by April Smith
“My father. His name was Miguel Sanchez.” Cecilia freezes on the spot, still gripping a slotted spoon. “Your father was Miguel Sanchez? I didn’t realize he was your father.” “What did you think?”
She fumbles. “I thought maybe he was an uncle or a cousin and that you and I were distantly related. But, Ana, he is my father, too.” I am not impressed. “Seriously, it’s a common name.” “Yes, it is a common name,” she snaps impatiently. “But for him to speak of a girl named Ana in America? That is too much of a coincidence. Did you know he was from the town of Cojutepueque?” “I thought it was called La Palma, but that could be wrong.” Cecilia has put down the spoon and turned off the stove.
“It’s in the mountains, thirty-five minutes from the capital, San Salvador. My mother was Eulalia. Together they owned a fish market. It started out as a space in the mercado but eventually they bought three stalls. She ended up running it because Papa wasn’t always there. He was often in America.” “Where in America?”
“Nobody knew. At times he would send money, so maybe that’s why she tolerated his absence. He would come and go. Then one day he never came back.” “Do you have a photo of him?”
“Somewhere.”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t remember what he looked like. He died when I was five, and my grandfather threw out all the pictures.” Cecilia is shocked. “He died?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“How?”
I hesitate. “Are you sure you want to know?” She nods. “He was murdered.” “Did they ever find the killer?” “No. The case was never pursued. In fact, there never was a case.” “Capito. Because he was a Spanish man, in the country illegally.” I don’t answer.
Cecilia brushes moist eyes. “We never knew what happened to him,” she murmurs. “I was a teenager when he left for good.” “This is crazy.”
“My mother told me that he had a wife in America.” I remember the day I found the marriage certificate in a bank vault in Santa Monica, California, after my own mother died, proving that she had been married to Miguel Sanchez. Her relationship with a brown-skinned immigrant was the cause of my California grandfather’s lifelong rage at both of us (she, the whore; me, the half-breed), and why my mother and I stuck together, afraid of his explosive fits. I suppose I’m still fighting the bad guys because I couldn’t fight Poppy. Now the sudden recollection of my mother — for some reason, that damn worn apron made of soiled, quilted squares that had seen a hundred meat loaves and pans of brownies, which she would never replace because it was good enough — makes me soften with longing for her comforting presence, taken away too soon.
“This woman in America,” I press. “Did you know her name?” “It was a strange name. Like a princess in a fairy tale.” “Was it Gwen?”
My mother’s name. The recognition is instantaneous. Miguel Sanchez’s other wife. We stare at each other.
Oh my God!
“We are half sisters!”
We embrace, embarrassed, giddy.
“What do we do?” Cecilia’s brown eyes are wide.
“I don’t know!” I laugh. “Make dinner?” Cecilia throws a cold stare at the assemblage of dishes as if about to sweep it all aside.
“We should be making Salvadoran food!” “What is Salvadoran food?” “You’ve never had pupusas?” she cries. “Living in Los Angeles? Corn tortillas stuffed with pork? Next time I will cook them for you.” Our chatter becomes animated as we compare childhoods — what we wore to school, friendships, crushes, restrictions, dating, church. I cut the melon and remove the rind. Cecilia takes a package from a cabinet near the cold stone floor. Sliding the burlap wrapping away, she reveals a dark pink hunk of prosciutto, which she slices with the practiced care of a surgeon. Moments later, crescents of bright orange melon and transparent feathers of prosciutto are arranged on a platter. We lay linen on the table, set the silverware and pasta bowls. She minces garlic, lemon zest, and parsley with precise, aware movements; not hurried, not dismissive, not just throwing something in the microwave, and I try to slow down and follow the rhythm of her lead.
Nicosa returns with Giovanni, who is fresh from the field of battle — pink-cheeked, with muddied legs and reddened knees, his hair as soaking wet as if it had just rained.
“Cosa è sucesso?” Nicosa asks, sensing that something is going on in the kitchen besides pasta with cherry tomatoes.
“We just found out we are sisters,” Cecilia announces.
