Sneak Peek from Secrets Of The River...
Alex finds out that dinner with the Contessa isn't quite so fun...
(Natasha and Alex, from London, and have spent their first day at their Italian friends lovely villa, up in the hills overlooking the Trebbia River. They'd met Lorenzo and Gabriella the previous Easter while staying on their parents archaeological dig in the desert. However, the Italian grandmother, living at the villa is beginning to make Natasha's holiday a bit of a problem...)
Secrets of The River
Chapter Nine
“Bona sera,” the Contessa announced as she walked into the dining room.
It was just after seven and the children had showered, changed and had come down to the dining room for dinner, and were standing behind their chairs waiting for the Contessa.
“Please sit down. I’m sorry I am a little late,” she said with a flick of her wrist. “I was e-mailing a friend in Paris.”
She glanced at Alex and smiled knowingly with a subtle nod.
“So, Lorenzo,” she said, as he pulled out her chair for her at the head of the table, “you have shown your guests all there is to see, I hope?”
Alex instinctively glanced up at the spray of machine-gun holes in the plaster at the end of the room, and wished he hadn’t been reminded of the Nazis again. Despite his uneasiness, he had showered in his own bathroom, but only by abandoning all fear of modesty, leaving his bathroom and bedroom doors wide open. He calculated that if he was noisy enough splashing in the bathroom, anyone walking into his room would immediately hear that he was having a shower, and would have the decency to walk out again before they saw anything. This included, of course, any German officers who might be hiding behind the door, under the bed or in the cupboard.
“Yes, I showed him even the river,” Lorenzo was telling his grandmother, “I took him over there before lunch and showed him where Hannibal had attacked our army.”
The Contessa nodded in approval. She put her napkin on her lap and then poured herself some iced water from the jug that was in front of her place setting.
“And what did Alex think of our valley and its history?”
“Fantastic!” he answered enthusiastically, “…Contessa,” he quickly added. “I think it is amazing to have had a battle like that so close to your home. I could stay up there all day just imagining what it was like.”
“Well, do! I have a copy of Livy’s account of the whole battle in the library if you would care to borrow it. Take it over there and read it!”
“Thank you! I’d like to,” he said, then quickly added, “…Contessa.”
He settled in his chair and thought how he was going to enjoy his stay here. He liked the Contessa; he thought she was quite friendly. He wasn’t sure who Livy was though, but it didn’t matter. It was probably one of her intelligent friends, he thought. He glanced up at Natasha who was giving him daggers with her eyes, but he didn’t care.
“Natasha, are you looking forward to going to Pisa next week?” The Contessa said, making her jump. “Your mother telephoned this afternoon, I think you were all down by the pool when she called. I must get that phone connection for the pool-house working, oh, and she said she would call you tonight, at around nine.”
“Oh, really?” Thanks for bothering to tell us, Natasha thought. Had she known her mother had phoned she would have called her back. However, Natasha thought she had better make an effort to be polite to the Contessa, for her mother’s sake at least. She knew her efforts to impress the Contessa this morning hadn’t gone too well. She decided to not worry about saying the wrong thing; she would just be herself and talk freely.
She took a quick gulp of water.
“Oh thank you, Contessa. I can’t wait to see my mother; I’ve missed her a lot. I haven’t seen her for a couple of months. And I am so looking forward to seeing the excavation too.”
“Indeed? Is that so, Natasha?” The Contessa sounded interested.
“Yes, I was reading what they have found so far on Marcello’s website…” she hesitated, “I mean the Doctor’s website, I mean the Professor’s…” she became flustered, and started to change colour, but she continued because she felt at last she could talk to the Contessa about something. “Before we came out here, I read all about the excavation. It’s quite fascinating. It’s amazing that the ships are in such good condition. The silt and moisture has preserved them really well, and a lot of perishable organic stuff like rope, and leather and even some woven baskets from the Etruscan ships, I think, are still intact. There is even wine and oil in one of the holds, in those odd shaped clay containers….” she forgot what they were called, and tried to remember. She slowly turned a deeper red.
The Contessa nodded and knew exactly what she meant.
