by Rhys Bowen
“I will have to, in confession. But the seal of the confessional is sacred. He may tell no one. He has made this promise to God. So do not worry.”
She patted his hand, stowed the basin in her bag, and draped the shawl around her head and shoulders again.
“May la Madonna watch over you until I return, Milord Ugo.”
He watched her lamplight bobbing across the darkness of the chapel. In the doorway she turned and smiled at him. He had an absurd desire to blow her kiss. Then he heard her footsteps going down the stairs until they were lost in the silence of the night.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JOANNA
June 1973
It was the beginning of June when I got out of the train in Florence. Back home in England it had been dull and drizzling for days. People had muttered about how late summer was this year, and there had been news reports of early crops being flattened by hail. Here the sky was a brilliant blue—the blue that my father had painted all those years ago. The ochres and terra cottas of the buildings with their bright red tiles glowed in the rich light. I stood looking around me, taking in the people, their faces alive and animated, not trudging with heads down against the wind as they did in London. There was the dome of the cathedral, taller than every other building. And beyond it the hills rose, clothed in forest. It was so lovely it almost took my breath away.
I felt incredibly free, as if I was a butterfly just released from my cocoon. To her credit Scarlet had not thought I was completely mad when I announced that I was going to Italy to find out what had happened to my father during the war.
“Yeah. Good idea. Get right away from all the nastiness and from that bastard Adrian. Give yourself a chance to put it all behind you.” She didn’t say, “What about your articles? Do you think your solicitor will still allow you to come back? And what about your law exam? When do you propose to sit it now?”
I had asked myself those questions but had silenced the doubting voice. I had always been the good child, trying to please, to succeed, to do the right thing, and look where it had got me. Now I had a little money in my pocket (enough for a down payment on a flat, I had reminded myself), and I was going to do something quite reckless and uncharacteristic. It felt wonderful.
I had met Nigel Barton again in London when he came to tell me that I was free to take the money from my father’s bank accounts and that the person who had cleaned the paintings thought they might be worth more than a cursory clean.
“I’ll let you know as soon as your items go to auction,” Nigel said. “And when we know more about the paintings, you can decide if you want to keep them or send them to auction as well.”
“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been very kind.”
“Only doing my job, as my father used to say.” He smiled. “So you’ll go back to work now, but I’m sure the grieving process will take you a while. It always does.”
I felt tears stinging at my eyes. “I didn’t think I’d grieve at all,” I said. “My father was not an easy man. He was critical and he never encouraged closeness. But now I really miss him, and I wish I’d taken the trouble to get to know him better.” I weighed whether to show him the letter and tell him my plans. “Actually, I’ve just found out that he was in Italy during the war,” I said. “I always knew he’d survived a plane crash, but I didn’t know where. I thought I’d go over and see the site for myself—see if the villagers remember anything about him.”
“Oh, good idea, now you have a little disposable income,” he said. “Whereabouts in Italy?”
“Tuscany,” I said. “The village was called San Salvatore. I’m not exactly sure where it is.”
He frowned. “San Salvatore? No, that’s not familiar. I’ve done the principal tourist sites: Siena, Cortona, Florence, of course. Do you know the area?”
“I’ve never been abroad before apart from a two-day trip to Paris with the school once,” I confessed.
He beamed then, making him look quite attractive. “You’ll love it. And the food!”
“The food is good?”
“The food is incredible. All those rich, herby sauces for the pasta. You’ll put on weight, I guarantee, although that wouldn’t worry you, I’m sure. You are so slender.”
“Slender” wasn’t really the word—“skinny” was more like it. I had lost weight in the past months. “I look forward to it, then,” I said. “My mother was a terrific cook, but since then I don’t think I’ve really enjoyed my food.
“And the local wines,” he said. “I wish I had some holiday coming. I’d pop over and join you.”
“I expect I’m only going to be a few days,” I said hesitantly because he was coming across as too eager again.
“Take your time. Enjoy it,” he said.
I had spent the last few weeks in London taking a crash course in Italian. Of course I wasn’t fluent yet, but I felt confident that I could get by. I had a small Italian dictionary and phrase book in my purse, just in case, and my father’s little box. I had carried that with me everywhere as a kind of talisman.
It was only as I sat jolting and unable to sleep on the night train travelling across France and then through the Alps that doubts started to creep in again. What was I doing? What did I really hope to achieve? The woman to whom my father had written had no longer been at her last known address. That meant she had moved away, or had died. If there had been a child and that child had been hidden away where nobody else could find him, then he too would be long dead. Even if by some miracle I located Sofia, I would only be reawakening a long-ago grief, maybe causing trouble for her if she had a husband or family. The problem was that I had to know. I was naturally curious on my own behalf, but more than that, I felt this was something I had to do for my father. I would be filling in the blank pieces of his life-puzzle. Maybe I would answer the questions of why a brilliant young painter suddenly stopped painting and why for the rest of his life he was a hollow, remote, and depressed man.
