The Last Promise

by Richard Paul Evans

  “What does Rendola mean?”

  “I don’t know. It is only a name, maybe.”

  A few meters past the first sign was another: “Olio di Oliva e Vino. Vendita diretta” (Olive oil and wine sold direct).

  As the Punto rose over a small knoll, Ross got his first glimpse of the villa. He liked the place immediately. It was as if they had passed through a portal and emerged five centuries earlier. The villa was a majestic structure surrounded by high, amber-colored stucco walls. A small tower rose above it. It was set back on a working fattoria at the end of a long, cypress-lined driveway. On the distant hill overlooking the villa was a castle.

  Luigi parked the car on a small gravel incline and they both climbed out. The landscape of the fattoria was lush with foliage. There were neatly trimmed hedges of pliable, tab-leafed bosso and sturdier, rougher hedges of laurel, dark in places and bright green where new branches grew. Luigi snapped a dark leaf off a laurel bush as they walked and crumbled it in his hand before holding it out for Ross to smell. It was sweetly fragrant. “You can cook with this,” he said. “And, of course, you can crown emperors.”

  Three massive cedars of Lebanon grew around the house—symbols of a villa’s age and power. There were other trees: oak; cypress, fat bodied and spear shaped; a single walnut tree next to the villa. “A walnut tree is a companion for the house,” Luigi added, as if the villa was in danger of loneliness.

  Scattered around were myriad flowers: poppies, yellow broom, irises and a dozen others Ross couldn’t put a name to.

  “This is a villa that has been divided up into three apartments,” Luigi said. “The sheet on it says that there is a one-bedroom apartment available and it is furnished.”

  The villa was surrounded by an eight-foot stucco wall, with a large spray of jasmine spilling over its top like a white-crested wave.

  Ross pushed the gate—a large, wooden door shackled with iron hardware, nearly black with rust and age—which opened to an enclosed courtyard. They stepped inside. The ground was paved in large black-and-gray blocks of pietra serena cobblestone, which had been worn and grooved through centuries of weathering. Moss grew from the porous stone in green-and-white splatters resembling a painter’s drop cloth. To his immediate right was the back door of the villa’s stone chapel, next to a wall shrouded by a large hedge of white oleander and hyacinth. In the center of the courtyard was a stone well with a wrought iron canopy from which an oak bucket hung by a rope and a large, round pulley.

  There were terra-cotta pots and grow boxes around the perimeter of the courtyard filled with red and pink geraniums. And on the west wall was a climbing rose near a stone archway that led to the garden.

  “How old is this place?” Ross asked.

  “It was built more than five hundred years ago. The landlord said on the phone that this used to be the country home of Machiavelli.”

  “The Machiavelli?”

  “Yes, the writer,” Luigi said. “If you are interested, I will ask her about it.”

  Ross nodded. “Sì. I am.”

  The woman who managed the villa was in the courtyard. She was softly singing as she held a tin watering can over one of the potted plants. When she saw them, she greeted them loudly with “Benvenuti, signori”; then she walked over to shake hands. She introduced herself as Anna Ferrini. She was a short, stout woman with dark, clear skin and reddish hair. Ross guessed her to be a decade older than himself. She lived in the villa as well as managed it.

  Luigi asked, “Signora, is it true that Machiavelli once lived here?”

  “Sì.” She launched into a partial explanation of the villa’s history, which coincided with what Ross already knew of Machiavelli’s life. After his fall from grace, the Medicis banished Machiavelli to this country villa, away from the tongue and muscle of the politics he loved. Here, in the very section of the villa Ross was looking to rent, he wrote the essays and tomes that made him famous. He had died in the villa, though no one knew exactly where.

  Anna spoke of the former tenant casually, but to Ross this fact held intrigue even beyond the obvious historical significance of the place itself. He saw it as an omen. He too was an exile of sorts.

