Chapter Six

Isabella was standing at her drawing board in the office, retracing the section of a building in Via Corelli, busy working alongside the other architects and engineers employed on the Bellina project. But her father’s words kept getting in the way of the detailed drawing in front of her.

If you want to keep your job.

Her father wasn’t a man to say things he wasn’t confident were true. If he said her job was at risk, then that’s what he meant. It was Dottore Martino, the chief architect under Frezzotti, who had appointed her to this job: a small energetic man who possessed rigorous standards and a string of medals pinned to his chest by Il Duce. Yet he was the kind of man who made Isabella feel cleverer just by being in the same room with him. But now she was confused and wondering why he had picked her for his team.

Why her?

She was surrounded by some of Italy’s most innovative architects. They were all crammed with their drawing boards into the large airy rooms of the architectural offices, where huge windows allowed light to stream in from the piazza. Each of the employees was under constant pressure to get everything right. No, not just right. Perfect. Bellina was the first of the six new towns to be built on the drained marshes, and each one had been allocated only two hundred sixty days from start to finish.

So deadlines were tight. Everyone worked long hours. That suited Isabella. She was happiest when working. There were twenty-two architects and over forty draftsmen in this group of offices, each with a wary eye on his neighbor’s drawing board as they measured and drew, and remeasured and redrew according to Dottore Architetto Martino’s pronouncements. Isabella was the only female architect working on the project, surrounded daily by the odor of hair oil and by the casual touch of male hands on her bottom whenever she was foolish enough to allow them too close.

“Signora Berotti!”

Isabella jumped. Everyone in the office jumped when Dottore Martino entered a room in his Milan-crafted suit and black-rimmed spectacles.

“Signora Berotti, there is a job I need you to do.”

He stopped in front of her board, eyeing Isabella’s section drawing. She was working on a three-story building containing six apartments that was already under construction, a fairly straightforward design for the artisan quarter of town. No great challenge. But even so, the pen in her hand itched to improve the lines on the top sheet of tracing paper before his critical eye spotted anything it didn’t like. Throughout the large room pens and triangles paused, heads turned. She could sense the half smiles, the male desire to see soft female flesh torn to shreds.

“Yes, sir?”

“Get yourself down to the stone yard. A new delivery of stone has come in for the apartments, and I want you to check the color and quality. There have been some questions about it. Be quick. And make sure you’re at the rail station by two o’clock for the reception of the new farmers from up north.”

When Dottore Martino said go, you went. She put down her drawing pen and snatched her bag from under her stool, and as she did so, he added casually, “You’re good with stone.”

This was a man who did not often offer praise. It may not have sounded like much, but it meant a great deal to Isabella.

“Get going then,” he said curtly. “And get this drawing right.”

“Yes, sir.”

She saw the faces of her colleagues as she strode from the room.

You’re good with stone.

That would annoy them.

Dottore Martino was right. Isabella was good with stone. She reacted to it the way normal people react to pets. She loved to stroke it, to caress it, to feel each ancient layer of history within it. It spoke to her in ways that humans didn’t, so it was with a hitch of pleasure in her step that she walked into the stone yard. It was set way back behind the station and rattled with the sound of chisels chipping away at slabs and the occasional shriek of an electric saw biting through granite.

The air shimmered with stone dust as Isabella walked past the slabs of pale limestone and richly colored blocks of marble and headed for the wooden office. She banged on its door and called out, “Tommaso!”

There was the clatter of a chair inside and the door burst open with a roar.

“Isabella!”

She was grasped in a bear hug and kissed on both cheeks. When her ribs were on the point of cracking, she fought off Tommaso Lombardi and grinned up at him. He looked as though he had been hewn out of one of his own slabs of rock, and his gray beard stank of garlic.

“Buongiorno, Isabella, come in, come in. Your lovely face makes my old heart sing.”

He drew her into the office by the scruff of her neck. It was always like this. She loved the warmth of his greeting and of the homemade hooch that he kept under the chaos he called a desk.

“How’s life treating you, Tommaso? Still breaking women’s hearts?”

He laughed, shaking his big belly and the flimsy walls of his office, the laugh of a man who relishes every minute of his life. His skills as a stonemason were much in demand, and she reckoned he must have more than a hundred men working for him in the yard, but even that number never seemed to be enough. Dottore Martino drove him hard.

