The Sleeping Nymph, page 16
Teresa nodded, although she didn’t think a non-native could ever really comprehend the sheer force of the pain that the woman’s words revealed.
“Forgive me, but you didn’t come here just to learn about the folklore of the valley, did you?” the woman asked them.
“I’m Superintendent Battaglia,” said Teresa, introducing herself. “And this is my team.”
“I’m Matriona, though everyone calls me Mat.”
They shook hands.
“Perhaps you’ve read or heard about the famous painting that was recently discovered,” Teresa resumed.
The woman nodded.
“The portrait painted in blood,” she said.
“I’m going to ask you something now, and I know it’ll sound strange, but I wouldn’t do it if I weren’t convinced that this person really had existed.” Teresa reached into her shoulder bag to pull out the picture of the Sleeping Nymph. “I believe this young woman was born here and lived here, in this valley, until she disappeared on April 20th, 1945. I’m looking for someone who might remember who she was. I understand that—”
“Krisnja,” the woman whispered.
She had taken the photograph from Teresa and was staring at it now, her expression unreadable.
“Krisnja?”
“It means ‘cherry’ in our language. That’s her name.”
“You know this girl?” Teresa asked, glancing at Marini in amazement.
“I know who she is, but I don’t understand the date . . . 1945—that’s just not possible.”
“Why?”
Matriona returned the photograph.
“Because Krisnja is alive. She’s never gone missing, and she can’t be much older than twenty.”
31
When Teresa had revealed the true reason for their trip to the valley, Matriona’s gaze had fallen upon one of the tables, where a copy of the morning paper lay in plain sight. The front page carried a story about the Sleeping Nymph. The expression on Matriona’s face had shifted then, as if she’d suddenly grasped the importance of what she had told the police.
“I hope we may count on your discretion,” Teresa had said. “It’ll be essential, at this early stage of our investigation.”
Judge Crespi had been very clear in his instructions: no images of the portrait were to be released to the public just yet. The last thing he wanted was to encourage the pathological liars to come out of the woodwork. In a case like this, an onslaught of false reports could prove to be a severe hindrance to their search.
Matriona had given them a name and an address. From that moment on, she’d become more guarded; though the shift in her manner would have been imperceptible to most. She’d told them nothing else, only assured them that soon they would find the answers they were seeking. Or some of them, at least.
“You’ll be opening some very old wounds,” she’d said. “Make sure to do it respectfully.”
The ancient scars to which Mat referred belonged to Krisnja’s family, the di Lenardos. Their home was a yellow cottage surrounded by a large and impeccably kept lawn. In the backdrop were the forest and a magnificent vista of the colossal limestone slopes of Mount Kanin.
Teresa didn’t have a speech prepared and wasn’t sure how to broach the subject with these people, how to probe their past for a murder they might not even know about. But she was excited at the prospect of finally finding the thread that connected the painting to that fateful day in the distant past.
“I’m going alone,” said Teresa, stepping out of the car and leaning on the open door.
Marini scowled in obvious disapproval.
“I don’t want this to come across as a siege, so don’t hang around here like little sentinels. Off you go, explore.”
The lane that led to the house was hedged with holly. Before she’d even had a chance to ring the doorbell, she heard a man calling out to her from a nearby hill.
“I’m coming!” he shouted.
He made his way toward her with nimble gait. Teresa thought he must be in his seventies, or perhaps a few years younger. But it was hard to know for sure: the man’s deeply furrowed face contrasted with his physique, which seemed robust and not yet past its prime. He wasn’t particularly tall, but nevertheless radiated an air of peaceful authority. He had a thick head of hair, still dark, with only a touch of gray around the temples. He’d rolled his checked shirt up to his elbows, revealing strong, tanned forearms.
He walked up to Teresa with a curious, surveying look.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
His tone was terse, but perhaps it was just the unpretentiousness of a man not accustomed to receiving visitors.
Teresa decided she would speak openly this time and not bother to conceal her identity. Upon hearing the word “police,” the man gave her a half-hearted handshake and let go almost immediately.
“I’m looking for Krisnja di Lenardo,” said Teresa, watching him closely for a reaction.
The man frowned.
“She’s my great-niece. She lives over there,” he said, pointing at a house on the other side of the hill. “But she’s not in right now. Is there a problem?”
“No, there isn’t.”
“Cops don’t usually go looking for people unless there’s a problem.”
Teresa smiled.
“You’re right, but I’m absolutely certain that our problem doesn’t concern your niece—not directly, anyway. In fact, I think you’re the one who might be able to help me.”
“I’ll do what I can, of course.”
