“He’s a nice man and you’ll be the perfect match for him. He just needs a bit of confidence and security.”
Annika gasped, then blushed, which was not the way she’d generally act. As soon as she recovered, she whispered back in the old woman’s ear.
“Giò’s right, you really are something.”
The old woman twinkled, but her piercing eyes were on Valentina. The woman nervously said thank you for the coffee and the biscuits, but it didn’t require Granny’s powers of observation to see she was relieved to go.
By the time Granny was saying farewell to Giò and Guido, the others were already standing on the little cobbled alleyway outside.
“It was a pleasure to get to know Giò’s grandmother,” said Guido, kissing the old woman. “And I loved that Limoncello of yours.”
“Someone said you’re a good photographer. Next time, I hope we’ll have a chance to talk more casually, but today it was important I warned you.”
“Warned us?” Guido and Giò asked together.
“Yes. Did you not hear how many times the words ‘hideous’ and ‘wicked’ came out while we were chatting? There’s something evil going on in that hotel, just be aware.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Giò to Guido as soon as Granny had closed the door behind them. “She’s got such a powerful imagination, I never know how to stop her. Maybe it was the things she saw during the war, maybe…”
“Shhh.” He smiled softly at her.
“What?”
“You don’t have to justify what your granny says.”
“Maybe you have a point.”
Giò’s relief turned to surprise a second later.
“Especially as she struck a chord. I don’t think she’s wrong. I’ve felt the evil myself.”
11
Just Another Sunday
During the night, strange visions of castle ruins above a deserted plain, the smells of campfires and spices, populated Rolando’s dreams. When he woke up, he went straight to his small office in the attic of the apartment, browsed through some of his magazines and searched for the ad. Yes, it was the exact place he had seen in his dream. Strange, he hadn’t even been aware he’d read the text, but something must have stuck in his memory. Anyway, there was a mobile phone number to call. He didn’t hesitate a second, even if it was Sunday, even if it was not yet 8am.
A cheerful voice answered at the other end of the line. Yes, it was possible to join at such short notice, the group wasn’t full yet. As for the visas, they could be obtained from the airport on arrival, as long as they both had valid passports that weren’t due to expire within the next six months. Rolando was grateful that Angelica had prepared in advance to visit her sister in the States and their passports were well in date. They had never travelled outside Europe before.
Rolando then made his specific request. The woman took some time before answering. It could be done, but could he call back at 10.30 to give her time to check it out? Of course, he could call back, even if it did leave Angelica rather surprised that they wouldn’t be going to Mass together as he – the predictable and unadventurous Rolando – had other things to do.
At lunchtime, Rolando picked Angelica up from Mass and they drove to his favourite restaurant on the harbour. Angelica yawned as they sat at their usual table, greeting the people around them and ignoring her husband. All the families in the restaurant were the same ones she’d seen there every weekend for the past 20 years, the same people who had been beside her at Mass, and were now gossiping about all that had happened in the past week. And of course, nothing had happened, except for that strange death at the Pellicano Hotel. But was a death from anaphylactic shock really enough salt to add flavour to their insipid lives?
After the initial greetings, Angelica didn’t even attempt to make small talk with the people at the neighbouring tables, let alone with her husband. She was so angry with him, with the complacent, satisfied expression on his face. How could he be so content with this miserable life? How could he not see how hard it was on her, how frustrated and unhappy she was?
The waitress appeared beside them. “Spaghetti and vongole for Mr Ariosto and orecchiette for you, madam, as usual?”
“No, I’d like some linguine allo scoglio today,” Angelica said vehemently, feeling rebellious. Even the waitress knew their every move. How humiliating.
“I’ll take the same as my wife.”
Rolando smiled gently. Then the waitress came back with a silver tray, a red rose on top of a white envelope. Now, this was utterly unusual.
“For me?” Angelica asked. Surely there was a mistake.
The waitress nodded. Angelica picked up the rose and the white envelope, holding both incredulously.
“Won’t you open it?” Rolando asked.
“But our anniversary isn’t until Tuesday,” she said.
“I know, but I had to prepare something.”
She opened the envelope to find two tickets for… Tehran? Wasn’t that in Iran?
“We leave tomorrow, so we have the afternoon to pack.”
A journey, tomorrow? And why Iran? What was there to see there? Why not Paris or London? Could women even travel to Iran? Would she have to wear a burka or at least a headscarf?
She was dumbfounded – had her husband gone mad? Then she noticed the address on the details beneath the flight tickets: the Alamut valley. Hey, that was the name of her perfume. How could she have forgotten that it was a real place, and that it was in Iran? Had Rolando seen her new perfume? Surely not, he never looked in her bathroom, let alone her cabinet. So was it one of those strange coincidences that hit our lives every now and then? Was she going to experience a One Thousand and One Nights dream?
He gently caressed her hand. “I thought it would be thrilling to spend our anniversary in a completely different place this year.”
