Over the course of the next few minutes, Franco reviewed and ex-tolled the career and character of my late father, licking his boots clean, oratorically speaking. I sat on a folding wooden chair in the front row, listening to then tuning out the hyperbolic recitation of my father’s accomplishments. I didn’t need to hear them. I knew them all. His remarkable capacity for mastering languages, his tremendous erudition and dedication to research, prodigious talent for drawing . . . pursuit of excellence in his scholarship . . . seminal work . . . illustrissimo letterato . . . marito affezionato, padre di famiglia—Franco’s parroting of Bondinelli’s tribute melted into a sticky puddle of treacle.
My attention wandered. I gazed up at the hall’s giant frescoes, which depicted crowded battlefields of knights, horses, and foot soldiers engaged in wholesale slaughter. Some Florentine victory or other over the Sienese or the Pisans, I figured, but I wasn’t sure which. The wall to my left was lined with a series of six statues. At first glance, the sculptures appeared to be two nude wrestlers in the most compromising and revealing of positions. Then I realized these statues represented the Labors of Hercules. The one closest to me was the most riveting: Hercules holding Diomedes aloft—upside down—exposing his opponent’s . . . well . . . his opponent’s everything for all to see. But as our hero squeezed the air and the life out of Diomedes, the latter was maintaining an iron grip on Hercules’s . . . pisello and the adjoining tackle, looking as if he’d only let go over his dead body. Hercules, of course, obliged him and, as the story goes, subsequently fed his defeated foe to his own man-eating mares.
“Signorina Stone,prego.”
Franco stood above me, extending an open hand in my direction, inviting me up to the dais. I sensed from his insistent expression and the impatience in his voice that he was either repeating the appeal for at least the third time or he was holding a grudge for my little prank of the previous evening. I’m sure I blushed.
Climbing the two steps, I joined my host at the podium as the audience clapped politely. Franco displayed the honor—a medal struck especially for the occasion—for all to see. It was a four-inch silver disk emblazoned with Dante’s aquiline likeness set against the Palazzo Vecchio in the background. The poet, as always, looked cross. Or perhaps dyspeptic.
A photographer knelt before us and mimed posing instructions to me. I understood he wanted me to stand closer to Franco and to hold the open case containing the medal as if I were glad to accept it.
“Sorrida, signorina,” he said, now giving voice to his directives. “Un bel sorriso. Ecco, perfetto.”
He fired off a dozen shots, reloading fresh flashbulbs as quickly as his white-gloved hand could pluck the exploded hot ones from the reflector. And he continued to offer encouragement until Franco waved him off.
Having cleared his throat with a stentorian ahem that startled a pigeon in the rafters, he closed the case—medal safely inside—and presented it to me. Then, shaking my hand—squeezing it perhaps a mite too ardently given our brief acquaintance and his own injuries of the previous night—he ceded the microphone to me. He showed no outward indication that he remembered what had happened on the hotel’s threshold not ten hours before. Perhaps he’d been too drunk. In any event, he was his proper self again. He stepped back, indicating that it was my time to say a few words.
There I stood at the lectern in the magnificent Sala dei Cinquecento, staring out at the crowd—at least a hundred and fifty strong—gathering my wits to deliver the speech I’d prepared. Enunciating each word, every consonant, precise vowel, and diphthong, I read slowly the two paragraphs my tutor, Sister Michael back in New Holland, had helped me translate into Italian. It was little more than some kind words about my father and a succinct cataloguing of distinguished guests who needed to be thanked. And, with the assistance of Bernie Sanger at breakfast that morning, I’d added a few words of appreciation and sorrow for my host, the late Alberto Bondinelli. Once I’d finished and the audience had applauded dutifully, I turned to leave the stage. Pushing aside the longstanding estrangement we’d never resolved, I addressed my father in a whisper. Covering my lips with a casual brush of my fingers, I said, “None of that matters now. I love you.”
