by Mark Mills
"Please, call me Francesca."
"Francesca," he said, trying it on for size.
"I insist."
"It doesn't sound right."
"It never did. I was never a Francesca. I always thought of myself as a Teresa."
"A little too saintly, maybe."
For a moment he thought he had gone too far, but her face creased into a smile. "Oh dear, you really do know far too much about me, don't you?"
She turned back to the portrait.
"I'm thinking about burning it."
"But you won't."
She shook her head. "It explains a lot in his expression, don't you think?"
"I think we see what we want to see."
"Goodness me," she said, "already talking like a wise old professor."
Adam looked suitably chastened.
"I would like to go to the chapel," she announced. "Do you mind helping me?"
There were gardeners at work on the terraces, trimming hedges, raking gravel and sprucing up the borders for the party. Signora Docci greeted them but didn't stop to talk.
"Are you religious?" she asked as they approached the chapel.
"No."
"Not even as a child?"
"I enjoyed the stories."
He was dreading a metaphysical debate. It didn't happen.
"Yes, they're good stories," she replied simply.
She crossed herself on entering the building and made her way to the altar, the tap of her cane echoing around the interior. She must have sensed his hesitation, because without turning she said, "I doubt he'll strike you down in his own house."
He joined her at the altar, where she removed a candle from her pocket—a votive candle in a red glass jar. He offered her his lighter to save her fiddling with the box of matches.
"Thank you."
She lit the candle and placed it in front of the triptych.
"Maybe now she can rest in peace."
Her words caught him off-guard. Had she felt the same unnerving presence?
"No one knows exactly where she's buried, do they?" he said.
"When we buried Emilio we found some bones, but that means nothing."
"Why was he buried here?"
"Emilio?"
"I mean, how many Doccis are?"
"Most of us are in the cemetery at San Casciano. There is a place for me there, next to Benedetto." She paused. "It was Benedetto's idea. He insisted. He wouldn't even discuss it. He wanted Emilio here."
She took a few steps and stood over the remains of her dead son.
"Old men make the wars, but they send young men to fight the battles. It doesn't seem fair. They should go themselves." She smiled wistfully at the thought. "I wonder how many wars there would be if it worked that way." Only now did she look up at him. "All those boys. Parents should not have to see their children die before them. It's not easy to live with. Benedetto couldn't. The moment it happened he changed. I thought he was losing his mind. He would not even allow Emilio to be buried with the bullets that killed him. They were removed." She turned toward the wall. "They are there, behind the plaque, with Emilio's gun."
"Really?"
"No one else knows that. Only me. And now you."
He tried to push the thoughts away, but they kept coming at him, buffeting him. There were only two plausible explanations for Benedetto's strange behavior regarding the bullets and the gun. He already knew what one of them was: the poor man really had lost his marbles. The second explanation required testing, and that meant gaining access to the top floor, it meant getting his hands on the key in the bureau in Signora Docci's bedroom.
Annoyingly, she took to her room the moment they returned from the chapel, pleading exhaustion and requesting that Maria serve her lunch in the upstairs loggia. Adam shook off his frustration. If he had to wait awhile longer for an opportunity, so be it. There was another matter he had to deal with anyway—after he had phoned home.
The moment his mother's voice came on the line he seemed to lose all power of reason and speech. This wasn't entirely due to her irritating habit of answering the phone with the words—
"The Strickland residence."
"Mum, it's me."
"Adam, darling. How are you?"
How could she muster such heartfelt warmth and enthusiasm in her condition?
"Fine. Good. Yeah."
He wanted to tell her that he'd been blind, insensitive, self- absorbed. He wanted to say that he knew what she must be going through. He wanted to reassure her that it would all be all right in the end, whatever happened, that even if Dad left her she would always have him and Harry and a life worth living.
As it was, they talked chiefly about the weather and his laundry arrangements in Italy. When she raised the subject of his work on the garden, he brushed the question aside, not wanting to diminish her story with an account of his own small triumph.
After ten minutes or so, it was patently clear to him that he was never going to raise the matter of his father's infidelity. How could he? It wasn't a language they had ever spoken. They both lacked the vocabulary.
"Mum, I have to go."
"Of course you do. Make sure you give Signora Docci something for this phone call. You won't forget, will you?"
"Mum . . ."
"Yes, darling?"
"I love you, Mum."
"Gracious me," she chuckled, "you must be having a terrible time."
"I'll see you next week."
"What day did you say again?"
"I didn't. I'll call and let you know. 'Bye, Mum."
"I'll send your love to your father."
"Yes, do that."
"Goodbye, darling. And try to keep Harry out of trouble."
He replaced the receiver on its cradle and made straight for the kitchen. He told Maria that he wouldn't be requiring lunch today; he was going for a bike ride.
There were two men zealously tucking into bowls of pasta on the terrace in front of the Pensione Amorini—stonemasons from the look of them, powdered white from top to toe. Signora Fanelli must have insisted they eat outside regardless of the heat.
