Chapter 34 Cosimo
Cosimo
‘In there.’
‘Thank you,’ Cosimo nodded as the novice master walked away again, leather-soled sandals slapping against the stone floor.
He pushed open the door and walked into the small room.
It was supposed to be for receiving visitors but seemed designed to be deliberately uninviting, with only a small wooden table and hard chairs to hasten guests’ departure.
‘… Father?’
Filippo Franchetti turned. ‘So you are here,’ he said coldly, though relief seemed to shiver through his eyes.
‘Yes, I—’
‘When were you going to tell me? Or was that the point – that I wasn’t supposed to know?’
‘Of course not. I didn’t know myself until a few days ago.’
‘I went to Lecce especially to see you, Cosimo! Imagine my shock when they said you had gone!’
‘Father, I intended to write.’
‘Really? When?’
‘When I had some time. It’s been busy here.’ He sighed, realizing he hadn’t even shut the door yet and they were already into their first argument. ‘… It’s good to see you,’ he said, closing the door.
His father hesitated, seeming to catch himself too. ‘… And you.’ They met in the middle of the small room, hugging briefly, and Cosimo felt himself flinch at the physical contact. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been touched.
He pulled back. ‘Is everything OK?’
‘Yes, I just wanted to bring you this. The last of your things.’ His father lightly touched the top of a small shoebox under his arm.
‘What’s in there?’
‘I’m not sure exactly. Your mother went through and sorted everything; she said you’d want them.’ Filippo shrugged and held it out.
‘Oh.’ Cosimo hesitated.
‘Is there a problem?’
‘… It’s just we’re not allowed possessions here.’
His father frowned. ‘It’s just some keepsakes!’
‘Even so.’
‘Well then, is there not somewhere safe this can be stored until …’
‘Until what?’
‘You leave here!’
‘I won’t be leaving here, Father.’ He watched as Filippo’s mouth flattened in a grim line. The finality of Cosimo’s decision was something his father still failed to grasp. He relented a little. ‘… But yes, thank you. I can make sure this is kept safely for me.’
He took it, looking down at the shoebox: pale blue with white writing, sized for children’s shoes.
A part of him desperately wanted to know what was inside, these mementoes, artefacts from his old life – letters?
Games? Knowing his mother, it could be his baby teeth.
He could almost feel the contents vibrating with suppressed energy and he pressed the lid more firmly closed; he knew he wouldn’t dare to even lift it.
‘You’re pale,’ Filippo said, regarding him closely, his eyes grazing over his seminarian’s habit: a long black cassock with green sash, the black, peaked, square biretta hat he was holding in his other hand. His mouth puckered with disapproval. ‘Do you ever go outside?’
‘Not enough, it’s true. Most of my time is spent in the library.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Studying scripture. We’re transcribing some tenth-century documents about Saint Francis.’
Filippo rolled his eyes. ‘Is that what the world really needs?’
‘I find it interesting. Not to mention quite meditative.’
‘And to think we could never get you to open a book as a boy … You need to go outside and get more sun.’
‘You’re right. I’ll take some more turns around the quad after lunch.’
Filippo turned away, unused to this agreeable demeanour; their relationship had always been fractious in the past. Cosimo had always been his mother’s son. Now they couldn’t even fight like they used to.
Cosimo watched him pace, sensing a disquiet in his father’s spirit. He knew he hadn’t known peace since the night of the accident, but this seemed fresh, like newly turned soil. ‘How is Mamma?’
Filippo’s eyes flashed towards him. ‘You’d know better than me. Has she visited you recently?’
Cosimo shook his head. His mother had moved to Florence with his three youngest siblings, busying herself with the little ones as if trying to forget all about the older children who no longer needed her.
Fede was working in Rome, rapidly ascending the legal ladder; Cosimo had deliberately absented himself, of course.
But it was Romola’s loss that had left a void at the very centre, obliterating their family like an exploding star.
‘… Not here. I’ll write to her tomorrow and let her know I’ve been relocated. I only arrived a few days ago.’
‘What’s here that they needed you so badly?’
‘There have been some departures among the novices and Father Polacco needs help with the pastoral ministries.’
‘Was that Father Polacco who saw me in just now?’
‘No, Father Caputo.’
