The Italian Letters

by Linda Lambert

  “Take it easy, Dad. Please relax. We can talk about this later,” insisted his daughter.

  “Si, Dr. Jenner. No talking. Eat now.” The matronly nurse set his breakfast tray on the side table, swung it over his waist, and reached for his pulse. “Did I tell you to remove your oxygen mask?” she demanded. She stuck a thermometer in his open mouth.

  “Shall we take a walk?” Justine asked Amir, eager to leave the room. She knew he didn’t like watching his idol being bullied, even by his nurse. “I could use a bite to eat.”

  Morgan’s eyes pleaded with them not to go.

  Justine chose to ignore her father’s appeal. “We’ll be back soon,” she said. Taking Amir by the arm, Justine headed for the stairs.

  “Tell me what happened out there, Justine,” said Amir when they had stepped through the automatic doors and into the crisp morning air.

  As she steered him toward a small coffeehouse near the hospital, Justine narrated the events of the previous day, highlighting the selfless actions performed by everyone involved in the drama. The death of Adamo, the near death of Riccardo. Her own actions she downplayed.

  Amir remained silent, rolling the information over in his mind. As they arrived at the café door, he touched her shoulder. His gaze was full of compassion. “I will ask the same question we asked about my grandfather’s death about the collapse of the tomb: Was it an accident? In both cases, I’ll find out.”

  The pair took a table by the window. Only one other person was in the sterile room, a rotund man of about fifty. A ball cap lettered with PALERMO shadowed his bearded face as he stared into his coffee.

  Justine was shaken. “I don’t know if the collapse was an accident. It’s probably a result of Italian carelessness rather than intent. However, there has been conflict between some of the local authorities and the team. I saw Dad checking the durability of the frame, I’m sure he didn’t notice anything suspicious.”

  “I talked with the superintendent last week and assured her that nothing would happen without her go-ahead, and that she would be the first to know if anything turned up. I think she was reassured,” said Amir. “I can’t believe she’s behind any foul play.”

  “A generous concession—but wise. I know that the local authorities who have been here for generations don’t want to be shown up by an international team, but weakening the ceiling would be a criminal act, not professional jealousy.”

  “Exactly.” He stared out the window for several moments before saying, “I’ll check it out . . . Now, let me tell you why I accepted your father’s offer. We’ve hardly had time to talk . . .” He turned to order coffees and croissants.

  Justine blushed slightly, then smiled.

  “After Zachariah was murdered and grandfather was implicated in the theft of the codex, and you and Andrea were expelled, I just couldn’t stay in Egypt. At least, not for a while. I’d taken a leave from the museum just before your father called. Call it fate, God’s plan, whatever—it was a message from the gods.” A lock of curly hair fell over his eye as he leaned forward to take a bite of croissant.

  Justine remembered again why she found him so attractive. “I am so deeply sorry about your brother and grandfather.” She paused and reached for his hand. “So it wasn’t about us?” she asked innocently, not sure whether she wanted to hear his answer.

  “That was the frosting, as you Americans say.” He paused to let the rumbling of two garbage trucks subside. “Unplanned,” he continued. “I suspect I might have ended up in Italy even if your father hadn’t called. I had submitted two UNESCO applications for projects in southern France and Spain, too.” Amir raised his coffee cup with both hands. “It was a difficult time. I felt unsettled, confused.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here,” she said with pronounced sincerity. “And so is Dad.” She paused again, turning to find her small purse. “We’d better get back.”

  The hospital hallways were unusually quiet except for an urgent voice over the intercom announcing, “Codice Blu. Codice Blu. Secondo pavimento.” Justine began to run. Amir followed. They took the stairs to the second floor two at a time. At the top of the stairs, a guard attempted to block their passage. Amir politely said, “Excuse us,” and pushed through.

  Justine demanded of anyone who could listen, “Who is it?!” She was ignored.

