Juliet. Anne Fortier

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       II.II

       Nay sit, nay sit, good cousin Capulet,For you and I are past our dancing days

      I cannot remember how far I got in the story that night, but the birds had started chirping outside when I finally drifted off on a sea of papers. I now understood the connection between the many different documents in my mother’s box; they were all, in each their way, pre-Shakespearean versions of Romeo and Juliet. Even better, the texts from 1340 were not just fiction, they were genuine eyewitness accounts of the events that had led to the creation of the famous story.

      Although he had not yet made an appearance in his own journal, the mysterious Maestro Ambrogio, it seemed, had personally known the real human beings behind two of literature’s most star-crossed characters. I had to admit that so far none of his writing offered much overlap with Shakespeare’s tragedy, but then, more than two and a half centuries had passed between the actual events and the Bard’s play, and the story must have travelled through many different hands along the way.

      Bursting to share my new knowledge with someone who would appreciate it—not everyone would find it funny that, through the ages, millions of tourists had flocked to the wrong city to see Juliet’s balcony and grave—I called Umberto on his mobile phone as soon as I got out of my morning shower.

      ‘Congratulations!’ he exclaimed, when I told him that I had successfully charmed Presidente Maconi into giving me my mother’s box. ‘So, how rich are you now?’

      ‘Uh,’ I said, glancing at the mess on my bed. ‘I don’t think the treasure is in the box. If there even is a treasure.’

      ‘Of course there’s a treasure,’ Umberto countered, ‘why else would your mother put it in a bank safe? Look more carefully.’

      ‘There’s something else.’ I paused briefly, trying to find a way of saying it without sounding silly. ‘I think I’m somehow related to Shakespeare’s Juliet.’

      I suppose I couldn’t blame Umberto for laughing, but it annoyed me all the same. ‘I know it sounds weird,’ I went on, cutting through his chuckle, ‘but why else would we have the same name, Giulietta Tolomei?’

      ‘You mean, Juliet Capulet?’ Umberto corrected me. ‘I hate to break it to you, principessa, but I’m not sure she was a real person…’

      ‘Of course not!’ I shot back, wishing I had never told him about it. ‘But it looks like the story was inspired by real people…Oh, never mind! How’s life at your end?’

      After hanging up, I started paging through the Italian letters my mother had received more than twenty years ago. Surely there was someone still alive in Siena who had known my parents, and who could answer all the questions Aunt Rose had so consistently brushed aside. But without knowing any Italian it was hard to tell which letters were written by friends or family; my only clue was that one of them began with the words ‘Carissima Diana’ and that the sender’s name was Pia Tolomei.

      Unfolding the city map I had bought the day before, together with the dictionary, I spent some time searching for the address that was scribbled on the back of the envelope, and finally managed to pinpoint it in a minuscule piazza called Piazzetta del Castellare in central Siena. It was located in the heart of the Owl contrada,

      my home turf, not far from Palazzo Tolomei where I had met Presidente Maconi the day before.

      If I were lucky, Pia Tolomei—whoever she was—would still be living there, eager to speak with Diane Tolomei’s daughter and lucid enough to remember why.

      Piazzetta del Castellare was like a small fortress within the city, and not that easy to find. After walking right past it several times, I finally discovered that I had to enter through a covered alleyway, which I had first assumed was the entrance to a private yard. Once inside the piazzetta, I was trapped between tall, silent buildings, and as I looked up at all the СКАЧАТЬ