“Who would think of singing at a time like this?”
“Later, then. Do you promise?”
She turned away, but I’d already seen the thickening lens of tears darkening her eyes. “Prometto.”
Then I heard the sounds of tires on gravel, the assertive application of brakes, the sharp metallic scrape of four car doors opening. “They’re here. I’ll go to meet them.”
“Wait for Cosimo.” Her fingernails dug into my forearm.
But we heard him calling out to the visitors from the hill beyond the barn, sounding falsely hale and hearty, as if he’d just been feeding chickens and shoveling manure. “Buongiorno!”
When I stepped out of the barn, buttoning the top button of my shirt, I came up against two Germans in suits, one with a small, slim-barreled pistol in his hand, pointing. Closest to the car was a man in police uniform, an Italian supervising officer of some kind, chatting amiably with his hand on Cosimo’s sleeve. His face met mine, saw the gun pointing at me. He looked even more shocked than I was.
“Essere attento,” the Italian said, searching his brain for foreign words. “Achtung. Easy, easy.”
Another Italian policeman stepped out of the car, yawning, and stopped mid-stretch, alarmed by the scene unfolding. The two Germans wanted to search me, search the barn, find the truck. The two Italians wanted to go up to the main house, maybe wake up with some espresso if Cosimo or his mother would be so kind, take out their notepads and ask us some questions.
“Va bene, va bene,” Cosimo soothed, striking a compromise. He shouted out to his mother in the house to prepare for guests. To the men gathered, he suggested, in both carefully enunciated Italian and then German, that we go directly to the truck, where the statue of the Discus Thrower awaited us. That was why they were here, was it not? It was fine, well cared for, and ready for the final leg of its transport. We would go to inspect it, without delay. When Rosina slipped out of the barn, Cosimo directed her up to the house, out of our way: Help Mamma.
As we walked to the truck, the second German, who introduced himself simply and without rank as Herr Fassbinder, began to question me. But it was the unnamed one with the polished chestnut-colored holster riding high against his hip—Herr Luger, I’d tagged him in my mind—who held my attention.
“Why are you here?” Fassbinder asked gently.
“There was … an incident. A series of incidents.”
“We have a report that someone was trying to steal the statue you were transporting.”
I lowered my voice. “Someone was trying to steal it. Not these Italians. I think they’re ignorant of the entire matter.” The presence of a sympathetic listener encouraged me further. “At first, I suspected some Roman policemen, but now I think it was a private ploy, an attempt to take the statue, not to return it to the government, but to sell it on the black market.” Should I implicate Keller, or would that only prompt them to ask me if I’d seen him? Should I tell everything I knew, as fast as I could, and rely on the truth to save me?
“Very helpful, very interesting,” the German said, returning my whisper. “We are also missing someone—a man who came out this way earlier this morning. It would be our luck if he got lost here, motoring between farms, surveying the countryside for pretty girls, no doubt.” He glanced over his shoulder at the yawning Italian walking behind us. He started to catch the yawn himself and shook it off. I couldn’t tell if this casual manner was authentic or just a tactic to earn my trust. Either way, I preferred it to the point of a gun. “They haven’t given us much help, I have to say. I was in Genoa, on vacation, when they called me. The other man—he’s on duty, sent by The Collector himself, who is waiting to hear.”
I repeated the dreaded words back to him: “Der Kunstsammler.”
“Yes, there is unhappiness at the highest levels.”
Cosimo, the Italian police captain, and the German with the reholstered Luger were ahead, talking just as animatedly. Up at the house, the side door opened, and I saw Mamma Digirolamo waving, with a tray in her other hand. The espresso wasn’t ready yet, but it soon would be. All this would be settled. For a moment, this felt like a cheerful reunion, and I could imagine all of us making a best effort to sort through the confusion, in two languages, with all due respect. If only Keller had gotten lost. I could almost believe it myself. I could see him accepting breakfast in a farmhouse, dancing a waltz on a terrazza, falling in love.
