And that was how they had spent their New Year.
Now Valentina had almost finished packing her bags. Cinzia was watching her, her eyes moist with tears. For the first time since she had entered Valentina's life at San Vigilio, she seemed at a loss.
'I have to go.'
'You're not coming back.'
It was a statement, not a question: a statement she didn't expect to be contradicted.
'Listen, Cinzia. I don't want this to be goodbye. I don't think of it that way. It's only for one term. It's something I have to do. I need to concentrate on my thesis. I need to get things straight. So do you. We both need it.'
'You're wrong, as usual. I don't need it. Obviously you do. And that hurts me.'
At twenty, Cinzia had not changed much since her early teens. She was thin, not especially tall, but energetic and strong-willed. She had short, jet-black hair and intense black eyes, and a pointed chin that made her beautiful face look even more vulpine.
She was casually dressed in only a heavy beige woollen sweater that reached down to her knees, and was sitting cross-legged on the pouffe that had pride of place in the small apartment they had shared until today. Two rooms, plus kitchen and bathroom, full of evidence of their short life together. Souvenirs of journeys they had taken together, framed photographs, tasteful furniture carefully chosen in little markets over the years.
'It's a trial separation,' Valentina insisted. All couples do it. We just need to get away from each other for a while, that's all. It's not the end of the world!' She was speaking loudly to conceal her depression.
Away from me, but close to that American.'
She didn't call him by his name. To her, he didn't have one.
'Please don't say that, Cinzia. I don't even know him, he's just someone nice I met by chance. I don't feel anything for him, I've never felt anything for a man.'
'I'd like to believe you. I'd really like to believe you, but I'm afraid. I'm so afraid, Vale. I beg you . . .'
Tears had run down her cheeks and gathered on the tip of her chin, and now they glistened and vibrated as her lips quivered.
Valentina felt a strong impulse to hug her, to make love one last time. What harm could it do?
Cinzia stood up and ran to the bedroom, slammed the door and locked it.
Before going out, Mike Ross left the Philippine woman precise instructions, in English. The woman had recently arrived in Florence and did not know any Italian. That was another reason he had hired her as a part-time housekeeper.
Mike Ross lived in a three-storey villa surrounded by extensive grounds in Bellosguardo, though he only occupied the ground floor. The first floor was empty, but on the second a small apartment had been set aside, complete in every detail but never lived in. Nenita, the Filipina, had orders to open it up, to air the rooms, make sure that everything was tidy, make the beds, and arrange the flowers he'd bought the day before in vases.
It was nine o'clock. If all went well, Valentina would get to the Piazza della Stazione, where he had arranged to meet her, by about 11. He had plenty of time.
At the newsstand in the Piazza della Signoria he bought a copy of the New York Times, and sat calmly reading it, snug and warm in one of the many bars around the Palazzo Ducale. At 10:50, his mobile phone rang.
'It's me, Valentina.'
'I know. Your number showed up. Is everything okay?' 'It's been very foggy; I've had to drive slowly. That's why I'm late.'
'That's all right, don't worry. Where are you now?' About ten minutes from Barberini, I think.'
Mike made a rapid mental calculation, figuring there would not be much traffic on the first day of the year.
'You should be here by eleven-twenty, eleven-thirty at the latest. See you then. I'll be waiting.'
He called the waiter and asked for the bill.
He was astonished, as always, that breakfast in one of these bars cost almost as much as lunch, and yet they were as full as the restaurants, where at least you got decent food for your money.
He looked for his wallet in the wrong pocket and realised there was something in it. It was the letter to Father Rotondi. He had not worn this buckskin jacket since the day he had met Valentina, and had forgotten all about the letter.
He thought of throwing it away. He would find another method of establishing contact. It was too early for that anyway.
But why not keep him dangling? Smiling to himself, he walked to a post box.
'So this is the "little apartment"?'
Valentina did not know whether to be happy or worried.