She looked at him uncertainly, wondering for the first time if she really knew her husband as well as she’d always thought she did.
12
The Dangerous Charm Of Talent
It was 30 minutes before dinner when Guido sent her a text.
“Do you want to come over? I’ve got something to show you.”
Giò felt a bit too delighted by the offer.
Come on, old spinster, you can’t get this excited. It’s probably a ruse – the old story of the predatory man inviting the unsuspecting woman to look at his ‘butterfly collection’. But even as the thought was passing through her mind, she was trying to tame her rebellious short hair and had brushed a touch of bronzer onto her face and natural gloss on her lips – gestures that would have delighted her sister, Agnese, who was always complaining that Giò should take more care of herself and her appearance.
She knocked on his door. Inside, the room was chaotic, with a couple of cameras recharging on the floor and a number of papers spread out across his desk.
No clothes left lying around, though, it’s just his creative stuff.
She pointed to a large-screen laptop standing on a chair.
“We need to sit on the bed, I’m afraid,” he said, indicating more papers that were taking up the only armchair available.
“You don’t believe in travelling light, do you?”
“I’m not travelling at the moment. This is a break – a working break – and I need to get things done. When I travel, I travel light – well, sort of light, if you ignore the laptop and photo equipment.”
She finally accepted his invitation to sit beside him. He moved the laptop to perch it on top of a couple of books on the desk.
“Perfect height,” he said as a video started.
The video played for fewer than five minutes, and was about Iran. Mostly shot from a drone, it showed mosques, cities, mountains and deserts. Music following images, and images following music, but there was little dialogue. People buzzed around the bazaar, then a close up showed steaming tea slopping from a silver pot into small, shiny crystal glasses. From that scene, the sound moved on to
the gurgling of water and they were under a waterfall in a luscious forest. The camera was moving upstream close to the water’s surface, as if it was hopping from stone to stone, until it reached the top of a rocky mountain, the sky beyond filled with fluffy clouds.
The video was an immersive sequence of time-lapse effects and continuous jumps from small detail to glorious landscapes, from slow motion to speeded-up videos, from people to plants, from animals to objects. Giò found herself totally lost in what she was seeing.
When the video stopped, she could only cry, “Gorgeous!”
They sat silently for a while. Then he threw his head back, his curly red hair bouncing as he let out one of his loud bursts of laughter.
“Is that all?”
His laugh was so infectious, Giò found herself smiling, feeling a little stupid.
“Yes, that’s all. It is really gorgeous. I can’t add more on top of that, except I’d love to see it again, maybe more than once.”
He pressed play again, but this time he turned down the volume and commented on the images as they went by. He didn’t describe what he’d been filming, just mentioned the tricks he’d used to shoot the film the way he had, sharing a few anecdotes, some technical stuff Giò didn’t understand, some challenges due to the wind and turbulence in manoeuvring the drone exactly the way he had wanted.
When it was over, Giò asked him earnestly, “Why do you bother writing at all, if you can create something this good with film?”
“You’re right, photography and video are my natural media, but in order to survive, I must be a jack of all trades. The video you saw has been commissioned by an Iranian travel agency; the country is opening up to tourism and they needed to create imagery to sell it as a destination. From the whole video, I will have to create shorter videos to use on social media…”
“My question is still the same – why do you waste your time writing a book?”
“Once I’ve completed the project, the flow of money from it stops. If I write a book, I have money, even if it’s only a little, coming in all through the year. And I can pitch it to the Iranian tourist board or cultural institutes around the globe. If they ask me for 100 copies, I’m a happier traveller as I get a little money in my pockets to buy more equipment.”
Giò nodded, finally understanding his point of view. She appreciated how much effort he put into something he didn’t like too much in order to live life the way he wanted.
“So, did you really like it?” he asked.
“I wish I could write as well as you shoot.”
He laughed again. Was it to mask his pleasure at her words?
“I do have a proposal,” he said.
“And what’s that?”
“Tomorrow, I see the weather will have improved no end, so I’d love to do some shooting from the statue of Christ the Redeemer. I want to be there at first light…”
“I thought you were meant to be getting on with your writing.”
“That’s what I intend to do straight after dinner.”
“And you mentioned you’re not a morning person.”
“Except when it comes to photography. Unfortunately, you can only get that lovely, soft early morning light… early in the morning. But I will remember that you’re likely to use anything I say against me.”
His hazel eyes went from joking to soft and caressing – too soft and caressing for poor Giò, who flushed and tried hard to hide the fact that her heart was drumming in her chest. All of a sudden she stood up, looked at her watch and spoke as coolly as she could manage.
“I think it’s time to go for dinner.”
Guido looked around, grabbed his jacket from the back of one of the chairs and held the door open so that Giò could walk out first.
“So will you be joining me tomorrow morning?”
