Are We There Yet? Read online

  It is eleven-fifteen.

  Danny waits by the entrance, and then he waits on line. He searches for his brother, and then he gives up. Perhaps Elijah is already inside. Perhaps he won't show at all. Danny is not in the mood for empty minutes. He can barely stand it when he wastes his own time; for someone else to waste it is unconscionable.

  The line is very long and very slow. Danny is bracketed by American families—restless children and desperately agreeable parents. The walls of the museum are touched by graffiti: KURT 4-EVA and MARIA DEL MAR 4/4/98 and CLARE 27/03 FRANCESE…TI AMO JUSTIN. One of the American families is accompanied by an abusive tour guide, who takes the children's listlessness to task. “Boredom is a dirty habit,” she mutters. The American mother has murder in her eyes.

  Five minutes and no Elijah …fifteen minutes and no Elijah …the ticket taker asks Danny to enter, and he does not argue. He decides to start at the beginning of the museum and work his way through history. Elijah will no doubt meet him somewhere in the middle, without realizing he's late.

  Elijah isn't surprised that his brother hasn't waited. Really, it doesn't matter. Elijah is happy to be here, is happy to be with Julia. His buzz is just right—enough so things seem real close, but not so much that things seem real far away. He and Julia are surprised by the length of the line; luckily, Elijah strikes up a conversation with the trio of Australian women in front of them, so the time passes quickly. Maura's fortieth birthday is three days away; Judy and Helen are planning to take her to the most expensive restaurant in Siena, bringing at least four bottles of wine. They are legal secretaries—they met in high school and their fates have been tied together ever since. They ask Elijah and Julia how long they've been together, and Elijah revels in the fact that they've seen fit to ask.

  “It's been ages,” Julia replies, wrapping her arm around Elijah and snuggling close.

  “At least three hundred years,” Elijah adds.

  Once inside the Uffizi, Elijah is dizzied by the ceilings. Julia has to remind him to watch where he steps. A guard looks at him curiously, so Elijah says hello, and the guard suddenly becomes less guarded.

  There are so many paintings, all with the same plot. Mary looks stoned, and the Jesus babies are still scary. It's the glummest Sears Family Portrait in history. The angels are all the same person, and the skies are always the same blue.

  “Come here,” Julia whispers, pulling Elijah to his first Annunciation of the day. “Look closely. I love this scene. Gabriel is telling Mary the story of the rest of her life. Every artist has a different take on it. Like this one.”

  Elijah leans closer. Indeed, Mary's slight boredom—all too evident in the mother-son shots—has disappeared. In this painting—by someone named Martini—Mary looks uncomfortable. She's not sure about what she's being told. Gabriel, meanwhile, wears a pleading expression. He knows what's at stake.

  “Let's see all the Annunciations,” Elijah says, a little too eager, a little too loud.

  “Absolutely,” Julia agrees.

  Elijah takes one last look at Mary and Gabriel. Mary winks at him and tells him to move on.

  Danny's guidebook talks about Piero della Francesca's “daring search for perspective”—and, quite frankly, Danny doesn't get it. How can you discover perspective? Why did it take thousands of years for artists to discover a third dimension? How can you discover something that is already there?

  It's only the fifteenth century and already Danny is getting tired. All these people in robes, with their wooden pastures and wooden expressions. Then the burst of Botticelli. The people are no longer bloodless; Danny can almost believe they have hearts.

  “Hey there,” someone says. Danny assumes she's talking to someone else. Then he feels a hand on his arm. He turns to find Julia.

  “Where's Elijah?” he asks.

  “Oh, around. I figured I'd try to find you.”

  “He didn't want to join you?”

  “I don't think he realizes I left. He's rather transfixed.”

  “Good for him.”

  Julia gestures to the painting, Perugino's Crucifixion.“I wonder about the red hat on the ground.”

  Danny nods. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “I also wonder why they're so clean.”

  “As opposed to what? A pornographic crucifixion?”

