Free The Lovers by Vendela Vida Page B

Frederica had retrieved Peter’s last correspondence. It was still there. Yvonne read it twice, before placing it in the front of the box, where it would surely be discovered if someone was looking for it.
    That week she could think of nothing but the post office. Sunday, when it was closed, seemed interminable. She walked around Florence, staring at the watermark lines on the buildings that showed how high the river had risen during the flood of 1333.
    On Monday, she forced herself to take a bus to Fiesole before going to the post office. If she checked the mail first thing in the morning, the rest of the day would be too long. She happened upon a string quartet playing inside a small church, and closed her eyes and tried to listen. When the concert was over, she caught the first bus back to Florence. A scooter almost hit her as she raced to the doors of the post office.
    She quickly flipped through the more recent arrivals, in search of any mail from Egypt. The box was emptier today and she noted that Paolo had finally retrieved the letters thatawaited him from Spain, that Ann and Erica had picked up the birthday wishes sent from America. Toward the middle of the box was a new postcard from Peter, the writing more slanted, as though it was on the precipice of tumbling off the edge.
    Dear Frederica,
    I’ll be in Florence next Tuesday. I have no other way to reach you so I hope you receive this in time. I’ll wait for you from noon on in front of the Grotta del Buontalenti in the Boboli Gardens. I saw a picture of it in the library here. I hope that you’ll come to meet me—even if it is to say good-bye.
    Love, Peter
    Tomorrow Peter would be waiting at the Grotta del Buontalenti. Yvonne’s heart raced. She knew she would go watch him from afar, and she too would wait to see if Frederica showed up.
    Yvonne awoke Tuesday morning to the sound of pigeons fighting outside her window. She planned out her day carefully—allowing an hour to shower and choose her clothes, an hour for breakfast. She could easily dress and eat in the span of fifteen minutes, but that would leave too much time for waiting.
    At half past eleven she walked to the Boboli Gardens. She knew from her dictionary that grotta meant cave , but she had never seen or heard of the Grotta del Buontalentibefore and had difficulty finding it. At noon she began to panic. She asked everyone she could if they knew where it was. But she was surrounded only by tourists carrying the same guidebook, which failed to show the Grotta on its map. She was sweating as she walked quickly from east to west of the gardens, then north to south. Then she zigzagged, until finally, near the edge of the gardens, close to the entrance, she saw a sign for the Grotta del Buontalenti. She was so stunned she paused in front of the arrow, as though the direction itself was all she’d been seeking.
    Her steps quickened as she approached the cave. No one was in sight, and for a moment she feared she had missed Peter. But even more, she feared that she had missed them both, that Frederica had visited the poste restante box that morning, and had come here to be reunited. She had missed it all.
    Yvonne walked closer to the Grotta, access to which was prohibited by a railing. She read on a sign that the cave was a man-made creation, designed by Buontalenti in the sixteenth century. It consisted of four chambers, only the first of which was immediately visible. Yvonne looked up. From the muddy walls of the cave, sculptures of slaves were fighting to emerge. Behind the first chamber of the cave was another, in the center of which stood a sculpture of a man and woman, their bodies entwined. Lovers.
    She was thinking of how she could come back at night and go inside, travel deeper into the Grotta, to the other chambers, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She jumped. Aguard, she imagined, was reading her trespassing thoughts.
    But no, it was a young man of twenty-four or twenty-five, only a few