  The villa had been in the Ferrini family for many generations. They had only started renting out the apartment in the last three years. With the explanation completed, Anna waved them forward. “Venite, signori.” Come, gentlemen. “It is too hot outside.”

  As they followed her toward the apartment, Ross asked Luigi, “Has it been available long?”

  “No. And I think it will rent fast. This is a nice place. A German couple lived here for more than a year. It has been vacant only a few weeks. They only rent to foreigners.”

  Ross thought that peculiar. “Why is that?”

  “Because of the laws in Italy it is almost impossible to make someone leave once they have moved in. Sometimes the landlord has to pay a lot of money to get them out. If you tell foreigners to leave, they will.”

  Anna directed them into the kitchen. Though the apartment had no air-conditioning—few homes in Italy did—it was significantly cooler inside the apartment, as the villa’s thick stone walls kept out the heat. The kitchen was small, with a gas stove, an oven and a sink that looked like a trough cut from unglazed stone. Ross ran his hand across the basin and was pleased.

  In the center of the room there were a small table with painted tiles and two oak chairs. The refrigerator was typical Italian, small, with rounded corners like an appliance nostalgic of midcentury America. To the side of the refrigerator was a door, no higher than five feet, which led downstairs to a wine and prosciutto cellar. Anna flipped on a light switch and they descended the narrow stairwell single file. The air was musty and pungent. The space was bigger than Ross expected, easily as big as the kitchen above it. It was illuminated by a single bare lightbulb dangling from a cord. A large slab of red, cured prosciutto still hung from a hook toward the back of the room. The meat was flat on one end where a knife had shaved off strips. “The Germans left it,” Anna said. “It comes with the apartment.” It was clear from her tone that she considered this a benefit.

  There were also several large bottles of clouded green olive oil and a woven wine demijohn in the corner of the room with a missing cap, indicating its emptiness. They climbed back up to the kitchen.

  Beyond the kitchen, through a door leading outside the villa, was a newly bricked terrace with a pizza oven for summer cooking. The wall behind the oven was already blackened with use.

  “This will be useful during the summer months when it is too hot to cook in the house,” Luigi observed.

  They went back inside. A small hallway led to the bathroom and the apartment’s only bedroom. The tiny room was floored in rose-colored tile and there was a small rug at the end of the bed. The bed itself was queen-sized with an ornate wrought iron headboard bent in an intricate floral pattern. A wood carving of the Madonna and child was mounted to the wall above the headboard.

  Aside from the bed the only furniture in the room was an antique wood armoire with four drawers and a closet for hanging clothes. There was one window, obscured by sheer curtains that draped from a metal rod clear to the floor. Ross pulled back the curtains then pushed open the shutters, exposing the thick foliage that grew a little taller than the windowsill, and in the distance he saw a vast landscape of hills spotted with trellises and orchards. The room had one bathroom with a tile shower bored into the wall like a cave. There were new bathroom fixtures, shiny chrome and porcelain. “The bathroom is modern,” Anna said. “We updated it for the Germans.”

  While Anna turned off lights in the back of the apartment, Ross and Luigi stepped aside.

  “It is nice, no?”

  Ross nodded his approval. “How much is she asking?”

  “She wants three million lire a month with at least a six-month lease. I told her that the lease is not a problem for you. If it is longer than six months, she is willing to negotiate a lower price.”


  “The only problem is transportation. This place is pretty remote.”

  “Yes, it is far. You should purchase a scooter, I think. I told the lady that you work in the city and she says that there is a bus into Florence every hour.

  “They also heat with gasolio, like the place in the country, but I think it is not so bad here because these old villas have thick walls. There is also a swimming pool to the side of the villa. She wants to show us.”

  Anna had already left the apartment, and while Luigi followed her out into the courtyard, Ross lingered in the kitchen absorbing the vibrations of the old place. He felt as if he had been there a thousand times before. While the particulars were different, it was precisely where he had fled in his mind to escape his previous life. He had never imagined that he would be here this soon. If at all. He felt as if he was finally home. He glanced about once more, then followed after Anna and Luigi.

