The Italian Letters: A Novel (The Justine Trilogy Book 2)

by Linda Lambert

  “True,” she replied, wondering how much to reveal. “A sarcophagus with two alabaster women,” she hesitantly offered.

  “Your father asked me to come round to the lab in Florence tomorrow. He seems quite excited.”

  “I’ll be joining you.” She relaxed now, knowing that Marco was in the inner circle. “Will the mitochondrial DNA studies be done there?”

  “Yes, and some in Barcelona. Professor Barbujani from Ferrara is joining us, I believe. Good man.” Marco stood with one foot on the edge of the temple, his khaki outfit seeming best suited for big game hunting.

  Clearly her father had not taken Riccardo’s advice to keep the circle of participants small until more was known. So like Dad to rev up the drama, involve more characters, then stay on the sidelines to watch the spectacle unfold. After tomorrow, rumors of the new find will fly across Italy. “I’ve heard, and I’m eager to hear your observations on this find. It’s really quite stunning.”

  Marco tipped his broad brim further back on his forehead and gave her a measured look. “You’ve certainly piqued my curiosity.”

  Without acknowledging his comment, she said, “Got to run.” She took off back up the hills toward the museo, wishing her mother were back from Lake Como.

  CHAPTER 23

  You can be great only if it is your destiny.

  —Andrea Bocelli, Italian singer

  IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN a lovely April 10th in Italy, except for two things: the heat rose to 30 degrees centigrade, and the city was celebrating the anniversary of the death of Luciano Pavarotti, the King of the High Cs, whose first performance was in Florence. A nation still mourned; a world grieved.

  From the days when young Luciano watched movies of Mario Lanzo and mimicked Mario’s singing in his bedroom mirror in Modena, he believed that singing was his destiny. After all, his father, a baker, filled his shop with high Cs as well as the aromas of warm baked bread and pastries, while Luciano’s mother slaved away in a nearby cigar factory.

  Born October 12, 1935, Luciano lived life fully, as all Italians dream of doing. No stage was too large or too small. Toward the end of his career, he formed the operatic trio Three Tenors, performing with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras in concerts that brought the world of opera to many new aficionados of the art form.

  Upon the death of a Great One, as is always the case, all had been forgiven. His indulgences and forgotten lines, his debasement of his art by singing with Sting in Mostar. Pavarotti was remembered for his disarming charm, resilience, and Midas touch. “If you turn on the radio and hear someone sing, you know it’s me,” he had claimed.

  People were still mourning, even enjoying mourning, Luciano Pavarotti, their Italian hero, a man larger than life, charismatic, flamboyant, and preciously irresponsible. Italy had lost one of its own, and in so doing, a piece of itself.

  It was on this auspicious anniversary that Justine walked into a Florence courtroom. The judge asked for a moment of silence.

  She felt an inexplicable sense of calm as she looked around the courtroom. She had decided to experience this event as an anthropologist “sitting in the balcony,” distancing herself from the proceedings so that she could more objectively watch them unfold. She would rely on her well-developed skills of participant-observer to survive.

  Justine noted that the room had worn wood paneling, dull lighting, and peeling red leather chairs, lending an austere feeling to the setting. The judge, a man in his mid-sixties, wore a faded Armani suit and had a full head of graying blond hair. Several red blotches on his forehead seemed the result of recently burnt basal cells. Yet his searing chocolate eyes were youthful and intelligent.

  Beside Justine sat Julia Scarpetta, an attorney from the American embassy. An attractive woman of Italian descent, Scarpetta was the daughter of Brooklyn parents whose Italian ancestors had immigrated to the states in the ’20s. Riccardo and Justine’s father sat just behind her. She hadn’t heard from her mother in the several days since she’d read the note about her trip to Lake Como with Alessandro. Would she show up? There was no prosecuting attorney.

  Justine had little reason to be calm. She was worried about her mother and had learned from Scarpetta that, if convicted, Egypt could extradite her from Italy. Although she had been assured that was unlikely, Justine knew that Italy was trying to avoid the return of certain Egyptian artifacts from the Vatican and Giulia museums—strong reasons for granting Egypt its way in her case. She wished that Amir was here, but he had been called back to Egypt to help settle his grandfather’s estate.

