‘Kirk thinks if he hadn’t fought with her that night, this wouldn’t have happened,’ Henry adds.
‘Well, maybe he’s right.’
My patience is fraying. Back in the real world, I’m tempted to say, Billy is dead, and it isn’t her fault, and, guess what? Our actions do have consequences.
Henry doesn’t reply right away. He wants it all to be simple, to fit into nice black and white squares like a crossword. Kirk’s anger is just guilt. I have nothing to answer for. The only person responsible for Billy’s death is the one who wielded the knife. Everything can be neatly explained, and we are all absolved. Amen.
Finally he says. ‘That’s not all, is it? It’s not just the fact that he hit you that bugs you?’
Bugs me? What bugs me, I feel like shouting, is that women are being snatched. And tied up. And really hot things, cigarette butts, pieces of metal, are being put on their naked flesh before they’re killed. That’s what ‘bugs me.’ But I can’t. I’m not even supposed to know about Billy’s autopsy, about what really happened to her. And besides, there’s no real point in picking a fight with Henry. He’s just trying to help. Anyways, he’s right, there is something else. And I probably shouldn’t talk about it either, but I’m going to.
‘When Billy was found,’ I say, ‘she had her ring on, the one Kirk gave her, with the two hearts. But when they had that fight, in the piazza, she took it off and threw it at him. I saw her. And I saw him pick it up afterwards. He put it in his pocket.’
Henry sighs, as if he knew this was going to come up, and even finds it vaguely tiresome. ‘Kirk also told me that he gave the ring back to her,’ he says. ‘He says he wrote a note and stuck them both in an envelope and dropped it off in the apartment, last Monday, after she didn’t answer the phone.’
I did go to the apartment last Monday, before we went to Vinci, back when the world was still normal, but I didn’t see an envelope, or a note. If they were in Billy’s things the police could have taken them away, of course. They probably did. But Pallioti didn’t mention it.
‘Do you believe him?’
It’s a mean question—after all, Henry and Kirk are friends—but I have to ask it, and to my surprise, instead of defending Kirk outright, Henry weighs it up.
‘I guess,’ he says finally, after a few seconds. ‘Yes. Probably. Kirk’s competitive. You know, “I’m going to give you this whether you want it or not.” And he didn’t want to be rejected. Just like the rest of the world. That’s pretty normal, don’t you think?’
Now it’s my turn to say, ‘I guess.’ But what I’m really wondering is what else Kirk tried to give her that she didn’t want to accept.
Henry’s obviously eager to change the subject by now, and the conversation drivels on for a few more minutes. He tells me that the Japanese girls have decided to leave the course early. They’ll stay for Billy’s service and then they’re going to the Amalfi coast because it’s safer than Florence. Henry pointed out that that’s only true if you don’t drive, but he didn’t think they got it.
After we hang up, the conversation leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I can’t decide whether it’s because I’m annoyed with Henry for finding neat little reasons why nothing is anybody’s fault, which I guess is his job, or because I lied to Pierangelo again this morning. It was easy, just like lying to Henry about not being able to come to lunch. I did that to save his feelings, of course. I could have gone to lunch, but there’s something I want to do more and I tell myself I’m doing the same thing with Pierangelo. Saving his feelings. Yesterday I told him I went to a lecture, on Classicism. And reassured myself it was for his own good. Saving him worry. Just like when I said we’d have to wait until this afternoon to meet at Signora Bardino’s apartment to collect my suitcases because I am meeting Tony and Ellen at San Marco this morning. Which is completely ridiculous. An outand-out lie. What I am actually doing this morning is going to see Gabriel Fabbiacelli.
Eleanora Darnelli’s lover is doing a restoration job at a monastery up in San Felice. I know this because his mama told me. Pierangelo has the phone number in his notes, and when I called early this morning I said I was a ‘friend from America.’ Mamas always fall for that one. They like their little boys to have friends, and on the whole they approve of American girls, I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s a sort of benevolent hangover from Grace Kelly. They think we’re all clean and blonde.
