Free The Lovers by Vendela Vida Page A

when, later, she opened it and found money inside. Enough to last her three weeks in Florence.
    She informed the front desk she would be staying another night and set out to find other, less expensive, accommodations. The next day, she found a flat above a bakery, shared by two women her age. They were art restoration students, German and Italian, serious but warm. She paid for a month’s stay in advance.
    There remained the question of what to do with herself. For the first few days, she planned small trips—to Bologna, where she bought green peppers at the outdoor market, to Arezzo, where she walked up the steep hills and ate a picnic of salami and focaccia in a garden overlooking the town’s clock towers, none of which chimed the hour at the same time. But after three days of trips, she felt tired and stayed in the apartment, the smell of flour wafting up from the bakery below.
    On the fifth day she accepted her roommates’ invitation to visit them at school to see their work. She arrived in the morning and observed them in the large windowless room, seated before various canvases. It was not engaging work to watch; after two hours, she could detect little progress. But she loved the room with all the women—the students were primarily female—restoring paintings that had been damaged by dampness or smoke or transport. This is what women do , she thought vaguely, we restore things, we make them right .
    After leaving the school in the late afternoon, she walked to the main post office to see if Lawrence had written.
    “Poste restante,” Yvonne said to the woman behind the counter. The woman brought out a large tin box and instructed Yvonne to stand to the side and search through it while the next customer was helped.
    The box was cold to the touch, its surface like a watering can, and not as well organized as Yvonne would have expected. Inside were at least a hundred envelopes and postcards, many folded or torn at their corners, from all parts of the world. She sorted through postcards from Tasmania and Newfoundland, letters postmarked from Amsterdam and Stockholm, Atlanta and Cape Town, but found nothing from Lawrence addressed to her. It had been almost a week and she should have heard from him by now. Even if it was another apology.
    When she reached the back of the box she turned over the final postcard, hoping it was for her. It was addressed to a woman named Frederica, and was written in English. Thehandwriting, tilted far to the right, was the most unusual Yvonne had ever seen. She read the note:
    Dear Frederica,
    Only two weeks until I see you. You don’t know how anxious I am. After you left, teaching, once a pleasure, as you know, became a burden. The students are good. “Where is Ms. Frederica?” they said. They tease me about being in love, and what can I say? I can’t lie to them.
    Love, Peter
    Yvonne turned the card over. It was a picture of the library at Alexandria, Egypt.
    Yvonne left the post office, the smear of ink and the damp metallic smell of the box still on her hands. She walked past the tourists following guides carrying brightly-colored parasols, past the bored salesgirls standing by store windows.
    The next afternoon Yvonne returned to the post office. Another postcard written in the slanted handwriting had arrived from Peter.
    Dear Frederica,
    I received your letter just today and I’m so confused. What do you mean that I’m a distant fixture in your life? It has only been a month. You don’t know the state you’ve left me in. I will stay awake until I see you. Please, if you misspoke or were just in a strange moodwhen you wrote, please write again as soon as possible. My heart can’t take this wait, these words.
    Love, Peter
    Yvonne turned the postcard around—another photo of the library at Alexandria, this one taken from within. Her fingers ran through the rest of the mail in the box. She was less interested in seeing whether Lawrence had written than she was to see whether