  “No. I mean clean. Think about it. People in the sixteenth century—not to mention in Jesus's time—didn't look like this: perfect skin, perfect hairdos, spotless clothes. These are people who went to the bathroom in the street, for God's sake. There's no way they looked like this. But that's how we're going to remember them. Our alabaster past. When nothing else is left, art will become the truth of the time. Then people will get to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and wonder what hap-pened—how we all became so imperfect.”

  Danny doesn't know what to say to this, and Julia becomes immediately self-conscious.

  “Sorry,” she says, ducking her head down. “Shove me into shallow water, you know.”

  “No—you're absolutely right. I've never thought of it that way.”

  Danny sees that Julia can't decide whether he's being true or whether he's just being kind. It doesn't occur to her that the two can be one and the same.

  Elijah figures Julia has made her way to the ladies' room or something, so he continues on his trail of Annunciations. Primavera momentarily gets in the way—Elijah is shocked at how dark it has become. Elijah has always looked to the painting for joy, but now the dark angel in the corner gains prominence. The right-hand maiden is trapped in his grasp. The woman in the center of it all seems detached, resigned.

  Still, people flock to her. Elijah stands in front of the tourist flashbulbs, trying to protect her. A torrent of foreign words tells him to move. But he will not. Each time a camera is raised, he gets in the way. There are signs everywhere saying not to take pictures. And yet everyone acts like he's the one doing something wrong.

  Once the latest tour group has passed, Elijah returns to Mary and Gabriel. In Botticelli's version, Mary seems demure, almost faint. Gabriel looks like a woman—perhaps an easier way to convey the news, with a flower held like a pen in his hand. Elijah wishes Julia were around to ask—How did Gabriel persuade her? Why isn't she frightened by the sight of his wings? In the frame, Mary sits on the edge of what looks like a tomb. Isn't she surprised the angel is kneeling at her feet?

  DaVinci's Annunciation is almost like a sequel to Botticelli's. Gabriel is in the same pose, but Mary seems to be acknowledging him. She has become regal, undoubting. She is no longer sitting in a room, with the wide world merely alluded to through a window. It is the opposite now. Elijah does not like this Mary. She is too steely, whereas Botticelli's is too weak.

  A few galleries later, Elijah gazes again at the ceiling. The details are surreal. A knight stands atop a dragon, about to swing his sword at an armless angel who has breasts, a tail, and a mermaid limb that trails off into a small tree.

  “Man, that's so messed up,” Elijah murmurs.

  It's like the ceiling has dredged the dope back into his bloodstream. The paintings are going freaky. Caravaggio's Medusa is a scary, screaming bitch.

  A very papal-looking portrait watches over Slaughter of the Innocents. Elijah can't believe how sexy the slaughter seems. He's strangely turned on. Gentileschi's Santa Caterina d'Alessandria holds her breasts in a very provocative way, leading Elijah to wonder what kind of saints they had, way back when.

  The rooms are beginning to tip a little. Elijah sits on a bench and stares again at the ceiling. A woman plays violin as a dog and a donkey sit and listen. A man raises a hammer to a bull's head. Three naked women dance, while human heads are superimposed onto the wings of a red butterfly.

  “There you are,” Julia's voice calls. Elijah is afraid to turn to her, afraid that she too will be written on the wings of an insect, poised to fly away. The dog and the donkey are getting up to leave now. The hammer falls short, and the bull l
aughs and laughs. Julia sits down next to him and asks if everything is okay.

  Elijah closes his eyes and opens them. All the variations go away. Julia is the only real thing he can see.

  “I found Danny,” she says.

  “Good for you. How annoyed is he?”

  “Not that annoyed.”

  “That's probably because I wasn't with you.”

  Julia sighs. “I told him we'd meet him by Veronese's Annunciation.”

  “So now he's into Annunciations, too?”

  “No. It was just a place to meet.”

  Elijah knows he's being a drag. So he concentrates hard to send the bad vibes away. He can feel them disperse, like dark angels dipping away to the sky.

  “I'm glad you're back,” he says.

