Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from "The Detour" by Anchorage author Andromeda Romano-Lax. The book was released Feb. 14, 2012. All text © 2012 by Andromeda Romano-Lax.

Prologue

1948
Piedmont, Northern Italy

 The russet bloom on the vineyards ahead, the yellowleafed oaks, a hint of truffles fattening in moldy obscurity underfoot—none of it is truly familiar, because I first came here not only in a different season, but as a different man. Yet the smell of autumn anywhere is for me the smell of memory, and I am preoccupied as my feet guide me through the woods and fields up toward the old Piedmontese villa.

When a salt-and-pepper blur charges out of the grass and stops just in front of me, growling, I stand my ground. I resist retreating; I reach out a hand. Foam drips from the dog’s black gums onto the damp earth. I am in no hurry, and neither is she. The sprint seems to have cost the dog most of her remaining energy, though. Her thin ribs heave as she alternately whines and threatens.

“Tartufa?”

The teeth retract and the quivering nose comes forward. Her speckled, shorthaired sides move in and out like a bellows.

“Old hound, is it really you?”

She sniffs my hand, backs away for one more growl, then surrenders her affection. These have been ten long and lonely years. Take a scratch where you can get it.

She guides me, as if I have forgotten, up to the old barn.

Through a dirty window, I glimpse the iron bed frame, one dresser. But other items I’d once known by look and touch—the red lantern, the phonograph, any trace of woman’s clothing—are gone. A dark stain mars the stone floor, but perhaps it’s only moisture or fungus. In the corner, wedged into the frame of an oval mirror, is an old postcard of the Colosseum. I know what is written on the other side. I wrote it.

I consider walking up the hill to the villa’s family burial ground to check for any recent additions—but no, even after coming this far, I’m still not ready for that. Tartufa trots ahead toward the side of the main house, toward the figure seated alone at the wooden table, a spiral of blue smoke rising from his thick-knuckled fingers. The door from the terrace into the kitchen hangs crookedly. Everything about the house seems more worn, sloping like the old man’s shoulders.

He calls out first. “Buongiorno.”

“Adamo?” I try.

Now he sits up straighter, squinting as I approach.

“Zio Adamo?”

It takes a minute for him to recognize me.

“The Bavarian? Grüss Gott,” he cackles, using the only German phrase he knows. But still, he doesn’t seem to believe.

“You’re coming from the North?”

“No, from Rome. I took the train most of the way. Then a ride, a bit of a walk . . .”    

“You are living there?”

“Just visiting museums.”

“Holiday?”

“Repatriation of antiquities.” And I explain what that means as he nods slowly, taking in the names of new agencies, international agreements, the effort of my own homeland to undo what was done—a history already begging to be forgotten. Wonder of wonders, the old man replies, how the world changes and stays the same. Except for some things.