Chapter 3
I hadn’t expected Milan to be so modern.
When one thinks of Italy, the mind conjures up archaeological digs uncovering ancient ruins, not electric trams and the latest fashions worn by a significant number of the population.
I was glad we’d allowed ourselves a day for sightseeing before leaving for the Abbazia di San Vittore at Lake Como, although there was so much to see we could have stayed longer.
As the narrow street we’d been walking down ended, we finally got our first sight of the entire duomo, although we’d seen the rooftop spires at various points on the walk from our hotel.
“Magnificent,” I murmured on a breath. “It’s so light and bright.” A pink hue tinging the pale marble gave the flamboyant facade a warmth that beckoned the traveler to step inside. I wasn’t a devout man, but I couldn’t wait to see the interior after reading about it in our Baedeker guidebook.
“The entire city feels bright,” Oscar said. “The sun must be stronger here than in England.”
“The air is certainly cleaner than London which must help everything seem brighter.” I pressed a hand to my hat and tipped my head back to squint up at the many spires shooting from the top of the duomo like fireworks. “My Baedeker says there are over two thousand statues.”
“Are you going to stand there and count them all or are we going in?”
Not only did we go in, but we purchased a ticket to the roof terrace where we were afforded a spectacular view of the city.
The ochre-colored terracotta roofs of Milan’s buildings spread out below us, and in the distance, the slate-gray ridges of the Alps looked like the back of a slumbering dragon against the clear blue sky.
The piazza bustled with tourists and hawkers pushing barrows and carts, selling souvenirs and ices, but their voices didn’t reach us.
Despite the awe-inspiring views, we didn’t stay up long. The heat was unbearable.
After a few more hours visiting galleries and museums, Oscar insisted we find a coffee house rather than return to the hotel. I wasn’t convinced it was a good idea since an establishment frequented by the locals was unlikely to have any English tea.
“We’re not drinking tea,” he told me. “We’re in Italy. We’ll have coffee.”
“In the middle of the afternoon?”
Apparently, there was no conventional hour for coffee consumption in Italy.
The café and restaurant near La Scala opera house was as lively as the Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street on Friday evenings.
In some ways, it felt similar to my favorite tavern back home, with mostly middle- and upper-class men in earnest conversation or reading in a corner booth, but with more coffee and less ale.
It looked different, too. The Cheshire was cozy with its dark wood paneling and dim lighting, whereas the café was bathed in light streaming through the large windows.
Gilt-framed mirrors reflected the light back into the room, and once the sun went down, large chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings would take over.
Using a few words of Italian that he’d picked up on the journey and universally recognizable hand gestures, Oscar managed to order two coffees and something to eat. He looked pleased with himself as he stretched out his legs and surveyed the other patrons.
“I think many are discussing politics,” he said with a nod at a nearby table where four well-dressed men poured over a leaflet.
“I expected more discussion around artistic endeavors since we’re so close to La Scala Opera House,” I said.
While Oscar quite openly studied our neighbors and surroundings, I tried to be subtle about it, not wanting to annoy the locals.
A large number of them seemed fired up, speaking in raised voices accompanied by expressive hand gestures, yet presumably they sat with friends.
I wouldn’t want to see how they treated nosey strangers.
I turned to the view outside, across the street to Piazza della Scala with its striking statue of Leonardo da Vinci.
I breathed deeply, drawing the strong, bitter smell of coffee into my lungs, and relaxing for the first time since arriving in Milan.
Where earlier our tourists’ view of the city was like the one from the top of the Duomo—far away and affording an overview only—now that we’d slowed down, I could see the detail.
Wide-eyed visitors clutching guidebooks took in their awe-inspiring surroundings.
A black and white dog trotted behind a man wheeling a barrow.
It must contain something smelly because the child holding his mother’s hand as he passed the barrow pinched his nose in disgust. A flash of sunlight glinted off a silver shoe buckle of a gentleman leaning against a lamp post.
Our coffees arrived in small cups along with slices of a cake with a nutty smell. The waiter had just set them down when an explosion rattled the windows.
Oscar shot to his feet. “What the devil!”
Several patrons ran out of the café and across to the piazza.
As the smoke cleared, a man was seen running from the Palazzo Marino holding his arm and limping across the piazza.
I thought he was a victim until he was captured and wrestled to the ground.
Four men dressed in the distinctive dark blue tunic with red piping and white bandolier of the Carabinieri Reali descended on the group and cleared the area, motioning with their batons.
The elegant Palazzo seemed undamaged, and I couldn’t see other injured parties, thankfully.
With the bomber caught, hopefully it was all over.
Oscar sat again and the waiters resumed their duties. The volume of the conversations around us were even louder and more heated than before. Leaflets were brandished in anger, fingers pointed and fists banged, making my nerves jump.
Oscar asked a passing waiter who spoke English to explain the situation.
“It is the work of anarchists,” the waiter said, with a wave in the direction of the piazza.
“How do you know it’s the anarchists?” Oscar asked.
“Palazzo Marino is Milano’s…how do you say in English…city hall. The anarchists have threatened to blow up government buildings.” The waiter lifted both shoulders in a shrug. “Who else would do it?”
