GRACE UNDER PRESSURE
(Author's Note: In response to constructive criticism from Briee and Hannora about Francesca's willingness to give out the address, I rewrote the section explaining why she might trust Antonio)
Chapter 3 Advice and Consent
After the hectic weekend, it was almost a relief to resume classes on Monday. It was intriguing that the complex language that I was studying, with five words for "the" and three for "you", was the same one that Marghareta and Francesca had been slanging at each other on Saturday. Some of the words weren't in the standard dictionary, but via a less sedate Internet site I deciphered some of the profanity. It made the language lesson more fun.
As I got back to my flat that afternoon I was almost in a good mood, when my landlady handed me a package marked FRAGILI. "It was left by a handsome young man," she said with a wink. "He left his address with me, in case you want to reply."
I didn't know any handsome young man. Yet scribbled in one corner was A GRACIA POLANSCHI, clearly an Italianized reference to me.
I got up to my room, locked the door for privacy, and opened the package. It was a bottle of wine. Attached was a note:
Per la penitenza -- Antonio
In itself it seemed very romantic. In this culture a bottle of wine could be considered the perfect gift, and nobody could be expected to know that I avoided alcohol. But I have a strong anti-romantic streak, and I saw the dark implications almost immediately. The only men in Italy who would possibly have an interest in me were the pair who saw me with most of my clothes off Saturday. And how would they get my name and address?
Was I being stalked? Was the seemingly nice gift really a coded message: WE KNOW WHERE TO FIND YOU?
I had developed the nerve to stand up to the guy because I was annoyed, and annoyance was a very powerful emotion with me. But putting up with a stalker gave me the willies.
I needed advice.
The next day after work, as I approached the flat that Marghareta shared with her boyfriend, I heard the latter shouting. I distinctly heard the word nuda: naked, feminine. So Michel had learned about the skinny-dipping. As I hesitated, trying to decide what to do, Marghareta flung the door open and charged out, nearly knocking me down.
"Che vuol -- what do YOU want?" she demanded.
I held up the wine bottle.
"Si, I got one too. Michel was not pleased, at the thought that I had another admirer. And when I told him about dipping my skin, he was even less pleased."
"How do you suppose they got our addresses?"
Marghareta shrugged. "I don't know, and I'm not talking to you. I didn't appreciate your making me crawl out of the bush naked to get my things." She stormed off angrily.
Great. My only confidante didn't want to talk to me. At home I would have confidence in my own ability to handle the threat, but here I needed some sort of support, or at least advice.
Ask Luke to get advice from his police-chief father? But I had already lied to Luke.
Ask at work? I didn't want to give the impression that I could get into boy trouble the instant my steady lover disappeared.
Complain to the police? And tell them what? "Some guy sent me a bottle of wine--"
I wished She would suddenly pop up, even if it was to tell me that I was an idiot. She didn't, but that gave me an idea.
Nearly three years ago, puzzled by a seemingly immoral command from God, Joan had gone to my father for advice. And though Dad had his arms full of my drunken mother at the time, and Joan had admitted up front that she wasn't even Jewish, Dad had felt honor bound to listen to her problem.
The travel agency that had found us our original hotel also had a numbers-to-call list -- including representatives of each major religion. Naturally there was an English-speaking rabbi on the list.
The next day--
"So, do you think I am in danger?" I asked the rabbi after telling my story, omitting the real embarrassing moments but making clear voyeurism had been involved.
"The entire story is not clear to me. How did they obtain your address?"
"Francesca. Turns out she and the guys know each other slightly; they are from the same village at the base of the mountain. The older, Beppo, is a bully; the younger, Antonio, has a reputation for being a nice guy, but under his brother's thumb. When Antonio came by, very contrite, and saying that he wanted to apologize to all three of us, she thought she could entrust him with the addresses. He swore that his brother would not get the information."
"But you don't agree with your friend?"
"I think she might have been too gullible."
The rabbi thought, and while he did so I looked around the study, whose trappings were quite different from those in my father's synagogue. This was the southern Sephardic tradition of Judaism, not the northern Ashkenazi strain that had formed my ancestors. Oddly enough it looked more like Father Ken's office than my father's. These were Jews who had lived alongside Italian Catholicism for centuries.
"I think there is no danger," Rabbi Levi said finally.
"How do you figure that?" I demanded, hoping he wasn't just taking the male side.
"The behavior of the participants. Your friend Francesca gave the man your address, yet did not warn you. Ergo, she expects no harm."
"Yeah, but she's not very bright."
"You are concerned that the man knows your name and address, yet he gave his own as well. Would not a "stalker" be more secretive?"
"Um, yes."
"And there is the phrasing of the note. I am of course a Jew, but I understand some of the terminology of the Cristiani. Penitenza, or penitence in English is a very powerful word. It does not only convey guilt, but a sense of sin, even a willingness to suffer to expiate the sin. It is like the emotion we experience in Yom Kippur. So unless we assume that the young man is a thorough Machiavelli, we can conclude that he is genuinely sorry for his behavior."
"But I don't want to deal with him."
"That is a separate matter. You need have no dealings with him except one."
"One?"
"Moses taught that if somebody asks forgiveness and means it seriously, it should be granted to him."
"Oh." I didn't much like the idea. But after all I had asked for advice, basically for free, and il Signor Levi had really been a great help settling my fears. "Thank you, rabbi. You know, you'd make a good armchair detective."
"Your English writer Chesterton said there was a parallel between the religious temperament and the detective. I love Father Brown."
Not sure who Father Brown was, but not wanting to admit that I knew less about English Lit than an Italian rabbi, I took my leave.
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Chesterton was an English Catholic theologian at the beginning of the twentieth century, and on the side he wrote stories featuring a detective/priest named Father Brown. Adam referred to his most famous mystery, THE INVISIBLE MAN, in my earlier story ANOTHER JOAN)
(AUTHOR'S NOTE Grace changed her last name back to Polanski on her eighteenth birthday and that's the name her Italian acquaintances would know her by..)
TBC
