The House of Serenades (26 page)

One day the doctor noticed in Giuseppe signs of an unclear mind. On a couple of occasions he heard him utter disconnected words and sentences without a meaning. And when he tried to make conversation with him, he realized that Giuseppe took longer than normal to understand what he was saying. Frightened at the thought that Giuseppe might become incapacitated or die, Damiano asked himself what he should do to prepare for the lawyer’s imminent passing. The Parenti document he had in his nightstand would not be as valuable with Giuseppe no longer alive, although he could perhaps still use it for blackmail, as he had originally thought. Giuseppe’s sons, even Matilda, would want to keep that document away from indiscrete eyes. Opportunity knocked when one least expected it, he knew all too well, so he resolved to keep the document in question in his pocket at all time in case he found himself in a situation that required the document to be put to use. Meanwhile, out of professional scruples, he warned Matilda that Giuseppe’s condition was not improving.

“His mind is fading,” he said sadly. “You should prepare for the worst. I’ll be back tomorrow, but call me if something happens overnight. I’ll bring a nurse with me in the morning, someone who can stay with Giuseppe all the time.”

That night Matilda sat at the foot of her bed, staring at her own shadow on the floor. She wondered about Giuseppe’s condition and hoped it would continue to deteriorate. She could soon be a widow and free to do as she pleased. The secret of her hymen would die with Giuseppe and nothing would prevent her from freeing Caterina. She moved to her dressing table and looked at herself in the mirror. She had aged visibly during the past year, and her face showed signs of the long hours spent at her husband’s bedside and of the emotions of the past days. Her skin was wrinkled in places that had been smooth, her eyes were torpid and sad. She stared at the unfamiliar image the mirror was sending back to her. Past her own reflection and the dancing light, deep into the glass, Matilda saw the ghost of Caterina. She saw the blond hair, the green eyes, and the joyful smiles. She heard her laughter, loud and sudden like fireworks in the dark of the night, and her tingling voice, and the sound of her steps in the corridors of the
palazzina
. Then she saw Caterina as she had seen her last, standing under the rain by the locked gate, begging for her and Giuseppe’s forgiveness, shouting Raimondo’s name to save herself from the punishment that had been set for her. Eyes fixed to the mirror, Matilda wondered if there was some truth in Caterina’s words, if Caterina knew secrets no one else knew. She wondered about Raimondo and the life of dissolution he led outside the firm, women and alcohol and tobacco
a gogo’
. It was then that Caterina’s words echoed in her mind.

“Do you want to know who? Do you? Raimondo did it! Do you understand, Father? Your son Raimondo did it! My brother!”

Brusquely, Matilda turned away from the mirror. She stood up, fluffed her dress, and calmly descended the staircase. Downstairs, she summoned Guglielmo and the rest of the staff to the blue parlor.

“I will be going on a trip that will keep me away from home for a few days,” she told everybody. “I’ll leave in the morning.”

“Do you need to be accompanied, Madame?” Guglielmo asked.

“No. I’ll travel alone. You will only take me to the train station.”

Guglielmo’s breath stopped momentarily in his throat. Madame had never taken a trip alone before, not even in town. He quickly recomposed himself. “Do we need to inform your sons, Madame?”

“You will inform them after my departure,” Matilda ordered. “You will also ask them on my behalf to look after their father while I’m gone. There’s nothing to worry about, because starting tomorrow a nurse will be assisting my husband day and night.” She paused a moment then flipped her hand in the air. “This will be all.”

