The Tuscan Child(59)

“Part? You divided a pigeon?” He stared at her incredulously, thinking how light the dead bird had been in his hands.

“I kept enough to make the broth, and I gave some to Signora Gucci in exchange for some oil and flour. Now I shall be able to make pasta. Not good pasta with eggs, but pici with just flour and water and oil. But better than nothing, eh? We Italians cannot live for long without our pasta.”

She laughed. Hugo remembered the tin.

“And I have another little treasure for you.” He fished out the can. “I found this among the rubble. I don’t know what it is, but at least it will be some kind of food.”

She took it reverently, as if he was bestowing a great honour on her. “Thank you, Ugo. We shall have a surprise when we open it!”

“I’ll go and look, perhaps there are more,” he said. “It’s just not that easy for me to move around out there.”

“Of course not. You must take care you do not fall and injure yourself again. In the new year maybe you will be healed enough to make your escape and to meet the Allies as they come north.”

“I hope so.”

She was looking at him with wistful eyes, and he sensed that she didn’t want him to leave her any more than he wanted to be parted from her.

“I would like to paint your portrait,” he said suddenly.

She gave him an embarrassed smile. “Me?”

“Yes. Alas, I have no paints and no canvas. But I will do a sketch so that when I get home I remember every detail.”

“Do you have paper?” she asked.

“I have my empty cigarette packet. I can open it out and draw on the inside.”

“Oh, you have finished your cigarettes. I’m so sorry.”

“I should learn to give them up. They do me no good. Now sit there, on the bench.”

She did as he told her, glancing up at him shyly. He took out his pen and sketched her. She was clearly embarrassed, but at the same time her eyes were flirting, pleased with the attention he was giving her and the strange honour of being sketched.

“Tell me about the great painters. Tell me all about art,” she said. “I should like to know more.”

“You tell me about the ones you saw when you went to Florence that time.”

She frowned, thinking. “There was Michelangelo, of course. The master. Both for his sculpture and his painting, no? His David—he was like a real person. You expected him to move at any moment. And Leonardo. His Madonna—the light and the beauty . . .”

“You are fortunate to live here,” Hugo said. “In Tuscany and Umbria you can find paintings by the great masters in ordinary churches. In Arezzo and Cortona and Siena and even in small towns. Works by il Perugino and Giotto. Every one a masterpiece.”

He was surprised by the look of despair that came over her face. “If they are still here,” she said. “We hear that the Germans have looted everything that they can. They would even take the frescoes if they could find a way to peel away the walls.”

“We will win and make them return everything,” Hugo said with more confidence than he felt. He finished the sketch and went to tuck it into his breast pocket.

“Let me see it,” she said.

“No, it’s only a rough sketch.”

“But I want to see it.” She made a grab for it. He held her wrist at bay. They were both laughing. “You are so mean,” she said. “You do not afford me this one little pleasure.”

Their wrestling had aroused him. One little pleasure, he thought, and an image of Sofia in his arms flashed into his head. Hastily he dismissed it.

“Oh, very well. If you insist.”

She took the cigarette packet from him and examined the drawing critically. “I look like that?” she asked.

“You do.”

“But you have made me quite pretty.”

“No,” he said, and watched her face fall. “I have made you beautiful. That is how I see you.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX





JOANNA


June 1973

The next day I was awoken by the loud and incessant tolling of bells from the church nearby, echoed by distant peals from other villages. It was the feast day—one of the most holy of the year, Paola had told me. Corpus Christi. The body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The day on which children take their first Communion. I got up and prepared to go over to the farmhouse to bathe and to clean my teeth. I checked around the door and window, but there were no more footprints. It was possible that Gianni’s attackers hadn’t realised he had pushed an envelope through the bars into my room. It would be well known around the village by now that I had presented myself as an outsider who knew nothing. I would go home again as soon as I was given permission, and all would be well.

At least this was what I hoped. I was still going to stay close to Paola all day at the festival. I bathed, dressed in my most presentable frock—which could have done with an iron by now—then took out the little medal and tied the ribbon around my wrist. Then I went into the kitchen looking for breakfast, but it was bare. No sign of Paola. Now I was alarmed. She knew it was a big day and she would have risen early. Had something happened to her? I had no idea where her bedroom was. I had never been upstairs at the house. I hesitated now, wondering if I dared check on her.