“I’d love that. It’s one of my favourite spots – you can see for miles from up there – and I’m curious to see how you work and… mostly… what you will see…”
She stumbled over her last few words. She had meant to say that maybe the way Guido saw the world was different from other people, that she was sure he could see beyond the obvious, connecting images in unexpected ways as with the Iran video, but for once, words were failing Giò miserably.
He nodded as if he understood all the same.
In the corridor, they met Erminia and Francesco, and Giò was rather pleased to see them. She needed a little time to process what was happening between herself and Guido; she had felt too close to a man she barely knew. But maybe she didn’t want to think about it at all. She moved in front of Guido and bombarded poor Francesco with an avalanche of questions on his work, her voice once more determined and confident.
13
On The Roofs Of The World
It was still dark when Guido’s car began the steep climb that led from Maratea to the statue of Christ the Redeemer, tall viaducts spanning the voids as the serpentine road wound its way around a series of sharp hairpin bends.
“I’m glad that it’s still dark, it looks as if the road might be quite scary in broad daylight.”
“Don’t you worry, there’ll be plenty of opportunities for sightseeing on the way back,” laughed Giò.
“Not for the faint of heart,” Guido said.
“We’re almost there,” said Giò, directing him towards the best place to park. “This early in the day, we can drive almost up to the Basilica of San Biagio, so there’s no need to leave the car this far down, especially since you’ll need all your equipment.”
“OK, Boss.”
They parked where Giò had shown him. As soon as they were out of the car, the chilly air enveloped them.
“My goodness,” Guido said, shivering.
“I told you to wear something warm.” Giò laughed again, pulling a woollen scarf over her mouth.
“I wasn’t expecting it to be this cold,” he said through chattering teeth. “Let’s hurry, I’ll warm up while walking.”
“You’re not taking any of your cameras?”
“I need to study the place first, see what it’s like, and then decide how I’m going to do the shoot.”
“OK.”
They glanced briefly at the small Basilica of San Biagio, but soon carried on along a tiny path leading to the white statue of Christ, standing 22 metres high.
“Wow, it looks like a passage up to the sky,” said Guido, admiring the path, his mind already seeing how his cameras would capture it all. Darkness was beginning to give way to a deep blue light, and behind them a whitish halo was marking the horizon below purple-tinted rays. One of them touched the white statue at the end of the path, and Guido cried out in surprise.
“But He’s looking at us! I thought He’d be watching over the sea.”
Giò nodded. The statue of Christ was indeed looking inland, watching over the Basilica. She’d never known why He had His back to the sea, but found it fascinating nonetheless.
“And what are those ruins?” asked Guido, pointing to the remnants of fortified walls below them to their left.
“We can have a walk there later. It’s called Castello; it’s what’s left of old Maratea before people moved to the lower part of town.”
Christ’s face was emerging from the darkness.
“He looks like one of us, an ordinary young man.”
“Now stop looking around and just concentrate on the statue,” said Giò as they walked on briskly to ward off the cold. When they reached its base, Guido looked up as far as the eye could see to take in the sheer size of the statue. Giò placed her hands over his eyes.
“Now let me guide you. Don’t open your eyes till I tell you so.”
“Won’t I trip over the cobbles?”
“Trust me,” she said, carefully guiding him over the rough terrain beyond the statue. It was a game her father used to play with her.
“And now you can open your eyes,” she cried, pulling her hands away.
The peaks of the rocks where they stood were
suspended over the valley below, opening up to the sea in front of them. Along the coastline, parts of the mountains were highlighted by the first rays of the sun, the shadows adding to the depth of the scenery. The sea was a dark blue, except towards the northern part of the gulf which was embraced by the shining cone of Mount Bulgheria and already bathed in sunlight.
Giò let him take in the vista in his own time before gently pulling his shoulders to turn him around. Chains of mountain ridges invited his eyes to caress an edgy green carpet, plumes of lazy clouds suspended here and there.
“YAAAAAWP!” he cried with all the breath he had in his lungs, and then in unison they yelled, “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.” They laughed, looking into each other’s eyes until Giò felt she couldn’t hold that look for a second longer. Luckily he chose that moment to start exploring, moving around the base of the statue, reading lovers’ names carved on the toe emerging from the white tunic before marching down to the parapet of the belvedere to look below to Maratea Harbour. He calculated the speed at which the light was advancing, pushing back the veil of darkness.
“This is exactly the light I want,” he cried, catching hold of her right hand. A second later, they were both rushing down the path, happy as playful children. Pushed by the wind, they let out a final cry, stopping, breathless, at the Basilica.
“That wasn’t disrespectful,” he said, looking towards the simple little church. “Just our cry of joyful thanks.” And before Giò could think, before she could take refuge in some silly remark, blurting out words for words’ sake, he pulled her tight against him and kissed her with a tenderness she would not have suspected this man – so energetic, so wilful, so full of life – could possess.
“And this is my thanks to you,” he whispered, gently pushing her away. Then he winked at her. “Now to get to work.”
Peril at the Pellicano Hotel Page 9