by Anne Fortier
We sat for a moment in silence, Alessandro smiling at my frown. “Come on,” he finally said, “you are alive! Look! The sun is shining. This is the time to be here, when the light comes through the arches and hits the water. Later in the day, Fontebranda becomes dark and cold, like a grotto. You would not recognize it.”
“What a strange thing,” I muttered, “that a place can change so much in a few hours.”
If he suspected I was referring to him, he didn’t show it. “Everything has a shadow-side. In my opinion, that is what makes life interesting.”
Despite my general gloom, I couldn’t help smiling at his logic. “Should I be frightened?”
“Well—” He took off his jacket and leaned back against the wall of the arch, a challenge in his eyes. “The old people will tell you that Fontebranda holds special powers.”
“Go on. I will let you know when I am sufficiently spooked.”
“Take off your shoes.”
Much against my will, I burst out laughing. “Okay, I’m spooked.”
“Come on, you’ll like it.” I watched him as he took off his own shoes and socks, rolled up his pant legs, and stuck his feet into the water.
“Don’t you have to work today?” I asked, staring at his dangling legs.
Alessandro shrugged. “The bank is over five hundred years old. I think it can survive without me for an hour.”
“So,” I said, folding my arms across my chest, “tell me about those special powers.”
He thought for a moment, then said, “I believe there are two kinds of madness in this world. Creative madness and destructive madness. The water from Fontebranda, it is believed, will make you mad, pazzo, but in a good way. It is hard to explain. For almost a thousand years, men and women have been drinking this water and have been filled with pazzia. Some have become poets, and some have become saints; the most famous of them all, of course, is Santa Caterina, who grew up right here, around the corner, in Oca, the contrada of the Goose.”
I was not in the mood to agree with anything he said, or allow him to distract me with fairy tales, and so I made a point of shaking my head. “This whole saint thing—women starving themselves and getting burned on the stake—how can you call that creative? It’s just plain insanity.”
“I think that, to most people,” he countered, still smiling, “throwing rocks at the Roman police would be insanity, too.” He laughed at my expression. “Especially when you won’t even put your feet in this nice fountain.”
“All I am saying,” I said, taking off my shoes, “is that it depends on your perspective. What seems perfectly creative to you might, in fact, be destructive to me.” I stuck my feet tentatively into the water. “I think it all comes down to what you believe in. Or … whose side you are on.”
I could not interpret his smile. “Are you telling me,” he said, looking at my wiggling toes, “that I need to rethink my theory?”
“I think you should always rethink your theories. If you don’t, they stop being theories. They become something else”—I waved my hands menacingly in the air—“they become dragons beneath your tower, letting no one in and no one out.”
He glanced at me, probably wondering why I continued to be so prickly this morning. “Did you know that here, the dragon is a symbol of virginity and protection?”
I looked away. “How ironic. In China, the dragon represents the bridegroom, the very enemy of virginity.”
For a while, neither of us spoke. The water in Fontebranda rippled quietly, projecting its lustrous beams onto the vaulted ceiling with the patient confidence of an immortal spirit, and for an instant, I almost felt I could be a poet. “So,” I said, shaking the idea before it took root, “do you believe it? That Fontebranda makes you pazzo?”
He looked down at the water. Our feet seemed submerged in liquid jade. Then he smiled languidly, as if he somehow knew that I did not really need an answer. For it was right there, reflected in his eyes, the glittering green promise of rapture.
I cleared my throat. “I don’t believe in miracles.”
His eyes dropped to my neck. “Then why do you wear that?”
I touched my hand to the crucifix. “Normally I don’t. Unlike you.” I nodded at his open shirt.
“You mean this—?” He fished out the object that was hanging around his neck by a leather string. “This is not a crucifix. I don’t need a crucifix to believe in miracles.”
I stared at the pendant. “You’re wearing a bullet?”
He smiled wryly. “I call it a love letter. The report called it ‘friendly fire.’ Very friendly. It stopped two centimeters from my heart.”
“Tough rib cage.”
“Tough partner. These bullets, they’re made to go through many people. This one went through someone else first.” He let it slide back down inside his shirt. “And if I hadn’t been in the hospital, I would have been blown to pieces. So, it looks like God knows where I am even if I’m not wearing a crucifix.”
I barely knew what to say. “When was this? Where was this?”
He leaned forward, feeling the water. “I told you. I went to the edge.”
I tried to catch his eyes, but couldn’t. “That’s it?”
“That’s it for now.”
“Well,” I said, “I’ll tell you what I believe in. I believe in science.”
His expression never changed, even as his eyes wandered over my face. “I think,” he said, “that you believe in more than that. Against your will. And that is why you are afraid. You are afraid of the pazzia.”
“Afraid?” I tried to laugh, “I am not the least bit—”
He interrupted me by scooping up a handful of water and holding it towards me. “If you don’t believe, then drink. You have nothing to lose.”
“Oh, come on!” I leaned away in disgust. “That stuff is full of bacteria!”
He shook the water from his hands. “People have been drinking it for hundreds of years.”
“And gone mad!”
“See?” He smiled. “You do believe.”
“Yes! I believe in microbes!”
