But for a second, it seemed an invisible wall between them had dissolved. Ginevra had—even if briefly—let her into her private world. Did she have the courage to do the same? Again she had the urge to ask Ginevra for help translating the diary. It would be such a convenient solution to her dilemma.
But once more, something held her back, a faint tap-tap-tap on the inside of her skull. So she waited until, lesson over, she had kissed Ginevra good-bye on each cheek and watched her disappear down the stairs. Only then did she retrieve the diary from her bedroom floor, place it in a plastic bag, and slip it into her backpack. She needed help, and had a tiny idea where to find it.
Beatrice set off down the narrow streets in search of her new friend Marco. Okay, so he wasn’t exactly her friend, but he’d helped her with the legend so maybe he’d give her a hand with the diary too.
She wandered the neighborhood, but there was no sign of him, or anyone. With a sinking feeling, she realized it was post-lunch naptime, that ghostly hour when the shops close and everyone goes home for a snooze, especially in the heat of midsummer.
She walked down Via del Portico d’Ottavia, past Signor Morello’s shop, which was predictably closed. The streets were deserted but for the unavoidable tourists and a few stray cats—no olive-skinned, curly-haired boys in sight. Marco and his family were probably tucking into a heaping plate of homemade pasta about now, she thought with a twang of envy, remembering the meager peanut butter and jelly sandwich she’d gobbled down on her own.
“Hey, Beatrice!” called a familiar voice. She spun around to find the object of her thoughts locking a bike to a pole a block away. “I thought it was you,” Marco said casually as he sauntered over. He sounded so American it was hard to believe he hadn’t spent all his days in California, but his confident strut proved he was Roman, born and bred.
“Were you looking for me?” he asked, a flicker of amusement in his eyes.
Beatrice’s color rose as she realized she was loitering right in front of his father’s shop. He probably thought she had a crush on him and was waiting on his doorstep like a lovesick puppy. Her cheeks burned at the thought.
She decided to get right to the point. “As a matter of fact, I was looking for you,” she said in her most businesslike voice. “I wanted to ask you a favor. I’m trying to translate something, but I’m not having much luck. I was wondering if you could, maybe, give me a hand?” By the time she got to the end of her speech, her confidence had melted. What made her think he’d be willing to help her? It was summer vacation; the last thing he’d want to do was translate something for a complete stranger.
“Sure, why not?” he answered, and her heart skipped a beat. “Why don’t we grab a coffee and I can take a look at it.”
“Perfect!”
Once they were seated in a deliciously air-conditioned café, Marco with an iced coffee and Beatrice with a blackberry juice, she pulled out the diary. She immediately kicked herself for not making photocopies and leaving the original at home. How would she explain what it was, and why she had it? She prayed he wouldn’t ask.
“Wow, what’s this?” he asked immediately, picking up the diary and leafing through it with a delicate touch.
She groaned silently. “Well . . . it’s an antique diary I found . . . in a library.” It was a simplified story, but a true one. “I’m translating it because . . .” She racked her brain but drew a blank.
“Because . . . ?”
“. . . because I think it contains a clue to a mystery I’m trying to solve.” The words tumbled out before she could stop them. Spoken aloud for the first time, they sounded a bit melodramatic.
“What kind of mystery?” Beneath a veneer of disbelief, Marco’s eyes simmered with curiosity.
“I can’t tell you that. At least, not yet.”
He arched one eyebrow. “Let me get this straight: you want me to translate this antique book of yours, but you won’t tell me why? Why should I help you at all?” he asked with a cheeky grin.
She couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious. Maybe a little of both. He seemed willing to help, but not unless she told him the whole story. She didn’t have much of a choice: it was him or no one.
“You promise you won’t tell anyone?”
He looked serious, in spite of himself. “I promise.”
“The Turtle Fountain has been attacked,” she blurted out.
“What?” Marco nearly spat out his coffee.
