Interesting name. There had been a famous Sibyl who lived in a cave on the coast near the Greek colony of Cuma in the fifth century BC, one of Apollo’s prophetesses. Now what was the story about her? I’d have to look in the history book I’d brought along. However, while I was gathering clothes for the evening, I remembered. She had offered nine books of prophesy to the Roman King Tarquinius for a very high price, and he, not being a worshipper of Apollo, had refused, whereupon she burned three of the books and offered the six remaining for the same price. Eventually, with just three books left, while six had disappeared into the fire and her price remained the same, the king was so impressed that he purchased what was left of the set and took it home to Rome for consultation in time of need. What else could he do in the face of a woman so sure of herself? I wondered if Hank’s Sibyl had such a determined character.
But twenty minutes? With so little time, I couldn’t stop to speculate as I struggled into pantyhose—horrible invention—yanked a cocktail dress over my head and zipped myself into it, combed my hair and added jewelry, and dumped a few items from my shoulder bag into a silver evening clutch. Evening bags are so impractical. One’s lucky to get a room key, a Kleenex, a lipstick, a credit card, and a bit of money into an evening bag. What do women do who wear glasses? Given my age—forty plus—I might have to wear glasses myself someday.
At the knock on my door, I sallied forth to meet Hank, who complimented me on my teal dress with its silver cording. I thought it was rather nice myself. I had a pretty matching hair clip to hold my hair—blonde—and a matching necklace and earrings. I had bought them in Barcelona the last day there. Jason, my frugal husband, had thought the Gaudi silver earrings I purchased before his arrival were quite enough in the jewelry department for one trip—and this was the first chance I’d had to wear them since I’d found the dress to match—in an El Paso boutique, of all places. The earrings were a little heavy, which brought to mind an image of my earlobes sagging like a dachshund’s in my golden years. I’d seen women like that. What could they do? Have their ears trimmed? Perhaps there was a plastic surgery specialty for women with elongated earlobes. I’d heard of an eyelid ophthalmology specialty.
“What’s so funny?” Hank asked as we got on the elevator. I told him.
When we got to the desk to ask where the cocktail party would be held, the clerk said, in reasonable English, “I know the voice. The pornography signora. No?”
I was horribly embarrassed and said, “I beg your pardon?” in a huffy tone.
“No rule you must watch sexy films,” she assured me. “I go find where is party.” She tripped off, Hank looked to me for an explanation, and I said, “Don’t ask.” So we stood silently and eavesdropped on an English couple at the next registration spot, the man and woman both in tweeds, both somewhat frizzy-haired, although his was disappearing and hers was a strange taupe shade. He had spectacles sliding down his nose, and she was carrying a plant, roots dangling with dirt still clinging to them. Horticulturists? He probably had potting soil in his pockets, which bulged and sagged with the weight.
Dottore and Signora Stackpole, as the desk clerk called them—could they be members of the conference? —were asking questions: Was the bathtub at the end of the hall or in their room? Would they need coins for the water heater? Could soft-boiled eggs and toast fingers be had from the breakfast buffet? What kind of tea did the hotel serve? Not made with tea bags, surely? Could the clerk name the flowers growing outside the entrance, and would they grow in England? Where was this cocktail party mentioned in the chemistry conference brochure?
At this point Hank interrupted to introduce himself and me, and the concierge interrupted to tell us all that the cocktail party would be starting momentarily in the Victor Emmanuel room.
“I can’t even think of cocktails, Francis,” protested the Englishwoman. “I need to pot this—whatever it is. What is it, young lady?” The desk clerk didn’t know and wasn’t sure patrons could bring uprooted plants into the hotel. “What I need is a good cup of tea and a lie down,” Mrs. Stackpole continued over the clerk’s remarks.
Ignoring his wife, Francis Stackpole introduced himself and declared that he could use a nip of something stronger than tea. “Lead on, young fellow,” he said to Hank. Then the professor from England waved over a bellman and ordered him to take Mrs. Stackpole and the bags to their room. “Come down when you feel fit, old girl,” he said to his wife, and looked expectantly at Hank and me, as if we might have a “nip of something stronger than tea” on us.
