“I don’t see anyone,” said the policeman.
“He’s gone. But he followed me two days ago as well. I even took a picture of him.”
“Can you show it to me?”
“No. I haven’t had it developed yet.”
The cop offered what he surely thought was an irresistible grin and told me,francamente, if he weren’t on duty, he’d follow me too.
My dash back from Piazza San Marco, over the Ponte Vecchio, and through the back streets of the Oltrarno, had left me soaked in perspiration. So, wilted and more than a little disappointed in my fellow man, I arrived back at Albergo Bardi, confident at least that neither the pincher nor the policeman had followed me. I slid into a cool bath, a refreshing balm after a hot day in the soupy Florentine air.
As I was stepping into my slip, a knock came at the door. Cursing the interruption, I pulled on my skirt. Then, hair as wild as Medusa’s, I opened the door to find Giuliana in the corridor.
“Is everything all right?”
“Can we talk?”
I stood to one side to let her in. She mumbled “permesso” as she entered, then made a quick study of the room. She pronounced it “not bad,” and told me she was just a poor student, renting a room with another girl from the university.
“I used to live with my grandmother, but I wanted more independence. Now I have a landlady who looks through my stuff,” she said. “Not to steal. Because she’s nosy.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said. Was that why she’d knocked on my door? To tell me about her nosy landlady?
She sat on the corner of my bed. “It doesn’t bother me too much. I hid some preservativi (prophylactics) in my friend’s drawer just to give her a shock.”
I wondered what her friend had thought of the gag, but clearly Giuliana was there to tell me something else, even if she was stalling.
“You don’t mind if I fix my hair while we talk, do you?” I asked.
Looking a little put out, she nevertheless shook her head.
I stood before the mirror, brushing my long wet curls. Newspaper reporting had taught me not to fill empty air with conversation. It discourages the subject from speaking. At length, Giuliana volunteered that she’d read a lot about my father.
“He was a respected, influential man of principles, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was. Are you here to talk about my father?”
“No. About Bondinelli,” she said.
“I know very little about him.”
“They say he was a partisan during the war. And was arrested by the secret police.”
“It sounds as if you don’t believe it,” I said, tugging at a particularly stubborn knot of hair.
She scoffed. “Isn’t he a little too Catholic for that? I mean, sure, there were Catholic partisans, but how many with his level of fanaticism? And he was arrested by the OVRA. How did he get off without being shot? There’s something fishy about that.”
I paused my grooming to study her through the mirror, unsure of what to make of the information she was sharing.
“Guarda, Ellie,” she said, using the familiar tu with me. “You and I are Jews. We’re not like the others. We have to be careful. Do you know what Bondinelli was up to twenty years ago? Or what his friend Locanda was doing?”
Hadn’t she just said Bondinelli was a partisan during the war? I opened my mouth to ask her exactly that when another knock came at the door. Giuliana blanched and whispered to me not to answer.
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “We’re not doing anything wrong.”
I crossed the room to open up. Giuliana slipped into the bathroom and closed the door behind herself. It was Bernie.
“Come on, El, you’re late. Let’s go.”
I needed to finish dressing. He offered to help, and I shoved him back into the hallway with a promise that I’d follow right away. Giuliana emerged from the bath once he’d gone.
“What did he want?” she asked.
“To tell me I was late for the reception downstairs. As are you. What are you so worried about, Giuliana?”
“My exams. My laurea. Fascists. Everything. You must know what it’s like in a university. You can’t trust anyone.”
I assured her that Bernie was an old friend, a devotee of my father’s, and completely trustworthy.
“I’m not worried about him,” she said, peeking through the door into the corridor. “But he might mention that I was here. It could get back to Sannino, then to the preside.”
“What might get back to him?” I asked. “What’s so sinister about Sannino anyway?”
“Nothing ‘sinister.’ Just the opposite.”
“What? Non ho capito.”
She didn’t answer.
