Apricot Kisses (8 page)

“That’s not a fair deal.”

“We are in Italy, Signora Philipp. Italian business deals are seldom fair, but they’re useful. Shake on it or don’t. I’ve got nothing to lose. But you do.”

“I’ll stay for one week—max.”

“Two—at least. But that’s enough for now. You look as if you could use some dinner.”

With shaking knees but head held high, I follow Fabrizio downstairs. I’m an adult. Nobody can keep me from leaving the urn on the next chest of drawers and escaping this “Italian deal” right now. I’d lose my job, but my pride would be intact. But my hand sticks to the railing as if it belongs there—who knows why. When we pass the door to my room, I take a deep breath, slip in, set the urn on the chair, and come out again. My chance to flee is gone. We continue down the stairs. Shoot.

Claire, in my head, laughs at me.
“Two weeks of kitchen duty—so what? It won’t kill you, although you might break a few fingernails.”
I roll my eyes, but before I can attack her with an imaginary reply, Fabrizio stops and steps aside. I feel his hand on my back and smell tangy aftershave. Then warm smells waft toward me. I almost fall into the kitchen when my high heel catches on the high threshold.

“There she is. Come here, girl. Sit on the bench.” A round, red-faced woman in an apron takes my arm and directs me to sit on the bench at the window. Even though I resent the uninvited touch as much as I resent that she uses the familiar Italian way to address me, I plop down without resistance next to a pile of dime novels. It gives me a chance to look around surreptitiously. Judging by the soot on the ceiling and the smell of fire, we are in the main building and it’s at least a hundred years old. Claire would be in seventh heaven here—just looking at the mosaic tiles and coal-burning stove of this picture-book kitchen would make a style-section photographer swoon.

“She looks like a boiled crab,” says the old man at the head of the table. He doesn’t take his eyes from the small television set, which is competing valiantly with the radio. Embarrassed, I touch my burning cheeks. People can always tell when I’m worked up.

“What a pretty house,” I say politely. I notice a basket of fruit and vegetables on the counter. Unexpected, like the herbs in flowerpots on the windowsill.

“Old and about to collapse,” the fat woman mumbles. She is stirring the contents of a huge pot. Without turning away from the TV, the old man shovels sugar into his coffee. He is the epitome of an Italian grandfather: slight of build, with drooping cheeks that would make a bloodhound proud. His sparse hair sticks to his skull as if he’d just taken off a hat.

“Alberto!
Non zucchero!
” A chubby woman hurries over, scolding. All I see at first are flying curls and strong eyebrows. Standing on tiptoes to reach the cupboard, she takes out a new cup and a packet of artificial sweetener. Then she gently wrests the first cup out of the old man’s gouty hands. Alberto clicks his tongue as she sets the sugar container out of his reach. Only then does the woman look up, beaming at me.

“Forgive my impoliteness,” she says, “but if one isn’t fast enough, people around here send themselves to early deaths. And Rosa-Maria can’t have her eyes everywhere, damn it.”

At the stove, Rosa-Maria hisses, shakes her head, and crosses herself. Paying no attention to her, the young woman offers me her hand, which is rough but well groomed—with a perfect French manicure, like Claire’s. “I’m Lucia Camini, married to the clan.” She wiggles her gold-ringed finger with a grin. “When I realized what I’d gotten myself into, it was unfortunately too late.”

“My name’s Hanna.” I take her hand slowly—it looks like a doll’s hand in mine. Lucia’s smile is infectious. It’s soft and airy, like a silk scarf. I like her immediately.

“Her name’s Hanna Philipp, to be precise.” Fabrizio Camini, leaning against the door, looks at me with half-shut eyes. My throat feels dry.

“Hanna Philipp?” Lucia frowns. “Isn’t that a German name?”

“Very common in Berlin.” Fabrizio studies his nails. He wants to embarrass me, the bastard.

“But I thought you were our new kitchen help—and Italian.” Lucia gives me a questioning look.

“And I am,” I say firmly, determined not to be intimidated. “I am both—your new kitchen help and Italian, at least part-Italian. My mother is from this area, but she’s lived in Germany for almost thirty years.”

“Oh, and now you want to find your roots by working in our beautiful
Toscana
. How exciting!” Lucia says. My laugh sounds a bit faked, but she accepts the explanation, and Fabrizio seems to lose interest in annoying me further. I gratefully accept a glass of wine from Lucia as Fabrizio rolls up his shirtsleeves.

