Rosamanti (20 page)

“Thank so much. Grazie. But please stay and eat with us.” She came back out with bowls and some cutlery. Pietro lit several thick candles that glowed from inside old fish bowls where they were protected from the weather, throwing a warm yellow light onto the table. She watched as Teresa lifted the lid and steam escaped. The aroma was delicious. Teresa expertly scooped out portions of pasta and sauce and placed them in the bowls. The meal was scrumptious.

“Mm, you’re a great cook, Teresa.”

Carlo smiled and his mother beamed, nodding her head. The friends ate, laughed and chatted through the meal. Sarah felt like she had been here forever. Her love for Pietro warmed her heart, and the fondness she felt for Carlo and his mother completed her happiness. Suddenly, she had an idea.

“Carlo, can you please help your mother to understand what I’m about to say?” He nodded.

She looked into his curious brown eyes, then at his mother.

“Teresa, when I first met you, Carlo told me that next year he will be going to secondary school in Naples, because the colleges here are far too expensive. Well, I have been trying to find a way to reward my hero for saving my life. I would like to set up a scholarship fund for Carlo and see him through his education.” She paused as Carlo translated. Her heart beat rapidly. She knew she was prone to spontaneous outpourings of ideas, without checking how they might be received. She grimaced as she remembered how her idea of the restaurant in the old goatherd cottage had gone down with Pietro. She held her breath as Carlo finished talking, his eyes wide, and looked at Teresa’s blank face.

Pietro shifted uncomfortably on the seat next to her. Bruno lifted a wine glass to his lips. There was complete silence. Teresa slowly shifted her gaze to Carlo, silently communicating with her son through their eyes. When she spoke, her voice was low and quiet.

Carlo looked at Sarah. He cleared his throat. “Mama says thank you, but she cannot accept because the colleges on Capri are very expensive. They are for rich people’s children—celebrities—like movie stars and writers.” His voice echoed with disappointment.

Sarah cleared her throat. “Please tell her that I
am
a writer, even a celebrity of sorts. I have enough money to comfortably share with you. Tell your mama it would be an honor to be allowed to do this.” Pietro’s hand found hers under the table, and squeezed it tight.

When Carlo said the words in Italian to his mother, Teresa’s eyes flicked to Sarah’s, then to Pietro’s. Sarah saw him nod. Teresa glanced at Bruno, who nodded his head. Teresa’s eyes were moist as she cried out.

“Si. Si signora. Grazie.” She got up from her chair, came around to Sarah, and hugged her. Carlo was yelling out in Italian, doing a dance around the table. Pietro and Bruno joined in, singing a song and pouring out more wine for them all. Her face flushed, Teresa pulled back from Sarah and looked into her eyes. She nodded her head and whispered in a soft voice. “
Mille
grazie.”

Words wouldn’t come from Sarah’s throat. Instead, she picked up her wine glass and thrust it into the air.

“To Carlo! Salute!”

Five glasses clinked, toasting Carlo for his heroism.

Later, Pietro hobbled into the kitchen on his crutches and brought out more wine. When he reached the table, he announced that it was the last bottle in the kitchen.

“I will get you some more, Pietro. I am not afraid of your cellar anymore.”

His offer was met with laughter from the happy group.

“I doubt you are afraid of anything now, Carlo, my little chiacchere.” Pietro ruffled the boy’s hair.

Carlo’s chest puffed out and his chin tilted higher.

Sarah doubted he had never felt so important in his whole life.

“What does chiacchere mean?” She looked at the group around the table.

Carlo smiled. “He says I am his little chatterbox—because I talk all the time to him when he is hoping for some peace.”

They all laughed. Sarah pictured Carlo as a small boy, always following his hero Pietro around, stepping in his footsteps. Learning from him.

A thought crossed Sarah’s mind.

“Carlo, tell me, did you help Nonna to write some letters? Letters addressed to me?”

He looked flabbergasted, maybe even guilty, his eyes going first to Pietro, then his mother, then back to Sarah.

“Si. She asked me to place an advertisement for the newspaper. I wrote some letters in English when she told me the words in Italian.” He paused. “Did I do something wrong?”

Pietro’s eyebrows shot up.