By the time the train approached Florence, I had adopted a more positive outlook. I was on a quest. Whatever happened I felt that I was doing the right thing. I had no idea how to find the village of San Salvatore. I had looked for it on a map and couldn’t locate it. It was possible it didn’t still exist, of course. Places had been bombed into oblivion during the war, I knew that. But I wasn’t going to give up. Before I started on the next stage of my journey, I found a bank and changed some pounds into lira. There seemed to be an awful lot of them, and I wondered how I would keep track of all those thousands. Then I treated myself to a cappuccino and a sinful pastry made with honey and almonds at a pavement café before going back into the station to find out how to undertake the next stage of my journey.
Even the man in the travel agency at the station had to look up the village on a map. “San Salvatore,” he said. “The name is familiar, but . . .” Then he put his finger on it. “Ah, that’s why I couldn’t find it. I was looking down in the Chianti region, but it’s actually in the northern part of Tuscany. In the hills above Lucca. See.” I peered over his shoulder and nodded. A tiny dot amid lots of green.
“And how do I get there? I suppose there is no train?”
“There is a train for the first part of your journey,” he said. He studied the map again. “You would need to take a train to Lucca,” he said, “then change to the branch line that would take you up the Serchio Valley to a town called Ponte a Moriano. But after that, perhaps a local bus into the hills, to a village called Orzala?” He broke off and gave a very Italian sort of shrug. Then he added, “It might be simpler to rent a car.”
I didn’t want to admit that I still didn’t have a driver’s licence. “I don’t think I’d feel comfortable driving on the wrong side of the road,” I said, “or on mountain roads.” I thanked him, went to buy my ticket, and found my way to the right platform. We left the city behind and passed through a mixture of small towns, industrial sprawl, and arable land before arriving at the old city of Lucca. Here I disembarke
d and had to find out which train would take me to Ponte a Moriano. Having been told which train I needed, I had to wait an hour on a hot platform. I went outside the station to look around, but all I could see were lawns leading to an impressive city wall, nothing of the city itself except for a tantalising glimpse of towers and red roofs beyond that wall. I was tempted to explore, but it was a long walk and I didn’t want to carry around my suitcase on such a warm day.
Eventually the train was announced. I had to fight my way aboard along with many other people. This train looked as if it could do with sprucing up. The seats were wooden, not upholstered. The windows were horribly dirty. And the carriage was crowded with what were clearly country folk. Some of the women wore shawls over their heads. The older women were all in black, their hair hidden under black scarves. One had a live chicken in a basket. Noisy children ran up and down the aisle. Babies cried. A priest in a broad black hat looked at me disapprovingly, almost as if he could read my past sins. I turned away, uncomfortable under his gaze.
The route led us between cultivated fields and old farmhouses. Sometimes I got a glimpse of a wide river. As I looked ahead I could see the first of the forested hills rising on either side of a valley. Now the track ran closer to the river, and I saw that it was fast-flowing, spanned here and there by ancient bridges. We stopped at a couple of little stations that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. There were vineyards now planted on the hillsides and olive groves. Much sooner than I had expected, we arrived at Ponte a Moriano.
Only one couple beside me got off. They were met by adoring relatives with many hugs and kisses on both cheeks. The station was a simple square building, yellow with green shutters, the paint peeling and pockmarked. I came out of the station to find myself standing in an empty street with no indication where the centre of the town might be. Flies buzzed. It was hot and I was now thirsty and hungry. I went back into the station building, and in my fumbling Italian I asked where I might find the bus to take me to San Salvatore. The man in the ticket booth let out a stream of Italian at me that was quite incomprehensible. Eventually, with gestures, I thought I understood where I would find the bus to take me into the hills. It was on the other side of the river. I picked up my suitcase and set off down a long, tree-lined street. There were houses with gardens on either side. Still, I had no idea where the centre of the town might be. The street ended at a bridge over the river. I asked an old woman dressed all in black and working in her garden where I would find a bus, and she pointed across the bridge. I trudged across, too tired and grumpy to admire the view of the hills rising on either side of the valley. The other side was clearly the centre of the old town. There were shops, all closed for a midday siesta, and old, crumbling buildings. And in a small central square, joy of joys, two buses were parked. A man was leaning against one of them, smoking. In my best Italian I asked where I could find a bus to San Salvatore.
“Domani,” he said. “Domani è sabato.”
For a moment I didn’t think I’d understood him. “Tomorrow?” I asked. “Tomorrow and Saturday?”
He nodded.
So I was faced with the prospect of staying the night in a place where I didn’t want to be or finding another way to the village. “And if there is no bus today,” I went on in my painstakingly correct Italian. “How do I reach San Salvatore?”
“Why do you wish to go there?” he asked. “Lucca, Pisa, Florence . . . these are what the tourists like. Nothing of beauty in San Salvatore. No historic buildings. No castle.”
“I know,” I said, fighting back impatience. “I am visiting friends there.”
“Ah, friends.” He nodded as if this was approved of. “You have friends in Italy. This is good. So—you can take the bus to Orzala and then it is maybe five kilometres and perhaps someone is going that way and can drive you.”
“Okay,” I said. “And the bus to Orzala goes when?”
“When I start the engine,” he said, giving me a grin.
