The House of Serenades (30 page)

When a clerk gave him permission to meet with Antonio, Ivano rushed into his office shouting, “Come with me now! Caterina is in her aunt’s apartment a few blocks from here!”

“What?” Antonio exclaimed, giving Ivano an angry look. “I asked you this once before. Have you lost your mind?”

“Come with me,” Ivano repeated. “It’ll take us only five minutes to get there. Then you can judge for yourself whose mind is lost and whose isn’t.”

The expression of anxiety on Ivano’s face and the positive energy with which he was talking convinced Antonio it may be worth taking the short trip to Eugenia Berilli’s home. He had to admit he was intrigued. “If you made this up, I will arrest you and keep you in jail for at least three months,” he growled.

Ivano smiled. “I bet you will arrest someone tonight. Not me, Mister Sobrero, I can assure you.”

The two men arrived at Eugenia’s apartment shortly, and when Eugenia responded to their knocks she gave them a stare. “What are you two doing here?” she asked. “Mister Mandolin, didn’t I ask you to go home?”

Ignoring her, Ivano stepped in. “In the living room” he told Antonio. “Now do you believe me?”

Swiftly, Antonio crossed the vestibule and froze on the living-room threshold. Seated on the sofa was Caterina. For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating. Then he realized that Caterina was real. Caterina, who didn’t know who the man was, huddled defensively on the couch.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Eugenia said. “He’s the Chief of Police.” She sighed. “It’s not such a bad thing that he’s here. He’s already involved in our family affairs.” She turned to Ivano. “Now will you go home?”

“Yes,” Ivano said. He kissed Caterina on the cheek. “See you tonight, dear.”

In the minutes that followed, Antonio asked Eugenia and Caterina questions until he was certain he had understood completely the situation. All along, he did his best to maintain his professional demeanor. Once he grasped the entire story and its meaning, Antonio said, “You two ladies should be thankful to Mister Bo for leading me here. Faking someone’s death is a serious matter. You couldn’t have dealt with this situation alone.” He looked at Caterina. “Do you feel well enough to go to Corso Solferino?”

Caterina nodded.

He stood up. “Let’s go then. The sooner we’ll get this over the better.”

Meanwhile, ignoring Eugenia’s order not to speak, Grazia had rushed to Klainguti’s and bolted into the main room screaming like a banshee: “Caterina Berilli is alive! Caterina Berilli is alive!”

As for Ottavio, he went straight to Taverna del Marinaio. “I’m not drunk,” he told the barman, “and I’m telling you I just saw Caterina Berilli in the flesh, talking like you and I.”

Immediately, the news followed the double grapevine, and before an hour went by everyone in the
caruggi
knew that something was very wrong in the Berilli household.

While the gossip was being disseminated, Antonio was driving uphill, with Eugenia in the passenger’s seat and Caterina in the back. He squeezed his hands around the wheel. He couldn’t believe Giuseppe had told him over and over such an enormous number of lies and that he had fallen for those lies like a novice. Not only that, but he had spent a pointless night investigating. The lawyer had sent him on a wild-goose chase, and he’d never forgive that hypocrite for the waste of his energy and the lost sleep. As he braked and parked the car in front of the
palazzina
, he slammed his fist on the dashboard feeling no pain. He swore that if Giuseppe ever recovered he’d arrest him and have him spend the rest of his life in jail. Should he die, instead, he’d look for the bald head of the lawyer in every corner of Hell after his own death and use it for an infernal soccer game. He took a deep breath then prepared himself to face the loathsome family and their lies.

While Caterina, following his suggestion, remained temporarily in the car, he and Eugenia approached the front door and knocked. Gugliemo met them and escorted them upstairs, to Giuseppe’s room, where a family reunion was in progress. Doctor Sciaccaluga had called Matilda, Umberto, and Raimondo to Giuseppe’s bedside. As Giuseppe had asked him, the doctor had left the
palazzina
earlier with the nuns’ telegram in his pocket and rushed to the bakery with the intent of finding Caterina and preventing her from showing her face all over town. He had missed her and Ivano by a hair, for by the time he had arrived, Ivano and Caterina had left Piazza della Nunziata minutes earlier, headed to Eugenia’s home. After a couple of hours spent stalking the bakery inside and out to no avail, Damiano had returned to the
palazzina
and told Giuseppe he had no idea where Caterina was. At that, Giuseppe had coughed and brought a hand to his heart, moaning. Damiano saw immediately the signs of a worsening health in his ally. “We must take him to the hospital,” he was saying to Matilda and the brothers the moment Antonio walked in with Eugenia by his side.