“You see, Nonna said that she did not want to ask you, Pietro, in case you talked her out of her idea.”

Pietro smiled at him. “I am very happy that you loved Nonna and that you were her loyal friend.” He turned to look back at Sarah. “I was wondering about those letters. I didn’t recognize the handwriting when you first showed them to me, yet it was definitely Nonna’s signature.”

Carlo visibly relaxed. Then his eyes fell on the papers and notebook resting on a spare chair.

“Allora. The treasure map.” He looked over at Sarah. “Have you solved the puzzle yet signora?”

Pietro reached down and picked up Nonna’s map and letter.

“Actually, we were just looking at it when you arrived. Why don’t we try and solve it together, especially as you are already an expert in solving problems.” Carlo blushed as Pietro looked at him.

“Si.
Mappa del tesoro
.” He waved the map so his mother could see it. “Our very own treasure map.” His excitement was infectious. He showed Pietro and his mother the three clues in Elena’s letter. Their faces screwed up as they tried to unravel the cryptic clues. Talking in Italian among themselves, Sarah looked down at her notebook. Remembering the scroll she’d found in the tunnel, she jumped into the discussion. In her Australian version of Italian, she recited the words on the scroll that she had committed to memory.

“Ebano e avorio, cani e gatti.”

At first not understanding her accent, the others discussed it among themselves. Then they all fell silent and turned to look at her. Pietro and Carlo stared at each other. They both began talking at once. Pietro stood on wobbly legs and held up his hand.

“
Silenzio!
”

Carlo stopped mid-sentence. Sarah wasn’t sure, but it seemed to her that this phrase actually meant something to both of them.

Pietro grabbed his crutches and staggered over to the house and in through the kitchen door. A few minutes later, he hobbled back out toward them, a shoebox jammed snugly under one arm. He sat down and placed the box on the table. Amid a hushed silence and with an air of ceremony, he slowly opened the box and withdrew a small white figurine of a cat.

He turned to look at Sarah. “The phrase you are saying means ‘ebony and ivory, dog and cat.’ This,” he picked up the little white cat, “is made from ivory. It was Nonna’s most treasured possession.” He looked at Carlo whose excited eyes were once again popping out from his face. “What was it you just said about a dog?”

“Si, I found a black dog statue. It is quite heavy. I don’t know what it is made of.” He stopped and looked at them all. “I found it in the goatherd’s cottage. It was sitting on the dressing table, smothered in dust.”

They each sat quietly with their own thoughts. Finally Pietro spoke.

“Maybe, when Nonna was a little girl writing this letter,” he tapped it with his finger, “she owned both of the figurines. My guess is that she gave one of them to the man she loved with all her heart.” He paused. “I am no expert, but would be inclined to think that a poor farming girl would not have been given such expensive gifts, when the family barely had enough money to feed themselves.”

Sarah studied the little cat. It had unusually large ears, and around its neck, it wore a wide collar with a tag hanging from the front. Squinting, she took it closer to the light of one of the candles and studied it.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but is that a letter T engraved on that tag?”

Pietro looked at it, scrunching his eyes to see better. He handed it to Teresa. She shook her head and handed it to her son. His young, fresh eyes, widened as he scrutinized it in the candle light.

He let out a loud breath. “Si. It is a T.”

Pietro was the first to speak. “Carlo, could you please go and get some flashlights from the kitchen? They are on the bench.” Without a word, the boy ran into the kitchen and came back with two large flashlights. Pietro, on crutches, shambled over to the shed near the house and came out with some bolt cutters and a claw hammer. He handed them to Bruno.

With Pietro moving awkwardly on his crutches, the five walked down the rough track and then veered across country, through the long grass, to the old goatherd’s cottage. It didn’t take Pietro much effort to pull the wooden boards off the front, revealing the faded green door. Bruno carefully jimmied the door open until he could see the bolt on the inside and the padlock. He pushed the bolt cutters in. Snap! The heavy metal of the lock and bolt fell to the floor, echoing through the night. Pietro reached forward and pushed on the door, its rusty creak shrieking loudly. Before he entered, he rested one of his crutches against the door jam. He then held his hand out to Sarah. She took it, feeling him trembling. She squeezed his hand and he pressed hers back. Slowly, they entered the little cottage that had been where his Nonna had loved the man who ended up being Pietro’s grandfather.