  Anna led them back out through the courtyard, then outside the villa walls to a narrow dirt path that led to the swimming pool.

  “Parking is here if you buy a car or scooter,” said Luigi, pointing to a flat, gravel area with a simple, yet ingenious canopy that Ross stopped to examine. It was a wood-beam frame with chain-link fence thrown over the top, now rendered solid by a heavy grapevine that had snaked in and around the fencing until it was thick as a thatch roof.

  Ross hadn’t seen the pool when they entered as it was around the west side of the villa, built on a terrace overlooking the vineyards. There was a lattice archway leading into it with grapevines growing around it, the seasoned vines overtaking the structure and appearing to support the aged wood rather than the opposite.

  The pool was large and its cool aqua-blue water shimmered. Not far from the pool there was a child’s slide and swing set.

  As Ross looked around he saw that they weren’t alone. On the far side of the pool, lying on a blanket, was a young woman wearing a light, beige sundress, the straps down over her shoulders. She had sleek, well-proportioned features, a slender waist, full breasts and long, thin legs. She had high, narrow cheeks, and her hair was pulled back, falling over one shoulder. She was lying on her side next to a small boy, her eyes fixed on the novel she held. The child lay on his stomach, crashing his toys together in combat.

  Just then the woman looked up. Ross could not look away. Though she was as beautiful in form as any woman he had ever seen, it was her eyes that struck him most profoundly. She had beautiful, hazel eyes—the sad, fawnlike eyes of the fiorentina. Like a Botticelli painting.

  Anna waved. “Ciao, Eliana, buona giornata.”

  “Ciao, Anna,” the young woman returned in a friendly voice.

  The woman looked from Anna to Ross, and they shared eye contact, but she quickly turned her attention back to her book. Ross turned away, though out of politeness, not desire. He wanted to stare at her as he might a painting, and perhaps just as intensely. Beauty took time to properly digest.

  Anna whispered something to Luigi, which, after a few moments, he shared with Ross as well.

  “She says that besides herself, this woman will be your only neighbor. She has only the one boy and he is very quiet. So you need not be concerned about the noise.” Then Luigi added, “I think there is something wrong with the child. He has some sickness, I believe.”

  Ross looked back toward the child but found himself staring at the woman again.

  “She is a pretty woman, no?” Luigi asked.

  Ross turned away, slightly embarrassed at being caught staring. “Sì,” he said.

  Anna began talking again, pointing out the distant boundaries of the property. Luigi translated, though unnecessarily. “This is a working fattoria. The Ferrini family is well known in Chianti for their olive oil. They also have good wine. A premium wine. I have tried it. But they are not famous for it. You can try some and decide for yourself if it is good. She says that if you decide to rent you are invited to join them at the vendemmia—the grape harvest in October.” Then he added, “It is really a great thing. They have a big feast afterward.”

  “Great,” Ross said, not fully digesting what had been offered. He was still distracted by the woman by the pool.

  “So what do you think?” Luigi asked.

  Ross stirred. “About?”

  Luigi grinned. “About the apartment.”

  “Of course. When will it be available?”

  “You are decided?”

  “Sì.”

  Luigi looked surprised. “I think soon. I will ask. When would you like to move in?”

  “Immediately.”

  “Adesso,” Luigi said to himself. He spoke to Anna, then told Ross, “She says it is ready, but she still needs the cleaning lady to go through it. Also she needs to get some new sheets for the bed.”

  “Is that everything?”

  “There is a lease that needs to be signed. Along with the matter of the deposit.”

  Ross looked out over the landscape. Here was every seduction the countryside offered. “Go ahead and prepare the paperwork. How much of a deposit does she need?”

  “She was asking for the first month’s rent and an additional five million lire, but I think that it is too much. I think four is better.”

  “Four will be okay,” Ross said though he didn’t really care. He had already made up his mind.

