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F E A T U R E S Sleepless in L.A.
Giving good gnocchi
Meeting Moses
D E P A R T M E N T S Postmark: Lamu
Passages:
Table Talk
Salon Taste
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- - - - - - - - E A R L I E R Tuesday April 15 My Favorite Flick
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A FIVE-COURSE SEDUCTION
AT THE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I L L U S T R A T I O N B Y B I L L K O E B BY LINDA WATANABE McFERRIN | lawrence and I had sampled only a small part of Venice before Monica arrived. Disembarking at the Piazza San Marco, we had crossed it, noting the Duomo's landmark rotunda, the rows of apostles draped in scaffold and net. We checked into our hotel, the Panada, at 5 p.m. and had dinner at 10 p.m., a very light supper at Pescatore Conte.
The next morning, dawn awakened us, weaseling its way in through the casements, creeping down draperies, columning them in substance. The scent of baking bread followed the light, then the sound of clattering pots and pans, of children's voices from the street below.
When Monica disembarked, we were seated at a sidewalk cafe on the perimeter of the Piazza San Marco. Across the wide, noon-bright circle of the piazza she progressed, a scintillating clove-brown figure, an exotic and imperious Cleopatra clad in a saffron blouse and billowing peasant skirt, preceded by a porter carting her enormous black suitcase and a few smaller bags. Her head was uncovered, scarfed only with the straight black fall of her hair. She seemed made for the heat. Her Italian movie-star carriage had the usual grand and eye-stopping effect. Pigeons scattered. Heads turned. Men's hands reached involuntarily toward her as she passed, thumbs and forefingers kissing in empty pinches that would never be consummated.
At that moment, I realized that I loved Monica in the same way I loved my Barbie dolls as a child, with the passionate attachment one feels toward an ideal shimmering on the distant never-to-be-attained horizon. Men also had this feeling for her.
Lawrence and I pushed back our chairs, threw our napkins down next to our plates and advanced toward her with the well-choreographed precision of two chorus-line extras supporting the principal dancer.
She rewarded us with a white flash of smile.
"Ciao," she sang out to us. "When did you get here?"
"Last night," we answered in unison.
"Don't you love it?" Monica crooned, echoing the pigeons that cooed, pecked and preened around our ankles and feet -- their plump, feathered bodies pressing carelessly up against us.
"More so now, because you are here," we responded.
"Well, I have to get rid of this luggage," she confided with well-practiced urgency. "Then I will show you my Venice."
I've always felt very small next to Monica, small and childlike, like a pawn. My adoration only increases when I see the impact she has on everyone else. On her ample bosom, Lawrence's head had found a place to go, metaphorically, to rest. At least, I hoped it was metaphorical. I watched the two walk, arm-in-arm, ahead of me while I dawdled on bridges and the chipped, gap-toothed buildings leaned toward us, leering like doddering courtiers drunk with the sunlight.
"Where did you eat last night?" Monica asked as we walked past a series of port-side cafes on the Canale Della Giudeca.
"At the Pascatori Conte," Lawrence replied.
"Hmmm," she said thoughtfully as if trying it out in her mind. "I've never eaten there." She paused for a moment, considering this. "Well, tonight," she said with a long, slow smile, "we will dine at the Bai Barbacani. It is better than that one, Au Pied du Cochon, in Paris, remember? You will love it. I'll introduce you to Aldo, the owner. I wonder if he will remember me?
There was no doubt in my mind about this.
We expected other friends to join us in the afternoon, but they arrived exhausted and ill. Dinner for them was out of the question.
Night had pitched its black tent over the city. Monica, in her sunflower-yellow dress, gleamed like a beacon beneath the lanterns that lined the narrow alleyways near the canal. On the marled stone walls that rose from the shadows on the opposite bank, small windows opened like the tiny doors in an advent calendar, torchlit, adventures seeming to smolder within their confines. The entrance to the Bai Barbacani was behind one of these windows.
We crossed a narrow bridge to Calle del Paradiso, on the other side of the canal. At the portals of the Bai Barbacani we were greeted by a slender, tuxedoed waiter who escorted us into the cave-like interior, to a round, white-clothed table where the candlelight danced, sylph-like, over crystal, china and silver.
Light flooded over Monica's shoulders, pooling gracefully at the juncture of her breasts. Her eyelashes cast shadows on the rise of her cheeks. Lawrence's hair glinted fiery.
Our waiter seemed adequate, but Monica was still restless, her eyes on a tall, broad-shouldered man impeccably dressed in a double-breasted blue jacket, cut to enhance a narrow waist.
He was making his way across the room, stopping at each of the tables and chatting with guests. His progress was arrested at the table next to ours, for he seemed to have found among these diners several dear friends.
"Aldo?" I asked.
"No," said Monica.
"Aldo is not here," she added with just a soupçon of petulance. I noticed that the slightest bit of a pout had settled upon her carnation-red lips. The restaurant seemed to have changed, to have been rearranged. Gone were the dusty bottles of homemade fragolino that Monica had raved about. The broad-shouldered man was laughing, leaning into the table right next to us, ignoring our table completely. He summoned a waiter who disappeared into the back of the restaurant and returned with what must have been a very special bottle of wine. It was uncorked with great ritual. The diner who sampled it nodded his head furiously. The broad-shouldered man squeezed his arm and moved on to us. His dark hair was thin and cut very short. He had eagle-like features. "Welcome to the Bai Barbacani," he said, in a musically
accented English.
"Where's Aldo?" Monica demanded in response.
"He is gone," said our host.
Monica let him know that Aldo was missed.
"I was here before Aldo," the man replied simply. "I went away and now I am back. Aldo is gone." He said this with the finality of a man who is used to fitting his confrères with shoes of cement.
"I don't believe you," Monica whispered tauntingly. "I think you have Aldo locked up in the basement."
"So," the man said, looking down at Monica appreciatively, noticing the way darkness gathered at the top of her breasts like a pendant of jet, sliding between them, disappearing into the soft, yellow fabric of her bodice.
He looked up at us and smiled.
Monica told the man that Aldo had promised her certain secrets -- "secret recipes" -- when she returned and she wasn't pleased to find him no longer there.
He asked her, "You don't like me as much?"
Monica shrugged and smiled. "I miss Aldo," she said.
It was a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down. Then it began -- the wooing. Perhaps it was the candlelight that bathed everything in a kind of fairy-tale beauty, perhaps it was the desire to best the chivalrous Aldo or, maybe, it was the Circean net that Monica carried for occasions like this one. Whatever it was, although the waiter returned and was very solicitous, the man could not seem to stay away from our table.
"Come, come back to the kitchen with me. I can show you how to stir the risotto," he said archly.
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