She was inside, chatting to the only other customer, an overweight man sporting a dark suit and a loud necktie. She turned as Adam entered, a flicker of alarm in her eyes. She recovered quickly, though, smiling warmly as she wandered over to greet him.
"How are you?"
"Good."
"How's life at the villa?"
"Good."
"Do you want to eat?"
"No thanks."
"Something to drink, then? A beer?"
"Why not?"
His arrival had disconcerted her. Maybe she didn't want to be reminded of their tryst. Or worse still, maybe she thought he had dropped by in the hope of a replay upstairs. Before he could set her mind at rest, she was gone, heading for the kitchen.
She really was very beautiful, more beautiful than he remembered, and he wondered, not for the first time, what on earth had induced her to share herself with him.
He took a sip of beer and pressed the chill glass to his cheek. It was good to get out, away from Villa Docci, to slip its grip for a while. That's what he told himself. He knew in his bones he'd done no such thing.
Villa Docci had not released him. If it had, he'd be wandering the streets of Florence right now, dipping into churches, galleries and museums with Harry. Why was Harry the one down there doing it? The Renaissance was his thing, not Harry's. All that seminal art right on his doorstep, destined to go unseen by him, masterpieces callously ignored. And in favor of what, exactly?
He tried not to think too hard about why he had allowed himself to be drawn back into the dark abyss of his suspicions. The reasons flew in the face of common sense, they violated the laws of logic by which he liked to think he operated. This was uncharted territory for him, instinct his only guide.
It occurred to him that he wouldn't be sitting there on a bar stool in the Pensione Amorini if that same instinct hadn't served him so well in the
memorial garden. As ever, all things sprang from and returned to the garden.
Signora Fanelli served the lone gentleman his food, then joined Adam at the counter. Was it significant that she had tied up her hair while in the kitchen?
"It's nice to see you."
"I came to say goodbye. I'm leaving soon."
"Before the party?" she asked.
"You know about the party?"
"Everyone does. The children here always go and watch—from a distance, of course. I used to when I was young."
"I also want to say goodbye to Fausto, but I don't know where he lives."
She drew him a map on a paper napkin. He'd forgotten that she was left-handed.
When he pulled some coins from his pocket to pay for the beer, she said, "Don't be silly, I don't want your money."
She accompanied him outside to his bicycle. "You won't tell him about us, will you? Fausto, I mean."
"Don't worry, I'm too embarrassed."
She smiled apologetically. "I didn't mean that. But you won't, will you?"
"No."
She cast a fleeting look at the stonemasons before kissing him on both cheeks.
"Goodbye, Adam."
"Goodbye."
"Hello."
Fausto looked up, squinting. "You?" "Me."
Fausto was mixing mortar in an old tin pail. He was stripped to the waist, revealing a wire-and-whipcord body. Wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm, he rose to his feet.
"You like it?" He nodded at the low stone, tile-roofed structure he was working on. The building itself was finished; he was erecting the walls of a small yard out front.
"For the pig?"
"For a whole family of little pigs."
"It's beautiful." Adam looked around him. "It's all beautiful."
He wasn't being polite. The modest farmhouse was set among a run of terraces carved out of the wooded hillside just south of San Casciano. It was an isolated spot, accessed by a precipitous dirt track barely passable on foot, which probably accounted for the old U.S. Army jeep parked beside the farmhouse.
"Yes, it's not bad. Are you thirsty?"
"Yes."
"Go and get a couple of beers from the fridge. I have to do this now or the mortar will set."
As with Antonella's farmhouse, the living accommodation was on the first floor. Unlike Antonella's place, Fausto's home was stuffed to bursting with furniture, pictures, books and other curiosities. In the middle of the kitchen table was an upturned German helmet, painted pink and doubling as a flowerpot, a bushy fern sprouting from it. The ramshackle shelves in one corner of the room were almost exclusively given over to books on warfare and historic battles. Knowing that to delay anymore would mean he'd been snooping, he grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and headed back outside.
As soon as Fausto was done slapping the mortar around a few more blocks of stone, he took Adam on a tour. They inspected the vines, the olive trees, the orchard, the maize and the sunflowers.
There was also an extensive vegetable patch, as well as a large jerry-built coop with chickens busy turning table scraps into eggs. The crops were clearly suffering from the lack of rain, but it didn't seem to bother Fausto. "Everything a man needs," he declared with pride. "Except a woman to share it with."
They drank the next two beers in the shade of a vine-threaded pergola beside the house. Adam asked about the books on battles heaped up on the shelves in the corner of the kitchen.
"I'm interested, it's true. So much of who we are, what we are, comes down to a bunch of men fighting in a field."
Adam smiled. He hadn't thought of it in those terms before.
"In twelve sixty," said Fausto, "Florence and Siena went to war. September third. It was a Saturday."