“Bernini’s turtles have been stolen off it.”
“But I just rode past it ten minutes ago! It looked fine to me.”
“They’ve been replaced with fakes—very convincing fakes.”
“And you know this how?”
“I witnessed the theft myself.”
Marco’s jaw dropped as the words spilled out of Beatrice’s mouth. She told him everything: how she’d seen a man in black wrench the turtles off the fountain Monday night, how she’d made the connection with the legend, how she’d snuck into the Mattei Palace where she stumbled across the diary and overheard the suspicious conversation in the library. She’d been reluctant to share her secrets, but now that they were out, she realized how much she’d been dying to share her discovery.
Marco furrowed his brow. Beatrice could practically read the doubt in his eyes as he considered the likelihood of her outlandish tale. She couldn’t blame him for being skeptical. Even she hadn’t believed it at first, and she’d seen it with her own eyes.
Sensing he’d never take her word for it, she dragged him out of the café and back to Piazza Mattei. It wasn’t until, standing beside the fountain, they compared the position of the turtles to the photo in her guidebook that he reluctantly admitted she could be right.
“I’ve lived in this neighborhood my whole life,” Marco said. “I’ve probably seen that fountain five thousand times, but I would never have noticed if you hadn’t pointed it out.”
“Well, the fakes are identical; it’s just their positioning that gives them away. No one else seems to have noticed.”
“Eventually they will. The next time the fountain is cleaned, if not sooner.”
“But by then, whoever did this will be long gone—and the turtles with them. That’s why I’ve got to solve this now, before it’s too late!”
“Even if it’s true—and I’m not saying it isn’t,” he added when she shot him a scowl, “what makes you think there’s a clue in the diary? Or that what happened to the turtles has anything to do with that legend?”
“I can’t explain it, but I keep getting these hunches, like the night the turtles were stolen and I had an urge to look out my window. And in the Mattei library, something made me search the upper level. It’s like the diary was calling to me, leading me up there somehow.”
Marco looked at her like she was a silly little girl and a cold breeze hit her right in the heart. “Come on, what kind of clue could plausibly be in there? I mean, this diary was written four hundred years ago; the turtles were stolen two days ago.”
Beatrice steeled herself, remembering the importance of her mission. “Look, I don’t need you to believe me. I just need you to help me.”
Fifteen
DELVING INTO THE DIARY
Back in the café, in front of his second coffee, Marco turned the pages of the diary as if he were an archaeologist handling a long-lost sacred text. Meanwhile Beatrice twiddled her thumbs, wishing there were some way she could participate besides peeking over his shoulder at the indecipherable words. After what felt like ages, curiosity got the better of her.
“Well? Are there any clues?”
Marco scratched his mop of chestnut curls. He puffed his cheeks out and slowly released the air through pursed lips. “There could be, but I haven’t found them yet.”
“Well, what does it say?”
“It’s pretty sad, actually. She writes about how miserable she is. It seems like the legend is true. She did not want to marry that duke.”
“I knew it! Does she
write about walling up the window?”
“No, not yet anyway. The beginning was a little boring, so I skipped ahead a bit. She keeps mentioning something about a secret room.”
“A secret room?” Beatrice squealed. “What does she say about it?”
“Nothing specific. Just that she goes there to write in her diary, and get away from the husband she can’t stand.”
Beatrice went cold. She tried to imagine being married to a man she hated, having to hide from him. No wonder the duchess looked so miserable in her portrait. She was grateful she’d been born in a time when women were allowed to choose their own husbands. As romantic as life seemed back then, it couldn’t have been easy being a woman.
“A secret room,” she whispered, coming back to the present. “Did she say where it was? Was it in the palace?”
“She doesn’t say, but she brings it up a lot.” He gently thumbed through the diary. “I’m not sure you’re going to find any clues in here, but it’s pretty interesting. I’ve still got a ways to go.”
Beatrice glanced at her watch; it was later than she thought.
