Page 27 of The Tuscan Child
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.
The piazza was deserted at this time of the afternoon, the sun beating down on the cobblestones and reflecting off the faded yellow stucco of the municipal buildings. The sycamore trees looked dusty and drooped in the heat. I went up the steps and into the church. The smell of incense hung heavy in the air, and dust motes danced in the shafts of sunlight that came in through high, narrow windows. Around the walls were old paintings and statues of saints. I recoiled as I came upon an altar and beneath it a glass-fronted case containing a skeleton clothed in bishop’s robes and with a crown on its skull. Was this a local saint? As one raised with only the minimum of Anglican exposure, I always found Catholic churches to be frightening places—one step away from black magic. When a priest appeared from behind the high altar, I made a hasty exit.
I followed the one road up from the piazza. There were a few more shops and a jumble of houses clinging to one another against the hillside. Here and there an alley led off, some of them so small that I could stretch out my arms and touch both sides. Shutters were closed against the afternoon heat. Some houses had wooden balconies decorated with more geraniums. Others had big clay pots and jars like the one outside Paola’s house, all with flowers and herbs spilling over the sides. An occasional cat basked in the sun. Other than that the street was deserted. From inside the houses came the sounds of pots and pans clanging as the evening meal was being prepared, babies crying, a radio blaring out a plaintive song.
Ahead of me I could see sky and greenery as the houses came to an end. I turned into the last alleyway on the right and found myself staring at Sofia’s house. It was bigger than the houses around it and painted yellow, its paint faded and peeling. Two storeys high with a balcony at the front, it must have had a fine view over the surrounding countryside at the back. I wondered who lived in it now, but it had a deserted feel to it. No geraniums, no window boxes. A sad house, I felt, and turned away.
As I came to the highest point of San Salvatore, the road abruptly ended in a little park with a couple of large old trees and benches beneath them. An elderly couple sat on one of the benches in the shade. She was dressed head to toe in black like the other old woman on the train. He was rather smart in a starched white shirt, and he had a big nicotine-stained moustache. I was touched to see that they were holding hands. They looked at me with interest. I nodded and said,“Buongiorno.”