“Where’s Marco hiding out?” he says. He drops a clump of golden dough onto a floured countertop. I’m about to answer by asking, “Who is Marco?” when I realize that he’s talking to Lucia, who’s now setting the table. I get up to help her.

“Marco isn’t feeling well and he doesn’t want to eat anything. Don’t get up, Hanna. You’re our guest tonight.”

Fabrizio frowns. “That’s strange. I thought he had every reason to be in a good mood.” His sarcasm is unmistakable, and my reporter’s ear perks up. A plate slides out of Lucia’s hands and crashes on the table. Alberto giggles, probably something funny in his TV show, and the moment is over so fast that I decide I just imagined the tension between Fabrizio and Lucia. They are an interesting pair.

But I don’t have time to speculate about who this seemingly moody Marco might be—presumably a teenager sulking in his room. I watch Fabrizio handle the pasta machine, fascinated by the way he rolls out the dough and then slides the fresh tagliatelle into boiling water. His movements are as smooth as if he does this every day, all day. I take a sip of red wine and stop in surprise. The wine is excellent, full and velvety with a touch of . . . apricots?

Lucia, finished with the table, sits down next to me and looks at me expectantly. “Tell me about your family here in Tuscany.”

For a moment I consider lying. I peek at Fabrizio, who has stopped turning the pasta machine and is looking at me as inquisitively as Lucia is. I swirl my wine to gain time, noting the oily streaks—a sign of high alcohol content—left on the glass.

But Claire always tells me that I’m a miserable liar—and she’s right. My situation is tricky enough. No need to complicate it more by making up stories that would quickly give me away. On the other hand, should I share with strangers that my mother almost throws up when she hears the word “Italy”?

“To be honest, I don’t really know anything about my mother’s family. I was born in Berlin and grew up there.”

“But then you have to find them!” Lucia looks at me like I’m the heroine in a Hollywood drama. Even Alberto peels his watery eyes away from the screen, where a sparsely clad blonde is fishing bingo numbers out of a glass bowl.

“She has a pretty nose,” he says hoarsely and blows his own nose into his napkin. I’m confused. He can’t be talking about my nose, which is too long for my narrow face and has an ugly bump in the middle. As a teenager I pestered my parents about getting a nose job—maybe just to hurt my mom’s feelings, since I inherited it from her—but eventually made my peace with it. Alberto returns to his bingo blondie, offering no explanation. Lucia looks at me compassionately and then continues her inquisition.

“So what do you do in Berlin?”

My face heats up when I realize that my next answer will cost me the sympathy of everyone in this house, assuming all of them know about the article. I glance at Fabrizio for help, but he is pointedly busy with the noodles. Why should I expect him to help? I shoot up a brief prayer and stammer, “Well, actually I’m . . . I mean, I’m not . . .”

“Don’t be sad,” Rosa-Maria interrupts me. “Lady Prudence has exactly the same problem as you.” She sits down on my other side and points seriously to the dime-novel installment on top of the pile. The cover shows a curly-haired vixen, her frilly blouse sliding down too far, leaning toward a hulk in a Scottish kilt. “The poor girl has been searching for her family for years, and nobody knows that she’s actually the heiress of Duffleton—even though Hugh MacKay has seen the birthmark on her left buttock.”

Lady who? I look from the tasteless cover to the cook’s enraptured expression. Then it clicks, and I almost can’t hold back an explosion of laughter. Fortunately, Fabrizio speaks up.

“Spare us your pulp-fiction heroes, Rosa-Maria.” He points to the pot of pasta. Rosa-Maria blushes like a schoolgirl and pushes Lady Prudence and the lusty highlander under the seat cushion. “Call Paolo. The pasta is almost ready.”

I read once that the first lie is the mother of all those that follow. There’s truth in this. While Lucia bombards me with questions for the next hour, I begin to understand what it’s like to be on the other end of my interviews. Three glasses of red wine make it easier to heap lie upon lie, but harder to keep them straight.

“What village does your mother come from?”

“Montetresino.” I hope that such a village doesn’t actually exist.

“Never heard of it. Did you try to get information from the registration office?”

“Of course. But you know how it is with Italian bureaucracy . . .”

“You could also post an ad in
La Nazione
,” Lucia says.

“I did, but it didn’t get me anywhere, unfortunately.”

“And your mother has no pictures or other documents from before? That’s strange.”

It’s true. I don’t know how many times I turned our apartment upside down while she was away at the women’s shelter playing Mother Teresa. Yet I never found a single damn photo. It was as if her life had begun with my birth—or she’d destroyed all records with a fire ritual in the sink when she’d decided to break with her past.

