by Gerald Elias
‘These people are very stubborn,’ Bertoldo told Jacobus and Yumi as plates were cleared from the table. ‘They are telling very little. Perhaps we should come back another day.’
‘Pian piano?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I have a better idea,’ Jacobus whispered.
‘Yes?’
Jacobus barked out, ‘Egremonta! Egremonta Fallsa! Egremonta Fallsa!’
The women cried and invoked the protection of their respective patron saints and fled from the room. The men uttered loud and confused protestations.
‘I think you’ve made an impression,’ Yumi whispered to Jacobus.
‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ Jacobus replied. ‘Get me this Ansaldo fellow,’ he said to Bertoldo. ‘I’ve got some questions.’
Bertoldo, sounding apologetic, asked Ansaldo Vassari, who had left the kitchen, to sit across from them at the table. By following Vassari’s trail of ‘Si, Signore. Si signore,’ Jacobus could hear his request was taken seriously.
‘Ask him how they know Amadeo Borlotti.’
After a rapid exchange, Bertoldo said, ‘Ansaldo Vassari is Borlotti’s nephew. The others are all relations of one sort or another.’
‘Wonderful,’ Jacobus said. ‘Ask him about their Christmas present to Uncle Amadeo.’
Additional crying and praying ensued when Bertoldo translated into Italian. The response was extensive. To Jacobus it sounded like a mass confession.
‘For several years the family has been supporting Borlotti’s violinmaking by sending old wood to him,’ Bertoldo translated. ‘They have gotten this wood from old sites all around Lombardy, the region in which Cremona is found.’
‘What kind of sites?’ Jacobus asked.
‘Construction sites. All the time now, old farmhouses like this one are being torn down and rebuilt for agriturismo. This is the new economy. You feel how cold this house is? There is no insulation, just thick walls. But once a house like this is cold, it keeps in the cold like a refrigerator. And the only heat is the fireplace, but it is inefficient and all the heat goes up the chimney. The tourists want more comfort when they come for the Italian experience, si? So they tear down the inside walls of these houses and put in new electricity, new windows, new kitchens, new bathrooms, new swimming pools. All for the rustic Italian experience! It is an irony, no? In the process, a lot of the old wood gets thrown away.’
‘It sounds like a better idea to me,’ Jacobus said, ‘to make new fiddles with the old wood than to haul it off to the dump.’
‘Yes, but is it legal? For these people to take the wood?’ Yumi asked quietly.
‘No. It is against the law,’ Bertoldo replied. ‘It is stealing. Because it is not only wood. We don’t want people tearing down old houses just to get the valuable parts. We have the laws against these activities, but this is Italy, after all. The Vassari either obtain the wood when someone’s back is turned, or when they pay someone to look the other way. When they find the best wood, they saw it into planks and ship it to this Borlotti, who has paid them well for their efforts.’
‘So when we showed up today,’ Jacobus interjected, ‘they thought we were the authorities here to arrest them?’
‘That is precisely what I think.’
‘But we don’t look like authorities. Do we?’ Yumi asked.
‘You look different,’ Bertoldo said. ‘Both of you. And for people like these, who are not used to strangers, anyone different they view with suspicion. For them, even someone from Umbria or Naples is considered foreign. That is why, as Dottore Jacobus guessed, being arrested is exactly what they are afraid of.
‘As you might have surmised, the Vassari are not a rich family. They work hard with the vines and the farm, but around here if you do things the old way the struggle becomes greater and greater. Everything now is for the tourists. Stealing the wood and then smuggling it was their way of making ends meet. Now they have lost that and will probably have to pay a much bigger price for breaking our laws.’
‘And that’s why they’re all so upset?’ Yumi asked.
‘Yes, I think so,’ said Bertoldo. ‘We Italians are a very emotional people.’
‘Yes, I’ve noticed that,’ Yumi replied.
‘Well, I feel bad for them, but that’s not really why we’re here, is it?’ Jacobus said. ‘Borlotti must have been a bad boy for his house to have been turned into a lump of coal for Christmas. Ask Vassari what they know about that and where Borlotti is right now.’