“È vero? Really?” “Half sisters,” I murmur awkwardly, still not used to the idea. “Same father, different mothers. Different countries.” “We are sisters!” Cecilia declares. “There are no halves.” Giovanni gives me a sweaty hug. “You are my aunt!” He grins.
“You understand why this happened?” Nicosa demands. “Because it is Palio.” Giovanni’s cheeks flush. I expect a cynical teenage reply, but instead he cries, “It’s true!” “They say that in July and August the people of Siena go mad from the heat, and that is when they have the Palio. You must understand the Palio is not just a race,” Nicosa explains, serious as a priest. “It is a time of analysis that arouses deep emotions. You abandon cowardice and embrace action. You defeat death and create life. The city is like a hole in time, every monument and painting in Siena possessing a symbol or a secret code that brings us back into the past. Show your aunt the famous Magic Square.” Obediently, Giovanni grabs a scratch pad and with dirt-stained fingers spells out the letters:
SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS
“It’s a Latin puzzle that can be read in every direction,” Giovanni says, excitedly. “See how the word tenet forms a cross? This mystery”—he taps the pad—“is written on the wall of our own church, the Duomo.” Not for the first time since I have come to the abbey, I feel a chill.
“What does it mean?”
“ ‘God holds the plow, but you turn the furrows,’ ” Giovanni says.
I look quizzically at my new sister, staring at the letters over my new nephew’s shoulder. “What does that mean?” “There are two types of fate,” Cecilia replies. “The actions of God, and our own responsibility for our lives. Two kinds of fate have brought us together.” Nicosa pops the cork on a cold bottle of Prosecco. “Welcome to the family. Salute.” We four touch glasses.
“Congratulations, Giovanni,” I say.
“Why?”
“For holding the flag in the parade. Your mom says it’s a big deal.” “Oh.” He blushes. “Grazie.”
“It’s not simply that he holds it”—Cecilia begins, but Nicosa stops her by encircling her waist and stage-whispering in her ear.
“Shhh. She will see.”
“Okay, caro.” Cecilia smiles and lifts her mouth to be kissed.
But now we have a problem.
I am leaning against the pillows on the sweet-pea bed, on the phone with Dennis Rizzio.
“She’s not just a relative,” I say, covering my legs with the cashmere throw. “She’s my sister. Her son is my nephew. How can I do this?” “Did you and Ms. Nicosa grow up together?” he demands, a crackling New York counterpunch. “Did you two share a crib? You know this lady less than twenty-four hours. You know nothing about her. She’s a blank slate.” “I can tell you that she needs me. Why else would she want me here? She’s clear about not letting her husband know I’m FBI — she’s trying to walk some kind of a line. I don’t know what it is, except there’s fear and desperation that she thinks only someone close, like a sister, would understand. I feel a responsibility toward that. Also to the case.” I’m worrying the fringes on the blanket. “I hope I can do both.” “Trust me, she’s not a real sister. Your sister is the one who makes you drive three hours on the Long Island Expressway because it’s Mother’s Day and she doesn’t want to come to you. She’s a bossy pain in the ass you have to tolerate because she’s your sister, because if you don’t, your brother, who can’t stand her either, is gonna get mad. You
and Cecilia Nicosa have nothing like that. No obligations, which is good. So don’t jump to conclusions.” “I think she’s still testing me.” “Why do you suppose she doesn’t want her husband to know you’re Bureau? Because he’s up to his neck in cocaine, and she knows it, and she wants her and the kid out. That’s her agenda. Nothing has changed,” Rizzio insists. “You’re in an ideal position. She reached out to you, remember? Like you say, she wants your help.” I find myself relaxing back into the pillows. The tension escapes with a sigh — I am back inside my comfort zone. Dennis is right. Let me do what I’m good at: pretending to be who I’m not. Put aside these notions of what family is supposed to be and accomplish the task.
“You’re more of a help to Cecilia as an agent who can get her out of there than as some bogus half sister. What does that mean, anyway? History. Words on paper.” Right, I think, wanting to be convinced. My loyalty is to the mission.
