The Silent Duchess (21 page)

to take aim, to assault, to lacerate, to devour--then to go away satisfied, leaving behind a carcass, a skin, empty of life.

This naked body lying abandoned on the stone flags, all ready to be cut, emptied and filled up with saltpetre, inspired her now with a sudden feeling of sympathy; or perhaps something more, with compassion. She stretched out her hand and with her fingers she stroked his temple, while unexpected tears started to trickle without warning down her cheeks. Scrutinising this drawn, pallid face, following the fleeting curve of the lips, the jutting cheekbones, the minute, dark wings of the nose, she tried to fathom the secret of his body.

She had never imagined uncle husband as a child. It was impossible. He had always been old ever since she had known him, attired in those red garments that reminded her of seventeenth-century finery rather than the elegance of the new century, his head eternally encased in fantastic wigs, his movements cautious and stiff. Yet once she had seen a portrait of him as a child, which had later become lost. In front of a garland of flowers and fruit the heads of the two Ucr@ia children stood out: the fair, dreamy Maria already getting a little plump, Pietro with even fairer hair, tow-coloured, tall and stringy, with a look of proud melancholy in his eyes. Behind, as in a showcase, the heads of his parents were visible, Carlo Ucr@ia of Campo Spagnolo and Giulia

Scebarr@as of Avila: she robust and dark-haired, with a look of zealous authority, he delicate and elusive, shrouded in a long tunic composed of pale lifeless colours. It was from that side of the Ucr@ia family that the softness of Maria's features came, while Pietro had taken after the old Scebarr@as, a race of warriors and rapacious despots.

Grandmother Giulia recounted that Pietro as a little boy was choosy and touchy: he picked quarrels about nothing and amused himself having fights with all and sundry. He was always the victor, it seemed, because in spite of looking poorly he had muscles of iron. In the family he was considered odd. He spoke little, and he was morbidly attached to his clothes, which he pretended were of silk and damask, edged with gold. Yet he had generous impulses that surprised those close to him. One day he gathered together the children of the cowherds in Bagheria and made them presents

of all his toys. Another time he took some jewels from his mother and gave them to a poor woman who was begging for alms.

He liked betting games but knew how to control himself. He wouldn't spend whole nights at the gaming tables playing cards, as many of his friends did. He didn't keep seamstresses or ironing women, he drank only small quantities of wine from his father's vineyards. Only fighting attracted him, even with people of lower rank, and for this Grandmother Giulia punished him with the whip. However, he never rebelled against his parents, he even venerated them, and each time he was punished he accepted it with cold contrition. Throughout his adolescence and youth he loved no one except his sister Maria, with whom he played interminable games of cards.

When his little sister got married he shut himself in the house and didn't go out for almost a year. His only companion was a kid goat that used to lie on his bed and at mealtimes creep under the table with the dogs. In the family this was tolerated as long as the animal remained a kid with a delicate head and light hoofs. But as it grew older it developed twisted horns and was transformed into a full-sized nanny-goat that butted against the furniture. Grandmother Giulia ordered it to be taken into the fields and left there.

Pietro obeyed but at night he used to go out in secret to sleep in the stables with the goat. Grandmother Giulia got to know of it and ordered the beast to be killed; then in front of the whole family she whipped her son on his bare buttocks just as old Great-grandfather Scebarr@as had done to her and her brothers when they were children.

From that day on Pietro became strange and unpredictable. He would disappear for weeks and no one would know where he had got to. Or he would shut himself in his room without letting anyone in, not even the servant who came to bring him food. He never spoke to his mother, although if he saw her he would bow, as was his duty.

By the age of forty he was still unmarried and, apart from the brothel he would sometimes resort to, he did not seem to know what love was. The only person he felt at ease with was his sister Maria. He often went to visit her in her husband's house and speak a few words with her. His father had died shortly after the death of the goat, but no one mourned for him; he was a man so lifeless

as to seem dead even while he was still alive. When his niece Marianna was born Pietro became even more assiduous in his visits to the Via Alloro although he did not have much feeling for his cousin and brother-in-law Signoretto. He grew very affectionate towards the little girl, whom he used to take in his arms and cuddle as he had cuddled the goat years before.

