The Tuscan Child(33)

He was only halfway to his shelter when the storm broke with force. It was as if the heavens had opened. Raindrops bounced off his leather jacket. He tried to move more quickly and felt himself slipping. He grasped at one of the beams and stopped himself from falling, sweat mixing with the rain on his face. By the time he had lowered himself into his shelter and pulled the parachute over him, he was soaked through. He lay there shivering as the wind blew raindrops through the gaps between his planks. The parachute silk wasn’t as waterproof as he had hoped. It clung to him, sodden. Then came a great flash of lightning, followed almost instantly by a clap of thunder. His first thought was of Sofia. Had she reached the safety of the village? He lay there huddled under his parachute, worrying about her getting struck by lightning or at the very least catching a cold from a drenching. And he cursed his own impotence. He was the man. He should be saving her, taking her and her son to a safe place far from this conflict.

“Damn and blast this leg,” he said out loud.

The storm raged on for most of the day. By evening there were periods of calm between bouts of heavy rain. Hugo didn’t want to waste his candle. In the last of the daylight, he spread out his parachute to dry, draping it over the outside of his shelter. As he did so he remembered the parachute lines. “Idiot,” he told himself. “You have all the string that you want to make a snare.” Tomorrow he would rig up a perfect trap and catch a pigeon.

He ate the last of his bread with the onion, which tasted surprisingly good, then settled himself for the long night ahead. The blanket was not too damp and he wrapped himself in it. Tomorrow I will get to work, he told himself.

He had no idea how dramatically things would have changed by morning.





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.