My heart sank. She was doing her best to distract herself from the adult responsibilities that awaited her. What fourteen-year-old girl should be tasked with her own father’s funeral arrangements?
“There’s time to think of that later,” I said. “Let’s finish off that roll of film.”
Mariangela wandered off away from the trees, camera at the ready, and proceeded to snap the occasional photograph of a dragonfly, a white pinecone, a far-off hill, and the sun sinking to the west.
“Here, let’s try this,” I said, pulling the 135mm Elmar lens from my bag. “See what you can do with some more magnification.”
I helped her screw the lens onto her camera, and pushed her out of the nest. With new extended range, she finished the roll of Kodachrome in no time. The sun was low and throwing that magical, late-afternoon light across the land. I couldn’t bear to watch her temporary respite from grief end, nor could I justify her missing the opportunity for such beautiful color slides, so I gave her another roll and told her to have a ball. She took her time now, concentrating on the golden hills and lonely farmhouses in the distance. Once she’d finished off the second roll, we both switched to Tri-X, just to see if we could manage the countryside in black-and-white.
“It’s wonderful,” she gushed. “Everything is so big and clear with this lens. I can’t wait to see the slides.”
“I’ll take the film into Florence tomorrow and drop it off for processing. And before you ask about the quarantine, I’ve already had German measles. When I was young.”
“But the policeman warned everyone to stay here. Besides, tomorrow is Sunday. The shops will be closed.”
“Something is bound to be open near the Ponte Vecchio. For the tourists.”
“It sounds risky. I saw a police car at the end of the drive. To make sure no one leaves.”
“Have you had German measles?” I asked, deflecting her concerns. I intended to fly the coop and I didn’t want any more attention than necessary.
Mariangela shook her head. “Chickenpox, but not German measles.”
We sat in the grass, rewinding the last of our exposed film, polishing our lenses with tissues, and snapping our cameras back into their cases.
“Is it true that your father was . . . murdered?” she asked.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Teresa told me. She heard it from my father.”
Not a topic I relished discussing, but since she’d lost her own father, I thought we might find some solace in our shared grief. “Yes, it’s true.”
“How did you manage? I mean, how did you deal with such a horrible thing?”
I looked off toward the southwest, where the sun was disappearing behind Bel Soggiorno, creating a glowing corona above the rooftop. It lasted barely thirty seconds, only long enough for the last slice of the sun to sink from sight. Then the aura vanished like a candle’s doused flame, and the colors of the sky changed temperature in an instant. Once warm and red, they now radiated clear and blue, edging ever bluer with each passing moment. I glanced at my watch: just past six. There would be light for another hour behind the house and the hill it stood on, but Mariangela and I sat enveloped in the gathering gloom of day’s end.
“It was sudden,” I said. “He’d been in the hospital. In a coma. But I always assumed he’d come out of it. When he died I wasn’t prepared. I felt guilt and shame.”
My words were of little comfort to the girl. Realizing how selfish I was, I tacked in a different direction.
“It was hard, but it gets better. We have no choice but to mend. Nothing can replace our loved ones. We simply heal and carry on as best we can.”
She bowed her head and nodded solemnly. I thought she was terrifically brave, especially for a fourteen-year-old.
“You must feel the same way,” I continued. “Tell me about him. What kind of man was he?”
She lifted her head and blinked at me. “He was a strict father.” She seemed to search for the right words. “Not soft, you know? He loved me, I suppose—no, I’m sure—but everything in life was duty and sacrifice for him. Even this camera he gave me. He said he wanted me to use it to learn from the world. To see the beauty and the ugliness through its lens.”
“Did he dote on you? Was he affectionate?”
“No, that wasn’t his way. As I said, he was a good man, but . . . proper. Like a headmaster. Or a priest.”
Probably not one to dandle his daughter on his knee. Not so unusual, after all. He sounded somewhat correct and preachy, but wanting to instill values in his child. So he wasn’t the warmest of men. At least he seemed a decent sort. Nothing like the portrait Giuliana had painted of the late professor. I recalled, too, Lucio’s thinly veiled critique in the story he’d told the night before. And Locanda, dear old friend that he was, had informed us all of Bondinelli’s theft of school books and other sins, including how he’d bullied his friends as a child.
“I know this is a sad time for you. You can come find me to talk whenever you like. About photography or your father or anything.”
“It’s strange,” she said, fiddling with her camera. “My father was a serious man, but not harsh or mean. I never heard him shout or tell a joke or have a drink. A couple of sips of wine with dinner, and he added water to it at that. He made sure I had everything I needed in life, sent me to my wonderful school in England, but . . . but he never hugged me. Not like you’d expect anyway. Not like a dad. He was a father.
“It’s all right, you know,” she continued. “That he wasn’t all loving and kissing with me. Sure, that might have been nice. But he was a good man. As if he had a higher purpose in life. More than being babbo.”
I recognized some parallels between Bondinelli and my own father, though they were different enough. Mine, too, had been strict and principled, and could freeze you with his disapproval. But he could be tender and loving, something Alberto Bondinelli apparently was not.