I tacked in a different direction. “Can I ask you something, Giuliana? By any chance did you see a letter on the table at the Cavallo this afternoon? I’ve lost it.”
She said she hadn’t seen anything, then slipped out the door and scurried off down the corridor.
The reception was hardly the event of the season. I counted twelve of the conference participants and students from the university. The rest of the attendees were professional grazers, hovering around the refreshment table and hoovering up the canapés and wine. No danger of leftovers with this crowd. Still, the mood was subdued, thanks to Bondinelli’s unexpected demise. I’d arrived forty minutes late, so I didn’t know if anyone had toasted to his memory or recited a weepy “poor Yorick” soliloquy in his honor.
I helped myself to a flute of prosecco. Then a waiter bearing a tray of various crostini presented himself. Liver pâté, chopped tomato, and olive spread. I tried the liver, which was delicious, but so rich that it nearly constituted a meal for me. That reminded me of an old French joke my father used to tell. Something about a priest mistaking a communicant’s crise de foi for a crise de foie. Both terms are pronounced exactly the same, but one is a crisis of faith, the other a liver attack. I didn’t find it funny.
I spied Giuliana against the wall in deep conversation with Bernie. She struck me as a paranoiac. And pinning her down to answer a few questions was proving difficult. Bernie seemed to be having more luck.
Tato, the young man who was sweet on Giuliana, approached and told me he was a great admirer of my father’s work. We hadn’t really had the chance to speak the night before at dinner or at the Cavallo that afternoon. After exchanging niceties about dear old Dad, we moved on to other banalities. It reminded me of my freshman year at Barnard and my first mixers with Columbia men, who served up the same three warmed-over questions every time: “What’s your name? What’s your major? Where’re you from?” We could have used some finishing school training back then, and it was no different now with Tato. Though his English was quite good—he’d studied in London and spoke properly—no one eavesdropping on our conversation would have mistaken us for Noel Coward and Dorothy Parker.
Then I noticed I’d lost his attention. He was looking over my shoulder at something across the room. I turned to see Giuliana alone near the service table. Bernie had disappeared. Tato blushed when I asked him if he thought Giuliana was pretty.
“Dio mio,” he sighed, apparently unable to express his admiration for her divine beauty in anything but his native language. “She’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.”
“Are you a student of Professor Bondinelli’s?” I asked once he’d torn his gaze away from the object of his desire.
“No. I’m studying under the preside di facoltà,” he said. “Better suited to my studies. Bondinelli was a bit too much of a theologian.”
“Did you know Bondinelli fought along with the partisans during the war? And I heard he was arrested by the secret police.”
Tato made a face that suggested surprise. Or a bad oyster. “I never heard that. I thought he was in the army. Excuse me, Ellie. I think I’ll go chat with Giuliana. Poverina, she’s all alone.”
Was it my question or the draw of the beautiful Giuliana that had prompted Tat
o’s flight? I watched him sidle up to her, dry-mouthed and sweating like a horse. Lucio Bevilacqua swooped in next to me to fill the void. Leading with a broad smile and open arms, he dropped to one knee.
“Ellie, cuore mio.” He had a drink or two in him, I was sure. But I still found his attentions charming. Then he started in to sing. The melody—I was surprised to hear—was the popular song “Can’t Get Used to Losing You,” but the words were in Italian. “Eri un’abitudine, dolcissima abitudine, che vorrei reprendere per sognar.”
“Is a song I write for you,” he said in his artless, jaggedly accented English.
“He didn’t write that,” said Bernie, who’d shown up just in time to hear the performance. “It’s a song on the radio now.”
“I figured as much.”
Lucio stood and brushed off his knees. “Ellie, you know that I love you. Mi sono innamorato di te . . .” Singing again. “Perché non avevo niente da fare . . .”
I turned to Bernie for guidance, and he nodded. “Also on the radio,” he said. “And Dino sings it better.” He gave it some thought, then retracted his statement. “Actually, Lucio has a better voice than Dino.”
