As we stand up Piero runs his hand across his face and shakes his head, and I feel limp, like one of those animals—a possum or something—that plays dead when it’s cornered. Billy, one, me, nil, I think. She might as well have taken the red bag they found pinned to Ginevra Montelleone’s shoulder and thrown it in my face.
‘What do you think it means?’ I ask Piero as we begin to work our way through the crowded piazza.
He shakes his head again, and takes my hand as a couple almost crash into us and stagger away, giggling. ‘I don’t know.’
‘But you think it means something? It has to.’
‘Yeah. Probably.’
‘Will you tell Pallioti?’
‘Certo. Although,’ he adds, ‘they probably already have it. I think they have specialists who work on that kind of stuff, the homicidal version of the Stendhal syndrome.’
‘But you will call him?’ I stop, tugging on his hand like a stubborn child. ‘You’ll make sure? Even if he has it anyways?’
Piero turns to me. ‘Of course I’ll call him, cara,’ he says. There’s a hint of exasperation in his voice now. ‘I promise,’ he adds.
The whole piazza’s taken on a slow, drunken feeling. A saxophone wails, and behind us the singer starts crooning in something that might, or might not, be Italian. Pierangelo’s so tired that he sways slightly to the music, eyes half closed.
‘Let’s go home. Please,’ he says. And I nod. Then I remember I haven’t told anyone we’re leaving. Pissed off as I am with Billy, I still feel that I should let her know. I’ll tell Henry, and he can tell her. I edge my way back along the side of the piazza, Pierangelo following me. But when we step up by the fountain and get a clear view of our table, both of us stop.
The fight must have blown up as fast as a summer storm, because five minutes ago Kirk and Billy were dancing. But they certainly aren’t now. Now they’re standing beside the empty table, screaming at each other. Kirk is holding the back of a chair as Billy leans towards him, and although we’re too far away to hear them, I know right away this is much worse than Fiesole.
Billy’s arms are straight, her fists balled. She’s virtually spitting with anger. I’ve never seen her like this before, neck rigid, back braced, and the effect is creepy. It’s like seeing someone else in Billy’s body. She pulls herself up straight, and in her red dress she’s fearsome. And beautiful. And, I suspect, enjoying herself. A diva giving an epic performance.
Kirk, however, looks stricken, and I look around instinctively for Henry, thinking he’ll know how to stop this. After all, it’s his stock in trade. But when I spot him in the crowd, I see at once he’s oblivious. Surrounded by a bevy of witches and half-masked men, Henry’s grinning blissfully, his glasses askew as he dances with the Japanese girls like Pan with his nymphs.
More people in fancy dress have appeared. They must have seeped into the edges of the crowd while we were discussing Mantegna and serial killers. A Dante and a monk, each clutching a Botticelli angel, circle past us. On the church steps, I glimpse Romeo making out with Juliet, and someone in jeans and sneakers has gotten hold of one of the penitents’ hoods and walks solemnly through the dancers swinging a beer bottle for a censer and blessing couples who cross in front of him. He stops and raises his hand, making a half-finished sign of the cross over Henry as Ayako and Mikiko and Tamayo orbit around him like woozy stars.
Back at the table, Kirk is white and immobile. He wraps his arms across his chest, and raises his chin, as if he expects Billy to slap him. They have quite an audience now. The people at the next table have given up trying to ignore them and stare openly. Others watch from where we are, laughing and whispering, cheering for one side or the other. Someone claps. Billy leans into Kirk, so close she could almost kiss him. Her lips move as her hands chop up and down, dancing to a choreography of their own, and then, abruptly, she pulls the heart ring off her finger, throws it at him, and turns away.
Kirk reaches for her, but she jumps over the trampled plastic hedge, leaving him standing beside the littered table, his hand hanging uselessly in the air, a cop with no traffic to direct. A second later, he bends down and gropes amid the old paper napkins and spilled wine for the ring. Finally he straightens up and sinks down in his chair.
I start to step forward, feeling that I should say or do something, but Pierangelo puts a hand on my shoulder. He shakes his head, and I guess he’s right. Kirk would probably just be embarrassed. Then Piero inclines his head, and I see Billy too.
