Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [75]
48
Cortona, Italy. Still Saturday, July 11. 9:30 A.M.
NURSING SISTER ELENA VOSO FINISHED HER shopping and came out of the small grocery on Piazza Signorelli with a large bag of fresh vegetables. She had picked the vegetables carefully, wanting to make a soup that would be as palatable and nutritious as possible. Not just for the three men who were with her but for Michael Roark. It was time at least to try to feed him solid food. Earlier she had moistened his lips and he had swallowed automatically in reaction. But when she had tried to get him to sip some water he’d only looked at her, as if the effort were too much. Still, if she offered a warm puree of fresh vegetables, perhaps the aroma itself might be enticing enough to make him at least attempt to get it down. Even a spoonful was better than nothing, because it would be a beginning, and the sooner he began taking solid food, the sooner she could get him off the IV and help him start regaining his physical strength.
Marco watched her come out and turn down the narrow cobblestone street toward the far end, where they had parked the car. Ordinarily he would have walked beside her and carried the bag. But not now, not here today in the bright sunshine. And even though they would drive off in the same car, it was not good that they be seen shopping or walking together. It was something someone might later remember. They were Italians, yes, yet strangers to Cortona—a nun and a man, obviously together, gathering supplies, taking them away. Why? What were they doing? It could be enough for someone to say, “Yes, they were here. I saw them.”
Ahead of him Marco saw Elena stop, glance back, then turn and go into a small shop. Marco stopped, too, wondering what she was doing. To his left, a narrow street dropped steeply downward. Below he could see the distant plain and the roads leading up from it to the ancient walled city of the Umbrians and Etruscans, where he now stood. Cortona had been a fortress then; he hoped he would not have to make it one again.
Looking back toward the shop, he saw Elena come out, turn her head toward him, and then walk away in the direction of the car. Five minutes later, she reached a small, silver Fiat, the car Pietro had driven when he followed them north from Pescara. A moment later Marco came up, waited for several pedestrians to pass, then took the bundle from Elena and unlocked the door.
“Why did you go into the store?” he asked as they drove off.
“I’m not allowed?”
“Of course. I just wasn’t prepared.”
“Neither was I, which was why I went in.” She lifted a package from the bag in her lap.
Sanitary napkins.
BY ELEVEN O’CLOCK both soup and puree were simmering on the kitchen stove and Elena was in the second-floor bedroom with Michael Roark. He was in an armchair, a pillow tucked under each arm, sitting upright for the first time. Marco had helped get him out of bed and into the chair and then had left, anxious to go outside for a cigarette. Above them, Luca slept in a third-floor bedroom. He was the night man, the same as he had been in the hospital in Pescara, sitting in the van outside from eleven at night until seven in the morning. Coming every two hours to help Elena turn her patient. Then going back out to wait and watch.
For what? Or whom? she wondered again, as she had wondered about the men all along.
From the bedroom she could see Marco, smoking and walking the southern periphery of the yard atop a stone wall. Below the wall was the road, and up from it, the gate and the driveway leading up to the house. Across the road was a large farm that went as far as the eye could see into the summer haze. A tractor worked it now, dust rising behind it as it plowed a stretch of open field behind the main house.
Abruptly Pietro appeared, crossing between the cypress trees in front of the window and walking toward Marco, his sleeves rolled up, his shirt open against the growing heat of the day, the gun in his waistband no longer hidden. Reaching him, he stopped, and the men talked. After a moment