The Incident at Montebello (10 page)

“I wonder that too,” Lucia whispered brokenly.

With a cry, Isolina stood up. “Do you really mean that?”

Lucia hid her face in her hands. “I don't know what to think anymore. Just leave me alone in my grief.”

Isolina stared at her in silence.

Just then, the bell jangled and Petronella, the butcher's wife, strode through the door. With a quick swipe of her eyes, Lucia stood up and murmured, “Good morning
, signora
. You're looking well. So tell me, what did you eat today?” That was all the prompting Petronella needed. While she recited her dietary adventures, Lucia pulled a dress off the rack and handed it to her. Stepping inside the changing booth, Petronella slipped into the new dress, but all the while, she was saying, “A bit of
baccalà
, a bowl of
pasta e fagioli
, a thick slice of crusty bread, a glass of Chianti.
Delizioso.
”

The afternoon sun beat off the paving stones and the walls of the church, rising in severe Romanesque lines above the piazza, dwarfing all other buildings. Sketching in pencil, Sardolini outlined the roof, south tower, main portal, and two apsidal chapels and then filled in the details—rounded windows and arches, the elaborately sculpted tympanum, and the menagerie of devils and demons perched over the lintel.

While he sketched, a crowd gathered for the mail. It was the high drama of the day—the bespectacled Tombolo marching out of his office with stacks of letters, and his assistant staggering behind him, struggling with a small table piled with packages. Sardolini recognized Rodi, the handsome young man from the baths who played a trick on the priest, but now his face was bruised and swollen and he walked with a limp. Sardolini had heard the OVRA had beaten his friend Manfredo with no mercy, which had inspired the local police to rough up the postman.

Tombolo shouted out the names of the lucky ones who received letters, but his thin voice splintered amidst the cacophony of crying children and barking dogs. All around him, people were whispering, “What did he say? Gambellara?” But Tombolo had already moved on. Afterwards, people lingered, talking in clusters and strolling arm in arm.

Sardolini scanned the crowd, hoping for a glimpse of Lucia. For days now, he couldn't chase her out of his thoughts. He still couldn't understand how she had managed to snap open the padlock to his sorrow, and oddly enough, his hope. Just thinking about her humbled and bewildered him. And what's more, the hint of conflict between her and her husband over Il Duce intrigued him and her sorrow over Sofia's death moved him. But he had to content himself with a nod from Isolina, who hurried past with a small boy in her arms.

Dogs trotted by and sniffed his shoes. The town barber was chatting with a cluster of men who were studying a movie poster of Greta Garbo tacked to a kiosk. Apparently, the
mafioso
Don Cosimo would soon show the movie in the town hall—for a fee, of course. No one seemed to care that the film was several years out of date.

The barber jerked his thumb towards the poster. “Look! Greta Garbo. Why can't our women have legs like that?” The men howled. Sardolini tucked his grin into his cheek and kept drawing.

The
mafioso
had set up his office on a bench nearby. A string of
paesani
approached him, hat in hand, and kissed his ring as if he were the pope. During a lull, Don Cosimo lit a cigar and walked over, his shadow falling across the sketch. Sardolini looked up, one hand shading his eyes as the wiry and sharp-eyed Don Cosimo studied him with wolfish intensity, making him, in Sardolini's estimation, the smartest man in town.

“Why are you drawing only buildings?” Don Cosimo asked. “What are buildings without the people?”

Sardolini had to think fast. “They reflect the heart and soul of the people that build them.”

“And the pocketbooks of their patrons, who think their money guarantees them a seat in heaven. They're no less corrupt than the politicians.”

“True,” Sardolini said, amused by Don Cosimo's cynicism. He pointed to the tower. “When was it built? Judging from the looks of it, I'd say the Twelfth Century.”

The
mafioso
didn't answer. He was watching Rodi cross the piazza with a stack of packages in his arms. “Poor fool,” he muttered. “They'll get him, you'll see.”

“Why? What did he do? Did he have something to do with the accident?” Sardolini asked, but the
mafioso
didn't answer. With a wave, he headed back to his office. Deep in thought, Sardolini picked up his pencil and rolled it between his fingers.

