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Last Voyage of the Valentina(84)

By:Santa Montefiore


“Then I am your uncle,” he said. “We thought we had lost you.”

“I thought I’d never find you,” she replied. A murmur rose up from the band of fishermen.

“They thought you were the ghost of your mother,” Falco explained. “A drink for everyone,” he shouted heartily, raising his hand to a cheer from the crowd. “Alba has come home.” Ignoring Gabriele, Falco took his niece’s hand proudly and led her up the steps to the restaurant. “Come, you must meet your grandmother.” Alba was overwhelmed. Her uncle was like a powerful lion, his hand so large that hers disappeared inside it. Gabriele shrugged helplessly and followed.

Immacolata Fiorelli was now old. Very old. The numbers had gotten confusing around eighty. Eighty-one? Eighty-two? She hadn’t a clue. She could be one hundred for all she knew. Not that she cared. Her heart had died after losing her precious Valentina. Without a heart to keep her young she had slowly withered away, literally shriveling. But she was not yet dead, which was what she prayed for, so that she could be reunited with her daughter.

She emerged with the help of a stick, like a mangy little bat, unaccustomed to the light. Her gray hair was piled on top of her head, her face peering through a smoky black veil.

Alba stood before her, the image of Valentina, but for the unnaturally pale eyes that exposed the stranger within the unbearable likeness. Immacolata’s own eyes filled with tears and she lifted her hand, trembling with age and emotion, to touch the young woman’s soft brown skin. Wordlessly her fingers touched the living part of her daughter. The part she had left behind. The granddaughter who had been taken across the seas, lost, as good as dead. Thomas had never brought her back as he had promised. They had hoped. They had nearly died hoping.

At the sight of the old woman’s tears, Alba’s eyes misted. The love on her grandmother’s face was so intense, so painful, she wanted to wrap her arms around her, but Immacolata was too frail and small. “God has blessed this day,” she said in a soft, childish voice. “Valentina has returned in the form of her daughter. I am no longer alone. My heart is stirring with life. When I die, God will receive a happy, grateful soul and Heaven shall be a better place for it.”

“Let’s go inside where it is cool,” Falco suggested. Remembering Alba’s companion he turned and nodded. “Forgive us,” he added.

“Gabriele Ricci,” he said. “Alba has come a long way to find you. I won’t stay. Just give her this.” He pulled a white card out of his pocket and handed it to Falco. “She can call me if she needs anything, but I don’t think she will need to.”

Although curious, Gabriele knew he was out of place in this family reunion  . He slipped away without any fuss, longing to kiss Alba goodbye, to encourage her to get in touch so that they might see each other again. He turned, hoping she would run out to thank him, but the restaurant was teeming with people and he was alone on the quay. Only the little boy skipped toward him to help him with the rope.

Inside the restaurant, drinks were poured and celebrations ensued. Lattarullo sat with Immacolata like a parody lady-in-waiting, pleased that it had been he and not il sindacco who had been there to welcome Alba home. Il sindacco was not long in arriving. He didn’t look a day over fifty. His hair was neatly parted and combed, still jet black with only a few gray hairs around the temples. He was dapper in a pair of olive green trousers, belted high on the waist, and a pale blue shirt, perfectly pressed. When he entered the restaurant, his perfume filled the air so that everyone knew the most important man in town had arrived and they all parted to let him through.

When he saw Alba, seated with Immacolata, Lattarullo, and Falco, his closely shaven jaw dropped and he let out an audible gasp. “Madonna!” he exclaimed. “The dead do indeed rise!” For a town used to miracles, the resurrection of Valentina was not beyond the realms of possibility. He pulled up a chair and Falco introduced them.

“Is this coincidence?” he asked. “Did you just happen to wander into Incantellaria?”

“God has brought her to me,” said Immacolata.

“She came to find us,” Falco interjected.

“I’ve been longing to find you since I was a little girl,” said Alba, delighted by all the attention. She had now forgotten the humiliation she had suffered in Naples and her lost bag, even Gabriele.

“You see,” said Immacolata, her voice sweet and happy like her daughter’s had been when Tommy returned at the end of the war. “She didn’t forget us. You even speak Italian! You see,” she turned to her son, “Italy is in her blood.”