Secrets in Translation

by Sorenson, Margo;

  Valentina took out her compact mirror, crossed her legs in her red leather miniskirt, and ignored me as she studied her reflection. Shakily, I took a deep breath. If only I could call Dad and Mom and talk to them, but if I did, I knew they’d have me on the very next plane from Fiumicino to San Francisco.

  “Ciao,” Valentina said with a sneer.

  I couldn’t even muster enough breath to say “ciao” back in a normal voice, so I just nodded and caught up with Carrie.

  “What was she saying?” Carrie asked, who’d hovered on the fringes of the conversation a few metres away.

  “She wanted to know where we were going,” I said, trying to make my voice sound casual.

  “Yeah, probably so she’d know how many days she had Giovanni all to herself,” Carrie said with a snort. “What was up with the red leather skirt?” she added with a smirk. “Bet she wasn’t wearing underwear—not even a thong!”

  I grinned and motioned for her to follow me as we hurried to catch up with her parents.

  The drive to Paestum took three hours. Valentina’s conversation kept running through my mind. Why aren’t you studying the wineries? Her words echoed back and forth in my brain, unanswered questions piling on top of each other like haphazard building blocks, threatening to topple over and crash.

  We made it safely all the way on the Amalfi Coast road, and then past Salerno. Leaving the low mountains behind us, we drove through flat countryside and past dozens of mozzarella factories. Scruffy-looking buffalo—who would guess they were responsible for the creamy, delicious mozzarella?—grazed on yellow, patchy grass. I was really, really glad that we weren’t going to try and make it to Paestum and back in one day. It would have been way too much.

  “Oh, my God!” Carrie exclaimed, looking out the window at the ruins of Paestum as we pulled into a parking space. “It looks like Greece!”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Phil said, grinning. “This part of Italy was part of Greece in the ancient days,” he said in his professorial voice. “Then, after the fall of Rome, the Saracens invaded, and the Normans conquered it in the ninth century.”

  “I wanted to see some of the temple friezes for my work on Greek patterns. They were used as the basis for Italian regional weaving,” Nicole contributed. “They are supposed to be some of the best examples of Greek art that we can see.”

  Carrie sighed and rolled her eyes. “Well,” she said, “maybe there’ll be some cute guys, right, Alessandra?” Then she looked at me mischievously. “Or is your heart taken by the limoncello guy?”

  Phil cleared his throat and looked at me and Carrie. I stepped into the brief silence. “Oh, sure, Carrie. My heart belongs to Carlo.” Then I giggled a little, too. I could just imagine what Phil and Nicole must be thinking: “Imagine! Alessandra and a young Italian man—just three weeks and she’s a goner,” and “What will we tell her parents?”

  Paestum was gorgeous. I appreciated it even more than when I was younger, when Mom used to drag me along with crowds of American tourists when she was acting as a volunteer guide for the embassy’s visitors. Acres and acres of austere, beautiful Greek ruins encircled us—temples, amphitheatres, apartments, and baths. Everywhere we looked was another temple, its columns perfectly symmetrical, and the friezes above, intricate and detailed.

  The ruins were nearly deserted. Few visitors ventured this far into southern Italy—it was a poorer region of the country and, I reminded myself with a gulp, the Camorra was very influential here. Involuntarily, I looked around. No one was following me, were they? Come on, Alessandra, I scolded myself, cut the overactive imagination. Surely, all these people were just innocent tourists like us. I needed to enjoy the visit and forget all my worries and conspiracy theories, even though they hovered constantly on the fringes of my mind.

  A few other small groups of tourists picked their way across the ancient cobbled streets, some guided by translators, others using audio-tour guides that they wore around their necks. We paid for our audio-tour guides at a window and, using our maps, turned on our guides. I turned mine to Italian, just to see if my soundtrack would be different from what the Cowans would describe. Besides, it made me feel closer to Carlo.

  I sighed. One way to get closer to Carlo was to be honest with him about Dad’s work. I had already decided that when he got back from Napoli, I would tell him everything, including my exchange with Valentina and Giovanni and their unusual interest in the winery where my dad worked.

