by Aaron Elkins
“That’s fascinating. What’s he like, do you know? Does he want to see his son?”
“I have no idea if he wants to see Phil, but the guy who talked to him wasn’t too impressed. He’s a familiar figure with the local police up there—scuffles, public drunkenness, bar fights, that kind of thing. In and out of jail, but never for anything terribly serious. The reason he’d been to Luzzatto was to get a cut cheek patched up. Somebody’d taken a chunk out of it with a broken wine bottle.”
“Ick,” she said.
“He lives with a woman—Caravale’s thinks she’s his common-law wife—who everybody says fried her brains with drugs years ago. Still hires out to do housework when she can find somebody who doesn’t know her reputation, which isn’t too often.”
“Whew, not exactly Ozzie and Harriet. What does his father do? Does he have a job?”
“He’s a part-time night watchman at the Umbrella Museum up there.”
“At the what?”
“Il Museo dell’Ombrello e del Parasole. Caravale says it’s Gignese’s number-one tourist attraction. Well, its only tourist attraction.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “An umbrella museum. Only in Italy. Okay, go ahead, I’m all ears.”
“There isn’t any more. That’s it.”
“About his father, I mean.”
“That’s all.”
She shook her head, perplexed. “That’s all extremely interesting, but why is Caravale calling you about it?”
“He didn’t know what to do with the information. I mean, he talked to Phil the other day, and he knows the way he feels about his father—”
“Not too warmly. Let’s see,” she said, ticking off the items on her fingers, “there was ‘creep,’ ‘lousy,’ ‘no good’ . . .”
“Exactly. So he wasn’t sure whether he even ought to mention it to him, and he figured that since I was an old friend, he’d leave it up to me.”
“And will you? Mention it to him?”
“What do you think? Should I? I don’t want to upset the guy for no reason, but—”
“I think he has a right to know. He can decide for himself if he wants to see him. It’s his father, Gideon. You can’t keep something like that to yourself.”
He nodded. “I guess that’s what I think too,” he said, but without much certainty. “I’ll call him now.”
PHIL was adamant about wanting nothing to do with Franco Ungaretti. “That sonofabitch? He abandoned us,” he yelled bitterly into the phone. “He never came to see us again, he never wrote, he never told us where he was. And she really loved him, you know? But he just took off, ‘See ya around sometime.’ I don’t have a single happy memory of him, not one. He didn’t give a damn about me, why would I give a damn about him? Screw him.”
They had been happy to let it go at that, but the next morning he showed up in the Primavera’s breakfast room as they were finishing their coffee and plopped down on a chair at their table.
“Okay, you win,” he said, “I’ll go and talk to him. But only on one condition.”
“What do you mean, we win?” Julie asked. “I don’t recall that we were pressing you.”
“No, but if I act as if I’ve gotten pushed into it, then that lets me not admit to myself that I’m kind of curious to see him. See? It’s my technique for dealing with cognitive dissonance. Does that make any sense?”
“With you, it does,” Gideon said. “So what’s the condition?”
The waiter, seeing Phil, brought another caffé latte setup: pitchers of milk and coffee, and a giant cup.
Phil poured the milk and cream in at the same time, Italian style. “The condition is,” he said to Gideon, “you gotta come with me.”
“Me?” a surprised Gideon exclaimed. “No, thanks, leave me out of this. What do I have to do with it?”
“Nothing, I just . . .” His skinny shoulders peaked up toward his ears. “I don’t know, I just feel like I need some moral support. This is kind of a weird thing for me, you know?”
“Phil, I’d like to help out, but sitting in on something as . . . as personal as that . . . I’d feel . . . well . . .”
“Oh, do it,” Julie told him. “I’d do it in a flash if I knew enough Italian to be any help.”
“Thank you, Julie,” Phil said warmly. “You don’t know how good it makes me feel to know that I have one real friend anyway, someone to stick by me when I need support. But never mind, I guess I can get along without seeing my poor, old, long-estranged old father, who I haven’t set eyes on in—”
“Okay, okay,” Gideon said. “I’ll go with you. But I’m not getting involved. I’m just there for—”
“Moral support, right. I really appreciate this, Gideon.”
