This will be my last entry.
I have no other choice. Muzio has won. He has discovered my secret at last. I cannot pretend to be surprised; I knew it was only a matter of time. When you live in a house with dozens of servants, you can seldom keep a secret for long.
Three days ago, after a long morning of writing, I was emerging from the underground chamber through the library passageway. I had my candle as usual, although by now I know my way so well, I could walk it blindfolded. As I ascended, I noticed a light coming from the top of the staircase. I am always careful to close the door to the library behind me, so I knew there could be no other explanation: someone had found me out and was waiting for me.
For a moment I considered turning around and running back down the stairs, but I soon grasped the futility and even danger in that idea: there’s no other way out that I know of, so I would have had to venture out at some point. And what if whoever was waiting for me (although I had little doubt who) would lock me in forever?
It was therefore more terror than bravery that led me to continue my ascent, although I had the quickness of mind to hide the diary before I reached the top. I slipped it under my voluminous skirts
Beatrice took a sharp intake of breath, remembering how she too had hid the very same diary under her (albeit less voluminous) skirt when she had snuck it out of the palace.
and when I reached the doorway, just as I had suspected, Muzio was waiting for me. I cannot bear to relive what happened next. I will write only that his rage at discovering my deceit, even for something so innocent, was beyond my imaginings. Tomorrow I will hide this diary in the darkest corner of the library where he will never find it, and where, perhaps many years from now, someone will discover it and read it and pity me.
I know he will never again allow me a moment’s solitude or freedom, even to scrawl down my thoughts in this simple book. I am taking a risk by writing this now, locked in my dressing room in the middle of the night.
He thinks he can control me, and perhaps he can, but he cannot control my thoughts. And tonight I have only one thought, one wish, one desire: to curse him. I will go to my grave cursing the name of Mattei. I call upon whatever is just and vengeful in the heavens to bring down destruction on every branch of this evil family and on their descendants in perpetuity, until they are extinguished.
“Whoa, that’s intense.” Beatrice took a moment to let it sink in. “Well, the Frenchman said they’d been cursed. Maybe that’s why the Mattei family is dying out, why they’re selling everything they own. It’s kind of ironic, actually.”
“It’s more than irony; it’s poetic justice,” Marco spat out. “You know, it was the Mattei who controlled the gates of the Ghetto.”
“What?” Beatrice thought she knew everything about the Mattei family. Her father was right; there was no such thing as too much research.
“C’mon, I’ll show you.”
They grabbed their things and walked the short blocks to Piazza Mattei. As they skirted down Via della Reginella, Marco pointed out something Beatrice hadn’t noticed before: a tiny mosaic of the Star of David embedded into the wall of a building. Beside it was a rough bas-relief menorah. “This means we’re near one of the Ghetto’s original entrances.”
The street opened onto Piazza Mattei. On the left stood Beatrice’s building; straight ahead was Palazzo Giacomo Mattei. Marco pointed to the ground. “See that?”
On one corner of the narrow street sat a marble slab. “This is the base of the gate that used to be here.” He kicked it for emphasis. “During the confinement of the Jews, the pope gave the Mattei family control of this gate. They charged the Jews a toll to come in or out. The Jews got poorer and the Matteis got richer.”
Beatrice’s stomach turned. “How do you know all this stuff?”
“Well, we’re Jewish. My dad’s family has lived in the Ghetto for centuries, and as you know, he’s obsessed with history. I grew up hearing these stories. Over four hundred years later,” Marco said, scowling at the palace, “and the Mattei are finally getting what they deserve. They’re losing everything.”
They’re losing everything. . . . His words echoed in her mind like a half-remembered dream. They were the same words the Frenchman had used when they were waiting in line together. Without realizing it, Marco had given her a missing piece of the puzzle.
Eighteen
THE SUBTLE ART OF EAVESDROPPING
“That’s it!” Beatrice gasped, her eyes brimming with triumph. “They stole the turtles themselves!”
“Who did?”
