Thieves Never Steal in the Rain Read online

  ***

  It was still drizzling the following morning. Joanna glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand; it was five to eleven, and Elliott was gone. She showered, pulled her dark brown ringlets back into a ponytail, lined her sable eyes with a black pencil, and her covered her lips with clear gloss before she got dressed. Elliott had arranged his clothes on the shelves in the armoire. He always unpacked, even for one night; she never did. Good thing, because he used up most of the drawers. She did remove the dress she planned to wear to the anniversary party and hung that alongside his suit, draped her shawl around the dress’s shoulders, and placed her fancy pumps beneath it. She’s all ready to go, she thought, Joanna the invisible lady. That was what she’d become.

  There was no table set in the dining room.

  “Buongiorno, signora. I just took away everything. I thought you didn’t want breakfast, but I can set it out again.” Paolo startled her. She hadn’t heard his footsteps on the tile floor because he was wearing sneakers. He had a navy blue running suit on. “La ginastica,” he said, explaining that he ran every morning.

  “Would you mind?” Despite stuffing herself the night before, she was famished.

  “But of course. No problem. Cappuccino, espresso?”

  “Cappuccino, please.”

  “Juice?”

  “No, thank you.”

  As he set a basket of warmed rolls and some butter and marmalade on the table, he told her that Signor Ficola had left a message for her. He had gone for a short hike but would be back before noon to take her to Deruta.

  “You understood him?” She fixated on the black hairs that seemed to be growing, as they spoke, out of his sleeves and onto the backs of those big hands.

  “He made himself understood.” Paolo made a swooping gesture to indicate that Elliott had pantomimed his intentions.

  “Do you remember what time that was?” she asked.

  “Around nine. Not a very good day for a hike. I tried myself but I gave up early on. I drove to Acquasparta instead to the butcher in case you intended to have dinner here tonight.”

  “The weather doesn’t bother Elliott. He likes the outdoors.”

  “È bravo Signor Ficola. I like him.” He spoke the last words in heavily accented English.

  “Yes. He’s a good man. Where did you learn to speak English?”

  He laughed and reverted to Italian. “I don’t. I’m trying to teach myself. I watch American movies. It’s difficult to run this villa without English: mostly British and Americans come. You know we Italians don’t speak many languages. Those who do prefer to work in the real-estate business than an inn.” He rubbed his thumb, index, and middle fingers together the way her father did whenever he talked about money.

  “Paolo, does your family own the villa?”

  “No, signora. Two Neapolitans bought it several years ago from the New Zealand couple who restored it. I’ve watched it since I was a child, through its decadence to its renovation.” He paused then said with rapture: “Villa Foresta has been my fascination. I helped build all those steps going down to the parking lot.” The big hands were held out now, palms up, for display. There was anxiety in his eyes when he mentioned the steps and the former owners, and he seemed on the verge of telling her more about them, but then thought better of it.

  “Do you mind if I call my family? I forgot to charge my cell.”

  “Prego, signora.” Paola gestured for her to use the hall phone.

  She had begun to search for the address book in her voluminous bag when her peripheral vision caught sight of something at the top of the stairs. It was a little girl sitting in the middle of the staircase, her big brown eyes fixed on Joanna’s face. The child’s hands worked the movable legs of the kind of painted wooden horse they sold at souvenir shops or crafts tents during the Christmas season.

  “Ciao,” Joanna said.

  “Ciao.” Bashful, the child looked down at the horse and made it gallop on her lap.

  “What’s your name?” Joanna asked.

  “Elisabetta,” she said, still focused on the horse.

  “Elisabetta, vieni qua!” A woman’s voice called from above.

  “Is that your mother?”

  The girl nodded.

  “She wants you.”

  Elisabetta grinned before she scurried up the stairs.

  “Who’s the child?” she asked Paolo when she returned to the dining room. He was behind the bar, wiping the steamer nozzle of the cappuccino machine with a damp cloth.

