“Allison, I’ve explained to you how I’m doing the map. You’ve come up here and you’ve seen the process. I told you to describe it to him, and I assume you did.”
“Don’t take that tone with me,” she said.
“Okay. The point is, he can talk to you. I mean, that’s why he made you come along, to report back to him. Isn’t it?”
“Yes, but he has this idea that—” She laughed. “Well, that we’re hiding out somewhere and having way too much fun, and nothing is really getting done.”
Leaning back in his chair, Tom smiled. “What kind of fun?”
“I told him this is a business arrangement,” she said. “We’re in different hotels, I’m studying for the bar, and you work day and night on the map.”
“Different hotels?” Tom drew in a breath. “Allison, you lied to your father.”
“It’s not a lie. We are in different rooms.”
“You should call him back and tell him the truth. I sit up here all day and think about you.”
“You do not.”
“Yes, I do.”
A single loud chortle escaped her mouth. Over her jeans she’d put on one of Eddie’s sweaters. It hung below her neat little butt, and the sleeves were rolled up her slender white wrists. Tom reached for his drawing pad and flipped to a page, then set it on the table.
Her eyes cut over to see it. “What’s this? Oh, my God. That’s me.”
The pencil sketch showed a girl walking up the hill, a wide smile, a beret, the clunky black shoes, and the glasses. He brushed at some of the pencil marks. “It could be better.”
“It’s perfect! The houses and the balconies. The church steeple. The hills with the vineyards. Can you see all that from up here?” She ran to the window and pushed open the green shutters. The sun hit the painted yellow stucco, and a small cloud moved across the upper left corner of the bright blue rectangle of light. Allison’s hair swung and gleamed as she looked out. “It’s just what you have in the drawing. Oh, Tom, you really have to get out of this room.”
“I will. We’re driving to Florence tomorrow.”
“No, before we leave, you have to see this place. Walk on the stones, and look at the statue of the Virgin Mary in this little tiny niche in the wall, right down there. In the basement they have the most immense wine jugs in baskets that take two men to lift. You have to see the harbor. Marcello showed me a path that leads along the bottom of the cliff, and the waves just boil up, and sometimes without warning it sprays through this little hole, and I had to jump back, and Marcello laughed at me. I think he took me there on purpose! But I bought him some gelato anyway.”
This, Tom thought. This was why he had fallen in love with her in the first place, and now, unknown to him, without warning, it had happened again.
“All right. I’ll meet your father. I don’t have a lot of time, though.”
“I came up to ask you something else. Eddie and a bunch of the family are walking to Riomaggiore to see the sun set and have a drink. It’s only a mile, and they say the view is spectacular. They’re leaving in a little while, and Eddie said for me to make you come with us. Your body is going to fuse to the chair. Turn off the computer. Please?”
“Okay, okay. Give me ten minutes. I need to back up my work.”
Allison said sternly, “Ten minutes. That’s all you get.”
“Fine. I’ll be right down.”
He watched her swing around the railing at the top of the stairs and sink out of view. She didn’t look back at him, and he knew she was pretending not to care if he was looking after her or not. The thumps of her footsteps faded.
After Tom had backed up his work to the iPod and uploaded the changes to a server somewhere in Finland or the planet Jupiter—who knew?—he clicked the icon for his e-mail account. He typed:
Hi, Rose. Working hard, call you soon. Do me a favor ASAP? Scan that old photo of Granddad and Royce Herron at the map conference in Toronto and e-mail it to me. Also the back. 300 dpi if possible. Thanks mucho. Say hi to Megan and Jill.
Love, Tom.
Riomaggiore was the most southerly village of the Cinque Terre, a little bigger than Manarola. To get there, they followed Eddie and his great-uncle’s family. The old man’s cane didn’t slow them down, and the wife was bundled into scarves and boots. A male cousin smoked a pipe and talked to Tom mostly in gestures. The little kid, Marcello, ran in zigzags with his arms out, pretending to be an airplane. His mother chatted with Allison in Italian. They went uphill on Via Discovolo to the platform level of the narrow-gauge railway that connected the five towns. The path went into a long tunnel that over the years had been filled with paintings of flowers and views from the cliffs, and the names of lovers, and signatures of tourists and the dates.
