“No,” I said.
“He’s in the middle of doing this big story on how the U.S. Navy ended up in La Maddalena. A lot of very secret negotiations, apparently.”
“We didn’t get that far. I helped him pick out a marionette for his niece.”
“Violetta?”
“Is she five?”
“Yes,” said Francesca with a smile. “She’s Teo’s brother Arturo’s child. Arturo’s the oldest. Then there’s Enrique. And Teo is the baby. They all live in Rome. Well, except for Teo.”
“Is that where he grew up?”
“More or less. My sister’s husband is from Rome. They have a place here. In this building, actually.” She pointed upstairs. “When my father was alive, my sister would come for most of the summer. But now that he’s gone and the boys are grown, she comes less often.”
“That’s too bad.”
Francesca shrugged. “It works out, though, because Teo can use the apartment when he’s here working.”
“So, wait,” I said. “Where does Teo live?”
“He’s in Sassari. Which is about two hours away from Palau, by car. It’s whereLa Spedizione’s offices are.”
“Oh,” I said, a little disappointed, although I couldn’t have told you why.
“He’s all over Sardinia,” she added. “But he’s been in La Maddalena a lot lately.”
“Because of this story he’s working on?”
“With you Americans here, there is no shortage of stories.”
This felt like a dig, but I tried to put a positive spin on it. “I guess it’s nice you get to see so much of him.”
Francesca looked the tiniest bit annoyed, and I suspected she was about to tell me off, except that just then the pot on the stove began to boil over. “The ragù,” she said as she hurried back to the kitchen to lower the heat.
54.
I WANTED TO ASK FRANCESCAmore about Teo, but almost as soon as she’d dealt with the ragù, in walked a distinguished-looking man wearing a collared shirt and slacks. Francesca said something to him in the easy language of people who are intimately familiar, and he set down his satchel and greeted me with a somewhat stilted “Hello.”
“This is my husband, Bernardo,” said Francesca, and I went to greet him.
Bernardo’s English was nowhere near as good as Francesca’s, but he could get by, so he told me it was nice to meet me and asked how I was finding life on the island.
“Good, it’s good,” I said, then switched over to Italian. “É bellissimo.” I was eager to impress him—probably because I figured that, if he liked me, Francesca might decide she liked me, too.
“Ha incontrato Teo in città,” said Francesca, and I knew she was telling him that I’d met Teo.
“Ha incontrato Bianca?”
“Non ancora, ma forse presto,” said Francesca before turning to me and explaining, “He’s asking if you’ve met Bianca. I said not yet but maybe soon.”
I already knew a little bit about Francesca and Bernardo’s two children. Their son, Andrea, was studying engineering at the University of Cagliari, and their daughter, Bianca, was newly married—to a man named Matteo—and had returned to La Maddalena to work as a nurse at the local hospital. Matteo had gotten seasonal work at a restaurant, but their hope was that he might eventually get something with the city.
As for Bernardo, I knew little about him other than that he taught history at the high school. “Francesca dice tu lavori in una scuola.”
The way Francesca was shaking her head, I knew I’d messed something up, but Bernardo seemed entertained. “And Francesca says you do not speak Italian.”
“Is it that obvious?” I said, and everyone laughed.
