He gave Mom a Look. Not The Look but still a Look. So the whole thing petered out. For the time being that is, for with Mom, it was all-or-nothing in “these matters.” The slightest question, even a mild inquiry to clarify which came first on the reproductive map, say the ovary or the egg that God made that “floats down the delicate little tube so all those little seeds from The Male can fertilize it,” would result in The whole Talk. You could no more get a short answer than Congress could expect a president to step up to the podium in a State of the Union address and simply say, “Things are fine, thanks, good night and God bless.” Mom was a force of nature: once unleashed on the subject of the human reproductive system, The Talk ensued.

Janet suggested we split up. I could come with her, and Rachael could walk with Mom and Dad. We would meet next to the Gela-teria Centrale at 4 P.M. for ice cream. That once per vacation treat we had to grudgingly admit was better in plebeian Santa Margherita than elite Portofino, the chocolate ice cream being of a particular, perfect toothsome darkness at the Centrale.

Janet and I set off. We left the seaside thoroughfare and plunged down a small alley lined with shops. Here the smells preceded the tiny crowded stores. The smell of fresh roasted coffee let you know that a moment later you would walk past a store with a huge jute sack in the window full of coffee beans. The coffee competed with a tangy smell of soap that wafted from the little dry goods, hardware, and postcard shop next door. The smell of blood and poultry innards was not quite so pleasant as it hit you from the doorway of a poultry butcher. Nor was the hard wall of odor coming from a fish stand. But the leather and glue smell of the shoe repair establishment was wonderful, and worth stopping for. The cobbler sat on his stool in the doorway of his tiny shop, his mouth jammed with steel nails, his glue pot caked with dark honey-colored glue, its brush thick with years of dried drippings. His stained blue apron hung over his knees, forming a generous lap in which a large white and orange cat slept while its master fit a shoe onto the shoe iron and, turning it deftly, hammered a perfect semicircle of nails into a new shoe heel to reinforce the freshly applied glue.