The Tuscan Child(66)

“There is something else I want you to see—the letter I told you about.” I pulled out the letter my father had written.

Renzo examined the envelope. “Yes, the address was correct,” he said. “That was the house where I was born. And it was posted . . . after she went. Not at this address.” He sighed.

“Now read what my father wrote.”

He opened the letter. He started it, then looked up. “He wrote good Italian.”

“He studied art in Florence before the war,” I said.

“He was an artist?”

“Not when I knew him. He taught art at a school, but I didn’t know he had painted until after his death when I found some really lovely paintings.”

He went back to reading the letter. I heard the small intake of breath as he came to the part at the end. “Our beautiful boy?” he asked, looking at me.

“I wondered if that meant you, whether you had to be hidden at a time of danger.”

He shook his head. “I told you before. I was never hidden. I lived with my mother and my great-grandmother until my mother left us. Then I continued to live with Nonna until she died soon after the war ended. That was when Cosimo took me in. He took over my mother’s land and he managed to buy the land of those men who were killed in the war. So he became prosperous enough to give me a good education.”

“Is it possible that your mother could have had another child? A child with my father?”

“How could this be?” He shook his head. “We would have known.”

“How old were you? Three? Four? Maybe a child of that age doesn’t notice if an adult gets fatter.”

“But Nonna would have noticed. Every woman in the town would have seen. Nothing gets past the women of San Salvatore, I can assure you. They know everything. And if she had given birth, where would she have done this?”

“It comes back to the question of how my father was here and yet nobody knew about it. Would it have been possible to have hidden him away in your house?”

Renzo frowned at this, considering. “I suppose it might have been possible. We had a big attic, and you had to climb a ladder to reach it. My mother went up there from time to time to bring down things that might be useful to us. There was also a cellar. I didn’t like to go down there because there were rats and it was dark. But the wine and olive oil were kept down there.”

I looked at him hopefully. “So someone could have been hidden in your cellar?”

“Except how could your father have been brought in? The only door to the house opens to the street.”

“At the back what is there?”

“Windows and the town wall below. Besides, Nonna would have had to be in on it, and I remember her as a strict, correct, and demanding sort of person. I don’t think she would have permitted a foreigner to be hidden in what was her family home. She would have gone straight to the priest and confessed to him.”

“Wouldn’t your mother have done the same?” I asked. “She must have been religious, or she wouldn’t have given my father this medal.”

“I suppose so. And the priest must never reveal the sanctity of the confession.”

“I talked to Father Filippo,” I said, “in case your mother had told him something important. He remembered her fondly but was hazy about details.”

“Yes, I heard that his mind is failing. Such a pity. What a fine old man.”

“She would have taken an awful risk to hide an enemy pilot in her house, risking her son and her grandmother’s lives,” I said.

“Not only that, but there was the German, remember. The German she ran off with? But perhaps he came to the house after your father had gone. How was your father rescued? Perhaps the Allies came and found him and drove him away, leaving my mother.”

“Yes, I suppose that is possible.”

We looked at each other, our brains each trying to make sense of things.

“I am sorry I cannot help you,” Renzo said at last. “Truly I have almost no memory of that time. I know I was sick for a while and my mother took care of me. I remember the German in our house—the one she ran off with. I remember we ate rabbit and chestnuts and anything else she could find for us. She’d go off with her basket and look through the woods for something to eat because the Germans had taken all we had. And I have to believe now that she and your father did meet and clearly he felt that they had fallen in love. But the beautiful boy . . . I have no idea what he meant by that. And I am afraid now we will never know.” He looked up at me, as if processing this. “If there was a child and he was hidden, then surely he must have died. No good can come from this search. You should go home. Leave this place. I have a feeling it is not safe for you to be here.”

A cold wind sprang up, snatching at the letter in my hands. Out over the hills the clouds were building. Suddenly I felt uneasy sitting here with him, two people together on a bench with nobody else around. I wanted to ask him what he meant by “not safe.” Did he know something, or was he saying that the police might want to pin the murder on me?

I stood up. “I should be getting back. Paola will worry about me.”

“Yes.” He stood up, too. “And I should be helping Cosimo. He will not be pleased that I am talking with you. He thinks you mean trouble here.”