CHAPTER 27
"There are brothers who come back. There are brothers who merely reappear."
VALENTINA ROSSI
I woke up decided.
I hadn't slept well. I'd dreamed of white lilies growing out of Luca's mother's piano, and of Matteo opening the cellar door at my father's house in Mondello, twenty years ago, with that two-front-teeth smile of his, the gap between them just a little wide.
When I opened my eyes, Luca was already up, by the window, buttoning his shirt cuff.
"I'm going down today," I said. "I meant it."
"I heard you, bella mia."
I sat up in bed, pulled the sheet up to my chest.
"Luca…"
He turned and came over to the bed, sat down on the edge, close to my knee.
"The key's on the hall table." He reached out and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. "Acquaviva goes down with you. No argument."
"No argument."
"Brava."
He leaned in and kissed my neck, slowly, in the curve where the jaw meets the collarbone.
"Luca. If you do that again I'm not going down to the cellar."
He smiled low, against my neck, and I felt the laugh before I heard it.
"Va bene, bella mia."
The stairs to the south cellar were old stone, worn down in the middle of each step. The walls sweated a little—not much, because the Villa Moretti was well built even underground. The light was yellow, low, coming from bulbs fixed in old iron brackets.
Acquaviva went down ahead of me, the big key in his hand. He walked like a man who'd been down those stairs a thousand times.
I carried the dagger in my boot. Luca had sent word, through Donna Beatrice, that I could bring it.
"Signora," Acquaviva said, in front of the iron door, "anything at all, you just call me. I'll be right outside."
"Grazie, Acquaviva."
"Prego."
He turned the key and the door opened without a creak.
Matteo had his back to me.
Sitting in a wooden chair by the table, a book open and a pencil in his hand. Clean white shirt, black pants, three weeks of beard.
He'd lost weight.
When he turned around, I saw my father's eyes. Small, black, resentful.
"Matteo."
"Sorella."
The word came out of him dry. No warmth in it.
I stayed standing in the doorway. I didn't run to throw my arms around him, and I certainly didn't cry. I'd already cried every tear in the world on the Via Tragara, in the pink house in Capri, on the yacht back to Posillipo.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm alive." He closed the book. Le Cosmicomiche, by Calvino. "All right is a big word for a man who lives in a room with no window."
"You have books."
"I have books." He smiled without smiling. "Your jailer is kind."
Jailer. The word hit me in the back like a thrown stone.
"He's not my jailer, Matteo. He's my fiancé."
"Right." He stood up, slowly, and went to the other side of the room, where there was a pitcher of water, and poured himself a glass. "That's what hurts me, sorella."
I bit my lower lip.
I didn't come here to fight. I came here to see if he's alive. That's it.
"Matteo. I read Mamma's letter."
He stopped pouring.
"What letter?"
"The one in the steel box in Mondello, behind the painting of Saint Sebastian."
"You went to Mondello?"
"I did."
He set the glass down on the table, slowly, as if it were crystal and he was afraid. For the first time, the coldness left his face.
"What did she write?"
"That she'd known since 2010. That she warned Papa in April of 2012. That she said if he didn't stop, he'd lose both his children."
Matteo closed his eyes. When he opened them, I saw them well up.
"Mamma," he murmured.
"Mamma."
We were both quiet. Somewhere above the house a bell rang—it must have been the church in Posillipo, three tolls.
Eleven in the morning.
"Sorella," he said, low. "There's something about Bianca."
"Bianca?"
"She used to come visit me in Capri. Donna Carmela let her in."
"I know. Bianca told me."
"Sorella"—and his voice dropped even lower—"she didn't tell you everything."
My heart skipped a beat.
"What?"
"Ask her who else used to go to Capri to visit me."
"Who?"
He looked at me. Really looked, for the first time since I'd walked in, but he didn't answer.
The iron door opened behind me. Acquaviva was on the threshold, one step into the room, his hand raised.
"Signora."
"One more minute."
"Signora," he repeated, low, in that voice that wasn't a request. "It's time."
I looked at Matteo, and he looked away.
"I'll come back tomorrow," I told him.
He didn't answer.
I went up the stairs with the sentence stuck in the pit of my stomach.
Ask her who else used to go to Capri to visit me.
In the room, still short of breath, I took the dagger out of my boot and tossed it on top of the dresser. I sat down on the edge of the stone tub, but I didn't turn on the light. I let the afternoon sun come in through the tall, curtainless window.
Luca arrived half an hour later.
He came in without knocking; he knew I was there. He took off his jacket, threw it on the armchair, and loosened his tie with two tugs. Then he came to the sink, turned on the tap, and washed his face twice without saying anything.
I watched him. White shirt, broad back, the muscles of his back moving under the fabric.
Pericoloso, I thought. That man is dangerous even when he's washing his face.
"Bella mia."
"Sì."
"You're holding something back."
"I am."
He turned, leaning against the marble of the sink, drying his face on the towel hanging beside it, and stood there looking at me—no hurry, no pressure.
The way he knew how to look at me.
"When you want to tell me, you'll tell me, bella mia."
I sighed.
"Not today."
"Va bene."
He came to the edge of the tub. He pulled all my hair over one shoulder and kissed the bare curve of the other, slowly, once. Then he lifted me by the waist, with the ease of a man picking up a child, and set me down on my feet.
"Have dinner with me."
"Sì."
He walked me out of the bathroom with his arm around my waist, and I went.
And the dagger stayed on top of the dresser, forgotten.