Italian Fever Read online

  “Santa Lucia.” He hummed the familiar musical phrase.

  “She is always shown carrying her eyes on a plate,” Lucy pointed out.

  “You are a student of the saints.” He had a way of making statements that were really questions.

  “A little,” she said.

  They had arrived at the parked cars. His father and grandmother had already climbed into the backseat, where they waited, looking peevish. Their heir and driver rolled his eyes at Lucy, indicating the tiresomeness of his obligations. She put out her hand, which he took limply. “Until later, Signor Cini,” she said. “I look forward to it.”

  “Lucia,” he said, fastening his shifty eyes on hers for the first time in their brief acquaintance. “You must call me Antonio.”

  Chapter 6

  AS LUCY STOOD in the doorway to the Cini family’s dining room, contemplating the expression of boredom and intolerance knit into the lineaments of her host, it occurred to her that beautiful objects do not have an ennobling effect upon the souls of those who possess them. She could, she thought, amuse herself for several hours just in examining the contents of the massive breakfront against which Antonio Cini leaned his aristocratic behind. She recalled St. Teresa of Avila’s comparison of heaven to the Duchess of Alba’s drawing room, where the saint had seen so many things of beauty, such an abundance of silver, gold, precious stones, intricately worked, elaborate tapestries, silks, satins, such colors, textures, and dazzling contrasts of light and dark that she had come away unable to describe any single object, though she was certain the experience had been divine. Massimo, who was not in the least overawed, brushed past her, his hand extended in greeting, which provoked Antonio to bestir himself and advance with studied diffidence upon his guests. Lucy looked back over her shoulder into the entrance-way, a long, cool, high-ceilinged area, entirely bare but for two life-size statues of naked, though modestly posed, young women flanking an enormous baroquely framed design of the Cini family tree, where Stanton Cutler ambled toward her in his easy, affable way. He made a wry grimace of alarm at the overbearing genealogy. Signora Panatella, who had greeted them at the door with much obsequious bowing and muttering, shuffled along behind him, her eyes inspecting the marble floor minutely and critically, as if she expected to find evidence of unusual wear.

  Massimo and Antonio had begun a conversation, which, as Stanton and Lucy joined them, modulated into English. They had been speaking of the farmhouse and of the agriturismo, a subject, Lucy observed, that agitated her Roman friend. Like the Cinis, he explained, his own family had sold portions of their holdings to former tenants and retainers, thereby upsetting relationships of long standing that had been beneficial to all concerned. His cousin, Deodato Tacchino, in Sansepolcro, for example, in order to pay taxes as well as the enormous expense of maintaining the ancient villa, had sold off five hundred olive trees and an outbuilding formerly used only to shelter lemon trees in the winter. The buyer, a farmer who was now also a partner in an unsightly supermarket, had claimed that he wanted to renovate the building for his parents. This couple resided in a miserable hovel on a busy road near the supermarket. But once the repairs were done (and they were extensive, expensive, and of the highest quality), the parents persuaded their son that it would be better to rent out the house to the hordes of German tourists that swarmed over the hills almost year-round now, seeking refuge from their own uncongenial political, social, and physical climates. This plan was an immediate success; the little house was brimming with foreigners throughout the year. There was even a waiting list, and the deutsche marks flowed in without pause. The aging parents looked after the property, which was really nothing more than a hotel now, supplying fresh linens, cooking occasionally, and attending to the various problems of the invaders, who were notoriously difficult to please. The old woman was too frugal to buy a new washing machine, so now, in her retirement, she did laundry from dawn until dark, cooked and cleaned for two households. She worked harder than she ever had in her life. Her family was made miserable, but, of course, this was progress. Why would it be expected to improve the lives of those foolish enough to pursue it?

  Lucy listened to this story with interest, though her attention was divided between Massimo, who spun out the details artfully, and Antonio, who received it all with a blank, wondering expression, as if he were listening to a description of life on a distant planet. At the conclusion, she laughed politely, as did Stanton Cutler—it was, after all, a story with strong ironic elements—but Antonio Cini only looked at them all bemusedly. He didn’t get the point, his expression suggested, but he didn’t care. The laughter dissipated quickly and a nervous silence fell over the group. It is going to be a long evening, Lucy thought. She hoped she could be seated next to her fellow American. During the conversation, Signora Panatella had shuffled past them into the kitchen, leaving the door open. The sound of pots and crockery being rattled about, and a delicious aroma of roasting poultry and herbs issued from within—that much, at least, was promising.

