Breathing Room (29 page)

"What kind of powers?"

"Unless you were born in Casalleone, you cannot understand. Even those of us born here did not believe." She made one of her small, graceful gestures. "We laughed when our parents told us stories about the statue, but now we are no longer laughing." She finally turned to look at Isabel. "Three years agoOmbradelmattinodisappeared, and since then not one woman within thirty kilometers of this town has been able to conceive."

"No one has gotten pregnant in three years?"

"Only those who have been able to conceive away from the town."

"And you really believe that the disappearance of the statue is responsible?"

"Vittorio and I were educated at the university. Do we believe it rationally? No. But the fact remains... The only way any couples have been able to get pregnant is to do so beyond the borders of Casalleone, and this is not always so easy."

Finally Isabel understood. "That's why you're always traveling to meet Vittorio. You're trying to have a child."

Giulia's hands twisted in her lap. "And why our friends Cristina and Enrico, who want a second child, must leave their daughter with hernonna night after night so they can get away. And why Sauro and Tea Grifasi drive far out into the country to make love in their car, then drive back home afterward. Sauro was fired from his job last month because he kept sleeping through his alarm clock. And this is why Anna is sad all the time. Bernardo and Fabiola cannot get pregnant to make her a grandmother."

"The pharmacist in town is pregnant. I've seen her."

"For six months she lived inLivornowith a sister who always criticizes. Her husband drove back and forth every night. Now they are getting divorced."

"But what does all this have to do with the farmhouse and old Paolo?"

Giulia rubbed her eyes. "Paolo is the one who stole the statue."

*

"Apparently Paolo had a reputation for disliking children," Isabel told Ren that evening as they stood in the kitchen together, gently wiping the dirt from the porcini with damp cloths. "He didn't like the noise they made, and he complained that having so many children meant they had to spend too much money on schools."

"My kind of guy. So he decides to cut the town's birthrate by stealing the statue. And what part of your mind did you lose when you started to believe this story?"

"Giulia was telling the truth."

"I don't doubt that. What I'm having trouble comprehending is the fact that you're taking the supposed powers of this statue seriously."

"God works in mysterious ways." Ren was making a mess of the kitchen as usual, and she began clearing space on the counter.

"Spare me."

"No one has conceived a child in Casalleone since the statue was stolen," she said.

"And yet I'm not feeling any compulsion to throw away your condoms. Doesn't this offend your academic sensibilities just a little?"

"Not at all." She carried a stack of dirty bowls to the sink. "It supports what I know. The mind is very powerful."

"You're saying there's some kind of mass hysteria going on? That women aren't conceiving because they believe they can't conceive?"

"It's been known to happen."

"I liked the Mafia story better."

"Only because it had guns."

He smiled and leaned down to kiss her on the nose, which led to her mouth, which led to her breast, and several minutes passed before they came back up for air. "Cook," she said weakly. "I've been waiting all day for those mushrooms."

He groaned and grabbed his knife. "You got a lot more out of Giulia than I got out of Vittorio, I'll give you that. But the statue disappeared three years ago. Why did everyone have to wait until now to dig up this place?"

"The town's priests kept the statue in the church office..."

"And isn't it charming the way paganism and Christianity can still coexist?"

"Everyone knew it was there," she said, rinsing out a bowl, "but the local officials didn't want a rebellion on their hands by reporting it, so they looked the other way. Paolo had done odd jobs at the church for years, but no one made the connection between him and the statue's disappearance until he died a few months later. Then people started remembering that he didn't like children."

Ren rolled his eyes. "Definitely suspicious."

"Marta always defended him. She said he didn't hate children. That he was justimbronciato because of his arthritis. What does'imbronciato' mean?"

"Grouchy."

"She pointed out that he'd been a good father to his daughter. He'd even flown to the States years ago to see his granddaughter when she was born. So people backed off, and other rumors started to fly. I guess it got fairly ugly."

"Any guns?"