‘Hm. You have no shortage of fathers, it seems.’ He turned away, his gaze upon the slitted window set high in the wall. ‘So, what sort of pastoral ministries are you undertaking?’ A hint of disdain frilled the words. They had very different ideas about public service.
‘There’s been an outbreak of polio—’
‘Polio?’ Filippo whipped round.
‘We’re trying to help with that as well as encourage uptake of the vaccine.’
‘And they have to send you – my son?’
‘I’m not your son here.’ The words came out faster, sharper than Cosimo had intended, and his father froze.
They were an echo of the cry that had fallen from Cosimo – ‘You’re not my father!
’ – in the days after the story had broken in the papers, as his mother sobbed, humiliation coming in hot after tragedy.
Cosimo turned away from the memories. ‘I like it here,’ he said placidly, reaching for mildness.
Most of the time he could suppress the violent emotions that he knew still festered in the darkest corners of his soul, but seeing his father was always unsettling, like pulling the plug off a volcano.
He couldn’t recover from his father’s betrayal, nor the tragedy to which it had led, and like his mother before him, he had retreated into civility.
Manners threw up a barrier only a soft heart could pierce, and there were none of those here.
‘I’ve only been out on ministry a few times, but the port is beautiful and the people are good. ’
His father gave a small snort.
‘They seem grateful for the work we’re doing,’ Cosimo continued, seeing how his father raked a hand through his hair. He was visibly agitated, unable to settle. ‘… Papa, what is it? Has something happened?’
Filippo hesitated, his eyes meeting Cosimo’s. Regret lived there, but nothing could be done about it now. What was done was done. They never had been able to reach one another.
‘No,’ he said, shaking a hand dismissively. ‘I just had a business meeting that rankled, that’s all.’
‘Here? In Otranto?’
‘I’m a politician, Cosi. Politics is everywhere. I could go to any town in Italy and people would want something from me.’
‘And what did they want?’
‘Just the usual shakedown. Upstarts thinking they’re the new world order and that everyone’s for sale.’
The bells had begun ringing for evening Mass, the streets outside growing quiet now.
Through the narrow channel of the window, the golden light of the piazza fell into the austere room.
Cosimo knew the cathedral would be dramatically spotlit at this hour.
There was a spectacular view of it, of the entire piazza, from a window that was hidden from the streets by the parapet wall.
It was on the very top floor of the seminary and led out onto the roof; it was strictly out of bounds, but Brother Savelli, a friend of his from Lecce, had shown it to him on his first night here.
Cosimo had made a secret pilgrimage on many nights since, sitting up there with the roosting pigeons when he was unable to sleep.
They heard hurried footsteps in the corridor outside, the seminarians making their way through to the cathedral next door. ‘Papa, I have to go, I’m sorry – we have Mass.’
‘Oh.’
‘Why don’t you come? Father Polacco is—’
But Filippo shook his head. He had lost his faith along with everything else when Romola died. ‘I have a journey back to Lecce in one of those ridiculous cars …’ He tutted. ‘I only wanted to bring you your things and check for myself you were really here.’
Cosimo frowned. ‘I’m fine. I’m perfectly safe.’
Filippo nodded, but he wore a haunted look, as if losing children was a contagious state. He crossed the room and stood at the door for a moment. ‘Write to your mother,’ he said, before slipping out like a ghost.
Cosimo ran through the vaulted, covered stone walkway connecting the seminary to the cathedral. On one side was a courtyard, on the other a garden with fruit trees. Everyone else was seated and the organ already playing as he took his place in one of the narrow, inward-facing choir pews.
‘Where were you?’ Alessio Savelli whispered.
He too had been at Lecce seminary until last year, when he had been seconded here.
They weren’t supposed to foster close friendships in the novitiate – everyone was supposed to be equal, no one more or less important than anyone else – but privately, Cosimo had been relieved to see Savelli’s face when he had walked into the refectory.
Like Cosimo, Savelli came from a noble family, but as the fourth and youngest son, the money for an inheritance had run out and he had been sent into the Church largely against his will.
He was due to take his deaconship next year but he struck Cosimo as temperamentally unsuited to the role; left to his own devices, he’d said once, he would have become a racing-car driver in the Mille Miglia.