The next two weeks were paradise. But the ecstasy they’d known was coming to an end. Their last night out, Victoria lay in Dominic’s arms. “Darling, I wish this could go on and on … I’m not ready to go home … how about you?”
“It’s difficult to believe we’ve been away two weeks.”
“But what a two weeks it’s been … let’s look at the pictures.” Getting out of bed, she went to the dresser and took out an envelope of snapshots. With Dominic’s arm once again around her, she snuggled up to him and together they looked. “Oh, Dominic, you with that great big sombrero, trying to get on that donkey with your legs almost touching the ground. Where was that taken?”
“Puerto Vallarta, I think … and look at this one with you eating that tortilla and all the juice running onto your new Mexican blouse. The expression on your face is priceless.”
“Wait … look at this one when the zipper on your trousers broke and I found a safety pin in my purse. I think I’ll keep that one for the opposition when you become president.”
“And when will that be?”
“Probably at the next election.”
“Really? Well, at least I’ll have the smallest majority of one in history … look at this … remember when that Mexican boy in Acapulco snapped our picture together and the sun was in my eyes. I look like Ben Turpin.”
They screamed with delight. “Oh, Dominic, you’re not only the most wonderful man I’ve ever known, you do a very mean rumba … among other things,” she said, kissing him.
“And you, Miss Lang, are the most beautiful, wonderful sexy woman I know … and you’re also mine, all mine …”
Laughing, she said, “Aren’t you lucky?”
“That’s about the most accurate statement anyone ever made.”
“Oh, Dominic, we’re the luckiest people in the world.”
“I know that I am.”
“Thank you, darling. These few weeks have been very special for me.”
“And for me … I don’t know when I’ve ever been so completely happy—”
“But it’s more than just being happy. Something wonderful has happened inside me.”
He looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve accepted things as they are.”
“I’m not so sure that I have …”
“Why, darling?”
“Well, the fact that we can’t ever marry—”
“It really isn’t that important, darling, not anymore … because I feel I am married to you … not being able to be friends with your children … well, I’ve come to terms with that.”
“No wonder I love you so much.”
“Oh, darling, that’s just it … if two people love one another the way we do, we can’t allow the impossible to spoil what we have.”
She moved even closer. “Dominic, I wouldn’t trade places with any woman.”
Kissing her, he said, “And I wouldn’t trade you for anyone.”
But tomorrow came and once again they were home, putting aside all the memories and mementos. After breakfast, Dominic drove Victoria to her office then went to his. When he arrived, his private secretary said, “Welcome home, Mr. Rossi. You look like you’re still on cloud nine.”
“Thanks, Margo, but I better get off from the looks of the mail sitting on my desk.”
She hesitated, then said, “Mr. Rossi… Mrs. Rossi has been trying to get you since yesterday. She seemed quite upset.”
“Did she mention what the problem was?”
“No.”
“All right, get her on the phone.”
When Catherine said, “Dominic, a terrible thing has happened,” his heart began to race. His first thought was Gina Maria.
“What’s happened?”
She started to cry. “Roberto’s missin’.”
He frowned. “Roberto’s missing … what are you talking about?”
“Segetti called … there was so much static I could hardly understand him, but finally between shoutin’ I realized he was tellin’ me Roberto left all his things and hasn’t been back for about a week now.”
“Oh, my God, what else did he say?”
“That finally he had asked all of Roberto’s friends about where he was, but they said they hadn’t seen him.”
“Did Segetti notify the police?”
“Yes, but he was nowhere to be found in Florence. I’m simply beside myself with grief.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes … in the meantime, try and stay calm. I don’t think anything terrible has happened. You would have heard if that were the case.”
“You’re just sayin’ that to make me feel better and I appreciate it, but I have this gnawin’ feelin’, Dominic, I can’t explain …”
“I’m leaving now and then we’ll decide what we should do.”
“Thank you, Dominic.”
When Dominic arrived, he found Catherine worn from weeping and Mama Posata by her side trying as best she could to comfort her. In that moment, he felt honest pity for Catherine. Roberto, of all her sons, was her favorite and if something had really happened to him …
Trying to remain calm, Dominic once again questioned Catherine, but nothing new had been added. “Segetti simply said that Roberto had not been heard from for a week … now somethin’ must have happened, Dominic. A boy just simply doesn’t go off and leave his belongin’s without sayin’ a word … and he’d never do that to me … not let me know where he is … no, Dominic, I just know in my heart, somethin’ terrible’s happened to him …”
Dominic moistened his dry lips. He couldn’t simply reassure her any longer, because what she said made sense. If the boy had been found, the police would have notified Catherine or Segetti. “Alright, Catherine, let me go back to the office and straighten things out and I’ll pack a bag … the only thing we can do is go to Florence and try and find out what this is all about.”
“God bless you, Dominic, for your understandin’.”
“He’s my son, too, Catherine.”
Leaving, he went to his office, made a few very important calls, told Margo that he would be away for an indefinite period but would be in touch, then he called Victoria and told her to meet him at the apartment.
