The minute the wheels touched the tarmac at Linate Airport, everything changed. People smiled. They called me signora. I'll take signora before Ma'am any old day. I might have been crabby after flying all night and attempting to work my way through forgotten Italian words, but I wasn't.
The first part of my plan involved picking up a car. The second part of the same plan involved finding someone who recognized Mrs. P. I submitted my papers to the dark-haired man behind the counter, where I'd expected to arrange to pick up my car. This resulted in a waving of hands. There were many rapid words too. I had no idea what they meant. I reminded myself I was in Europe and responded with a magnificent shrug and matching hand gestures. For added emphasis, I stabbed my finger on the papers and said, “Già pagato in Canada. Pagato! Pagato!” Already paid in Canada.
The dark-haired man said, “Is mistake. We don't have thees car.”
“Fine,” I said, “give me another one.”
There was such a flap behind the counter that I figured they must be paid by the word.
“Un'ora,” he said. “One hour. We have, signora.”
I didn't wish to expend any energy on a temper tantrum, so I said, “All right.”
I slumped on the plastic bench nearby and asked myself what Mrs. P. would do. Of course, I already knew she'd come up with a strategy. I fished through my papers and pulled out the nice little poster Alvin had done up, with her photo, her name, age, and MISSING written across the top with bold lettering. He'd put my phone number and his e-mail address. In the poster, Mrs. P. was smiling and jaunty, her grey hair in a neat bun, her hand raised in a salute. That was before she'd started seeing dead people.
I found a washroom, where I cleaned my face, used some bottled water to brush my teeth and slapped on a layer of the Dior Graffiti Red. I managed a half-hearted attempt to tame my hair and made tracks back to the rental counters.
I started at the next car rental and flashed my lipsticky smile at them. I answered to “Signora, buon giorno.” Next I pointed at Mrs. Parnell and asked in my best Italian if the clerk had seen her.
Smiles, spectacular shrugs. The woman at the first counter said, “Sua nonna?”
I shrugged again. The translation part of my brain was still asleep.
The woman stared at me. The woman standing next to her said in perfect English, “She asked if this is your grandmother?”
I blinked. “Yes! It is! Mia nonna!”
That went over well. Everyone smiled.
“Have you seen her?” I asked the English-speaking woman.
“We see so many people.”
“Her name is Violet Parnell,” I said. “Does that help?”
A quick check of their computers showed that it didn't.
“Sorry,” the woman said. “Not in our system. Good luck, signora.”
I thanked her and moved off to the next counter. I slapped down the picture again and tried in English. “This is my nonna,” I said. “Mrs. Violet Parnell. She is sick and lost. I need to find her. Big emergency.” At that counter and the next two, the language barrier raised its head. Everyone was friendly and pleasant, but all I managed to produce was a look of bafflement.
I stopped to consult my dictionary. I looked up the words sick, lost and family emergency. Nothing to lose. I returned and tried with La nonna è malata, La nonna è perduta, and è un’ emergenza per la famiglia.
Zero results, lots of sympathy. In fact, I left behind me a trail of workers who obviously loved their nonnas to bits and felt my loss. Despite their wishes, I was feeling pretty low by the time I got to the last counter. I did my intro one more time.
“Certainly, signora,” the man behind the counter said. And then, “Sorry, no record of her in our system.”
At that moment, we were joined by the woman from the first counter. She had a printed paper in her hand. “We have found your nonna!” she said.
“That's wonderful.”
“She was here yesterday. We didn't recognize her from this photograph. Was it taken a long time ago?”
“In September,” I said. “Before she started to get sick.”
Everyone nodded sadly. One woman bit her lip.
“Do you remember how she seemed?” I said, straining unsuccessfully to see the paper. “Was she understanding everything?”
“No, she seemed very intelligent. She spoke some Italian even, more than…” She stopped herself abruptly and looked at me. “Everything appeared normal.” I caught the implication that I came up short in that department myself. Maybe I needed a better phrase book.
The girl next to her uttered a rapid-fire sentence. Everyone laughed
“What?” I said. “What's funny?”
