“I mean it. Open your eyes.”
Elijah stirs and groans. He opens his eyes and sees the plastic wood of the dashboard. Graceland has now played twice around.
Danny smiles in amusement and says, “Look outside.”
Elijah turns to the window and is startled straight into joy. A field of sunflowers surrounds the road, devout yellow heads bent, an oceanic congregation. Elijah cannot see beyond them. There are so many, and they are all so bright. Sunflowers as far as the eye can see.
“I wonder,” Danny says, “are sunflowers called sunflowers because they look like the sun, or because they follow the sun? Either one would be a perfectly good explanation, and there are so few things that deserve two perfectly good explanations.”
The sunflowers are retreating now—Elijah turns back to look at them, his wonder nearly dreamlike in its intensity and disbelief. He feels a strange gratitude toward his brother, for he knows he could have slept through the whole thing.
So instead of answering Danny's question, he says, “I met a girl named Julia in Venice.”And he tells a little bit of the story. Not the good parts. But enough to let Danny know what's going on.
A girl, Danny thinks. Elijah has met a girl.
He doesn't know how he feels about this.
Florence is not quite what Danny or Elijah had been expecting. Venice, in many ways, has misled them into thinking that the past can remain fully intact. And yet here is Florence, a city of the past with a city of the present imposed right atop it. (The future is nowhere to be found.) Benettons grow in the cracks between cathedrals. Moped-clad citizens run on caffeinated fumes. Crosswalks are suddenly necessary. Ghettoblaster teenagers skateboard past multinational newsstands. The Arno River shrugs by.
For a moment, traffic makes Florence seem like anywhere else. As Danny curses and stops and starts and struggles for direction, Elijah takes drive-by snapshots of the city and its contradictions. Venice was a museum city; Florence is a city with museums. There is, Elijah thinks, a big spiritual difference between the two.
Danny and Elijah are staying a little outside the city, at the Excelsior on the Piazza Ognissanti. There is a message waiting for them at the desk. Elijah's heart lifts when he sees the envelope, wondering how Julia could have known.
But the message is from Mr. and Mrs. Silver—Hoping you're having a lovely time!—signed with Much Love. Danny grumbles a little (he still has not entirely forgiven his parents' trickery) and hands Elijah the note. The porter brings their bags to the room, and they immediately depart. (Elijah takes a piece of the hotel stationery with him, just so he'll know where he's staying.)
Elijah wants to track Julia down immediately. But Danny is so antsy that he's willing to forgo his afternoon nap. This day is not supposed to be a Transportation Day—it is supposed to be a Florence Day, and Danny is willing to take the necessary steps to see it before sundown.
They taxi to the center of the city in the most rushed hour of the day. Danny is reminded of home—men with their leather briefcases jostle down the sidewalk, exuding a barely concealed hostility. A woman with a stroller crosses against traffic; horns blare in response.
“Where have you been?” the taxi driver asks. “Where are you going?”
Danny looks down and notices Elijah's shoes are untied.
“You'd better tie them,” he says.
Elijah scowls and makes a double knot.
The driver nods and turns up the radio.
Elijah stares out the window, somehow expecting Julia to be there, waving.
The Duomo is closed, so Elijah and Danny must be content with walking around its brilliantly traceable exterior.
“Not bad, for a church,” Danny says. Elijah is elsewhere.
“Where's she staying?” Danny asks.
“Here,” Elijah replies, pulling out an old bank receipt with an address written in red ink on the back.
“Then I guess we'd better go there and ask her to dinner.”
It is, by all means, an awkward situation. Because Elijah has no intention of sharing his time with anyone but Julia. But at the same time, he must be grateful for his brother's gesture. As they wait in the lobby for Julia to appear, Elijah tries to conjure somewhere else for Danny to go. But it's no use…for now.
The elevator teasingly discharges passengers who are markedly not Julia. Danny laughs to himself as they disembark, imagining that one of the sixtysomething dowagers is the woman for whom Elijah has so obviously fallen. He almost doesn't notice when Julia arrives. It's from Elijah's beaming that Danny can tell.
So this is Julia, he thinks. She isn't really attractive—rather boyish, with her hair so short and no make-up. No br**sts to speak of. In fact, no real curves of any kind. And what is a girl without curves if not, well, a boy? Danny is confounded by his brother's choice.
“Julia, this is my brother, Danny. Danny, this is Julia.” She doesn't have a label yet. She is just Julia.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you.”
Elijah doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what to say, doesn't know where to put his hands, doesn't know how familiar to be with Julia, especially with Danny watching. Julia sends him a winking look—something for them to share—and suddenly Elijah feels okay with the situation. Danny is harmless. Julia is everything.
It is, by European standards, obscenely early for dinner— not yet seven o'clock. This makes it easier for them to change their reservation from two to three. It also ensures that the few other people in the restaurant will be English-speakers like themselves.
