Murder On The Rue Cassette (A Serafina Florio Mystery) (28 page)

Rosa continued. “Elena was a
syphilitics who’d gone mad. Did she know she was going to die, I wonder?”

Serafina shook her head. “We all
know we’re going to die, but somehow we fool ourselves into thinking that our
death is a long way off—maybe tomorrow or next week, but certainly not
today.”

Chapter
35: Wind, Light, Water

Wind, light, water and the
unending sound of the sea helped to mute the shattering events of their final
week in France. Serafina and Loffredo sat alone with the setting sun onboard
the
Niger
as it plowed through the Straits of Bonifacio and into the Tyrrhenian Sea
steaming toward Palermo. Rosa had taken charge, declared that Fina and Loffredo
must be left alone for the voyage, a brief honeymoon after they’d said their
vows before a wizened priest in
Cathédral St. Sauveur
.

“Time enough for thoughts of
home.”

She closed her eyes and let the
sun play on her face, smelled seaweed and salt and tried to erase the images
that pierced her mind over and over—standing before the heavy door to
Elena’s studio, Don Tigro’s man cupping his ear in Marseille, Valois stroking
his lapel, Loffredo lying on Elena’s studio floor. Instead she deliberately
pictured him as he walked toward her in Véfour. She looked at him, stronger
each day, but in need of more rest. If she couldn’t obliterate the sight of
Elena swallowing her gun, how could he? Would the memory of her treachery
ricochet throughout their lives? A shaft of light shone through a hole in the
clouds and the wind picked up. They were sprinkled with sea foam, like a priest
shaking holy water onto them. She remembered their simple wedding—Tessa
and Rosa clapping, the crackers set off by Teo and Arcangelo. Despite the
doctor’s orders, they’d consummated their love again and again.

“Think I should open Busacca’s
letter?”

He stroked her hand and smiled.
“Wait until we’re home.”

“I wonder ...” She adjusted her
scarf. “Not one letter from Vicenzu or Renata. Something in the air.”

“Fish.”

“Silly.”

They were quiet.

“But if I open it now, in this
peaceful setting, I’ll have two days to prepare.”

“If you want. Perhaps it would
be better. We’ll feel displaced when we arrive, I think. I always do when I
return. We’ll see our town and it will be ... other than what we’ve always
known our home to be. It’s changing for the worse, I’m afraid, Fina. Soon it
won’t be a fit place to raise our children, and we’ll need to make a decision.
We must start thinking of it now.”

She thought for a few minutes.
“I’ve decided. I won’t open Busacca’s letter now. I’ll offer it up for the
repose of the soul of ...”

“Praying for she-devils?”

“For her unborn child who never
had a chance. For the unknown woman dying alone in the Rue Cassette. How many
lives did Elena take?”

“Everyone she ever met.”

They were silent, watching the
molten ball sink behind the coast of Sardinia. Its fire licked the mountains
and made their shadows dance while Serafina talked of style and dresses, the
advanced state of French detection. She sucked in her stomach. Loffredo talked
of France, the cuisine, painting, the state of French medical practice, their
prisons.

“I never asked. Where did they
keep you?”

“Prison de Mazas, near the Gare
de Lyon. Most of us were awaiting trial. But the prisoners were treated with
respect, at least I was, a more advanced system than ours.”

“Of course. Oltramari’s prison
is a rat hotel built during the Bourbon rule.”

Their silence comforted and
stretched beyond the blackened waters. The wind grew fierce. Her feet were
cold.

“Hungry?” he asked.

She smiled.

Chapter 36: Oltramari

Serafina felt the wind, a blade
at her back, as she alighted from the carriage. The piazza was dustier than she
remembered. She held her skirts and looked at her home, the home of her
ancestors, haggard in the noonday sun. The shutters were in need of paint, the
stucco fading from rose to dirty ochre, water-stained close to the ground.
Missing Carmela’s touch, the gardens were choked with weeds. The heat was
different from the Midi’s joyous weight. It scorched, blinded, did little to
comfort. And yet it was home.

Loffredo opened the gate and
walked with her on the gravel path. When he opened the front door, the stone
angel smiled down at her and she heard Maria’s piano, the crashing chords of a
Brahms sonata. As she listened to the music, she watched the caretaker bringing
her trunk and Loffredo’s luggage up to her bedroom—their
bedroom—and like that, the trip was over, the mystery solved. Almost. She
decided to wait until this evening after supper to read Busacca’s letter.

The domestic rose from her chair
in the kitchen to greet them. Her lips trembled. Renata had gone to La Vucciria
for fish, she told Serafina, and Totò wouldn’t be home from school for another
hour, but Maria was in the parlor, her usual time to practice. When is she not
practicing, Serafina wondered, certainly not stopping to open her arms to her
mother whom she hasn’t seen in what, over a month.

“Give Maria her mood,” Loffredo
said, kissing her on his way out the door to check on his office. “She’s
letting you know how she feels. There’s time enough for her to grow up, but let’s
not make her do it today. She’s hard to control, but we’ll find a way,” he
said.

