Breathing Room

Museum, Ombra della Sera. She eased up on the accelerator to allow a truck to pass. “What does it mean? Ombra della Mattina?”

“Shadow of the Morning.”

“The statue in Volterra is called Shadow of the Evening. That isn’t a coincidence, is it?”

“Ombra della Mattina is its mate. A female statue. Thirty years ago our village priest found it when he was planting rosebushes at the gate of the cemetery.”

Just as Ren had suspected. “And the people of the village don’t want to turn it over to the government.”

“Do not think this is an ordinary case of greedy people trying to hide an artifact. If only it were that simple.”

“But this is a very valuable artifact.”

“Yes, but not only in the way you are thinking.”

“I don’t understand.”

Giulia tugged on her small pearl earring. She looked drawn and exhausted. “Ombra della Mattina has special powers. This is why we do not speak of it to outsiders.”

“What kind of powers?”

“Unless you were born in Casalleone, you cannot understand. Even those of us born here did not believe.” She made one of her small, graceful gestures. “We laughed when our parents told us stories about the statue, but now we are no longer laughing.” She finally turned to look at Isabel. “Three years ago Ombra della Mattina disappeared, and since then not one woman within thirty kilometers of this town has been able to conceive.”

“No one has gotten pregnant in three years?”

“Only those who have been able to conceive away from the town.”

“And you really believe that the disappearance of the statue is responsible?”

“Vittorio and I were educated at the university. Do we believe it rationally? No. But the fact remains… The only way any couples have been able to get pregnant is to do so beyond the borders of Casalleone, and this is not always so easy.”

Finally Isabel understood. “That’s why you’re always traveling to meet Vittorio. You’re trying to have a child.”

Giulia’s hands twisted in her lap. “And why our friends Cristina and Enrico, who want a second child, must leave their daughter with her nonna night after night so they can get away. And why Sauro and Tea Grifasi drive far out into the country to make love in their car, then drive back home afterward. Sauro was fired from his job last month because he kept sleeping through his alarm clock. And this is why Anna is sad all the time. Bernardo and Fabiola can not get pregnant to make her a grandmother.”

“The pharmacist in town is pregnant. I’ve seen her.”

“For six months she lived in Livorno with a sister who always criticizes. Her husband drove back and forth every night. Now they are getting divorced.”

“But what does all this have to do with the farmhouse and old Paolo?”

Giulia rubbed her eyes. “Paolo is the one who stole the statue.”

“Apparently Paolo had a reputation for disliking children,” Isabel told Ren that evening as they stood in the kitchen together, gently wiping the dirt from the porcini with damp cloths. “He didn’t like the noise they made, and he complained that having so many children meant they had to spend too much money on schools.”

“My kind of guy. So he decides to cut the town’s birthrate by stealing the statue. And what part of your mind did you lose when you started to believe this story?”

“Giulia was telling the truth.”

“I don’t doubt that. What I’m having trouble comprehending is the fact that you’re taking the supposed powers of this statue seriously.”

“God works in mysterious ways.” Ren was making a mess of the kitchen as usual, and she began clearing space on the counter.

“Spare me.”

“No one has conceived a child in Casalleone since the statue was stolen,” she said.

“And yet I’m not feeling any compulsion to throw away your condoms. Doesn’t this offend your academic sensibilities just a little?”

“Not at all.” She carried a stack of dirty bowls to the sink. “It supports what I know. The mind is very powerful.”

“You’re saying there’s some kind of mass hysteria going on? That women aren’t conceiving because they believe they can’t conceive?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“I liked the Mafia story better.”

“Only because it had guns.”

He smiled and leaned down to kiss her on the nose, which led to her mouth, which led to her breast, and several minutes passed before they came back up for air. “Cook,” she said weakly. “I’ve been waiting all day for those mushrooms.”

He groaned and grabbed his knife. “You got a lot more out of Giulia than I got out of Vittorio, I’ll give you that. But the statue disappeared three years ago. Why did everyone have to wait until now to dig up this place?”

“The town’s priests kept the statue in the church office…”

“And isn’t it charming the way paganism and Christianity can still coexist?”

“Everyone knew it was there,” she said, rinsing out a bowl, “but the local officials didn’t want a rebellion on their hands by reporting it, so they looked the other way. Paolo had done odd jobs at the church for years, but no one made the connection between him and the statue’s disappearance until he died a few months later. Then people started remembering that he didn’t like children.”

Ren rolled his eyes. “Definitely suspicious.”

“Marta always defended him. She said he didn’t hate children. That he was just imbronciato because of his arthritis. What does ‘imbronciato’ mean?”

“Grouchy.”

“She pointed out that he’d been a good father to his daughter. He’d even flown to the States years ago to see his granddaughter when she was born. So people backed off, and other rumors started to fly. I guess it got fairly ugly.”

“Any guns?”

“Sorry, no.” She wiped up a small section of the counter. “The day before I arrived, Anna sent Giancarlo down here to clean up a rubbish pile that had gotten out of hand. And guess what he found tucked in a hole in the wall when he accidentally knocked out one of the stones?”

“I’m holding my breath.”

“The marble base the statue had always stood on. The same base that disappeared the day the statue was stolen.”

“Well, that does explain the sudden interest in the wall.”

She dried her hands. “Everyone in town went crazy. They made plans to take the wall apart, only to have the fly in the ointment show up.”

“You.”

“Exactly.”

“Things would have been a lot easier if they’d just told us the truth from the beginning,” he said.

“We’re outsiders, and they had no reason to trust either one of us. Especially you.”

“Thanks.”

“What good would it do for them to find the statue if we spread the word that it was here?” she said. “It’s one thing for local politicians to turn a blind eye to a priceless Etruscan artifact sitting around in a church office, but officials in the rest of the country weren’t going to be quite that cavalier. Everyone was afraid the statue would end up locked away in a glass case in Volterra right next to Ombra della Sera.”

“Which is where it should be.” He whacked a clove of garlic with the flat of his knife.