Pliny's Warning

by Nicholson, Anne Maria

  ‘The shooting, what do you think it was?’

  He shrugs in the way she has come to recognize as a Neapolitan art form. ‘No idea. None of my business.’

  Although not quite dark, yellow street lights cast a sheen over the cobblestones as the jewellery shops give way to small book and music emporiums. Frances collects another package from one of them and packs it into her basket.

  As she hurries towards the station she catches a glimpse of a man’s shadow, which seems to be following her. She turns around but can’t see anyone. She continues through the market laneway where the shopkeepers are closing, glancing back now and then. Scores of people are waiting on the platform and her eyes dart back and forth. Perhaps she imagined it, but her anxiety is real. The funicular arrives and she drops gratefully into a seat as it moves up the hill towards Corso Vittorio Emanuele.

  Peppe waves to her from the petrol station as she walks the last stretch home. ‘See you later tonight,’ she calls to him. Still unsettled, she looks over her shoulder, then slams the front door of the apartment building, for the first time double-checking it’s locked behind her.

  The sound of a cello greets her on the staircase. She pauses to listen to a melody she hasn’t heard before, upbeat and cheerful. When she knocks on Pasquale’s door, he stops playing immediately, opens the door and lets out a joyful shriek. He grabs her and hugs her tightly. She’s about to tell him her feeling of being followed but doesn’t want to break his mood.

  ‘I have something to show you!’ He’s laughing as he pulls her inside. ‘My beautiful cello!’ He holds aloft the red-hued instrument she had seen in the music shop window.

  ‘How on earth…?’

  ‘It seems I have a mysterious patron, who paid off what I owed. I went to the shop convinced the cello was sold and Benedetto presented it to me.’

  ‘He didn’t give you any idea who it was?’

  ‘He knows but he said he promised to protect their identity.’ Pasquale strokes the cello like a favourite pet. ‘And there’s more good news, Frances. I passed my audition. I have a place in the orchestra from next year.’

  ‘I’m so proud of you. But I didn’t want to interrupt your practice. What are you playing?’

  ‘Something for tonight’s party, one of Schubert’s Christmas carols.’ Pasquale radiates joy as he begins to play; his distinctive green-blue eyes are shining jewels again and his slender body melds with the cello.

  Frances quietly waves goodbye and climbs the last few steps to her apartment. Camilla. Maybe Camilla paid for it. She’s a monster to everybody else but Pasquale seems to have hypnotized her, melting her stone heart into marshmallow. But why would she do that? Her key crunches in the lock and although Riccardo has barely left to catch the night ferry to Stromboli, the apartment already feels strangely empty. She drops her shopping basket and flops onto the sofa, almost squashing a package wrapped in Christmas paper. She removes a card attached to it and opens it.

  Dearest Frances,

  Have a wonderful Christmas. The silver package proves how much you mean to me. The boy will bring you good luck! See you in Stromboli.

  Yours always, Ricky.

  She wishes he was here as she unwraps the package to solve the riddle and finds two smaller parcels inside. One is covered in tin foil and she smiles when she finds two Tim Tam biscuits inside, immediately eats one and rewraps the other. Peeling the paper off the second parcel she discovers a tiny figurine of a young boy. She holds it up and can’t believe what she is seeing. The boy’s trousers are around his ankles and he is crouching and defecating.

  Good luck indeed! She already misses his mischievous charm. His eye was nearly healed and his bruises and scratches were disappearing when she farewelled him, but his spirits were down and she worried about him. Her disquiet deepens when she remembers the shadows of the previous night.

  Her letter from the university is still on the table. She picks it up to read again.

  Dear Signorina Nelson,

  It is my duty to inform you that owing to administrative changes at the highest levels of the university, it has been decided to suspend the activities of Progetto Vulcano for at least three months. While monitoring of Vesuvius and other areas will continue at the observatory, the team’s work in Naples will cease until further notice. Regrettably, your colleague Signor Cocchia is no longer attached to the project. However, the university will honour your contract, and as such, we require you to install and test the new acoustic monitoring system on Stromboli. We have advised staff at the Stromboli Observatory to expect you in the New Year. In the meantime, on behalf of the director and myself, we wish you a Merry Christmas.