Vassari responded with a slew of imprecations punctuated repeatedly with passionate appeals to the Madonna.
‘Vassari swears this is the first he has heard about Borlotti’s house burning down,’ Bertoldo said. ‘And Borlotti’s disappearance appears to upset him deeply. But he says they can’t help us. They say there is nothing they can tell us, but they begged us to leave them in peace.’
SEVENTEEN
The drive back to Cremona was much faster and much quieter. They arrived at the Mariani in early evening. Bertoldo told them to rest up, because he had made a reservation at Da Elio, his favorite restaurant, for a traditional New Year’s Eve dinner.
‘After today, I’m not sure I’m going to be in the mood to celebrate,’ Yumi said.
‘But, princessa, life must go on! There is much to celebrate. If not for these tragic circumstances, we would never have met each other. It is like Dante, don’t you think?’
‘What time’s dinner?’ Jacobus asked.
‘The reservation is for eleven o’clock.’
‘That’s a strange time to eat, don’t you think?’
‘If you would prefer, I can make it later.’
Jacobus and Yumi returned to their rooms. Jacobus spent an hour pushing buttons on his room phone trying to figure out how to access an international operator who spoke English. He finally got through to Benson’s line in Egremont Falls, where it was still only around noon. Marge, his part-time secretary answered, ‘Oh, he’s just about to go out to shovel snow. We had at least six inches last night and—’
Jacobus, picturing the dollar signs spinning for the phone call as if on a gasoline pump, didn’t wait for the end of the sentence.
‘Just put him on,’ he said.
When Benson got to the phone, Jacobus gave him a full report, hastily recounted.
‘Well, we’re making progress anyway,’ Benson said.
‘Are we?’ Jacobus asked. He had traveled a long and expensive way to deal with a peripheral issue that shed scant insight into their main objective.
Jacobus decided to shower to help stay awake for the night ahead. The shower was fitted with a hand-held device with which he was unfamiliar, and could only manage to direct the stream of water either to his chest or to the toilet on the other side of the bathroom. He gave up and washed his face in the sink.
Boisterous revelers filling the piazza overflowed into Da Elio and into every other bar and ristorante with an air of frenetic expectancy, not so much for what the next year would bring, because everyone knew it was too much to expect peace and prosperity, but rather for a night of celebration of food, wine, and camaraderie.
Yumi sat between Jacobus and Bertoldo, their backs against the restaurant’s inner stone wall. The general din, punctuated by spontaneous group song and a poet who demanded to be heard above all others, was too loud to enable them to converse in a normal voice, making it easier for them to avoid discussing Borlotti. Instead they talked, or rather shouted, about violins. With all the ambient noise, Jacobus couldn’t hear half of what Bertoldo was saying but noticed that Yumi was leaning away from him and toward Bertoldo. It might have been so she could hear him better, but Jacobus thought otherwise, partly because he also noticed she wore a fragrance he had never smelled on her before.
A bottle of local wine was plunked down without being ordered.
‘A fine violin is like a beautiful woman,’ Bertoldo proclaimed, pouring three glasses. ‘The elegant neck, the round shoulders, the narrow waist, th
e—’
‘Expense,’ Jacobus said. This is going to be a long night, he thought.
Their cena began with an antipasto of cured meats, cheeses, and olives, followed by cannellini bean soup with shavings of black truffle. Then there was a prima of homemade tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms and another of broiled asparagus topped with eggs, Parmesan cheese, and more truffles. As he did with violins, Bertoldo somehow managed to compare food to a beautiful woman. More bottles, and with each bottle Bertoldo’s paean centered more and more on Yumi.
A waiter brought the seconda, zampone e lenticchie, a dish of savory, stewed lentils served with a sliced, boiled pig foreleg.
‘A pig’s foot is like a woman,’ Jacobus proclaimed, but was cut off under the table by a kick in his shin from Yumi.
‘Zampone e lenticchie is our traditional New Year’s Eve dish,’ Bertoldo said. ‘They say it is good luck for the new year. That it will bring us money.’
