by Rhys Bowen
Ahead of me I could see sky and greenery as the houses came to an end. I turned into the last alleyway on the right and found myself staring at Sofia’s house. It was bigger than the houses around it and painted yellow, its paint faded and peeling. Two storeys high with a balcony at the front, it must have had a fine view over the surrounding countryside at the back. I wondered who lived in it now, but it had a deserted feel to it. No geraniums, no window boxes. A sad house, I felt, and turned away.
As I came to the highest point of San Salvatore, the road abruptly ended in a little park with a couple of large old trees and benches beneath them. An elderly couple sat on one of the benches in the shade. She was dressed head to toe in black like the other old woman on the train. He was rather smart in a starched white shirt, and he had a big nicotine-stained moustache. I was touched to see that they were holding hands. They looked at me with interest. I nodded and said, “Buongiorno.”
“Buonasera,” they replied, a gentle rebuke that the day had now officially passed into evening.
I continued to where a wall ran around the parapet, and next to the wall a big cross had been erected. I read the inscription: “To Our Brave Sons Lost in the War of 1939–45.” Beyond was a glorious view: range after range of forested hills, some crowned with villages such as this one. Directly below the wall the land plunged away into a deep valley where I could see a road. But there was no way down from the village to join it. Clearly this was a place built for defence in the old days!
I stood there taking photos of the view. When I looked back the old couple had gone, making me wonder if I had only imagined them. In truth this whole town had a tinge of unreality for me, like being in a beautiful but unsettling dream. Was it only yesterday that I had been in rainy London? Was it only a year ago that I had moved in with Adrian? And my father had let me know in no uncertain terms how much he disapproved . . . And then . . . I closed my eyes as if trying to shut out the painful memories. How much can happen in so short a time, I thought. How quickly life can change. Well, maybe it was time that it changed again. I was in a beautiful place, staying with a kind woman, and I was going to enjoy myself, whatever the outcome was.
Having made that decision, I started to walk back through the town. In just half an hour or so, things had changed. The world was coming to life. Small boys were playing football in the street while a little girl sat on a step watching them. The greengrocer was carrying in crates of vegetables, ready to shut up shop for the night. A group of women stood talking together, waving their hands expressively as only Italians do. From open front doors came enticing aromas and the sounds of radios or televisions playing. And when I arrived back in the piazza, it was now bathed in deep shadow and pleasantly cool. I saw that the men had returned to their table outside the trattoria and were arguing so loudly and violently that I was afraid a fight might break out at any moment.
I shrank back into the shadows of the side street, not wanting them to know I was there at such a crucial time. Then one of them threw up his hands in a gesture of futility, another laughed, and the moment was diffused. Wine was poured from a carafe on the table, and it appeared that everyone was contented again. All the way through the town I had rehearsed my lines for my upcoming speech. I had actually written some of them on the train, to be memorised in case my fledgling Italian deserted me in a moment of stress.
It took me a few seconds of deep breathing to pluck up the courage to walk across the piazza to them. They looked up at the sound of my approaching footsteps.
“Ah, the signorina,” one said. “Did you find Paola? Do you stay in her animal house?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said. “It’s very nice and she is kind.”
“Paola is a good woman,” one of the men agreed. “She will feed you well. You need feeding up. No flesh on your bones.”
I didn’t quite understand this but saw them examining me critically. Not plump enough to be an Italian girl.
“I have come to find out about my father,” I said. “He was a British airman. His plane crashed near this town in the war, but he survived. I wondered if any of you knew about him or met him.”
They were all middle-aged, or even elderly. Some of them must have been in the village at that time. But I was met with blank looks.
Then an older, wizened man said, “There was a plane that crashed down in Paolo’s fields, remember? The Germans came and asked us about it, but we knew nothing.”
“I remember that Marco was angry because the plane burned two good olive trees,” another man agreed. “But of that plane there were no survivors, I am sure. It was burned completely.”
It occurred to me that they were not talking about my father’s plane. Perhaps his plane had not crashed exactly in this area, and he had been making his way south to escape from German-held territory when he came to San Salvatore. Clearly none of these men knew anything of a British pilot in their town. I decided to change the subject. “Do any of you remember a woman called Sofia Bartoli?”
That produced an immediate reaction. I was met with hostile stares. One of the men turned and spat on the ground.
“Did this woman do something bad?” I asked.
“She ran off with a German,” one of the men said finally. “Just before the Allies were driving the filthy Germans north. She was seen going off with him in the middle of the night, escaping in an army vehicle.”
“Going willingly with him?” I asked. “Are you sure of that?”
“Of course. It was the one who had been staying in her house. A good-looking man. An officer. My wife was told by Sofia’s grandmother that she knew she was sweet on a man. Well, you can tell, can’t you, when a woman has feelings for a man.”
“She obviously thought she’d have a better life in Germany than staying here, working day after day in the fields,” a man at the end of the table muttered. “Especially if her husband was already dead.” There were more mutters of agreement.
“She left behind a child?” I asked. “A baby boy?”
There were nods around the table. “Yes, Renzo. Her son. She abandoned him.”