  As she stepped into her father’s quiet room, Morgan pointed east along the hall, his eyes portraying the panic that Justine felt. When Justine and Amir reached Riccardo’s room, two physicians and three nurses crowded around his bed; other hospital personnel stood blocking the doorway. Justine recognized the young doctor who was securing the defibrillator cups onto Riccardo’s chest. Another person adjusted the dial and lever on the machine. A flat line on the heart monitor told the story.

  Justine and Amir stared helplessly through a window into the room. Justine pushed on the glass with both hands, fingers spread apart. The room began to darken and her legs began to grow numb. Amir put his arm around her shoulders to steady her.

  For some minutes the doctors continued to alternate mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with jolts from the defibrillator.

  “He’s dead,” Justine whispered. “Riccardo’s dead.”

  Several minutes passed. How long had it been? Six, seven, eight minutes? The blue line started to move again, like a ribbon being picked up by the wind.

  CHAPTER 14

  Our efforts are like those of the Trojans. We believe that with resolution and daring we will alter the blows of destiny, and we stand outside to do battle.

  —Constantine P. Cavafy, Greek poet

  JUSTINE DROVE HER FATHER to Cerveteri on a crisp April morning in his Mercedes SUV. Her Spider was too cramped for his leg brace, and she found, to her surprise, that she enjoyed the power of the larger car. She had steered away from them, considering them too ostentatious, too expensive to operate. Four hours of driving and two stops at lavish autostrada centers for food would give her plenty of time to share her thoughts with him: about Andrea, her need to get an apartment. Amir? Perhaps.

  As daughter and father drove from Fiesole through Florence, they marveled at the new apartment buildings and small tech industries that were spreading out from the city like a giant, flowing skirt. By the time they’d reached highway A1, Justine was ready to venture into more delicate subjects.

  “What do you hear from Andrea?”

  Morgan braced himself. He had noticed that his daughter was becoming increasingly frank with him. “Andrea’s called every other day or so. She can’t get away from Paris until next week,” explained Morgan patiently. “Why do you ask?”

  Justine hesitated. “She and I have some unfinished work to do on the codex and on the article we’re co-writing for Archaeology, so I’d just wondered when she’s returning. She e-mailed me to get reports on your recovery, but no commitment to return as yet.” She drove in silence for a while, her eyes focused on the chaotic traffic. She finally added, “I came to know Andrea fairly well in Egypt. We spent a great deal of time together.”

  “And . . .” he prompted. He wasn’t going to make this conversation easy for her.

  “She had a tragic love affair many years ago. Her fiancé was tortured and killed in Algeria. She told me she hasn’t had a grand passion since.” In the glare of the morning sun, Morgan couldn’t read his daughter’s expression, for which she was grateful.

  “She told me about Francois,” said Morgan. “If this conversation is intended to warn me about Andrea, you needn’t bother. I’ll make my own decisions regarding my love life, honey. You don’t have to worry about your old dad. I’ve had a few relationships since your mother, and I can assure you, I’m not that fragile.”

  Justine continued, seeming to disregard his remarks, “Andrea can be secretive, even manipulative. I’ve come to love her, but I’m not naïve about where I stand with her.”

  “I’m not naïve, either, Justine,” snapped Morgan. The conversation was over. He turned away from her and watc
hed the countryside open into rolling green hills punctuated with columnar cypress. So different from the scraggly cypress in Carmel, he noticed.

  “An espresso?” Justine asked, not waiting for his answer, pulling over at a rest stop. Nor would she resist the temptation to dawdle inside and give her father time to cool off. Where better can one enjoy browsing and find the works of Alexander Dumas and books like Madame Bovary and Moby Dick, as well as prize cheeses and decadent chocolates, than at stops on an Italian autostrada?

  Twenty minutes later, Justine returned with the coffees and Madame Bovary under her arm. They drove in silence for several miles. Morgan sipped his espresso more slowly than usual. Is he angry? Or just making me suffer?

  Morgan finished off his coffee, folded the small paper cup, and carefully placed it in the trash satchel hanging from his glove compartment. “I thought Nasser was your ‘grand passion’ in Egypt,” he finally said, “but there is something between you and Amir. Want to tell me about it?”

