White Shotgun by April Smith Read Free Book Online

there,” he says, taking the handle of the suitcase. “Your first time visiting? It is very amazing, you will see.”
    “You sound proud of your home.”
    “I love Siena. I would not live anywhere else.”
    “Not even Rome?”
    He snorts. “What’s great about Rome? They are covered by gypsies, like these. Look out.”
    A clutch of young Romanian mothers and children is coming toward us. The women carry nursing babies wrapped in shawls, like walking Madonnas, except their eyes are smoldering with want and hate. The little kids are trained to swarm the victims and pickpocket while they are distracted.
    “Watch your purse,” Giovanni warns loudly, all hyped up and seething with excitement.
    “Not to worry. Got it covered.”
    Giovanni and I sidestep the situation, but instead of letting it be, he goes on the attack.
    “Vaffanculo!” he shouts, with an obscene gesture.
    The gypsies gather their ranks and move on with downcast eyes. Giovanni continues to shout at their backs. Nobody on the street pays attention.
    “They steal your underpants,” he says.
    I just smile. “Giovanni, how old are you?”
    “Sixteen.”
    “Sixteen, and you don’t want to leave home? See the world?” He fumbles. “What I’m saying, it comes from my heart. Forgive my English—”
    “Your English is good.”
    “In Siena, we believe in the old things. Our blood, our DNA”—he pinches the flesh on his arm—“is pure. It is the same as the ancient Etruscans’. Science proves that we have lived here two thousand years. Right now we are inside the walls of the old medieval city. When you are inside the walls, everything is”—he searches for the word—“beautiful. Inside is life. What we love. Our history. Our church. Our family. Our contrada , which is the neighborhood where you grow up. In America,” he adds self-assuredly, “you call it ‘the hood.’ Inside, we preserve the Republic of Siena. Don’t worry, it’s not like a museum; there are good shops and restaurants, and even an Australian bar where they speak English and have English beer!”
    A Boddingtons right now would be awesome.
    “Outside, there are only enemies. I know it sounds crazy.”
    He unlocks the smallest car I have ever seen, the size of a corner mailbox.
    “Outside everything is bad,” the boy continues, with complete sincerity. “Outside is death.”
    Giovanni takes a quick route out of Siena and the commercial zone, soon putting us on a deserted country road that undulates through dense forest before breaking out above scores of fields stitched with rows of green. He drives too fast, one hand on the wheel, windows down, constantly jabbering in cheerful tones on his cell phone.
    It is hard to find anything remotely lethal in the verdant countryside of cadmium-yellow blocks of sunflowers, cultivated rows of grapes, the lofty Tuscan sky filled with pure white clouds. No wonder they paint clouds on church ceilings; they have unobstructed views of heaven. But for one so young and trendy, Giovanni’s view of things is surprisingly entwined with morbid folklore.
    What Cecilia described as “our little house on a hill” is a thirteenth-century compound built by Benedictine monks that later became a residence for a succession of cardinals. It even has a name—Abbazia di Santa Chiara, the Abbey of Saint Chiara—and the hand of the saint is preserved to this day in the sacristy of the abbey church, which is on the other side of the courtyard from the current family wing. Giovanni assures me the relic is a powerful blessing and an object of incalculable value, although a severed hand floating around does not sound to me like very good feng shui.
    The road is banked by flimsy wooden poles lashed together. As the lane narrows, the cliff falls away. A hairpin curve reveals a panoramic view of the valley, and you can see the abbey in its entirety—the romantic twelve-sided tower, the two-story residential quarters, and the remains of the original