“He was interested in making the world a better place,” she said. “Spreading Christian values. That’s a noble thing, isn’t it? He believed in helping others. Everyone. Anyone, even strangers. Even non-Christians. He taught me to honor the poorest, least fortunate among us. As Jesus did.”
I felt sorry for Mariangela. She was mature and clever beyond her years, able to weigh the pros and cons of her aloof father’s qualities and accept the good for what it was worth. What she wasn’t saying was that she wished a touch more of her father’s love for God’s children had been reserved for her.
“He sounds like a great man. We mustn’t judge people too harshly for their emotional shortcomings.”
“You sound like Teresa,” she said with a weak smile. “She’s always defending him, telling me he loves me dearly but it’s not his way to make a show of it.”
“Tell me about her,” I said, walking straight through the door she’d opened. “She’s Spanish, isn’t she?”
“Yes, from Guadalajara. Not far from Madrid.”
“How did your father meet her?”
“I think it was through a Catholic charity. My father devoted much of his time to good works.”
“Father Fabrizio mentioned a charity for orphans in Spain.”
“You’ve met Father Fabrizio?” she asked.
“I heard him deliver a eulogy for your father at the symposium two days ago. Why do you ask?”
She frowned. “No reason. He’s my father’s priest. His confessor.”
There was more to this. “He seemed like a nice old man. Is there something you don’t like about him?”
“He’s a priest. That’s all.”
“And you don’t like priests?”
“I have nothing against them except when they try to push me into a confessional booth to share my most embarrassing personal secrets.”
I wondered if Mariangela realized how much she had in common with her late father. She was a young rebel, pushing back against the control of her religion. Would she find her way back eventually to the Church
, as did her father? Or, perhaps, without his steady hand, would she forge her own secular path?
Aware that I might have been crossing a line, I asked her if she was a practicing Catholic. She shook her head and said no.
“That’s my father’s world. Teresa’s, too. Not mine. I don’t believe in everything they preach. I’m not convinced all sins are wrong.”
That sounded reasonable to me, but I hadn’t been raised Catholic. Or even Christian. I lived my life according to my own moral code, which didn’t always align neatly with the expectations of society. My landlady, for one, regularly registered her objections to my drinking. My “loose” behavior, she said, was its inevitable result.
“You shouldn’t let those men get you tipsy,” she’d once told me in her most supercilious tone. “Alcohol is a sedative, after all. The dentist gives you Novocain before he tells you to open wide. It’s the same with men and alcohol, dear.”
“Teresa’s very loyal to your father,” I said to Mariangela. “He must have been good to her.”
“I suppose. They didn’t speak often, other than to plan meals or the household budget. And church, of course. Teresa’s one of those who never misses Mass, not on Monday or Wednesday or Sunday.”
“Is she married?”
“A widow. Her husband died in the civil war.”
Had he been on the Nationalist or Republican side? I calculated the odds in my head. Difficult to say, but if she was a seven-day-a-week communicant, I was putting my money on Nationalist. Not that it mattered. I was just curious.
“And she looks after you?”
Mariangela nodded. “She’s been like a mother to me since mamma died. I love Teresa. She’s my family.”
The two of us lay back on the grass and contemplated the darkening sky and its ghostlike, nearly transparent moon as we listened to the squawking crow of a pheasant somewhere nearby. The temperature was dropping with the falling light, and I suggested we head back to the house.
“Just a little longer, Ellie,” she said. “If you don’t mind. I don’t want to go back there yet.”
I propped myself up on an elbow and regarded her. Unaware of myttention, she continued to stare at the sky, eyes wide and alert.
“She was very pretty, my mother,” she announced.
“So I’ve heard. Do you have a photo of her?”
“No, but I can show you one tomorrow. My favorite one of her.”
Another bout of cloud-gazing followed before I asked about her uncle.
“Do you know him well?”
She shook her head back and forth in the grass but said nothing.
“I suppose he was close to your father.”
“Not particularly,” she said at length. “I don’t see him often. That’s why it was strange that he arranged for me to come here.”
“He arranged?” I asked, recalling his claim that he hadn’t been expecting Mariangela to show up.
“Yes. He phoned my headmistress and dictated all the details. The train tickets, Channel crossing, even a car to collect me at the station. He sent Teresa to take me to my father’s office before bringing me here.”
This all struck me as odd. Locanda had appeared put out when I’d come across him and Mariangela in the front hall of the house. Had he been upset by her arrival or the presence of others to witness the awkward reunion? He was something of a stick in the mud, after all.
“Why did he send you to your father’s office at the university?” I asked.
She drew a sigh. “He said I should gather up what I wanted there and be done with it. There might not be time later on. He’s always been organized that way.”
“Did you find anything you wanted?”
Still flat on her back, she attempted a manner of shrug that looked more like shoulder-scratching against the ground. “Just a couple of photographs. One of my mum.”
“What was she like?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t coming on too strong.
Again the itchy shrug. “I barely remember her. I mean, of course, I remember her, but I was only six when she died, so my memories are more feelings than things. She was very pretty. She smelled nice. And she was gentle and loving. The opposite of my father.”