  Touché, Dad. She decided she would. “While I was working in Egypt, there was tension between us. I respected him—and he respected me, I think—but he kept making these clumsy attempts to protect me. Well, not always clumsy. And I thought there was sufficient evidence to think he was involved in the theft of the codex. Eventually, I realized he was trying to protect his brother . . . and his grandfather.”

  “Then Zachariah was murdered.”

  “Yes . . . and his grandfather—”

  “—may also have been murdered.”

  “Yes. I’m sure of it.” She paused and drove silently for a while. “After Amir saved my life, we became a team of sorts, trying to figure out what was going on. There was no romance, no . . .”

  “You weren’t lovers.”

  “Not then . . .”

  “But now?”

  “Now, we’ll have to see. I would say we’ve started down a new path.”

  “Amir is a good man, at least as far as I’m concerned. Neither your mother nor I would be unhappy with Amir as a son-in-law. But would you marry an Egyptian?”

  “Probably not. For the same reason that Mom didn’t. I’d worry that the tradition of unequal relationships would set in sooner or later. That’s not what I want in a marriage.”

  “But your mother made the wrong decision anyway.” Morgan grinned and looked away.

  Justine laughed. Her father had been overly protective of her mother. And he’d certainly tried to dominate her. So much for cultural stereotypes.

  With no connecting highway between A1 and the western coast, the drive around Viterbo and Tarquinia took an additional curvy hour. They were now in the province of Lazio—what had been Etruscan territory. Cypress, olive, and apple trees lined the roadway, and small signs occasionally indicated the presence of Etruscan tombs nearby. They rejoined the highway at Tarquinia, where the hills vanished and the landscape rolled out flat down to the Tyrrhenian Sea. They turned east into City Centro and headed toward the hills that held the old town of Cerveteri.

  “That isn’t the base of a sarcophagus,” declared Morgan with the enthusiasm of a novice. Having been helped down the ladder by Fabiano, he stood inside the empty cavity that had imprisoned Riccardo and himself only a couple of weeks before. Six broad beams now supported a newly erected ribbed ceiling. Quite different than when Amir had come out there right after the collapse and discovered the ancient beams partially sawed through. He’d photographed the evidence and handed it over to the Carabinieri. He squinted at Donatello, who still stood vigil with his grieving family.

  Justine and Amir had heard Morgan hint at a possibly remarkable find. But it was Della Dora, the elder team member, who asked, “Then what is it? It’s flat and framed like a base with the sarcophagus missing. I don’t quite see . . .”

  “It’s the top of a step, isn’t it?” Amir asked. “The top of a step,” he repeated.

  “Exactly,” agreed Morgan, pleased to let the younger man announce the tentative conclusion, especially after what Justine had told him about their relationship. Patting Amir on the shoulder, he leaned fully on his right crutch, which was slowly burying its rubber foot in the soft floor of the cavity. “Look at the top more closely. It doesn’t have the usual anchors for the walls of a sarcophagus. And notice the almost smooth ridge. The surface shows wear as though it has been walked on.” He switched his crutch to his left side, supporting his weight with his left foot and leaned over to brush a layer of fine dust off the piece of granite.

  “Then the tomb is below us!” exclaimed Justine, stating the obvious. “The find is below.”

  “I’d say so,” Morgan grinned. “More digging is in order.” He turned to Della Dora, who beamed with pleasure as though he could see Tut-like treasures in his mind’s eye.

  “We might yet find the truth about the Etruscans,” declared Della Dora, his dimples deepening as he furiously took notes.

  “And what truth is that, Professor?” asked Amir, fully attending to the older man, whose cheeks were flushed with both the rising heat in the sauna-like enclosure and the thrill of the hunt.

  “The origins. The language. The prevailing theories have never satisfied me, non sono credibile,” replied Della Dora. “I’m not naïve enough to propose colonization. The evidence doesn’t support the uniformity of a colonization movement. And while the communities had much in common, much also era molto fortuito, randomized, serendipitous . . . unique.”

  “I favor provocation,” said Morgan excitedly, still staring at the upper step.

