by April Smith
“This is how we did it in medical school. Never enough time.” She disappeared into the cavernous closet. A moment later she was wearing a navy blue chemise.
I zipped it up for her. “They have good prosthetics now, don’t they?” “Yes, they do,” she answered shortly.
She adjusted the straps on her black sling-backs, remembered earrings, grabbed the stethoscope, black doctor’s bag, and purse off the bed, and then I followed down the stairs. Rain was already resounding loudly when she pulled the double-thick wooden door open. Outside it was cold and still dark. I held her stuff as she struggled into a raincoat. At the very last minute she spun around and gave me a quick hug.
“I am glad you’re here,” she said, and her heels dug into the gravel Soon I could hear the engine catch.
But the professional talk is a ruse, just like my reason for being here in the first place. The moment Cecilia leaves I feel that I am losing traction, on the case as well as on my feelings. I can’t let the attack on his son color the search for Nicosa’s alleged connection with the mafias.
Sitting still at the long kitchen table, I let the cup of tea warm my hands. It reminds me of being stuck waiting for Sterling in Dublin for eight straight days of rain, in what I thought was a hotel, but which turned out to be a boardinghouse. Going crazy alone in the room one night, I went down to the parlor, a barren space with a linoleum floor and a heatless electric fireplace. Straight-backed chairs had been pushed against the walls and were occupied by dark-suited, middle-aged men drinking whiskey. Someone who lived in the boardinghouse had died, and they had gathered there. Nobody spoke to anyone else. The rain hammered. Then, as now, I was a foreign traveler wrapped up in someone else’s crisis, with no place else to go.
In the kitchen I feel imprisoned by insurmountable great stone walls. I miss Sterling with a feeling of futility. How will we ever get from here to there? His absence has become an almost palpable thing, like the cold humidity in the kitchen. We haven’t spoken since we said good-bye on the street in London, and the separation is becoming cruel. I could use his wisdom on the impossible position of being an agent of the law with no way to enforce it.
When I called Dennis Rizzio in Rome to tell him about the attack on Giovanni, as well as to chide him for alerting the provincial police of my presence without telling me, that’s exactly what he said: “It’s Italian on Italian. We have no jurisdiction; it’s up to the local authorities,” even if the local authority — Il Commissario — has conflicting loyalties, thanks to the gangland culture of Siena. And thanks to the convoluted double-talk of the Italian system, I’m beginning to wonder if I can trust the legat, either.
As if actually arguing with Dennis, alone in the kitchen I pose the question out loud: “What was Giovanni up to?” Why was he outside the walls? What made him a target? Was it his famous family, or was he up to shenanigans of his own?
On a table near the front entrance of the abbey there is a pile of guidebooks for the use of the guests. I search for a schedule of bus service to Siena, but then can’t make heads or tails of it. Inside a binder of restaurant recommendations is a card for a taxi company. An hour later, when the driver arrives — receding hair, blue sunglasses despite the rain — we can’t seem to understand each other, but that is not a problem. I show him the paper Inspector Martini passed me in the ladies’ room, and we drive to that address, outside the walls of the city, where, she was covertly telling me, Giovanni’s vehicle was found by the police.
The little blue mailbox car is still in the same spot. It is a bad parking job, as if he stopped in a hurry and didn’t plan to stay long. The two-story stucco apartment buildings in this low-rent suburb are painted in reckless colors of turquoise and tangerine. Sliding glass doors open to narrow balconies that seem about to slide off the walls, like tiers of a badly made cake. Huddling beneath a golf umbrella from the abbey, I take out a notebook and sketch a map of the crime scene. An old habit, it helps me to think.
The glossy wet street is deserted, bloodstains washed away by the rain. Whom did Giovanni come to see? I’m guessing it was a teenage friend. In America you can tell student apartments by the beer cans and Tibetan flags, but here there is nothing to indicate any kind of tenants other than working families. People are waiting for a bus; behind them is a sliver of stores, including an Internet spot that also sells Indian jewelry, a Laundromat with bright red washing machines, a grocery, and a store with a window full of nothing but espresso pots.