“Caught a break in the London attack,” Dennis is saying. “Are you interested?” “Sure.”
In truth, I’m pretty well past the whole thing. It was literally another time in another country. Italy has absorbed my focus now.
“The Brits traced the vehicle identification number on the abandoned Ford in Aberdeen to Southall, West London. The original owner, Mr. Hafeez Khan, says he sold it to ‘a foreign type’ as a junker for five hundred pounds cash. It had almost ninety thousand kilometers on it. No paperwork; the buyer takes the keys and drives away. The seller doesn’t even have a name.” I squirm underneath the covers.
“So there’s no way to ID the guy?” “Mr. Khan is sitting down with a police artist as we speak. It’ll be interesting if he comes up with a description of the same guy you saw in South Kensington.” “How did he contact the buyer?”
“The car was sold on Craigslist. They met in a parking lot. Like I said, no paperwork, but Mr. Hafeez did keep one remnant of the transaction. He didn’t remember at first, but he still had the buyer’s phone number. Are you with me?” “Barely.”
“Mr. Khan is a butcher, so what does he do? He writes the phone number of the guy who wants to buy his car on a piece of paper and sticks it on that nail where they put the receipts. The Met Police search his shop and it’s still there. You know that nail thing?” “Yes, I do.” My eyes are closing.
“Just like they have in every New York deli. They have them in London, too. And this entire case could turn on it. One nail. I thought that was something.”
SEVEN
Cecilia decides to give a party in my honor. It will be outdoors by torchlight at the abbey, in the ruins of the original church. I guess this is why she keeps banquet tables stacked up in the dining room, ready to roll. Someone else will do the cooking, but the key ingredients have to be assembled according to Cecilia’s standards, from individual shopkeepers she’s known for twenty years in the district of the noble contrada of Oca in the heart of Siena.
Oca district is clearly marked by green and white silk with a crowned white goose flying from every building — as opposed to Oca’s blood enemy, Torre, the Tower, whose blue and burgundy banners, showing an elephant carrying a tower, warn that you are entering enemy territory. Just like gangland L.A., sporting the wrong colors in the wrong district during Palio is either a deliberate challenge or just plain stupid.
We are dutifully wearing Oca scarves, flowing capelike over the shoulders, as we haul string bags filled with groceries up the forty-five-degree incline of Arte della Lana; it’s barely ten in the morning, and my neck is prickly with perspiration. We turn a corner and the street drops to S. Andrea Gallerani in a heartbeat. Ahead is another rise. If you graphed it, our little shopping trip would look like a killer hills workout on a treadmill.
And yet Cecilia is stepping doelike over the pavers in high heels and an Armani dress with tiny dots that she will later wear to the hospital, movie star sunglasses, and a buckle-encrusted marigold leather purse as big as a watermelon. I notice that the other women, young and old, all of them in Oca scarves like flocks of green and white hens, are also carrying handbags and wearing dresses — tailored cotton with belts, or splashy bosom-revealing rayon — going about their morning business with self-assured femininity. And here I am, dressed L.A.-style for a day in the sun: hiking shorts, adventure shoes, water bottle, and baseball cap, trudging behind.
Cecilia is so in charge of her world, you forget that it isn’t her world. Passing a shop with eye-catching patterns of blush peaches and dark plums reminds her of helping her mother at the fish store in El Salvador when she was five years old. Her stories are told in clean, thought-out paragraphs. Reflexively running Cecilia through my FBI profiling machine, I assess her as a high-functioning, fiercely well-organized, extroverted personality. Which means it will not be easy to get past her defenses. When she feels secure, she will tell me her secrets; why she asked me here and what her husband is up to. I must be patient.
