by April Smith
You have a ring of ancient, unreinforced structures filled with windows. An enclosed, bowl-like space with narrow exits and roofs galore, creating the potential for a catastrophic number of casualties. They predict that on the evening of the decisive race, on day four of Palio, over sixty thousand people will jam shoulder to shoulder in the center of the ring, totally transfixed by violent men riding unpredictable animals. Nobody will be looking up.
“I hope a well-trained military unit is minding the store,” I call back to Sofri. “Because this is an invitation to bad things happening.”
“It is very emotional. There are always fights,” Sofri answers. “It is expected.”
I join him in the kitchen for the coffee ritual. With the most sophisticated apparatusus in the world available to him—some of which he invented—Sofri prefers the classic two-cup stovetop espresso maker, which produces a crèma (the delicate layer of foam) that is almost sweet. He talks about balance of taste in the espresso liquor as if it were fine brandy. It would be an unforgivable transgression to dilute the essence with steamed milk.
“I have been working on a new coffee recipe,” Sofri says, pulling a plate from the refrigerator.
I hope it is not another species of wildlife rolled in coffee grounds. We escaped the coffee-roasted rabbit at the contrada dinner. This one I can handle: fresh dates covered with coffee cream made with egg yolks—sweet little bites to go with the espresso. Spearing seconds with a tiny fork, I ask if Sofri knows anything about a strange man who appeared outside Giovanni’s hospital room.
“What strange man?”
“He didn’t have any hands—”
“Bleah! That’s terrible.”
“—just weird old-fashioned wooden prostheses. He had a bodyguard who did everything for him. Well, hopefully not everything.”
“You are making this up.”
“I swear.”
“You dreamt it, maybe.”
“No, it’s real.”
“Then why are you laughing?” he asks.
“I’m not laughing,” I say, quashing the smile reflex, which signifies deception. “It isn’t funny, not to have any hands.”
“Of course not,” says Sofri, fussing with the gas flame, turning it up and then down. “It’s a sad situation for anyone.”
“I thought you might know him.”
“Me?”
“Nicoli knows him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why. But we saw this man coming out of Giovanni’s room.”
Sofri shrugs. “It’s a hospital. You are bound to see disturbing things,” he says, pouring thick, slightly licorice-scented liquor into two tiny cups. “The old man must have had the wrong room.”
I never said the intruder was old. Now I am fairly certain that Sofri knows exactly who the Puppet is, and what he was doing at my nephew’s bedside.
A roar of exaltation goes up from the crowd, like the jubilant cry at the first strike in the first game of the World Series. We hurry from the kitchen to the windows. On the dignitary’s platform a man wearing an ascot is picking numbered balls from an urn and announcing the results over a microphone.
“That is the mayor of Siena. A horse has been assigned to Torre! Wait, let’s see …”
Another cry, and Sofri slaps his knee with delight. “Aha! Torre got a brenna.”
“What is that?”
“A bad horse. Hear it? That is Oca shouting.”
I see a mass of green and white contradaioli braying, “Beh! Beh!”
“What are they saying?”
“Torre got a sheep instead of a horse! Look—there’s the commissario of the police. He is a director of Torre. Cornuto!” he shouts gleefully.
The Commissario appears to be weeping and wiping his eyes.
“Is he crying?”
“I told you. Emotions.”
The powerful commissario, who would go so far as to keep blood splatter evidence out of the police report in order to deny the attack on Giovanni, is crying?
“Ti faccio un culo così!” Sofri shouts deliriously out the window, making a ghetto move, fingers pointing down like pistols, which I guess means something like, “Die, asshole!”
I don’t see what’s wrong with the poor horse of Torre, to be jeered at like a nerd on the schoolyard. All the horses look beautiful, with long delicate legs and lean hindquarters; mixed breeds with thoroughbred lineage who comport themselves like aristocracy, compared with the down-to-earth, spiritually attuned wild mustangs I saw on the terrorism case in Oregon. But when Oca’s horse is assigned—a gorgeous white one—Sofri reacts as if he has been pierced with a javelin. His hand slams his forehead and he drops dramatically to his knees—like just about everybody else down there in Oca, moaning and praying in a state of suicidal despair.
