The Lemon Tree Hotel

by Rosanna Ley

  ‘No.’ He gripped her by the arm. ‘Yes. Look—’

  ‘Let go of me.’ She shook him off once more. ‘This painting – it is worth a lot of money, yes?’ Because surely that was the only conceivable reason for anyone wanting to steal it.

  ‘No.’ His shoulders sagged, and Isabella had to force herself not to feel sorry for him. ‘Yes. Let me explain, Isabella.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’ She pushed him, and he nearly lost his balance. He shot her a look of such hurt that she almost relented – but, how could she? ‘You came to this hotel under false pretences.’ She remembered how he had been when he first arrived, the way he had looked around – yes, and paid special attention to Giovanna’s father’s painting, even back then. ‘You snaked your way into my affections.’

  ‘No.’ He looked outraged at this suggestion. ‘I had no intention—’

  She held up a hand. ‘You deceived me. You refused to tell me why you were really here. You waited for an opportunity. And then you tried to steal our painting.’ She looked down at the half-dismantled frame. ‘You can hardly deny it.’

  ‘Yes, Isabella, but you don’t understand . . .’ He glanced up the stairs, but there was no one there, just the shadows of the banisters.

  ‘Then explain.’

  ‘I don’t want this painting,’ he began.

  Isabella had to acknowledge the possible truth of this statement. She looked at the picture in the dim light. It had a simple charm in the awkward formation of the angelic figure, the way the yellow-gold pigments of the archaangel’s halo caught the light. But its charm was in its provenance – the fact that Giovanna’s father had painted it and given it to the nuns at the convent, and that it had remained here at The Lemon Tree Hotel ever since, one of the silent reminders of the building’s history. How could it be valuable to anyone else? ‘Why would you?’ she echoed. She was still trying to work it out.

  ‘But it is not so simple.’ Again, he looked up the staircase, clearly worried that although they were speaking in low voices, someone might have heard them talking and be about to appear at the top of the stairs just as she had done.

  ‘It wouldn’t be.’ It seemed to Isabella that nothing at all was simple where Ferdinand Bauer was concerned. And how many times would she be expected to give him the benefit of the doubt?

  He seemed to come to a decision. ‘Come with me.’ He began to bundle his tools into a black canvas bag she hadn’t even noticed before. A burglar’s toolkit, she found herself thinking. Who was this man, and why had he come into her life?

  ‘Go with you where?’ Isabella didn’t move. She couldn’t believe that after being caught in the act of stealing their property, he was now expecting her to go off with him somewhere.

  ‘You can carry the bag and I’ll carry the painting. It’s heavier than I expected.’

  ‘No way.’ She almost shouted.

  ‘Ssh.’ He shot her a pained look. ‘Someone will hear. Someone will come.’

  ‘Good.’ Isabella folded her arms. ‘Because this painting is not going anywhere, Ferdinand. This painting is going right back on the wall where it belongs, and you are going to tell me exactly what this is all about before I phone the police.’

  He reached out and touched her shoulder. Despite everything, she felt a treacherous shiver of desire. ‘I will explain, Isabella,’ he said. ‘But for the moment, I’m asking you to trust me.’

  ‘Trust you!’ She couldn’t believe he’d even used the word. And anyway, hadn’t she already told him she didn’t trust him? And that had been before she knew he was nothing but a common thief.

  ‘Take the bag,’ he pleaded. ‘Quickly, before someone comes.’

  ‘But where are we going?’ Against her will, she seemed to catch his urgency. She sighed, picked up the bag.

  ‘To Giovanna’s.’

  ‘Giovanna’s?’ She stared at him. He was full of surprises.

  ‘This was painted by her father, was it not?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Then you can’t object to us taking it there now, can you?’

  Could she? Isabella considered this. He could be lying of course. It could be a trick. But his blue eyes looked so infuriatingly honest. ‘What if someone sees that it’s gone?’ It wasn’t too long before there would be people up and around. And the absence of the painting had left a gaping emptiness in the niche opposite the stairs. It was inconceivable that no one would notice.

  ‘You can say you took it to Giovanna’s.’