The Muslim guy in the Internet spot speaks English but has nothing to tell me, there’s nobody in the Laundromat (who does laundry in the rain?), the coffeepot store is closed, and the grocery lady appears to have some form of dementia, but she’s interested in having company, so I take what I can get.
She’s wearing a dark flowered dress and a raggedy sweater, stamping around the wooden floors with fiercely scattered energy. Her hair is white and her eyes are mad, unnatural blue — bright lights in the musty dark. The electricity is off except in the deli case containing cheeses and prosciutto, cartons of eggs, and antipasti materials such as roasted peppers and calamari salad. Behind the counter are shelves of yellowing school supplies. When I point to Giovanni’s car across the street and display a photo of him that I lifted from Cecilia’s bedroom, she bursts into smiles and grabs my hands, wringing the life out of them, urging over and over, in a bizarre segue, that I must have torta di Pasqua, a desiccated Easter cake lying in a chewed-up box, that by my calculations must be three months old.
Finally I buy the thing for a euro. Delighted to be rid of what the rats won’t eat, she pulls a set of keys from the pocket of her apron and waves me through the back door. I have to laugh at myself: There’s always a deal. Now she is happy to lead the way beneath a grape arbor that provides a pleasant shelter from the rain, to a staircase that goes up to an apartment over the grocery store. “Fa presto!” she keeps saying, and unlocks the door to what I believe must be her home, where her husband is no doubt sitting mummified in an armchair holding a piece of Easter cake, but no, we are in an artist’s studio. An artist who, by the canvases stacked up against the walls, paints only clouds.
But they are wonderful, expressive clouds I recognize from the skies of Tuscany, captured in the midst of many ephemeral moods. This is a working painter whose mind is organized around neat rows of pigments in wire baskets, sketches pinned to walls, brushes in size order in clean tin cans, revolving sculptures of stones and twigs, shelves of art books and animal skulls. There is just a narrow cot for sleeping. This place is about disciplined work. A half-painted square of canvas, still showing ruled lines of perspective, is clipped to a large easel. The way it is positioned in the center of the room, underneath the skylight rattling with rain, makes you think of a big personality, always in the light.
Using hand gestures and my limited Italian, I manage to ask if the person who lives here is a friend of Giovanni.
“Sì, sì,” says the landlady. “Visita sempre.”
“He always comes here?”
“Sì!” Frowning, she mimes knocking on the door and walking in. Giovanni visits this place all the time, she seems to say. She knows because she sees him. He was here last night.
The old woman marches through the apartment, calling, “Mural?” and I expect to be presented with a wall-sized piece of art and bullied into buying it, but instead we enter the kitchen. Judging from the cot in the studio and the mess in here, Giovanni’s friend does not care very much about sleeping or eating. The counter is nothing but a plank of wood lying across a pile of cinder blocks. The paint-splattered sink is jammed with dishes and teacups, a rusted water heater suspended above. The landlady doesn’t react; she must snoop around up here all the time. Back in the room with the easel, I notice a pile of mail addressed to Muriel Barrett. Not “Mural,” but “Muriel.” The letters are postmarked London. The books around the house are in English.
“Where is Muriel?” I ask. “Dov’è?”
“La sbarra Australi
ana,” the landlady says.
I ask where Muriel is and she says Australia? I give her my notebook. Would she please write down the words? Australiana. Is she saying the painter is from Australia? With shaky fingers, the landlady draws a diagram with a crucifix in the middle, pointing emphatically—“Il Duomo” —and I understand she means the central cathedral in the old part of Siena, and there, where she makes a square and blackens it, is the location of the Australian bar that Giovanni told me about when we drove in from the bus station. “They speak English and have English beer!”
A special kind of excitement rises, as when pieces of an investigation start to fit. Hot damn. Six thousand miles away and I am back on home ground.