“The bomber didn’t do a very good job,” I said to Oscar after the waiter left. “The building is still standing and he injured himself and was captured.”
“That’s the problem with bombs,” he said.
“The bomber has just a brief window in which to get away uninjured. All the methods for delaying the bomb’s detonation are unreliable.
Slow-burning substances can be extinguished by a passerby before they reach the bomb, or even blown out by the wind, and clockwork mechanisms are unreliable and prone to failure. ”
“India could create one that worked.”
One side of his mouth quirked with his wry smile. “Thankfully she’s not inclined to blow things up.” He lifted his coffee cup to his lips only to lower it again. “Do you recall the firework magician that India and Matt met a few years ago? She used her magic on bombs to detonate them from afar.”
“I do. Thank goodness her magic was very rare.” Hopefully it was so rare that she was the only firework magician in existence.
While I sympathized with the laborers who worked under harsh conditions, I didn’t agree with their violent methods to get their point across.
Innocents shouldn’t be injured in the pursuit of fair working conditions.
By the time we left the café, the bomber had been removed and people were once again going about their business, although an air of unease had settled over the Piazza della Scala and the nearby Piazza del Duomo.
A group of youths dressed in working men’s attire of flat cap and neckerchief lingered near the entrance to the Galleria Vittorio, but they’d have been foolish to cause trouble with so many Carabinieri out in force.
The law enforcers kept the youths in their sights as they moved along anyone getting too close to the bomb site.
“I think we should dine in the hotel tonight,” Oscar said.
I readily agreed. As interesting as Milan was, it was too volatile for my liking. I’d be glad when we reached the calmer, safer countryside.
Departing Milan proved somewhat frustrating the following morning. Our train was delayed due to a strike that had been suddenly called by the railway workers, but it lasted only two hours and we eventually got under way.
I didn’t read a single page of my book on the journey to the village of Como.
There was too much to see once the industrial outer reaches of Milan gave way to the green countryside.
Dappled with farms and villas, and the ever-present Alps looming in the distance, it was a dramatic and picturesque landscape, and I wanted to drink it all in.
Upon arriving in Como, we transferred to a luxurious paddle steamer along with hundreds of other passengers, many of them tourists experiencing the breathtakingly beautiful lake for the first time, too.
Oscar had wanted to purchase first-class tickets, but I insisted we save money and sit in second-class.
The journey would take a mere two to three hours, and we didn’t need the luxury of velvet-covered seats and mahogany paneled walls, although I did want to sit inside, out of the sun.
According to the man in the ticket booth, the boat’s upper deck had few wooden benches under the awnings and not everyone would be able to sit.
It seemed to me that the tourists and some Italian gentlemen preferred first or second class, while the economical upper deck attracted locals.
Some even carried caged chickens and baskets or sacks containing produce, and I spotted an artist with a sketchbook under his arm.
While Oscar studied the other passengers, my gaze was once again drawn to the scenery.
Pretty villages clustered at the feet of hills along the lake’s edges, the spires of their churches rising above the terracotta roofs.
Occasionally, a larger villa with manicured gardens occupied a prominent outcrop of land, drawing the eye like a conquering emperor stamping his authority on the surrounds.
Apparently, Caesar himself had a villa on the shores, but its precise location was lost to time.
“It’s more beautiful than I imagined,” I said on a breath.
Oscar made a non-committal noise as another paddle steamer passed us going in the opposite direction, albeit much slower.
A crewman leaned over the railing of the forward deck, seeming to speak to someone on the other side, out of our view.
With a wave and a hand signal, the funnel spewed a column of black smoke into the air.
The steam-powered paddlewheel increased the speed of its rotations and the boat moved on, revealing the smaller vessel on the other side that had come to a complete stop.
It must be a private charter ferrying wealthy passengers across the lake that had got into some difficulty.
The larger public ferry had stopped to check if they needed help, but it seemed the crew of the small steamer had it in hand.
It wasn’t the crew that caught my attention, however.
One of the passengers who’d come onto the deck for fresh air seemed familiar.
From a distance, I couldn’t make out her face, but the dark-skinned woman dressed in a lemon and cream-colored gown holding a matching parasol reminded me of Miss Wheeler.
That beautiful lady had captured Oscar’s heart when we met her in Edinburgh last year.
Her intelligence, bravery and skill with both her umbrella and magic chalk had led us to rescue two missing magicians from their captors.
I was about to point her out to Oscar when I noticed the man beside her.
Where she held herself with poise and grace, his stance was all arrogance.
With a fat cigar between his lips and one hand clutching the railing, he gestured aggressively at a crewman with his other hand.
Seeing them together, I was in no doubt who it was.
What were the American railroad magnate, John J. Defoe and his enigmatic assistant, Miss Adele Wheeler, doing at Lake Como at the same time as us?
And did Oscar know they’d be here? Was that why he’d been studying the faces of the other passengers on our ferry and not the scenery? Was the coincidence not a coincidence at all?
More importantly, did their presence have anything to do with the reason we’d delayed our journey?