“I say we make a run for it,” said Janice, looking around nervously. “At least back in the other cave we only have dead people to deal with.”
“And then what?” I asked. “Sit around underneath the hole in the ceiling, waiting for these … gentlemen to come and help us out?”
“No,” she replied, rubbing her arm where a star had strafed her, “but one of us could help the other get out, and then that other could crawl back through the tunnel and get help.”
I stared at her, realizing she was right, and that I was an idiot for not thinking of this approach before. “So,” I said, hesitantly, “who gets to go?”
Janice smiled wryly. “You go. You’re the one who has something to lose—” Then she added, more smugly, “Besides, I’m the one who knows how to deal with the Cocco-Nut.”
We stood like that for a moment, just looking at each other. Then I caught sight of Friar Lorenzo out of the corner of my eye; he was kneeling in front of one of the stripped stone tables, praying to a God who was no longer there.
“I can’t do it,” I whispered. “I can’t leave you here.”
“You have to,” said Janice, firmly. “If you won’t, I will.”
“Fine,” I said, “then go. Please.”
“Oh, Jules!” She threw her arms around me. “Why do you always have to be the hero?”
We could have saved ourselves the emotional turmoil of fighting over martyrdom, for by now the metal drills had stopped, and the men came pouring out of the side chapel, laughing and joking about their exploits and throwing the four walnut-sized gemstones back and forth. The last person to emerge was Umberto, and I could see he was thinking exactly the same as we: Did this finally conclude our business with Cocco and the gang from Naples, or would they decide they wanted more?
As if they had read our thoughts, the men now stopped in the middle of their merriment and took a good solid look at Janice and me, standing as we were, huddled against each other. Cocco in particular seemed to take pleasure in the sight of us, and the smirk on his face told me that he knew exactly how we might still add value to his enterprise. But then, after undressing Janice with his eyes and concluding that, regardless of her nasty attitude, she was just another scared little girl, his calculating eyes turned cold, and he said something to his men that made Umberto jump forward, arms wide, to position himself between them and us.
“No!” he begged, “Ti prego!”
“Vaffanculo!” sneered Cocco, pointing the submachine gun at him.
By the sound of it, the two of them went on to exchange a legion of pleas and obscenities before finally, Umberto switched into English.
“My friend,” he said, all but dropping to his knees, “I know you are a generous man. And a father, too. Be merciful. I promise, you will not regret it.”
Cocco did not reply right away. His squint suggested that he was not happy to be reminded of his own humanity.
“Please,” Umberto went on, “the girls will never speak to anybody. I swear to you.”
Now, finally, Cocco grimaced and said, in his halting English, “Girls always talk. Talk-talk-talk.”
Behind my back Janice squeezed my hand so hard that it hurt. She knew, as well as I did, that there was no earthly reason why Cocco should let us walk away from this place alive. He had his gems now, and that was all he wanted. What he most certainly did not need were eyewitnesses. Even so, I had a hard time understanding that this was really it; after all our crawling around and helping him find the statue, he would really kill us? Instead of fear I felt fury—fury that Cocco was the cold bastard he was, and that the only man to step forward and defend us was our father.
Even Friar Lorenzo stood idly by, going through his rosary with closed eyes, as if none of what was going on had anything to do with him. But then, how could he possibly know? He understood neither evil nor English.
“My friend,” said Umberto again, doing his best to speak calmly, perhaps hoping it would rub off on Cocco, “I spared your life once. Remember? Does that count for nothing?”
Cocco pretended to think about it for a moment. Then he replied, with a contemptuous grimace, “Okay. You spared my life once. So, I will spare a life for you.” He nodded at Janice and me. “Who you like most? The stronza or the angelo?”
“Oh, Jules!” whimpered Janice, hugging me so hard I couldn’t breathe. “I love you! No matter what happens, I love you!”