  The judge cleared his throat and read the charges. “Dr. Jenner, you are being charged with leaving Egypt in possession of a rare artifact that you supposedly discovered. The codex is described in the brief as being around 2,000 years old, an artifact considered priceless, yet of unproven value to the country of origin.” He turned several pages over as though to find the reason for the “priceless” designation. “This alleged theft constitutes international grand larceny. A serious charge. Egypt is requesting extradition of you, Dr. Jenner, as well as return of the codex.”

  “If I may, your honor.” Scarpetta was speaking. “When my client, Dr. Jenner, was expelled from Egypt in November of last year, she did not take the codex with her and is thus not in possession of said codex.” She chose not to refer to the copy as “the codex.”

  “Why was she expelled?” the judge asked suspiciously.

  Justine listened keenly and let her eyes roam the ancient courtroom where Dante Alighieri had been tried and sentenced to burn at the stake for taking bribes. A social democrat, a White Guelph, he had supported the Pope, but not enough for Pope Boniface VIII, who had outsmarted him. Justine looked for signs that Dante had once been in the room, but remembered that he had not attended his own trial, seeking exile instead, never to see his beloved Florence again. Maybe that’s what I should have done! Dante died in Ravenna—700-plus years ago.

  “It’s a long story, your honor. I’m going to ask Dr. Jenner to explain.” She turned to Justine expectantly.

  The judge motioned Justine forward and the clerk stepped to the side of the witness chair.

  Justine walked slowly to the stand, holding the eyes of the judge in her gaze, and settled herself into the oversized wooden chair. She straightened her skirt as she sat down and began, “In April of last year, your honor, I visited the crypt under St. Sergius in Old Cairo, the crypt where the Holy Family was said to have rested during their flight into Egypt. That was the morning of the big earthquake . . .”

  “I remember. Go on,” said the judge placing both elbows on his desk and drawing himself forward, ready to hear a long, undoubtedly dull, story. He decided to focus instead on Justine’s full lips and amber eyes.

  “During the earthquake,” she continued, “an ancient codex fell from the wall and landed at my feet. It turned out to be Mary’s diary.”

  “Which Mary?” interrupted the judge.

  “The Virgin Mary, also known as Mary of Nazareth, mother of Jesus, your honor.” She paused for effect.

  “The Virgin Mary! Now I’ve heard everything. You brought me here for this foolishness?” he demanded. “Clerk! Why wasn’t I told of this?” The clerk—a short, rotund man with a nose that sloped toward his upper lip—shrugged. The judge grimaced. “Continue.”

  Justine explained that a team of investigators had been formed under the leadership of Professor Ibrahim El Shabry, and that after carbon dating of the patina, leather, and parchment, the date of the codex had been set at around 10 CE. After months of analysis of the writing and surrounding events, the team had concluded that the Virgin Mary was indeed the author.

  “Incredible. Non può essere possibile. But why did you steal it?”

  “I didn’t steal it,” said Justine evenly. “I found it.” She turned her head, tucking her chestnut hair behind her ear.

  The judge softened his voice, striking a less accusatory tone. “I see that the brief charges you with stealing the only remain
ing copy of the codex.”

  Now, I am guilty of that charge. She continued to smile innocently.

  “Apparently the original was stolen earlier. Is that right?”

  “Correct, your honor,” affirmed Justine. “The original was stolen from the office of the Supreme Director, Omar Mostafa, reportedly by a man named Robert Blackburn. He was arrested and imprisoned, but is now living somewhere in Rome. The copy was in the hands of Professor Ibrahim—who, I believe, has been murdered.”

  It was as though everyone in the room took a deep breath at the same time. Scarpetta stood rigid. Justine had named the thief and made an accusation of murder in the same statement.

  Justine calmly turned and looked at her father and Riccardo. They stared back at her, wide-eyed. It was not as though Morgan didn’t agree with his daughter’s analysis of the situation, but he believed there was too little evidence to make the claim of murder.

