Realms of Gold

by Terry Stanfill

  About a half an hour down the road his cell phone buzzes. No one on the other line. He hangs up. A few moments later, another ring. It’s Guiseppe Colaspada, the local tombarolo, on the line. The time has come to tell Bianca about Beppe, no use holding back, they're on this adventure together.

  “The call was from a tombarolo,” he says, “a pal of mine even though it may seem strange to you.”

  “What? How could you possibly be on good terms with a tomb robber! You of all people, a dedicated archaeologist, having a friend who digs illicitly! How can you possibly justify such behavior?”

  “Beppe may be a tombarolo, but I’ve always found him to be a nice guy. You might be surprised—he’s polite, soft-spoken as any clergyman--not one of those brash, sometimes crude and uneducated looters. I’ve known him for a while, met him when I was working here in Calabria. He’s always been straightforward about his work—at least to me. One day over a glass of his home-made limoncello, he told me how he’d come to learn the trade. He was taught by his father. His family has been into plundering for a long time, even before the late Sixties when it became a thriving business. Over the years he’s broken his way into hundreds of ancient burial chambers, found everything from Attic black-figure and Campanian red figure ceramics—to bronze mirrors, gold jewelry, statuary. All of this he passes on to middlemen. Then the loot gets sold to collectors in the States and Europe. These guys have a well organized secret underground network so it’s difficult to track plundered objects. That’s where I come in. I have to make Beppe trust me, and, if the phone rings again, I’ll stop to talk with him.”

  “What drives someone to keep on tomb robbing when it’s a crime and so dangerous?”

  “Beppe tells me, sure, he’d much rather be at home in bed cuddled up with his wife instead of screwing the earth for loot. But he has to have bread on the table. He has a mortgage to pay and two sons at university, one in Lecce, the other in Rome’s Sapienza, plus he’s also concerned about the guys who work for him. Only a few months ago he assured me that if he could make a deal with the Soprintendente, he’d take early retirement so long as he had a better pensione. He claims he knows an important necropolis and would lead me to it if I’d help him. I told him that maybe I could be of some help with the authorities, but he has to give me the signal. I just can’t keep begging him to stop.”

  When the cell phone squeals again, he jumps out of the car and slams the door.

  “Beppe—how the hell did you get this number?” Giovanni asks in Apulian dialect.

  “From Sergio Battistoni’s Milan office. His secretary gave it to me. One of the farmhands told me he’d seen you at the masseria belonging to that rich oil refiner from Taranto. You were with an American woman. Are you still with her?”

  “She’s sitting in the S.U.V.,” he replies. No use in telling the whole truth about the car swap. It might slip if Beppe should have a conversation with Sergio.

  “Then I’m warning you. Maddalena says Sergio’s on the rampage. Sentami, Giò, whatever our differences, I want to make sure you get out of his way. Be careful. I’m warning you even though he’s one of my customers. You’re a decent guy, a gentiluomo, and I don’t want to see you hurt. Or the signora. Sergio is outraged that you have his prime writer with you. He doesn’t want her to know about him.”

  “But I’ve never told her anything--she has no idea,” Giovanni tells him in an even denser dialect.

  “You’d better tell her now.”

  “And what do you suggest I say?”

  “Listen to me, Giò. Per carità! Avoid Locri and Siderno at all costs. They're a hangout for crooks, smugglers. You’ve got to take care or they’ll do you in. You know as well as I that there’s nothing much to be seen at Locri . No temples, only worthless little clay ex-votos in the museum. I can find you better stuff any day of the week . Gésu! How many times do I have to tell you that we have nothing to do with Corona Sacra Unita or Ndrangheta! We don’t use violence. We never have and we never will. We’re loyal to one another, and we have our own code of honor and decency, Besides, you know as well as I that there's so much stuff under the ground here, enough to fill a lot of museums . Di nuovo, don't go near Locri or Siderno!"