“Good afternoon,” Antonio said. “I’m glad to find you all here.” He turned to Giuseppe. “Would you care to tell us, Mister Berilli, what exactly you did to your daughter?”

Matilda’s face blanched as she lowered her head. Giuseppe wheezed and his lips turned blue. With clumsy motions, Damiano lifted his chest to help him breathe.

Umberto said, “What are you talking about?”

Antonio felt no compassion for any of the people in the room. “Ask your father,” he said. “Or, given that he may not be able to speak, you should perhaps ask your mother. I’m sure she’ll be glad to explain how it happens that Caterina is alive and well, and, at this moment, seated in my car.”

Umberto and Raimondo, with their bewildered faces, were so clearly at a loss that Antonio knew immediately that the two brothers were unaware of the plot.

“Mother?” Umberto murmured. “What is he talking about?”

Matilda spoke gravely. “Antonio is right,” she said, keeping her head down. “Your father and I did something unspeakable to Caterina.”

Giuseppe gasped, “Shut up.”

Matilda ignored Giuseppe’s order. She said, “Antonio, can I see Caterina?”

Giuseppe grabbed Damiano’s arm. “Make her shut up,” he squawked.

Damiano kept looking back and forth at Giuseppe and Antonio, his head swirling, incapable of making decisions.

Eugenia, who had kept silent up until that moment, took a step forward. “You weasel,” she sneered at Giuseppe with all the contempt she was capable of. “And you,” she shouted, pointing a finger at Matilda, “how dare you lock my only niece in a convent?”

Umberto babbled, “Convent? What convent?”

“The convent of the Sorelle Addolorate, I understand,” Antonio said calmly. He gave Giuseppe a look that was more piercing than a needle. “Would you care to explain to your sons what you did, Mister Berilli?”

Giuseppe opened and closed his mouth without speaking.

Meanwhile, following Antonio’s instructions, Caterina was knocking on the house door.

“May I help you?” Guglielmo asked. He froze and stared at the young woman standing outside.

Caterina smiled. “Good evening, Guglielmo,” she said, stepping into the foyer.

He obstructed her way with his body. “This is not a good time for tasteless jokes, Miss.”

“Don’t you recognize me?
I am
Caterina!”

“It can’t be,” Guglielmo stuttered, gazing up and down the woman’s face. The resemblance was stunning, but the woman’s eyes were not Miss Caterina’s sparkling, childish ones, and her hair was opaque, not shiny.

“Am I that different, Guglielmo?” Caterina said, realizing that the butler was in shock and couldn’t think straight. “I’m tired, but it’s me. Let me in.”

Guglielmo shook his head as his face, for the first time in his long career as a butler, showed one emotion: fear.

“Do you want proof?” Caterina said. “I was born in this house. I know every corner of it by heart. Ask, if you don’t believe me. Ask me about the passage from the kitchen to the laundry room. Or about the double mirror in my mother’s bedroom. Or about the color of the canopy over my bed. It’s violet. Anything else you’d like to know?”

Guglielmo’s hands shook as he stepped aside.

“Thank you,” Caterina said. “Please show me to my father.”

Hesitantly, Guglielmo preceded Caterina up the stairs. On the threshold of Giuseppe’s bedroom, he cleared his throat.

“I’m awfully sorry to disturb you,” he said in his deferential voice, “but there’s a lady here who seems to be,” he paused, “Miss Caterina.”

He stepped aside and Caterina entered the bedroom, stopping half way between the bed and the door.

There was a long moment of silence then Umberto screamed and stared at his sister with eyes full of fright. After several futile attempts at talking, Raimondo fell into a catatonic state from which he awoke only days later. He had been clutched by guilt ever since learning of Caterina’s illness, wondering if he could have in any way caused it, and his guilt had grown unbearable when he had been told that Caterina had died. His drinking and partying habits had been his way not to think of what he had done to his baby sister and of fighting off the nightmares of her that hunted him whenever he closed his eyes.

At the sight of her daughter, Matilda joined her hands in prayer.

