Chapter Eight
Eight
The world was turning grey when Nikki was awakened by a knock on the door and the buzz of the doorbell. A baritone voice sang out: “Ciao, bella! Nina! Nina! Nicole Angelina Serafino! Time to wake up!”
“Quiet!” someone from a neighboring flat shouted. “Don’t you know the time?”
Nikki groaned and threw off the covers.
The cold tiles stung her feet as she marched to the entryway and turned the key. She pulled the heavy door wide, letting in a gust of frigid air.
“Babbo, what are you doing here?”
Raoul Serafino was wearing one of his two favorite suits: charcoal grey with a white collared shirt, open at the neck.
He kissed her cheeks, bringing the smell of outdoors and the tang of aftershave.
“Do I need a reason to visit my daughter?”
Nikki checked her watch. “It’s not even six. What time did you get up? Four thirty?”
He clapped his hands and smiled in that way she remembered from long ago: a signal of adventure.
“He who sleeps catches no fish. Get dressed. Come. I’ll buy you coffee.”
“Okay…okay…” Her head was still foggy with sleep. “I need a shower first. My shift starts at zero seven thirty.”
—
The city was starting to wake. A garbage truck rumbled along the cobblestones, two men in city uniforms jumping out to empty the bins.
An old lady leaned out the door of her house, cigarette perched between her fingers.
She waved and called to Raoul as he passed, and Nikki waited while her father diverted to greet her and ask after her son.
“So good to have you back,” she shouted as he walked away.
He started whistling.
This charged, ready-to-go, early-morning man was a familiar fixture from Nikki’s childhood, but she hadn’t seen this version of her father for a long time.
“What’s gotten into you?” she asked.
“What are you talking about?” he said. “Oh good. Massimo’s is open. Let’s say hello.”
—
A small crowd gathered at the bar where Massimo Fattore stood at the espresso machine, pulling coffees. Carlo sat at the cash register, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled, tattoos on hairy forearms.
Someone spotted Raoul, and a cry rose up.
“Raoul! Raoul Serafino! Where have you been? Good to see you!”
He was kissed and patted and answered questions from men whom Nikki barely recognized.
Nikki endeavored to keep a low profile, but this sort of attention was standard practice for her father, and he stood in the center of the adulating crowd, answering questions and saying things like “How’s the leg, Luigi?
” and “Has your wife had that surgery yet?” and “That motorbike was a bad idea. Anyone could see that. The engine was shot.”
Nikki edged away from her father, crossing to Carlo, who gave her a smile and nod.
“What for you today, bella?”
“Cappuccino for me. And one for my father.”
“I thought he preferred espresso,” Carlo said.
“Does he?” Nikki hadn’t remembered.
She was relieved to see that Massimo looked like his old self, dancing the familiar steps at the espresso machine. But it was difficult to put aside the recollection of him standing at her door the day before yesterday, shaky and confused.
Massimo winked at her. “Ciao, bella. Chocolate for you this morning? Will you take a cornetto?”
“Certo.”
Behind her, Raoul’s belly laugh was an echo of another era. It struck an ache in Nikki’s chest.
Massimo called loudly, “Cornetto for you, Raoul? Chocolate? Crema?”
Raoul pivoted to Massimo, and his grin spread even further. “My doctor says no chocolate…but maybe just this once.”
“What are you doing in the city?” someone asked.
“Oh, a little of this. A little of that.”
“Don’t be so mysterious!”
“Nothing mysterious about it! Just some business to attend to. You know how it is.”
“Will you stay long?”
“It may take a few days.”
He gave promises to stop by for coffee and to bring sweets to grandchildren.
Meanwhile, Nikki laid claim to a table and two plastic chairs, but Raoul sidled up to the bar and gestured for her to join.
“How are things going, Massimo?” he asked.
Massimo clucked his tongue and set two saucers on the glass bar, and two small spoons.
“Going, going…” Massimo leaned in, and spoke in a low tone. “What are you actually doing in the city? You can trust your old friend.”
Raoul raised an eyebrow. “Some case from long ago floated to the surface. They want my advice.”
“Of course, they need the best,” said Massimo.
“Do you still have that spare room in your house?” Raoul asked. “It would help to have a place to stay a few days while I take care of my business. It’s a long drive to Benevento.”
Massimo hesitated. “Oh, I don’t know, Raoul. It isn’t very tidy.”
Nikki was surprised. Her parents had always stayed with her when they came into Naples.