  “I will ask her.”

  There was an animated exchange between Luigi and Anna, with escalating voices and broad hand gestures. All he could hear of it was Luigi’s calm voice, “Signora . . . Signora.” For a moment Ross thought it might turn bad and he considered intervening, but then the voices stopped and Luigi returned, smiling as if nothing had happened. “She says that four will be fine.”

  Ross laughed to himself. If only business in America had been so straightforward, he thought.

  “We can come back tomorrow and sign the papers.”

  Ross nodded his approval. “I’ll need to wire some money. Do you have a bank account number for her?”

  “It will be on the contract. I will call you with it.”

  Ross looked around the grounds but again found his gaze drawn to the woman. “I would like to move in tomorrow afternoon. Ask her if that will be possible.”

  “You can move all your things in by then?”

  “I don’t own much,” Ross said.

  Luigi spoke with Anna then returned with the news that tomorrow would be satisfactory, even preferable. Anna would soon be leaving on holiday, and after Thursday all would be delayed as they would have to wait till sometime next week for her brother to return from a business trip to sign the lease agreement. But she could not guarantee that the house would be cleaned by tomorrow until she talked to her cleaning lady. Ross shrugged. “Non è importante.” It was already clean enough for him.

  As they walked back toward the villa, Ross glanced back once more at the woman by the pool. She was looking up at him and for a brief moment they again shared eye contact. This time he was the first to turn away. He walked back to the car in silence. He had just made a decision on where he would live for the next year, and all he could think about was some woman he didn’t know. He did not believe in love at first sight or any such foolishness. She had barely even acknowledged his presence. Yet there was something that drew him to her.

  He couldn’t say what it was. For all he knew it was the pull of the moon on the Italian countryside. All he was certain of was that he hoped to see her again soon.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Una donna, la sua sorte è fatta dell’amore ch’ella accetta.” A woman’s fate is determined by the love she accepts.

  —Italian Proverb

  Anna stood in the gravel driveway and watched the Punto vanish down the drive beneath a line of swaying cypress. On its way out of Rendola the car passed a postal scooter driving to the villa. Anna heard the thin, familiar whine of the scooter’s engine and waited. The postal worker stopped her scooter just an arm’s length away from Anna, turned and took from her mail pouch a
small stack of mail, which she handed to Anna. It was a familiar ritual and the whole of their conversation consisted of three words:

  “Prego.”

  “Grazie.”

  “Prego.”

  Anna sorted through the mail as she walked back to the pool. She set the stack of envelopes on the ground next to Eliana. “It’s all for you,” she said. Then she sat down on a reclining chair, took off her glasses and wiped the sweat from the bridge of her nose.

  “Come stai?” Anna asked. How are you?

  “Abbastanza bene,” Eliana replied. Good enough.

  Though Eliana had been teaching English to Anna for more than three years, she was an unmotivated student and the women only spoke Italian in conversation. Anna scratched the back of her head. “We have a new tenant. He will move in tomorrow.”

  “Good.” She turned to Alessio. “Why don’t you get in the pool, honey?”

  “You come too, Mommy.”

  “Not today. I’ll just watch. Take your towel with you.”

  Alessio stood up and walked to the shallow end of the pool, where he sat on its edge, dangling his legs in the pool, deciding whether or not to get in.

  “We need some art for the new tenant,” Anna said, watching Alessio. “The Germans purchased all of the pictures you put in last time. They wanted all of them. I have money for you.”

  “That’s good.”

  “You are very good, Eliana. Better than you know. You should charge more for your paintings. They didn’t haggle over the cost. I think they would have paid il doppio.”

  “You know I don’t paint for the money,” she said.

  She rolled to her back. “I have some landscapes that will look nice in the apartment.”

  “He’s americano,” Anna said.

  “Who’s americano?”

  “The new tenant.”

  “He didn’t look American.”

  “Sì. He’s americano.” Her voice held a trace of excitement. “And he’s single.”