Two From Isaac's House

by Normandie Fischer

  Tony had called the man Yusuf somebody. Not Joseph, not Giuseppe, but Yusuf. Mercy, but another Arab added to the pot seemed too absurd. Tents and sheiks in an Etruscan mountain town during a three-month language course? Impossible.

  But far too real.

  She couldn’t tell Auntie Luze that she’d seen a dead man. And Jason would get on the next plane to haul her home if she mentioned it to him.

  The night took years, and she finally slept again as the dark grayed toward dawn.

  The daily call to worship from the campanile began much too early, and even a pillow over her head couldn’t keep the bells from waking her. She longed for hours more of oblivion.

  She kicked back the covers and jammed her socked feet into lamb’s wool slippers and her arms into a robe fleecy enough to keep out the morning chill. The temperature outside was probably warmer than in her room, so she opened the window and blinked into the bright light. Mist curled upward, no longer shrouding the valley’s mosaic of purples, greens, and browns, but still hiding the distance. Assisi was not yet visible several peaks away.

  The air smelled crisp, effervescent. It could almost make her forget that a dead body lay somewhere.

  Almost.

  Questions snapped into place. Had anyone claimed it—him? Did he have family? A wife or girlfriend? What kind of person had he been? And what about his country of origin? Why was he in Perugia? Maybe he’d married into an Italian family and had children who would mourn him. Children standing over the grave, trying not to weep. Maybe a nine-year-old, maybe a little girl.

  Rina’s own eyes filled with tears. She swiped them away.

  The death of that man on the train hadn’t affected her like this. She remembered the nightmarish sounds, the fear, but she’d barely considered the man himself. And what did that say about her?

  She bit her bottom lip, hard, and shooed away the thought. “Knowledge requires change,” Uncle Adam used to say when she admitted to something bad. “You didn’t know before, Rina Lynne, but now you do.”

  Awareness meant she had to change what? Her attitude? Her sympathy level? Her ability to care?

  The inside of her lower lip settled back between her teeth where she gnawed on it. If only she could just straighten her shoulders, give herself a lecture, and voilà, all fixed.

  She leaned out of the open window until she could see beyond the rooftops to her left. A road meandered down the hillside, ultimately leaving the clutter of town to take traffic into the country. The market carts would be rolling along, not much else yet. In the distance, two black-clad widows wended their way to early mass. A scooter droned, its engine complaining and sputtering at a sharp curve as it carried someone somewhere.

  She thought of home and Jason, of comfort and security, and part of her longed to get on a plane and hightail it out of here. But another part left her feeling dissatisfied and curious.

  Auntie Luze read those ridiculous romances to fill a void, and hadn’t she done the same thing? Books and movies were risk-free, while life here felt decidedly messy. Of course it did, with dead bodies peopling small-town Italy.

  Thoughts of her mother resurfaced. Had her mother ever wanted more? Uncle Adam lived a life chock full of adventure, even if his had more to do with uncovering past lives and worlds than with the present.

  No, that wasn’t fair. Adam lived in a country fraught with danger—where the neighbors wanted the entire populace dead and gone. Did he ever cower and want to hide? She’d like to ask him. She longed to curl up on his lap as she had as a girl, to feel his strong arms around her and to hear him tell her what to do.

  But that had been her younger self. What would he say to this grown-up niece? Would he tell her to flee or to stay?

  Her heart did a little tap dance at that, because adventure had certainly found her out and seemed inordinately reluctant to let her go.

  10

  TONY

  The bar stool was cushy, the bar itself a polished wooden expanse. The Italian version of elevator music played from speakers in the corner, and low conversation buzzed around him.

  He’d awakened that morning to find an email from his cousin, asking him to make himself available for a phone call from his contact in Rome. He’d never met Paola, Zif’s Italian connection, but she obviously wasn’t a woman in a hurry. He hadn’t heard from her until a little after four.

  Now he nursed a glass of red wine and thought about their conversation. Her words had made his guts churn.