  We took a break for lunch at one of the little sidewalk cafes just outside the grounds. We ordered fresh buffala mozzarella, basil, and tomato panini. Phil had taken notes and Nicole had sketched during our tour, and they compared their findings as we ate lunch. Carrie had had her audio tour guide earbud in one ear and one iPhone bud in the other during the tour, so she didn’t have much to contribute. It seemed that the Italian audio guide was pretty much the same as the English one, but, of course, the Italian version was more enthusiastic and complimentary about the ruins. The Italians thought with their hearts. I winced a little, realizing that I was thinking with mine too. It felt so normal and so right to act that way, instead of always watching everything I said and did so carefully as had become normal in the U.S.

  We spent the rest of the day touring imposing temples and houses reconstructed by the archaeologists. At one point, we sat on a bench and just admired the view. It was so quiet and, closing my eyes, I could imagine the hustle and bustle of ancient life, of wooden-wheeled carts rolling over the cobbled streets, vendors hawking their wares, and people in togas walking up the temple steps.

  “Think about this,” Phil said. “If it weren’t for the mosquito, we probably wouldn’t be looking at these ruins today.” He made a high, buzzing sound and reached over and pinched Carrie’s arm.

  “Ouch! Huh?” Carrie asked. She took her earbud out of her ear. “What are you doing, Dad?”

  “Got your attention, finally, did I?” Phil joked. “I just wanted you to fully enjoy the cultural experience.”

  “What do mosquitoes have to do with anything?” Carrie asked, pouting and rubbing her arm.

  Phil cleared his throat. “Well, the eruption of Vesuvius damaged the infrastructure and drainage system of Paestum. It was already a swampy area, and the mosquito thrived and drove all the inhabitants out. So, these beautiful temples survived. Otherwise, if people had stayed in Paestum, these buildings would have been torn down and used for new construction, as everyone did in Rome and in other historic cities.”

  “No kidding,” Carrie said. “So, good for the mosquito.” She grinned.

  Phil was right: Italians were good at making use of what was around them. Unfortunately, organized crime had done the same thing by taking advantage of the way things worked in Italy for their own financial gain. But why did the Sacra Lista have to pull Carlo and me into its vortex?

  As the late afternoon sun began sinking, we turned in our audio guides and drove the hour to our hotel in Salerno. We found the hotel, thanks to a carabiniere directing traffic at an intersection, who was surprised and pleased to answer my questions in Italian.

  The hotel valet took our car and we carried our overnight bags to the front desk.

  “Ah, Signorina Alessandra Martin is with your party?” the man behind the marble counter asked, when Phil gave him his name.

  “Yes,” Phil said, surprised. He gestured to me. “This is she.”

  “Scusi,” the man said. He bent down behind his counter, and brought up a vase of beautiful yellow roses. “For the young lady,” he said with a smile. “She has made a friend, it seems.”

  Stunned, I set my bag on the floor and took the vase in both hands. I buried my nose in the fragrant roses and breathed deeply. They were yellow, like lemons, I thought. They had to be from Carlo. I opened the tiny envelope attached to one of the roses.

  Manchi moltissimo al cuore. Carlo, I read. My heart m
isses you terribly; but the Italian didn’t translate exactly that way into English. Instead it was more literally: you are missing to my heart. Italian was so much more a language of the heart and emotions than plain old practical English.

  “Let me guess,” Nicole said, smiling. “From the butcher?”

  I giggled. Carrie leaned over to smell the roses. “Holy cow!” she exclaimed. “Carlo is really hot for you.”

  “Carrie!” Phil said, trying to sound stern, but not quite managing it.

  The rest of the evening passed in a haze. I couldn’t wait to see Carlo again, and already felt that I missed him dreadfully. And now I had to wait three more days until his return from Napoli. At least I could use the time to plan how I was going to tell him about Dad’s undercover work for Ralf. While I longed to be with Carlo again, and wanted the hours to rush by, at the same time, I wanted the minutes to drag; after all, the date for my departure from Italy loomed over my horizon like a black cloud.

  During the drive back, I kept the roses wedged carefully next to my bag, giving them a little sniff every now and then. We arrived in Positano in the early afternoon. As soon as we got into the apartment and Phil booted up the computer, I quickly emailed Carlo my thanks, hoping he would have time to read email during his seminar.