“Ah, Isabella, my pretty one, I never break a woman’s heart. I make her happy.” He was already pouring a dark liquid into two grimy glasses and handed one to her. It was only eleven o’clock in the morning, but she wasn’t planning on arguing.

“Salute, Tommaso!”

“Tanta salute.”

They took a moment to let the alcohol hit their stomachs with the impact of a train, then set to work. He led her around the yard and together they examined the great slabs of stone. He grumbled deep in his beard about the fact that there had been some complaints about the quality of some of the stone being used in construction, and he encouraged her to run her hands over the mottled granite that she needed for the apartment block. The idea that anything but the finest materials were being used in the building of the new town sent shudders through both of them.

“Watch out, Isabella,” Tommaso grunted. “Something is not right.”

She could find no fault in the granite, so she nodded, satisfied, and as she did so she asked casually, “Have you heard anything about the death in the Piazza del Popolo yesterday?”

“A terrible way to die!” His stone-hardened hand marked out a cross on his chest.

“What are people saying?”

“That she was crazy for love. That her husband had run off with another woman.” He tossed his great gray head. “That’s no reason to . . .” His chest heaved. “She’d been cutting herself with a knife, they say.”

“What? Where did you hear that?”

“It’s the gossip in the wine shops all over town.”

“I hope it’s wrong.”

“Why would it be wrong?”

Isabella shrugged. “Maybe Chairman Grassi wants people to believe that only an insane woman would kill herself in his beautiful town. Does anyone know anything about her or why she chose Bellina?”

Tommaso grimaced and raked his fingers through his beard. “No, not that I’ve heard. Bad luck for you that she chose your tower.”

She chose my table for her child. My tower for her death.

“Yes,” she muttered. “Bad luck for me.”

“Ah, Isabella, don’t look like that. It was not your fault.”

She fixed her mind on what she was here for. The stone calmed her. She moved over to a stack of travertine that had just been delivered from up near Rome. She loved the mottled marble, a calcium carbonate that was produced from hot spring water penetrating up through underground limestone. When the water evaporated, it left behind magical layers of dissolved limestone that gave it a rough banded appearance, a beautiful honey-beige with stripes of tan weaving through it like the pelt of a ginger cat. She stood there stroking it, its pinhole indentations rippling under her skin, and she would have stood there happily all day if she had the time.

“Signora Berotti, I didn’t know you would be here.”

Isabella swung around. Before her stood a slightly built man in his late thirties with light brown hair and pale caramel eyes that missed nothing. They were inspecting her with interest. She must have been standing there longer than she thought because Tommaso had gone, and so had the lazy blue sky. In its place hung a thin layer of bruised mist and she could see in the distance an army of storm clouds massing above the Lepini mountains, their dark shadows crawling down onto the plain.

“Signor Francolini,” she said, “I was sent over by Dottore Martino to check on the granite for the apartments in Via Corelli. There have been complaints about the quality.”

Davide Francolini was Dottore Martino’s right-hand man. He was the person who made things happen, working with engineers and builders, ensuring that the drawings on Isabella’s tracing paper leapt into life as buildings of solid stone and brick. She didn’t envy him his job when so many hundreds of buildings had to be constructed at such breakneck speed, often with untried workmen, but he functioned with a calm efficiency and was well respected within the office. He’d never spoken more than two words to her before.

“Complaints?” he asked.

“I only know what I was told by Tommaso,” Isabella explained. “You should speak to him.”

“But I’m not. I’m speaking to you.”

He said it with a soft smile. He wasn’t looking to make trouble for her.

“I just heard from Tommaso,” she said, “that some of the builders are complaining about the stone quality, and that makes him spit nails because he would never provide inferior stone.”

Francolini considered what she’d told him. “I will look into it.”

His manner was friendly, so when he started to move away, she moved with him. Together they walked toward the iron gates that opened onto the wide thoroughfare, where a constant stream of lorries poured in and out of the yard.

“Signor Francolini.”

He glanced at her, surprised that she was still at his elbow.

“What can I do for you, signora?”

“I was wondering whether you had ever discussed with Dottore Martino why he decided to take me on as part of his team.”

