CHAPTER 32
"I carried the house behind me for four hundred kilometers. Even here, the wind beats against the same name."
Valentina MORETTI
The Villa stood white against the hillside.
It wasn't a hotel, and certainly not a rented house. It was the Morettis' property in Positano—the only one Luca's father had put in his children's names before he died. I'd seen that in the papers last week.
We arrived at eight thirty at night, after four hours on the road.
Donna Lucia was at the door. Sixty years old, black hair threaded with silver pinned in a bun, a navy-blue apron, a Salerno accent. She greeted Luca with the deference of someone who'd worked for the family for thirty years. She greeted me, calling me signora Moretti from the very first syllable.
"Auguri, signora," she said, and took both my hands for a second. "Nonna Adelina called me the day before yesterday. Told me to open the windows of the main bedroom. I opened them."
"Grazie, Donna Lucia."
We ate little on the terrace. Mozzarella still damp, prosciutto sliced thin, bread from the bakery on the square, cold white wine. Yellow melon cut in slices.
I was hungry for my wedding, but the exhaustion won out, and Luca didn't eat much either. When we went up to the room, I lay down in a white slip and he lay down in pajama pants, no shirt.
And we slept.
I woke up first.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd woken up before him. It was always the other way around—Luca already on his feet, buttoning a shirt cuff, smoking a cigar on the balcony.
Today he was face down beside me, the tattoo on his back exposed, breathing deep.
I looked at him for a while.
Husband, I thought. This man is my husband now.
The word still felt like new clothes, sewn but not yet worn.
I got up slowly. I took his robe from the arm of the chair—not mine, his—and wrapped it around myself. It smelled of cigar and sandalwood, and it covered me almost to the knees.
I went out barefoot.
The hallway window was open; the wind off the Tyrrhenian came into the robe and ran up my legs. Down below, in the village square, a bicycle bell rang twice, and there was the smell of fresh bread.
Donna Lucia was already in the kitchen. Italian coffeepot on the stove, the sound of the coffee rising through the inner tube.
"Buongiorno, signora."
"Buongiorno, Donna Lucia."
"Cornetto? They came from the Annunziata early, still warm."
"Sì, grazie."
She served it on a mahogany tray. Cornetto with cream, black espresso, a glass of ice water.
She didn't ask where I wanted to eat. She already knew.
"On the terrace," I said anyway.
"I was already on my way." She pushed the door open with her hip. "The signora likes the sea in the morning, I noticed last night."
I swallowed hard. How did she already know after one night?
"Grazie."
The terrace was a square of white stone, level with the second floor.
A magenta bougainvillea crushing the wall on the right side, flowers dropping to the ground. Blue ceramic pots with basil and rosemary. A cast-iron table painted white, two chairs. A stone ledge along the parapet.
The sea down below, flat, Tyrrhenian blue in the middle of September. White and yellow and pink houses stacked on the hillside as if God had tossed them there.
I sat down and took the first sip of the espresso.
Madonna santa, I thought. This is the life.
And right away, in a flash: Matteo is in the south cellar. You're in Positano eating cornetto and he's in a room with no window in Posillipo.
I tightened my grip on the cup and took a deep breath.
Not today. Today is my day.
I closed my eyes for a second, let the Tyrrhenian wind carry it off.
When I opened them, I saw it out of the corner of my eye.
Down below the terrace, coming down the stone staircase along the side of the Villa—a man. White shirt, black pants, dark glasses, an earpiece. He walked the way a man walks when he isn't looking at anything and is looking at everything. A soldier.
I swallowed hard. Cazzo, here too.
But I relaxed on the second breath. It was protection; Luca hadn't hidden it—he'd said the night before, in the car, with his hand on my thigh: four men at the Villa, bella mia. They won't bother you, you won't even see them.
I saw them, but it was fine.
"Buongiorno, bella mia."
Luca.
He appeared barefoot, black pajama pants, no shirt. Hair mussed to one side. The tattoos on his back exposed as he turned to close the door. The scar on his ribs on the left flank, just above the seam of his pants.
I swallowed hard in a different way now.
He didn't go to the chair; he sat down on the floor of the terrace, on the white stone, his back against my knee.
Without another word.
I ran my hand through his hair slowly, and he closed his eyes.
"Three weeks," I murmured.
"Three weeks, bella mia."
"And then?"
"And then we go back to Posillipo." He didn't open his eyes. "And settle what has to be settled."
I didn't ask what. We both knew.
"Luca. Not today."
"Not today."
He turned. Still on the floor, leaning against one of my knees, he ran his other hand up the hem of the robe. He kissed my knee lightly, then the bare ankle, then the inside of the ankle, his hand moving up my calf.
His hand stopped at the middle of my thigh. He looked up at me, that corner of his mouth lifting on one side.
"After breakfast, bella mia."
I bit my lower lip.
"After breakfast."
Donna Lucia crossed the terrace just then—no hurry, no comment, with an envelope on a small tray.
"Padrone. A messenger left it at the gate just now."
Luca took his hand off my thigh and took the envelope.
Red wax sealing the flap, no name on the outside. I recognized Acquaviva's seal—I'd seen it twice on folders in Luca's study in Posillipo.
He opened it and read.
It was quick. A second of his jaw locking, and then letting go. He folded the paper in four and put it in the pocket of his pajama pants.
"Luca."
"Bella mia."
"The three names."
"Not today." He got up off the floor, came to my chair, leaned down, and kissed my forehead. "Today is our day."
"Va bene."
He pulled the chair beside mine closer and sat down. He took the second cornetto from the tray, the one meant for him, and bit into it.
I looked out at the Tyrrhenian Sea down below. I looked at the magenta bougainvillea crushing the terrace wall, the flowers falling onto the white stone.
I carried the house behind me, I thought. Even here, in Positano, with the fresh cornetto and the smooth sea, the wind still beats against my father's name.