“Amphorae,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Amphorae,” Natasha repeated, gathering her composure, “I can’t believe that had they not needed a new terminal for the railway station, all these ships would have been hidden underground for ever. It makes you wonder what else is still under the city that will never be brought to the surface.”
“Indeed,” the Contessa said, looking at her, examining her.
“Yes!” Gabriella agreed enthusiastically, “and under any city for that matter! You are right Natasha! Natasha knows all about the excavation, Grandmother, isn’t she clever?”
The Contessa ignored Gabriella’s question.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Natasha quickly said to Gabriella, “but I am looking forward to spending time at the site, and watching the excavation. My mother did tell me that...”
“My dear child,” the Contessa interrupted with almost a snigger and the dismissive flick of her wrist, “I hardly think there is space in the confined area for spectators. It is totally sealed off from the general public, with pumps and machines and pipes and wires everywhere. The mud is inches deep. The last thing my son needs is further hindrance. So I rather think you would be in the way, don’t you Natasha?”
It was like a kick in the stomach. She felt dismissed like a child. She felt crushed. It was main reason for coming to Italy; to see her mother and the excavation she was working on. She had read all there was to read about the sunken ships on Marcello’s blog on line, and she had taken an interest in the dig since she found out she was coming to Italy. She had even told her teachers that she would do a presentation on it when she went back to school in September. Now she had been dismissed with a flick of a wrist like a stupid child. The Contessa’s tone had been very condescending, and Natasha hated her for it. If it hadn’t been for the hate she felt for the woman, she would have cried.
“Natasha! You know more about the site than we do!" Lorenzo laughed, distracting her, and trying to make light of his grandmother’s cutting comment. "You are even as enthusiastic about it as my father is! I am sure he we will show us all around. What my grandmother perhaps does not realize is that he wants us to be involved in his work as much as possible.”
He glanced at his grandmother to see if she had realised he was crossing her. She seemed not to have noticed, and was serving herself vegetables from a tray that Maria, Giovanni’s middle-aged daughter, was holding for her. They started talking about a phone message Maria had taken. The Contessa seemed totally oblivious to Lorenzo’s stand, and to the fact that she had hurt Natasha.
Natasha grinned at Lorenzo, and she understood what he had done for her, and she hoped the Contessa would choke on a piece of asparagus.
Lorenzo dipped his fingers into his glass of water, and without his grandmother seeing, flicked it at Natasha. She flinched, then mouthed him to stop it in case his grandmother saw. She wiped the drops off her forehead and cheek with her finger and looked over at the Contessa to check she hadn’t noticed.
“Lorenzo,” the Contessa said from the end of the table while helping herself to a healthy portion of the veal and lemon, “perhaps you could pour Natasha some more water, since you think she needs cooling down so much.”
She then poured herself a glass of wine and took a sip. Natasha could see Gabriella giggling behind her napkin at her brother who had been caught red handed.
“To continue on the subject of the excavation, Natasha,” the Contessa said, “compared to the excavation you saw in Medinabad, this one is quite different. Very few unskilled workers, I might add. These types were just not needed.”
The wrist did its dismissive flick again.
“ …Here, at the Pisa site, there are many more scientists and restorers. I understand from my son that this is much more technical, and as a result extremely slow-going compared to the excavation in the desert. It is also, I might add, the most unsavoury, dirty, and muddy environment I have seen my son work in to date. The further they excavate, the wetter the site becomes. Very frustrating for my son. Very frustrating. And of course, extremely expensive. I believe there are pumps extracting the filthy water around the clock.”
She pulled a face of utter distaste, and shook her head dismissively at the thought of it, and took another sip of wine.
“All those years at university, only to be working all day up to one’s neck in mud!” Lorenzo laughed.
The Contessa immediately put her glass down and looked at her grandson.
Lorenzo flushed as he realized he had really done it now.