It was too good to be true. Girls as young and attractive as her didn't usually get their wishes granted without having to give something in return, especially when rich men - of whatever age - were involved.
Nenita had done her work well. Light flooded in through the big windows, even on a grey overcast day like this. The drawing room with its antique furniture glowed, bright with luxuriant bouquets and warmed by a blazing fire in the eighteenth-century marble fireplace. The bedroom was large and welcoming and looked out on a veranda leading to a beautiful square terrace. The kitchen was fully fitted. The bathroom was fragrant with aromatic scents.
'It's part of the house,' Mike explained. 'When I moved in, I decided to take it as well. I didn't want to share the house with some noisy lodger. There wasn't a big difference in price.'
'How much?'
'Let's not talk about that now. The first three months are already paid. See if you like it. If you do, we'll talk again.'
'Don't even think about it. If I don't pay, I leave right now.'
'Where will you go? Florence is full, even in January. You won't find anything now.'
She could always go back to Bologna, Valentina thought. But she didn't want to.
'But you lied to me. You told me it'd be gone if I didn't say yes straight away!'
'How else could I persuade you?' the American replied, with a disarming smile. 'But let's not quarrel. Give me a month, okay? See if you like it before you commit yourself.'
Valentina looked out of one of the windows. How could she not like it? The view was breathtaking.
From this villa on a hill, there was a hundred-and-eighty -degree panorama of the whole city, dominated by Brunelleschi's dome with its miraculous harmony of line and colour. All around, like servants bowing before their master, stretched the huddle of roofs and the warren of little streets out of which rose San Lorenzo and Santa Maria Novella on the left, Santa Croce and the National Library on the right. For the first time Valentina became aware that the cathedral was by far the tallest building in the whole of Florence. It had been that way for centuries, and it would be that way for ever.
‘I’ll leave you now,' Mike Ross said, not giving her time to think. 'If you need anything, ask Nenita, the maid. She's only here in the mornings, but I'm sure you'll manage. Bye.'
*
It did not take Valentina long to get her bearings. In the days that followed, she managed to stop worrying about her host's possible intentions. They led totally separate lives: she was busy with her course, he with his work. He seemed to think of her as a distant acquaintance, or even just as a neighbour he was on good terms with. She did not disturb him, and he did not disturb her.
Sometimes Mike would go away for a few days, then spend whole days shut up in his apartment, listening to classical music and, Valentina supposed, writing his articles. He did not seem to have any friends. Nobody ever visited him.
At the end of the first week, he invited her out to dinner. 'It's time you started to learn the secrets of Florence,' he said.
He took her to Buca Lapi, where they had hot crostini with Colonnata lard and the best Tuscan vegetable, bread and bean soup she had ever tasted.
She was fascinated by the pages of old newspapers, some dating back to the nineteenth century, which covered the vaulted ceiling and walls.
'It's the oldest restaurant in Florence,' Mike explained. 'Originally, it was a tavern where coach
men would stop for a glass of wine and a bowl of tripe, and exchange news. They would pass around the pages of the newspaper as they finished them, crumpled and stained with sauce, oil and wine, and paste them to the wall before leaving. And there they stayed. Obviously, the host at the time wasn't too worried about cleanliness!'
Valentina noticed that at table, thanks to the wine and the conversation, Mike had become quite animated. He seemed charming, slightly affected, almost feminine in the bond he was establishing with her. His eyes, reflecting the warm lights around them in a phantasmagoria of fairy-tale colours, were no longer ice-cold, but full of life and promise.
She preferred not to think it was all due to her presence, although the thought did cross her mind.
'You know Florence well. How long have you lived in Italy? You've never told me.'
'Four years, maybe five. I like it. I think I'm here to stay. Florence has brought me luck, you know? I came here as an art student, and started to write a few articles. They were accepted and went down well.'
'And now you're a famous journalist.'
'Well, I haven't won the Pulitzer yet, but it's true, I'm quite well known. And well paid.' He sounded pleased with himself.