Before we could take Professor Stackpole to the party, and while Eliza Stackpole was instructing the bellman as to the exact placement of their luggage on the trolley, the Massonis stepped off the elevator, both children in tow. Bianca spotted me and led her family in our direction. More introductions followed, but not before Bianca assumed that Hank was my husband and had to be told that he was the husband of Professor Sibyl Evers of Rutgers, who had been stranded in Paris with my husband, Jason Blue. The Massonis looked very interested to hear this, causing me to think they might have misinterpreted the information.
“Of course we have no idea whether they saw each other,” I hastened to add. “I mean whether they happened across each other—in the airport, that is.” I could feel my cheeks turn pink. “Or even if they’re coming in on the same plane.”
Lorenzo Massoni gave me such a sweet, sympathetic smile that I felt like hitting him. He probably thought I was some pitiful, cuckolded wife.
Although it’s husbands who are cuckolded, not wives
, I reminded myself.
What are wives when their husbands are running around on them? Besides angry?
I couldn’t think of a word.
Not that my husband even knows Professor Evers. What are the chances of that?
“There’s a dead lady in the swimming pool,” said Andrea in his excellent English. “Murdered. That’s what Mama thinks.”
“Aren’t you a darling little curly-haired tyke?” said Eliza Stackpole, patting Andrea on the head. “And with such good English.” Then she turned to her husband and said, “Francis, I think we should turn straight around and go back to Oxford.” She had turned pale at the thought of a dead lady in the hotel swimming pool.
“Nonsense,” said the professor from England.
“She’s not still
in
the pool,” Bianca explained to her son. “Of course she isn’t. Don’t cry, Giulia. The lady’s body has been taken away, dear, and her soul’s gone up to God.”
“I’ll bet her body was all puckered,” said Andrea with relish, “and the police will cut her up to see how she died.”
Giulia began to cry, which was probably her brother’s intent. Bianca said, “Where in the world is your mother, Lorenzo? She’s supposed to be taking care of the children.”
“I have no idea, my love,” he replied. Then to me, “I know your husband’s research and look forward to meeting him, Signora Blue. And now, why don’t we look for that welcome party we’ve been invited to?”
“Maybe I
will
come along to the party,” murmured Eliza Stackpole. “Bodies in the swimming pool? How dreadful! You, fellow, take those bags up to our room. I’m certainly not staying there by myself in a hotel that has dead bodies scattered about. The poor woman was probably drowned by the Mafia.”
The Mafia? That was a scenario I hadn’t considered. Our hosts were Sicilians, and Paolina, when we stopped yesterday to watch a wedding party entering a church, said it was undoubtedly a Mafia wedding; she could tell by the tuxedoed men with hard faces who were keeping the crowd from coming too close. On the other hand, it had been a chance remark, and she had nothing to do with the meeting and the hosts from Catania.
“You saw the dead lady in the swimming pool, didn’t you?” Andrea had edged up beside me and was staring at me with great interest. “Mama said you pulled her out.”
Now the Stackpoles were staring at me. Jason was sure to hear about and disapprove of my brief association with the deceased. If he ever arrived.
7
A French Encounter
“What’s a tyke
, Mama?” my sweet Andrea asked.
I couldn’t remember—if I’d ever known. “Something nice, I’m sure, sweetheart.” But I thought that it was probably something unkind. The English have always considered us either frivolous or dangerous. And Signora Stackpole thought the Mafia must have killed Paolina? What nonsense. The Mafia doesn’t throw people into swimming pools. As for the English—they’ve been sending their pasty-faced sons and horse-faced daughters to Italy to be exposed to culture and to sow their wild—what’s the phrase?—Grasses?—for decades, centuries, and looking down their long noses at us. I used to hate having them on tours. They either ignored me and talked among themselves—“Look, Wycomb, that child has a dirty face.” As if their children never got smudged. Or they wanted to argue with me and pronounced all the historical and place names wrong. Or they said disapproving things about the church and the pope. No one has the right to do that but us Italians.
I liked the Americans much better. They were friendlier, and why wouldn’t they be? Half of Italy immigrated and bred the joy of life into them. Carolyn, for instance, was a pleasant woman, even if I did suspect her of murdering Paolina.
At that moment, I heard her say, “What a beautiful dog,” and when I looked around, a huge black poodle let out a loud woof and launched himself at her. Poor Carolyn landed on her bottom, looking dazed, while the dog licked her face.
