The Savage Garden (15 page)

    "Adam . . ."

    Antonella appeared at the foot of the stone staircase. She was wearing a navy blue linen dress that hugged her slender figure. Approaching, she kissed him on both cheeks.

    "Nice hat."

    "All the rage this season, or didn't you know?"

    She smiled. "I'm surprised."

    "Me too. I wasn't sure I had the right place."

    She glanced around her. "Umberto thinks it's good for business. He says it's—how do you say?—enigmatic. The rest is not like this. Come, I'll show you. Do you have time?"

    "I'm not disturbing you?"

    She dismissed the question with a wag of the hand.

    Adam thanked the receptionist as he passed by. "Don't mention it, sir," she replied sweetly, keen to win favor with Antonella.

    She wasn't the only one.

    The cutters and seamstresses toiling in the run of rooms upstairs all greeted her warmly. It didn't surprise him that she was liked, but she seemed to command a respect way beyond her years. The reason became clear when she pushed open yet another door.

    "And this is where I work," she announced. "It's very messy."

    Two windows, half-shuttered against the sunlight, overlooked the courtyard. There was a desk, some low bookcases, as well as a large workbench that filled the center of the room. She was right. Every available surface was loaded with clutter: piles of sketches, samples of cloth and leather, pots of pens and brushes, empty cups and overflowing ashtrays.

    "I want to say it's not normally like this."

    The only remotely clear area was an architect's drawing board against the wall, and maybe only then because it offered an angled surface. There was a half-finished drawing taped to it, a color sketch of a leather handbag. It was quite unlike any other handbag Adam had ever seen.

    "It's our new thing. Umberto wants us to do accessories—bags, belts, scarves, maybe even shoes."

    The walls were papered with more sketches, dresses mostly. They had loose, flowing lines, and all were cut from the distinctive cloths that were clearly the hallmark of the company: bold geometric designs in vivid colors. They were the same dresses Adam had witnessed taking life next door.

    "Does Umberto do anything around here?" he asked.

    "Umberto is a genius. I am only his hands." There was no trace of false modesty in her words. "I would introduce you but he's not here now."

    "Out with the Americans?"

    "Ah, you've spoken to my grandmother. Then you will know that she does not approve of what I do."

    "Has she seen it for herself?"

    Antonella seemed amused by the idea. "She thinks all fashion is trivial, which of course it is. But she doesn't understand that it can also bring pleasure." She picked up some material from the workbench. "Here."

    Only when he took it from her did he realize it was a piece of suede, as soft as silk.

    "Imagine that against your skin," she said. "Imagine a skirt made of it."

    "That might be asking a bit too much."

    She laughed and took the suede from him. "When are you moving in—to the villa, I mean?"

    "She told you?"

    "Of course."

    "Tomorrow."

    "You don't have to."

    He hesitated. "You think it's a bad idea?"

    "I think I haven't seen my grandmother so alive for a long time. But it doesn't mean you have to, just because she asked. She can be very ...
prepotente."

    "Overbearing?"

    "I don't know the word, but it sounds right."

    "I want to," said Adam. "It's good for work, I'm near the garden, the library's right there. . . ."

    "And is this work?"

    She reached for his copy of
The Divine Comedy,
which he'd abandoned on the work bench.

    "No," he lied, "just never read it before."

    It was her idea that they sneak off for lunch. Beneath the trees in a small piazza around the corner, they shared a carafe of Chianti and a thick slab of
bistecca alla fiorentina
done with a light hand.

    The restaurant owner fussed around Antonella as if she were a long-lost daughter.

    Adam filled her in on Harry's predicament, which had brought him down into town at short notice.

    "When does he arrive?"

    "God knows. Maybe never. As soon as he gets his hands on the money, anything could happen."

    "But you want him to come or you would have told him not to."

    "I suppose," he said, surprised that it was so apparent to her.

    Her own brother, Edoardo, sounded like an altogether different character—levelheaded, responsible and reliable. "I don't know where he gets it, but he is proof that two negatives can make a positive."

    "And you?" asked Adam.

    "Me? Oh, I'm not easy."

