He frowned and sipped his drink, Cynar. “I’m not sure,” he grumbled. “I’ve never looked at those pictures closely. Why would I want to?”
“I can’t pretend to know what motivates you. But I’m curious to know if he is in any of those photos,” I said, thinking back to my conversation with Giuliana earlier that day.
“Perché?”
“Because I heard a rumor that he was a member of the Black Shirts. I’m a reporter and like to confirm information.”
“Are you writing a news article?”
“No. Are you avoiding my question?”
“Absolutely not. We can go have a look at the photographs. Subito, if you like.”
I took him up on his offer, and, leaving our drinks behind, we made our way down the corridor to the study. He pushed open the door and flicked on the dim light. The little reading nook was to the right of the entrance. Locanda switched on the reading lamp on the table, illuminating the space so we could examine the photographs on the wall.
“Ecco a lei,” he said. “Take your time.”
“I don’t think I would recognize him. After all, I never met him. And the one photograph I’ve seen is recent.”
“I’ll help you then, shall I?”
He removed a pair of eyeglasses from his vest pocket and slipped them on his nose. Then, bending at the waist for a closer look, he examined the photographs one by one. He grunted at one picture, chuckled to himself at another, then stood up straight and removed his glasses.
“So? Is he there?”
“Yes, Alberto’s there. In two photographs. This one,” he said, pointing to a group picture of a squadron or kindle of Black Shirts—whatever the collective noun was for the bastards. Perhaps an unkindness, as in ravens, or a murder, as in crows. “And this is him, too.” He pointed to the last photograph at the bottom.
It was a group of four men in fezzes holding rifles across their chests. Each man grinned at the camera. Except for one. The tall one. The thin one with fierce eyes and a tight grip on his weapon. He was cleanly shaven in the photograph, and I doubted I would have picked him out on my own. His focus was singular, intense, and all business. No smile in his dark eyes. A mission, perhaps, a conviction. It seemed to me that he would have rather been elsewhere, but he was willing to submit to being photographed because someone—his commanding officer perhaps—had ordered him to do so. I saw no humanity or joy, could detect nothing but a vacant stare from a hollow soul. And I’d seen that man before. He was one of the four people in the photograph from the café. The one I’d seen the night before, when Locanda had surprised Bernie and me in the study.
“There’s another photo I’d like to see,” I said, crossing the room to the secretary against the wall.
Locanda followed. I shuffled through the prints I’d examined that very morning.
“There,” I said, holding the photograph out for Locanda to see. “Is this Bondinelli?”
He unfolded his glasses again, and threaded them behind his ears and onto the bridge of his nose. He took the picture and studied it for a few seconds.
“Yes, that’s Alberto. But how did you know he was in this photograph? Were you snooping in my study?”
“Oh, please,” I said, snatching the picture from his hands. “You know perfectly well I was.”
He pulled the eyeglasses off again and held them to his cheek in a pensive pose. Perhaps he hadn’t known perfectly well after all.
“Then you were not in here to kiss your friend Bernie last night?” he asked in an unsure voice. “You did not lose your . . .” he cleared his throat. “You lied about having lost your . . . mutandine.”
I said nothing to confirm his statement and glared at him instead.
Locanda frowned and huffed his indignation. “You come into my house as a guest and search my possessions? Why?”
“Because I’m incurably curious,” I said. “I wanted to know why the man who invited me here died before I’d even had the chance to shake his hand. I wanted to know who he truly was. I wanted to know why you, his friend, had nothing nicer to say about him than he used to steal books and beat up his childhood classmates. And I wanted to know why you would hide the fact that such a man had been your brother-in-law and father to your niece.”
Locanda bristled. “You didn’t know Mariangela was my niece until today.”
“That’s beside the point. A couple of hours difference. Yes, I glanced at a couple of photographs you’d left lying around in plain view. But you’re hiding something. You must be. Why else would you lie about your relationship with him?”
“I don’t have to answer to you or anyone else in my own house,” he said, taking a step toward me.
