“Remember the silence, it eez important now to be silent Issy Mead.” And with that he kissed her on both cheeks as Neapolitans do and told her he loved her with watery eyes before jumping onto his Vespa and disappearing in a cloud of thick Neapolitan street dust.
Naples – 8.14am local time 23 September 1986
Stunned by the murder, Bruno’s abduction of her from the crime scene, his vague and unsatisfactory attempts to tell her what had happened and his parting words left Issy struggling to know what to do or say next.
“This is a bad dream,” she thought to herself as she continued walking to her first lesson of the day, first passing the Italian take away – where whole chickens had started to turn on big roasting spits in the window – then on down towards Giovanni’s bar where she stopped to take a double espresso.
One gulp was all that was needed for her eyes to stand out on stalks, and milliseconds later the desired effect kicked in like a mule.
A double-caffeine hit to her brain was what she needed, and it acted like a propeller which forced her into the school and up the stairs, despite her head telling her that she really ought to go to the police or speak to someone about what she’d just witnessed.
And then another weird thing happened. Despite the proximity to the shooting, there was no mention of anything untoward having gone on just around the corner when she got to the reception area of the school nor was it a subject of conversation in the teachers’ staff room.
Gennaro was chain smoking behind his big important desk as per usual, and Mariella was looking beautiful without a hair out of place as per usual whilst looking at the motley English teachers arriving with a not so subtle look of disapproval on her overly made up face. It was as if what had happened in Via Maria Magdala was one life and Issy was living another.
Catching Dan’s eye as he walked in, Issy rushed over to him and caught his arm. “Dan I need to speak to you urgently after this morning’s lessons have finished. Can we have lunch together please I really need some advice?”
Dan noticed the intense smell of coffee beans on her breath and could see she was almost hyperventilating.
“Of course we can talk. Lunch would be great. I tried to call round last night but you were out. Are you alright? You look stressed.”
“Yes I am stressed and sorry I was out last night I was getting a take-away pizza probably, nothing more sinister than that” Issy replied in a low voice.
Dan looked taken back at her words and her pale face which seemed far more drawn now than in the days after she’d just arrived. She looked shell-shocked. He discreetly caught hold of her hands and pulled her to one side.
“What’s the matter Issy?” whispered Dan. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost or something worse. What has happened to make you feel like this?”
“I have just seen a ghost of sorts,” Issy replied. “I can’t even begin to talk about it as, if I start, I won’t be able to stop. For the next few hours I’m just going to concentrate on teaching and keep on going. I desperately need to talk to you, but can’t say anymore now. Can you meet me for lunch as 12pm sharp?”
“Sure I can” said Dan knowing that something very wrong had happened but sensed that to press her to explain everything would spectacularly backfire. But he wanted to check one fact.
“I’ll see you downstairs at 12pm ok?….but just one quick question it‘s not got anything to do with Jeremy has it – he hasn‘t just turned up unannounced?” asked Dan wanting to be at least a bit prepared for what she was going to tell him.
“No, it has absolutely nothing to do with Jeremy. That would be relatively straightforward compared to what happened this morning” Issy said mysteriously before disappearing into her classroom.
As she opened the door there in front of her sat her worst student Giuseppe who was as per usual much larger than life. He was a businessman – of what she had not been able to find out – who told her somewhat furtively that he was learning English for his job.
After only a few days of enrolment, he had seemed bored with the method of learning by rote and was much happier when they talked about life – mainly his life and his city.
Giuseppe also seemed to be a modern day philosopher so liked to spend some of the lesson time as her teacher too. Issy looked surprised as she greeted him. “Good morning Giuseppe I hadn’t expected you to be here so early.”
Giuseppe had been late for every lesson she’d had with him so far so Issy was totally surprised to see him already in the room AND with his book open ready and waiting. As well as a problem with time keeping generally he had a severe nicotine addiction which meant the length of the lesson depended on how long he could hold out for until his next cigarette.
He was also addicted to Neapolitan espresso which he drank at the beginning and at the end of every lesson. “No other coffee was worthy of his palette and certainly not the espresso of Milan which was the worst coffee he had ever tasted,” he’d told Issy the first time they met. He had a huge patriotic love for his city and the word Naples ran through him like a stick of rock.
Issy found the verb “to love” very popular with Neapolitans, so often used it with her students to help them practice their past and present tenses.
They responded well to it as she’d learnt early on that they either loved or hated most things and felt very little if anything in-between. The words luke-warm and a bit indifferent were not really translatable in Neapolitan.
Giuseppe had already told Issy in a previous lesson what he loved the most about life. Like many of her male students it followed a by now familiar pattern.
“I love the love and the passion of a beautiful woman; I love Naples football club and Maradona, I love the Neapolitan espresso and the Neapolitan pizza” which apparently had something to do with the local water supplies and the mozzarella of the buffalo.
Expecting a similar set of questions that morning, Giuseppe looked totally taken by surprise and not at all happy with the impudence of how Issy started questioning him the morning of the murder with a bloody bombshell with absolutely no warning that this is what she intended to do.
