by Kai Meyer
“Should I?” She answered her own question with a shake of her head. “I don’t know nearly enough about this place to be seriously worried. I don’t know any of these people, so they can think what they like about me.”
And that was the truth. She wasn’t interested in the others. She was on her guard only with him. Although at the same time she enjoyed the hint of risk in the encounter. Last year in New York she’d been sent to see a therapist who told her, straight out, that she lived in constant expectation of danger, and that she invited many of those dangers herself in order to eliminate the element of the unexpected and stay in control. By showing excessive aggression. Stealing stuff that meant nothing to her. And the high point of her career as a risk junkie to date was this walk with Alessandro Carnevare through the graveyard before the eyes of all the feuding Mafia bosses of the island.
“At the airport,” said Alessandro, “I said something wrong. Something that made you angry.”
“I wasn’t angry, and you didn’t say anything wrong.”
“I did. And I’d like to know what it was. So I don’t make the same mistake again.”
“I’m telling you it was nothing.” She was brilliant at nipping promising conversations in the bud.
But Alessandro wasn’t giving up. “Anyway, now you know why I came back from the States. How about you?”
“I’m on vacation,” she lied.
“Your sister’s been living here for two years. How long is your vacation going to last?”
“Is this some kind of grilling?”
“Just curiosity.”
“That’s why you wanted to talk to me?”
He sighed softly and led her off the main path through the graveyard, turning onto a narrow walkway between walls of marble tombs. Five or six long rows of rectangular structures, with framed black-and-white photographs of the dead on them, giving their names and dates of birth and death. Flower arrangements lay on some of them.
“I really wanted to give you something,” he said as they disappeared from the view of other mourners among the marble tombs. “A present. And then I wanted to invite you on an outing.”
“Me—”
“The present first.” He took something out of his jacket pocket.
“Oh,” she said without enthusiasm. “A baby book.”
It was tiny, smaller than a pack of cigarettes, with leather binding and gilt on the edges of the pages.
“Unlike a real baby, it has the advantage of staying small and cute all its life,” he said. “And it doesn’t cry.”
“And smells better, I hope.”
He opened it and put his nose between the pages. “Not as good as when it was freshly printed, but it’s okay.” Her first reaction didn’t seem to deter him. “My father gave it to me before he sent me off to boarding school in the States.”
She bit back a comment and just watched him. His gaze wandered over the countless faces in the photographs on top of the tombs, most of them old and curiously indistinct, like ghosts. Many of the arrangements on the tombs were dried flowers.
“They die so quickly,” she said.
“I can tell you,” he replied quietly, nodding in the direction of the Carnevare family vault, “on his tomb they’d wither even without any heat.”
She fished the book out of his fingers. “Let me take a look.”
His smile returned, wandering from the corners of his mouth up to his green eyes, which momentarily distracted her attention from the little leather-bound book she was holding. But then she examined it more closely and saw there was no wording on the front and back covers, where the leather was scratched. The title was on the spine, in pale gold lettering: Aesop’s Fables.
She looked questioningly at him, and he showed her that smile again. When she realized that she was returning the sign, she instantly restored her expression to its usual mixture of arrogance and bad temper. She had several variations on it, and this one would make anyone run away. Except train ticket inspectors.
And Alessandro Carnevare.
“Do you know Aesop?” he asked.
“Sounds like an airline.”
“He was a Greek slave—lived six hundred years before Christ. He collected stories about animals. Well, really about human beings and their qualities—mainly the bad ones—which he attributed to appropriate animals.”
“Like the tortoise and the hare?”
“That’s the general idea. Except that one isn’t in Aesop.” His smile seemed a little arrogant again, but he probably couldn’t help it. “He never got to write them down himself; someone else did it a few hundred years later. Only a few of the stories that are called Aesop’s fables these days were really by him.” He shrugged his shoulders, while his eyes stayed sharp and piercing. “I liked them a lot when I was younger.”
