The House of Serenades (28 page)

Caterina looked at him in puzzlement. “I can see my father resolving to lock me in a convent for some time. He gets enraged often, and for matters less important than our love. But I can’t imagine my mother, my brothers, and my aunt letting him do it. Has no one tried to help me? To find out where I was?”

“Come,” Ivano said. “You need to sit down.”

By then the sun had begun to show through the early-morning fog, which was lifting quickly leaving behind a clear blue sky. They found an oak log lying beside a path and sat on it. Choosing his words, Ivano talked of his own incredulity at the news of her illness, of Lavinia’s skepticism, and of his many attempts to talk with her father.

Then he hesitated, pondering the pros and cons of telling Caterina the rest of the story. When he concluded there was no other way, he reached for her hands and spoke gravely. “At some point, your parents told everyone you had tuberculosis and you were in a sanatorium in the mountains. Then they staged your funeral in the cathedral.”

Caterina gaped at Ivano. “What?” she exclaimed. “It can’t be true. My family held a funeral service for me? Ivano! Are you making fun of me?”

“I wish it were a joke,” Ivano said sadly, “but it’s not. As of today everyone in Genoa, except for your parents, thinks you’re dead.”

“My mother, too?” Caterina exclaimed. “I don’t know if I should believe you. I think you’re making this up for some mysterious reason.”

“I was the only one,” Ivano said, “who never believed you were dead, the only one who kept looking for you when everyone else mourned you. How can you think I may be lying?”

“I don’t know,” Caterina murmured. Shadows of confusion lingered in her eyes.

“Let’s go back to Genoa,” Ivano said. “I realize that the information I gave you is too much for you to accept in such a short time. We’ll talk more on the train. And in Genoa I’ll show you something that will clear all your doubts. And so you know,” he added, “I would never, ever lie to you, especially on a matter of this magnitude.”

She looked at him with lost eyes. “I don’t know what to believe.”

“Let’s go,” he said. “You’ll have all the time in the world and every opportunity to decide who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.”

Confused, scared, and mistrustful of Ivano and his tale, Caterina followed him nonetheless to a carriage and then to the train station. On the way to the station, Ivano made sure to drop the convent key by
Osteria del Gallo Nero
. The front door was locked at that early morning hour, so he left the key on the doorstep along with a note asking the owner to return it to Silvio Motta, the nuns’ gardener, with his apologies and his thanks for having unknowingly helped him save the woman he loved. When the owner knocked on Silvio’s door a few hours later and handed him the key and the note, Silvio was astounded. In the evening, tipsy from the excessive amount of wine, he had gone to bed soon after arriving home, without having the time or the opportunity to realize that the skeleton key was no longer in his pocket. As he slowly sobered up throughout the morning, he kept staring at that key over and over, unable to tell then or even days later which parts of that story—the young fellow he had met on the road, the drinking at the
osteria
, the return of his key—were true and which parts he had instead dreamed.

The train pulled into the Stazione Principe late at night, screeching as it came to a complete halt. A subdued joy took hold of Caterina as she descended on the platform.

“I thought I’d never set foot on Genoa’s soil again,” she said. Then she looked about with wondrous eyes, as if she were seeing the station for the first time.

Next to her Ivano waited, weary from the talking he had done along the way. He had told Caterina about the fake funeral over and over, filling the tale with all the details he could remember: the flowers, the white casket, the mourning people. Then he had spoken about Lavinia, her anguish, her tears, and how, after the funeral, she had left town without letting anyone know her destination. A tender frustration had worn him out: all his explanations, details, and recollections could not get through to Caterina enough to erase her doubts. She had listened, nodded, cried, but her eyes still spoke her disbelief. In his account of the events, he had left out a few details, such as the time he had spent with the underworld, the threatening letters, the dead cat on the door, and the precarious health of Caterina’s father. He gave himself several reasons for omitting those facts. One, Caterina didn’t need more distressing news that day. Two, he wasn’t sure how she would react to finding out that he had been the cause, though indirect, of the worsening health of her father. Three, the mock funeral was, in his opinion and surely everyone else’s as well, a much more dreadful crime than sending a couple of letters and staging the superstitious cat act, all actions he had committed in moments of deep despair. Four, all those actions had been a consequence of the Berillis’ misdeeds; he would have never even dreamed of joining the underworld or writing anonymous letters or picking up a dead cat in the street had the Berillis not misbehaved first.
They
were the criminals, he had only reacted.