Eddie turned around and said to Tom, “Do you know what they call the path to Riomaggiore?”
“No. What?”
“La Via dell’Amore.” He winked at Allison. “You want to translate for him?”
“I can figure it out,” Tom said.
Marcello giggled and skipped ahead.
Past the train station, they took the walkway that curved around the cliffs. A sturdy metal railing separated pedestrians from the two-hundred-foot drop to the sea. The waves surged up, turned to foam, and fell back. A ferryboat left a trail of white on the inky blue water, cutting across a swath of orange painted by the setting sun. A mile away, Riomaggiore was turning pink, and flashes of reflected light winked from the windows.
The images would fade. In a month or a year they would be gone. Tom knew this, but still he grabbed each detail and tried to press them into his memory. He had left his drawing pad on the table, not expecting to see much more than water and rocks.
As they rounded another corner, the cold wind fluttered scarves and lifted the old woman’s hem. Her husband cackled and kissed her cheek. Tom pulled his cap down over his ears. He noticed a tumbledown stone arch that had once been part of a cottage overlooking the sea. Allison aimed her pocket camera at it, then Eddie told her and Tom to sit on a stone bench so he could take their picture.
“Sit closer. Tom, put your arm around her. Like that.”
Allison wanted to get a picture of Eddie’s family with Riomaggiore in the background and waved for them to stand right there against the railing and smile.
When the family had gone out of sight around the next bend in the path, Tom pulled her closer by the front of her jacket. Momentarily off balance, she had righted herself by the time he kissed her. Her lips were cool from the wind, warm inside. Tom put his arms around her and didn’t let go until he was out of breath.
Laughing, Allison buried her face in his neck. “I’ve been wanting you to do that again.”
“How was it?”
She took off her glasses and lifted her face. The sun turned her eyes to the color of cinnamon. “One more time. I’m not sure yet.”
The next one lasted longer. She held him tightly and whispered, “Whatever happened to us, Tom?” “We were kids. I didn’t know anything.”
“I didn’t, either. I’m sorry for... oh, God. Everything.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said.
“We were such babies. I know I was. We had no idea about life, did we? And it wasn’t easy, you know, me living so far uptown, and you in New Jersey, and then your mother got sick. You know that guy I went out with, the one you almost beat up? Randall. I never went out with him again. He was such a poser, and you never were that, Tom. I didn’t think about it then. You were always true.”
“Allison, be quiet. Please.”
She held his face and kissed each corner of his mouth, then full on his lips. “I forgot how delicious you are. Do you think Eddie would mind if...if we slept in the same room?”
Tom laughed. “He’s been asking me why we aren’t.” He slid his arms down her back and pressed against her. “Do you want to keep walking? Or what?”
A smile lit her face as she glanced up the path. “I suppose we’
ll see Riomaggiore someday.”
“Count on it.” He held out his hand, and they turned back the way they had come.
Chapter 22
The Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, which had begun as the personal library of a duke in the seventeenth century, had morphed into the
largest library in Italy, with millions of books, hundreds of thousands of old manuscripts, and most of the papers of the astronomer Galileo. They also possessed a good number of rare maps, and among these were two by the Venetian cartographer and map publisher, Gaetano Corelli.
Tom hoped another five centuries didn’t elapse before he got to see them. He and Allison had been passed from one person to the next for almost an hour. They had come in through the main entrance under two square Tuscan towers, into a lobby with a high glass ceiling and several balconies looking down on a floor of gray and pink marble. The letter of introduction on Miami Historical Museum letterhead, signed by Stuart Barlowe of the Board of Directors, had to be translated and pondered at every office, but they had gradually worked their way farther into the buildings, which spread over several acres, until finally they arrived at an unadorned waiting room in the map department, where they sat on a bench and listened to muffled conversations and the occasional ring of a telephone.
