Page 29 of The Tuscan Child
I was wondering what to say to them when one of the men called out, “This young English lady is asking about Sofia Bartoli’s son.”
The younger man, who I presumed was Renzo, gave me a cold stare. “I have the misfortune to be that woman’s son,” he said in remarkably good English. “But I remember nothing of her. What do you wish to know?”
“You speak English?” I was surprised and impressed.
The man nodded. “I spent a year working in London. In a restaurant.”
“Were you a waiter?” I was hoping to break down the obvious hostility that I could feel.
“I was studying to be a chef,” he said. “But then my father had a stroke. I had to return home to help him run his lands and his businesses.” He turned to give a deferential nod to the older man.
One of the men had risen and pulled out a chair for him. “Here, Cosimo. Take my seat,” he said.
“Not necessary,” the older man said. “We go inside to eat. Our table awaits us.” So that was Cosimo, the richest man in the town, the one who owned all the olive groves except for Paola’s.
He touched Renzo’s arm and let out a rapid fire of words in Italian.
Renzo turned back to me. “My father wishes to know what your interest is in Sofia Bartoli.”
I hesitated. “I believe that my father once knew her.”
Again the older man said something in rapid Italian and the men grinned. Renzo looked quite uncomfortable as he said, “My father thinks that maybe quite a few men knew her.”
The older man was continuing to stare at me. “You are German, I think,” he said in accented English.
“No, I’m English.”
“I think German,” he repeated. “I think you are Sofia Bartoli’s child with that German scum and now you have come to reclaim her land and her olive grove.”
“Absolutely not,” I said angrily. “My father was a British pilot. His plane was shot down. He was badly injured.”
I was still watching Renzo, wondering if he could have been the beautiful boy who was hidden away where only Sofia and my father could find him. But my father had written “our beautiful boy,” not “your.” That implied the child was theirs, not hers. Perhaps he had developed a real attachment to the little boy. “Tell me,” I said, “were you ever hidden away during the war?”
“Hidden? How do you mean?”
“Hidden away where nobody could find you, to keep you safe?”
“From the Germans?” He frowned, then shook his head. “I have no such memory. In fact, that cannot be. I remember we had a German officer staying in our house. He was kind to me, I do not have a bad memory of him. He gave me sweets.”
“How old are you?” I asked, realising that I was probably sounding very rude.
“You ask many questions for a woman and a stranger to this place,” Renzo said. “I don’t see what this has to do with you, but I am thirty-two. And in case you wish to know, I am not married. Are you?”
I felt myself blushing now. “I’m not married, either.” So he was too old to be my father’s child. I knew that my father had crashed and been wounded toward the end of the war, and this man had been born in 1940 or ’41.
“And did you ever have a little brother?” I asked.
“This was not possible.” He gave me a scathing look. “My real father was sent to Africa before I was born, and he never returned. If it had not been for Cosimo, I would have been a destitute orphan. I owe everything to him.” He put a hand on Cosimo’s arm. “Now, if you will excuse me, my father wishes to have a drink at his favourite table.”
And they walked together into the trattoria. Once they were inside, the man sitting closest to me said in a low voice, “That man is Cosimo. It is not good to cross him. He is powerful. He owns much land around here, and the olive press, too.”
A younger man got up and motioned for me to sit at the table. “Come. Join us for a drink,” he said. “Sit. Get her a glass, Massimo. And try some of our local olives. They are the best.”
I hesitated, wondering how to refuse and whether it was possible that I would learn anything more from them. The man insisted, and I sat. A glass was put in front of me and filled with dark red wine. A bowl of olives was pushed down the table along with a loaf of coarse bread and a jug of olive oil. The man who had invited me, a skinny individual with slicked-back hair and a slightly racy look, tore off some bread for me and poured a little of the oil on to my plate.
“This is oil from our olive trees,” he said. “Good Tuscan oil. Extra virgin, eh? Good to be extra virgin.”
The way he said the word “virgin” combined with the way he looked at me made me uneasy, but then he laughed and I decided he was only teasing.