When they left the station and stepped out into the street, Caterina said, “Where should we go?”

“I always wanted to show you my hideout in the hills,” Ivano replied. “The time has come for us to go there. Please put this on your face,” he added, handing Caterina the black veil. “I realize that you don’t believe me, but what I told you is true. The whole town thinks you’re dead. The last thing we need tonight is for you to be recognized.”

Caterina looked at the veil dubiously then did what Ivano asked and wrapped it around her neck and the lower part of her face.

The streets were dark and quiet when Ivano and Caterina began to walk uphill. They were soon out of the downtown area, following steep back alleys that eventually took them closer and closer to the hilltop. Ivano had thought prudent to avoid public transportations, such as trams, carriages, or any of the funiculars that connected the low city to the higher roads, as the probability that someone would recognize Caterina on any of those was, in his opinion, high. They slowed their pace after a while, when Caterina began to breathe heavily. During the last part of their ascent, they hardly talked. At some point Ivano stopped and pointed to the structure standing alone in the middle of a grassy area.

“This is it,” he said. “No one will come looking for us here.”

Caterina looked about, slightly taken aback by the ruined aspect of the building.

“I always liked the idea that there’s a place in the world only I know about,” he said as she sat on the grass in front of the doorway. “Not even my father knows about this place. Look,” he added, stretching his arm and moving it back and forth in a semicircle. “Isn’t this view it amazing?”

From the fortress doorstep, looking south, the view was stunning with the city lights twinkling without pause, but by that time Caterina felt so exhausted she hardly noticed the magnificent panorama that lay beneath her eyes. Her eyelids were heavy, falling over her eyes against her will. Ivano noticed.

“Let’s go,” he said, helping her up and leading the way.

The depth of the darkness inside the fortress stopped Caterina inches past the entryway.

“I keep candles in that corner,” Ivano said, pointing at the darkest area of the room, “and matches. It’s been a long time since I last came here, but they should be where I left them.” He groped in the dark for a while. “Here they are,” he said, striking a match. He lit two candles, and a dim flickering light filled the room. Through her dazed eyes, Caterina saw the four bare stone walls and the uneven mud floor. She walked to a corner, sat on the cracked, dusty ground, and whispered, “I’m so tired.”

He sat next to her and took her in his arms. She stretched her legs and set her head on his shoulder.

“We’ll find a way to fix things with your family,” Ivano said, caressing her hair. “We could go see your mother—”

He stopped, because he realized that Caterina had fallen asleep. He began to hum softly, as if he were singing a lullaby, and at the rhythm of that slow melody he mimicked the motions of his hand on the strings of an invisible mandolin.

14

THE SUN WAS HIGH WHEN they awoke. Lying on the floor, next to each other, they breathed the warmth of their bodies and the scent of their comingled breaths.

“Good morning,” Ivano said, caressing Caterina’s hair. “Feeling better?”

“I’m not as tired,” Caterina murmured, stretching, “but I feel far from well, I can assure you.”

“This is the first time I wake with you by my side,” he said. “I thought it’d never happen other than in my dreams. I love it. I want to sleep with you forever and ever and ever.”

“I woke up alone in a solitary convent cell for the past two years,” she said. “Every morning when I opened my eyes I had to face my solitude and the possibility I’d never see any of the people I love. You have no idea how happy I am,” she caressed his cheek, “to find you by my side this morning.”

They embraced a long time before Ivano stood up.

“Let’s go,” he said, standing up and helping Caterina off the floor.

She shook the dust off her clothes. “Where?”

“To see something that will convince you that I’m not a liar.”