  “I’m not changing directions. We’ve already decided to head for Manella and the site of the Temple of Persephone. The signora wants to see it. She’s familiar with the pinakes they discovered there.” Giovanni is surprised as he hears himself fabricating a fantasy itinerary. There’s no use pursuing the subject. Beppe doesn’t know that he’s already told Bianca that they will cross the boot of Italy on one of the shortest routes from Sybaris on the Ionian Sea to the Tyrrhenian Sea, the route of the Sybarites. So someone hot on their tail would be headed straight for Locri— southeast instead of due west looking for him in his trademark S.U.V. He breathes a sigh of relief that he left it in Sicchia and took the old Lancia.

  But Beppe won’t give up. “You’ve got to listen, Giò. “Head for the mountains—drive la signora to Paestum, per l’amor di Dio, where at least there are standing temples and a museum with something to see inside!”

  “Thanks for the advice—but I told you we’re heading for Locri. Beppe, tell me, when are you going to get out of this rotten business? It’s no kind of life for you and your family.”

  “Don’t start that porcheria again, Giò. Mannaggia! I hear my wife yelling for me. I may check in on you again, but for now, ciao.”

  Giovanni gets back into the car. Once they’re on their way, Bianca asks, “What did you mean when you talked about getting Beppe to trust you? Isn’t he a thief, after all?”

  “I want him to give his privileged information to the carabinieri—but first he must be guaranteed immunity and an increase in his retirement pension so his sons can finish their studies. I’m working on that. When the carabinieri confiscate a hoard and authorize or arrest tomb-robbers, they’re usually consolidating somebody else’s position and influence—so I need to be in control here to make sure that Beppe’s sons can finish their education. He will lead me to this important necropolis which may be a major find from the Archaic period. It’s not far off the coast of Kroton, and if it’s anything like the treasure of Hera found near there, it is indeed of consequence, the kind of material for blockbuster museum exhibits. “

  “Do you think he has any idea about the drawing and fresco? Maybe the farmhands got wind of it the night of the tarantismo.”

  “I doubt it. I plan on telling the authorities about the wall right after the Christmas holidays—before Sergio learns about what else is going on at the masseria.” The instant he mentions Sergio, he knows he has blundered.

  “What Sergio are you talking about? Not my boss, I hope! How does Sergio fit in the picture?”

  “I’ll tell you when we can turn off the highway and I can pull over to the side. Right now I’ve got to concentrate on these slippery curves.”

  “Patience has never been one of my virtues, but I’m not going to plead with you. I’ll wait. Besides, having already envisioned Locri, I don’t mind not going there. I’d rather not have my visions destroyed by what my unmasked eyes might see today.”

  They don’t speak until a half hour later when he finally drives off the main highway onto a dirt road and pulls over. He turns off the ignition and faces her squarely, eye to eye.

  “Bianca, I’ll be frank with you. Maybe I should have told you about this earlier, but I didn’t want to upset you. You have a job at Eyes and Soul, a job you depend on. Your boss, Sergio, is an important middleman in the antiquities trade—he sells to collectors in New York, Switzerland, London. If you’d known that before you left New York, what would you have done? Would you have been able to call the police with no proof at all—only with hearsay as evidence?”

  She unleashes her pent-up fury. “That dirty rat, that wretched, lying hypocrite! He used to infuriate me when he derided the South. It was as though I took it personally. Now I learn that all the while he’s been plundering the patrimony an
d riches from the earth of Puglia and Calabria. The last time I saw him, I told him off and walked out. Now it’s all clear. He was probably behind the break in—but what could he have been after? Nothing was missing so maybe it was only a warning— but what would he be warning me about?”

  “The Sacra Corona Unita gang was warning you. Sergio obviously knew someone in the organization, maybe he’s even part of it. Perhaps someone at the wedding noticed that we’d become friends—or maybe Leonardo found out and told him. When I learned about the painting of the Campanile, that it was in your possession, I didn’t tell you that, from time to time, Leonardo visits my mother in Rome. She knows I don’t approve, but she’s strong-minded and set in her ways. Besides, she likes all Leonardo’s fawning and flattery.”

  “I remember Leonardo telling me that he went to visit his widowed aunt on the Via Appia Antica.”

