trentaquattro
Stefano arrived sweaty-faced and pale at La Scuola Rosa earlier than usual that Monday morning.
The sight of him there, panting and shaking, drew a collective look of concern from Mariella, Francesco and Lucia at the welcome desk.
‘Lucia . . .’ Stefano started, doubling over for a moment, hand poised mid-air as if it would help him catch his breath. ‘Have you . . . Do you know . . .?’
Lucia stepped forward and tried to pull him to standing. ‘What’s going on?’ Her hands had begun that all-too-familiar tremble, and she pinned her shoulders back defensively, preparing for whatever it was Stefano was about to drop on her.
Sensing impending doom, Mariella sidled up to Lucia to hold her steady, while Francesco propped up Stefano.
‘ Guarda . . .’ Stefano passed her his phone, and said, ‘ Mi dispiace tantissimo , Lucia.’
Lucia refreshed the screen and saw a picture of herself, sitting at a table by a window, looking forlornly at a glass of red wine. What was she looking at? She tried to place the moment. Then suddenly it hit her.
She scrolled up and down the page to orientate herself, finally arriving at the headline: L’Orfana, pronta ad annegare per amore . Holding the phone tightly, she dropped into a squat and her eyes raced along the text.
The Orphan, ready to drown for love .
Desperate . . . Vulnerable . . . Alone . . . No family circle . . . Eager for the limelight . . . Living in her parents’ shadows . . .
It went on and on, and Lucia’s chest heaved and pounded with each traitorous, torturous sentence. She couldn’t process the words fast enough. In fact, they simply weren’t sinking in. Like oil and water, she felt separated from reality. Detached. The words flowed past her, shoving and jostling with each other, leaving her scratched and bruised in their wake.
She stopped halfway through the article and suddenly scrolled feverishly back to the top. It was enough of a break of rhythm for Francesco to ask, ‘What’s going on?!’
Under the heading, Lucia found the journalist’s name: Pasquale Nardi.
‘Checco, google him!’
Francesco fumbled in his pocket for his phone, and within moments he had a long list of hits. Story after story. Exposés. Opinion pieces. And photos. Francesco clicked the Images tab and thumbnails of a face, in various forms, started to appear.
Craning over Francesco’s shoulder, Lucia pointed. ‘There, that first one. Open it.’
And there, filling the screen, was ‘ Nicolò’.
In that instant it felt as if her blood turned to boiling pitch. It coursed its way through her body, filling each and every organ with white-hot fury. She dropped heavily to her knees, cupped her face with her hands, and screamed. It was a full-bodied rattling noise that reverberated through the entire school. The veins in her neck dilated and puckered under her skin, embodying the terror and fear she felt in each cell in her body.
‘ Cazzo !’ Francesco cried, now scanning the article. His eyes came to rest on the time marker. Published twenty-two minutes ago.
As if on cue, a knock on the front window caused all four to turn and look, and they were met with a camera flash and prying eyes from a small group of people who had gathered in the calle .
Mariella jumped into gear. ‘Oh no you don’t!’ She flew at the front door and bellowed down the street, ‘ Vaffunculo tutti ! Non sono affari vostri !’ For good measure, she lunged at the group pressed up against the window, and as best as she could, tried to chase them down the calle .
Stefano was now also on the street, ushering away the last few who lingered.
Francesco had raced to the front window and was drawing the curtains, just as Lucia was pulling on her coat. Noting this, he asked, ‘And where do you think you’re going?’
‘Anywhere but here.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ he said, and made for the door.
Still visibly distressed and shaking, Lucia caught his arm. ‘No. Stay.’ Her shoulder twitched and she had trouble swallowing over her laboured breathing. ‘Register the new students.’ She reached for her phone and handbag from the welcome desk, pulled a scarf over her hair, slipped on her sunglasses and disappeared onto the calle .
Having been drawn to the window by Mariella’s screaming, Alex had seen some of the scene below play out. He knew he stood at a crossroads.
And he had only seconds to make his decision.
He had been preparing to head to bed for his version of night, but suddenly the events outside seemed more important. Besides, watching Lucia slip away alone under the circumstances had him worried.
Her flushed red cheeks. The tears streaming down her face. The way the photographers pushed the cameras at her as she tried to get past. And why hadn’t Francesco, her partner, gone after her?
No, Alex just needed to make sure she was safe and didn’t want her to be alone. She seemed so scared and vulnerable.
He retreated from the window and moments later, he too bolted up the calle .
She looked small: inexplicably so for a woman of such tall stature. It was as if she had shrunk a foot or more on the journey across the water to the Cimitero di San Michele. She hadn’t seen Alex board the vaporetto after her, or track her to the garden where she now sat. But he decided that Lucia looked childlike, seated at the base of the tree with her chin resting on her bended knees. Alex couldn’t read Lucia’s expression from the position he’d taken up behind some low-lying bushes near the archway, a discreet distance away.
But her body language spoke volumes.
The defeated curl of her shoulders; the repeated shaking of her head, as if she were arguing with an unwanted memory; the way she picked and pulled mindlessly at the grass by her ankles.
She was crying, or at least had been, as she dabbed her cheeks and nose with a tissue a number of times before returning it to her coat pocket.
But what was it all about?
The scene in the calle . The quick desertion. The recurring media interest.
He knew his curiosity wouldn’t be satisfied in this moment, so he merely stayed and watched her quietly. He was glad Lucia was safe and hadn’t been followed by the reporters and photographers. Seeing her away from that mess brought Alex relief, and the realisation of this surprised him.
After half an hour Lucia eventually got stiffly to her feet, and Alex watched as she looked up into the canopy of overhanging branches, then traced her fingers along the tree’s grey-brown bark. She dropped a kiss to her hand and pressed it to the trunk, then turned and left, making her way back to the main entrance.
Putting a few minutes between them, Alex eventually made his way to the tree. Nothing about it gave away its significance. To the world it was just another tree; a perennial bounty of life and hope on the dark and often dangerous waters of the lagoon.
Neither Alex nor anyone else, for that matter, could ever know what lay tangled among the roots of that unmarked tree. The way the little wooden box of mixed ashes had been set down under the light of the full moon, away from public interest and the sea of cameras.
Alex looked around a while longer then turned and left, making his way to the mausoleum for a quick visit of his own before finishing at the vaporetto stop. All the while his mind kept returning to Lucia, and he felt concerned for her and intrigued by her in equal measure.