“Unfortunately,” I continue shamelessly, “there was a fire at our apartment building. Everything was destroyed.”

Lucia covers her mouth with her hands. “How awful!”

“Yes, it was horrible.”

“Doesn’t your mother at least remember an address in this Montetresino, or acquaintances, friends, maybe neighbors?”

I shake my head. “She has partial amnesia.” Seeing Claire’s stunned expression in my mind, I barely manage to suppress a grin. “Because of the fire.”

Lucia shakes her head and Rosa-Maria moans. Alberto and Paolo, Rosa-Maria’s husband, eyeball me silently.

“Her mother lost her memory,” Lucia explains, whereupon Alberto and Paolo nod and continue chewing. There you go—Claire can’t call me a bad liar anymore. Fortunately Lucia doesn’t ask any more questions about my mother’s amnesia. “Tell me, are you married, Hanna?”

“Good god, Lucia,” Fabrizio says tersely. “Give the signora a moment to eat. She’ll be here for a while—you’ll have plenty of time to drill her with questions.” Now I notice that he looks not only irritable but exhausted, too.

“We all know that you don’t give a damn about the people around you,” Lucia shoots back.

“I do care about others. But that doesn’t mean I have to worm every minute detail of their lives out of them.”

“So tell me, what’s Rosa-Maria’s favorite color?” Lucia’s eyes flash and she clenches her hands into doll-size fists. “What is Paolo’s favorite drink? Alba’s major? My mother’s first name? All you care about are your damn apricots.”

Fabrizio grimaces. “If you look at it that way, then you’re right. You’re not a nosy goat—you’re just interested in people. And I’m ignorant because I’m trying to make a living for all of us. Am I allowed to finish my dinner now?”

“In this house everyone works to make a living for all of us—without exception.” Lucia snorts. She really does resemble a stubborn little she-goat. I suddenly almost feel sorry for Fabrizio.

“Don’t worry. I really don’t mind the questions.” But my cautious attempt to arbitrate goes nowhere. Lucia mumbles something and Fabrizio lowers his head. He presses his thumbs and index fingers against his temples.

“It’s high time you produced something that would keep you busy with crying and diapers,” he says in a low voice. It’s not low enough, and Lucia’s face darkens. Her muttering stops. I stare at Fabrizio in disbelief.

“That was really mean,” I blurt. Fabrizio’s eyes narrow.

“It’s none of your business, Signora Philipp. It’s a family matter. Besides, Lucia started it.”

“No, it’s not just a family matter,” I say. “It’s a matter of attitude—your attitude toward women, Signor Camini, which should be knocked out of you with a rolling pin.”

Fabrizio looks irritated. “I don’t have any—”

“Let it be, Hanna. Fabrizio didn’t mean it that way.”

I glance at Lucia in surprise. She’s defending him? I draw a sharp breath. “I think he meant exactly what he said. And I think he owes you an apology.”

“Considering that you’ve only been here for two hours,” Fabrizio says, “you’re walking on pretty thin ice. But there’s more Italian in you than one would suspect at first glance.” The corners of his mouth twitch, which makes me even angrier.

“Stop being so condescending,” I say, and then bid my job good-bye. It would have been so nice—but I guess I don’t have to worry anymore how I’ll survive two weeks of kitchen duty.

Instead of firing me, though, Fabrizio starts to laugh as if I’ve told a good joke.

Rosa-Maria rumbles. “Peace and quiet at the table! Nonna would be ashamed if she saw how you’re attacking each other.” Embarrassed, I study my hands. Maybe I was a little too aggressive.

“Nonna is dead,” Fabrizio says coldly. “She’s not going to slap our wrists.”

Now everyone’s eyes are on the plates while Fabrizio’s anger rolls through the deadly silent kitchen like an oversized soap bubble.

Alberto claps his hands and I start. “Rosa-Maria, put the rabbit on the table before it runs away from these quarreling children. I’m hungry.”

Now I’m more than confused. This family personifies every single Italian cliché, but it’s strange, too. While I plan the best way to escape into the toilet and from there to the rainy nowhere outside, Rosa-Maria clears the pasta plates from the table and with them all the arguments. Suddenly everyone’s chatting and gesturing wildly. Fabrizio and Lucia are nudging each other and smiling as if they hadn’t bickered at all. Used to hour-long reconciliation talks, I almost feel betrayed. I’d never have dared end a discussion with Professor Günther Philipp with a curt “I’m hungry.”