“Andrea Orcagna,” I said. “Another great Renaissance painter and sculptor.” I moved closer to admire its intricacies while Alexandra wandered into the chapel just beside it, though she was out in a minute, clutching my arm.

“Let’s go.”

I asked about the sculpture gallery I knew was upstairs, but Alexandra said another time, anxious to leave.

“What’s wrong?” I asked when we got outside.

“Some guy bumped into me—hard—and it seemed intentional.”

I asked what he looked like, and she shrugged. “Hard to tell, it was so dark, but he was big, and he whispered Watch out, and not like Be careful—more like a warning.”

I looked back at the church, offered to go back in, but Alexandra said no.

“So he spoke English?” I said.

Another shrug, she was no longer sure, then she took my arm and led me down a side street to a café she knew.

Inside, it was quiet, with red leather banquettes and gilded sconces above the tables.

Alexandra slid into a booth and shook off her coat. She had on a cream-colored V-neck sweater, cashmere I guessed. A thin gold chain around her long neck with an oval locket resting in the hollow between her collarbones. She ordered a caffè Americano. I ordered a double espresso.

She asked why I was spending time in the library, and I said I was doing a little research.

“On what?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” I said, not ready to talk about the journal.

When she asked again, I changed the subject and told her I was an artist, a painter, something I immediately regretted, because she asked me where I showed, and I had to admit my gallery had just closed.

“You’ll get another,” she said.

“How do you know? Are you some sort of witch?”

“Could be,” she said, “but I just have a feeling about you.”

I had a feeling about her too.

We talked about New York—how it was hard but easy, the constant noise and dirt but the excitement too, like nowhere else—and school, her studies, my teaching—though she was constantly directing the conversation back to me, seemed genuinely interested. The time passed quickly and comfortably, as if I’d known her for a long time. I didn’t want it to end, but then we finished our coffees, and her mood shifted.

She stood up abruptly and announced she had to go back to her apartment, that she’d barely unpacked, an urgency in her tone far beyond the task. I offered to help but she said no, and when I proposed walking her home, she refused. The consolation prize was a quick peck on my cheek and the lingering smell of her perfume as I watched her walk away, shearling coat billowing, the sound of her bootheels growing softer until the café door closed behind her.

16

He stares through the window at the American, as he has come to call him, a kind of code name and a way to keep it impersonal. Watches the way they smile, the American and the blond, and for a moment feels something he cannot place and does not want to; feelings have never brought him anything but trouble. He drags hard on his cigarette, stifles whatever it is he has begun to feel until he feels nothing.