I held out my right hand for Lucio to kiss, and he obliged. “If you truly love me,” I said with a pout, “you’ll get me another glass of wine.”
He set out on his chivalric quest, actually pretending he was on horseback—clopping hooves and hands holding invisible reins—giving Bernie the opportunity to lean in close and tell me he didn’t trust him.
“Neither do I,” I said. “But he is endearing in a Peter Pan kind of way, don’t you think?”
Bernie frowned. “Not my type.”
“He was sitting in my seat at the Cavallo this afternoon, you know. Do you suppose he might have taken the envelope?”
Inspector Peruzzi and four policemen interrupted my designs on a second drink with their abrupt arrival. In fact, one of the uniformed cops bumped into Lucio as he was galloping back to me, sending half the prosecco surging like a wave into the air, only to splash back to earth on his sleeve, trouser leg, and shoes. One of Peruzzi’s men called for silence, then the inspector himself announced they wanted to collect some information from the guests. Anyone who’d known Bondinelli. He instructed everyone in the room to break into groups and give their statements to the four officers.
My participation wasn’t required, it turned out, since I’d never met the man. Peruzzi corralled Franco Sannino in the lobby for questioning. They sat in a couple of armchairs while I loitered nearby to listen in. The inspector retrieved his notebook and pushed his glasses up onto his fore-head.
“Can you provide me with a list of everyone who attended the symposium?” he asked Franco.
“I can get you the names of the people who registered. I can’t possibly know who walked in off the street.”
“The registrants will be enough,” said the inspector, writing in his little notepad. “Tell me again,professore, when you last saw Bondinelli?”
“Me? You suspect me of something?”
“Please answer the question.”
“Monday morning, like I told you the other day.”
From my vantage point, it appeared that Peruzzi ticked off a note in his pad. He nodded, then asked where Franco had seen him. The answer prompted another check in his book.
“But I’ve already told you all this,” repeated Franco. “Are you suggesting that Alberto was the victim of some kind of foul play?”
“I am thorough. Nothing more than that. Now, tell me how long you knew him.”
“Six or seven years,” said Franco. “He was my professor. I studied with him and wrote my thesis under his direction.”
“A Marxist interpretation of our great poet, no doubt,” said the world-weary inspector.
“Hardly. Alberto’s politics were not so radical. Mine either.”
“Bondinelli was a Christian Democrat. Is that your affiliation as well?”
Franco blushed. “I don’t see what my politics have to do with this, but, yes, I am a member of the Democrazia Cristiana.
Peruzzi recorded the new information in his pad. Then he stared at the ceiling for a long moment, as if putting the facts in order.
“I have a question for you, Inspector,” said Franco. Peruzzi replaced his glasses and waited. “Did you find any signs of violence to Alberto’s body? I mean, did someone do this to him? Murder him?”
The inspector declined to answer directly, saying instead that all the details would be made public at the appropriate time. Then, with a grunt, he pushed himself out of his chair, straightened up to his full height of perhaps five foot eight, and waddled off toward the reception desk.
The interviews took two hours to complete, so none of us got dinner. And, even worse, Peruzzi told us no one was to leave Florence until the drowning matter had been resolved.
“What about Fiesole?” asked Franco. “These young people and I are spending the weekend in Fiesole, near San Domenico.”
Peruzzi waved a hand. “Fiesole is fine.” Then he and his men decamped.
“About the weekend, Franco,” I began tentatively once we were free of the police, “I’ve changed my plans. I won’t be accompanying you to Fiesole after all.”
“What? No, no. Of course you must join us. We’re all going to the country. All your friends will be there. Giuliana, Lucio, Tato. Even that girl—” He turned to Lucio. “Come si chiama?”
“Veronica.”
“Yes, even Veronica.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “If I can’t leave Florence, I’d like to spend some time with my old friend, Bernie.”
“Bernie. Certo, certo. Un bravo ragazzo,” he said. Then he instructed Lucio to invite him.