"Sorry, no." She wiped up a small section of the counter. "The day before I arrived, Anna sent Giancarlo down here to clean up a rubbish pile that had gotten out of hand. And guess what he found tucked in a hole in the wall when he accidentally knocked out one of the stones?"

"I'm holding my breath."

"The marble base the statue had always stood on. The same base that disappeared the day the statue was stolen."

"Well, that does explain the sudden interest in the wall."

She dried her hands. "Everyone in town went crazy. They made plans to take the wall apart, only to have the fly in the ointment show up."

"You."

"Exactly."

"Things would have been a lot easier if they'd just told us the truth from the beginning,"

he said.

"We're outsiders, and they had no reason to trust either one of us. Especially you."

"Thanks."

"What good would it do for them to find the statue if we spread the word that it was here?" she said. "It's one thing for local politicians to turn a blind eye to a priceless Etruscan artifact sitting around in a church office, but officials in the rest of the country weren't going to be quite that cavalier. Everyone was afraid the statue would end up locked away in a glass case in Volterra right next toOmbra della Sera ."

"Which is where it should be." He whacked a clove of garlic with the flat of his knife.

"I did some snooping while you were working out, and look what I found." She retrieved the yellowed envelope she'd discovered in the living room bookcase and spread the contents on the kitchen table. There were several dozen photographs of Paolo's granddaughter, all carefully identified on the back.

Ren wiped his hands and came over to look. She pointed toward a color photograph showing an older man holding a baby on the front porch of a small white house. "This is the oldest photo. That's Paolo. It must have been taken when he went toBostonnot long after his granddaughter was born. Her name is Josie, short for Josephina."

Some of the photographs showed Josie at camp, others on vacation with her parents at theGrand Canyon. In some she was alone. Isabel picked up the final two. "This is Josie on her wedding day six years ago." She had curly dark hair and a wide smile. "And this one with her husband was taken not long before Paolo died." She flipped it over to show him the date on the back.

"It doesn't seem like the collection of a child hater," Ren admitted. "So maybe Paolo didn't take the statue."

"He was the one who built the wall, and he was also the one responsible for the rubbish pile."

"Not exactly hard evidence. But if the statue's not in the wall, I wonder where it is?"

"Not in the house," she said. "Anna and Marta have searched it from top to bottom.

There's talk of plowing up the garden, but Marta says she'd have noticed if Paolo hid it there, and she won't allow it. There are lots of places near the wall or the olive grove, maybe even the vineyard, where he could have dug a hole and hidden it. I suggested to Giulia they bring in some metal detectors."

"Gadgets. I'm starting to like this."

"Good." She whipped off the tea towel she'd wrapped at her waist. "Now, that's enough talk. Turn off the stove and get naked."

He yelped and dropped his knife. "You nearly made me slice off my finger."

"As long as it's just your finger." She grinned and began unbuttoning her blouse. "Who says I can't be spontaneous?"

"Not me. Okay, I've got my breath back." He watched the buttons open. "What time is it?"

"Almost eight."

"Damn. Company's coming any minute." He reached for her, but she frowned and dodged.

"I thought Giulia and Vittorio canceled on us."

"I invited Harry."

"You don't like Harry." She took another step back and began fastening up her buttons.

He sighed. "What gave you that idea? He's a great guy. Would you mind leaving a few of those open? AndTracy's coming, too."

"I'm surprised she accepted. She wouldn't even look at him today."

"I didn't exactly tell her I'd invited him."

"And isn't this going to be a pleasant evening?"

"It couldn't be helped," he said. "Things bottomed out between them this morning, andTracy's been dodging him ever since. He's pretty upset."

"He told you all this?"

"Hey, guys share. We have feelings, too."

She lifted an eyebrow.

"Okay, maybe he's a little desperate and I'm the only one around he can talk to. The guy's a total screw-up when it comes to women, and if I don't help him out, they're going to be here forever."

"Yet this total screw-up managed to stay married for eleven years and father five children, while you—"

"While I have an idea I think you'll like. An idea, by the way, that has nothing to do with the Battling Briggses, other than the fact that we have to get rid of them to pull it off."

