Secrets in Translation

by Sorenson, Margo;

  Giovanni glanced at Valentina for a moment and then said to me, “Do you make the tour of any wineries here?”

  “Me? No,” I answered. “I don’t really have any interest.” This conversation was taking a turn that was making me really uncomfortable. How could I change the subject?

  “Your father, he does not want you to go and make the pictures of Italian wine-making?” Giovanni asked, leaning forward. “He is not wanting to know about the Italian wineries? Your father, he is Dave Martin, no?”

  I froze. How did Giovanni know Dad’s name?

  “Yes, I mean, no,” I said, trying to sound casual, though my heart was pounding, and my mouth was suddenly dry. “I’m sure he could get all the pictures he wanted from his friends here in Italy, if he wanted any, that is. He is in California, so that is what he thinks about—California wines, not Italian wines. He doesn’t care about tours in Italy.” My words tumbled out too fast. I didn’t dare ask Giovanni how he knew Dad’s name. I was afraid to hear the answer. This conversation was turning into my worst nightmare.

  Giovanni turned to Valentina, who had pulled a lipstick brush and mirror from her expensive designer bag and was busy coating her pouty lips with a fresh coat. “Remember, Alex and her family used to live here for many years. They speak fluent Italian. They know what it is like in Italia. I am sure your father is still keeping current with the Italian wine industry, no?” Giovanni asked, with a half-smile turning back toward me. “He does not want you to make the tours and take the pictures?”

  “No,” I said quickly, hoping against hope that I would be believed. “He has no interest.”

  “Hmph,” Valentina said, and snapped her compact mirror shut with a snap. I saw her exchange glances with Giovanni. Now, I was terrified. They knew. Or had they guessed?

  “But Alessandra, we did take a tour of Carlo’s factory and my mom took pictures, remember?” Carrie blurted out, looking up from her drink, totally oblivious to the undercurrents of tension. She smiled proudly. Great. This kid always wanted to be included in conversations and to be thought older than she actually was. I could understand that, but her comment was exactly the wrong thing to say, at exactly the wrong time, and to exactly the wrong people.

  Giovanni’s eyebrows raised. “Really? I did not think the Bertoluccis make the tours.”

  “We wanted to see a real limoncello factory; well, Alessandra and my parents did,” Carrie said.

  Oh, be quiet, Carrie! My mouth felt dry, and I raised my trembling hands to the chilled aranciata and took a gulp.

  “Carlo is making the cause of Italian-American friendship,” Giovanni remarked to Valentina. “This could be interesting.” She laughed unpleasantly. Typically, I would have wanted to say something that would really trash her, a witty comeback or a snarky comment, but all I wanted was to be completely invisible. We had to get out of there as quickly as we could, without arousing any further suspicion.

  “Why do you call her Alessandra?” Giovanni asked Carrie. “She wants to be called Alex.”

  Carrie blinked. “Um…” She looked at me in a mute appeal for help.

  “The Cowans are family friends,” I said, into the uncomfortable silence, “and that’s why they call me Alessandra, which is my real name, what my family calls me. My school friends all call me Alex.”

  “You—or they—do not like the Italian?” Valentina asked. If words were tools, hers would have been ice picks. “Speaking Italian. Living here in Italy. Your father in the wine industry. It doesn’t make the sense that you want to call yourself Alex, American-style, instead of Alessandra. Why do you do this?”

  “Alex is just shorter,” I replied quickly, so eager to be gone.

  Giovanni shrugged and smiled. I rapidly finished my aranciata and reached for my wallet out of my not-designer bag.

  “No, I insist,” Giovanni said, making a dismissive motion with his hand. “You are my guests.”

  “Grazie mille,” I said.

  Valentina replied, “Piacere,” but her blank stare gave the lie to her word, “pleasure.” She felt no pleasure at our meeting, I could tell from her condescending manner, unless something we had said about wineries and tours had given her important information, information that she and her Sacra Lista father, or Giovanni, could use in some horrible way. I hoped not, with all my heart.