But that would have been a different Keller, not the one who had fallen in love with profit and fineries, whose distinctive cologne even now was so strong in my nostrils I was sure others could smell it, too. I brought my arm to my face as if I were just rubbing my nose, and there was the source of it, on the underside of my forearms, where I must have pressed hard against his chest as the vanghetto sank into his lungs. I unrolled my sleeves, buttoning them, but still, the sickly sweet perfume lingered.
Up ahead, Cosimo threw open the back of the truck and was startled when Tartufa came leaping out, escaping her all-night confinement. She landed on all fours, sized up our assembly, darted forward a meter or so, and then turned to bare her small white teeth. For a moment, she seemed to be snarling at me—at the smell on my arms, at the clear look and aroma of my guilt—but then I saw her take a threatening step toward the other strangers. She picked out the Germans, perhaps because they were closest, their erect posture mimicking her own nervousness. She quieted for a moment, a gurgling sound dying in her throat, then pulled back her lips again.
And fell, tumbling to her side. There was a yelp and a gunshot—or most likely, the reverse. Of course. The gunshot followed by the yelp, followed by the fall. My mind was still struggling to see it unfold, to understand why she had gone limp.
Cosimo knelt down, cradling the dog’s head, while the rest of us turned toward the sound of the shot. The sleepy Italian policeman was no longer sleepy. The Italian captain, Cosimo’s supervisor, was outraged. Even Herr Fassbinder, hands anchored in the front pockets of his trench coat, looked surprised. I heard a house door slam and the sounds of women’s voices, plus a man’s—Gianni’s—ordering them back inside.
“Remove the animal, please,” the German with the Luger ordered, and my former ally, the off-duty vacationer in Genoa, shrugged off his last vestige of casual impartiality and got down to business. He carried the dog to the side of the truck, just out of view.
“Now, let’s get to work,” the first German ordered. “How much does this statue weigh?”
When I told him, he laughed. “Good God. What a nuisance. I suppose we paid by the kilo?”
No one responded to his joke.
“All right. Five of us then.” He pointed to me, Fassbinder, the Italian captain, and the secondary officer. Cosimo was left to stand, staring down at his stained hands. “And if anyone sneezes, or drops this verdammte thing on my foot, I still have ammunition left.”
Even Fassbinder failed to smile.
We were told to remove the statue from the truck for inspection, to unwrap its makeshift wrappings and stand it up in the yard. It was harder to do now that the crate had been mostly disassembled; it would take some time and some rope and a good deal of sweaty cooperation, handling those hundreds of kilograms of marble. It wasn’t a good idea to do haphazardly, I wanted to say. But since when had any of this been a good idea?
I was too nervous to look closely until it was fully upright, until it was done. Then I took off the last blanket and put a hand to the Discus Thrower’s side, on his exposed right ribs, holding him upright until we knew the round base was secure on the pebbly ground, and then I paused for a breath to look. Once I looked, I was unable to stop looking. This is what I had wanted to do all along—not only to look at it up close, but to touch it, unhurriedly, as I would never again be able to do, once the statue was in powerful hands, on private or public display.
There was the taut pectoral muscle, and beneath it, the smooth and shadowy indent just below the first rib, the second, the third, the fourth and t
he fifth, all the way down to the muscular iliac crest. Where my hand rested, along the middle of the rib cage, was the place where I had been strong once, where I had been ashamed, where I had been attacked, where I was now healed. I ran my hand over the marble, feeling all that this statue was, and all that it was not—nearly unfathomable artistry, but not everything. Both more than and less than life. The fact that it would outlast us all was, at this moment, both an injustice and a relief.
There was a dark line near the Discus Thrower’s hip, but when I reached down and touched it, the darkness wiped off easily. It was only soot from the truck fire, not a crack. There were no lines or new signs of breakage anywhere along the statue, from toe to fingertip, from back to front, other than the cracks that had been apparent before—on the discus itself, just below the right shoulder, a few other places, all well documented.
The gathered men were all looking at me. They would have to believe what I had to say, or better yet, I could show them the di Luca guide. The two nubs at the top, like the faint traces of two little devil horns—of which Herr Luger asked, “Did something happen there?”—were part of the authentic Roman statue, artifacts of the molding process. I could explain everything in fine detail about what didn’t matter, and almost nothing about what did: Was it worth all of this, including what would come next?