“What time is it?” Marco asked. “Geez, I gotta go! I’m supposed to help my dad at the shop.”
“Oh.” Beatrice’s enthusiasm deflated. “Look, don’t worry about the rest, I’ll find someone else.”
“Listen,” Marco said casually, “why don’t I take the diary home with me tonight? I can write out the translation so you can read it yourself.”
“What?” He had to be joking.
“That way I can get it done faster. I’ll translate anything that seems important, word for word. If I find any clues, we can look into them tomorrow.”
“We?”
“It seems to me you could use all the help you can get,” he said with an impish grin.
She looked up at him from under a pair of furrowed brows.
“What are you afraid of? That I’m going to run off with the diary . . . or turn you in for pinching it?” he said with a wink.
She was embarrassed to admit it, but she was worried. She’d only met Marco a few days ago. What did she really know about him? The diary was over four centuries old, and it wasn’t hers. More important, it might hold a vital clue.
“Why are you so interested in helping me?” she asked, more suspicious than she’d like to admit.
“Are you kidding?” His voice was harsh with sarcasm. “I grew up in this neighborhood. My family has lived here for generations . . . for centuries! You moved here a month ago, and you’re already in love with that fountain. Imagine how I feel about it! How could I not want to help?”
Beatrice felt ashamed. All the secrecy and snooping around were getting to her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . . Of course you care about the fountain.” She didn’t want to let the diary out of her sight, but without someone to translate it, it was no use to her at all. It didn’t take long to take stock of her options. “Okay, you can borrow it, but just for one night. You think you can translate the rest by tomorrow?”
“Sure,” he said. “It’s not that long. I’ll just translate the important bits.”
“Cool. Hey, listen,” she said shyly, “you won’t tell anybody about it, will you?”
“Course not. It’ll be our secret. I promise!” he added when she didn’t look convinced.
She smiled inwardly. She was surprised at how good it felt to have someone else in on her secret. “Okay,” she said in a shaky voice. “Tomorrow morning I have my Italian lesson. Wanna meet right after lunch, here at this café?”
“Sure. Two o’clock?”
“Perfect.” She wrapped the diary back in the plastic bag and reluctantly handed it over. “Be careful with it. It’s over four hundred years old.”
“I’ll guard it with my life.” His voice was hushed with solemnity, but he had the look of a rascal in his eyes. The corners of her lips twitched as she tried to suppress a smile. “Anyway,” he said, “I’m used to handling old stuff from working at my dad’s shop.”
“Of course.” Beatrice recalled the treasure trove of ancient and mysterious objects.
“Well, I’d better run; we got a huge lot of Roman coins in this morning and I have to put them in order before the shop closes. A domani!”1 he called as he ran off.
“A domani!” she echoed, hoping she hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of her life.
As Beatrice walked home, she felt like there was an octopus juggling inside her belly. She was itching to continue her investigations, but without the diary she didn’t know where to go next. As if of their own accord, her feet led her straight to her father’s study, where she pulled several books onto the floor. She had to laugh: whenever she needed answers, she automatically reached for books. She was her father’s daughter.
Half an hour later, as she leafed through a massive illustrated volume called The Renaissance Palaces of Rome, full of complicated floor plans and diagrams, she sat up with a start. The facade of the Mattei Palace stared at her from the page. She found the accompanying text and gobbled it up.
In order to strengthen their dominance in the city, the Mattei family built a stronghold of four connected palaces in rione Sant’Angelo, just outside the Jewish Ghetto. The first palace, Palazzo Giacomo Mattei, was built in 1525 utilizing the ruins of the first-century BC Theater of Balbus as a foundation. Over the following century, other branches of the Mattei family built palaces in the same block, each one attached to the other. The result was the formidable Isola Mattei, a self-contained “island” of Mattei power taking up an entire city block. A number of the structure’s walls were built directly on top of the curving arrangement of foundation stones of the ancient theater below. This can be seen clearly in the floor plan of Palazzo Giacomo Mattei, in the southwest corner of the Isola.