Even though most of the tables are empty, they are seated right next to a family of six. Their acquaintance is soon enough made—the youngest child, age three, grabs Elijah's shirt as he goes to sit down. The mother apologizes profusely, while Elijah profusely declares that it's no problem whatsoever. Soon enough, introductions are made, and Mrs. Allison Feldstein of Commack, Long Island, is telling the story of the Feldstein fam-ily's day in Pisa:
“We were worried that we'd be driving all that way for nothing—like those poor souls who drive halfway through South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. You know what I mean? But Davey has a Sno-globe collection—don't you, Davey?—and he really wanted to have one from the leaning tower. And there's a restaurant two towns over from ours named The Tower of Pizza, so the kids wanted to go on account of that, ha ha. So we got in the car and drove there—it wasn't as long as we thought it would be. The drive was actually enjoyable. And when we got there, the town itself was a very pleasant surprise. It's so strange to see something in person that you've been seeing all your life. I mean, everyone knows the tower leans. But it's not until you're standing right there that you can truly understand what a spectacular kind of thing this is. It's really quite striking, especially when you're looking at it from behind. I mean, buildings just aren't meant to lean away from you, so it's startling when they do. The little one here was terrified it would fall, and I have to tell you, the thought crossed my mind, too. It probably crosses everyone's mind. It shakes the fundamental trust we have in buildings. And it's a beautiful building—that's something you never hear about. It would be worth seeing even if it wasn't leaning. And the cathedral next to it—who even knew there was a cathedral? But it's really one of the most striking ones we've seen. It was all white and shadow. I loved it. And believe you me, we've seen more than enough cathedrals on this trip….”
As Elijah listens to this, Danny shoots a look at Julia—who rolls her eyes right back. They have become prisoners of Jewish Geography, inextricably bonded to these similar strangers in a strange land.
Mrs. Feldstein's children grow restless before either she or Elijah does. They are swapping itineraries—the Feldsteins are on their way to Venice and have just come from Rome. Danny begins to play with the remnants of bread on the tablecloth. Julia laughs at this and begins to flick crumbs his way. Elijah turns back to the table aglow with conversation—only to find his brother and his newfound love skirmishing playfully. It is the first time in a long time that he feels like the more mature brother.
As soon as he's back, Julia's attention returns to him, and he feels all right again. Danny feels the center slip away from him. He is once more a hypotenuse.
“How was your drive?” Julia asks, and even though it could be meant for either of them, both of them know it is Elijah's place to answer.
“Fine,” Danny says.
“If your idea of ‘fine’ is being trapped in a car with the Red Baron driving,” Elijah adds.
“You're mixing your transportation metaphors.”
“It's not a metaphor, it's a reference.”
Julia smiles. “I think I'm getting the picture,” she says, and the two of them are reduced to silence.
“You'll have to pardon us—we're brothers,” Danny says after a moment.
“Yes, I've noticed. I have four brothers of my own.”
Four brothers. Neither Danny nor Elijah can imagine having four brothers. Separately, they wonder if it's harder or easier than having just one.
From this point on, Julia owns the conversation. Elijah admires the fact that she is charming enough to make the people she is with act charming as well. Danny's and Elijah's words suddenly run in paragraphs, not sentences. They tell her of their parents' trickery, of their lives back home. Danny talks about work, and even Elijah isn't bored—not totally. Julia seems interested, and Elijah is interested in the way she is interested.
The Feldsteins leave, with Mrs. Feldstein writing down a list of sites they have to see in Rome. The language of the restaurant slowly shifts to Italian. As the other patrons arrive, Danny, Elijah, and Julia lean into their table to offer critiques.
“What I want to know is this,” Julia begins. She has been drinking wine casually, and the effect can be heard in her voice. “All of the young Italian men are so gorgeous, right?”
“I hadn't noticed,” Danny sniffs.
“Liar!” Elijah cries. “They are absolutely beautiful, and you know it.”
“Okay,” Danny concedes.
“Exactly!” Julia smiles. “They all have this perfect proportion, this delicate balance of divinity and boyishness. I can hardly manage to walk down the street without kissing a dozen strangers. When I'm around them, I feel like such a woman. So my question is this: What happens? You see all of these beautiful young men … and all of the old men are at least two feet shorter, round, and balding. There's no trace of the young men in the old men. None whatsoever. It's like they dance at the ball until they're thirty, then—poof !—the midnight bell chimes. They shrink back to size, and their Fiats turn into pumpkins.”
“What an awful thing to say!” Danny gasps in his most scandalized voice.
“But true, eh?”
“Absolutely true.”
There is a pause, and then Danny asks,“So what brings you here?” He is still thinking of her walking down crowded narrow alleyways, kissing strangers.
“It's an old story,” Julia says, leaning back in her chair. “Only for me, it's new. I went to school for industrial design. All my life, I've been fascinated by chairs—I know it sounds silly, but it's true. Form meets purpose in a chair. My parents thought I was crazy, but somehow I convinced them to pay my way to California. To study furniture design. I was all excited at first. It was totally unlike me to go so far away from home. But I was sick of the cold and sick of the snow. I figured a little sun might change my life. So I headed down to L.A. and roomed with the friend of an ex-girlfriend of my brother's. She was an aspiring radio actress, which meant she was home a lot.