Turn to Stone

by James W. Ziskin

  “Now we know what happened to our dear Bondinelli,” said Franco with a sigh.

  I caught the wicked scowl Giuliana fired in his direction. Though she might not have realized it, her face betrayed the emotions roiling in-side her. I can only assume that she objected to the words “our dear Bondinelli” in his description. Whatever the spark, the result was a sneer so malevolent and Medusa-like Franco might well have turned to stone had his eyes met hers.

  “For me he was not dear,” she said to all present.

  Lucio chided her, insisting that it was wrong to speak ill of the dead. She countered that Lucio was a coward still clinging to the Catholic guilt the priests and nuns had beaten into him as a child.

  “You call yourself a Communist and an atheist, yet you still believe in bad luck, fate, and a moralistic logic to the universe. You’re no more enlightened than the little old ladies who spend their days walking the Stations of the Cross, jiggling their beads, and hoping for the answer to their prayers. Pure superstition.”

  “Calma, Giulià. I’m not one of those. I just think the poor man is dead—murdered—what good does it do to say such things about him now?”

  She stamped her foot and demanded the inspector tell her when she could “get out of this prison.”

  “Now that you know who killed him, let us leave. No one has German measles, as you can see. Why keep us here any longer?”

  “While the investigation was continuing I had some authority to restrict your movements,” said Peruzzi. “I can no longer keep you here now.”

  “In that case, I’m leaving.” Giuliana turned on her heel and headed for the house.

  “One moment, signorina,” said the cop. “I strongly urge you to reconsider. Stay until tomorrow when Dottor Gherardi returns and gives us his opinion.”

  Giuliana glared at him. “Can you force me to stay?”

  “No. I cannot. But there is one last consideration. You are free to leave this house and risk contamination of those you come into contact with. But if you do so, I will arrest you at the gate for making false statements to the police and impeding an official investigation.”

  Giuliana bristled. Her anger nearly erupted into tears of rage. She stormed back into the house and up the stairs to her room.

  “Where the hell were you all afternoon?” asked Bernie once Peruzzi had left. “Everyone was wondering.”

  “I did a little sightseeing, that’s all.”

  “Sightseeing? Did you go down to Florence?”

  “Yes. I borrowed Franco’s Vespa.”

  He grinned. “You little thief. How did you even manage? You’ve never driven one of those things before.”

  I ignored his question. How hard was it to drive a scooter anyway? I’d seen scores of girls, women, and men doing that very thing all afternoon. Bernie needed to pull his nose out of his books and give it a try.

  “As usual, your confidence in me knows no limits,” I said.

  “Come on, El. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Get me a drink and all is forgiven.”

  While Bernie tried to win back my good graces by plying me with alcohol, I noticed Lucio sitting on a bench, head buried in a newspaper. I joined him.

  “Giuliana sure was angry,” I said.

  He lowered the paper and shrugged. “She’s rather dogmatic.”

  “I’m glad she’s decided to stay. I may not agree with everything she says, but I admire her passion. What are you reading, amore mio ?”

  “Today’s paper,” he said. “There’s an article about Professor Bondinelli in the cronaca nera section.”

  “May I see that when you’ve finished?”

  “Take it,” he said, handing me the paper. Then he had second thoughts. “Wait. Give me back the sports pages.”

  I only wanted the cronaca, so I left him the rest. There was a two-column piece on the death of the professor. The accompanying headline and photograph stopped me in my tracks.

  FIRENZE:

  CARICATURISTA ARRESTATO PER

  L’OMICIDIO DEL PROFESSORE

  The grainy photograph showed a startled man, face white from the harsh flash, flanked by two policemen. The caption below the picture identified him as Leopoldo Migliorini, and he was the same man who’d followed me on Thursday as I returned to my hotel from the symposium. The same man who’d propositioned me on the Ponte Vecchio the previous Tuesday, the very day Alberto Bondinelli died.