“I had to arrange the fishes on the ice so that they looked like flowers.” She describes the design with a doctor’s hand — long fingers, graceful and strong — gold bracelets jumping. “I was also working in the house. We had no housekeeper — no need for one since we didn’t own things. We had coffee bushes growing everywhere, like weeds, and when I was little, I would pick the beans when they were red and sell them at the market. I would help with the laundry and take care of the pets. I had two dogs; they were my most beloved things in the world.” “I couldn’t have pets,” I say. “My grandfather wouldn’t allow it. I used to talk to the worms in the backyard.” Cecilia laughs so hard she chokes and almost stumbles. “Playing with worms? That’s very sad.” “I was happy when it rained and all my friends came out.” “Stop, you are making my makeup run!” She dabs her eyes under the sunglasses. It pleases me to amuse her. Not everybody gets my jokes, especially at the Bureau.
“We had beautiful wild birds,” she goes on. “We kept them in cages. I loved them, too. You know who was my favorite? That yellow one in the cartoon who is always making trouble, what is he called?” “Tweety Bird?” I ask incredulously.
Cecilia laughs again and blushes. “Yes, that’s him.” “You had one, a toy?”
“No, just a tiny room and a lamp. On the walls, I painted that little bird. I would spend hours painting him. It took me away from my homework or when I was overwhelmed and stressed out. My mother sent my brothers and me to private Catholic school, and then to the university — with no support from the government. My aunts and their husbands gave money to pitch in with my studies, so I had to do well.” “And our father? Miguel Sanchez?” “He wasn’t there,” Cecilia reminds me quietly. “He was in America, remember? Married to your mother.” “Not for very long.”
I am struck with a pang of envy. What if my absent father did spend more time with his El Salvadoran family? What difference can it make now?
“I guess we have that in common.” “What?”
She asks this kindly, as a question.
“It’s funny, but we both grew up without the same father. I have virtually no memory of him. Except for one blurry image … He’s just not there. And you didn’t get much of him, either.” “A little more, perhaps. I know his face. He was very friendly-looking. I’ll find that picture. He was playful, and he enjoyed making jokes, like you.” “You and I, we each have pieces missing.” After a silence, Cecilia says, “True.” “And we’re both half-and-half. You’re from El Salvador, but you might as well be Italian.” “I am not one thing or another,” Cecilia says.
Around the tourist attraction of the Church of Sant’ Antonio Abate there are stores with bombastic windows crowded with cheeses, chocolates, sausage, and mountains of gorgeously wrapped panfòrte, the signature fruitcake of Siena, with seventeen ingredients — one for each contrada — and hard as the brick of the houses that surround us in an almond-colored maze. The old lanes tilt and curve, go uphill and down and return to the starting point, like the meandering talk between us.
“What made you search for me?” I ventur
e. “Why now?” “Didn’t you read my letters?” Cecilia asks. “I thought you knew about the inheritance.” “Yes, you mentioned it, but I wasn’t sure.” “You have an inheritance coming from the family. It’s small — a couple of thousand euros. It came when we sold the fish market, after my mother died.” “Thank you,” I say. “That’s very honorable of you to seek me out.” “I did want to meet you, after all these years.” “You made a big effort.”
“It was the right thing to do,” she says. “The money belongs to you.” She sounds awfully matter-of-fact, compared to the emotion in the letters, in which she begged for information about the American relation she had held in her heart for many years. Is she disappointed in what she found? Or, faced with it, has she reconsidered whatever bold moves she imagined?
As we walk, I’m figuring out how to go deeper. It is afternoon, and from the rows of houses, scores of green shutters have opened to the breeze. Old people are everywhere. And happy, too. They watch from doorways or perch on wooden fruit crates that they pick up and move as the sun moves. Cecilia introduces me to each and every nonna, it seems, and they respond with sweet attempts at English. “Hear you soon!” Finally we come to a small square with a fountain and another church.
“Fontebranda is the oldest fountain in Siena. Here I was baptized into Oca when we got married. If I was not baptized to the contrada, the marriage would be impossible.” “Can sisters tell each other absolutely anything?” I ask.
“Yes, of course.”
“I noticed that you and your husband are very affectionate — but you don’t sleep in the same room.” “We do sleep together, but not every night,” Cecilia replies tartly. “He starts snoring like a train and then I have to leave. I get emergency calls, I need my sleep.” “What does that do for your marriage?” “Probably saves it.”