No one thought of trying to find a wife for him until the death of a bachelor uncle of the Scebarr@as branch of the family, who had accumulated a fortune in land and money and left it all to his only nephew. Then Grandmother Giulia decided to give him in marriage to an influential lady of Palermo, who had recently become a widow: the Marchioness Milo delle Saline di Trapani, a woman of great determination, who could have restrained the strange eccentricities of her son. But Pietro was opposed to it and declared he would never sleep in the same bed as a woman unless she were one of the daughters of his sister Maria. And since one of these three daughters had been promised as a nun, there remained only two, Agata and Marianna. Agata was too young; Marianna was a deaf-mute, but had reached the age of thirteen, when it was acceptable for girls to get married.

Moreover, as her mother Maria and her father pointed out, it would have been a waste to give Agata to her uncle, when with all her beauty she had a chance of making a splendid marriage. Therefore it was right that it should be Marianna who should marry the eccentric Pietro. He had already shown himself to be very affectionate towards her. Besides, there was an urgent need for money to pay off old and new debts, to renovate the palace in the Via Alloro, which was falling into ruin, to buy new carriages and horses and to renew the livery of the house. Marianna would lose nothing; if she did not get married, she would be incarcerated in a convent. Instead this would open up a new dynasty: the Ucr@ias of Campo Spagnolo, Lords of Scannatura, Counts of Sala di Paruta, Marquises of Sollazzi and of Taya, not to mention Lords of Scebarr@as and of Avila.

Before her death Grandmother Giulia had called for her son and asked him to forgive her for having whipped him in front of the servants over the business of the goat. Her son Pietro looked

at her without uttering a word and then, just before she expired, said in a loud voice: "I hope you will have the good fortune to meet your Scebarr@as relations in hell." And this while the priest was blurting out "Glory be to the Father" and the hired mourning women were preparing to weep for three days and three nights.

So Pietro had his niece. But once they got married he became incapable of recapturing the endearments he had bestowed on her while she was a child. It was as if marriage, in consecrating her, had frozen his fatherly tenderness.

XXVI

"And Don Mariano?"

"Is your son not coming, Your Excellency?" "What is he doing, is he afraid?"

"We are waiting for him, our new master." "With the death of Don Pietro we were expecting him."

Marianna crumples the notes she holds in her lap with restless fingers. How to account for the non-appearance of Mariano, who has suddenly become head of the family, inheritor and owner of the estates of Campo Spagnolo, of

Scannatura, of Taya, of Sala di

Paruta, of Sollazzi and Fiumefreddo. How to say to these peasant guards and rent collectors --known as gabelloti--who have come to see him, that the young Ucr@ia has remained in Palermo with his wife because, quite simply, he does not wish to stir himself.

"You go, Mamma, I have things to do", he had written, suddenly appearing in front of her in a new redingote of English brocade studded with incrustations of gold.

It is true that twelve hours in a litter along mountain paths is a punishing experience, and indeed few of the barons from Palermo submit themselves to such an ordeal to visit their estates in the interior. But today is one of those rare occasions regarded as imperative, as much by relations and friends as by his tenants. The new landlord must go the rounds of his estates, he must make himself known, he must talk, he must see to the renovation of old houses, he must get to know what has been going on during his long absences in the city, he must endeavour to inspire some respect, some liking, or at the very least some curiosity.

Perhaps she was wrong not to have insisted, Marianna tells herself, but he did not give her a chance. He had kissed her hand, and off he had gone as swiftly as he had arrived, leaving in the air a strong perfume of roses. The same scent as her father the Duke had used, except that he only moistened the lace of his shirt while her son uses it indiscriminately, pouring a whole bottle all over himself.

Towards Marianna, the dumb woman, the guards and the gabelloti react with an uneasiness that is close to fear. They see her as a kind of saint, someone who does not belong to the exclusive breed of nobles, but to that poor and in some way sacred group of the crippled, the sick and the mutilated. They feel pity but are also disconcerted by her inquisitive and penetrating gaze. And then they are mostly illiterate, and she with her notes, her pens, her hands stained with ink, puts them in a state of unbearable apprehension.