“There it is, safe and sound,” I said as we all looked on with some awe. At the very least, we had not damaged a masterpiece.
Maybe that thought made me believe we were past the worst of it, or maybe I was not optimistic at all but only reckless, intoxicated by the presumption of imminent liberty, ready to accept the lash rather than cower from it.
“There is money,” I stammered. “Money from the people who were trying to steal the statue, who paid Cosimo’s brother, Enzo …”
Fassbinder translated this into Italian. Now I had everyone’s attention.
“Enzo?” the Italian police captain asked, looking worried. But not nearly as worried as Cosimo, whose eyes grew wide.
He stared at me, entreating. But he couldn’t worry about Enzo’s reputation now. It was too late for that. We had to save ourselves.
Fassbinder squinted into the pale yellow dawn breaking over the farm, still wanting to be back in bed. “This implicates you, I’m afraid.”
“How could it? If I were going to be paid for stealing the statue, I would not have received the money yet—not from people who didn’t know or trust me. No, this money went to a local man, a member of the polizia municipale, who was trying to misdirect us.”
The Italian police captain didn’t like this. Now it was more than just Enzo’s reputation at stake; it was all of his police force. But then again, who were these German investigators to meddle in a local affair? Was this a police matter now or a diplomatic one? Shouldn’t there be higher-ranked officials involved?
The German, ignoring all questions of rank and policy, continued pressing me. “And how did you get it from him?”
“He died in a road accident. We found it in his pocket. It’s a large quantity, in lire and Reichsmarks. There is a German you should suspect, that’s true, but it isn’t me.”
Cosimo was still staring, shaking his head slowly. I felt for him. He had suffered the worst of this, he had helped me at every turn, but his judgment was not sound.
“Cosimo. You must give them the money.”
“I don’t have it,” he said, nearly choking on the words.
“You must. There is nowhere else it could be but here.”
“No one wanted it.”
“No one wanted it? It was a small fortune.”
“It was sfortuna.” Bad fortune.
The police captain said something to Cosimo, who translated: “Perhaps you men should go for a drive, looking for your colleague. The captain says he will interview us and get to the truth.” But neither German showed any interest in that, not with the scent so near and the whiff of money added to the intrigue. There was some disagreement in two languages, a patronizing tone that did not please the Italian police captain. I missed most of it, thinking of the unwanted money, of who would have wanted it most, who would have needed it, where it might have been put and never seen again.
“Follow me,” I said. I turned away from the statue. “I know where it is.”
The trigger-happy German raised his Luger again and ordered me to stop.
“If you shoot me, then you’ll have to do the work yourself. This is going to be a hard enough job without you waving that thing. Cosimo, where is the shovel?”
I hadn’t seen him look this unwell since the moment he had found his brother alongside the road. If anything, he had looked more tranquil then, as if that moment had been a confirmation of a long-lived fear, whereas this moment was a complete, terrible, and unnecessary surprise.
“Up on the hill,” Cosimo whispered.
“That’s where I’m going, then.” And I turned and strode without hesitation, followed by the sound of several pairs of heavy footsteps hurrying to catch up with me.
CHAPTER 14
The mound was still fresh when we got there, less competently tamped down than I remembered it. I began to dig, watched by the two Germans, two Italians, and Cosimo. No one offered to assist. The rising sun burned away a scattered bank of clouds. A few bumblebees danced over the bright green grass, and we continued to hear them even when we couldn’t see them, the buzz of floral exuberance. After a few dozen shovelfuls, I stopped to roll up my sleeves, then changed my mind and unbuttoned my shirt, tossing it aside, unfolded.
In the Labor Service, we were never allowed to take off our uniforms, even on the hottest, longest days, and that had always been fine with me. But now, I didn’t care about propriety; I hadn’t a self-conscious bone in my body; I didn’t care that this was one of the worst days of my life because the work wasn’t so bad really, and the sun on my shoulders felt good for now, and now was all that mattered anyway. I didn’t have to think, only dig.
