The Tuscan Child(84)

“It’s strange,” he said, straightening up from where he had just picked a big ripe tomato, “but old memories are beginning to come back to me. I remember I was sick for a while. I’m not sure what it was. Measles? Something like that. Anyway, I couldn’t leave the house and my mother went out every day looking for things for us to eat. Mushrooms, chestnuts—once there was a pigeon, I remember that. I wanted to go with her, but she said that I had to stay indoors because of my chest. I watched her going up the hill with her basket. She was worried about me and hated to leave me. But we had to eat, didn’t we?”

“She was worried about you?” I stared at him. “Renzo, everything you say tells me that your mother loved you dearly. She would not have abandoned you, I’m sure. She would not have run off and just left you behind. I’m sure she must have been forced to leave against her will.”

“But everyone said . . . ,” he began hesitantly. “I’ve always been told . . .”

“You know what I think?” I said. “I think someone betrayed your mother and my father, maybe for money, or maybe out of jealousy, or maybe to save their own skin. And the Germans took her away.” I realised as I said it that I might just be causing him more grief. What if the person who betrayed her was Cosimo? Then I remembered that Gianni had seen the British airman being driven off, and he was an opportunist and a sneak. Perhaps he had tipped off the Germans that a British airman had been hiding out. “Did you see her go, or had she just gone by the time you woke up in the morning?”

He frowned, trying to recollect. “No, I was there, I’m pretty sure. Yes, she came over and kissed me and told me to be a good boy and that she’d be back soon. She was crying. There were teardrops on her cheeks. And then she wanted to say more and kiss me again but the soldier shouted at her and . . .” He broke off, a look of wonder on his face. “It wasn’t the soldier who was staying at our house—the nice one. It was another soldier. A big man. I remember that he seemed to fill the whole doorway. And he yelled in a fierce voice.”

“You see?” I smiled at him triumphantly. “Your mother and my father were innocent. They loved each other, and they were betrayed.”

“Yes,” he said softly. “I have to believe you.”

“Are we ever going to get those tomatoes for tonight’s meal?” came Paola’s big voice across the rows of vegetables.

Renzo grinned to me. “The slave driver calls. Come and help prepare the meal.”

I followed him along the narrow path, now more confused than ever. Had Cosimo betrayed Renzo’s mother and then felt guilty enough that he had adopted him? Perhaps Renzo knew no more than I did.

Renzo fell back to wait for me. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “My mother always went up the hill with her basket. It is possible that your father was hidden somewhere in the woods or even in the old monastery. We should go and look tomorrow before you leave us.”

“I was wondering about the old monastery myself,” I said. “But it just looks like piles of ruined stone. Could someone really have sought shelter up there?”

“I went up a couple of times when I was a boy,” Renzo said. “It’s all fenced off and nobody is supposed to go there because the hillside is in danger of collapsing. But of course when we were boys we had to do it on a dare. There truly wasn’t much to see. The walls of the old chapel still stood, but there was no roof. And the floor was piled high with rubble. The rooms of the monastery were completely flattened. If your father hid out up there, then he would have had a miserable time.”

“He’d been to a British boarding school,” I said. “He was probably used to a miserable time.”

This made Renzo throw back his head and laugh. “You English and your boarding schools,” he said. “Was your school also like that?”

“I didn’t board at the school I told you about, but it was certainly not a good experience for me. I couldn’t wait to leave.”

“So you, too, have had your share of miserable times?”

“Yes, you could say that.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Perhaps it is time to put the past behind you and to look forward to the future. You will be a rich and famous lawyer. You will travel and marry an equally rich man and have the perfect two children and live happily in one of those big, draughty English houses.”

I looked up at him, horribly conscious of his hand, warm and comforting on my shoulder. “I’m not sure that’s what I want at all,” I said.

“So what do you want?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll know when I find it.”

Renzo released me and stood aside for me to enter the house first.

“Allora. Now we get to work,” Paola said. “With so many courses to prepare I need much assistance. First we make the toppings for the crostini.”

“What is a crostini?” I asked.

“Like bruschetta, but instead of being baked, the slices of bread are grilled,” Renzo said. “More chewy and less brittle.” He turned to Paola. “And what toppings have you in mind?”

“The fresh asparagus, naturally . . .”

“Wrapped in prosciutto crudo, naturally?” he said. “And fennel? I see you have fennel growing in your garden. Should I dig up a bulb and slice it thinly with some pecorino?”