The Chapel by Michael Downing Read Free Book Online Page B

café,” I said.
    One of them knocked on the window and said, “Free coffee. We come now.”
    The other one pointed to his left. “ Il Metro. Per la strada, da questo lato .”
    I said, “ Perfecto ,” not sure if that was Italian or Spanish or an invention. Halfway down the block, I was relieved to see the steel sign for Café Metro, backlit with blue light, as was the bar inside. It was perched at the corner of the arcaded alley we’d walked through last night on the way to the piazza. Its exterior walls were huge sheets of plate glass, and one pane on the front was pivoted open to a street-side café, where two singles were braving the traffic. I headed inside and veered toward the darkest seats on the arcade wall and hoped the young aproned woman with long henna curls leaning on the crowded bar could be roused into table service. Most of the business seemed to be espresso shots at the bar. After a few minutes of graciously expectant smiling and waving, I pulled my journal out of my bag, as if I’d just had a noteworthy thought, and I immediately realized I hadn’t brought a pen.
    â€œDon’t ask.” T. was standing beside my table with a tray. He was still wearing his blue linen blazer. He set down something dark with white foam in a clear glass, and then a second. “Latte macchiato,” he said. He pushed my journal to the far corner of the table and then added two tiny cups of espresso. “Shots and chasers,” he explained. Between the beverages, he slid a white saucer with three little biscotti on a white doily. He raised the steel tray in his right hand, and the redhead swung by and picked it up.
    I was so happy to see him, I said, “You were wonderful last night. Thank you.”
    â€œDon’t look now,” he said, “but every man at the bar is staring at you.”
    â€œLast chance,” I said. Two moon-faced men in dark suits were turned our way, both gazing at T. I sipped from the glass. It was the perfect morning coffee. “I’m going home today.”
    â€œOh, did you forget something?” He knocked back his espresso.
    â€œYes.” Even in the peculiarly evasive code language we’d adopted, it was a relief to announce my intentions. It made my departure real. I shoved my espresso his way. He hadn’t shaved. “I forgot who I am,” I said. I immediately felt my face redden with shame. It was meant to be a joke, but it sounded a lot like a confession, perhaps because it was true. In the silence that followed, my confession ripened into a plea for help. “I have to be at home,” I said defiantly, which only seemed to highlight the psychiatric aspect of my decision.
    T. smiled—maybe sympathetically, maybe diagnostically—and then he said, “I almost forgot what I wanted to tell you.” He cleared some space at the edge of our table and opened my journal. He flipped through several blank pages. “Oh, very shrewd,” he said. “Invisible ink.” He turned back to the first page and pulled a silver pen from his jacket. He looked up at me.
    â€œPermission granted,” I said. I really expected him to jot down his home address, or maybe the name of a shrink he knew in Boston.
    He drew this:

    â€œRoman arch,” he said.
    â€œGreek to me,” I said.
    â€œBasis for the greatest empire in the history of the world. Also, the basis of the barrel vault, if you imagine one of them as each end of an enclosed space, like that brick arcade.” He closed the book, pocketed his pen. “What time does your flight leave from Venice?”
    â€œLet’s find out.” I pulled my phone out of my bag.
    He covered the phone and my hand with his. “It leaves tomorrow,” he said. “I won’t be going with the others to Vicenza. I’m renting a car—a convertible—and we’ll take the scenic route to Venice. You have to see some of the