a hole in the road.
‘La statua parlante,’ she said.
Tom thought, It must be an oracle, like Delphi or something. There’s probably a procedure—
‘Do you ask it questions?’ he said.
She raised her eyebrows at him, and looked brave. ‘Va be,’ she said, and straightened her shoulders. Then, with a consciously respectful demeanour and a glance back at Tom, she went up to the statue, pushed herself up on tiptoe and called out, softly, towards Pasquino’s distant and lichened ear.
He did not answer.
‘Is that it?’ Tom said, and Nenna grinned and said ‘Yes!’
‘Statua non parla,’ Tom said, having been working on the Latin phrase since seven streets ago.
‘Può darsi una risposta,’ she said, seemingly perfectly satisfied, and Tom realised that he wasn’t that concerned about the statue, or the tradition, or the superstition, or even the answer. He wanted to know what she had asked.
‘Quale est domandum tuum?’ he asked, and she squinted at him.
‘Domando tuo?’ he said. ‘Domanda tua?’ He knew Italian had vowels where Latin used us or um. Couldn’t remember the gender of the word for question though.
Nenna slid her eyes sideways, and said: ‘Segreto.’ Secret.
He wondered whether to tease her to get it out of her. Teasing, in this Latin/Italian mixture? He didn’t think he was up to it. But he wanted to know. He couldn’t let a girl keep a secret from him. It would be undignified.
They walked in silence for a while, through the hot bright streets, turning into the black shadows beneath high yellow palazzi.
Other than physical force and language, what other tools did he have? He was thinking furiously. Nenna glanced at him.
Perhaps she wants to tell me. Why else would she have taken me there?
So I must just give her another opportunity.
As they rejoined the river, he turned to her and said: ‘Io credo che tuo secretus dire a me volunta. Se non volunta, perche me ad statuam parlante portare?’ Which he hoped meant. ‘I believe you want to tell me your secret. If not, why take me to the talking statue?’
She laughed, of course. And then she stopped laughing, and she stopped and thought for a bit, and then she took him by the hand, which was slightly alarming, and pulled him across the road and into a church: cool, dim, empty. Glancing around, she spotted what she was after, and led him over there.
‘La mia domanda,’ she said, and looked at him fiercely. He nodded.
She pointed at a painting of the Madonna and child, folded her arms in the universal sign of holding a baby, and made the universal rocking-the-baby motion. ‘Bambino Gesù,’ she said.
He got it. ‘Baby Jesus.’
She pointed to herself. ‘Io,’ she said.
‘You,’ he said.
She drew her finger sharply across her throat. The universal sign of murder.
And that puzzled him.
And she made the universal hands-out palms-up shrug gesture of not knowing. And stared, waiting for his answer.
‘La Mia domanda,’ she said very clearly, ‘era se io ho ammazzato il bambino Gesù.’
From a language point of view he understood perfectly. Her question had been, did she kill baby Jesus?
It was from every other point of view that he was confused – so much so that he thought he must have got it wrong. But the only alternative was did Baby Jesus kill her, which seemed even more unlikely. But then many things are unlikely.
They left the church, slipping out into the day which had grown brighter and hotter even during the few minutes they had been inside the church.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Your question. Tua domanda. Why?’
Nenna scuffed her shoes on the road, and did a little dance step. She wasn’t looking at him.
‘L’ha detto un ragazzo a scuola,’ she murmured, and would say no more.
He held on to the phrase.
Dear Heart
Oggi ti scrivo in Italiano! I don’t know what the Italian form of Riley would be. Rilino? Reelee? No, not really – today I write to you in English as usual. But I did go shopping with Susanna in what used to be the ghetto, and I said buongiorno a lot, to all kinds of people who mostly seemed to be cousins on Aldo’s father’s side, I think. Susanna introduced me to everybody as cucina which I thought meant kitchen but apparently not. Or perhaps as well. It is all VERY Jewish – you know how in England people are only Christian when they’re in a church, but here it is a part of everything – food, music, traditional lines of work, all kinds of rules and habits, as well as synagogue. Aldo and Susanna seem to have masses of the culture but none of the religion. Interesting – and nobody seems to hold it against them at all. Aldo has a little gang of chaps he plays cards with – Signor Seta next door is his best chum I think – he has quite a saucy wife who wears her floral housecoat very tight – the men all wear hats and have bright eyes and call for each other like small boys wanting each other to come and play—
This is a short and sweet one – like you! I will be home before you know it. Ti adoro! You probably recall what that means.
She had that day taken a long walk with Aldo. Striding beside him she felt like Kitty scurrying after Tom – after all, she’d never had a brother. She smiled. He glanced back, and slowed down for her.
‘You know we came here for our honeymoon?’ she said. ‘I keep catching glimpses of my younger self, loitering in that doorway, say’ – she pointed at the vast, shadowy entrance to an invisible courtyard beyond. ‘Or eyeing up a statue, or considering the light on the river.’
‘Perhaps we passed in the street,’ he said.
‘1919!’ she said.
‘Those strange days …’ he murmured.
‘I’d been a nurse,’ she said.
‘I was a soldier,’ he replied, and they looked at each other, and they both knew that they did not want to look back at those times when their countries had just been at war, and at their selves in the shock of survival.
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘life is long, if you’re lucky, and who knows – who knows what is coming?’ With which she very much agreed.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘The Arco di Tito. Come. I give you a tiny history lesson. So. First Jewish people came to Rome two thousand years ago to ask protection against King of the Syrians, and they stayed. Then later, after destruction of Jerusalem and burning of the temple, Emperor Tito brought Jews back for slaves. Look—’
They were coming up to the great arch, looming against the blue above them.
‘It looks just like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris,’ she said.
‘This is the original,’ he said, with a little swagger. ‘See, look inside.’
The vault of the arch was like a slice through a great church or temple: the ornamental ceiling squares and flowers looking almost Tudor, and the carved stone panels at the sides.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘You see the menorah? Trumpets?’
She looked. ‘Oh,’ she said.
‘And the prisoners carrying them –