Adam's Italian wasn't up to catching all of the details, but as he understood it, this was how things unfolded. Siena was already a divided city, and the Florentines weren't fools. They waited till the different factions were at each others' throats before sending in their messengers, two horsemen carrying with them a simple yet stark ultimatum: If the Republic of Siena didn't surrender at once to Florence, then the city would be razed to the ground. It wasn't an idle threat. The Florentine army massing to the east was more than capable of following it through.
The one thing the Florentines hadn't banked on was the Sienese burying their differences overnight. Sworn enemies gathered before the cathedral that same evening and greeted each other like brothers. Then they called on the Virgin Mary to help them in the forthcoming battle.
The two armies clashed the following day at Montaperti. According to eyewitness accounts, there was enough blood flowing at one point to drive four watermills. By far the greater part of it was Florentine blood. That field near Montaperti was home to a massacre, and it was years before any animals ever ventured near it.
"Imagine it," said Fausto. "The next day was a Sunday. That's when the Sienese army returned. They dragged the Florentine banner through the streets behind an ass. You think those bastard Sienese have forgotten that day? Of course they haven't. It's what they teach their children in school. It's in their eyes every time we play them at football."
Fausto paused to light a cigarette.
"People think of Italy as an old country. It isn't. We're young, younger than the United States. We only united in 1870, not even a hundred years ago. We're not a country yet, and we won't be for a while. These things take a long time. No, those bastard Sienese haven't forgotten Montaperti. It's part of who they are. In the same way Hastings is part of who you English are. That's one of the great battles. You know why? Because a bunch of men fighting in that one field changed the whole course of your country's history."
Fausto took a slug of beer.
"But you didn't come here to talk about this stuff. Am I wrong?"
"No."
"So tell me."
"I have a question. It's about Gaetano."
"Gaetano?"
"The gardener who left last year."
"I know who Gaetano is."
"Where is he now?"
"Viareggio. By the sea. He owns a bar there, a fancy place—La Capannina."
"You've been there?"
Fausto spread his arms to indicate his disheveled appearance. "What do you think?"
"How much does a fancy bar in Viareggio cost?"
"Apparently he inherited some money from his family down south." There was a note of skepticism in his voice.
"You don't believe it?"
"How do I know? More to the point, what do you care?"
Adam gathered himself, then took the plunge. "The last time I saw you, you said Gaetano changed his story about what happened the night Emilio died."
"Was I drunk?"
"You lied?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Just tell me what you meant."
Fausto sighed. "Look, it was something Gaetano's uncle told my father the next day."
"What?"
"He said he was almost run down by the Germans when they were leaving."
"Gaetano said that?"
"To his uncle."
Adam digested this news. "He turned up later. He wasn't there when it happened."
"It was a long time ago. Who knows what really happened? Who cares?"
"I do."
Fausto leaned forward in his chair. "Listen to me. The Doccis' business is their own. Who are you? You've been here—what—a week? You didn't know them before and you'll probably never see them again. Just leave it alone."
"How do you know I didn't know them before?" "What?"
"How do you know I didn't know the Doccis before?"
"You said."
"No I didn't."
"Yes you did."
"No."
"Porca l'oca! Look at you. Look at you! I'd chuck a bucket of water over you if the well wasn't dry. I warned you about that place. Didn't I warn you? Pull yourself together, this isn't normal behavior, you're acting like a crazy m
an. Just leave it alone."
Adam wanted to tell him that he'd tried to leave it alone—more than once—but he couldn't. He no longer had any choice in the matter.
"Did Maurizio kill Emilio?" he asked bluntly.
"I'm not going to answer that."
"Why not?"
"Because how the hell should I know?"
"But you think it's possible . . ."
"Anything's possible."
"Well, I think he did it."
"What if he did?"
"I think I can prove it."
"What if you can?"
"You don't believe in justice?"
Fausto gave a short, despairing laugh. "This is madness. You should go now. I'm serious. Go. Leave."
Fausto got to his feet to press home his point. He made no move to shake Adam's hand, so Adam turned and left.
Signora, are you awake?
Yes.
Shall I open the shutters?
Thank you, Maria.
Did you manage to sleep?
Not much.
Antonella called. She has bought fish for dinner this evening.
What kind of fish?
Does it matter? She knows I don't like cooking fish.
I'm sure she didn't do it to annoy you.
I'll mess it up. I always mess it up.
Maria, I've never known you to mess anything up.
Except the wild boar in chocolate sauce.
Yes, that was truly terrible. It was also twenty years ago.
Twenty-three.
It's good to see you've put it behind you.
Maurizio and Chiara have arrived.
Did they come by the villa?
No, I saw their car over at the farm.
We should invite them to dinner.
Antonella already has.
Oh, has she?
I like Chiara.
So do I, Maria. Where's Adam?
He went for a bike ride.
In this heat?
I was wrong about him.
Don't go soft on me now.
Signora?
In all the years we've known each other, I've never once heard you admit to being wrong about anything.
He's no fool.
No. But he's young, and therefore naive.
He's twenty-two next month.
He told you?
I saw his passport.
I'm not sure it's acceptable to go rifling through the guests' belongings.