Passengers arrived to join us. We drove out of the little town, and the road started to climb immediately, zigzagging up the hill in a series of switchbacks. At this time of year everything was bright green—the grass beside the road, the leaves on the grapevines and the oak trees in the forest. And dotted among the green were bright splashes of red. Poppies were everywhere—among the lines in the vineyards, between the olive trees. Amid this riot of colour were old farmhouses, either built of rough stone or faded red stucco, their shutters bright green, their roofs tiled. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of a tower, either a church belfry or a castle. We stopped in a small village, then the road climbed again until it was running along a ridge. On either side of us the land fell away into deep valleys and then rose again to even higher peaks. The mountains seemed to go on forever until they faded into the blue distance.
We came to a halt in a village that was little more than a row of houses and a couple of farmyards. The bus driver turned to me and told me this was where I needed to get off. I found myself all alone in the street as a church bell far off tolled midday. Nobody seemed to be about apart from a black cat stretched out on the yellow gravel outside the houses. The sun was now hot and there didn’t seem to be a café or any shade. The bell went on tolling and I wondered if it was someone’s funeral.
I stood for a while trying to decide what to do. It seemed I was destined to walk the last five kilometres, but I had no idea which direction to take. I could hear the sound of a radio coming from inside one of the houses, so I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. Another woman in a black dress—clearly the obligatory uniform of women over a certain age—opened the door and glared at me.
“Buongiorno,” I said in my best Italian. “Where is the way to San Salvatore?”
She took in my foreign appearance, my jeans, the duffel bag on my shoulder. “A destra,” she said. “To the right. Up the hill.” Then she closed the door again.
“Friendly natives,” I muttered. Was this what I was about to face? In which case I wasn’t likely to learn much about my father. I stood looking around me. I seemed to be on top of the world with views in all directions, but there were higher hills to the north and west covered in thick forest. No sign of any village. I sighed and set off along the road, then spotted a small side road leading up the hill between vineyards before it disappeared into the forest. The hill rose steeply and it seemed a daunting prospect. I had gone about half a kilometre when I heard the sound of an approaching engine. I stopped and did what I had done only once before: I stuck my thumb out.
A van approached, driving fast. When the driver saw me, he screeched to a halt. I ran up to him. “Are you going to San Salvatore?” I asked.
“I’d be wasting my time on this road if I wasn’t,” he said. “It doesn’t go anywhere else. Jump in.”
He was a portly middle-aged man and seemed quite safe. I got in and sat with my bag on my lap because there was nowhere else to put it. The interior of the van was crowded with various sorts of tools. He was either a plumber or a handyman of some sort. He was wearing a not-too-clean overall, and he gave me a friendly grin. “German?” he asked, noting my fair hair and height.
“English,” I said.
“Ah, English.” He gave a nod of approval. “And you speak Italian.”
“Just a little,” I replied. “I hope to learn more.”
“And why do you go to San Salvatore?” he asked. “Nothing much there. No historic buildings. No towers like San Gimignano.”
“My father was there during the war,” I said. “I wanted to see for myself.”
This made him react with surprise. “In San Salvatore? I always thought it was the Americans who liberated this part of the country. The English were over on the coast.”
“His plane crashed, I think.”
“Ah.” We drove for a while in silence. The road was now little more than a dirt track. At first it climbed through thick forest, then emerged on to a ridge lined with cypress trees. The view was spectacular. A
head of us I could see a cluster of buildings huddled together at the top of a hill. On all sides vineyards and olive groves fell away into small valleys, only to rise again to meet woodlands. The top of the hill opposite was thick with leafy forest, and a rocky crag rose from it, topped by an old ruin. It was the sort of scene one would have expected from the Romantic painters. All it needed was a few merry peasants coming home with rakes on their shoulders.
We entered the little town and drove up a narrow street lined with old stone buildings, most of them with shutters closed against the midday sun. Down below, shops were open to the street: a butcher or delicatessen with piles of salami in the window, a shoe shop, a wine merchant with casks outside. Impossibly narrow alleys led off from that central street, some hung with laundry, others with casks of wine outside doorways. And everywhere there were bright window boxes full of geraniums. The street was made of cobblestones and we bumped over them. Then we came to a central piazza. On one side was an imposing church built of grey stone. Facing it were what seemed to be municipal buildings with crests above their doors, and on one side was a small trattoria with tables outside. At one of these tables a group of men sat in the shade of a sycamore tree with glasses of red wine and plates of bread and olives in front of them.
My driver stopped. “Behold,” he said. “This is San Salvatore. You must descend here. I go to the farmhouse just outside the village.”
I thanked him and climbed out. The van drove away and I stood looking around, conscious of the eyes of those men on me. There didn’t seem to be anyone else to ask, so I plucked up the courage to ask them if they could tell me where there was a hotel in the village.
This made them look amused.
“No hotel, Signorina. If you want a hotel, there is perhaps a pensione down in the valley at Borgo a Mazzano. Otherwise”—he spread his hands expressively—“there are good hotels in Lucca.”
I fought back tiredness and frustration. I had not really slept on the train all night. Now I was really hot and hungry. “Is there nobody who rents rooms to visitors in this town?” I asked.
