Alternating between Renaissance Italy and Yugoslavia during the time of Tito, this novel tells two tales of love, intrigue, and betrayal. It is the summer of 1995, the war in Bosnia is raging, and the young Bosnian narrator is taking a tour of an Italian Renaissance castle. He soon finds himself caught up in the two tales of passion and intrigue that his Franciscan guide, a refugee like himself, relates. One is the story of Enzo Strecci, a Renaissance poet from Lombardy who has the ill fortune of falling in love with the wife of Francesco Mardi, his host and protector during a time of Hapsburg incursions and espionage. The other is the story of the Franciscan's own ill-fated passion for the local Communist police commander's daughter during Tito's rupture with Stalinism. Between Rimini, Italy, in 1535 and the Croatian island of Rab in 1948, lives and fates become intertwined, history repeats itself, and nostalgia for home proves itself to be bittersweet.
As one comes down the old road from Rimini, near Cesena, the forest oaks form a pleasant, secure umbrella against the scorching heat. After some ten meandering kilometers, at the top of a hill that the road cuts through, one catches a glimpse of the Castello Mardi. Its roofs shine in the afternoon sun, and it seems as though it has fused at a slant with the gentle surroundings.
Come nearer and it offers the chance to examine renowned frescoes and study all the beauty of early Renaissance architectural skill. One may also descend the two hundred thirteen steps that lead to the dungeon in which Enzo Strecci, that giant of Renaissance literature, spent days of hardship awaiting his death. He was the main reason I decided to visit Mardi Castle.
There were three of us, two girls and I, on a beautiful summer day, which was reflected in the red faces of the breathless friar-caretakers of the castle and its garden. They directed us –– a destra, a destra –– toward the tourist portion of the edifice. All the way to where the friar sold the tickets and offered select information about the history of the castle, we could feel a slight draft and smell the damp coming through the dungeon bars at the bottom of the wall. Here and there we could see a sword or mace or hear a voice from the cellar, as if Strecci himself were still protesting his innocence.
The first thing I noticed about the friar, with whom it turned out I was to stay until evening, was his unruly hair and luxuriant curls, hanging like bunches of grapes all about his round face. He waited for us, the tickets in his outstretched hands and a prepared smile of warm welcome on his face. There followed a lecture on the most interesting curiosities of the castle and then — because, as he put it, one has to make a living — he requested five thousand lire for the free tour. While he was putting the money into a box, probably in order to break the awkward silence that had followed his last words, he asked kindly, “Da dove venite, ragazze? (Where are you girls from?)”
Marianna said, “La Francia,” Irena said the same, and he turned to me and asked, “E tu, bambino? (And you, child?)”
“Sono bosniaco (I’m a Bosnian),” I said reservedly, which made the friar suddenly break into loud laughter and blurt out, looking me straight in the eye, “Bang, bang. Eh? Eh? Bosniaco. Bang, bang.”
I stood before him, utterly bewildered, unable to think of any words in Italian that might serve as a response. “Capisci? Bang, bang,” he said again, this time without gesturing in my face, waiting for a reaction to his all too obvious joke: it was the summer of 1995.
“We should get going,” said the girls, who were ready for the tour.
“Man this guy’s nuts,” I told them, looking at the stiff grimace on his face, upon which he answered with yet another surprise, uttered in Croatian, “Maybe nuts but safe at least, eh? What do you say to that, Bosnian?”
“I’d better listen to the girls,” I said. Suddenly he grabbed my hand and changed his tone. Once again he was the pleasant friar selling tickets, maybe even more pleasant because of the language only the two of us in the room and, it would seem, the general vicinity, shared.
“Just a joke, eh? Capisci? No harm intended. It’s been a long time since I saw anybody from home. At least up close.”
That was the first time I wondered how old he might be. Only after he had mentioned time and suggested proof of his age, putting his hand on mine long enough for its surface to remind me of a layer of cream cut through with barely visible veins, only then did I look at him more carefully.
Reviews
Vue Weekly...
"An elegant, haunting work...a marvelous hall of mirrors...a first book at its most mystical and tantalizing."
TheCompleteReview.com...
"A Castle in Romagna tells two stories, separated by centuries...romantic tragedies...with a good bit of suspense."
About the Author
Igor Stiks is the editor of anthologies of new Croatian prose fiction and international short fiction in English. His fiction, literary criticism, and essays have appeared widely in journals and reviews in the former Yugoslavia.