  ‘But what would I have taken it there for?’ Isabella was struggling. And how had it come about that now it was she instead of he who must come up with a cover story?

  ‘Look. Never mind. We’ll think of something.’ He grabbed the painting. It was big and bulky, but he managed to hold it under one arm with some difficulty. ‘We must go there now, quickly.’

  Still, Isabella hung back. ‘But why?’

  ‘It’s private there. It’s the best place. And Giovanna . . .’ He sighed. ‘Maybe she can help me make you understand.’

  So, Giovanna was in some way implicated in this? Isabella thought about the morning she’d seen them both in Monterosso. There was certainly a lot to explain. She glanced at her watch and shook her head. ‘Ferdinand, it’s only five in the morning. We can’t go charging around to Giovanna’s at this time. She’ll have a heart attack.’

  ‘She’ll be awake. Come.’ Already he was by the front door.

  ‘But I’m not even dressed.’ She looked down at her flimsy nightgown.

  He gave her a long look. ‘Wear this.’ He pulled off the fleece that was tied around his waist.

  Isabella put it on and followed him. She felt as if she had little choice if she was going to find out the truth. But – at five in the morning? She realised that even his damn fleece smelt of his body and now it was so close to her skin she was breathing the scent in. And how come Ferdinand Bauer, who had been here only a couple of weeks, seemed to know Giovanna Bordoni better than Isabella did – when she’d known her aunt her whole life?

  They stumbled down the gravel path in the pre-dawn semi-darkness, and plunged into the gloom of the olive grove. Ferdinand flicked on a torch. ‘Take this.’ He handed it to her. He had certainly come prepared.

  ‘Were you always planning to go to Giovanna’s?’ she asked him.

  ‘At some point, yes.’ He flung his spare arm around her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Isabella. It will be fine.’

  Fine? How could it be fine? The man she had imagined herself in love with had just stolen a painting from her beloved Lemon Tree Hotel. Now, they were haring through the olive grove to take it to the old lady who had lived at the convent, and whose father had painted it anyway. It made no sense. It certainly was far from fine.

  Ferdinand shifted the painting under his arm and led the way down the path towards the cottage. At least Isabella only had to carry the tool-bag. Which still made her an accomplice to the crime, she realised.

  ‘Maybe we can get it back on the wall before anyone wakes up?’ He almost seemed to be talking to himself.

  ‘Back on the wall?’ He wanted to get it back on the wall? ‘But you’re stealing it!’

  He let out a bark of laughter that echoed around the grove. ‘Oh, Isabella, I’m not stealing it.’

  And she supposed that if they were taking it to Giovanna’s, then in a way, he wasn’t.

  But even if he wasn’t stealing it, something equally dodgy was going on here, and now it seemed that Isabella was implicated too. How, she wondered, was she ever going to explain this to her parents and to Nonna?

  CHAPTER 42

  Isabella

  At the cottage, Ferdinand gave a cursory knock on the door and walked straight in. He propped the painting against the wall in the dim, narrow hallway. ‘Giovanna?’ he called softly. ‘Are you up?’

  Sure enough, Giovanna appeared at the kitchen door. She was still dressed in her nightclothes, but held a small cup of steaming espresso in her hand. ‘Ferdi
nand!’ Swiftly, she turned back to put her cup down on the table. ‘Buon giorno.’ She reached to kiss his cheek.

  Isabella registered the tenderness in the way he held her. But surely they hardly knew one another? She waited in the shadows.

  Giovanna saw the painting he’d put down by the front door. ‘You have it then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Then she saw Isabella. ‘Bella!’ And she beamed.

  Isabella moved towards her. She had known this woman all her life – but now she was starting to think she didn’t know her at all. ‘Aunt Giovanna?’ She felt herself held by the surprisingly strong arms that had always represented safety to her.

  ‘Isabella caught me in the act.’ Ferdinand gave a wry smile.

  ‘Oh, my!’ Giovanna gasped and put her hand to her mouth, but Isabella could see that her faded brown eyes were twinkling. So, she found this amusing? How could that be?