San Felice is in the hills to the south of the city, and by the time I finally get there I’m afraid Gabriel will have taken a break, gone out for coffee or quit for an early lunch. The place appears to be deserted. As I come through the open gates and cross the courtyard I catch a glimpse of the chapel. Inside what looks as though it may possibly be a Giotto crucifix hangs above the altar, and I stop to admire it, unable to resist stepping into the nave, making my way past the shadowed flowers and pamphlets about missions in Africa, and standing for a moment in front of the lithe, golden-haired Christ. His wounds ooze, his halo shines. Above him in her nest, a pelican feeds her young, while beside him, his mother folds her hands and weeps. A car goes by. I hear the revving engine of a scooter or motorcycle, a slice of voices behind me as the door opens and closes. There is the familiar rustle of someone slipping into a pew, and I don’t have to glance back to see them crossing themselves, or know that they’re muttering the familiar words, ‘Father, forgive me for I have sinned.’ When I go back down the aisle, the shape is nothing but a hunched shadow in the corner, one more human soul begging for redemption.
Outside, the sun is momentarily blinding. It’s so warm I don’t even need my jacket. I follow my nose into the shadows of the cloister and, sure enough, I find Gabriel right where his mama said he’d be, high up on a scaffold among the angels he’s named for.
Dark and lithe, with wild Italian curls and honey-coloured skin, he has a familiar quality. Pierangelo might have looked like this when he was younger. Gabriel Fabbiacelli is wearing paint-spattered khaki trousers and a blue denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and I wonder if this is how Eleanora first saw him, crouched like an overgrown faun, high up on his platform with a brush in his hand. When he finally senses me and turns to look, his eyes are almond-shaped, long-lashed and almost as blue as Billy’s.
‘You’re late, American lady,’ he says in Italian, and I must look surprised because he laughs and adds, ‘My mama.’ Gabriel pats his pocket. ‘These days,’ he says, ‘even archangels have cell phones.’
He puts his brush down, wipes his hands on a cloth and climbs down the scaffolding to offer me his hand. ‘I’m sorry I don’t speak your language, Signora—’
‘Thorcroft. I wish I spoke yours better.’
His grip is firm and warm, and as he lets go I decide that the best thing I can do is tell him the truth. ‘I’m not an old friend you’ve forgotten,’ I say.
‘That’s too bad.’ A smile crosses his face, the reflection of it catching his eyes.
‘To be honest, I want to talk to you about Eleanora Darnelli.’
The words are hesitant, even though I try not to let them sound that way, but if what I’ve said surprises Gabriel, or distresses him, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t even stop smiling. Instead, he just inclines his head, gracefully, almost a little bow.
‘Nothing makes me happier,’ he says, ‘than to talk about Eleanora. Shall we walk?’ He takes my elbow gently, guiding me up the cloister. ‘Are you a journalist?’ he asks.
‘No. No, not really.’
He looks at me sideways, but doesn’t say anything. The silence stretches out, measured in the beats of our footsteps as we move slowly past the arches, light and dark playing on the faded paintings on the walls beside us. Gabriel doesn’t rush me, and finally I say, ‘Two years ago, I was attacked by the same man who killed Eleanora.’
‘Indrizzio?’
I nod. ‘My husband tried to save me, and he was killed. I think instead of me. I don’t know, maybe you read about it. Anyways, I was lucky.’
&n
bsp; He glances at me. ‘Or it wasn’t your time.’
I smile. Put it however you want: Chaos or grand design. ‘God has something else in mind for you,’ Gabriel says.
‘Maybe.’ This is the kind of thing Mamaw would have said, and if nothing else, the familiarity is comforting.
‘Anyways,’ I go on, leaving the divine aside, ‘the reason I’ve come is that a woman I knew was killed last week.’ I’m getting good at this now. It’s almost like a routine.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you.’
I stop and look at him. Serenity is a word that’s frequently misused but, in Gabriel Fabbiacelli’s case, it’s appropriate. It’s not just his beauty, which is undeniable, there’s something else about him, a stillness. He looks back at me without questioning, just waiting to hear what it is that I have to say.
‘She isn’t the first,’ I add. ‘There’ve been two others, one in January, and one about three weeks ago. I think they’re connected to Indrizzio. That’s why I’ve come. I think someone’s copying him. It’s almost as if they’re trying to finish what he started.’
