The Body in the Piazza - By Katherine Hall Page Page 0,9

on them.

“Here’s our turn, the Via Arenula,” Tom said. “The third left will take us to the Via del Portico.” While they had taken Freddy’s advice and ignored printed material earlier, Tom was charting their route to the restaurant from their stop at the Pantheon, map in hand.

The street was lined with shops, most of them closed. They were in the historic ghetto of Rome, and it was after sundown, signaling the start of the Sabbath. Yet some nonkosher restaurants were open, Faith noted, and enticing smells were coming from the crowded tables set up outdoors. She was hungry; lunch had been a long time ago.

Hostaria Giggetto was at the very end of the street. Freddy was sitting at one of the tables and strolled out to meet them. Kissing Faith on each cheek and clapping an arm around Tom’s shoulder, he was wearing a black collarless shirt underneath what Faith’s father always called an “ice cream suit,” vanilla white linen. For a moment it occurred to her that if Tom had been wearing his work clothes, they would have made interesting bookends.

“Come and sit down. I hope it’s all right to sit outdoors?”

“It’s perfect,” Faith said.

Tom was nodding his head in agreement and perhaps awe, gesturing toward three dramatically lit Corinthian columns and the partial facade of a ruin so close to their table they could almost touch the stones.

“Incredible,” he said.

“The columns are all that remains of the temple of Apollo,” Freddy said. “Augustus named this portico in honor of his sister, Octavia.”

“Probably to make up for her scummy husband,” Faith said firmly. “I mean, it’s the ancient version of putting your husband through medical school or business school and then getting dumped. In her case, it was supplying him with an army and whatever they called K rations. Okay, he left her for Cleopatra, pretty tough competition, but he could have said no, I’m a married man.”

Freddy was laughing. “And don’t forget Octavia raised their son along with a passel of other assorted offspring. She was a bit like Victoria in being the progenitor of all sorts of future heads of state. Kings, kaisers, tsars, not so different from emperors, although I don’t think Caligula and Nero would have made it into her ‘Granny Remembers’ book, had she still been around. And now we need some food and a great deal of wine over which you can tell me all—perhaps not all—you’ve been doing since we parted.”

The waiter approached and Freddy said, “Please ask Claudio to select some wines for us and he may as well choose the whole meal so long as one entrée is today’s fish. Just start us off with plenty of fiori di zucchina, carciofi alla giudia, and filetti di baccalà. Grazie.”

“Prego, signore.”

“Who is Claudio? The chef ?” Faith asked.

“No, he’s the grandson of Luigi Ceccarelli, known to one and all as ‘Giggetto,’ who started the restaurant—hence the name—in the 1920s after he served in the war. It had been an ancient inn, one of those Caesar-was-here-type places or perhaps it was Remus even further back wanting a little fritto misto, despite his early penchant for vulpine milk, after dispatching his brother. Later I’ll take you inside and Claudio’s father, Franco, who took over from his father, Luigi, will take us to see the wine cellar, which has enough Roman masonry to satisfy what I am very much afraid may be an unhealthy touristic leaning on your part. Oh, and I asked for Claudio because he does all the buying. Gets up at an ungodly hour to go to the markets.”

Healthy or unhealthy, Faith thought that by the time dinner was over they wouldn’t need a guidebook. All they had to do was keep Freddy talking, a happy prospect. Apparently Tom had the same thought.

“So Augustus built this in honor of his sister.”

Freddy shook his finger at him. “Naughty, naughty. Soon you’ll have me telling you that it was the foyer for the Theater of Marcellus next door. Spare a thought for the poor lad, a favorite of his uncle’s but dead at nineteen. This entrance also led to a vast array of temples, libraries—the Circus Flaminius in short. Ah, saved. Here are the courgette blossoms.”

It was soon apparent that the man who eschewed anchovies on his pizza was a huge fan of them mixed with ricotta and stuffed into the golden flowers, even more golden after being lightly battered and fried. Faith filed the preference away, thinking she could now try Tom