Second Skin (37 page)

‘Bernice, is that you?’ The voice was dry and brittle as a broom sweeping a sidewalk.

‘Yes, Mary Margaret.’

‘What has happened?’

‘Marco Goldoni has had a stroke.’

‘How bad is he?’

‘Quite bad, apparently.’

‘Was he so evil?’

‘Evil enough, I imagine,’ Bernice said. ‘But, as in all things, it is in the eye of the beholder.’

‘Indeed, he’s always been most generous with us. Most generous. And now Camille has come to us.’

‘Yes.’

‘Praise God.’

Bernice approached the bed. Despite her best efforts, the room held the cloying sweet smell of sickness and of encroaching death. ‘I will praise Him when He gives you some rest.’

Mary Margaret sighed. ‘Such anger. You should have a sword at your side.’ Her cackle broke down into fitful coughing. Bernice had tissues waiting for her sputum. ‘Pull me up.’

She was bald now, her face sunken by age and by ravaging illness. She wore a baby blue satin bed jacket, a present from the women on the street who knew her. It was a sickening color, but she loved it just the same. Her dark eyes looked enormous in that cadaverous face that seemed all skull. Long ago, Bernice had had all mirrors removed from this room and the adjacent bathroom.

Mary Margaret’s face scrunched up so that she looked like a wizened doll that had been abandoned by her owner. ‘It must have been terribly difficult for her, to come here.’

‘I think it was more difficult for her to do nothing. Also, she knows we love her. And now she knows we can help her.’ Bernice kissed Mary Margaret’s cold forehead. ‘Those things are what she needs most.’

As Bernice arranged the pillows behind her, Mary Margaret said, ‘It’s happened. We have our chance, don’t we?’

‘Yes.’

Mary Margaret put a clawlike hand out, tapped a horny fingertip against the back of Bernice’s hand. ‘This is what we have prayed for, and yet you do not seem happy.’

‘Oh, I am.’ Bernice brushed a thread of hair off her forehead. ‘But I am also worried.’

‘As long as you’re in the mood, worry about my food.’

Bernice brought over the tray and, setting it down, perched on the edge of the bed. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘Not particularly. But I need to eat, don’t I?’

Bernice commenced to feed her, dipping a small chased-silver spoon in a mélange of steamed vegetables, depositing them into Mary Margaret’s mouth.

‘I was dreaming when you came in.’

‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you.’

‘Oh, you didn’t. In my condition, time and place have collided. I dreamed I was a child, and in my dream I knew I was in this room and that you were coming. Odd, isn’t it, that the closer one gets to death the more one understands the nature of time. It doesn’t exist. Not really. At least, it doesn’t for me. It’s like a wheel that revolves constantly. What happened two years ago is no less clear than what transpired two minutes ago. And what happened twenty years ago – forty – is just as clear. They’re all on the wheel, you see, and it keeps revolving.’

Mary Margaret closed her eyes while she ate. Chewing was an effort for her, Bernice knew; perhaps she could concentrate better this way.

‘I was a child again, in this dream,’ she continued. ‘Except that it wasn’t a dream. Not really. I
was
a child again, far from this decaying body.’ Her eyes snapped open. Perhaps she wanted to be sure that Bernice was paying attention. She had always been full of these kinds of tricks. ‘Do you believe that?’

‘Yes, Mary Margaret, I do.’

Satisfied with this exchange, Mary Margaret accepted another spoonful of cauliflower and peas and closed her eyes, chewing slowly and methodically like a soldier trudging through virgin jungle.

‘But as this child, I knew everything I know now. It was so extraordinary! To be so young and so knowledgeable. Can you imagine it?’

There were times Mary Margaret asked questions to which no answer was appropriate. From long and intimate experience, Bernice knew this was one such. She fed her another spoonful and kept quiet.

‘No one could imagine it unless they had experienced it, and that’s the truth,’ Mary Margaret said. ‘God works in mysterious ways. You see, I have my recompense for my pain. I can roam through life without restrictions, and I can find God in all the little places one never has the time to look when one lives one’s life from day to day.’

She had stopped eating for the moment, and her eyes were open, shining very clear, as Bernice remembered them before they had become perpetually clouded by pain.

‘You see, there is faith and then there is
faith,’
Mary Margaret whispered. ‘Oh, one’s faith in God never wavers. Never. But it is so thrilling to actually
see
His handiwork and to experience all over again how one was shaped by His hand and His wisdom.’