“And Renzo still lives in this town?”
One of them looked up. “Here he comes now, with his father.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JOANNA
June 1973
Two men were walking together into the piazza. One was a big bull of a middle-aged man, powerfully built with the grey curly hair and profile of the Roman Caesars. Yet in spite of his powerful appearance, he walked with a stick. The other was tall, muscular, and remarkably good-looking. He had the same strong chin, dark eyes, and mass of unruly, dark curls. He was wearing a white shirt, opened several buttons down to reveal a tanned chest, and dark, form-fitting trousers. The effect was of a Romantic poet, although rather more healthy-looking. A fleeting thought crossed my mind that it would be highly unfair if the most attractive man I had ever seen turned out to be my brother—until I reminded myself that I had sworn off men.
I kept staring at him, trying to see any hint of my father in him. But he was nothing like my slim and fair-haired father.
I was wondering what to say to them when one of the men called out, “This young English lady is asking about Sofia Bartoli’s son.”
The younger man, who I presumed was Renzo, gave me a cold stare. “I have the misfortune to be that woman’s son,” he said in remarkably good English. “But I remember nothing of her. What do you wish to know?”
“You speak English?” I was surprised and impressed.
The man nodded. “I spent a year working in London. In a restaurant.”
“Were you a waiter?” I was hoping to break down the obvious hostility that I could feel.
“I was studying to be a chef,” he said. “But then my father had a stroke. I had to return home to help him run his lands and his businesses.” He turned to give a deferential nod to the older man.
One of the men had risen and pulled out a chair for him. “Here, Cosimo. Take my seat
,” he said.
“Not necessary,” the older man said. “We go inside to eat. Our table awaits us.” So that was Cosimo, the richest man in the town, the one who owned all the olive groves except for Paola’s.
He touched Renzo’s arm and let out a rapid fire of words in Italian.
Renzo turned back to me. “My father wishes to know what your interest is in Sofia Bartoli.”
I hesitated. “I believe that my father once knew her.”
Again the older man said something in rapid Italian and the men grinned. Renzo looked quite uncomfortable as he said, “My father thinks that maybe quite a few men knew her.”
The older man was continuing to stare at me. “You are German, I think,” he said in accented English.
“No, I’m English.”
“I think German,” he repeated. “I think you are Sofia Bartoli’s child with that German scum and now you have come to reclaim her land and her olive grove.”
“Absolutely not,” I said angrily. “My father was a British pilot. His plane was shot down. He was badly injured.”
I was still watching Renzo, wondering if he could have been the beautiful boy who was hidden away where only Sofia and my father could find him. But my father had written “our beautiful boy,” not “your.” That implied the child was theirs, not hers. Perhaps he had developed a real attachment to the little boy. “Tell me,” I said, “were you ever hidden away during the war?”
“Hidden? How do you mean?”
“Hidden away where nobody could find you, to keep you safe?”
“From the Germans?” He frowned, then shook his head. “I have no such memory. In fact, that cannot be. I remember we had a German officer staying in our house. He was kind to me, I do not have a bad memory of him. He gave me sweets.”
“How old are you?” I asked, realising that I was probably sounding very rude.
“You ask many questions for a woman and a stranger to this place,” Renzo said. “I don’t see what this has to do with you, but I am thirty-two. And in case you wish to know, I am not married. Are you?”
I felt myself blushing now. “I’m not married, either.” So he was too old to be my father’s child. I knew that my father had crashed and been wounded toward the end of the war, and this man had been born in 1940 or ’41.
“And did you ever have a little brother?” I asked.
“This was not possible.” He gave me a scathing look. “My real father was sent to Africa before I was born, and he never returned. If it had not been for Cosimo, I would have been a destitute orphan. I owe everything to him.” He put a hand on Cosimo’s arm. “Now, if you will excuse me, my father wishes to have a drink at his favourite table.”
And they walked together into the trattoria. Once they were inside, the man sitting closest to me said in a low voice, “That man is Cosimo. It is not good to cross him. He is powerful. He owns much land around here, and the olive press, too.”
A younger man got up and motioned for me to sit at the table. “Come. Join us for a drink,” he said. “Sit. Get her a glass, Massimo. And try some of our local olives. They are the best.”
I hesitated, wondering how to refuse and whether it was possible that I would learn anything more from them. The man insisted, and I sat. A glass was put in front of me and filled with dark red wine. A bowl of olives was pushed down the table along with a loaf of coarse bread and a jug of olive oil. The man who had invited me, a skinny individual with slicked-back hair and a slightly racy look, tore off some bread for me and poured a little of the oil on to my plate.
“This is oil from our olive trees,” he said. “Good Tuscan oil. Extra virgin, eh? Good to be extra virgin.”
The way he said the word “virgin” combined with the way he looked at me made me uneasy, but then he laughed and I decided he was only teasing.
“You see the colour of our olive oil?” a broad-shouldered man sitting opposite me asked. “Bright green. The green of springtime. That is the colour of Tuscan olive oil. The best. Of course it has to come from my trees.”
“Your trees?” one of the men at the far end of the table demanded. “You sold most of your trees to Cosimo. Now it comes from his trees.”
