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nor expectations attached to it, which surprised him. He had never before encountered friendliness for its own sake, friendliness that formed like a skin over the surface of the moment, only to break when the spoon plunged in.
    Returning from the bathroom, he asked how much he owed. "One thousand five hundred," the barman said, ringing up.
    "And the grappa?"
    "
Niente.
"
    "But—"
    "
Niente.
"
    It seemed futile to argue when faced with such an edifice of masculine will. Thanking him, Paul picked up his umbrella and left.
    Outside, the rain seemed finally to have let up. Cold leftover drops fell onto his hair from balconies. Somehow he knew that back at the hotel, his mother had woken.
    Ignoring the maternal tug, he kept walking. Against the wall of a brooding palazzo a beige poster drooped in the damp. He went to study it: RICHARD KENNINGTON, PI ANOFORTE , it declared, CHOPIN, BRAHMS, RAVEL...
    He searched for the date, saw that the concert had taken place the night before.
    Suddenly a strangled sensation seized him, anguish holding exultation in its scissors grip.
    "Fuck," he said. An old lady smiled. "Shit." A boy with a heavy backpack rode by on a bicycle.
    Finally he said, "Nothing works out for me" (he was his mother's son), then, breathless, hurried back to the hotel. In the dim lobby an old woman sat knitting in a rocking chair, her attention fixed on a black-and-white television that chattered near the ceiling. Behind a bar, a sullen youth was wiping a plate with his apron. A signora, Valkyrian in aspect, occupied the front desk in much the same way that large countries occupy small countries during a war.
    Thunder broke in the distance. The yellow lights wavered, steadied.
    "
Buona sera, signorino.
"
    "
Buona sera.
" He took his key.
    Upstairs, more light escaped from under his mother's door, on which he knocked.
    "Who is it?" she asked timorously.
    "Paul."
    She opened for him. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so glad it's you. Where have you been? I was frightened."
    "I took a walk."
    He stepped into her room. The chandelier shone loudly. It was not a comforting light. In it, his mother looked suddenly very small to him, almost birdlike. And he was still young enough to be a little shocked by how much he'd outgrown her.
    He sat down on the iron bed. Over its various posts and bars Pamela had draped her underwear and nylons. "I tell you, the bathroom's been a real adventure," she said. "First the hot water was on the side of the sink that the cold water was supposed to be on. And then to make things even more confusing, the cold side said 'F' and the hot side said 'C.'"
    "
Caldo
and
freddo.
"
    "Right, and
caldo
means cold."
    "No,
caldo
means hot."
    "Well, anyway, it basically
was
cold. Lukewarm at most. And instead of a proper tub, there's just a showerhead on the wall and a kind of drain thing on the floor. I nearly flooded the place. And the toilet—"
    Paul lay back. His posture told Pamela to shut up about the bathroom.
    "So, are you hungry?" she asked instead, and looked at him cautiously, as if to gauge his emotional temperature.
    Paul shrugged. "Not really. You?"
    "I could eat. I mean, I
should
eat. We need to adjust to the schedule over here, and probably the best way to do it is just to pretend we're not tired when we're tired, pretend we're hungry when we're not hungry."
    "You go," Paul said.
    "You mean alone?"
    "You eat. I'm exhausted."
    Pamela frowned. "But Paul," she said. "It's our first night—"
    "Mother, I just want to make one thing clear. I'm happy to be on this trip with you, I'm happy to be seeing Italy with you, only if we're going to get along, you have to give me time by myself. I'm eighteen now. I'm an adult."
    "I know that, Paul. And of course the last thing I want is to burden you. But this
is
our first night, and anyway, I don't understand the money, your Italian is so good—"
    "Just go downstairs and have some supper in the hotel restaurant. The waiters speak English and they'll put the