  “Elisabetta?”

  “Yes.”

  They could hear the frustrated woman upstairs ordering her daughter to be still.

  “She’s always underfoot, that little girl. But she’s adorable. Her mother is too young to appreciate her. A pity. The mother cleans the villa.”

  Joanna inclined her head, signaling her interest.

  “Listen, signora, and I will tell you.” He placed his forearms on the counter and leaned into them, pushing up the black eyeglasses. She took a sip of cappuccino and licked the sweet foam from her upper lip.

  “There were times during its renovation when the New Zealand couple left — he on business; she back to New Zealand — and their son came to stay. That’s when Villa Foresta turned into a hell filled with ugly people. Very ugly people. Filth. Needles everywhere. You can imagine what went on here. Would you like another cappuccino?”

  “No, thank you. Actually I’d really like a cup of tea.” The coffee was for some reason nauseating her.

  “Chamomile? You don’t feel well?”

  “Black tea, if you have it, would be wonderful.”

  “Signora, this is Villa Foresta. At Villa Foresta, all things are possible!”

  “The child?”

  “Domenica got involved with the owner’s son.” Then he said in English: “He knocked her up. I say it right, no?”

  “You said it right. It’s just not — you said it right.”

  “But you play with fire, you get burned.” He went back to speaking Italian. “She’s a nice girl, signora. These things happen. Domenica never told the boy or his parents: she was too ashamed. They all had their own problems anyway.” He looked around, as though someone might be listening, and whispered: “Crazy people. The boy’s father is buried out under those stairs that go to the parking lot. His wish. Crazy people.”

  Joanna was about to ask how the villa’s former owner had died when the front door creaked open and Elliott came into the dining room. “You should come out,” he said. “It’s clearing up. What a view here! We couldn’t appreciate it last night. Did you bring your paints?”

  “You know I didn’t.” She hadn’t painted since Jill’s death.

  “We can pick some up. Or at least a sketch pad.”

  “Don’t push, Elliott.” She was glaring at him now. She would paint when she was ready.

  “Will you be dining here this evening?” Paolo asked. He seemed relieved when she told him that they were going to Orvieto.

  “Paolo! Paolo!” Elisabetta came running down the stairs. “Mamma says I can have a biscotto. Please.”

  “Un biscotto? Mannaggia.” Paolo eyed her warily then smiled. “Va bene. Ecco.” He handed her the cookie, for which she thanked him.

  “Look at her, Elliott.”

  “Cute.”

  “No, look at her. Who does she remind you of?”

  “Joanna,” he said, begging.

  “Really.”

  “A little.”

  “No. A lot.”

  “We need to get going if you want to go to Deruta and still eat in Orvieto tonight,” Elliott said.

  “Paolo, do you think Elisabetta could come with us — just to Deruta?” Joanna asked.

  “Joanna!” Elliott cried.

  “To Deruta?” Paolo asked with surprise.
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  “Just for a little while. Maybe the mother would like it if we got her out of her hair.”

  He called up to Domenica, who came down with the stairs with their used sheets and towels over her arms. She was petite, a child herself, not more than 19 or 20. She had the same reddish brown hair as Elisabetta, pulled back but with strands escaping, though her face was not as delicate as the child’s and her skin was darker.

  “I realize you don’t know us, but we’re only going out for an hour or two. I was wondering if Elisabetta could come with us.”

  Domenica cast a bewildered look at Paolo.

  “She’s a paisana,” Paolo said. “Even Renato the butcher knows the family.”

  These people were like two innocents, Joanna thought: one terribly young, the other unworldly and naïve. Domenica was torn between having time to get her work done and trusting two complete strangers. But she was weary, and time meant money. Joanna would not have done it, she thought, but what good had overprotection gotten her?

  Domenica consented.

  “That is, if she wants to come,” Joanna said.