I didn’t have to think, that is, until sometime later, when my shovel hit something soft. I poked around. I dug more carefully and felt around with the blade, aware only now that what I had thought was the insistent buzzing of an insect had become, in the last few minutes, the sound of Cosimo praying under his breath in rapid Italian. He was praying for the Lord’s mercy, for forgiveness. He was praying for the Germans’ patience. He was praying for our lives.
Let me stop and go back here, to this moment I have failed to remember properly, a stuck frame in my mental camera. Let me see Cosimo, who is not only praying frantically, but holding something. The Germans have moved Tartufa out of view, but just before following me up the hill, Cosimo picked her up again, cradling her like a baby in his arms—all damp, dark, speckled fur and black paws, the tail peeking out from underneath his left arm. He is a policeman who has investigated murders and transported the body of his twin brother. He has helped to hide a corpse. But there is one thing he does not understand: why a stranger had to shoot his dog, without even a warning.
So when the German with the Luger begins to hold it up again in response to the appearance of something strange coming to the surface—the back of a head, a few wisps of hair like the sweeping end of a broom mysteriously buried in the dirt—Cosimo stops praying. He tucks the limp dog more firmly under his arm, between hip and armpit, and with his free hand forms a fist.
The German takes a step closer to me, closer to the grave, fascinated and repelled. He lifts the gun higher, even as his gaze drops.
“Put that away!” Cosimo shouts, voice trembling. “You have no right!”
Rosina has left the house, in defiance of Gianni. She has climbed the hill. She is watching, too, from just behind the two visiting Italians and the other German. She is pressing her knuckles against her lips, trying to hold back any ill-advised sounds.
I have stopped digging. I have realized my strategic error. I, too, am trembling.
The German can’t believe what he is seeing. “Is th
at …?”
Cosimo makes his demand more clear: “Put it away!”
Rosina calls out to her brother—too late.
Cosimo’s fist comes up, catching the unsuspecting German on his left jaw. My shovel drops, the pistol with its deceptively narrow barrel swings—and then the popping sound that changes everything.
I stumble forward, hands sliding on the edge of the grave, trying to pull myself out. But Rosina gets to him first. Cosimo has dropped to his knees, he is falling, his head is in her lap, he is trying to speak. The German is still holding his weapon as he pushes toward the grave, down on his knees at the edge, his legs level with my face, trying to see for himself.
“You did this?” he demands, and I am sure he is talking to me, but then I look, and he is facing Cosimo.
Cosimo says something none of us catch. The lips move, words the Germans don’t understand—“Mio fratello.”
“That’s right,” the German says. “Now you’ve got something to say about it.”
They think he is confessing, but he is doing nothing of the kind. He is only calling out, as one would hail a friend on the street. He isn’t implicating me, he isn’t sacrificing himself for anyone, he is simply trying to be heard before the figure turns the corner and is lost. “Mio fratello.” My brother.
I howl, “You’ve got the wrong man!”—but at that moment, there is a rush of sounds—a second carefully aimed shot and Rosina’s shriek, followed by a commotion as she attempts to interpose before there are two men shot instead of one: “I saw it all happen!”
“And you?”
They are asking me now. I am staring at Cosimo’s closed eyes and softened jaw and parted lips, still moving slightly, still filtering air, but only barely.
Rosina shouts, “It was self-defense! Can’t you just leave? We hate you!”
The Italian police captain closes in on the German with the gun. He steps between the German and Rosina, a brave man for doing it, a brave man waving his arms and using every gesture and facial expression God gave him to try to calm everyone down. In anger, I make a grab for the German’s ankle and, in return, hear another pop. I feel a hot spike of pain run through my hand, and hear yet another pop that makes my shoulder throb. If any coherent thought runs through my brain at all, it is only: this is how things end. But it will bring balance. It will be a punishing symmetry, to meet my end after the end I have inflicted upon these others: Enzo, Cosimo, and even Keller, regardless of his faults. And more than that: a punishing symmetry considering how I came here, and what I refused to acknowledge.
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