The Savage Garden by Mark Mills

hill from the garden at a run, and that now had him furiously flipping through the old book.
        He found what he was looking for in the fifth Canto of
Inferno:
        
Cosi discesi del cerchio primaio giu nel secondo ...
        
So I descended from the first circle down to the second...
        His eyes roamed over the text: a dark place . . . the cries and curses of the sinners as they're whirled around in a vicious wind that never stops . . .
i peccator carnali.
        He read on a little to confirm that he hadn't misunderstood. He hadn't.
        If the ilex trees stood for the dark wood where Dante lost his way, and the triumphal arch represented the Gates of Hell, then Federico Docci had chosen to place the statue of his dead wife in the circle of Hell that housed the carnal sinners, the adulterers.
        He was still trying to take this on board when Maria entered the library from the drawing room.
        "Maria."
        "Sir." Why had she taken to calling him "sir"? "Signora Docci wishes to see you."
        "Thank you."
        He didn't move.
        "Is everything all right, sir?"
        "Yes."
        His mind was still reeling from the discovery, yes, but his sweat- soaked shirt was also glued to the back of the leather chair, and he worried what sound it would make if he got to his feet in her presence.
        He was right to have waited till she left. It was a ripping sound, a bit like Velcro.

        Signora Docci wasn't in her bed, which threw him at first. She had only ever been in her bed. But now it was empty, neatly made, the white cotton counterpane smoothed flat as ice.
        "Out here," came her voice from the loggia.
        She was seated in a rattan chair, and she was wearing a navy blue skirt and a white cotton blouse. Her feet were bare and resting on a footstool. Her hair, which she had always worn loose, was drawn back in a ponytail; and in the sunlight flooding the loggia, her face had lost some of its pallor. She looked like a passenger lounging on the deck of an ocean liner—the first-class deck.
        "I thought we'd have tea
al fresco
today," she said matter-of- factly. Unable to keep up the pretense, a slow smile broke across her face. "You should see your expression."
        "I'm surprised."
        "It's hardly the raising of Lazarus. Anyway, it's your fault." "My fault?"
        "Well, not directly. It's the shame of talking to you every day from my bed. It's not dignified."
        "You don't have to feel dignified on my account."
        "Oh, I don't—it's entirely on my own account." She turned her face into the sun. "It is a long time since I felt the sun on my face." She gestured toward the tea service laid out on the low table. "Do you mind?"
        Adam poured the tea, as he always did. She was very particular— milk first, then the tea, then half a spoon of sugar.
        "You were running," she said.
        "Running?"
        "Well, trying to. I saw you from there." She pointed toward the low wall of the loggia.
        Instinct told him to keep the discovery to himself. If indeed that's what it was. Maybe he had imposed Dante on the garden, or the garden on Dante. He needed to be sure. And that would take time.
        "I thought I was on to something. I was wrong."
        She wasn't going to let him get away with it that easily. "What?"
        "Zephyr," he replied, still formulating his response.
        "Zephyr?"
        "The west wind."
        "Yes, I know."
        "Well, in the myth he's Flora's husband; in life Federico was her husband. I suddenly thought, I don't know, that maybe the statue of Zephyr had been modeled on Federico. I wanted to see if there was a resemblance with the portrait in the study."
        "Interesting."
        "Except there's no likeness." He shrugged.
        If she sensed his evasion, she didn't say anything. What she
did
say surprised him.
        "There's a bedroom in the