Midnight at the Dorian

At eleven o’clock on New Year’s Eve, the grandfather clock—named Galileo—began to strike.

Pino counted all eleven chimes. As the last one faded from the lobby of the Hotel Dorian, he had one hour left. Two people beneath the Dorian’s roof had to fall in love or else. At present, the lobby was empty. Of all the guests staying for the holiday, only two unattached guests remained: Craig and Lisa.

Craig was an angry insurance defense lawyer. About six feet. Fat. Bald. And hopelessly disagreeable. Lisa was a banking executive for Citibank. She wore a smirk on her lips that gave away her wild side. Whatever light had animated her spunky, unremarkable, full-figured body in days gone by had been robbed by years of monotonous, cutthroat corporate red tape.

Galileo’s pendulum gleamed as it swung inside the walnut case. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Three brass weights hung beneath it, governing the hour, the chime, and—once every year—the fate of the hotel.

Pino had terrible insomnia, which was useful as an innkeep and a hobbyist matchmaker. Love sparked in the heat of afternoon and the conspiratorial hours after midnight. Nothing magical ever happened before 10:00 am.

Pino lived for love affairs. He treated every night as the deadline—dreading the year it all came down to the wire. Which it finally had. After a year of never starts, near misses, and sparks that fizzled. Time was up. He had inherited the Dorian and the compact made at its christening nearly ninety years earlier.

The mysterious benefactor who presented the hotel to Pino’s grandfather had called himself Galileo. After the champagne was poured, he raised his glass and pronounced the compact: “Before the final stroke of midnight each year, two souls shall fall in love beneath this roof.”

Then came the curse: “Should midnight arrive before it comes to pass, the Dorian—and everyone entrusted with her keeping—shall vanish from the world and from all memory.”

Was the curse real? Pino started off doubting it. The debate raged for three generations. As a boy, Pino even compiled a dossier on Galileo, tying together loose threads, documenting rumors, and comparing accounts. It was all hearsay in the end. There was never any hard evidence to confirm who Galileo was. Pino was no longer young. Soon he would be handing over the reins to his own son. He feared the curse. And he feared it all the more because he didn’t understand the man who issued it or how it could possibly work.

Pino smoked a Marlboro Red in the darkened lobby, with its red cherry pricking the darkness, and awaited the return of the Dorian’s only two unattached adult guests. An hour hardly seemed like enough time to melt these two icy hearts.

***

The hum of the engine of a Vespa purred in the alley. Pino sat up. Lisa came in carrying a bag with leftovers.

“What does a woman have to do to get laid in this town?” she asked casually.

“It is not so hard, madame – you just pick a man – voila – that’s amore!” Pino said.

“I’m not feeling the magic, Pino. All these young mups are getting swooned over by every local Italian boy. I nearly had to schlep it home on foot. Some kid took pity on me and gave me a ride and kept checking on me like I was his grandmother. A tragedy. Really.”

“Can I get you an espresso?” Pino asked.

“No, I need to go take a shower. Maybe I’ll come back down for some wine after.”

And like that she was gone up the stairs.

Pino put some Chardonnay on ice and started planning his next move.

***

Craig stormed in drunk, catching Pino mid-puff. He was coughing up a storm and his face was red and swollen. “Wa-ter… Wa-ter…” he managed.

Pino almost fell leaping from the ottoman he was sitting on into a triple-threat position. The cigarette ash trailed behind him as the red cherry of his cigarette darted through the darkened lobby behind the reception desk, where he grabbed some acqua minerale from a mini-fridge.

“Ecco dell'acqua… here, sir, drink,” Pino said.

“Thank you,” Craig said hoarsely as he took down half the liter in a single go.

“What happened to you?”

“I’m allergic to pine nuts… there must have been some pine nut in the gelato I just ate. Fucking prick. I told him no pine nuts. These fucks don’t listen.”

“Calm down, my friend. It’s okay. Wait. I’ll get you some espresso, a nice shot of sambuca. Sit. Sit. We will take care of you. Pino got you. Pronto, pronto.”

