gave me a Baci chocolate from the big bowl on the counter. In the bar on the dock the same men were there who always played cards at the corner table.

When I got to Gino’s studio he motioned me to a chair to wait till he was done painting the part he was working on of a large picture of a naked woman sitting on a motorcycle with her head on fire while a dog bit her foot. When he was done adding some details to the dogs tail, he got up, wiped off his brush, and said, “ ‘Ow are you?” and offered me a drink. We sat sipping whiskey and water, and he explained about the problems he was having with a new gallery owner in Milano and how the new owner said that he was going to take a 50-percent commission like they did in New York. And what was Gino supposed to do about this greed since even a third had been a lot, and he could barely live on what was left as it was.

Then Gino poured me out a little more whiskey, and I told him my mother had gone out of her mind, and he said he wasn’t surprised. He had heard that that was happening a lot recently because of the effects of the radiation from the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere.

Chapter 20