Descent from the Hill

By Jim Picardi

Justin Windsors conventional, patrician life drastically changes in September of 1960, when he enrolls at the Hill, a liberal arts college steeped in tradition and tucked away in the pastoral environs of Americas northeast. Its here that Justin and three college roommates embark on a lifelong journey. Th e lives of Justin, Nick Gensini, Marc Goldstein, and Chuck Mitchell become intertwined as they navigate coming of age in a world choked by war, civil strife, drugs, and protest. But harrowing choices their parents have made in the name of ideology and self-preservation are about to complicate the course of their lives.

DESCENT FROM THE HILL portrays the wistful idealism of 1960s generation youth. Conspiracies and secret pacts that span continents and lifetimesfrom Nazi Germany to Fascist Italy, Switzerland to South America, Vietnam to Berkeley and the Reagan-era United Statesultimately lead to revelations of personal betrayals and corruption at the highest levels of leadership.

Powerful, fascinating, and scholarlya thought-provoking novel! The author has expertly weaved together several complex stories of disparate but warm human relationships that develop during the crescendo of an era plagued by world shaking chaos. Characters are so believable, so clearly developed, and their dialogue so realistic, that readers will imagine themselves in the room, listening in on thought provoking conversation. All this wrapped up in an exciting page turner thats just fun to read.
Carolyn and Jack Fleming, authors of THINKING PLACES: WHERE GREAT IDEAS WERE BORN

Weaving an intriguing web of conspiracy that springs from the voracious tentacles of despots and god-brokers in collusion, DESCENT FROM THE HILL takes a vivid look at the sinister wages of war, governmental deceit, and hidden agendas. Its all here in this poignant tale of tyranny and betrayal.
Antoinette Pannard, author of MEPHISTO ON WING

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450235815

Jim Picardi

JIM PICARDI was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Hamilton College, where he studied languages and literature. A retired physician, he lives in Colorado and is currently working on his second novel

Book preview

Descent

from the Hill

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Jim Picardi

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Bloomington

Descent from the Hill

Copyright © 2010 by JIm Pacardi

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-4502-3580-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-3579-2 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-3581-5 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010908426

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 07/20/2010

Contents

Chronology

Popes Who Reigned during the Period 1939–1989

 PROLOGUE

PART 1

 CHAPTER 1

 CHAPTER 2

 CHAPTER 3

 CHAPTER 4

 CHAPTER 5

 CHAPTER 6

 CHAPTER 7

 CHAPTER 8

 CHAPTER 9

 CHAPTER 10

 CHAPTER 11

 CHAPTER 12

 CHAPTER 13

PART 2

 CHAPTER 14

 CHAPTER 15

 CHAPTER 16

 CHAPTER 17

 CHAPTER 18

 CHAPTER 19

PART 3

 CHAPTER 20

 CHAPTER 21

 CHAPTER 22

 CHAPTER 23

 CHAPTER 24

 CHAPTER 25

 CHAPTER 26

 CHAPTER 27

 CHAPTER 28

 CHAPTER 29

 CHAPTER 30

AUTHOR’S NOTES and REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Chronology

1957–1989

Popes Who Reigned during the Period 1939–1989

Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli): March 2, 1939–October 9, 1958

Pope John XXIII (Angelo Roncalli): October 28, 1958–June 3, 1963

Pope Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini): June 21, 1963–August 6, 1978

Pope John Paul I (Albino Luciani): August 26, 1978–September 28, 1978

(thirty-three days)

Pope John Paul II (Karol Józef Wojtyła): October 16, 1978–April 2, 2005

This is a work of fiction and the invention of the author. With the exception of some well-known historical figures, all characters are the products of the author’s imagination and should not be construed as real. Where real-life figures and places appear, the depiction thereof, or dialogue concerning them, is entirely fictional and represents nothing more than the author’s imagination.

For my wife, Julie Elaine

What does more to stay us and keep our backbones stiff while the

world reels than the sense that we are linked with someone who

listens and understands and so in some way completes us?

—Wallace Stegner

PROLOGUE

THE 1974 FAILURE OF New York’s Franklin National Bank brought the international banking system dangerously close to disaster. The subsequent failure of Milan’s Banco Ambrosiano weakened the system further and exposed conspiracies that implicated Vatican Bank officials as major participants in an elaborate network of money laundering, associations with international dictators, and plots to overthrow the Italian government. The Vatican vehemently denied complicity or legal responsibility for enormous bank deficits and refused to surrender Vatican Bank directors to Italian authorities.

PART 1

FRIENDS

Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow.

Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead.

Just walk beside me and be my friend.

—Albert Camus

CHAPTER 1

November 18, 1989

I TURNED AT MY front door and saw a conflagration that surged amid trees, silhouetting the distant mountains. The dazzling panoply of constantly changing red and orange hues was gone too soon, but just when it seemed that the sun’s color show was over, light flashed again within the trees, and burnt sienna swirls capped the mountaintops.

Did you see that sunset? I asked my wife as I entered the house.

I did.

Could be a good omen, you think?

I hope so. She cast her eyes toward the notepad, where I saw the same message I’d dismissed several times: Francisco Fuentes. Please call.

He called again this morning.

I entered the living room and, without looking directly at her, asked if she’d gotten the mail.

It’s where I always put it—on your desk. Did you hear what I said? Are you listening to me?

Of course … yes, of course I’m listening. And I’m going to call him.

When?

After the funeral. Promise.

"He says he’s Abdon Fuentes’s son. Why are you ignoring him? You are ignoring him."

I’m not ignoring him, I said.

Is there something you’re keeping from me?

Of course not.

You knew his father well; you liked him. You said he was the best you worked with. Maybe he’s sick—could have died. It could be important.

I’ll call him. Just let me get through this week … the funeral, the homecoming. Did you forget about the homecoming?

How could I forget about that?

Just let me get through it all, and then I’ll be prepared to call him.

Prepared? Why do you have to be prepared? Why don’t you just call him, Justin?

Trust me. I’ll make the call.

Good question. I thought, Why do I have to be prepared? I’m not prepared for tomorrow’s funeral, but that’s understandable. Death’s finality jolts me. Its inescapable reality terrifies me. And it hurts too. No one is prepared for death.

Maybe it was the fifties that set me up for this reaction, that easy decade when anything was possible, when we worried little about being prepared. I didn’t worry about that bomb nonsense and worried even less about the future. Maybe I’m getting my comeuppance.

But I do remember when I became obsessed with being prepared. It wasn’t long after my arrival at a school we called the Hill, a liberal arts college steeped in tradition and tucked away in the pastoral environs of America’s northeast. That’s when three friends joined the story of my life and accompanied me on a journey that got me to this point in time: anticipating tomorrow’s funeral, awaiting next week’s homecoming, and working myself up to making that problematic phone call.

CHAPTER 2

September 1960

FRESHMEN LIVED IN REVELATION Hall, a building designed to resist the most aggressive ravages of volatile students. Its attractive stone exterior didn’t prepare you for linoleum floors and cinder block walls devoid of photographs, paintings, or other decorations. Dormitory rooms had two bunk beds and two doors, each of which led to a study with two desks—an arrangement that provided four students with a livable, if cramped, complex.

I was not the first to arrive on that Saturday in September of 1960. Atop one bunk bed was a sizeable someone, curled in the fetal position and sound asleep. I heard shuffling in one of the study rooms, but before I reached the door to see who it was, the lump in the top bunk sat up and shouted at me.

"What the fuck! Can’t a guy get some rest around here?"

I just stared at him as he nuzzled his head back into the hub of a pillow.

What’s his problem? The voice came from behind me, and when I turned around, I saw a guy about six feet tall, slender, with reddish brown, wavy hair and tortoiseshell, horn-rimmed glasses. Quasi-preppie clothes.

I have no idea, I said. I’m not sure I want to know about his problem.

He extended his hand and smiled. Nick Gensini.

Justin Windsor, I said. Glad to know you.

What do you like to be called?

Well … Justin, I guess. I thought, My name is Justin, and everyone calls me Justin. No one had ever asked me what I wanted to be called.

Okay. My name’s Nicholas, but I prefer to be called Nick.

Nick it’ll be. I relaxed, thinking we had finished with the formalities and could get on with unpacking and preparing for orientation.

What are you? he asked.

What do you mean?

You know. Where are you and your family from?

Connecticut, I said. Where are you from?

I was born in Brooklyn, but my mother and father came here from Italy. How about your parents?

Connecticut.

Connecticut. He thought for a few seconds before responding. I get it, so you’re a blue blood. We have a few blue bloods back home, mostly in Brooklyn Heights. Italians and Jews ran most of them out of New York years ago. How about that! I get to live with a blue-blooded American. You prejudiced against Italians?

You’re the only Italian I’ve ever met, I said with a smile. The conversation was pretty inane, so I asked if he had any brothers or sisters. Wrong question.

