“From now on your friend here will not be allowed to move around the house unsupervised,” Ida said angrily. “He’s been snooping around my darkroom, going through my things, and eating my chocolates.”
Barbarossa turned as red as a cocktail cherry.
“I was hungry!” he snapped at Ida. “I’ll buy you some nicer ones, once I’ve got some money again. How often do I have to tell you that my wallet is still on that godforsaken island? As soon as the banks open tomorrow morning, I’ll withdraw some money and replace your chocolates — and I’ll get some decent clothes. It’s a disgrace that a man like me should …” — he wrinkled his nose and tugged at the sweater Bo had lent him — “… should have to walk around in silly clothes like these.”
“Well, that’s just great!” Ida shoved him roughly onto the last remaining empty chair, between Riccio and Mosca. Then she pulled up a stool for herself and sat down next to Victor.
“I thought you begged Prosper and Scipio to bring you here?” Hornet asked from across the table. “So why don’t you at least try to behave?”
“The little devil is not only stealing chocolates,” Lucia confirmed grimly. “I caught him with our silver spoons. And he had a camera stuffed under his jacket.”
Riccio giggled, and Prosper caught him looking almost admiringly at Barbarossa. Bo, meanwhile, took his plate and sat down with it on Ida’s carpet. “I don’t want to sit next to him,” he declared. “He’s going to steal my pasta as well.” Barbarossa threw an olive at him, which immediately earned him a resounding slap from Hornet.
“Now stop it, all of you!” Victor shouted. “What’s the matter with you? Has the little dwarf driven you all mad?”
Lucia got up, uttering another one of her deepest sighs.
“Signora, I’m going home,” she said, folding up her napkin. “Perhaps you should lock the little one in the broom closet, if he really has to stay here tonight.”
“Any more of your sass,” Scipio said to Barbarossa, after Lucia had closed the door behind her, “and you can sleep in your shop tonight. And what a cozy night that would be: with the dark alley outside, the rain drumming against the windows, and baby Barbarino all alone, with his little teeth chattering all night.”
Barbarossa stared into his plate, his lips tightly pressed together. Hornet, Mosca, Riccio, and Prosper — none of them had a a kind word to say to him. Ida and Victor were whispering to each other and weren’t paying him any attention either.
“Maybe we should put an ad in the paper, Barbarino.” Scipio leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “Unbearable little fellow, four or five years old, seeks mother. Or are you planning on looking after yourself? I don’t think Ida wants to be your foster mom.”
“Definitely not!” Ida said, popping an olive into her mouth. “But I think for an important man like you we should be able to find a bed at the Merciful Sisters.”
“No, thank you!” Barbarossa wrinkled his nose. “No need. And should I really have any need for a foster mother, then it would definitely not be someone who wastes her silver cutlery on a bunch of orphans and who doesn’t comb her hair.”
Ida gasped.
“You seem to know quite well what you want, Barbarino,” Victor snapped. “Considering that you will barely be able to see over your shop counter at the moment. But don’t worry, the nuns in the orphanage are always immaculately groomed!”
Riccio giggled, until Barbarossa kicked him in the shin so hard that the tears welled up in his eyes.
“I’ll cope,” the redhead retorted. “I have more than enough money in the bank.”
“Yes?” Victor and Ida exchanged amused glances. “And you think the bank is just going to hand out Ernesto Barbarossa’s money to some five-year-old boy?”
Barbarossa’s face went blank. He poured himself another glass of red wine.
“Once I’m big again,” he mumbled, glowering at Scipio and Prosper, “I’ll take revenge on everybody who didn’t stop me from getting onto that cursed merry-go-round. I’ll —”
Prosper interrupted him, “Shut up, Barbarino! You have, just like us, given your word not to talk about it. And anyway, I know two dogs who probably can’t wait for you to pay another visit to the island.”
“Don’t listen to him, Prop.” Scipio crossed his long legs. “Nobody cares what the midget has to say.”
“Well, Barbarino,” Riccio said, giving the miniature Barbarossa’s shoulder a hard slap, “welcome to the land of the small folk!”