  “Do you want to go with the nice lady and her husband to Deruta?” Domenica asked, as blandly as if she had asked her daughter if she needed to go to the bathroom.

  At first Elisabetta was hesitant, like a kitten leaning in and rubbing her body against her mother’s side. Then, looking up at Joanna with those big eyes, she smiled as though Joanna were holding out a whole package of biscotti to her. Joanna took her hand.

  “Does she have a jacket?” Joanna asked.

  Domenica went into the kitchen and came back with a heavy blue sweater. Blue had been Jill’s favorite color.

  “Joanna, this is ridiculous.” Elliott said.

  Joanna ignored him.

  “Leave this here.” Domenica took the wooden horse from her daughter and put on her sweater. But once her hand had gone through the sleeve, the child picked the horse right back up.

  Outside, the vista spread out before them: tones of umber left over from winter mixed with the green of rolling hills. It was miraculous. Joanna took Elisabetta’s hand. “How old are you?” she asked.

  Elisabetta held up three fingers. “And a half,” she added.

  ***

  Deruta was a strange town. Apart from the historic center filled with artisan shops, it was a long stretch of roadway lined with hotels and factories displaying colorful majolica: platters, vases, four-foot planters, dinnerware, oil and vinegar cruets, pitchers, clocks, and more, all intricately patterned.

  “I don’t really need anything,” Joanna told Elliott.

  “There must be something you’d like. You always get something.” Elliott had been intent on coming here. Oddly enough, he liked rituals, and Deruta had been one of their pilgrimages whenever they came to visit her family.

  Joanna picked up a butter dish with hand-painted orange, yellow, and blue birds on it.

  “Want that?” Elliott was quick to ask.

  “I don’t know. What do you think, Elisabetta? Do you think I should buy this? Do you think it’s pretty?”

  She nodded, eyes filled with longing.

  “Okay, then. We’ll take it. Do you think your mother would like one too?” she asked.

  The child’s face brightened. “Si!”

  As the saleswoman secured the dishes in bubble wrap, an elderly priest entered the shop. In a slow but determined gait, the little man came directly to them, the only customers. He lifted his right hand and, making the sign of the cross in front of each one of them, blessed them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

  “Buona Pasqua,” he concluded. “E buona giornata.”

  “Happy Easter to you too, Father,” Joanna said, feeling complete for the first time in nearly four years. He had taken them for a family. He wandered out in search of others on whom to bestow his blessings.

  They went to a bar and bought Elisabetta some gelato. Joanna had coffee, Elliott a glass of orange juice.

  “When is your birthday?” Joanna asked Elisabetta.

  “June — no, July,” she quickly corrected herself.

  “July what?”

  “Twelve,” she said proudly.

  Elliott cast that disapproving look at his wife.

  “What?”

  “Don’t even go there,” he warned.

  “Would you like to see a picture of my little girl?” Joanna asked Elisabetta.

  “For Chrissake.” Elliott turned away.

  “I’m just showing her Jill’s picture.” She took a preschool photo, along with Jill’s high school graduation picture — the last formal one taken of her, out of her wallet and held them in front of Elisabetta. “Do you think she looks like you?”

  She nodded.

  “What do you want her to say?” Elliott barked.

  “Admit it, Elliott. She looks like Jill.”

  “What’s your point? She’s from the same region as your family. Half the women here look like you.”

  “What about the horse?”

  “All children have rocking horses and toys like that.”

  He had said he would wait out her depression for as long as it took. He had even supported her meditation class with a popular clairvoyant, although he never bought the philosophy of reincarnation that she adopted, the idea that the spirit went on and on, over and over again, in different host bodies. No. He just didn’t buy it. Nor did he buy the thought of an afterlife or communication with the spirit of the dead. He was a man of science, and while science had not been able to save his child, who had been thrown from the horse he had bought her, he would not resort to some spiritual crutch. He believed in doing good deeds here on earth. Anything after that was pure speculation with which he would not compromise himself.