“What’s the matter? Did we get a bad horse?”
“No,” he moans. “Worse! A good horse!”
“What is bad about a good horse?”
“If you lose with a good horse, it’s much worse than if you lose with a bad horse.”
His cell phone rings and it turns out to be Cecilia, sharing this agonizing moment of having won the best horse in the Palio. After much crazed Italian back and forth, Sofri hangs up.
“She says everybody’s losing their minds!” He thrusts a pair of binoculars in my hand. “Look at the stand for dignitaries, and you will see your sister.”
The torrential screaming of the crowd, the braying of horns and popping of unknown small explosions, maybe firecrackers, maybe guns, make it hard to hear the person next to you.
“Where?” I shout.
“In front of the Mangia Tower!”
Panning the crowd, I find Cecilia and Nicosa standing on a platform with a group of officials at the foot of a square bell tower. The tower is several hundred feet high, tall enough to cast a shadow across the Campo to the fountain in the center, where Cecilia and I had stopped during a hot afternoon, on one of our first walks in the city, when we were still utter strangers. We sat on the edge in the cool mist, watching a pigeon drink from a braid of water pouring from the mouth of a she-wolf.
“This is historic.”
“It is called Fonte Gaia, the Fountain of Joy,” Cecilia said. I laughed. “No, I mean us. The first time we’re together.”
“You’re not what I expected,” she admitted.
“In what way?”
“You’re easier to talk to. I was afraid you would be cold and buttoned-up, like they are in the FBI.”
I smiled. “You’re different from what I expected, too. How can you live in high heels?”
“My back hurts all the time.”
“Why don’t you just take them off?”
“I’m used to it. You have a boyfriend? Doesn’t he want you to dress up?”
“Sure, but you look amazing just going to the market.”
She liked that. “Can I ask you something?” She seemed almost shy. “Do you carry a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Even if you’re not on duty?”
I nodded. “It’s not required, but if you didn’t, that’s the one time something would happen, and you’d get in trouble because you didn’t have your weapon.”
She eyed me suspiciously. “I hope you don’t have a gun right now.”
“No worries, I left it home. I do have a boyfriend. I want you to see him.”
I showed her the wallpaper on my cell phone, which is a photo of Sterling on a horse, all decked out in western gear, lassoing a calf. She looked shocked.
“Your boyfriend is a cowboy?”
“In his spare time. That’s in Texas, where he’s from. That’s Wizzy.”
“Wizzy?”
“The horse. My boyfriend’s name is Sterling.”
She raised her eyebrows skeptically, and we both started laughing.
“Does this seem ridiculous?” I asked. “Like, if you’re American, of course you would date a cowboy?”
“It might be fun to da
te a cowboy.”
“Trust me.”
“Scusi.”
Her cell phone rang, and she answered with enthusiasm. A toddler ran in spirals in the middle of the Campo, trailing the white-and-black-striped flag of Istrice, the Porcupine. I found myself enthralled by the fountain, as if the sound had been turned up. The smell of damp stone took me back to winter rain outside my grandfather’s house, looking through the screen door and feeling oddly safe.
“I’m sorry,” said Cecilia, slipping the phone into her bag. “That was my husband’s business partner, Sofri.”
“The scientist?”
“He’s more like the family adviser. The ‘secretary of state.’ I rely on him for everything. He’s very charming,” she confided. “A bachelor who loves the ladies. He’ll love you. Should we go?”
“How are your feet?” I asked.
“Fine,” she sniffed. “There was never any problem.”
Now, as I look through the binoculars, Sofri leans in close.
“Are you able to see Cecilia?” he asks.
“She’s right there. Near the tower.”
