The Prodigal Daughter Read online

  “How’s Danielle?” she asked.

  He stared at her. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “Heard what?” said Florentyna.

  He continued to stare at her as if he couldn’t get out the words. “She’s dead.”

  Florentyna gazed back at him in disbelief.

  “She was driving too fast, showing off in my new Austin-Healey, and she turned the car over. I lived, she died.”

  “Oh, my God,” Florentyna said, putting her arms around him. “How selfish I’ve been.”

  “No, I knew you had your own troubles,” said Edward.

  “Nothing compared with yours. Are you going back to Harvard?”

  “I have to. Danielle’s father insisted that I complete my studies. Said he would never forgive me if I didn’t. So now I have something to work for. Don’t cry, Florentyna, because once I start I can’t stop.”

  Florentyna shuddered. “Oh, my God, how selfish I’ve been,” she repeated.

  “Come over to Harvard sometime. We’ll play tennis and you can help me with my French verbs. It will be like old times.”

  “Will it?” she said, wistfully. “I wonder.”

  Chapter

  Twelve

  When Florentyna returned to Radcliffe, she was greeted by a two-hundred-page course catalogue that took her three evenings to digest. From the catalogue she could choose one elective course outside her major area of study. Miss Rose suggested she take up something new, something she might never have another chance to study in depth.

  Florentyna had heard, as every other member of the university had, that Professor Luigi Ferpozzi would be spending a year as guest lecturer at Harvard and conducting a seminar once a week. Since winning his Nobel Peace Prize he had roamed the world receiving accolades, and when he was awarded an honorary degree from Oxford the citation described him as the only man whom the Pope and the President were in total agreement with, other than God. The world’s leading authority on Italian architecture had chosen Baroque Rome for his overall subject. “City of the Eye and the Mind” was to be the title of his first lecture. The synopsis in the course catalogue was tempting: Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the artist aristocrat, and Francesco Borromini, the stonecutter’s son, transformed the Eternal City of the Caesars and the Popes into the most recognizable capital in the world. Prerequisites: knowledge of Latin and Italian, with German and French highly recommended. Limited to thirty students.

  Miss Rose was not optimistic about Florentyna’s chances of being among the chosen few. “They tell me there is already a line from the Widener Library to Boston Common just to see him, not to mention the fact that he is a well-known misogynist.”

  “So was Julius Caesar.”

  “When I was in the common room last night he didn’t treat me like Cleopatra,” said Miss Rose. “But I do admire the fact that he flew with Bomber Command during the Second World War. He was personally responsible for saving half the churches in Italy by seeing that the planes made detours around important buildings.”

  “Well, I want to be one of his chosen disciples,” said Florentyna.

  “Do you?” said Miss Rose dryly. “Well, if you fail,” she added, laughing as she scribbled a note for Professor Ferpozzi, “you can always sign up for one of those survey courses. They seem to have no limit on numbers.”

  “Rocks for Jocks,” said Florentyna disparagingly. “Not me. I’m off to ensnare Professor Ferpozzi.”

  The next morning at eight-thirty, a full hour before the professor was officially available to see anyone that day, Florentyna climbed the marble steps of the Widener Library. Once in the building, she took the elevator—large enough to hold herself and one book—to the top floor, where the senior professors had offices under the eaves. An earlier generation had obviously decided that being far removed from zealous students more than made up for the long climb or the inconvenience of an always occupied elevator.

  Once Florentyna had reached the top of the building she found herself standing in front of a frosted door. The name “Professor Ferpozzi” was newly stenciled in black paint on the glass. She recalled that in 1945 it was this man who had sat with President Conant in Munich and between them they had decided the fate of German architecture: what should be preserved and what should be razed. She was only too aware that she shouldn’t bother him for at least another hour. She half turned, intent on retreat, but the elevator had already disappeared to a lower floor. Turning again, she knocked boldly on the door. Then she heard the crash.

  “Whoever that is, go away. You have caused me to break my favorite teapot,” said an angry voice whose mother tongue could only have been Italian.

  Florentyna stifled the impulse to run and instead slowly turned the door knob. She put her head around the door and looked into a room that must have had walls, but there was no way of knowing because books and periodicals were stacked from floor to ceiling as if they had taken the place of bricks and mortar.

  In the middle of the clutter stood a professorial figure aged anywhere between forty and seventy. The tall man wore an old Harris tweed jacket and gray flannel trousers that looked as though they had come from a thrift shop or had been inherited from his grandfather. He was holding a brown handle that moments before had been attached to a teapot. At his feet lay a tea bag surrounded by fragments of brown china.

  “I have been in possession of that teapot for over thirty years. I loved it second only to the Pietà, young woman. How do you intend to replace it?”

  “As Michelangelo is not available to sculpt you another, I will have to go to Woolworth’s and buy one.”

  The professor smiled despite himself. “What do you want?” he asked, picking up the tea bag but leaving the remains of his teapot on the floor.

  “To enroll in your course,” Florentyna replied.

  “I do not care for women at the best of times,” he said, not facing her, “and certainly not for one who causes me to break my teapot before breakfast. Do you possess a name?”

  “Rosnovski.”

  He turned and stared at her for a moment before sitting at his desk and dropping the tea bag into an ashtray. He scribbled briefly. “Rosnovksi, you have the thirtieth place.”

  “But you don’t know my grades or qualifications.”

  “I am quite aware of your qualifications,” he said ominously. “For next week’s group discussion you will prepare a paper on”—he hesitated for a moment—“on one of Borromini’s earlier works, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane. Good day,” he added as Florentyna scribbled furiously on her legal pad. Without giving her another thought, he returned to the remains of his teapot.

  Florentyna left, closing the door quietly behind her. She walked slowly down the marble steps trying to compose her thoughts. Why had he accepted her so quickly? How could he have known anything about her?

  During the following week she spent long days in the crypts of the Fogg Museum poring over learned journals, making slides of the reproductions of Borromini’s plans for San Carlo, even checking his lengthy expense list to see how much the remarkable building had cost. She also found time to visit the china department of Shreve, Crump & Lowe.

  When Florentyna had completed the paper, she rehearsed it the night before and felt confident about the outcome, a confidence that evaporated the moment she arrived at Professor Ferpozzi’s seminar. The room was already packed with expectant students and she was horrified to discover that she was the only nongraduate student, the only non-Fine Arts major and the only woman in the course. A projector was placed on his desk facing a large white screen.

  “Ah, the home wrecker returns,” the professor said, as Florentyna took the one remaining seat in the front. “For those of you who have not come across Miss Rosnovski before, do not invite her home for tea.” He smiled at his own remark and tapped his pipe into an ashtray on the corner of the desk, a sign that he wished the class to commence.

  “Miss Rosnovski,” he said with confidence, “is going to give us a talk on Borromini