The Girl Who Rode the Wind Read online

“She was good with her hands, painting and cooking and sewing. She cared very much for Carlo and me, but she was a very opinionated woman and obstinate too …” Nonna gave a chuckle. “I could be speaking of myself, couldn’t I? Perhaps that is where I get it from!”

  Upstairs the paint along the hallway had begun to flake off and the plaster beneath it was crumbling. A thick layer of dust covered everything. We would have to get the place cleaned up, but at least it was liveable. Nonna opened the linen cupboard and began to pull out pillows and duvets from under a dust sheet, while I washed in the bathroom and discovered that the taps only ran cold and not hot water because there was no electricity.

  “You will have my old bedroom,” Nonna told me. It was the first one at the top of the landing, with walls painted in dusky pink with crimson stripes. The budding bough of a tree bloomed out of one corner of the room and a white peacock perched on the bough with its tail spread out beneath it.

  “Mama painted it pink with stripes and then I asked her to add the tree and the peacock,” Nonna said. “She never got the peacock quite right. You see how his head is too big?”

  “It’s amazing,” I said. “It must have been the most incredible house to grow up in.”

  “It was,” Nonna said. “I was very happy here.” But her eyes didn’t look happy at all. They were shining with tears.

  “I’ll fetch you another blanket. You must be tired, Piccolina,” she murmured. “We’ll make the bed up and you can get some sleep.”

  The jetlag that had begun to set in at the train station was like nothing I had ever felt before and despite the fact that it was still light outside I was suddenly too exhausted to stay awake any longer.

  I must have fallen asleep thinking about that mural above the stairs, because in my dreams I was walking through a forest, only the trees weren’t real, they were painted ones, and when their black branches touched my skin they clung to me like seaweed. I was trying to navigate my way through when I realised that I wasn’t alone. There was something in the woods, stalking me. I began pushing my way through the trees, my heart pounding, and the creature sensed my fear and gave chase. I could hear it crashing through the undergrowth right behind me and I was running, but it was like my legs were stuck in treacle, a low animal growl growing louder, gaining with every stride.

  I looked back over my shoulder, hoping that I would see nothing, but the creature was right there, monstrous and bristling, cold grey eyes fixed on me.

  It was a wolf. A female with two little cubs at her feet. They followed her obediently, although she ignored them because her focus was completely on me.

  I ran harder, my breath coming in frantic gasps. The grey wolf was gaining, I could hear her closing in, smell the hot animal stench of her.

  Suddenly, in the middle of the forest, a stone building rose up right in front of me and I had to turn so fast to stop from running into it that I fell. I dropped to my knees on the ground which I realised was not a forest floor at all but hard, cold tiles, the same as the turquoise and blue ones downstairs. I was trying to get up again when the wolf leapt on top of me. She knocked me flat to the floor, sprawling me out on my back, her paws on my chest pinning me down and her great, grey menacing head hanging over my face so that I could see the saliva dripping from her teeth.

  And then she spoke.

  “Loyal are the people of the Wolf. Bravest of all the seventeen,” she growled. She came closer so that I could smell her fetid breath on my face. “You will need to run faster than this to win little one. You must prove yourself worthy to bring home the banner.”

  She was crushing me. I could feel this enormous weight on my chest and I struggled with all my might to get her off me. I was shouting and screaming and the branches were alive and tangling around me. Then I realised they were not branches at all but bedsheets and I opened my eyes. The wolf was gone and I was wide-awake and starving.

  I looked in all the cupboards downstairs but of ‌course there was no food in the house.

  “You’ll have to go into town, Lola,” Nonna said. “It’s not far from here – about twenty minutes’ walk.”

  She took out a pen and a piece of paper from her handbag. “Here is the road.” Nonna drew me a map. “You go along until you see a small stream with a narrow bridge over it, and then you turn the corner and go over another bridge and you reach an avenue of tall trees … they take you to an arched gateway called Porta Ovile.”