She’s already dancing with someone else. The music has picked up, morphed from the slow sticky groping song to an erratic swinging jazz. She twirls and pirouettes across the dance floor, the skirt of her red dress fanned out around her like a parasol. People move back to make room for her, and the guy she’s dancing with, who’s wearing a Carnivale mask, gold one side and silver the other, spins her so fast her hair comes loose. A wild cascade of snarls and ringlets ripples down her back and falls away like the froth from a waterfall as he dips her low to the ground.
When the man swings Billy up, she puts her arms around his neck and catches my eye, and I’m sure I see her smile.
The next morning is Palm Sunday. It rains, and Pierangelo and I sleep late. I wake up once, early, and hear the hard beat, like a shower turned on up on the roof terrace. Grey light filters through the linen blind, and I drift off again. I don’t know how long it is after that when I roll over without opening my eyes and reach out to feel Piero sleeping beside me. Or apparently not. Because he takes my outstretched hand and kisses my fingertips.
‘Hey, sleepyhead,’ he says, and I open my eyes to see him sitting on the edge of the bed, already dressed.
‘How long have you been up?’
He shrugs and smiles. ‘A while. It’s almost ten.’
‘You’re kidding.’ I sit up and run my hands through my hair. We were so beat when we came in last night that we virtually passed out, but even so I feel stiff, as if I’ve been in a wrestling match. The dancing. I’m getting too old for my scarecrow act. ‘I must have slept ten hours. I think my muscles have atrophied.’
‘Have a hot bath.’ Piero stands up. ‘I’ll run it for you.’
The night comes back as I watch him walk towards the bathroom: the sickly shifting lights, the weird white penitents, Billy and Kirk fighting. The awful dinner.
‘Did you?’ I ask suddenly.
Pierangelo turns round and smiles at me, his hand on the bathroom door. ‘Yes, piccola,’ he says. ‘I told you I would, and I did. First thing this morning.’
‘And?’
Pierangelo laughs and goes into the bathroom. I hear water start in a gush. ‘Ispettore Pallioti sends you his best wishes,’ he calls.
By the time I get out of the bath, the table is set. There are pastries and fruit and coffee and a vase of roses in the centre. And the Sunday paper. Two copies. Pierangelo’s article on D’Erreti is a six-page spread. ‘Fifty Years Lived in the Shadow of God.’ We read in silence, cups of coffee in hand.
The piece is at least partially in honour of the fact that this Saturday, the day before Easter, is Massimo D’Erreti’s fiftieth birthday. Pierangelo runs through his career in the church, concentrating especially on his early missionary work in Africa, where D’Erreti was heavily influenced by some of the more right-wing African bishops. He was tagged as a star from early on, and by the time he did a stint in the States and returned to Italy in the early nineties, his mindset was pretty well gelled.
Like Savonarola five centuries before him, the cardinal has warned of a ‘Black Cross’ hanging not only over Florence, but over the whole of Western society. In a recent interview His Eminence stated that: ‘The Liberal moral equivalence of the 1960s and 1970s has seduced us all onto a wrong path. In our own country, we have seen the scourge of the Red Brigades, the Anni Piombi, the Years of Lead. In Africa and across the world, we see the scourge of AIDS. We see the innocent unborn who die in the name of their mothers’ “rights.” As we have fallen a
way from God, we have become lost. Now the true job of the church is to be our captain in the storm, to guide us safely home to God.’
His investiture as the Bishop of Florence was, D’Erreti claims, an occasion for humility, a chance to serve the native city he so dearly loves, and I understand at once part of the reason Pierangelo identifies with him, albeit reluctantly. Not only are they the same age and both love Florence, something Piero considers virtually a moral duty, but Massimo D’Erreti is apparently a genuine populist, something I know Pierangelo admires. I wonder if, having lived through the same decades and come to virtually opposite—but equally strongly held—conclusions, they’re flip sides of the same coin, one politically left, one politically right.
Like the protagonist of Morris West’s novel, The Shoes of the Fisherman, His Eminence has been known to slip away incognito in order to mingle with the citizens of the city. ‘There is an old saying, “The Franciscans love the plains and the Dominicans love the cities.” And I will only know my children if I can walk among them,’ he says. ‘After all, Our Lord walked into the marketplace as well as into the temples. And when I see the unfortunate, the drug addict, the prostitute, the beggar, what can I do but look into her face and see a woman who could be my mother? Indeed, who could be the mother of us all, for we share a universal Mother. All of us are the children of Mary. And whether we are aware of it or not, all of us live out our childhood in front of God.’