“She went outside to have a cigarette. Our grandmothers would not do that. They probably wouldn't rent an Opel and drive off into another country either.”
“She's definitely in a class of her own,” I said. “By any chance, did she happen to mention where she was headed to next?”
“Not to me, signora.”
“She was thinking about Berli, Pieve San Simone, Montechiaro and Alcielo,” I said.
“I don't remember her mentioning any of them. We mostly talked about relatives. I have a lot of cousins in Toronto. That's where I learned to speak English. She had a conversation with my colleague too. Momentino, I'll ask.”
She turned and directed the question to the girl next to her. A staccato conversation ensued. I leaned forward, but I couldn't make out a single word.
“She said she was looking forward to seeing the mountains,” the woman said.
“Me too,” I said.
“So I think it must be Berli, that's in the Apennines.”
“Is it a big place?”
“I imagine it would be just a mountain village. It's not really on the tourist track. Most of the clients who would go there would be people with relatives in the area.”
“How far?” I asked.
One hour later, in addition to the best wishes of the two women, coupled with greetings to Mrs. P., I had a map with the route out of Milan marked in yellow highlighter. I had a second map with the route to Berli clearly indicated too. I was on my way in something called a Ka, which is a vehicle made by Ford slightly smaller than my sister's new dishwasher. I was hot on the trail of my alleged grandmother who, unlike me, was travelling in style in a silver Opel. I had to hand it to her. Mrs. Parnell might have been losing her marbles, but not her sense of occasion.
* * *
Let me set you straight about Italy. Outside of the cities, it is very green, and much of it is situated on forty-five degree slopes. Imagine vineyards marching up and down. The roads are dotted with snazzy cars doing two hundred kilometres an hour. I should also mention there are a zillion silver Opels going almost as fast. My Ka, on the other hand, just chugged along a little faster than a roller blade. On the autostrada, there were no English signs, and apparently no speed limit. If it hadn't been for the toll booths, some cars might have become airborne. I was damned glad to get off it. The smaller roads were a bit better, if you didn't count the narrow lanes, blind corners, steep hills and complete lack of guardrails.
The further south I drove from the urban industrialization and design mecca of Milan, the more the countryside changed. Soon enough, the roadway was surrounded by vineyards snaking up hillsides.
I was making good progress towards Berli when I found myself heading for a ditch. I swerved back on to the road. The Ka would have fishtailed, if it had had a tail to fish. What was wrong with me? It occurred to me that I might need to eat. Perhaps that's why I was feeling lightheaded. I gripped the wheel and drove until I passed an old stone building with a sign indicating it had a small hotel and a bar-restaurant. That looked promising. A large shambling dog wandered outside. It reminded me a bit of Gussie.
I had a glass of the proprietors’ own red wine, a bottle of mineral water and a plate of fragrant local salami, salty cheese and warm crusty bread. It was hard not to care about that food, although my eyelids kept thumping closed. The hostess pressed a second glass of red on me. If I understood her, the offer came because I was Canadian. I did my best to resist, which isn't easy in Italy. Even the first glass wasn't such a good idea in retrospect. The last thing I needed was to relax.
I don't know why I was surprised, after two sleepless nights and a head full of worry, the high-octane vino rosso caught up with me. My eyelids kept closing. The hotel had rooms available, which came as no surprise, and they seemed unconcerned that I only wanted to crash for a couple of hours. I was canadese, therefore, they expected me to be nice but weird. They were used to Canadians. They had cousins in Moose Jaw. As long as I was paying the day's rate, I could do what I wanted.
Si, signora. Va bene.
These were fast becoming my favourite words.
I produced the picture of Mrs. P. No one had seen her. Oh, well. I stumbled up the stone stairs, heaved my carry-on and my purse onto the single chair and pitched headfirst onto the small hard bed. I have no memory of hitting the feather pillows. Nor of any dreams. I think that was a good thing. When I finally opened my eyes, the sky was a strange grey. It took a couple of minutes lying there, hearing a man and woman sharing an apparently hilarious exchange from downstairs before I figured out where I was.