Gabriel nods, as though my turning up and telling him this out of the blue isn’t completely crazy. Then he takes my elbow and we begin to walk again. Our feet pace the worn stones, treading in the footsteps of generations of men who walked here, heads bent and hands folded. My loafers click and flap, but Gabriel’s wearing espadrilles, the old-fashioned, rope-soled kind, so his footsteps make no sound at all.
‘Are you very frightened?’ he asks finally, and I realize no one else, not even Pierangelo, has actually asked me this before. They’ve assumed it. But they haven’t asked.
‘I don’t know.’ The answer surprises me. ‘Maybe I’m just too tired to be frightened,’ I add. ‘I can’t sleep. I feel as if there are things I should know, and I don’t. Or’—I struggle for how to put this—‘as if there are things I do know, but can’t see. It’s like someone touching you in a dark room. Sometimes I think it’s Indrizzio. Then I think it’s someone else. I came to see you because I thought—’
The words die on me. Probably it’s fatigue, but I don’t know if I’m sure now, how to end this sentence. Because I thought if I could ask the right question then, bingo, I’d suddenly know who killed Billy. It seems ridiculous, but Gabriel Fabbiacelli doesn’t seem to mind. Perhaps that’s what drew Eleanora to him, that he didn’t mind, wasn’t fazed or weirded out because she was a nun.
He throws me his sideways glance, and says, ‘To me it doesn’t matter, signora, who killed Eleanora.’ And the strange thing is, I know what he means. Annika said the same thing. In the end, the brute fact is the absence, not how it came about.
‘Whoever’s doing this,’ Gabriel adds, ‘must be in a great deal of pain. I think killing must be like a fungus that creeps across a canvas and eats what’s there. Destroys something beautiful in the soul.’ He smiles, suddenly. ‘Eleanora was a great soul,’ he says. ‘Pure, you know? Some people are just put on earth like that. My mama says they haven’t been born before, that they’re brand new. But sometimes I think they’ve been born so many times before that all the creases have been smoothed out. Or maybe they’ve always been like that. Some people are just better.’
‘Yes, they are.’ And it’s a shame we can’t always love them for it, I think. Eleanora Darnelli was lucky. Luckier than my husband was.
We walk on for a second, then I ask, ‘Could you tell me what she was like? I mean, as a person?’
I start to give him my spiel about what connects us all, or doesn’t, and then I stop. I remember sitting on the cold floor of my room at Signora Bardino’s, my door locked, studying the dead women’s faces. Why lie? I wanted to know who they were. To meet the other members of the club.
‘I feel as if I know her.’ I must be exhausted, but it’s a relief to actually say the words, and somehow I don’t think Gabriel will think this is crazy. ‘After Indrizzio attacked me,’ I add, ‘when he almost killed me, I used to think I knew her. It was as though she’d touched me. Her hand, I mean. Sometimes I used to dream we were sisters.’
The words hang in the air between us, mix with the chattering of the sparrows and the sweet drifting scent of the first roses that cluster in the sparse beds, fighting for space with bushes of scraggly lavender.
‘Eleanora loved God,’ Gabriel says finally. ‘And me. I consider that a great blessing in my life,’ he adds. ‘That she loved me.’
He stops, and when he looks at me I see that his eyes are crystalline with tears. They don’t fall, and he wipes them away with the back of his hand. It’s an unusual gesture for a man, with nothing furtive or overly dramatic in it.
‘She was the youngest of a big family, all boys,’ he goes on. ‘Her family didn’t have much. That’s why they sent her up here to school. I think she would have liked a sister.’ I have no idea if that’s true, but it’s a kind thing to say, and I appreciate it. ‘She was funny,’ Gabriel says. ‘She had—how do you say it?—a sense of humour like a fairy?’
‘Impish.’ I use the English word.
He smiles at me. ‘Yes, that, exactly. That’s why children loved her. She could laugh like them, you know? Play tricks. Probably her brothers taught her that. I think boys are better at it. Anyways, she wanted to be a teacher. Sometimes, I feel worse for the children who never knew her, you know? It was the convent school that interested her, and the orphanage they run.’
‘Because she’d been there?’
‘Sure. She wanted to pay something back.’
‘So it was a good experience that she had at the convent?’
