CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
JOANNA
June 1973
“Oh, there you are,” Paola said, looking up from the beans she had been retying. “I was beginning to get worried about you. I thought you had gone up to the town, but then Renzo came seeking you and said that you were not up there.”
“Renzo came?” I blurted out the words.
“Yes. Looking for you.” She misinterpreted my alarm. “I think you might have made a conquest there, mia cara.” She gave me a knowing little smile.
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“He didn’t. Maybe just to enjoy your company, to get to know you better.”
“Oh no. It’s not like that,” I said. “He must have wanted to arrange a time to meet me and take me to the station tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? So you will really leave so soon?”
“I think it would be wise,” I said. “If I stay longer then I fear that the inspector may still try to say that I killed Gianni. He may also try to say that you helped me. It is better for everyone that I go when I can. And Cosimo told me that his son has to drive into Florence tomorrow and will give me a ride to the train station.”
“So soon.” She came around the table and embraced me. “I will miss you, little one. You have become a second daughter. And Angelina has enjoyed your company, too. She says I am old and boring and it is good to speak to someone her age.”
“I know. I have enjoyed every minute with you, especially your cooking. And I am sorry that I will now never learn to become an Italian cook.”
“We will have a good meal tonight if it is to be your last,” she said. “A mushroom risotto, perhaps, before the aubergine Parmesan and panna cotta, definitely. You can help me to prepare them, if you like. We will start with crostini. Perhaps Signor Renzo will want to help us, too?”
“Renzo?” I asked.
“Yes, I invited him to join us for dinner, and I know that he loves to cook.”
I could tell from her face what she was thinking: she was playing matchmaker with Renzo and me. On any other occasion I might have welcomed her help, but now I knew what I did, I didn’t want any more to do with him. The chats we had, his taking me to his old house—they were probably designed to find out what I knew and what I didn’t know. He was just following instructions from Cosimo. I took this one stage further—had he also witnessed Gianni pushing the envelope into my room and now wanted to retrieve its contents or find out what it said?
I couldn’t stop him from coming, but I would have to tread very carefully this evening. I put my purse back in my room, locked the door again, and came to help Paola in the garden. Later I had a rest, locking myself in, but I slept undisturbed and awoke feeling refreshed. Heading over to the farmhouse to see if the preparations had begun for dinner, I was startled to find Renzo standing close to my door.
“Oh,” I gasped, and took an involuntary step back.
“Sorry if I startled you, Joanna,” he said. “Paola wanted me to pick more asparagus and see if any more tomatoes were ripe. I came early to help prepare the meal. She is making a real feast for you.”
“I know. She told me. She is so kind.”
“She has become fond of you,” he said. “She is sorry you have to leave so soon.”
“I am, too, but it’s better that way, isn’t it?” I said. “I would rather be far away from that inspector. He still seems to think I might be somehow involved with Gianni’s murder, which is ridiculous. I only exchanged maybe a dozen words with the man at a table full of other men.”
“Quite ridiculous,” he said. “But I, too, am sorry you are going to leave. I would like to have found out the truth about your father and my mother. And the beautiful boy. I can’t stop thinking about it. If your father was in this area long enough for my mother to have a child, how could they possibly have kept both those things secret? And would he have hidden a child where nobody else could find him, only to write to her about him months later?”
“Perhaps the child was given to a family in the hills to look after?” I suggested. “She was going to reclaim him later, but she never did.”
“Then why does nobody know about this? Surely the family would have told someone? They would have said, ‘A British airman left a baby with us. Now we have to find his mother.’ There would have been talk. Old memories would have been jogged.”
“Yes,” I said. “And yet nobody in San Salvatore seems to know anything about a British airman. And everyone believes that your mother ran off with a German.”
“It’s strange,” he said, straightening up from where he had just picked a big ripe tomato, “but old memories are beginning to come back to me. I remember I was sick for a while. I’m not sure what it was. Measles? Something like that. Anyway, I couldn’t leave the house and my mother went out every day looking for things for us to eat. Mushrooms, chestnuts—once there was a pigeon, I remember that. I wanted to go with her, but she said that I had to stay indoors because of my chest. I watched her going up the hill with her basket. She was worried about me and hated to leave me. But we had to eat, didn’t we?”
“She was worried about you?” I stared at him. “Renzo, everything you say tells me that your mother loved you dearly. She would not have abandoned you, I’m sure. She would not have run off and just left you behind. I’m sure she must have been forced to leave against her will.”
“But everyone said . . . ,” he began hesitantly. “I’ve always been told . . .”
“You know what I think?” I said. “I think someone betrayed your mother and my father, maybe for money, or maybe out of jealousy, or maybe to save their own skin. And the Germans took her away.” I realised as I said it that I might just be causing him more grief. What if the person who betrayed her was Cosimo? Then I remembered that Gianni had seen the British airman being driven off, and he was an opportunist and a sneak. Perhaps he had tipped off the Germans that a British airman had been hiding out. “Did you see her go, or had she just gone by the time you woke up in the morning?”
