Liquid Desires Read Online Free Page B

has a whole room filled with photographs and portraits of my mother.” Her face darkened as if at an unpleasant memory. “She was very beautiful, my mother, and Lorenzo always insisted on having her portrait painted and her picture taken. Perhaps one of her portraits ended up here at your villa, Contessa.”
    Flavia looked around the room as if in search of a portrait of her mother that she had overlooked.
    â€œMy dear Signorina—Flavia,” the Contessa added almost reluctantly, “you are being insufferable. I’m afraid I’m going to have to—”
    â€œAsk me to leave?” the woman completed the Contessa’s sentence. “But I said I couldn’t stay long in any case. You do have time to look at this photograph of me, though.”
    Flavia reached into the pocket of her dress and took out a small, black-and-white photo, ragged around the edges. She handed it to the Contessa, who looked at it and gave it to Urbino. A pretty girl about ten smiled out at him.
    â€œYes, that’s me, a long time ago,” Flavia said. Her voice had an echo of a dead girl’s voice. She took the photograph back and returned it to her pocket.
    She moved toward the door, pausing to dip her hand in an acquasantiera filled with holy water. She didn’t so much bless herself, however, as rub her forehead with the water as if she were feverish. In fact, she did look flushed, no longer as infuriatingly aloof as before. Her green eyes now glittered. The dead, lifeless look had been replaced with something close to passion.
    â€œRemember, Contessa, I would like a photograph of my father! I will be in touch with you about it!” She pushed her auburn hair away from her face. “I must have one from you—only from you! Good afternoon.”
    Before the Contessa could say anything, Flavia hurried out into the hall. Catullus started to follow her.
    â€œCatullus!” the Contessa called in a peremptory tone.
    The dog paused and seemed to consider two desires—to follow the departing woman or to obey his mistress. After what seemed inordinately long seconds of indecisiveness, Catullus turned around and came to the Contessa’s side. The Contessa, her face now etched with all the years of the decade she could usually deny having lived, breathed a sigh of relief completely disproportionate to the smallness of this victory over the beautiful young woman who had shattered the Watteau of her garden party.

3
    It was sunday. Urbino and the Contessa were sitting on the terrace of the Caffè Centrale in the main square of Asolo. Usually they were content to enjoy the idyllic scene in Piazza Garibaldi—the liquid music of the fifteenth-century winged-lion fountain, the profusion of bright flowers hanging from the arcade windows, the arrival and departure of the jitney buses from the bottom of the hill, the people strolling on the pink and yellow marble pavements, and the view of the golden-stoned castle and the green hills beyond.
    Today, however, not even the charms of this town so beloved by Browning that he had named his last volume of poems after it could soothe them, especially not the Contessa. To an even less discerning and affectionate eye than Urbino’s own, she was very troubled.
    â€œEven its name mocks me today,” she said wearily, staring with sleep-deprived eyes at the arcade opposite. The seafoam of her dress, usually a flattering shade for her, this afternoon drained her of color. Urbino knew what she meant. The town in whose rose gardens Giorgione had lingered with his lute and where the Venetian Queen of Cyprus had held fabled court had bequeathed its name to a verb. Pietro Bembo, the Renaissance humanist who had used Asolo as the setting for his dialogues on love, had coined the verb asolare to describe spending one’s time in pleasurable inactivity.
    One of the Contessa’s favorite phrases during her summers here was Asolo in Asolo , whose