LITMIR.BIZ

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husband with another daughter. Four months later, both women were pregnant again and this time they gave birth on the same day. Ivo frantically raced from the Salvator Mundi, where Simonetta was ensconced, to the Santa Chiera Clinic where Ivo had taken Donatella. He sped from hospital to hospital, driving on the Raccordo Anulare, waving to the girls sitting in front of their little tents along the sides of the road, under pink umbrellas, waiting for customers. Ivo was driving too fast to see their faces, but he loved them all and wished them well.

      Donatella gave birth to another boy and Simonetta to another girl.

      Sometimes Ivo wished it had been the other way round. It was ironical that his wife had borne him daughters and his mistress had borne him sons, for he would have liked male heirs to carry on his name. Still, he was a contented man. He had three children with outdoor plumbing, and three children with indoor plumbing. He adored them and he was wonderful to them, remembering their birthdays, their saints’ days, and their names. The girls were called Isabella and Benedetta and Camilla. The boys were Francesco and Carlo and Luca.

      As the children grew older, life began to get more complicated for Ivo. Including his wife, his mistress and his six children, Ivo had to cope with eight birthdays, eight saints’ days, and two of every holiday. He made sure that the children’s schools were well separated. The girls were sent to Saint Dominique, the French convent on the Via Cassia, and the boys to Massimo, the Jesuit school in EUR. Ivo met and charmed all their teachers, helped the children with their homework, played with them, fixed their broken toys. It taxed all of Ivo’s ingenuity to handle two families and keep them apart, but he managed. He was truly an exemplary father, husband and lover. On Christmas Day he stayed home with Simonetta, Isabella, Benedetta and Camilla. On Befana, the sixth of January, Ivo dressed up as the Befana, the witch, and handed out presents and carbone, the black rock candy prized by children, to Francesco, Carlo and Luca.

      Ivo’s wife and his mistress were lovely, and his children were bright and beautiful, and he was proud of them all. Life was wonderful.

      And then the gods spat in Ivo Palazzi’s face.

      As in the case of most major disasters, this one struck without any warning.

      Ivo had made love to Simonetta that morning before breakfast, and then had gone directly to his office, where he did a profitable morning’s work. At one o’clock he told his secretary – male, at Simonetta’s insistence – that he would be at a meeting the rest of the afternoon.

      Smiling at the thought of the pleasures that lay ahead of him, Ivo circled the construction that blocked the street along the Lungo Tevere, where they had been building a subway for the past seventeen years, crossed the bridge to the Corso Francia, and thirty minutes later was driving into his garage at Via Montemignaio. The instant Ivo opened the door of the apartment, he knew something was terribly wrong. Francesco, Carlo and Luca were clustered around Donatella, sobbing, and as Ivo walked towards Donatella, she looked at him with an expression of such hatred on her face that for a moment Ivo thought he must have entered the wrong apartment.

      ‘Stronzo!’ she screamed at him.

      Ivo looked around him, bewildered. ‘Carissima – children – what’s wrong? What have I done?’

      Donatella rose to her feet. ‘Here’s what you’ve done!’ She threw a copy of the magazine Oggi in his face. ‘Look at it!’

      Bewildered, Ivo reached down and picked up the magazine. Staring out from the cover was a photograph of himself, Simonetta and their three daughters. The caption read: Padre di Famiglia.

      Dio! He had forgotten all about it. Months before, the magazine had asked permission to do a story about him and he had foolishly agreed. But Ivo had never dreamed that it would be given this prominence. He looked over at his sobbing mistress and children, and said, ‘I can explain this …’

      ‘Their schoolmates have already explained it,’ Donatella shrieked. ‘My children came home crying because everybody at school is calling them bastards!’

      ‘Cara, I –’

      ‘My landlord and the neighbours have treated us like lepers. We can’t hold up our heads any more. I have to get them out of here.’

      Ivo stared at her, shocked. ‘What are you talking about?’

      ‘I’m leaving Rome, and I’m taking my sons with me.’

      ‘They’re mine too,’ he shouted. ‘You can’t do it.’

      ‘Try to stop me and I’ll kill you!’

      It was a nightmare. Ivo stood there, watching his three sons and his beloved mistress in hysterics, and he thought, This can’t be happening to me.

      But Donatella was not finished with him. ‘Before we go,’ she announced, ‘I want one million dollars. In cash.’

      It was so ridiculous that Ivo started to laugh. ‘A million –’

      ‘Either that, or I telephone your wife.’

      That had happened six months earlier. Donatella had not carried out her threat – not yet – but Ivo knew she would. Each week she had increased the pressure. She would telephone him at the office and say, ‘I don’t care how you get the money. Do it!’

      There was only one way that Ivo could possibly obtain such a huge sum. He had to be able to sell the stock in Roffe and Sons. It was Sam Roffe who was blocking the sale, Sam who was jeopardizing Ivo’s marriage, his future. He had to be stopped. If one knew the right people, anything could be done.

      What hurt Ivo more than anything was that Donatella – his darling, passionate mistress – would not let him touch her. Ivo was permitted to visit the children every day, but the bedroom was off limits.

      ‘After you give me the money,’ Donatella promised, ‘then I will let you make love to me.’

      It was out of desperation that Ivo telephoned Donatella one afternoon and said, ‘I’m coming right over. The money is arranged.’

      He would make love to her first and placate her later. It had to work out that way. He had managed to undress her, and when they were both naked, he had told her the truth. ‘I don’t have the money yet, cara, but one day soon –’

      It was then that she had attacked him like a wild animal.

      Ivo was thinking of these things now, as he drove away from Donatella’s apartment (as he now thought of it) and turned north on to the crowded Via Cassia, towards his home at Olgiata. He glanced at his face in the rearview mirror. The bleeding had lessened, but the scratches were raw-looking and discoloured. He looked down at his shirt, stained with blood. How was he going to explain to Simonetta the scratches on his face and his back? For one reckless moment Ivo actually considered telling her the truth, but he dismissed the thought as quickly as it came into his head. He might – just might – have been able to confess to Simonetta that in a moment of mental aberration he had gone to bed with a girl and got her pregnant, and he might – he just might – have got away with a whole skin. But three children? Over a period of three years? His life would not be worth a five-lire piece. There was no way he could avoid going home now, for they were expecting guests for dinner, and Simonetta would be waiting for him. Ivo was trapped. His marriage was finished. Only San Genaro, the patron saint of miracles, could help him. Ivo’s eye was caught by a sign at the side of the Via Cassia. He suddenly slammed on the brakes, turned off the highway and brought the car to a stop.

      Thirty minutes later, Ivo drove through the gates of Olgiata. Ignoring the stares of the guards as they saw his torn face and bloodstained shirt, Ivo drove along the winding roads, came to the turn that led to his driveway, and pulled up in front of his house. He parked the car, opened the front door of the house and walked into the living-room. Simonetta and Isabella, their eldest daughter, were in the room. A look of shock came over Simonetta’s face as she saw her husband.

      ‘Ivo! What happened?’

      Ivo smiled

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