Tomorrow's Vengeance (8 page)

‘And your brother? What happened to Umberto?' I asked.

‘He got typhus,' she said simply. ‘He died.'

‘I'm so sorry,' I said, feeling lower than a snake for even bringing it up.

Izzy shrugged. ‘When the fever came, the nuns did everything they could for Umberto but there was no food, no medicine. I blame that on the Nazis, too.

‘Anyway, you can imagine how happy everyone was when the American soldiers came and Rome was liberated!' She leaned forward over her coffee cup. ‘I stayed at the convent, though, because I had no place else to go.'

Filomena had sent a server out from the kitchen with a carafe of fresh coffee. I was already on a caffeine high but asked the young woman for a refill anyway.

‘This is where Bruno Milanesi comes into the story,' Izzy said after the server had returned to the kitchen. ‘Bruno, he was a corporal with the U.S. 5th Army. The army had taken over a
scuola secondaria
that was near the convent and, even though the war was over, food was still scarce. My Bruno – only he wasn't my Bruno then, of course – comes over with fresh eggs. He says in broken Italian – he didn't speak good Italian at all, being an American boy – that he works in the kitchen, and would we like some eggs?' Izzy rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, those were the most delicious eggs I had ever tasted! Bruno brought us eggs and cheese and sometimes apples. Later, when I got to know him better, I found out he was trading the cigarettes in his rations for food. He'd bring us the used coffee grounds, too. So wasteful, the U.S. Army. The nuns could always squeeze some more coffee out of those grounds! “Practically fresh,” Reverend Mother used to say.

‘One day, Bruno comes to the Reverend Mother and tells her he wants to marry me. There weren't many Italian boys left, and I think the nuns saw it as an opportunity to get rid of me!' For the first time that afternoon, Izzy laughed. ‘Bruno and I had fallen in love, of course, but I was only fourteen and too young to marry. Luckily one of the nuns had a brother who got me false papers. He was a printer who had helped hundreds of Jews escape the Germans. I didn't have a passport, but this man provided a birth certificate for me that said I was born in 1928, not 1930. We used the certificate to get a passport saying I was sixteen so that we could get married and I could go back to the United States with Bruno as a war bride. I had to go for blood tests at the Red Cross, and present that certificate and other documentation to his captain in order to get permission to marry.'

‘What kind of papers did they want?' Naddie wondered.

‘Some of the soldiers had what you would call “a wife in every port.” The army wanted to make sure Bruno wasn't already married! But I knew he was an honest boy because he took my picture to send to his mother in Boston so she would know what her new daughter-in-law was going to look like.' She laughed again. ‘I often wonder what she thought, Bruno's mother, of Bruno's “Little Bella”. I was a tiny speck of a thing back then, you can imagine, after so long with so little to eat. We had rations, like half a pound of bread a day, but if that's all you have to eat it's not much. I weighed ninety-eight pounds.

‘Then, we found out that Bruno was being shipped to Germany, and then back to America to be discharged, and the army doesn't give a hoot that he has a fiancée in Italy. So I was thinking I'd never see him again. But, life goes on. I got a job working part-time in an
alimentari
. Then, one day months later, Reverend Mother came with a letter from Bruno. He'd gotten a two-week furlough.' Izzy looked from me to Naddie and back again. ‘Everything was destroyed by the war, you understand. Everything. There was no electricity, no telephone, no railroad. It was very cold that winter, but Bruno hitchhiked from Monte Castello, where the army was helping the Brazillians push back the Germans, all the way to Rome! We got married right away. I didn't even have time to rent a wedding dress. The next day we walked to the Red Cross where he signed me up as a GI wife so that I could get benefits, and then he had to leave and I didn't see him again for almost a year. I got his letters, though. Every week he wrote me, although I'd get the letters in batches.

‘But then, time passed and I hadn't heard from Bruno for several months. I was worried he'd forgotten about me when the Red Cross sent a letter telling me to go to a certain hotel where I would wait with other GI brides for a boat to take us to America. There were maybe five hundred war brides and over one hundred children all crowded together on that ship. Some of us were seasick for the whole ten days, but all the hardships flew straight out of my mind when we sailed into New York harbor and I saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time. I stood on the deck and bawled my eyes out.'