  She’d begun in a business-like manner, confirming that Kamal Abdul-Malik drank yogurt and slit the throat of anyone who laughed at his choice of beverage. “He seems to have gone underground in recent months,” she’d said, “and no one at headquarters knows his present location.”

  “Try Perugia.” A killer walked the same streets he did and had murdered his contact. “You need to get someone else up here. Investigating a murder is beyond my scope, especially with the Italian police saying Yusuf’s death is a botched robbery. They’re stonewalling.”

  “I have asked for help for you, and it should be coming soon. For now, I have news of your friend Yusuf. We have confirmed that his girlfriend is British intelligence. Also the murdered Englishman, Andrew Darling. He worked with her.”

  “Which means Yusuf was Achmed’s leak, and someone found out.”

  “Do you think Yusuf worked for the British?”

  Tony barely hesitated. “Not likely, though Natalie could have used him to gather information. He would have known quite a lot or had contact with people who did. To think how he spoke of her. I’d like to wring her neck myself.”

  “But Tony…”

  “I know.” He pictured Yusuf’s friendly face, his confiding manner. “It’s a lousy business, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it’s a very lousy business. But necessary, I think.”

  “Sometimes I wonder. What happened to her? To Natalie? Did they get her first?”

  “I am told she never went back to her room and that she returned to England. She must have been warned.”

  “So why didn’t she warn him?”

  “Perhaps she did not know this in time. Surely, she will herself lose… that is how you say it? No. She will lose herself, and they will not find her now. She may have loved him, you know.”

  “Yusuf? He certainly believed she did.” Poor Yusuf.

  “Or maybe she will return to find this killer, this Kamal.”

  “She’s welcome to him.”

  Paola took a deep breath and released it in a sigh. “If she loved this man, this Yusuf, she will wish for the revenge. I will tell you a story. It is the story of the day I made this choice to fight i mostri… the monsters. The day un pazzo, a crazy man, boarded the Jerusalem autobus with my two little boys and their papa and blew them all up, while I, who should have been with them, had the headache.”

  In a voice that remained monotonic, she continued. “I imagine them sometimes. The boys tired, maybe leaning against their papa. Perhaps they laugh together. And then the explosion.” She paused. He thought maybe he heard a catch in her voice when she said the police had found some part of her husband’s wallet. “It was by the side of the road. And a cap that could have belonged to my youngest. Otherwise, so little left.”

  Tony wished he had words of comfort to offer, but he knew of none. So many had similar stories, even in his own family.

  “Thirty people, they were killed on that bus, nineteen wounded, and not one of them was a soldier. Abu Sadiq, they say the bomber was theirs.”

  Of course. They laid claim to anything that might rile the populace and gain converts. As lame as it sounded, all he had was an “I’m so sorry.”

  “No, I know you never were a part of such a thing. You pretend to do for them only the things political, yes? Because you have been told to. Do not disturb yourself. But this work, the work you and I do now, it is essenziale. To find anything to help to stop such massacres. È vero?”

  “True, but it’s all so insane. T
o be honest, I wish I didn’t know some of the things we’ve done. This job—knowing some on the other side as individuals, not just names. Oh, I shouldn’t speak of such things to you, but, believe me, not all are madmen.”

  “I suppose you speak the truth, as it seems to you. No. That is not fair. I know so. But, please to understand me. My arms, they are too empty. And for every one who is of good ideas—no, bah! of good intentions—how many pazzi wait just to kill more babies?”

  He couldn’t deny that. It’s why he did what he did, wasn’t it?

  Paola then promised to elicit help to track Ibrahim, confirm that he was Kamal, and tie him to Yusuf’s murder. And she’d see if her contacts could find anything out about the owner of a Perugia license plate with the first name of Roberto.

  All Tony had to do was keep his head down until they came through. He’d avoid class and avoid Rina and do his best to watch his back.

  11

  RINA

  Time dragged with no Tony and no answers. In spite of her determination to think only pure thoughts, images of dead bodies and blue eyes followed her throughout the days and into her nights, and she lost too many hours staring at shadows on the ceiling.