“The Mattei family!”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you see? The Matteis are destitute . . . they’re losing everything—you said it yourself. But the turtles, right outside their front door, are the work of Bernini; they’re worth a fortune. They sell those turtles and they’ll be rich again. They sell those turtles and they’ll have enough money to keep their palace!”
“I guess that’s one possibility,” Marco allowed.
“It’s more than a possibility! It makes perfect sense!” she insisted, her words struggling to keep up with her racing thoughts. “When I was in the Mattei library, I heard an Italian man—probably one of the Matteis—talking with the Frenchman I’d met earlier, Monsieur Cambriolage. He’s working for whoever is buying the turtles, I’m sure of it.”
Marco threw her a shrewd look. “What exactly did you overhear in that library?”
Beatrice closed her eyes, recalling the hushed conversation. “Well, the Italian man said he wanted to talk in private. He said something about not wanting them to be seen together and asked Cambriolage why he hadn’t waited for their appointment.”
“Did they say when this appointment was?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“What else did they say?”
Beatrice closed her eyes again. “Cambriolage said he’d heard a rumor that the Italian was planning to sell him fakes. That’s when I first realized the turtles had been replaced with replicas!”
“Wait a minute. I thought you saw them being switched yourself?”
“Well, not exactly,” she admitted. “I saw the turtles being ripped off, then I went to wake up my dad, but by the time we got back to the window, they’d already been replaced and the thief was gone.”
“So you didn’t actually see them being replaced with fakes? Then how can you be so sure these aren’t the real turtles?”
“You noticed a difference yourself!” Beatrice countered. “Anyway, the Italian man was very offended by the mention of the fakes. Too offended, like he was trying to hide something. He told Cambriolage that if he didn’t trust him, he could witness the theft himself, and be there in person for the handoff.” Beatrice paused. “That’s the part that doesn’t make sense, though.” She furrowed her brow. “They were acting like the turtles hadn’t been stolen yet, when I saw it happen Monday night.”
Marco drew in his lips. “But maybe they weren’t actually stolen? What if what you witnessed was a trial run? What if the thief had to make sure he’d be able to detach the turtles before they could go ahead with the plan? Then he put them back until he was ready to steal them for real. That would explain why the positioning is off. And it would mean the real theft hasn’t happened yet.”
“But if that were the case,” argued Beatrice, “what did he put into the bags he strapped onto his scooter?”
“I dunno, it could have been anything! His tools, maybe?” He looked up at the fountain. “Look, they may be in a different position, but like you said, the Italian guy told the French guy he could witness the theft himself, so it can’t have happened yet.”
“Listen, I know what I saw. And I saw those turtles being stolen.”
“All you saw was the thief take the turtles off the fountain. You can’t possibly be sure he didn’t put them right back on.”
Marco’s skepticism was a carnival mirror, magnifying her own self-doubt, and distorting h
er theories into ridiculous fantasy. She burned at his flippant dismissal of her ideas and opened her mouth to defend them.
Before she had the chance, a beat-up motor scooter buzzed past them into the square spewing a cloud of black smoke. Marco coughed resentfully, waving a hand in front of his face. “Che schifo!1 There are laws against driving a motorino with emissions like that. They pollute the environment!”
The grimy red scooter screeched to a halt in front of the Mattei Palace and a lanky youth slid off. With intricately inked arms, he reached up and removed his helmet to reveal a perfectly shaved head.
Beatrice’s eyes widened. She grabbed Marco’s hand to pull him behind the fountain. At the touch of his palm against hers, a zap of electricity ran up her arm. She dropped his hand as if it had burned her. “It’s him, it’s him, it’s him!” she whispered, trying to ignore her tingling fingertips and focus instead on the scene unfolding before them.
“Who?” Marco asked, goggling between Beatrice and the object of her gaping eyes.
“The thief!” she nearly shrieked. “The turtle thief!” She crouched behind the fountain, beckoning to Marco to do the same.
“But how do you know? Didn’t you say his face was covered with a ski mask when you saw him?”
