The Bottom of Your Heart (21 page)

The brooch multiplied the shaft of sunlight it captured into a thousand glinting rays, illuminating Nicola's gloomy workshop like some tiny star.

Sergio, the apprentice, let out a soft whistle. He alone among the apprentices had been able to keep up with the incredible pace demanded by Coviello. He'd been working with him for almost a year, but he still couldn't help being surprised whenever he witnessed the ritual first display of a finished piece of jewelry. He murmured: “
Mamma mia
, Mastro Nico', it's so beautiful! Look at it, it seems to be made of light!

Nicola continued his critical inspection of the object: a fleur-de-lis reversed; flat, antique cut diamonds, gold-filled or
doublé d'or
, in a collet setting; fine sheet fretwork, welded and engraved in a detailed pebbling. Springing from the lily petals, each of which housed a series of diamonds decreasing in size toward the center, were gold stalks, each in turn supporting a natural pearl. On the reverse, a gold pin with an ornate fastener. Not bad, thought Nicola. Not bad.

Then, the face of the man who had commissioned that piece of work appeared in his mind, a fat, ignorant shipowner who had grown wealthy on the backs of hundreds of longshoremen, and who would be pinning that tiny masterpiece on the chest of the equally oafish peasant woman he'd married. Nicola's brooch would end up being gazed upon by dozens of half-wits, who would only have one question: how much had it cost?

As always, the thought put him in a foul mood. He gestured to Sergio to take over the polishing and then to put the brooch away in its case; he'd already lost interest in it. Once again, the battle against the inert resistance of matter had been won.

He shoved the heavy workbench into the best light, then went over to the monumental gray safe that took up a substantial portion of the room. He pulled out the key, turned it in the lock, rotated the burnished metal handle, and extracted a package from the interior. The young man handed him the brooch in its case and Nicola put it back on one of the shelves, closing the door; he turned to Sergio and told him he could go. His apprentice had seen enough for one day.

Once the young man had respectfully ducked his head and left the shop, Nicola unwrapped the package on the workbench. The dark wood welcomed the black velvet at the center of which lay the piece on which Mastro Nicola had been working, always alone, for months.

His mind went to Professor Iovine del Castello, to his face, and to the expression he'd glimpsed behind the gold-rimmed spectacles when he'd delivered the two rings to him. Had he told the whole story to that commissario with his strange eyes that looked like a pair of flawless emeralds, and to the oversized brigadier? No, perhaps he hadn't.

Maybe he should have told them about the chilly glance with which the professor had opened the case meant for his wife and the loving tenderness with which he'd peered into the case for the other woman. The way he'd extracted this second ring, with the bigger stone, from its case and had held it up into the light, so he could make sure the name engraved on the interior had been spelled correctly. How those hands, with their soft manicured fingers, like a woman's, had hefted the weight and tested the surface of the stone's setting.

Maybe he should have told them how much love went into the second gift, and how little—none at all, really—went into the first.

It would be pointless to try to explain to the policemen the differences that can be detected in people who commission a piece of jewelry, he mused as he stared at the tools lined up on the workbench: it's a matter of gazes, of tones of voice, not money. He who puts his meager funds into the hands of the goldsmith might be making a greater sacrifice than the man who lavishes a vast sum, but perhaps only to assuage a dirty conscience. Pointless to explain to a pair of policemen, their hearts hardened by the violence they encounter and the violence they're obliged to inflict, just how much love it take to extract emotions from metal.

He stroked the tools that were extensions of his hands, that made his every gesture delicate and soft. The knurl, the perloir, the flat chisel, the gemstone-setting tools, the graving tools, the burins with oval-section wooden handles.

The sun was setting; he'd work deep into the night by the light of a gas lamp. In the end, he'd lose his eyesight just as he'd lost his stature, the shape of his spinal cord, plenty of friends, and any chance of a woman in his life. But the beauty that sprang from his fingertips was more than adequate compensation.

He brushed his fingers over the object to which he'd devoted so much attention. A goldsmith, my dear professor, is very different from a surgeon, even if both work with their hands, and with an intense focus, even if the mistakes of both are irreversible, and the outcomes both produce are unmistakable. You surgeons, professor, are required to try equally hard no matter what part of the body you're operating on, whoever that body part may belong to. A goldsmith, on the other hand, can devote lesser or greater consideration to a job, depending on how much he cares about it. You all are doctors, professor. We are artists.

He picked up his long graver. He slid his finger along the blade, he tested the tip. No sharpening required. He heard his cousin's voice echoing down from three decades ago: take care of your tools,
guaglio'
; your tools are the first thing. And the light. The right light.

It depends on who hires you, professor. Your work was brought to you: they'd summon you urgently and either you fixed the broken machinery or else you watched it grind to a halt. Not me. I can decide whether or not I like the piece of jewelry I'm called upon to make, whether I like the person who gives me the material, or the money.

He looked down at the object lying before him, and it gleamed back at him, a cautious golden glow. Its beauty was absolute: but it failed to extract so much as a smile from him.

It won't be long, he said to himself. It won't be long now till it's finished.

He spared a thought for the person for whom the piece was meant, a thought of distant tenderness.

And he started filing away again at the fluting of the golden flame, working with fine, patient gestures.

M
y dear
papà
,

what a magnificent place this island is! How green, how blue, and what wonderful smiles I receive from everyone when they see me in the road, leading my line of little girls!

If it weren't for how much I miss you all, and you especially, my sweet
papà
, I'd certainly say that as the days pass and I become more accustomed to the courtesy of the inhabitants, I'm beginning to think that this really is heaven on earth.