  She hated that a man—any man—could mess about in her head. Acie’s invitation to a family picnic on Saturday morning felt like cool water over a burn. The crick in her shoulders eased.

  Acie arrived at eleven with wide-eyed junior heartthrobs strapped in the back seat. “Those are my nephews, Berti and Giorgi. Four years old, and they speak English, so watch yourself. They’ll repeat anything you say when you don’t even know they’re listening.”

  “Ciao.” Rina smiled at the little boys whose big brown eyes stared back. “They certainly are cute.”

  “And a handful. I think you’ll enjoy the group today. I’m going to have to spend time helping my sister with the cooking and serving. They do turnabout here, one family doing the preparation for each event, but with Mae pregnant, I do think her husband could have fetched the food from his restaurant.”

  “I’ll help, too.”

  Acie turned on her wide smile. “The Bertellis, my brother-in-law’s grandparents on his mother’s side, make a local wine and have acres and acres of vineyards, plus olive groves. I’m half in love with the patriarch.”

  Rina focused on the countryside, the grassy fields, the hills and valleys through which they drove. The lane leading to the farmhouse wound upward through groves and vineyards with rows and rows of vines just coming into leaf.

  The views, the incredible views left her speechless, except for an inarticulate sigh or two or three. Acie parked at the side of the large stone house. Out back, the lawn sloped toward a grove of olive trees.

  It was stunning. Rina climbed out of the car and turned to unbuckle one of the twins. The two boys scampered toward relatives who sat, ran, huddled, or stood chatting and gesturing around the large front patio. Acie led her first to her brother-in-law, Giorgio Gambacorta, who had grabbed one son under each arm.

  He smiled over their heads. “Piacere,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “And you.” She could see where the boys got their eyes. “Thanks so much for including me.”

  Next, Acie introduced a tall old man with a fluff of white hair. “Signor Bertelli, the padrone and Giorgio’s grandfather. He doesn’t speak English.”

  The signore’s eyes twinkled. “Benvenuta.”

  “I see what you mean,” she told Acie as they headed toward the front door.

  “Isn’t he the dearest thing? A patriarch in the best sense of the word. Everyone adores him. And there”—Acie pointed out a tiny lady—“is his wife. She rules all. And that one bending over her? The hunky one? That’s another grandson, Nicco Bertelli.”

  “O-ho. Hunky is right.”

  Was that a blush rising on Acie’s cheeks? Rina glanced back at Nicco and caught him grinning in this direction. And not at her.

  Interesting.

  “Come on,” Acie said. “I’ll introduce you on our way to the kitchen.”

  She’d never remember all the names, but she wasn’t likely to forget the look of one scowling figure standing slightly apart with his arms crossed. Acie huffed as they passed.

  “Nicco’s brother. Mae said he’s in a snit from fighting with his grandfather, something about him being one of those neo-Nazi types, while Signor Bertelli is a huge supporter of Israel.”

  Really? Wasn’t that interesting, a Catholic—she assumed he was Catholic—supporting Israel? She’d like to ask more questions, but just then a snazzy sports car sprayed gravel.

  Acie held open the front door. “And that, my friend, is Roberto. Another piece of work, but this one is Giorgio’s brother.”

  Was this typical of large clans—one good, the next bad? Two good brothers and two “pieces of work,” as Acie called them? Rina’s fingers itched to record these questions—and to research the answers.

  The hall floor was a terracotta tile, and brightly painted ceramic plates hung on plaster walls. A large staircase rose from the left side of the foyer, its rail so highly polished that she felt compelled to touch it. It slid under her palms like smooth satin.

  Acie led the way through a large dining area. “I helped Mae make the sauce this morning, and where is Giorgio? Out there holding up a pillar. They’re all alike. Men.” The disgust in her voice made Rina laugh.

  “He is watching the boys.”

  “He was. You didn’t see him send them off with older cousins.”

  The scent of garlic, spices, and tomatoes assailed her. She was about to comment when a pregnant woman with blond hair and porcelain skin turned from stirring sauce. “Hey, Rina, I’m Mae. Glad to meet you.”

