E-Book, Englisch, 496 Seiten
Scottoline Eternal
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-0-85730-579-4
Verlag: No Exit Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
2023 bestseller, a powerful and captivating WWII tale of love and betrayal
E-Book, Englisch, 496 Seiten
ISBN: 978-0-85730-579-4
Verlag: No Exit Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Lisa Scottoline is a #1 bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author of 33 novels. She has been President of Mystery Writers of America and she reviews fiction and non-fiction for the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She also writes a weekly column with her daughter for The Philadelphia Inquirer entitled Chick Wit, a witty take on life from a woman's perspective, which have been collected in a bestselling series of humorous memoirs.
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1
Elisabetta
May 1937
Elisabetta made up her mind. Marco Terrizzi would be her first kiss. She watched him doing bicycle tricks by the river, riding on his back tire, his head thrown back in laughter, his teeth white against his tanned face. His thick, dark hair shone with pomade in the sun, and his legs were knotted with muscles inside the baggy shorts of his uniform. He rode with joy and athleticism, achieving a masculine grace. Marco Terrizzi had sprezzatura, a rare and effortless charm that made him irresistible.
Elisabetta couldn’t take her eyes from him, and neither could the others. They had grown up together, but somewhere along the line, he had gone from boyhood to manhood, from Marco to Marco. That he was terribly handsome there could be no doubt. He had large, walnut-brown eyes, a strong nose, a square jaw, and a broad neck marked by a prominent Adam’s apple. He was the most popular boy in their class, and everything about him seemed more vivid than everyone else. Even now, the sun drenched him in gold, as if Nature herself gilded him.
Elisabetta wondered what it would be like to kiss him. She guessed it would be exciting, even delicious, like biting into a ripe tomato and letting its juices run down her chin. She had never kissed a boy, though she was already fifteen years old, and at night she practiced kissing on her pillow. Her tabbycat, Rico, with whom she slept, had grown accustomed to her routine, as cats endure the silliness of young girls.
Elisabetta had no idea how to make Marco think of her as more than a friend. She usually achieved what she set her mind to, getting good grades and such, but this was different. She was too blunt to flirt. She lacked feminine wiles. She had been a maschiaccio, a tomboy, when she was little, which was how she had grown close with Marco. She was trying to become more womanly, but she still didn’t wear a brassiere. Her mother said she didn’t need one, but the other girls made fun of her, talking behind their hands.
‘Elisabetta, help, I’ll drown!’ Marco raced toward the river, and she was about to call to him, but stopped herself. She had read in a female advice column that denying men the attention they craved drove them mad with desire, so she ignored him, while the other girls responded.
‘Marco, no!’ Livia called back.
‘Marco, be careful!’ Angela gasped.
The boys waited to see if calamity befell Marco, but he cranked the handlebars, veering away from the river’s edge. They laughed and returned to their textbooks, spread out on the grass. They were doing homework, having come from their Balilla meeting, the party’s compulsory youth group. They all wore their uniforms, the boys in their black shirts and gray shorts, and the girls in white muslin shirts and black skirts.
This quiet spot on the riverbank, just north of the Ponte Palatino, had become a hangout of her classmates after school, though Elisabetta typically sat with Marco or Sandro, apart from the other girls. Somehow she had missed her chance to become their girlfriend, and it was too late now, for they rebuffed her overtures. Perhaps they had judged her as preferring the boys, which wasn’t true, and she would have loved to have had a good girlfriend. Whatever the reason, Angela and the other girls kept her at a distance, and she tried not to let it bother her.
‘Look, Betta!’ Marco called again, using her childhood nickname.
‘Use my proper name!’ Elisabetta called back, from behind her newspaper. She did prefer her full name, as she hoped to become a journalist someday. She practiced her byline at night, too. By Elisabetta D’Orfeo.
‘Elisabetta!’ Marco rode over, sliding to a stop on the grass. ‘Hop on my handlebars. Let’s go for a ride.’
‘No, I’m reading.’ Elisabetta hid her smile behind the newspaper.
Angela rose, brushing grass from her skirt. ‘Marco, I’ll go, take me!’
‘Okay!’ Marco extended his hand, Angela clambered onto his handlebars, and the two rode off together.
Elisabetta lowered her newspaper, wondering if the female advice column had been wrong. If she wanted Marco, she would have to attract him another way. She sensed she was pretty enough, now that she had grown into her features, according to her mother. Her large, round eyes were greenish-brown, and her shoulder-length hair was a rich brunette, wavy and abundant. Her nose was strong, but proportional to her prominent cheekbones, and her lips were full. Her problem was her bocca grande, big mouth, which proved a disadvantage when it came to boys, her Latin teacher, and that old bitch at the newsstand.