I have an older sister, Theresa. She went to nun school in the woods on Long Island. You should’ve seen that place—looked like a prison. I think it really was a prison at one time. And those nuns—man, were they strange. Wore black outfits with white starched bibs that pushed right up against their fat chins. They could hardly move. All they did was stare. They hardly talked unless they were mumbling prayers. But my sister told me they yelled at her a lot when they got mad.

Before the garrulous Nicholas Gensini could tell me more, we heard someone stirring around in the other study room and went in through the hallway entrance to check it out. A heavyset guy with dark, curly hair and black, horn-rimmed glasses perched on a moderate-sized, aquiline nose busily arranged his belongings. He turned and saw us, and then he walked toward us with an outstretched hand and a confident smile.

Marc Goldstein—glad to meet you. We pulled up chairs, told him our names, and talked about our plans for the future. Nick would join me in premed studies, and Marc would go for a degree in political science. The giant in the upper bunk snoozed on and was oblivious to our conversation, which continued until we adjourned to the Hall of Commons for dinner.

When we got back, our mystery mate was up and around, probably hungry but unwilling to say so. He certainly couldn’t have expected us to risk our gonads by warning him that he was going to sleep through dinner.

Chuck Mitchell, guys. Guess you’re my roommates for the next year, hey?

He was at least six feet four and had pomaded a thick mound of hair into a trendy pompadour that stayed upright for hours. He wasn’t at all hostile that evening and told us little about himself other than that he planned to go out for football, ice hockey, and lacrosse.

Goldstein? Gensini? What the fuck is this, the United Nations? Chuck smiled, pleased with his quip.

Like all living things, humans adapt, migrate, or die. Marc’s parents, Franz and Enid Goldstein, were German Jews who, like all Jews in early-1930s’ Germany, were not given the option to adapt. So when Franz realized that what his brother and sisters insisted couldn’t happen was about to happen, he and his wife migrated.

People do what they have to do, Marc told me the night I asked him about his family.

At least they got out, I said. But how? I really wanted to know. I’d never had a real conversation with a Jew before, and I was horrified and fascinated by the Holocaust.

They got to Switzerland with the meager remnants of their lives—I don’t remember exactly how. Anyway, they found out there that the German-Jewish Club of New York had arranged for their immigration to the United States. When they got to New York, the Club got them work and a place to stay—very basic, but livable.

What kind of job did your dad do?

He worked on Wall Street, Marc said.

That’s amazing.

A smile lingered right at the edge of a laugh. "As a runner, shuttling sales slips between brokers who were impatient with his poor English. He quit and went to work in the garment district, and then he set type at the New York Post Telegram and became friends with a Jewish refugee named Ariel Ringold. It was Ariel who convinced him they should save money and start a scrap metal business."

The enterprising sort.

Perhaps—it may be a genetic thing. Marc grinned a while as I impatiently awaited the rest of the story. "But Ariel obsessed about reports of Jews displaced and persecuted all over Europe. When Aufbau—the official publication of the German-Jewish Club—ran a story about the death camps, my father and Ariel felt they had to help finance the relief effort and established their scrap metal business in the Bronx."

Franz and Ariel, I learned, not only helped the relief effort—they also created substance and wealth from imagination, and they metamorphosed from impoverished refugees to fairly prosperous entrepreneurs.

They realized the great American dream, I said.

I guess you could look at it that way. But my parents eventually learned that none of their family members had survived the Holocaust, and my father got seriously depressed.

I guess they couldn’t do a whole lot for depression back then.

He had therapy with a Freudian psychoanalyst who gave him sedatives for his anxieties, but that was about it.

Like most psychiatric patients, Marc’s father never finished therapy; he simply stopped going.

It’s complicated, Justin. More than one issue caused my father’s depression. His business became a mixed blessing.

I don’t get it. Sounds like he did real well.

It’s late. Let’s call it a night.

Clearly there were details Marc wasn’t going to discuss—too painful? too delicate?—and the hour had nothing to do with it. Still, he struck me as the kind of guy who enthusiastically engaged the future and, unlike his parents, would never let himself be trapped by the past.

Nick and Chuck hitchhiked 150 miles to Peerson, a women’s college well known for high academic standards and loose women. On their return to our room, we got the details. Nick histrionically described a Mississippi magnolia who attracted him with her awe-inspiring looks and melting accent. We got a head to toe description, and at the end of it, rolled eyes and a sigh.

Chuck kept it simple. Her name is Carolyn. She’s nice, very pretty. Comes from Boston. I had a good time with her. And she’s a Christian. He smiled at Marc, who just smiled back.

