Chapter 4
1044 Words
Chapter 4
Conti, Italy
Dani
MARCO AND I ARRIVED in Conti—a small town in the Veneto region of northeast Italy—just in time to have a late lunch after we checked into a small hotel. Then we took a short siesta before we walked around the town doing a bit of sightseeing. When we arrived at the central square, we saw that it was dominated on one side by a large church.
I pointed. “Is that the church you’re looking for?”
“I think so. Let’s go check it out.”
We walked across the square and entered the cool, dark interior of the church. We wandered around the church for a while without any luck. Finally, Marco approached an elderly priest.
“Excuse me, Father,” Marco said.
“How may I help you, my son?” the priest said.
“We’re looking for the Chapel of the Sartori family.”
“Certainly, my son, please follow me.”
The priest led us down an aisle and into a small but very ornate side chapel. Both aisles of the chapel were lined with altar-tombs, most of which featured effigies of the deceased reclining on top of them. After a short search, Marco found the tomb he wanted.
“This is it,” he said.
The inscription bore the name, Edgardo Sartori, 12th Conte di Conti, along with dates of birth and death.
“I hope you’re burning in hell, you miserable old bastard,” Marco said, two seconds before he spat on the tomb.
“It is not seemly to speak ill of the dead, my son, especially in the house of God,” the priest said from behind him.
“This particular dead man deserves to be spoken ill of, Father.”
“What did he do to you, my son?”
“He ruined my mother’s life.”
“How so, my son?”
“He refused to allow her to marry the man she loved, and when she told him that she was pregnant, he had the man arrested and held in jail. While the man was in jail, he had my mother sedated and forcibly removed from this country. He sent her to America and forced her to marry another man. Her new husband asserted his marital rights forcefully and very violently, up until the time she finally ran away from him.”
“I’m sure the late Conte thought that he was doing the right thing.”
“Sure he did, just like Adolf Hitler thought he was doing the right thing when he had those gas chambers built.”
“I can see that you are consumed by hate, my son. May I ask the name of your mother?”
“Her name is Giulietta Sartori, and she was—”
“His daughter. I knew her well. In fact, I was her confessor.”
“At that time?”
“Yes, my son. I came to this church as a young priest when your mother was a girl.”
“Then you surely knew that she and my father were in love.”
“Yes, my son, but il Conte flew into a rage when she tried to persuade him to allow her to marry. May I ask how your mother fares?”
“Not well. After she escaped from her abusive husband, she took refuge in a shelter for battered wives. My father eventually located her, but she, being a good Catholic, refused to divorce her husband—even though the marriage wasn’t legal. Her spirit was totally destroyed, and she requires constant care to this day.”
“I am very sorry to hear that, my son, and your grandmother will be sad to learn after all these years of her daughter’s plight.”
“My grandmother?”
“La Contessa.”
“I didn’t know she was still alive.”
“She is very much alive, Signore. She spends most of her time in her villa near Siena in Toscana, but she arrived in Conti yesterday for a visit. She will want to meet you.”
“I don’t know about that. Did she have a hand in what happened to my mother thirty years ago?”
“I think not. It is my recollection that la Contessa was at her villa in Toscana when your mother was sent away. In any case, she could have done little to help. She helped her husband with business affairs; but when it came to the children, il Conte ruled his family with an iron hand.”
“I’m surprised to learn that my mother didn’t confide in her mother.”
“It all happened so quickly, and la Contessa was not here. After that, she and her husband began to live apart and she spent even more time in Toscana.”
The priest asked where we were staying, and Marco gave him the name of our hotel and thanked him for his help. He even put a few coins in the poor box as we left the church. On the way back to our hotel, we stopped and had a great meal in a tiny restaurant.
“I think this is the best food we’ve had yet,” Marco said.
“Yeah, this osso bucco is as good as my grandmother’s.”
Still tired from several days of travel, we made an early night of it. The next morning, we went for a drive and explored the countryside to the south and west of the town. We weren’t particularly impressed with il Castello di Conti. I had done some research on Italian castles before we left home and, from the pictures I’d been able to find, had learned that they seemed to fall into two categories: some of them resembled the medieval castles of France and England, while others, usually from a later period, had a sort of Mediterranean look about them.
Il Castello di Conti fell into the latter group, and was perched on a hill overlooking the town. We returned to the hotel, parked the car, and selected yet another restaurant, where we sat at an outdoor table, ordered lunch, and discussed where we wanted to go next. A shadow fell across the table, and we looked up to see four men standing beside us. One of them was fiftyish, heavyset, and balding; one appeared to be in his mid-twenties and had a long scar running diagonally across his right cheek; the other two were wearing uniforms.
“May we help you?” Marco said.
“I am Clemente Sartori, il Conte di Conti,” the older of the two men said, “and this is my son, Guido.”
“Well, well. Uncle Clemente and Cousin Guido in the flesh. I’m Marco. Pleased to meet you.”
“I don’t know what you are doing in my town,” il Conte said, “but it would be best for all concerned if you left immediately and did not return.”
- Writer
