their own. No craftsman alive could do those mouldings. There’s even a romantic story behind it. Years ago, before the war with Austria, my grandfather met his future wife up here during a summer outing. There was nothing here then but the ruins of an old watchtower. Later he bought the land and had the ruins turned into this place as a present for their silver wedding anniversary. Look, this wall is original, over three metres thick! Pity you can’t see the view. The Tiber’s just down there, and on the other side the hills stretching away towards Gubbio. Better than any painting in the world in my opinion. Silvio, how are you?’
As they passed down a long hallway Zen had a confused impression of old furniture, elaborate paintwork in poor condition, of musty smells and cold, immobile air. Crepi opened one of the three sets of double doors opening off an anteroom at the end of the corridor and ushered his guests through into a large sitting room with a high frescoed ceiling. As they entered, a woman of about thirty moved quickly forward, her hand held out to Zen. She had a skiing tan and long honey-blonde hair and was wearing tawny leather slacks, a hazel-brown silk blouse and masses of gold everywhere.
‘Cinzia Miletti, dottore, pleased to meet you, so glad you could come. Wonderful, really. We’re counting on you, you know, please tell us there’s hope. I’m sure there is, I don’t know why but something tells me that father will be all right. Are you religious? I wish I was. And yet sometimes I feel I am. I don’t go to church, of course, but that’s not what religion is really about, is it? Sometimes I think I’m more religious than all the priests and nuns in Assisi. I have these tremendous feelings.’
Crepi broke in to introduce the other person in the room. Gianluigi Santucci, Cinzia’s husband, was a wiry little man in his late thirties, with carefully sculpted, thick black hair, a neat moustache and something almost canine about his sharp, wary features. Zen sensed hostility in the brief glance and minimal nod with which he acknowledged his greeting without budging from where he stood in front of the log fire. Then Cinzia swept him away again.
‘Where are you from? You’re not Roman, are you? I can’t stand Romans, arrogant, pushy people, think they still rule the world. Of course we have masses of friends in Rome. But your name, it reminds me of that book I keep meaning to read, a classic, by what’s-his-name, about the man who’s trying to give up smoking. Do you smoke? I really should stop, but I’ve been to the doctor and he told me to take pills which I simply refuse to do, it’s worse than smoking. You read these horror stories in the magazines, years later your children are born deformed, though there’s nothing wrong with my two, thank God. Have you got any children? But where are you from? No, let me guess. Sicily? Yes, you’ve got Norman blood, I can sense it. Am I right?’
‘Not quite, my dear,’ Crepi put in with heavy irony, and corrected her.
‘Venice? Well, it’s the same thing, an island.’
Just then a tall, plain woman came in from the hallway, closing the door quietly behind her. She was about forty years old, with medium-length mousy-brown hair tied up in a bun, and was dressed in a trouser-suit made from some synthetic material which reminded Zen of beach fashions at the Lido back in the fifties. It was meant to look stylish, but somehow succeeded in being both brash and drab at the same time. No one took the slightest notice of the newcomer. Gianluigi Santucci was saying something to Crepi in an intense whisper, while his wife wandered distractedly about asking everyone if they had seen her handbag and discussing how much easier life would be if handbags didn’t exist but how could you survive without them although of course her friend Stefania had given up using hers completely, just thrown it away one day, and she still managed so perhaps it was possible,
As they passed down a long hallway Zen had a confused impression of old furniture, elaborate paintwork in poor condition, of musty smells and cold, immobile air. Crepi opened one of the three sets of double doors opening off an anteroom at the end of the corridor and ushered his guests through into a large sitting room with a high frescoed ceiling. As they entered, a woman of about thirty moved quickly forward, her hand held out to Zen. She had a skiing tan and long honey-blonde hair and was wearing tawny leather slacks, a hazel-brown silk blouse and masses of gold everywhere.
‘Cinzia Miletti, dottore, pleased to meet you, so glad you could come. Wonderful, really. We’re counting on you, you know, please tell us there’s hope. I’m sure there is, I don’t know why but something tells me that father will be all right. Are you religious? I wish I was. And yet sometimes I feel I am. I don’t go to church, of course, but that’s not what religion is really about, is it? Sometimes I think I’m more religious than all the priests and nuns in Assisi. I have these tremendous feelings.’
Crepi broke in to introduce the other person in the room. Gianluigi Santucci, Cinzia’s husband, was a wiry little man in his late thirties, with carefully sculpted, thick black hair, a neat moustache and something almost canine about his sharp, wary features. Zen sensed hostility in the brief glance and minimal nod with which he acknowledged his greeting without budging from where he stood in front of the log fire. Then Cinzia swept him away again.
‘Where are you from? You’re not Roman, are you? I can’t stand Romans, arrogant, pushy people, think they still rule the world. Of course we have masses of friends in Rome. But your name, it reminds me of that book I keep meaning to read, a classic, by what’s-his-name, about the man who’s trying to give up smoking. Do you smoke? I really should stop, but I’ve been to the doctor and he told me to take pills which I simply refuse to do, it’s worse than smoking. You read these horror stories in the magazines, years later your children are born deformed, though there’s nothing wrong with my two, thank God. Have you got any children? But where are you from? No, let me guess. Sicily? Yes, you’ve got Norman blood, I can sense it. Am I right?’
‘Not quite, my dear,’ Crepi put in with heavy irony, and corrected her.
‘Venice? Well, it’s the same thing, an island.’
Just then a tall, plain woman came in from the hallway, closing the door quietly behind her. She was about forty years old, with medium-length mousy-brown hair tied up in a bun, and was dressed in a trouser-suit made from some synthetic material which reminded Zen of beach fashions at the Lido back in the fifties. It was meant to look stylish, but somehow succeeded in being both brash and drab at the same time. No one took the slightest notice of the newcomer. Gianluigi Santucci was saying something to Crepi in an intense whisper, while his wife wandered distractedly about asking everyone if they had seen her handbag and discussing how much easier life would be if handbags didn’t exist but how could you survive without them although of course her friend Stefania had given up using hers completely, just thrown it away one day, and she still managed so perhaps it was possible,
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