That was the same morning Matilda had arrived at the convent and discovered that Caterina had run away. She had left the House of Hope in a state of frenzy, ordering the coach driver to rush her to the station. At all cost she had to intercept the nuns’ telegram before someone had a chance to read it. On Doctor Sciaccaluga’s instructions, the servants were to bring Giuseppe no mail, so she wasn’t too worried about her husband reading the news. She was worried about the maids though, and the cook, and the rest of the staff. She knew all too well how curious the servants could be, and with her gone and Giuseppe bedridden it was likely that some of them, even Gugliemo for that matter, would take liberties they’d never dream of taking before. Furthermore, a telegram would not go unnoticed. And what about Caterina? Whom had she escaped with and where was she now? Was she hurt? Was she safe? How had anyone come to know where she was? That baker? The police? Had Antonio’s investigation into the threatening letters and the dead cat led him to suspect foul play? Had he discovered what he shouldn’t have? She trembled at the thought of the scandal and of what Caterina would think or do should she learn of her faked death and funeral from someone other than her mother. She wanted to push the train, tell it to go faster. “God help me,” she moaned as the train made a stop to a small station on the way.

While Matilda’s train ride was reaching its midpoint, Caterina and Ivano arrived in Marassi, the neighborhood northeast of downtown that hosted Genoa cemetery. They walked through the cemetery gate and followed a path bordered by dull grass. By then Caterina had stopped asking questions and was following Ivano docilely, as if an invisible thread tied her to him. She began to realize what that visit was about when they stopped in front of the Berilli family tomb, a stand-alone mausoleum with a locked entry gate that reminded both Caterina and Ivano of the gate of the House of Hope: wrought-iron, posts that allowed visitors to see inside.

“You have no idea,” Ivano said gravely, “how many times I came here to try to find a reason.”

Hesitantly, Caterina approached the gate, placing her hands on the posts and gazing in. Incense was burning at the foot of a small altar, and the candle smoke was aglow with the bright colors of fresh flowers set in crystal vases. She inhaled, letting the odors fill her nostrils and throat. It was the scent of death, she knew, the pungent, sorry smell that grew like mold out of people’s sorrow and out of the restlessness of the souls. She stood still, letting the odors envelope her, the sadness swell. She turned to the left wall where, she knew, were the tombs of her grandparents, Filiberto and Giulia, whom she had never seen alive. She smiled as she recalled the childhood days when her mother would take her to the mausoleum to pray for the dead, change the water in the vases, and light new candles. She had always wanted to be the one to cut the flowers’ stems and dip them in water. One day she had cut her thumb with a pair of large gardening scissors, and her mother had sung her a favorite nursery song to make her forget the pain. Nostalgically, she shifted her gaze and noticed that the bottom tomb on the right wall was taken. She squinted her eyes: the inscription screamed at her and hit her with a punch.

Caterina Berilli

5 Maggio 1890 – 2 Aprile 1908

Her head spun, the candles danced, and the flowers jumped out of the vases like fireworks shot into the sky. She ran away, stopping, short of breath, at the edge of a lawn. Her knees felt watery as she sat on the grass. Eyes glazed, she stared at the shapes of the clouds in the sky, the thickness of the grass blades, the patterns of the pebbles in the path. At every breath the air hurt her inside, as if she had been inhaling fire. She took her time returning to the gate. When she did, she looked again at her grandparents’ tombs, then at her own tomb, then at the candles, the flowers, the vases, and amidst those redolent vapors of death, she understood completely and unequivocally that while she was at the convent her family had buried her alive. She turned to Ivano, who in all that time had kept a distance, standing where the grass spilled over the path.

“I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” she said. “Let’s go. I can’t be here any longer.”

They walked out of the cemetery hand in hand, maintaining a speedy gait, stopping only when the cemetery’s buildings were out of sight.

Later that afternoon, Matilda arrived at the
palazzina
and rushed at once to the desk in the foyer where every morning Guglielmo placed the incoming mail. To her horror, she saw that nothing was there.

“Gugliemo!” she called.

The butler arrived momentarily. “Welcome back, Madame,” he said, slightly surprised. “We weren’t expecting you for another few days.”