“Poor Aunt Rose!” I exclaimed. “You told me she died peacefully, in her sleep.”
“Well, I lied,” said Umberto, his voice thick. “The truth is, she died because of me. Would you have liked me to say that?”
“I would have liked,” I replied, “for you to tell us the truth. If you had only done that years ago”—I paused to take a deep breath, my throat still tight with emotion—“perhaps we could have avoided all this.”
“Maybe. But that’s too late now. I didn’t want you to know—I wanted you to be happy … to live the way normal people do.”
Umberto went on to tell us that on the night after Aunt Rose died, he had called Eva Maria in Italy and told her everything. He even told her she had two granddaughters. He also asked her if there was any chance she could help him pay off the thugs. But she told him she could not liquidate that much money in three weeks. At first, she wanted to involve the police and her godson, Alessandro, but Umberto knew better. There was only one way out of this squeeze: Do as the assholes said and find the bloody rocks.
In the end, Eva Maria agreed to help him, and promised that she would try to trick the Lorenzo Brotherhood in Viterbo into helping her. Her only condition was that, when it was all over, she could finally get to know her granddaughters, and that they would never know about their father’s crimes. With this, Umberto agreed. He had never wanted the girls to know about his evil past, and for that reason he did not even want them to know who he really was. He was sure that if they learned he was their father, they would discover everything else, too.
“But that’s ridiculous!” I protested. “If you had told us the truth, we would have understood.”
“Would you?” said Umberto. “I’m not so sure.”
“Well,” Janice cut in, “we’ll never know now, will we?”
Ignoring her comment, Umberto told us that, on the very next day, Eva Maria had gone to Viterbo to talk to Friar Lorenzo, and through this conversation she had found out what was needed in order for the monks to help her find Romeo and Giulietta’s grave. Friar Lorenzo had told her she must host a ceremony to “undo the sins” of the Salimbenis and the Tolomeis, and had promised that, once she had done this, he would take her and the other penitents to the grave, to kneel before the mercy of the Virgin.
The only problem was that Friar Lorenzo was not entirely sure how to find the place. He knew there was a secret entrance somewhere in Siena, and he knew where to go from there, but he didn’t know where exactly that entrance was located. Once, he told Eva Maria, a young woman by the name of Diane Tolomei had visited him and told him she had figured out where the entrance was, but she wouldn’t tell him, because she was afraid the wrong people might find the statue and ruin it.
She had also told him she had found the cencio from 1340, and that she was going to do an experiment. She wanted to have her little girl, Giulietta, lie down on it together with a boy named Romeo, and she very much hoped this would somehow help undo the sins of the past. Friar Lorenzo was not so sure it would really work, but he was ready to give it a try. They agreed that Diane should come back a few weeks later, so they could set out to find the grave together. But sadly, she never came.
When Eva Maria told Umberto all this, he began to hope their plan could really work. For he knew Diane had kept a box of important documents in the bank in Palazzo Tolomei, and he was sure that among the papers would be a clue to the secret entrance to the grave.
“Believe me,” said Umberto, perhaps feeling my bad vibes, “the last thing I wanted was to involve you in all this. But with only two weeks left—”
“And so you set me up,” I concluded, feeling a whole new kind of anger towards him, “and let me think this was all Aunt Rose’s doing.”
“What about me?” Janice chimed in. “He let me think I’d inherited a fortune!”
“Tough shit!” Umberto shot back. “Be happy you’re still alive!”
“I suppose I wasn’t any good in your little scheme,” Janice went on, in her most cranky voice. “Jules was always the brainy one.”
“Oh, would you stop it!” I cried. “I am Giulietta, and I am the one who was in danger—”
“Enough!” barked Umberto. “Trust me, I would have liked nothing more than to keep you both out of this. But there was no other way. So, I had an old pal keep an eye on Julie to make sure she was safe—”
“You mean Bruno?” I gasped. “I thought he was trying to kill me!”
“He was there to protect you,” Umberto contradicted me. “Unfortunately, he thought he could make a quick buck on the side.” He sighed. “Bruno was a mistake.”
“So you had him … silenced?” I wanted to know.
“No need. Bruno knew too much about too many. People like that don’t last long in the clink.” Not at all comfortable with the issue, Umberto went on to conclude that, on the whole, everything had gone according to plan once Eva Maria had been convinced I was really her granddaughter and not just some actress he had hired for the job, to lure her into helping him. She was so suspicious she even had Alessandro break into my hotel room to get a DNA sample. But once she had the proof she wanted, she immediately set about planning the party.
Remembering everything Friar Lorenzo had told her, Eva Maria asked Alessandro to bring Romeo’s dagger and Giulietta’s ring to Castello Salimbeni, but she didn’t tell him why. She knew that if he had the smallest inkling of what was going on, he would ruin everything by bringing in the Carabinieri. In fact, Eva Maria would have liked nothing more than to keep her godson out of her plans entirely, but since he was, in fact, Romeo Marescotti, she needed him to—unwittingly—play his part in front of Friar Lorenzo.
