Read The Faces of Angels for Free Online

hair,’ he announced, ‘is a form of ritual identification, best known to twenty-year-olds. They signal by shaking their heads. Like horses, I believe. Studies have been done. In the case of the female, the long hair is absolutely essential for sitting in cafés and attracting Romeo. He pulls up on his Vespa and tells her she looks like a Renaissance angel, after which energetic, if largely uninspired, sex takes place.’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Billy said. ‘All I can tell you is, they hog the mirrors. And spend hours putting on lip gloss that’s clear anyways. I never did get the point of that.’ She tapped the last cigarette out of her pack and crumpled the paper in her fist. ‘Clear lip gloss, I mean.’
    â€˜Smoochability,’ Kirk said, leaning across to light her cigarette. ‘All the heavenly legions wear lip gloss. And the Virgin Mary. They get a bulk discount. Like Sam’s Club.’
    â€˜Well,’ Billy said, ‘I bet Mary Magdalene wears Chanel.’
    Henry picked up his bottle and looked at it sadly when he realized it was empty. ‘Lip gloss aside,’ he said, ‘the evidence would certainly seem to suggest that some thinning of the art student population is in order.’
    And at that, we all turned and looked at the table where the Japanese girls were sitting, as though we didn’t count.
    Apart from the four of us and Ellen and Tony, a couple from Honolulu who have rented an apartment up in Fiesole and as a result almost never show up at the bar, the Japanese girls are the only other students presently enrolled at the academy. There are three of them, Ayako, Mikiko and, we think, Tamayo, although we’re not sure on the last count. Kirk insists they’re stewardesses from Cathay Pacific who got laid off during the SARS crisis, but Billy says she doesn’t think this is true.
    What is true is that, just like us, the Japanese girls come to the bar at Santo Spirito almost every evening but, unlike us, they almost never drink anything. Instead, they order one pot of tea between the three of them, which pisses the waitress off, a fact they don’t seem to spend a lot of time worrying about. They don’t spend a lot of time coming to lectures, either. In fact, as far as we can tell, the only thing they do seem to spend a lot of time doing is buying tiny pieces of designer leather. Key folders from Prada. Credit-card sleeves from Piero Guidi. Miniature coin purses covered with someone else’s initials. The smaller the better, as if they are shopping for a colony of dwarfs.
    Every afternoon the Japanese girls compare their purchases at a sandwich bar in Piazza della Repubblica, then they go to Vivoli and eat ice cream. After that, they usually show up at the bar.
    Ayako and Mikiko and Tamayo come here and don’t drink in much the same way they come to Signor Catarelli’s lectures on ‘The Rise of Perspective’ and ‘The Decline of the Byzantine’ and don’t talk. Instead, while the hapless signor mixes up his slides and babbles happily about Piero della Francesca, they watch us. Well, not us, exactly. Kirk. His translucent skin and lean neurotic looks appear to fascinate them. Or maybe it’s his red mane, or the fact that he wears his black coat all the time, even indoors when the heat is on, like that guy in The Matrix . Whatever the reason, the Japanese girls are obviously far more impressed by Kirk than by Signor Catarelli. So much so, in fact, that we have noticed that whenever he writes anything down, they do too. It didn’t take Billy long to suggest that Kirk scribble furiously whenever Signor Catarelli says goodbye or hello or makes a bad joke, just to see what would happen. We figure that in a few weeks the Japanese girls will have comprehensive notes on the words ciao and arrivederci , and the fact that that-fellow-Uccello-was-certainly-no-bird-brain.
    â€˜I’m hungry,’