After the service I stayed seated while the other congregants filed out of the cathedral. One word kept going through my head, over and over again: impossible, impossible, impossible. If you say a word enough times, it stops making sense. This is impossible. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening.
Panic rooted me to my seat. A young boy in white robes walked over to the altar and began to arrange the candles, removing the spent wicks and replacing them with new tapers. The idea was incomprehensible, but the evidence was all around me; I’d been transported to fourteenth-century Siena dressed in a sleeveless linen sundress. I knew no one. I had no home, no food, and no money. I had no idea how I’d gotten here, and, more importantly, no idea how to get back. I could hear my own breathing, shallow and rapid, and felt my heart hammering in my chest. I was about to have either a nervous breakdown or a heart attack.
Most people do not find it relaxing to recite the names of the arteries at the base of the skull in order of their appearance, but most people are not neurosurgeons. Fighting to keep control, I closed my eyes and resorted to my favorite strategy, honed by years of training. I imagined the weblike shape of the arterial Circle of Willis, and the vessels branching off from it. Anterior cerebral artery, anterior communicating, internal carotid, middle carotid, posterior cerebral, basilar, vertebral . . . anterior cerebral, anterior communicating, internal carotid . . . After the third repetition my heart had slowed and I could breathe normally again. The altar boy finished with the candles and started walking down the length of the nave toward me. I wrapped my shawl around my bare arms and shoulders and headed out of the cathedral.
I focused on my immediate needs first: finding a bathroom and suitable clothes. I discovered a foul cesspit in an alleyway behind the cathedral that was probably used to empty chamber pots and accomplished my first goal. I held my breath until I was back in the piazza again.
In the Campo, merchants were starting to set up market stalls, but I didn’t see any clothing for sale, and in any case I had no medieval money. The Campo had filled with people. A few glanced curiously at me. Maybe I could find some drying laundry to dress myself in—people must do laundry around here. The key was not to get caught stealing, since I didn’t want to end up being hanged as a thief. My thoughts were spinning, recycling all my historical knowledge in the hopes of finding something useful. I chose a street at random, turned right, then left. Farther from the cathedral, the streets got narrower and darker until I could touch the buildings on both sides with my hands. I wasn’t finding the laundry lines I’d hoped for. There were probably courtyards behind the buildings, but I couldn’t get to them. I kept walking, hoping I wouldn’t have to spend much more time in the fourteenth century wearing the medieval equivalent of underwear.
I felt a wet drop on my head and looked up, trained by my New York City upbringing to see a pigeon. Instead, protruding from the facade of a four-story town house was a wooden pole a few feet long. It looked like it might have been used to hang a banner, but this pole had a wet cape hanging from it.
I’d been hoping for a dress, but I was willing to take what I could get. Unfortunately, the pole was far above my head. I stared at it, gauging the distance. If I could just get to the loggia on the first floor, I’d have easy access. I pushed against the wood front door, but not surprisingly, it didn’t move. Just above my head was a hook, probably for a lantern. I reached and gave it a good yank to test whether it might hold my weight. It pulled right out of the wall and hit the pavement with a loud clang.
The wood shutters on a third-story window flew open. I flattened myself in the doorway. “Chi è?” a woman’s voice called down sharply—who’s there? I waited unmoving until I heard the shutters slam shut and, after a few minutes, chanced a peek out of the doorway. No one in sight. I jammed the hook back into the hole in the wall, willing it to stay.
I had decided to give up on the cape when a young woman with a large basket appeared from an alleyway in front of me. I followed her at a safe distance until she stopped at a house, put her basket down, and unlocked the door. She turned back to retrieve her burden when an elderly voice called from inside.
“Vengo, Nonna,” she replied and disappeared through the door, leaving the basket. A wooden birdcage hung from a hook outside the window, with two larks singing inside and jumping from perch to perch; otherwise, the street was quiet. I approached casually, trying to look like I belonged, in case any neighbors should appear. The basket was full of wet clothing, probably washed in a public fountain. I grabbed a dark green garment at random, then walked quickly around the corner. My heart was pounding as I looked at what I’d taken. Fortunately it was a dress, made of light wool with long sleeves and skirt. Struggling with the wet fabric, I put the dress on over my own and kept walking, weighted down and dripping. I hoped the granddaughter wouldn’t get in trouble.
After the adrenaline of my first criminal act subsided, I realized how tired I was. I headed back toward the Duomo. A low wooden building adjoined the cathedral; I found the door and ducked inside, hoping I could find somewhere to rest. I’d walked into a livestock pen; high openings in the walls let through enough light to reveal cows, horses, and donkeys staring placidly as I walked past. When I saw the ladder leading up to a hayloft, I almost cried with relief. Up above, surrounded by fragrant hay, I took off the wet gown and spread it on the straw, covered myself with my shawl, and went to sleep.
The angle of the sun had changed when I woke up to bells again, thirsty and with a growling stomach. I made a quick inventory of the contents of my bag. Fortunately, Ben’s old leather backpack looked medieval enough not to attract undue attention. A wedge of panforte and a small steel water bottle, half filled. I wolfed down the slice of stale fruitcake, then emptied the rest of the items onto my skirt. The useless keys to Ben’s house, and a wallet, also useless, since modern bills would do me no good here. I sorted through the rest: a slightly grubby cotton handkerchief, two safety pins, and a square mother-of-pearl pillbox containing the last five tablets of an antibiotic I was supposed to have taken for bronchitis two months before. At the bottom of my bag was the note from Donata inviting me for coffee. Donata. I stuffed the note, my shawl, and all my other worldly possessions back in my bag, wondering whether I might ever see her again.