“Get your hands off me!” Barbarossa growled. “Who do you think you are? I’m not one of your silly little friends, you louse. And you?” Barbarossa stared down at Bo, who was still lying on the carpet. “What are you looking at? Stop staring at me with your big puppy eyes.”
Bo didn’t answer. He was lying on his belly, his chin resting on his hands, looking at Barbarossa as if he were some strange animal who had just crawled out of the canal and crept into Ida’s house.
“I think Esther would like the way he talks, don’t you, Prop?” Bo finally said. “He talks better than Scipio. And he’s even smaller than me. But she probably wouldn’t like the swearing.”
“Smaller? I’m not smaller, you woodlouse!” Barbarossa barked. “We’re worlds apart, do you understand? I am smart, I went to college, and you haven’t been to kindergarten yet.”
Bo rolled nonchalantly on to his back. “And he doesn’t spill his food,” he observed. “I think Esther would like that best. Don’t you, Prop?”
Prosper dropped his fork and looked closely at Barbarossa.
“You’re right,” he said, “there’s not even a tiny speck. She would be stunned. And just look how neatly he has brushed his hair. Did you do that, Ida?”
Ida shook her head. “You’ve heard him: I can’t even brush my own hair. What about you, Victor? Did you brush the redhead’s hair?”
“Not guilty,” Victor answered.
“Who is this Esther these airheads keep talking about?” Barbarossa turned to Riccio.
“Prosper and Bo’s aunt,” Riccio answered with his mouth full. “She was crazy about Bo, but doesn’t want him anymore.”
“Very smart of her.” Barbarossa ran his hand through his dense curls. His new head of hair seemed to console him for the loss of his beard.
Scipio looked at him thoughtfully.
“You know what? I’ve just had a crazy idea,” he said slowly. “It’s still a bit hazy, but it’s completely brilliant …”
“Brilliant?” Barbarossa reached for the wine again, but Victor grabbed the bottle and put it next to his own plate.
Barbarossa gave him a sinister look. “You know, Thief Lord,” he snarled in Scipio’s direction, “you can’t possibly hatch any brilliant plans, because you’re nothing more than a clone of your father.”
Scipio shot up as if something had bitten him. “Say that again, you little squirt …”
Prosper and Hornet had to use their combined strength to stop Scipio from jumping at Barbarossa.
“Don’t let that little rat get to you, Scip!” Hornet whispered to him, while Barbarossa smugly inspected his rosy fingernails.
Scipio dropped back into his chair. “Fine,” he muttered, not taking his eyes off Barbarossa. “I’ll stay calm. Maybe I’ll send a postcard to Signor Barbarossa at the orphanage one day. That’s where he’ll end up, if he doesn’t starve to death in his shop. I won’t waste another thought on him, let alone a brilliant one.” He got up, pretending to be offended, and looked out into the night.
Riccio and Mosca nudged each other, and Prosper couldn’t hold back a grin. Yes, that was definitely the Scipio they knew, still the gifted actor.
And Barbarossa swallowed the bait.
“OK, OK,” he squawked, “what about your brilliant idea, Thief Lord? Heavens, that man is touchier than a dog with a bone.”
But Scipio kept his back turned. He stood by the window and looked out at the Campo Santa Margherita as if he were completely alone
.
“Spit it out, for heaven’s sake!” Barbarossa shouted as the others began to chuckle. Scipio didn’t move.
Barbarossa slurped the remaining wine from his glass and slammed it on the table so hard that it nearly broke. “Do I have to go down on my knees?”
“Prosper and Bo’s aunt,” Scipio said without turning around, “is looking for a sweet little boy who has good table manners and can behave like an adult. You are looking for shelter, and a home for the future. And someone who puts food in front of you and who sleeps next door when it’s dark …”
Barbarossa’s eyebrows shot up. “Is she rich?” he asked, brushing a stray lock from his forehead.
“Oh yes!” Scipio answered. “Right, Prop?”
Prosper nodded. “That’s really quite a crazy idea, Scip,” he said. “It’s never going to work.”
49
Barbarossa refused to sleep in the same room as the other children. Instead, he camped on the sofa in the living room. Ida let him suit himself, but she locked him in as a precaution. Luckily Barbarossa didn’t notice. Then she saw Victor to the door before going to bed herself.
