What's left

 The first thing they tell me when I arrive at the hotel is not to use the central staircase.

“Vecchia e a pezzi,” explains the receptionist. Old and in pieces.

I have to take a side staircase to my suite: newly built and completely out of place in this building whose beautiful shapes seem to have been carved by time itself. Apparently, the great central staircase I used to ascend is now so carved out that there is too little left of it. Fitting, I think, for this eternal city built and rebuilt on ruins, in which something is always crumbling somewhere. Always has been. 

My breath gets caught somewhere between my chest and throat as I enter the well-known room; it always does. For the few times I have been back now as a tourist, it always takes me some hours after arriving to remember that the nervousness and excitement are nothing but a memory. I am a spectator now, not a performer.

It’s the Rigoletto tonight. I know almost all lines by heart, even the ones I never sang, but there’s a young rising star in the role of Gilda I’m eager to hear; curious to see if I’ll recognise some bits and pieces of my younger self in her.     

I take a slow long walk to the Opera and pass Hadrian’s columns as I leave the hotel; or at least what’s left of them.They must have been even more beautiful once. Did no one think them worth caring for? 

As I enter the Opera—from the main door, not the artists’ entrance in the back—old, older, memories blow into my mind like a warm breeze. Going up the grand staircase—enormous to my eyes back then—, sitting on my father’s lap for a better view, staring. Eyes blown wide, wishing to be looking at my future-self.

“Buona sera, Miss Sigerson,” I’m greeted by the hall director who kisses my hand with a bright smile, “Welcome back!”

Then I am shown to my usual box on the left side of the stage. I could afford a central one now and the manager has offered it to me multiple times, but I like to sit in the same spot where I first fell in love with opera and where I can sometimes glimpse some of the secret movements behind the scenes.

I am early, so I can watch single people slowly filling the theatre before they become The Audience. Then, suddenly, someone leans briefly over the railing of the central box and a face is illuminated by the bright chandeliers, flashes into my vision; the auburn locks almost melting into the scarlet velvet of the curtains. I am so focused on following each new line on her face that I only reach her eyes a moment before the lights are turned off and she melts away into darkness.

My heartbeats don’t fit the tempo of the music, they overshadow everything like a booming drum in my ears. I sit, staring into the dark nothingness, wondering if she’s staring back.

When the lights come back on, the roaring applause knocks all breath from my lungs. I descend the staircase shakily, as if it might crumble under my feet at any moment. 

And there she is. Standing on the solid marble floor of the entrance hall: a statue in a rich, heavy cream coloured dress that blends with her skin, swallowing her whole. 

Perhaps she notices my trembling step because she reaches out to me when I’m still at the end of the stairs. Her hand is cold. It almost burns in contrast with my warm one, which makes it easier to let it go when it’s time.

“You look tired, Miss Sigerson,” she says, passing over my face with her gaze.

You too, Miss De Givencourt, I think, but reply: “It was a long journey, Mrs Southon.”

“You are still staying at the Artemide, I imagine. Though, there are so many new and comfortable hotels these days,” she smiles without mirth.

I nod: “I like the comfort of memories, even when they become old.”

The smile is gone from her face and I am scared that she’s going to say “Well, in any case, it was good to see you”, so I speak quicker: “Would you like to have a glass of wine?”

Or do you have to go home to your husband?

I start when she answers: “My husband is away, so why not?”

There is an old palazzo right opposite the Opera: half of it is falling to pieces, but we find refuge in a wine bar in the other half. It is so luxurious that one could almost forget about the decay right next to it. 

“Primitivo?” I ask, as I move to the bar to order. 

“I mostly drink Chianti these days,” she says, “But perhaps…”

She looks at me blankly, like a heavy marble woman illuminated by the lights of an art gallery; her hair is the only thing which has not paled yet.

“These days you and I don’t meet in the Opera anymore. And yet here we are.”

I turn away quickly towards a free table before I can regret my words, but I still hear her gasp and it takes some moments before she reaches me; features set in stone once more. She sits down methodically: hands resting in her lap, the backrest of the chair left untouched. 

When she finally answers me all she offers is: “Well, you still sing, now and then.”

“You don’t.”

“No,” she whispers, shakes her head, “I wanted to settle. Do you never wish for a safe harbour?”

The tiredness of all these long journeys falls onto me all at once in an avalanche. Will she make me cry?

The waiter brings the chalices of wine, Primitivo: it looks like a cup of blood in her hand as she raises it.

“Salute,” but she doesn’t drink as she watches me bring the glass to my lips. 

I savor the rich taste, feel it mixing with my blood, make my thoughts slower and lighter.

“If I could never leave the harbour again, I would miss the sea,” I tell her and it’s true and cruel of me to say. 

But she doesn’t move. She gazes at me with heavy, stony eyes that make me want to reach out and put my hand onto her chest to make sure that her heart is still beating. I’m speaking to a washed out, white marble statue that I can glimpse on the bottom of the sea, far, far down.

“And if a storm comes you will be all alone, no one there to keep you from drowning,” she finally places her white lips on the brim of the chalice, tinging them with a hint of colour.

Tears for her are already wetting my face when I ask: “Has he kept you from drowning?”

She cracks like the glass when it comes crashing down onto the table, the wine drenching her cream coloured dress, its redness finally rising to her cheeks.

Pieces of glass clatter to the floor as she tries to stand up, but stumbles in the heavy fabric. I grasp her wrist and guide her back to the chair before she can fall. She crashes onto it in pieces and we both cry as I hold her gelid hand in mine until her fingers become warm and soft again and she can squeeze mine in return. 

As we sit there in this city that is old and in pieces, looking out to the Opera, I am sure we both hear our younger selves as Lakmé and Mallika practicing the “Flower Duet” backstage, where Gérald would never arrive to whisk Lakmé away in the next scene. But it is a memory and that’s all what’s left now. 

Please read the other wonderful contributions to the 3rd issue of the Hearth Magazine, Romance of Ruins.