  I recalled the timeline Peruzzi had shared with us. He’d stated that the police were convinced that Bondinelli had died between 5:20 and 5:30 on Tuesday, September 24. That was the day I’d arrived in Florence. In fact, it was approximately the time I’d run out to take some photographs of the sunset on the Ponte Vecchio. My memory is quite strong, and it wasn’t about to let me down as I sat there on the terrazza behind Bel Soggiorno waiting for Bernie to return with my drink.

  “What’s that you’re reading?” he asked, bearing the cocktail he owed me.

  “Lucio showed me this article in the paper about Bondinelli’s murder. See?”

  “So that’s the guy? Leopoldo Migliorini. He doesn’t look the type to knock over a man as large as Bondinelli. And he was a trained soldier, too.”

  “He didn’t kill Bondinelli,” I said in a low voice.

  “How do you know that? Peruzzi was sure it was this Migliorini guy.”

  “He couldn’t have robbed and murdered Bondinelli at five thirty last Tuesday evening because he was busy pinching my behind on the Ponte Vecchio at exactly that time.”

  “You’re sure? There are lots of men who go around bothering foreign women.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. You don’t forget your first pincher. And I have a picture of him.”

  “So what are you going to do? Tell the police?”

  “Of course. This man may be a pervert, but he’s no murderer. At least he didn’t murder Alberto Bondinelli.”

  “I suppose you can tell the inspector tomorrow when he shows up with the doctor.”

  “I’d rather tell him right away.”

  “Why’s that?” he asked.

  “Because I’m afraid we might be sharing a house with the person who actually killed Bondinelli.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The dinnertime repartee hardly qualified as scintillating. No one this side of Dullsville was going to invite us to a soirée. It wasn’t that we were an uninteresting bunch, but rather we’d pretty much exhausted all topics of conversation over the past three days. I had plenty of new information I could have shared, of course, but only if I’d been willing to come clean about my escape to the city.

  And I wasn’t.fter the antipasto, Achille served up Berenice’s dinner, which featured grilled petti di pollo with sage, accompanied by sausage and beans all’uccelletto.

  “I know uccelletto means little bird,” I said to no one in particular. “But why do they call this dish all’uccelletto?”

  No one seemed up to the task of explaining, so I turned to Bernie. “Because they prepare it with garlic and sage, the same herbs they typically use in fowl and small game recipes.”

  “How do you know all these things?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I thought everyone knew that. It’s delicious, isn’t it? Kind of like a Tuscan pork and beans.”

  When dinner ended, the general mood was no better. Tato sulked, surely wanting to retire early to lick his wounds alone in his gloom. Lucio and Giuliana looked to be angling to sneak off somewhere, though not together. She slouched in an armchair, examining her fingernails, which were ragged and unfinished, while he sat on a divan with his guitar. He’d propped it upright beside him on the cushion, like a person, and draped an arm over its shoulder, as if they were on a date. Franco was working his way to the bottom of his glass, another evening of losing his temper and his keys was likely in the offing. Max had sent Mariangela off to bed after the dismal dinner, and he was sitting alone nursing some Cynar and a cigarette. He cast the occasional eye my way, and I wonder
ed again where Vicky had gone. Bernie and I, like an old married couple, occupied space next to one another, nothing needing to be said. We were content. Veronica just watched.

  “I’m going to bed,” announced Tato.

  “You can’t go,” said Veronica, jumping to her feet. “It’s my turn to tell a story.”

  The groaning was loud and all the ruder for its volume and energy. Poor Veronica almost melted from the humiliation. But she wasn’t so easily put off when she set her mind on something, be it a second helping of dessert or your spacious bedroom with ceiling fan.

  “Everyone has to stay for my story,” she said, accusing us all of wanting to abandon ship.

  Giuliana and Tato found common ground. They had no intention of sticking around for her tale, she out of sheer boredom, and he out of embarrassment for his own performance of the night before. But Franco, who still had some of his wits about him, pointed out that it was a requirement that all residents of Bel Soggiorno participate in the group activity.

  “Who decided that?” demanded Giuliana.

  Franco had no answer, but insisted all the same. I suggested it would be impolite for anyone to beg off.

