Good Blood

TWENTY

Franco Ungaretti had no trouble identifying Phil either. “Fili, yes?” he said in Italian as they neared the table. “When did you get so old?” He seemed determinedly sullen, as if making sure that they knew he’d come against his better judgment. He continued to scrutinize Phil as they sat down. “Look at that gray in his hair, do you see that?” he said to the woman. “My son looks older than me, isn’t that something?”

The woman, absorbed in counting something off on her fingers, quirked up the corners of her mouth in a mechanical smile.

“You don’t look so terrific yourself, Franco,” Phil said, which was true enough. The older man looked like a broken-down old featherweight who’d been in the ring a few times too often. His nose had been broken more than once, one ear had been partially cauliflowered, and there was healed scar tissue above his eyes. An uglier scar on his cheek, spongy and shiny and pink, looked as if it had been left by a claw hammer, but was probably the one from the broken bottle. He had poorly fitting upper and lower plates that clacked as he spoke, and made the tendons of his neck jump as he tried to keep them from shifting.

“I don’t… is it true there are no snails in Ireland?” said the woman, momentarily surfacing, before going back to her fingers without waiting for an answer. The joints, Gideon saw, were puffy with arthritis and had to be painful.

Franco stabbed a finger at Phil. “You,” he said sharply, “can call me ‘Father.’”

“Oh, really? I figure I can call you whatever I want,” Phil shot back, and the two of them glowered at each other.

“Well, this has certainly started off well,” Gideon murmured in English to Phil; and aloud in Italian: “Why don’t I get us some coffee? Anyone?”

“I can buy my own coffee,” Franco said, seeming to notice Gideon for the first time. “Who are you supposed to be, anyway? What do you want here?”

Gideon, sitting across from him, leaned back and away from an almost-visible gust of brandy and stale tobacco fumes.

“He’s a friend of mine, Gideon Oliver. I asked him to come. I wanted to give him the chance to meet my esteemed and beloved father,” Phil said with heavy-handed sarcasm. “So who’s your lady friend?”

“This is Mrs. Ungaretti.” Franco clamped his teeth together, clack, and fixed Phil with a you-got-a-problem-with-that? stare.

“I don’t like being touched,” the woman murmured to no one in particular. “I never have. I don’t know why that should be, unless it’s a family trait.” No one paid any attention to her.

Phil started to answer his father, but decided to let it pass. He didn’t have to say it: As far as he was concerned, there was only one Mrs. Ungaretti, and it wasn’t this addled lady.

“As long as you’re a friend of the family,” Franco said to Gideon, “I’ll have a brandy, a cognac. Make it a double.”

“Yes, I will too,” the woman said vaguely. “Make it a double.”

“She’ll have an espresso,” Franco said.

“Espresso, yes, that’s what I meant,” she said docilely. “With a twist of lemon, if such a thing is possible.”

“Phil?” Gideon asked.

But Phil didn’t hear him. Father and son were engaged in locking glares like a couple of bellicose ten-year-olds trying to stare each other down.

Gideon was grateful for the chance to escape, even temporarily. Not a man who was at ease with emotional fire-works in any case, he was surprised and disturbed by the way Phil was acting. In all these years, he realized, he had never once seen Phil angry-irritated, grouchy, fractious, yes; plenty of times. But really angry? Meanly sarcastic? Never. This was the first time he’d ever seen this gentle, go-with-the-flow man act rudely to anyone, and that was most unsettling of all. It seemed to go against nature.

He took all the time he could getting the drinks-brandy for Franco, espresso with lemon peel for Mrs. Ungaretti, cappuccino for himself-then carried them back out on a tray as slowly as he could get away with doing it. He was pretty sure things were going to get worse before they got better (if they got better, which was looking doubtful), and he was in no hurry to get back.

Indeed, when he returned, they were practically at each other’s throats. Phil’s face was white, with the muscles in his cheek pulsing, and Franco was half out of his chair, bending over the table, his fingers clutching the edge, shouting hoarsely at him. “Don’t you get so high and mighty with me! I’m not your damned father anyway, and for that, you can take my word for it, I thank God every morning of my life!”

“You’re right, you’re not my father,” Phil yelled back into his face, “and I’m not your son. My father was Mark Boyajian. You, you’re nothing!” He was trembling across his shoulders and down his arms.

