The Dante Game

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by Jane Langton


  She jumped. Raffaello was leaning toward her, his mop of curly brown hair touching her cheek, his face a picture of jovial hospitality. “Ha fame?”

  Was she hungry? Some instinct warned her to understand nothing. She backed away and stared at him stonily.

  He turned to the others and shrugged. Matteo spoke to her gruffly in English, “We will come back soon.”

  They went out, and she could hear the door being locked.

  She was a prisoner. But at least she was alone. She could fling herself on the bed and weep if she wanted to.

  Instead she picked up her suitcase, put it on the bed and unpacked it. Carefully unwadding the shirts and trousers she had stuffed into it so hastily, Julia hung them up in the dilapidated wardrobe as if she were a guest in the Hotel Savoy, arranging her sporty separates and designer gowns and negligees on padded hangers.

  She felt a sharp pang of homesickness. Before her rose a vision of Zee looking into her room at the villa, wondering why she had gone off without saying good-bye. Would he see the torn page of her notebook, would he understand the drawing of Piccarda Donati?

  But how could he? Oh, how could he? All he would see would be the mess on the floor, the empty hangers, the missing suitcase. Julia’s heart sank. He would think she had run off like Sukey and the other kids. He would think she was a cruel, ungrateful bitch.

  CHAPTER 36

  Why must our guilt smite us with strokes like this?

  Inferno VII, 21.

  “But why would she leave, a girl like that, without saying good-bye?” said Dorothy Orme. “Oh, yes, I can see Kevin Banks taking off without a word, but not Julia. She seemed so responsible.”

  “I think you misjudged her, Dorothy,” said Joan Jakes. “She wasn’t what you thought she was. Not by a long shot.”

  Zee stood in the corridor in the dormitory looking into the neighboring rooms from which Kevin and Julia had departed. Both doors had been left wide open, both rooms were in disarray. It was instantly apparent that the two had gone off together.

  Zee closed his eyes in wretched understanding. It was his own fault. He had pressed her too hard. His longing had been unspoken, but it had weighed on her in the same way as Ned’s greedy adoration, and Julia had run away, unable to bear it any longer.

  With a sinking heart he remembered Tom’s prophecy that Julia Smith would settle down in the end with someone just like herself. Well, Kevin Banks wasn’t worthy of her, but he came from the same middle-class American background. He must have seemed more appealing to Julia than a lovesick old Italian pedant and ex-convict.

  The ice closed around him, freezing his arms to his sides. He was in the frigid depths of the lowest circle of Hell. Speechless, he watched Homer Kelly blunder around in Kevin’s room, rummaging through the litter on the floor, the books and papers carelessly tossed aside.

  Homer joined him in the hall. He ached for Zee. Curse that woman, Julia Smith. She was a spoiled unfeeling brat, to go off without a word.

  Together they walked into Julia’s room. Zee went to Julia’s desk and looked miserably at her open notebook. She had stayed home from the trip to Monte Oliveto in order to run away with Kevin, not caring enough about her studies to bring her class notes with her. Here they were, abandoned, along with the drawings she had copied from the blackboard so meticulously. Sadly Zee fingered the torn out sheet that lay on top, wondering why one page should have been ripped out so carelessly, nearly torn in half.

  While Homer probed in the drawers of Julia’s wardrobe, Zee stared at the torn page with its clumsy sketch. At once he recognized his own drawing of the capture of Piccarda Donati.

  Picking up the page, he turned slowly to Homer. “Look at this.”

  Homer glanced at Julia’s drawing and grinned in recognition. “Oh, sure, good old Piccarda, snatched from a nunnery by her vicious brother and forced into wedlock with some rich old creep.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s right. Homer, listen, maybe Julia tore this page out on purpose, to tell us what was happening to her.”

  “What was happening to her? You mean she was snatched away like Piccarda? Kidnapped? Oh, look here, Zee—”

  Zee’s eyes were alight. “It was Kevin. I’ll bet it was. Kevin forced her to go away with him.”