  She sketched the city walls around the archway with crenellations on top of it like a castle. “Behind the high walls follow your nose through the streets and you’ll reach the piazza. There’s a marketplace with stalls selling fruit and bread and cheese. You can buy us food there.”

  “Nonna,” I said. “You haven’t lived here for seventy years. I don’t think there’s still going to be a market stall in the same place there was when you were a girl.”

  Nonna chuckled. “Ah, Lola, you don’t understand Italy.” She dug in her purse and handed me some money. “Hundreds of years go by and nothing changes here.”

  She closed my hand around the money and the map. “Get the small black olives please. They are tastier than the large ones.”

  As I walked along the road in the afternoon sun I wondered if I would be able to make a map of Ozone Park in seventy years’ time. I doubted it. Things changed faster in New York. There was a Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner of Rockaway that wasn’t there even a couple of months ago.

  The morning sun was baking hot already and my legs were overheating in my jeans. Up ahead of me, over the crest of the hill, I could make out an avenue shaded by plane trees, and beyond the trees the walls of the city rose up to the sky. Further down the avenue there was a wide archway almost three storeys high in the wall. I stood in front of it and read the words written into the bricks at the top: Porta Ovile.

  Through the archway the broad cobbled street split off in three directions. I took the middle road, which soon narrowed until it was crushed into an alleyway by the ancient buildings on both sides. Nonna had told me to follow my nose, but my nose was hopelessly lost. I was in a labyrinth where every turn I took looked exactly the same.

  When I went down a side alley that was just like all the rest it came as a surprise to reach the corner and see that I was actually there, in the piazza.

  The way Nonna had talked about the piazza I thought it would be tiny, but in fact it was this enormous open space. Tall brick buildings encircled the perimeter of the square, looming on every side so that it seemed as if they were holding back the sky, an effect that was made more dramatic because the red bricks that paved the floor of the piazza swooped away and sloped down to the marble staircase at the base of a very grand building, which I guessed must be the town hall.

  The side of the piazza where I had emerged was shaded by the buildings, but on the upper half there were market stalls still bathed in sunlight. Tables with white linen cloths on them were piled with fresh baked bread, bottles of olive oil, red wine, cheese, meats and punnets of fresh raspberries and blackberries. The busiest stall was an ice-cream stand with chillers piled high with snowy whipped peaks of gelato.

  At the first stall selling cheeses the old lady shopkeeper began to chat away to me merrily in Italian and I suddenly felt shy about speaking with my New York accent and getting the words wrong, so my shopping technique became a silent game of smile-and-point. I travelled from stall to stall, getting raspberries and cheese and oil until my bag was full. Grazie, grazie, grazie.

  If all the streets had looked the same on the way in, it was worse finding my way out. I tried to find a familiar signpost, but the names meant nothing to me. Via Caterina, Via del Paradiso … Finally I chose one at random and followed that for a while. When it branched into two directions I found myself on a street that seemed strangely familiar, the Via di Vallerozzi. My confidence in my sense of direction began to fade when I realised that the street was not a main avenue, in fact it was totally deserted. Was this the right way? I contin
ued on, trying not to trip on the cobbles, keeping a tight grip on the groceries in my arms.

  That was when I heard the song. It was this old Italian opera song and I recognised it because Nonna always sang it when she was cleaning the house, but this was a man’s voice singing it. I couldn’t see anyone at first but as I got further down the street there was this grey-haired old man, with his head bent down over a bed of white roses that were planted around the edge of a fountain. He was focused on his work and singing loudly to himself as he gardened, his bony hands using a pair of wiry garden scissors to trim the dead leaves away.

  “Excuse me?” I said. “Sorry. Do you know how to get to the Porta Ovile from here?”

  The old man straightened up and turned to me. I smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back. I figured he mustn’t understand English and tried again in Italian. “Scusi?” I pointed up the street. “Porta Ovile?”

  The old man was staring, looking at me hard. The way his eyes examined me really creeped me out.

  “Lo ti conosco …” he said.