I stuck my head out the window to encounter fog. Solid, almost impenetrable, from the ankle up. I couldn't see the Ka parked ten feet away.
I wasn't going anywhere.
* * *
My cellphone did not care for this particular location in the Italian hills. In fact, it had been uncooperative since I got off the plane. I was forced to fall back on Plan B, which was to use the Canada Direct number on a pay phone and bill the call to my calling card number. On the bright side, it was a much cheaper option. The drawback was it meant finding a public phone whenever I needed to check in with Command Post Alvin. After three tries, I got the hang of it.
“Uh-oh, Camilla. You better call Ray,” Alvin said.
I don't know what I was expecting. How was your fourteen-hour trip, maybe?
“Of course, I'll call him. He knows I'm in transit. Tell me, any luck so far?”
“He's pretty insistent. He says he can't reach your cellphone.”
“It's not working over here. I'll call him. Fill me in first.”
“I haven't found anyone who'll give me information about Mrs. Parnell and the people she served with. I keep getting voicemail. I'll keep at them. Maybe everyone needs a rest the week after Remembrance Day.”
“Could be. How's it going with the surveillance stuff?”
“The Super let me in. I have to look at the images on his computer. Mostly they're residents and regulars, like me. I got to know a lot of people since meeting you and Violet. After a while, you can't concentrate any more. The Super had to go out, so I'm going back later.”
“What about this guy who passed us when we were heading into Mrs. P.’s place, after she left the hospital?”
“He's there. I can't see his face clearly.”
“It's just that the timing's right. He has to be the one who was searching her apartment, and he decided to leave when we started to ring the bell. I bet that box had her missing laptop and camera.”
“Unless she took them with her. Anyway, the Super thinks he's seen this guy before, so I'll watch a bit more and see if he shows up again. Did you learn anything? You distracted me from Violet, the most important thing.”
“She was all right when she rented her car at Milan airport. No one noticed anything odd about her behaviour, except that she was smoking. They think she was heading for the mountains. They loved the idea that she was taking this car around Italy, by herself.”
“Cool,” Alvin said.
“Well, it will be cooler when we find her. I'd better get on the road again.”
“Call Ray,” Alvin said.
* * *
“And just where are you?” Ray said.
“Somewhere along the road to Berli.”
“You don't know the name, or how long you'll be there?”
“What's with the tone, Ray? This an inquisition?”
“If you didn't want an inquisition, you shouldn't have mentioned swerving all over the road because you're exhausted and you're in a strange country, and I believe you said you were driving a lawn mower.”
“It was a joke. I'm driving a Ka, which is also a joke, I guess. Look, Ray, I've been to Italy before. I know what I'm doing. And don't sigh, Ray. You sound like my sister Donalda. Not a good thing.”
“I could meet you and help you look for Mrs. Parnell.”
“I'll be fine.”
What the hell was wrong with me? Here was a police officer, with all those useful police skills, who refused to be thrown off by snide remarks and crabby behaviour. I knew first hand what a warm heart he had. So why didn't I just say yes?
“Hello? Are you there, Camilla?”
“I'm here.”
“Okay. I can take a hint. You want to be alone. You can just say that right up front. You don't have to drag it out over long distance.”
“Sorry, Ray. I'm being stupid. I admit it. I'll be in touch, okay?”
“Not so fast. Where are you going? Now.”
“I thought I told you. When the fog lifts, I'm on my way to Berli. It's in the mountains a couple of hours south of Milan. I hope to find Mrs. P.”
“Based on what? Intuition?”
“Sure, it could be a wild goose chase. It's better than staring at my navel.”
“Not that there's anything wrong with staring at your navel. In fact…”
“Goodbye, Ray.”
“Camilla?”
“Hmm?”
“Stay in touch.”
“I will.”
“Make sure you do,” he said gruffly.
What a tough guy.