“And now you’re giving them to me?” She didn’t want to sound sarcastic, but there was no way around it. “How sweet.”
She opened the little book and touched the binding with the tip of her nose. It did smell good—strange and unusual. At home in New York she’d had paperbacks, but none as old as this. The smell made her think of the library in the Palazzo Alcantara. She’d glanced into it in passing that morning. But still, this book smelled different. Not at all musty, but rather more like it had been opened again and again over many years, as if people had leafed through it and then settled down to read it.
And she realized that the book still meant something to him. Which made it even harder to understand why he wanted to give it to her, of all people.
Aesop’s Fables. Stories about animals with human qualities. He was watching her.
“Thanks,” she said, closing it again. “I like books. I just haven’t ever had many.”
“A baby book, you said.” His eyes were sparkling. “Let one in and the next will arrive by themselves.”
She scrutinized him through narrowed eyes, interested but a little irritated. “But that’s not all,” she said. “Is it?”
“Like I said, I wanted to invite you out. I haven’t been in Sicily for years except on vacations, so I’m basically as new to it as you.”
“And you think that makes us friends.” She said that fast, in a cold, hard voice, and she could see that it had hit home.
But he was trying not to let it show. “Several of us are going over to Isola Luna tomorrow. It’s just a big chunk of rock, really. Volcanic rock with a few houses and a landing up on the north coast.” He shrugged his shoulders apologetically. “The island belongs to my family. Tano’s drummed up a few of his friends for the expedition, but you can believe me when I tell you they’re definitely not my friends.”
“You’re asking me if I’ll go with you and your, forgive me, only barely tolerable cousin—”
“Second cousin.”
“—and a gang of definitely-not-your-friends who are total strangers to me, out to some offshore island?”
“Don’t forget the fabulously showy yacht that’ll take us. Another of my father’s toys.” He pushed his hair back, but it instantly fell over his forehead again. “I can also guarantee that after the first ten minutes a few of the gang will be stepping out of line, probably consuming some kind of banned substance and then sooner or later throwing up on deck.” He smiled. “Your aunt will forbid you to come, of course.”
She bent her head, looked at him closely, and then glanced past him to Florinda, who had changed position and propped her sunglasses in her hair. She was watching them with eagle eyes as they walked down the path between the graves.
“You’ll have to get out of the house unseen.” He followed her eyes. “Fundling can collect you tomorrow morning if you like.”
Twilight lengthened the humpbacked shadows of the trees. The mountaintops were still bathed in sunlight, falling like golden icing on the tops of the pines, but nocturnal shadows had begun rising some time ago from the inner courtyard of the palazzo and the silent olive groves.
Rosa was sitting at the open window of her room with her kne
es drawn up, looking out. Two floors below her was the roof of the greenhouse. The glass was clouded with condensation on the inside, and only the faint light of a lamp showed through a tangle of palm leaves and branches. But palms grew outdoors in Sicily, so what else was Florinda growing in there? Maybe orchids?
In the car on the way back, Florinda had been trying to pump Rosa about her conversation with Alessandro. Rosa just said she’d met him at the airport, he had recognized her, and obviously wanted to make friends in spite of the old family feud. She could hear for herself what that sounded like, and it amused her that the reaction of the other two was exactly what she’d expected. Florinda suspected a plot hatched by her archenemy Cesare, while Zoe acted like the big sister and condescendingly warned her against Alessandro’s bad influence. The whole thing made Rosa sleepy rather than angry. She blamed it on jet lag; she still wasn’t entirely over that. And while the two of them got worked up, she simply dozed off and slept for most of the drive home.
She didn’t say a word about the island.
Instead, she waited until Florinda was running herself a bath, then went into her study again. She opened the computer, planning to find out more about this Isola Luna and maybe look at two or three of the articles she hadn’t had time to read in the morning. She was also going to Google the name Tano Carnevare.
