“So, the story is that my great-grandmother passed away—”
“I’m sorry.” A reflexive response. She could hear Odin’s guttural purr start up, a small motor.
“Don’t be. She was ready to go—beyond ready: a hundred years old. I never really knew her. All the family’s moved away, and she was in a care facility with her stuff in storage. Anyway, it turned out I was the only one willing to fly over and go through her things. It was fascinating though, what she had.” He stood back up, cheeks flushed. “This seemed like it might be important. It was at the bottom of a trunk with family portraits, her wedding dress, things like that…Oh, sorry if I tied it up too tight.”
“It’s okay.” Just as she said it, the twine yielded. After asking to use scissors, Rose carefully angled the blades between the brittle pages; he bent close to watch.
She read the title out loud.
“A book about art,” he repeated, gazing down at the calligraphy. “I can’t believe it. By Giovanni Lomazzo…That’s my last name, Lomazzo.”
“Then this certainly belonged to your family.” Rose set the cover sheet to one side; beneath it was a full page of text.
“Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves?” He was staring at her hands again.
“No, that’s a misconception.”
“Why?” He tilted his head, and she noticed he was a few days past needing a shave.
“Well, a lot of glove fibers—like cotton, for example—have fats and alkanes in them.”
His eyes widened, which she took as a sign to continue.
“They insulate your hands, which can stimulate the sweat glands. Then, as you produce moisture, they’ll wick and transfer it to the vellum. So, it’s actually better to just handle the paper directly.”
“Guess it makes you crazy to see people wearing gloves on TV shows, then.”
“Mmm.” She squinted down at the second page, which looked like an author’s introduction. The ink had faded, but she was able to make out a notation at the bottom: Venezia 1571. She lifted the pages to see if the writing continued through to the end of the stack. It did.
“It’s dated 1571 Venice. Where did your great-grandmother live?”
“A town called Padua. Wow, is it really that old?”
“I’d say so, judging by the vellum. I don’t think Padua is that far from Venice.” She bent to examine the writing. He leaned in too. She could smell his breath, tea tree and mint, like the flavored toothpicks sold at health food stores. “Oh! This is a palimpsest!”
“A what-sest?”
She couldn’t help but smile. “A palimpsest. It means there are actually two documents here.” She pointed down at the page, tracing her index finger along the lines for him to see. “The author wrote one text, scraped it away, turned the page, and wrote over the top again crosswise. It might not be the same author who wrote both, but based on the calligraphy I’d bet that it is. What’s interesting is how visible the undertext still is.” And it was, ghosting beneath the top layer of ink like a weak perpendicular shadow.
“Is it possible to find out what they both say? Both the writings?” He glanced up from the page, eyebrows raised.
“I think so, yes. It might’ve been an issue if the undertext had been completely scraped away…but in this condition? I should be able to render both.”
“How does that work?”
“Well, I’ll clean up the pages, then scan them. I use a software program to isolate the layers, so they’re legible enough to translate.” He was watching her lips as she spoke. “If it’s an original document and the content is meaningful, it could be valuable. But a full restoration will take time, and some cost.” She straightened her shoulders.
He nodded, assessing the pages spread out between them. “Well, you obviously know what you’re doing.” He leaned in, putting the weight of his bandaged hand on the desk, as if he were sharing a secret. “It doesn’t matter to me if it’s worth anything, or what it costs to restore. I want to know what it says. I’d like to know—” He stopped, though there seemed to be more to his sentence.
“I’d like to know too. I’ll give you an estimate.”
“Time and cost?”
“Yes. Time and cost.”
His hand disappeared into the back pocket of his jeans and emerged holding a brown leather wallet worn pale at the corners. He flipped it open, took out a thick white business card, and handed it to her. William Lomazzo. Website and email, all done in letterpress, with a streak of indigo printed across the top. He shoved the wallet back into his pocket and offered his hand; she extended her own. For a single moment, her radial artery pushed flush to his. Pulse against pulse, between forefinger and thumb, heartbeats separated by paper-thin flesh.
* * *
Walking back to where his black Ford truck sat lonesome in the drugstore parking lot, William was oblivious to the rain. He fumbled to unlock the door. Inside, his heat coaxed a thin layer of fog out along the edges of the windows. Tilting his hips up toward the steering wheel, he rummaged around in the back pocket of his jeans with one hand. Rain was coming down in earnest now, playing a heavy staccato on the rooftop.
He found it, fished it out.
The silver band he wasn’t supposed to, shouldn’t have, taken off. He’d looked through the window of the shop, seen her sitting behind the desk, and suddenly it was in his pocket and he was opening the door. And now he couldn’t point to why in a way he’d feel comfortable saying out loud. He measured the weight of the ring in his palm, watched how it shone in the flat gray light. Swallowed. The metallic taste of blood; he must have bitten his cheek somewhere along the way. Sitting alone in the truck, William buried his face in his wide hands and spoke simple words to a God he’d long ago abandoned.
2
GIOVANNI STARED DOWN AT THE drawing he was working on—a study of dried roses he’d arranged on the table in front of him: crisp petals, wrinkled and withered but still red. He squinted to sharpen the lines. Spirals of shadow and, just below, points of thorn peeking out from under clusters of brittle leaves. He thought of them, not so long ago, blooming supple beneath a summer sun. What was it Petrarch called time? Our delight and our prison.
Through the open studio window, the San Zanipolo tower rang, three bells in a major chord. Time to leave. Standing and shaking out his robes, Gio glanced around his studio at the scattered stools and velvet chaises, the delicate screen in one corner embroidered with birds in flight. He noted that the oiled paper tacked across the windows to diffuse the light needed changing. That morning, however, he’d been busy grinding pigment: madder and malachite, orpiment and ultramarine. Lapis lazuli from Far East traders and the unassuming yet crucial coal. Preparations for the work to come.