The Body in the Piazza (2 page)

“Come on, there's the hotel,” Faith urged Tom, picking up her speed. “We can eat our lunch by the Bernini fountain in the Piazza Navona across from Borromini's church and then find the nearest Caravaggio. Three birds in one fell swoop.”

A breeze off the river was blowing her thick honey-colored hair across her face. She pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head to keep her locks in place and get a better sense of where she was. From the street, the hotel looked like the ancient monastery it once had been. The Fairchilds paused a moment to take it all in. The outer front door, which had been pulled back, was painted deep blue; its thickness suggested a fortress more than a place dedicated to worship. Large stone urns overflowing with scarlet geraniums flanked the inner door, which led into the lobby. Definitely not Motel 6, Faith thought, or any other U.S. chain. If this lovely space had been stamped out by a cookie cutter, she wanted one for her own
batterie de cuisine
—someone had exquisite taste. As she moved toward the desk across the gray-and-white marble tiles, she thought about the silent feet of the monks that must have trod here as well and realized that following all sorts of footsteps was going to be one of their greatest pleasures this trip—from the Etruscans to the Romans to Renaissance princes and Baroque beauties with a glance ahead at all those Daisy Millers on the Grand Tour of Europe. Perhaps ending up with Fellini and
La Dolce Vita
?

“
Buon giorno,
may I help you?” a pleasant-looking man asked from behind the desk. “Are you checking in?”

What about us shouts American? Faith wondered to herself. It used to be you could tell someone's nationality from his or her shoes. Then she realized that the name of the U.S. airline was easy to see on their luggage tags and English was more than a good guess.

“
Buon giorno,
” Tom said. Faith was proud of his accent, especially since he knew less Italian than she did. “We're the Fairchilds.”

The man virtually leaped around the counter, hand outstretched to grab Tom's. “Francesca's friends! I am Paolo! Anything I can do, you must just ask. Francesca and I are from the same village,” he added as he shook Faith's hand heartily as well. Those magic words: “From the same village,” “Same hometown,” “Went to school together.” Shared space, the international Open Sesame. Faith had known that Francesca, one of the main reasons they had selected Italy as their anniversary destination, knew someone at the hotel. It was why they had booked it, but it was a stroke of luck to meet Paolo the minute they walked in.

Francesca Rossi had been eighteen when she came to New York City with a carefully guarded secret and plan. She was on a student visa and started working for Have Faith when Faith's assistant Josie Wells went to open her own restaurant, now a legend, in Richmond, Virginia. Francesca grew up cooking with her mother and grandmother in Tuscany, and Faith had been happy to have the young woman on her staff that tumultuous spring just before Faith's marriage to Tom. It hadn't been long before she realized that Francesca was keeping more than her
nona
's ragu recipe from her. In the weeks that followed, employer and employee bonded on the quest to right an ancient wrong, its roots in post–World War II Italy. Francesca went back home, and the Fairchilds had a joyous visit with her and her family on their honeymoon soon after. The newlyweds had been feted by what seemed like the entire population of the town, high in the mountains outside Florence.

A few years later Francesca herself settled down, marrying Gianni Rossi, a very distant cousin who managed the family vineyard and olive groves. Children and plain old life kept Faith and Francesca from seeing each other in person—the Rossis never made the oft-promised visit to the States, and the Fairchilds didn't get back to Italy—but the two women had stayed in close touch.

Besides wanting to see Francesca and her family, the Fairchilds were in Italy as gourmet guinea pigs. Francesca had been giving small group and individual cooking lessons for years, relying on word of mouth to promote herself. Now she and her husband had set themselves up as a full-fledged culinary school offering weeklong classes that included accommodations, trips to local markets, and other excursions. Francesca had called Faith, begging her to come for the first session to help work out any kinks that might arise.