During the next few weeks, football consumed Chuck’s weekends and left no time for socializing. Nick wasn’t about to hitchhike 150 miles by himself, so he put his Mississippi magnolia on the back burner and turned to local social gatherings to meet townies—high school girls with ordinary interests and little or none in higher education. When he brought a date to campus, we found that superficiality and lack of sophistication were not unattractive to Nick if the girls were also endowed with breasts hard to miss and virtue hard to detect. The more encounters he had, the more we had to listen to details of his conquests.

Can you actually talk about anything but premarital sex? Marc once asked him.

I never talk about premarital sex, guys, he said. I have no intentions of marrying any of them.

Unabashed inebriation was commonplace in the dormitory and at local bars where being carded wasn’t a concern. Students drank because it was cool, and those who drank unto oblivion were respected for their ability to not hold their liquor. We called it flailing, and the more a guy flailed, the more respect he gained from those who engaged in the same self-destructive behavior. Nick routinely got stinking drunk. He spent most of his party time in oblivion and most of his mornings retching or badly hungover.

My father chose the Hill, and in my house, you do what Vincent Gensini tells you to. Nick and I were in the dormitory after dinner. I preferred a large city university. Being out here in the wilderness isn’t for me.

Wilderness? This isn’t exactly wilderness, I said.

It sure is. I felt safe in the city—lots of people and no vicious animals.

I stared at him. He’d probably had a few, but he wasn’t drunk. What are you talking about?

They could be watching us right now.

Oh, c’mon, Nick. Get real. There are no vicious animals around here, and if there are, believe me, they’re a whole lot less vicious than the likes of man. I changed the subject. Tell me about your father. Does he make all your decisions for you?

Just about. He dragged me off to Italy as soon as I graduated from high school. Just the two of us. What an experience.

His father hailed from Neri, a small village near Rome where there was no local industry capable of supporting a vibrant lifestyle for its inhabitants. Vincent Gensini had therefore emigrated in quest of a better life in America. Family members who remained behind were not exactly pillars of rural gentry.

Cousin Gian Carlo owns a café that’s a front for a numbers racket he runs with his two sons. And then there’s my cousin Ana—a woman of dubious virtue, very sexy in a trashy but intriguing way. Not to mention uncles, aunts, grand-this and great-that—so many family members I can’t remember all their names.

But he most definitely remembered his Aunt Celeste, who lived in Rome but visited Neri often and was respected—even feared—as a family matriarch. She obviously intrigued Nick, who went on about her penetrating gaze.

It’s her eyes, he said. She stared at me a lot. Made me uncomfortable. There’s something about those eyes—strange as hell.

The Gensini family thrived on gossip but never gossiped about Aunt Celeste.

I think they’re afraid of her, he said. Not my father—he and Celeste are tight. Real tight. They took a business trip to Switzerland. Didn’t invite me to go with them.

Your father has a business in Switzerland?

I don’t have a clue. He just said there were business matters they needed to tend to. He never goes into details. Hell, Justin, he never tells me anything about his personal life, and I don’t ask any questions. He just goes on about things like Italian supremacy in religion, music, art, and women—in a general way, of course. He’s always talking about Italy. If it’s such a great place, why the hell did he leave?

"Good question. Why did he leave?"

Nick didn’t answer and thought for a while. You know, Justin, I don’t really like my father. He’s not someone you’d enjoy spending a lot of time with.

That’s pretty harsh, I said.

He’s not your father. You couldn’t possibly understand.

Maybe so, but we can always find something to not like about our parents. Mine are elitist bigots. They say the Holocaust never happened. ‘Jewish propaganda, Justin. Don’t believe a word of it.’

That’s pretty bad, Nick said.

See what I mean?

Uh-huh, but you’ll see what I mean when you meet Vincent Gensini.

Can’t wait. When he saw my smile, Nick seemed to relax.

CHAPTER 3

OUR FIRST HOUSE-PARTY WEEKEND was more than I expected. Beer flowed, music blasted, and nobody got much sleep. The festive spirit prompted even socially challenged nerds to let down their guard and relax under the influence of a few drinks.

Chuck and Carolyn danced the joint-dislocating Frug and necked.

Marc and his date, a former high school classmate, didn’t integrate with the party atmosphere well, but Nick and his magnolia miss, Connie, danced and flailed.

My date was generic. Everything about her was generic, even her name, which I can’t even recall. Nothing as racy as, say, Donna. We didn’t click, although my attitude toward women didn’t help matters. It had deteriorated appallingly after Emily Abigail Adams broke my heart when she left me for a horse—before I ever showed up at the Hill.