“You owe me, pal. I hate this stuff. Well, you better call him and set something up then. We only have a couple of days before we leave.”
“I already did, last night. I used the number you gave me. Guess what, it’s a bar. He doesn’t have a telephone, but one of the waiters knows him and gives him messages.”
“You didn’t actually talk to him?” Julie asked.
“Nope, left a message. Told him I’d be there, in the bar, at ten o’clock this morning. He could come, or he could not come, it’s up to him. If he shows up, fine. If he’s not interested enough to see me”—he shrugged—“then at least I know he hasn’t changed, he’s the same useless crud he always was.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s about a twenty-five-minute drive from here, so either way we should be there and back before noon. I don’t intend to make this very long.”
Gideon folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, tipping it onto its rear legs. “So without even talking to us, you just assumed I’d give in. You just assumed that, whatever plans we might have, we’d change them to suit you. You just assumed Julie would be glad to entertain herself for two hours so I could squander my valuable time propping you up so you’d have the nerve to face your poor, old, long-estranged old father.”
Phil grinned amiably at them. “Yup.”
GIGNESE was one of a scattering of out-of-the-way villages along a twisty, switch-back road up the slopes of Mount Mottarone. At an elevation of over a thousand feet, it commanded a spectacular view over Stresa, the Borromean Islands, and the vast blue expanse of Lake Maggiore, but Gignese itself was a distinctly modest, working-class hamlet with a paper-thin tourist veneer (two small family hotels) optimistically based on the drawing power of the Umbrella Museum. Indeed, the museum, a surprisingly large, good-looking structure of brick and concrete standing by itself at the entrance to the town, was the one modern building they saw. The rest of the village consisted of a one-block commercial center—a gas station, a church, the two hotels, a couple of bars, a grocery store—surrounded by a few concentric rings of aging houses and apartment buildings in various shades of yellow-brown, mostly running from mustard to ochre.
All in all, a depressing place after Stresa’s perfect, postcard prettiness, and Phil looked as if he was having second thoughts about getting out of the car when they pulled up across the street from the Bar Ricci.
“Up to you,” Gideon said. He had left the engine running. “If you want to forget about it, no problem. Don’t do anything on my account.” He was still squeamish about the idea of horning in on what was sure to be an emotion-fraught encounter between father and son.
“I know, I know.” Phil was raking the place with his eyes. The Bar Ricci was the kind of no-frills establishment found in every village in Italy, no matter how small; a bar-café, actually, with a newspaper rack and a single metal table and chairs outside on a tiny terrace. Inside they could see eight or nine men—no women—sitting in groups of two or three, reading newspapers or chatting over coffee or brandy. The door was open and it wasn’t yet 10 A.M., but already the room was blue with cigarette smoke.
“Is he in there?” Gideon asked.
“Who knows? All I remember are some pictures of him in a scrapbook, mostly from before, when he was a sk
ier.”
Gideon looked at him. “He was a skier?”
“Are you kidding? He was the best downhiller in Italy, or at least the wildest. The Avalanche, they called him. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it sometime.” He jerked his head. “Jeez, Gideon, I wish you hadn’t told me they found him.”
“Well, hell, Phil—”
“I know. You did the right thing, it’s only that—” He started. “Oh, Jesus, there he is, that’s him. Sonofabitch, that’s my father!”
He was staring at a lean, sinewy man in his sixties, with lank, thinning, iron-gray hair, sitting at the lone outside table. Beside him was a hunched-over woman of about the same age, wrapped in a shawl despite the mild weather, and wearing a shabby, ink-black wig that wasn’t quite straight. They were facing slightly away from each other, not speaking. The man’s eyes were constantly on the move. The woman seemed to be talking to herself. There was nothing on the table in front of them.
“Are you sure?” Gideon asked. “You haven’t seen him since you were a little kid.”