  “Í can assure you that he’s no blood relation. Leonardo is a direct descendant of the man our family dubbed ‘The Writer.’ The Writer bequeathed his castello in Sicchia to his lover, Margaret Norville, the Countess Bona Dea, the mother of Rose Alba, Nina’s friend. The castello has come down to my mother and it will be mine one day—unless your great grandmother's painting of the Campanile comes into Leonardo’s possession.”

  “What do you mean—comes into his possession? I don’t get it.”

  “The Writer was sinister, always plotting and scheming. He played games with everyone, Margaret Norville, his own family. After the trauma of seeing the Campanile crumble into a pile of brick and dust before her eyes, Nina was in a state of shock—irrationally overcome with guilt. She thought she’d caused the Campanile’s fall because of what she called her 'horrible supposings, her dark imaginings.' A few days later, Margaret Norville invited Nina and her mother to spend some time resting in The Writer’s castello near Sicchia, in the Molise. But Nina became even worse during the visit, and her mother, along with Margaret, took her to a sanitarium in Vienna. The doctor told Nina to describe the traumatic experience, then asked her to paint the Campanile as she saw it that day. She followed the doctor’s orders and, when she left Italy, Nina gave the painting of the collapsed Campanile to Margaret Norville, telling her that she never wanted to see it again. Not ever. And she didn’t. Nina went back to the States, and later on the strange little painting somehow found its way from Margaret Norville to The Writer and then by descent to his family.”

  “I told you that I’d only recently learned that when Nina returned to Baltimore in September of 1902, she fell madly in love and had a child out of wedlock—my grandmother, but what you're telling me makes me wonder if…Suddenly she sees Nina in her green dress in the coffin, the man in the black cape over her. “And I will never write what I saw that day in Sicchia.” She feels a cluster of spiders on her body. Could it possibly be? Nina and The Writer? And not the dark, handsome young man from Baltimore? She lays her head back on the neck rest and closes her eyes, feeling nausea sweep over her.

  Giovanni watches from the side of his eye as Bianca silently counts on her fingers and stops at the ninth. He knows what she's thinking, but he will never tell her that Nina's daughter, Bianca's grandmother, was born on April 3rd . He would not—ever— reveal this family secret. What purpose would it serve?

  Finally she mutters, “The end of July to late April is nine months. Grandma's birthday was June 28.” She releases a profound sigh of relief and the roiling sea in her stomach suddenly becomes calm.

  She pulls herself together and says, “Most—but not all— of what you’re telling me is written in Nina’s diary. I had it with me that morning when we sat on the Piazza, but I didn’t offer to let you read it because I didn’t want to share it with someone I was just getting to know even if there seemed to be a connection between us. But what does my painting have to do with the one in Leonardo’s possession?”

  “Leonardo wants your watercolor desperately. He had Sergio, his old friend from Columbia, check it out to make sure you still had it whenever he came to visit you—so he knew it was hanging on your bedroom wall. Soon after, Sergio hired Leonardo as your editor so he could keep an eye on your whereabouts…”

  “Again I ask you—what does my painting have to do with the one in Leonardo’s possession?”

  “Please let me finish! The Writer, with his tastes and dark. Byzantine mind, loved puzzles, conundrums and more than anything else he wanted control--in this instance control beyond the grave. In his will he specified that although the Castello would be Margaret’s, when –or if—the two paintings came together in the possession of one person, the owner of both paintings would receive complete and final title to the Castello. He obviously took dark pleasure in imagining what his descendants might someday contrive as they pitted themselves one against the other, scheming, plotting, in order to get the painting from the descendants of Nina Evans. When you told me about your break in, about your painting and Nina's diary and earrings safe in the bank, I realized what the burglary attempt was about, that they were looking for the little watercolor. Somehow someone knew you had it, had seen it in your apartment.”

  “Of course, Sergio saw it, even remarked about it once. He came every now and then to cook for me. Now I know why. He was always checking to see that the painting was still there."

  “When you called me I remember checking the date with you to make sure yours was painted on the thirteenth of July, the day before the collapse—and it was. How relieved I was to hear that you’d already put it in a safety deposit box along with the earrings the diary.”