But a new window opened on the desktop, asking for a password. Florinda must have discovered that she’d been on the computer earlier, and had taken precautious to make sure she didn’t do it again without permission. Rosa angrily closed it down, fervently wishing it would get a virus, and wandered out onto the terrace with the panoramic view to the west of the palazzo.
She skirted the swimming pool, fished a struggling moth out of the water, and entered the bay of the terrace, which had a whirlpool set into it. From here you could see the entire slope, the treetops and the lights along the drive up to the house, about a mile and a quarter long from where it left Route 117 and wound through the pinewoods and olive groves up to the palazzo. But the view went on and on, out to the yellow-brown hilly landscape to the west and north. Far away on the horizon, the lights of a small town flickered.
Rosa leaned on the balustrade, listening to the evening wind playing in the trees, and thinking. Only after a while did she realize that she still had Aesop’s Fables in her hand. She ran her thumb quickly through the pages, lost in thought and humming the tune to “My Death.”
Finally she went back to her room and put the book in the top drawer of her bedside table. Maybe she’d read some of it before going to sleep.
She and Alessandro had exchanged numbers in the graveyard, and his was the first that she stored in the tacky gold cell phone. Her old SIM card didn’t fit it, so her address book was as empty as the menu in her iPod. Alessandro and the mysterious song had replaced the normal details of her old life, and curiously enough it didn’t feel wrong.
When she was closing the window, she noticed movement outside among the trees to the east of the house. Someone was hurrying out of the shadows of the chestnut trees and approaching the palazzo.
A moment later she saw it was Zoe. Her sister wasn’t wearing the black suit she’d worn that afternoon, but had changed into jeans and a T-shirt. She had tied her blond hair back in a ponytail. From above, she looked almost like the old Zoe, much more natural than the sister who had met Rosa and had been at the funeral.
Maybe she’d just been out for a walk. Or she had something to hide. A boyfriend, thought Rosa, amused. Someone Florinda would disapprove of. From an enemy clan.
Zoe quickly crossed the strip of dried-up grass. She was holding some kind of flat package or bundle close to her as she disappeared from Rosa’s view behind the greenhouse. There was a greenish glow inside the building.
Slowly, Rosa withdrew into her room. Somewhere in the darkness a door opened and closed again. Then there was nothing to hear but the chirping of the cicadas.
She briefly wondered whether to wait for Zoe outside her room. But it was none of her business who her sister might be going out with—or why Zoe was doing whatever else she had to do out there. Rosa wanted to be left alone herself, so it was only fair to allow her sister her own privacy.
For a couple of minutes she weighed the cell phone in her hand, running her fingertip thoughtfully over the tiny rhinestones set in the keys.
She opened the menu and called the only number in her address book.
FUNDLING AND SARCASMO
ROSA STOPPED AT THE TOP of the slope and looked down toward the road. The morning sun was still low behind the hills at her back, but it had already turned the sky blue and was pouring a soft, silvery brightness over the landscape. Even the gnarled olive trees seemed to shine, with dew glittering on every leaf.
The car she was waiting for wasn’t one of the showy limousines in which the clans had driven to the baron’s funeral. A small Mercedes A-Class pulled up, metallic blue, three doors.
Fundling got out and stood in the open doorway, leaning on the car roof with his arms crossed and his chin propped on them. Looking across the car, he saw her coming and raised his head.
A black dog was standing on the backseat, pressing his wet nose to the glass and wagging his tail hesitantly, but he didn’t bark.
Rosa looked around for the guards once more, but again saw no one among the trees. She ran down the slope. She was wearing a black T-shirt, jeans, and the metal-studded boots. There was a letter opener from Florinda’s desk in her shoulder bag. Just to be on the safe side.
Fundling came quickly around the car and opened the passenger door for her. There wasn’t another vehicle to be seen for miles around. Nothing but two lizards crossing to the other side of the road.
“Good morning,” she said.
