The Tuscan Child(73)

“I will bring down your things for you.”

“No need. I can come up and carry them down one by one. I can throw down the blanket.”

“I do not want you to risk a fall. I can do it. You stay below and catch.”

She put down the candle on one of the monk’s tombs, then picked up her long skirt and ran lightly up the stairs.





CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE





JOANNA


June 1973

I studied the town on the hill as we walked. Yes, it did seem there was a way down the wall from close to Sofia’s house. An agile person could have climbed out of a window, made their way along the top of the wall, and then come down into the vineyards without too much chance of being observed. I remembered Renzo saying that his mother had left with her basket to forage in the woodland. My gaze went through the vineyards and then up through the olive groves to the woods that crowned the hilltop. Beyond them a rocky outcropping topped with an ancient ruin rose above the trees. I stopped to stare at it. It was little more than a pile of rubble, and it was hard to tell what had once been a building and what was part of the rocks themselves.

I thought of Sofia and her basket. Would it have been possible to hide someone up there?

“That old ruin,” I said. “Was it a castle once?”

“A monastery,” Paola said. “I remember the monks there when I was a child. Such a beautiful chapel it had.”

“When you were a child?” I blurted out the words. “It was still a monastery when you were a child?”

“Oh yes. Until it was bombed in the war.”

“The Germans bombed a monastery?” I asked, horrified.

“No, not the Germans. The Allies. The Americans, I think.”

“They bombed a monastery? That’s terrible. Was it by mistake?”

“Oh no. The Germans had turned out the monks and used that site for their big guns. It commanded a good view of the road in the valley and also of aircraft flying overhead. So of course the Allies had to take it out. Such a shame to destroy a holy site like that, but they had no choice, did they? In those days it was kill or be killed.”

I was still staring, trying to picture those remnants of standing walls as a once-beautiful monastery. It would have been simple enough to have hidden anyone up there, but surely they would not have been sheltered from the elements among those rocks. Still, it was somewhere I needed to check out for myself. But not that day!

Paola paused and sniffed the air. “We should hurry. Thunder is not far off,” she said, and quickened her pace. We were still a good way from Paola’s house when we heard the first distant rumble. The wind swirled around us, suddenly cold and fierce. The heavens opened and the rain came. We were drenched within a minute and arrived home looking like drowned rats.

“Oh, Mamma,” Angelina cried as she met us in the hallway. “Look at you! I was worried when I heard the thunder.”

“We are just a little wet, my darling, but nothing that dry clothes and a good glass of grappa won’t heal.” She put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Go and put on dry clothes, Joanna, then we shall hang your dress inside the bathroom and it will soon be dry.”

“All right,” I said. It was a daunting prospect. It was raining so hard that the drops pinged loudly on the tile roof and bounced up where they hit the ground. I sprinted across the garden along a path that was now a series of puddles. I reached my little house, lifted the latch, and let myself in with a sigh of relief. As I closed the door behind me, I froze—surely I had locked my door when we left early that morning. Surely I couldn’t have been careless enough . . . and yes, the key was still in my purse. Then I remembered Renzo saying that nobody in San Salvatore locked their front doors. There must have been an extra key hanging in Sofia’s house—easy to find.

Maybe I’m worrying for nothing, I thought. Perhaps Angelina had needed something from this little house—there were spare linens in the big wardrobe. But also perhaps someone had used the knowledge that we were all at the festival to see if my room could be searched. It could have been the Carabinieri. Or not. I opened a drawer carefully. Yes, my clothes had been moved. I retrieved my spare shoes and found that the things Gianni had sent me were still hidden in the toe. So the searcher had not done a very good job, had he? Or he had found the things but saw no need to disturb them, letting me think that I was still safe. An alarming thought. I checked my other possessions, but nothing else was missing. And of course the incriminating letter, along with my passport and wallet, was safely with me in my handbag. So somebody might know what Gianni wanted to talk to me about. But they would also know that he never reached me and that I probably would not be able to interpret those three objects.

I collected some dry clothes, wrapped them in a towel, and ran back to the farmhouse.

Warm and dry and after a glass of grappa, I was feeling better. After the feast we were not hungry and had a simple meal of leftover soup and bread. I made sure my door was locked when I went to bed. I lay there listening to the storm moving off until the growls of thunder receded into the distance.

The next morning I awoke to the more familiar bright blue sky. The air smelled fresh and the colours were so brilliant after the rain that I had to shade my eyes to stare out across the countryside. Paola announced at breakfast that she had to work on her vegetables. She’d noticed that the insects had been having a feast. If the aubergines were ripe, she’d make an aubergine Parmesan for dinner.