This was the first time he’d ever made me feel threatened. It wasn’t that he was fuming or frothing at the mouth. Just the opposite. He was calm, as if he’d made a decision of how to handle the situation. I backed away from the secretary, but he cut off my escape.
Then a noise came from the doorway, distracting Locanda and startling me. We reeled around to see who was there and saw a barefoot ghost, framed by the doorway, standing there in a fluttering gown of gossamer. The light from corridor shone behind the figure rendering her face a dark hole beneath a wild bird’s nest of hair.
“Oh, my, God,” I said, clutching my chest. “Veronica, it’s you.”
She stepped inside the room, and the eerie illusion caused by the light faded away. “I came down for something to eat,” she said. “I heard voices.”
“Everything is fine, signorina,” said Locanda, edging a few inches away from me. “You must be feeling better. Brava.”
“Yes, thank you. I feel fine. I’m just hungry.”
I took advantage of the small talk and the presence of a witness to slip past Locanda who, though he’d given me some breathing room, was still too close for my comfort. I joined Veronica at the doorway. Her expression told me she thought she’d interrupted something, though she wasn’t sure what.
“I’ll ask Berenice to fix you something to eat,” he said. “Why don’t you go back to your room to rest?”
“Grazie,” she said, unsure, perhaps, if it was safe to leave me with him. Or maybe she thought we’d been up to some kind of naughtiness and she should exit stage right.
“Wait,” I said. “Veronica, may I look at your rash?”
She submitted, standing close to the light near the armchair.
“It’s much better,” I said. “Does it still itch?”
“A little. Not like before.”
“Splendid,” said Locanda. “I’m sure tomorrow you will be able to join us all for meals. Go on upstairs now and I’ll send Berenice.”
Veronica left the study and retreated down the corridor, disappearing into the darkness at the far end. With my witness gone, Locanda joined me in the doorway. We stepped into the corridor. Then, producing a keychain from his jacket, he shut the study door and locked the room.
“Shall we finish our drinks in the salone?” he asked as if nothing had happened. “I’ll join you once I’ve roused Berenice from her bed to serve that silly girl something to eat.”
“There you are,” said Bernie from the same seat he’d occupied during Giuliana’s bloody story. Lucio was there as well, pouring himself some more white wine. “Where were you?”
“Caber tossing,” I said.
“Caber . . . what?” he asked. “Like throwing telephone poles in a field?”
“It’s a joke.”
Then Lucio chimed in. “Now you will marry me, Ellie?” he asked in English. “Please. I love you. Ti amo!”
“Max and I were just looking at some photographs in his study,” I said, answering Bernie’s question and putting Lucio’s plea to one side for the moment. There would be time to fall into his arms later if the mood struck me.
Locanda returned, took up his orphaned drink, and we settled into a reluctant, uneasy peace, the four of us. It didn’t last long; I wanted to put as much distance as I could between m
e and our host. It was late, nearly one, and I announced I was punching out for the day. Bernie stood and said he, too, was turning in. He took my elbow and said he’d “walk me home.”
“Maybe I’ll invite you in to see my etchings,” I said. Turning to Lucio, I added, “Buonanotte, amore mio.” He rose and kissed me on both cheeks.
“Vengo da te?” he asked with an adorable smile.
“You will not come to my room, Lucio,” I said. “Bernie’s going to be there, after all.”
He chuckled and wished me goodnight.
My eyes darted from him to Locanda. I didn’t want to say anything to him, but in polite company I had little choice. “Buonanotte.”
He returned my good wishes, stiffly, but he was playing the same game as I was.
Halfway down the corridor, I spotted a shadow on the tiles. I stooped to investigate.
“What’s that?” asked Bernie.
“A keychain,” I said, turning it over.
“Looks like the key to a Vespa,” he said, stating the obvious. The small leather fob was emblazoned with a metal badge reading “Vespa.”
“I think this belongs to Franco,” said Bernie. “He must have dropped it when we hauled him off to bed. I’ll give it to him in the morning.”