As is usual they entrust the priest, Don Pericle, with the task of writing on their behalf, but not even his intercession satisfies them. And then she is a woman and, even if she owns the land, what can a woman understand about property, grain, the sowing of fields, about debts, toll dues, et cetera? And so, to begin with, they regard her with disappointment, and go on and on about Don Mariano even though they have never seen him. Duke Pietro came to them a year before he died. He arrived as usual on horseback, refusing the satin-lined seat of the litter, with his gun, his watchman, his rolls of paper and his saddle bags.

Now they are confronted by the Duchess Marianna and they don't know where to begin. Don Pericle sits in the middle of them on a large seat of smooth leather, and slides a rosary through his chubby fingers. He's waiting for them to start talking. As the men turn their heads towards the veranda Marianna realises that her daughters are passing by and laughing beneath the porticos, perhaps brushing their hair in the shade of the stone arches. She longs to shut herself in her room and go to sleep. Her back is hurting, her eyes are burning, her legs are stiff from having to remain still and bent in the litter for hours on end. But she knows that however she confronts these people she must make amends for the absence of her son and try to convince them that he was indeed unable to come. Consequently she

pulls herself together andwitha gesture invites them to speak. Don Pericle transcribes in his incisive language.

"Thirteen onze to refurbish the well. Result--well is dry. Will need another 10 onze."

"At Sollazzi shortage of labour. Smallpox takes ten men."

"A prisoner because of bankruptcy. A peasant from Campo Spagnolo estate. In chains for last twenty days."

"Big sale: 120 carcasses. Supplement bills of sale. No liquid money. Cash sale 0.27 onze, 110 tar@i."

"Cheese from your sheep, 900 equal to 30 rottoli and 10 of ricotta."

"Wool. Four rottoli."

Marianna reads meticulously all the notes that Don Pericle passes to her one by one as the men talk. She nods her head, she watches the faces of her gabelloti and her guards: Carlo Santangelo, known as U Zoppu, "the lame one", even though he does not limp at all; she met him when she came with uncle husband soon after their marriage. Strong features, sparse hair on a sunburnt cranium, a mouth with parched lips cracked by the sun. He holds in his hand a grey hat with a wide soft brim that he knocks impatiently against his thigh.

There is Ciccio Panella, who has insisted that Don Pericle should write his name for the "Duchessa" in large letters on a clean sheet of paper. He is a new peasant guard, about twenty-two years old. Thin and sharp as a rake, with bright eyes and a large mouth with two teeth missing on the right-hand side, he seems to be the most curious about her, the least concerned at the prospect of a woman as landlord instead of a man. He gazes intently at the neckline of her dress, obviously fascinated by the whiteness of her skin.

Then there is Nino Settani, a veteran of the estate: an old man, standing firmly upright with eyes that seem as black as if they were painted, edged with black and hidden beneath the arch of thick black eyebrows. In contrast his hair is white and falls in untidy locks on to his shoulders.

Don Pericle continues handing her sheets of paper filled with his large looped handwriting and she

collects them on the upturned palm of her hand, intending to read them at her leisure. In fact she does not really understand what to make of these notes or what to reply to these men who have come to account for the entries and debits, and still less how to respond to the many questions on matters that are part of the life of the peasant.

But is it true about the prisoner held in the house? Has she understood it properly? And where have they put him?

"Where is the prisoner?"

"He is underneath us, in the cellar, Your Excellency."

"Tell the gabelloti and the guards to come back tomorrow."

Don Pericle never gets upset for any reason; he makes a gesture with his head and the gabelloti and the guards go towards the door after having bowed to kiss the hand of the dumb Duchess. At the door they meet Fila, who comes in carrying a tray laden with glasses with long thin stems. Marianna makes a sign to her to go back, but it is too late. She gestures to invite the men to retrace their steps and accept the refreshment which has appeared at the wrong moment.