  “May I offer you something to drink?” Antonio said at last. “Wine or an aperitivo? We have many things Americans like, I think. We have gin and whiskey and beer. There isn’t much ice. Americans are very fond of ice, isn’t that correct?”

  Stanton and Lucy chose red wine, which Antonio poured out from an unlabeled bottle he designated as “our own.” Massimo wanted nothing but an ashtray. Antonio poured something red into a crystal glass and gestured to a set of carved double doors at the end of the room. “Let us sit out on the loggia,” he suggested. “Unless you think it is too cool.”

  To Lucy’s surprise, Massimo, who had been complaining of being cold all afternoon, consented with the same alacrity he had shown for the idea of this dinner party, an idea that obliged him to drive nearly two hours down winding country roads at some hour after midnight. Antonio threw open the heavy doors and the chilly air poured in. Lucy followed the others out onto the wide stone balcony. It was a lovely though uncomfortable arrangement. The only seats were of wrought iron, gathered around a table that was unsteady on the cracked flagstones of the floor. She pulled her cashmere shawl close about her, congratulating herself on having thought to pack it, and took the chair Antonio indicated. He leaned against the cold stones of the outer wall, framed by an open semicircle, beyond which the glitter of stars and the cries of night birds announced the natural world.

  Lucy had recognized the house at once: It was Malcolm Manx’s villa. The entry foyer, with its twin statues, the dour portraits brooding over the dining room, the enormous dark wooden table, the sideboard where Antonio had poured their drinks, and now this, the loggia, from which Malcolm Manx first spied the ghost of the dead partisan. DV had exaggerated everything, of course. In his novel it was all massive, ancient, crumbling, and evil, whereas in reality it was more dreary than sinister, and though the rooms were very large and the walls undoubtedly remarkably thick, it bore the crude prints of many centuries of modernizations and had been altered through some curious vicissitudes of judgment and taste. The light fixtures in the loggia, for example, small, bare, flame-shaped bulbs gleaming on the ends of exposed electrical cord at the upper corners of the room, were neither practical nor aesthetically pleasing. The ceiling, dimly illuminated thereby, was frescoed with a delicate, lighthearted scene including dancing ladies holding garlands aloft and, at the center, a trompe l’oeil cupola opening into an eternally blue sky. Lucy leaned back in her chair to examine this marvel while Stanton introduced the subject of DV’s funeral, which he thanked Antonio for attending. “Did you know him very well?” he asked.

  “Hardly at all,” Antonio replied.

  Lucy, bending forward to release the tension caused by craning her neck at the ceiling, said, “He was here, though.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Antonio said.

  Lucy glanced at Stanton Cutler, who returned her look attentively. “He was in this house,” she continued. “It’s in his book.”

  Antonio moved slightly.
Perhaps he only straightened his spine or squared his shoulders toward his visitors; it was a subtle motion and completed in an instant, but they all felt it. It was, Lucy decided later, a declaration of the commencement of hostilities. “He has written a book about my house?” he said.

  “He started one, but he didn’t finish it. At least we don’t know if he finished it. Stanton thinks he may have, but we can’t find the last half.”

  “It may be in the mail,” Stanton suggested. This was his hopeful theory.

  “It may be,” Lucy agreed. “I’ve seen only the first part. But it takes place here, no doubt about it. This room is in it.” She looked appreciatively about her. “Is there a chapel?”

  “There is,” Antonio said. “But I am certain your friend was never in it. The only entrance is through my father’s apartments.”

  “Most large villas have chapels,” Massimo observed, stamping out his cigarette stub in the ashtray he held in his lap. “Perhaps he saw one somewhere else.”

  “I trust there are no members of my family in this story,” Antonio said. It was one of his combination question/statements, which, Lucy observed, were a salient feature of his conversational method.

  “I don’t think so,” she replied. “Unless you have a ghost who walks on the driveway late at night.”