“Please don’t make me choose,” said Umberto in a voice I could barely recognize. “Cocco. I know your mother. She is a good woman. She wouldn’t like this.”
“My mother,” sneered Cocco, “she will spit in your grave! Last chance: the stronza or the angelo? Choose now, or I kill both two.”
When Umberto didn’t answer, Cocco walked right up to him. “You,” he said slowly, placing the muzzle of the submachine gun against Umberto’s chest, “are a stupid man.”
In our panic, both Janice and I were too frozen to leap forward and try to prevent Cocco from pulling the trigger, and one second later, an earpiercing gunshot sent a tremor through the whole cave.
Certain that he had been shot, we both screamed and ran up to Umberto, expecting him to fall over, already dead. But amazingly, when we reached him he was still standing, stiff with shock. The one who was lying on the floor, grotesquely sprawled, was Cocco. Something—a thunderbolt from heaven?—had gone right through his skull, taking off the back of his head on the way.
“Jesus Christ!” whimpered Janice, white as a ghost, “what was that?”
“Get down!” cried Umberto, pulling fiercely at us both. “And cover your heads!”
Everywhere around us, Cocco’s men began scrambling for cover as a series of gunshots rang out, and those who paused to return the fire were taken down instantly, with startling accuracy. Lying flat on my stomach on the floor, I turned my head to see who was firing the shots, and for the first time in my life, the sight of advancing police officers in combat gear was not unwelcome. Pouring into the crypt through the hole we had made, they took up position behind the nearest pillars and yelled at the remaining bandits to—I assumed—drop their weapons and surrender.
My relief at seeing the police and realizing that our nightmare was over, made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. If they had arrived one minute later than they did, everything would have been different. Or maybe they had in fact been there for a while, just watching us, waiting for an excuse to drop the hammer on Cocco without a trial. Whatever the details, as I lay there on the stone floor, my head still spinning from the horror we had been through, I was quite ready to believe they had been sent by the Virgin Mary, to punish those who had violated her shrine.
Faced with hopeless odds, the few surviving mobsters eventually emerged from behind the columns, hands in the air. When one of them was stupid enough to bend over and reach for something on the floor—most likely a gemstone—he was shot immediately. It took me a few seconds to realize that he was the one who had groped me and Janice back in the cave, but even more important, that the man who shot him was Alessandro.
As soon as I recognized him, I was filled by an intense, giddy joy. But before I could share my discovery with Janice, there was an ominous rumble somewhere above us, which rose to a maddening crescendo as one of the pillars supporting the vaulted ceiling came crashing down, right on top of the surviving bandits, slamming them with several tons of stone.
The trembling echoes of the collapsing column spread through the entire web of Bottini caves surrounding us on all sides. It seemed the chaos in the crypt had set off a vibration in the underground that felt very much like an earthquake, and I saw Umberto jumping to his feet, waving at Janice and me to get up, too.
“Come on!” he urged us, looking nervously at the pillars around us. “I don’t think we have much time.”
Scurrying across the floor, we narrowly missed a shower of rubble spilling out of the ruptured ceiling, and when a falling star hit me right on the temple, I very nearly blacked ou
t. Pausing briefly to regain my balance, I saw Alessandro coming towards me, striding over the debris and ignoring the warning remarks from the other police officers. He didn’t say anything, but then, he didn’t have to. His eyes said everything I could ever hope to hear.
I would have walked right into his embrace had I not, just then, heard a faint cry behind me.
“Friar Lorenzo!” I gasped, suddenly realizing that we had forgotten all about the monk. Spinning around, I caught sight of his crouched form somewhere in the middle of the devastation, and before Alessandro could prevent me, I ran back the way I had come, anxious to get to the old man before some flying chunk of masonry beat me to it.
Alessandro would most certainly have stopped me, had not another column come crashing down between us in a cloud of dust, immediately followed by a downpour of crumbled plaster. And this time, the impact of the pillar broke open the floor right next to me, revealing that, beneath the stone tiles, there were no wooden rafters, no slab of concrete, just a big, dark void.