  We left the restaurant, my palms sweating over what I felt had been a narrow escape. Valentina had asked why my dad wasn’t interested in Italian wineries. I wracked my brain, but I couldn’t remember ever telling Giovanni Dad’s name. How did he come to know it? This was awful.

  “Wow, she was a bitch,” Carrie said, as we walked away.

  I laughed, a much-needed laugh that felt good after all the tension I’d felt. We gave each other a high-five, and Carrie giggled.

  “Seriously, she was so into Giovanni and was really jealous of you,” Carrie said.

  “Well, she doesn’t need to be,” I answered. If only Carrie knew!

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next few days passed by with a side trip to Praiano for Phil to check out the fortified guard towers, and to Amalfi—both of which necessitated trips on the fearsome Nastro Azzurro and were accompanied by plenty of shrieking from Carrie. The gorgeous scenery rolling by, however, did nothing to distract my thoughts from Valentina and Giovanni, and our conversation about Dad and the winery, and his supposed interest in Italian wines.

  After our Amalfi trip, Phil drove the car back into the parcheggio. Carrie was sunburned, having forgotten to put on sunscreen while wearing a tank top, Phil and Nicole were tired from driving and taking notes on their research, and I couldn’t wait to get in the shower and get some peace and quiet.

  “Signore, Signora, attenzione,” the parcheggio guy pleaded, worry etched on his face.

  “Cosa sta succedendo?” I asked. What’s happening?

  In relief, the attendant turned to me. “I carabinieri sono qui—alla spiaggia. Per piacere, non andranno la, o vicino laggiù. Le strade sono fermate.”

  “What is he saying?” Phil broke in.

  “The carabinieri were at the beach,” I answered reluctantly. “The streets are closed.”

  “Why?” Nicole asked. I glanced at Carrie, a mixture of excitement and dread crossing her face.

  “Perché?” I asked the attendant.

  He shrugged. “Probabilmente é il solito modo di fare. C’é un corpo fu spinto dale onde sulla spiaggia stamattina.”

  A dead body washed up on the beach this morning! The very beach we’d been to yesterday! “Probably business as usual,” the attendant had said. It was usual to have a body wash up on the beach? And he used the dreaded word I’d heard too often—“business.” It wasn’t too hard to guess exactly whose “business as usual” this was.

  I went cold. It wasn’t Carlo, was it? Was this one of the “bad accidents” he had mentioned might happen? Quickly, I asked him, “Chi é? Qualcuno di qui?” Who is it? Someone from here?

  “No, Signorina. Nessuno di vicino.” No one from around here. Guilty relief washed over me—it wasn’t Carlo.

  “Grazie mille, signore,” I said, and the attendant smiled in relief. He probably figured I could smooth things over with i turisti americani and save the local economy.

  Phil, Nicole, and Carrie were staring at me during this exchange. Now that I knew what was going on, the bee-boo-bee-boo two-toned horns of the carabinieri vehicles I’d heard echoing up and down the streets made sense. One of them passed by us, its blue and white lights flashing, the two officers leaning forward, intent on their mission.

  “What’s going on?” Phil asked, his frown echoing his stern tone.

  “Weren’t those cops?” Carrie asked, eyes wide as she followed their progress down the tiny street, suddenly forgetting how crabby and tired she’d been all the way home from Amalfi.

  “He sai
d that the streets are closed going down toward the beach, so don’t go that way. Luckily, we don’t have to.”

  “Why?” Nicole asked. “Was there an accident?”

  “Umm, yes,” I said. They would find out, sooner or later, and it was probably best coming from me. I just didn’t want to explain the entire structure of Italian organized crime or have to make mention of the dreaded Sacra Lista. I glanced at Carrie, quickly, and then at Phil and Nicole’s worried faces. “A body washed up on the beach.”

  “My God,” Phil said, who never swore.

  Nicole put an arm around Carrie and squeezed her tightly.

  “A murder?” Carrie asked, her face excited as she twisted away from Nicole.