“Did you know that someone was shot near here this morning?” asked Issy trying to look as calm as possible whilst laying a number of different language books out on the desk in front of them. Looking up to gauge his response, her eyes bored into his trying to find a route in. All she wanted was a clue as to whether he knew anything.
But Giuseppe most unusually remained impassive and silent.
Issy tried the question again. This time she put two fingers into the side of her head on the word shot. “Did you know that someone was shot near here this morning?” Issy repeated.
“Madonna Mia,” Giuseppe said before cocking his head to one side, “I understand what you say. But the answer to your question is. No. I know nothing” he then added somewhat abruptly. “And sometime Issy, it eez better to say nothing even when you know” and then he used his hands to make the point about silence.
“Um. That is what someone else said to me this morning. But I heard the noise, I saw the body someone killed another man in my near vicinity. Am I supposed to be silent about this? What happened Giuseppe? Do you know or do you know someone who might know that I can talk to?”
“Omerta,” said Giuseppe abruptly. “How do you say in English? The rules of the game. You play you win. You not play you die.”
“What rules are we playing by? Whose rules are we playing by? I need to know Giuseppe.” Issy said dramatically. “This is a life or death situation and no-one seems to care. A young person most probably died out there this morning. I could have saved him or should I say I could have possibly saved him or at the very least helped him.”
“If you could save him, why you didn’t do,” asked Giuseppe mischievously.
“Because,” said Issy without knowing whether to tell him about the underpant salesman from Pompeii “I wasn’t able to do.”
“So why you asking me?” Giuseppe
said “You think I know?”
“I don’t know whether you know anything or not. But I always ask questions it’s the only way I know how to make sense of things. It ALWAYS has been the only way” Issy said a little calmer now but still searching his face for a window of opportunity. She needed help to understand what he knew. He could have easily been in the vicinity when the shot rang out.
In response to her questions, Giuseppe finally let out a huge big resigned sigh.
“My English eez not so good. But in Napoli we ‘ave some problems” said Giuseppe. “But it eez a beautiful city.”
Issy looked out of the window, down the pineapple tree lined street directly in front of her and out across to the stupendous blue sea glistening in the Bay of Naples dotted with sailing boats and foamy arcs of the waves as they ebbed and flowed. Undeniably, there were some incredibly stunning parts to this city.
“Yes. Yes it is beautiful but there is something about it I don’t quite understand yet.” Issy said cautiously before opening her teacher’s book and staring blankly at page thirty. Anxious to know what had really happened that morning she clenched her fist and remembered the purpose of them being in the room together. It was supposed to be an English lesson not an interrogation.
For the next hour she put the thoughts of the murder to one side and traversed through the past and perfect tense of the verbs to be and used the events of the weekend just gone with Giuseppe to get him to practice.
Despite Issy’s initial hostile questions, they also had some fun mainly because her student seemed to have packed in more than usual over the previous weekend.
She listened as he told her that he’d had sailed around the island of Capri on both Saturday and Sunday – on his boat with his beautiful girlfriend Francesca.
They’d cooked fish taken straight from the sea, and sat quite far out from one of the little coves in the moonlight eating and drinking local wine whilst Giuseppe played his guitar and Francesca sang.
“I love to be free,” he said finally with a flourish. “For me it eez importante, to be free – with the sun, the beautiful woman, the food, the wine on the boat – that eez the life Issy.”
You would have had to see the conversation to understand the hand gestures, but Giuseppe used them to describe the whole joyous experience of his weekend.
As Issy watched him, despite the drama of the morning she laughed and wondered if Neopolitans were to only use their hands whether the words would ever need to be spoken.
“Sounds like a perfect weekend,” said Issy at the end of the lesson as she closed the school book and smiled.
“Yes, there is also a lesson for you today” said Giuseppe. “You play by the rules and the life eez….how do you say in English? Is sweet non? In Italian we say – La Dolce Vita.”
They both laughed at his joke, but Issy wasn’t so easily won over.
“I’m not sure I want to play by the rules” Issy retorted “not when people die.” As she spoke she searched for signs that Giuseppe might know something. But if he did he certainly didn’t show any emotion.
Issy tried to probe a bit further.
“How sweet can life be if you are the family of the person who is dead?” she said to Giuseppe meaning every word of it and hoping her directness might elicit a response. But Giuseppe continued to look at her impassively as if he knew nothing more than she did. He just shrugged. “Pay attention then,” he said before picking up his books and leaving the room.
As she watched him leave the classroom, he turned back to say goodbye. Issy could tell by the look on his face that, for whatever reason, he meant each of those last three words.
Naples – 12.00pm local time 23 September 1986
Issy and Dan sat down opposite each other at a table in the pizzeria around the corner from the school and ordered.
They asked for some potato croquette as a starter while their pizzas baked in a large hooded oven in the corner of the restaurant.
“God Dan, I‘m so pleased you could make lunch. I’ve been dying to speak to you all morning. You’ll never believe what happened to me earlier. I’m still in total shock” whispered Issy. “I know we’ve both got to teach after lunch so now is my only time to try and rationalise the last few hours. And I need your help. A lot of stuff has happened in my life that seems unbelievable but this even beats what went before.”