In hindsight, admitted Umberto, it would have been better if Eva Maria had let me in on her plans, or at least part of them. But that was only because things went wrong. If I had done what I was supposed to do—drink her wine, go to bed, and fall asleep—everything would have been so smooth.
“Wait!” I said. “Are you saying she drugged me?”
Umberto hesitated. “Just a little bit. For your own safety.”
“I can’t believe it! She is my grandmother!”
“If it’s any consolation, she wasn’t happy about it. But I told her it was the only way we could avoid getting you involved. You and Alessandro. Unfortunately, it looks like he didn’t drink it either.”
“But wait a minute!” I objected. “He stole Mom’s book from my hotel room and gave it to you last night! I saw it with my own eyes!”
“You’re wrong!” Umberto was clearly annoyed with me for contradicting him, and possibly a little shocked that I had witnessed his secret meeting with Alessandro. “He was only a courier. Someone in Siena gave him the book yesterday morning and asked him to pass it on to Eva Maria. He obviously didn’t know it was stolen, or he would have—”
“Wait!” said Janice. “This is too stupid. Whoever the thief was, why the heck didn’t he steal the whole box? Why just the paperback?”
Umberto hesitated, then said, quietly, “Because your mother told me the code was in the book. She told me that if anything happened to her—” He couldn’t go on.
We were all silent for a while, until Janice sighed and said, “Well, I think you owe Jules an apology—”
“Jan!” I interrupted her. “Let’s not go there.”
“But look what happened to you—” she insisted.
“That was my own fault!” I shot back. “I was the one who—” But I barely knew how to go on.
Umberto grunted. “I can’t believe the two of you! Did I teach you nothing? You have known him for a week—but there you were! And weren’t you two cute!”
“You spied on us?” I felt an explosion of embarrassment. “That is just so—”
“I needed to get the cencio!” Umberto pointed out. “Everything would have been so easy, if it hadn’t been for you two—”
“While we’re on the subject,” Janice cut him off, “how much did Alessandro know about all
this?”
Umberto snorted. “Clearly, he knew enough! He knew that Julie was Eva Maria’s granddaughter, but that Eva Maria wanted to tell her in person. That’s it. As I said, we couldn’t risk getting the police involved. And so Eva Maria didn’t tell him about the ceremony with the ring and the dagger until just before it took place, and, believe me, he was not happy to have been kept in the dark. But he agreed to do it anyway, because she told him it was important for her, and for you, to have a ceremony that would—supposedly—end the family curse.” Umberto paused, then said, more gently, “It’s too bad things had to end like this.”
“Who says this is the end?” snapped Janice.
Umberto didn’t say it, but I am sure we both knew what he was thinking: Oh it’s the end, all right.
As we lay there in bitter silence, I could feel the blackness closing in on me from all sides, seeping into my body through countless little wounds and filling me to the brim with despair. The fear I had known before, when Bruno Carrera was chasing me, or when Janice and I had been trapped in the Bottini, had been nothing compared to what I felt now, torn by regret and knowing that it was far too late for me to set things straight.
“Just out of curiosity,” muttered Janice, her mind clearly wandering along different paths than mine, although perhaps just as desolate, “did you ever actually love her? Mom, I mean?”
When Umberto didn’t answer right away, she added, more hesitantly, “And did she … love you?”
Umberto sighed. “She loved to hate me. That was her greatest thrill. She said it was in our genes to fight, and that she wouldn’t have it otherwise. She used to call me …” He paused to steady his voice. “Nino.”
…
WHEN THE VAN finally stopped, I had almost forgotten where we were going, and why. But as soon as the doors swung open to reveal the silhouettes of Cocco and his cronies against the backdrop of a moonlit Siena Cathedral, it all came back to me like a kick to the stomach.
The men pulled us out of the truck by the ankles as if we were nothing but luggage, before climbing in to get Friar Lorenzo. It happened so fast that I barely registered the pain of banging along over the ridged floor, and both Janice and I staggered when they put us down, neither of us quite ready to stand upright after lying so long in the darkness.
“Hey look!” hissed Janice, a spark of hope in her voice. “Musicians!”
She was right. Three other cars were parked a stone’s throw from the van, and half a dozen men wearing tuxedos were standing around with cello and violin cases, smoking and joking. I felt a twitch of relief at the sight, but as soon as Cocco walked towards them, hand raised in a greeting, I understood that these men had not come to play music; they were part of his gang from Naples.
When the men caught sight of Janice and me, they were quick to show their appreciation. Not the least bit concerned about the noise they were making, they began catcalling and whistling, trying to make us look at them. Umberto did not even try to shut down the fun; there was no question that he—and we—were simply lucky to still be alive. Only when the men saw Friar Lorenzo emerging from the van did their glee give way to something resembling uneasiness, and they all bent over to pick up their instrument cases the way schoolboys grab their bags at the arrival of a teacher.
To everyone else in the piazza that night—and there were quite a few, mostly tourists and teenagers—we must have looked like your average group of locals returning from some festivity to do with the Palio. Cocco’s men never stopped chatting and laughing, and in the center of the group Janice and I walked obediently along, each of us draped with a large contrada flag that elegantly concealed the ropes and the switchblade knives pressed against our ribs.