  “It is good to see you smile,” he said.

  After Elisabetta fell asleep in the backseat, Joanna told Elliott the story Paolo had recounted to her.

  “The family doesn’t even know she exists. Isn’t that sad, Elliott?”

  He took his eyes off the road for a second and looked at her. “Yes,” he said.

  At Villa Foresta, Paolo was laboring over a fax he was going to send to an American woman. He handed it to Joanna and asked if she would please translate a sentence.

  “Come, Elisabetta, I’ll take you home to Mamma,” Paolo said. “Did you have a good day?”

  The child was suddenly bubbling with commentary about the butter dish, the ice cream, and the priest, as though she had saved it all in a treasure box until now.

  “If we don’t see you tonight, we’ll see each other tomorrow morning,” Paolo said. “You leave the following day?”

  “Yes. Monday morning,” Joanna confirmed.

  “Peccato.” Too bad.

  She crouched down and took Elisabetta into her arms and kissed her on both cheeks. Joanna made a point of not saying goodbye.

  “Will she and Domenica be here tomorrow morning?” she asked.

  “No, signora. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday.”

  “Of course. I forgot. How stupid of me. What about Monday?”

  “Certo! After the holiday, every morning, signora. Guests or no guests — there’s always work at Villa Foresta.”

  ***

  She rose before Elliott did on Easter Sunday, happy for the first time in a very long while, excited to get out of bed, a heaviness no longer hanging in the air. Instead of going down to the dining room, she took advantage of the apartment amenities. There was a jar of instant coffee on the counter; she put a spoonful into a cup and scalded a little of the milk they had bought the day before. Trying not to wake Elliott, she quietly rummaged through the cupboards. She wanted Elliott to rest, but she also wanted time to explore her new surroundings. Where were the pots? How did the burners ignite? She had always enjoyed this challenge when they v
acationed — Mama Bear foraging on a mountainside for her family’s survival.

  She wished that it were Monday, because she couldn’t wait to see Elisabetta again. She pictured her sleeping on the daybed the way Jill used to when they traveled, her mop of curls heaped on the pillow, falling every which way about her face. How easy it was to please a child: a cup of cocoa, some gelato — a butter dish. Though Jill had been a young woman, there had been times when Joanna could lure her back into the dependency of girlhood, and Jill would allow her mother to pamper her with simple comforts. Joanna brought her coffee into the sunroom and surveyed the countryside. This land grounded her, gave her a sense of identity, of belonging, like an adoptee who had located her birth parents. What did Elliott feel when he came here? It was a lovely land; good roads to hike; great food, but the attachment was missing. She gift-wrapped the woolen throw she had carried across the ocean along with the shiny gold paper, ribbon, and tape. Then she got ready for the party and waited for Elliott to wake.

  ***

  It was a gloriously sunny day, a perfect Easter Sunday that seemed to have burst forth from the gloomy weather of Holy Week like Christ himself from the tomb. The most dangerous kind of day, a day not unlike the one on which Jill had had her accident. A day when you feel nothing can go wrong, that preoccupies you with distractions and makes you forget to take care. A day when everything can be snatched from you.

  They walked up the stony drive toward her aunt and uncle’s peach stucco home, politely exchanging holiday greetings with several guests they didn’t know. They passed the olive grove, and Joanna remembered how on the last trip here with Jill, they had all helped her uncle with the harvest. They had placed nets beneath the trees and carefully hand-picked or raked the olives from the branches, then they gathered them into sacks and brought them into the cantina, where, covering the ground-level room like a rich black carpet, they were left to dry before being taken to be pressed. Jill’s new sneakers had gotten coated with mud, and Joanna’s aunt tried to clean them with a hand brush and a basin of soapy water. The stains remained, but neither Joanna nor Jill cared. They felt they had earned the bottles of Umbrian olive oil — the best Italy has to offer, according to Joanna’s uncle — that they would take back home.