The Other Language by Francesca Marciano Page A

frenzied piano score from a silent film. He was dressed in a business suit and his gig was about having to lift a very heavy suitcase. His efforts seemed titanic. The suitcase wouldn’t move. He signaled a child to step out of the circle of onlookers and gestured for him to lift the suitcase for him, which the child did, effortlessly. People cheered and laughed. Emma smiled at the naïveté of the performance, and slid back into her musings. She saw that now that she lived in another country she had been able to develop a completely different affection for Rome. She no longer felt responsible for any of the things that had humiliated her in the past. The graffiti on the walls, the garbage on the streets, the potholes, the hideous traffic, the cheap tourist menus, the cheeky café waiters: none of it concerned her anymore, it was pure folklore.
    Suddenly Emma felt a shift of energy around her and realizedthe circle of onlookers were now looking at her. The mime seemed to have zeroed in on her as his next assistant. She shook her head a couple of times and mouthed “no, no” but he ignored her and leaped forward, stretching his hand out. She spoke under her breath.
    “No. No, please. Someone else, please. I can’t.”
    But he already had her by the wrist and was pulling her in. The audience signaled their approval with applause. It was too late, he was already pointing at the suitcase. Obediently Emma lifted it: it was empty and weightless. The mime feigned bewilderment; he scratched his head like a clown and gestured for her to carry it over to his left. She did. More head scratching, more laughter from the audience, then he pointed to his far right. Emma complied, wanting to be done with it as fast as possible. He stood next to her and tried to lift the suitcase in vain. It really did look as if the suitcase weighed a ton. People clapped and cheered. Before she could take her exit, the mime grabbed Emma’s arm and whispered in English.
    “Wait. I think I know you.”
    “What?”
    “Are you Emma?”
    Emma stared at the white mask, the eyes penciled in black. A panda face.
    “I’m Jack. Don’t you remember? Jack from Kastraki beach.”

    He asked her to wait for him to finish his gig but she told him she had only fifteen minutes, she was supposed to be somewhere.
    “Fifteen minutes. I need to wash my face. I can’t talk to you with this stuff on.”
    “Yes. Sure. Fine. I’ll wait for you over there.” She pointed to one of the cafés bordering the square.
    She kept an eye on him from where she sat. She watched him close his act in a hurry, gather his things and store them behinda potted plant. He washed his face with a sponge, at one of the water fountains.
    When he sat at the table she recognized him. It was Jack all right, but a deflated version of younger Jack, his skin no longer so taut, some creases in his forehead. Still handsome, brown-eyed Jack, though, with a full head of hair. In his haste to meet her he’d left some smears of white makeup on his face. He stared at her, bewildered.
    “I just knew it was you the minute I touched you. Your eyes. I never forgot them.”
    They each ordered a glass of red. He told her he had been studying with a famous French mime in the south of France, that he lived in Marseilles and he did street shows—that’s what he called them—to make some cash when traveling. To justify this rather vague description of his life he said the previous year he’d performed at Avignon’s theater festival with a Belgian company Emma had never heard of; she pretended to be impressed.
    She told him she lived in Manhattan and worked for an architecture studio. No, she wasn’t married and no, she didn’t have children. Yes, she lived by herself, in a small one-bedroom apartment downtown.
    He seemed relieved and smiled. He had bad teeth now, she observed. They were jumbled and yellowing, the teeth of a person who hasn’t been taking care of them. Yet he didn’t seem self-conscious