‘I learned a great deal from my tutors and from watching my father work. I stood by his side as he removed a cyst the size of a football from a young woman who thought she was carrying a child. I held his tools for him as he cut away cancers, sewed up boar wounds and mended broken bones.’ He shook his head. ‘I studied for twenty-four years in total. But so much of what I learned, as perhaps you can tell when you walk around my hospital with me, I learned from my mother.’
Together they walked outside into the bright afternoon sunlight. Lizzie shielded her eyes, temporarily blinded by the glare after the cool, dim hospital interior. ‘I understand a little better why my offer of charitable work was laughed at now, but I’m happy to help. Even if they don’t need me to read to them or to cook or to clean, or to do any of the few things I thought I might be able to help with.’
Rossini laughed. ‘Do you honestly think I would turn down your offer of help? I’d be lynched if word got out that I had. My only concern is that others will hear of your hospital visits and we will have a run of some mysterious, hard-to-diagnose illness on our hands. But come back, please. Reading sounds like a good prescription, and I can think of a number of patients who might benefit. Late evening would be good – that is always the hardest time, when families remember they have homes to go back to. Saying goodbye each night is always difficult.’
Together they wound their way back down the hill, picking their route through the darkest, coolest alleys and keeping to the shadows when forced to cross the wide-open spaces. Lizzie was surprised by the amount of time she had spent at the hospital and, as it neared lunchtime, might have been tempted to find something to eat at one of the two bars. But even the thought of choosing between them made her anxious so instead she shook the hand of Decio Rossini just before they entered the Piazza Rosa and made her way back to her own quiet room in the palace.
CHAPTER 19
In Which the Curiosities Are Examined
Tuesday morning dawned, and no sooner had the sun hauled itself over the eastern hills to light the valley below than the mercury began to rise and bubble in thermometers across the country and the citizens prepared themselves for a mercilessly hot day. Shutters remained resolutely shut, and even Sergio, working in his rooms above the piazza, drew his curtains across the windows to try to keep the interior temperature down by a few essential degrees.
Below, Lizzie awaited her tour guide. Standing by the palace railings and shading her eyes with one hand while scanning the piazza for a familiar face, she made circles with her shoulders, loving the feel of the sun on her face and enjoying, after a fabulous night’s sleep, being a tourist on holiday.
She was dressed appropriately for the weather: cool linen trousers, open-toed sandals, a long, coral linen shirt and, tucked into the top of her handbag, a wide-brimmed cotton sun hat. She had packed the outfit as a last-minute addition, just in case she needed to look smart, and now she was hugely glad of it, given her recent promotion from lowly student to royal dignitary.
Keeping well into the shadows of the western façade, Mosconi made his way to meet her. Lizzie smiled inwardly. How could she have thought she might not recognize him? He was walking towards her in full military uniform, carrying the bright pink brolly that was the emblem of tour guides around the world. He raised it to her in acknowledgement, and she skipped towards him, thrilled by the pomposity of the uniform and the seriousness with which senior Vallerosans applied themselves.
She fell into step with him as they headed off towards the museum. ‘I’m afraid it’s a bit of a walk,’ he said, ‘and the day is one of the hottest of the year so far. Will you manage?’
‘Oh, yes. I’m certainly up for a bit of exercise and, to tell you the truth, I absolutely love the sunshine. We don’t get enough of it at home, and you know how it is – we always want what we can’t have.’
Mosconi blushed sheepishly, as if she had read his thoughts.
They wandered over to the far corner of Piazza Rosa, to the left of Parliament Hall, and ducked into a dark, cool alley.
‘We’ll walk along here, if you don’t mind. There’s a prettier route by following the river Florin, but it would be too hot this morning and I don’t want to wear you out before we even get to the business at hand.’