Scipio had long gone. He had asked Mosca for some of the money they had left from the deal with Barbarossa, and then he had vanished into the night. Where he intended to go he hadn’t said.
“Just like old times,” Hornet murmured as they watched him from Ida’s balcony.
They all knew what they couldn’t forget — a door in a narrow alley, a curtain full of stars, mattresses on the floor, the moth-eaten chairs, and the gold and silver treasure from the Thief Lord’s satchel. All lost.
“Come on, let’s go inside,” Hornet said finally. “It’s starting to rain again.”
They went up into their room. The piece of curtain Victor had cut off was hanging on the wall. Ida had put a carpet on the bare floor. The walls were decorated with whatever they had managed to salvage from the movie theater. But many of their favorite pictures and photographs were still hanging on that movie theater wall, above the empty mattresses, along with their homely scrawls and scribbles.
They all crept wearily under the covers. However, none of them could get to sleep, not even Bo, who usually dropped off as soon as his head touched the pillow.
“It would be quite something if Barbarossa managed to move in with your aunt,” Mosca said into the dark after some time. “But what are we going to do? Now that Prop is back, and Bo too. Has anyone got any ideas?”
“Nope,” Riccio mumbled into his pillow. “We’ll never find anything like the Star-Palace again. Definitely not with a bag full of fake money. And there’s not much left of the other cash either. Maybe we’ll find something over in Castello. There are lots of empty houses over there.”
“Why?” Bo sat up so abruptly that he pulled the blanket off Prosper. “I don’t want a new hideout. I want to stay here, with Ida!”
“Oh, Bo!” Hornet switched on the lamp, which Ida had put by her bedside so she could read in the evenings.
“Listen to him,” Riccio laughed. He was leaning against the wall and wrapping his blanket around his scrawny chest. “What does Ida know about honor among thieves? No, I’ll have a look around in Castello tomorrow. What about you guys?”
Mosca nodded. “Count me in,” he agreed. He was staring out of the window as if he were trying to stare a hole in the night.
Hornet avoided the question and grabbed one of the books she had taken from Ida’s shelf and started to leaf through it.
“I’m staying here!” Bo insisted. He stubbornly folded his arms. “Yes, sir!”
“You go to sleep now,” Prosper said to him, pushing him back down on to his pillow. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“We can talk about it for a hundred years, a thousand years!” Bo shouted, kicking the blanket off him again. “I’m staying here. My kittens like it here. They like teasing Lucia’s dogs. And Victor picks me and Ida up and we go and have ice cream, and Lucia cooks my favorite pasta for me and …”
“And what?” Riccio cut him off. “And soon they’ll tell you that you have to go to school, and what you have to eat, and that you should wash more often. No, way! Jeez, we’ve been on our own for so long, I’m not going to let anyone tell me that I’m too young to go out, or that my fingernails need cleaning. No way, José! Not Riccio.”
The others fell silent for a few moments. Then Mosca said with great deliberation, “Boy, Riccio, that was a real speech!”
Hornet put aside her book and walked slowly on her bare feet to the window to look outside.
“I’d like to stay here as well,” she said so quietly that the others could hardly hear her. “This is much better than I ever imagined.”
“You’re nuts,” Riccio yawned, crawling back under his blanket. “I’ll ask Scipio what he’s going to do now. If he comes back. Maybe he’ll have another one of his brilliant ideas.”
“I wonder what he’s doing now,” Mosca said. “Have you any idea, Prop?”
Hornet returned to her bed and switched off her light.
“Maybe,” Prosper answered. He stared into the darkness and tried to imagine Scipio as he walked through the alleys, looking at his reflection in the dark shop windows, stepping into the glow of a streetlight to inspect his long shadow. Perhaps he would go into one of the bars where the grown-ups sat well into the night. Once he got tired he might check into a hotel room, like he had said, one with a big mirror, and shave for the first time.
“Is he OK?” Bo asked, laying his head on Prosper’s chest.
“I think so,” Prosper answered. “Yes, I’m sure he’s fine.’