  Somehow, I knew, though, that he would already know exactly how thoughtful and loving I thought his gesture. We didn’t really have to explain a lot to each other in Italian or in English; we spoke the same language, the language of the heart. I had gotten emails from my old friends Caterina and Giuseppa and Maria, but I couldn’t tell them about the depth of my feelings for Carlo. I wanted to keep him all to myself. How could anyone else even begin to understand what he was like, and what our relationship was quickly becoming?

  That night, I dreamed that Carlo and I were embracing together in Paestum, surrounded by a carpet of yellow roses. His mouth was soft and warm, and his arms encircled me tightly. Then he gently stroked my back and feathered my neck with light kisses, sending chills through me. When I woke up, the sunlight streaming through the blinds, the roses were the first things I saw, their fragrance heavy and sweet. Somehow, I had to get a grip on myself, I thought, rolling over and burying my face in my pillow. Sighing, I got up to face another day without Carlo.

  “I’ve missed two days at the beach and I’m losing my tan,” Carrie complained over breakfast.

  Phil salted his hard-boiled egg and looked across the table at his daughter. “Fine, Carrie,” he said. “Alessandra? Would you mind going with Carrie to the beach? Nicole and I want to consolidate our notes and do some research today.”

  I nodded. “Sure,” I said. There was nothing else I wanted to do—since Carlo was in Napoli.

  “Thanks, Alessandra,” Nicole said, reaching over and patting my hand.

  Our pre-beach drill completed, Carrie and I took off down the streets toward La Spiaggia Grande. Of course, we had to pass the LoPrestis’ restaurant. My stomach tightened when I saw the two scugnizzi on their motorinos on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. They were leaning back on their cycles, laughing and talking together, oblivious to the passers-by who had to walk around them. They didn’t look at all like the two guys I’d overheard on the beach; these scugnizzi were much younger and skinnier.

  As we approached the scugnizzi from behind, and just as I was trying to rush Carrie past them as quickly as I could, Carrie dropped her bag and spilled everything on to the ground: lipstick, comb, magazines, water bottle and who knew what else. I groaned, wondering if she’d done it on purpose, across from Café LoPresti.

  We bent down and began picking up her junk, trying to stay out of the way of the tourists and pedestrians. I could hear the two kids’ conversation. Lounging on their motorinos, watching the traffic pass by, they hadn’t noticed us. They were commenting on the girls passing by, so I did not pay much attention, until—

  “É vero!” one exclaimed.

  “Si! É vero! Ho sentito che é ora – ora d’andare al’ prossimo livello.”

  “Non credevelo possibile. Credevo che non fosse non cóme gli altri.”

  “Non possiamo mai sapere. Giovanni, piace essere un’uomo importante.”

  “Si. Adesso, é lui che ci dira cosa fare.”

  Stunned, I froze in terror, the conversation playing over and over in my head like a bad horror movie one was forced to watch through to the end. They spoke about someone who surprised them, someone who wasn’t like the others. They said this man was going to go to the next level, that he was going to be a boss, and that he wanted to be an important man and give orders, after all. Then the part that chilled me, despite the warm sun on my shoulders, was the name they used for this “someone”—Giovanni.

  I scrambled to pick up the rest of Carrie’s things, shoved them into her bag, and took her arm. “Let’s go,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. I glanced over at Café LoPresti. I thought I saw a glimpse of Giovanni staring at me through the window. I felt sick.

  We walked quickly past the two kids, who whistled when they saw us.

  My heart was beating so hard that I thought it would burst out of my chest. It seemed that Giovanni was more heavily involved in the Sacra Lista than I had thought. He had become one of its very leaders! Perhaps he would now be giving orders to the scugnizzi—orders to harass Positano businesses? To steal, to kill? I felt as if I were walking underwater with everything around me muffled and distorted.

  “Your face looks funny,” Carrie said, as we turned a corner into Via dei Mulini, shaded by the overhanging bougainvillea. “Do you feel okay?”

  “I guess I just stood up too fast back there,” I muttered. There was no way I was going to tell Carrie what I’d heard before I told Phil and Nicole. And there was no way I was going to tell Phil and Nicole before I talked to Carlo. For sure, he could give me a sense of what was really going on. I would finally tell him everything—and what a relief that would be!—about Dad and the undercover investigations, the guys on the beach, the scugnizzi, and the recent exchange with Giovanni and Valentina. I shut my eyes in anguish. How I wished I’d already told him.