  “We’ll leave conclusions of murder up to the Egyptian authorities,” said the judge, surprisingly unruffled. “And we’ll refer your statement about Blackburn to the Italian consigliere. But I still haven’t heard why you supposedly left the country with the copy.”

  “Dr. El Shabry, who was the principal investigator on this project, loaned it to me so that a linguist from the Sorbonne and I could write an invited article on the entire discovery for the journal Archaeology. I was asked to leave the country because the contents of the diary were controversial, especially since strife among the faiths was accelerating. Churches were being burned.”

  “Do you know where the copy is?”

  “Yes, I do, your honor.”

  “Dr. Jenner, I appreciate your candor. But please—where is it?” demanded the impatient judge.

  Justine fidgeted with the papers in front of her, whispered to Scarpetta, stalled. She had asked her mother to place it in the family safe in Fiesole. Where is Andrea?

  “You will tell me where the copy of the codex is being kept or I will hold you in contempt of court.” The judge’s pen pecked at the papers in front of him.

  Riccardo leaned over the railing and whispered rapidly into Scarpetta’s ear. She immediately stood. “Objection, your honor.”

  “What is your objection, Procuratore?”

  “The charges today relate to my client’s behavior in relationship to said codex. She need not reveal the name of the person currently in possession of the copy.”

  “Fine,” said the judge, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “We’ll let the Egyptians deal with this case.” He shuffled through his papers again; his face relaxed slightly. “The extradition order is here somewhere . . .”

  “Your honor. Permission to approach the bench,” said Lucrezia, suddenly seen to be standing in the aisle in her best white Valentino suit.

  The judge looked up mid-sentence, clearly surprised by the request and the woman making it. “Creta . . .” he murmured, quickly correcting himself, “Ah, Mrs. Jenner. Yes, you may approach the bench.”

  Justine glanced at her father, who looked perplexed and miserable. The lines around his mouth tightened, his temples flushed. The presence of his former wife clearly also caused distress to one of Italy’s most respected, married judges.

  Justine felt sympathetic and amused.

  Lucrezia walked toward the judge and placed both hands on the front edge of his elevated desk, moving her chin forward so that it nearly touched the desk as well. The judge stared at her with the tenderness of a young boy looking at his first love. He stood up and leaned forward. Lucrezia whispered in his ear.

  He paused and blushed. “Si, si, I comprehend,” is all he said, his face falling. “Case dismissed.”

  CHAPTER 24

  . . . you must never show partiality to any person in a case, you must listen equally to low and high, you must not be afraid of any man—for the judgment is God’s.

  —Moses, Deuteronomy, 11.17

  “SO, WHAT DID YOU whisper to the judge?” demanded Justine as she and her mother settled into kitchen chairs back home in Fiesole.

  “I simply reminded him of our delicious weekend in Venice and asked if he had ever told his wife,” admitted Lucrezia, small crows’ feet near her green eyes wrinkling as she grinned.

  Justine took a deep breath. “I assume this was after you left Dad—not because you left him. Did Dad know before today? I saw his face.” She walked to the refrigerator and withdrew a bottle of limoncello, pouring them each a small glass.

  Her mother paused, searching for the answers, rifling through the fallen leaves of her marriage to Morgan. How much did he know? She wasn’t sure she remembered. Should she reveal the distress of those personal doors now being pried open, doors that her mother and grandmother had passed through before her? Those doors had begun to loosen when she went away to school in Alexandria, and later at the American University in Cairo. It was her own history she had shuttered away when she met and married Morgan.

  Justine contemplated the relationship she assumed her parents held between them when she was a young girl. She had been stunned when they’d divorced during her first year in graduate school in Chicago. If she hadn’t gone to Berkeley, so near home, for her undergraduate years, it probably would have happened even sooner. Her presence had obviously kept them together. She had grown up thinking she was part of a happy family. Lies. Secrets. Now what? Each woman reviewed her hurtful history in silence. “What happened at Lake Como?” Justine finally asked, topping off both of their glasses with the lemony liquor.

  Lucrezia stared at her daughter and exhaled gently, relieved to focus on the present. “I was astonished. Alessandro proposed,” she said easily. She had been freed by her decision to not keep things from her daughter. Most things, she corrected herself.

