CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
JOANNA
June 1973
We looked up as we heard Paola calling.
“Your tomatoes, Signor Bartoli. Do you have a cart to transport them?”
“I will send one of the men up later on,” Renzo said. “But I will pay you now. Keep them out of the sun, please.”
He took out a wallet and handed over several notes. Paola beamed. “You are most generous.”
I turned to Renzo. “Thank you for translating for me. I could not have got through that interview without you.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I am sure the inspector realises that you are completely innocent of this crime. Sometimes these men enjoy wielding their power. Or maybe he is just lazy. He goes for the most obvious suspect. But I will speak with Cosimo and he will make sure that you are released. My father has great influence in these parts.”
“Why do you think this man was killed?” I couldn’t resist asking.
Renzo shrugged. “I can think of several reasons. He mixed with the wrong type of people. He poked his nose where it wasn’t wanted. Maybe he overheard things he should not have heard. Maybe he even resorted to blackmail. I wouldn’t have put it past him.”
I told myself to shut up, but I went on. “I understand he also wanted to build his own olive press. Might someone have wanted to stop him from doing that?”
Renzo shook his head. “Just one of Gianni’s big ideas. It would never have happened. Everyone knows that Cosimo’s olive press is the most modern and efficient in this area. Why should anyone build another one? Especially a man like Gianni who would undoubtedly have cut corners and constructed a shoddy product. It would constantly have broken down, even if anyone would have lent him the capital in the first place.” He gave me a curt little bow. “I must get back to my business. I’m already late. Maybe I will see you at the festival tomorrow? You should come. I think you would enjoy it. Very un-British!” And he smiled as he turned away.
I watched him go. Such an attractive man, I thought. Then I reminded myself that he was Cosimo’s adopted son. It was quite possible that he knew who killed Gianni. If Cosimo wanted to stop the olive press from being constructed, he had plenty of men to do his bidding . . . including a son. I must not forget that Renzo might have had a hand in the murder, I thought.
I went to join Paola at her stall as Renzo stopped to talk with some men on the far side of the piazza. Gianni’s death probably had nothing to do with the olive press, I reasoned to myself. He had tried to speak with me alone. He wanted to tell me the truth about the war, about Sofia. He had put the envelope through my window. And someone had followed him and killed him. Something had happened in the wartime here. Something to do with blood and German money.
I manned the stall with Paola all day, then helped her pack up the crates and few remaining vegetables. She looked pleased. “Almost everything sold, thanks to Cosimo and Renzo. Now we will not have to eat vegetable soup for a week!”
We walked home together. It was strange, but it actually did feel like walking home.
“That stupid man, that inspector,” she said. “But that is how the police are in these parts sometimes. They don’t want to delve into anything that might be too dark and complicated, so they try to pin a crime on the most innocent of people. He probably has a good idea that Gianni was mixed up in criminal activities, but doubtless he wants to steer clear of any gangs. But don’t worry,” she added. “Nothing will come of this. You will soon be allowed to leave, I promise you. And in the meantime I shall teach you to cook good Italian food so that when you have a husband you keep him satisfied.”
In spite of everything, this made me laugh.
“Tell me about the war,” I said carefully. “Were there any scandals around here? Any people who worked with the Germans?”
“I told you, I was not here,” she said. “I only returned after the Germans had left. One heard plenty of tales of horror, of course. Of young girls violated. Of whole villages massacred because the Germans believed they had aided the partisans.”
“Who were the partisans exactly?” I asked.
“Brave groups of men who worked against the occupiers,” she said. “It was no true organisation, just small independent groups acting in the areas where they lived. Some were fascist, some were communist, some were ex-soldiers, some were just good men who wanted to help win the war. They destroyed trucks and blew up rail lines. They did many courageous things, and many paid with their lives.”
“There was a group in this area, then?”
“There was. Until someone betrayed them. The Germans mowed them down. Cosimo was only a young man then. He was one of them. He was fortunate. The German bullet only grazed him. But he had to lie among the bodies, pretending to be dead, as the Germans went among them with bayonets. He was half-mad with grief and covered in blood when he managed to stumble home the next day. The people of San Salvatore were lucky that they were not all executed in reprisal as happened with other towns.”
“Would the people of San Salvatore have known who the partisans were?” I asked. “Wouldn’t the men have kept their identities secret?”
“Of course. But people always knew. They relied on the farmers to hide them when they were being pursued. They relied on others to feed them when they were away from their homes. And they sometimes wore a little star so that people knew they were who they claimed to be. So yes, people knew.”
People knew, I thought. And one of those people had betrayed the local boys to the Germans. Why? Who had prospered from it? Or maybe it was a case of who had been released from German custody by giving this information. I thought of those men sitting around the table and wondered how I could ever find out what they might know.
We reached the farmhouse and stacked the crates, and Paola went for her afternoon snooze. I, too, would have liked a sleep, but I was too tense. So I sat with Angelina as she took care of the baby.
“Would you like to hold her?” she asked suddenly. “Here.”
And the child was in my arms. I felt the tiny, warm body, surprisingly heavy for its size. So perfect, I thought. A perfect little person. Little dark eyes looked up at me, staring at me with interest.
“Hello,” I said. “You don’t know me, do you?”
And I thought I detected the glimmer of a smile.
“She is beautiful,” I said.
“Yes, isn’t she? The most perfect baby ever,” Angelina said. “When she was born early, they said she might not live. But I prayed. I prayed to Saint Anne and to the Blessed Mother, and they heard me. And now look at her. Getting fatter every day thanks to my good milk. When Mario comes home he will be so delighted to see her.”
I looked down at the tiny mite in my arms, her eyes already fluttering back into sleep. I couldn’t have done this alone, I thought. To rear a child one needs a Mario who will come home and be delighted. And a grandma who takes care of mother and baby.
That evening, Paola said she was tired and we would have a simple meal. She whipped up eggs and made a frittata with the few vegetables we had brought home: onions and zucchini and beans. It was surprisingly good.
“An early night, I think,” she said after we had finished our meal with cheese and fruit. “Tomorrow is a big day. First the Mass at eight o’clock, then the procession and then the feast. Will you come?”
“Oh yes. Of course. I’d like to see it.”
“You are not of our faith, I think,” she said.
I didn’t like to say I wasn’t really of any faith. “I was raised in the Church of England,” I said. “It is similar, I think.”
“I hear that in England there is no devotion to religion. You do not honour the saints, is that right? You do not pray to them.”
“That’s true,” I said.
She made a dismissive noise. “Then how can prayers be answered if you do not call upon the saints to help? God is obviously too busy to do everything alone.”
I thought how sweet and simple this was. But then I remembered the little medal on a ribbon that had been in my father’s box. Someone had given that to him, probably Sofia. I wondered which saint was represented on it. It seemed so unlikely for my cold and typically English father to have worn a medal on a ribbon. He must have loved her very much, I thought. I remembered the paintings done before the war, so bright and full of life. And it came to me as a shock that his life essentially ended when that letter was returned to him unopened. I wondered how many further attempts he made to trace her until he gave up and married my solid and dependable mother.