Allison said, “If it gets any later, I should call my father.”
Tom looked at his watch. “We’ll give them ten minutes before I go pound on the door and ask what’s the problem.”
They had arrived in Florence just before noon. Eddie had to pick up the supplies for the map and bribe the printer, so he had dropped Tom and Allison off to rent a scooter in Oltrarno, south of the river. They would all stay at a hotel tonight and leave early for Manarola. They would return to Florence when the new engraving plate was ready for the printing press.
In an hour from now, more or less, Stuart Barlowe and his wife expected to talk to Tom about his progress on the map. They had flown in yesterday from Milan. It was funny, Rhonda’s coming along, after she’d tried to bribe Tom not to do the map. He hadn’t decided yet whether to tell Stuart about it. He hadn’t said anything to Allison. No point stirring up more trouble between her and her stepmother.
That family had its secrets. Royce Herron had discovered something, and Tom had been looking for a chance to find out more from Allison. He couldn’t have talked to her on the drive from Manarola with Eddie in the car. Last night in bed, making love to her, the subject hadn’t entered Tom’s mind. Allison wasn’t at arm’s length to him anymore, and he couldn’t just tell her that her father might have committed a crime so dark that Royce Herron could have used it to shut down a billion-dollar real estate development.
Tom put his camera bag aside and took Allison’s hand, lightly rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. “How long has your dad been married to Rhonda?”
With only mild surprise at the question, Allison replied, “Let’s see... almost thirty years. My mother died when I was a baby.”
“I know. Of what?”
“A heart attack. It was a rare condition that had never been diagnosed. She was shopping in a department store in Toronto, and she just fell over and was dead in minutes. Twenty-three years old. Her name was Marian. I have no memory of her, but my father loved her very much. Then he goes and marries someone with no motherly instincts whatsoever. Go figure.”
“Your dad had a younger brother. Nigel, right? What happened to him?”
“No, he was actually a year older. He died in a car accident in the Alps.”
“Too bad. How did it happen?”
“My father and Rhonda had rented a house near Chamonix, on the French side, in ski season. Nigel had some business to do in Geneva, so he decided to surprise them. He drove to Chamonix, but on the way, he went off the road in a snowstorm. They didn’t know he was coming, so by the time anyone missed him, snow had covered the car, and it took weeks until someone saw it. My father had to identify the body. It must have been horrible for him, to lose my mother, and then his only brother. He never went back to Toronto. Rhonda came to get me and brought me to Miami, and we’ve been there ever since.”
Tom nodded. “Must’ve been rough on your dad. Was your grandfather, Frederick, already gone by then?”
“Yes, I think so. That’s right, he was. I was so small I don’t remember much from those days. Stuart doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Nigel never married? No kids?”
“None. There’s only me. I have some distant cousins in Edmonton, but I don’t even know their names anymore. Why are you asking me about that?”
Tom was saved from having to invent a reply when a door opened and a small, mild-looking man came out with the letter of introduction in his hands. First Tom noticed thick glasses and a beard, then a smile.
“Buon giorno, io sono Guido Grenni.” He glanced at the letter as if to confirm he had the right people. “Mr....eh...Fairchild?”
They stood up. Allison said, “Buon giorno, signore.” She introduced herself as Stuart Barlowe’s daughter, then apparently said her friend didn’t speak the language. “Parla inglese?” she asked.
“Forgive me, yes,” the man said. “I speak English, but not well. I regret that you wait so long. You are here from America to see the maps of Gaetano Corelli. Come with me.”
They went down a hall, around several corners, and into an elevator. As they descended, Guido Grenni politely asked about their interest in the early-sixteenth-century Venetian mapmaker. Tom replied that he worked in a map shop, and Corelli was one of his favorite cartographers.