“I’m nothing? I’m nothing? Don’t make me laugh! You’re nothing! You’re not even your mother’s son!” He, too, was deeply agitated. He snatched up the double brandy and tossed it down in two quick gulps with what started as a stage laugh and quickly became a ragged cough. Inside the cafe, people were nudging each other and faces were turning to take in the show.

“Phil,” Gideon said in English, “maybe we should just-”

Phil shook him off. “No, don’t you want to hear what he has to say? I mean, how often do you get the chance to hear this kind of bullshit? What’s that supposed to mean, I’m not my mother’s son?”

“What does it mean?” Franco said wildly. “You want to know what it means?” He lost his focus, let go of the table, and dropped heavily back into his chair, eyes closed. “What does it mean,” he sighed.

“I’m waiting,” Phil said.

“Come on, Phil,” Gideon said, putting a hand on his arm. “the guy’s obviously smashed, he’s just coming up with things to get you upset. Don’t you think we ought to-”

“You really don’t know, do you?” Franco muttered. “They really never told you? In all this time?”

“Know what?” asked Phil.

“Ah,” said Franco. “Ha, ha.”

“Ah,” said the woman. She reached under the wig, scratched enthusiastically at her scalp with a finger, and readjusted the black mat on her head.

A shiver traveled down Gideon’s back. Something bad was coming; you could feel it hovering in the air, waiting for its chance. He was sorry now that he’d told Phil about his father.

“It’s Vincenzo, the great Vincenzo, who is your mother’s son,” Franco cried. “Not you. What do you think of that? Isn’t that funny? To be not your own mother’s son?” He tried a laugh, but his muscles were too rigid to bring it off. He sounded, in fact, a little crazy. His fists, loosely curled on the table until now, were clenched, so that the extensor tendons on the back of each hand stood out like drinking straws.

Phil gawked at him. His mouth opened and closed twice before he could get even a few garbled words out. “Vinc… what…? How can…? I don’t… I don’t…” He threw a perplexed, apprehensive look at Gideon, who was as clueless as he was.

Franco got to his feet again, more unsteadily this time, propping himself on the table with his fists and bathing them in a wash of alcohol and tobacco fumes. “Now I’m going to tell you a very interesting story,” he said, raking them with his eyes.

At which point Gideon, to his surprise and embarrassment, burst into a brief but noisy snort of close-mouthed laughter, managing to more or less snuff it out after a couple of honks. They stared at him, even the woman. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean-”

But there was no way he could explain, especially in Italian, that when Franco had leaned over them and peered so intensely at them, an image of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, the famous old Tenniel illustration, had jumped into his mind with amazing clarity. In his memory, the parallel was almost exact. There was Franco, the Mad Hatter himself, running the show according to rules that nobody understood, with the docile, dopey Dormouse-the woman with her shabby wig, in this case-slipping in and out of awareness beside him. Phil was the March Hare, who, if he wasn’t nuts before, seemed well on his way now. That left Gideon as Alice, the observer from outside who didn’t quite belong and couldn’t quite comprehend what was going on or where it was headed. A perfect fit all around.

Franco’s story fit too: a bizarre, jumbled tale of switched babies, bamboozled rich uncles, and confused identities straight out of a Victorian potboiler. Gideon’s Italian was just barely up to the job of following him, and even then, only because an increasingly incredulous Phil interrupted after almost every sentence with a befuddled “Che?” or “Como?” or a helpless, hands-spread “Non capito.”

This was the upshot, as near to it as Gideon could make out:

In 1960 or thereabouts, Domenico de Grazia, whose wife was barren, had arranged with Franco and his wife Emma-

“My mother,” Phil had put in hopefully.

“Wait and see,” Franco said.

– had arranged with Franco and his wife Emma that Emma, through a process of artificial insemination, should secretly bear Domenico’s child, the object being to provide him with a genetically suitable heir. The process was successfully accomplished and Franco and Emma were secluded here in Gignese for several months, awaiting the baby’s birth. Emma wasn’t good at being pregnant-sick every morning-and complaining from morning till night, so much so that Franco couldn’t take it anymore and went home to Caprera after a while, until the baby was born, leaving Caterina, the live-in housekeeper, to deal with Emma’s moods. But finally it was over, and it was the old doctor-Lazzero? Luzzatto?-who delivered it, a baby boy that met Domenico’s requirements: a son and heir.