Petrified at the sight, I stopped right there, afraid to go on. Behind me I heard Alessandro yelling at me to come back, but before I could even turn around, the part of the floor on which I was standing began to separate from the surrounding structure. The next thing I knew, the floor was no longer there, and I plunged straight into nothingness, too stunned to scream, feeling as if the very glue of the world had evaporated, and all that was left in this new chaos were bits and pieces, me, and gravity.
How far did I fall? I feel like saying that I fell through time itself, through lives, deaths, and centuries past, but in terms of actual measurement the drop was no more than twenty feet. At least, that is what they say. They also say that, fortunately for me, it was neither rocks nor demons that caught me as I came tumbling into the underworld. It was the ancient river that wakes you from dreams, and which few people have ever been allowed to find.
Her name is Diana.
THEY SAY THAT AS soon as I fell over the edge of the crumbling floor, Alessandro jumped in after me, not even stopping to take off his gear. When he plunged into the cool water he was dragged down by the weight of it all—the vest, the boots, the gun—and it took him a moment to come up for air. Struggling against the swift current, he managed to pull out a flashlight and eventually find my limp body stuck on a protruding rock.
Yelling at the other police officers to hurry, Alessandro had them lower a rope and haul us both back up to the cathedral crypt. Deaf to everybody and everything, he put me down on the floor in the middle of the debris, forced the water from my lungs, and began reviving me.
Standing there, watching his efforts, Janice did not fully understand the seriousness of the situation until she looked up and saw the other men exchanging grim glances. They all knew what Alessandro would not yet accept: that I was dead. Only then did she feel the tears coming, and once they had started, there was no stopping them.
In the end Alessandro gave up trying to revive me and merely held me, as if he would never let go of me again. He stroked my cheek and talked to me, saying things he should have said while I was still alive, not caring who could hear him. At that moment, Janice says, we looked very much like the statue of Romeo and Giulietta, except that my eyes were closed, and Alessandro’s face was torn with grief.
Seeing that even he had lost hope, my sister pulled away from the police officers holding her and ran over to Friar Lorenzo, grabbing the monk by the shoulders.
“Why are you not praying?” she cried, shaking the old man. “Pray to the Virgin Mary, and tell her—” Realizing that he didn’t understand her, Janice stepped away from the monk, looked up at the shattered ceiling, and screamed at the top of her lungs, “Make her live! I know you can do it! Let her live!”
When there was no answer, my sister sank to her knees at last, crying hysterically. And there was not a man in the crowd who dared to touch her.
Just then, Alessandro felt something. It was no more than a quiver, and maybe it was him and not me, but it was enough to give him hope. Cradling my head in his hands he spoke to me again, tenderly at first, then impatiently.
“Look at me!” he begged. “Look at me, Giulietta!”
They say that when I finally heard him, I did not cough, or gasp, or groan. I just opened my eyes and looked at him. And once I began to understand what was going on around me, apparently I smiled and whispered, “Shakespeare won’t like it.”
All this was told to me later; I remember almost none of it. I don’t even remember Friar Lorenzo kneeling down to kiss me on the forehead, or Janice dancing around like a whirling dervish, kissing all the laughing police officers in turn. All I remember are the eyes of the man who had refused to lose me again, and who had wrested me from the clutches of the Bard so we could finally write our own happy end.
[ X ]
… and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our times to come
…
MAESTRO LIPPI WAS AT A loss to understand why I could not sit still. Here we were at last, he behind an easel and me looking my very best, framed by wildflowers and bathed in the golden light of a late summer sun. All he needed was ten more minutes, and the portrait would be done.
“Please!” he said, waving the palette. “Don’t move!”
“But Maestro,” I protested, “I really, really have to go.”
“Bah!” He disappeared once more behind the canvas. “These things never start on time.”