When she mentioned the call to Tom, Faith had been extremely surprised when he suggested they make Francesca's venture the destination for an anniversary trip. Tom's culinary expertise extended to grilled cheese sandwiches, opening a can of Campbell's cream of tomato soup, and his tour de force: pouring boiling water through a small strainer filled with his favorite Irish Breakfast tea leaves. He was also very good at ordering pizza from Aleford's Country Pizza, extra sauce, extra cheese, no anchovies. Faith had explained he might encounter an anchovy or possibly something else overly pungent or unfamiliar—she was thinking
lardo,
that savory cured pork fat, which looked like what it was, but Tom had dismissed her admittedly halfhearted misgivings—she really wanted to go—and said he'd try anything. Plus, he'd always wanted to learn to make pasta from scratch. Who knew? The school was in the middle of a vineyard, which might have had something to do with his enthusiasm, but Faith accepted Tom's newfound interest for whatever it was and mentally started packing.

“Normally the rooms are not ready yet, but I will check. I think yours might be,” Paolo said, going back behind the desk. He picked up the phone and soon turned to them smiling even more broadly, if that was possible.

“I think you will like this one, but do not hesitate to tell me if you want another or need anything. I will show you the elevator,” he said, handing them a large key attached to a heavy length of brass elaborately embossed with the name of the hotel.

As he led the way through a pleasant sitting area and a small bar, he said, “I know you are here for this new project of Francesca and Gianni's, the cooking school. Some of the other people taking the course are staying here, too. A few arrived like you today, some have been here all week.
Tutti è molto simpatico
.”

Faith was happy to hear this, although Paolo had already struck her as someone who always looked at the glass as half full and would declare most people
molto simpatico
. She wanted to keep these precious days in Rome to themselves, however, and did not intend to try to track down and assess their fellow students. Time enough when they would be rubbing elbows with them in the Rossis'
cucina
.

Paolo ushered the Fairchilds into the tiny elevator and they went up to the third floor, locating their room at the end of a curved hallway. Room 309 was spacious with a high ceiling, soft, pale-green damask-patterned wallpaper, and heavy darker green and gold silk curtains, which Faith immediately pulled all the way back from the tall windows, flooding the space with the late morning light.

“Look, Tom, palm trees!” she cried.

He came over by her side. “Mediterranean, not Floridian, but tropical nonetheless.” He kissed her lightly as he said, “I love that it takes only a couple of palm trees to make you happy. And to think my sister told me after she met you at the shower that you were going to be ‘very high maintenance.' ”

He kissed her harder, pulling her away from the window. Even as she felt her body responding, Faith spared a fleeting thought for her sister-in-law, who had tried so hard to marry her brother off to someone of
her
choosing. Tom had never mentioned the “high maintenance” comment before, but it came as no surprise and was the least of Betsey's almost lethal endeavor.

“Nice-looking bed. Good size,” Tom was murmuring.

Faith recalled the hotel's description of their double rooms. “A
letto matrimoniale
.”

Tom was already pulling down the spread.

“An apt, very apt, term, don't you think, Mrs. Fairchild?”

“So long as we don't fall asleep. Everyone says the way to get over jet lag is to stay up as late as possible and get on the local time.”

“Oh, I have no intention of falling asleep,” Tom said. “And unless I miss my guess, you don't either.”

And then there weren't any more words.

Afterward Tom
did
fall asleep. He suddenly went from wide-awake to deep slumber, and Faith didn't have the heart to disturb him. She lay on her side, looking at him. He hadn't changed much since their chance meeting at the catering job she'd blessed ever since. The laugh lines around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes were more defined, as were the ones on his forehead—the ones that didn't come from laughing. There was a bit more salt in his rusty brown hair, but he was as lean as ever, despite being what her aunt Chat called upon meeting him, “a big, hungry boy.” During the early days of their marriage, Faith had been astounded at how fast milk and other staples of Tom's diet ran out. Now she had two of these boys; Ben had inherited both his Dad's metabolism and food preferences.

