CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JOANNA
June 1973
My heart beat faster. She’d left a baby son behind. The beautiful boy. He might still be here.
I took a deep breath and formed the sentence in my head before I asked, “So this son of Sofia, is he still in the village?”
Paola nodded, smiling. “Yes, of course. He was taken in by Cosimo and raised as his own son.”
“Cosimo?”
The smile faded from her face. “Cosimo di Georgio, the richest man in our community. He owns much land around here. He would like to buy my olive grove. His aim is to control all the olive trees, but I do not wish to sell. But here he is respected as well as feared. In the war he was a hero, a partisan fighter—the only one to survive a massacre by the Germans. He had to lie there among the bodies, pretending to be dead, while the soldiers went around with bayonets. Can you imagine that?”
“So he adopted Sofia’s child?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yes, and lucky for the boy that was. Guido and Sofia, they were poor like the rest of us, but now Renzo is the heir to Cosimo. He will be rich one day. Rich and powerful.”
Again I phrased what I wanted to say very carefully. “If I wanted to meet this man, Renzo, how would I do so?”
“If you go up to the village around six or seven, you will find most of the men sitting together in the piazza. They meet in the evenings while their wives prepare their meals. I am sure they will know where to find Cosimo and Renzo. Cosimo had a stroke a few years ago, I’m afraid.”
“A stroke?” This Italian word meant nothing to me.
“When the blood is blocked and the left side no longer works well,” she explained. “Now he walks with a cane and Renzo stays by his father’s side to help him.”
She reached for a towel and covered the bowl, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Are we finished with the pici?” I asked. “Do you need more help?”
“Until we cook it. Go and enjoy yourself, young lady.”
I smiled and nodded. “So maybe I should go for a walk and explore the town. I’d like to see Sofia Bartoli’s house.”
“You can see it for yourself. As you walk up the street, you turn into the last little alley on the right. Sofia’s house is at the end.”
“Does her family still live in it?”
“Oh no. Her husband did not return from the war in Africa, you know. There was only an old grandmother, and she died soon after I returned to San Salvatore.”
I nodded, understanding this. “And I also want to see if I can talk to the men in the piazza,” I said. “I don’t know if they can tell me anything, but perhaps they met my father.”
“Perhaps.” She didn’t sound too hopeful.
“And then, if I may, I’ll come back to join you for dinner. I’m really looking forward to trying the pici and the rabbit.”
“Good.” She nodded approval. “Of course you are welcome to join us. It will be nice for Angelina to have a young person to talk to. She is bored with just her old mother. She would like to know about English fashions, I am sure. And music. She is still a teenager at heart!” She chuckled.
“How old is she?” I asked.
“Almost twenty now,” Paola said. “Time to settle down and be serious as a mother and wife, not listening to popular music and wanting to dance.”
Almost twenty, I thought. And here I am at twenty-five still thinking I am young and have plenty of time to decide what to do with my life.
I went back to my room and collected my camera and purse. I also put on a hat as the late-afternoon sun was fierce. Then I set off back up the path to the little town. The tunnel and the alleyway were pleasantly cool after the walk uphill with the sun on my back. I stood in the tunnel, looking out through the opening at the landscape beyond. Everywhere I looked there were olive trees. If this Cosimo owned them all, he must be a rich man indeed. And that old ruin I could see beyond the trees—was that a castle, perhaps? I thought it might be worth exploring if I didn’t mind the trek up through the olive groves. This made me stop and think: How long was I planning to stay here? If nobody in the town knew anything of my father, what would be the point of staying on? But I thought of Paola and her bright, warm kitchen, and it struck me that this was a place where I might be able to begin to heal.
The piazza was deserted at this time of the afternoon, the sun beating down on the cobblestones and reflecting off the faded yellow stucco of the municipal buildings. The sycamore trees looked dusty and drooped in the heat. I went up the steps and into the church. The smell of incense hung heavy in the air, and dust motes danced in the shafts of sunlight that came in through high, narrow windows. Around the walls were old paintings and statues of saints. I recoiled as I came upon an altar and beneath it a glass-fronted case containing a skeleton clothed in bishop’s robes and with a crown on its skull. Was this a local saint? As one raised with only the minimum of Anglican exposure, I always found Catholic churches to be frightening places—one step away from black magic. When a priest appeared from behind the high altar, I made a hasty exit.
I followed the one road up from the piazza. There were a few more shops and a jumble of houses clinging to one another against the hillside. Here and there an alley led off, some of them so small that I could stretch out my arms and touch both sides. Shutters were closed against the afternoon heat. Some houses had wooden balconies decorated with more geraniums. Others had big clay pots and jars like the one outside Paola’s house, all with flowers and herbs spilling over the sides. An occasional cat basked in the sun. Other than that the street was deserted. From inside the houses came the sounds of pots and pans clanging as the evening meal was being prepared, babies crying, a radio blaring out a plaintive song.