“What the hell happened?” Dan said watching Issy’s hand as it gripped the corner of the table. “You have to just calm down and tell me everything. Do you need a stiff drink?”
“No. I just need water. I can’t talk straight as it is,” Issy stammered. “Ok here we go. It’s almost as bad as the Socrates story in terms of shock value so I just want to warn you before I start. Except this time, there is absolutely no laughter involved.”
“God! Not another Socrates story. I need a drink if it’s that kind of story” said Dan and winked as he tried to catch the waiter’s eye. “Don’t wait just start telling me what happened Issy. I need to know and we‘ve now got less than an hour.”
“Ok. Unbelievable as this may sound,” Issy said her eyes widening as she spoke. “This morning I got up early and went to Giovanni’s for the usual friar‘s breakfast. Just as I was leaving, I heard the sound of a single gunshot coming from the direction of Via Maria Magdala.”
“Are you sure it was a gunshot?” asked Dan his eyes now far wider than they were a few seconds earlier.
“Yes. I was sure when I heard it and even more sure in the minutes that came immediately afterwards” replied Issy slightly indignant that Dan could have thought she would make up something like that.
“Ok sorry for not believing you but what on earth did you do next?” said Dan slightly impatiently.
“I immediately went off in the direction of Via Maria Magdala to find out what had happened. When I got to the corner of the street, there was a youngish man – slightly older than us I would guess - lying in a pool of blood with a pair of slightly damaged round spectacles by his side. They had obviously been blown off by the blast.”
“God Issy that‘s horrific!” exclaimed Dan his jaw dropping. “Was there anyone else around apart from you? Did you see who did it? Were the police there?”
“No, to all three of your questions, that was the strange thing. There was no-one there that I could see when I arrived apart from the injured man. So I have absolutely no idea who the perpetrator could have been. But the really odd thing was that it felt like a veil of silence had been pulled across the street. It was just me and a badly injured body. The underpant salesman from Pompeii must have arrived a few minutes after me.”
“Excuse me?” said Dan putting his hand behind his ear to be sure that he hadn’t misheard what Issy had just said.
“Yes. Don‘t worry you heard me correctly. I said the underpant salesman from Pompeii,” repeated Issy for the second time.
“Ok. Ok. Let me get this straight” said Dan. “A man was shot this morning in Via Maria Magdala. You heard the shot and went to find out what was going on. And apart from you, and the victim, there was a man who sells underpants in Pompeii who came by, coincidently, shortly after. Is that what you‘re saying?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Issy said. “And I know as you weren’t there and didn’t see it with your own eyes it must sound really bizarre but everything I’ve just said is true. As I was bending down to see if I could stem the blood or give the man mouth to mouth resuscitation, I noticed a pair of feet standing right next to me. Later that morning I found out the feet belonged to the underpant salesman from Pompeii.”
“What do you mean you found out later that they belonged to the underpant salesman from Pompeii?” said Dan not sure which thread of the story to follow up first. The crime, the appearance of the feet, the underpant salesman attached to them or the fact Issy had obviously spent some time with this man.
Issy shook her head. She knew that even Dan would probably now think she had lost the plot completely.
“How was anyone going to believe what had happened to her?” Issy thought as she tried desperately hard to think of ways she could make the story more believable.
“I know it all sounds so crazy and it IS mad but unfortunately everything I have just told you is one hundred per cent true” said Issy shaking her head in disbelief at her own story. “This morning a Neapolitan man in his twenties stopped me from helping a man who looked like he was dying or had already died of a gunshot in Via Maria Magdala. And what happened next is even more perplexing. Just as I was about to help, the underpant salesman grabbed my hands firmly in his and pulled me away. We ran together down Via Maria Magdala and into a small garden I‘d never been too before beyond the funiculare.”
“And what in God’s name did he take you there for? Did he say anything?” said Dan. “I hope he didn’t hurt you?”
“No, no nothing of the sort” Issy said. “He didn’t hurt me on the contrary he seemed really kind. All I know is what he told me. That he was called Bruno, that he sold underpants in Pompeii, that the situation I had found myself in was dangerous and that I needed to be silent. He also told me he loved me, although I may have misunderstood that bit as I wasn‘t really all there by the end of it all. But I am sure he said he loved me. Oh and he also hugged a statue of a Roman Emperor as if that was important to him somehow.”
“Good God Issy!” Dan exclaimed over the table. “Tell me this isn’t true and you’re just having a few moments of madness?”
Issy grabbed his hands in hers and looked into his eyes. “I have never been lying less. It’s serious Dan this is exactly how my morning turned out and I have absolutely no idea what to do next or who to turn to for help.”
“What a nightmare. I actually don’t know what to say. I mean how can I reply to all that?” Dan continued as the pupils of his eyes started to dart around the room.
“Look I don’t need you to reply. I need you to believe what I’ve just said to you in case something happens to me. I will have to live with the knowledge that I could have helped someone who was dying but didn’t. After everything that I’ve been through in my life that is going to have to be something I try and deal with on my own.”
The Italian Affair Page 8