I scrabbled in my handbag, looking for a tissue. ‘Now you've made me cry,' I sniffed, then blew my nose.

‘Bruno was there to meet me, and his mother, too. She was a wonderful woman! She'd sent me a dress to wear for my “homecoming.” Other than that, I really brought nothing with me.' She paused for a moment. ‘Except for …'

We waited expectantly, but she didn't finish the sentence. ‘Except for what?' Naddie prodded.

‘Before
Abba
was forced to sell, he saved one thing. It's a portrait of me, painted when I was around four, holding my kitten, Merlino.'

I was astonished. ‘How on earth did you get the painting out of Italy?'

Izzy smiled. ‘
Abba
carefully removed it from the frame, wrapped it in a special canvas, and my mother sewed it into the lining of my suitcase. The painting's hanging in my living room now. I'll show it to you sometime.'

‘I'd love to see it,' I said.

‘It's lovely,' Naddie said. ‘I never knew its history. Fascinating.' Turning to Izzy, she asked, ‘Is the painting valuable?'

Izzy shrugged. ‘It's priceless to me, of course. I remember sitting for the artist, a flamboyant and rather scary woman named Clotilde Padovano. In the early part of the twentieth century, she was very much in demand as a portrait painter to the well-to-do. I don't follow such things closely, but I read in the
Times
that one of her portraits was recently sold at auction in New York for a hundred and twenty thousand dollars.'

I whistled.

‘I'll never part with
mine
, of course,' she said.

‘Nor would I, if it were mine,' I said. ‘Not even if I were reduced to selling umbrellas on street corners.'

Izzy laughed then picked up her handbag, preparing to go. As we got up to join her, I turned to Izzy again. ‘Izzy, I have a rude question.'

‘Yes?'

‘For lunch just now, you had calamari. Isn't squid a non-kosher food,
treif
?'

Izzy laid a hand on my shoulder. ‘I learned a long time ago, Hannah, that it is never safe to be Jewish. Maybe it was the years of living on the edge of being found out. Maybe it was the hours of kneeling on the cold floor of the convent at
matins
and
prime
. But, after I married Bruno, I converted. I've been a practicing Catholic ever since.'

I accompanied my friends to the entrance of Blackwalnut Hall, hugged them both goodbye then headed off in the direction of the parking lot to collect my car.

As I rounded the corner of the building I noticed two men squared off on the concrete apron outside the service entrance to the kitchen, looking for all the world like boxing bears. One had to be Raniero Buccho; nobody else at Calvert Colony had hair that impossibly blond. From his black-and-white uniform and the argument I'd overheard earlier, I guessed the other was probably the hapless kitchen staffer. I was too far away to hear what the men were saying, but from the way Raniero's arms were flailing about I could tell he was giving the other guy a sizable piece of his mind. Raniero's adversary stood his ground, his chin thrust forward, unflappably defiant. Curiosity aroused, I briefly considered moving to within earshot of the pair, but when I checked my watch I knew I had to hustle. I was due to pick up my granddaughter, Chloe, from her ballet lesson at three, and if I didn't hurry I'd be late.

It was none of my business anyway, I thought as I climbed into my ancient LeBaron and slotted the key into the ignition. Raniero had a short fuse, no doubt about that. He was as likely to clobber someone over a dropped serving platter or a misplaced twist of lemon peel as he would, say, over a diner's complaint about finding a hair in the
vichyssoise
. Besides, I thought, as I pulled out of the parking lot and into the drive, the other guy seemed to be giving as good as he got. I smiled. Poor Raniero.

‘As early as 1998, researchers were reporting that music could serve as an important tool for decreasing aggressive behavior in Alzheimer's sufferers. In 2004, another paper suggested that memory for familiar music might remain intact in some dementia patients. “Music of the right kind,” neurologist Oliver Sacks said in a 2007 interview, “can serve to orient and anchor a patient when almost nothing else can.
The past, which is not recoverable in any other way, is embedded, as if in amber, in the music, and people can regain a sense of identity.”'

Anne Arundel
Health Matters
magazine, Spring, 2012.

E
arly the following morning I was soaking in a bathtub full of lavender bubbles when Naddie called and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Become a volunteer in the memory unit and Calvert Colony would provide me with lunch. Free. All I'd have to do is help some of the residents with their individual iPods, take walks with some and read stories to others.