  “Kevin Banks? Oh, I can’t believe that. Not unless he had a gun or something. He just doesn’t seem the type. Too feckless somehow.”

  “Well, then it was somebody else.” Zee’s wretchedness turned to agitation. The page from Julia’s notebook trembled in his hand.

  Homer’s compassion deepened. Poor Zee was clutching at straws, trying to persuade himself that the fickle woman hadn’t abandoned him, oblivious to the wreckage she was strewing behind her. Zee needed to believe she was different from the thoughtless Debbies, different from Sukey Skinner, different from Kevin Banks and Throppie Snow. But she wasn’t. They were all the same kind of kid, spoiled adolescents. Well, Julia wasn’t as young as the rest of them, but like them she had followed her whim, careless of the cost. “Yes, I see what you mean. You think she tore this page out of her notebook as a message, while she was being dragged away like Piccarda. Well—”

  “But she may be in danger. Terrible danger.” Zee took Homer by the arms and shook him. “Those people are murderers. We know that. We’ve got to tell Rossi.”

  Homer called the Questura reluctantly.

  But Inspector Rossi drove over to the villa willingly enough, although he was distracted from the case that centered around the American school by continuous phone calls about the security forces for the Easter celebration at the cathedral. Rossi had been chosen by the superintendent at the Questura to cooperate with the celebrations committee.

  It was a big job. There were so many meetings to attend with the delegates from the carabinieri and the soldati, conferences dominated by the important dignitary, Signor Leonardo Bindo. Inspector Rossi’s telephone never stopped ringing.

  It was a relief to handle ordinary matters like murder, suicide and kidnapping. Rossi got out of the cruiser in the driveway of the Villa L’Ombrellino, smiled his ratlike grin at Homer Kelly and shook hands.

  Then both of them turned and looked at Zee, who was rummaging in the bushes. In mild astonishment they watched him run around the circle of the driveway like a madman, picking up bits of litter from the balustrade, from the muddy tire tracks, plucking a paper cup from the pleated drapery of a stone maiden.

  “Zee,” shouted Homer, “for God’s sake, what are you doing?”

  “Look at this. It wasn’t here before.” Zee’s arms were full of trash. He held up a scrap of paper. “Look, a schedina del totocalcio. It’s a betting form for soccer. This didn’t belong to Kevin. It belonged to an Italian.”

  Inspector Rossi looked at the collection of plastic wrappers, Nazionale cigarette packages, beer bottles and empty Fanta cans. He raised his eyebrows, smiling in disbelief.

  “Who else has been here?” demanded Zee, turning to Homer. “Ask Lucretia. Who else? Nobody, I tell you.”

  “Maybe Kevin and Julia called a taxi,” said Homer. “And the taxi driver dumped all his waste paper in the driveway.” He took Zee gently by the arm. “How else would they get to the station? They must have had heavy bags.”

  Zee didn’t want to hear the voice of reason. Hurrying after them as they entered the house, clutching his armful of rubbish, he babbled that Julia had been kidnapped and thrust into a car against her will. She had struggled and kicked, and all this stuff had blown out of the car.

  It was wildly improbable. Rossi let him rave while he examined Kevin’s room, and in Julia’s he listened politely to Zee’s passionate explanation about Piccarda Donati and the torn sheet of notebook paper. He was more interested in something he found in the back of one of Julia’s drawers, folded into a bathing suit. It was a packet of traveller’s checks.

  “Why she not take?” said Inspector Rossi, holding them up in his hand.

  Zee was electrified by the traveller’s checks.
“Ah, you see? Meraviglioso! It proves she, didn’t leave of her own accord. Otherwise she surely would have taken the money.”

  Rossi turned away, as if unconvinced. “I must go back to the Questura.”

  As the inspector climbed into his cruiser, Zee leaned down earnestly to the window. “You will look for her? You will try to find her?”

  “Oh, si, si. What city she come from in the United States? You have her address?”

  Zee looked desperately at Homer. “No, no, I’m sorry. But she went to New York University in the city of New York.”

