We. I felt a warmth in my belly as the pronoun sank in.
“I’ve always reacted to other people’s experiences intensely—in a way that sends me into the heart and head of the person I’m with.” I’d never articulated this before. “I think that’s why I became a doctor. I wanted to do something constructive with that access and information. But I didn’t realize how strange it was until very recently.”
“And did you move into the head and heart of someone from this century? Is that what brought you to us?” I was stunned by his concise and accurate summary of my nebulous suspicion, but wasn’t ready to tell him whose head and heart.
“It’s possible,” I said, weakly. “You’re good at this.”
He smiled. “Do you miss your home very much, Beatrice?”
“At first that was all I could think of: how to get back.”
“And now?”
“Now? I’m not sure.” When I imagined home now, I saw my little room in the Ospedale, the scarred surface of my desk in the scriptorium. It seemed I was accumulating homes to be sick for. “I was set adrift when my brother died. I’d been certain for so long—about where I lived and how I spent my time, about surgery, about everything. Now I’m certain of nothing.” I had to pause here to explain the modern version of surgery, since the medieval one was more like first aid.
“You entered people’s heads in more ways than one—with your hands, and with your heart?”
“Right.” I remembered the feel of the curve of cortex under one gloved hand, the cool weight of a scalpel in the other. Did I miss that? “Medicine was becoming a dangerous job for me—I couldn’t protect myself from my patients’ suffering anymore. And once I started doing research for Ben’s book . . .” I stopped talking, thinking of how I’d felt discovering documents that gave me a window into the past. “Then I found other work to fall in love with.” It had felt like love too, that heady absorption and exhilaration.
“I know that love of work,” Gabriele said gently. “Ben was your brother?”
“Yes.” I pushed down tears. “He wrote about Siena in this time. I immersed myself in the world he’d re-created, and began living it more intensely than my own. And now here I am, stuck in it.” I wished that I didn’t know what I knew, and that I wasn’t in a position to tell Gabriele where his history was headed. “Siena magically manages to exist in more than one time at once. Maybe that’s why I was able to move from then into now.”
Gabriele nodded. His acceptance of what I said was startling, given the subject matter. Was it something about the medieval mind, or was it unique to him?
“I don’t know whether it’s more frightening to realize that I might rather be a scholar of Siena’s history than a neurosurgeon or . . .”
“Or?”
“Or to realize that I might feel more at ease in the fourteenth century than my own.”
“Why is it so disturbing to you that you should find yourself happy here?” The gravity of his question did not escape either of us.
“I’m afraid that if I get too content I might lose my ability to go back. Not that I have any idea how to do that. Maybe it’s not possible.”
Gabriele studied my face with concern. “Do you wish to return to your cabin? I am afraid I have fatigued you with my probing.”
I didn’t want to leave yet. I was thinking of the first time I’d read Gabriele’s own handwritten words. “I read about you. Back in my time, I mean. Not just about you—I read what you’d written.”
He looked puzzled. “I am no writer, Beatrice, I am a painter. What words can you possibly mean?”
“Don’t you have a book where you record your thoughts?”
He paused, then reached behind him and brought out a leather shoulder bag, placing it between us. Opening the flap he drew out a small, familiar little book, simply bound and tied with a leather thong. It looked weirdly new, incongruous in its brightness. I stared at the book anxiously, wondering whether it had the power to throw me forcibly through the fabric of time.
“This? This of all things will survive me?” His voice sounded incredulous.
“You never know what’s going to end up as history.” I smiled cautiously. “May I touch it?”
“Of course,” Gabriele said, holding it out to me. The book felt perfectly ordinary, and when I opened the pages nothing happened. But of course it was where it belonged, settled in its own time, as was its author.
Gabriele stood up abruptly. “We will be plunged into darkness if I do not replace the candle.” I watched him use the nearly spent taper to light a new one. The new candle burned brightly, limning his features with gold, and my desire for him suddenly sharpened, astonishing me with its force. I had to lower my eyes, and sat there wrapped in the cloak and blanket, feeling the heat rise in my chest. The only sound in the room was our breathing until he spoke.
“Look at me,” he said gruffly.
I let the journal drop into my lap. Gabriele knelt down on the floor until our heads were on the same level, forcing me to meet his gaze. “Beatrice, I would be deeply honored if you would allow me the pleasure of taking your hand.”
I felt like I was falling, like I had forgotten how to breathe. In the OR my hands never shook, no matter how urgent or deadly the problem might be, but now I watched my outstretched hand tremble.
His long fingers closed around mine, startling in their warmth. I felt every joint, every inch of skin, each tiny nerve exclaiming at the contact. One part of my brain rebelled—I can’t possibly be holding hands with a 700-year-old fresco painter. The rest of my brain was, mercifully, silent.
After a few moments Gabriele smiled. “Perhaps that is all that we can manage.” He released me, pulling his hand back reluctantly. “At least for now.” He touched my chin and gently raised my head toward his. “Do you concur?”
I could feel my heart pounding. “Stop now?”
“There is nothing I would like more than to continue, Beatrice, truly.”
“You’re refusing me?”
“Do not mistake my restraint for lack of desire. I am only asking for a postponement, Beatrice . . . until you are my wife,” Gabriele said simply, “if that is a palatable consideration.”
“Your wife?”
“Is this as shocking to you as your suggestion that I proceed to ravish you was to me? What a strange world you must come from.” He was smiling now.
“Totally shocking.” My heart was racing, and I felt like I might pass out.