“You may make flippant comments and snigger at your father, Lorenzo,” she said sternly, “but you would do well to remember that your father is one of the most highly respected archaeologists in the world…”
“I am sorry, Grandmother, I was not really laughing at…”
“Your father’s hectic schedule,” she continued, ignoring Lorenzo’s attempt to quell the situation, “between writing reports, lecturing across America and Europe, and being up to his ‘neck’ in mud, as you so finely put it, is how he chooses to keep you and Gabriella in the extravagant lifestyle you are accustomed to. May I suggest that you remember your father, ‘up to his neck in mud’ next week when you are having your one hundred-and-twenty-Euro private tennis lesson.”
“Forgive me, grandmother, I did not think…”
“No, Lorenzo, you did not. Perhaps you would like to leave the table, so that you can. Good evening Lorenzo.”
There was an agonising silence. Natasha starred at her lap, not daring to move.
“Of course, Grandmother,” Lorenzo eventually said, placing his napkin on the table beside his side plate. He rose from his chair.
“Excuse me,” he said quietly to Natasha and Alex. “Good evening,” he said to his grandmother, and left the room.
Silence.
No one dared breathe. Maria made a hasty retreat back into the kitchen.
Natasha’s wide eyes looked over at Alex. He was starring down at the food on his plate. He had lost his appetite, and was thinking how his healthy serving of veal and vegetables suddenly seemed like an enormous of the pile of dog food.
The Contessa broke the silence.
“Gabriella, do you remember Signor Muretti?”
“Yes, I do, Grandmother. He was very kind to me at the camp in Medinabad when I …”
“Well, Signor Muretti will be having a break from the oppressive heat in the desert. He will also be attending the engagement party, I understand he is bringing his wife and daughter, who I do not believe we know. Oh, that reminds me, another three confirmed guests…Maria…?” she called over the children’s heads towards the kitchen and rang the little bell that was sitting next to her wine glass at the table.
Maria immediately came back into the dining room and stood next to the Contessa, and was instructed to add three more confirmed guests to the list, which was apparently growing longer by the day. Natasha and Alex had a chance to glance at one another and show their discomfort with exaggerated facial expressions. They both looked across the table at Gabriella, hoping she could do something to get them out of the room. But Gabriella smiled at them both re-assuredly.
Natasha sighed. What a bloody awful awful holiday this is turning out to be. And this certainly wasn’t the best time to fish and find out if Yanni was in Pisa, either. She looked at the Contessa reading the guest list. Gabriella had obviously seen someone else hugging the old gardener. No one in their right mind would go near this woman if they didn’t have to.
They were in for a long evening.
Secrets of The River
Chapter Nine
“Bona sera,” the Contessa announced as she walked into the dining room.
It was just after seven and the children had showered, changed and had come down to the dining room for dinner, and were standing behind their chairs waiting for the Contessa.
“Please sit down. I’m sorry I am a little late,” she said with a flick of her wrist. “I was e-mailing a friend in Paris.”
She glanced at Alex and smiled knowingly with a subtle nod.
“So, Lorenzo,” she said, as he pulled out her chair for her at the head of the table, “you have shown your guests all there is to see, I hope?”
Alex instinctively glanced up at the spray of machine-gun holes in the plaster at the end of the room, and wished he hadn’t been reminded of the Nazis again. Despite his uneasiness, he had showered in his own bathroom, but only by abandoning all fear of modesty, leaving his bathroom and bedroom doors wide open. He calculated that if he was noisy enough splashing in the bathroom, anyone walking into his room would immediately hear that he was having a shower, and would have the decency to walk out again before they saw anything. This included, of course, any German officers who might be hiding behind the door, under the bed or in the cupboard.
“Yes, I showed him even the river,” Lorenzo was telling his grandmother, “I took him over there before lunch and showed him where Hannibal had attacked our army.”
The Contessa nodded in approval. She put her napkin on her lap and then poured herself some iced water from the jug that was in front of her place setting.
“And what did Alex think of our valley and its history?”
“Fantastic!” he answered enthusiastically, “…Contessa,” he quickly added. “I think it is amazing to have had a battle like that so close to your home. I could stay up there all day just imagining what it was like.”
“Well, do! I have a copy of Livy’s account of the whole battle in the library if you would care to borrow it. Take it over there and read it!”
“Thank you! I’d like to,” he said, then quickly added, “…Contessa.”