“Or in the afternoon,” I said as we continued on our way down the corridor. “He might sleep in tomorrow. And don’t worry. I’ll return it to him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sleeping under the eaves, I heard the rain as soon as it began to fall. Heavy at first, like a spigot had opened up full blast, then lighter, and finally steady. The showers brought cooler temperatures, even if the wet air grew thicker as a result. Still, lying beneath the sheets, instead of on top of them, was a refreshing change. My Super Faust kept me safe from the zanzare, which should have made for the soundest sleep I’d had to date in Florence. And yet I was troubled.
I dreamt disturbing dreams, all of which involved either Bondinelli or Locanda. They appeared as riddles and threats. To my horror, one manifested himself as an incubus. Despite his lack of civility and basic kindness, Locanda had managed to invade my slumber and my bed. His presence in my subconscious discomfited me as I wasn’t sure if he’d been ready to slap, strangle, or kiss me earlier that night in his study, when Veronica interrupted our intense moment. Either way, he was now in my dream engaging me in undertakings I’d heretofore only enjoyed with men of less advanced years.
I awoke. If ever there was an inspiration to reach into my suitcase and retrieve the bottle of Dewar’s, this was it. I huddled on the bed, emptied my little water glass into my mouth, then filled it again with whisky. The rain continued to fall. The roof dispatched its duties, keeping the water outside and me inside, comfortable and dry.
Pushing impure thoughts of Locanda to one side, I concentrated on Bondinelli instead. He’d seemed such a polite and proper man in his correspondence with me. Nothing in his letters suggested a former Black Shirt. In fairness, he’d given me no clues as to his feelings on Jesus or war orphans in Spain either. But the people who had known him had provided me with varying opinions on his character. If the ugly portraits of Bondinelli were to be believed, he was someone my father would have throttled. That set me to wondering. Abraham Stone had been no fool when it came to judging people. He’d prided himself on his ability to detect dishonesty, claiming he could smell it on a person before he’d said more than three words. And he’d told Bernie that Bondinelli was “a nice man,” even as he disparaged the late professor’s scholarship.
I didn’t know what to believe. On one side, Lucio and Giuliana brooked no dissent when they claimed the late professor had been a usurper and a monster. Even his oldest friend, his brother-in-law, Max Locanda, had told us of Bondinelli’s brutality as a young boy. His theft of textbooks seemed quaint in comparison, yet there was that story as well. Should I really cast stones, though? In my youth, I’d stolen liquor with my best friend, Janey Silverman, from her uncle’s store on Fifteenth Street, and I’d reformed. Perhaps not from the thirst for drink, but from the larceny.
But, of course, I’d seen with my own eyes photographs of young Bondinelli in his camicia nera and fez. Were those things enough? Did they provide me with the evidence to dismiss any other version of his life? Was his worth lost to me based on that one undeniable fact? Or, in the Christian sense, was there scope for change and redemption?
I considered the other side of the coin. There was Bondinelli’s daughter, his student Veronica, and his donna di servizio, Teresa. They’d described him to me respectively as a good father, a brilliant scholar, and a saintly man. Then there was Padre Fabrizio, Franco Sannino, not to mention my own father. All had vouched for Bondinelli’s character. What was I to believe?
I rose and poured myself another glass of whisky, then peered out the tiny window at the black night. Even the rain was invisible in the dark, except for the drops that somehow found their way to the windowpane. I slipped back between the sheets and asked myself why it even mattered who Bondinelli had been. There was no talk of a crime. By all accounts, the professor had fallen into the Arno and swallowed too much of the foul green water. Tragic, yes, but I’d never met him. Should I mourn or cheer or be indifferent? Forget it, I told myself and sipped my Scotch.