    "What's your worst characteristic?" asked the Chianti.

    She thought on it. "My temper."

    "Really? I don't see it."

    "Pray you never do."

    Adam laughed.

    "So?" she asked. "Quid pro quo—your worst characteristic."

    "An uncompromising sense of justice. It gets me into all kinds of scrapes."

    "Very funny."

    "Jealousy."

    "Jealousy?"

    "Yes."

    "Of what?"

    "I don't know. Everything. Other people's success. My girlfriend's old boyfriends. It's very mean-spirited of me, I know." "You have a girlfriend?"

    There was a satisfying note of forced indifference in the question. It suggested that the answer mattered to her. He was glad to be able to say, "Not anymore."

    "What happened?"

    "I'm not quite sure."

    He tried his best to explain, though, raking over the dead embers of his relationship with Gloria.

    When he was done, Antonella said, "I don't like the sound of her."

    "I should hope not. I've painted the blackest picture I can."

    The couple at the next table turned and stared when she laughed.

    
Have you finished?

    It shall be our secret. I wouldn't want to worry anyone. I'll return this afternoon with something a little more... appropriate. Cheer up, Doctor. At Christmas your patient was at death's door, and now she's on her feet
.

    IT WAS ANTONELLA'S IDEA THAT ADAM KICK HIS HEELS for a couple of hours after their lunch. What with it being a Friday, she could break early from work and run him back to San Casciano. Piazzale Michelangelo was the designated pick-up point because it lay on her route out of town. The large, sweeping terrace sat on the hillside south of the river, offering a panoramic view over Florence, the terra-cotta roofscape breaking like a muddy sea around the towers, domes and spires.

    He headed straight there, the prospect of trudging the streets of the city center on a bellyful of raw meat and red wine not a particularly appealing one. Better to flee the heat and make for the higher ground, the tree-clad slopes. Besides, the Romanesque church of San Miniato al Monte was perched just above the piazzale, and it was one of the few places Professor Leonard had insisted he visit.

    It didn't disappoint. It was a small building, beautifully proportioned and elaborately decorated, with an unusual elevated choir.

    The interior was gloomy and pleasantly cool. He hovered close to a tour group of Americans, hitching a free ride. At a certain point, he allowed them to wander ahead. Something had caught his eye: a large zodiac set in the stone floor, like a giant clock face, the astrological signs of the twelve constellations made of inlaid white
_-
marble.

    He patrolled the circumference, wondering just what on earth it was doing here, this pagan symbolism in a Christian church. Did anyone know the answer? Had the guide passed over it because there
was
no explanation? The guide did mention the zodiac before leading her party from the church but offered no real illumination. Its presence there was open to speculation, she said. Adam found this strangely comforting. If its exact significance had gone missing over the centuries, then why shouldn't the same hold true for the memorial garden? Maybe he really was on to something. Maybe the book in his hand really did hold the key to some lost interpretation.

    He had found nothing new in Dante's words to suggest this was the case by the time Antonella showed up at the wheel of an extremely small car. She called it her "blue frog" and she said she loved it. This didn't square with the way she treated the little Fiat 600, hurling it around the corners, wrenching it up through the gears until it was screaming in protest.

    Crammed into the passenger seat, hurtling down a precipitous cobbled street, Adam found himself wishing he had opted to thumb a lift back to San Casciano. The city ceased abruptly, cobbles giving way to dirt and dust, stone walls to high, banked hedgerows. It was a narrow country lane. Very narrow. Must be one way. Had to be, given the speed they were traveling at.

    It wasn't. But it was nice to know the brakes worked.

    He asked Antonella to drop him off on the outskirts of San Casciano. It wasn't that he feared for the lives of the residents— although the thought had crossed his mind—he was more concerned that Antonella might sense something of what had gone on the night before if allowed to come face to face with Signora Fanelli. He was only delaying the inevitable. When Antonella suggested coming by the
pensione
in the morning and transporting his bags to Villa Docci, he could hardly refuse the offer.

    He found Signora Fanelli on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor of the trattoria. It was a position he recognized. She got to her feet, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, which didn't help.