  “It could have been a drowning,” I said, knowing that if the parcheggio man said “business as usual,” no one thought it an accidental drowning.

  “Can you find out more?” Nicole asked. “It’s safe to be here in Positano, isn’t it?”

  “Of course,” I said, lying through my teeth—as long as your dad wasn’t investigating the Camorra, and your favorite restaurant wasn’t connected with the Sacra Lista, and your boyfriend’s family business wasn’t being threatened by organized crime.

  “What’s this all about, Alessandra?” Phil demanded.

  Time to tell the truth. “The attendant said it was ‘business as usual.’” I shrugged. “That means it’s probably some contract killing for some organized crime group.”

  Nicole turned white. Carrie almost jumped up and down with excitement. “Who? Who’s the dead guy? Why’d they kill him?” she asked.

  “We’ll probably never know,” I replied cautiously. “It’s probably someone who was murdered in Naples.” Although privately, I thought it unlikely that the tides would bring a body all the way around the Sorrentine peninsula from Naples to Positano.

  “When you lived here, did this kind of thing happen often?” Phil asked, a frown creasing his forehead.

  “Uh-uh,” I said. “Not really. I wouldn’t worry about it. They don’t have anything to do with tourists,” I added. “It’s Mafia business.” Listen to me, I thought wryly.

  “You don’t think we should go back to the U.S.?” Nicole asked, putting a protective arm around Carrie, who shrugged it off, frowning.

  “No,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to be careful,” Phil said. “Thank you for translating, Alessandra.”

  “Sure,” I replied. As if “being careful” would prevent anyone being nailed by the Sacra Lista.

  We trooped back down the hill, avoiding the closed streets, and dodging passers-by who looked as if they were rushing toward the beach to watch the drama. People were the same everywhere; the lure of a train wreck was international.

  Once safely back in the apartment, I showered and dressed, thankful to have some quiet time, while Phil and Nicole went out for a pizza to bring home. Carrie fastened herself to the keyboard of Phil’s laptop, no doubt emailing all her friends about dead bodies in the surf and Mafia murderers. And she had thought she was in for a dull small-town vacation!

  I found it hard to settle myself, though. The body on the beach made it clear how fragile everyone’s existence was here—Carlo’s and even mine, if the wrong people knew about Dad. And, I was afraid they already did. Dead bodies were usually a warning to someone. We were all vulnerable, and there was no way of knowing when or where the Sacra Lista would strike next. I took a few deep breaths and closed my eyes.

  As much as I wanted to tell Carlo everything, I worried that my confidences would put him in jeopardy. Then he might end up on the beach. I swallowed hard, closing my eyes against a vision of Carlo’s lifeless body in the surf, his eyes dull, his hair thick with salt, his skin gray… Stop! I shook my head to try and clear it. I wondered if, having heard about the body, Carlo would have sent me an email. He’d have to have heard about the body already; it had washed up in the morning’s tide, so everyone in Positano had had all day to gossip and guess.

  “Hey, Carrie,” I asked, walking into the living room. She didn’t look up from the screen and her fingers were racing over the keyboard. “Do you think I could email for a little bit?”

  “Yeah,” she replied. “So, what do you really think was happening with that dead body on the beach?”

  I shrugged. “Well, it could be most anything.”

  Carrie’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “If it was the Mafia or somebody like that, why would they kill someone? Was it for revenge or something?”

  “I think you’ve watched too many Mafia movies,“ I said. “Who knows?”

  “Well, if you find out anything, please tell me! My friends all want to know. They think it’s so cool.”

  I bet they do, I thought. Thinking of all the Carrie-clones back in Sonoma oohing and aahing over a Mafia murder would have made me want to smile, if it hadn’t been about such a grisly subject, or a subject that hit so close to home. Who would be the next victim? I tried to stifle a shudder.

  “Sure,” I said aloud. Over my dead body. Hopefully not my real dead body.

  I logged into my email and scanned the inbox. I’d received several emails from Carlo over the last few days, always apologizing for not seeing me. He was so thoughtful, and had such integrity—in addition to his awesome good looks and his skillful kissing technique! I couldn’t believe a week had gone by since he’d first kissed me; it seemed like only yesterday.

