The Incident at Montebello Read Online Free

which was certainly good news. The town was probably too poor to build one. He gave Balbi a firm nod. Still, he had to ask, “But if I can’t work, how will I eat?”
    â€œYou’re educated. You’ll figure it out.”
    â€œAnd where will I live?”
    â€œAsk around. Someone is sure to have a room to rent.”
    â€œCan you give me some names?”
    â€œIf you have money, they’ll find you.” And with that, he took refuge behind his desk.
    On a signal from Balbi, the guards released him with a shove. He stumbled downstairs, sickened by his forced obedience. Without a doubt, Balbi and his militia would keep him on a short leash, effectively guaranteeing his submission. Perhaps, he was more closely related to the donkey in the piazza than he had thought.
    Stepping outside, he plunged into a wall of people, filling the piazza with somberness and gloom. At first he supposed they had gathered to honor one of the saints in endless supply in the South, but then he glimpsed a horse-drawn cart with a small coffin blanketed with lilies and blood-red carnations. Behind it, a tattered band straggled, the vibrant wails from their trumpets and clarinets swirling though the air. Immediately following, a throng of women, shrouded in black, shrieked and beat their chests with their fists. Some of them tore at their dresses, ripping off buttons and lace collars.
    A slim woman caught his eye. She wasn’t dressed like the others. Her stylish suit with wide lapels, tapered waist, and flared skirt belonged in the Piazza del Duomo in Firenze. Even her shoes with square toes and heels were mail ordered from some other fashionable place. His eyes lingered on the strong and angular lines of her face—he could capture it in a few brush strokes. But he’d never come close to expressing her beauty and that indefinable something in her eyes—part intelligence, part sorrow—which made him shiver.
    As she passed him, she stumbled. He stretched out his arms towards her, but several women rushed forward and seized her by the elbows. Then she was swallowed up in a crowd of men and solemn-faced children carrying funeral posters of the girl with a bow in her hair. At the end of the procession, a priest shambled past with a cluster of boys and girls, his black-tasseled berretta swaying as he shepherded them down the street.
    Sardolini turned to an old man leaning heavily on a cane. His neck and hands were speckled with moles, some as big as coins. “What happened? How’d she die?”
    The villager eyed him warily. “Run over by a car.”
    â€œA car? Here?”
    The man shrugged. “You’re a stranger here. What do you know?”
    â€œApparently, not enough.”
    â€œGood. Keep it that way. Let the dead bury the dead.”
    He had no idea what the man meant, but he knew it was a warning to leave well enough alone. After all he had been through in the past year, he should have learned the dangers of sticking his neck out. Still, he was curious. Questions on his lips, he turned to the man, but he had disappeared.

CHAPTER 3
    ROMA, ITALIA
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    A bullet stopped Mussolini in mid-sentence. A moment before, he was delivering his Sunday speech on the balcony of the Palazzo Chigi, his people spread out beneath him in the piazza, their faces upturned like a field of sunflowers. From a distance, they were beautiful to him.
    He paused, hands on hips while they chanted, “Fight, win, obey.” Pleased, he extended his hand towards them and swept the air in a grand arc the way a father might to his sons or a general might to his troops in a display of pride and triumph, acknowledging that this moment in time, in history belonged to them all—well, almost all, except for those slackers and laggers in his administration hovering behind him. Ignoring them, he raised his hand and jutted out his chin and chest, a signal for silence from the crowd.
    He shook a warning finger.