With the opening ceremonies concluded, we were all directed to reconvene in the Aula Magna at the university an hour later for the actual symposium. Franco Sannino told me he and the others were planning on meeting for lunch in Piazza della Signoria after that. I was hardly paying attention. Feeling wistful after the tribute to my father, I slipped out of the hall, escaping all—even Bernie—intending to make my way to the university on foot by myself. Instead, I wandered off through the side streets of the city, trying to shake off my gloom.
Two hours later, swinging my purse lazily as I strolled the cobble-stones, I found myself back in Piazza della Signoria. I was thirsty, and not for water. I found a table on the outdoor terrace of the Cavallo restaurant on the north side of the square, facing the Neptune Fountain. Once the waiter had delivered my glass of whisky soda, I settled back, sunglasses in place to shield my eyes from the early-afternoon sun to the south, and considered the statue before me.
Ammannato’s giant white Neptune, il Biancone, stood tall—and equally as nude as the nearby David—in his fountain. Ever stuck in pedantic mode, my father had told me the Florentines so hated the statue that they mocked it with a little rhyme, “Ammannato Ammannato che bel marmo t’hai sciupato.” (Ammannato, Ammannato, what a nice piece of marble you’ve ruined.)
Franco’s reading of Bondinelli’s tribute, along with my own speech that morning, steered my thoughts to my father. I’d long stopped wondering what happened in relationships like ours. The beginning, I mean, not the dramatic denouement. That was clear to me. Maybe he’d preferred sons. Son. Elijah. At least to grown daughters. My father and I had been closer when I was a child, but ours had never been a “daddy’s little girl” kind of thing. At least never for very long. He liked showing me off to his friends and colleagues as the marvel who could name any piece of classical music at the drop of a needle. It was a silly, useless talent. But I enjoyed making him proud when I could distinguish a lesser-known chamber piece by Dvorak from something by Smetana. Or when I could pick Sibelius or Borodin out of a lineup in front of his cronies at a cocktail party. But it always felt like a test. A test that, should I fail, would cause a run on my stock. And, in fact, that suspicion eventually spoiled the joy and pride of the exercise. It stoked resentment and planted a nagging notion in the back of my mind that I was singing for my supper. I doubted he’d ever felt the need to earn my affections.
I drew a sigh and blew it out, scolding myself for wallowing in melancholy over ancient history I could do nothing to change. That, too, in a beautiful spot such as Florence. Soon I’d be done with my responsibilities—the symposium—and free to pursue the rest of my Italian holiday on my own. To forge new memories that didn’t stink of regret and remorse. At least that was the plan. Sitting alone in the piazza, I sank into more remembrances of things past. My first voyage to Italy with my father.
Florence aside, my favorite place of all was Venice. I hadn’t even minded that the canals smelled like ripened garbage in the August heat. La Serenissima had delighted and amazed me as a little girl, sparking my fantasies and imagination as no other place ever had or has since. I marveled at the palazzi floating on the lagoon. Never mind how they had built a city on stilts in the water, I wondered why. Was the dry land not inviting enough? But Venice had indeed been built on the islands, and a ten-year-old girl could only explore—enchanted—its wonders. Each bridge and every campo led to new discoveries, small doors and stone wells and quiet nooks where flowers exploded in color from ancient window boxes. And Piazza San Marco, with its flights of pigeons, cafés with ice cream and pastries, and its basilica resembling—to my young mind at least—the palace of some eastern king. I gazed, entranced, at the prancing horses above the arched doorway and asked my father why that lion even higher up had wings. His long-wi
nded answer, I recall, had something to do with Saint Mark and the Bible, but he lost me before too long. My father, you see, lacked the capacity to gauge the interest and patience of his audience, never more so than when delivering a scholarly lecture to his ten-year-old daughter. When he’d finally summed up his thesis, I asked if I could have a gelato and feed the pigeons.
“Scusi, signorina,” a voice from over my shoulder interrupted my thoughts. “Are you Miss Stone?”
