The House of Serenades (12 page)

He approached her while Lavinia was brushing raindrops off Caterina’s cape.

“You’re soaking wet, Miss,” Lavinia said. “Please don’t catch a cold.”

“I won’t,” Caterina replied, combing her hair with her fingers. “My hair is only a bit damp.”

“Good morning, ladies,” Ivano said with a soothing voice. “Welcome to the best bakery in town.”

Caterina glanced at him distractedly, ready to produce a nod and a half smile, but the instant her eyes met Ivano’s, a shiver ran down her spine.

“Let me take your cape, Miss,” Ivano continued in his engaging voice. “I’ll hang it in the oven room. It’ll be dry in no time.” He took Caterina’s garment gently, with a soft grazing of her shoulders.

At the touch of his hands, Caterina flinched as if she had been brushed by fire.

“January is a crazy month,” Ivano said, cape in hand, as he disappeared behind a door. “Sun, rain, and more sun.”

The brief moments he spent out of her sight felt like an eternity to Caterina. At some point she turned to Lavinia, as if asking for an explanation. Lavinia shook her head and gave Caterina a reproaching smile.

“You have the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen,” Ivano murmured, reappearing.

Caterina blushed visibly as she lowered her eyes. A weakness in her knees made her sway.

“Thank you, young man,” Lavinia intervened. “We’ll be on our way shortly, as soon as I see a free carriage outside.”

The rain kept falling steadily, and for a long time not a single carriage drove by the bakery or stopped nearby. Inside the store, the customers became edgy as worries about the effects of the horrible weather on their homes and terraces became the main topic of their conversations. Meanwhile, eyes on Ivano, Caterina tried pointlessly to control her shaking knees.

Confused as much as she was, at a loss as to what he should say to Caterina, at some point Ivano reached under the counter and took out an instrument. “Music is a good way to pass time while we’re all trapped in here,” he said, sitting on a stool.

The instrument was a perfectly built and lovingly maintained Neapolitan mandolin, with a deep rounded body. It was made of rosewood and mounted four pairs of metal strings tuned like the strings of a violin. Corrado Bo had purchased the mandolin in Naples in 1882, when he had been twenty-four and a passionate student of music in its popular forms. Family downturns had forced him out of the music milieu back into the bakery trade. As he abandoned his dream of being a professional musician, he vowed that Ivano would grow up appreciating the beauty of the instrument and learn how to play the wide range of music the mandolin allowed for. He taught his son daily, starting at age five, showing him at first the rudiments of music, then the scales and the chords, and then the more advanced techniques. Ivano absorbed all that knowledge effortlessly.

It was with a quiver in his breathing that, on that rainy morning at the bakery, looking straight into Caterina’s eyes, Ivano began plucking the mandolin strings with a red heart-shaped plectrum. Dumbfounded by the attraction he felt for that girl from another world, he frantically searched his musical knowledge for an appropriate piece to play. He knew many ballads and popular songs, but somehow none of them seemed fit for the occasion. Then he thought of a piece his father had taught him long ago, one he had never particularly liked and hence hardly ever played, because it was an opera, his least favorite genre. Suddenly he felt an urge to play that piece, and to do so he groped through memories, hoping to remember the chords and be able to play them in the correct sequence. Caught up in his worries of failing in front of such an attractive young girl, he didn’t realize that the fingers of his left hand had begun to press swiftly the strings as the plectrum in his right hand was producing a perfect tremolando. He went on to play beautifully, as if he had played that piece every day of his life. It was the Serenata from Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

The murmurs in the bakery ceased, and Caterina, Lavinia, and everyone present stared at the young musician in awe. When he stopped playing several minutes later, nobody dared break the silence. Then someone in a corner screamed “Bravo!” drawing the rest of the spectators in a long, heartfelt applause. Caterina, meanwhile, had kept silent, unable to move a muscle of her body or unglue her eyes from the magnetic face of her admirer.

“Look!” Lavinia exclaimed, pointing at a window. “It stopped raining. The sun is coming out. Young man, would you retrieve the cape so we can go home?”

With care, Ivano set the mandolin against the wall then recovered the cape from the oven room. “Here it is, Miss,” he said, placing it on Caterina’s shoulders. “I hope you enjoyed the entertainment.”