Craig sat and his crimson face turned to a lighter shade of red like a baby’s bottom that had been slapped or a welt from a bee sting. But the expression on his grizzly face had not softened. He was now wiping his watering eyes from beneath glasses with extremely thick frames.

“Just one fucking time,” Craig said, “I’d like to think someone could get something right. But no. What am I saying? Morons. The lot of them.”

Pino gave Craig a nice cold shot of Sambuca Romana. He slung it back. Pino poured another. He shot that one down too. Pino turned to the espresso maker and pressed the grinds, tampered them, and began brewing a nice stout espresso with plenty of crema. Then Pino made one for himself and sparked up a fresh Marlboro Red. He moved around and took the stool next to Craig and turned on the television, which flashed scenes of Times Square, London, Singapore, Paris, and a dozen other major cities. Reminding Pino of his deadline.

“My friend,” Pino said. “You don’t have anyone to kiss at midnight?”

“Are you… hitting on me?”

Pino looked at him in shock. Both laughed and Pino slapped his own knee.

“I am sorry, my friend. You are not my type.”

“Me getting a kiss at midnight. Hah. That’s a good one.” And Craig did a grotesque caricature of kissing his closed fist.

“My friend, there isn’t anyone who caught your eye?”

“Are you kidding? Every Italian girl here is gorgeous. But not one of them looked in my direction.”

“Ohh, my friend. In Bologna the women from here are very conservative. But what about the other travelers? I’ve been keeping this inn almost twenty years now. Many people come to Italy to fall in love? No?”

“Did you have someone in mind pal?”

“Oh, no! But you never know. New Year’s Eve is always a good night at the Dorian. Come on, let’s make things more festive – let’s get some music going.”

Before Pino could find the right station, Lisa came down the stairs. Her hair was wet and she had changed into gray sweatpants and an oversized Citibank sweatshirt. She looked less like a banking executive than a college girl who had woken up twenty years late for class.

She saw Craig at the counter and stopped.

“Oh,” she said. “You.”

“You two know each other?” Pino asked.

“I had the pleasure of watching him abuse a gelato vendor,” Lisa said.

“He tried to poison me.”

“You swallowed gelato while yelling with your mouth full.”

“There were pine nuts.”

“It was pistachio.”

Craig turned to Pino. “You see what I’ve been dealing with?”

“Is that wine?”

“Sambuca,” Craig said.

“I was asking the Italian.”

Pino put away the Chardonnay he had chilled for her and produced a bottle of prosecco. Lisa filled a flute to the brim, drank half before taking her seat, and finished the rest before Pino had filled his own.

He opened another bottle.

Galileo sounded the quarter-hour chime.

“To a better night,” Pino said, raising his glass.

“A near-death experience gives a person perspective.”

“What perspective did you gain?”

“That I should have ordered the tiramisu.”

Lisa laughed despite herself.

“Are you hungry?” Pino asked.

“I could eat,” Lisa said.

“I could always eat,” Craig said.

Pino disappeared into the kitchen. He returned carrying a wooden board covered with mortadella, prosciutto, salami, Parmigiano-Reggiano, pecorino, olives, grapes, and several little rounds of bread. He set it between them with the ceremonial gravity of a priest placing an offering upon an altar.

Lisa took a slice of mortadella.

“At least the food is good,” she said.

“At least?” Pino repeated.

“The hotel could use some work.”

Pino froze with the bottle tilted over Craig’s glass.

Craig nodded. “She’s right.”

“What is wrong with my hotel?”

“The mattress in my room,” Craig said. “There’s a hill on one side and a valley on the other.”

“It is handmade.”

Lisa pointed toward the wallpaper. “And those little flowers in my room watch me while I sleep.”

“They are violets.”

“They are creepy.”

“It is nineteenth-century wallpaper.”

Pino set down the bottle.

“The Hotel Dorian is one of the most romantic hotels in Bologna.”

“Really?” Lisa said. “That didn’t make it on TripAdvisor.”