I look at the top of Pierangelo’s head as he bends over some other article, his curls showing a faint tinge of grey, and understand his frustration, why he had such a hard time with this article. Massimo D’Erreti, Man of the People. The cardinal’s been working on the performance all his life and it plays well, so it must be frustrating as hell to know what really lies underneath, and have to figure out how to reveal it. The original Savonarola at least was ugly.
The next page is given over almost entirely to pictures, which is what caused Piero such a headache earlier this week. Digging them out was hard enough, especially the early ones, and verifying them and providing accurate captions was a nightmare. I see D’Erreti as a young man, newly ordained and at seminary, and even before that, as an altar boy. Then there’s one of a row of children sitting outside a building, motley and unhappy, a priest standing on either side of them. D’Erreti is the third from the left, a wimpy-looking little boy who looks cold in dark shorts and lace-up shoes. School, I think. Then I read the caption, and my heart flutters. ‘Raised as a foundling by the church, the young Massimo found refuge in God and felt his calling early.’
I stare at the page in front of me. Now I understand the other part of Pierangelo’s sympatico, even fascination, for the cardinal. It’s the instinctive tug that makes him recognize one of his own, like me with pictures of the dead women, makes him see, perhaps, if circumstances had been just a little different—if there had been no loving aunt to take him in, no uncle to be his father instead of God—what he might have been. It’s not just that Massimo D’Eretti and Pierangelo Sanguetti are both idealists with a special love for Florence; it’s that they’re both orphans.
I get up and wind my arms around Piero’s shoulders, rest my cheek on the top of his head. He reaches up absently and takes my hands, his fingers lacing through mine.
It’s after five p.m. when the telephone rings and Pierangelo comes back from answering it to ask me if I want to drive out and have dinner with some friends of his in Tavarnuzze. Nothing fancy, he says, but they have a villa to die for. I’ll like the buildings. This is a tease, of course. He knows perfectly well I want to go. I know almost none of his friends, and I’m eager to meet them. But I won’t go dressed like this, in my clothes from last night. My hair is clean, but I want my makeup. Earrings. Shoes and a dress. Piero shrugs. No problem, he says. We’ll stop by on the way out of town so I can change.
It’s still pouring when we get there. The wind has come up and splats of rain hit the side of the car so hard it feels like someone’s throwing buckets of water at us. Piero pulls up opposite our building and I tell him to stay put and listen to his favourite CD of Puccini arias, I won’t be more than fifteen minutes.
A gust hits me as I run across the road, almost turning my umbrella inside out. I’m still wrestling with it, trying to hang on to it with one hand and get my keys out of my pocket with the other, when a shadow appears under the entrance arch and thickens into the solid black shape of a priest who must have just finished saying Mass for Signora Raguzza. With his rain cape and old-fashioned hat and umbrella, he looks more like one of the nuns from the convent over by the Carmine. His gloved hand holds the gate for me as I run up the steps and brush by him.
Pools of rain have formed in the courtyard and the lemon trees look miserable. Sophie-Sophia’s windows are shuttered; the family must have gone away for the holiday. The downstairs door to our vestibule is closed against the wind, and the stairwells so dark that I hit the lights. The grille of the elevator looks like a cage, dark and unwelcoming, and I take the stairs two at a time instead.
Billy’s not home. I sense it as soon as I get through the door, the apartment has the cold feeling of unoccupied space. But I call anyways, and then check the rooms, just to be sure. Pawing through my closet, I settle finally on a skirt and boots, and a deep blue-green blouse Pierangelo gave me. What it needs, I think as I twist around in front of the mirror, is a belt. Something big and funky. The sort of thing I don’t have, but Billy does. She came home from the market with a fabulous heavy leather one covered with coins and turquoise bits just a few days ago. Just my luck, she’ll be wearing it, but when I go into her room I find it right away, coiled in her top drawer. After putting the belt on, I have a fast paw through her jewellery box. Billy’s an earring queen, and sure enough there’s a pair that match. As I grab them, my fingers collide with a pretty blue wristwatch. Typical Billy, I think as I close the drawer, to prefer bugging everybody by asking what time it is every fifteen minutes. I check her lipsticks to see if there are any colours I like, but our skin tones are too different. Then, as I’m fastening the earrings and admiring the result in her mirror, my phone starts cheeping. I glance at my watch as I run into the kitchen to fish it out of my jacket pocket. I’ve been gone exactly fourteen minutes. Men are amazing. I C U, the text says. I duck into the living room, look down into the street and wave at the car. Then I text back, CU2, drop the phone in my pocket and write Billy a note that I prop against the television. ‘Staying at Piero’s. Stole your belt and earrings, will return with rent of bottle of wine—M.’