“You must come,” he repeated to me. “In honor of dear Alberto, who wanted to conclude the symposium with the weekend in the country.”
I wavered, unsure of what to say.
“Ragazzi, venite un momento,” he called to Lucio, Giuliana, Tato, and even—what’s her name—Veronica. Bernie hung back; Lucio hadn’t yet delivered Franco’s embossed invitation.
“Tomorrow morning,” said Franco, “we’ll meet at Santa Maria Novella at nine. The church, not the station. I have my car, and Lucio has his. Between us, we’ll ferry everyone up to Fiesole.” He paused to drive home his point. “Mi raccomando, don’t be late or we’ll leave without you.”
He went on to describe the accommodations awaiting us. We would each have a room to ourselves, but the bathrooms were to be shared. And there would be plenty of food, prepared by Locanda’s magician of a cook. And wine to wash it all down. Bondinelli had arranged everything.
“So it’s decided,” he said putting a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll join us as originally planned.”
I groaned silently. “Only if Bernie agrees.”
“Of course Bertie will come.”
“Bernie.”
The hotel kitchen closed at ten, but, given the extraordinary circumstances of the police interrogations, the night clerk himself was kind enough to whip up some spaghetti with fresh tomatoes, olive oil, and garlic for Bernie and me. Sitting together on the bed in my room just after midnight, eating the macaroni and draining a bottle of Chianti along with it, we discussed the recent turn of events and what we should do. As would anyone, Bernie felt a little shy about accepting the last-minute invitation. But after considering it, we agreed it was preferable to spending our own money on a hotel and meals during our confinement in Florence. And we promised to look out for each other’s wellbeing. I made Bernie swear he would never leave me alone with Franco Sannino. He agreed on the condition that I not abandon him in favor of some handsome Italian man.
Again the memory of Gigi Lucchesi reared its head. I brushed aside
Bernie’s concerns as blithely as I dared and assured him I would behave. We shook on it.
“Let’s make the most of this weekend,” I said, clinking glasses with him. “It’ll be fun. I promise. What could go wrong?”<
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CHAPTER EIGHT
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1963
At the appointed hour of nine the following morning, having slept little, Bernie and I landed up at Santa Maria Novella to meet the others. For all his admonitions the evening before, Franco Sannino hadn’t respected his own instructions to arrive on time. It wasn’t until almost nine thirty that he finally showed up astride one of those cute Vespas. Climbing down from his scooter, he apologized for being late.
“Where’s your car?” asked Lucio, who was leaning against his own dark blue Fiat Cinquecento (500). I worried the car might tip over under his weight.
“It wouldn’t start,” he said with a shrug. “We’ll have to manage with your car and my Vespa.”
The general consensus was that Lucio’s car was too small to do the trick.
“Basta, ragazzi. Stop complaining,” said Franco. “I’ll take one person with me, and the rest of you can go in the Cinquecento.”
Lucio spent the better part of fifteen minutes lashing everyone’s suitcases and overnight bags onto the rack atop his tiny car. At length we were ready to set out for Fiesole.
Veronica, looking more pink than white—her scratching of the previous day had left an angry rash on her neck—spared me from having to ride with Franco by drawing the short straw. She’d been provident enough to bring a scarf, so her hair would surely survive the open-air drive. That left the remaining four of us in Lucio’s old blue Fiat 500, a vehicle Italians called the Topolino, Mickey Mouse. The description was an apt one. Barely spacious enough to shoehorn a small rodent and his girlfriend, Minnie, inside.
The bags on top of the Fiat made it impossible to peel back the canvas roof for air, meaning the windows would have to suffice for ventilation. And even with the mountain of luggage on top, Giuliana still had to balance a suitcase on her knees in the front passenger seat. That left no room for Lucio’s guitar, which he held clamped between his legs as he shifted gears and steered. The car was so small and cramped, my long curly hair, billowing ever more voluminous in the Tuscan heat and humidity, spent more time trailing out the window than it did inside.
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