  Massimo snorted. He was in the process of lighting his next cigarette and the sudden exhalation blew the flame off course. Lucy noted creases of amusement at the corners of his eyes as he jabbed the thin white column after the elusive flame. She smiled at him.

  Antonio was not amused. “What sort of ghost?” he asked coldly.

  “The ghost of a dead partisan,” Lucy explained. “Of Basque extraction. Murdered in the driveway by Nazi forces during the war.”

  “I must ask you not to bring this up in front of my father.”

  Having drained his wineglass, Stanton Cutler leaned forward to set it on the table. “Is there a ghost?” he asked.

  “Of course there is no ghost,” Antonio chided him. He turned to Lucy. “But my uncle was killed during the war in much the way you describe. He was not of Basque extraction, however. I don’t know how your friend heard about this sad moment of my family’s history, but it would upset my father to learn that a foreigner has made”—he paused, searching for the most forceful representation of his feeling—“a mockery of it in a work of doubtful quality. My uncle was my father’s brother. They were very close.”

  “Of course,” Lucy agreed. “We won’t speak of it.” She glanced at Stanton, wondering if he would make some defense of DV’s novel, but his attention was engaged by a burst of activity in the dining room. Antonio came away from the wall. “Here is my father,” he said. “We will go in.”

  Signor Cini had entered from a dark hall, followed by his ancient mother, who was muttering at him irritably. He ignored her, making straight for the table, where he took what was evidently his customary seat. From the kitchen, Signora Panatella appeared, accompanied by a woman who might have been her twin, carrying two large plastic bottles of water. The loggia party filed in, headed by Antonio, who directed them to their chairs. Lucy was placed between Massimo and the grandmother, Stanton across the table with the old man, and Antonio took the chair at the head of the table. The bustle of moving, of greeting the elder Cinis, of taking seats while the glasses were filled with wine and water and the first in a series of large platters appeared from the kitchen served to dispel the torpid, mildly threatening atmosphere that had settled over the company on the porch. To Lucy’s relief, Signora Panatella, assenting to a terse command from Signora Cini, crossed the room and pulled closed the doors to the loggia. For several minutes, the diners were all occupied with passing various platters and bowls back and forth and piling food onto their plates. Lucy, who had eaten very little during the day, was now aware of three conflicting sensations: extreme fatigue, aching hunger, and an undercurrent of nausea. She helped herself to the bowl of white beans, a round of toast spread with liver paste, a slice of prosciutto, and a few olives, taking each dish from Massimo and sending it on to Antonio, who served out his grandmother’s scanty portions. The old woman riveted her fierce eyes to her plate. She terrifies her food into submission, Lucy thought, an idea that made her smile. Her eyes met Antonio’s. He was watching her over a basket of bread he was passing her way. His mouth was pursed, his eyebrows had a slight interrogative lift, but his eyes were cold, devoid of amusement or interest. Lucy sent the bread along to Massimo and swallowed half a glass of the excellent wine.

  “I hope you won’t think me rude, Lucia,” Antonio said, “if I ask you how long you are planning to stay with us.”

  “Not at all,” she replied. “Only I’m not sure I can give you a satisfactory answer. There’s a little business to be cleared up. I have to arrange to ship Signor Vandam’s books back, return his car, organize the papers he left. Once that’s done, I may stay on for the pleasure of it. I believe the lease runs until the end of the month.”

  “Signor Panatella is naturally anxious to know,” Antonio continued. “He has, as you say”—here he lifted his chin to include Massimo in his purview—“a waiting list.”

  The commencement of the second course, hard on the first, Lucy thought, distracted her host from his line of questioning. There were so many dishes that a third recruit, a flashing-eyed, voluptuous young woman, her thick black hair only partially controlled by a strip of red ribbon, joined Signora Panatella and her twin in transporting the food to the table. Lucy noted that old Signor Cini came briefly to life at the sight of the young woman. He sat up straight in his chair and, when she was near him, put his hand out to touch any part of her he could reach. She laughed as his fingers closed on her forearm and she leaned provocatively over him to set the dish on the table. He lifted his head, breathing in her fragrance, which was apparently so intoxicating that he lost himself in it, for his eyes closed, his fingers loosened on her arm, and she slipped away. In a moment, the table was laden with dishes, plate after plate, and the diners began again the business of moving them about. The various appetizing aromas rose over the table, mixed with the soft exclamations of pleasure that escaped the guests as they tasted the first bites. Lucy inquired about a dish of stewed meat even as she chewed a bite of it, for she knew it was no animal she had ever tasted before. “Cinghiale,” Antonio said, and Massimo added, “Wild boar. It is a dish special to this region.”

