Not entirely sure how to proceed, I started down the hallway, looking at the antiques on the way. Among them was a collection of long, vertical banners with images of horses, towers, and women that all looked very much like the Virgin Mary. A few were very old and faded, others were modern and quite garish; only when I got to the end of the row did it dawn on me that this was no private home, but some kind of museum or public building.
Now, finally, I heard the sound of uneven footsteps and a deep voice calling out impatiently, ‘Salvatore?’
I spun around to face my unwitting host as he emerged from a neighbouring room, leaning on a crutch. He was an older man, definitely past seventy, and his frown made him look older still. ‘Salva—?’ He stopped on the spot when he saw me, and said something else that did not sound particularly welcoming.
‘‘Ciao!’ I said, in a bushy-tailed sort of way, and held up the letter as you would a crucifix in front of Transylvanian nobility, just in case, ‘I am looking for Pia Tolomei. She knew my parents.’ I pointed at myself. ‘Giulietta Tolomei. To-lo-mei.’
The man walked up to me, leaning heavily on his crutch, and plucked the letter right out of my hand. He looked suspiciously at the envelope and turned it over several times to reread the addresses of both the recipient and the sender. ‘My wife sent this letter,’ he finally said, in surprisingly smooth English, ‘many years ago. To Diana Tolomei. She was my…hmm…aunt. Where did you find it?’
‘Diane was my mother,’ I said, my voice sounding oddly mousy in the big room. ‘I am Giulietta, the oldest of her twins. I wanted to come and see Siena—see where she lived. Do you…remember her?’
The old man did not speak right away. He looked at my face with eyes full of wonder, then reached out and touched a hand to my cheek to make sure I was real. ‘Little Giulietta?’ he finally said. ‘Come here!’ He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into an embrace. ‘I am Peppo Tolomei, your godfather.’
I barely knew what to do. Normally I was not someone who ran around hugging people—I left that to Janice—but even I didn’t mind it from this endearing old man.
‘I’m sorry to barge in,’ I started, then stopped, not sure what to say next.
‘No-no-no-no-no!’ Peppo brushed it all aside. ‘I am so happy you are here! Come, let me show you the museum! This is the museum for the contrada of the Owl.’ He barely knew where to start and hopped around on his cane, looking for something impressive to show me. But when he saw my expression, he stopped himself. ‘No! You don’t want to see the museum! You want to talk! Yes, we must talk!’ He threw up his arms and nearly knocked over a sculpture with the crutch. ‘I must hear everything. My wife—we must go see my wife. She will be so happy. She is at the house—Salvatore! Oh, where is he?’
Five minutes later I came zooming out of Piazzetta del Castellare on a red-and-black scooter. Peppo Tolomei had helped me into the saddle with the gallantry of a magician helping a lovely young assistant into a box he intends to saw in half, and as soon as I had a secure grip on his braces, we zoomed out through the covered alleyway, braking for no one.
Peppo had insisted on closing up the museum right away and taking me home with him, so that I could meet his wife, Pia, and whoever else happened to be around. I had gladly accepted the invitation, assuming that the home to which he was referring was just around the corner. Only now, as we flew up the Corso past Palazzo Tolomei, did I realize my mistake.
‘Is it far?’ I yelled, hanging on as best I could.
‘No-no-no!’ replied Peppo, narrowly missing a nun pushing an old man in a wheelchair. ‘Don’t worry, we will call everyone and have a big family reunion!’ Excited at the prospect, he began describing all the family members I would soon be meeting, though I could barely hear him in the wind. He was too distracted to notice that, as we passed Palazzo Salimbeni, we went right through a handful of security guards, forcing them all to jump aside.
‘Whoa!’ I exclaimed, wondering if Peppo was aware that we might be having our big family reunion in the slammer. But the guards made no move to stop us, merely watched us go past the way dogs on a tight leash watch a fluffy squirrel strut across the road. Unfortunately, one of them was Eva Maria’s godson, Alessandro, and I was almost certain he recognized me, for he did a double take at the sight of my dangling legs, perhaps wondering what had happened to my flip-flops.
‘Peppo!’ I yelled, pulling at my cousin’s braces, ‘I really don’t want to be arrested, okay?’
‘Don’t worry!’ Peppo turned a corner and accelerated as he spoke. ‘I go too fast for police!’ Moments later we shot through an ancient city gate like a poodle through a hoop, and flew right into the masterpiece of a full-blown Tuscan summer.
As I sat there, looking at the landscape over his shoulder, I wanted so much to be filled with a sense of familiarity, of finally returning home. But everything around me was new; the warm wafts of weeds and spices, the lazily rolling fields—even Peppo’s cologne had a foreign component that was absurdly attractive.
How much do we really remember from the first three years of our lives? Sometimes I could conjure a memory of hugging a pair of bare legs that were definitely not Aunt Rose’s, and Janice and I were both sure we remembered a large glass bowl filled with wine corks, but apart from that, it was hard to tell which fragments belonged where. When we occasionally managed to uncover memories of ourselves as toddlers, we always ended up confused. ‘I’m sure the wobbly chess table was in Tuscany,’ Janice would always insist. ‘Where else could it have been? Aunt Rose has never had one.’
‘Then how,’ I would inevitably counter, ‘do you explain that it was Umberto who slapped you when you pushed it over?’
But Janice couldn’t explain it. In the end, she would merely mumble, ‘Well, maybe it was someone else. When you’re two years old, all men look the same.’ Then she’d snort, ‘Hell, they still do.’
As a teenager I used to fantasize about returning to Siena and suddenly remembering everything about my childhood; now that I was finally here, hurtling down narrow roads without recognizing anything, I began to wonder if living away from this place for most of my life had somehow withered away an essential part of my soul.
Pia and Peppo Tolomei lived on a farm in a small valley, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves. Gentle hills rose around their property on all sides, and the comfort of peaceful seclusion more than made up for the lack of extended views. The house was by no means grand; its yellow walls had weeds growing in the cracks, the green shutters needed much more than just a paint job, and the terracotta roof looked as if the next storm—or maybe just someone sneezing inside—would make all the tiles come rattling down. And yet the many trailing vines and strategically placed flowerpots were able to mask the decay and make the place utterly irresistible.
After parking the scooter and grabbing a crutch leaning against the wall, Peppo took me directly into the garden. Back here, in the shade of the house, his wife Pia sat on a stool amongst her grandchildren and great-grandchildren like an ageless harvest goddess surrounded by nymphs, teaching them how to make braids out of fresh garlic. It took several attempts before Peppo was able to make her understand who I was and why he had brought me there, but once Pia finally dared to trust her ears, she stuck her feet into her slippers, got up with the aid of her entourage, and enfolded me in a tearful embrace. ‘Giulietta!’ she exclaimed, pressing me to her chest and kissing me on the forehead all at once. ‘Che meraviglia! It is a miracle!’
Her joy in seeing me was so genuine that I almost felt ashamed of myself. I had not gone to the Owl Museum this morning in search of my long-lost godparents, nor had it occurred to me before this moment that I even had godparents, and that they would be this happy to see me alive and well. Yet here they were, and their kindness made me realize that, until now, I had never felt truly welcome anywhere, not even in my own home. At least not when Janice was around.
Within an hour the house and garden filled with people and food.