Lizzie was pleased to be in the cool of the immaculate passageway. On their left were the tall, solid walls that formed the back of the main buildings that surrounded the piazza. The few windows tended to be higher up and barred with sometimes quite elaborate metalwork. An occasional open door atop a short flight of steps suggested a hint of life beyond, but peeps inside were rare. The detail to the right was marginally more interesting as the alley was lined with the first of several rows of houses that led gently down to the riverbank. These dwellings, enjoying a prestigious position close to the piazza, were a little grander than some of the houses Lizzie had passed on her initial journey down to Parliament Hall and she examined them closely for clues of domestic life as she wandered by. Although they would never suffer from sun exposure, most were still shuttered, as if the whole city had decided to take cover for the morning.
‘These, on the whole, are homes of ministers and senior ministers. Some have been in the same families for many generations.’
‘Which implies,’ said Lizzie, somewhat cautiously, ‘that the senior government posts have been in the same families for many generations?’
‘But of course.’
They turned a corner and descended a flight of steps.
‘And is that a problem?’ enquired Lizzie, politely.
‘How do you mean, a problem?’ countered Mosconi, unaware of the political slant of the question.
‘Well, that the big jobs go to the sons of the most senior politicians.’
Mosconi seemed to grope for words. Perhaps he himself was the son of the previous minister for tourism and had assumed that his own son would probably one day fill his shoes. He paused and put a tentative hand on Lizzie’s arm.
She stopped, too, with one foot already on the step below. The unscheduled freeze-frame allowed them to face each other eye to eye.
‘I think you misunderstand, Miss Holmesworth. The “big jobs” do not automatically pass to the sons of senior politicians. They go to those most qualified to take them on. A combination of education, history and genetics will quite often conspire to make the son of a senior politician, a young man who has probably been steeped in politics since the cradle, most qualified for the job. It’s a case of linear evolution, Miss Holmesworth, not a conspiracy.’
Lizzie was satisfied with his answer although, in reality, she neither understood nor cared enough to challenge him further.
They continued down the steps, passing on their right three more alleys that stretched off into the distance. The houses seemed, from an initial glance, to get smaller until they reached the very bottom row where they sprang up again in height, just a few feet from the grey-blue water that rushed past them.
‘Golly, it’s loud!’ Lizzie said, clutching her ears to demonstrate that she couldn’t hear Mosconi now they were so close to the raging river. ‘Does it ever flood?’
‘Several times a year. Always when the ice melts upstream, and occasionally exceptional conditions lead to flooding at other times. But the city was built to withstand the seasonal fluctuations of the river so we’ve never had any problems.’ As they walked across the bridge, Lizzie stopped to look at the beautiful red houses that lined the riverbank. On first glance, she wondered if they were flats. They appeared to be double-storey houses, with doors at the ground and upper levels, with wrought iron or stone steps climbing to each of the upper doors. On closer examination, however, it was apparent that the ground floor was home to nobody: an empty shell designed to absorb the river’s swelling waters. Domestic activity began on the first floors, with their cheery balconies and pots of tumbling geraniums. Even the laundry hung at the higher levels.
They began to cross the bridge and now, exposed to the stro
ng sun, Lizzie reached into her bag for a bottle of water. ‘Is it much further? I might have to put on some sun block,’ she said, feeling the back of her neck.
‘The same again. We’re exactly halfway, but don’t worry, we’ll walk in the residential area as we head south again. You’ll be out of the sun just as soon as we’re over the bridge.’ Lizzie looked downstream to the point Mosconi had roughly indicated with a flick of his hand. She looked back to where she had begun her journey and calculated that, unless she was very much mistaken, the museum was on exactly the same line as Parliament Hall and, unless she was very much mistaken again, there was another bridge – an even bigger, grander bridge – over which they could have walked thus avoiding the long trudge they had taken through the town and which they were now about to repeat as they wound their way back down the far side of the river.
Clearly, Mosconi was taking his role as tour guide seriously and wanted her to see as much of the town as possible. She hurried towards the welcoming darkness that beckoned her in the form of another alley on the east bank.