It was pitch dark when after a long train journey and a bumpy coach ride Matilda arrived in Mirabello, the village east of Milan. She checked in at the only inn, a country estate that had seen better times. Untrimmed plants and dry grass covered the neglected ground, mold sprouted visibly on the façade, and the front door was scratched, with paint falling off in places. Exhausted from the train and coach rides, Matilda took no notice of the disarray. She retired to an unadorned bedroom on the second floor, where she spent the night tossing and turning, rehearsing what she would say to Caterina after a two-year-long separation. It’d be difficult to find the right words, no matter how long or short the speech. How would she explain? Had Caterina understood what happened? Had she made sense of her reclusion? A shroud of anxiety wrapped around her, and her throat dried. In search of drinking water, she got up and tiptoed on the creaking wooden boards that paved the hallway. Smells of burnt wood from the inn fireplace and melted sugar from the kitchen filled the air. They were familiar odors from her childhood in the family castle. She remembered the afternoons spent reading in front of the imposing marble fireplace while outside the snow fell and covered the ground; the multi-layered cakes that appeared as if by miracle on her birthdays; the weight of the blankets and spreads that covered her bed; and the warmth of her mother’s good-night kisses. Why should Caterina be deprived of all this? Why should her life end at eighteen because of a mistake any young girl could make? Walking back to her bedroom, inhaling the odors of her youth, in a moment of clarity, she resolved to tell Caterina the whole truth: her hymen, her fears, the mock funeral, the threatening letters, the cat on the door, and the gravity of Giuseppe’s illness. Then she would beg Caterina to forgive her and come home with her to start a new life. As she slipped again under the covers, she began to dream of Caterina’s arrival at the
palazzina
, of her first meal, her first walk downtown. She imagined the girl’s smile as she embraced her brothers and her happiness as she resumed her old life. Had she changed? Had she grown? Lying in bed, eyes closed, she dreamed on, stopping only when, once more, fear took over. Would Caterina be able to forgive her for having stolen two years of her life?

At dawn, in a mist of fog and drizzle, she boarded a coach and gave the coachman directions. The trip across the countryside lasted close to half an hour, during which Matilda relived every detail of the previous trip, its tragic outcome, its absurdity. There was fog over the fields, which were deserted and soaked by the morning dew. She could hear the horse’s hooves and the wheels slush along the dirt road. In front of the convent gate she looked for the bell Giuseppe had rung two years earlier. The bell, however, wasn’t there. Puzzled, Matilda searched for the bell in the nearby bushes, pulling branches and shoving leaves aside. There was no bell anywhere. Tears flowed down her cheeks. How was she supposed to get in? How was she supposed to let the nuns know that she was there? In a panic, she took hold of two gate posts and thrust her face forward, cheeks against the iron. She shouted, “Hello? Hello?”

Ten minutes later, when Matilda’s strained vocal chords could emit only scratchy, faint sounds, three silhouettes emerged from the tree grove and walked in small, tentative steps towards the gate. They were nuns, and like on the day of Caterina’s arrival, they were dressed in black and veiled.

“Finally,” Matilda exclaimed with the little voice she had left. “I have been calling for a long time. No bell?”

Through the veils, the nuns stared at Matilda without moving.

“I am Matilda Pellettieri, Caterina Berilli’s mother,” Matilda explained. “I’m here to see my daughter. Please take me to her.”

The nuns turned to each other and then back to Matilda. One of them lifted an arm and opened the palm of her hand. Matilda interpreted the gesture as a request that she wait while the nuns fetched Caterina. Indeed two nuns left and one remained, standing still in front of Matilda, on the other side of the gate. Shortly a forth nun arrived. Unlike the others, she wore a white uniform and was not veiled.

“I’m Sister Anna,” the unveiled nun told Matilda. “I’m not part of this congregation. I’m only visiting, which is why I can speak. Your daughter is not here. She fled yesterday with a man who appeared all of a sudden in our chapel. I was present when it happened, and I can assure you we were all very scared.”

Matilda felt the ground shift beneath her feet. “A man?” she murmured. “Who?”

Sister Anna said, “We have no idea.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Matilda exclaimed.

“But we did,” Sister Anna replied calmly. “The Mother Superior sent a telegram to your home only a few hours after your daughter fled. Are you all right?” the nun asked, noticing Matilda’s ghastly face.

13

‘LOCKING A YOUNG WOMAN in the convent of the Sorelle Addolorate for the rest of her life serves no purpose,’ Matilda had said to Giuseppe during their heated discussion in his bedroom. Viola, who was passing in the hallway with brooms and brushes, overheard. That was the first time since Caterina’s funeral Matilda had mentioned the convent’s full name. The consequences of that slip of the tongue would be unimaginable. That very same night Viola, who from her conversations with Lavinia knew about the relationship between Ivano and Caterina, left the
palazzina
in secrecy and rushed to Ivano’s home. They had never met, and when Ivano opened the door he couldn’t fathom who the woman in front of him was. When she told him she was a maid in the Berillis’ household, Ivano’s heart skipped a beat.

“I know where she is,” she told him. “You and Lavinia were right.”

‘I knew it,” Ivano shouted. He grabbed Viola by the shoulders. “Where is she? Where?”

