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13

Clues

I’ll have toremember to close the balcony doors before I leave for the day, as winter arrives in Carrara. I snap the latch shut and flounce the curtains. This is the first time in my life that I have lived alone. I went from my family home to my husband’s apartment and back to my parents’ cellar when my marriage ended. I planned to move to Hoboken before I lost Uncle Louie, but instead of proceeding with my plan after he died, I changed course. No one was more shocked than me when the world didn’t end because I took a chance. I am grateful that Uncle Louie left me the ticket to my new life.

I have discovered that my great fear of living alone was completely unfounded; solitude is a gift and an essential pillar in an artistic life. Michelangelo said, “Genius is eternal patience.” Perhaps he was referring to the time it took to create a masterpiece; for me, it was about the patience it took to live in a house with people who didn’t share my need to be alone. I have, for most of my life,gone into bathrooms and closets to work. I knew in my soul that I needed to be alone to create, but I never had the guts to ask for what I needed. I guess Uncle Louie wasn’t the only one who lived life on two levels.

I pull on a sweater and shiver anyway. I put on a pot of coffee and sit down at the table. As I wait for the coffee to percolate, I click through the black-and-white photographs I found in Louie’s desk, which I scanned onto my computer.

I enlarge an image of Uncle Louie standing outside the quarry on the mountain. His thick eyebrows and the prominent nose, the smile with the strong Capodimonte teeth, are familiar, but not as I remember him. This was my uncle long before I was born. I did not know him with a big head of curls and the swagger of youth. Louie was just emerging in the world; his high hopes are captured in his warm smile and open arms.

I wish I had asked more questions about Uncle Louie’s time in Italy. Maybe he tried to share his experiences and I changed the subject, wanting to talk about whatever book we were reading or a problem with an installation at work or my own agita, which was constant the last couple years of my uncle’s life. I thought we had more time, lots more of it.

A notification sounds on my computer. I open the email.

Dear Ms. Baratta,

We are working with the Internal Revenue Service to resolve back taxes and fees owed by the Elegant Gangster to the United States government. We will reach out when we have further information. Please provide your current address abroad to us for all official correspondence.

Sincerely yours,

Detective Campovilla

Detective Campovilla is like a member of my family; he’s solicitous yet irritating at the same time. There are moments when I am furious with Louie Cap for putting me in this position. But then I remember that it was his idea for us to come to Carrara together. There can be no redemption without forgiveness. I’m trying. I don’t know if I learned that from one of my doctors on rotation at Thera-Me or from Sister Theresa at Saint Rose confession prep during Lent. I was raised in a family where we often ignored problems, hoping that they would disappear, or, even better, denied their existence in the first place. Denial worked for generations in the Cap and Baratta families. But I have learned that time does not heal the pain; only people can.

In a life where no one thought I could do anything on my own, including breathe, where every decision I made was challenged because I had made the wrong one, Uncle Louie put his money on me. Well, some of it. He believed I could do the impossible. And here, I’m doing it. Alone. Without him.

Accademia DI Belle Arti DI Carrara

The Palazzo Cybo Malaspina is a twelfth-century stone castle built for a wealthy Tuscan family who filled their opulent home with fine art, music, and children. The gardens, when they are not fallow, are manicured plots of red roses, night-blooming jasmine, and gardenias. Spindly lemon trees, fragrant with white buds, will bear fruit by next summer. I identify the plants by snapping photos of their leaves to track them on my phone. Anyone can be an amateur horticulturist, even me, and even in Italy. I film a video of the fallow plants.By spring, roses, I post.

I walk under a garden arch into a marble breezeway. Studentsloll on benches, a few sketch, others check their phones; in this way, the academy could be like any school of art in America. A spiderweb of outdoor loggias leads to the interior of the palazzo, which houses a theater, a grand ballroom, and a chapel. When Italy cancelled royalty, thecontadiniwere the beneficiaries. Sometimes it pays to be a peasant.

I flip open my notebook and quickly sketch the design of the inlaid marble floor of the foyer. Triangles of gold marble offset midnight-blue stars in a pattern that sweeps the visitor inside, as if walking through clouds on a starlit night. The doors are carved of thick wood from the local forest and inlaid with gold gilt. The Malaspina family crest, intersecting lines staggered with the thorns of roses, is mounted on the wall. It’s an accurate rendering of any complicated Italian family, including mine. Mauro LaFortezza has hired me to draft a series of floor designs for a private company in Rome. I am officially on the clock,stile Italiana.

Inside, the grand corridor and wide staircase are constructed of blocks of Carrara marble in coral and black. It is cool inside the palazzo,gli e di accio marmaho, yet the feeling of warmth,caldo come l’oro, flows through the colors of the antiquities. The intensity of the colors of the original stone has faded, leaving a brushed-gold patina as if the palazzo had been dipped in honey. The brooding depths of the paintings of Ippolito Scarsella create a backdrop for the sculptures of Bartolomé Ordóñez, perched in alcoves like castle guards.

The ballroom of the academy is set for the lecture, filled with neat rows of white folding chairs facing a podium with a microphone and a screen unfurled behind the stage. I don’t know if a lecture can distract me from the architectural magnificence of this theater. Mauro suggested I attend the lecture at the academy to get an overview of the history of the local marble industry. I’m also getting an art lesson in Italian history. We are surrounded by murals depicting scenesfrom Greek myths and Roman conquests. The vaulted ceilings are mirrored gold, making the room twice as grand in size. More mirrors are inset on the walls, reflecting the jewel tones of the art.

A cool breeze ruffles the hydrangea-blue silk draperies tied back with matching satin ropes. A table, properly covered in white linen, is set with a silver coffee service and clear pitchers of lemon water. I help myself to a cup of coffee.

“Make yourself at home,” Conor jokes as he joins me.

“I wish.” I give Conor the cup of coffee and pour another for myself. “When are we going back up the mountain? I am going to hit Mauro’s deadline for the fountain project.”

“He’ll be so happy. The next time we go to the quarry, we go with Professor Adeel. She knows more about marble at Massa-Carrara than Michelangelo.”

“Sounds like she’s my girl,” I tell him as we take our seats.

Conor points to the refreshment table, where Angelo Strazza pours himself a cup of coffee. “Should we invite him to sit with us?”

“Ugh.” The sound escapes my mouth.

“I guess not,” Conor says.

How rude of me. ”Guilty Catholic going in.” I hand Conor my coffee cup, stand, wave to Angelo, and indicate the empty seat next to us.

Angelo throws back the coffee like a shot, leaves the cup on the table, and heads toward us. His dark, observant eyes are intense and miss nothing. If you combined Rochester, Darcy, and Easy Rawlins from my favorite novels and rolled them into one six-foot grump, you’d have Angelo Strazza.