With a little push in the right direction from a bearded fellow at the English-language bookshop, I trot downhill on Via di Pantaneto until stopped by the words Happy Hour! chalked on a blackboard before a narrow doorway set into the stone-gray blocks of a nondescript building. A sign above says, WALKABOUT — AN AUSTRALIAN PUB. If you still had doubts such a thing could exist in the middle of Siena, Italy, the vestibule is stacked with placards for “Dundee Cocktail Hour.” The absolute darkness inside is like walking into a movie theater. A few groping steps, and then a gilded bar comes out of the gloom like a vision, a sparkling trove of golden beer taps and glistening glasses. There are strings of Foster’s beer flags, and toward the back, a tattered map of Australia. All the lights in the Walkabout are crimson, the way a bar should be; the stools are hard; the booths are hung with drawings of kangaroos.
The bartender is on a cell phone.
“It’s been sorted,” he says in a monotone. “I’ve given them the good news.” The bartender is English, stern, in his late forties, with buzz-cut hair, hefty, wearing a white T-shirt and burnt-orange jeans. He closes the phone and in the same clipped accent asks what he can get me.
I ask if Muriel Barrett is around.
“That’s her,” he says, indicating an empty stool and two full shot glasses.
“What is she drinking?”
“Rum e pera. Rum and pear juice.” “Oh my Lord.”
“Special of the house.”
“Go for it,” I say.
“You’re American.”
“I’m from L.A., and please don’t tell me your favorite TV show.” “I don’t watch TV,” the bartender growls, putting two glasses before me. “First shoot the rum, then the pear.” I do it, and a few moments later, from approximately the third chakra, the Tuscan sun bursts forth.
The bartender goes back to washing glasses. In the rear, some guys are throwing darts. The stool beside me remains empty. I stare at an endless motorcar race on the flat-screen. Who is this doll, Muriel, alone at a bar doing shots in the afternoon? I’m imagining she’s a solitary painter with a history of failed relationships, so she moves to Siena, a place so beautiful just walking out the door can give you an eye orgasm. She’s rail-thin, worn-looking, a couple of years older — way too fast for a sixteen-year-old, but what does Giovanni know? The race cars go around another dozen laps, along with the rum in my brain.
A high-pitched female voice shrills at us: “Saved my spot?” A short aging Englishwoman with kinky gray hair hauls herself up onto the stool. She is in her sixties, round like a barrel and eager as a toddler.
“Good man!” she cries, downing the rum and pear, one two.
The bartender says, “We thought you were a goner.” “I was in the loo,” declares Muriel Barrett theatrically. “Having a nice bowel movement.” The bartender cracks a smile and offers another round. I am thinking it might be a good time to switch to Foster’s.
“This lady has been waiting for you,” he explains to Muriel.
Muriel, apparently playing the Queen of Rum, inquires imperiously, “Who is she?”
I introduce myself as Giovanni Nicosa’s aunt and ask if she knows him.
“Yes, of course I know Giovanni. You’re his aunt?” And that kicks off the whole saga of how I came to be in Siena. I leave out the part about being an FBI agent.
Muriel Barrett has the face of a beagle, complete with errant whiskers, but she is not stupid. Her large brown eyes take in everything and hold it for future use. I ask how she knows Giovanni.
“Everybody knows everybody in Siena. Especially the English-speakers.” “Knows them, how?”
“Oh, the occasional game of darts.” “In a pub? He’s sixteen years old. What’s the drinking age in Italy?” “I don’t think there is one, is there, Chris?” the cloud-painter asks the bartender.
“The drinking age in Italy is when you’re old enough to see over the counter,” Chris replies.
“I’m his aunt.” Muriel watches with watery eyes. “You’ve explained the family history with stunning clarity. I do understand that you are his aunt.” “I’m concerned about Giovanni.” “Why? What’s going on?”
Muriel’s voice has dropped a key. Gone is the imperious bullshit. The eyes have adjusted to the line of questioning: cautious and indignant.
“He came to see you last night.” “Really? When was this?” “Around ten-thirty. Were you home?” “No, as a matter of fact, I was here. Wasn’t I, Chris?” Chris raises an eyebrow.
“His car is still outside your apartment.” Genuine surprise: “It is? I didn’t notice.” Then, “How do you know where I live?” “Giovanni was attacked last night.” “Attacked!”
“He’s in the hospital.”
Muriel stares.
“What happened to him?”
“Tower on Goose,” Chris pronounces flatly.
“Not necessarily.”