“It’s him,” Phil repeated. “I remember. See the way he holds his head on the side, like he’s right on the verge of getting an idea? That’s from when he broke his neck or something. It ended his career. See the way his fists are kind of curled all the time, almost clenched? See the way he’s, like, always looking around and around, waiting for someone to insult him or challenge him to a duel, or something? See how—”
“Phil, I thought you didn’t remember him. I thought all you had were some old pictures in a scrapbook.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I was wrong, because a lot of things are coming back. Man,” he said wonderingly, “I’ve got neurons that haven’t fired in forty years popping away like mad. All kinds of memories and associations. He looks so small to me—I mean, I remember him as this big strong guy, but I guess that’s because I was so little myself. I remember . . . who’s he sitting with? You think that’s his wife? His so-called wife?”
“I suppose so.”
“Yeah. Jesus, look at her. She looks like her brains are cooked, all right.” He clasped his hands on his head and pressed down, as if he were trying to keep the top from coming off. “Oh, God, what am I doing here?”
“Phil, if you don’t want to—”
“No, no, I want to. You know me, I like to whine. But he wasn’t supposed to bring anybody, so what’s that all about?”
“You weren’t supposed to bring anybody either.”
“Yeah, that’s true. Okay, what the hell.” He took a breath, reached for the door handle, and looked at Gideon. “Ready?”
“Let’s go,” Gideon said as they got out. “And Phil . . . good luck, pal.”
“Good luck what?”
Gideon looked at him over the roof of the car, not sure what he’d meant. “Whatever you want.”
TWENTY
FRANCO Ungaretti had no trouble identifying Phil either. “Fili, yes?” he said in Italian as they neared the table. “When did you get so old?” He seemed determinedly sullen, as if making sure that they knew he’d come against his better judgment. He continued to scrutinize Phil as they sat down. “Look at that gray in his hair, do you see that?” he said to the woman. “My son looks older than me, isn’t that something?”
The woman, absorbed in counting something off on her fingers, quirked up the corners of her mouth in a mechanical smile.
“You don’t look so terrific yourself, Franco,” Phil said, which was true enough. The older man looked like a broken-down old featherweight who’d been in the ring a few times too often. His nose had been broken more than once, one ear had been partially cauliflowered, and there was healed scar tissue above his eyes. An uglier scar on his cheek, spongy and shiny and pink, looked as if it had been left by a claw hammer, but was probably the one from the broken bottle. He had poorly fitting upper and lower plates that clacked as he spoke, and made the tendons of his neck jump as he tried to keep them from shifting.
“I don’t . . . is it true there are no snails in Ireland?” said the woman, momentarily surfacing, before going back to her fingers without waiting for an answer. The joints, Gideon saw, were puffy with arthritis and had to be painful.
Franco stabbed a finger at Phil. “You,” he said sharply, “can call me ‘Father.’”
“Oh, really? I figure I can call you whatever I want,” Phil shot back, and the two of them glowered at each other.
“Well, this has certainly started off well,” Gideon murmured in English to Phil; and aloud in Italian: “Why don’t I get us some coffee? Anyone?”
“I can buy my own coffee,” Franco said, seeming to notice Gideon for the first time. “Who are you supposed to be, anyway? What do you want here?”
Gideon, sitting across from him, leaned back and away from an almost-visible gust of brandy and stale tobacco fumes.
“He’s a friend of mine, Gideon Oliver. I asked him to come. I wanted to give him the chance to meet my esteemed and beloved father,” Phil said with heavy-handed sarcasm. “So who’s your lady friend?”
“This is Mrs. Ungaretti.” Franco clamped his teeth together, clack, and fixed Phil with a you-got-a-problem-with-that? stare.
“I don’t like being touched,” the woman murmured to no one in particular. “I never have. I don’t know why that should be, unless it’s a family trait.” No one paid any attention to her.
Phil started to answer his father, but decided to let it pass. He didn’t have to say it: As far as he was concerned, there was only one Mrs. Ungaretti, and it wasn’t this addled lady.
“As long as you’re a friend of the family,” Franco said to Gideon, “I’ll have a brandy, a cognac. Make it a double.”