“Have you ever seen a microbe?”
I glared at his teasing smile, annoyed that he had treed me so easily. “Honestly! Scientists see them all the time.”
“Santa Caterina saw Jesus,” said Alessandro, his eyes sparkling, “right up there in the sky, over Basilica di San Domenico. Who do you believe? Your scientist, or Santa Caterina, or both?”
When I did not answer, he cupped his hands, scooped up more water from the font, and drank a few mouthfuls. Then he offered the rest to me, but once again, I leaned away.
Alessandro shook his head in fake disappointment. “This is not the Giulietta I remember. What did they do to you in America?”
I snapped upright. “All right, give it here!”
By now, there was not much water left in his hands, but I slurped it up anyway, just to make a point. It did not even occur to me how intimate the gesture was, until I saw the look on his face.
“There is no escaping the pazzia now,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You are a true Sienese.”
“A week ago,” I pointed out, squinting to get my bearings straight, “you told me to go home.”
Smiling at my frown, Alessandro reached out to touch my cheek. “And here you are.”
It took all my willpower not to lean into his hand. Despite my many excellent reasons for not trusting him—never mind flirting with him—all I could think of saying was, “Shakespeare wouldn’t like it.”
Not the least bit discouraged by my breathless dismissal, Alessandro ran a finger slowly across my cheek to pause at the corner of my mouth. “Shakespeare wouldn’t have to know.”
What I saw in his eyes was as strange to me as a foreign coast after endless nights on the ocean; behind the jungle foliage I could sense the presence of an unknown beast, some primordial creature waiting for me to come ashore. What he saw in mine I don’t know, but whatever it was, it made his hand drop
.
“Why are you afraid of me?” he whispered. “Fammi capire. Make me understand.”
I hesitated. This had to be my chance. “I know nothing about you.”
“I’m right here.”
“Where”—I pointed at his chest and the bullet I knew was there—“did that happen?”
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again and allowed me to see right into his weary soul. “Oh, you’ll love this. Iraq.”
With that one word, all my anger and suspicion was briefly buried under a mudslide of sympathy. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“No. Next question.”
It took me a moment to process the fact that—with remarkably little effort—I had come to learn Alessandro’s big secret, or at least one of them. However, it was highly unlikely that he would allow me to extract the rest as easily as that, especially the one to do with breaking into my room.
“Did you—” I began, but quickly lost my nerve. Then another angle occurred to me, and I started over, saying, “Are you in any way related to Luciano Salimbeni?”
Alessandro did a double take, clearly expecting something completely different. “Why? You think he killed Bruno Carrera?”
“It was my impression,” I said, speaking as calmly as I could, “that Luciano Salimbeni was dead. But maybe I was misinformed. Considering everything that has happened, and the possibility that he killed my parents, I believe I have a right to know.” I pulled first one foot, then the other out of the fountain. “You are a Salimbeni. Eva Maria is your godmother. Please tell me how it all hangs together.”
Seeing that I was serious, Alessandro groaned and ran both hands through his hair. “I don’t think—”
“Please.”
“All right!” He took a deep breath, possibly more angry with himself than with me. “I will explain.” He thought for quite a while, perhaps wondering where to start, then finally said, “Do you know Charlemagne?”
“Charlemagne?” I repeated, not sure I had heard him properly.
“Yes,” nodded Alessandro. “He was … very tall.”
Just then, my stomach growled, and I realized that I hadn’t eaten a proper meal since lunch the day before—not unless you consider a bottle of Chianti, a tub of marinated artichokes, and half a chocolate panforte dinner.
“How about,” I suggested, putting on my shoes, “you tell me the rest over coffee?”
IN THE CAMPO, preparations for the Palio were under way, and as we passed a heap of sand meant for the racetrack, Alessandro knelt down to pick up a handful as reverently as if it had been the finest saffron. “See?” He showed it to me. “La terra in piazza.”
“Let me guess; it means ‘this piazza is the center of the universe’?”
“Close. It means earth in the piazza. Soil.” He put some in my hand. “Here, feel it. Smell it. It means Palio.” As we walked towards the nearest café and sat down, he pointed out the workmen putting up padded barriers all around the Campo. “There is no world beyond the Palio barriers.”
“How poetic,” I said, discreetly brushing the sand from my hands. “Too bad Shakespeare was such a Veronaphiliac.”
He shook his head. “Do you never get tired of Shakespeare?”
I very nearly retorted, hey, you started it, but was able to stop myself. There was no need to remind him that, the first time we had met, back in his grandparents’ garden, I had been wearing diapers.
We sat like that for a moment, our eyes locked in a silent battle over the Bard and so much else, until the waiter came to take our orders. As soon as he had left, I leaned forward and put my elbows on the table. “I’m still waiting,” I reminded Alessandro, not open for negotiation, “to hear about you and Luciano Salimbeni. So why don’t we skip the Charlemagne part, and go—”
Just then, his cell phone rang, and after checking the display he excused himself and left the table, no doubt relieved to have his story postponed yet again. As I sat there watching him in the distance, however, it suddenly struck me how very unlikely it was that he was the person who had broken into my hotel room. Although I had only known him for a week, I was ready to swear that it took a lot more than your average pickle to make this man lose his calm. Even though Iraq had nearly killed him, it had definitely not broken him, quite the opposite. So, if he really had been sneaking around in my room for whatever reason, he would surely not have gone through my suitcases like a Tasmanian Devil, leaving my dirty panties dangling from the chandelier. It simply did not make sense.