My daughter, who loves dogs, cried, “Look at the doggie, Mama. He’s kissing Signora Blue.” Giulia headed their way to claim a “kiss” for herself, but I dragged her back.
“Charles de Gaulle, stop that,” ordered the woman who had circled us in the hall.
“Thank you,” said Carolyn to the French woman as the dog obediently backed off.
While Carolyn searched her little silver purse for a Kleenex to wipe the dog drool from her face, the French woman said in English—her accent wasn’t half as good as mine, “My apologies, Madame. I don’t know what possessed Charles. His manners are usually impeccable.” Then she scolded the dog so sternly in French that he hung his head while swiveling his eyes toward Carolyn.
“I believe our Charles has fallen in love,” said the French husband. “You must forgive his clumsy zeal. He was trying to kiss you, Madame, as the little Italian girl said, but perhaps you do not understand Italian.”
The French couple was very well dressed, I’ll say that for them, but I hadn’t missed that covert insult about language. The French are as disapproving as the English, maybe more so. Poor Carolyn, covered with dog drool, and, God help us, that big lout of a poodle had bruised her cheek. I handed Giulia to Lorenzo, who was watching the scene with amusement, and went to help Carolyn up.
“Adrien, I see you and your wife managed to make it away from Lyon despite the strike,” said my husband.
I realized then that the Frenchies must be part of the conference. Something worse than the Stackpoles to look forward to. But no one could complain that I’d brought the children along, not when the French had their dog with them. Maybe the dog would attack our hostess, the very noble Constanza Ricci-Tassone, and the French would be asked to leave. Was that too much to hope for?
Such were my thoughts while Lorenzo introduced everyone and explained the missing husband and wife, who had been caught up in the French air-traffic controllers’ strike.
Madame Albertine Guillot evidently took amiss my husband’s good-natured teasing about the French propensity to call sudden, inconvenient strikes. She recalled for us the year when a new computer system had been installed in the railroad station in Rome, resulting in twenty percent of the trains failing to run at all, while others were listed for departure and arrival at the wrong times and on the wrong tracks.
“Has a new system of air traffic direction been installed in Paris then?” I asked innocently. “Is that why no one can get here from your capital?” She glared at me.
Professor Adrien Guillot, the French husband, said, “Well, strikes. I remember the labor strike in Rome when so many from all over Italy, wearing their red caps and carrying their red banners, prevented us from visiting the Golden Palace of Nero.”
“Not to mention the marathon runners bearing down on those of us trying to cross streets,” said Madame Guillot.
“Shall I mediate a truce between the French and the Italians?” asked Professor Stackpole, who had been scratching the ears of an ecstatic Charles de Gaulle. Stackpole’s wife had just returned from chasing the bellman into the elevator to give him her uprooted plant, which she wanted him to carry upstairs with the bags and put in a glass of water.
Finally we all set out for the cocktail party, Albertine Guillot and I with our high heels clicking on the tile floors, Carolyn limping slightly in unfashionable, flat-heeled shoes, although her dress was very pretty, especially for the clothing of an American, whose country is not known for its sense of fashion. Still, Americans are much more fashionable than the English. Mrs. Stackpole was still wearing her tweeds and walking shoes. She hadn’t bothered to change, although she may have come all the way from England in that outfit. I’m told that the English only bathe once a week. How dreadful, and wearing such unseasonably heavy clothes. Lorenzo and I take a bath together every night in our large, claw-footed tub. It was a wonder we didn’t have ten children by then instead of just two and eight-ninths.
Giulia managed to reach out and pat the behind of Charles de Gaulle, who growled.
“I must warn you that Charles does not like children,” said Madame Guillot, looking disdainfully over her shoulder.
“How French of him,” I muttered under my breath.
“Try to remember, my love, that we’re all one happy European Union now,” my husband whispered, his lovely blue eyes twinkling. Where did they come from? Perhaps an ancestress had been raped by a soldier in an army of a Holy Roman Emperor from Germany. Fortunately, the rape and its genetic consequences had failed to cast Germanic gloom over my husband’s happy and ardent disposition. I sincerely hoped that the late Paolina had been lucky enough to have lovers of Lorenzo’s temperament before her death.