Galileo's Room (Noir Florentine Book 1)

by Strozzi, Amadeus

  Sam nodded.

  The boy tilted his head toward the Western side of the piazza, indicating that Sam should follow him. Sam rose to his feet and saw the boy walk off quickly, with a jerking gait, as though being in the sun would vaporize him if he stayed out in it too long. He disappeared through an isolated doorway of glass and wrought iron set into the end of the arcade opposite the Unicef offices. Sam went through after him, down a corridor, through rooms with dining tables, and another corridor, until they came to a kitchen.

  Standing over a huge pot, wearing an apron and stirring, was Katia. She looked up and said to the boy, “Thank you Paolino. You’re my only true love. Help this lazy man get dressed for work.”

  The boy basked in the warmth of Katia’s compliment then handed Sam a white apron and a cook’s hat.

  “Come over here,” said Katia. “Give me those. Now turn around.” She put the apron’s neckband over Sam’s head, then slid her hands around the front to grab the ties, holding his waist too tight and for too long. Her warm body at his back made him worry, already resentful at the next long absence she was sure to impose on him.

  “Stir that.” She pointed to a large pot full of red liquid bubbling on the vast hob. “If the sauce is burnt, they’re all going to blame you.”

  “Why am I here? Why are you here? Katia?”

  She smiled and dropped a fistful of salt into a huge pot of water.

  He said, “This is a soup kitchen.”

  “Someone give the smart boy a gold star.”

  “When do I get to be alone with you?”

  “I thought you might be curious to see the very place where Walter and I met.”

  “Here? You must be joking. What was Walter doing here?”

  “Volunteering,” said Katia.

  “And what were you doing here?”

  “The same.”

  “Why?”

  She picked up a box of penne and emptied the whole thing into boiling water. “He wanted to make himself useful. Right some wrongs.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Sam.

  “Just listen and stir.”

  Sam poked the wooden spoon into the pot and scraped it across the bottom.

  “We met here a couple of years ago. Just like this, standing side by side at these burners. He started to talk about everything that was worrying him and I did the same. He flirted with me. He was very charming but very worried about you, about things that had happened in the past. Injustices. …And I was worried about other things. I began to confide in him. Your father was an incredibly resourceful person. You probably have no idea… We became friends. Real friends.”

  “I see,” said Sam.

  “Just friends, Sam.”

  “If you say so.”

  “He adored you but never knew whether he had wronged you or not by sending you away to Canada when you were young.”

  “A bit late for regrets.”

  “He thought you might have done something terrible but he never told me what that was.”

  “Ah.” Sam stopped stirring. A black void washed over him. He felt a little weak, dizzy, emotional, but he gritted his teeth to hold back any show of feeling.

  Katia said, “He felt that he wasn’t going to live much longer.”

  “I didn’t know that. That fear of heights?”

  “That was part of it.”

  “He died without knowing the whole story,” said Sam.

  “He did,” said Katia.

  Her voice sounded odd. He turned to look at her. The tears were streaming down her face. He looked away and continued to stir. After a long silence, he said, “Whoever your husband is, I envy him.”

  “Let’s not talk about that,” she said. She put down her spoon, then she called another volunteer over and said, “Would you take over this for me?” She took off her apron and cap, and grabbing Sam, pulled him out of the kitchen, through a long dark corridor and up some stairs. She opened a door and pushed him into a dark room. A tiny light switched on but it was still dim.

  She put her arms around her neck and kissed him. They circled round until she was pulling him downward onto something soft, sacks of flour, he figured.

  They clawed at each other’s clothing, pulling away the essentials until his skin was pressed against hers. Only when he was finally inside her, locked in the rhythmic clutch of her body, did something like peace descend on him. Release came quickly, frenetically, and they fell against each other and lay still, a faint floury dusting covering both of them.

  Katia spoke first. “I need to ask you something. Walter was sure you were the right person.”

  “What is it?”

  She began to talk. He listened to her long story, and when she finished, he felt anxious again.

  Katia said, “You need to tell me if you’re out or in. If you’re going to help me.”

  He waited for something to stop him, something cataclysmic, a natural disaster, someone calling from outside the room, an alarm in the piazza, but nothing came.

  “Yes, I’ll help you,” he whispered.

  From somewhere at the edge of Sam’s vision, a wispy and transparent Walter winked, smiled, said, “It’s good to be needed,” then vanished.

  About the author

  Amadeus Strozzi also works as a translator, has lived in Fiesole for thirty years, and enjoys good wine and extreme challenges.