“How about this, Friar,” began the villain, with uncanny gentility. “I grant you your life—in fact, you can even take this fine cart and these noble horses, no tolls paid—in exchange for that girl?”
“I thank you for the generous offer,” replied Friar Lorenzo, squinting against the sunset, “but I am the sworn protector of this noble lady, and I cannot let you have her. If I did, we would both go to Hell.”
“Bah!” The brigand had heard it all before. “That girl is no more of a lady than you or I. In fact, I strongly suspect she is a Tolomei whore!”
An indignant shriek was heard from inside the coffin, and Friar Lorenzo quickly put his foot on top of the lid to hold it closed.
“The lady is of great consequence to Messer Tolomei, that is true,” he said, “and any man that lays a hand on her will bring a war upon his own kin. Surely your master, Salimbeni, desires no such feud.”
“Ah, you monks and your sermons!” The bandit rode right up to the cart, and only then did his halo fade. “Do not threaten me with war, little preacher. It is what I do best.”
“I beg you to let us go!” urged Friar Lorenzo, holding up his quivering rosary and hoping it would catch the sun’s last rays. “Or I swear upon these holy beads and the wounds of sweet Jesus that cherubs will come down from Heaven and strike your children dead in their beds!”
“They shall be welcome!” The villain drew his sword anew. “I have too many to feed as it is.” He swung his leg across the head of his horse to jump aboard the cart with the ease of a dancer. Seeing the other backing away in terror, he laughed. “Why so surprised? Did you really think I would let you live?”
The brigand’s sword withdrew to strike, and Friar Lorenzo sank to his knees in submission, clutching the rosary and waiting for the slash that would cut short his prayer. To die at nineteen was cruel, particularly when no one was looking on to witness his martyrdom, except his divine Father in Heaven, who was not exactly known for running to the rescue of dying sons.
[ II.II ]
Nay sit, nay sit, good cousin Capulet,
For you and I are past our dancing days
…
I CANNOT REMEMBER HOW FAR I got in the story that night, but the birds had started chirping outside when I finally drifted off on a sea of papers. I now understood the connection between the many different texts in my mother’s box; they were all—in each their way—pre-Shakespearean versions of Romeo and Juliet. Even better, the texts from 1340 were not just fiction, they were genuine eyewitness accounts of the events that had led to the creation of the famous story.
Although he had not yet made an appearance in his own journal, the mysterious Maestro Ambrogio, it seemed, had personally known the real human beings behind some of literature’s most star-crossed characters. I had to admit that so far none of his writing offered much overlap with Shakespeare’s tragedy, but then, more than two and a half centuries had passed between the actual events and the Bard’s play, and the story must have traveled through many different hands along the way.
Bursting to share my new knowledge with someone who would appreciate it—not everyone would find it funny that, through the ages, millions of tourists had flocked to the wrong city to see Juliet’s balcony and grave—I called Umberto on his cell phone as soon as I got out of my morning shower.
“Congratulations!” he exclaimed, when I told him that I had successfully charmed Presidente Maconi into giving me my mother’s box. “So, how rich are you now?”
“Uh,” I said, glancing at the mess on my bed. “I don’t think the treasure is in the box. If there even is a treasure.”
“Of course there’s a treasure,” Umberto countered, “why else would your mother put it in a bank safe? Look more carefully.”
“There’s something else—” I paused briefly, trying to find a way of saying it without sounding silly. “I think I’m somehow related to Shakespeare’s Juliet.”
I suppose I couldn’t blame Umberto for laughing, but it annoyed me all the same. “I know it sounds weird,” I went on, cutting through his chuckle, “but why else would we have the same name, Giulietta Tolomei?”
“You mean, Juliet Capulet?” Umberto corrected me. “I hate to break it to you, principessa, but I’m not sure she was a real person—”
“Of course not!” I shot back, wishing I had never told him about it, “But it looks like the story was inspired by real people … Oh, never mind! How’s life at your end?”