She slipped from between the sheets and got dressed. One of the things Faith had also noted from the hotel's Web site was its rooftop terrace. She left a note about her whereabouts on her pillow, grabbed the key, guidebook, the small travel journal her sister had given her, and a bottle of water before tiptoeing out the door. A silent exit wasn't necessary, as her husband routinely slept through major thunderstorms and only awoke if one of the children or Faith sneezed, but she felt it was more dramatic—and Rome was drama personified, or whatever the term was for places. As she climbed the stairs across from the elevator, assuming they would lead to the terrace, she thought of all those Hollywood extravaganzas—
Ben Hur,
Spartacus,
and
Cleopatra
(where there was as much drama on-screen as off). They might be cheesy, but they were fun to watch.

The rooftop terrace was not a terrace but a roof, an extremely large one surrounded by a low wall and iron railings. It was the top of not only the former monastery but also of the buildings immediately adjacent, creating a flat open space that extended almost back to the Piazza Farnese. Faith leaned over the railing and peered down to the narrow street. She could see some children kicking a ball around one of the fountains and the corner of the newsstand next to a
caffè
. Two priests were strolling slowly toward the piazza; their long, dark, well-tailored robes seemed a cut above the similar garb she'd noted on American priests. Cassocks by Armani?

The rooftop area that belonged to the hotel had been outfitted with several small tables and chairs. They would have been at home in a garden—white-painted ornamental cast iron and, like the hotel keys, not going anywhere.

Planters overflowed with several kinds of geraniums, ivy, and bright ruffled petunias. She smelled jasmine and located a wall of it screening a small canvas swing for two. The perfect spot to toast their arrival once Tom woke up, Faith thought. They might be able to pick up a bottle of something at the small grocery store they'd passed near the Campo de' Fiori.

She went over to the opposite side of the roof and looked down at her palm trees. Someone had placed large terra-cotta pots of small lemon and orange trees in a row in front of the wall as an additional barrier. The nearby elevator shaft had been disguised by a trompe l'oeil espaliered orchard with small birds. The fresco was faded and peeling, which, for Faith, added to its charm. She walked to the far end of the roof.

It was impossible to sit still when there was so much to see—domes and steeples piercing the Della Robbia blue sky; a glimpse of the Tiber; the large formal garden that belonged to the French embassy; balconies, some strung with wash, all with pots of flowers; and open windows revealing someone reading at a desk, a small kitchen with just a hand stirring a pot visible, and a cat asleep in the middle of a sun-dappled bed. Seagulls circling overhead made her think of their cottage on the coast of Maine, but these cries were different. Laughing gulls with Italian accents? There were no additional barriers here aside from the railings, broken in spots, and she drew back hastily.

Returning to the table where she had left her things, she drank some water. It was a warm day, not hot. Perfect weather. Perfect setting. She heard the door from the stairs open and turned, expecting to see Tom, but it was another man, who immediately said “
Buon giorno
” and lifted the Panama hat he was wearing. He was carrying two books and after Faith returned the greeting, he walked toward the jasmine-sheltered swing. Passing her table, he paused and picked up her guidebook.

“British or American?” he asked.

“American. And yes, I've never been to Rome before.”

He laughed. “Then please allow me to give you an essential piece of advice, admittedly cribbed from E. M. Forster's
A Room with a View,
and urge you to emancipate yourself from your
Baedeker
or whatever you have purchased as its modern-day equivalent.”

“That would not be difficult, as I have not yet had time to read any of it, but surely I will need it to know what things are,” Faith said, feeling as if she had stepped into a Forster or James novel and only just preventing herself from adding, “kind sir,” to her remark. For that she would have needed a hat herself, or parasol. His British accent, more reminiscent of Sir Alec Guinness than Sir Mick, intensified the notion.

“You already have everything you need in order to ascertain the true nature of things.” Her new friend, for she instantly hoped he would become one, pointed to his eyes, ears, mouth, and head.

“May I?” He indicated the empty seat across from her.

“Please,” she said, wishing she had more than a bottle of water. The scene called for vino and small plates of antipasti. As he sat down, she asked, “Is a map permitted?”