“Thank you, Lord,” she whispered, “for keeping my daughter safe and for returning her to her home.”

Giuseppe’s face turned red and blue, and his breathing became so difficult Damiano thought his precious friend had come to the end of his life. In his befuddled mind, he thought that perhaps Giuseppe’s death was the best course of events for him at that point. The secret of their friendship would die with him and he would be safe. He stepped away from the bed, hoping the lawyer’s weak heart would stop beating.

“Would you care to tell me, Mister Berilli” Antonio asked, “how you managed to get a death certificate for your daughter?”

Giuseppe coughed repeatedly then pointed a finger at Damiano. “He did it,” he said with a thread of voice.

Antonio turned to Doctor Sciaccaluga. “You? Well well,” he said. “This
is
a day full of surprises.”

Damiano stuttered, “No, no … I don’t know what he’s talking about …” He swallowed repeatedly as he felt his shirt collar tightening around his neck like a hanging rope.

“Yes,” Giuseppe wheezed. “It was all his idea.”

Suddenly, Damiano felt lost. “Liar,” he hissed, yanking the nuns’ telegram out of his pocket and waving it under the lawyer’s nose. “This telegram is addressed to you, not to me! How do you explain it?” He handed the telegram to Antonio. “There,” he said. “Now we can all know for sure who concocted this plan.”

Giuseppe lifted a limp hand. “He wrote the death certificate,” he stated.

“I’m sure the handwriting will tell us who is responsible for filing Miss Caterina’s death certificate,” Antonio said confidently.

At that Damiano lost the little that was left of his composure. Squeezing his ferret eyes, he grabbed Giuseppe by the collar of his pajamas. “You think you’re smart?” he screamed. “I’ll show you smart, you traitor!” He let go of Giuseppe and took a second sheet of paper out of his pocket. “Do you know what this is?” he shouted, parading the document under everyone’s eyes. “It’s your birth record, Giuseppe, written by my father! Everyone look! Read this paper! He was born to a prostitute! And a drunken sailor!”

The moments that followed were even more confused than when Caterina had arrived. Antonio snatched the sheet out of the doctor’s hands and read it aloud.

Date
: January 28, 1841

Biological parents
: Mercalia Parenti, prostitute; Cristiano Zolezzi, sailor.

Child
: Sex, male. Weight at birth: three and a half kilos.
Length at birth
: forty centimeters

Sold to
: Filiberto and Giulia Berilli

Amount charged
: 500 liras

Amount given to Mercalia
: 450 liras

Note: I helped Giulia Berilli through a difficult pregnancy, which ended in a stillbirth. Mercalia’s boy was born on the day of Giulia’s stillbirth, and when Mercalia decided she didn’t want the child, I offered him to the Berillis. They accepted him with joy and named him Giuseppe.

Doctor Federico Sciaccaluga, aka the Doctor of Dreams

When Antonio had read the last word, everyone’s eyes were fixed on Giuseppe. In his fading consciousness, he had heard everything Antonio had said. His face was painted with an expression of incredulity beyond repair. Matilda was frozen by the bed, as were Caterina, Eugenia, and Umberto. Raimondo, in his catatonic state showed no reaction at all. Suddenly, Giuseppe opened his mouth as if he wanted to speak, but emitted instead a long wheezing sound. His leg muscles twitched, his back arched. Then his body fell flat on the sheets, and his neck bent softly to one side.

“Do something!” Eugenia shouted, pushing Damiano towards the bed.

Damiano, however, couldn’t hear her. He had begun to hum a song and was looking about the room with an expression of stupidity in his eyes. Matilda was the one to take charge.

“We need to transport him to the hospital,” she said. Then she turned to Eugenia. “And don’t you dare argue!”

She left the room without rushing, looking for Guglielmo. When she found him, she gave him the order to prepare the automobile for Mister Berilli, as his health had unexpectedly worsened. Shortly, Guglielmo transported Giuseppe to the Pammatone Hospital where they were met by a swarm of solicitous nurses and doctors. Giuseppe was assigned an austere private room furnished with a bed, a small table, and a rusty lavatory. No member of his family had followed him there. Later, the Head of Medicine, a friend of the Berillis, examined Giuseppe’s limp body and at the end of the visit sent a messenger to the
palazzina
asking that Matilda come to the hospital right away.