“Vincenzo?” Phil exclaimed dazedly. “You’re talking about Vincenzo?”

“Of course, Vincenzo, what do you think?”

“So Vincenzo and I are brothers-half-brothers? We have the same mother? Wait a minute, we’re the same age, how could-are you telling me we’re twins?”

“Stop interrupting,” Franco said. “Do you want to know or not?”

“Sorry,” Phil said meekly.

“All right, then.” Franco looked at Gideon and gestured at his empty glass.

This time Gideon wasn’t as anxious to leave and managed to signal the barman from where he sat. Franco watched hungrily as his second double brandy was carried out to him and set down, then quickly drank half of it and licked the residue from his lips.

“I can’t help wondering what happened to all those towels,” the woman mumbled. “Where could they have gone to? After so many years. It was so strange.”

Franco glanced at her, wiped his mouth with his fingers, and continued.

After the birth, Emma moped about until Franco, with Domenico’s assistance, persuaded her to adopt a child of her own, which Domenico “purchased” for her from a young neighbor girl she’d become friends with, an unmarried teenager, who was unable to care for her newly delivered baby.

Franco looked at Phil, his eyebrows lifted, waiting for him to speak.

Phil cleared his throat. “And that… that baby, that’s me? The one that was bought?”

“Yes, yes, that’s right,” Franco said meanly, “the one that was bought, that’s you. Five hundred dollars, American, was the price.”

Gideon had his doubts about Franco’s reliability and his intentions, but Phil seemed not to. “So you’re really not my father.”

“You’re finally catching on?”

“And my-and Emma Ungaretti isn’t really my mother.”

Franco nodded.

Phil swallowed. “Who else knows about this?”

“I’m pretty sure Vincenzo knows. The snotty sister, Francesca, she knows. Oh, and the servant, what was her name-Genoveffa, if she’s still alive. She was right here the whole time, snooping around and spying on us.”

“And…” Phil hesitated. “And Cosimo? Does he know?”

Franco puffed his lips dismissively. “Of course not. He wouldn’t believe it anyway.” He finished the brandy, lost his balance, and flopped back into his chair.

Phil looked as if he didn’t know what had hit him. “So I don’t even know who my mother is.” He murmured it in English, with an arid laugh.

“Listen, Phil,” Gideon said, “you better get some verification on this. This guy…”

“Why did you tell me all this, after all these years?” Phil asked, switching back to Italian. “Why did you bother coming to meet me at all? You’re right-I’m nothing to you, you’re nothing to me.”

“Why did I come?” He snickered and used his chin to point at the woman. “Because this one wanted me to, and I’m a nice guy, that’s why.”

Phil turned to her. “Why did you-” But she was off in cloud-cuckoo-land again, trailing a fingernail around the rim of her cup and tipping her head toward it as if she could make out a tune. “Why should she care?” he asked Franco.

“Why should she…?” Franco guffawed, a real laugh this time. “Haven’t you been listening to what I’ve been telling you? This is your mother, idiot!” He shook her roughly by the shoulder. “Gia, look! It’s Filiberto! It’s your darling baby boy!”

She looked foggily up from her cup. Her eyes filled with tears. “My boy,” she said. Then, as an afterthought, she opened her arms to him.

Phil couldn’t have shied back any more violently if she’d come at him with a knife. “You’re my… Who’s my father, then?”

She let her arms fall to her sides. “Your father?” She looked at Franco as if for help, but he merely shrugged. He’d lost interest. He raised his arms and waved at the men watching from inside the cafe-a performer who’d given them a good show. Some of them waved back with jeers and mimed applause. As cafe entertainments in Gignese went, this one had obviously been a hit.

“Your father,” she said again, thinking hard. “I remember him. A very nice boy, so sweet. Pietro, I think his name was. Yes.” She knitted her eyebrows, put a nail-chewed finger to chapped lips, and pondered some more. “No, that’s not right, Pietro was the one with the two sisters, remember? Pasquale? No, Pasquale had the warts, ugh. Guglielmo? Mm, no…”

“Can you believe that?” Phil said as Gideon started up the car. “Can… you… believe that? I am really ticked off.”

