The Light in the Ruins (45 page)
Hours and hours later, in the night, Paolo Ficino and his wife stood in the doorway to their daughter’s bedroom in their apartment in Florence and watched the sheet atop their teenage girl’s shoulders rise and fall almost imperceptibly in the moonlight. The
child was a little more than half Serafina’s and Cristina’s age. Paolo had awoken first and come here, not precisely a vigil but a small, simple quest for reassurance. His wife had joined him a minute or two later. He thought now of his scarred detective and the marchese’s daughter and the row of cedars that lined the path between the Rosati cemetery and the ancient Etruscan burial chambers.
In Rome, Vittore and Cristina Rosati sat in almost absolute silence at his dining room table, a single light on, while Vittore sipped a half glass of vermouth. He had planned to mix a Negroni, but it was two in the morning and that seemed like too much work. Giulia and the girls were sound asleep, even Elisabetta with her arm in that cast, the three of them in his and Giulia’s bed. There really hadn’t been room for him there anyway, he decided. Besides, he was never going to sleep tonight. Apparently his sister wasn’t either. He had assumed she was out like a light in his older daughter’s bedroom. She wasn’t. He noticed that she was wearing one of Giulia’s nightgowns. He rubbed his temples with his fingers, and with his thumb felt the bandages and gauze along the side of his face. It would be days before the swelling would go down. He thought of the moment that afternoon when the car had rolled off the switchback and, in the front passenger seat, he had felt helpless, unable to shield or embrace either Tatiana or Elisabetta. Thank God they had been fine. Yes, Elisabetta’s arm was broken, but it wasn’t a bad break, the doctor had said. And her foot was only bruised.
He looked up at Cristina and with the umbilicus of siblings sensed instantly what she was thinking. Not the precise details, not the particular images. But the lines around her eyes were all grief, and he knew that behind them was a memory of Massimo and Alessia. Their nephew and niece. Vittore had walked away from the war and found his way back to the Villa Chimera two days before Massimo had stepped on the land mine. He and Cristina had known instantly what it was that day in 1944, but for a moment he, at least, had deluded himself into believing that an animal had set off the explosion. It was just after three in the afternoon, and
the two of them were working together to drape a piece of canvas across the cavernous hole in the villa’s living room wall—the remnants of the family were still trying to convince themselves that they could rebuild their lives in Monte Volta—when they heard the dull bang. It was more of a pop, Vittore thought now. But then Francesca had come racing through the house like a madwoman and they had followed her out onto the terrace. There, down near the tombs, was a single stray plume rising black and still against the late summer sky. By the time the three of them had reached the children, Massimo was dead, his body ripped into small pieces—a leg here, a foot there—and Alessia was unconscious and dying. He had run with her in his arms back to the villa while Cristina had tried to restrain their sister-in-law; her howling would live on in his ears for months. But there had been no help and nothing to do for the girl at the house. She’d died within minutes. That night both Vittore and Cristina had feared that Francesca would kill herself.
“May the worst that Elisabetta and Tatiana recall from this summer be a car accident and a cast,” Cristina said, breaking the silence.
“Tatiana? Who knows what toddlers remember?” he said, and he finished his vermouth. Then he stood and went to the window. From there he said, “And Elisabetta is like Alessia. Afraid of nothing.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Did you ever grow to like Friedrich at all?”
“No. You know that.”
“Even after—”
“No,” he repeated, cutting her off. “Never.” He knew how she would have finished the sentence, because they had had different versions of this conversation so many times in the past. He turned around to face Cristina and leaned against the window frame. “Now that you know for a fact he’s gone, will you please stop carrying
that torch?” he asked. “Now that Mother’s gone, will you start living your life?”
She considered arguing that she did not know for a fact that Friedrich was gone. No one did. She considered reminding him that although she had lived with their mother, she had lived her life. Instead, however, she went to him and bowed her head against his chest—a peace offering.
“It really is just us now,” she said, her voice melancholic and tired.