The bells of Santa Chiara chimed out the hour. Grabbing his sketchbook, he edged past the crowd listening to the evening news on the mayor's radio and charged into the town hall, taking the steps two at a time, pausing only when he passed a startlingly plain woman smoking a cigarette on her way down. He lifted his hat to her, but she simply eyed him and winked before continuing down the stairs. After a backward glance, he trudged to the second floor.

When the secretary waved him through to the inner office, he knocked on Prefetto Balbi's door and stepped inside. The police chief was standing at the window, studying the crowd below and stroking his mustache. Sardolini signed in, handed over another letter, and edged towards the door, but Prefetto Balbi was in a talkative mood. He told Sardolini, “My colleagues in Castellammare arrested Manfredo the mechanic this afternoon.”

“Why? For what?”

“Conspiracy. We're onto him and his band of anti-Fascists. We'll get them one by one. Your fight is hopeless, don't you know?”

Sardolini blinked in surprise. He had a hard time believing Rodi's friend Manfredo was the leader of the anti-Fascists. He told Balbi, “I realized I was fighting a losing battle the minute they arrested me.”

“That long? Once they shot your wife, you should have put two and two together.”

His anger surged, but he managed to swallow it. “Let's leave my wife out of this.”

Prefetto Balbi squinted at him and lit a cigarette. “What a pity to die so young and for what? All over the country, your foolish comrades are dropping like flies. Arrested. Thrown in jail.”

Sardolini feigned ignorance. “Is that so?”

“Even the Rosselli brothers aren't immune. They got what they deserved.”

It took all his willpower to speak calmly. “And what's that?”

“Two bullets, of course.”

Sardolini's stomach tightened as if struck. His breath caught in his throat. For months, he hadn't heard from Nello and Carlo, who had created the famous underground newspaper
Giustizia e Libertà
, which the brothers still managed to publish even after they escaped from prison and settled in France. Sardolini and his wife, who had worked with them for years, followed them across the border and acted as couriers, ferrying copies to Italy, hidden in the tires of their car. He had to know the rest, but it was foolish to betray his feelings to Balbi. He twitched with the effort to suppress them.

Balbi stared long and hard. “Friends of yours, eh?”

“No, not at all,” he said, making a hasty exit.

Outside in the piazza, he leaned over the fountain and gulped handfuls of water, his mouth as dry as sand. Nello and Carlo, as close to him as brothers. They had never abandoned him, even in prison. For months, they had sent him food and messages through emissaries, reassuring him that, even in jail, he wasn't alone. But then, the messages stopped. Now he knew why.

His mouth was filled with bitterness, the taste of failure. His brothers were dead and he could do nothing for them. Pain shot through his head. Wetting his handkerchief, he pressed it against his face and walked home.

It was dusk when he shuffled across the widow's yard so he didn't see the young woman hiding in the shadows until he was just steps away from the cottage. After glancing around to make sure no one was watching, he gestured for Lucia's niece to follow him inside. Closing the door behind her, he lit the lamp and told Isolina, “You shouldn't be here,
signorina.
”

“I know that,
signore
. I'll only stay a minute. I need your advice.”

“You must be joking,
signorina.
I'm in no position to be giving anyone advice.”

“I don't know who else to turn to. My friend is in trouble with the
fascisti
.”

He threw up his hands. “You're asking the wrong person. I can't help you. I'm in enough trouble myself.”

“Please
signore
. Prefetto Balbi is after Rodi.”

“Why?”

“They think he's working with the anti-Fascists. And he witnessed the accident. They're rounding up everyone who saw it, don't you know?”

He could ask a dozen more questions, but he summoned his resolve. “What you're asking for is impossible. I can't help you. I'm sorry.”

His answer stripped the color from her face. She shut her eyes, pressing her fingers against the lids. When the girl disappeared into the darkness outside, he sighed, feeling more troubled than relieved. Restless, he paced the length of his room, the floorboards creaking under his feet. He couldn't do it, not now. If he risked helping anyone and got caught, he'd end up back in prison or dead like Nello and Carlo.