Behind me, from the monastery on the hilltop, the bells had long since stopped ringing, and when I twisted around to look one more time, I saw a figure in a fluttering dress come running down the sloping lawn towards us.
“Jesus, Jules!” gasped Janice, too out of breath to give me the full brunt of her disapproval. “Someone’s gonna blow a fuse if you don’t get your ass up there right now!”
“I know, but—” I glanced at Maestro Lippi, loath to disrupt his work. After all, Janice and I both owed him our lives.
There was no getting around the fact that our ordeal in the cathedral crypt might have ended very differently, had not the Maestro—in a moment of uncharacteristic clarity—recognized the two of us as we walked across Piazza del Duomo that night, surrounded by musicians and wrapped in contrada flags. He had seen us before we saw him, but as soon as he realized that we were wearing flags from the contrada of the Unicorn—the great rival of our own contrada, the Owl—he had known something was horribly wrong.
Rushing back to his workshop, he had called the police right away. As it turned out, Alessandro was already at the police station, interrogating two ne’er-do-wells from Naples who had tried to kill him and broken their arms in the process.
And so had it not been for Maestro Lippi, the police might never have followed us into the crypt, and Alessandro might never have saved me from the river Diana … and I might not have been here today, at Friar Lorenzo’s monastery in Viterbo, looking my very best.
“I’m sorry, Maestro,” I said, getting up, “but we’ll have to finish this some other time.”
Running up the hill with my sister, I couldn’t help laughing. She was wearing one of Eva Maria’s tailored dresses, and, of course, it fit her perfectly.
“What’s so funny?” she snapped, still annoyed with me for being late.
“You,” I chuckled. “I can’t believe it never occurred to me how much you look like Eva Maria. And sound like her.”
“Thanks a lot!” she said. “I guess it’s better than sounding like Umberto—” But as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she winced. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m sure he’s here in spirit.”
The truth was, we had no idea what had become of Umberto. Neither of us had seen him since the shoot-out in the cathedral crypt. In all likelihood, he had disappeared into the underground when the floor broke up, but then, nobody had actually seen it happen. They had been too busy looking for me.
Nor were the four gemstones ever found. Per
sonally, I suspected Earth had taken back her treasures, assuming Romeo’s and Giulietta’s eyes back into her womb the way she had demanded the return of the eagle dagger.
Janice, on the other hand, was convinced Umberto had pocketed the sparkle and escaped through the Bottini caves to live the sweet life in the slicked-back tango parlors of Buenos Aires … or wherever else gentleman gangsters go when they retire. And after a few poolside chocolate martinis at Castello Salimbeni, Eva Maria began to agree with her. Umberto, she told us, adjusting her sunglasses under her large, floppy sunhat, had always had a habit of disappearing, sometimes for years, and then suddenly calling her out of the blue. Besides, she was confident that, even if her son had really fallen through the floor and into the river Diana, he would have kept his head above water and simply followed the current until it spat him out in a lake somewhere. How could it possibly be otherwise?
TO GET TO THE sanctuary we had to run past an olive grove and an herb nursery with beehives. Friar Lorenzo had walked us through the grounds that same morning, and we had eventually ended up in a secluded rose garden dominated by an open marble rotunda.
In the middle of the little temple stood a life-size bronze statue of a monk, arms open in a gesture of friendship. Friar Lorenzo had explained that this was what the brothers liked to imagine the original Friar Lorenzo had looked like, and that his remains were buried under the floor. It was supposed to be a place of peace and contemplation, he had told us, but because we were who we were, he would make an exception.
Approaching the sanctuary now, with Janice in tow, I stopped briefly to catch my breath. They were all there, waiting for us—Eva Maria, Malèna, cousin Peppo with his leg in a cast, plus a couple dozen other people whose names I was only starting to learn—and next to Friar Lorenzo stood Alessandro, tense and to-die-for, frowning at his wrist-watch.