“I’m sure she would.” Alessandro stabbed an olive with his fork, but didn’t eat it. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any statues of little mermaids.”
That was when I knew for sure he had checked my file, and that he must have found out everything there was to know about Julie Jacobs-Julie Jacobs the antiwar demonstrator, who had barely returned from Rome before heading off to Copenhagen to protest the Danish involvement in Iraq by vandalizing the Little Mermaid. Sadly, the file would not have told him that it was all a big mistake, and that Julie Jacobs had only gone to Denmark to show her sister that, yes, she dared.
Tasting the dizzying cocktail of fury and fear in my throat, I reached out blindly for the bread basket, hoping very much my panic didn’t show.
“No, but we have other nice statues!” Eva Maria looked at me, then at him, trying to grasp what was going on. “And fountains. You must take her to Fontebranda-”
“Maybe Miss Jacobs would like to see Via dei Malcontenti,” proposed Alessandro, cutting off Eva Maria. “That was where we used to take the criminals, so their victims could throw things at them on their way to the gallows.”
I returned his unforgiving stare, feeling no further need for concealment. “Was anyone ever pardoned?”
“Yes. It was called banishment. They were told to leave Siena and never come back. In return, their lives would be spared.”
“Oh, I see,” I snapped back, “just like your family, the Salimbenis.” I stole a glance at Eva Maria, who was, for a change, dumbstruck. “Am I wrong?”
Alessandro did not answer right away. Judging from the play of the muscles in his jaw, he would have liked very much to respond in kind, but knew that he could not do so in front of his godmother. “The Salimbeni family,” he finally said, his voice strained, “was expropriated by the government in 1419 and forced to leave the Republic of Siena.”
“For good?”
“Obviously not. But they were banished for a long time.” The way he looked at me suggested that we were now talking about me again. “And they probably deserved it.”
“What if they… came back anyway?”
“Then”-he paused for effect, and it struck me that the green in his eyes was not like organic foliage at all, but cold and crystallized, like the slice of malachite I had presented as a special treasure in fourth grade, before the teacher had explained that it was a mineral mined to extract copper, with evident harm to the environment-“they must have had a very good reason.”
“Enough!” Eva Maria raised her glass. “No more banishment. No more fighting. Now we are all friends.”
For about ten minutes we managed to have a civil conversation. After that, Eva Maria excused herself to go to the restroom, and Alessandro and I were left to each other’s devices. Glancing at him, I caught him running his eyes over me, and for the briefest of moments I was able to convince myself that it was all just a cat-and-mouse game to see whether I was sufficiently feisty to become his playmate for the week. Well, I thought to myself, whatever the cat was plotting, it was in for a nasty surprise.
I reached out for a slice of sausage. “Do you believe in redemption?”
“I don’t care,” said Alessandro, pushing the platter towards me, “what you did in Rome. Or anywhere else. But I do care about Siena. So tell me, why are you here?”
“Is this an interrogation?” I spoke with my mouth full. “Should I call my lawyer?”
He leaned towards me, his voice low. “I could have you in jail like this-” He snapped his fingers right in front of my nose. “Is that really what you want?”
“You know,” I said, shoveling more food onto my plate and hoping very much he did not notice my hands shaking, “power games have never worked on me. They may have worked wonders for your ancestors, but if you recall, my ancestors were never really that impressed.”
“Okay-” He leaned back in his chair, changing tactics. “How about this: I’m going to leave you alone on one condition. That you stay away from Eva Maria.”
“Why don’t you tell that to her?”
“She is a very special woman, and I don’t want her to suffer.”
I put down my fork. “But I do? Is that what you think of me?”
“You really want to know?” Alessandro gave me the once-over as if I were an overpriced artifact put up for sale. “All right. I think you are beautiful, intelligent… a great actor-” Seeing my confusion, he frowned and went on, more sternly, “I think someone paid you a lot of money to come here and pretend to be Giulietta Tolomei…”
“What?”
“… and I think part of your job is to get close to Eva Maria. But guess what… I’m not going to let that happen.”
I barely knew where to start. Fortunately, his accusations were so surreal that I was too flabbergasted to feel truly wounded. “Why,” I finally said, “do you not believe I am Giulietta Tolomei? Is it because I don’t have baby blue eyes?”
“You want to know why? I’ll tell you why.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Giulietta Tolomei is dead.”
“Then how,” I retorted, leaning forward, too, “do you explain that I am sitting right here?”
He looked at me for the longest time, searching for something in my face that somehow wasn’t there. In the end he looked away, his lips tight, and I knew that for some reason I had not convinced him, and probably never would.
“You know what-” I pushed back my chair and got up. “I’m going to take your advice and remove myself from Eva Maria’s company. Tell her thank you for the concert and the food, and tell her that she can have her clothes back whenever she wants them. I am done with them.”
I did not wait for his response, but stalked off the deck and away from the restaurant without looking back. As soon as I had turned the first corner and was out of sight, I could feel tears of anger rising, and despite my shoes I started running. The last thing I wanted was for Alessandro to catch up with me and apologize for his rudeness, should he be so human as to try.
GOING HOME THAT NIGHT, I stuck to the shadows and the streets less traveled. As I walked through the darkness, hoping rather than knowing I was going the right way, I was so preoccupied with my discussion with Alessandro-and, more specifically, with all the brilliant things I could have said, but didn’t-that it took me a while to realize I was being followed.
In the beginning it was little more than an eerie feeling of being watched. But soon I began to notice the faint sounds of someone sneaking along behind me. Whenever I forged ahead I could discern a shuffle of clothes and soft soles, but if I slowed down the shuffle disappeared, and I heard nothing but an ominous silence that was almost worse.
Turning abruptly down a random street, I was able to pick up movement and the shape of a man out of the corner of my eye. Unless I was very much mistaken, it was the same thug who had followed me a few days earlier, when I had left the bank in Palazzo Tolomei carrying my mother’s box. My brain had obviously filed our previous encounter under danger, and now that it recognized his shape and gait, it set off a deafening evacuation alarm that forced all rational thoughts from my head and made me pull off my shoes and-for the second time that night-start running.
III.II
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight.
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night
Siena , A.D. 1340
THE NIGHT WAS RIPE WITH MISCHIEF.
As soon as Romeo and his cousins were out of sight of the Marescotti tower, they threw themselves around a street corner, gasping with laughter. It had been far too easy for them to escape the house this evening, for Palazzo Marescotti was bustling with family visitors from Bologna, and Romeo’s father, Comandante Marescotti, had grudgingly put on a banquet with musicians to entertain the lot. After all, what did Bologna have to offer that Siena could not deliver tenfold?