It would be easier with the two
of them. She nodded. “We teeter between indulging her moods and praising her
talent, difficult waters to navigate.”

Still, Serafina felt Maria’s
petulance like a slap. Come to think of it, how did Loffredo know this, he had
no children. But perhaps his wisdom was why they never fought, not yet at any
rate.

“And Vicenzu sorts through the
rubble,” Assunta said.

A strange turn of phrase, but
then the housekeeper must be more aware of Oltramari’s poverty than Serafina
realized. Assunta, like all peasants, understood that the price of bread was
high and therefore business was bad.

Standing in the kitchen,
Serafina breathed in the fragrance of Renata’s cuisine—oregano, tomato,
olive oil, the sweetness of a cooling cassata on the counter. She spied the
barrel of olives sitting in the corner beneath dried garlic and parsley. How
she’d missed this kitchen. She scooped up a ladle full of olives and offered
some to Teo. He declined, walked toward the parlor, stopping to smooth the
brochure he’d brought for Maria. She wondered where Vicenzu was. No note from
Renata. But of course, they weren’t expected until tomorrow. Fair winds had driven
them early to an empty homecoming.

* * *

Teo stood in the doorway of the
parlor, hesitating for a moment. He breathed in and closed his eyes. Yes, he
must wait until she finished the piece.

When the music stopped, he
cleared his throat. “I bought this for you from the workroom of Sébastien
Érard.”

Maria lifted her face. “I know
all about him, the inventor of the double escapement action.”

He held it out, a pamphlet about
Érard’s harps and pianos. It had photographs of some of the grand pianos in the
collection at the museum with a description and the prices underneath. “One day
I shall buy two or three Érard pianos for you. Would you like brown or black?”

Maria smirked. “You’re a boot
boy. Where will you get the money to pay for them?”

He ran a tongue around his lips.
“We saw them in the Chateau de la Muette.”

“I should have been there. Mama
was wrong not to take me to Paris. It has hurt my career. I have been cursed.
The wrong parent died and now I’m surrounded by those who don’t care a fig
about music.”

Teo said nothing.

“But at least you thought of
me.” She smiled.

Teo blushed. His forehead
prickled with sweat and he rubbed his hands on his pantaloons.

“Are you going to sit or not?
You’re distracting me. And I think I want two browns and one black.”

“We just got home. The ship was
faster on the return trip. Only took a day and a half from Marseille. Favorable
winds.” He told her that her mother married in Aix, the day before they left
for Marseille.

“I heard. That count person?”

He nodded.

“He’s all right, I guess. At
least he appreciates my playing. He likes Brahms.”

“The house seems empty. My baby
brother’s all right?”

She shrugged. “I guess so, I
never go up to the nursery. But sometimes I hear the nurse singing to him. What
would you like to hear?”

Teo felt the new stubble on his
upper lip. His hands trembled so he shoved them in his pocket. He hoped his
voice sounded deep. “Whatever you want to play.”

“Don’t say that. Tell me the
name of a piece or give me the name of a composer. Anyone will do.”

“Debussy.”

“I don’t bother with his work.”

“I’m teasing. He’s our age and
attends the Paris Conservatory. He played at a party we went to. Three waltzes
by Charles Marie Widor.”

She made a face. “Who?”

“The organist at St. Sulpice. And
Debussy’s piano was unique. Not as good as yours, but you’d have enjoyed it, I
think.”

“I knew Mama should have taken
me. I would have played Brahms. They’d have been enchanted.”

“But the audience was French and
Brahms is German.” He shouldn’t have said that. He looked at her in alarm.

She didn’t seem to notice. She
pushed her spectacles up and tossed her curls.

He saw that Maria’s hair was a
bit stringy, but he didn’t say anything. He’d never say anything that would
hurt her. Ever. “That’s what I want to hear, the piece you would have played at
the salon.”

The opening chords of the Brahms
third piano sonata resounded. Then slowly, softly, the piano rumbled distant
thunder, and Teo was home.

* * *

Serafina turned around and more
of her children appeared, Renata, Vicenzu, and Totò. Hugs, kisses, laughter. In
a flash, Totò went in search of Teo, something to do with knucklebones. She
sniffed the air. Smoke?

Renata hugged her. “Welcome
home, Mama. We didn’t think you’d be here until tomorrow,” she began. “I
planned a simple meal for this evening and a feast for tomorrow.”

“No matter, let me look at you.”

“And Vicenzu.” But he hung back.
“Sorry I’ve been rooting through the rubble.” He wiped his hands, shoved fists
into his pocket, his face red, his fear and stiffness filling the room.

Of course. She knew what rubble
smelled like, the memory hadn’t left of the fire at
La
Maternité
. Her son
smelled of smoking embers.

“What’s this I hear? Assunta
told me you were ‘rooting through the rubble,’ her words. Was there a fire?”

“Carmela didn’t tell you? We
wired her.” He stopped.