She was still for a moment, resting, and in that moment the clarity in her eyes was again occluded by pain.

‘Mmm,’ she whispered. ‘No more food for me. No matter what you give me it tastes like library paste.’

Bernice put down the spoon and wiped Mary Margaret’s lips. She knew better than to argue with the older woman even at this late stage.

‘Lest you think my mind has been wandering,’ Mary Margaret said abruptly, ‘this is all in aid of saying no matter how much you worry, no matter what disasters befall – and there
will
be setbacks, of that you may be certain – you must persevere. God is with us. It is by His will that the Order of Donà di Piave was founded. It was by His will that Donà di Piave was obliged to take up the sword. The doge of Venice sent Donà di Piave and her nun soldiers to guard the Sacred Heart of Santa Maria when the Serene Republic was under siege by Charles VIII of France in 1495. After the soldiers were wiped out, it was Donà di Piave who received a divine vision. God directed her and her fellow nuns to take up the soldiers’ weapons and defend the Sacred Heart themselves.

‘Thirteen years later, when Pope Julius II, Louis XII of France, Ferdinand of Aragon, and the Emperor Maximilian formed the League of Cambrai to greedily carve up the Venetian territory on the mainland, Donà di Piave and her order were able to judiciously apply the influence she and her adherents had amassed from the shadows, the ragged edges of history where women have resided and, it seems, are destined to remain, to divide and defeat Venice’s enemies.’

Mary Margaret smiled. ‘Serenissima’s doge and council took credit for the diplomatic coup, but we know the truth of it. That it was the women of our order who changed history by applying pressure in a French monarch’s bed, an emperor’s boudoir, in a pope’s ear. It was the order who trained Lucrezia Borgia, nearly all the wives of the Mocenigo family, so influential it produced no less than seven doges, along with uncountable other women notable only in select secret circles for their influence in political intrigue.

‘We inveigled national policy, inveighed successfully against our enemies, getting the regal men of pomp and power, the dim-witted and the inbred, to do our bidding. Yes, we developed to a high art the business of power by proxy. We learned our lesson well: that the direct approach is, for us, forbidden. But there are so many other ways to apply influence at which women excel.’

Mary Margaret stroked the coverlet as she spoke in the same slow rhythm by which she chanted her Latin prayers. ‘Men have no use for artful flattery and so cannot detect it even when it floats right under their nose. They’d much rather see it as the truth, especially when it comes from someone with a pretty face and an enticing body. That is why we take no vow of celibacy in our order, though this omission is kept secret from every archbishop to whom we report. God gave us certain tools by which we may accomplish from the shadows what we could not do in the light.’

She was quiet for some time, and Bernice could hear her breathing as stentoriously as a grandfather clock counting time. Bernice began to weep, even though she had promised herself that she would reserve her tears for when she was alone.

She felt the old, dry hand on hers. ‘Why do you cry, my child?’

Bernice’s hands damped into fists hard as steel. ‘It is so unfair, this suffering.’

‘Spoken like a true warrior. But swords are not always the answer. Faith is.’

‘Faith.’ Bernice said it as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.

‘Listen to me.’ Mary Margaret struggled to sit up higher, her satin bed jacket rustling like an insect’s wings. ‘A person who serves when treated kindly by God is no retainer. But one who serves when God is seeming heartless and unreasonable has fulfilled her purpose.’

Bernice bowed her head, willing her tears to cease.

‘Now tell me why you are worried,’ Mary Margaret asked briskly.

Bernice took a deep breath, let it all out before she began. ‘I will come after you, to continue the order’s work. But who will come after me? There are no candidates among the nuns. Not a one.’

Mary Margaret’s face was set in stone. ‘That is the least of your problems now.’ Her horny finger tapped the back of Bernice’s hand again. ‘Stop trying to do everything yourself. Remember, think only of the task at hand and you will be able to accomplish anything. And let God do His part. You will see. He will bring you your successor, just as He brought you to me.’

‘How will I know her, Mary Margaret?’

For the longest time, the old woman said nothing. Her eyes had again gone out of focus, and Bernice knew she was seeing events on the wheel of life.

‘You will know her,’ she said at last, ‘because her hands will be covered in blood.’

