I was operating at full swing by the beginning of December. Linney and I worked side by side, and sometimes I’d catch her watching me from under her cap, as if convincing herself that I was really there. I didn’t know how to reassure either of us. My mind was occupied with what I’d left behind, a silent parallel narrative that intruded on whatever I was doing. And although I felt competent cutting, cauterizing, and suturing, the undercurrent I’d come to expect during surgery had gone quiet. In fact, since I’d returned nothing had elicited the rush of empathy that had come so frequently before. Sometimes I’d attempt to open my mind to someone else’s perspective, or I’d wait expectantly for a passage from a book to elicit a wave of pure emotion. I supposed it was safer to be free of it, if safety was my goal.
The next letter from the lawyers finally jolted me out of my post-Plague inertia. Someone had tried to break into Ben’s house—my house. The attempt had failed, but the lock needed to be replaced. I authorized the expense and asked the Albertis to put everything related to Ben’s research into a safe-deposit box at the Bank of Siena.
Would someone commit a crime to get at the information I’d collected? And if so, why—to publish it, or to suppress it? What had Ben been on the threshold of discovering that anyone would want to steal? Could the modern Signoretti have had something to do with the break-in? I couldn’t sit pondering in New York City anymore. My convalescence was officially over.
The next day I finished a thorny spinal stenosis case early enough for a visit to Nathaniel’s bookstore. I hadn’t been there since the day I’d announced Ben’s death; it felt like seven hundred years ago. Nathaniel was standing at the front of the shop, sorting newly arrived books from a large wooden crate.
“New shipment?”
“An estate sale. There’s a complete set of Dickens first editions, and that’s just the beginning. Care to help?” Nathaniel beckoned me over and I happily joined him. We spent the next hour peacefully unpacking and cataloging. Finally, I put the book I was holding down on the table between us. Nathaniel put his down too and regarded me steadily.
“Nathaniel, have I ever told you that you have nice eyes?”
“Thank you for the lovely compliment.” He smiled so sweetly I wanted to kiss him. Chastely of course. I sighed loudly. “OK, Beatrice, tell me what’s eating you. It’s not every day you rhapsodize about my facial features.”
I was quiet for a minute, trying to figure out how to explain.
“I’m not quite right here.”
“Here?” He caught the key word hidden in the sentence. I chewed my lower lip before answering, realizing as I did that it was a habit I’d gotten from Gabriele. I still could barely think about what might have happened to him, let alone discuss it. But what did I mean by here? Here and now? There would be no way of discussing now.
“Back home. In New York, being a surgeon, all of that.”
“Was it so wonderful in Italy, despite what happened?”
He meant getting sick, of course, but that wasn’t what I was thinking. “When I’m operating now, part of me is somewhere else. That’s not ideal for a neurosurgeon.”
“Maybe a full schedule is too much for you right now.”
“No, that’s not it.” I closed my eyes and saw the scriptorium the way I remembered it on the last day before I’d left for Pisa. I’d finished the Dante, and it lay in front of me with the ink still drying. The sun came through the thick panes of the tall windows, dappling the stone floor with rippled light. But in my vision one window was still broken, and through it stepped Gabriele, haloed by sunshine. I knew he was dead now, more than six hundred years later. But had he died of Plague in his time?
“You’re not sure you belong here anymore?” It was Nathaniel who said it first, my thoughts from months in the fourteenth century finally given voice.
“There are things I have to deal with back in Siena. I left pretty suddenly.”
Nathaniel reached out his hand and folded my smaller hand in his. I felt in danger of floating off, away from everything I once knew and wanted.
“What will you do—finish Ben’s book?”
I nodded, not saying the rest.
“Well then, we’d better throw you a hell of a going-away party.”
“Yes, you’d better,” I said, and, suddenly moved, I kissed his hand.
“Should Charles worry?” Nathaniel said, smiling.
“Why should he worry? I’m leaving, right?” I smiled back. We finished sorting through the books from the estate sale, then sat down together to make the guest list.
* * *
Packing was harder this time. I didn’t know how long I’d be in Siena, and in how many seasons—or centuries. I didn’t know whether that thought produced dread or desire.
I packed everything from my medicine cabinet. I hesitated when I got to my diaphragm—bringing birth control seemed presumptuous. But it might be as lifesaving as antibiotics, given the risks that accompanied pregnancy in the fourteenth century. I threw it in with everything else. I called in prescriptions to the neighborhood pharmacy for myself: two weeks of several antibiotics—ciprofloxacin included. I should be immune to Plague by now, but others might not be, and there were plenty of other infections to worry about. I justified it as being like packing mefloquine for a trip to a malaria-infested country.
Next I packed my few pieces of jewelry. Folded into a velvet envelope was a heart-shaped pendant that had been my mother’s, inset with small rubies. I’d often taken it out to look at but hadn’t worn it since my high school prom. I put it on now, feeling the gold warm against my skin. I moved on to clothes, putting as much as I could fit into a vast yellow duffel bag I’d had since medical school. It smelled funny but worked fine.
The bottom drawer of my dresser was full of surgical scrubs. Looking down at that pile of blue and green gave me a more explicit pang than saying good-bye to any live person. I closed the drawer quickly without touching the contents.
* * *
I flew to Siena on Christmas day. This time my keys fit the lock. There was no bakery—no yeasty smell from Martellino’s ovens, but it still felt like home, or halfway home. I fell asleep in my clothes on the little guest bed.
I woke up to the sound of Felice’s voice mingling with the twitter of winter sparrows in the courtyard garden. It was almost noon. I stumbled downstairs to find Felice perched in the orange tree. At this time of year there were no blossoms or fruit to pick. In true childhood fashion she launched into conversation without awkward preliminaries.