Seven months after the miscarriage, Nathaniel took Alma on a trip to Europe to help her forget the overwhelming melancholy that was paralyzing her. She had started talking about her brother, Samuel, at the time they lived together in Poland; a governess who haunted her nightmares; a blue velvet coat; Vera Neumann and her owl spectacles; a pair of horrible classmates from school; books she had read whose titles she couldn’t remember but whose characters she felt sorry for; and other nonsensical memories. Nathaniel thought that a cultural tour might reawaken Alma’s inspiration and her enthusiasm for her silk screens, and if that happened, he intended to suggest she study for a while at the Royal Academy of Arts, the United Kingdom’s oldest art school. He considered the best therapy for Alma would be to get away from San Francisco, from the Belascos in general and from him in particular. They had not mentioned Ichimei again, and Nathaniel assumed she had kept her word and was not in contact with him. He intended to spend more time with his wife, cut down on the hours he worked, and whenever possible took cases and studied his pleas at home. They continued to sleep in separate rooms but gave up the pretense that they spent the night together. Nathaniel’s bed was installed once and for all in his former bedroom, surrounded by walls covered in hunting scenes, with horses, dogs, and foxes. Neither of them could sleep, but any sensual temptation had dried up between them. They stayed up reading until past midnight in one of the living rooms, both on the same sofa and covered in the same blanket. On those Sundays when the weather was too poor to go sailing, Nathaniel persuaded Alma to accompany him to the movies, or they took a nap side by side on their insomnia sofa, which took the place of the marriage bed they did not have.
The journey was to range from Denmark to Greece, including a cruise on the Danube and another in Turkey. It was to last two months and end in London, where they would separate. In the second week, strolling hand in hand through the narrow back streets of Rome after a memorable meal and two bottles of the best Chianti, Alma came to a halt beneath a streetlamp, grabbed Nathaniel by the shirt, pulled him toward her, and kissed him full on the lips. “I want you to sleep with me,” she ordered. That night, in the decadent palace-cum-hotel where they were staying, they made love intoxicated by the wine and the Roman summer, discovering what they already knew of each other, feeling as though they were committing a forbidden act. All Alma’s knowledge of carnal love and her own body was thanks to Ichimei, who compensated for his lack of experience with unfailing intuition, the same he used to revive any drooping plant. In the cockroach motel, Alma had been a musical instrument in Ichimei’s loving hands. She experienced nothing of this with Nathaniel. They made love hastily, as awkward and anxious as two schoolkids playing hooky, not giving themselves time to explore each other or smell each other’s skin, let alone to laugh or sigh together. Afterward they were overcome by an inexplicable unease that they tried to disguise by smoking in silence covered by the sheet, with the moon’s yellow light spying on them from the window.