Kidnapped and a Daring Escape (43 page)

    
"I see, you have hardly come home and you already have a fistfight
with your own mother?"

    
"I have not come home to stay. I only came to fetch some of my
things. And before I leave, I want to talk to you, alone. Please, tell
mamma to leave us alone."

    
"You are not going to talk without me," shouts her mother while she
carefully climbs down the stairs on her high heels, holding on to the
railing. "I have a right to be there and I want to tell that ungrateful child
a few more things that she needs to hear."

    
Bianca knows that this is the wrong way to talk to him.

    
"I also have a few things to tell my daughter and I want to do it
without you interfering," he scolds his wife. Turning to Bianca, he
orders: "Come to my study."

    
"No, you cannot do this to me. I have the right to hear what you say."

    
"I will talk to her alone without anybody interrupting me."

    
Bianca follows him into his office and closes the door. She knows her
mother won’t dare to intrude. Nobody enters her father’s study without
being invited.

    
"So finally you have found the courage to come home. I am sure you
realize that you humiliated me in front of all our friends and the
Viscontis like nobody has ever humiliated me in my entire life. I don’t
know what happened in Colombia, but I must say that I don’t recognize
you anymore. You were always a pleasant and irreproachable girl, so
different from your sister, and you come back and behave in the most
shameful manner. You were outright insulting to Franco and the
Viscontis."

    
She cuts in: "Yes, your are right, papà, when I left I was a naive,
obedient girl, eager to please and marry Franco, but over there I got to
know a different Franco." His words have given her the opening that she
prepared and rehearsed. She suddenly feels strong and confident. "It took
only ten days for me to grow into a woman and to get to know and love
the man who more than once risked his life to rescue me and bring me
safe and sound back to Rome."

    
"I would hardly call your behavior on Saturday sane," he interrupts
her. "It was the behavior of a highly disturbed girl, who has lost her
perspective and does not know her place in our society anymore.
Refusing to embrace your fiancé? Running off with your so-called
rescuer? In front of all these people? Not to speak of making me the
laughing stock on television?"

    
"Papà, I begged both you and mamma not to have a party for my
return. I told you I needed time to sort some things out, that I did not
want to face scores of people. But you went ahead. You went —"

    
"Yes, that was the right thing to do. People expected that of us. How
would it have looked if you had returned without a proper welcome and
celebration for being free? There are certain things in life that one cannot
avoid, as you will sooner or later learn. I also —"

    
"Are the expectations of other people more important to you than the
wishes of your own daughter?"

    
"Sometimes one has to overcome one’s own selfishness, child."

    
So far he hasn’t raised his voice and she feels reassured that maybe he
may ultimately listen to her. "I had very good reasons why I did not want
to meet Franco in front of all these people —"

    
"Good enough reasons to insult him openly, the man you promised to
marry. He was very distressed that you were kidnapped. He called us
every second day to find out whether we had any news —"

    
"Distressed? If he had really cared for my fate, he would have called
off the tour and stayed in Popayàn to help in the search for me. But no
—"

    
"He is a man of high principles who puts his own concerns second to
his responsibility to all the other tour members. You should admire him
for that, not blame him."

    
"You really want to know why he departed? Do you? Or is what your
daughter saw, experienced and learned to be ignored, while Franco’s lies
are believed?" She regrets what she said the moment it has crossed her
lips. Her father would not let such a challenge pass.

    
"Yes, you are dead right," her father cuts in immediately. "You have
been traumatized by your experience to the point that you are now
incapable of distinguishing fact from fiction, and you have been
brainwashed by this man who claims to be your rescuer."

    
"Claims? He was my rescuer. He rescued me minutes before a man
was going to rape me."

    
"Has it never occurred to you that all that was just staged? There was
never a kidnapping. It was all a cruel farce, including your so-called
rescue. It was all to create an exciting story that he could publish —"

 
    
"Is that what Franco claims? It is utterly ridiculous. If it were true,
why would André have shot his own accomplices?"

    
Her father’s response comes before she has finished her sentence. "I
am sure that the police will get to the bottom of that, and then you will
see who is the liar and who cares for you."

    
He already knows of André’s arrest, flashes through her mind. Her
own father was party to the denunciation. She closes her eyes, trying to
stem the tears that threaten to spill.

    
"There you see! You need psychiatric help. You break into tears the
moment you hear anything that contradicts the fiction you have built
around this devious man."

    
Anger takes over. "I cry because my own father betrayed me. You
were party to that vile and unfounded denunciation, weren’t you? I cry
because I loved you, because I respected you —"

    
"Yes, I joined Franco. I agreed with him that this man has to be
stopped. And it was not an impulsive decision. We solicited advice from
the
Questura
. It was the only way to stop his corrupting influence on you
and free you from your delusions."