He frowned, trying to recollect. “No, I was there, I’m pretty sure. Yes, she came over and kissed me and told me to be a good boy and that she’d be back soon. She was crying. There were teardrops on her cheeks. And then she wanted to say more and kiss me again but the soldier shouted at her and . . .” He broke off, a look of wonder on his face. “It wasn’t the soldier who was staying at our house—the nice one. It was another soldier. A big man. I remember that he seemed to fill the whole doorway. And he yelled in a fierce voice.”
“You see?” I smiled at him triumphantly. “Your mother and my father were innocent. They loved each other, and they were betrayed.”
“Yes,” he said softly. “I have to believe you.”
“Are we ever going to get those tomatoes for tonight’s meal?” came Paola’s big voice across the rows of vegetables.
Renzo grinned to me. “The slave driver calls. Come and help prepare the meal.”
I followed him along the narrow path, now more confused than ever. Had Cosimo betrayed Renzo’s mother and then felt guilty enough that he had adopted him? Perhaps Renzo knew no more than I did.
Renzo fell back to wait for me. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “My mother always went up the hill with her basket. It is possible that your father was hidden somewhere in the woods or even in the old monastery. We should go and look tomorrow before you leave us.”
“I was wondering about the old monastery myself,” I said. “But it just looks like piles of ruined stone. Could someone really have sought shelter up there?”
“I went up a couple of times when I was a boy,” Renzo said. “It’s all fenced off and nobody is supposed to go there because the hillside is in danger of collapsing. But of course when we were boys we had to do it on a dare. There truly wasn’t much to see. The walls of the old chapel still stood, but there was no roof. And the floor was piled high with rubble. The rooms of the monastery were completely flattened. If your father hid out up there, then he would have had a miserable time.”
“He’d been to a British boarding school,” I said. “He was probably used to a miserable time.”
This made Renzo throw back his head and laugh. “You English and your boarding schools,” he said. “Was your school also like that?”
“I didn’t board at the school I told you about, but it was certainly not a good experience for me. I couldn’t wait to leave.”
“So you, too, have had your share of miserable times?”
“Yes, you could say that.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Perhaps it is time to put the past behind you and to look forward to the future. You will be a rich and famous lawyer. You will travel and marry an equally rich man and have the perfect two children and live happily in one of those big, draughty English houses.”
I looked up at him, horribly conscious of his hand, warm and comforting on my shoulder. “I’m not sure that’s what I want at all,” I said.
“So what do you want?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll know when I find it.”
Renzo released me and stood aside for me to enter the house first.
“Allora. Now we get to work,” Paola said. “With so many courses to prepare I need much assistance. First we make the toppings for the crostini.”
“What is a crostini?” I asked.
“Like bruschetta, but instead of being baked, the slices of bread are grilled,” Renzo said. “More chewy and less brittle.” He turned to Paola. “And what toppings have you in mind?”
“The fresh asparagus, naturally . . .”
“Wrapped in prosciutto crudo, naturally?” he said. “And fennel? I see you have fennel growing in your garden. Should I dig up a bulb and slice it thinly with some pecorino?”
“That would be a wonderful idea,” she said. “And I have a good tapenade here.”
“And will you allow me to make the risotto?” he asked. “It was one of my specialties when I was sous-chef at the restaurant in Soho.”
“With pleasure,” Paola said. “But you must show the young lady how you prepare it. She wants to learn how to cook our Italian food, you know.”
He looked at me with interest. “You want to learn to cook? Lawyers don’t need such skills. They can employ a cook, surely.”
“Not this lawyer,” I said. “At the moment I am still a poor articled clerk, earning almost no money until I pass my exam. And even if I get a good job, I think that coming home to cook a good meal would be very relaxing.”
“You are right,” he said. “When I am cooking I think of nothing else. It is as if all the troubles of the world are shut out and it is just me and the food.”
Paola frowned and Renzo translated for her.
“You should speak Italian to the young lady,” she said. “How else is she going to improve? And already she understands quite well.”
“All right. In future, only Italian, Joanna, capisci?” he said, giving me a challenging look.
I was given the herbs to chop up for the sauce to go on the aubergine—oregano, Italian parsley—and then lots of garlic to crush. I was concentrating hard when Renzo came up behind me. “No, that is not how you hold the knife,” he said. His fingers came over mine. “Straight. Up and down. Swift motion like this. See?”
“Renzo, you will distract the young lady from her task if you flirt with her like that,” Paola said.
“What does this word mean?” I asked. When Renzo translated I felt myself blushing.
“Flirting? Who was flirting?” he demanded. “I only wish to correct the way she cuts parsley. If she wants to cook well she must develop good skills.”
“You say what you like,” Paola said, chuckling. “I say what I observe. See, her cheeks have become quite pink.”
“But she did not push me away, so she must have liked it,” he replied. “Now let me see you cut, Jo.”
I realised he was using the abbreviation of my name that only a few people had used in my life. Scarlet was one and Adrian was another. But coming from Renzo it sounded right. I started cutting, making smooth and even chopping motions. He watched, nodding. “You learn quickly.”
“It’s a shame she is not going to stay longer. You and I could teach her much,” Paola said. “Instead she goes back to London and to her diet of roast beef and sausages.”
“Yes, it is a shame,” Renzo said.
I had to agree with them. I went back to chopping my herbs.