Okay, I didn't need to spend a year on a shrink's couch to tell me Paul was at the root of my reluctance to have Ray join me. I knew damn well if Mrs. Parnell had chosen to vanish into the south of France, I would have been panting for Ray to come to the rescue. It had been too many years since my husband Paul was wiped out by a drunk driver. I knew it was time to get on with my life. Paul would have wanted that. And I was ready. I even knew that Paul would have liked Ray's sense of humour, would have appreciated his unflappability, would have approved of his commitment to his family and the way you could count on him, no matter what.
None of that mattered here. How could I go with another man to Italy? The last time I'd been in the country, I'd been the passenger much of the time, a woman on her honeymoon, thinking about the next laughing dinner over a litre of red wine and the next room for two overlooking a garden courtyard in a small hotel where people smile at newlyweds, wink and nudge each other, and sidle over to their tables bearing glasses of flaming Sambuca, on the house. In case the lovebirds hadn't had enough booze.
Paul's face has been fading in my memory. I keep his photos, of course. On these roads, I didn't need photos. I saw him in the reflection in the osteria window. Wherever I went for a first trip with Ray, even if it was searching for a missing person, I owed it to him not to make it a threesome.
* * *
The fog lifted at dawn. I spotted that right off because I was sitting up in bed, awake and staring. I had been for hours. Thanks to my ill-advised sleep in the afternoon and the six-hour time difference, I'd tossed and turned all night on the narrow, hard bed, thinking about Mrs. Parnell, fretting about who might have broken into her apartment, and what was happening to her. I spent the hours from two until five rereading the letters. The men were dead: Walter Parnell, Perce Connaught and, most likely, Guy Prendergast. Harry Jones was close enough. So many choices of possible dead people to give Mrs. Parnell trouble, to say nothing of the thousands of others she would have come in contact with. Given the foggy circumstances, this was the best use of my time, although I didn't come up with any answers.
I didn't allow my thoughts to turn to Ray Deveau or Paul. Focus, that's what Mrs. Parnell would have advised me if she had been there, although if she'd been there, I wouldn't have had a problem.
I peered out the window and was delighted the Ka was visible. My room didn't have a shower, so I gave myself a quick swipe with a facecloth, brushed my teeth and hair and nixed the lipstick.
The owner intercepted me on the way out. She apparently required no sleep. She was smiling and efficient. Her hair was nicely arranged, and she was dressed to take on all comers. She told me Berli was still another hour's drive from there, apparently straight up. She insisted that I have a caffè latte and a brioche for the road.
That morning, the bar-restaurant was full of customers, mostly elderly men, enjoying breakfast and each others’ company. The odd one had a glass of wine.
This far from the urban areas, I didn't expect anyone to speak English, although you never know when someone will have a cousin. I used my phrase book and smiled a lot. I learned to say Basta! for enough. I was on a mission. I didn't really intend to come back from Italy looking like one of those Genoa salamis I enjoy so much.
I didn't want to waste an opportunity though. I pulled out the picture of Mrs. Parnell and slapped it on the wooden table top.
“Mia nonna,” I said, enthusiastically.
“Ah, la nonna. Che bella!” I took this in the spirit it was intended. Although Mrs. Parnell is a stalwart companion and an irreplaceable friend, and she has splendid military bearing, she's less than conventionally beautiful.
I did my best to ask if the woman had seen her there on her way to Berli. I emphasized sick and lost. Ammalata e perduta. I also threw in the silver Opel for good measure. Macchina d'argento! Opel! Opel! I sounded quite deranged. Maybe that's what set off a blizzard of chatter. “Si?” I said. “Si?”
“No.”
My shoulders fell. More chatter. Some shrugs. If anyone even slightly unusual, and Mrs. P. would certainly qualify, had come through a village in this part of Italy, word would spread ten miles before you could say un espresso, per piacere. Oh well, it had been a long shot anyway, and I got a decent brioche out of it.
I was just polishing off my second espresso when there was a ruckus at the door. A very elderly gentleman was escorted in by two slightly less elderly helpers. A young man handsome enough to be a model for upmarket jeans followed them. Everyone became very excited about the old man, not the gorgeous kid.
I approved. It spoke well of a society where the arrival of a tiny old man sparked a lot of interest. Who needs plasma TVs and Blackberries when people in a community find each other so fascinating? Not that I would want to be the subject of such close attention from my neighbours and family, mind you. Still, the old gentleman didn't seem to mind.