  “Let’s listen to her story. She’s been sick in bed for three days, after all.”

  The grousing that followed didn’t quite equal the discourtesy of the previous groan, but it was blunt enough to feel a lot like insult on top of injury to me. Veronica, however, brushed the protests aside without a second thought, and told everyone to replenish their libations and settle down because she would brook no interruptions once she’d begun her tale. A stampede to the drinks tray ensued. Then, with everyone amply provisioned, Veronica spoke.

  “I intend to recount for you a story to prove the greatness of God and the awesome power of what His love can inspire and bring to pass in the hearts of men and women.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Bernie whispered, then took a large swig of his drink for strength.

  “There once lived in Barbary a young girl by the name of Alibech,” continued Veronica.

  Bernie spat his drink across the room, spraying Lucio and his precious guitar.

  “Bernie, please,” said Veronica.

  He apologized to her and to Lucio. We were spared our fate for a short moment while Lucio dried himself and his date with a napkin. I took advantage of the commotion to quiz Bernie.

  “What got into you?” I asked in a low voice.

  “Sorry, but it’s the story. It’s . . . I can’t even . . .”

  “What about it? She’s barely started.”

  “You’ll see,” he said, and Veronica was ready to resume.

  “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,” she announced with a glare aimed at Bernie, “there once lived in Barbary a young girl by the name of Alibech. She was a fair and clever girl, barely fourteen years of age, the daughter of a rich and powerful man.”

  I surveyed the crowd for clues to substantiate Bernie’s horror, and I got them in spades. Lucio wore a look of bemused alarm. Giuliana’s eyes had grown to twice their size, but she was all ears. Clearly relishing what was to come next, she was smiling for the first time since I’d met her. Tato squinted in disbelief, and Franco’s jaw hung open as if he were catching flies. Max Locanda actually sat forward in his seat, the better to hear what came next.

  “Now, living in that part of the world, it was natural that Alibech was a heathen. But there lived in the town a community of Christians who took great pains to glorify their faith and praise their God. In good time, young Alibech came to hear these accounts of the glory of Christendom and, being a girl with a lively and curious mind, she declared her intention to learn what she could about the Christian religion, its tenets, and its God.”

  I nudged Bernie, mugging a confused expression. So far the story seemed innocuous enough and perfectly in keeping with Veronica’s strict Catholic beliefs. He sank deeper into his seat and shook his head.

  “Alibech sought the counsel of some prominent local Christian citizens to ascertain the best path to serve God and thereby gain His glory and everlasting grace. The advice she received told of sacrifice and simplicity. The best and purest way to serve and please God, they told her, was to abandon earthly riches, leave all possessions behind, and embrace a life of penance, worship, and asceticism.

  “‘How, pray, might I best achieve such an austere and holy existence?’ the girl begged them. And they answered that she should exile herself into the desert and seek the guidance of a saintly monk. And so, with great dispatch, Alibech set out into the wilderness in search of the holy man they had extolled as the most selfless servant of God, an ascetic monk known as Rustico.”

  Lucio frowned. Giuliana snorted a laugh. Bernie muttered under his breath.

  “After many days of fruitless wandering in the desert, her determination waning in the face of the futility, Alibech came upon a grubby little hermit living alone in silent existence in a wretched hovel. The holy man, surprised by the appearance of the fair young girl, asked her the purpose of her quest. She fell to her knees, clutched her hands together in supplication, and replied that she was on a mission to discover the best way to serve God.

  “‘Please, good brother, will you teach me?’

  “Now Fra Rustico was a dutiful monk who wished at all times to serve his lord God. But, often doubting his own constancy, he asked himself if he was worthy to receive divine providence. And so it occurred to him that this comely young girl might well provide the test he so desired to prove his merit in the eyes of the Lord. If he were equal to the task of resisting her untouched feminine charms, he would surely have earned his place at the right hand of God. And so, with a mind to show his steadfast resistance to temptation, Fra Rustico agreed to take in this earnest soul in search of God’s grace.