The largest and grandest palace in the Isola is Palazzo Mattei di Giove, built at the height of Mattei glory in the early 1600s. Asdrubale Mattei decorated the palace’s courtyard with works of ancient and Renaissance art, many of which remain today. Of the four palaces that make up Isola Mattei, only Palazzo Giacomo Mattei remains in private hands; it is inhabited by members of the Mattei family to this day.
As Beatrice scrutinized the floor plan, a tremor of excitement shot through her, but all she saw was a jumble of rooms and corridors. Glancing back at the text, one line in particular caught her attention: A number of the structure’s walls were built directly on top of the curving arrangement of foundation stones of the ancient theater below.
She focused on the lower left corner of the floor plan, the area that showed Palazzo Giacomo Mattei. It was an incomprehensible maze of lines going in different directions. Still, as she scrutinized it, trying to take in just the shapes, a pattern emerged. Here and there she could pick out short little walls that formed a sweeping convex curve.
She was still crouched over the enormous volume, her face inches from the page, when her father came home. “Nose in a book as usual!” he exclaimed, making Beatrice jump.
“Dad!” she sang, her voice giddy with triumph. She sprang up and flung herself into his arms.
“What is it?” he asked, returning her bear hug. “You look like you’ve just discovered the Rosetta Stone!”
“Even better!” she whooped. She was bursting with excitement over the adventure she found herself in, and pride at how she was puzzling her way through it. She simply couldn’t bear to hide it from her father for one more second.
He glanced down at the open tome at her feet. “A discovery in a history book? Now there’s a girl after my own heart.”
Beatrice leaped at the encouragement. “Well, remember the other night when—”
A shrill ring sounded from her father’s pocket.
“Just a minute, sweet pea,” he said, checking the screen. “This is the academy; I’ve got to take it. Be a darling and go put the water on for the pasta.”
“But, Dad, this is important.”
“So is this. I won’t be a minute.” He ushered
her out of his study. “Professor Archer speaking,” he said, and closed the door.
The excitement drained out of her like milk from a ball of fresh mozzarella. She shuffled toward the kitchen, grabbing her guidebook from the hall table. After placing a pot of water on the cooktop and lighting the gas with a clack-clack-whoosh, she flopped down at the kitchen table. Flipping through her guidebook, she easily located the page for the Theater of Balbus, but there was barely any information. Just a few paragraphs and one measly diagram.
She traced her finger idly along the left side of the diagram, marked as the cavea, the curving section where the spectators sat. Something about it was vaguely familiar. She skimmed the text for enlightening clues but there was nothing new. Then she saw the last line: This site is not accessible to the public. She closed the guidebook with a sigh. So much for her big discovery.
Her dad straggled in, looking as dejected as she felt.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s been a security breach at the academy,” he said, rubbing his forehead, “in the history department’s ancient artifacts collection. Nothing seems to be missing, but it’s still worrying. As head of the department, I’m responsible, of course.”
“But you just started last week. They can’t blame you!”
“They can and they will. If anything serious were to happen, it could cost me my job.”
Beatrice’s blood ran cold. After all her complaining about moving to Rome, she’d never felt so alive as in these last few days. The thought of packing up and heading back to Boston, mystery unsolved, would be like admitting defeat before she’d even begun.
“But don’t you go worrying your little red head about it!” he said with forced cheerfulness. “Let’s get dinner on the table.”
As they sat over their rigatoni, Beatrice flicked listlessly through her guidebook and her dad leafed through the evening paper.
“So, what was it you wanted to tell me?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the paper.
Beatrice was tempted to shrug it off. He had his own worries and there was always the possibility that her latest discovery would lead nowhere. But then again, if he couldn’t help her solve this puzzle, no one could.
Midnight in the Piazza Page 7