50
Victor returned to the Casa Spavento the next morning with a newspaper with Scipio’s picture on the front page. Nearly all of the city’s papers ran the picture, together with an appeal by the police to all citizens of Venice to help the honorable Dottor Massimo find his missing son.
Ida was in the dark room, developing the photos she had taken of the city’s stone lions. They were hanging on the walls all around her, sitting, roaring, grim-faced, along with peaceful lions with and without wings. Ida read Dottor Massimo’s appeal and sighed. “Do you know where Scipio is?” she asked Hornet, who had been watching her work.
But Hornet shook her head. “None of us know,” she said, “not even Prosper.”
“We should get a message to the dottore,” Victor muttered. “Even if the Thief Lord doesn’t want to.”
“I agree. I’ll be right back,” Ida said to Hornet, and went with Victor into the living room where Barbarossa was hanging around on the sofa, looking rather bored as he leafed through a book on Venice’s art treasures.
“I haven’t touched anything,” he said guiltily, when Ida and Victor entered the room. He had woken the whole house at dawn, screaming, after he had realized that Ida had locked him into the room.
“Just as well, redlocks,” Victor growled.
Ida sat down at her bureau and wrote on a card. Then she handed it to Victor.
“Dear Dottor Massimo!” he read. “I would like you to know that your son is fine. He does, however, not want to come home right now, and I am afraid he is not planning on doing so in the near future. He is well and has a place where he can sleep, and he wants for nothing. I am sorry I can’t tell you more at the moment. Kind regards. A friend.”
“Could you drop this into the Massimos’ mailbox?” Ida asked Victor. “I would normally have Giaco do it for me, but ever since Prosper told me it was he who sold the floor plan of the house to the Conte I’m not sure I can trust him anymore.”
“No problem.” Victor put the card in his pocket. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“What about the aunt?” Barbarossa slipped off the sofa and stood with folded arms in front of Ida. “It’s already past ten. I suggest you call her now and tell her to come here, so that I can have a look at her.”
Victor was ready with a curt reply, when Hornet put her head around the door.
“I hung the photos up to dry, Ida,” she said. “Is there anything else I can do?”
“Yes, you can call Prosper and Bo down for me,” Ida replied, glaring at Barbarossa, “I’m going to call their aunt and maybe they should be here when I do.”
Prosper and Bo were on the Campo playing football with Riccio. When Hornet came out to tell them that Ida really wanted to see if Scipio’s crazy idea would work, they couldn’t wait to get back to the house.
Ida was sitting next to the telephone when the four of them tumbled into the room. They all squatted down eagerly on the carpet. Prosper and Hornet sat on each side of Bo, so that they could hold his mouth shut, in case he started to giggle. Barbarossa was enthroned in Ida’s best armchair like a king forced to watch a bunch of mediocre actors perform.
“I don’t know why you’re making such an effort for that brat,” Victor whispered to Ida. “Just look at him, how he’s sitting there …”
“That’s exactly why I have to try this: so I can spare the Merciful Sisters from having to look after him,” Ida whispered back. “It might also help Prosper and Bo. I think Prosper is still worried his aunt could change her mind about Bo. So let’s give her” — she smiled at Barbarossa who was watching her and Victor suspiciously — “our little redlocks.”
“If you think so,” Victor grudgingly assented. “She speaks Italian.”
“Even better,” Ida replied. She reached for the telephone and dialed the number of the hotel where the Hartliebs had ended up.
“Buongiorno!” Ida said with a firm voice after the concierge had answered. “This is Sister Ida, from the Order of the Merciful Sisters. Could I please speak to Signora Esther Hartlieb?”
It took some time before Esther’s voice came through the receiver.
“Ah, good morning, Signora Hartlieb,” Ida said. “The reception told you who I am? Good. The reason I’m calling is that last night the police delivered two boys to our orphanage. One of the sisters immediately recognized the boys as your nephews, the ones on those posters all over town.” Ida paused and listened. “Oh. Really? No, how unfortunate. Well. Pardon? What do you mean, you don’t want the boys anymore?” She listened again. Bo started to chew his fingernails vigorously, until Hornet wrapped her arms around him.