“I know,” he agreed. “I know.” He put his arms around her and rubbed her back. If someone on the street had gazed up at them in the window, he would have presumed they were lovers, reuniting after a quarrel.
Which was precisely what someone in Florence would have surmised if he had glanced up at Serafina and Milton that moment on their terrace in Florence. From across the river, they might have spied the woman on a wrought iron chair, most of her weight on her left side. This time it was the man whose head was bowed. He seemed to be studying something on the insides of her thighs, or he—the two of them—might have been contemplating something far more intimate. From across the Arno, it was hard to say, and an onlooker was likely to have looked away, just in case.
And if he did, he would have missed this: a sudden small phosphorescent burst from a match as it rained heat and light upon the woman’s bare skin.
NO, I DID NOT DIE when Cristina shot me. Obviously. I’m here, after all. The bullet shattered a rib and punctured a lung. But it was enough. One moment I was rather enjoying my reunion with—and she chose her name well—Serafina, and the next I was on the ground struggling for breath. And then I was looking up at the two women
.
I was in Russia when Italy outlawed capital punishment in 1948. Only high treachery against the republic can get a person hanged by the state. Can you imagine? I cut the throats of two women, nearly decapitating one, and exhumed their hearts from their chests. And still they have no plans to execute me
.
So here I am. Yet again a survivor. They tell me I will be here as long as I live
.
We’ll see
.
Nevertheless, it is not unpleasant. Trust me, an Italian prison is infinitely more tolerable than a Soviet POW camp
.
Once Serafina even came to visit. We spoke of our families. My beloved Teresa. Her brothers. We spoke briefly of the Rosatis
.
It’s clear that Serafina has a greater well from which to draw forgiveness than I. I reminded her that Francesca and Cristina had sentenced her to death, too. The Germans could just as easily have shot her when they murdered my wife and my brother. But she insists the family hadn’t a choice. Not true. We always have choices. Isn’t that what Dante teaches us?
I really have become quite the Dante scholar: “There is no greater sorrow than to recall our time of joy in wretchedness.”
Serafina may think I’m a crazy person, but I’m not. She has her scars, too—and not only the ones I saw when she turned her head and her hair fell aside. We are both living out our lives in a Purgatorio. The difference? I arrived from the Paradiso, once young and married and so in love. But Serafina, she who was born alone in a fever dream of fire? She whose very skin is a tapestry of loss? Serafina, of course, arrived from the Inferno
.
Acknowledgments
In 2004, Michael Barnard, owner of Rakestraw Books in Danville, California, put a small, remarkable memoir in my hands:
War in Val d’Orcia
, by the marchesa Iris Origo. The book chronicled life on her sun-drenched Tuscan estate when the nightmare of the Second World War rolled like a tsunami across her and her husband’s lands. Michael urged me to read the memoir because my wife and I were about to visit our good friends Greg Levendusky and Pam Powers at the modest Italian
podere
, or farm, they were endeavoring to rebuild at the edge of the village of Montisi. Their new home was not far from the corner of Tuscany where Origo had once straddled two eras: she was a noblewoman, an anachronism even in 1943 and 1944, but at the same time she and her husband were pioneering landowners who modernized their property and tried to improve the lives of their tenant farmers. Origo was also a gifted writer, and her book fascinated me.
Meanwhile, I was mightily impressed by the way that Greg and Pam had restored the old Tuscan farmhouse and revived the land, and by the simplicity of their world in Montisi.
So in so many ways my thanks for this novel have to begin with the late marchesa Iris Origo and with my good friends.
I am also, however, profoundly grateful to Z. Philip Ambrose, professor emeritus at the University of Vermont. Although Professor Ambrose and I both live in northwestern Vermont, we first met at a summer choral concert at Sant’Anna in Camprena, an abbey perhaps six kilometers from Montisi. It is indeed a small world: six
degrees of separation will always trump million-to-one odds. I was hoping Professor Ambrose could help me with my Etruscan history. He did that, but he was also an invaluable guide through the fictional village of Monte Volta and the experience of rural Italian civilians in the Second World War.