‘They should say it will bring us heartburn,’ Jacobus said. ‘That way they might be right.’ It wasn’t long before he poked his fork into his plate and was disappointed to discover there was nothing left.
For dessert they ate torrone, a nougat-like confection with almonds and honey, along with espresso, and the meal finally ended with housemade grappa.
‘Buon anno,’ Bertoldo said, lifting his glass.
‘Buon anno,’ Yumi replied.
‘And may all our mysteries be solved,’ Jacobus said, draining his glass. ‘And thanks for dinner, Bertoldo. It beats liverwurst and beans.’
They made their way out of the restaurant and into the piazza, where the crowd was only starting to dissipate. Horns and singing swirled around him, and if not for Bertoldo guiding him by the arm, Jacobus would have been hopelessly spun in circles.
‘And is it true that you will return to your country tomorrow?’ Bertoldo asked. ‘Must it be so soon? Surely the polizia there can finish this case.’
‘What do you think, Jake?’ Yumi asked. ‘What do you say we stay another day or two?’
‘Sorry.’
‘But I so wanted to show you my new violins!’ Bertoldo said. ‘I need musicians like you, with an excellent ear, to tell me how to set them up with perfection.’
Jacobus knew the game. He would play the innocent with great sincerity.
‘I’m sure you do,’ he said to Bertoldo. ‘But Yumi here has two excellent ears. You don’t need me.’ And then to her, ‘Why don’t you stick around for a couple days. I’ll go home and walk the dog.’
‘I couldn’t let you go home alone,’ Yumi said.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fine. Nathaniel can pick me up at JFK. I’ll be fine.’
Bertoldo escorted them to the Mariani lobby. It was about two in the morning and Jacobus was eager to collapse into his soft mattress.
‘Marcello asked me to play the violin he made for me so he can compare it to his new ones,’ Yumi said. ‘I think he and I’ll go over to his shop for a while.’
‘Just be sure you get me to the airport on time,’ Jacobus said.
‘No worries, dottore,’ Bertoldo said. ‘No worries. Buon anno, my friend.’
Yumi kissed Jacobus on the cheek and whispered, ‘Thank you,’ in his ear.
‘Bertoldo! Signore Bertoldo!’ came a shout. The voice sounded familiar, but desperate. Agitated.
‘It’s Ansaldo Vassari,’ Yumi said. ‘He looks like a wreck, Jake.’
‘Vassari!’ Bertoldo said. ‘Cosa fai qui?’
What the hell was going on? Jacobus wondered. Vassari certainly didn’t sound like he was about to toast them buon anno.
The four of them went to the bar in the hotel, where they had been what seemed days ago but had only been the previous morning. Bertoldo sat everyone down, ordered four grappas, and talked in soothing tones.
‘Calma, Vassari. Calma. Piano. Piano.’
But Vassari didn’t seem capable of heeding Bertoldo’s advice, and his rapid fire monologue did little to hide the despair underneath.
The two men spent the better part of an hour talking. Jacobus, beside himself not knowing what was going on, refrained from interrupting. Finally, chairs moved. The two men stood up. Jacobus was coarsely embraced, and it wasn’t by Bertoldo. Vassari patted Jacobus on the back as he hugged him, and Jacobus felt Vassari’s tears on his own cheek. Then Vassari said ‘Addio,’ and fled, his footsteps echoing in the empty, cobbled piazza.
‘Madonna!’ Bertoldo said under his breath.
‘The cops gave them a raw deal for smuggling the wood?’ Jacobus asked.
‘If it were only that,’ Bertoldo said, with a sad laugh, ‘they would have been relieved. No, the situation is worse than that. Much worse. I will try to remember the whole story the way Vassari just told me it.
‘Yesterday, Vassari received a call from a shipping company, telling him a parcel from America had arrived for him at Fiumicino Airport in Rome. They provided him with an invoice number and told him he had to pick it up within twenty-four hours or it would be returned. Sold on the black market, more likely. Vassari had not been expecting a package, and had only recently sent his own shipment to Signore Borlotti in America. He wondered whether it had for some reason been returned. That had never happened before – he had always taken careful precautions. He asked the dispatcher what the package was. “How the hell do I know?” he said. “It’s not my package.”