Their journey south was similar. Having climbed a flight of steps, they wove their way along a passage with Lizzie peering into the occasional open door or through unfettered windows. What struck her, not for the first time, were the immaculate floors with neither litter nor animal waste to step around. And she could not have judged the social status of the inhabitants from the quality of the houses they had passed, the shine of the door furniture: each one, regardless of size, was pristine. The air smelt sweet, despite the enclosed nature of the alleys, and the walk was pleasant.
After fifteen minutes of ducking in and out of seemingly endless paths, only distinguishable, perhaps, by the height of the buildings and the width of the doors, they emerged into a piazza, a miniature rendition of Piazza Rosa.
‘Piazza Verde!’ announced Mosconi, allowing Lizzie to stand and admire the architecture. The name could only have been taken from the dull green of the copper used for drainpipes and gutters on the surrounding buildings and perhaps from the large mossy statue that occupied the centre of the square. It was hard to tell whose memory was being honoured beneath the sprawling greenery, but it made a striking image and Lizzie whipped out her camera. She took a few quick shots, then, having confirmed that there was nobody to act as official photographer, beckoned to Mosconi to stand close to her and snapped them at the foot of the statue. As they continued their path across the piazza, she checked the quality of the images to make sure the strong sunlight hadn’t silhouetted her subjects. On the contrary, the camera had made the appropriate adjustments and the images were sharp and bright. There she was, smiling, her hand on Mosconi’s shoulder, pulling him in towards her. From the unintended juxtaposition of his eyebrows to her cleavage, he seemed to be considering taking refuge in her loosely fitting shirt.
Lizzie reminded herself that she ought to be a little more restrained physically. Grabbing her guide like that would be inappropriate even for a tourist, but for royalty? Allowing a guide such a close-up view of her underwear would surely be frowned upon.
‘We’re here,’ said Mosconi, at the foot of a flight of wide steps that led to imposing double doors. He climbed them, Lizzie following. At the top, he crouched at the museum’s door, ear to the wood, then knocked sharply.
Nobody answered.
After rapping loudly again a couple of times, Mosconi muttered, ‘Typical,’ and unclipped the huge bunch of keys secured to his belt buckle.
He inserted a key and turned it, then a second and a third, and finally pushed the door inwards. Inside, after the strong light of the piazza, Lizzie could make out nothing but a series of oppressively large display cases that ran around the perimeter of the cavernous room and a series of glass-topped display tables that ran down the central gangway.
At the far end a green-glassed lamp stood on a desk, throwing artificially yellow light onto some papers. In the otherwise orderly layout, it looked as if it had only recently been abandoned.
‘Typical, typical,’ repeated Mosconi, as he grabbed a long-handled pole with a brass hook and manipulated it to push up the wooden slatted blinds that hung heavily at each high window. Gradually, with each shove upwards, light began to flood into the room and Lizzie moved forward to examine the first of the display cases.
It stood some twenty feet tall, a glass-fronted cabinet that housed bottles – as many as forty or fifty on each shelf, each one beautifully labelled in a neat print. The bottles were not, as one might have expected, early hand-blown glass, or even the crude ceramics that might depict the passing of centuries. Instead, they featured the bold, bright graphics typified by modern consumerism. There, tucked towards the back of the third shelf up, was a large white bleach bottle, with the dazzling typeface that signified zinging cleanliness. Higher, near to the top third of shelves, a bulky bottle with a handle had once contained liquid floor polish.
On the whole the graphics were indecipherable to Lizzie, but each bottle or canister, glass or plastic, shouted its contents and its origin. Below, the labels spelled it out. Apple cider from Bosnia. Liquid paraffin from Greece. Fresh milk from Croatia. Olive oil from Turkey.
Lizzie moved on to the next cabinet, which offered a quite different display. The bottom shelf housed a selection of umbrellas. The next shelf up held magazines and books, the one above an attractively arranged selection of spectacles – strikingly, a glass eyeball took pride of place in the centre. As the shelves continued upwards, Lizzie tried to find a common theme or logic behind the displays. Eventually, unable to contain her curiosity any longer, she turned to Mosconi, who was admiring not the contents of the room but the shape of Lizzie’s legs. A shaft of sunlight was travelling straight through the fabric of her trousers, leaving little to the imagination.