Grenni smiled uncertainly, as if this might have been a joke. When Allison mentioned the Miami International Map Fair, he brightened. “Sicuro! I know the fair in Miami. I hope someday I will go.”
Eventually he led them to a metal door, slid his key card through a magnet, and took them inside to the reception desk. He and the woman behind it traded some Italian back and forth, and he left the letter with her. “Signora Santini will help you find what you need. She speaks perfect English, not so like me. A pleasure to meet you. Benvenuti a Firenze.” He smiled again and went out.
As the woman came from behind her desk, Allison said, “We’re very grateful to you.”
“My pleasure. Dottor Grenni said to assist you in any way possible.”
“Is he someone important here?” Tom asked.
The woman gave him a long look. “Dottor Guido Grenni is the curator of maps at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale. He may look like an ordinary clerk to you, but no one knows more than he about Renaissance cartography. Libraries all over the world call him for opinions, even your Library of Congress.”
“Oh,” Tom said.
Amused by his embarrassment, she said, “Follow me, please.” She led them through a door into a large room full of shoulder-high cabinets. After passing a dozen of the cabinets she took a right and ran her finger down a column of flat metal drawers. “Corelli. Corelli. Ecco.” She removed two folders, which she placed on the nearest table. “You may take photographs, but no flash, and if you don’t mind, I will stay here with you. It’s our policy.”
“Not a problem. We appreciate your time.” Tom unzipped his camera bag and got to work. After hours of staring at Corelli’s world map, he recognized the man’s style. The first folder held a regional map of Sicily, of no use to him. Tom focused his lens on the other one, the ports of the Mediterranean. The blood on the world map had spilled across North Africa, and what Tom saw here would fill in the blanks. He took high-resolution images with the regular lens, then attached the macro for extreme close-ups.
When he had finished, Allison motioned to him from a framed map on an easel. “Tom, look!”
Signora Santini smiled. “You know this map? Beautiful, no?”
“It’s a Henry Martell. I’ve seen it in books.” Allison leaned closer to read the description. “Henricus Martellus. Planisfero tolemaico. Fourteen-ninety. I’m getting chills.”
The hand-colored double
page had come from an atlas. The known continents of the world—which in 1490 did not include the Americas—had been projected into the shape of a bean, a long curve at the bottom, a shorter one on top. There were animals, plants, ships, leaping fish. Ten heads with full cheeks and waving brown hair blew winds from a pale blue sky toward ivory landmasses and deep-blue ocean. As in all maps of the era, the language was Latin. Tom thought of how much he would charge to duplicate this one. Half a million wouldn’t be enough. He wondered again why Stuart Barlowe was so keen on Gaetano Corelli.
“We have so many wonderful things at the Biblioteca Nazionale. Would you like a tour? I can arrange it. As special guests of Dottor Grenni—”
Allison groaned and sadly shook her head. “We’d love to, but we have to meet someone. You don’t know how much we’d love to.”
Tom had parked the rented scooter along the curb a block away. Coming out the main entrance, he paused behind a column and held on to Allison’s arm to keep her from going down the steps. He looked at the people walking through the piazza and at the cars parked on either side. A hundred yards directly ahead, traffic moved along a street fronting the Arno River, which flowed lazily west. Tuscan yellow or beige stucco buildings under red tile roofs faced the river on the other side. Their windows were closed against the chilly weather, and Tom saw no one on the roof terraces or balconies.
Allison said, “Tom, we’re in the middle of a city. If those men on the train did follow us—and I doubt it— they won’t do anything here.”
“You’re right. Let’s go.” It took a minute to find the right scooter in a long line of them. They all leaned the same way, and their windshields were turned at the same angle. Tom straddled the scooter, walked it out to the narrow street, and Allison got on. He waited for a car about the size of his shoe to clatter past on the cobblestones. Allison had insisted on helmets; the drivers, she said, were suicidal.
The Perfect Fake Page 23