Teresa, Carlo, and Bruno followed behind. As they entered the small bedroom, Pietro sucked in a deep breath at the sight of the bed. It took him a moment to regain his composure, then he turned the flashlight beam around the room. Gleaming in the light, a figurine of a dog caught his eye. He reached out with a shaking hand and picked it up.

Looking at Carlo, he said, “You polished it?”

“Si. It is beautiful.”

He passed it to Sarah. It was very heavy for its size. She was no expert either, but she would bet anything that it was ebony wood. Pietro held up the flashlight and she placed the statue in the beam. The dog also wore a collar, exactly the same as the one on the ivory cat. Her hands shook as she squinted at the tiny medallion on the collar. Clearly, a capital T was also engraved on it.

The little group climbed slowly back up to the pergola in silence. No one was game to voice their ideas, but each secretly knew that they all thought the same.

When they sat down at the table again, Pietro placed the two figurines side by side. The black dog was skinny, its ribs showing. It looked to Sarah like a greyhound, spindly of leg and lean, with a long slender snout.

Pietro looked up at them all. “I will have to get the antiquity experts to examine these. You need to be prepared for them to confiscate these objects, if they are what I think they are. Even though Nonna found these a long time ago—most likely ninety years ago—they still belong to the people. I think she must have found them up at Villa Jovis. I think they belonged to Tiberius.” His voice saddened as he added. “She treasured these objects above anything else. A little girl who endured a hard life and had no comforts, nothing of value, and unfortunately we have to hand them in.”

The group, more subdued now, chatted on quietly for a little while longer and finished off the bottle of wine. Soon Carlo yawned, and so he, Teresa and Bruno made their way back home.

Pietro was deep in thought. It had been a big day for him, and he was still not fully over the effects of his dehydration. When Sarah also yawned, he turned to her.

“Come, bella, let’s go upstairs.” He picked up the two figurines and slipped them in his pocket. Resting on Sarah’s shoulders, together they made their way inside and up the stairs to bed.

Chapter Fourteen

“What are you planning for today, bella?” Pietro lay on his side, his elbow on the pillow and his head propped up on his hand. He looked at her with his dark, smoldering eyes. They were both relaxed after several hours of love making. Sarah felt that she would be completely happy staying right where she was. She knew it sounded corny, but she felt as though she was floating on air, so in love with Pietro was she. She loved everything about him—his gentle nature, his kindness, and his ability to make her laugh.

She put out a finger and traced it down the side of his unshaven cheek.

“I really need to visit my friend Felicity French today. It seems as though it’s been ages since I did any writing. What about you?”

He let out a small sigh. “Much as I don’t want to, I feel I should take Nonna’s figurines to the Museum for examination.”

They had been putting this off. Each day that had passed since that night with Teresa and Carlo, Pietro had found other important things he must do. But with each day, his knee healed, and although he wasn’t capable of running a marathon, he at least didn’t need the crutches anymore. His grazes had healed although the scars would remain for some time. Sarah looked at the palms of her hands, which had lost a lot of skin in her ordeal in the tunnel and in scurrying over the rocks of Grotta Bianca. They were rough, but nothing some good moisturizer wouldn’t fix.

“Would you like me to come with you?”

He rolled out of bed and stood there, the sight of his naked body causing her insides to stir. His muscular shoulders, broad and strong, led down to his tautly sculpted chest, covered in short black hairs. Sarah feasted on his tapered waist and the manly flanks on either side of his flat stomach. His long, lean, and well-muscled legs turned as he walked toward the bathroom.
No wonder the ancient sculptors chose Italian men as the models for their works. He is my Adonis!

“Have you finished flirting with my body yet?”

She blushed as she glanced up at his face, his eyebrows risen and an amused smile on his face. His spontaneous laughter filled the room. She looked down and saw that she just might be in for some more loving before she revisited Felicity French.

He pulled back the sheets, revealing her nakedness, and pounced on the bed, smothering her with kisses and romantic, Italian, terms of endearment.