She knew the question was risky, but she might never get another chance to ask it. To her surprise he laughed easily.

“No, Signora Berotti, I have never discussed that subject with him. But I assume he took you on for the same reason he hires any architect—because you’re good at your work.”

His eyes examined hers and he was about to add something more when a sudden barb of lightning ripped open the underbelly of the black clouds that were still jostling above the mountains. It sucked the light out of the sky and a crack of thunder rolled across the wide open plain. Isabella sensed a change in Davide Francolini. He was staring at the distant storm.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I used to live up there,” he muttered, “when I was a boy. I know what those storms are like.”

“Violent, I imagine.”

“Yes.”

“It must be interesting for you to see how the plain has changed now.” She smiled at him. “For the better, I hope.”

He shook himself. The way a dog shakes a rat.

“Come,” he said, reverting to his usual courteous tone, “and have lunch with me. We don’t have to be at the rail station for the grand reception of the new arrivals until two o’clock, so we have plenty of time.”

Isabella’s feet took a step away from him before she could stop them, but she had the sense to arrange her face into an expression of regret.

“I’m sorry, but there’s somewhere I have to go first.”

“Well, another time perhaps.”

It was vague enough. She said, “Yes.”

Isabella hurried away down the street. She couldn’t tell Davide Francolini that she hadn’t had a meal alone with a man for ten years—except her father, of course—because it plunged her back into that time when being alone with a man meant being with Luigi, and she would hear the shots and screams all over again. She couldn’t tell Davide Francolini that just the thought of lunch with him set the bullet hole in her back throbbing.

The convent building bore the distinctive fingerprint of Dottore Martino. Isabella could see it in its use of heavy triglyphs on the stone architraves and on the Roman pilasters. It was the convent of the Suore di Santa Teresa, a newly constructed cruciform building with attractive planes of symmetry and strong vertical lines heading straight up to God.

Isabella felt nervous. There was something about the girl and Chairman Grassi’s lies about her mother’s madness that tangled together in her head, sharp as strands of wire. She walked up the gravel path to the oak door and lifted her hand to the brass bell pull. She rang it and waited. They made her wait a long time. She stood on the front step, the air cooling around her as the mist thickened to a leaden cloud, and she watched a flock of crows descend onto the convent’s patch of dark earth. They proceeded to rip up the film of grass seed where someone was trying to create a lawn.

“Yes?”

A small hatch in the center of the door had slid to one side, and all she could see was a pair of suspicious blue eyes and the crisp edges of a wimple.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, I hope so.” Isabella smiled pleasantly at the nun, but the suspicious look didn’t go away. “My name is Isabella Berotti and I would like to speak to Sister Consolata, please.”

“She is busy at the moment.”

“I believe you have a girl called Rosa Bianchi here. She’s a friend of mine and I’d like to speak to her.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“When will it be possible?”

“I don’t know.”

“When will Sister Consolata be free to see me?”

The blue eyes blinked, as if trying to blink her away. “I’m not sure.”

“Can I make an appointment to see her?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Can I make an appointment to see Rosa?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Is this a prison or a convent?”

“May God’s blessing be upon you.”

The hatch banged shut.

“Francesca, are you coming down to the station to welcome the newcomers?”

“You bet I am, Bella. I’m not stupido. The Party is one of my best customers, so of course I’ll be right there on the platform waving my flag with the rest of them.”

The young woman leaning against the bakery shop window wafted her cigarette through the air at Isabella as a demonstration of her flag-waving prowess. She possessed white-blond hair inherited from her Norwegian father combined with the heavy-boned features of her Sicilian mother, and the unusual mix gave her a striking appearance. She had three passions in life—dough-making, Hollywood film stars, and cigarettes. Francesca Chitti chain-smoked every day outside her shop when she wasn’t baking bread, and she coughed like a camel. The two women had become friends, ever since Isabella had taken to dropping into Francesca’s shop each morning to buy her breakfast rolls.

“Busy?” Isabella asked.

“No, not now. I was up all night baking bread for this latest lot of farm newcomers”—she yawned elaborately—“but it’s quiet now.”

“So walk with me to the station.”

A broad smile spread across Francesca’s face. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, tell me all about this nothing of yours.”

“I just want to ask you a few things.”