“Not true. I kept the best trees for myself.”
“I heard he made you an offer too good to refuse. Or he had something on you.”
“Not true. You lie!”
Voices were raised again and I thought they might well break into a fist fight. But then an older man said, “The signorina will think she has arrived among wild animals. Behave. Now eat, Signorina. Eat. Drink. Enjoy yourself.”
They all watched as I dipped the bread in the oil and then ate with an expression of satisfaction.
“Good, no?” they asked. “The best olives in the region.”
“And could be even better,” the young, racy one said, giving a look I couldn’t quite interpret.
One of the men put a finger to his lips. “It’s not wise to say such things, Gianni. Especially when someone might be able to overhear us. Watch your mouth or you will be sorry.”
The distinguished old man with a shock of white hair took over the conversation. “So tell us, Signorina. Your father, the British pilot, he is still alive? He sent you here to find Sofia Bartoli?”
“No, Signor,” I said. “He died a month ago. I came here because I found her name mentioned among his belongings. He never spoke of her to me or my mother, but I was curious. Now I see I was wrong to delve into the past. My father would not be happy to learn of her actions. But at least I have seen this beautiful region, and I am glad I came.”
“You will now go back to England?” the older man asked.
“I may stay for a few days. I am happy in the little room at Signora Rossini’s house. I will take walks and enjoy your beautiful countryside.”
This was generally approved of. “You must let me show you my sheep,” the amorous one said. “I keep them up at the top of the mountain where the grass is the best. And I make my pecorino cheese up there. I will show you how I make my cheese, too.”
“You want to watch that one, Signorina,” the distinguished one said. “He has a reputation with the ladies. You can’t trust him further than you can throw him.”
“What, me?” the man who I now remembered was called Gianni asked, putting his hand to his heart. “I am merely showing hospitality to a young stranger. I am a safely married man.”
“Married yes, safe no,” one at the far end commented, causing loud laughter.
Gianni looked sheepish. “We should feed the young lady. Bread and olives is not enough. Let’s call for bruschetta.”
“Oh no, it’s not necessary.” I held up my hand. “I go back to eat at Signora Rossini’s.”
“She won’t serve dinner for hours,” Gianni said. “Not until the sun is well and truly set. You will faint from hunger before that.” He got up and went into the darkness of the trattoria. Then he came back, looking self-satisfied. “They will bring a tray for us. Very good here, you will see.”
I had no idea what bruschetta was. My knowledge of Italian food was limited to spaghetti Bolognese or ravioli of the sort one bought in a tin. Soon a platter was carried out to our table by a skinny young man wearing an apron. On it were thick slices of toasted bread with different toppings. Gianni looked at me with intense interest and said something under his breath to one of the men. The man replied. They exchanged a smile. A translation was not offered to me.
“So now you try the bruschetta,” the distinguished older man said. “Each one is crowned with different flavours that we like in these parts. This one has chicken liver mixed with anchovy, this one tapenade, and this slices of fennel with goat cheese. Eat. They are all good.”
I was all too aware that I was going back to Paola to eat what would undoubtedly be a large meal, but I could hardly refuse. They insisted that I try every flavour, watching my face with expressions of anticipation so that I had to smile broadly and nod satisfaction after each bite. Th
is was not hard to do as each of the flavours was exquisite. I had grown up with simple English cooking—steak and kidney pie, shepherd’s pie, fish and chips, lamb chops—and then as a student my daring experiments in the culinary line were limited by my budget and included Chinese and Indian (or rather the English versions of Chinese and Indian). Therefore I was not familiar with garlic or basil or any of the other tastes I was experiencing. At last, full of food and wine, I was able to plead that Paola would be waiting for me and it would be very rude to be late for dinner.
Gianni, who had volunteered to show me his sheep farm and had insisted on the bruschetta, immediately got to his feet. “I shall have the honour of escorting the young lady home,” he said.
“Oh no, thank you. It is not far and I know the way, and it is still not quite dark,” I said, having trouble with finding Italian words after too much wine.
“It is no trouble,” Gianni said. “I, too, must go home through the tunnel. Come.”
He put a hand on my elbow and assisted me to my feet. I wasn’t too keen to go through a long, dark tunnel with him, even though I didn’t think he’d try anything within shouting distance of the men at the table. Luckily this was decided for me before I could find a way to refuse him.
“Never mind, Gianni,” a voice at the end of the table said. I looked across at a big man in a well-worn undershirt. “I must pass Paola’s house, and it is time for me to leave if I do not want a lashing from my wife’s tongue. Come, Signorina, you will be quite safe with me. I have ten children and a terrifying wife to keep me in line.”
There was good-natured laughter around the table, but the white-haired one said, “Yes, Signorina, you will be quite safe with Alberto.”
I thanked them profusely for their hospitality and remembered to comment again on the quality of their olive oil. This was met with broad smiles all around. At least I had done something right.
“So tomorrow, Signorina.” Gianni still hovered beside me. “Any time you want to see my sheep and my cheese making, you come and find me, okay? I can tell you lots of interesting things, also about the wartime.”