  “New York City.” Rossi raised his hand in courteous farewell and drove away.

  “He won’t do anything about it,” said Zee bitterly. “He thinks she left on purpose, just like the others.”

  But Zee was wrong. Next day Inspector Rossi called Homer at the pensione. “The interpreter here at the Questura, she has telephoned the police department in New York. They tell her a young woman who is call Julia Smith was in difficoltà in New York at another time. She spend sixty days in prison for possession of eroina. She tell them it is not her eroina. She store a package for another person.”

  “I see,” said Homer glumly. “It’s what we call a likely story.”

  “What?”

  “You know, Inspector, it might have been another Julia Smith. Smith is our most common name, did you know that?”

  There was a pause. Homer could hear the little sucking noise made by the inspector’s buck teeth. “I tell you something, Signor Kelly. As you know, we have in the Questura here in Firenze a squadra narcotici. But the big office for anti-droga is in Milano. Heroin in Florence come from Milano. But now it begin to come from Florence too. Your school—”

  “Oh, I know, that phony lab in the tower. Pay no attention to that, Inspector.”

  Sorrowfully Homer passed along the news about Julia to Zee.

  Zee was stunned. “It must have been some other Julia Smith. There were probably a dozen Julia Smiths in New York City. Or else it was a mistake. The stuff was planted on her the way she said. People do that. When they’re afraid of a search they plant it on somebody else.”

  “Well, possibly,” said Homer.

  “Not just possibly. Certamente!”

  CHAPTER 37

  To please me at the glass I deck me gay.…

  Purgatory XXVII, 103.

  “Ecco il pranzo!”

  Raffaello was back. He was carrying a tray. Looking around for a place to put it down, he raised his eyebrows, then put it on the end of the bed.

  “Grazie,” said Julia stonily.

  Raffaello leered at her. Julia ignored him, and he went away.

  She was starved. Her breakfast had been only a cup of caffé latte, and it was now early afternoon. The meal was cold pasta, with a tumbler of red wine. Julia drank the wine gladly, although it tasted thin, as though it were the pressings of the local harvest, not yet matured. Not exactly vintage chianti classico from a famous Tuscan vineyard, but she drank every drop.

  Finished, she put the tray on the floor beside the door.

  Before long there was a heavy tread on the stair. It didn’t sound like Raffaello. It wasn’t. A woman in a shapeless flowered dress unlocked the door, entered, and stared at Julia with expressionless eyes set far apart in her broad face.

  “Buona sera,” said Julia, smiling at her, glad to see another woman, relieved to know that the house was not solely occupied by men. If a woman were part of the domestic establishment, surely rape would not be the order of the day? At least it seemed less likely.

  Her smile was wasted. The woman made no response. Stooping to pick up the tray, she went out and dosed the door behind her. The key turned in the lock.

  Julia felt better. The wine had warmed her, and her hunger was satisfied. She went to the sink and turned on the water. It was rusty, but after a moment it cleared, and she washed her face and hands.

  Across the valley the midwinter sun shone on the opposite hill. Julia opened the two casements of the window to the cold air and leaned her head against the bars. In the distance there were other farms, golden buildings set among cypress trees. In the farmyard below, the woman who had taken away her tray was feeding the chickens, crooning at them, tossing grain from a plastic pail. The ducks and chickens came to her in a feathery rush. A dog barked. There was a heavy crashing noise from the pen, and an angry snuffling. Was it a cow?

  A car was coming. Julia heard it before she saw it. Holding her head sideways against the bars she could just see the hood of the car as it came to rest on the other side of the farmyard wall. Once again she heard welcoming voices, but this time there was no loud badinage, only a respectful “Buona sera, Signor Roberto.”

  In response there was a new voice, a man’s, low and sharp, asking a question—“L’avete?”

  They were answering in a chorus, “Si, si, l’abbiamo.”

  There was a laugh. “Una combattente.” That was Matteo.

