The Knotty Bride (9 page)

“She gasped for breath this morning, and then she just fell over. I tried CPR. My neighbor tried CPR. The priest tried CPR. She’s dead, and the doctor has yet to show up. I called him hours ago. But please,” she points to the seat, “sit down, make yourself comfortable.”

I eye the couch. To get there we have to step over the corpse of Carmelina that is lying right in front of it.

Um…no…I can’t bring myself to step over her. What is Beatta thinking leaving her there like that? Thankfully Brandon takes charge. 

“Beatta, could I have a bed sheet, so we may cover up your mother?” he asks in his best Italian.

“Oh…oh right, that would be best.”

She hurries off. We can hear the stairs creak as she goes up and down. Soon, she returns and drapes a plain white sheet over Carmelina.

Now we are three people in a miniscule living room, surrounding a corpse covered with a sheet. Definitely a step up, but we’re still staring at a body in the middle of the floor.

“Um, Signora Cavale, un po di te?” Brandon asks for a cup of tea. It’s out of his mouth before I can even warn him. I know he doesn’t really want a cup of tea; he’s just trying to keep Beatta busy. He’s trying to help her get her mind off of things.

“Of course, tea! Where are my manners?” Beatta replies, flinging her arms about dramatically.

Ten minutes later, I’m sitting on the sofa, sipping Beatta’s burnt Darjeeling and trying to pretend that the corpse of Carmelina Cavale is not right at my feet. Brandon holds me tight around the waist for support, all the while telling Beatta that he’s truly sorry. Beatta’s hands tremble a little as she holds her teacup. She doesn’t even try to take a sip. Given her intense grief over the loss of her mother, the dear woman cannot drink a thing.

We sit in silence for a long time before Brandon begins asking Beatta about her childhood and how long she has lived in this house etc. It dawns on me that even though I’ve introduced Brandon, Beatta has no idea who he is. She has no idea Brandon is one of the world’s most famous movie stars.

“I’ve always lived here,” Beatta replies. “My father died when I was young and my mother got by…”

Her voice trails off in a distracted fashion. I get a prickly sensation, like there’s something Beatta wants to tell us.

“Yes, it’s a nice place,” she changes course. “Growing up, I knew all my neighbors. Some of them come back in the summer, although I’m the only one who still winters here.”

Poor Beatta, what is she going to do? She can’t live here alone, in a house that is about to slough off into the gorge.

Brandon asks Beatta a few more questions, and all of a sudden she’s a flood of information. I suppose there’s nothing like death to bring out a confession. “We got by all those years because Cousin Carlo kept my mother afloat, and without him we would have lost our house.”

This is such a startling revelation that I stop thinking about the dead body lying at my feet and stare up at Beatta.

“Living in Civita, it’s always been hard to make ends meet. I found a job working in a nursery school after high school graduation, but we never could pay all the bills, if you know what I’m saying?”

Boy, do I know what she’s saying. Making minimum wage at the ice cream shop, I’ve once again racked up huge debt on my credit card. After I pay my rent and groceries, there’s not much left. Everything else goes straight on Visa. I shoot Beatta a very understanding glance and she continues, “Carlo continued to send a little money now and then. My mother always cursed him for not doing more. Mother always felt Carlo had more than his fair share of money, but I was simply thankful for the fact that he helped us keep a roof over our heads. Of course, since he gave my mother enough to get by, she couldn’t refuse him when he asked us to hide him. That is, after he faked his death.”

“What!” both Brandon and I shout at the same time. Beatta’s words were so unexpected that I jumped. Most unfortunately, my hand holding my teacup shot straight out as if a doctor had whacked me to test my elbow reflexes. Darjeeling flew in all sorts of directions, but mainly down Brandon’s white shirt. Lost in her grief, Beatta didn’t even notice when Brandon leapt off the couch with a yelp.

“Ow, Lily! It burns,” he says in a carrying whisper.

I grab the tea towel off the serving tray, and dab at his shirt. Poor man, I imagine his chest hairs singeing.

Lost in her own world, Beatta continues, “Yes, my mother helped him. He came here one day pleading with her. I’m afraid Carlo was mixed up in bad affairs, with bad people. He bought stuff, you see, antiquities, and things.”

I stop dabbing at Brandon’s shirt.

“He was on the run, Carlo was. From people who wanted him dead.”

“But why?” I ask.

“I don’t know why they wanted him dead,” Beatta replies quietly. “Deals gone wrong, things he knew. People involved in the antiquities smuggling business were after him. Mafia-types. They were looking to silence him.”

Oh heavens, I knew it, the mafia. “Say it isn’t so, sister Beatta!”

She looks startled for a minute. Perhaps I’ve been too familiar.

“Unfortunately, Signora Bilbury, what I say is true. Carlo came here one day, claiming he’d faked his death and asking to hide out. My mother took him in.”