In addition, I want to thank a pair of physicians, William Charash and Marc Tischler. Dr. Charash, division chief for trauma, burn, and critical care surgery at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, Vermont, provided insight into Serafina Bettini’s burns and how she might have been kept alive and then treated in 1944. Dr. Tischler, a cardiologist at Fletcher Allen and the director of the echocardiography laboratory there, helped me to understand the state of open-heart surgery in the 1950s and how a serial killer might extract a human heart. Both physicians are also associate professors at the University of Vermont College of Medicine.
Laura Renzi Goodyear was my all-important feet on the ground in Italy, researching there and explaining to me what parts of the investigation the Florence
polizia
might have handled and where the carabinieri might have fit in. (And big thanks to Krista Patterson Jones for suggesting Laura.) She was a spectacularly good researcher, and I am deeply appreciative. I used much of what she taught me and, I confess, disregarded other historical details. In any case, all credit for the minutiae in the investigation that are accurate goes to Laura; all blame for the liberties goes to me.
Thanks also to Jeremy Julian and Allegra Biery, with Northern Trust, for helping me understand the work of an American banker in Florence in 1955.
There were a great many books that were helpful, in addition to Iris Origo’s memoir. Among them was Douglas Preston’s and Mario Spezi’s riveting and unforgettable
The Monster of Florence
. It is, like all of Preston’s work, absolutely terrific—but it also allowed me to follow an actual investigation. Rick Atkinson’s powerful
The Day of Battle
helped me learn the specifics of the fight for Sicily. (In addition, I found the epigraph for this novel in his extraordinary history.) And two wonderful novels inspired me and took me back
to Italy as I was writing this story: Olaf Olafsson’s
Restoration
and Mary Doria Russell’s
A Thread of Grace
. Both novels are haunting and beautiful and brilliantly capture what life might have been like in Italy during the Second World War. Moreover, Olafsson’s fictional Tuscan villa is downright magical.
Big thanks as well to Jane Gelfman and her staff at Gelfman Schneider—Cathy Gleason and Victoria Marini; to Arlynn Greenbaum at Authors Unlimited; and to Todd Doughty, John Fontana, Suzanne Herz, William Heus, Judy Jacoby, Jennifer Kurdyla, Jennifer Marshall, Sonny Mehta, Beth Meister, Anne Messitte, Roz Parr, Russell Perreault, John Pitts, Andrea Robinson, Bill Thomas, and the whole wondrous team at the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. And, of course, enormous thanks to my editor there, Jenny Jackson, who is grounded and smart and insightful, and capable of walking me in off the ledge when characters die or I need to delete three-thousand-word scenes. Without question, these are the attributes a writer needs in an editor.
Finally, I am so blessed to be married to Victoria Blewer. She, along with our wise-beyond-her-years daughter, Grace, read this book at different stages. The two of them always offered their suggestions in a fashion that can only be called diplomatic.
I thank you all so, so much.
Books by Chris Bohjalian
NOVELS
The Sandcastle
The Night Strangers
Secrets of Eden
Skeletons at the Feast
The Double Bind
Before You Know Kindness
The Buffalo Soldier
Trans-Sister Radio
The Law of Similars
Midwives
Water Witches
Past the Bleachers
Hangman
A Killing in the Real World
ESSAY COLLECTIONS
Idyll Banter
A Note About the Author
Chris Bohjalian is the critically acclaimed author of sixteen books, including the
New York Times
bestsellers
The Sandcastle Girls
,
Skeletons at the Feast
,
The Double Bind
, and
Midwives
. His novel
Midwives
was a number one
New York Times
bestseller and a selection of Oprah’s Book Club. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages, and three of his novels have become movies (
Secrets of Eden
,
Midwives
, and
Past the Bleachers
). He lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter.
Other titles by Chris Bohjalian available in eBook format
Fiction:
The Sandcastle Girls9780385534802
The Night Strangers
Secrets of Eden
Skeletons at the Feast
The Double Bind
Before You Know Kindness
The Buffalo Soldier
Trans-Sister Radio
The Law of Similars
Midwives