  Justine almost choked on an olive pit. “Proposed? Really, Mother? But are you really that surprised?”

  “We had an agreement. Alessandro knew that I wasn’t interested in marriage, and he wasn’t going to venture into forbidden territory—at least, that’s what I thought.”

  “So you told him no?”

  “Not exactly. I told him I’d think about it.”

  “Now it’s my turn to be astonished.”

  “Would it be such a bad thing? He’s a fine man, very attractive—and I could have all the Ferragamo shoes I want.” Lucrezia’s eyes sparkled as she laughed.

  “You’re joking, right?” Justine said lightheartedly, amused that the limoncello was beginning to affect her speech. She rose and walked to the refrigerator again, pouring herself a glass of ice water, which she drank while leaning against the stove. “What about your line dancing rule?”

  “Ah, yes. Wait until your husband dies and then do what you’ve always wanted to do. Free yourself to dance.”

  “Exactly. Won’t you be afraid of losing your freedom again if you marry Alessandro?”

  “My freedom is important to me—but I may be up for another adventure.” Lucrezia stood and joined her daughter, standing close enough to touch shoulders. She leaned around, examining Justine’s eyes. “What do you think?”

  Now it was Justine’s turn to laugh. She put her arm around her mother’s shoulders. “You didn’t ask me what I thought when you left Dad. Why now?”

  “This is woman to woman. Not mother to child.”

  “Then I’ll give you my honest opinion, woman to woman. I realize that—”

  “Are you girls ready?” asked Morgan, leaning into the doorway, very dapper in his black turtleneck. “Champagne is waiting, and we have a lot to celebrate.”

  Justine and Lucrezia looked at one another. Girls indeed.

  It was still too cool to eat in Aurora’s garden in the evenings, so Lucrezia had reserved a table for seven in the corner of the voguish dining room. Andrea and Riccardo were already seated at the table when they arrived.

  So now you show up. “I thought you intended to be at the trial today,” Justine charged Andrea.

  “I am so sorry, chérie,” confessed Andrea, her eyes dar
ting from Justine to Lucrezia, then Morgan. “My plane was late. A bomb scare in the airport.” She stared at Justine through an arrangement of yellow chrysanthemums atop the gold damask tablecloth and fumbled for a cigarette, which she didn’t light. A larger walnut table of pancetta, cheeses, wines, and red candles stood nearby. Tensions adopted the colors of the feast before them.

  Two walls of windows faced columnar cypress on the crest of the southern hill. Morgan lifted the chilled champagne bottle out of the silver bucket and poured each of them a glass, but said nothing. He seemed preoccupied. Poured mechanically. Was it the trial? Andrea? Or his ex-wife’s secrets?

  “Riccardo tells me it went well . . .” Andrea began. Justine noted that her lower lip was trembling slightly. “I am sorry to have missed it.”

  “It did go well.” No thanks to you. “So I offer the first toast to my mother,” said Justine. “Thanks for rescuing me today, even if you had to use blackmail. I think the judge was ready to put me on the next boat to Egypt.” Justine smiled, her pulsing temples tensed. “I’m sorry you missed the party, Andrea. You would have found it fascinating.”

  Andrea stared at the chrysanthemums, picked up her champagne, and fingered her cigarette case. She began whispering to the waiter, whom she apparently knew.

  Morgan’s eyes narrowed as he turned toward his ex-wife, “And what did you say to the judge today, Creta?”

  “I’ll never tell.” Lucrezia winked seductively so as to suggest that the whispered message referenced an earlier assignation. Which, of course, it did. As usual, she was stately and beautiful in white and a jacket of East Asian ramie. Even if she didn’t want Morgan back, she had a strong competitive streak.

  The muscles around Morgan’s mouth tightened. He looked away.

  The subterranean tensions in this room could be cut with a butter knife, Justine mused, and changed the subject. “What will happen now, Riccardo? Am I still in danger?”

  “Not likely,” Riccardo replied calmly, which was his wont. “The Italian authorities will stamp the case closed and they’ll report to the Egyptian embassy that the codex copy is not in Italy.” He never dressed for dinner, which reinforced his casual demeanor.