background in finance. Most of his friends worked in investment banks or were studying to become lawyers.
Francesca went out to dinner that night with Roberto and another resident of the house, a young man from Naples. Roberto explained that he was on a campaign to curb the chaos in the house. The Portuguese maid had given him a lecture. But he told Francesca she could stay until she found another place. They talked about art and the Warburg Institute and nightlife in London, a subject the man from Naples seemed to know a lot about. Roberto spoke English with near fluency and could mimic the refined diction of the upper class. He told Francesca that he’d known immediately she was from Rome because of her strong accent. She frowned, a little offended. Most Italians considered Roman accents coarse and uncultured, the equivalent of a Cockney accent in Britain. The man from Naples said, with genuine surprise in his voice, “Oh, really? I thought she was from Tuscany.” Tuscan accents are viewed as elegant, the purest form of Italian. Francesca clapped her hands with delight and laughed at Roberto, who laughed along with her. She realized he had been teasing her.
O N WEEKENDS L UCIANO TOOK THE TRAIN IN FROM O XFORD TO see Francesca. During the week, they talked often on the telephone, long conversations about life, art, and philosophy. She found it easy to talk with him, “about anything and everything,” she once said. When he came to London, they went out to dinners, to movies, to parties, often in the company of other Italians and foreigners.
Luciano had once told Francesca that he’d fallen in love with her when they were in high school, the moment he’d laid eyes on her, on their first day at the Liceo Lucrezio Caro. She’d dismissed that with a roll of her eyes as romantic exaggeration, but he insisted that it was true. He had been too shy ever to ask her out, too shy that first year to say anything to her. He came from a rural district north of Rome where his father had a medical practice, an area of agricultural fields alternating with large, bleak concrete apartment blocks known as dormitorios. As a teenager, he’d been tall and skinny, with elbows and knees that sometimes felt as if they didn’t belong to his body. He wore glasses and he dressed differently from his classmates, in clothes that looked, Francesca would later say, as if they had been bought by his mother.
Francesca had been the best student at the liceo, winning one academic prize after another. She had been invited to compete for a position in the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, the most prestigious university in Italy. But her scholastic achievements embarrassed her and she did her best to conceal them. Her boyfriend back then rode a motorcycle, wore the right clothes, was handsome, outgoing, athletic, and in constant danger of failing at school. Luciano said that Francesca was the smartest person he’d ever met, but his classmates had widely regarded him as the school genius for the way he challenged the received wisdom of their textbooks and their professors.
They’d gone their separate ways at the University of Rome. They found their own paths through the chaos of the university, through the milling crowds of students and the interminable lines, the lecture halls and libraries so packed that every chair, windowsill, and bit of floor space was occupied by a warm body. The university, the second largest in the world after Cairo’s, offered no orientation, no advisers, counselors, or tutors to guide students. It was, Luciano once remarked, “a true Darwinian context—only the fittest survive.”
And then one day, after three years, Luciano called Francesca. Would she mind giving his younger brother some advice on courses and professors? At the end of the conversation, they agreed to meet for dinner with some of their old acquaintances.
They began seeing each other more often, always in the company of other friends. Their
Francesca went out to dinner that night with Roberto and another resident of the house, a young man from Naples. Roberto explained that he was on a campaign to curb the chaos in the house. The Portuguese maid had given him a lecture. But he told Francesca she could stay until she found another place. They talked about art and the Warburg Institute and nightlife in London, a subject the man from Naples seemed to know a lot about. Roberto spoke English with near fluency and could mimic the refined diction of the upper class. He told Francesca that he’d known immediately she was from Rome because of her strong accent. She frowned, a little offended. Most Italians considered Roman accents coarse and uncultured, the equivalent of a Cockney accent in Britain. The man from Naples said, with genuine surprise in his voice, “Oh, really? I thought she was from Tuscany.” Tuscan accents are viewed as elegant, the purest form of Italian. Francesca clapped her hands with delight and laughed at Roberto, who laughed along with her. She realized he had been teasing her.
O N WEEKENDS L UCIANO TOOK THE TRAIN IN FROM O XFORD TO see Francesca. During the week, they talked often on the telephone, long conversations about life, art, and philosophy. She found it easy to talk with him, “about anything and everything,” she once said. When he came to London, they went out to dinners, to movies, to parties, often in the company of other Italians and foreigners.
Luciano had once told Francesca that he’d fallen in love with her when they were in high school, the moment he’d laid eyes on her, on their first day at the Liceo Lucrezio Caro. She’d dismissed that with a roll of her eyes as romantic exaggeration, but he insisted that it was true. He had been too shy ever to ask her out, too shy that first year to say anything to her. He came from a rural district north of Rome where his father had a medical practice, an area of agricultural fields alternating with large, bleak concrete apartment blocks known as dormitorios. As a teenager, he’d been tall and skinny, with elbows and knees that sometimes felt as if they didn’t belong to his body. He wore glasses and he dressed differently from his classmates, in clothes that looked, Francesca would later say, as if they had been bought by his mother.
Francesca had been the best student at the liceo, winning one academic prize after another. She had been invited to compete for a position in the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, the most prestigious university in Italy. But her scholastic achievements embarrassed her and she did her best to conceal them. Her boyfriend back then rode a motorcycle, wore the right clothes, was handsome, outgoing, athletic, and in constant danger of failing at school. Luciano said that Francesca was the smartest person he’d ever met, but his classmates had widely regarded him as the school genius for the way he challenged the received wisdom of their textbooks and their professors.
They’d gone their separate ways at the University of Rome. They found their own paths through the chaos of the university, through the milling crowds of students and the interminable lines, the lecture halls and libraries so packed that every chair, windowsill, and bit of floor space was occupied by a warm body. The university, the second largest in the world after Cairo’s, offered no orientation, no advisers, counselors, or tutors to guide students. It was, Luciano once remarked, “a true Darwinian context—only the fittest survive.”
And then one day, after three years, Luciano called Francesca. Would she mind giving his younger brother some advice on courses and professors? At the end of the conversation, they agreed to meet for dinner with some of their old acquaintances.
They began seeing each other more often, always in the company of other friends. Their
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