  They both stand and kiss briefly in front of a small tree that floats on a cloud.

  Then Julia pulls away and leads Elijah to his brother.

  The three of them stand in front of Veronese's Annunciation. Danny doesn't say a word to Elijah about being late. Elijah assumes this is because of Julia's presence.

  Mary seems beautifully anguished as a cloud of angels and souls falls onto her. Gabriel is fiercer than before, his finger jabbing upward, the flowers spilling from his hands.

  “I guess you have to feel sorry for her,” Elijah says. Julia nods, but she's barely listening. She's still studying the painting, her eyes following the flowers' paths.

  “Did Mary have any friends?” Danny asks.

  Julia turns to him. “What?”

  “I'm the first to admit that I don't know that much about the whole Mary thing. But didn't she have friends? She always seems so alone in these paintings. And then once she has the baby, it's like her previous life never happened.”

  “I don't know,” Julia says. “But it's a good question.”

  “She probably had friends,” Elijah chimes in. “They just didn't want to be in the picture.”

  Julia has nothing to say to that.

  After skimming the rest of the museum and dipping into the gift shop for a moment (trying to avoid the Primavera mouse pad and the Birth of Venus outerwear), Julia looks at her watch and makes an announcement.

  “I'm afraid I have to leave you for a little bit,” she says. “I have plans to meet an old girlfriend for the afternoon.” She sees the look on Danny's face and laughs. “Not that kind of girl-friend, Danny. Man, you boys are going to need to work on those hang-ups of yours. I'm meeting an old friend from high school who's doing some curating work here. She's going to tell me all about the floods.”

  Danny is surprised by how sorry he is to see her go. He is not surprised by how sorry Elijah seems. Danny keeps a respectful distance while his brother asks Julia when she'll be back and when they can meet again. Julia touches his cheek and says it won't be long. They make plans for their next encounter.

  “So now what?” Elijah asks as Julia heads away. He watches her disappear into the human traffic. He would wave, if only she would see him.

  The brothers decide to fall back on tourism, heading to the Duomo and its environs. The austere interior doesn't at all match the delightful exterior, which is itself darkened by car fumes and other modern pollutants. Elijah hangs by the candles, while Danny paces the baptistery and admires the windows.

  Elijah cannot believe how tired he feels. It hits him fully, now that Julia is gone. She'd buoyed him into wakefulness. Now he's wrapped in fatigue, all of the sleepless hours catching up to him.

  “Maybe we should go back to the hotel? To take a nap?” he suggests.

  “Good idea,” Danny replies. He too is feeling the full breadth of his tiredness. It's a different tiredness from home— less workmanlike, more atmospheric.

  They walk for ten minutes in silence. Then Danny asks,“So what time are you meeting her?”

  “About four. You don't mind, do you?”

  “Of course not. It's not as if I thought I was going to have dinner with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Just a joke. A bad joke.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. I have my book. And I should probably get some sleep tonight.”

  Elijah can see his brother is bluffing, but he can't think of anything to say besides, “Okay.”

  “Just be ready to leave for Rome tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Okay.”

  “She seems very nice.”

  “She is very nice.”

  “I know. That's what I just said.”

  Back at the hotel, Elijah grabs his toiletry kit and heads straight to the bathroom. Danny realizes he's forgotten about lunch. But really, he's not in the mood. Sleep will taste much better.

  The water turns on and off. Elijah leaves the bathroom and puts his kit back in his bag.

  “What about your girlfriend?” Danny asks.

  “Huh?”

  “You know. Cal.”

  “She's not my girlfriend.”

  “But weren't you going to write to her?”

  “I did,” Elijah says flatly. But he feels guilty when he says it. It's the truth when measured against the question, but it's hardly the truth when measured against his original intentions. He'd meant to write to Cal every day. He'd meant to live his days as letters to her—turning the trip into a story as he went along. Now the story has become something he can't quite share.