The BMW’s windows are so steamed up I can’t even see inside, and I have to tap on the glass to get Piero to open the door, which is annoying because I’m getting wet. When I jump in and throw the umbrella in the back seat, he leans over and kisses me, then raises his finger mouthing, ‘Wait.’ The aria from Madame Butterfly fills the car, the notes a high, sweet counterpoint to the clatter of the rain. Pierangelo’s eyes are closed, his face blissful as his hand moves slightly to the music.
‘Tebaldi,’ he says as the last notes linger in the air. ‘Sublime.’ He turns the engine over and we pull out into the wet street.
A few seconds later, we stop at the lights on Via Maggio. Ghost figures scurry in front of us, someone wrapped in a mackintosh and carrying a dog, two nuns clutching each other’s arms and running, and a tall woman, scarf over her head, who I’m sure is Billy. I twist round as she heads up the sidewalk, rubbing a patch in the fog on my window, and waving. But she doesn’t notice me, and a second later she’s lost in the blur of the rain as we glide forward, windshield wipers thunking in rhythm, and turn up towards Porta Romana.
I don’t see Billy the next day, or the day after that. Which is not surprising because I visit the apartment for a grand total of maybe ten minutes, just enough time to put her belt and earrings back in her room and grab a couple of changes of clothes for myself.
Pierangelo takes Monday and most of Tuesday off. We drive out to Vinci to see the Leonardo mu
seum, wander among the wooden flying machines and admire the rebuilt model of the submarine, then the next afternoon, after Piero spends a couple of hours in the office in the morning, we go to Pisa. We have a long lunch, take pictures of each other leaning under the tower, buy a snow globe with the Campo dei Miracoli imprisoned inside, and linger beside the Arno admiring the beautiful little jewel box that is La Spina, the perfect tiny chapel built to house a thorn from Christ’s crown. In the evening, we stop in Lucca, walk on the ramparts holding hands, and have dinner in Piazza San Martino where we watch the swallows dive and swoop against the backdrop of the cathedral.
Now the mini-holiday is over. It’s early Wednesday morning and, knowing he has to be back in the office in a few hours, I watch Pierangelo sleeping. A thin haze of beard has grown on his cheeks and chin, and his eyes move under his lids as he dreams. His hand flutters on the duvet like a restless bird.
I pick up my shoes, ease the door open and slip into the living room. I’ve been awake for a while, and since it’s six-thirty, and Piero’s alarm will go off in a half-hour anyways, I figure I might as well leave him alone in his habitual pre-work chaos. I rummage in the kitchen drawer for a pen and a piece of paper, and write a note telling him to call me later. Then, as I’m about to prop it up by the coffee pot where he can’t miss it, I notice the silver cigarette case he used at the party the other night and I can’t help myself. I slide it across the counter and open it.
I’m no expert on silver, but even I can tell that this is nice. It’s heavy in my hand, smooth and cool. The lid springs up with a satisfying click. There are two cigarettes, held down by a silver band, but they’re not what interests me. What interests me is the inscription. It’s nice too, done in heavy mannish Roman letters, very tasteful and surprising. I expected it to be from Monika, but it isn’t. ‘To Piero, with all my love for ever—Ottavia’ it says, and I feel a nasty little wince in my stomach. Then I look at the date underneath and laugh at myself. ‘21 April 1980’. Whoever Ottavia was, she was long before my time. I snap the lid shut and put the cigarette case back where it was. Then I carry my shoes across the living room so I won’t wake Piero, and let myself out.
The Faces of Angels Page 22