“I’m not surprised,” Gideon said, edging out into the light traffic on Via Margherita. “That was quite a story. If it’s true.”

“You don’t think it is? Why would he make up something like that?”

“I’m not saying he made it up. But he didn’t strike me as the most reliable informant in the world either. I’d check it out with Vincenzo if I were you.”

“No way. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.”

“Francesca, then.”

“Francesca,” Phil mused. “I think I’m beginning to see why she always treated me like dirt-I mean, even more than she treats other people like dirt. I always thought it was because I was the runt of the litter, and even as a kid I was gimpy.”

“Phil, you’re not-”

“And besides that, I was just a lousy Ungaretti, not a de Grazia. Now I see it was way worse than that. In her eyes, I’m barely human. No, forget it, I’m not talking to Francesca about it either.”

“Well, then, with the servant-Genoveffa, was it? You can’t just take Franco’s word for it.” But the truth was that as the time passed, Gideon found himself more and more taking Franco’s word for it. Why would he have concocted such a wild story? Was he even capable of inventing it? And what about the woman? That addled, tearstained “My boy.” Surely that hadn’t been an act.

“Genoveffa,” Phil said. “Yeah, maybe Genoveffa.”

He didn’t say it with any conviction, but Gideon didn’t press, and for a few minutes Phil stared stonily ahead with his arms folded. Then, as they picked up the winding road down the mountain, he raised his fists and let out a tooth-rattling growl. “GHAAARGHH! I am really ticked off!”

“Phil, I believe you. Truly.”

“Here’s this guy,” Phil railed, “this so-called father I despised my whole life. I mean I’ve loathed him for, like, almost forty years now. There were a lot of times I would have strangled him if I could have gotten my hands on him. And now, after all this time, I find out he’s not my father after all. I wasted all that hating! It is really annoying.”

“That’s what you’re mad about?”

“Sure,” Phil said, turning his baseball cap around so the bill was backward. And suddenly he looked reassuringly like the old, familiar Phil again. “What’d you think I was mad about?”

“Well, I thought maybe the fact that you weren’t related to any of the people you thought you were related to.”

“You mean Vincenzo and the rest of them? Nah, that’s a relief. That feels great. That never felt right. I should have known.”

“Or-if what he said is true-that you’re actually, well-”

“A bastard, right. No longer in name only. And I have a mother who barely knows who I am, let alone who my father was, and who talks like Ozzy Osbourne.” He considered. “No, that’s okay too. That’s interesting, actually. Anyway, I know who my real mother was, and she’s the same as she always was. As for my father…” He started laughing. “‘Pietro? No. Mario? No. Guglielmo? No. Arturo Toscanini? No. Enrico Caruso? No.’ I think it gives me an air of mystery, don’t you? Makes me even more dashing than I already am.”

“Definitely, no doubt about that.”

“And hey, now Lea’s definitely not my cousin, right? How about that?”

“She never was your cousin, Phil.”

“Right, whatever.” He settled back with a sigh.

“So what are you going to do?” Gideon asked after a few minutes passed.

Phil glanced at him. “What is there to do?”

“Well… you can’t very well just keep stringing things along the way they were before, can you?”

“Sure I can, why not?”

“I mean, visiting them, acting like one of the family-”

“Sure, why not?”

“Well, why would you want to? I don’t think you were ever too crazy about them. Anyway, it’d be a fraud, a sham.”

“So? It always was a sham, what’s different now?”

Gideon shrugged. “I’m just surprised. I assumed-”

“Look, let me give it to you in a nutshell. Vincenzo, Dante, that whole bunch-I couldn’t care less if I never saw them again for the rest of my life. But Cosimo-my grandfather, even if he isn’t really-it would break his heart. He believes in this good-blood crap, and if he found out that I was just… well, it wouldn’t be good. After he goes, it’ll probably be a different story. But until then, I remain his grandson.”

“Ah,” said Gideon. Now he understood.

As they turned from the highway into Stresa’s bustle, Phil started laughing again. “Mussolini? Mm, no. Rudolph Valentino? Mm, no…”