A voice from behind startled us. “Who was the opposite of your father?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mariangela and I pushed up off the ground, faced her uncle, and brushed the grass from our clothing. He smiled—after a fashion.
“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” he said. “It’s only me. Come back to the house. It’s time for aperitivi. Mariangela, you will bathe and change for dinner.”
We trudged back up the hill, through the trees, under the pergola, and across the terrazza. The others had gathered there, drinks already in their hands, but the alcohol clearly hadn’t cast its spell yet. Long faces and silence all around. I felt bad for Bernie, who’d agreed to this weekend idyll only in exchange for my promise not to abandon him. And he looked abandoned. Sitting alone on the periphery of the group, he smoked a lonely cigarette and sipped something green from a small glass. His face lit up at the sight of me. And, strange to say, so did the faces of the others.
“Urrà!” shouted Lucio. “Ecco, è tornata la Ellie!”
I wasn’t sure I deserved such a hearty welcome, but I accepted the accolades and backslaps with the good grace and magnanimity of a monarch. And as I did, Locanda led Mariangela into the house. I watched them disappear.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to Bernie.
“The mood here is dismal,” he said in an equally low voice. “In desperation, everyone started asking where you were. Just for something to talk about.”
“Thanks, chum. I missed you, too.”
He apologized, insisting that I was actually the life of the party.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asked.
“Sure. But I want to change first. Give me ten minutes.”
The lavender soap I’d picked up at the Farmacia Santa Maria Novella provided a refreshing cleanse of my face and hands. I daubed on some lipstick, brushed my unruly hair, and changed my skirt and blouse. Ready to face cocktails and dinner, I climbed down the narrow steps to the second floor, then set off down the corridor toward the broad flight of stone stairs leading to the front hall below. I passed Veronica’s room—my former room—and stopped in to see how she was faring.
I found her in bed, propped up against four pillows. A food tray with two dishes and a carafe of water sat balanced in her lap as she shoveled white rice into her face from a heaping bowl in her hand. The rich aroma of butter filled the room. She waved me in and invited me to sit on the edge of the bed.
Something looked different. Something felt different. I’m not the tallest girl on the team, but still, I found it odd that I actually had to give a little hop to reach the mattress. A glance across the room to my old bed solved the mystery. The pillows were gone, pressed into service to prop up Veronica in her bed. But that wasn’t all she’d appropriated. My bed was missing its mattress as well, and I realized I was sitting on it at that very moment. She’d piled my mattress on top of hers.
“Are you feeling any better today?” I asked her as she spooned another mouthful of rice and butter into her mouth.
“Non c’è male,” she said once she’d swallowed and washed it down with a couple of gulps of water. “I still have this rash. And that oaf Achille knocked over my witch hazel when he brought me uno spuntino this afternoon. Broke the bottle. I yelled at him, but he’s sordo come una campana,deaf as a bell. Now I have nothing to soothe the itch.”
“You should be nice to him, poor man.” I leaned in for a closer look. “The redness is fading. Maybe just some calamine. I have some in my room.” But she refused and kept on eating.
“No fever?” I asked. “Are your glands swollen? Do you have a headache?”
“No, niente. I feel fine except for the itch.”
I told her I’d look in on her later that evening.
“Ell
ie,” she called as I slid off the bed to the floor. “Ask Berenice to send up some dolci. Panna cotta or torta della nonna. And coffee would be nice.”
A light rain had started to fall, so the gang came inside with their drinks. In the salone, I spent the cocktail hour filling in Bernie on my conversation with Mariangela. He thought it strange, but not necessarily significant, that Locanda had planned everything for his niece’s return.
“And you probably misunderstood him when he told you he wasn’t expecting her.”
I fumed. “Bernie, I’m a trained reporter. But even if I weren’t, I still know the difference between expecting and not expecting.”
“Sorry,” he said and offered to fetch me another drink.
I’d fixed my eyes on Lucio across the room. “Not just now. I want to ask Lucio about something.”
“Padre Fabrizio?” asked Bernie.
“Exactly.”
Lucio sat slouching on one of the divans, staring into space, a Campari soda in his hand. His guitar leaned against the wall behind him, and I fancied he was miffed no one was clamoring to hear him play. Compounding his sense of oblivion, I was sure, was the fact that he’d already taken his turn as storyteller the night before and there was likely no chance for a return to the spotlight. I thought I could use that to my advantage.
“Salve, Lucio,” I said, taking a seat next to him. He returned the greeting. “I enjoyed your story last night, amore mio. And your guitar playing.”
That brought a grin to his lips. And he treated me to a long-winded explanation of where he’d poached the tale and how he really did know lots of songs on the guitar.
“But I’m a perfectionist. If the guitar is out of tune, I can’t finish.”
Then he fetched the instrument and launched into a new serenade to me, loud enough to silence all the other conversations taking place in the room.
“Non dimenticar che t’ho voluto tanto bene,” he began, practically pouring himself into my arms.
“I know this song,” I said. He paused, somewhat miffed at the interruption. “Nat King Cole sang it, but half in English.”
He picked up where he’d left off. “Or di questo amor un sol ricordo t’appartiene . . .”
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