  Professor Bartolo Caterno

  She had gone into the university the next day but it became clear no one wanted to talk to her. She had sat outside Professor Corsi’s office for more than an hour before giving up. When she spotted Professor Caterno at the end of a corridor and called out to him, he promptly turned his back and disappeared.

  Monitoring at the observatory was still proceeding. She had checked all of the microphones she had placed on the flanks of the volcano and seismographic readouts for Campi Flegrei and Vesuvius and was comforted there were no signs of increasing volcanic activity. After gathering the equipment she would need for Stomboli, she had signed off.

  When Frances opens the shutters in her lounge the day has already dissolved into night. She looks at her watch. Winter darkness comes early—it’s barely six o’clock. The moon is starting to rise and there is promise of a clear evening as the dark shape of Vesuvius looms over the city. Even dormant, it remains stunningly vital.

  Frances’ mind wanders to another volcano on the other side of the world, also thought to be dormant on another Christmas Eve. Mt Ruapehu deceived its watchers in New Zealand in 1953, when Christmas Eve was also a clear night. Yet two hours before midnight, the crater lake burst without warning, engulfing the valley and a train carrying hundreds of people.

  The nightmarish images of her baby sister sucked down into the icy waters of the river flash back; her parents desperately searching for her in the swirling sulphurous brine. Frances closes her eyes and wills the pain to go away. She has already put her sister’s spirit to rest, along with the ghosts of the past.

  The little Fogliano children talking, laughing and squabbling in their apartment below are like a balm to the wound of her lost family. She empties her basket on the table, lining up the gifts she will take to them later. One package she puts aside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  A Christmas wreath of holly and red and yellow forest berries welcomes Frances as she taps on the door to the Foglianos’ apartment. Nonna Fabrizia ushers her inside, apologizing for her apron, brushing back her white hair and scurrying back into the kitchen. The twins rush her and try to wrest her basket from her.

  ‘Stefano, Lorenzo, stop that!’ Laura chides. She places Luciana on a cushion on the floor and the baby gurgles at her brothers. ‘She’s just at the good stage,’ Laura says. ‘She can sit up now but she can’t move!’

  Pasquale is on the floor, and the boys rejoin him, adjusting the figures in an enormous Christmas crib. It is an elaborate wooden stable extending along most of one of the walls.

  ‘Careful!’ Laura cries as Lorenzo picks up a weathered figure of Mary painted in dark colours. ‘She’s more than a hundred years old. Many of them are antiques, passed down in our families for generations.’

  Frances hands a package to each of the boys. ‘Here are some new ones.’

  They tear off the wrapping and hold the reindeer and shepherd up to the light then whizz around the room with them as though they are aeroplanes.

  Laura chases them. ‘Madonna. If I can just get through tonight!’

  The boys flop in front of the crib and place the figurines, switching their positions around, competing to be the closest to the baby Jesus. Frances unwraps the angel and holds it up to Luciana. She immediately grabs it, puts it in her mouth then starts cr
ying and drops it.

  Her brothers howl with laughter.

  ‘Sorry, I’m not used to babies,’ Frances apologizes, rescuing the angel and placing it in the crib.

  ‘What do you think of this one?’ Pasquale is sitting cross-legged on the floor looking like a boy himself. He passes her an intricately carved figure of a man playing a cello. She looks at it carefully. The musician is wearing a dark suit and his curly hair pokes out beneath a fedora.

  ‘It’s you!’ Frances exclaims.

  ‘Yes! One of my friends is training as a presepe artist. He made it.’

  ‘What do you think of this one?’ Frances takes the figurine of the boy out of her pocket. ‘Ricky gave it to me and said it was good luck. Is he having me on?’

  ‘No, it’s true,’ Laura interrupts. ‘Cazzo, shit, it’s a symbol of good luck.’

  ‘Cacata! Cacata!’ the boys echo each other, laughing and nudging each other. ‘He’s pooping!’

  ‘Enough,’ Laura growls. ‘If you’re not good, Father Christmas will leave coal in your stockings instead of sweets.’

  The boys jump up and drag Frances to the fireplace where three long stockings are hanging from the mantle. They scrunch them and try to peek inside.