He avoided her eyes, murmured a greeting, and closed the door behind her. He put the bag with her swimsuit in the trunk.
The black dog was wagging his tail harder, but he didn’t come any closer until she turned and held out her hand to pat his head. He enthusiastically licked her fingers and let her tickle his throat.
“What’s his name?” she asked Fundling, who was getting behind the wheel.
“Sarcasmo.”
“Did you think that up?”
“It’s just what he’s called.”
Fundling cast her a quick glance, and she noticed again how fast his eyes moved. They were brown with a golden luster to them. He had a broad, strong nose and high cheekbones. His black hair was shoulder length, and his skin darker than that of most Sicilians. Maybe he had Arab or North African ancestors.
The dog nuzzled the side of her head from behind and panted into her blond mane of hair. She turned around, took his head in both hands, and ruffled up his coat behind his ears. “So you’re Sarcasmo. You seem a lot more pleased to see me than your master.”
Fundling started the engine and pulled out. “Going to fasten your seat belt?”
She patted Sarcasmo’s head one last time, then turned forward and adjusted the seat belt. Fundling switched on the CD player. She thought the music coming softly over the speakers was jazz. The dog let out a resigned snort, stayed in the middle of the backseat, and leaned into the bend in the road with practiced ease. Fundling drove at a steady pace, observing the rules of the road, and she wondered if that was for her, for the dog, or simply out of a sense of duty.
“What breed is Sarcasmo?” She couldn’t believe she was actually engaging in small talk. But Fundling’s calm manner was a challenge.
“He’s a mongrel,” he said. “Nobody knows what his parents were like.”
The road wound its way through mountains covered with trees. After a quarter of an hour they passed the place where the road branched off to Piazza Armerina, a picturesque little town standing on a hill. The cupola of a domed church rose above the higgledy-piggledy rooftops, golden yellow against the sky.
“Had any breakfast?” he asked.
“Doesn’t matter.” Her eating habits were catastrophic,
as the doctors had told her more than once. She simply didn’t enjoy food; she’d always been like that. Her mother rarely cooked, eating school meals could do actual bodily harm, and she hated fast food.
“I have some with me,” said Fundling. “You’ll find it behind my seat.”
She groped around there, while Sarcasmo took his chance to lick her cheek with his rough tongue. She found the handle of a basket, brought it to the front of the car, and looked inside. Tramezzini, triangular sandwiches made of white bread with the crusts cut off, filled with dark slices of ham, mozzarella cheese, or mortadella, and two tiny beakers of coffee.
“All fresh from the bar in your village,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
She scrutinized him. “I wasn’t worrying. Why would I?”
“Can’t hurt to worry a bit sometimes.”
She found she really was hungry, and bit into one of the cheese tramezzini. It was delicious. It was as fresh as he had claimed, and after she had eaten it, she ate another right away. Even the coffee was still hot, and very strong.
“Sorry,” she said, munching. “You too?”
“Had some already, thanks.”
“When did you start out?”
“I got up at four, same as every morning.”
“That’s pretty early.”
“Sarcasmo doesn’t think so.”
“Hey, Sarcasmo.” She took a piece of ham out of one of the sandwiches and offered it to the dog behind her. Sarcasmo snapped it up without chewing and begged for more.
She put the basket down on the floor of the car in front of her feet, and leaned back, feeling well fed and content. She had left a note for Zoe: Back home by tomorrow evening, don’t worry. She didn’t bother to wonder how Florinda would take the news. She hadn’t come here to answer to anyone, and she certainly wasn’t going to get into the habit of feeling guilty just for doing what she wanted to do.
After half an hour the green of the fertile hills around Piazza Armerina grew sparser, turning to islands of shrubs, cacti, and small plantations. At Valguarnera it became the ochre yellow of the bleak landscape of steppes dominating the interior of Sicily. At Enna, they turned onto the expressway and drove northwest toward the coast.