“Shhh! Yes, but I saw the same guy prowling around the piazza the night I first arrived. Same shaved head, same tattoos: I know it’s him. Anyway, I recognize his scooter.”
“You’re sure it’s the same guy?”
“Positive.”
Marco squatted down beside her, and the two of them watched the thief march up to the towering doors of the Mattei Palace, helmet tucked cockily under one arm. As the gangly young man jabbed the door buzzer, Beatrice and Marco shared a corner-of-the-eye glance.
“I told you the Matteis were mixed up in this!” she hissed.
“I never said they weren’t.”
The man pressed the buzzer again, leaning on it for a good five seconds. When he still didn’t get a response, he whipped out his cell phone and punched a few keys.
“This is our chance!” whispered Marco excitedly. The mysterious arrival of their presumed thief seemed to have jolted him into action. Gone was Marco the doubter, and in his place was Marco the doer.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find out what he’s up to.” Marco’s eyes darted around the square, then flicked back to the thin man. He was still standing, cell phone to ear, apparently waiting for someone to pick up.
Across the piazza, the door of Beatrice’s building swung open and out tottered old Signora Costaguti, leading her white fluff ball of a dog on a leash. Marco hopped up and trotted in her direction, Beatrice following close behind.
“Signora, come sta?”2
“Wait, you know Signora Costaguti?” Beatrice asked.
“Of course he does!” the old woman exclaimed with a smile. “I buy all my antiques from Signor Morello. Wouldn’t trust anyone else.”
“Signora, mi potrebbe prestare Artemisia?” Marco asked hurriedly, indicating the yapping dog. “Solo qui in piazza, due secondi!”3
“D’accordo,”4 she said, nonplussed. “Wait! Better take this!” She handed him a plastic bag accompanied by a telltale raise of the eyebrow.
Marco smirked and stuffed the bag into his pocket. “You stay here,” he said to Beatrice with a look of warning.
“What are you up to?” Beatrice demanded in a harsh whisper.
“I know what I’m doing. Trust me!” he said through gritted teeth and scurried off.
Her eyes followed Marco across the square as he maneuvered the dog toward the thief, who was jabbering down the phone and gesticulating wildly. It was too far away to hear what he was saying, even if she could have understood.
“. . . don’t you think?”
“Hmm?” Beatrice said, turning back to Signora Costaguti. She blushed, realizing she’d missed whatever the old lady had asked her.
“It’s a lovely day for a stroll, don’t you think?” the old lady repeated sharply.
The truth was it was scorching. Anyone with any sense would stay inside with the air-conditioning on full blast on a day like this. But Beatrice merely nodded absently. She struggled to engage her elderly neighbor in conversation while simultaneously keeping tabs on Marco out of the corner of her eye. He made a comic sight, edging closer and closer to the thief while the dog pulled in the opposite direction, eager to explore all her favorite sniffing spots.
When Artemisia finally let Marco lead her toward the Mattei Palace, she abruptly hunkered down on her furry haunches, preparing to relieve herself then and there. Serves him right, thought Beatrice, suppressing a giggle. But to her surprise, Marco actually looked pleased with the turn of events. He pulled out the plastic bag with a satisfied grin and, once Artemisia had finished her business, he knelt to clean it up. As he carefully scooped up the dog poo, he kept one ear cocked toward the thief, who was still engrossed in his phone call.
“How are your lessons with Ginevra going?”
“Ginevra?” Suddenly the old lady had Beatrice’s complete attention. “You know Ginevra too?” Beatrice was starting to think Signora Costaguti was personally acquainted with the entire city.
“Ah, well, when you’ve lived in one place as long as I have,” she said with a smile, as if divining Beatrice’s thought. “No, I don’t know her personally. But when your father told me you needed a tutor, I made a few inquiries at the university where I used to teach, and I was given her name. She’s had some recent family misfortunes, so I heard. I thought it charitable to help her find a job—keep her out of trouble.”
