Solitaria (26 page)

Come back. Come back
. The words swirl around in the air, bounce from the walls of the grotto, materialize in front of her face, mocking all the times she sent him away, when what she wanted was to call him to her.
Come back. Come back
. She conjures him out of the dark, tunnelling through time, until it all comes back: that autumn night, the concern on his face when she opened the door, her own surprise, his hands on her shoulders, his lips, his body on hers, both of them breathless.

“Everything I did, I did for love,” she says now, and her voice sounds pitiful.

A tremor chills her; she closes her eyes and drops her head on the damp, cold ground. Out of the darkness comes the faint drip of water. How fitting that she should be here now, amid the limestone slabs, the rubble of plaster walls, the cracked boulders, the black-and-white shattered tiles of the hall, the sinuous underwater spring, the two glorious days etched in memory, elusive fragments of happiness. If only she could die here beside Vito, her hands bloodied, cradling him in her arms.

“Papà
,
what have you done?” she whispers. She covers her face with her hands, the word
honour
looping in her head. Papà's voice,
my son
,
my son
.

In front of her rise the massive walls of a convent. The wind shrieks and the moon carves through the dense pinery, between shadows. Leaves flicker in chiaroscuro on stone. She shivers and wraps her shawl tighter, waits for the door to open, for the cloaked nun to lead her through the dank, long cloister to the tiny Spartan room at the end. She shakes her head and claws her way back out of that darkness. In the scrapbook, the last memento is the photo of a newborn. I must tell him, she thinks, my son,
Davide
, beloved.

She is alone, shaking with cold, her limbs stiff. She curls into a ball, and mercifully drifts back into unconsciousness.

Then David and a stranger are lifting her onto a stretcher, and she is carefully pulled up, up, out of the grotto, into the cool night air. She winces in pain.

David is right beside her, holding on to her hand, saying, “It's ok. Everything will be ok.”

She shakes her head. “The scrapbook,” she says. “It's all I have left.”

“It's right here. Don't worry,” he says.

“It's for you. I made it for you.” She's tired. Her face is wet, her body damp. Every movement is a knife blade twisting in her leg. An ambulance awaits, lights flashing, and a
TV
crew follows them, filming. On the side of the van, the familiar logo
Chi L'Ha Visto?

“Ms. Valente,” the show's anchorwoman says, approaching, microphone in hand, lights blinding. “Can you tell us why you came here today? Was this an accident? What do you know about your brother's death?”

Piera holds her arms up, to shield her face from the
cameras.

David steps between them. “Get away,” he says. “Our lives are not for your entertainment.” He helps push the stretcher into the ambulance, and climbs in with her. “Are you all right?” he asks when the doors are shut.

Piera squeezes his hand in the dark. “I'm sorry,” she says. “What happened?”

“Shhhh,” David says. “We fell, that's all. I was out for a bit, then I went for help.”

“But did I tell you the end? Vito and me?”

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I understand.”

“Do you?” she whispers, and closes her eyes. “A grand passion.”

He holds her hand, tries to reconcile the stories of the past ten days. Vito, my father. Zia Piera, my mother. Marco, brother. Clarissa, aunt. Blood connections. He clutches the scrapbook against his chest, wants to reread it now through this new perspective. The father he will never know, his birth mother.
Mother
. No, he thinks, Clarissa is
Mother
, she is the one who nurtured me, no matter how little or how often.

“I'm sorry I never really knew you,” he says, recalling his childish letters, the anguish he must have caused her when he quit writing altogether. He thinks about his summer visits here, when he was a small boy. Should he have known? Should he have sensed something?

“We can't undo the past,” she says. “You know now.” And then, she whispers the rest: Sandro took care of everything. Protected Papà, arranged for her convent stay to have the baby, for Clarissa to take him to America.

“I begged Sandro to let me keep you, to pretend you were his son,” Piera says, “but he couldn't bear the thought of Vito and me…” Her voice trails off.

“But after Sandro died?” David says, the unasked question heavy in the air.

“I couldn't claim you,” Piera says. “Sandro made sure of that.” She pauses. “I would have been penniless. I wouldn't have been able to look after you.” She looks at him, beseeching. “Now maybe women have opportunities… back then, I had no choice.” She sighs. “If only I had been able to keep you…”

If only,
he thinks, an alternate universe. The words swell to contain all he has left undone, all he has not loved, stalled between longing and action. He sees, suddenly, his own passive life, the waiting, always waiting, fuelling desire until there is nothing to wait for, until the waiting becomes the destination.

The siren wails, a strident pulse. Here, in the dark, Piera's and his hands are joined. They are both holding on tight, as if everything depends on it.

FICTION

Hungers

Tracing Iris

On The Road

Thrice Upon A Time

POETRY

Faceless

Mating In Captivity

OPERA (Libretto)

Alternate Visions

POETRY TRANSLATIONS

In The Gait of a Fox

Devour Me Too