“That tower has always reminded me of her,” he says thoughtfully.
“Why?”
“Do you think I am right? Does it resemble her?”
I move the glasses along the graceful column of brick and examine the details of the white travertine belfry.
“It looks like a lily.”
He is delighted. “Your sister is a devoted Catholic. A believer to the core. I can see it, the white Easter lily,” he muses. “The resurrection. A wonderful analysis; she would like that.”
“Why do you think it resembles Cecilia?”
He takes a moment. “It stands alone,” he replies at last.
“It’s lonely?”
He shrugs. “Lonely, maybe, but look how it dominates the square.”
“She’s not totally alone. Cecilia told me she depends on you.”
“I love her like a daughter, but—you will see—it takes time to gain her trust.”
“What do you think she wants from me?” I ask curiously.
“That’s a funny question. Wave!” he urges. “She knows we’re here.”
I wave the Oca scarf, calling, “Cecilia! We’re up at Sofri’s. Look!”
Even through the binoculars she is small and far away, the space between us large. She idly scans the buildings but doesn’t seem to pick us out in the mass of banners and faces in the windows. Eventually, she turns away.
FOURTEEN
Since the last time I saw Giovanni he looked like a corpse in a wax museum, it is a wonderful relief to find him sitting up in bed in the hospital. He is on painkillers, making him glassy-eyed and carefree.
“Did you hear?” he babbles. “I won the lotto!”
“Yes, you were lucky. Do you know what happened to you?”
He shrugs. “Boh.”
“You were jumped outside of Muriel Barrett’s apartment.”
He tries to process this.
“And then you were taken to a tunnel off Via Salicotto.”
“The police said that, but I don’t remember.”
“What do you remember?”
He gestures toward a glass of water, and when I give it to him, he drinks with gusto through a straw.
“Did you see who attacked you, Giovanni?”
He lies back on the pillows and looks up at the fluorescent lights. Just drinking has exhausted him.
“Never mind. You rest.”
He is quiet, and I think he might doze, but then a tear rolls down his cheek. I stroke his hair, thick and unwashed.
“What’s the matter, baby?”
He tries to raise the broken arm, but he is too weak to lift the cast. “I kick their ass.”
Tears are streaming now, but his eyes remain uplifted, as if by looking elsewhere he will not have to see something awful.
“My father all the time tells me, ‘If they hit you, you kick them in the nuts.’ No. You kick them first in the nuts—first.”
“You’re a fighter like your dad.”
“He comes into my room.”
“Who? Your dad?”
Giovanni rolls his head to one side, slowly. The tears hit the pillow.
I prompt him. “Who came in here? Was it a strange old guy without any hands?”
His eyes go empty. I find a tissue and wipe his cheek. He is fading fast as winter light.
“Why did you go to Muriel Barrett’s apartment?”
He does not respond.
“You drove outside the walls to see Muriel. You went for a reason.”
“Non lo so,” he whispers. “The police already ask.”
With the police guard outside the open door there is no privacy, so I sit on the bed and lean in close.
“Giovanni, listen. I have no agenda except to protect you and your family. You’ve been targeted by the mafias, and these people do not fool around. What’s going on? Are you involved with drugs? Stolen property? You can tell me. I have friends who will help.”
“Sbagliato,” he answers heavily. An involuntary grin crosses his face—that sign of deception—but it probably doesn’t count if you’re high on Percodan. “Wrong. You are fucked up.”
“Who’s fucked up?” I ask gently. “Who’s in the hospital because he was jumped by professional hit men?”
“I don’t sell drugs.” His head relaxes back and he sighs. “Sono di merda.”
He falls silent.
I now have custody of Giovanni’s mailbox car, which gets me to the Walkabout Pub. Chris, the dour Englishman behind the bar, is wearing rainbow-colored suspenders over a black shirt, adding a note of frivolity to the dull red atmosphere.
“Enjoying the Palio?” I ask.
