Beautiful Ruins

Valeria watched their faces as they spoke English, and seemed suspicious about hearing her own name. “I hope you’re not going to marry this whore, Pasquale.”

“Zia—”

“Your mother thinks you are going to marry her.”

“Enough, Zia!”

Valeria gently pushed the hair out of the beautiful American’s eyes. “What is the matter with her?”

Pasquale said quietly, “Cancro.”

Dee Moray didn’t look up.

Valeria seemed to think about this. She chewed the inside of her cheek. “Oh,” she said finally. “She will be fine. Tell the whore she will be fine.”

“I’m not going to tell her that.”

“Tell her.” Valeria looked at Pasquale seriously. “Tell her that as long as she doesn’t leave Porto Vergogna, she will be fine.”

Pasquale turned to his aunt. “What are you talking about?”

Valeria handed Dee the glass of water again. “No one dies here. Babies and old people, yes, but God has never taken a breeding adult from this village. It’s an old curse on this place—that the whores would lose many babies but would live to old age with their sins. Once you outgrow childhood in Porto Vergogna, you are doomed to live at least forty years. Go on. Tell her.” She tapped the beautiful American’s arm and nodded to her.

Dee Moray had been watching the conversation, understanding none of it, but she could tell the old woman was trying to communicate something important. “What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Pasquale said. “Talk of witches.”

“What?” Dee Moray said. “Tell me. Please.”

Pasquale sighed. He rubbed his brow. “She say . . . young people do not die in Porto Vergogna . . . no one die young here.” He shrugged and tried to smile away the old woman’s crazy superstition. “Is old story . . . stregoneria . . . story of witches.”

Dee Moray turned and looked full into Valeria’s moley, mustachioed face. The old woman nodded and patted Dee’s hand. “If you leave this village you will die a whore’s death, blind and thirsty, scratching at your dry dead birth hole,” Valeria said in Italian.

“Thank you so much,” Dee Moray said in English.

Pasquale felt sick.

Valeria bent and spoke sharply to their guest. “E smettila di mostrare le gambe al mio nipote, puttana.” And stop showing your legs to my nephew, you whore.

“You, too,” Dee Moray said, and squeezed Valeria’s hand. “Thank you.”

It was another hour before Tomasso the Communist arrived back at the hotel, his boat lurching into the marina. The other fishermen were already out; the sun was rising. Tomasso helped old Dr. Merlonghi onto the pier. In the trattoria, Valeria had prepared a hero’s meal for Tomasso, who once again removed his cap and was quiet with the importance of his job. But he had worked up an appetite and accepted the meal proudly. The old doctor was wearing a wool coat, but no tie. Tufts of gray hair shot from his ears. He followed Pasquale up the stairs and was out of breath by the time they reached Dee Moray’s room on the third floor.

“I’m sorry that I put you to all of this trouble,” she said. “I’m actually feeling better now.”

The doctor’s English was more practiced than Pasquale’s. “It is no trouble seeing a pretty young woman.” He looked down her throat and listened to her heart with his stethoscope. “Pasquale said you have stomach cancer. When were you diagnosed?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“In Rome?”

“Yes.”

“They used an endoscope?”

“A what?”

“It is a new instrument. A tube was pushed down the throat to take a photograph of the cancer, yes?”

“I remember the doctor looked down there with a light.”

The doctor felt her abdomen.

“I’m supposed to go to Switzerland for treatment. Maybe they’re going to do it there, this scope thing. They wanted me to go two days ago, but I came here instead.”

“Why?”

She glanced at Pasquale. “I’m meeting a friend here. He picked this place because it’s quiet. After that, I might go to Switzerland.”

“Might?” The doctor was listening to her chest, poking and prodding. “What is to might? The treatment is in Switzerland, you should go there.”

“My mother died of cancer . . .” She paused and cleared her throat. “I was twelve. Breast cancer. It wasn’t the disease so much as the treatment that was difficult to watch. I’ll never forget. It was . . .” She swallowed and didn’t finish. “They cut out her breasts . . . and she died anyway. My dad always said he wished he’d just taken her home and let her sit on our porch . . . enjoy the sunsets.”

The doctor let his stethoscope fall. He frowned. “Yes, it can make worse the end, treatment for cancers. It is not easy. But every day is better. In the United States are . . . advances. Radiation. Drugs. It is better now than it was with your mother, yes?”

“And the prognosis for stomach cancer? Has that gotten any better?”

He smiled gently. “Who was your doctor in Rome?”

“Dr. Crane. An American. He worked on the film. I guess he’s the best there is.”

“Yes.” Dr. Merlonghi nodded. “He must be.” He put the stethoscope over her stomach and listened. “You went to the doctor complaining of nausea and pain?”

“Yes.”

“Pain here?” He put his hand on her chest and Pasquale flinched with jealousy.

She nodded. “Yes, heartburn.”

“And . . .”

“Lack of appetite. Fatigue. Body aches. Fluid.”

“Yes,” the doctor said.

She glanced at Pasquale. “And some other things.”

“I see,” the doctor said. Then he turned to Pasquale and said in Italian, “Can you wait in the hall a moment, Pasquale?”

He nodded and backed out of the room. Pasquale stood outside in the hallway, on the top step, listening to their hushed voices. A few minutes later, the doctor came out. He looked troubled.

“Is it bad? Is she dying, Doctor?” It would be terrible, Pasquale thought, to have his first American tourist die in the hotel, especially a movie actress. And what if she really was some kind of princess? Then he felt ashamed for having such selfish thoughts. “Should I get her to a bigger city, with proper care?”

“I don’t think she’s in immediate danger.” Dr. Merlonghi seemed distracted. “Who is this man, the one who sent her here, Pasquale?”

Pasquale ran down the stairs and returned with the single sheet of paper that had accompanied Dee Moray.

Dr. Merlonghi read the paper, which had a billing address at the Grand Hotel in Rome, to “20th Century Fox special production assistant Michael Deane.” He turned the sheet over and saw there was nothing on the back. Then he looked up. “Do you know how a young woman suffering from stomach cancer would present to a physician, Pasquale?”

“No.”

“There would be pain in the esophagus, nausea, lack of appetite, vomiting, perhaps some swelling in the abdomen. As the disease progressed or the cancer spread, other systems would be affected. Bowels. Urinary tract. Kidneys. Even menstruation.”

Pasquale shook his head. The poor woman.

“These could be the symptoms of stomach cancer, yes. But here is my problem: what doctor, when encountering such symptoms, would conclude—without endoscopy or biopsy—that the woman has stomach cancer, and not a more common diagnosis?”

“Such as?”

“Such as . . . pregnancy.”

“Pregnancy?” Pasquale asked.

The doctor shushed him.

“You think she’s . . .”

“I don’t know. It would be too early to hear a heartbeat, and her symptoms are severe. But if I was presented with a young female patient complaining of nausea, abdominal swelling, heartburn, and no menstruation . . . well, stomach cancer is extremely rare in young women. Pregnancy . . .” He smiled. “Not so rare.”

Pasquale realized they were whispering, even though Dee Moray wouldn’t have understood their Italian. “Wait. Are you saying that maybe she doesn’t have cancer?”

“I don’t know what she has. Certainly there is a family history of cancer. And maybe American doctors have tests that haven’t reached us. I’m just telling you that I couldn’t determine that someone has cancer based on those symptoms.”