A couple walked slowly by in the street in front of the house, hand in hand.
Jess watched them pass in silence. She took a deep breath and exhaled long and slow. “People seem so calm.” The seaside town was mostly deserted, people having headed inland or into the mountains, but some had remained.
Jess turned to Giovanni. “In some places they’re burning down cities before Nomad even gets here.”
Giovanni nodded, his eyes fixed on the house across the street. “To exist is literally amazing—but that same wonder is also burdened with a finite end. There is a self-deception in denying the dark underside of existence, that the question, ‘Why am I here?’ is answered with resounding emptiness.”
Jess would usually roll her eyes at something like this, but now she nodded.
“In most of the world,” Giovanni continued, “even talking about death is unseemly; they only view the value of something based on its ability to enhance happiness or enjoyment. Just discussing death is viewed in bad taste, as if we’re immortal. So when the end comes suddenly, it’s no surprise that some people are running around tearing their hair out. But death is the only thing certain in life.”
Jess frowned. “That’s morbid.”
“See what I mean?” The edges of Giovanni’s mouth curled in the saddest of smiles. “Most of the time this is a philosophical question, but now…”
“I see what you mean,” Jess admitted.
“Just weeks ago,” Giovanni added, “many people wouldn’t believe scientists who said we were destroying the Earth with global warming. Now they believe these same scientists who say that the Earth is about to be destroyed by some invisible object, some speck in space that they can’t even see yet—and they scream in panic because it is their lives that may be ending, not the lives of their children.”
“And what do you believe?”
“I believe in the primacy of action.” Giovanni thumped his chest, taking his eyes off the house. “I am here! I believe in living in the moment, in living life to its fullest, even to the end.” He looked her in the eye.
In the twilight darkness, Jess stared into Giovanni’s eyes. She held his gaze, felt his warmth beside her on the mattress. This might be the last time she ever saw a man look at her like that. A sense of urgency rushed through her; all the fear she’d been holding in rippled up her back, tingling her scalp. I am here, she repeated in her head. I am alive.
She reached around Giovanni and pulled him to her, kissed him hard on the mouth. She slid on top of him, kissing his eyes, his forehead, his neck while she unbuttoned his shirt.
Above them, the first stars of the last night glittered.
29
VACA, ITALY
LEANING AGAINST THE cool concrete of the balcony enclosure, Jess pulled her jeans back on and stared up at the stars. No shimmering light, nothing unusual. Just the sliver of a crescent moon rising.
The pain of living, the fear of dying—their lovemaking was desperate, almost violent, but also quiet. Tendons and muscles strained in near silence. They both listened for any crackle of the walkie-talkie that might signal something happening at the house. Now that it was over, Jess retreated and pulled her limbs into herself, curling into a ball.
Giovanni was still undressed, lying naked on the mattress, his chin flat to the ground, straining to see through the drain gap. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his slacks, rumpled on the floor beside him, and lit one with a gold lighter he produced from the same pocket. The concrete enclosure of the balcony provided shielding so that nobody across the street would see it.
Jess smiled at him. She’d seen him smoking before, at the castle. “You didn’t strike me as the type that smoked.”
Giovanni returned her smile. “You think these might kill me?” Leaning down, he glanced through the drain gap again. “I quit, years ago, but...”
“Give me one.”
Shrugging, Giovanni handed her his cigarette and reached to take another from the pack.
Jess took the cigarette and lifted it to her lips, taking a deep drag. The smoke burned her throat, her lungs, and she coughed. She hadn’t smoked since she was a teenager, and even then only to rebel. Coughing again, she frowned at the cigarette, then stubbed it out against the concrete wall. “That’s gross.”
Giovanni looked at the cigarette he just took from the pack and nodded. “You’re right.”
“Zio,” the walkie-talkie crackled.
Dropping the cigarette, Giovanni grabbed the walkie-talkie. “Si.”
“Alla ingressa.”
They both flopped onto the mattress and looked through the drain gap. The front door to the house opened, illuminating the gravel walkway. Two men stepped out, followed by Enzo. They stopped, exchanged a few words, and Enzo retreated and closed the door behind them.