LITMIR.BIZ

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I eventually surfaced in a bustling, pedestrian street. According to my directions it was called the Corso, and Direttore Rossini had explained that it was famous for the many old banks that used to serve foreigners travelling the old pilgrim route, which had gone straight through town. Over the centuries, millions of people had journeyed through Siena, and many foreign treasures and currencies had changed hands. The steady stream of modern-day tourists, in other words, was nothing but the continuation of an old, profitable tradition.

      That was how my family, the Tolomeis, had grown rich, Direttore Rossini had pointed out, and how their rivals, the Salimbenis, had grown even richer. They had been tradesmen and bankers, and their fortified palazzos had flanked this very road–Siena’s main thoroughfare–with impossibly tall towers that had kept growing and growing until at last they had all come crashing down.

      As I walked past Palazzo Salimbeni I looked in vain for remnants of the old tower. It was still an impressive building with a positively Draculean front door, but it was no longer the fortification it had once been. Somewhere in that building, I thought as I scurried by, collar up, Eva Maria’s godson, Alessandro, had his office. Hopefully he was not just now paging through some crime register to find the dark secret behind Julie Jacobs.

      Further down the road, but not much, stood Palazzo Tolomei, the ancient dwelling of my own ancestors. Looking up at the splendid mediaeval façade, I suddenly felt proud to be connected to the people who had once lived in this remarkable building. As far as I could see, not much had changed since the fourteenth century; the only thing suggesting that the mighty Tolomeis had moved out and a modern bank had moved in were the marketing posters hanging in the deep-set windows, their colourful promises interrupted by iron bars.

      The inside of the building was no less stern than the outside. A security guard stepped forward to hold the door for me as I entered, as gallantly as the semiautomatic rifle in his arms would allow, but I was too busy looking around to be bothered by his uniformed attention. Six titanic pillars in red brick held the ceiling high, high above mankind, and although there were counters and chairs and people walking around on the vast stone floor, these took up so little of the room that the white lions’ heads protruding from the ancient walls seemed entirely unaware that humans were present.

      ‘Si?’ The teller looked at me over the rim of her fashionably slim glasses.

      I leaned forward a little, in the interest of privacy. ‘Would it be possible to talk to Signor Francesco Maconi?’

      The teller actually managed to focus on me through her glasses, but she did not appear convinced by what she saw. ‘There is no Signor Francesco here,’ she said firmly, in a very heavy accent.

      ‘No Francesco Maconi?’

      At this point, the teller found it necessary to take off her glasses entirely, fold them carefully on the counter, and look at me with that supremely kind smile people fix on you just before they stick a syringe in your neck. ‘No.’

      ‘But I know he used to work here…’ I did not get any further before the woman’s colleague from the booth next door leaned in on the conversation, whispering something in Italian. At first, my unfriendly teller dismissed the other with an angry wave, but then she began to reconsider.

      ‘Excuse me,’ she said eventually, leaning forward to get my attention, ‘but do you mean Presidente Maconi?’

      I felt a jolt of excitement. ‘Did he work here twenty years ago?’

      She looked horrified. ‘Presidente Maconi was always here!’

      ‘And would it be possible to speak with him?’ I smiled sweetly, although she did not deserve it. ‘He is an old friend of my mother, Diane Tolomei. I am Giulietta Tolomei.’

      Both women stared at me as if I were a spirit conjured up before their very eyes. Without another word, the teller who had originally dismissed me now fumbled her glasses back on her nose, made a phone call, and had a brief conversation in humble, underdog Italian. When it was over she put down the receiver reverently, and turned towards me with something akin to a smile. ‘He will see you right after lunch, at three o’clock.’

      

      I had my first meal since arriving in Siena at a bustling pizzeria called Cavallino Bianco. While I sat there pretending to read the Italian dictionary I had just bought, I began to realize that it would take more than just a borrowed suit and a few handy phrases to blend in with the locals. These women around me, I suspected, sneaking glances at their smiles and exuberant gestures as they bantered with the handsome waiter, Giulio, possessed something I had never had, some ability I could not put my finger on, but which must be a crucial element in that elusive state of mind, happiness.

      Strolling on, feeling more clumsy and displaced than ever, I had a stand-up espresso in a bar in Piazza Postierla and asked the buxom barista if she could recommend a cheap clothes store in the neighbourhood. After all, Eva Maria’s suitcase had, fortunately, not contained any underwear. Completely ignoring her other customers the barista looked me over sceptically and said, ‘You want everything new, no? New hair, new clothes?’

      ‘Well…’

      ‘Don’t worry, my cousin is the best hairdresser in Siena–maybe in the world. He will make you beautiful. Come!’

      After taking me by the arm and insisting that I call her Malèna, the barista walked me down to see her cousin Luigi right away, even though it was clearly coffee rush hour, and customers were yelling after her in exasperation as we went. She just shrugged and laughed, knowing full well that they would all still fawn over her when she came back, maybe even a little bit more than before, now that they had tasted life without her.

      Luigi was sweeping up hair from the floor when we entered his salon. He was no older than me, but had the penetrating eye of a Michelangelo. When he fixed that eye on me, however, he was not impressed.

      ‘Ciao, caro,’ said Malèna and gave him a quick peck on both cheeks, ‘this is Giulietta. She needs un makeover totale.’

      ‘Just the ends, actually,’ I interjected. ‘A couple of inches.’

      It took a major argument in Italian–which I was more than relieved to not understand–before Malèna had persuaded Luigi to take on my sorry case. But once he did, he took the challenge very seriously. As soon as Malèna had left the salon, he sat me down on a barber’s chair and looked at my reflection in the mirror, turning me this way and that to check all the angles. Then he pulled the elastic bands from my braids and threw them directly into the bin with an expression of disgust.

      ‘Bene…’ he finally said, fluffing up my hair and looking at me once again in the mirror, a little less critically than before. ‘Not too bad, no?’

      When I walked back to Palazzo Tolomei two hours later, I had sunk myself further into debt, but it was worth every nonexistent penny. Eva Maria’s red-and-black suit lay neatly folded at the bottom of a shopping bag, matching shoes on top, and I was wearing one of five new outfits that had all been approved by Luigi and his uncle, Paolo, who happened to own a clothes store just around the corner. Uncle Paolo, who did not speak a word of English, but who knew everything there was to know about fashion, had knocked thirty per cent off my entire purchase as long as I promised never to wear my ladybird costume again.

      I had protested at first, explaining that my luggage was due to arrive any moment, but in the end the temptation had been too great. So what if my suitcases were waiting for me when I returned to the hotel? There was nothing in them I could ever wear in Siena anyway, perhaps with the exception of the shoes Umberto had given me for Christmas, and which I had never even tried on.

      As I walked away from the store, I glanced at myself in every shop window I passed. Why had I never done this before? Ever since high school I had cut my own hair–just the ends–with a pair of kitchen scissors every two years or so. It took me about five minutes, and honestly, I thought, who could tell the difference? Well, I could certainly see the difference now. Somehow, Luigi had managed to bring my boring old hair to life, and it was already thriving in its new freedom, flowing in the breeze

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