‘People always sound surprised about that.’ Gabriel stops, watching the sparrows. ‘I don’t know why,’ he says. ‘It’s not so hard to believe. Nuns aren’t ogres, they’re just women who love God. And parents are not always wonderful for their children. Even mothers. A lot of kids are given away by parents who don’t care anything for them. Or ignored. Or beaten. Hit. Even killed. More kids are killed by their parents than by strangers, did you know that? Everyone assumes that children should be with their mothers, but love comes from all kinds of people. Mothers don’t have a monopoly on it. Sometimes they hurt more. It’s only the things you love that can really destroy you. Not mine,’ he adds.
Gabriel laughs, his face and voice changing as fast as wind moving over water. ‘My mama, she’s an angel.’ He kisses his fingertips and blows the kiss into the air. ‘You see,’ he says. ‘I’m a good Italian boy.’
Standing here beside him, I can’t imagine the effect this man must have had on a twenty-one-year-old Eleanora Darnelli; Sister Darnelli, who not only was a nun, but had lived virtually her entire life among nuns. Or actually, maybe I can.
He glances at my face and laughs again, as if he can see my thoughts, and I’m disconcerted to find myself blushing. After that, we walk for a few seconds in silence.
‘The day she told me she loved me, I knew I was the luckiest man on earth,’ Gabriel says. ‘I asked her to marry me then. That afternoon. On my knees.’
‘And she said yes?’
‘Yes. Yes,’ he nods. ‘But I knew it was hard for her. I knew what it would cost her. That’s why I took the job in Ferrara. I wanted her to be sure. The last time she spoke to me, she was happy.’
‘And that was in January?’
He nods again. ‘The day before she died.’
‘Do you know if she ever had anything at all to do with San Miniato?’
Gabriel shakes his head, ‘No. I don’t think so. She was up in Fiesole. And when she came to see me,’ he shrugs, ‘we borrowed a friend’s apartment near Fortezza di Basso.’ There’s no lasciviousness or embarrassment in this because she was a nun. Just the acknowledgement: we were in love, we had to have somewhere to go.
‘What about a priest called Rinaldo? Did you ever hear her mention him? Or a group called Opus Dei?’
Gabriel shakes his head again. ‘Who are they?’
I start to tell him, then I stop. �
��No one,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t matter. Tell me more about Eleanora. She was happy in the convent, but…?’
‘She wanted a bigger life.’
‘And you.’
Gabriel shrugs. ‘Sure, yes. And me. And she wanted to go to university. Not just for teaching, but for herself. For her heart. She loved poetry—Petrarch, Dante and the English. The “Romantics.”’ He rolls the word in English across his tongue. ‘They were her favourites. That’s why she took the name she took, you know,’ he adds, ‘when she became a novice. Sister Maria Agnes. The Maria, well, that’s nun name number one, but the Agnes, that was for that poem by the Englishman. The one who died, coughing in Rome.’
‘Keats.’
‘That’s right. Keats.’ He winks. ‘Next to God, when she was seventeen she loved Signor Keats.’ Next to God and before she met you, I think.
Of course, I loved him too, from the time I was in High School, right after I wanted to be Jane Eyre and marry Mr Rochester. Soft, quiet, perfect Keats, who was so often drowned out by the bombast of Byron and the frantic beautiful madness of Shelley. One more thing Eleanora Darnelli and I have in common.
‘She wanted to know other things too,’ Gabriel is saying. ‘About art, especially. That’s the first thing Eleanora ever asked me, how I got my ideas. She wanted to know if they came to me in dreams.’ He laughs at the memory.
‘And do they?’ I ask.
‘Not often.’
Gabriel stops in front of a fresco set into the north wall of the cloister. ‘This is mine,’ he says. ‘We’re replacing some pieces. A lot was destroyed here during the war. Bombed, mostly by the Allies. That’s one of the things the German Commissar here was most afraid of, that the British and the Americans would do what they did at Pisa and Padua and Cassino. So they arranged for the paintings to be taken away, hidden. But the frescoes—so much was lost. Now bits are being restored.’
Gabriel laughs and shakes his head. ‘The Americans bomb us, then they come and lecture us on how to fix it,’ he says. ‘In time, maybe none of us will be able to tell the difference. After all, all of it’s made by the hands of men.’
The Faces of Angels Page 36