“Then we’re less! That’s what that means. More is less, like Gropius.”

“No, we have more than lovemaking between us, even if that is the most important thing. We have our work, our friendship. . . .”

“Friends for life, amici della pelle!”

“That’s it.”

But later in the night, at her room, when she asked again “Are we lovers?” he answered, “Si, molto.”

At times, apart from him, she would play: Let us now reconstruct the past, and try to make history out of those bits of memory, conversation, images, meetings, and all the rest that made up their story. . . .

He had been circumspect at their first meeting at Angela’s when he stopped by her room to bring her a folder of his unpublished short stories. He sat uneasily on the edge of the studio couch drinking the whiskey she offered him. His reserve increased hers and they spoke only of the plans for her translations of some of the stories.

One evening they went out to dinner together, again for the reason of conferring about the translation in progress. She put on a crepe mini and a Persian necklace and Tina said “Mom’s going out with her boyfriend” as she went out the door. Alberto smiled. As if the thing were so impossible. As if the explanation of meeting Bontelli for the translations were so sufficient.

They had met at Rosati’s. Both of them fitted their picture of each other: Both were well dressed, handsome, likable, clean, and healthy—just like a televised commercial. Except that they were real, and he was more: He was her bridge to a new reality even though he made her passage a slow, perplexing progress.

“I saw Alberto at the Strega, Marguerite, but I didn’t see you.” They were driving beyond the portal down Via Flaminia toward a restaurant on the river bank.

“I was there—splendid in a lamé dress I had made up in four hours while passing through Positano with my cousins. I was at a table in front; you probably saw Alberto when he was roaming around shaking everybody’s hand. Or maybe you don’t recognize me when we’re not together.”

“No . . . no. I know you now.”

“And I know you—through your writing. Were any of your books up for the Strega?”

“No. I hope the next one will be, the one I’m working on now. It should be my turn by then.” “I hope you win because you deserve it, not because it’s your turn.”

“Beh,” he said derisively, his mouth grim. “Here you don’t count on winning anything because you’ve written well, but only if the right people are well disposed toward you or you’ve been able to do them a favor.”

“Who else did you see there?”

“The usual. You and Alberto know them all.”

“Già, always the same. . . .”