A stout woman in her forties, shy and solicitous, waited, breath bated, for me to confirm my identity. My Italian had improved greatly thanks to ten months of assiduous study with Sister Michael back in New Holland, but there remained yawning holes in my vocabulary and familiarity with accents. Nevertheless, I sensed something different about this woman’s speech, starting with the epenthetic -e- she’d tacked on to the front of scusi. How did I know that word, epenthetic? One of the bonuses of growing up with a polyglot pedant of a father who tossed such terms around the way J. D. Rockefeller used to hand out dimes. And I remembered him telling me that was why the “Spanish” lady who cleaned our neighbor’s house called him Professor es-Stone. Ever the pedagogue, he made sure I understood that the -e- was only appended to words beginning with an -s- plus another consonant, or a -z-. Why did I need to know that? It only served to distract me each time I met someone with a Spanish accent.
“Yes,” I said, answering the lady’s question. “What can I do for you?”
She leaned forward at the hips ever so slightly, hands folded together. “My name is Teresa Ortega y Martín.” She paused.
Spanish, as I’d suspected. “Do I know you?”
“No, let me explain. I am the housekeeper of Professor Bondinelli.”
I stood and offered the chair next to mine. She hesitated, eyes darting around the terrace of the café for a brief moment, before tucking her dress against her thighs and taking the seat.
“Grazie,” she said.
“How did you find me here?” I asked. “I mean, how did you recognize me?”
“I attended the ceremony this morning. I saw you there.”
That made sense. I signaled to the waiter with a raised finger. He arrived presently, and I asked Teresa what she would have. At first she demurred, but I insisted, and in the end she ordered an aranciata. Once we were alone, she explained in Italian the reason for her interruption. Understandably upset by her employer’s death, she nevertheless had come to tell me that Professor Bondinelli had wanted my Florence sojourn to be a comfortable one. I told her I’d been shocked to hear of the tragedy.
“How long had you known him?” I asked.
“Almost twenty-five years.”
“You’ve worked for him for so long?”
She shook her head. “Only seven years. But I met him long ago.”
The waiter returned with her soft drink. I touched a finger to my glass, and he nodded silently. I watched Teresa. She averted her gaze, not to enjoy the surrounding beauty or crowds of tourists in the piazza, but to avoid my stare. At least that’s what I assumed.
“Did you see the professor Tuesday?” I asked.
“Yes, of course. I made him his breakfast and ironed his suit.”
I wasn’t sure how things worked in Italy. “Do you . . . live in Professor Bondinelli’s house?”
She nodded. “I have a room in his home. Small, but comfortable. I cook and keep his house for him.”
“Then you must know Veronica.”
“Of course. She also has a room in the professor’s house. A nice girl. Not so smart, but a good soul.”
She wiped a tear with the cigarette-paper-thin napkin the waiter had brought with her drink. I placed a hand over hers to comfort. She wore no wedding band.
“I’m so sorry.”
“He was very kind to me,” she said, sobbing now. I offered her a proper handkerchief from my purse, and she buried her face in it to weep. “He was a saintly man.”
A long moment later, after the waiter had delivered my refill, Teresa managed to compose herself. She produced an envelope from her bag and placed it on the table.
“Il professore meant to give this to you,” she said.
“What is it?” I asked as I took it from her.
She jutted out her chin to indicate she didn’t know. “He wanted you to have it.”
I examined the envelope. Heavy bond. His personal stationery, I figured. And there was my name: “Sig.na Eleonora Stone” along with a one-line message, “Da aprire dopo il simposio.” (To be opened after the symposium.)
CHAPTER SIX
“Should I open it?” I asked.
She said that was between me and Professor Bondinelli.
Weighing the sealed envelope in my hand, I figured there was probably a single sheet of paper inside. Two at the most. I placed it on the table before me and took a healthy sip of my whisky soda. Did the scrawl on the envelope constitute a covenant between him and me? Had it been broken by his death? And since I hadn’t been a party to it in the first place, was it even valid? This was silly, I thought. It was surely nothing more than a thank-you note for my taking the pains to travel all the way from New York to attend the conference. I was about to tear it open when Franco Sannino tapped me on the shoulder.
“Ellie.” He gazed down at me, wagging a finger in mock reproach. “You never made it to the university hall. Shame on you.”
I stammered something inadequate in reply, but he smiled, waved me off, and took the seat next to mine. He barely noticed Teresa and, in fact, ignored her after I’d made introductions.