    
"I’m not delusional. It is Franco who is spreading lies. He contracted
with these criminals to kidnap me. He even paid them 200,000 euros in
advance for it —"

    
"You see how insane your accusations are? This is proof that your
mind has been affected, that this man has brainwashed you into believing
these absurd tales. But I will take matters in hand now. I will have you
committed to a clinic so that you can be restored to your senses —"

    
"I am perfectly sane, saner than I was when I was blind to Franco’s
falsehood. I am twenty-two. You have no more power over me. I will
leave this house and I will marry André. I promise you that he will be
free within days."

    
"As long as I pay for your upkeep, I will tell you what to do and you
will obey."

    
Before he can complete the sentence, she takes out her credit card and
throws it on the desk. "Here have your power. I won’t accept even a cent
from you. I don’t need you," she yells.

    
"See how unstable you are? You now even shout at your own father."

    
She turns and flees the room, ignoring her father’s irate shouts to
come back immediately, rushing past her mother who is waiting outside
the study door. Two minutes later, she shoots through the gate out into
the road in her Peugeot 207.

* * *

After Bianca returns to the
pensione
, Maria invites her to dinner. Both
she and Carlo commiserate about the injustice done to André. Bianca
constantly has to fight her tears. Back in her room, she feels utterly alone.
She dreads going to bed without André’s reassuring presence. Restless,
she powers up her computer. Maybe reviewing the preliminary work she
did on her archaeology assignment prior to the trip might distract her.
She opens the file, reads the first few sentences, but their meaning gets
drowned by the silent cry of ‘why? why?’ that goes round and round in
her mind. Her own father and mother are siding with Franco and
colluding against her. He was not even willing to hear her side of the
story, simply declared her of unsound mind. She knows that André did
not stage her rescue. If he had, why would he have crushed
el commandante’s
foot? Why would he have shot and wounded two of their
captors? Killed ‘
la bête
’, if they were his accomplices? To make it look
more realistic? It was absurd to think that. She does not know how long
she has been staring at the screen without seeing the words. Shaking her
head to clear her mind, she tries again, but it is no use, and finally gives
up.

    
She does her evening toilet and then goes to bed. Sleep evades her.
She tosses and turns, her mind back to ‘why? why?’ In desperation, she
gets up, fills a glass from the bottled water on the table, and walks back
and forth, holding the glass and occasionally taking a sip. When her
travel clock shows midnight, she lies down again. In the half state
between consciousness and sleep, she reaches over to touch André, only
to find the space next to her cold and empty. Despair returns. She feels
abandoned and helpless and ends up crying herself to sleep.

16

Late next morning, Bianca rushes to Bocelli’s expecting to catch
Gallizio’s and hear what he has to report on his first session with André.

    
"I don’t have good news, Bianca," he says when she joins him at the
table on the terrace where he is drinking coffee. "I have not been able to
see him yet. They said that he was in the process of being transferred to
the Via Appia Prison. I will only be granted access tomorrow. I’m sorry."

    
She swallows hard. She so hoped to get news of how he is faring.

    
"And there is another unlucky aspect. The
commissario
in charge is
known for being difficult to deal with. She is very hard-nosed. To be
blunt, she is a real bitch. It is unlucky that his case was assigned to her.
I have had dealings with her before, and she put one obstacle in the way
after the other. She also has a reputation for getting convictions. But I
still don’t think that from what you told me they have a case, and sooner
or later they will have to release him for lack of evidence."

    
"Would it help to disclose André’s inferences about who is behind the
kidnapping now?"

    
"No, as I told you yesterday I am reluctant to do that at this point. If
it ever comes to court, that is the time to use that information and go on
the attack. From what you told me about André, I think he would agree
with that." Then he chuckles. "I would enjoy lobbing such a bombshell
into
Commissario
Farnese’s impeccably prepared works."

    
"I trust you. I just wish I could do something more to get André out."

    
"You might have to do something more. I am pretty sure that Farnese
will ask that you undergo a psychological evaluation. Have you ever had
any mental health episodes? Depression? Nervous breakdown?"

    
Bianca shakes her head vigorously. "No, never, but my mother had
one, I think, when she was pregnant with my sister. She didn’t want
another child."

    
"Ah, that explains why Gabriela is always at loggerheads with your
mother. It already started in the womb. But it’s good you didn’t have any.
However, if Farnese insists, it is best to comply, although I will make
sure that the psychologist chosen is not a friend or relation of hers.
Rumors have it that some of them report what she wants them to. The
evidence of one of her favorite experts was recently challenged in court
by another and was subsequently dismissed."

    
"Could I visit André? Could you arrange that?"

    
"Sorry, Bianca. There isn’t a hope in the world. Farnese will never
give permission, I’m sure you understand. André is accused of kidnapping you and then of manipulating you into believing that he is your
rescuer."

    
She suspected this to be the case, but tried anyway. She asks Gallizio
to contact the Swiss Embassy. He promises to do that.

    
He excuses himself after that and leaves. Bianca does not know what
to do with herself. The inability to do something for André, anything,
increases her distress. All she can do is wait and hope and fight her
anxiety. She was so hopeful that Gallizio would get things moving, but
he is stalled too, and what he told her has dashed her hopes that André
will be released soon.