“You are in Bologna,” Pino said, throwing his hands into the air. “La Grassa. The Fat One. The city with the finest food in all of Italy. We have porticoes where two people can walk together in the rain. Red roofs. Medieval towers. Canals. Sunsets from San Michele in Bosco. Open piazzas where people dine beneath the stars. If you cannot fall in love in Bologna, my friend, your heart is broken.”

“One of your medieval towers is falling over,” Craig said.

“It is leaning.”

“And nobody speaks English,” Lisa said. “I spent ten minutes asking for a towel and somehow ordered a taxi.”

“You are in Italy,” Pino said. “People speak Italian.”

“It’s an impossible language.”

“Impossible? You say buongiorno, per favore, and grazie. Everything else you do with your hands.”

“I wanted to visit a vineyard,” Lisa said. “But I have no one to go with.”

Craig selected a piece of cheese. “I’ll go with you.”

Lisa looked at him. “To the vineyard?”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t think you were a wine drinker.”

“What, I’m not sophisticated enough. I know my wines.”

“Do you even like wine?”

“I like drinking.”

Pino reached for the reservation book.

“I drive you,” he said. “Tomorrow afternoon. There is a beautiful vineyard outside Modena. The grapes grow beneath the sun. The wine rests in dark wooden barrels. Very romantic.”

Craig and Lisa looked at him like he was up to something, which he was.

Galileo chimed the half hour.

Pino refilled their glasses.

“You see?” he said. “Already tomorrow you make plans together. Bologna is working its magic.”

“Love isn’t magic,” Lisa said. “It isn’t even real.”

Pino nearly dropped the bottle.

“Not real?”

“It’s a temporary mood in which people make poor financial decisions with permanent consequences.”

“A verbal agreement with constantly changing terms,” Craig said.

“Amore!” Pino said. “It’s complicated, but rich. No?”

“Men are annoying,” Lisa replied. “They smell. They snore. They leave their socks everywhere. Living with a man is worse than living with a dog, and they both pee on the floor.”

“Living with a woman is like living with two different people,” Craig said. “There’s the one who presents in public. Then the front door closes and the other one comes out in sweatpants, belching and drinking wine until she passes out on the couch.”

Lisa looked down at her sweatshirt and empty glass.

“Hey!”

“If the shoe fits, honey.”

She held out her glass to Pino.

“Pour.”

“Anyway, I’m forty-two,” Lisa said. “Love is for the young and foolish. They’re like puppies. They’ll hump the leg of a table and think they’ve found their soulmate.”

Craig choked on his prosecco.

“When you get older,” she continued, “you’re too tired to hump legs without heaps of motivation. Heaps.” She drank.

“I can always hump,” Craig said.

“You would.”

“No, go ahead. What were you about to say?”

“I don’t think you’re in danger of being taken off the market.”

Craig stared at her. “Ouch.” Craig mimed his heart exploding.

Then Lisa smiled.

Craig smiled back.

Pino poured more prosecco.

By the time Galileo sounded the three-quarter-hour chime, the second bottle was empty, most of the mortadella had disappeared, and Craig and Lisa had moved their stools closer without appearing to notice.

Eleven forty-five.

Music played from the television. An Italian singer in a white dinner jacket stood beneath artificial snow, singing about a woman who had left him beside the sea.

Craig rose and held out his hand.

“What are you doing?” Lisa asked.

“Checking if you are really as past your expiration date as you claim.”

“Oh, trust me,” she said

“Come on.”

“This is a terrible idea.”

“Apparently we are both good at those.”

Lisa took his hand.

Craig pulled her from the stool and attempted to spin her. She struck his shoulder, turned beneath his arm, and nearly collided with the charcuterie board. Craig caught her around the waist. He squeezed a little.

Pino held his breath.

Then Lisa pushed Craig away.

“You’re too poor for me.”

“My firm does very well.”

“My expense account is more than you make in a year fending off ambulance chasers.”

“A girl boss is about as sexy as a bus driver.”

“I’ve seen some bus drivers with more style than… whatever this is,” gesturing at him.