“Bella, cara mia, I am all yours. Just give me half a minute.”

She threw off her apron, locked up the shop, pulled the net off her pale hair so that it cascaded in a snowy river down her back, lit another cigarette, and scowled at the sky. “I hope it doesn’t rain. I can’t bear all the mud in this blasted town.”

“At least the rain gets rid of the dust.” Isabella removed the cigarette from her friend’s fingers and trod it into the pavement. “The buildings will be all finished soon and the grass will grow in the spring, transforming the place. Wait and see. It will be beautiful.”

“You are an optimist!” Francesca laughed, and she rolled her dark eyes in mock despair.

The two friends found the sidewalks crowded as they walked together along the street, conscious of cars and pedestrians all hurrying in the same direction toward the railway station. Many of the town’s workers had been granted a half-day holiday for the occasion.

“So what is it you want to know?” Francesca asked with curiosity.

“I was wondering whether you’ve heard anything about the woman who died in the square?”

“Oh, Isabella, you’re not fretting over that sad woman, are you? You’ve got to forget about it. I know it was a grisly shock but—”

“Have you picked up any rumors? Allegra Bianchi was her name.”

Francesca was always a source of astonishing amounts of information that she wheedled out of customers or overheard while making deliveries of her bread. She had as good a nose for gossip as she had for dough and made Isabella laugh with her stories of impending disasters or clandestine affairs.

“Why are you so interested in her?” Francesca asked with a lift of a pale eyebrow. She looked closely at her friend.

“Because she knew something about Luigi.”

“No, Allegra Bianchi was new in town. How could she have known anything about you or your husband? Bella, you’re imagining it.”

“No, I’m not. She mentioned him to me before she climbed up the tower.” Isabella saw Francesca shake her head. “It’s true, Francesca, so I need to find out more about who she was and why she came here.”

She tried to make it sound casual. Not like a burning need. Not like something that was churning in her stomach with every breath she took. But Francesca knew her too well and stopped short in the middle of the pavement, ignoring a woman’s carriage that had to make a quick diversion to avoid a collision.

“Bella, don’t do this to yourself. You’ve been through enough.”

“Allegra Bianchi knew something about Luigi’s death, and I have to find out what it was.”

“Are you sure you can believe her?”

Isabella nodded. “Help me, Francesca. Please. I’ve got to speak to her daughter, too. I’m concerned about her.”

“The girl in the convent?”

“Yes.” Isabella gripped Francesca’s arm and set off walking again more briskly. “Chairman Grassi is involved somehow, according to Rosa’s mother. She claimed the Party knows who killed my husband, which means Grassi must know.”

Francesca quickly lit herself a new cigarette. She inhaled harshly. “Be careful, Bella.” She glanced around nervously as if expecting a member of the carabinieri to step out of the shadows. “It was a long time ago. Let it stay in the past.”

“How can I?” Isabella turned her head and looked with bewilderment at her friend. “He was my husband. My husband!”

“Oh, Bella, my dearest Bella, don’t do this.”

They walked in silence for a whole block, not one of their usual easy silences but an awkward spiky one that made their shoes sound loud on the pavement. As they neared the station Isabella was only dimly aware of the voices around her, of the crowds gathering, of the sense of excitement making people smile at strangers.

“Francesca, listen to me. I know you. If your husband was killed, you’d move heaven and earth to find out who did it. However many years it took.”

“If Piero was killed, my angel, I would be the one who did it!”

Isabella could not help but laugh. Her friend’s domestic relations were always stormy.

“See what you and that nose of yours can sniff out,” she urged. “You’re good at digging up things.”

Francesca sighed. “Oh, Isabella, you know I’m hopeless at saying no to you. But don’t let me catch you doing anything . . . foolish.” They both were aware that the word dangerous had hovered on the tip of her tongue, but she had not allowed it out. Everyone in Mussolini’s Italy knew not to talk out loud about danger. It made daily life feel too fragile.

“Of course I won’t.”

Francesca nudged an elbow in Isabella’s ribs and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I’ve heard one rumor you’ll be interested in.”

“What’s that?”

“Mussolini is coming to inspect Bellina.”

Isabella’s thoughts curled around the name: Mussolini. And a door seemed to open to the darkness at the back of her mind.