Teresa caught herself examining the man’s distinctive features. Francesco Di Lenardo had black eyes, small yet fiery, and slightly slanted. His flat, wide nose arced gently toward his thin lips, and high cheekbones framed the faintly exotic and perfectly symmetrical oval of his face. These were traits that seemed to belong in a distant land, yet Teresa had seen them before in that portrait whose restless presence she could feel reaching out for her from inside her bag. She’d seen them a few years ago in a photography exhibition about the Hazaras, a people of Mongolian descent and with hints of Caucasian heritage. But now she was in the Resia Valley, not in some far-flung steppe of the Caucasus.
She told herself it was nothing more than a coincidence—a suggestive twist of fate.
She took out the photograph of the Sleeping Nymph and handed it to the man.
“I’m looking for this woman,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound too crazy.
Francesco di Lenardo held the image between his fingertips. It looked like he had stopped breathing. After a long, silent pause, he sat down on the steps of the porch.
“Who told you to come here?” he said, his eyes fixed on that face that looked so like his own.
“I showed the picture to someone in town and they told me to ask for Krisnja di Lenardo. They told me she’s a young woman, but the person I’m looking for must be around—”
“Ninety,” said the man, finishing her sentence. He looked at her. “This isn’t my niece, Krisnja. This is a portrait of my aunt. Her name was Aniza.”
32
“Aniza was my father’s sister. She disappeared on the night of April 20th, 1945 and there’s been no trace of her since. All my life I’ve hoped she might have just run away to start a new life somewhere else, and now here you are, telling me she died that very night.”
Francesco di Lenardo looked down at the empty cup he kept turning around and around in his hands. He’d shown Teresa inside for a coffee, watching her closely as he poured it out for her, his curiosity tinged with suspicion.
Teresa didn’t blame him for his misgivings. She wouldn’t have liked it, either, if a stranger had barged into her home to tell her of some awful tragedy that had befallen her family—and so long ago that there was nothing much she could do about it now except learn how to come to terms with death. Suddenly that tidy, cozy home had filled with grief.
There were so many books that it looked as if the walls were built out of them. On the shelves, Teresa had spotted philosophical treatises, and volumes on history, archaeology and botany. Francesco explained that his wife had been a schoolteacher and ever since she’d died, years ago, he’d found her memory in the pages of those books.
“I can’t prove it yet,” Teresa told him, “but if the blood on the painting really is Aniza’s, then yes, she’s undoubtedly dead. We found traces of cardiac tissue in the fibers of the paper. That blood came from someone’s heart and I’m afraid that kind of wound is—”
“Fatal.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I suppose you’ll need a sample of my blood for testing.”
Teresa nodded.
“You don’t have to agree, but if you did, it would help us—and your family—remove all doubt.”
“Of course. I have no objections.”
“Thank you. I’ll have someone get in touch about it.”
The silence that followed proved difficult to break. The ticking of a clock marked the vacuum left by their unspoken words.
“Why did you say you hoped she had run away?” Teresa eventually asked. “What made you think that might even be a possibility?”
Francesco shrugged, his gaze still turned downward, contemplating the young woman in the photograph of the painting. Every now and then he caressed her face with his fingers.
“Despair, I suppose,” he whispered. “Nothing more than that.”
“Do you know anyone still alive today who knew her back then? I’d like to speak to them if so.”
The man gave her a startled look.
“I was,” he said.
“You?”
“I was eight when she vanished. I remember it clearly. She lived with us in my grandfather’s home. She wasn’t married. She used to call me Franchincec.”
Teresa hadn’t been expecting that. She made a quick calculation.
“I thought you were much younger than that,” she said.
Francesco smiled forlornly. It was as if the climate of his day had assumed a whole new complexion.
“I’m almost eighty now,” he told Teresa. “And I’ve got a good memory, which I suppose you’ll be eager to exploit.”
“I realize this won’t be easy for you, but I’d like you to tell me about Aniza. There may be something in your memories that can help me to understand what might have happened to her.”
Francesco stood up and went to the window, his eyes on the sunlit peaks of Mount Kanin.
“Where shall I start?” he asked.
“Start with the bond you shared, if you can bear it. It’s been seventy years, yet you’re hurting as if the wound were fresh.”
“It is. I still carry her here,” he said, laying the palm of his hand against his chest. “We were like brother and sister, despite the age difference. Perhaps more than that: she was like a second mother to me, as kind and loving as if I’d been her own.”
“I’d like to ask you something. Let’s go back to what you told me a minute ago: Are you sure you don’t remember anything that might hint at an argument, some kind of tension, something that would have driven her away from the family?”
“I don’t remember anything like that, and I was old enough to notice. An eight-year-old back then wasn’t like an eight-year-old today. I was already working, helping my father to sharpen knives in winter and out in the fields with my grandfather when the weather turned warm. In those days you were never a child for long.”
“What did Aniza do?”
“Oh, she worked at the textile mill in Ravanza, not too far from here. It was a linen mill. She also did a lot of embroidery, crocheting mainly. She was very good at it and managed to sell much of her handiwork. She had the most wonderful hands.”