  “I can assure you, Giovanni, it will stay there forever—or at least as long as I live.” She sighs. “At least the mystery of the break in has been solved. But there’s something else I want to know. That night in Sicchia I had a haunting vision of a man in a black cape with a black hat pulled down over his face. One night in New York someone dressed exactly like that followed me as I walked down Third Avenue. Then that night—very late— my doorbell rang. When it ceased ringing I tiptoed to the window I saw the same black-cloaked figure crossing the street. That was just before I called you. I wasn’t sure what I saw was real. I feared it might have been a phantom from my overwrought imagination. Now I wonder if it could have been Leonardo.”

  “Maybe we’ll never know, but at least we do know that your painting is locked safely away and he has no chance of ever getting title to the castle—he’s completely out of the picture. And he’s also out of a picture! “

  Laughing at his word play, she says, “With my painting in safekeeping, the castello will someday be yours and no one will be able to take it away from you or your family. As far as I’m concerned, it will stay there in perpetuity.”

  “It’s not a place I like or visit often, and, as you saw for yourself, my mother has eliminated some, but not all, of its weirdness. Besides, I’ve never felt the castle should be mine or that it should ever belong to my family. The castello should be yours, Bianca, because Nina painted the destroyed Campanile and gave it to Margaret Norville and then The Writer’s family claimed it. If you possessed both paintings, you’d then have title to the castello.”

  “I certainly don’t want to own it. What on earth would I do with it? I can just about manage a basement apartment, let alone a castle in a foreign country.”

  He doesn’t respond. He seems worried.

  “But what about Sergio? I’m worried about him and what he might do.”

  “You’re right. He can be dangerous. That’s why we’ve got to get back on the road and head for the Tyrrhenian coast. I told Beppe that I wasn’t going to disappoint you, that we were driving straight to Locri—so if someone wants to trail us they’ll be headed there—or points south."

  You lied to him?”

  “Of course I lied— even though I trust him. He might slip up, just as I did when I just mentioned Sergio. This is a matter of self protection, maybe even survival,” he says angrily, shoving his key in the ignition, revving up the engine. "Let’s be on our way—we�
��ll begin our journey, the Krater’s journey, to the oppidum at Vix. There are two good routes to the coast--we’ll take the road through the National Park of Pollino. It’s still early enough in the day--so if we push it we can arrive at Paestum before five.

  “Why Paestum?”

  “Because it was an important polis of the Sybarites. Many who fled the destruction of Sybaris headed straight for Paestum, once Poseidonia of the Sybarites, to give thanks at the Doric temple of Hera, and it wasn’t long after their arrival that the other great temples were built. They're considered to be the most spectacular and best preserved Greek temples”

  “So even though the later historians had much to say about the decadence of these Sybarites, they still had a lot of energy, power and money after the fall of Sybaris.”

  “You're right, Bianca, and they continued their heavy trading with Hallstatt Celts and Etruscans, as well as with Greeks from Massilia. They’ve dug up a fresco in Paestum—Etruscan stylistically— much like Hephaestus at the Forge at the masseria. I'd like to show it to you. After a quick look at the temples, we can choose our route to Châtillon-sur-Seine. Depending on the weather forecast, we can either drive to Marseilles, about fourteen hours--or take a ferry from Civitavecchia to Toulon--over twenty hours--and that’s only if ferries are crossing in winter.”

  “Even if the they are I don't want to get seasick—a problem I sometimes have.

  “Well, that settles it then. We drive. Once we’re in France we’ll make our way north along the Rhone to the Seine, the village of Vix, and Mont Lassois— Latisco of the Celts. I’ll try to map out the rest of our route tonight.” He checks his watch. “It’s already past one. I hope we can find somewhere on these roads to buy a panini. Are you hungry? I always keep a few energy bars in the car—just in case. Reach into the glove compartment to check them out and, while you’re at it, pull out the Calabria Green Guide Map for Italy. It’s about two hundred and twenty kilometers to Paestum, but we’re now at Morano Calabro—so we’ve already done forty kilometers. We’re well on our way.”