The Dark Heart of Florence by Tasha Alexander (ebook reader screen TXT) 📕

not healing before he bites again and again and again. The misery is unrelenting.

When I think back on that first reading of Inferno, my youthful naïveté embarrasses me. There was no denying the hideous nature of the punishments Dante meted out to sinners. But rather than feeling scared or horrified, I took pleasure in reading about them, safe as I was in my comfortable room. The poem’s torments illuminated the sublime contentedness that comes from knowing one is not suffering. That, however, was an idea I was not yet ready to contemplate.

As I reached the final canto of Inferno, I was wholly consumed by Dante’s epic and stayed awake two nights in a row to finish that first volume. Exhausted yet exhilarated, I collapsed into bed and slept so long that my mother feared I had fallen ill. I forbade Alfia from telling her the truth, afraid she might take away the book.

Only after I’d finished did my thoughts return to the mortal world I occupied. I needed to go to confession, but at the time, I cared more about discussing the poem with Father Cambio than the status of my immortal soul. That alone should have concerned me.

When I reached Santa Trinita, Alfia trailing behind me, my excitement surged as I approached the door. Inside the confessional, I lost my balance when I heard an unrecognizable voice coming from the other side of the grill. Righting myself and returning to my knees, I rushed through the list of my sins, hardly hearing what the unfamiliar priest gave me to atone for them. I went into the nave and prayed, murmuring what I hoped were the correct number of Hail Marys to earn absolution, focusing not on the words but instead, searching for any sign of Father Cambio. He was nowhere to be found.

Finished, I looked for excuses to stay in the church, but nothing would persuade Alfia that I was unaccountably captivated by Lorenzo Monaco’s painting of the Annunciation—a sure sign that I was not thinking clearly, as I ought to have been able to argue my way around her, no matter the situation. She insisted we go home before my mother despaired of us.

The emotions that consumed me, starting in the confessional and following me home, gripped me like nothing I’d ever before experienced. I could not identify them, let alone begin to understand them. There was a measure that felt like abandonment, another like despair. But none of it could be described as either rational or justified. I had no control of my racing thoughts. There was nothing to do but give into them, and as I did that, I started to find clarity, clarity that terrified me.

My mind could focus on nothing but Father Cambio. At first, I credited this to my passion for Dante’s poem, but as the days passed, I had to admit that it went beyond that. I was angry at not having seen him, hurt by feeling ignored. Desperate to know if I’d somehow brought this on myself, I longed for someone with whom I could discuss my troubles, but even in the throes of my misery, I knew I could not unburden myself to anyone.

I saw him at Mass on Sunday, but did not interact with him beyond taking Communion. The following Wednesday, I returned to Santa Trinita and stepped into the confessional, rejoicing when I heard Father Cambio’s voice. The list of my sins tumbled from my lips and my heart raced. Once he’d granted me absolution and I’d said my prayers, we started our usual turn around the nave. I wondered how I could have let myself get so caught up in a tumult of emotion.

“I was sad not to see you last week,” I said. “It affected me more than I expected.”

“How so, Mina?”

“I can’t say I fully understand. I desperately wanted to discuss Inferno, of course, and when you weren’t here, it forced me to acknowledge that there is no one else in my life I can really talk to, not in any meaningful way.”

“I’m sorry you were upset,” he said. “Our friendship is important to me, too, but you must know that I am first and foremost your priest. It would not be appropriate for anything else to eclipse the nature of that relationship.”

“Of course not,” I said. “I wouldn’t want it to.”

“Good. Then we can continue.”

Something about the way he spoke tugged at me. Then we can continue? “Did you deliberately distance yourself from me?” I asked.

“I did.”

“Because of something I did?”

“No, Mina. Because I could sense that you were being pulled in a dangerous direction. Think not on it anymore. We’ve addressed it and can put it behind us. For now, though, it would be best if you go home. Next week, you will be in the proper frame of mind to consider Dante.”

It gutted me to be pushed away from him without any real conversation, and left me longing all the more for it. It was the first experience of my life that began to teach me that we humans want things most when we’re told we can’t have them. An obvious point, but a powerful one.

 Florence,

190313

Lena was quiet, keeping her head bowed as we exited the Spichio apartment. I waited to break the silence until after we’d stepped into the sunshine on the street outside. “We walked here, but I can hire a cab if you’d prefer,” I said. “There are plenty in the Piazza Santa Croce.”

“I would like to speak to you before you do Signora Spichio’s bidding and force me to go home,” the girl said. Her eyes were still red and swollen, but her voice was stronger now. “Can we find somewhere quiet?”

We walked to the piazza, past the nineteenth-century statue of Dante erected in its center to honor the six-hundredth anniversary of the poet’s birth, and climbed the steps to the entrance of the church. Given that Santa Croce was more or less the Italian equivalent of