  She stood her ground. ‘Will you tell me now?’ She addressed this to Ferdinand. ‘What you were doing, and why you wanted to come here?’

  ‘Isabella . . .’

  ‘I did as you asked. I even carried your bag.’ She glared down at the black canvas tool-bag she had lugged through the olive grove. ‘But now I think I deserve an explanation.’

  ‘She certainly does.’ Giovanna nodded. ‘I will make coffee. While you tell Isabella what she needs to know.’ She bustled back into the kitchen.

  ‘In that case, I will.’ Ferdinand took her hand and they followed Giovanna into the tiny kitchen. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee was still lingering in the room, and a tray of cornetti sat on the worn marble worktop ready for baking.

  They sat down at the small wooden table. Isabella traced a pattern in the wood – a pattern she’d known since childhood, probably a pattern made by her own mother or grandmother as they had sat here with their pencils and crayons while Giovanna tended something simmering on the stove.

  Ferdinand took a deep breath. She could feel him bracing himself for what he had to say, but this time she had no sympathy. This time she would find out the truth.

  ‘You know that my father was here in Vernazza during the war?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He had told her that much already. Isabella glanced at Giovanna, but she was busy loading coffee into her percolator and did not react to his words.

  ‘And you probably also know that certain people were stealing valuable works of art from their rightful owners at that time.’

  ‘Yes, I knew that.’ Isabella had heard the stories from some of the more elderly villagers who had lived through the war years. There had been paintings in the Sanctuary of Madonna di Reggio that had apparently never been recovered, and some marble carvings too. She was sure her grandmother had told her there had once been some valuable artefacts and paintings in the old convent too . . . She glanced back out into the hallway where Luca Bordoni’s painting was just visible propped against the wall. Though that picture was certainly not one of them.

  ‘Not just German soldiers,’ Giovanna said from her position by the stove. ‘During wartime everything is at its most vulnerable. People and precious objects. And if there is a person of any nationality who is corrupt or greedy . . .’ She let this thought hang in the air. ‘Allora. So much is going on, no one notices if things disappear.’ She clicked her fingers.

  Isabella blinked. But she could well imagine. ‘What disappeared?’ She looked at Ferdinand.

  But it was Giovanna who replied. ‘There was a certain painting in the convent.’ Her tone changed; she sounded lost in her memories, almost spellbound. ‘Ah, sì, it was very beautiful. It was of the Last Supper. The artist had used gold leaf to get a special effect, an almost ethereal glow.’

  Isabella couldn’t help smiling at the dreamy look on her face. She rather wished she could see that painting – and all the other splendours that Vernazza used to own. ‘Who was the artist?’ she asked her aunt.

  She spread her hands. ‘I don’t know. I was young, of course. All I knew at the time was that it was a painting of great value. The nuns revered it; it was a masterpiece.’

  ‘And it was stolen?’

  ‘Someone had their eye on it apparently,’ Ferdinand told her. ‘My father overheard a conversation in the castle one night. He knew that the painting was at risk.’

  Isabella raised an eyebrow. Call her cynical, but how could Ferdinand be sure that it wasn’t his father who had had his eye on the painting? After all, wasn’t he the one who had wanted his son to come here to ‘make amends’ for what he had done?

  Giovanna put the pot of coffee down on the table. She fetched her delicate and worn porcelain cups from the dresser. ‘Karl was one of the good men,’ she told Isabella, as if she knew what she was thinking. ‘He had to follow orders, of course, they all did. But he didn’t want to be here, Bella. You must understand that he didn’t want to fight, and he certainly didn’t want to hurt anyone or steal their property.’

  She sounded very sure about that. Isabella decided to let it go – for now.

  Ferdinand glanced at Giovanna. ‘My father decided to save the painting,’ he said simply.

  ‘How?’ Isabella leaned forwards. This was getting interesting.

  ‘There was another painting. A much larger picture.’ Ferdinand got up, went into the hall and came back with the Bordoni under his arm. He held it up for them to see.

  ‘My father’s painting.’ Giovanna smiled. ‘Oh, he was no expert. It was a hobby, that was all. But he loved his artwork, and after my mother died it was all he had left . . .’ Her voice trailed.

