Papa Nico

“Quiet,” it whispered. The boy looked up from his chess set. Papa Nico had gone to town on business today and he had been taking turns with the black and ivory pieces. Nanny was inside cleaning God knew what, although she had promised him iced tea over an hour ago. The boy lifted his dark cotton shorts, flapping them to cool his thighs. The garden was usually in shade but when the sun reached its zenith even the garden couldn’t hide from its rays.

Cypress trees lined the outer edge of the property above the cliffs, past the high stone wall that ran along the perimeter of the garden from the greenhouse to the rose trellis. The boy sat in the garden’s only clearing, marked by the hot flagstones under his feet. From here, he could smell the flowers from the burgeoning orange trees Papa Nico had moved out of the greenhouse. The boy heard a familiar “cu-coo” from his great-uncle’s aviary.

Looking around, the boy saw no one. He turned in his chair to check but he was alone in the garden. A breeze passed, stirring the thick ivy that covered the back wall. The boy hummed as he picked up an ivory knight, counting as he moved the horse’s head toward the forbidding black queen.

“Quiet.” He stared at the back wall. The boy missed having mates his own age around. He had lived in a school with a whole bunch of boys his age in England, but ever since the war had started and his parents sent him to live with Papa Nico he hadn’t been going to school at all.

He knew his parents feared for him after the Blitz began. The boy had gone home when the soldiers arrived at Ipswich, but it was terribly dangerous to be in London. Although his parents couldn’t come away with him, the boy expected they were safe with the others.

Now, Papa Nico was teaching the boy himself. He was learning all about geography and history, and ever so much about chess, but it was different without mates to share it with. He saw children in town when Papa Nico brought him to the market in Siena, but that was not the same. Those children were mangy and weird, dressed in rags and wearing veils. Their eyes bored into the boy and haunted him like no English mate’s ever would have done.

The boy had only met one child around Le Compane, and she was the strangest of them all. She wore odd, disheveled clothes and was always playing in the road with her brothers outside the tenuta. He thought maybe it was she who had been whispering from the back wall. He turned out of his chair slowly, keeping his eyes on the wall as he crouched under the game table. The ivy was thick and he could sneak up on her.

The boy edged to the back wall on his hands and knees, shooting up and tearing away a panel of ivy. A row of stones, loose in their mortar, stared back at him. Peering past the stones, he could see the lawn beyond the garden but he did not see the girl. Just then, he heard the whispering voice again, to his left along the wall. The boy ripped at the ivy, parting section after section to get closer to the voice, but still he could see no one.

Baffled, the boy began to turn away when he heard his name from inside the ivy. He reached a hand out toward the voice.

“What are you doing, Charlie?” The girl was behind him, in the courtyard.

Charlie spun around. “Nothing.” His face felt hot, like when his mum opened the door to his room without knocking. He flattened his palms against the stone behind his back. “What do you think you’re doing in here?”

“I saw you playing chess. Nanny said it was all right to come in,” the girl peered up at Charlie. Her brown eyes made him uncomfortable. The only kid in his school with dark eyes and dark hair like hers had worked for the cook so he could take classes there. His mother had told Charlie that the boy was Jewish. He thought it must be awful to be a Jew.

“Are you Jewish?” Charlie wanted the girl to get out of his garden. He hoped the wall would stay quiet until she left.

The girl sighed, sitting down on the bench by the wall. “Charles Darlington, you shut up. My family has lived in Siena for centuries.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Charlie taunted her. Madalen’s long dark hair was covering her face. Charlie saw how small she was.

“Look!” Charlie said. “I heard something speaking in the wall here.”

Madalen sat up, smoothing her dress and tucking loose hairs around her ears. She braided a few strands absentmindedly. “I don’t believe you for one minute.”

“No, really! I was sitting over there playing chess and I heard it twice! We just have to sit here really quietly and we’ll hear it.” Charlie sat down on the bench next to Madalen, the weathered wood carving splinters down the backs of his knees as he slid into the seat.

Their legs swung in the heat and a fly buzzed over Madalen’s head. Madalen sighed again, but her eyes were closed, her head tilted in concentration. The cuckoo bird called from near the rose trellis. Her eyes opened. “Are you pulling my leg, Charlie Darlington?” Madalen’s brown eyes stared right into Charlie’s blue ones, inches away from his face. From this distance, they looked beautiful.
Charlie shook his head. “Just listen.”

Madalen closed her eyes again. “Maybe they’re fairies,” she said with a slow half-smile. Her lips curved up on one side but stayed straight as a bullet on the other.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Charlie said. He couldn’t sit still any more so he stood up, shuffling his feet. “Want to play chess now?” He didn’t want to share the wall with Madalen, but he didn’t want her to think he was crazy either.

“You are a silly boy, Charlie. I almost believed you about the fairies.” They sat down at the game table just as Nanny brought out a tray of steaming scones and a pitcher of iced tea.

Charlie had seen Madalen playing chess with her brother on a crude wooden set when he passed her house in his uncle’s carriage. “Don’t worry. I’ll go easy on you since you’re a girl.”

“I’ll whoop you, just wait.”

Charlie moved his rook and took Madalen’s last bishop. “Check.”

The door to the aviary opened and Papa Nico emerged with two men. Charlie recognized one, Herr von Ribbentrop. His godfather had been absent at his last birthday party and Charlie ran to hug him. He stopped halfway when he heard Papa Nico’s voice. “What is that Blum child doing in my garden? Get out of here, ebreo! Git!”

Charlie turned to see his uncle’s rough hand encircling Madalen’s thin arm. Papa Nico pulled her along to the garden wall, parting the ivy at the great iron gate. He drew a brass key from his pocket, unlocking the door and pushing Madalen out onto the lawn. “Stay out!”

Charlie stared at the space where Madalen’s image had been, open-mouthed and frozen on the patio between his German godfather and his Papa Nico. He felt her running, running through the cypress trees. The voice whispered, “Quiet, quiet.”