Abroad (36 page)

*   *   *

And me? Where am
I
now? My body was taken back to Lucan, Ireland, but in truth, I remain in Italy, where most of the blood left my veins. After the crime scene was closed, the landlord hired a washerwoman to scrub the cottage. She collected pail after pail of bloody water and threw it in the garden, as she was afraid to pour the red liquid down the toilet or the shower. Down it trickled, into the soil under the olive trees. And so I stay here, abroad.

But I’m not alone. The Compagnia remains a secret, but we are still here: Thainia, who died in the sheep fields; Adriana, the baker’s daughter; Althea, the pigeon catcher; Maria, the midwife. You don’t know us. In the history books, it’s Nicolai the bishop you read about, not Althea. You know the Inquisition, but you don’t know Maria’s name. There is a portrait in Samuel’s castle of the cardinal, yet Lucretia remains faceless. You know about the sieges, the warriors, the family feuds. And in my case, you know about Claire, whose incredible moon face outshone mine in death as well as in life. As the trial went on, my name fell out of the papers. Few people, in fact, can remember it, despite my family’s indignant public protests. There is a small Enteria scholarship dedicated to me, and sometimes tourists gather in the petrol station to gawk at the cottage where I expired. Other than that, to the world I am just a shadow of a life.

Listen. My name is Tabitha Deacon. I am here, and there are others. Girlhoods cut short, steeped in desire. We are the sun that blinds your eyes when you come out of a massive, stone archway; the ancient smell that rushes up from the cracks when it rains; the wind that bites your cheeks in the great piazza on autumn nights. I thought I heard voices in those enchanted days, that I glimpsed ghosts, and I did. I did. We were all alive, and we loved and hated and lived brilliant, messy existences. The air is thick with our wanting.

Yet you’re the one still here, aren’t you? Still looking, though my story is long over. So perhaps I’m wrong about everything. Perhaps the wanting is yours.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

In 2007, a British student was killed while studying abroad in Perugia, Italy. As is true in many works of fiction, this book was thematically inspired by various accounts of some people’s experiences. However, all the incidents in this work, as well as all the characters, are products of the author’s imagination.

The Compagnia della Morte, now called the Compagnia della Misericordia, meaning “mercy,” is an actual organization, though its nature is much different from that invented for this novel. Founded in 1570 with the aim of providing burials and masses for those who died in poverty, eventually the Compagnia became watchdogs against Perugia’s use of the death penalty. The Compagnia kept the executioners’ tools in its custody. Once a year, on the festival of Saint John the Baptist, the members of the order would process through the town in black robes; then they would burn the ropes that had held that years’ executed prisoners and place the remaining ashes in a grave.

Today, the Compagnia della Misericordia is solely a historical institution. In Corso Vannucci, Perugia’s main square, there is an artifact still visible: a small tile painted with a skull and crossbones on the outside of house number thirty-eight.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’d like to thank the MacDowell Colony and Civitella Ranieri for their great kindness to our family. A big thanks to my students at San Francisco State University for keeping me in line. Thank you to the playwright Diego Mencaroni and the poet Riccardo Duranti for their insights into Italian history and culture. Grady Hendrix, Michelle Gagnon, Molly Antopol, Helena Echlin—cruel, brilliant readers all. And Sarah Crichton, my editor. You are the real deal.

Rob McQuilkin, agent. We know where this book would be without you. You are the old guard, the gregarious bitch-slapper, the sort that sweet talks and bullies a writer, and then stands behind her, fangs bared. In the era of the easy online gush, this, friend, in print. It’s been ten years. Thank you.

The family: cheers to Mom for running the house in Italy, and to my brother, sister-in-law, and father for believing in me. Thank you, Peter, for pushing me as an author, and otherwise. I love you so much, and should say it more. And finally, thank you, Phoebe Kaplan Crouch Orner, for being such a good little Boo.

ALSO BY KATIE CROUCH

Men and Dogs

Girls in Trucks

A Note About the Author

Katie Crouch is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
Girls in Trucks
, among other novels. She contributes to
The Guardian, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Slate, The Rumpus
, and
Salon
. A MacDowell fellow, Crouch teaches at San Francisco State University and lives in Bolinas, California.

Sarah Crichton Books

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

Copyright © 2014 by Katie Crouch

All rights reserved

First edition, 2014

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Crouch, Katie.

     Abroad / Katie Crouch. — First edition.

          pages    cm

     ISBN 978-0-374-10036-0 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-374-71135-1 (ebook)

     1.  Women college students—Crimes against—Fiction.   2.  English—Italy—Fiction.   I.  Title.

PS3603.R683A63 2014

813'.6—dc23

2013035411

Farrar, Straus and Giroux books may be purchased for educational, business, or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or write to [email protected].

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