  The next two days dragged by slowly and painfully, my sleep filled with nightmares of Sacra Lista assassins and other menacing hooded figures. Some nights, Carlo came to rescue me, and my heart lifted; in others, the Sacra Lista kidnapped me, and I was all alone, begging for mercy while the thugs sharpened their knives. In one of my dreams, the Sacra Lista invaded Ralf’s winery and shot my dad, who ended up sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood. I woke up in a cold sweat, trembling and shaking. During the day, I tried to read or write in my journal, but anxiety and dread colored my days a dark, ominous grey

  An email arrived from Morgan that afternoon. I read it in a fog: We’re having a great time. Hope you are, too. Morgan. I could hardly process what the message meant, it was so uncommunicative. What the heck did she mean? She didn’t mention Italy, or ask any questions about what I was doing. I felt a knot in my stomach.

  Finally, the day arrived when Carlo and his father were due to return from Napoli. I checked email obsessively all day, earning snickers from Carrie. Honestly, she was quite the pesky little sister but, I had to admit, our give-and-take was fun. In the late afternoon, Carlo’s email showed up.

  Alessandra, it read, we must talk. I will pick you up at five. Carlo.

  My mouth went dry. Something was wrong. No terms of endearment. No cara. No affezionatissimo. What had happened? Had he found out that my dad was working on the Camorra investigation and he thought I was dishonest with him? Or had he decided to break up with me because he’d met some hot, sophisticated Italian girl in Napoli? Or was he going to end things because I was just an American tourist girl with whom he didn’t have a chance for a long-term relationship?

  The hands on my watch crawled toward five. I told Nicole and Phil that I might be gone for a while, perhaps even for dinner—I h
oped. I felt deep down, however, that something had gone horribly wrong. I waited for Carlo outside the apartment. Given the terseness of Carlo’s email, I thought it better not to put him in a situation that required social pleasantries.

  “I’ll see you later,” I said to the Cowans, trying to sound cheerful.

  “Those roses are beautiful,” Nicole said, smiling.

  The yellow roses were still blooming in my room. I had hoped that their long blooming was symbolic of my relationship with Carlo, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  I heard Carlo’s Vespa before I saw it and took a deep breath. He roared up and wheeled around to face me. “Please, get on,” he said, handing me the helmet, his face expressionless. I took it and climbed on the back.

  No kiss, no embrace—no nothing.

  Chapter Sixteen

  We roared through the streets of Positano, climbing higher and higher, Carlo making dizzily sharp turns and skidding on the gravel. He didn’t say a word, and I was afraid to break the silence. I clung to him, trying to feel his warmth, but he seemed cold and unapproachable. Finally, Carlo pulled the Vespa over at a turnout. He got off and abruptly motioned me to do likewise. I took off my helmet and slowly got off the Vespa. Below us lay the beautiful bay and the town of Positano. No one in the entire town knew what was going on up here, away from it all, I thought, fleetingly. Cars and motorcycles whizzed past us.

  Carlo took off his helmet and looked at me with tears in his eyes. “Alessandra,” he began. And then, in disbelief, I heard him say, “Or should I say, Alex?”

  I felt suddenly cold.

  “My father and I came home from Napoli to find our factory had been shut down. The inspectors came yesterday, and they found—how do you say, uncleanness? bacteria in the machines. They close us down and fine us.”

  “Oh, Carlo, I’m so sorry,” I breathed, taking a step toward him.

  Carlo held up his hand. “No, do not.” He turned away from me, shoulders hunched and fists jammed in his pockets. “It is another way to try to get us to sell at a low price. But, there is more.” He folded his arms, and I couldn’t help but remember how those arms had once felt folding around me. “At the seminar, at the university, they are talking about American winemakers trying to break into the limoncello market here.” He snorted in anger, his eyes flashing. “American winemakers know nothing about making limoncello. But who is here in Italy? Surprisingly, who is here, in Positano, right when all this is happening to our factory?” His jaw tightened and his eyes bore right through me.