“The party has barely begun,” he replies ambiguously, putting a Foster’s under my nose.
“What happens tomorrow?”
“I don’t keep up with it,” he says. “I just pour the beer.”
“Why do you live here?”
“I enjoy the expat community.”
“And the Italian girls?”
He blows through his lips. “I stay away from the Italian girls. I value my equipment, if you take my meaning.”
Muriel comes in through the door, but instead of her usual oversized pop art tunics and wild tights, bare feet in splintering old Dr. Scholl’s, she is wearing city clothes: a long brown skirt and a beige crocheted jacket.
“You look nice,” I say. “Where are you off to?”
She is edgy, and does not sit down. “London.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. Sheila’s taken ill again. The tumor’s back. They want her to do another round of chemo. We’ll just have to go from there.”
“When are you leaving?”
“The taxi is outside.”
“Anything we can do?”
“No worries. Madame Defarge”—meaning her demented landlady—“has everything in hand.”
Chris puts up a rum e pera. “One for the road?”
Muriel turns away, as if the sight makes her queasy. She looks as flushed and panicky as she did in the hospital corridor, when we learned Giovanni had gone into cardiac arrest.
“No, I couldn’t. I’m just too upset.”
“Sorry, love,” he says, disappearing the drinks. “What’s that you’ve got? Going-away present for me?”
She’s clutching a rectangular package about seventeen by twelve inches, tightly wrapped with brown paper and twine.
“No, dear; it’s a painting for Giovanni, to wish him a speedy recovery.”
“Very cool. I’ll give it to him.” I take the package.
She seems rattled. “I was going to leave it with Chris.”
“No worries,” I assure her.
“Well, all right. Give him my best. Ciao, everyone,” she calls, and turns away, wiggling her fingers good-bye over her shoulder as she pulls the door open. We watch the taxi maneuver down the street.
/> “Did she say when she’s coming back?” I wonder.
“In the meantime,” Chris says, “let’s not allow those shots to go to waste.”
Chris places the untouched rum e pera back on the bar. He does one and I do the other. We do a couple more, until the alcohol makes the world a cheerful place, with pleasant surprises around each corner. By the time I climb a bit unsteadily out of the mailbox car in the abbey courtyard, faithfully clutching the painting, I’m not at all concerned that it is meant for Giovanni. Like a greedy child, I can’t wait to see what’s inside.
Veering into the kitchen, I turn on the lights and locate a knife. In a wink I have popped the twine and ripped through the brown paper and protective layers of newsprint. What the hell; I’ll fix it later. I let the wrapping drop and lift out the painting. Another image of high-flying clouds, nicely done. Admiring the delicate wash of blues, I notice that a puff of white powder has accumulated on my fingers. I flip the canvas over and slice off the rest of the backing. Hidden inside the painting is a plastic bag, spilling cocaine where it was pierced by the blade.
FIFTEEN
Palio, Day 2—SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 7:00 A.M. To ensure the highest level of security, a private ambulance and an unmarked police car leave the hospital early in the morning and arrive at the abbey before the city wakes. The former chapel on the ground floor has been emptied of white sofas and turned into a hospital room, where two nurses are at the ready alongside state-of-the-art medical equipment. Officers will be posted there around the clock. Giovanni, strength and youth on his side, is expected to make a good recovery. The optimism floating through the household like an errant butterfly matches the celebratory mood of the second day of Palio, when traditionally the banner is joyfully carried through the streets, to be blessed by all in church.
And here I come, with my plastic grocery bag of cocaine.
Having settled Giovanni and given instructions to the nurses, my sister is in the garden, cutting flowers.
“Are you ready?” she asks. “We are leaving for church.”
She looks me up and down—surprised that I have agreed to wear one of the Ungaro dresses she offered, gray silk chiffon gathered at the waist, with transparent sleeves that button at the cuff.
“Fantastico!” she cries approvingly. “How do you like it?”