“Yes, I will too,” the woman said vaguely. “Make it a double.”
“She’ll have an espresso,” Franco said.
“Espresso, yes, that’s what I meant,” she said docilely. “With a twist of lemon, if such a thing is possible.”
“Phil?” Gideon asked.
But Phil didn’t hear him. Father and son were engaged in locking glares like a couple of bellicose ten-year-olds trying to stare each other down.
Gideon was grateful for the chance to escape, even temporarily. Not a man who was at ease with emotional fire-works in any case, he was surprised and disturbed by the way Phil was acting. In all these years, he realized, he had never once seen Phil angry—irritated, grouchy, fractious, yes; plenty of times. But really angry? Meanly sarcastic? Never. This was the first time he’d ever seen this gentle, go-with-the-flow man act rudely to anyone, and that was most unsettling of all. It seemed to go against nature.
He took all the time he could getting the drinks—brandy for Franco, espresso with lemon peel for Mrs. Ungaretti, cappuccino for himself—then carried them back out on a tray as slowly as he could get away with doing it. He was pretty sure things were going to get worse before they got better (if they got better, which was looking doubtful), and he was in no hurry to get back.
Indeed, when he returned, they were practically at each other’s throats. Phil’s face was white, with the muscles in his cheek pulsing, and Franco was half out of his chair, bending over the table, his fingers clutching the edge, shouting hoarsely at him. “Don’t you get so high and mighty with me! I’m not your damned father anyway, and for that, you can take my word for it, I thank God every morning of my life!”
“You’re right, you’re not my father,” Phil yelled back into his face, “and I’m not your son. My father was Mark Boyajian. You, you’re nothing!” He was trembling across his shoulders and down his arms.
“I’m nothing? I’m nothing? Don’t make me laugh! You’re nothing! You’re not even your mother’s son!” He, too, was deeply agitated. He snatched up the double brandy and tossed it down in two quick gulps with what started as a stage laugh and quickly became a ragged cough. Inside the café, people were nudging each other and faces were turning to take in the show.
“Phil,” Gideon said in English, �
��maybe we should just—”
Phil shook him off. “No, don’t you want to hear what he has to say? I mean, how often do you get the chance to hear this kind of bullshit? What’s that supposed to mean, I’m not my mother’s son?”
“What does it mean?” Franco said wildly. “You want to know what it means?” He lost his focus, let go of the table, and dropped heavily back into his chair, eyes closed. “What does it mean,” he sighed.
“I’m waiting,” Phil said.
“Come on, Phil,” Gideon said, putting a hand on his arm. “the guy’s obviously smashed, he’s just coming up with things to get you upset. Don’t you think we ought to—”
“You really don’t know, do you?” Franco muttered. “They really never told you? In all this time?”
“Know what?” asked Phil.
“Ah,” said Franco. “Ha, ha.”
“Ah,” said the woman. She reached under the wig, scratched enthusiastically at her scalp with a finger, and readjusted the black mat on her head.
A shiver traveled down Gideon’s back. Something bad was coming; you could feel it hovering in the air, waiting for its chance. He was sorry now that he’d told Phil about his father.
“It’s Vincenzo, the great Vincenzo, who is your mother’s son,” Franco cried. “Not you. What do you think of that? Isn’t that funny? To be not your own mother’s son?” He tried a laugh, but his muscles were too rigid to bring it off. He sounded, in fact, a little crazy. His fists, loosely curled on the table until now, were clenched, so that the extensor tendons on the back of each hand stood out like drinking straws.
Phil gawked at him. His mouth opened and closed twice before he could get even a few garbled words out. “Vinc . . . what . . . ? How can . . . ? I don’t . . . I don’t . . .” He threw a perplexed, apprehensive look at Gideon, who was as clueless as he was.
Franco got to his feet again, more unsteadily this time, propping himself on the table with his fists and bathing them in a wash of alcohol and tobacco fumes. “Now I’m going to tell you a very interesting story,” he said, raking them with his eyes.