  “It is a pest special to this region,” Antonio corrected. “They come in the night and damage the vines; even the trees are not safe from them.”

  “Fortunately, they are also delicious,” Stanton Cutler put in. He was attempting with only a modicum of success to make a space for a serving of spinach on his overcharged plate. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes lively. He probably hasn’t eaten since lunch, Lucy thought, if then, and he has a big frame to feed. Signor Cini, she noted, had not heaped his plate, though he had taken advantage of the variety available, whereas his son, so inferior to him in robustness and muscle tone, had served himself only one quail, which he was divesting of its meager flesh with the speed and skill of a surgeon.

  “I wonder what business there is to be cleared up,” he inquired, addressing his question to the dismantled carcass on his plate.

  “I gather there will be some questions from the embassy,” Lucy said. “Forms to fill out, that sort of thing. And I’ve a few questions myself I wouldn’t mind resolving.”

  “Certainly there is no anxiety about the manner of his death.”

  “Not really,” she replied.

  “It does sound so odd,” Stanton put in. “Was the well on this property?”

  “No,” Antonio said.

  Lucy sawed the wing from a joint of chicken. The Cini silver, she observed, was weighty, venerable, and sharp. “What I want to know,” she said, “is what happened to Catherine Bultman.”

  At the mention of this name, Antonio and his father exchanged a look so charged, Lucy was reminded of a silent movie.
It would be too ridiculous if in the next moment Antonio denied any knowledge of Catherine’s existence. The old man fixed her briefly with his predatory eyes, then returned his attention to his plate.

  “She was here a very short time,” Antonio said. “I gathered that she was not happy. We are too isolated here. She was bored perhaps, and she went away.”

  “Do you know where she went?”

  “I hardly know when she went. Our family spends the month of April at our house in Firenze. It is the only bearable season there now; the city has become impossible. Signora Bultman was still here when we left. When we came back, she was gone.”

  Massimo agreed with Antonio that Florence, once an easy, comfortable, fascinating city, had become progressively unlivable. Even old Florentine families of his acquaintance abandoned it each year for longer and longer stays in the campagna. It was the same in Rome: the traffic, the tourist buses, the unbreathable air. Roman youths had taken to wearing surgical masks while riding their motorini through the poisonous atmosphere.

  Lucy watched Antonio as he gathered the last fragments of quail onto his fork. She recalled the salutation of the letter, “Carissima, amatissima Caterina.” He was lying, of course. He knew exactly when Catherine had left, and why as well. He probably knew where she was. Her stomach turned so forcefully, she covered her mouth with her hand, for she had had an unexpected thought: Suppose Catherine is dead?

  But that was ridiculous. Why was she jumping to such a wild conclusion? What Antonio had said was probably true—Catherine had gotten bored and left. And if he had been sending her love letters, it wasn’t surprising that he became somewhat ruffled and defensive at the mention of her name.

  Massimo had finished speaking, but Antonio did not take up the subject of urban blight. He seemed determined to view all his guests’ efforts at conversation with incredulity. He allowed a pause just sufficient to make it clear that Massimo’s remarks did not, after all, apply, before he turned to Stanton Cutler and asked him if he wouldn’t like another serving of cinghiale. Lucy pushed her food around disconsolately; she had served herself too much. As the meal dragged on, she felt more and more uncomfortable. The nausea she had been fighting all day asserted itself as a primary sensation, not to be ignored. She experienced a few stabs of pain in her lower abdomen that she couldn’t classify; was it the digestive or the reproductive system? Her joints ached and her head had begun to throb. Massimo was speaking again, this time to Stanton Cutler, who was willing to take up any subject. She listened absently; they were talking about a young Italian writer Paolo Braggio was pushing. Did Stanton think his last book would appeal to an American audience?