  “Thank you for inviting me. I’ve wanted to see how real Italians live.”

  “You’ll certainly see the best of it here,” Acie said. And to her sister, “What do you need?”

  Mae tucked stray hairs back into a blue bandanna that matched the peasant shirt she wore over loose gauzy pants. “Watch for the water to boil?”

  “Did you salt it already?”

  “I did. And, Rina, will you chop those vegetables? Here’s a salad bowl. Another’s over there. You’ll need two for this crew.”

  Rina took up the knife and a cucumber. “Incredible kitchen,” she said. Decorated with blue and white tile, it had white-painted cupboards and pots dangling from a copper rack above the center island.

  Acie emptied boxes of noodles into the steaming pots. “Signor Bertelli had the whole thing remodeled for his wife on her seventy-fifth birthday. When was that, Mae? Three years ago?”

  “I wish I had one this efficient.” Mae swiped at the beads of perspiration gathering on her forehead and dried her hands on the apron that covered her pregnant belly. “Married to a man who owns a restaurant and I have an oven that barely works. He promised a new one.”

  “Right, next year. Or maybe never. You know you’re doing too much, love. Sit down and let us take over.”

  “I’m fine,” Mae said.

  “I remember Giorgio also promised he’d be a modern husband for you. But he’s not living up to that, is he?” Acie glanced over at Rina. “They met when Mae and a girlfriend were here during a summer break. Giorgio pursued her like a lovesick puppy, even came to Wilson to get Mama and Daddy on his side.”

  Mae ignored this as she looked pointedly at the pot. “Don’t let that overcook.”

  Acie snorted. “If the crew is that picky, they ought to do it themselves. No, all right, I’ll be careful, but I hope this chauvinism doesn’t extend to clean up. I admit Giorgio’s normally a great provider—aside from that oven—and he loves you, but I don’t know how you put up with his long hours and all that socializing he has to do. If I ever get married, I want a man who’ll stick around and help me do the dishes, change diapers, and not think this is women’s work.”

  “Sounds perfect.” And Jason? Could she picture him in the kitchen?

  “Roberto’s h
ere,” Acie said. “What’s up with him?”

  “You mean, why is he such a mess? Giorgio says he’s ‘searching for something he can’t find.’”

  “I’m about to throw up.”

  “Don’t be mean.” Mae handed over two bowls of grated cheese, nodding to the counter by the back door.

  “But what an excuse,” Acie said. “The old trying-to-find-himself line.”

  “I don’t think Giorgio meant he was looking for himself so much as looking for his own pot of gold.”

  “Yeah, I can believe that.”

  Mae’s expression turned to a worried frown. “Roberto hasn’t been after you again, has he? Giorgio’ll have something to say about it this time. Oh, I know, he shouldn’t have excused it before, but it’s hard to make Giorgio see reason when it comes to his baby brother.”

  “How can the two of them be so different? But then, there are Nicco and Angelo. Maybe it’s some abnormal gene floating through the family. Hits one out of every two brothers—”

  “Acie!” Mae’s eyes widened in horror as she touched her swollen middle.

  Rina’s own mouth fell open. She shut it quickly, because even if she’d had a similar thought, she’d never have said it aloud—and certainly not to a pregnant sister.

  “Oh, honey.” Acie shifted the potholders to one hand and came over to hug Mae. “I’m sorry. I was just joking. There’s nothing to it—you can’t imagine I’d think anything could be wrong with your boys? They’re perfect. As that next one will be.” Releasing Mae, Acie held her sister at arms’ length, obviously trying to undo the fear her words had caused. “Really, love, I didn’t mean anything. You know how I go on sometimes, not thinking. I was just babbling.”

  Mae shook her off and pointed to the pan. “The noodles? And, Rina, the oil?”

  Rina’s effort to shift the conversation didn’t move it very far from its original subject. “Is that Roberto?” She waved out the window to the backyard and a man in a silky print shirt worn over linen slacks with a plethora of gold chains hanging from his neck. Dark chest hairs poked from his open collar.