Chapter 14
XIV — Intermezzo
Livia had lived in the house with the teal door on the first floor in the central neighborhood of Trastevere, Rome, from the day she’d been born, just like her mother and her grandfather had before her. As time had gone by the city had grown and a domicile in the historical center had become a luxury. Her children and nephews had told her time and again to sell, or to at least rent out one of the numerous rooms of the house, but she’d been immovable. Stubborn as a mule, as her husband had loved to say.
The house was part of her family’s history.
Livia remembered her mother telling her the story of how, when Americans had started their bombardment of the capital, she and Livia’s father would hide downstairs, sitting in the basement for hours, scared, but together, until it was safe to come out again. And even though she’d been too little in ‘43 to remember the people demonstrating in the streets, asking for peace and the king’s destitution, this, the survival of her building and its inhabitants under the war’s attacks on her city, had stuck with her, binding her indissolubly to those bricks and walls.
This was her house, why would she give it away to a stranger? Ah! If she could have afforded it, she’d have bought the upstairs too.
Livia had met Silvio at 20, and she’d married him when she’d been 22, old enough to be considered a spinster already. He had moved in with her, leaving the countryside town he came from, as he knew how much she loved her home and living in the big city. She’d lost him, after a long, happy life together, only a couple of years ago.
She knew what love looked like. She’d experienced it.
This was probably why she had accepted the American’s presence when Baron Zemo had brought him home after being away for such a long time.
Many years prior, when Livia’s eldest daughter still lived in Rome and her son was still in university, Livia had naturally gone to pay a visit to the new famiglia when they’d bought the only other apartment space in the building.
She had made sure to bring a small gift, like a good, welcoming neighbor, in order to have an excuse to meet the family that, according to the lady across the street, was quite wealthy and came from Eastern Europe — Russian nouveau riches, if she’d had to guess. Livia couldn’t help her curiosity, even if her husband always gently mocked her for it, calling her an old comare, a gossip.
The Baron’s family had turned out to be cordial, articulate, and well-mannered. Heike had always been kind enough to bring her something from their country — usually exquisite craftsmanship pieces — whenever they came back to Italy for the holidays, and Livia had been more than happy to keep their baby for an afternoon or two when the couple needed some time for themselves, having long seen her own children grow up and become their own persons.
Livia had been genuinely brokenhearted when she had received the Baron’s letter informing her of his wife and son’s demise. The breath had locked in her chest at the thought of someone she knew and admired losing his home and family, under something not unlike a bombing, and she’d squeezed Silvio’s consoling hand tight.
Sometime later, agents had come knocking at her door, asking about the Sokovian’s whereabouts, and she’d assumed he must have been involved in some sort of fraud or embezzlement — the sort of crimes the wealthy tended to become entangled with. Until her daughter had told her the Baron had been arrested for a serious crime he’d committed in America, against the so-called Avengers. Livia had shaken her head, stopping her daughter from giving her the details. She didn’t want to know more, not about a man she’d come to respect, a man who had suffered the worst sort of loss a parent and spouse could. Whatever he might or might not have done — that was his business, not hers.
After that, the house upstairs wasn’t sold, but it remained closed for almost ten years, until one day, after putting on her reading glasses, Livia opened the letter she had found among the bills. Inside, a man she’d almost forgotten announced he would soon be returning with a friend to stay for some time in Rome, and not to be alarmed if in the next few days she saw Oeznik climbing the stairs to bring the apartment back to a better condition.
And so it was that a fortnight later, as promised, the Baron returned to his old abode, bringing her the most delicious macarons from Paris, where — he explained — he’d just been with his companion for work.
Livia wasn’t born yesterday — but she wasn’t particularly bothered by the Baron’s proclivities, as long as they didn’t bring disorder into her home.
But she soon saw the way the young American’s eyes followed the Baron as he moved around the room, and how the Baron had laid a light hand on his forearm as soon as they’d sat down for tea as he told her about the changes he’d noticed in the neighborhood — much as he’d once done with his wife, and in a very similar fashion to the way Silvio had held and reassured Livia for a lifetime.
Moreover, the American reminded her slightly of her son, who now worked in London for a successful business and whom she was unable to see often, as travel had become challenging in her old age. And so she’d welcomed the couple, gladly made them dinner at least once a week, as it had been quite some time since she’d had an opportunity to cook for anyone other than herself, and when one day the American, James, had spontaneously offered to carry her grocery bags and water bottles up the stairs with an ease that had impressed her — her Silvio hadn’t been that strong even in his prime — she’d sat him down on an armchair by the empty fireplace and started teaching him some Italian phrases beyond just ‘Buongiorno’ and ‘Come sta?’
Not many weeks had passed when, on a particularly warm day, she’d come home from mass and discovered another American had arrived: a tall blond man with blue eyes who looked more like a German. He’d come out of the building with James, who’d greeted her and introduced them, explaining Steve would be staying with them for a few days, and then had continued talking excitedly to his friend in English as they went off down the alley.
The blond one also reminded Livia of someone, almost as if she’d seen him already before. Mh. Maybe her children were right, and she was starting to go senile.
It soon became clear that the blond man, who carried himself like a soldier, wasn’t as appreciated by the Baron as he was by James. That alone made Livia take a dislike to him out of solidarity.
She only ever saw the blond go out with James — never all three of them together. A couple of times, she could swear she’d heard angry voices coming from upstairs for the first time since the house had been bought. Oh, the blond American was always polite when he met her at the entrance or on the stairs, greeting her courteously in Italian, holding the door open for her or letting her go up first. Certain mannerisms of his, reminded her, bizarrely, of her father.
But there was something unsettling about him, beyond just her feeling of having seen him before; when he wasn’t with his friend, he always looked as if he felt out of place, almost as if he wasn’t supposed to be there. And it was obvious to her that the Baron felt the same way about him, but was too polite to turn him out, and too devoted to his partner to displease him by doing so.
That afternoon, she was watching her favorite reality show when she heard the door upstairs open and close quietly, and the sound of someone quickly going down the stairs and out. Curious, she looked out of the window overlooking the alleyway. The Baron was about to turn the corner, a vintage suitcase in one hand and a phone held tightly in the other.
She closed the window and sat back on the couch, wondering if the Baron was going away for work again, and leaving the two Americans behind.
But just a few minutes later, the door upstairs opened again, and this time the sound of footsteps was much louder. Livia hurried to get up again and, throwing on a robe, she reached the corridor and opened the door of the apartment, finding herself on the stairs just in time to intercept the blond soldier stomping down. He too seemed about to depart, tense lines marking his expression.
“Se ne va?” she asked promptly as he reached her landing.
The man faltered, apparently not having noticed her until that moment, but he didn’t stop, just slowed down his descent. “Buon pomeriggio, sì, per un poco,” he answered in stilted Italian, before nodding goodbye and turning his back to her.
“Vedi di non tornare.”
He stopped then, and turned slowly, frowning.
“Come, scusi?”
“Le farà bene viaggiare, ho detto,” she said, smiling.
“Oh. Grazie.”
“Arrivederci!” she said gloatingly as he started to go down again.
“Yeah, er, arrivederci,” he mumbled, seeming lost in thought, frown still in place, and then he turned the staircase and disappeared from view.
She went back inside, and wondered how rude it would be for her to go upstairs, under the pretense of asking to borrow some salt, to try to find out what had happened.