Later, I nodded off again, and this time I dreamt of Franco Sannino. He was drunk, of course, and in need of a mother to make love to him. Or feed him or something, it was all a little blurry in the morning. I did recall that I’d begged off in no uncertain terms, but he’d seemed intent. I didn’t know what his mother might have looked like, but I resolved there and then in my bed, as the rain drummed on the terra cotta tiles inches above my head, that I would make sure I was never alone with him again, at least not when drinks were being served.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1963
I was up with the cock. The one I’d forgotten to ask Berenice to behead and fricassee the day before. He crowed in the steady rain, and I could have sworn he was perched on the sill of my window as he called to the rising sun. As it turned out, he was actually cock-a-doodling in the courtyard below. With no other projectiles handy, I started flinging pennies from my purse at him. Just to frighten him off at first. But after three or four near misses, I zeroed in on him and winged him with my very last coin. He leapt into the air, flapping his wings and squawking as if he’d been shot, before shaking it off and strutting a couple of steps to his left. There he squared himself, gathered his strength, and commenced to crow again. If I’d had a gun, that rooster would have been no more than a puff of singed feathers and a red stain on the ground.
I bathed and dressed instead and made my way downstairs to the dining room a little past seven. Berenice had laid out the breakfast dishes, flatware, and linens. There was a pitcher of fresh orange juice, milk for coffee or tea, and some brioche. Noise from the kitchen—a clattering of pots or pans and a hissing of steam—told me hot food and coffee were being prepared.
I poured myself a glass of juice and took a seat at the table just as the shuffling of feet behind me caught my attention. Craning my neck, I watched as Teresa and Veronica entered the room and headed for the kitchen. Mariangela brought up the rear.
“Buongiorno,” I said, startling them. They hadn’t noticed me.
The three of them joined me in the dining room. Teresa appeared ill at ease, probably because Locanda had made her feel like the help, not a guest. Veronica had bathed and dressed for the first time in two days. The rash on her neck was all but gone, a mere shadow of its former self. More pink than red now, and no longer angry. Mariangela looked lovely in a white dress.
“You’re up early,” I said.
Mariangela made a face. “On our way to church.”
“Church? But you can’t leave the property.”
“There’s the chapel outside. Next to the limonaia. Teresa insisted we have a Mass. It’s Sunday, after all. We don’t have a priest, but we’ll make do. Will you join
us?”
I declined as politely as I knew how.
“Lucky you,” she mumbled so the Italian and Spanish ladies wouldn’t catch on.
“Vieni, Mariangela,” said Veronica. “It’s getting late.”
They left me there in the dining room, and presently Berenice appeared with a bowl of caffellatte for me. She was about to withdraw when I asked her to wait.
“Were you here at Bel Soggiorno when Signor Locanda’s father was alive?”
She nodded with a frown. She mostly frowned. Not from annoyance or anger. It was her normal expression.
“I’ve been here since 1920,” she said. “Ilcolonnello took me in when I was fifteen. I was an orphan. And a war widow. La Grande Guerra.”
“A widow? At fifteen?”
She gaped at me, as if she didn’t understand the question, and I realized things must have been quite different in the Italian countryside forty years earlier. I tacked in a different direction.
“Il colonnello? Was he a military man?”
She offered a phlegmatic expression that didn’t quite qualify as indifference, but neither did it rise to the level of a shrug. “Insomma . . .”
I fixated on her answer, because she hadn’t said anything more than the one word. How to describe insomma? It literally means “in short” or “in sum.” In some contexts it can mean basically or all right or well. But that’s not how she meant it. Italians sometimes use that word to express a lack of enthusiasm in response to a question, especially when uttered with the exact facial expression Berenice had used.
“Was he not a soldier?” I asked to clarify.
“He had a commission,” she said. “But he wasn’t a soldier. Not before that.”
“I see. It was a reward. Una ricompensa.”
“Insomma.”
He must have pleased the fascists to earn such a handsome rank. “How kind of him to take you in,” I said.
“Gentile?” she asked, repeating the word I’d used. “Regala morì.”
I didn’t know the expression and asked Bernie later on. He, too, was stumped. Finally, Lucio explained that it was a Florentine saying that meant “No one ever gives anything for nothing.” Or, in American parlance, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
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