  Another message had arrived from Carlo earlier that afternoon. Opening it, my face warmed at the thought of being close to him, even in cyberspace. The email contained the usual pleasantries about what he was doing at the factory and what news there was for limoncello producers, but at the end, he wrote: You know of the accident on the beach. We will speak about it later, when I will be so fortunate to see you again. It will be only a few more days and then the lemon crops will be in.

  I had so many questions, but they’d have to wait. The internet seemed like too public a place to be asking questions about organized crime, either in English or Italian. Meanwhile, I needed to email Morgan and try to fix things up, especially if I wanted to fit in when I went back. I took a deep breath and began typing.

  Hey, Morgan—How is Tahoe? I’m so sorry I’m not there with you and everyone. Italy is good.

  I stopped typing and looked at the last sentence. Italy is good. Italy—and Carlo—were awesome. That probably wouldn’t go over too well in Sonoma. But, the Sacra Lista was definitely not awesome. And the fact that Giovanni knew my dad’s name was also not awesome. Dead bodies were not awesome. What in the heck would Morgan and everyone think about that? It was like a movie—a bad, scary movie—and I was stuck in the middle of it.

  But, I miss everyone. I wish I were there with all of you. Let me know what’s going on.

  Then, I carefully typed my name. Alex. Pushing send, I logged off. With any luck, I would get an answer in the next few days. Or not.

  Naturally, that night, I dreamed in Italian, just as I did every night now. Restlessly, I turned in my bed, trying to push the scrawny little pillow into a comfortable position, but thoughts of the Sacra Lista and bodies washing up on the beach made me throw the covers off and on all night long.

  Writing in my journal was usually a great way to work things out, but my journal pages had been blank for the last few days, and I couldn’t bring myself to write in English. Guiltily, I knew I didn’t want to, because, in some goofy way, I was afraid that writing in English would mean I’d be separating myself from Carlo. Besides, I most definitely could not write anything about the Sacra Lista or The System or anything remotely resembling what was actually happening to me, or the things that I was most worried about. Writing in Italian was out of the question. I knew my Italian self was already taking over, and it was increasingly a struggle to stay American.

  “Well,” Phil announced during our balco
ny breakfast, “we’ve been here almost three weeks. What do you say we take a day trip to Paestum, get out of the Positano drama, and stay in Salerno on the way back? Then we can take our time in Paestum.”

  “That sounds nice, Phil,” Nicole said. “You know I’m really anxious to see those Greek ruins. They might be good inspiration for some weaving that I’m thinking about.”

  “What’s Paestum?” Carrie asked.

  I hated to miss seeing Carlo those two days, but I knew Phil and Nicole would never let me stay alone in Positano. And I did have a twinge of fear that some Sacra Lista thug might snatch me right off the street, or break into the apartment at night, press chloroform over my nose and throw me in the trunk of his car. Then, he would threaten my dad.

  I felt everyone’s faces turn toward me, and I looked up from my yogurt. “Um, sure,” I said.

  “You’ve probably been there plenty of times, Alessandra,” Phil said, “but we’d sure appreciate your help translating.”

  “Of course. No problem,” I said. I appreciated the fact that while I was working for them, Phil and Nicole always made me feel as if I was part of the family.

  “But Alessandra’s going to miss seeing Carlo!” Carrie teased me, which, unfortunately, made my cheeks turn warm.

  “Now, Carrie, that’s none of your business,” Nicole said, with a smile at my hot cheeks.

  Carrie slumped down a little in her chair. “Fine,” she mumbled. “It was just a joke.”

  I gave Carrie a reassuring smile. She didn’t mean any harm.

  “I’ll make a reservation online. Maybe Carlo can suggest a good hotel, Alessandra?” Phil asked. “We could probably make it there and back in one day, but I don’t like the thought of driving the coast road late at night.”

  “Good call, Dad,” Carrie said.