I look around me, expecting Carlo Buschi to jump out from behind the threadbare curtains. “Well, where is he now?” I ask, but the doorbell rings and Beatta puts a finger to her lips. Seriously? The woman’s been dead all day and now the doctor shows up, right in the midst of Beatta’s confession? And it’s not only the doctor who crowds into the tiny room. He brings with him a nurse in a starched white uniform, and an undertaker who has a long, horsey face.

Ahh, this is such sad business
, I think, as the doctor introduces the undertaker, a Signor Nonmorire. I introduce Brandon, simply as Signor Logan. The nurse eyes him curiously, trying to place him. She’s a very striking woman, with green eyes, and long black hair knotted in a ponytail. She continues to give Brandon a searching look and then decides
No, it can’t be. It can’t be a famous movie star in this decrepit house in the middle of nowhere.

“I must a beea very thorough and record the exacta time of il morto…what issa the English word…”

“Death.” I say, unsure why the doctor is speaking English. Probably because Beatta has introduced us as “amici americani.”

“Righta…deatha,” the doctor continues.

I repeat his sentiment in Italian so Beatta can understand what’s been said. The doctor glares at me as if I’ve just declared that I am going to run out the door and dive head long into the gorge. I swear, there are some Italians who are absolutely convinced that Americans cannot speak a foreign language, even after I repeatedly engage them in their own language.

After staring at me as if I am dangerously mad, the doctor turns and asks a barrage of questions about the circumstances of the death. All this time, he hasn’t bothered to lift the sheet to examine Carmelina. As Beatta describes what happened in detail, it feels unseemly for Brandon and me to remain in the room. We excuse ourselves, telling Beatta not to worry, we’ll be back.

Stomachs grumbling, we stumble upon a darling restaurant in the center of Civita. It has a wood oven and little tables smartly dressed in white cloths. All they serve are different types of bruschetta and we order some with olives, some with tomatoes, and another with a delicious chickpea topping. It must be saying something about my emotional state that, for the first time in weeks, I don’t moon at Brandon over my dinner plate. Instead, I down my food and swig my wine and stare out the window at the beautiful piazza.

The food’s so delicious, I eat heartily until I see the undertaker and the doctor carrying poor Carmelina away on a stretcher, with the sheet tucked around her body. It’s an eerie sight to witness.

“I suppose that’s the only way to get anyone out of Civita. They’ll have to carry her across the expansion bridge.”

“Awful,” Brandon murmurs and stands up to pay the bill. The moment he pockets his change, I take off across the piazza like a horse out of the gate. I have to admit, I’m in a hurry for two reasons: after seeing her in such an emotional state, I don’t like the idea of Beatta being alone, and, more selfishly, I want to know more about Carlo Buschi faking his death.

“Lily, for the love of Pete…” Brandon pants, trying to catch up.

“So, where were we?” I ask, coming through the door. The moment it’s out of my mouth, I regret it. Beatta’s so emotionally spent that she’s collapsed in a heap on her sofa.

“What am I going to do without my mother?” she asks.

“There, there, everything will be alright,” I say as I sit down beside her and pat her hand.

Everyone says this, don’t they? Everyone says everything will be alright when someone dies. Yet nothing is ever right. That memory of a loved one pales in comparison to the flesh and blood of the person with whom we share our days. It’s such a sad thought that I shed a tear. I wipe it away hastily on my coat sleeve before I begin gently pressing Beatta for information.

“Beatta, please, I have to know. What happened with Carlo Buschi?”

She stares at me blankly for a moment before responding, “Ah, yes, that.”

“Where is he?” I ask.

“Why, he’s buried in his tomb, in the cemetery in Arona of course,” she responds and places her hand in her lap as if that is that.

As the evening wears on, Brandon pulls me aside. He doesn’t think we should leave tonight. “She’s too distraught, and she doesn’t seem to have anyone here to help her. We should at least stay one more night and then we can visit her in the morning,” he whispers when Beatta goes into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water.

At half past six, Brandon leaves to retrieve our luggage from Orvieto and book us a room for the night in Bagnoregio. While he’s gone, I try to keep Beatta talking about positive memories of her mother. Two hours later, after laughing and crying, and after visiting the stray cats she has rounded up in the tool shed in the garden, Brandon and I leave with a promise to return first thing in the morning. We walk hand in hand back across the expansion bridge to the only hotel in Bagnoregio. Room #103 in the
Hotel Grand
is a cozy affair with a bathroom so small that Brandon doesn’t fit in the shower stall. While he tries to wash up, I sit on the bed and dial Uncle Tomasso on my cell. It’s good to hear from him and the boys. After jibber-jabbering with my twins about their day, I explain the situation to Uncle Tomasso.

“I’m afraid I won’t be home tonight. I’ll be away an extra day.”

In response Uncle Tomasso informs me that he’s perfectly pleased to watch the boys for another night. He also agrees that after such a terrible event, we simply cannot leave Beatta without checking on her in the morning.