Since Paul was still in the process of circumnavigating Long Island, the prospect of Raniero's cooking was a lot more appealing than what I'd planned for myself that day, namely sliced tomatoes and a carton of Stouffers macaroni and cheese, which still lay rock solid in the freezer compartment of my fridge.

Besides, it wasn't exactly a hardship. Visiting Blackwalnut Hall was like checking into the Hyatt Regency. In fact, when I reported to the lounge for duty later that morning, an attractive man dressed in high prep – khakis, a navy sports jacket and a button-down oxford shirt with a red tie – sat coaxing sixties and seventies tunes out of the Steinway grand.

While I waited along with Naddie for a woman named Elaine Broering to escort me into the memory unit, I couldn't resist singing along, echoing the responses in ‘The Candy Man' along with most of the residents sitting around me. Two of the singers were the pair of lovebirds I'd seen sitting at the piano the previous week, sharing their love of Stephen Foster favorites with the other residents.

Halfway through the next selection, where a couple of members of our intrepid gang of backup singers got irretrievably stuck on ‘Sgt Pepper's lonely, Sgt Pepper's lonely, Sgt Pepper's lonely, Sgt Pepper's lonely …' with no indication that they'd ever reach the ‘Hearts Club Band' part of the song, I noticed a young man pacing nervously in front of the reception desk. He wore a shiny blue suit that stood out like a neon sign among the more casually attired seniors around him. He carried a bouquet of flowers, too, their stems wrapped in the familiar green tissue paper of a local supermarket chain. He also looked vaguely familiar.

‘Hold the phone! Isn't that …' Naddie began, but for me, the penny had already dropped. The last time I'd seen that dude, he'd been showing off his tats on a video chat with Christie McSpadden.

‘Apparently Dickie-boy isn't in Afghanistan anymore,' I said. ‘I think I better go telephone Angie.'

I excused myself and slipped out onto the front porch. At first I thought Angie wasn't going to answer. After four rings my call switched over to her answerphone, but she picked up mid-message with a breathless, ‘Hello.' Then: ‘You got me down in the basement doing laundry,' Angie said after I'd identified myself. ‘What's up?'

‘Thought you'd want to know that Dickie-boy has come to call.'

Silence stretched out for several long seconds before Angie exploded, ‘Shit! He's not in Kandahar. No wonder she's been so concerned over her appearance lately. I should have picked up on that. What should I do, Hannah?'

‘Tell you what, I'll keep an eye on him while you get yourself over here.' I watched through the leaded glass on the door while Richard Whatever-his-name-was signed in on the little computer screen at reception. ‘Your mother-in-law hasn't shown up yet. But Angie,' I continued, ‘the guy's got flowers.'

‘Of course he does. And probably a box of chocolate-covered cherries, too.'

‘How soon can you get over here?'

‘I'm on my way.'

‘What if he plans to take Christie out?' I asked.

‘Well, we can't stop her. Calvert Colony isn't a prison camp, and she still has a car and a valid driver's license, although I wish like hell she wouldn't drive.'

‘I just watched the guy sign in. Would an ax murderer do that?' I paused to collect my thoughts. ‘Tell you what,' I volunteered, Nancy Drew to the rescue, ‘if they leave, I'll try to follow. We can keep in touch by cell phone, OK?'

Angie agreed and cut the connection.

I rejoined Naddie. We had reached the final verse of ‘I Got a Crush on You, Sweetie Pie' when Christie finally appeared, gliding down the grand staircase like Loretta Young. Loretta would have been wearing a designer ball gown and masses of jewels, but Christie looked smart in a surprisingly age-appropriate blue-checked shirtwaist dress and a pair of black-and-white spectator flats. She'd even dug a chunky gold chain necklace out of her jewelry box, with a pair of matching earrings.

Clearly, Richard's visit was no surprise.

He recognized her at once, took several quick steps forward and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. The flowers were handed over. I wasn't close enough to hear what the two were saying over the exuberant, off-key singing that was filling the lobby, but their body language was clear enough. Christie pressed her hand against her breast.
For me? How sweet!
Then enveloped him in a hug.