“Calm down. She is in a convent,” Viola said, showing Ivano a piece of paper. “This is the address and how to get there. I have a niece who is a nun. She gave me the information.”

Ivano hugged Viola. “Thank you,” he said with an energized tone of voice no one had heard in months. “I don’t know how, but I will repay you.”

“The only thing you can do to repay me is bring Caterina home,” Viola said. “I’m only a maid, and my opinion counts less than an anchovy’s tail,” she added, “but I like that girl.” She paused. “I like her way more than I like her father.”

An hour later, having reasoned it’d be pointless to involve the police as he had no proof other than an overheard conversation, Ivano found his father.

“I’m going on a trip,” he said. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but there’s no reason for you to worry. I’ll return soon.”

Sadly, Corrado looked at his son, the small bag he was carrying in one hand, the mandolin he held in the other.

Ivano handed him the mandolin. “Take care of this for me.”

Corrado took the instrument and caressed Ivano’s cheek.

As Matilda would do two days later, Ivano traveled to Milan by train and then to the village of Mirabello by coach. He did not spend the night at the inn, as he didn’t want to leave a trail. Across from the inn was an abandoned building, part of which was being rebuilt. Inside, amidst tools and boards, Ivano found a pile of rags, which he arranged into a bed on the cold ground—it wasn’t a foreign experience for him to sleep in improvised quarters. The night was cold, and the humidity rapidly sank into his bones. Shivering, he lay on the rags and curled into a ball, hugging himself and warming his hands with his breath. The night went by slowly, so slowly Ivano thought time had stopped and would never resume its course. He dozed off occasionally, never long enough to fall completely asleep. Then he was awake again, counting his breaths as proof that life still existed and time was moving forward. Finally, the light of dawn filtered in. He stood up and left the building. At an ever-running fountain in the middle of the only
piazza
he splashed cold water on his face. The map Viola had given him was in his pocket, and he read it over and over before heading on foot through fields moist with dew drops. The morning fog and drizzle confused him more than once, but he was still able to move in the right direction, despite the poor visibility and the cold.

He arrived at the convent one and a half hours later, shoes and feet soaked from the moist soil. The compound was surrounded by deserted countryside. The silence was heavy, oppressive. Through the posts of the locked convent gate, Ivano observed the gravel path leading to the oak-and-pine grove. Whether the path continued past the grove, he couldn’t tell, because the grove was too thick to see through. The gate itself was set into tall walls of stone that surrounded the property and hid everything from sight. Puzzled, he slowly followed the perimeter, stopping occasionally to touch the wall as if in search of a secret passage that would lead him inside. He found no passage, saw no one. Back at the gate, he grazed the lock several times, analyzing its shape and mechanism. He didn’t like the idea of picking that lock, because he had left those tricks behind when he had abandoned the underworld, but he saw no other way to enter the compound. A closer examination, however, revealed a sad truth: it was a double lock, with cylinders so thick and long it would take at least three turns of a sturdy key to slide them all the way. In addition, there was a small protrusion inside the keyhole that needed to be pushed for the cylinders to be able to turn. Only the proper key would be able to push the protrusion and turn the cylinders at the same time. Despite his long practice, he realized he wouldn’t be able to pick that lock, even if he had a host of tools. The nuns had gone to great trouble to make sure the uninvited would be kept outside. He stepped away, sat on a small rock, and spent several hours in silent observation, hoping to catch a glimpse of movement or hear a sound. He saw no one entering or leaving the convent, no one walking along the gravel path. The place seemed deserted and impregnable. It would be no simple matter, he realized, to be admitted beyond the convent walls.

The sun had broken the fog barrier and the grass had dried when he walked back to the village for a brief lunch, after which he returned to the convent right away. As his observation post, he picked a secluded area under a tree some fifty yards from the gate. He stayed there most of the afternoon, puzzled by the total lack of activity and asking himself what could possibly gain him admittance to that impenetrable place. Suddenly, as discouragement started to prevail, a man emerged from the grove. Ivano’s first thought was that his mind was playing tricks on him, showing him ghosts. But as the man kept walking on the gravel path towards the gate, Ivano understood that he was real. At the gate, the man, an elderly fellow with a curly gray beard, extracted a large skeleton key from his jacket’s pocket and let himself out. Then he locked the gate behind him, replaced the key in the pocket, and walked away. Swiftly, Ivano left his observation post with only one thought in his mind: the man with the key, whoever he was, would be his Trojan horse.