Page 153 of The Wrong Vintage
This morning, Alba suggested that she wear some makeup, and I heard Alessia ask her to fuck off in rapid and very colorful Italian.
The organ begins to stir, a low note rolling through the church like breath drawn deep before speech. Mourners take their seats, and Alessia walks up to the priest.
There is no confusion about who is in charge here.
It is Alessia.
I watch as the priest leans toward her near the side altar, speaking in a low, deferential voice. She listens and answers softly. He straightens and moves away without question.
She arranged everything.
The service.
The readings.
The hour the bells would ring.
The grave beside Isabella’s—opened again, carefully, as if love were something that could be resumed rather than ended.
Matteo had no children. No siblings. No one left to claim him by blood—but then with Alessia, the bond is stronger than blood could ever be.
When she finally takes her seat beside me, the church doors close behind us with a heavy finality, and she reaches out to hold my hand.
The service is short. Alessia reads Leopardi’s poem, and everyone who knew Matteo smiles, even Cesare.
“Some men leave behind legacies,” Alessia speaks into the microphone after she finishes the poem and sets the paper she’d written the words on down on the lectern. “Others leave behind love.” She pauses to gain control. “Matteo left both.”
Cars and helicopters have been arranged for those who will be attending the funeral reception at the Palazzo Alighieri in Florence.
Cars for the regular folk and helicopters for the executives. Even here, there’s a hierarchy.
When we get to the Palazzo, Alessia goes right to the concierge who is managing the reception, and Renzo tells me that we’ve been summoned.
“We just fucking buried him,” I mutter, annoyed.
“Yeah, and he’s thinking you buried his winemaker, and now he doesn’t have one,” Renzo says sardonically.
“Cristo! The man is odious.”
Cesare does not meet us in his office but at the grand Palazzo library.
He stands as if, and probably, for affect, by the tall mullioned window, his silhouette framed against a brilliantly blue Florentian winter sky. Beneath him, the city sprawls like an intricate tapestry. His hands are clasped behind his back; his posture is as rigid as a marble statue.
I walk into the room and head straight for the bar. “You want to talk.”
I pour myself a scotch and down it like a shot.
Renzo nods when I lift the bottle and tilt my chin in enquiry.
I pour him a drink, and since I know what Cesare likes, I serve a twenty-year-aged Nonino Riserva grappa in a tulip glass for him.
I walk up to him and hand him the glass. He takes it with a softly mumbled, “Grazie.”
“Have you talked to Costa yet?” he asks.
Renzo sits on a barstool at the antique bar, sipping his drink as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
I sit down and lift the book from the side table. Dante’sPurgatorio.
