A Harvest of Secrets(50)

Just as the cart emerged from the trees a few meters from the courtyard, the clouds swirled and parted enough to allow the sun to shine through in flashes. For a moment, Vittoria realized how beautiful the property was: the grand manor house and pair of barns, like a larger brother and smaller sister who’d grown old together; the wide slope reaching up to a stand of trees at its summit and covered with perfect rows of vines, with a small orchard of olive and hazelnut trees to one side, the unused cabin there, and a small copse of fruit trees to the other; the vegetable plot, the stone patio with its metal chairs and glass-topped table, her mother’s flower gardens. Sunlight brushed all of it, the golden tint dancing and disappearing, chased by patches of cloud shadow, and for a moment there was no war, no Mussolini or Hitler, no Nazis, no dark family secrets, no absent lover. For that brief moment she understood why her father was so attached to the property, and so proud of his stewardship. He hadn’t created the Vineyard SanAntonio, but he had preserved it, over decades, kept the luscious wines flowing from those kegs of Slavonian oak.

She drew the cart into the courtyard and tied Ottavio to the barn post, stepped inside and brought him a handful of hay and a bucket of water. The building was eerily quiet, the mule’s enclosure empty. She assumed Paolo had summoned all the workers to the field to finish the harvesting of the wheat, and just as Eleonora stepped out of the house, Vittoria was wondering if she should free Ottavio from the traces herself and lead him into the stable, rather than waiting for someone else—Marcellina, Costanza, or Paolo—to come and do it. She could tell instantly from Eleonora’s face that something was wrong. Her father, she thought it must be. Her father had found another pistol and finished the sinful job she’d interrupted.

But no.

“They left, Signorina,” Eleonora said, before she’d even offered a greeting. “They all left.”

“Who?”

“Everyone in the barn!”

“Why? What happened? Everyone?”

Eleonora shook her head, braids swinging. “Paolo stayed. Everyone else left. Even Gennaro. First thing this morning. Paolo and Enrico are in the field by themselves doing the wheat. The others were afraid the Nazis would come back. They had a meeting and left. Even Cinzia.”

“Does my father know?”

“Not yet. I couldn’t tell him, and he hasn’t noticed anything. Are you hungry?”

“I’ll eat later. I’ll go see him. Can you take the wagon to the wheat field?”

“Of course, Signorina.”

As Vittoria expected, she found her father in his second-floor study. He was sitting at his desk but not doing anything, not reading or going over his books, not writing numbers in the ledger or composing a note to some official or other about one of his many tax and property line complaints. Just staring.

“Father?”

He swiveled the chair partway around and motioned for her to sit across from him on the divan. “I see that you’ve come back safely,” he said, with the same dull voice he’d used in their previous conversation. Almost, she thought, as if he were surprised that she returned. Or disappointed.

“Yes, yes. It went fine. The police stopped me. I gave them two bottles of wine. They said to give you their regards. And the nuns were welcoming. How are you?”

Her father didn’t seem to understand the question. He looked at her without expression, puzzled, stumped. “I spoke with your brother at breakfast. He’s . . . he’s . . . They killed his horse. Our horse. Antonina.”

“I know, Father. You told me that, day before yesterday. We pushed her body into the ravine.”

“Ah.”

She could see he was waiting for more, watching her, baffled. By life.

“There’s something else I should tell you,” she ventured warily.

No expression.

“The workers have left.”

“Who?”

“The workers. In the barn. Marcellina, Costanza. Their children. Cinzia, too.”

“The women?”

“Eleonora is still here. The others are gone.”

“Where? How? Gone? What do you mean, gone? What’s wrong with you?”

“They left. They’re afraid the Germans will come back and hurt them, so they left us.”

“How could they?”

Vittoria shrugged. “They did. Only Eleonora stayed. And Paolo.”

Her father seemed to shrink even more deeply into himself. Confusion now, not puzzlement. It was almost, she thought, as if he were blind, and she were describing to him a painting. Yellow, blue, red, the colors made no sense. This news made no sense. “How will the work get done?” he said at last. “It’s fall. The wheat. Then the grapes.”

“I don’t know.”

He pondered a moment, swinging his eyes wildly around the room. “There’s nothing to live for anymore.”

“Stop that, Father!”

He was shaking his head from side to side and tapping his loosely closed left fist on the top of his thigh, as if in time to a marching song. “Nothing now,” he said. “Nothing to live for. I spoke with Enrico at breakfast. He blames me for . . . the horse. What could I do? What could I have done? My friend was killed. My best friend. Murdered.”

A thought seemed to have found its way into the room through the bottom of the open window, a terrible notion, as if a stink or an ugly shriek had wafted in across the papers on the desk and sullied the air between them. It took a moment for Vittoria to understand, and then she felt a cold shiver flutter across her skin. She couldn’t take her eyes from the face of the man across from her. “Father,” she said, and for a few seconds she could go no further. Her father’s face—the thinning brown hair above a high forehead, the eyes pinched in confusion, the noble, straight nose and narrow mouth—appeared like a mask over something so awful she had to fight against an urge to keep the mask in place, to keep the lies in place. But the visit with Sister Gabriella and the muddy ride back had changed something in her, shoved aside the intimidation she always felt in her father’s presence. As if listening to another woman’s voice, she heard herself speak. “Father, did you call the Nazis to come here that afternoon?”