“I suppose after everything that has happened wild monkey sex would be out.” Brandon smiles as he returns from the bathroom wearing only a towel.

I ignore his sly grin and remark about how the owner of the hotel must have loved the seventies because everything in the room is done up in orange and yellow and looks as if it has not been swapped out since before “generation X took over the world.”

“Lately, Lily, we’ve stayed in a couple of, how should I say, ‘quaint’ hotels, but I think we should go a little more upscale next time. How do you feel about the Emerald Coast?”

Sardinia? How can we even think about going to Sardinia with everything so topsy-turvy right now?

“Do you believe what she said? About Carlo Buschi and all?” I ask Brandon, after we climb into bed and turn out the lights.

“Of course, I do,” he whispers, lying next to me. “Now, I think I know a few things that will help you get your mind off of today’s tragedy.”

You know, Brandon was right. For a while I forgot about everything except the two of us together. Afterwards, I drifted fairly quickly into a deep sleep. But a few hours later I woke again. Now I watch the moon rise through the window and stew over the very complicated story Beatta revealed. She claims that when Buschi sought refuge from whomever it was who was chasing him, he faked his death by doing the following: he sent his own car into a ditch. Nobody was inside. The coroner and Signor Tacchini had been paid by Buschi to lie about the whole affair. According to Beatta, what happened in the coroner’s office was quite simple-- another man had recently died in Arona, and when the coroner showed this body to Signor Tacchini, the gardener falsely identified him as Carlo Buschi. This spectacle was for the benefit of the coroner’s assistant, a man of impeccable morals, who was above corruption. The assistant quickly filled out a death certificate before leaving to take his lunch at the nearby pub. While he was eating, the coroner showed the body to another family, who declared it to be their dear, departed uncle. The coroner himself then filled out a second death certificate.

“So nobody was buried in Buschi’s tomb?” I asked when Beatta finished talking about the coroner’s exploits.

“Not at the time, no. It was empty when they put it in the crypt.” Beatta blushed at this. The whole thing was so ghastly, it left me feeling tainted by its sordidness. Like Lady Macbeth, I headed into the kitchen to wash my hands with soap and water.

“I assume both men were paid handsomely, although Carlo always said that Signor Tacchini did it out of the goodness of his own heart. Carlo said Signor Tacchini wanted to help him get away from the bad men who were chasing him. You see, Carlo’s gardener just wanted to help him stay safe. They were good friends,” Beatta told me when I returned from the kitchen, drying my hands on an embroidered tea towel.

“Of course,” I said, nodding my head like it all made so much sense. “Of course.”

“You mustn’t tell a soul about any of this, Signora Bilbury,” Beatta beseeched and I nodded again. I assumed Brandon was excluded from this pact since Beatta had made a partial confession in front of him, so the moment he returned, I met him in the entrance hall and told him the whole story.

“Now what are we supposed to do?” he mumbled darkly, as he pulled off his wool jacket. “We’re privy to a crime now, Lily. We’ve got to tell the police.”

It’s these very words that are haunting me right now, as the Bagnoregio Cathedral strikes three in the morning. Brandon’s right. Signor Tacchini and the coroner both committed fraud, didn’t they? But based on what Beatta said, they did it to keep Carlo Buschi from being murdered. It seems there are a lot of ethical lines that have been crossed; so many that they are all starting to blur together.

“So what happened after that?” Brandon asked as we stood in that dimly lit hallway at Beatta’s house. “What happened to Carlo Buschi?”

In the end, according to Beatta, Carlo Buschi lived out his days in Civita, a fugitive in her house. He lived another two years after his fake death and when he died, he left enough money for Carmelina to have him buried, quietly, in his own tomb in the cemetery up in Arona.

“How did she do that?” I asked Beatta, “Didn’t the people in the cemetery need a death certificate? A recent death certificate?”

“That I don’t know. My mother and Carlo took care of all the details in advance and I stayed out of it. I figure there may have been bribes involved. Or people slipped in and put the body in its place in the dead of night. Oh, it's horrible! I know. It’s been such a burden on me, but it’s over now. Both my mother and Carlo are dead, and the details of the burial go to the grave with them.”

Her story was so dark and twisted, it’s no wonder I’m wide awake. What I really need is an instant pick-me-up. My mood has become so gloomy given all these secrets that what I really need is
Reddi-wip
. I need to do a shot right out of the can. It’ll make me feel better.

“
Reddi-wip
? At three in the morning? I like where you’re going with this, Lily, but we’re in Italy. They don’t have
Reddi-wip
.”

That’s what I get for mumbling out loud. I turn to Brandon and whisper, “I think we may be on a different page about what to do with whipped cream. I just want to down it straight out of the can. Or on top of a decaffeinated espresso, with sprinkles on top.”

“Down it straight out of the can? That is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard,” Brandon mutters before falling back to sleep with a snore.