"What kind of idea?" She leaned down to pick up some mushroom stems he'd dropped on the floor.

"A littlesexual costume drama. But we need the villa to do it justice, which means that the whole family and their baby-sitters have to go."

"A costume drama?"She let the stems fall back to the floor.

"A sexual costume drama.I'm thinking nighttime. Candlelight. A thunderstorm if we're lucky." He picked up her glass and rolled the stem in his fingers. "It seems the unscrupulous Prince Lorenzo has caught sight of a feisty peasant woman in the village, a woman no longer in the first blush of youth—"

"Hey!"

"Which makes her all the more appealing to him."

"Darn right."

"The peasant woman is known throughout the land for her virtue and good works, so she fights off his advances, despite the fact that he's the best-looking dude in the region. Hell, in all ofItaly."

"OnlyItaly? Still, you should always put your money on a virtuous woman. He doesn't have a chance."

"Did I mention that Prince Lorenzo is also the smartest dude in the region?"

"Oh, well, that definitely complicates things."

"So what does he do but threaten to burn the entire village if she won't submit to him."

"The cad. Naturally she says she'll kill herself first."

"Which he doesn't believe for a minute, since good Catholic women don't kill themselves."

"You do have a point."

He drew a descriptive arc with his knife. "The scene opens on the night she delivers herself to the prince's deserted, candlelit villa. The same villa, coincidentally, that sits at the top of this hill."

"Amazing."

"She arrives in the dress he sent her that afternoon."

"I can see it. Simple and white."

"Bright red and slutty."

"Which only makes her virtue more apparent."

"He wastes no time in preliminaries. He drags her upstairs—"

"Scoops her up in his arms and carries her upstairs."

"Despite the fact that she's not exactly a featherweight – but luckily he works out. And once he gets her into his bedroom, he makes her take off her clothes slowly...while he watches."

"Naturally he's naked as he watches, because it's very hot in the villa."

"And even hotter in that bedroom. Did I tell you how good-looking he is?"

"I believe you mentioned it."

"So the time comes when she's forced to submit to him."

"I don't think I'm going to like this part."

"That's because you're a control freak."

"And, coincidentally,so is she ."

He bowed to the inevitable. "Just as he's ready to force himself on her, what should she catch sight of out of the corner of her eye but a pair of handcuffs?"

"They had handcuffs in the eighteenth century?"

"Manacles. A pair of manacles lying just within her reach."

"Convenient."

"While his lust-glazed eyes are focused elsewhere" –Ren's own lust-glazed eyes focused on her breasts – "she reaches behind him, grabs the manacles, and snaps them around—"

"I knocked, but nobody answered."

They pulled apart and saw Harry standing in the doorway looking miserable. "We used to do that thing with the handcuffs," he said glumly. "It was great."

"Ah." Isabel cleared her throat.

"You could have knocked," Ren grumbled.

"I did."

Isabel grabbed a fresh bottle of wine. "Why don't you open this? I'll get you a glass."

He'd barely finished pouring whenTracycame in. She bristled with hostility at the sight of her husband. "What's he doing here?"

Ren pecked her cheek. "Isabel asked him. I told her not to, but she thinks she knows everything."

In another lifetime Isabel would have defended herself, but she was dealing with insane people, so what was the point?

"This seemed the best way," Harry said. "I've been trying to talk to you all day, but you keep running away."

"Only because you make me sick."

He flinched but persevered. "Come outside,Tracy. Just for a few minutes. There are some things I need to say to you, and I have to do it privately."

Tracyturned her back to him, wrapped an arm around Ren's waist, and rested her cheek on his arm. "I should never have divorced you. God, you were a great lover. The best."

Ren glanced over at Harry. "Are you sure you want to stay married to her? Because right now I've got to say I think you could do a lot better."

"I'm sure," Harry said. "I'm very much in love with her."Tracylifted her head like a small animal sniffing the air, only to decide that what she smelled was unpleasant. "Yeah, right."