They completed one more errand on the way, stopping briefly at the bus stop at the end of the long drive into the villa. Ross hopped out and checked the schedule, scribbling it into a small notepad.

Rendola’s outer yard was vacant when they arrived. They crossed the courtyard and Luigi rang Anna’s doorbell. She greeted them from an upper window.

“Buona sera, signori.”

A moment later she emerged from her apartment carrying a large plastic envelope tucked under one arm and a bottle of red wine clutched in the other.

She led them to the apartment, unlocked the door and they went inside. They sat around the kitchen table while Anna spread the contracts out in front of them. After she had explained in meticulous detail the troubles of her morning, they signed the lease papers. Then she opened the wine, poured their glasses full and they consummated the deal with a toast.

Anna handed Ross a set of keys then walked him and Luigi around the apartment, explaining how things worked and what to do if and when the power went out, which Ross could expect a couple times a month. She showed him how to check the radiator and bleed it of excess air when it wasn’t working properly and how to restart the water heater. She gave him a rubrica: a phone book filled with the numbers of local restaurants and shops. They went outside, and Luigi recorded the gas levels on a meter built into the courtyard wall.

On their way driving up to the villa, Ross had noticed an older couple filling water bottles at a brass spigot at the end of the property. He asked Anna about it.

“Oh yes,” she said. “It is good springwater. We all fill our bottles there. There is a sign that says ‘Non Potabile,’ but do not believe it. Half of Chianti would be dead if it were true. Someone put it there a couple years ago to keep outsiders away. It is better than the bottled water in stores. And it’s free.”

Ross thanked her and she left them. Then Luigi left as well, leaving Ross to settle into his new place. He hung his clothes, put his toiletries in the bathroom and then walked around the apartment. There were four new paintings that hadn’t been there when he first came—two landscapes, one of the Chianti hills, the other of a field of sunflowers. There was one still life—a wooden platter with grapes and cheese—and one framed portrait of Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of Italy. Ross had noticed the new artwork the moment he stepped foot in the apartment. Unlike the cheap reproductions passed off as art in most rentals, this art pleased him. For one they were originals. More important than that, they were good.

He examined the paintings in greater detail. He especially liked the painting of sunflowers. He heard a noise in the courtyard and pulled back the kitchen curtain. The boy he had seen by the pool was kicking a soccer ball against the inner wall. He looked around for the boy’s mother, but the child was alone.