She entered and saw Dominic ash white. “What’s happened, darling?”
“Roberto’s missing.”
“Missing? What does that mean?”
“It means he hasn’t been seen nor heard from for a week.”
“Oh, dear God.”
“Darling, I’m leaving at four with his mother … it’s sickening … I can’t imagine what’s happened to him.”
“I know … here, let me pack for you, but first, go sit down and I’ll get you a drink. You look like you need it.”
He sat down heavily. Two weeks, just two lousy weeks had been his reprieve and now … this.
When he stood in the foyer, kissing Victoria, she said, “Dominic, I just know everything will be alright … I just know it.”
“I pray to God you’re right… I love you, and I’ll try and keep in touch.”
“Darling, don’t concern yourself with me … please don’t … just take care of yourself and when you find Bobby, let me know.”
“I will.” Holding her close, he said, “Life plays games with us … I guess we just had too much for the gods not to be jealous, didn’t we?”
“Take care of yourself, darling… I adore you.”
Amileo Segetti was a short, rotund man whose belly rose above the wide leather belt that held his baggy corduroy trousers. The fringe that surrounded his rather large head was gray which contrasted startlingly with his heavy black, bushy eyebrows. Just as startling were his pudgy, square hands which made it almost impossible to equate the exquisite masterpieces of sculpture that those ten fingers could create.
When Catherine and Dominic arrived at his studio, he was high above, standing on a scaffold which almost touched the obscure glass roof.
“Maestro Segetti
,” Dominic called out, looking up, trying to be heard in between the sounds of heavy chiseling as the marble dust flew.
Segetti looked down, “Ah, Signora and Signore Rossi. Buon giorno … I’m coming down.” For all his eighty years, he descended from his lofty perch with the agility of a ballet dancer. When he removed his goggles, all but the area around his eyes was masked with pink dust as were his calloused hands. He wiped them on his dirty smock and shook both the signora’s and the signore’s hands vigorously.
In Italian, he asked, “How was the crossing?”
“A bit turbulent,” Dominic answered.
“I would rather be up there chiseling than in the air. I feel closer to heaven and more safe, although my former counterpart, Michelangelo, would have argued with me had I been around at the time … now, come into my rooms and we’ll have a cappuccino while we talk about the reason you’re here.” Catherine and Dominic followed with rapid pace behind the maestro, until they were seated in the sparsely furnished room where Segetti called out, “Rosella, come, I want you to meet Roberto’s parents.”
A young woman in her mid-thirties emerged dressed in a black cotton dress. Her long, thick, black hair hung loose below her slim waist, above which was an ample bosom which had attracted Segetti to her more than ten years ago. In fact, Dominic saw in the strange, dark piercing eyes, why any man could find her more than alluring, although she was not beautiful in the sense that bore most descriptions. There was an underlying tempestuousness that only someone like Segetti could handle. She had been his amante for ten years now and loved him with a passion that defied any woman to challenge her supremacy. She smiled without warmth … in fact, rather condescendingly, which made both Catherine and Dominic feel quite uncomfortable, as though they had invaded her private domain, a place where only a privileged few were permitted. However, they both acknowledged the introduction, “Buon giorno, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She nodded sullenly while thinking, I could kill you with my bare hands for sending your figlio to my Segetti and upsetting him so that he couldn’t sleep for nights and God only know he sleeps little enough.
“Rosella, go fix coffee … bring out the bread and the cheese.”
She stood for another moment, her eyes narrowed on them, then she turned and left. When she returned, they were deep in conversation … “that’s all I know … Roberto left without a word one day and hasn’t been heard from since,” Segetti said. “I must be honest … if he hadn’t shown such promise as a sculptor, I would have thrown him out and sent him packing long ago … but he has such a gift, to waste his time wherever he is …”
Rosella was listening behind the open door, where she spit. Like a son Segetti had taken him in when others were pleading for the Maestro’s time.
“And you have no clues?” Dominic asked while Catherine sat with tears in her eyes.
“None … we … the police and I have combed every corner of Florence. We went to the house of a young woman he had become involved with, but she swore angrily, cursing him, that she, too, had not seen nor heard from him and that’s where the trail seems to end.”
Dominic said, “Why do you think he left?” Segetti raised his bushy eyebrows and said, shrugging his shoulders, “You see, Signore, a gift is only good if one has the will … the discipline to endure the ordeal and the pain which art demands. Without those things, the gift is wasted and sometimes providence makes its mistake by endowing someone like Roberto with the talent, but forgets to give him the nature that makes greatness. He has the talent, but lacks the desire. Perhaps it was I that drove him away by the ordeals I put him through, but he is soft … he is lazy, and I demanded. I pushed, hoping I could breathe the desire into him … I’m afraid I failed … but worst of all, he did not keep faith with the deity that gave him his gift … the greatest obligation of all. A man can learn to be a doctor … that is science … a man can learn from books to build a bridge, but the architect who has a dream … that is the human riddle … from where did it come … from the mind, from the soul, from the heart … who gives it? And why should it be given to one and not another? Why a Caruso … a Michelangelo … why a Picasso? … Why a Shakespeare? When the song is sung and the picture hung and the book read, it all seems so simple … ah … but no one knows the agony that went into the song, the picture, the book. And I must be truthful … Roberto is not deserving to have such a gift.” Dominic and Catherine sat silently, captivated by this man. “Here, drink your coffee first and then we’ll go to the chief of police and discuss what can be done to find Roberto.”