He settled in his chair and thought how he was going to enjoy his stay here. He liked the Contessa; he thought she was quite friendly. He wasn’t sure who Livy was though, but it didn’t matter. It was probably one of her intelligent friends, he thought. He glanced up at Natasha who was giving him daggers with her eyes, but he didn’t care.
“Natasha, are you looking forward to going to Pisa next week?” The Contessa said, making her jump. “Your mother telephoned this afternoon, I think you were all down by the pool when she called. I must get that phone connection for the pool-house working, oh, and she said she would call you tonight, at around nine.”
“Oh, really?” Thanks for bothering to tell us, Natasha thought. Had she known her mother had phoned she would have called her back. However, Natasha thought she had better make an effort to be polite to the Contessa, for her mother’s sake at least. She knew her efforts to impress the Contessa this morning hadn’t gone too well. She decided to not worry about saying the wrong thing; she would just be herself and talk freely.
She took a quick gulp of water.
“Oh thank you, Contessa. I can’t wait to see my mother; I’ve missed her a lot. I haven’t seen her for a couple of months. And I am so looking forward to seeing the excavation too.”
“Indeed? Is that so, Natasha?” The Contessa sounded interested.
“Yes, I was reading what they have found so far on Marcello’s website…” she hesitated, “I mean the Doctor’s website, I mean the Professor’s…” she became flustered, and started to change colour, but she continued because she felt at last she could talk to the Contessa about something. “Before we came out here, I read all about the excavation. It’s quite fascinating. It’s amazing that the ships are in such good condition. The silt and moisture has preserved them really well, and a lot of perishable organic stuff like rope, and leather and even some woven baskets from the Etruscan ships, I think, are still intact. There is even wine and oil in one of the holds, in those odd shaped clay containers….” she forgot what they were called, and tried to remember. She slowly turned a deeper red.
The Contessa nodded and knew exactly what she meant.
“Amphorae,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Amphorae,” Natasha repeated, gathering her composure, “I can’t believe that had they not needed a new terminal for the railway station, all these ships would have been hidden underground for ever. It makes you wonder what else is still under the city that will never be brought to the surface.”
“Indeed,” the Contessa said, looking at her, examining her.
“Yes!” Gabriella agreed enthusiastically, “and under any city for that matter! You are right Natasha! Natasha knows all about the excavation, Grandmother, isn’t she clever?”
The Contessa ignored Gabriella’s question.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Natasha quickly said to Gabriella, “but I am looking forward to spending time at the site, and watching the excavation. My mother did tell me that...”
“My dear child,” the Contessa interrupted with almost a snigger and the dismissive flick of her wrist, “I hardly think there is space in the confined area for spectators. It is totally sealed off from the general public, with pumps and machines and pipes and wires everywhere. The mud is inches deep. The last thing my son needs is further hindrance. So I rather think you would be in the way, don’t you Natasha?”
It was like a kick in the stomach. She felt dismissed like a child. She felt crushed. It was main reason for coming to Italy; to see her mother and the excavation she was working on. She had read all there was to read about the sunken ships on Marcello’s blog on line, and she had taken an interest in the dig since she found out she was coming to Italy. She had even told her teachers that she would do a presentation on it when she went back to school in September. Now she had been dismissed with a flick of a wrist like a stupid child. The Contessa’s tone had been very condescending, and Natasha hated her for it. If it hadn’t been for the hate she felt for the woman, she would have cried.
“Natasha! You know more about the site than we do!" Lorenzo laughed, distracting her, and trying to make light of his grandmother’s cutting comment. "You are even as enthusiastic about it as my father is! I am sure he we will show us all around. What my grandmother perhaps does not realize is that he wants us to be involved in his work as much as possible.”
He glanced at his grandmother to see if she had realised he was crossing her. She seemed not to have noticed, and was serving herself vegetables from a tray that Maria, Giovanni’s middle-aged daughter, was holding for her. They started talking about a phone message Maria had taken. The Contessa seemed totally oblivious to Lorenzo’s stand, and to the fact that she had hurt Natasha.
Natasha grinned at Lorenzo, and she understood what he had done for her, and she hoped the Contessa would choke on a piece of asparagus.