“Trouble?” Beatrice raised an intrigued eyebrow. “What do you mean, trouble?”
But before she had a chance to learn more, Marco was standing in front of her with a wide grin on his dimpled face, Artemisia panting by his feet. “Grazie, signora,” he said, slightly out of breath.
“Grazie a te, Marco. I’m getting a bit old to bend down and clean up her little messes, so your gesture is much appreciated,” she said, taking the dog’s leash. “Now stay out of mischief, you two,” she added with a look that said she knew very well they’d do no such thing, and stalked off.
Beatrice was still digesting what Signora Costaguti had said, but Marco was clearly bursting with news. “Did you hear anything? Anything important?” she asked.
“That guy, he’s got an appointment with whoever was on the other end of that phone call. I missed most of the conversation, but I did hear one thing: he’ll be at Via Giulia number 98, tomorrow at one-something in the afternoon.”
“Where’s Via Giulia?”
“About a ten-minute walk from here.”
“I wonder what he’s up to . . .”
“Well”—Marco shrugged—“there’s only one way to find out.”
“You mean like . . . stake him out?” A bubble of nervous excitement popped in her belly.
“We go down to Via Giulia at one o’clock tomorrow afternoon—if we have to wait around a bit, no big deal—we find building number 98, and we see what happens.”
“What if somebody sees us?”
“So what? Who’s going to notice a couple of kids?”
“But didn’t he see you just now? You were cleaning up dog poo practically right under his nose,” she said with a snort.
“He was way too occupied with his phone call to notice me. We’ve got to at least try. Whatever happened with the turtles, we both agree they’re in danger. For all we know they could be on their way to France tomorrow!”
“You’re right,” said Beatrice grimly. “The Mattei family may be ruined, but we can’t let them ruin our fountain.”
Nineteen
APPOINTMENT ON VIA GIULIA
The next morning Beatrice could barely sit still during her lesson. She was both thrilled and petrified at the prospect of lying in wait for a thief and his accomplices.
Ginevra, back to her cool and collected self, was teaching her to conjug
ate regular verbs. Ordinarily Beatrice would have jumped at the chance to learn something so advanced, but today she had other things on her mind. The unrelenting heat didn’t help. It seemed to get hotter every day, if that were possible.
Once the lesson was finally over, she took a cool shower and had to skip lunch to make her appointment with Marco at a quarter to one. They set off for Via Giulia, crossing Via Arenula, the western boundary of the Ghetto. Beatrice felt a tingle of guilt for leaving the neighborhood against her father’s orders, mixed with a zap of excitement that she was traipsing around Rome on the trail of an international art thief. Could this really be her life?
After a short walk, they reached Via Giulia. The street stretched out before them, long and straight, an unexpected thoroughfare in a city full of narrow, meandering alleys. They walked a ways in silence until Beatrice piped up, “Hey, I forgot to tell you something.”
“What?”
“Well, I was doing a little research the other night, and I read that the Mattei Palace was built directly on top of the ruins of an ancient site, the Theater of Balbus.”
“That’s interesting, I guess. But what does it mean for us?”
“Don’t you see? The ruins are right under the palace! I looked it up in my guidebook, but they’re closed to the public. Caterina’s secret room has got to be down there somewhere.”
Marco’s eyes widened. “Yes! It has to be!”
Beatrice did a double take. He agreed with her—it was a miracle.
“Now it makes sense why she wrote—” He stopped short.
“Why she wrote what?”
“Hang on,” he said, “if the ruins are closed to the public, how are we supposed to get in?”
“Who knows? I had a hard enough time getting into the palace during the public auction viewing. What were you about to say?”
“Nothing important,” he said dismissively. “Even if we did manage to get into the ruins,” he continued, the cynical note creeping back into his voice, “I doubt we’d find anything.”
Beatrice opened her mouth to disagree but Marco yammered on. “And even if the secret room is in the ruins like you say, that doesn’t mean anything’s hidden there. I bet no one’s been down there in centuries.”
Midnight in the Piazza Page 9