Ahead of me I could see sky and greenery as the houses came to an end. I turned into the last alleyway on the right and found myself staring at Sofia’s house. It was bigger than the houses around it and painted yellow, its paint faded and peeling. Two storeys high with a balcony at the front, it must have had a fine view over the surrounding countryside at the back. I wondered who lived in it now, but it had a deserted feel to it. No geraniums, no window boxes. A sad house, I felt, and turned away.
As I came to the highest point of San Salvatore, the road abruptly ended in a little park with a couple of large old trees and benches beneath them. An elderly couple sat on one of the benches in the shade. She was dressed head to toe in black like the other old woman on the train. He was rather smart in a starched white shirt, and he had a big nicotine-stained moustache. I was touched to see that they were holding hands. They looked at me with interest. I nodded and said, “Buongiorno.”
“Buonasera,” they replied, a gentle rebuke that the day had now officially passed into evening.
I continued to where a wall ran around the parapet, and next to the wall a big cross had been erected. I read the inscription: “To Our Brave Sons Lost in the War of 1939–45.” Beyond was a glorious view: range after range of forested hills, some crowned with villages such as this one. Directly below the wall the land plunged away into a deep valley where I could see a road. But there was no way down from the village to join it. Clearly this was a place built for defence in the old days!
I stood there taking photos of the view. When I looked back the old couple had gone, making me wonder if I had only imagined them. In truth this whole town had a tinge of unreality for me, like being in a beautiful but unsettling dream. Was it only yesterday that I had been in rainy London? Was it only a year ago that I had moved in with Adrian? And my father had let me know in no uncertain terms how much he disapproved . . . And then . . . I closed my eyes as if trying to shut out the painful memories. How much can happen in so short a time, I thought. How quickly life can change. Well, maybe it was time that it changed again. I was in a beautiful place, staying with a kind woman, and I was going to enjoy myself, whatever the outcome was.
Having made that decision, I started to walk back through the town. In just half an hour or so, things had changed. The world was coming to life. Small boys were playing football in the street while a little girl sat on a step watching them. The greengrocer was carrying in crates of vegetables, ready to shut up shop for the night. A group of women stood talking together, waving their hands expressively as only Italians do. From open front doors came enticing aromas and the sounds of radios or televisions playing. And when I arrived back in the piazza, it was now bathed in deep shadow and pleasantly cool. I saw that the men had returned to their table outside the trattoria and were arguing so loudly and violently that I was afraid a fight might break out at any moment.
I shrank back into the shadows of the side street, not wanting them to know I was there at such a crucial time. Then one of them threw up his hands in a gesture of futility, another laughed, and the moment was diffused. Wine was poured from a carafe on the table, and it appeared that everyone was contented again. All the way through the town I had rehearsed my lines for my upcoming speech. I had actually written some of them on the train, to be memorised in case my fledgling Italian deserted me in a moment of stress.
It took me a few seconds of deep breathing to pluck up the courage to walk across the piazza to them. They looked up at the sound of my approaching footsteps.
“Ah, the signorina,” one said. “Did you find Paola? Do you stay in her animal house?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said. “It’s very nice and she is kind.”
“Paola is a good woman,” one of the men agreed. “She will feed you well. You need feeding up. No flesh on your bones.”
I didn’t quite understand this but saw them examining me critically. Not plump enough to be an Italian girl.
“I have come to find out about my father,” I said. “He was a British airman. His plane crashed near this town in the war, but he survived. I wondered if any of you knew about him or met him.”
They were all middle-aged, or even elderly. Some of them must have been in the village at that time. But I was met with blank looks.
Then an older, wizened man said, “There was a plane that crashed down in Paolo’s fields, remember? The Germans came and asked us about it, but we knew nothing.”
“I remember that Marco was angry because the plane burned two good olive trees,” another man agreed. “But of that plane there were no survivors, I am sure. It was burned completely.”
It occurred to me that they were not talking about my father’s plane. Perhaps his plane had not crashed exactly in this area, and he had been making his way south to escape from German-held territory when he came to San Salvatore. Clearly none of these men knew anything of a British pilot in their town. I decided to change the subject. “Do any of you remember a woman called Sofia Bartoli?”
That produced an immediate reaction. I was met with hostile stares. One of the men turned and spat on the ground.
“Did this woman do something bad?” I asked.
“She ran off with a German,” one of the men said finally. “Just before the Allies were driving the filthy Germans north. She was seen going off with him in the middle of the night, escaping in an army vehicle.”
“Going willingly with him?” I asked. “Are you sure of that?”
“Of course. It was the one who had been staying in her house. A good-looking man. An officer. My wife was told by Sofia’s grandmother that she knew she was sweet on a man. Well, you can tell, can’t you, when a woman has feelings for a man.”
“She obviously thought she’d have a better life in Germany than staying here, working day after day in the fields,” a man at the end of the table muttered. “Especially if her husband was already dead.” There were more mutters of agreement.
“She left behind a child?” I asked. “A baby boy?”
There were nods around the table. “Yes, Renzo. Her son. She abandoned him.”
“And Renzo still lives in this town?”
One of them looked up. “Here he comes now, with his father.”