At the time I became obsessed with the nubile Emily, I knew virtually nothing about a woman’s body and the parts we didn’t share in common, though I often fantasized about naked women. I had once scrutinized a calendar photo of Marilyn Monroe unclothed. Her smile entranced me, but not as much as those upright breasts and perky nipples. I tried to imagine what I’d see if she spread her legs, but the image I came up with was innocently inaccurate. I wondered, What would Emily look like naked?

It all started during the sweltering summer before senior year of prep school. She lived in my neighborhood, and our two families socialized on occasion. One night when the Adams family came to our house for dinner, Emily invited me for a walk. She had a bright, passionate mouth and a way of carrying herself that accentuated her full breasts. We ended up in her backyard, where she pushed me against a wall and pressed her body to mine, rubbing and gyrating while we kissed. Her tongue explored every corner of my mouth.

Give me yours, Justin.

My what?

Your tongue, silly.

When I got my tongue in her mouth, it became a battle—her tongue against mine—and hers was winning.

Justin, I’m really hot for you.

I kind of like you too, I said.

I’m so wet.

I know, Em—it’s this awful humidity. Let’s go back to my house and relax a while.

I’m not sweating. She took my hand and placed it under her dress and onto the damp crotch of her panties. When I tried to pull my hand back, she promptly repositioned it and pushed harder, gyrating and moaning.

After a blissful, steamy summer, we returned to our respective prep schools and didn’t see each other again until Wednesday of Thanksgiving weekend. My mother had invited the Adams family for dinner—a special homecoming of sorts—after which Emily and I went for a ride in her red Corvette. We drove to the top of a hill that overlooked the town, its lights shining like candles in the dusk.

Emily could have cared less about candles in the dusk and within seconds of leaving her car had me over the hood. It was summer all over again. We got back in the car and groped each other until we were both exhausted and fell asleep in each other’s arms. When we awoke, it was close to midnight.

Thanksgiving Day passed uneventfully. I dined with my parents and my precocious fifteen-year-old sister who came to my room that evening to interrogate me.

What happened last night, Justin? Why’d you get home so late?

I was with Emily, and we just lost track of time.

You two into something heavy?

Just good friends, Sophie.

Oh, sure.

Hi, Justin. I have a riding lesson this morning. Want to come and watch?

Emily’s form-fitting jodhpurs revealed the enticing curves of her hips and buttocks. She had her hair in a ponytail and wore hardly any makeup, which inspired the thought that she was a natural beauty, and I was the luckiest guy in the world.

After her lesson, we went to lunch at the local deli and then to her house. She took a shower, having stacked her record player with her favorite forty-fives, and when she joined me on the couch, she was wearing a plaid skirt and cashmere sweater. She rested her head on my shoulder and reminded me that her parents traditionally spent the weekend after Thanksgiving Day in New York City.

The next thing I knew, Emily was sitting on my lap, facing me. I worked my fingers under her panties, and she writhed so that I inadvertently entered her with my forefinger. Although my sexual knowledge was increasing at an astonishing rate, it hadn’t increased to the point that I could be sure I’d satisfied Emily that afternoon. I had explored my own sexuality, but that was different. Sort of came naturally. I wondered, How did it work for a girl?

When we got together the next day, I purposefully entered her with my finger and felt her as she writhed frantically and then moaned and panted, carrying on in crescendo until she reached that moment of "Oooh, yes!" We didn’t talk about it, but I held her for several minutes until she relaxed.

And then I felt her tug at my trousers. After loosening my belt, she tried to undo the waist button but ripped it off in her haste. She unzipped my trousers and lowered them to my ankles, and then she had her hand under my shorts, which she also lowered to my ankles. I was embarrassed, mortified, more or less lying on the Adamses’ couch with clothes around my ankles and my mindless erection exposed, but Emily—looking pleased with both of us—bent over me and proceeded to stroke and lick until it was even bigger.

How’s that? she asked. Before I could say anything—although I didn’t know what to say—she’d taken my pulsating organ in her mouth. I lifted my head and saw Emily’s head rise and fall rhythmically, in sync with the excruciating pangs of pleasure that held me spellbound. I wondered briefly if this feeling might actually blow the top off my skull, and then I sighed and allowed myself the ultimate pleasure of my relatively short lifetime.

As we lay collapsed on the couch, Emily noticed the time on the grandfather clock.

We’d better get dressed, she said. My parents won’t mind if you’re here as long as your belt is up around your waist.

When I awoke on Sunday morning, I lay in bed trying to replay