Before my wondering eyes, he was steered toward my table. By this time, he was surrounded by a cluster of people, all talking at once. I wasn't sure who was listening to all this talking. It wasn't me, since I only caught the odd word. There was a buzz in the air.
As far as I could tell, the old man's name was zio Domenico. Uncle Dominic. I shook his hand. I shook the hand of his two companions.
Everyone else seemed to want to shake my hand too. That was fine.
The companions picked up the photo of Mrs. Parnell and showed it to zio Domenico. He squinted. He paused. He leaned a bit forward. He squinted more. He paused again. I had to admire his innate sense of drama. I looked around. Everyone appeared to be holding their breath.
“La nonna?” he said in a quavery voice.
“Si,” I said.
“Molta bella.”
“Grazie.”
The young man stepped forward. I imagined the girls he went to school with had a hard time concentrating when they spotted the curly dark hair, electric blue eyes and golden skin. I won't even mention the cheekbones and chiselled jaw.
“My name is Dario,” he said, showing teeth that most people would kill for. “I study the English in school, so that I can visit my cousin in Hamilton. They say your grandmother is sick?”
“Yes,” I said, “she may have had a heart attack. And she's seeing things.”
“Ah,” he said. “Pazza.”
I knew that pazza meant crazy. “No, no. Not crazy, sick. I believe she went to Berli. I hope so, otherwise I have to visit Pieve San Simone, Montechiaro and someplace called Alcielo.”
“Berli is a long drive from here. Not as far as these other places,” Dario said. “It is dangerous to drive today because it is…nebuloso. Sorry, I do not know the word.”
“Yes, very foggy.”
“You should stay here with us, signora,” he said flirtatiously.
Flirtation's not my thing. “Has this gentleman seen my grandmother?”
“Zio Domenico? No. Do not worry. She will be fine, I think. Yes.”
I could tell he wanted to help. “My grandmother might be driving up the mountain in the fog. As you said, it's very dangerous. She might be sick. She needs to see a doctor.”
“Your father will find her.”
“What?”
“Your father.”
“My father's not here.”
“Your uncle perhaps? He was searching for your nonna. He stopped here yesterday, and he asks about her.”
“You lost me, Dario. Who did?”
“Her son. I am trying to explain. Zio Domenico didn't see your grandmother. He saw her son.”
Brockbank Manor
Hampshire
United Kingdom
January 26, 1945
Darling Vi,
This is the hardest letter I will ever write. You cannot imagine how war changes a fellow. The Italian campaign was beyond imagination. I lost so many fine colleagues. Especially Perce. I feel I should have been able to save him. I still see his shattered face in front of me in my nightmares.
Now that I am back in England, everything seems different to me. For a while, it looked like my face and hands might heal, but the doctors were certain I would lose my right arm. I have outfoxed them, it seems. I have had a wonderful volunteer hospital visitor in the course of my recovery. Her two brothers were killed in France in the early days, and she has been doing her best to help out with the morale of those of us who made it back. You used to call me a handsome devil. Although my face is healing, you couldn't say that any more. It is more than my damaged appearance. All those months of crawling through the mud in the Italian countryside have changed me. Perhaps it was always being under German fire, sleeping in a slit trench and having your ears rattled by exploding shells, losing your friends, in the worst cases, feeling their blood wash over you. I am no longer the happy-go-lucky fellow you fell in love with. That is one of the reasons why it has been so hard for me to write to you before now.
I got a letter from Hazel, and she mentioned that you had been courted by a dashing officer named Parnell. I believe I've run into him a few times. Hazel thought I would be jealous, but that makes what I am going to tell you a bit easier. What I am trying to say is that I have fallen in love with my hospital visitor, whose name is Dorothea. She is a very fine, serious girl who wants nothing from life except a husband and children and peace, of course. This is very hard to break to you this way: Dorothea and I have been married.
I hope some day you will forgive me, Violet, and that you will live a very happy life. You will always have a special place in my heart.
Harry