6

THE SHADOWS WERE LENGTHENING when Lavinia, holding a silver tray with all the tea fixings, began looking for Caterina. Her first stop was the family living room, where Caterina liked to spend time in the afternoon. There were two living rooms at the
palazzina
. The largest one, furnished with many sofas and chandeliers, was reserved for parties and receptions. Located in the front of the house, easily accessible from the foyer, it was never open unless a social event was on the schedule for the week. The second living room, smaller and more intimate, located in the back of the house, was reserved for the family members. Lavinia entered it surefooted, certain that Caterina would be there. But she wasn’t. Perplexed, Lavinia placed the tray on a coffee table and moved on to the blue parlor, where she knew Madame was entertaining two lady friends. Perhaps, she thought, Caterina had joined them, now that she was no longer a child but a young woman soon to be introduced to society. The door of the blue parlor was ajar, so Lavinia peeked in: Madame was seated on the loveseat, and her two friends on the armchairs, facing her. They were sipping tea, likely served earlier by Viola, and conversing peacefully. No trace of Caterina. Next, Lavinia went upstairs, to Caterina’s bedroom, which was deserted. After exploring the kitchen, the dining room, the reading room, the laundry room, and the guest quarters, she scratched her head. Not for a minute did she think of entering the social living room, as no party was planned for the next several days. The curtains were drawn, the shutters closed tightly. That room often reminded Lavinia of a tomb. The only place left on Lavinia’s mental list was the garden, where Caterina occasionally groomed the hydrangeas. She was still musing over the girl’s untimely disappearance when she opened the
palazzina
’s front door and stood on the steps, from where she had a good view of the flower beds and the street. She saw no trace of Caterina but noticed that one of the social-living-room shutters was open. At once, she descended the steps to the garden, walked to the open shutter and looked inside. By the window, seated in an armchair, charcoal in hand, Caterina was tracing lines on a sheet of paper, her eyes squeezed tightly in the effort.

“What in the world are you doing there?” Lavinia exclaimed.

With a small jerk, Caterina lifted her head from the paper. She hadn’t expected to see a face peering in at her from the garden.

“Don’t move,” Lavinia said, pulling away. “I don’t know what to do with this girl,” she murmured as she reentered the
palazzina
in a hurry. A moment later she was standing in front of Caterina’s armchair, in a large room that smelled of naphthalene balls and was mostly dark and uninviting, other than for the sunlight hovering over Caterina.

She asked, “Would you care to explain? You know better than I that you are not supposed to be here. This room is closed. If your mother sees you …”

“What?” Caterina said in a defiant tone. Then her voice softened. She whispered, “I wanted to be alone.” She gazed at the sheet of paper on her lap.

Drawing was a passion she had developed in childhood, as soon as she had begun elementary school. Everyone had quickly discovered that she was a talented artist, capable of capturing the essence of a subject with minimal strokes. Her teachers had noticed and praised the girl with big words and awards and even a one-person show at her high school. Her father had refused to attended, scoffing and labeling Caterina’s artistic endeavors a waste of time. But Matilda had participated, always encouraging Caterina and telling her she should be proud of her accomplishments, no matter what her father said. In fact she had framed two of Caterina’s best drawings and hung them in the blue parlor, above the fireplace, where her lady friends could see them. Their compliments about the freshness and originality of the compositions made her gloat every time.

“Alone? Why?” Lavinia asked, taking a step forward and glancing at the paper. She expected to see one of the girl’s two favorite subjects: Madame’s face or a flower composition. But what she saw was no Madame or flowers. On the white paper was a sketch of a mandolin next to two dark, gentle eyes.

“What is wrong with you?” she said, snatching the drawing out of Caterina’s hands.

Caterina looked away, out the window, in the distance, her expression forlorn, her eyes melancholic.

Lavinia spoke with disbelief. “Are you still thinking about that baker?”

Caterina didn’t answer.

Lavinia’s eyes widened as she spoke with a deeper, worried voice. “Stop thinking about him at once. He’s a baker, for Christ sake,
a baker!
”

Caterina shook her head. “I can’t. I have been thinking about him ever since we left his bakery this morning.”

Lavinia rolled her eyes. “God help us,” she whispered.

With a sudden energy in her movements, Caterina turned to her chaperone. “I want to see him again. Please, arrange an encounter. Tomorrow. Please …”

“Certainly not,” Lavinia stated. Your father would kill me.”

