It was easy to imagine his predicament.
The disguise is perfect. The garden he has laid out in loving memory of his wife—the garden he wishes the world to take at face value—is thematically flawless. Flora is made to live again as Flora goddess of flowers. He sets her at the head of the garden, a queen surveying her subjects—Adonis, Narcissus, Hyacinth— each of whose tragic death was marked by the genesis of a flower. Tragedy, Survival, Renewal, Metamorphosis, Death and Resurrection: the themes weave together effortlessly. Only the story of Hyacinth presents a problem.
It is ideal for his purposes, and certainly too good to consider abandoning. Zephyrus, the west wind, driven mad by his jealousy of Apollo, kills the object of their mutual affections. It's perfect, except for the fact that Hyacinth was a Spartan prince, not a princess. There is a problem with the gender. Federico gets round it by placing Hyacinth face down in the dirt, his/her hair covering his/her face, his/her body draped in a bulky robe.
It's a cheat, not up to his usual high standards, and Federico knows it. He doesn't mind too much, though, because it obliges him to leave behind a clue—the unusual posing of Hyacinth—and he has to leave at least one clear clue in each section of the garden. That's obviously the challenge he has set himself. He wants people to know the truth, but only once there's little risk to himself. That is surely the reason he waits almost thirty years, till his own life has all but run its course, before laying out the garden.
There was nothing more for Adam to say, so he fell silent. Harry slung an arm around his shoulder and grinned at the ladies.
"Not bad, eh? For a young'un."
"No, not bad at all."
Antonella was far more fulsome in her praise, proposing a celebratory dinner that evening in honor of Adam's remarkable discovery.
Adam and Harry assisted a flagging Signora Docci back to the amphitheater, each of them gripping a bony elbow, Antonella bringing up the rear. They speculated about the identity of Flora's lover, concluding that it must surely have been one of the many artists and writers who attended Federico's cultural gatherings at Villa Docci. A younger man, no doubt, more Flora's age than her husband's. Or why not a woman? This was wishful thinking on Harry's part, though not entirely misguided. Tullia d'Aragona, the Roman poetess and courtesan, had disappeared abruptly from the Florentine scene in 1548—the year of Flora's death. Maybe there was a connection, after all. Adam kept these musings to himself.
Arriving at the amphitheater, Signora Docci asked to rest awhile on the stone bench. She also asked to be left alone.
From a distance they saw her gazing up at Flora, dabbing at her eyes with the back of her hand every so often.
It was ten minutes or so before she called for Adam to join her.
"Are you okay?" he asked, setting himself down beside her.
"You don't know what you've done."
"What have I done?"
"Something extraordinary. Crispin will be proud of you. I'm proud of you." She patted him on the knee. "At my age you don't expect to learn anything new."
Harry seized the opportunity of a lift with Antonella to make another foray into Florence, despite Adam's warning that he was taking his life in his hands by climbing into a car with her. As they pulled away, he made a sign of the cross, blessing the vehicle.
Returning inside, Signora Docci was nowhere to be found. He called her name. "In here," came the dim and distant reply.
She was in the study, standing to the left of the fireplace, examining the small portrait of her ancestor, Federico Docci.
"Please, call me Francesca."
"Francesca," he said, trying it on for size.
"I insist."
"It doesn't sound right."
"It never did. I was never a Francesca. I always thought of myself as a Teresa."
"A little too saintly, maybe."
For a moment he thought he had gone too far, but her face creased into a smile. "Oh dear, you really do know far too much about me, don't you?"
She turned back to the portrait.
"I'm thinking about burning it."
"But you won't."
She shook her head. "It explains a lot in his expression, don't you think?"
"I think we see what we want to see."
"Goodness me," she said, "already talking like a wise old professor."
Adam looked suitably chastened.
"I would like to go to the chapel," she announced. "Do you mind helping me?"
There were gardeners at work on the terraces, trimming hedges, raking gravel and sprucing up the borders for the party. Signora Docci greeted them but didn't stop to talk.
"Are you religious?" she asked as they approached the chapel.
"No."
"Not even as a child?"
"I enjoyed the stories."
He was dreading a metaphysical debate. It didn't happen.
"Yes, they're good stories," she replied simply.
She crossed herself on entering the building and made her way to the altar, the tap of her cane echoing around the interior. She must have sensed his hesitation, because without turning she said, "I doubt he'll strike you down in his own house."
He joined her at the altar, where she removed a candle from her pocket—a votive candle in a red glass jar. He offered her his lighter to save her fiddling with the box of matches.
"Thank you."
She lit the candle and placed it in front of the triptych.
"Maybe now she can rest in peace."
Her words caught him off-guard. Had she felt the same unnerving presence?
"No one knows exactly where she's buried, do they?" he said.
"When we buried Emilio we found some bones, but that means nothing."
"Why was he buried here?"
"Emilio?"
"I mean, how many Doccis are?"
"Most of us are in the cemetery at San Casciano. There is a place for me there, next to Benedetto." She paused. "It was Benedetto's idea. He insisted. He wouldn't even discuss it. He wanted Emilio here."
She took a few steps and stood over the remains of her dead son.
"Old men make the wars, but they send young men to fight the battles. It doesn't seem fair. They should go themselves." She smiled wistfully at the thought. "I wonder how many wars there would be if it worked that way." Only now did she look up at him. "All those boys. Parents should not have to see their children die before them. It's not easy to live with. Benedetto couldn't. The moment it happened he changed. I thought he was losing his mind. He would not even allow Emilio to be buried with the bullets that killed him. They were removed." She turned toward the wall. "They are there, behind the plaque, with Emilio's gun."
"Really?"
"No one else knows that. Only me. And now you."
He tried to push the thoughts away, but they kept coming at him, buffeting him. There were only two plausible explanations for Benedetto's strange behavior regarding the bullets and the gun. He already knew what one of them was: the poor man really had lost his marbles. The second explanation required testing, and that meant gaining access to the top floor, it meant getting his hands on the key in the bureau in Signora Docci's bedroom.
Annoyingly, she took to her room the moment they returned from the chapel, pleading exhaustion and requesting that Maria serve her lunch in the upstairs loggia. Adam shook off his frustration. If he had to wait awhile longer for an opportunity, so be it. There was another matter he had to deal with anyway—after he had phoned home.