  ‘Oh, Giovanna.’ Isabella put her hand on her old aunt’s arm. She knew that both Giovanna’s parents had died young – her mother in childbirth, and her father at the start of the war. How lonely she must have been. She must have been so grateful to have been taken in by the nuns at the convent.

  ‘But tell Bella what Karl did,’ Giovanna urged Ferdinand. She poured the coffee, a small espresso for each of them.

  ‘According to my father, it was a risk. He couldn’t be sure that it was possible. But he had an idea. One night, he broke into the convent and took the Last Supper painting from the wall.’

  Like father, like son, thought Isabella.

  ‘Or to be more accurate, he was let into the convent,’ Giovanna corrected with a wry smile.

  ‘By you?’

  ‘By me.’

  But her aunt hadn’t even been living there at that point – had she?

  ‘He removed the canvas from the frame, then he took down this picture and he removed the hardboard backing.’ Ferdinand paused to add milk to his tiny espresso. ‘Thank you, Giovanna.’

  ‘And?’ Isabella was impatient.

  ‘He inserted the canvas of the Last Supper into the cavity of the Bordoni canvas and frame. He re-tacked the hardboard backing on to the Bordoni, broke up the other frame, and left it under a pile of firewood. And so . . .’

  All three of them stared at the picture of the Archangel Gabriel.

  ‘Did you know?’ Isabella asked Giovanna. Had she known all these years?

  ‘I let him in, but I didn’t know what Karl was going to do. He didn’t want me to know – in those days the less you knew the better, my dear.’

  Isabella could imagine.

  ‘And the truth is – we don’t even know if it is still there.’

  Well, what were they waiting for?

  Giovanna sipped her coffee. She seemed content to wait, and Isabella realised that there was more to come.

  ‘My father naturally assumed the painting would have been lost, found or destroyed many years ago,’ Ferdinand went on. ‘It was during the war. These things happened as Giovanna has explained.’

  Isabella frowned. ‘But why didn’t he come back here after the war had ended, to find out for sure?’ It seemed the obvious and most natural thing to do.

  ‘I asked him the same question.’ Ferdinand gulped down the rest of his coffee. ‘He said that he was ashamed.’

 
‘He would have wanted to put it all behind him,’ Giovanna said softly. ‘The war, the atrocities, the hardships, things that he was forced to do. He would have been ashamed of his country, ashamed of himself. He must have felt guilty. There were so many bad memories he would have wanted to let go.’

  ‘I think you’re right.’ Ferdinand nodded. ‘He buried himself in his work to all accounts – especially until he met my mother.’

  Giovanna patted his shoulder. ‘And until he had you, my dear,’ she added.

  Isabella raised an eyebrow once again. This story was fascinating, and everything rang true. Her dear aunt Giovanna would recognise the truth if anyone did, and, after all, she had been there at the time . . . But something didn’t quite fit. Something seemed to be missing. Isabella was sure that there was still more to come.

  ‘It was difficult for your country after the war.’ Giovanna poured more coffee for Ferdinand.

  ‘That’s true.’ He smiled his thanks. ‘For many years people of other nationalities did not care so much for my father’s.’

  ‘Bella?’ Giovanna offered the coffee pot.

  ‘Grazie, Aunt.’ She drank her coffee down in one, and accepted the refill. ‘And the painting? What did he do about that?’

  ‘He decided to leave it to fate.’ Ferdinand shrugged.

  ‘He wasn’t tempted then – to come back and try to reclaim it for himself?’ Isabella had to ask. These two had both accepted one version of the story, but they could be mistaken. Everyone was open to temptation.

  He shook his head. ‘At the time, he only wanted to help the convent and the village. He only wanted to minimise the theft, the destruction.’

  Which was very magnanimous of him – considering he had no connection to their village whatsoever.

  ‘And then, as I told you, he imagined the paintings must both have been lost. Or destroyed.’ He glanced at Giovanna, shot her a sad smile. ‘I suppose, truth be told, it was easier not to come back.’