Undaunted, Caterina clasped her hands as if in a prayer and gave Lavinia the most innocent look she was capable of producing. “Please …”

“No,” Lavinia stated. “And stop drawing mandolins and sweet, drooping eyes. There’s no way you’ll see your baker friend again.”

She set her hands on her hips, expecting Caterina to make a scene. Instead, Caterina stood up and whispered, “I love him, and there’s nothing anyone can do to change how I feel.”

Lavinia took a step back. Love? What did Caterina know about love? Surely nothing. She was raving, raving under the influence of that silly music she had heard. Damn rain. Had it stayed sunny all morning, none of this nonsense would be happening. She cleared her throat to give herself time to come up with a plan. She considered giving Caterina a lecture about the appropriate and inappropriate behavior of upper-class girls, but on second thought decided to drop the subject. Perhaps the best course of action was to cut the conversation short. All Caterina needed was time, a day or two of distraction, and then the mandolin player would be forgotten. He was a whim, like many others Caterina had. She should take her to the port, to see the transatlantic ships docking and unloading passengers; or to the theater, to see an opera matinee.

“Let’s go get your tea tray,” Lavinia said casually. “I left it in the family living room, where you should have been in the first place. I bet the tea is cold by now. We’ll warm it up. Come on.”

Surprisingly, Caterina followed Lavinia without arguing. Once they reached the kitchen, however, and Lavinia placed the teapot on the stove, Caterina clasped Lavinia’s arm.

“I want to see him again,” she said with a determined voice, “and you know all too well that I won’t stop annoying you until I do.”

Lavinia nodded. She knew how stubborn Caterina could be, and it came to her as no surprise that in the case of her sudden passion for a sweet-eyed, mandolin-plucking fellow the girl wouldn’t take no for an answer. She was nonetheless determined to impede any further contact between her charge and the baker.

“I will not let my affection cloud my judgment,” she mumbled to herself as she turned away from Caterina to place the teapot back on the tray. And with that, she headed back towards the family living room.

Caterina tagged along, begging and begging, explaining how she had often wondered what falling in love might mean and how she’d feel when it would happen, and how she had discussed those topics over and over with her schoolmates, who were as ignorant of that matter as she was, but as eager to find out. “Now I know,” she said with a trembling voice. “I’m in love, Lavinia. This won’t go away.”

It was a fact that Lavinia, who had not been blessed with children of her own, had a weakness for Caterina she struggled to control. She had loved the girl from the day she had been hired to work at the
palazzina
, when Caterina was five, and the large amount of time she spent with her daily had only strengthened the affection. Consequently, Lavinia’s initial determination to put an end to the queer idea of loving a baker weakened under her mistress’s continued and passionate begging for an encounter. It took Caterina exactly one hour to bend Lavinia’s will.

“Fine. I’ll set up a meeting,” Lavinia said, exhausted from the long quarrel. “But only one. And the only reason I’m doing it, so you know, is so you can see for yourself what kind of low-class, ignorant man your mandolin player is. I’m certain that after talking to him for three minutes you’ll want to shove him out of your life forever.”

“Yes!” Caterina shouted, giving Lavinia a heartfelt hug. Then she ran off to her room, where she lay on her bed and stared a long time at the ceiling.

She had never experienced so deep an unsettlement before. Her breathing was shallow and fast, her mouth dry, and she had the impression that her bones were melting into the bed sheets. She was lost in visions of Ivano’s angelic eyes, his beautifully sculpted body, and his skilled hands caressing the strings of the mandolin. The music was playing in her ears, note after note after note, as if she had known that tune all her life. It was inside her, flowing along the blood in her veins. She was brimming with Ivano’s images, with his smell, with his sounds. She stood up a half hour later to take a ream of white of paper and three pieces of charcoal out of a drawer. Over the two hours that followed she did nothing other than draw Ivano: his mouth, eyes, brow, hair, hands, nose, and of course his mandolin. To Caterina, the instrument was part of Ivano’s body. The way he had played it, so naturally, so fluidly, it had seemed an extension of his arms—and of his heart. She stopped sketching only around dinner time, when Lavinia came to her room to fetch her. By then, she had filled twenty-three sheets.