She shook her head and felt her
heart pound. “Not a word.”

“Papa’s drugstore burned to the
ground. It’s gone, destroyed.”

At first she thought she’d
misheard, or perhaps they were joking. Her temples started to pound and the
room seemed to shift.

“The whole—”

Vicenzu nodded. “There’s nothing
left.” His face reddened.

She didn’t know what to do, what
to say, but she felt Vicenzu’s terror and she hugged him. She remembered
holding him after he was born and sixteen years later, after the accident that
changed his life forever. He told her of the bleating horns, the shouts of fire
from the men, the bells ringing in the Duomo, the mules who should have been
pulling the water refusing to move. He spoke of watching the flames, the smell
of the smoke that still hung in the air.

“It happened so early in the
morning. The sound of the bells woke me. By the time I arrived, the store was
gone. Now I have nothing to do but search for scraps of paper, something,
anything to remind me of Papa. I’m glad he’s dead so he’d never have to see
this.”

He began pacing while she cried
for the end of Giorgio and his legacy. She raked her mind for images of Giorgio
on their wedding night, their honeymoon, remembered him sitting on the chaise
and reading his apothecary catalogue. In the end she felt his presence as a
young man. She could almost touch him.

“When did it happen?” she asked.
About a month ago, he told her. The date? April 29th, a Wednesday, and Carmela
lived with the news and didn’t tell her. She was in the midst of the
investigation then, she remembered. She pulled the notebook out of her pocket
and searched for the date of her encounter with Don Tigro’s men. It was the day
before the fire.

“And our finances? Tell me
everything, Vicenzu. Don’t hide the truth.”

“We owe nothing. We have a
thousand lire in the bank.”

“Cash in the house?”

“About two thousand.”

“Tell me the exact amount.”

He went to the locked box they
kept under a stone near the hearth and counted, eighteen hundred and fifty. She
emptied her reticule and pockets. They counted five thousand in all, not
including the coins and the ten thousand lire note she hadn’t cashed. She
suspected there’d be a bonus inside Busacca’s letter, the one she hadn’t
opened. More than enough.

“Keep it all in the locked box,”
she instructed.

“Not the bank?”

She shook her head. She asked
about any large expenses still outstanding and watched him thinking, waited
while he looked in the ledger. She reminded him again that she needed the
truth.

“Carlo’s tuition for next
semester is due in two weeks.”

“How much?”

“Two hundred fifty lire.”

“Pay it now. We’ll decide our
next moves tonight. I know who burned the apothecary shop. We must leave this
town. We must make a new life.”

“Leave Oltramari?” he asked.

She felt her heart sink and rise
again, sticking into the side of her throat. She saw Renata standing in the
kitchen wringing a towel. She asked about Carlo. Renata said he might come
tomorrow, she wasn’t sure.

“Must we leave?” Renata asked.
She wrung her apron.

“I saw in Paris what we’d become
in Oltramari. We must wire Carlo. Do that too, would you, Vicenzu?”

“Or I can take the train
to—”

She looked at her watch. “We’ll
decide later if there’s time, but we need you here tonight.”

“What should I say in the
telegram?”

“Come home at once.”

“Where’s Carmela?” Renata asked,
a hand on her forehead.

“She didn’t tell you?”

While she told them about
Carmela’s job in Paris, Renata busied herself in the kitchen. Dishes and cups,
pots and silverware trembled in her daughter’s hands. Vicenzu paced. Maria’s
piano played that awful Brahms, but at least the youngest were in the other
room or upstairs. Serafina hugged Renata, popped more olives into her mouth.
There was purpose in her step.

Serafina looked at Assunta. She
was sitting in her corner in the kitchen, one hand covering her eyes, the other
holding a rosary.

“I want you to do some
research,” she said to Vicenzu, as she stroked her daughter’s back.

Vicenzu smiled.

“Tomorrow I want you to go to
the office of Messageries Maritimes in Palermo. We’ll need ... she tried to
count in her head, but couldn’t, brought out her notebook and sat, pushing back
the curls that had fallen into her face. “Let’s see,” she mumbled and began to
scribble. “Tell them we’ll need accommodation for a party of at least seventeen
from Palermo to Paris, six or seven staterooms.”

“Paris?” Renata asked. Her eyes
were wide. She carried an empty plate to the table, carried it back.

“Do the same at the other
shipping lines but give them different destinations—São Palo and New
York. Tell them we leave as soon as possible, but don’t buy anything yet. I
just want an approximate cost. And not in steerage. I want first class accommodations.
Hard enough leaving.

“Assunta, I want to talk with
you in private.”

In the parlor she told the
domestic they were leaving, she didn’t know where yet.

“The land is bad,” Assunta said.

“Yes, and we must leave. I pray
you’ll come with us, but it’s your decision.”

“Where are we going?”

“A better city, but I don’t know
where yet. Think, and tell me tonight, but tell no one else, not the caretaker,
not your friends, not anyone else except perhaps Gesuzza.”