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Contessa, was the local archaeological inspector; he had tramped all over Clare’s uncle’s property too, with his thick eyeglasses peering as if he had any business there. Clare would meet this Contessa and her husband at the home of the bad neighbours too, Marta warned.
    Marta threw her rag into the sink. She pulled off her rubber gloves and threw them in the sink as well. “
Allora
, now give me the shirt.” Handing Clare the blue-sprigged cotton wraparound apron, she said “You can wear this.” Then her face softened. This was such a mercy that, ridiculously again, Clare felt the start of tears as Marta’s roughened hand stroked her cheek.
    â€œBeautiful Signora Chiara, you must forgive me if I am sometimes cross. It is not you. It is the life in general. Now go and have a bath in the tub downstairs. Tonight you need to be rested!” She held out her hand for the shirt.
    Clare’s silk shirt was long — almost a tunic when she wore it outside her jeans. She pulled it up to start unbuttoning. Marta’s eyes widened with shock. Clare started to turn her back. “Sorry!”
    Marta grabbed her by the shoulder. “What is this?” She reached towards Clare’s belt buckle, snapped her hand back as if it might get burned. “Why do you wear this?”
    Clare frowned. “I always wear it. I’ve had it for years.”
    The big silver buckle was in the form of a goat head, heavy, showy. But Clare wore it for quite other reasons.
    â€œ
Maligno!
” Marta said. “
Pericoloso!
”
    Clare tried to laugh this off. “I know it’s in pretty bad taste.”
    Marta blew out her cheeks in a puff of disapproval. Then she sighed, spread the hands that
the life in general
had roughened, as if there were just too many things about Clare that needed to be corrected. “
Allora
, go! If I do not wash this now it will not be ready. Afterwards, I will take my
motorino
to the store and buy some things for you to eat, or you will starve. No no no. This I always do. For me it is no trouble.” She squeezed lemon on the stain, rubbed in salt, went out the back door.
    I’M GOING TO HAVE to get control of this soon, Clare told herself. But in fact it was a relief to slip obediently away in Marta’s apron. And really, when had she ever, truly, been in control? Maybe only during the years she’d worked on the Amazon book, absorbed in the twinning of scientific accuracy and make-believe?
    She paused on her way to the bath to admire the remaining copy she’d brought with her. Despite the serious qualms its publication had raised in her, she loved that book. She stroked the glossy cover, noting again the sheen she’d achieved on the ribbon-like petals of the
Galeandra devoniana
, the elegant curve of the stems, the intricate pattern of the roots. The painterly quality of the botanical portraits had received some fine reviews. Yet Clare had begun the work for reasons personal, out of profound shock to learn that a fifth of the world’s plant life was headed for extinction. In the Amazon this meant that many plants would die that had yet to be discovered, identified. She had not expected the work to get such notice. If she’d foreseen it, she would have been more careful, she later told herself many times, and would not have felt the constant jitter of apprehension ever since.
    She flipped the pages, allowing belligerence to ripen towards the entire academic establishment which she pictured, still, as crouching ready to find fault — and towards Dr. Lester Wildman, her ex-husband, in particular.
    IT WAS ON THE night she’d learned for certain not only that her husband was sleeping with the doctoral student, but that she, Clare, had been bumped from the Amazon expedition and the student was going in her place, that Clare had created the painting of
Circaea Livingston Philippiana
.
    She had already taken a leave of absence from the