Kidnapped and a Daring Escape (20 page)

    
"Yes, very much so. I admire his carpentry skills. He makes the most
wonderful pieces of furniture. I’m though closer to my mother. She was
the one who pushed me into going to university. She has a frighteningly
logical mind and spots every flaw in an argument, but also has a
wonderful sense of humor. And you?"

    
"I’m my father’s spoiled girl, I guess, although he didn’t see much
sense in me studying art. I think he didn’t see much sense in me or my
sister going to university in the first place. In his view, women are
supposed to get married, have children and be good wives. I got into
archaeology only after I met Franco."

    
"How old is your sister?"

    
"She’s two years younger than me."

    
"And you are …"

    
"Twenty-three soon."

    
"Is your sister as much fun as you? If she is, I may want to try my
chances with her."

    
"Oh, she’s the rebel of the family. I’ve a picture of her in … Oh, no,
they took it. It was in my purse," she wails. "They took everything, my
passport, my credit card. How can I get home without the passport?"

    
"Don’t worry, the Italian Embassy will provide you with new travel
documents. Any grandparents still alive?"

    
"Yes, on both sides. I’m particularly close to the grandparents on my
mother’s side. They had a house near us when we still lived in Rome
itself and as a child I went to see them after school almost every day.
Both loved playing games and making puzzles."

    
"Interesting, so we have one thing in common. My mother also loves
doing puzzles, and my father has several old-fashioned ones cut from real
plywood, handed down from his parents."

    
"Since highschool I’ve only seen them two or three times a year. They
moved to Elba. I though try to visit them there each year for two or three
weeks during the off-season. The island is overrun with tourists from
June to September."

* * *

They resume walking, striking out straight west over hilly pasture land,
here and there broken up by small gullies and streams. Surprisingly, they
see no grazing animals. It is a constant up and down, from one low ridge
or rise to the next. On each ridge, André scans the terrain ahead of them
for the best passage, as well as the area behind to check whether they are
being pursued. It is getting hot. The air over the dry grass in the distance
seems to quiver as it rises. Bianca wishes she had a hat. Maybe eight or
ten miles away is a low mountain range, with a few taller mountains
sticking out behind. André shows her that according to the map the road
they are hoping to reach should lie between these two ranges.

    
Although she tried to be cheerful earlier on their midmorning break,
as they walk her thoughts circle round and round on what happened this
morning at the lake. André’s insinuations against Franco and her reaction
of lashing out at him have shaken her confidence. Her whole being
revolts at the idea that Franco could have betrayed her. At times she feels
nauseated. There can be no truth to it. She doesn’t even want to contemplate that there could be. Her simmering anger against André for making
them boils up again, and she makes sure to stay mostly behind him. At
other times the calm, reasoned arguments he presented render her
uncertain. She thinks that by now she knows him well enough. He is not
the type to make such accusations without good cause, without having
evaluated all factors, the way he seems to weigh up everything he does.

    
But why would Franco want to have her kidnapped? She will inherit
half her parents wealth, and he will benefit from it, and from what she
heard, her share would be several times the amount of the ransom, even
if the ransom is set at four million euros. He wouldn’t even get all of that.
It just doesn’t make sense. "He loves me," she mouths silently. André’s
question on that comes back. Franco said these three words. Yes, once,
the first time you made love, more than a year ago, another voice inside
reminds her, never since then. He is an aristocrat, she tries to convince
herself, dignified, undemonstrative. Men like that do not bandy words
around willy-nilly. But what about that other question you stopped André
from asking, her alter ego insinuates? You went looking for him at
dinnertime. You knocked twice at his room door. And nobody had seen
him. He came more than half-an-hour late, apologizing that he had fallen
asleep. "Stop it, stop it," she tries to silence that voice. However, there
is no escaping. She recalls that her second knocking at his door was so
loud that Angela, a friend and fellow student who shared the room next
to his with Anna, opened the door thinking that the knocking was on their
door. And Franco always boasted that he was a light sleeper. But there
must be another explanation, she tries to convince herself. Franco will be
able to clear it all up, and everything will be fine. She desperately wants
to cling to that.

    
"Let’s have a lunch break." André’s voice is a welcome respite from
her turmoil.

    
The sun is at its zenith. They are on the banks of a creek. André puts
his pack down. Sitting on a rock, he retrieves the last of the chocolate bar
and figs. They eat in silence.

    
The water is clean, inviting. "Do you think it’s safe to drink this
water?" she questions.

    
"Yes, I think so. Anyway, we don’t really have much choice."

    
She steps across a few rocks to get closer to the stream. André’s call,
more like a sharp hiss, "Bianca, don’t move. Be absolutely still!" almost
makes her lose her balance. She freezes. At the very corner of her vision
she can just make out the rigidly raised body of a large snake, ready to
strike. Its forked tongue is testing the air. She breaks out in cold sweat.
Her whole body trembles. The urge to break and run becomes overwhelming. And then it is over. The head of the animal disintegrates
simultaneously with the dry report of the rifle shot shattering the silence.
Belatedly, she runs and collapses on the raised stream bank. André lifts
her up, and she puts her arms around his chest, shaking, glad to be able
to hold on to him, to feel the protection of his embrace.