  “The haggard monk, who subsisted on a meager diet of figs, dates, and nuts, prepared a litter upon which the girl could take her rest. As evening fell, he beheld her pulchritude and verily admitted that her beauty presented a forbidding trial of his resolve. He prayed for strength to resist temptation.

  “‘I shall demonstrate my worth to God and guide this child to the righteous path of His service at the same time,’ Rustico thought as he lay down beside her. ‘Let this be a trial of my constancy.’

  “Well, as you may have surmised, Fra Rustico’s will was strong, but his flesh was weak. Before ten minutes had passed, he had debated and lost the battle with himself. He decided to gauge her knowledge of human sin with the most basic questions and, in short order, came to understand that the girl was indeed as simple and pure as he had imagined. Now he beseeched her to do as he did to serve God.”

  “Here it comes,” said Bernie to me.

  “Fra Rustico knelt on the floor of his cell and folded his hands in prayer. Alibech followed his lead.

  “‘My dear child,’ said the monk, ‘I tell you that the greatest service one can do for God is to resist the devil in all his disguises.’

  “‘Forgive my ignorance, Fra Rustico, but how might a girl such as I resist the devil?’ she asked. ‘I am most eager to do so but require your instruction.’

  “‘If you are wholly committed to resist Satan, we must first send him back to hell whenever we cross his path. I shall show you now how to put the devil in hell.’

  “Then, to illustrate his lesson, he loosened his ragged cloths and dropped them to the floor, leaving himself as naked as a newborn babe. He instructed the innocent girl to do the same, and she readily complied with his wish.

  “Now kneeling side by side, they began to pray. But Alibech, being young and ignorant of the shape of the unclothed male body, found her attention drawn away from prayer and toward Fra Rustico’s . . .”

  “Stop!” called Giuliana. Though she’d been amused by Veronica’s choice of story earlier, she clearly thought better of it now. “Do you have any idea what this story is about?” she asked.

  “What? I . . . Of course I do. I’m trying to tell you all a story of
a young girl’s conversion to Christianity.”

  Giuliana waved her hands in frustration. “By putting the devil in hell? Don’t you know what that monk is about to do?”

  “He’s going to show her the devil and then explain how to put him back in hell.”

  “And what, do you suppose, is the devil he’s going to show her?”

  Veronica shrugged. Giuliana leaned in, cupped a hand over her ear, and whispered something. Veronica’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Blushing crimson, she turned to Giuliana and shook her head.

  “No! That can’t be. It’s . . . sinful! And disgusting. His . . . is the devil? Then what is hell?” She stopped and covered her mouth. “Oh! Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Giuliana, and Franco, Lucio, and Bernie all confirmed Giuliana’s interpretation with apologetic nods.

  Veronica grappled to comprehend man’s unrelenting urge to de-bauch, defile, and deflower—even saintly men of dubious stamina due to meager diets of figs, dates, and nuts. All attention was on Veronica and her botched interpretation of Alibech and Rustico’s tale. In fact, there was no interpretation needed at all. The story, as recounted to me later in full by Bernie, was quite clear. And explicit. Lifted again straight from the Decameron. Fra Rustico had tricked young Alibech into believing that his erect member, its head held so high in sinful pride, was indeed the devil. And, as he’d taught her—the best way to serve God was to put him back in hell, which—of course—was to be found, more or less, in the corresponding region of the girl’s anatomy. Somehow, Veronica had failed to grasp the game. Maybe, like Alibech, she was an innocent herself. Lucio, Franco, and Teresa had all told me she was not a bright girl, after all.

  Later, after Veronica had excused herself and slunk off to bed, we marveled that she could have failed to understand what the monk was up to. None of us could say for sure why, but the unfinished story broke the tedium of the day and reignited the warm jollity that had characterized the group of friends before we’d all been trapped in the villa. Even Tato laughed and embraced his old pal, Lucio—the one who’d stolen his girl and knocked him down with his car just three days earlier. All thoughts of betrayal were water under the bridge.