During the time Bernice had been reciting this story of Camille, the sun had gone in, and now the turret room was emblazoned in a deep, jewel-toned dusk that seemed to seep into every corner of the room. A mockingbird began its caroling song, the notes piercing even the stone walls and stained glass.

‘So the Goldonis endow the convent,’ Jaqui said. She gave Bernice a quizzical look. ‘Enrico Goldoni and my father, John, do not see eye to eye.’

‘To put it more bluntly, they’re enemies,’ Bernice said.

‘Then why am I, a Leonforte, here?’

Bernice smiled. ‘It is as I said. You are special, part of the chosen. In that regard, the enmity between Goldoni and Leonforte is irrelevant.’ She took Jaqui’s hands in hers and Jaqui could feel the heat of her inner power. ‘On the other hand, the Goldonis’ role here is not well known.’ Her piercing blue eyes bored into Jaqui’s. ‘Nor should it be.’

‘I understand,’ Jaqui said after a time. ‘I will tell no one.’ Somehow, saying this made Jaqui feel at once closer to Bernice, and she liked that very much.

In the silence that followed, Bernice gave a small smile. ‘I suppose you’re wondering how I came to know about you. Your grandfather Caesare and I are old friends.’

‘Friends? Does he know about the Goldonis’ involvement in the Sacred Heart of Santa Maria?’

‘Oh, yes. But I can assure you he is the only one. You see, Jaqui, your grandfather is an extraordinary man. He is one of the very few down through the ages who has understood the role we have played. He wants only to help us. That is why he talked to me about you.’

‘What?’

Bernice nodded. ‘Yes. He has spoken to me about you many times.’

‘Grandpa Caesare did that?’ Jaqui was stunned. She knew the old man loved her, but she had assumed that, like all Italian grandfathers, his attention was focused on his grandsons.

‘He has had his eye on you as you’ve grown up. He is well versed in the power of the order.’

Jaqui looked at Bernice for some time. ‘So now you think God has sent me to you, just as He sent you to Mary Margaret.’

Bernice said nothing for the longest time, sunk so deeply in thought was she. ‘I believe what my heart tells me,’ she said at length. ‘Lies and false visions come in all forms and guises. But you had the vision of Donà di Piave, just as I did when I came here, and every beat of my heart confirms the truth in God’s order of things.’ Her eyes focused on Jaqui and she smiled. ‘That is my roundabout way of saying, yes, God is the messenger here. I believe that with every fiber of my being.’ Her hands lifted, then fell back into her lap. ‘But experience also tells me that what I feel is meaningless – if you don’t feel it, as well.’

‘But I do,’ Jaqui blurted. ‘I mean I’ve felt
something
from the moment I stepped through the front gate. What is it? Is it Donà di Piave speaking to me or is it God touching me with His hand?’

Bernice shook her head. ‘I can help you with many things, my dear, but not this. You must discover the nature of the
presence
for yourself because it is different for everyone.’ She looked deeply into Jaqui’s eyes. ‘Is this something you think might interest you?’

She said this as if she were asking Jaqui if she’d like to come with her for a lovely evening stroll, but Jaqui knew better. Pursuing the nature of the
presence
would be a lifetime commitment. In a sense, the enormity of it terrified her. And yet, she felt a curious kind of elation she had never before known. Wasn’t this kind of enigma just what she had been searching for? It was something unconnected with the dull and frightful world into which she had been born, from which she had been desperately trying to flee almost all her young life.

‘Yes,’ she said in a hoarse whisper. ‘It interests me greatly.’

‘Ah, greatly,’ Bernice said with a nod. ‘That is good, because from the first I have known that you are – as I am – an agent of change.’ She offered her hand, and when Jaqui took it, she allowed the charismatic warmth to transfer itself to the girl.

‘There,’ Bernice said. ‘The compact has begun.’

What Jaqui always thought about her brother Michael was this: that there was a wolf inside him, eating at him, desperate to get out. And it was this desperation that frightened her. She could admire his innate intelligence, she could applaud his decision to keep his distance from the family business that had already ensnared Caesare, but she recognized the danger of this beast inside him and it made her tremble.

And yet.

What was it about Michael that made him seem to her as if he were a kindred spirit? All alone in the night, she dreamed of him. In her dream, they stood in a glade of a vast wood. All around them was chittering darkness where beasts of prey prowled. The glade shone whitely in moonlight, but the dense canopy of treetops would not let the light penetrate the woods.