  If he sent a letter now, it would get to Providence after his return. The end of the story would precede the beginning. Just the fact that he'll be home in less than a week fills Elijah with dread. He would put off his return for a month, if it meant more time with Julia. He wishes he could conjure a future where Julia came back with him to Providence, and the three of them—Julia, him, Cal—frolicked and conversed for the remainder of the summer. But he knows this can't happen. For a variety of unarticulated reasons.

  Danny is already snoring. Elijah looks to his brother and feels a genuine guilt. He hadn't intended to abandon Danny so blatantly. He feels bad about it. But the alternative is to not see Julia at all. And that's impossible.

  He hopes Danny will be okay and wonders if there's anything in Danny's life that would help him to understand.

  Elijah spots two snack cakes at the foot of Danny's bed. He just can't escape America, can he? Carefully, Elijah moves them to the dresser so they won't get stepped on.

  He tries to sleep. He closes his eyes and sees ceilings. Melting faces, black woodwork. Saints, inscriptions, murders. Gold, angels, nightmare Popes.

  There are good angels and bad angels. There are trees that become clouds.

  Julia is gravitating toward him, sliding along in the half of a shell. He is wrestling demons to get to her. Wedding bells ring and children throw crosses in the air.

  Only an hour has passed when he wakes up. Danny is still solidly asleep. Quietly, Elijah puts on his shoes and leaves the room. Then he comes back, writes a note thanking Danny for being so cool about everything, and leaves again. He is hours early, but he cannot wait. He will find the bench nearest to Julia's pensione.

  Then he will wait for her to appear.

  Danny is relieved to find it's still daylight. Naps can be devils of disorientation. He is glad to have gotten free before the day has ended. He is not surprised to find that Elijah has gone. But he is surprised by Elijah's note. It's not something Danny would've thought of at seventeen. Danny knows that at that age he would've left without a word.

  Part of him can't even believe that Elijah is about to go to college, about to enter that world. Danny still thinks of him as twelve, their parents' favorite, so sure of what is right. But now he's off with a college girl. Or, more accurately, a dropped-out-of-college girl. Something Danny would have only dreamed of when he was seventeen. And maybe still does, from the other end.

  Picking up his college copy of A Room with a View (never read, alas), he resists the call of CNN and heads to the park square across from the hotel. Most of the benches are already taken. (Don't these peop
le have jobs? Danny thinks.) Finally, he finds a spot in the shade. He cracks the paperback spine and settles in. After an hour, he's utterly absorbed and utterly despondent.

  Danny puts the book in his lap and searches the park for echoes of Forster. He tries to harken back to a time when being abroad meant something. He searches for a traveler sketching a scene or writing in a journal, as Forster's characters did each afternoon. But instead he sees cell phones and shopping bags, camcorders and an occasional hardcover.

  Travel is no longer a pursuit, he thinks. There is something inherently noble about that word—pursuit. Life should be a pursuit. But Danny doesn't feel like it is. Or, at the very least, that it's a pursuit of the right things.

  The daylight dims, and the people scatter like birds. Danny sits still, watching.

  He doesn't know what to do. He heads off to find the statue of David, and figures he'll go from there.

  Statues was one of their games. There was Statues, and Runaround, and Penny Flick, and TV Tag. And others now forgotten, invented only for a single afternoon before they disappeared with sundown.

  Danny remembers the first time their mother walked in on them playing Statues. They couldn't have surprised her more if they'd been dripping with blood. But instead they were absolutely still, absolutely silent, fully clothed and striking classical poses. A Frisbee for a discus. A Lincoln Log for a javelin. Not looking at each other, because then it would become a staring contest, and they would both crack up. So instead they stared into space until a single arm fell or a single leg wobbled.

  It couldn't have lasted for longer than a minute. They couldn't have done it that many times. But still, Danny remembers. And when he sees the statues in Florence, he remembers the way he would try to turn himself into carved stone. The way, when Elijah was young, he would secretly be hoping that his younger brother would win. The times he dropped the Frisbee, just to give Elijah that satisfaction. Their mother walking in, not believing her eyes.