After hanging up, I started paging through the Italian letters my mother had received more than twenty years ago. Surely there was someone still alive in Siena who had known my parents, and who could answer all the questions Aunt Rose had so consistently brushed aside. But without knowing any Italian it was hard to tell which letters were written by friends or family; my only clue was that one of them began with the words “Carissima Diana—” and that the sender’s name was Pia Tolomei.
Unfolding the city map I had bought the day before, together with the dictionary, I spent some time searching for the address that was scribbled on the back of the envelope, and finally managed to pinpoint it in a minuscule piazza called Piazzetta del Castellare in downtown Siena. It was located in the heart of the Owl contrada, my home turf, not far from Palazzo Tolomei where I had met Presidente Maconi the day before.
If I were lucky, Pia Tolomei—whoever she was—would still be living there, eager to speak with Diane Tolomei’s daughter and lucid enough to remember why.
PIAZZETTA DEL CASTELLARE was like a small fortress within the city, and not that easy to find. After walking right past it several times, I finally discovered that I had to enter through a covered alleyway, which I had first assumed was the entrance to a private yard. Once inside the piazzetta, I was trapped between tall, silent buildings, and as I looked up at all the closed shutters on the walls around me, it was almost conceivable that they had been drawn shut sometime in the Middle Ages and never opened since.
In fact, had there not been a couple of Vespas parked in a corner, a tabby cat with a shiny black collar poised on a doorstep, and music playing from a single open window, I would have guessed that the buildings had long since been abandoned and left to rats and ghosts.
I took out the envelope I had found in my mother’s box and looked at the address once more. According to my map I was in the right place, but when I did a tour of the doors I could not find the name Tolomei on any of the doorbells, nor could I find a number that corresponded to the house number on my letter. To become a mailman in a place like this, I thought, clairvoyance must be a prerequisite.
Not knowing what else to do, I started ringing doorbells, one at a time. Just as I was about to press the fourth one, a woman opened a pair of shutters way above me, and yelled something in Italian.
In response, I waved the letter. “Pia Tolomei?”
“Tolomei?”
“Yes! Do you know where she lives? Does she still live here?”
The woman pointed at a door across the piazzetta and said something that could only mean, “Try in there.”
Only now did I notice a more contemporary kind of door in the far wall; it had an artsy, black-and-white door handle, and when I tried it, it opened. I paused briefly, unsure of the proper etiquette for entering private homes in Siena; meanwhile, the woman in the window behind me kept urging me to go inside—she clearly found me uncommonly dull—and so I did.
“Hello?” I took a timid step across the threshold and stared into the cool darkness. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw that I was standing in an entrance hall with a very high ceiling, surrounded by tapestries, paintings, and antique artifacts on display in glass cabinets. I let go of the door and called out, “Anybody home? Mrs. Tolomei?” But all I heard was the door closing with a sigh behind me.
Not entirely sure how to proceed, I started down the hallway, looking at the antiques on the way. Among them was a collection of long, vertical banners with images of horses, towers, and women that all looked very much like t
he Virgin Mary. A few were very old and faded, others were modern and quite garish; only when I got to the end of the row did it dawn on me that this was no private home, but some kind of museum or public building.
Now, finally, I heard the sound of uneven footsteps and a deep voice calling out impatiently, “Salvatore?”
I spun around to face my unwitting host as he emerged from a neighboring room, leaning on a crutch. He was an older man, definitely past seventy, and his frown made him look older still. “Salva—?” He stopped on the spot when he saw me, and said something else that did not sound particularly welcoming.
“Ciao!” I said, in a bushy-tailed sort of way, and held up the letter as one does a crucifix in front of Transylvanian nobility, just in case, “I am looking for Pia Tolomei. She knew my parents.” I pointed at myself. “Giulietta Tolomei. To-lo-mei.”