“Did she have a boyfriend?”
“No, but there was no shortage of suitors. My grandfather used to have to chase them away from the front door. He didn’t think they were worthy.”
“What did Aniza make of that? Did it upset her?”
“Oh, no, not at all. There was nothing sinister in it. Aniza never gave my grandfather reason to think she actually liked any of those young men. She’d hide with me on the stairs to spy, and we’d eavesdrop and laugh at the lot of them.” He turned away from the window and looked at the photograph again, his eyes shining. “She was so beautiful she could have had anyone she wanted, but it was like she was waiting for some great love to appear on the horizon. She hadn’t found it yet, but already it lit up her eyes like something out of a fairy tale. That’s what Aniza was like. She was life itself.”
“Perhaps there was someone who felt possessive of her beauty?”
“I’ve no idea, but I don’t remember ever seeing her looking worried or even angry about anything of that sort. Admittedly, these are all childhood memories, but I wouldn’t think they’ve been sweetened by time, or by her absence. I’m not saying she was perfect, but she was a normal twenty-year-old girl, happy and content. She wasn’t short of friends, either, though you’ll find they’ve all passed away by now.”
Francesco had returned to his seat across from her. He seemed calmer now.
“The village was a peaceful place, I suppose,” Teresa resumed.
“If you mean to say there weren’t any psychopaths around like the kind you see everywhere today, then yes, you’d be right; though we did have the war to liven things up in the valley.”
“What do you remember of the war?”
He sat with his fingers interlinked and hovering over the picture. His hands were shaking.
“There was a famine, there were the Germans coming up from the flatlands to patrol the villages in the vale and the partisans sniping at them from up in the highland pastures. We were caught in the middle.”
Teresa had a hunch that she had perhaps found the starting point of the thread she was hoping to follow.
“Tell me about the partisans,” she said, taking her notebook out of her pocket. “Which division was it?”
Francesco looked uneasy. He wouldn’t stop fidgeting.
“Ah, yes, the partisans,” he said as if the taste of bile had filled up his mouth. “I don’t recall ever seeing the green kerchiefs of the Osoppo brigade around here, only the red of the Garibaldi brigade, who were aligned with Tito. They came from the Natisone Valley. The word I’d immediately associate with the memory of their presence is stoicism. You could say that the Resians endured the partisans, but not that they hated them. The true aberration was the war itself.
“At the end of the day, most of the partisans were decent young men, many of them little more than boys—not even eighteen and already holding rifles. Can you imagine? They lived in the woods and up on the pastures, and came down to the villages every now and then to stock up on food.”
“You said most of them were decent. Were some of them not?”
“My grandfather used to say, ‘Give a fool a gun and you’ll get yourself a fool with an ego.’ They certainly weren’t saints, but they weren’t devils, either. They never caused any trouble here in our valley. Now we find out one of them painted Aniza’s face out of blood.”
His hands shook harder than ever. He hid them under the table.
Teresa persevered.
“Do you not have even a single negative memory associated with them?”
The silence that followed her question was ominous.
“Mr. di Lenardo?”
“It was 1945, toward the end of winter. Every Thursday morning one of the Germans would come up from the bottom of the valley on a horse-drawn cart. He’d head to the bakery in San Giorgio for fresh bread, whipping the horse forward, not even bothering with an escort. He didn’t need one: he was untouchable, and he knew it. If anyone tried anything, there would be hell to pay for the rest of the valley. That’s the way it was with the Germans.”
“I can imagine.”
“From our villages nestled up on the moraines, we’d watch him advancing along the road that ran by the mountain and the river. That day the partisans saw him, too, but they didn’t scatter into the forest. They didn’t need to; they knew the German would pick up his bread as he did every week, then go straight back to his kommandant, without bothering anyone.”
“But not that day. That day was different,” said Teresa instinctively.
“Yes, that day was different,” he sighed.
33
Massimo was leaning on the car, observing the green canopy that swept over the mountain slopes and the valley like a vast stretch of living, interconnected tissue. He had learned both to fear it and to respect it. He still carried inside him the echoes of what he and Teresa and the rest of the team had been through just a few months ago in a forest not too far from this one.
Every now and then, he touched his black eye. It kept watering, sensitive to the gusts of cool, damp wind roaring through the channel the river had carved out. The wind carried the smell of wet rock and of the clumps of dripping moss that clung onto the riverbanks.
He felt the car give a slight wobble. Blanca had stepped out and now she, too, was leaning on the still-warm hood of the vehicle that had brought into the valley the noxious chemical smell of the world they had come from.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her cross her arms over her chest, just as he had done. Even her expression matched his: grave, but only half-heartedly so.
He couldn’t help but smile.
“I’m sorry,” she said out of the blue.
Massimo turned toward her. It was clear that it had cost her considerable pride to say that.