‘Vassari hates going to Rome. In our region some people say that the Romans are dirty and they smell. They say the food in Rome is unpalatable, and as for the wine – they would rather drink their own piss. I don’t say this, of course. I am only telling you what others say. Vassari says Cremona, home of Stradivari and Guarneri, is Italy’s most civilized city. You may know that no less than the great opera composer Giacomo Puccini once lived in Cassalbuttano. And so now Vassari had to leave, long before dawn, for the five-hundred-kilometer drive south to that cesspool Rome. He complained his Fiat was no match for the Mercedes and Volvos that sped by him on the Autostrada, and the cost of benzina is ridiculous – God forbid the government will ever do something about it – though it tasted better than the coffee he drank at the Autogrille on the way. At least that is what he has said to me.’
‘And he didn’t really know why he was making this trip?’ Yumi asked.
‘No. After getting turned around in circles for an extra hour between Rome and the airport, by midday Vassari finally found his way to the cargo terminal. Once there, he was surprised how indifferent the security was, even by Italian standards.’
‘The airport in Milan was certainly busy,’ Jacobus said.
‘Yes, but compared to the passenger terminal, the cargo area has not so much of the hustle and the bustle. It is more like a huge airplane hangar. And the Carabinieri, who always seem to like intimidating the tourists with their fasciti uniforms and their machine guns, were not to be found in the cargo terminal.
‘Vassari searched for the international cargo desk, but the signs pointed him to every which way and he got lost all over again. Finally he managed to find the desk. He presented his credentials, the invoice number, and a ten-thousand lire bribe to the attendant – that’s about seven American dollars – who gladly escorted him to the entrance of the warehouse where his parcel was stored. The attendant then graciously accepted another five thousand to guide Vassari through a maze of aisles, which were lined floor to ceiling with cargo of every shape and size.
‘Vassari was amazed to find that his package was not a package, but an enormous plywood box. A crate, I think you call it. It had five or six heavy-duty, metal clasps that were snapped shut. For its safety, or so Vassari presumed, all the seams had been sealed with thick tape, and it was further secured with bunky chords.’
‘I think you mean bungee chords,’ Yumi said.
‘Grazie, princessa,’ Bertoldo replied.
‘While Vassari pondered what to do with the enormous crate,’ he continued, ‘the attendant suggested t
hat he would be happy to assist Vassari carry the parcel to his car for only twenty-thousand lire.
‘“Vaffanculo!” Vassari cursed at the attendant. I am sorry to use such a coarse word but this is what he told me. The attendant reciprocated with the corresponding hand gesture and disappeared immediately thereafter, leaving Vassari to manage himself.
‘As you can imagine, it took Vassari half an hour just to drag the enormous crate to his Fiat and then another half hour to fit it inside. That he was able to manage it at all was miraculous, as no matter how he arranged it, part of it always protruded from one window or another. He put those bungee chords to good use, not only to hold the crate in place, but also to make sure the door stayed shut for the return trip.
‘It was already dark when he returned to Lombardy. You cannot tell now, in winter when the plains are fallow, but most of the year they are dark and rich. When he passed between the rows of pines that lined the approach to his farmhouse, Vassari was very happy to finally be back in the home that his family has lived in for centuries. You can imagine how relieved he was after such an exhausting day.
‘After he parked his car, his sister-in-law Fiamina called him from the doorstep. She told him to hurry because they were just sitting down to eggs and truffles for dinner.
‘Vassari wasted no time. He hadn’t eaten all day and was very happy to abandon his cargo for his favorite supper. His family all clapped him on the back and praised him for his endurance, and – after they took a look at the car – for his magnificent feat of engineering. Leonardo the Second, they called him. He accepted the jest in good humor and joked it would take an even greater feat getting the case out than it was getting it in.
‘After supper was over, his brother and cousins helped him with the task. They extracted the crate from the car and pretended it was a casket. They carried it into the kitchen with solemnity, like pallbearers at the funeral of a national hero – though I can’t remember any recent ones – and set it on its back on the same kitchen table at which we took our lunch.