The man walked up to me, leaning heavily on his crutch, and plucked the letter right out of my hand. He looked suspiciously at the envelope and turned it over several times to reread the addresses of both the recipient and the sender. “My wife sent this letter,” he finally said, in surprisingly smooth English, “many years ago. To Diana Tolomei. She was my … hmm … aunt. Where did you find it?”
“Diane was my mother,” I said, my voice sounding oddly mousy in the big room. “I am Giulietta, the oldest of her twins. I wanted to come and see Siena—see where she lived. Do you … remember her?”
The old man did not speak right away. He looked at my face with eyes full of wonder, then reached out and touched a hand to my cheek to make sure I was real. “Little Giulietta?” he finally said. “Come here!” He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into an embrace. “I am Peppo Tolomei, your godfather.”
I barely knew what to do. Normally I was not someone who ran around hugging people—I left that to Janice—but even I didn’t mind it from this endearing old man.
“I’m sorry to barge in—” I started, then stopped, not sure what to say next.
“No-no-no-no-no!” Peppo brushed it all aside. “I am so happy you are here! Come, let me show you the museum! This is the museum for the contrada of the Owl—” He barely knew where to start and hopped around on his cane, looking for something impressive to show me. But when he saw my expression, he stopped himself. “No! You don’t want to see the museum! You want to talk! Yes, we must talk!” He threw up his arms and nearly knocked over a sculpture with the crutch. “I must hear everything. My wife—we must go see my wife. She will be so happy. She is at the house—Salvatore!… Oh, where is he?”
Five minutes later I came shooting out of Piazzetta del Castellare straddling the rear end of a red-and-black scooter. Peppo Tolomei had helped me into the saddle with the gallantry of a magician helping a lovely young assistant into a box he intends to saw in half, and as soon as I had a secure grip on his suspenders, we zoomed out through the covered alleyway, breaking for no one.
Peppo had insisted on closing up the museum right away and taking me home with him, so that I could meet his wife, Pia, and whoever else happened to be around. I had gladly accepted the invitation, assuming that the home to which he was referring was just around the corner. Only now, as we flew up the Corso past Palazzo Tolomei, did I realize my mistake.
“Is it far?” I yelled, hanging on as best I could.
“No-no-no!” replied Peppo, narrowly missing a nun pushing an old man in a wheelchair. “Don’t worry, we will call everyone and have a big family reunion!” Excited at the prospect, he began describing all the family members I would soon be meeting, though I could barely hear him in the wind. He was too distracted to notice that, as we passed Palazzo Salimbeni, we went right through a handful of security guards, forcing them all to jump aside.
“Whoa!” I exclaimed, wondering if Peppo was aware that we might be having our big family reunion in the slammer. But the guards made no moves to stop us, merely watched us go past the way dogs on a tight leash watch a fluffy squirrel strut across the road. Unfortunately, one of them was Eva Maria’s godson, Alessandro, and I was almost certain he recognized me, for he did a double take at the sight of my dangling legs, perhaps wondering what had happened to my flip-flops.
“Peppo!” I yelled, pulling at my cousin’s suspenders, “I really don’t want to be arrested, okay?”
“Don’t worry!” Peppo turned a corner and accelerated as he spoke. “I go too fast for police!” Moments later we shot through an ancient city gate like a poodle through a hoop, and flew right into the artwork of a fullblown Tuscan summer.
As I sat there, looking at the landscape over his shoulder, I wanted so much to be filled with a sense of familiarity, of finally returning home. But everything around me was new; the warm wafts of weeds and spices, the lazily rolling fields—even Peppo’s cologne had a foreign component that was absurdly attractive.
But how much do we really remember from the first three years of our lives? Sometimes I could conjure a memory of hugging a pair of bare legs that were definitely not Aunt Rose’s, and Janice and I were both sure we remembered a large glass bowl filled with wine corks, but apart from that, it was hard to tell which fragments belonged where. When we occasionally managed to uncover memories of ourselves as toddlers, we always ended up confused. “I’m sure the wobbly chess table was in Tuscany,” Janice would always insist. “Where else could it have been? Aunt Rose has never had one.”