‘Excuse me, you spoke, Miss Holmesworth?’
‘I’ve never really seen a museum like this before. What is it, exactly?’
‘Thank you. We like to think of it as unique. It is called the Museum of Things Left Behind. You’d be amazed at what careless people abandon, like so much unwanted baggage. Come here! Look at this!’ He beckoned her towards the table on which he was leaning and swung round to show her its curiosities. There, pinned with tiny nails at each corner, were banknotes of all denominations and currencies, each one captured, preserved and displayed with the same love and attention that a butterfly collector might apply to his rarest species. ‘And this, look,’ he moved on to show her, with obvious pride, coins, beautifully arranged in size and colour, including a pre-2001 British 50p piece.
‘This symbolizes to me so many different things. The beauty and diversity of the man-made world, of course …’ with an elaborate wave of the hand ‘… but something darker, deeper too.’ With a sad shake of the head, he continued, ‘The wastage and blatant disregard for the world’s riches deserve to be recorded for posterity, don’t you agree? Look at all these coins, abandoned down the backs of chairs, dropped out of overflowing pockets – priceless!’
He walked her slowly past each display case, pointing out his personal favourites and chuckling from time to time as he recounted the story of its origin. ‘A prosthetic limb! It was left on the train by a man apparently in too much of a hurry to remember his own leg! A Vallerosan picked it up, with what intention I don’t know as we had no idea how to return it to its rightful owner. It made its way here, and here it will rest. Who knows? One day its owner may return to these parts, and what a delighted reunion we will have constructed!’
He moved on.
‘So people can collect their items – I mean, they can have them back should they find them here?’
‘Well, of course. None of these goods has been impounded. We should like very much to reunite people with their possessions. It would complete a cycle very poetically, don’t you think?’
‘Like – like a lost-property office?’ faltered Lizzie.
‘I suppose so. I hadn’t really thought of it like that. But “lost” sounds so final.
I like to think of these items as more found than lost. It gives them back their purpose.’ Mosconi hurried on to the next display, anxious not to dwell too deeply on the great philosophical divide that underpinned the purpose of his country’s most ambitious attraction. ‘And this I love. An unopened packet of biscuits, left in the hostel. Well, there was somebody with money to burn.’ Judging by the neat printed label, ‘Biscuits 1998’, they were long past their sell-by date.
As they passed shelf after shelf of abandoned hairbrushes and lipsticks, scarves and mittens, rulers, pens, pencils and compasses, Lizzie found enough words of encouragement and surprise to satisfy her host. Gradually, they edged back towards the initial cabinet, the one housing the bottles.
‘Ah, now, this is something quite different altogether. None of these bottles was lost, as such. They were almost all empty when discarded, so more thrown out than lost. But can you guess, Miss Holmesworth, at the common bond that ties each and every one of these four hundred and thirty-eight bottles?’
Lizzie examined the display again and shook her head, sad to disappoint the expectant face but anxious not to blunder into a tactless answer.
‘Each and every bottle has been delivered to us by our own stretch of the river Florin! While, strictly speaking, the river belongs to Nature, it is in our care and under our jurisdiction for nearly eight kilometres! And on its shores it spills out, from time to time, its treasures. I like these particularly because they signify to me the vast earth we inhabit. The Florin passes through our country, of course, but think where else she has travelled, not just under her own name but as her tributaries, the streams and brooks that feed her from far distant lands. And as proof of her boundless strength and global origins, she brings us these gifts to remind us of where she has come from and where she is going to. Look at the languages – Circassian, Cushitic, Czech, Austric, Hindi, Icelandic and Latvian, to just name a few!’ Mosconi fell silent as he contemplated the riches before him and, apparently overawed, took a cotton handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose loudly.
The Museum of Things Left Behind Page 15
