“I want to wait out front for the colonel, but you go ahead and join the others,” Vincenzo said. “I know you can’t wait to see them all again.”
“Mm,” said Phil noncommittally.
***
THE fact was, he always did look forward to seeing them. His Italian relatives were, after all, the only family he had. Between visits he would invariably forget how much they got on his nerves. That is, he knew they did, but he couldn’t quite remember why. It usually took about ten minutes for it to come back to him, and today was no exception. Once the excitement and surprise at his showing up had died down, it started.
And as usual, it was Dante Galasso who was the first to get to him.
Technically speaking, Dante wasn’t a relative—that is, a blood relative—either of Phil’s or of the de Grazias’. But he was married to Vincenzo’s older sister Francesca, which gave him the privilege of residing with her at the villa, along with the right to participate in the
A sinewy man with a deeply lined face, a bony head atop a snakelike neck, and a thin, contemptuous twist to his lips, as if he knew all sorts of things you didn’t, he had been a Marxist professor of Italian language and culture at the University of Bologna in 1984, when Francesca had been a student there. She had fallen under his spell and the following year, over the vigorous objections of her father Domenico, she had married him. This had caused Domenico enormous grief, inasmuch as Francesca, even more than his brother Cosimo or his son Vincenzo, had been his dearest confidante and had served as mistress of Isola de Grazia since the death of her mother.
A week after the wedding the married couple came to the villa to pay their respects. In a rare emotional scene, the outraged Domenico had Dante forcibly ejected, and for many months father and daughter were estranged. But when Francesca began visiting without Dante in tow, Domenico’s reserve broke down, and they soon became as close as ever. As Phil understood it, the one condition the old man insisted upon was that Dante’s name, or the fact of Francesca’s marriage to him, never be referred to, even indirectly. Francesca, apparently, had no objections and took to spending one or two husbandless weekends a month at her old home.
In the meantime, Dante had continued to teach in Bologna, living in nearby Modena with Francesca, until Domenico had died in 1993. Then, with the old man’s hostility no longer an issue and the widowed Vincenzo more than happy to have his sister on hand to reassume her old role as mistress of Isola de Grazia, he had returned with Francesca to take up residence at the villa “for a year of reflection and renewal.”
That had been ten years ago, but here he was, still reflecting and renewing away, with no sign of letting up.
“So then, here we are,” he said when they had retaken their uncomfortable seats after greeting Phil. He sipped from a gold-rimmed teacup and gestured at the dark, sober portraits that surrounded them, “Once again we find ourselves in the de Grazia Family Hall of Undistinguished Provincial Magistrates, Obscure Papal Sycophants, and Second-Rate, Do-Nothing Admirals.”
This was said just as Cosimo came in from his walk with Bacco. Phil knew perfectly well that it was meant to bait the old man, and predictably, it did.
“The de Grazias have centuries of public service to their credit,” he said sternly, taking one of the remaining chairs, pointedly turning it so that he wasn’t required to rest his eyes directly on Dante, and settling the old dog beside his legs, “which is more than can be said for the Galassos. And I remind you that my sainted brother Alfredo was no ‘do-nothing admiral.’ He fought and died as a decorated naval officer in the Second World War.”
Dante tipped back his head and laughed. “Sure, with the Fascists. Now there’s something to be proud of, all right.”
“He despised the Fascists, as you well know. He loathed Mussolini.”
“But he fought on their side anyway. Pardon me, but I’ve never understood how that makes sense.”
Bacco, sensing that his master was in need of support, uttered an uncertain growl in Dante’s direction. Cosimo sat very straight, stroking the furry, nervous head. “It is to Alfredo’s unending credit that he gave his life in a war he hated, obeying a leader he abhorred, in a cause he distrusted. I assure you, if he didn’t bear the name he did, he would not have done it, something I don’t expect you to understand.”
He sat up even straighter. “Do you know what he said to Domenico and to me the morning he left?” He was addressing the entire group now. “‘This war is going to be lost, brothers, I have no doubt of that. But we must lose it as well as we can.’” He looked from face to face. “He was a de Grazia.”
Dante shook his head, as if in incredulity, although he, like all of them, had heard the story before. “All I can say is, let us all be grateful that such traditions are now obsolete, along with the decadent, moribund aristocracy that spawned them.”
“Decadent...I...you...” Cosimo, having run out of steam, shook his head with an old man’s trembling frustration. The dog, looking up at him with concerned eyes, nuzzled his hand.
It was an old debate, and although on an intellectual level Phil had to agree with Dante, it was his grandfather’s side that he instinctively took. The only thing that had kept him from publicly standing with Cosimo so far was his reluctance to begin his visit by getting into an unwinnable argument. Besides, this had been going on for years and would keep going on after he left, so what difference would it make? But he was now resolved to jump in if Dante pushed his luck in the face of Cosimo’s capitulation, as he probably would.
Francesca saved him the trouble. Before Dante had gotten out another full sentence (“Once it’s understood that all the tired old ideas of reactionism and imperialism have been obsolete for fifty years, and Italy comes to terms with its tawdry history of marginalization—”) her dismissive, painfully incisive voice cut him off.
“Tired old ideas is exactly right. Keep it up, Dante, and when the revolution comes, you won’t have to kill all the capitalists, you’ll have bored them to death long before.”
Dante glowered at her. “How very amusing.”
“I thought it was time for someone to be amusing.”
Francesca de Grazia Galasso had been—still was—one of those classic Italian beauties, long-nosed, black- haired, flashing-eyed, and from Phil’s point of view, overwhelmingly, almost frighteningly, hard-edged. Although they had never taken to each other—as a child, Francesca had preferred to keep well clear of her Ungaretti kin—he was always grateful for her presence at family affairs, which were dull things in her absence. With Francesca around, the clang of steel blades, the exciting glint of armor, was never very far away.