Raoul leaned on the bar with both forearms and spoke to Massimo in a confidential tone. “I’d ask Nikki or Gianni. But Gianni and Francesca have their hands full with the new baby. And I’m sure my daughter would like her privacy—”
“You’re welcome to stay with me,” she interjected.
Neither man seemed to hear.
“Alright, then,” said Massimo, finishing the drinks and setting them on the saucers. “I’ll ask my niece to help me clear it out.”
“Good! I’ll bring my bags around this afternoon.”
Raoul drained his espresso and smacked his lips.
“That’s exactly what I needed. Now, a cigarette. I’ll come back for that cornetto and another caffè. Excuse me!”
Nikki watched him stride away. When did he start smoking again? He’d surrendered the habit years ago.
“You know,” Massimo said, considering, “I wouldn’t do it for just anyone. But your father…well…I know he’s lonely since your mother passed. I think he could use an old friend.”
—
Nikki nursed her cappuccino. A few more customers came in and Massimo busied himself. When he produced Raoul’s second espresso and her father hadn’t returned, Nikki took the cups and pastries and went outside to find him.
Raoul was seated at an outdoor table with two men.
They were laughing and smoking as if it was the 1980s again and Raoul Serafino was known for his lively conversation, excellent memory, and fairness.
On weekend mornings, he used to hold arbitrations here, listening to arguments between neighbors, between brothers, sisters, husbands and wives.
People trusted his nuanced judgments and, more often than not, followed his advice.
—
After Adriano died, Nikki’s parents moved away from the city, and retreated into the foothills of the Benevento countryside.
Grief poisoned Beatrice. She became angry and closed, while Raoul seemed to simply surrender, as if all the air had left the room.
The ebullient curiosity that had been so fundamental to him vanished.
It was years before he gradually recovered some of his old enthusiasm.
When Beatrice died, the scaffolding collapsed again.
This morning was the first time Nikki had glimpsed her father as she remembered him.
Not the shell of the man she’d come to expect, but fully alive and activated.
The two men sitting with Raoul stood up with exclamations of regret for leaving.
—
“I want to keep an eye on Massimo for a few days,” Raoul told Nikki when they were alone. “He was always a good friend to your mother and me. I think he’s lonely.”
He bit into his cornetto, and leaned over the table to keep the buttery flakes from falling on his shirt.
“I came past Piazza del Gesù Nuovo on my way here,” he continued. “It was cordoned off. And there was a police vehicle by the door of the church. What happened?”
“Someone was killed.”
“Nobody would plan a murder in a church,” he said. “Crime of passion, then. Did they catch the killer?”
“I don’t know,” Nikki said.
“They’ll need a quick and quiet investigation, or it will chase away the tourists,” Raoul said, then chuckled to himself. “Maybe it isn’t a bad thing to lose a few tourists….”
He finished his pastry and, looking thoughtful, lit another cigarette.
“Beatrice studied that church, you know?” he mused. “She was convinced there was a hidden message in the facade.”
Nikki inhaled sharply. It had been months since Raoul had mentioned her mother. He never seemed to like it when Nikki talked about her.
“What was the message?” she asked.
He shook his head with a soft smile.
“She never told me. That’s just who she was: a code breaker. Adriano was like her. He saw the patterns. She brought him into her world.”
For a moment he seemed stricken.
Nikki glanced across the piazza, pigeons pecking at the stones.
Only since her mother’s death last year had Nikki begun to realize the extent to which she hadn’t properly known her.
Of course, she knew the family story well enough: Raoul had been a handsome carabinieri officer and Beatrice a beautiful twenty-four-year-old cryptologist translating for the United States Navy.
They’d met on a joint operation, and began a love affair that lasted a lifetime.
Beatrice left her career to marry Raoul and raise three children.
It was a beautiful fairy tale—but Nikki had spent her life intuiting the shape of her mother’s secrets, and felt certain there was a lie buried in this truth.
Months ago, NCIS agent Durant Cole had talked about Beatrice—had said she was something more…something special. His words had brought a strange sort of relief, confirming an instinct Nikki had carried since childhood.
Violetta, he’d told her. That was her code name. And what happened on Santo Stefano…
It was possible he’d lied. Everything else had been a lie: the friendship…the trust.
Nikki had asked her father about it, but he’d brushed it off. “There were a lot of things about your mother I didn’t know,” he’d said.
Nikki had investigated as far as she could on her own. She’d filed requests for information from the US government. She and Valerio had also sailed Calypso to the island of Santo Stefano, hiked around, and talked to the locals. But it was a dead end.