  ‘Leave them!’ Laura says. ‘You can’t look until tomorrow.’

  The doorbell rings and before they can answer it, Peppe bursts in, Marcello in his wake. Frances notices both wear strained expressions but as soon as they see the children their faces relax.

  Marcello puts his arms around Frances and she tastes the night chill as she kisses his cheek.

  ‘There’s been another killing,’ he whispers to her. ‘In the old city.’

  She pulls him aside. ‘I was there. I saw a man with a gun, he was short and had a grossly deformed ear.’

  ‘The same one Pasquale saw, Basso Mezzanotte, Shorty Midnight, the dwarf. The police have put out messages on the radio saying they’re hunting him. It seems they’re the only people in Naples who haven’t seen him!’

  ‘I heard a shot…and there’s something else.’ Frances holds Marcello closer. ‘I thought someone was following me tonight. I’m not sure but…’

  Marcello nods. ‘I hate to say it but that could be so. None of us is safe. Maybe it’s a good thing you’re going to Stromboli.’

  The doorbell rings again and Laura opens it to Poppaea.

  ‘Sorry I’m late. I’ve just finished making dessert.’ Poppaea hands her a large white cardboard box.

  ‘Now that we’re all here, let’s eat!’ Peppe calls out, as Nonna Fabrizia emerges from the kitchen with a white tureen and places it in the centre of the table. Crowding around the table, the twins jostle to sit either side of Frances.

  ‘Hey, I’m on that side,’ Marcello says lifting Lorenzo out, who then rushes around to sit next to Poppaea. Peppe sits at one end of the table and Laura is at the other, with her mother beside her. ‘Welcome to our home,’ he says. ‘Christmas for us is la famiglia, l’amore e il cibo, family, love and food. And we have plenty of that here tonight.’

  He passes a bottle of white wine around the table. ‘The wine of Vesuvius. Salute!’ They all raise their glasses and sip the sweet wine.

  Frances looks at the faces gathered together for one of the year’s most special dinners; three generations of a family welcoming relative strangers into their midst. She has tasted the worst this city has to offer and now she savours the best. And it all becomes clear—no wonder you sit on the fence if the survival of your family is at risk. Why wouldn’t you turn a blind eye when choosing sides could cost you everything that was dearest to your heart? In the outside world, Peppe is an employee of a small business. Here, he is the protector of his castle.

  ‘Mangiamo! Let’s eat!’ Peppe speaks with the authority and assuredness of a man who acknowledges his fortune is his family. Frances sees how his eyes lock now and then with Laura, their love and loyalty binding and strengthening them.

  Nonna Fabrizia fills plate after plate with piles of pasta and seafood from the tureen. ‘Spaghetti alle vongole in bianco, clams in white wine sauce.’

  They eat quickly, complimenting the pasta, cooked to perfection. Baby Luciana sits in a high chair, picking up strands of the spaghetti and chewing on them happily.

  Nonna Fabrizia and Laura are on their feet again, returning with two huge covered silver platters.

  ‘Yuk, eels!’ Lorenzo says, as Peppe lifts one of the lids.

  ‘I hate eels,’ Stefano says. ‘I want chicken.’

  ‘We don’t eat meat on Christmas Eve, just fish. And eels, capitone, they’re a luxury. So don’t be ungrateful,’ Laura says, spooning pieces of the fried fish onto the plates.

  Peppe lifts the second lid. Roasted red, yellow and green peppers sit alongside crispy potatoes dotted with rosemary.

  ‘Yay! Potatoes!’ Stefano shouts.

  ‘And please take some pepperoni,’ Nonna says, passing around the vegetables.

  Frances picks at the eels, silently agreeing with the boys. She nibbles on a piece. Not bad, but she keeps picturing the eels she’s seen under the sea and hides her portion under some pepper.

  As they finish the meal, Pasquale stands up and summons the twins to follow him. His cello is resting against the side of the crib. He takes it and sits on a chair with a boy on either side. He starts to play and after a few bars nods at the boys to begin.

  Poppaea has edged her way behind Pasquale. She bends down to kiss him and whispers in his ear.

  He nods. ‘A special request from my sister, and everyone has to sing.’

