Rumor of Cortez

Orpheus Ascending

65 Orpheus Ascending I. Orpheus and Eurydice Take Italian Lessons Orpheus is doing his own thinking now. Quella ragazza è molto bella! That girl is very beautiful. Eurydice has feelings, too. “Maurizio is from Verona.” “We are Italians.” “The banana is yellow.” Partiamo stasera. Let’s leave this evening. This is Eurydice’s thought. Pop six discs in the cd player. Power of suggestion. Pack, notify the credit card companies, take the dog to the pound, check the expiration date on the passport, your roots are showing. { In Venice, there’s a mud bath, a good shoemaker, a respectable hairdresser (un buon parrucchiere). The word for grapes, uva, is always singular, never plural. Orpheus and Eurydice agree that this is, somehow, deep. Italian has a tense for the past, and another for the long past, Il Passato Remoto, the “Past Absolute.” This, too, seems to them significant. 66 Three months of intense study, now Orpheus can order his favorite dish at La Strega, watch Fellini films without glancing at the subtitles, understand what his future in-laws are saying about him while they smile and wipe the tomato sauce from their lips. Both understand the idea behind Mimi’s tortured heart in La Bohème. They sound sexy, sound pretty smart. Enthralled by ancient burial rites, Eurydice must visit the catacombs. Not afraid of dark, moldy tunnels, she loves the sound of bats, has always been intrigued by bones, skulls, preserved body parts. Assured, she won’t lose herself in the labyrinth of passages and chambers that once held the remains of early Christian martyrs. It’s another hot day. Catacombs—great way to cool off. { Orpheus loves driving. There’s only one car named Ferrari and he knows there’s nothing practical about driving a car made for speed, but wants leather gloves that stretch tight over the knuckles, sunglasses like goggles, a supermodel in the passenger seat. Or Eurydice. Okay, Eurydice, but the sexy one from Black Orpheus, with Jobim’s bossa novas and ah, that Marpessa Dawn. 67 Eurydice prefers to walk. She’ll buy something comfortable in Florence. She wants to stroll past the limpid waters of Venice’s canals, hike the Appian Way, check out the ruins of Pompeii, where in 79 A.D., Vesuvius buried 2000 people under a layer of dust, lava, and stone. Orpheus considers photojournalism. More than anything he wants to wear khaki and carry several cameras around his neck as he searches for Eurydice, waits for that candid shot, Eurydice emerging from dim light, say, or climbing a steep flight of steps in a flowing gown, gauzy, pellucid. He wants to fill a book with images of old women hanging the laundry, or their husbands sitting on cane chairs at the local bar, playing chess. He imagines stray tomcats, a clowder, eating leftover spaghetti from a piece of newspaper or young couples embracing along the Ponte Vecchio for the first time, or the last. They buy flash cards. They tune in Italian TV at night, radio stations at the office, buy Italian products: espresso machines, hair driers, rice and fruits. Together, they read the fine print in the owners’ manuals to learn technical terms, they read Verdi libretti, practice saying, “La Scala” until they say it like natives. Like Milanese. Practical people, they set realistic goals, learn grammar, practice rolling their r’s in the shower. They learn to their great delight that Dante and Boccaccio both wrote in Italian. { 68 A man comes to the door, tells Eurydice he’s left a dizionario Italiano in the subbasement near the coal furnace, many flights down. She can fetch it. He wears a black coat, maybe a red lining, speaks so very slowly she can make out every word, every wound. Orpheus says he’ll follow in a bit, bring his camera, a new Minolta with telephoto lens and strobe light. He’s delighted with the specs: Camera type: 35mm SLR Viewfinder: SAR roof mirror Shutter type: Electronically controlled Focus type: Phase-detection system; multi metering with cross-hair type Rewind: Auto rewind (countdown display) Exposure modes: Portrait, landscape, close up, sports, night portrait, automatic, manual He’s got plenty of film. Peccato, peccato. 69 II. Orpheus Has Singing Lessons, Eurydice Assays Caving Orpheus loves life, adores a song, worships a lyre. Sure, Botticelli, Rafael, Caravaggio, Pisano, Masaccio...