  Julia guessed they were talking about her, although the only word she could understand was combattente—a “fighter”—and she smiled grimly.

  The voices stopped. The men were going inside. Steamy fragrances floated upward. They were eating lunch.

  Julia lay down on her bed and stared at the rectangle of luminous sky. When the voices began again, she moved back to the window. A bouncing ball was making a thudding noise and flying above the farmyard wall. Occasionally she could see the heads of the players as they leaped high in the air. They were playing soccer down there between the farmyard and the olive grove.

  She took a brush out of her cosmetic kit and began tugging the tangles out of her hair, standing at the window, watching long fingers of late afternoon sunlight streak between the trees on the crest of the hill.

  The soccer game was noisy, and she failed to hear new footsteps on the stair. But as she stood with the brush stretched out at arm’s length, her hair trailing down from it in loops and swags, she could feel eyes upon her back. Turning, she stared at the door. For the first time she noticed a small round hole in one of the panels. Was someone standing on the other side, looking in?

  Julia shivered. Walking boldly across the room, she stood in front of the door and called out, “Who’s there?”

  There was no sound. For a moment Julia doubted her intuition. Then she heard a key turn in the lock, and slowly the door opened.

  A man stood in the hall, gazing at her. He had a shock of grey hair, a strong youthful face and a short grey beard streaked with white. He was wearing a dark suit. He looked like a Florentine businessman home from a day in an office where he ruled, commanding destinies.

  Julia was struck dumb. The man said nothing. He merely looked at her—and looked at her.

  The cries and lusty shouts from outside continued. Julia came to her senses and slammed the door.

  For the first time since she had been snatched from her room at the villa, she felt totally unnerved. As the key turned again in the lock and the footsteps withdrew, she gave an involuntary sob.

  Then she went to the wardrobe and opened it to look at the full-length mirror on the inside of the door.

  Slowly she began gathering small strands of her hair into threes, weaving them into braids, long snaky pigtails that stood erect from her scalp in all directions. The sky was nearly dark by the time she was done, but she could see the outline of the scarecrow in the mirror. She was now as unattractive as it was possible for her to be.

  CHAPTER 38

  Into the hidden things he led my ways.

  Inferno III, 21.

  The new aspirant to the fraternity of the Misericordia stood with the others in the oratory, waiting to be invested.

  At this moment they were still novices, but in a few minutes they would be junior members of the venerable fraternity. As the ceremony began and the several parts of the ritual succeeded one another, the newcomers performed flawlessly.

  During the blessing of the vestments they watched the sprinkling of their new robes w
ith holy water. During the interrogation they answered the questions of the celebrant—

  “Do you wish, with the help of God and by the love of Christ, to dedicate yourself to the diligent service of the brothers and to carry out their works of mercy, assistance to the sick and wounded, help to the dying and the dead?”

  “I desire it.”

  During the investment they bent their heads as they were helped into their black robes. Finally they joined in the consecration, kneeling in prayer to Mary, the Most Holy mother of the Misericordia.

  At last it was over, and they could rise from their knees to receive the congratulations of their new sisters and brothers—while four blocks away in the Palazzo Vecchio, a mere pigeon flight from the Misericordia, Leonardo Bindo walked into another of his everlasting committee meetings.

  This time it was the architectural committee for special constructions.

  Bindo pored over the plans for the grandstand and the papal platform, following the pointing finger of the architect, listening to his explanations. Then he took off his glasses and smiled in congratulation.

  “Perfetio! The scheme for the grandstand is just right. But the platform for His Holiness in front of the cathedral—it’s too low.”

  “But the security committee,” protested the architect, “they told me it could be no higher than the top step at the west front. The Vatican Vigilanza and the Swiss Guards will be behind him, protecting the rear. They must not be at a lower level than the Holy Father. That’s what we were told.”

  “But the crowds in the square would not be able to see him. All those people behind the barricades, they will have come from far away in the hope of catching a glimpse of the holy father. You must double the height of the platform. I’ll make it right with the security committee.”

 

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