The first and only thing a bewildered, subdued Catherine said was, “Maestro, when we find Roberto, will you take him back. After all, he’s only a young boy who hasn’t grown up enough to realize what he’s done?”
He looked kindly at this mother … remembering he had never known his … she had abandoned him at birth … a bastard to grow up in an alien world, but he thought maybe had his mother been like the one who sat across from him, he might not be the Segetti he was. Answering her gently, “No, Signora, Roberto’s youth has nothing to do with it. Michelangelo was eight when he came to Florence. I would not be able to take him back. He will never be a sculptor … never. It is not inside him … I am sorry … he should go home.”
Dominic, Catherine and Segetti crossed the cobblestoned courtyard to di Agenti di Polizia where they were ushered into the chamber of the Chief’s private office. There they waited silently until a door opened and standing before them was the head of missing persons. Segetti stood, “Tenente Batismo, may I present Signora and Signore Rossi, all the way from San Francisco, California.”
“Ah …” he said, shaking their hands, “from San Francisco, California … what a city. I’ve been there … as magnificent as anything in Italy.” Seating himself behind his desk, he bent over the edge addressing his attention to Dominic, “You know Sausalito maybe??”
“Yes, Sausalito … it’s across the bay from San Francisco.”
“Ah … ha … that’s the place … I have a cousin living there.” Kissing his lips, he said, “What a place … so exquisite … so gorgeous … so … what can I say … I hated to leave … now, what can I do for you, my noble friend, Segetti?”
“These are the genitore of the missing boy, Roberto.”
He sat looking at them with pain in his heart, remembering having lost a son in the war … that bastardo, Hitler … his Mario was a lover, not a soldier, but for this boy to do what he had done to his parents was unforgivable. “Si, Signore, you have come a long way … now, let me tell you what has been done up to now in trying to find out the whereabouts of your son … The last he was seen was in Rome.”
Segetti interrupted, “And you, my friend, said nothing, knowing the anguish I’ve been through?”
“Stampo da fonderia, my friend … be calm … I said nothing because, by the time the Roman police found out where he was, it was already too late.”
“Too late?” Segetti demanded, “too late for what?”
“He had left, taking a plane to Paris.”
“And they couldn’t apprehend him… I don’t understand us Italians … after fare la seconda colazione, we close the shutters and make amore and the police are no different.”
“How can you say that, Segetti, we work twenty-four hours a day.”
“Twenty-four hours a day you work? What happened in between the hours you got word from the Roman police till now? Couldn’t you have told me that at least you knew something?”
“Please, Segetti… try and understand how exacting our work is. Suppose I had come to you and said, Segetti, we know the boy was in Rome, but got away. What could have been done when the police could not nab him in time?” Pleadingly, he asked, “Now, I ask you.”
“At least I would have known he was alive.”
Catherine was becoming hysterical, “Yes, why didn’t you at least tell Maestro Segetti? That is unforgivable, makin’ us suffer so, not knowin’ what had become of our
son.”
Reflexively, Dominic took her hand and held it, “Catherine, please calm yourself. They’re doing everything they can to find Roberto.”
“Grazie, Signore Rossi, for your understanding, but then I understand from Maestro Segetti, you are a very great and important avvocato … now, I would suggest you go on to Paris … I have been in touch with the police there … they know about the case and it is believed that the boy will be found there.”
Dominic asked, “When were you in touch with them last?”
“Only yesterday.”
“And what did they say?”
“That they are searching, nothing else … but the Parisian police are like, how do you say … like the F.B.I. … that is correct?”
“Yes … now, thank you for all your effort. My wife and I appreciate all you have done.”
“Mille grazie, for your patience. We have done everything we could … we have left no stone unturned. Unfortunately, we were unable to find the boy. I regret that this was the case.”
On the way out, Segetti said hissingly to his lifelong friend, “The next time I have need, God forbid, for the police, I’ll call a plumber.”
The next few hours were chaos. First, Catherine and Dominic couldn’t get a plane to Paris because there was a strike, Segetti explained, by the fascisti, the bastardos. Deciding in desperation to charter a plane, they found their luggage was lost which delayed them for another hour, which by now had Catherine prostrate. When they finally boarded, it was a one-engine plane that had originally been used as a mail carrier. There were only six seats, all on the right side in single file. Catherine counted the rosary beads as she sat trembling with Dominic seated behind her. Only once did the pilot say a word during the harrowing experience with the wind against them all the way … twisting and turning the slight aircraft like a kite in the sky. “We are over Orly airport, but it’s impossible to land because of the visibility.”
“How long do you think it will be?” Dominic asked, trying to remain calm.
“Who knows? As soon as I get word from the tower.”
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