  Squatting to get a better look, Justine looked up, brushing her hair behind her ear. “What do you mean by provocation?”

  “The Villanovans, if they ever existed, might have evolved from the Neanderthals or been very early immigrants from the north. We know that civilizations don’t evolve at a steady rate. They can have setbacks—wars and natural disasters, for example. And also great leaps forward,” said Morgan.

  “Ah,” said Justine. “Great leaps forward—provocations—can arise from immigrants with new ideas; an invention; a drastic change in weather; a compelling, unresolved need, such as figuring out how to fish for mysterious creatures . . .”

  “Exactly. It could be a case of self-creation,” ventured Amir. “The development of a society can be accelerated through its simultaneous employment of new ideas.”

  “E’ possibile,” said Della Dora, his knowledge of quantum physics oozing back into fading memory banks. He stopped writing and his eyes filmed over; an internal dialogue now demanded his attention. “The interplay or interdependence of new ideas merging into something entirely new.”

  “Very possible,” agreed Morgan, listening carefully, even as his eyes searched the ceiling. “Do you think this ceiling will hold for another level of digging?”

  “I do, sir,” said Amir. “If anything, we were overly conscientious in building it. It will probably be here a thousand years from now, unlike the original.” He caught Morgan’s steely eyes. Amir had told Morgan and Justine that one of the original beams had been partially sawn through. They were being circumspect with the information until they could get to the bottom of it. Who would benefit from a collapse of the tomb?

  “Well, I hope it won’t take all that long to finish this project. Sono gia anziano, I am already an old man,” declared Della Dora, moving his flashlight back and forth across the ceiling.

  “No time to lose, then. Let’s dig!” said Morgan, hobbling toward the opening.

  Riccardo was sitting under a nearby sycamore tree when they emerged from the trench surrounding the tumulus.

  “Hello!” Justine yelled as soon as she saw him.

  “We missed you, caro amico,” said Della Dora, cresting the top of the stairs after Amir helped Morgan to the top. Everyone walked toward the man seated casually under a sycamore.

  “Soon we’ll all be back at work, toiling away on our historical quest. Right, Riccardo?” Morgan laid his arm across Riccardo’s shoulder.

  Riccardo stepped o
ut into the sunlight as Justine approached him and placed a hand on each of his shoulders, pulling him toward her. She hadn’t seen Riccardo since he had left the hospital to recuperate at his family home. After a prolonged hug, she stood back and surveyed him closely.

  He couldn’t miss the shock that flickered through her eyes. What she saw was a much older and wiser man, with luminous eyes and a deep sense of peace. “You’re different,” she said simply.

  “Si,” Riccardo responded. “I died in there.”

  A slight breeze swayed the branches above, and dust from the tumulus rippled across the field. Everyone stood still, mesmerized by a scene that none would ever forget.

  Justine waited with Riccardo while the others slowly walked back toward the unrevealed tomb. There was so much she wanted to know.

  No words were exchanged as the two friends sat close together under the swaying sycamore. Blood-red poppies danced whimsically nearby, as though responding to an unseen conductor. The sweet aroma of fresh barley, somewhere nearby, entered their nostrils.

  Riccardo knew what Justine wanted to know: what it was like to die. “My mother was there with me, when I was dying. She told me, ‘Not yet, my son.’”

  Justine’s eyes held his. “She sent you back?” She paused in invitation. “Tell me everything.”

  “As a priest, I heard stories about near-death experiences and attributed them to deeply held Catholic beliefs about the afterlife—the tunnel and light, ecstasy, the presence of family members, a welcoming Jesus. I was skeptical—but I can’t deny what happened to me.”

  She breathed deeply, exhaling slowly, in no hurry to hear what was coming.

  “Do you know how long my heart stopped?”

  “The doctors said less than ten minutes.”

  “Ten minutes,” he repeated in a flat tone. “Yes . . . I felt . . . as though my soul opened up and I understood everything. Such clarity. Some force was touching my face, soothing me. The sense of peace was overwhelming. Tranquillita di spirito.”