  They all gather around him as he leads them into the carol Frances had heard him practising.

  ‘Mille cherubini in coro ti sorridono dal ciel. Una dolce canzone t’accarezza il crin.

  ‘Una man ti guida lieve fra le nuvole d’or…’

  The boys’ faces glow, and as they sing their open mouths reveal their front teeth have fallen out.

  Marcello drapes his arm around her and hears his mellow baritone voice melding with the others. ‘A choir of a thousand cherubs smiles on you from the sky. A sweet song caresses your brow. A hand is gently guiding you through the cloud of gold.’

  Nonna Fabrizia has her arm around Laura. She sings in a tuneful soprano, her eyes glistening with tears.

  ‘Dormi, dormi, sogna, piccolo amor mio. Dormi, sogna, posa il capo sul mio cor. Sleep, sleep, dream, my little love. Sleep, dream, lay your head on my heart. Thank you, Pasquale. That was my husband’s favourite.’ She comes over to Frances and Marcello. ‘Be happy,’ she says taking one of each of their hands. ‘Life is so short. My husband Ugo and I had more than fifty wonderful years together, and then he was gone.’

  Poppaea and Laura are fussing around the table and Peppe is bending over the fireplace. ‘I almost forgot,’ he says, setting it alight. A pile of paper and kindling wood bursts into flame. Soon, larger pieces of wood start to burn and he places a decorated log on top. ‘Gather round.’ He turns out the lights and Laura and Poppaea emerge with lighted candles and a large cake. The boys are giggling and shove each other aside to get to the front. They settle side by side. Nonna Fabrizia holds Luciana on one hip.

  Peppe clears his throat. ‘We have a saying that you can spend Easter with whomever you please but Christmas must be spent with family. You are part of our family. And I wish you all the happiest of Christmases.’

  Frances hands him the bottle of limoncello and he fills a tray of small glasses with the yellow liqueur. The cake shimmers in the candlelight, encased in a bright red crust of almond paste. Poppaea slices into it and reveals its white interior of ricotta dotted with candied fruit. The boys pass around pieces of the cake and the glasses.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ they toast each other.

  Music floats up from the courtyard. ‘Bagpipes! In Naples?’ Frances says.

  Pasquale laughs. ‘It’s true. The shepherds come down from the hill towns and play carols on their bagpipes.’

  Laura throws open the shut
ters and they all gather to listen. Six men wearing felt hats and sheepskin vests have gathered in a circle. Each of them plays a set of bagpipes. Families from the surrounding streets have gathered around them.

  ‘Can we go down, Mama?’ Stefano asks.

  ‘No, it is too cold. Stay up here with us.’

  They play one carol after another but the wind chills them and Laura closes the shutters as the shepherds move away. By now Luciana has fallen asleep in her Nonna’s arms and is put to bed. The boys collapse on cushions on the floor, finally quiet and struggling to keep their eyes open. The log crackles loudly in the fire.

  ‘A good sign,’ Peppe says. ‘We burn the yule log every Christmas Eve. It purges the evils of the old year.’

  Frances and Marcello exchange glances. ‘Let’s hope it works,’ he whispers.

  Frances yawns, hoping Marcello will take her cue. He nods at her and together they stand to say goodbye.

  Church bells ring out the midnight hour as Frances and Marcello return to her apartment, where he hands her a tiny box tied in a blue satin ribbon. ‘For you. Merry Christmas, Frances.’

  She opens the box and nestling inside is a gold chain and a cameo pendant. The background is a deep blue and the white face is the Venus from under the sea. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she says as he puts it around her neck.

  ‘And for you.’ She gives him her gift.

  ‘Great minds.’ He holds up a miniature engraved woodcut of Venus and Mars entwined.

  The room glows in the reflected light of the moon and as he reaches for her, a deep longing floods her body. As they kiss, the fatigue, the fears and betrayals that have enveloped them in the past months are replaced by a powerful passion. They fall together on the sofa, hurriedly peeling away each other’s clothes. At last there is only flesh between them and their desire for each other. Frances lowers herself to him and he rises to meet her, their lovemaking fuelled by a great energy. They move to her bed and sink into each other’s arms.