“Don’t worry about the conference,” he said, checking his watch. “I’m the host. I’ll grant you a dispensation.”
“Is this the lunch break?” I asked.
Franco signaled to the waiter, who arrived at a trot. “Campari soda,” he said. Then motioning to my glass, added, “Un altro per la signorina.”
I was about to ask Teresa if she wanted another as well, but her glass was full. That didn’t excuse Franco his lack of manners, as I doubted he’d even cast a glance her way to check. Instead he pulled a packet of cigarettes from his jacket, selected one, and asked if I’d join him. I told him no. Once he’d lit up, inhaled deeply, and sat back in his chair to observe the passersby, I repeated my question.
“Yes, this is the lunch break. The afternoon session starts at two.”
“Professor Bondinelli is the host,” said Teresa in a small voice, filling the brief silence that had descended upon us.
“Prego?” asked Franco.
“The symposium,” she said to clarify. “Professor Bondinelli is the host.”
Franco shifted in his seat and attempted a stiff smile. “Of course, signora. But as he’s no longer with us . . .”
In fairness, I doubted Teresa’s contribution had been intended as anything more than a statement of fact. No reproach. She didn’t seem to have that kind of malice—or courage—in her. It was merely her way of participating in the conversation. Still, Franco was now painfully aware of her hitherto unnoticed presence.
“I haven’t had the pleasure. Come si chiama, signora?”
Of course he’d had the pleasure. I’d performed the honors myself not two minutes before. Nevertheless, Teresa repeated her name and in-formed him again that she was Bondinelli’s donna di servizio.
“Condoglianze,” he said just as the waiter arrived with our drinks.
He clinked his glass against mine, then waved to a woman looking lost in the piazza not twenty feet from us. She didn’t recognize him at first, but approached us anyway.
“You are Vicky, vero?” asked Franco.
Tall and svelte, dressed in a tapered skirt and matching jacket, she must have been melting in the heat. Yet she was elegant and quite pretty, and not letting on that she’d chosen her outfit poorly that morning.
“Yes. I’m Vicky. Victoria Hodges.”
Springing to his feet, he offered her his place at the table next to me. Teresa faded even farther into the scenery
.
“We meet-ed, remember?” said Franco in English. “With Alberto. Ten days ago.”
She forced a smile but wasn’t convinced. Not ready to accept the seat he was holding for her.
“Did we?” she asked. “Ten days ago?”
East coast accent, I thought. Hard to pin down. New York or Connecticut, perhaps. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”
“I am Franco. The colleague of Alberto. Alberto Bondinelli.”
“Of course,” she said, now only too happy to sit down. She waved a hand to cool her face and asked if he might summon a waiter. Once she’d ordered some mineral water, she turned back to Franco. “You and Alberto are staying at the house in Fiesole this weekend with the students, isn’t that right?”
Franco blanched. “Well, to tell true, no. I want to say, yes. You have not hear-ed? Alberto. Povero Alberto. He is died.”
“Died? Oh, no. When did that happen?”
“Tuesday evening. He fall-ed in the river. Annegato. Morto. Martedì sera.”
Vicky managed to squeeze a drop of compassion out of her heart. Yes, I was still there, observing from my place next to the new arrival. She hadn’t noticed me, never mind Teresa.
“That’s too sad. Max will be sick to hear this.”
Franco had clearly abandoned any interest he might have had in me—at least for the time being—as the statuesque Vicky dwarfed me not only in size but in beauty as well. During my trip to Los Angeles the previous year, I’d been told on more than one occasion that I was pretty, but not Hollywood pretty. This leggy brunette was Hollywood pretty. Franco made a big show of bowing and scraping, commiserating with Vicky, who didn’t appear especially broken up by the news she’d just heared.His performance consisted mostly of pinched lips, pained grimaces, and squinty eyes to demonstrate exactly how grief-stricken he was. I stepped into a momentary pause in their conversation and introduced myself to Vicky. She noticed me for the first time, extended a clammy hand—it was hot and muggy after all—and pronounced herself pleased to make my acquaintance.
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