  I know you.

  “No,” I shook my head. “No, you don’t know me. I just need directions. Do you speak English?”

  “Lo ti conosco …” he said it again firmly. He took off his glasses and wiped them, blinked and put them on again.

  He was just flat-out inspecting me as if I were a museum exhibit or something! Then his eyes widened, as if a memory had been triggered. “Lo ti conosco …” He stepped forward and I stepped back, moving away from him.

  “Never mind …” I began but then he pointed at me and started shouting.

  “Scavezzecolla!” he cried. “Scavezzecolla!”

  Little bits of spittle formed at the corners of his mouth as he spat out the words. It was like I’d done something wrong – I didn’t know what he was going on about. “Scavezzecolla!” He stretched his arms out and began to come at me.

  “Hey! Watch it!” I backed away. The crazy old man still had his scissors in his hand!

  “Scavezzecolla! Attesa!”

  Attesa! I knew that word. Wait! Was he serious? No way. I turned and started to jog down the street, my groceries banging up and down inside the bag in my arms. I looked around for help but there was no one else in the street.

  “Scavezzecolla! Scavezzecolla!”

  He was coming after me!

  “Leave me alone!” I yelled back at him. “Go away you crazy old man!”

  “Attesa!”

  I could hear him hobbling after me across the cobbles. “Scavezzecolla!”

  That was when I ran.

  By the time I reached the Porta Ovile I couldn’t see him behind me any more. My legs were shaking but I kept running, all the way back, until I arrived at last, panting and terrified, at the villa.

  I worked the rusty old key in the lock.

  “Come on! Open!” I wrenched it until it turned and then ran inside and slammed the door behind me.

  I dropped my shopping bag to the floor and ran across to the windows and peered out. There was no one there. He hadn’t followed me.

  “Lola?” My grandmother came out from the kitchen. “Did you …”

  Then she saw the state I was in.

  “What happened?”

  “I got chased,” I said.

  “What?”

  “There was this old man. I asked him for directions home and he came at me with a pair of scissors!”

  “What?”

  “He was crazy! He chased me all the way down the street!”

  “Where did you see him?”

  “Outside a big red-brick building. He was trimming the roses by a fountain in the Via di Vallerozzi. He was shouting at me! He kept saying this word “Scavezzecolla! Scavezzecolla!”

  My grandmother had suddenly turned pale.

  “Nonna? Are you OK?”

  She looked like she was about to faint. Her hand reached out for support, gripping at the stair rail.

  I ran to the kitchen and grabbed her a wooden chair. She slumped into the seat and I stood and watched the colour return to her cheeks.

  “I’m all right, Piccolina,” she breathed. “It’s just … Well, I haven’t heard that word in a very long time.”

  Nonna didn’t say anything more for a moment. Then she reached out and grasped my hand so that she could stand up again.

  “Come on, Piccolina,” she said. “I want to show you something.”

  I had taken a glimpse into the trophy cabinet in the hallway when we first arrived. It was filled with rosettes, silver salvers, medals and old photographs, most of them of horses. There was one photo that I hadn’t noticed behind the trophies. Nonna reached into the cabinet and pulled it out so that I could see it properly. It was a horse, a pretty black mare with a star on her forehead, held by a young girl dressed in a floral rosebud dress with her hair swept back off her face. She was smiling broadly and looking straight at the camera. I stared at the picture in wonder. The girl in the photograph was me!

  “Isn’t it silly?” Nonna smiled. “I was so self-conscious about my looks back then – I never realised at the time how beautiful I was.”

  “This girl in the photo – it’s you?”

  “Yes, Lola,” Nonna said. “I must have been fifteen when the picture was taken so I was three years older than you are, but we look very similar, don’t we?”

  She gave a cackle of delight. “That old the man on the Via di Vallerozzi must have thought he was seeing a ghost.”

  “So he thought I was you?”

  Nonna nodded. “He hasn’t forgotten what happened all those years ago. Well, let him see ghosts, I say. The past has haunted me for long enough, it is his turn now.”