People like us, dear
papà
, are far better suited to life in a place like this than in the big city. Here people talk in low voices and when there's a lull in conversation, they listen to nature, which never stops singing its song; in the city, people never stop running around, morning, noon, and night, and whether they shout or sit silent, they never find a good middle ground. You'd really like it here, believe me. It would be worth considering a vacation: perhaps even
mamma
might calm down in a place like this.

Life flows like always, here in the summer colony, punctuated by the day's schedules and by whatever might come up. We've started a new project for the celebration of the Festival of St. Anne: the girls, under my supervision, will embroider a panel depicting the saint in conversation with her daughter, Mary. The boys, with their teacher, Maestra Carla, will build the wooden frame to hold the embroidered panel. We will donate the resulting creation, if we finish it all in time, to the little church of the bay of Cartaromana. If you could only see how hard the little scamps work, dear
papà
! And the girls, even the naughtiest ones, are doing their best. At night, after they go to sleep, I work on it a little myself, helping the embroidery along, but without overdoing it: I don't want them to realize it, that would undermine the satisfaction of doing it themselves.

I try to stay as busy as I can to keep from thinking about you know what. I want the sacrifice of this distance to be justified by the remastering of my heart. The girls help me a great deal, and Maestra Carla, with whom I've established a genuine friendship, keeps me good company.

The one source of disagreement with her is our differing opinions concerning an officer in the German army, a certain Manfred, who is here for the mud baths. He comes every morning to the beach where we take the children, because he paints landscapes (though I've never been able to see them, since he always keeps the canvas turned toward himself). We met him under strange circumstances: he dove in and pulled one of the little girls out of the water, not because she was in any danger, but simply because she refused to come out. Since that day, for one reason or another, this gentleman insists on greeting us and speaking to us. I think Carla flirts with him a little, and he is always courteous and never more than that, but I find him somewhat annoying and, according to Carla, I show my irritation with unnecessary harshness.

I have to admit that he is one of those men that girls tend to like: blond hair, tall, with a nice smile and all the rest. But I don't know how to further my friend Carla's hopes, except by keeping to myself as much as possible.

This morning he came to offer us some chocolate that he had brought with him as a snack. I said no, but the little girls, dear
papà
, you should have seen them! They swarmed like bees attacking the leftovers from a picnic lunch, and, laughing, he broke the chocolate bar into little pieces and made sure that every girl got some. It happened just when Carla was away, because she had taken the boys for an outing. I thought it decent, just good manners, to ask after his health, and dear
papà
, what a story he told me!

He's a cavalry officer, and he was in the war, but the treatments he's taking here on Ischia with the mud baths are not the result of any battle wounds, but an ordinary fall from a horse while training. You might not believe it, but he actually blushed when he said it: as if he were mortified at some confession.

He has a special love for this island because a great-aunt of his, who owned a house here, was killed during the earthquake of 1883. He says that when a member of your family is buried somewhere, you have a duty to go back there from time to time.

He's thirty-eight years old, and he lives in a small Bavarian town called Prien, if I understood him correctly, on the shore of a lake. Since he's an amateur painter, he described it to me as if it were a picture: slate roofs, balconies full of flowers, artisans in their workshops, bicycles, women in their traditional garb. I admit that it was fun to hear him talking about his people in that strange accent.

He hinted that this stay in Italy was turning out far better than he'd expected: he likes the excitement he senses, the yearning for a better future that the people display by working hard. He made me proud of my own country, for once.

Then Carla returned, and it seemed to me that she was unhappy to find me conversing with Signor Manfred; but after he left, I explained to her that I certainly hadn't encouraged that meeting. Quite the contrary. I told her everything that had happened and fortunately, in the end, we were better friends than ever. The last thing I want is to fight with Carla, especially over a man who doesn't interest me in the slightest.

From here, my bedroom seems so small, and the window across the street so distant. At night, though, before I fall asleep, my mind always flies to him and to those sad green eyes that look at me from the darkness as if crying out for help, and a kind of weakness presses hard in my chest. Enchantment and desire.

I still don't see a future for myself, at least not an emotional one. But here at least I can live each day to the fullest without the anxiety of time passing while I build nothing.

I love you dearly, my beloved
papà
, and the idea of being able to hug you again helps me to think of my return without fear.

 

Yours,

Enrica

R
icciardi listened carefully to the information that the brigadier had collected from Bambinella, but he continued to wonder just what might be bothering Maione. The twist in Raffaele's mouth, the crease at the center of his forehead, his veiled gaze, all spoke of some very serious worry.

“Well, now we have a name, Commissa': Teresa Luongo, also known as Sisinella. She lives on a cross street of Corso Scarlatti, in Vomero. It shouldn't be difficult to track her down. I think it's worth going to talk to her, because among other things the fact that she seems to have a secret boyfriend might lead to interesting possibilities.”

Ricciardi thought it over, his fingers knit together, his chin resting atop them.

“Yes. And whatever the case, Sisinella might be able to tell us about anything that was worrying the professor: threats he'd received, or even if someone had attacked him. Men will tell their lovers things they'd never confess to their wives.”

Maione, stung to the quick, blurted out: “Don't get me started, Commissa'. Maybe wives tell lies, too. And maybe the husbands, fools that they are, fall for them.”

The commissario detected the bitterness, but he preferred to pretend he hadn't. If Maione chose to open up to him, he'd certainly listen, but he didn't intend to force his hand.

“Certainly. But it's the professor we're interested in now, right? So let's go meet her, this Sisinella. Then we'll go look into the Wolf and the doctor from Mergellina.”

“Sure we will, Commissa'. But I wouldn't overlook the
pianino
player, either, the lover's lover, in other words. Someone who's capable of betrayal is capable of anything.”

The words resounded in a silence that lasted several seconds. Then Ricciardi said: “Raffaele, if you need to take a day off, go ahead. I can go on my own to question this Sisinella. You go home and spend some time with your children, your wi—”