'Do you only write about art and exhibitions?'
'Oh, no. I cover everything. Music, theatre, celebrity interviews . . . You may not believe it, but I'm actually quite an inquisitive person. I'm interested in everything, provided I can find an angle. It could be some news item, a murder, that kind of thing
'Brrr . . .' she said, playfully.
Actually criminal psychology is one of the most fascinating fields nowadays. Even here in Florence there are major crimes sometimes. You remember the Monster? What a story! I'm still trying to find the best way to present it to the American public. I may even write a book about it. And in Bologna, where you come from, isn't there a serial killer around right now?'
'Let's talk about something else, please,' she said, seriously this time. He was right, a maniac was killing prostitutes in Bologna. It was an unpleasant, rather frightening subject.
'Sure, no problem,' he said. 'Let's talk about you.'
'There's not much to say. I'm just an ordinary student trying to finish her studies.'
'And after that?'
'I'm so ordinary, I don't know yet. I'd like to go into films, TV, theatre, something like that. But I could just as easily end up as an assistant in a boutique. This is Italy, not America!'
'You can find America anywhere. You just have to want it. I found it in Italy'
'Lucky you! Anyway, it's not true. You write for the New York Times, not the Corriere della Sera or La Repubblica.'
He smiled. 'Touche. But if your country hadn't given me my first ideas for articles, I'd still be paying my dues in some newsroom in New York or Chicago.'
After dinner, he took her to the Piazzale Michelangelo, from where they had a view of the city similar to the one from their villa, only closer.
She especially liked to see the Arno, shimmering with the reflected lights of the river banks and buildings. Those brown waters seemed so agitated, so pitiless, so barely contained within the rigid lines of the banks, she marvelled that they had not yet swept away the Ponte Vecchio. From here, the bridge seemed so fragile and defenceless.
Just like me, she reflected as the Porsche sped past the Pitti Palace towards the Via Senese and then home. There, she was sure he would make the pass she was dreading, and she wouldn't know how to say no, how to tell him without hurting him that she wasn't interested in men, that this wasn't the reason she'd accepted either the apartment or his dinner invitation.
But she'd accepted both, she told herself.
And now it was payback time.
She was shaking as the tyres of the Porsche squealed on the gravel of the drive leading to the villa.
She had stomach cramps, and her face was pale and tense.
Are you all right?' he asked, concerned. 'Was I driving too fast?'
'It's probably the wine,' she said apologetically. 'I'm not used to it.'
They went inside the house.
'Can you manage?' he asked. 'If you don't mind, I won't see you upstairs. I have an article to finish and fax by tomorrow morning. Good night.'
Cheering up, Valentina climbed the first flight of stairs, looking in her handbag for the key to her apartment as she did so.
On the second floor, sure that he hadn't followed her, she breathed a sigh of relief. She felt better now. Or so she thought.
Outside her door, she hesitated, and listened carefully for the sound of footsteps on the landings. Nothing.
She put the key in the lock with a somewhat abrupt gesture. An observant psychologist would have said she was angry.
Father Francesco divided the mail according to who it was addressed to. The bigger of the two piles was for Don Sergio, who was in charge of book-keeping and had to check the many bills and invoices they received. But today, unusually, there was also a letter addressed to him personally.
'These are for you,' he said, handing out the envelopes to Don Sergio, who was sitting opposite him on the other side of the desk. Aren't you going to open them?'
'Yes, of course,' Don Sergio hastened to reply, and started looking at them slowly, one by one.
It seemed to Father Francesco that Don Sergio had been behaving strangely lately. More strangely than usual. Something was bothering him, some secret that, despite all Father Francesco's discreet attempts, he was reluctant to reveal.
Don Sergio was carefully sorting the mail into categories: bills, final demands, requests for help, a few rare contributions from generous parishioners. He had not yet opened the letter addressed to him personally.