    
"That was close," he murmurs. "Are you OK?"

    
She nods. Slowly, her shaking subsides. She melts into his arms, does
not want to let go of their safety.

    
"It was probably dumb to shoot it. Advertising our presence for miles
around. But I didn’t know how else to stop it from striking, although it
might never have for all I know." Then he chuckles and adds: "Look at
it from the bright side. We got to embrace each other." He holds her
closer.

    
There he goes again, seeing humor while I’m still shaken to death, she
muses.

    
"I love you," he whispers into her ear.

    
Yes, she believes him. She senses his heartbeat. He is swaying her
body slowly from side to side. She doesn’t want him to stop. When he
finally lets go, it feels as if he has abandoned her.

    
"Come, sit. I’ll get you some water."

    
He gets the cup from the pack and brings it to her full of the cool
liquid. She drinks, and suddenly tears roll down her cheeks. He sits next
to her, his right arm around her shoulder.

    
"Tell me why you cry?" He brushes the tears away with his left hand.

    
"You’re always so kind to me. You saved me from that snake, and I’m
always so mean to you."

    
"It’s all right, Bianca. It’s just the stress, the uncertainty, the constant
danger."

    
A half-sob, half-chuckle escapes her. "You see, now you even
apologize for me."

    
He strokes away the new tears, holding her gently to his chest. After
a while he murmurs: "But this isn’t really why you’re crying, is it?"

    
He’s right. He knows me so well. He’ll know what to do. "Franco only
came to dinner when we were almost finished."

    
"At around eight thirty?"

    
"How do you know?"

    
"The mystery man, as you labeled him so aptly, left the bar around
eight fifteen, and it takes fifteen minutes to walk from the Alcazar Bar to
the Cipriano."

    
"I looked for him shortly after seven. He wasn’t in his room."

    
"Where did he learn Spanish? I think the mystery man had a hint of a
Catalan accent."

    
"In Barcelona. He studied and worked there for several years in his
early twenties."

    
"So that fits too. I’m sorry, Bianca."

    
"But we don’t know for sure."

    
"No, we don’t."

    
"We have no motive." She doesn’t know why she brings that up. It is
as if deep down part of her still wants to believe in his innocence, and she
needs to cling to anything that supports that.

    
"Financial troubles the most likely reason. Didn’t you say his family
owns a castle near Lago di Bolsena? … That can bankrupt even a rich
family."

    
"He mentioned once that it needed renovations badly. But the dowry
papà promised would have gone a long way toward it and I’m sure papà
would have given him a loan on favorable terms."

    
"Have you considered the other possibility that …" he stops abruptly.
"No, forget it."

    
"André say it."

    
"No, it will only hurt you more."

    
"Please." She needs to know, but braces herself for another blow to
her self-esteem.

    
"Maybe he wants the money, but not you. Maybe there is already
another woman."

    
No, she cries silently, as a new wave of despair threatens to drown her,
and then, as if somebody had thrown her a lifeline, her heart lightens. She
sees the flaw in his argument. "No, that argument doesn’t make sense. It
can’t be that. I would return after the ransom is paid. I would still be his
fiancée. He would not be rid of me." She feels triumphant. "It cannot be
Franco."

    
André again has that somber look that she has learned to dread.

    
"There is one further point I hoped I would never have to disclose to
you." He pauses. All at once she finds it hard to breathe. "The mystery
man told ‘
le trapu
’ that they had to keep you alive until the ransom was
paid — for obvious reasons, and when ‘
le trapu
’ asked: ‘And after that?’,
the mystery man replied: ‘Use her or make her disappear. How, I leave
that up to you.’ And then he laughed, an ugly laugh."

    
A bout of nausea grips her. She wretches. André forcefully slaps her
back, saying: "Hold it, Bianca, hold it. You cannot afford to vomit. You
need your strength."

    
She swallows dry several times.

    
"Come." He pulls her up. "Let’s walk around a bit … Breathe deeply
… Yes, that’s good. Just continue breathing deeply."

    
One arm supporting her at the waist, the other hand holding one of
hers, he leads her around in a circle. Slowly, the nausea subsides.

    
"Are you OK again?"

    
She nods. It seems as if her whole world has suddenly caved in,
leaving her feeling numb.

    
"Up to marching on again?"

    
They resume their traverse across the pastures, seeking the shade
under the canopy of trees wherever possible. She follows behind him,
lethargic, forcing her legs forward one step at a time. She feels empty,
bereft as if she lost a loved one, her mind constantly screaming ‘why?
why?’ She notices that André periodically looks back to her, concerned.
Twice he says: "Courage, Bianca, courage."

    
By sundown, they cross over a low pass into a north-facing valley and
shortly afterward, André sets up camp under the canopy of a copse of
trees near a small river.