When Alessandro returned to the table five minutes later, I pushed his espresso towards him with what I hoped was a forgiving smile. But he barely even looked at me as he took the cup and stirred in a pinch of sugar. Something in his behavior had changed, and I could sense that whoever had called him had told him something troubling. Something to do with me.
“Now, where were we?” I asked lightly, sipping my cappuccino through the milk foam. “Oh yes! Charlemagne was very tall—?”
“Why,” countered Alessandro, his voice too casual to be sincere, “don’t you tell me about your friend on the motorcycle?” When he saw that I was too stunned to reply, he added, more sternly, “I thought you told me you were being followed by a guy on a Ducati.”
“Oh!” I managed to laugh, “that guy! No idea. Never saw him again. Guess my legs weren’t long enough.”
Alessandro didn’t smile. “Long enough for Romeo.”
I nearly spilled my cappuccino. “Wait! Are you suggesting I am being stalked by your old childhood rival?”
He looked away. “I am not suggesting anything. Just curious.”
We sat for a moment in painful silence. He was clearly still brooding over something, and I was racking my brain to figure out what it was. Obviously, he knew about the Ducati, but not that it was my sister riding it. Perhaps he was aware that the police had impounded the bike the day before after waiting in vain at the bottom of the Mangia Tower for the owner to return. According to Janice she had taken one look at the indignant police officers and decided to stick her tail between her legs. A single guy would have been a piece of cake, and two might even have been fun, but three boy scouts in uniform had been too big a mouthful, even for my sister.
“Look,” I said, trying to salvage a bit of our former intimacy, “I hope you don’t think I’m still … dreaming about Romeo.”
Alessandro did not respond right away. When he finally did, he spoke reluctantly, well aware that he was revealing part of his hand. “Just tell me,” he said, doodling on the tablecloth with a teaspoon, “did you like the view from the Mangia Tower?”
I glared at him. “Wait a minute! Are you … following me?”
“No,” he said, not too proud of himself, “but the police have been keeping an eye on you. For your own sake. Just in case the guy who killed Bruno comes looking for you, too.”
“Did you ask them to?” I looked him straight in the eye and saw the confirmation before he even spoke it. “Why, thank you,” I went on, drily, “it’s too bad they weren’t around when that lowlife broke into my room the other night!”
Alessandro didn’t flinch. “Well, they were around last night. They said they saw a man in your room.”
I actually burst out laughing because the whole thing was so absurd. “That’s too ridiculous! A man in my room? My room?” Seeing that he was not yet convinced, I stopped laughing. “Look,” I said, earnestly, “there was no man in my room last night, and no man in the tower either.” I was just about to add, “Not that it’s any of your goddamn business if there was,” but stopped myself, realizing that I didn’t actually mean it. Instead, I laughed. “My-my! We sound like an old married couple.”
“If we were an old married couple,” said Alessandro, still not smiling, “I would not have to ask. The man in your room would be me.”
“The Salimbeni genes,” I observed, rolling my eyes, “are yet again rearing their ugly head. Let me guess, if we were married, you would chain me in the dungeon every tim
e you left the house?”
He considered it, but not for long. “I wouldn’t have to. Once you get to know me, you will never want anyone else. And”—he finally put down the teaspoon—“you will forget everyone you knew before.”
His words—half teasing, half not—coiled around me like a school of eels around a drowned body, and I felt a thousand little teeth testing my composure.
“I believe,” I said firmly, crossing my legs, “you were going to tell me about Luciano Salimbeni?”
Alessandro’s smile faded. “Yes. You are right.” He sat for a while, frowning, playing once again with the teaspoon, then finally said, “I should have told you this a long time ago—well, I should have told you the other night, but … I didn’t want to scare you.”
Just as I opened my mouth to urge him on and say that I was not so easily scared, another customer squeezed by my chair to sit down with a deep sigh at the table right next to us.
Janice again.
She was wearing Eva Maria’s red-and-black outfit and a pair of supersized sunglasses, but despite the glamour she made no big spectacle of herself, merely picked up the menu and pretended to consider her options. I noticed Alessandro glancing at her, and for a brief moment I feared he might see some similarity between us, or perhaps even recognize his godmother’s clothes. But he did not. However, the close presence of someone else discouraged him from commencing the story he had wanted to tell me, and we sat once again in frustrated silence.
“Ein cappuccino, bitte!” said Janice to the waiter, sounding an awful lot like an American pretending to be a German, “und zwei biscotti.”
I could have killed her. There was no doubt in my mind that Alessandro had been just about to disclose something of tremendous importance, and now he went on to talk about the Palio again, while the waiter lingered like a begging dog to tease out of my shameless sister where in Germany she was from.
“Prague!” she blurted out, but quickly corrected herself. “Prague … heim … stadt.”