'What about that one?' Father Francesco asked. He knew he was prying, but he considered it justified. He was genuinely worried about the young priest, even though he refrained from showing it openly.
Don Sergio opened the last envelope. When he saw what it contained, a confused look came into his eyes and his face turned pale.
'Bad news?' Father Francesco asked, concerned.
'Personal,' was all Don Sergio said, his voice sounding dry and ghostly.
'Observe particularly the interplay of lines and colours. See how the straight lines of the spears form a harmonious contrast to the deliberately accentuated roundness of the crossbows and the horses. And how the bright yellows and oranges, and the unusual blue of the fallen horses at the bottom here - can you all see them? - emphasise the noise of the battle, almost relegating to second place the fighting itself, which merges with the dark colours of the landscape in the background.'
They were in Room 7 of the Uffizi Gallery. It was six days after their dinner at Buca Lapi, Valentina's first visit to the Uffizi and the second time her American friend and landlord had taken her out.
The guide was explaining Uccello's Battle of San Romano to a group of bored, rowdy students.
Mike gestured to her to follow him. 'Let's skip this room, we can come back another day. These kids are unbearable. We must get to the next room before they do!'
Room 8 contained seven paintings by Filippo Lippi, including the wonderful and very modern Madonna with Child and Two Angels, with its angel looking out at the spectator and its landscape like a separate painting.
'Brilliant, extraordinary,' Mike Ross said. 'My favourite painter. He's a bit like me.'
'In what way?'
'Well, he was an orphan, too. Abandoned by his widowed mother in front of the Monastery of Santa Maria del Carmine.' 'Were you . . .?'
'I'll tell you one day. When we know each other better.' He gave an ambiguous smile. 'The difference between him and me is that he liked women.'
Valentina was startled. Did that mean he . . .?
'Too much in fact,' he went on. 'He couldn't stop himself. And he was a monk. Not that that means anything. Priests and monks have always got up to all sorts of things. In the fifteenth century, and now, too. Filippo Lippi was so hot-blooded that when he w
as working for Cosimo de' Medici, Cosimo had to lock him in until he was finished, otherwise he'd have been out chasing skirts. They say he once climbed out the window using the classic ploy of tying the bedsheets together to make a rope!'
'Do you mean . . . you're gay?' Valentina finally blurted out, more interested in Mike than in the exploits of a Renaissance painter who sounded like a character from Boccaccio. She'd had to stop herself from adding the word 'too' to her question.
Of course, if he was, that would explain a lot of things. Why he didn't flirt with her, for a start. Why he had seemed so fascinated by the statues of powerful male nudes outside the Palazzo Vecchio, why every now and again his voice sounded oddly affected.
'Hold on, kid. Don't you think you're getting a bit personal?
That's another thing I'll tell you one day. But not now, and especially not here.'
'You seem to have a lot of things to tell me. And we don't have to stay here. I've already had enough. If I see any more masterpieces my brain will turn to mush. This museum's too big.'
'You're right. Every time we come, we should concentrate on just one or two things that interest us. That's the best way to see a big collection like the Louvre or the Met.'
'Shall we go, then?'
All right, but not to talk about me. I still have something to show you. In fact, it's the reason I invited you out. It's very near here, in San Lorenzo. And there, there's no danger your brain will turn to mush, as you put it. It's a very small collection. But your eyes will pop out of your head.' He smiled enigmatically. 'I can guarantee that.'
They left the gallery.
It was eleven o'clock on a cold, damp day in the last week of January.
They cut across the Piazza della Signoria, where an icy wind was blowing, to the Via dei Calzaiuoli - so called, Mike explained, because the hosiery merchants had their shops here from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries.
Valentina felt uncomfortable. She didn't know whether to be irritated or amused that an American was telling her, an Italian, all about Italian artists and Italian cities. And she didn't know if the fact that her friend might be gay reassured or disappointed her.
A Florentine Death Page 11