“Really?” he mimics, sarcastic now. “Like the Sienese aren’t all fucking nuts?” “But — why did you come to my studio?” “I wasn’t looking for you, Muriel. I was looking for Giovanni’s car. I asked around and met your landlady. She said he was there last night. He knocked on your door.” “I had no idea.”
“His parents are at the hospital. I’m trying to help them understand what happened.” “Will he be all right?”
“We don’t know. He was hurt pretty badly.” Chris is paying attention now. “This doesn’t happen in Siena.” I look at my watch. “I should call the hospital.” “No worries; I’ll take care of it,” he says. “You don’t want to deal with Italian phones.” Muriel uses a cocktail napkin to blot her tears. We wait in silence as Chris engages with someone at the hospital. He thrusts the phone at me. “Tell them you’re a relative.” My mind stalls. I can’t think of one word in Italian.
“How do you say it?”
“Sono la zia di Giovanni.”
I repeat the phrase like a dummy. Chris takes the phone and listens deeply. Now he’s thanking them. His tone has become polite. Muriel and I wait uneasily. He clicks off and speaks in that calm, eerie monotone.
“The boy is being taken to the operating room.” “For the leg?”
“Nothing regarding a leg. His heart is failing.” “Did he have a cardiac arrest?” “Might have. She said it’s critical.” “I’ll drive. I’m perfectly able,” Muriel announces crisply, and slips her purse beneath her arm.
ELEVEN
Even before I get to Giovanni’s room, there is a jam-up of nurses and technicians in the hall. As I peer at the huddle of green scrubs, listening to instructions ordered back and forth in Italian, the truth of being a foreigner has never been clearer. The huddle starts to move as one, and then the gurney shoots out the door, trailing IV stands and monitors. They veer left, and Giovanni passes right beneath my eyes. It is almost indecent to look at him, helpless and exposed, unconscious, pure white skin, his beautiful head in a blue paper cap lolling as they turn a corner. My jaw aches. I have been clenching my teeth.
Muriel, who has been arguing with someone at the nursing station, wobbles toward me looking flushed and unsteady.
“He has to have an operation on his heart. It’s all I could get out of her, the cheeky little snit. And why does she insist on wearing that God-awful smock?” Muriel sways on her feet. I grab
her fleshy biceps and ease her into a chair, wondering if the rum e peras have finally hit.
“Are you okay?”
“I’ve been through several bouts of cancer with my partner, Sheila. As a result, I tend to have a hard time in hospitals.” In the car I learned that Sheila works for a bank in Piccadilly, and only comes to Italy for three weeks in spring. Nevertheless, their ten-year relationship has endured across the channel. Winters in Siena, Muriel is happy to roost like a hen among her cloud paintings. “It works out,” Muriel assured me, while speeding to the hospital along a commercial shortcut through the sunflower fields, past storage silos and water treatment plants.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Like what the bloody cat dragged in. Look, I’m sorry, but it’s just too many bad memories. I’ve got to get out of here.” She gets to her feet and totters toward the nearest exit, adding incongruously, “Give my best to Giovanni.” Crowded with immigrants from defunct communist nations, the hallway resembles a Balkan bazaar. Tough, shaven-headed Albanian janitors are pushing mops. A Yugoslav family argues over the slumped head of a matriarch in a wheelchair. Somehow I convince the cheeky little snit in the God-awful smock (dinosaurs) to page Dr. Cecilia Nicosa, and moments later she appears in a crisp white lab coat with a stethoscope in the pocket. Her eyes are shrunken and exhausted. We kiss each other’s cheeks and sit side by side on a couch that matches the royal blue of the walls.
“Giovanni developed an irregular heartbeat,” she reports. “He was going into hypotensive shock. Nobody could understand it. I told you Dr. Ciardi fixed the artery in the leg, but the blood pressure kept going down and the danger is that if the new blood supply continues to drop, he could lose the leg. We did two tests — an angiogram and echocardiogram — and they both showed that blood was extravasating from the heart.” “What does that mean?” “There is a hole in the heart, and it is leaking blood.” “Was the hole there all along?” “No,” she snaps. “He was stabbed.” “I know that, but—”