The pain surged again, making him dizzy and nauseous. He pressed his hand against his head. When the headaches gripped him, the ringing in his ear was louder, shriller, thanks to the police who caught up with him at the Italian border. They found little on him except forged papers, Lià's beret, and wedding ring, given to him by the shepherd who had found her body, but Sardolini was in no mood to go quietly. Taking aim at the smallest policeman, Sardolini swung his fists, drawing blood, but his victory was short-lived. In minutes, the squad toppled him with punches to his stomach and head. Ever since, his ear crackled and hummed. When the headaches were coming, it got worse.

He swallowed some aspirin and stumbled into bed. In the darkness behind his eyelids, lights flashed and the pain burned. Miserable, he prayed for sleep until he finally dozed off. Waking hours later in the dark, he pressed his hand against his ear and shuffled into the kitchen, fumbling for more aspirin. The room was stifling. Throwing back the shutters, he peered at Vesuvio glowing in the distance, the fire leaping from the crater. He shuddered. The entrance to Hades, indeed. He was trapped, all right. Mussolini had seen to it—and now he was as powerless as a firefly caught in a jar. For now, they had won by cutting him off from everyone and everything he loved. He'd never hear from Nello and Carlo again. Or his mother. Or Lià.

Lià. For an instant, she was there, her arms hugging his waist. Her solid warmth comforted him—her breasts and hips pressing against his back, her lips brushing his neck. But a moment later, she vanished and he was left shivering, nauseous, alone. Just one life, that's all she was to the
fascisti,
who left her to die at the side of the road like an animal. To their minds, she was simply one less partisan and one more bit of proof that they were winning the war against the anti-Fascists. Nothing more.

Padre Colletti's sermon meandered through the scriptures, but Isolina could only think of Rodi. She twisted her head, hoping to glimpse him in the pews behind her, but she only saw his parents. Short and round, Signor and Signora Butasi reminded her of a pair of Russian nesting dolls she had seen once in a shop in Castellammare. Where was he? She needed to talk to him, kiss him. Only he could calm her fears, which crowded into her chest and nudged her awake at night.

Amelia elbowed her and hissed, “Pray, Isolina. It's your only hope.”

The bench was unforgiving and so was Amelia who was sighing and fingering her rosary beads. She was wearing her Sunday dress, missing a button on one cuff and stained at the shoulder from baby's spittle. According to Amelia, Isolina was evil—no less so than Eve depicted in the mural on the church wall.

Isolina stared at the portrait of the first lovers in
paradiso
just moments before Eve orchestrated the downfall of the unsuspecting Adam and the entire human race. She was caught in earnest discussion with the snake, twined around an apple tree. The serpent, with a woman's face and hair, looked so much like Eve they could have been sisters. But were they evil? And was she evil for loving Rodi? She couldn't believe it.

She fidgeted through the communion and closing benediction. After mass, she rushed outside, scanning the piazza for Rodi or Charlie, who might be ferrying his message. But her mother kept a close watch on her, making sure she didn't wander from the church steps. While Amelia chatted with almost everyone in town, Isolina twitched with impatience. Finally she murmured, “Nonna Angelina is waiting for me.”

“Go straight there or else.”

“Yes, mamma.” She ran down the steps, her eyes darting across the mosaic of paving stones. No Rodi. Her head crammed with worries, she hurried towards Nonna Angelina's stucco house—one of the finest on the block with its arched entranceway, double front doors and shutters painted the color of summer grass.

Nonna Angelina was chopping asparagus in the kitchen and her oldest daughter Marie Elena was spreading out sheets of pasta dough on the farmhouse table, her muscular hands covered with flour. Smiling, Marie Elena kissed her cheek, but Nonna Angelina said, “What took you so long? Mass finished a half hour ago.” Not waiting for an answer, she put Isolina to work.

In the yard, Isolina cornered a chicken, seized it by the neck, and pinned it against the chopping block. Squawking, the bird struggled, wings flapping and feathers flying. Her cousin Charlie stopped running long enough to watch her lower the hatchet and kill it. “Did you hear from Rodi?” she asked.

“No. Nothing.”

She sighed and grabbed a second bird, but Charlie insisted, “Let me do it.”

Ordinarily, she'd brush him off, but Charlie had moved up several notches in her estimation. Before, he was the restless boy who was always in trouble at school, but now, she recognized that he was more mature and intelligent than she had thought. She handed him the hatchet, but Charlie swung once, twice, and missed. Isolina grabbed his arm. “That poor bird. Let me do it.”