Lorenzo dipped his fingers into his glass of water, and without his grandmother seeing, flicked it at Natasha. She flinched, then mouthed him to stop it in case his grandmother saw. She wiped the drops off her forehead and cheek with her finger and looked over at the Contessa to check she hadn’t noticed.
“Lorenzo,” the Contessa said from the end of the table while helping herself to a healthy portion of the veal and lemon, “perhaps you could pour Natasha some more water, since you think she needs cooling down so much.”
She then poured herself a glass of wine and took a sip. Natasha could see Gabriella giggling behind her napkin at her brother who had been caught red handed.
“To continue on the subject of the excavation, Natasha,” the Contessa said, “compared to the excavation you saw in Medinabad, this one is quite different. Very few unskilled workers, I might add. These types were just not needed.”
The wrist did its dismissive flick again.
“ …Here, at the Pisa site, there are many more scientists and restorers. I understand from my son that this is much more technical, and as a result extremely slow-going compared to the excavation in the desert. It is also, I might add, the most unsavoury, dirty, and muddy environment I have seen my son work in to date. The further they excavate, the wetter the site becomes. Very frustrating for my son. Very frustrating. And of course, extremely expensive. I believe there are pumps extracting the filthy water around the clock.”
She pulled a face of utter distaste, and shook her head dismissively at the thought of it, and took another sip of wine.
“All those years at university, only to be working all day up to one’s neck in mud!” Lorenzo laughed.
The Contessa immediately put her glass down and looked at her grandson.
Lorenzo flushed as he realized he had really done it now.
“You may make flippant comments and snigger at your father, Lorenzo,” she said sternly, “but you would do well to remember that your father is one of the most highly respected archaeologists in the world…”
“I am sorry, Grandmother, I was not really laughing at…”
“Your father’s hectic schedule,” she continued, ignoring Lorenzo’s attempt to quell the situation, “between writing reports, lecturing across America and Europe, and being up to his ‘neck’ in mud, as you so finely put it, is how he chooses to keep you and Gabriella in the extravagant lifestyle you are accustomed to. May I suggest that you remember your father, ‘up to his neck in mud’ next week when you are having your one hundred-and-twenty-Euro private tennis lesson.”
“Forgive me, grandmother, I did not think…”
“No, Lorenzo, you did not. Perhaps you would like to leave the table, so that you can. Good evening Lorenzo.”
There was an agonising silence. Natasha starred at her lap, not daring to move.
“Of course, Grandmother,” Lorenzo eventually said, placing his napkin on the table beside his side plate. He rose from his chair.
“Excuse me,” he said quietly to Natasha and Alex. “Good evening,” he said to his grandmother, and left the room.
Silence.
No one dared breathe. Maria made a hasty retreat back into the kitchen.
Natasha’s wide eyes looked over at Alex. He was starring down at the food on his plate. He had lost his appetite, and was thinking how his healthy serving of veal and vegetables suddenly seemed like an enormous of the pile of dog food.
The Contessa broke the silence.
“Gabriella, do you remember Signor Muretti?”
“Yes, I do, Grandmother. He was very kind to me at the camp in Medinabad when I …”
“Well, Signor Muretti will be having a break from the oppressive heat in the desert. He will also be attending the engagement party, I understand he is bringing his wife and daughter, who I do not believe we know. Oh, that reminds me, another three confirmed guests…Maria…?” she called over the children’s heads towards the kitchen and rang the little bell that was sitting next to her wine glass at the table.
Maria immediately came back into the dining room and stood next to the Contessa, and was instructed to add three more confirmed guests to the list, which was apparently growing longer by the day. Natasha and Alex had a chance to glance at one another and show their discomfort with exaggerated facial expressions. They both looked across the table at Gabriella, hoping she could do something to get them out of the room. But Gabriella smiled at them both re-assuredly.
Natasha sighed. What a bloody awful awful holiday this is turning out to be. And this certainly wasn’t the best time to fish and find out if Yanni was in Pisa, either. She looked at the Contessa reading the guest list. Gabriella had obviously seen someone else hugging the old gardener. No one in their right mind would go near this woman if they didn’t have to.
They were in for a long evening.