“Then how,” I would inevitably counter, “do you explain that it was Umberto who slapped you when you pushed it over?”
But Janice couldn’t explain it. In the end, she would merely mumble, “Well, maybe it was someone else. When you’re two years old, all men look the same.” Then she’d snort, “Hell, they still do.”
As a teenager I used to fantasize about returning to Siena and suddenly remembering everything about my childhood; now that I was finally here, hurtling down narrow roads without recognizing anything, I began to wonder if living away from this place for most of my life had somehow withered away an essential part of my soul.
PIA AND PEPPO TOLOMEI lived on a farm in a small valley, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves. Gentle hills rose around their property on all sides, and the comfort of peaceful seclusion more than made up for the lack of extended views. The house was by no means grand; its yellow walls had weeds growing in the cracks, the green shutters needed so much more than just a paint job, and the terra-cotta roof looked as if the next storm—or maybe just someone sneezing inside—would make all the tiles come rattling down. And yet the many trailing vines and strategically placed flowerpots somehow complemented the decay and made the place utterly irresistible.
After parking the scooter and grabbing a crutch leaning against the wall, Peppo took me directly into the garden. Back here, in the shade of the house, his wife, Pia, sat on a stool amongst her grandchildren and great-grandchildren like an ageless harvest goddess surrounded by nymphs, teaching them how to make braids out of fresh garlic. It took several attempts before Peppo was able to make her understand who I was and why he had brought me there, but once Pia finally dared to trust her ears, she stuck her feet into her slippers, got up with the aid of her entourage, and enfolded me in a tearful embrace. “Giulietta!” she exclaimed, pressing me to her chest and kissing me on the forehead all at once. “Che meraviglia! It is a miracle!”
Her joy in seeing me was so genuine that I almost felt ashamed of myself. I had not gone to the Owl Museum this morning in search of my long-lost godparents, nor had it occurred to me before this moment that I even had godparents, and that they would be this happy to see me alive and well. Yet here they were, and their kindness made me realize that—until now—I had never felt truly welcome anywhere, not even in my own home. At least not when Janice was around.
Within an hour the house and garden filled with people and food. It was as if everybody had been waiting just around the corner, local delicacy in hand, desperate for an excuse to celebrate. Some were family, some friends and neighbors, and they all claimed to have kno
wn my parents and to have wondered what ever happened to their twin daughters. No one said anything explicit, but I sensed that, back then, Aunt Rose had swooped in and claimed Janice and me against the wishes of the Tolomei family—thanks to Uncle Jim she still had connections in the State Department—and that we had vanished without a trace, much to the frustration of Pia and Peppo, who were, after all, our godparents.
“But that is all in the past,” Peppo kept saying, patting me on the back, “for now you are here, and we can finally talk.” But it was hard to know where to begin; there were so many years that must be accounted for, and so many questions that needed answers, including the reason for my sister’s mysterious absence.
“She was too busy to come along,” I said, looking away. “But I’m sure she’ll visit you soon.”
It did not help that only a handful of the guests spoke English, and that every answer to every inquiry had to first be understood and interpreted by a third party. Still, everyone was so friendly and warm that even I, after a while, began to relax and enjoy myself. It didn’t really matter that we couldn’t understand each other, what mattered were those little smiles and nods that said so much more than words.
At one point, Pia came out on the terrace with a photo album and sat down to show me pictures from my parents’ wedding. As soon as she opened the album, other women clustered around us, eager to follow along and help turn the pages.
“There!” Pia pointed at a large wedding picture. “Your mother is wearing the dress I wore at my wedding. Oh, aren’t they a handsome couple? … And here, this is your cousin Francesco—”
“Wait!” I tried to prevent her from turning the page, but in vain. She probably did not realize that I had never seen a picture of my father before, and that the only grown-up photo of my mother I had ever known was her high-school graduation portrait on Aunt Rose’s piano.