Craig placed one hand over his heart. “You can hoard all your money in a vault and make love to it, but you’ll still turn around when a construction worker whistles on Fifth Avenue, wishing it was for you.”

“Only so I can identify him in the lineup.”

Perhaps this was what love looked like for people such as Craig and Lisa. Not moonlight or roses. Cross-examination. Hostile negotiations. Two people searching eagerly for weaknesses and growing delighted by injuring one another.

Pino went into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of limoncello from the freezer.

“One final drink,” he announced.

“You said that two drinks ago,” Lisa said.

“This one is traditional. You cannot refuse.”

He poured three shots.

“Cent’anni!” Pino said.

“What does that mean?” Craig asked.

“A hundred years.”

“I don’t want a hundred years,” Lisa said. “I’m tired now.”

They drank anyway.

Lisa poured the second round herself.

“Cent’anni!”

Craig poured the third.

“To the vineyard,” he said.

“To the bus driver,” Lisa replied.

“To love,” Pino said.

Craig and Lisa groaned, but they drank.

On the television, thousands of people crowded together beneath clocks in cities across the world. Champagne rose and spirits were high. Couples found one another in the crowd. The numbers appeared on the screen.

Ten.

Nine.

Pino looked from the television to Craig and Lisa.

Eight.

Craig pushed himself away from the counter.

“Well,” he said. “No sense wasting an international tradition.”

Lisa pointed a warning finger at him.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Too late.”

Seven.

Craig took one step toward her.

Six.

His shoe caught the edge of the rug.

Five.

He reached for Lisa, missed her hand, and stumbled sideways.

Four.

His shoulder struck Galileo’s walnut case.

Three.

The clock rocked against the wall. Its chains jumped. The pendulum swung violently and struck the inside of the case.

Two.

Pino lunged toward it.

One.

Fireworks erupted on the television. The minute hand reached twelve. Somewhere outside, church bells began ringing across Bologna.

Galileo released one deep midnight stroke.

Then the pendulum stopped.

The remaining eleven strokes never came.

Silence settled over the lobby.

Pino stared through the glass. One of the chains had slipped from its wheel. The hammer remained raised above the bell, prepared to complete a midnight that the clock had begun but could no longer finish.

“Oh,” Craig said.

Pino slowly turned toward him.

“I suppose that comes out of my deposit.”

Lisa covered her mouth. Whether she was horrified or trying not to laugh, Pino could not tell.

“I am very sorry,” Craig said. “I’ll pay for it.”

Pino looked around the lobby. The wallpaper remained. His grandfather’s portrait still hung above the prosecco cork. The registration cards retained their names. He remembered his father. He remembered his son.

The Dorian had not vanished.

Not yet.

Pino opened the clock’s glass door and reached toward the fallen chain. Then he stopped.

Repairing Galileo before morning suddenly seemed reckless.

He closed the door again.

“I will call the clockmaker tomorrow,” he said.

“First thing,” Craig promised.

“No. After the vineyard.”

Lisa looked at Craig. “Are we really doing that?”

Craig shrugged. “Apparently Pino has already booked it.”

“I have booked nothing,” Pino said. “But I will drive you at noon. Nothing good happens in the mornings anyway.”

Lisa considered this.

“Noon is early.”

“One o’clock,” Craig said.

“Two.”

“Done.”

Pino gathered the empty glasses.

“Buon anno, my friends.”

“Happy New Year,” Lisa said.

Craig raised the empty limoncello glass. “Sorry about the clock.”

“It has had worse nights.”

Pino turned off the television and started toward the stairs. Halfway up, he glanced back.

Lisa was standing behind the reception desk, searching through the little refrigerator for another bottle of water. Craig stood on the other side, watching her.

“You’re staring,” she said.

“I was thinking.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

“I was thinking about tomorrow.”

“I’m drunk.”

“Then I’ll ask you again when you’re sober.”

Lisa closed the refrigerator. Then she took Craig by the lapels and kissed him across the front desk.

Behind them, Galileo’s pendulum hung perfectly still.

Pino smiled and continued upstairs without touching the clock.

Some questions were better left until morning, when nothing magical ever happened.