Read Online Vipers by Maurizio de Giovanni, Antony Shugaar - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Maurizio de Giovanni, Antony Shugaar
Ads: Link
touched by that immense and desperate affection.
âOne last thing, Coppola: you said that youâve had a nickname, ever since you were a boy. What nickname?â
Giuseppe seemed incapable of answering for himself, and so it was his brother who stopped at the door and, half-turning to speak to Ricciardi, said:
âWeâre a family that has always relied on horses, Commissaâ. Everyone calls my brother Peppeâ a FrustaâJoey the Whip.â
XI
T he sudden rain caught Livia off guard. The night before sheâd asked her housekeeper to put out a light flower-patterned dress, the skirt and jacket a color that contrasted nicely with her hair, bobbed short as was the fashion; but now that the weather smacked more of autumn than spring, it struck her as totally inappropriate.
Not that she really felt much like going out at all, to tell the truth. Perhaps it would be better just to stay home and read a good book, to seek distraction without going in search of company or noise in a smoky café.
She walked past the mirror and looked at herself: the silk dressing gown wrapped around her ample breasts and shapely hips. The food was just too good in that city: she wasnât worried, at least not yet, but sheâd have to be careful; otherwise sheâd become fat and ugly, and sheâd no longer have any real chance.
Actually, she thought, running her hand through the hair whose cut she was still having a hard time getting used to, that was a fairly remote danger, at least to judge from the bouquets of flowers that arrived every day: men were as interested as they had always been in her. Married or single, soldiers or noblemen, government functionaries or Fascist
gerarchi
, men continued to proffer their chivalrous service to a woman who was certainly the most alluring of all the women who traveled in the best circles. But that mattered little to her. Very little.
Why are you here, Livia Lucani, widow of the tenor Vezzi? she asked herself as she looked into the mirror. Shouldnât you really be in Rome, the center of the world, cultivating important friendships and possibly landing a man of enormous prestige, to whom you can hitch your fortunes? Shouldnât you, like every other woman in your condition, be thinking about your future in these difficult times?
For that matter, the increasingly infrequent phone conversations with her girlfriends in the capital gave her a picture of things that struck her, from a distance, as intolerable. The race to get close to the new potentates, vulgar self-important individuals who shamelessly ventured into the realm of the ridiculous, was one that took no prisoners. To join the competition with dozens of silly geese to win her way into the bed of some drooling Fascist was certainly not the most appealing of prospects.
In that case, what is it you want? How do you picture your life, Livia Lucani, the widow Vezzi, in a few years, when your charms are no longer quite so commanding, when men stop hanging on your every single word?
She picked up a silver hairbrush and lazily began brushing her hair.
The answer to her question materialized in the image of a pair of green eyes, clear as glass, watching her feverishly from the shadows.
Ricciardi.
He was the reason sheâd come to this city; he was the objective she was aiming at, the goal she aimed to achieve, the summit she had to scale, the harbor at which she hoped to arrive.
She couldnât say why that manânot nearly as good-looking as so many others, less powerful, less wealthy than the men she could have had with a snap of her fingersâhad captured her heart. But the thought of him caused her stomach to twist in a way it never had before, and would certainly never again. And sheâd never be able to accept the idea that she couldnât have him.
The last few months hadnât been easy. Since Christmas he had been trying to avoid any situation in which he was likely to run into
âOne last thing, Coppola: you said that youâve had a nickname, ever since you were a boy. What nickname?â
Giuseppe seemed incapable of answering for himself, and so it was his brother who stopped at the door and, half-turning to speak to Ricciardi, said:
âWeâre a family that has always relied on horses, Commissaâ. Everyone calls my brother Peppeâ a FrustaâJoey the Whip.â
XI
T he sudden rain caught Livia off guard. The night before sheâd asked her housekeeper to put out a light flower-patterned dress, the skirt and jacket a color that contrasted nicely with her hair, bobbed short as was the fashion; but now that the weather smacked more of autumn than spring, it struck her as totally inappropriate.
Not that she really felt much like going out at all, to tell the truth. Perhaps it would be better just to stay home and read a good book, to seek distraction without going in search of company or noise in a smoky café.
She walked past the mirror and looked at herself: the silk dressing gown wrapped around her ample breasts and shapely hips. The food was just too good in that city: she wasnât worried, at least not yet, but sheâd have to be careful; otherwise sheâd become fat and ugly, and sheâd no longer have any real chance.
Actually, she thought, running her hand through the hair whose cut she was still having a hard time getting used to, that was a fairly remote danger, at least to judge from the bouquets of flowers that arrived every day: men were as interested as they had always been in her. Married or single, soldiers or noblemen, government functionaries or Fascist
gerarchi
, men continued to proffer their chivalrous service to a woman who was certainly the most alluring of all the women who traveled in the best circles. But that mattered little to her. Very little.
Why are you here, Livia Lucani, widow of the tenor Vezzi? she asked herself as she looked into the mirror. Shouldnât you really be in Rome, the center of the world, cultivating important friendships and possibly landing a man of enormous prestige, to whom you can hitch your fortunes? Shouldnât you, like every other woman in your condition, be thinking about your future in these difficult times?
For that matter, the increasingly infrequent phone conversations with her girlfriends in the capital gave her a picture of things that struck her, from a distance, as intolerable. The race to get close to the new potentates, vulgar self-important individuals who shamelessly ventured into the realm of the ridiculous, was one that took no prisoners. To join the competition with dozens of silly geese to win her way into the bed of some drooling Fascist was certainly not the most appealing of prospects.
In that case, what is it you want? How do you picture your life, Livia Lucani, the widow Vezzi, in a few years, when your charms are no longer quite so commanding, when men stop hanging on your every single word?
She picked up a silver hairbrush and lazily began brushing her hair.
The answer to her question materialized in the image of a pair of green eyes, clear as glass, watching her feverishly from the shadows.
Ricciardi.
He was the reason sheâd come to this city; he was the objective she was aiming at, the goal she aimed to achieve, the summit she had to scale, the harbor at which she hoped to arrive.
She couldnât say why that manânot nearly as good-looking as so many others, less powerful, less wealthy than the men she could have had with a snap of her fingersâhad captured her heart. But the thought of him caused her stomach to twist in a way it never had before, and would certainly never again. And sheâd never be able to accept the idea that she couldnât have him.
The last few months hadnât been easy. Since Christmas he had been trying to avoid any situation in which he was likely to run into
Similar Books