As we approached the main entrance of Santa Maria della Scala, I suddenly caught sight of Maestro Lippi, walking along carrying an easel, undoubtedly preoccupied with otherworldly matters. Not daring to call out and get his attention, I stared at him with as much intensity as I could muster, hoping to reach him in some spiritual way. But when the artist finally glanced in our direction, his eyes merely brushed over us without any recognition, and I deflated with disappointment.
Just then, the bells of the cathedral rang midnight. It had been a hot night so far, still and muggy, and somewhere in the distance, a thunderstorm was brewing. As we came up to the forbidding front door of the old hospital, the first gusts of wind came sweeping across the piazza, turning up every piece of garbage in their way, like invisible demons searching for something, or someone.
Wasting no time, Cocco broke out a cell phone and made a call; seconds later, the two small lights on either side of the door went out, and it was as if the entire building complex exhaled with a deep sigh. With no further ado, he proceeded to take a large, cast-iron key out of his pocket, stick it into the keyhole beneath the massive door handle, and unlock the whole thing with a loud clang.
Only now, as we were about to enter the building, did it occur to me that Santa Maria della Scala was one of the last places in Siena I felt like exploring in the middle of the night, knife against my ribs or no. Although the building had, according to Umberto, been turned into a museum many years ago, it still had a history of sickness and death. Even to someone who didn’t want to believe in ghosts, there were plenty of other things to worry about, starting with dormant plague germs. But it didn’t really matter what I felt like; I had long since lost control over my own fate.
When Cocco opened the door, I was half expecting a rush of fleeting shadows and a smell of decay, but there was nothing but cool darkness on the other side. Even so, both Janice and I hesitated on the threshold, and only when the men yanked at us did we reluctantly stumble forward, into the unknown.
Once everyone was inside and the door securely closed behind us, a host of small lights came on as the men put on headlamps and clicked open their musical instrument cases. Nested in the foam were torchlights, weapons, and power tools, and as soon as everything was assembled, the cases were kicked aside.
“Andiamo!” said Cocco, waving with a submachine gun to make us all straddle the thigh-high security gate. Our hands still tied in the back, Janice and I had a hard time getting over it, and the men eventually grabbed us by the arms and hauled us over, ignoring our cries of pain as our shins scraped against the metal bars.
Now for the first time, Umberto dared to speak out against their brutality, saying something to Cocco that could only mean, come on, go easy on the girls, but all he got for his trouble was an elbow in the chest that made him double over coughing. And when I paused to see if he was okay, two of Cocco’s henchmen took me by the shoulders and thrust me forward impatiently, their stony faces betraying no emotions whatsoever.
The only one they treated with any kind of respect was Friar Lorenzo, who was allowed to take his time and climb the gate with whatever dignity he had left.
“Why is he still blindfolded?” I whispered to Janice, as soon as the men let go of me.
“Because they’re going to let him live,” was her dismal reply.
“Shh!” hushed Umberto, making a face at us. “The less attention you two draw to yourselves, the better.”
Everything considered, that was a tall order. Neither Janice nor I had showered since the day before, let alone washed our hands, and I was still wearing the long, red dress from Eva Maria’s party, although, by now, it was a sorry sight. Earlier that day, Janice had suggested I put on some of the clothes from Mom’s wardrobe and lose the bodice-ripper look. Once I did, however, we had both found the smell of mothballs unbearable. And so here I was, trying to blend in, barefoot and grimy but still dressed for a ball.
We walked for a while in silence, following the bouncing headlamps as they ricocheted along black corridors and down several different staircases, led on by Cocco and one of his lackeys—a tall, jaundiced fellow whose gaunt face and hunched shoulders made me think of a turkey vulture. Every now and then the two of them would stop and orient themselves according to a large piece of pape
r, which I assumed was a map of the building. And whenever they did, someone would pull hard at my hair or my arm to make sure I stopped, too.
There were five men in front of us and five men behind us at all times, and if I tried to exchange glances with either Janice or Umberto, the guy behind me would dig the muzzle of his gun in between my shoulder blades until I yelped with pain. Right next to me, Janice was getting the exact same treatment and, although I couldn’t look at her, I knew she was just as scared and furious as I was, and just as helpless to fight back.
Despite their tuxedos and gelled hair, there was a sharp, almost rancid odor about the men, which suggested that they, too, felt under pressure. Or maybe it was the building I could smell; the farther into the underground we went, the worse it became. To the eye, the whole place appeared very clean, even sterile, but as we descended into the network of narrow corridors beneath the basement, I couldn’t shake a feeling that—just on the other side of those dry, well-sealed walls—something putrid was slowly eating its way through the plaster.
When the men finally stopped, I had long since lost my sense of direction. It seemed to me that we must be at least fifty feet underground, but I was no longer sure we were directly beneath Santa Maria della Scala. Shivering now with cold, I picked up my frozen feet one by one, to press them briefly against my calves in an attempt at getting the blood flowing.