  “You know him?” I said.

  “Yes,” Nonna said. “His name is Alonzo de Monte and he is the Prior. I have not seen him in seventy years.”

  “Well,” I said, “I think he’s still angry at you for something.”

  Nonna laughed. “Yes, it seems that he is. He is the most powerful man in the contrada and the feelings run strong in him.”

  “Contrada?”

  “Seventeen contradas to symbolise the seventeen districts of Siena. Each one had its own symbol – there are the Forest and the Tower but most are named after animals. The Unicorn, the Tortoise and the Eagle, and our most hated enemies, the Contrada of Istrice – the Porcupine.

  “What was your contrada?” I asked.

  Nonna gazed up at the coat of arms on the wall, a shield painted in orange, black and white. In the middle of the shield was a creature with bared fangs and cold grey eyes.

  “Lupa,” Nonna said. “The She-Wolf. Bravest of all the seventeen.”

  Bravest of all the seventeen.

  The words that the wolf had spoken in my dream.

  “You belong to the Wolf?”

  “I did. But not any more,” Nonna replied. “The Via di Vallerozzi where you walked today is home of the Lupa. It is the boundary of the contrada. Back in my day you did not dare cross the street and enter another contrada, such was our dislike for each other.”

  “You mean like how kids from Ozone Park hate the rich kids from Jamaica Hills?”

  “Not like that at all.” Nonna shook her head. “This is not just a playground squabble, a few stones thrown in the street. This is serious. The contrada is life and death. For hundreds of years the seventeen have been arch rivals and they hate each other with such a passion, like nothing you have ever seen. In ancient times battles were fought and armies were raised as the contradas each tried to prove their greatness. Then, as the years passed by, the contest between the clans became a race. That race, the Palio, is hailed as the greatest and most dangerous horse race in the world, held every year in the streets of the piazza.”

  “The piazza?” I was confused. “But I’ve seen the piazza. It’s in the middle of the town, with buildings all around it and it’s on a slope, paved in brick.”

  “That’s what makes it so dangerous,” Nonna said. “The horses race thre
e times around the square and there are many crashes as riders fail to make the treacherous turns in time. It is even harder because they must ride bareback.”

  “They don’t use saddles?”

  “Saddles are forbidden,” Nonna said. “But it is not against the rules to kick or push or throw a punch. It is a very vicious race, and there is so much to lose. A Palio jockey must be fearless. The best ones, the most famous, earn themselves nicknames to match their nature. In my day there was Barbaro – the barbarian. Oh that man he rode like a brute, punching and whipping other riders to force them off the track! And Subdolo – the sneaky one – he would come up behind you and just like that he would steal the lead! The worst was Il Prepotente – the bully – he was a very dangerous opponent, he would barge you into walls and cut you off and leave you for dead.”

  Nonna looked down at the photo in her hands. “They called me Scavezzecolla. It means the daredevil. They used to say I would take risks no other rider would dare, riding for the smallest of gaps and never slowing down.”

  “You raced in the Palio?” I said. “Nonna, why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  Nonna shrugged. “I told you that I used to ride.”

  “You never told me anything about this!”

  “Lola, it was such a long time ago, does it matter now?”

  “Yes!” I insisted. “It matters because whatever happened back then is still so important that an old man chased me through the streets today thinking that I was you!”

  “The Prior?” Nonna harrumphed. “The Palio is everything to him. It always has been. Even when there was a war on and people were dying, all he could think about was winning that stupid, stupid race …”

  Nonna’s eyes were shining with tears, her hands trembling as they held the photograph.

  “I’m sorry, Nonna,” I said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Gently, I took the photo from her and wiped the dust from the frame and put it back in the cabinet. “Come on. I bought coffee at the market, why don’t you sit down in the kitchen and I will brew you a cup?”

  Nonna still looked shaken but she managed to give me a weak smile. “All right, Lola,” she said. “Yes, coffee would be nice.”