Elisabetta leaned back on her elbows, breathing in the odors of the Tiber, its water a milky jade with wavelets topped with ivory foam. Swallows skimmed the surface for a drink, cicadas rasped, and dragonflies droned. Pink oleander bushes, umbrella pines, and palm trees lined the riverbank, and the natural oasis was shielded from the hustle-bustle of the city by gray stone walls.
Elisabetta’s gaze found the Ponte Rotto in the middle of the river, a bizarre sight. Centuries ago, the stone bridge had connected the riverbanks, but time had reduced it to only a single arch rising from the water, leading nowhere. Romans called it the broken bridge, but she thought that it was a survivor, standing despite the elements and the Tiber itself, which sent blackish-green vines up its sides, as if trying to pull it underwater.
Beyond the Ponte Rotto was Tiber Island, the only island in the river, barely large enough to contain the Basilica di San Bartolomeo all’Isola with its faded-brick belfry, the Church of San Giovanni Calibita, and the hospital, Ospedale Fatebenefratelli, with its rows of green-shuttered windows. Across from the hospital was Bar GiroSport, which Marco’s family owned and lived above. Elisabetta lived only a few blocks away from him in Trastevere, the bohemian neighborhood that she and her father loved. Unfortunately, her mother had ceased loving anything.
It was then that Elisabetta spotted Sandro Simone striding toward her and the others. Sandro was her other best friend, and Marco’s, too, as the three of them had been a trio since childhood. Sandro walked with his characteristically lanky stride, and his light brown curls blew back from his long, lean face. He was handsome in his own way, his features more refined than Marco’s and his build like a sharpened pencil, slim but strong, the way a wire cable supports a modern bridge.
‘Ciao, Elisabetta!’ Sandro reached her, smiling and taking off his fez. He wiped the sweat from his brow, slid off his backpack, and sat down. His eyes, a brilliant azure color with long eyelashes like awnings, narrowed against the sunlight. His nose was long and aquiline, and his lips finely etched into his face. Sandro lived on the east side of the river in the Jewish quarter, called the Ghetto, and throughout their childhood, Elisabetta, Sandro, and Marco had traveled back and forth on an axis from Trastevere to Tiber Island and the Ghetto, riding bikes, playing soccer, and generally acting as if Rome were their private playground.
‘Ciao, Sandro.’ Elisabetta smiled, happy to see him.
‘I stopped to get us a snack. Have one.’ Sandro produced a paper bag from his backpack and opened its top, releasing the delicious aroma of supplì, rice croquettes with tomato sauce and mozzarella.
‘Grazie!’ Elisabetta picked up a supplì and took a bite. The breading was light, the tomato sauce perfectly salty, and the mozzarella hot enough to melt on her tongue.
‘Where’s Marco? I brought some for him, too.’
‘Off with Angela.’
‘Too bad.’ Sandro chewed a supplì and glanced at her newspaper. ‘What are you reading?’
‘Nothing.’ Elisabetta used to love reading the newspaper, but her favorite columnists were gone, and she suspected they had been fired. Benito Mussolini and the Fascists had been in power for fifteen years, and censorship had become the order of the day. ‘All the articles are the same, about how great the government is, or they reproduce ridiculous posters like this one.’
‘Let me see.’ Sandro wiped his hands on a napkin.
‘Here.’ Elisabetta showed him a picture of an Italian peasant woman in traditional dress, holding babies in each arm. She read him the caption. ‘“The ideal Fascist woman is to bear children, knit, and sew, while men work or go to war.” It’s propaganda, not news, and anyway, not all women are the same.’
‘Of course they aren’t. The newspaper isn’t always right.’
‘No, it’s not.’ Elisabetta thought of the female advice column. Marco and Angela still weren’t back.
‘Don’t let it bother you.’
‘But it does.’ Elisabetta disagreed with the Fascists, though she didn’t discuss it with anyone other than Sandro and Marco. Those who spoke against the government could be arrested and sent into confino, exile, far from their homes. Informers abounded in Rome, even in Trastevere, and though Elisabetta’s family wasn’t committed to any particular political party, as artists they were congenitally leftist.
‘You don’t like being told what to do.’
‘Who does? Do you?’
‘No, but I don’t take it so much to heart as you.’ Sandro leaned over. ‘Guess what, I have amazing news. I was accepted to an internship with Professor Levi-Civita at La...
