The House of Serenades (32 page)

“There’s someone in the kitchen you should see before you leave,” she said with a cunning smile.

The someone Viola was referring to was Ivano. He had arrived at the
palazzina
hours earlier, mandolin in hand, anxious to see Caterina. No one had answered his knocks. The reason was that the servants, Guglielmo included, were all asleep, but he didn’t know.

“This can’t be,” he uttered, almost in tears.

Sometime later, Viola, the first one to wake, heard his call. “Stay in the kitchen,” she told him, “until the time is right for me to fetch Miss Caterina.”

So Ivano had sat at the kitchen table for most of the morning, nervously changing positions on the chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs, occasionally grazing the mandolin strings, waiting for Caterina to arrive. The moment he saw her at the kitchen door, he rushed up to her.

“I was worried sick about you!” he exclaimed, taking Caterina in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” Caterina said. “I had a very eventful night and a revealing morning.”

“Tell me everything,” Ivano said.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Caterina proposed. “I haven’t been to the
belvedere
in a long time.”

Ivano nodded and slid his arm around her elbow.

“It’s all so confusing,” she lamented as they crossed Corso Solferino.

It was a beautiful sunny morning, and not a single cloud was in sight. The view of the city from the
belvedere
was astounding. Leaning against the railing, gazing in awe at the rooftops, the docks, and the blue water, she related to him the events of the previous night.

“I have no idea what will happen now,” she concluded. “My father is hospitalized. My mother is under house arrest and in a horrible state, as are my brothers. Antonio is doing his job yet making things even more complicated.”

“Give it some time,” Ivano consoled her. “You have been back less than a day. I know what you need,” he added, noticing Caterina’s sad face. To her delight, he placed a knee on a bench, the mandolin on the knee, and began to play. He played three songs in a row—Caterina’s favorites. She listened quietly, letting the melodies and the lyrics fill her head to toe, thinking of how many times at the convent she had longed to hear that voice, how many times she had shivered at the thought of having lost it forever. At a certain point she said, “I remember you telling me that you composed a special song for me. Would you play it? Please?”

Ivano thought a moment. “That’s a song I’ll play for you when I’ll be sure that nothing and no one will stand between us in any way,” he said. “Remember? I composed it for the day you and I will begin our life together.”

“Does it have a title?” she asked.

“Not yet,” he replied. “I’ll think of one the first time I’ll play it.”

At the hospital, Giuseppe, who was gravely paralyzed but had most of his intellectual functions intact, was realizing little by little that he was disgraced. He stared at the empty room: none of his relatives were there to take care of him, a clear sign that his plot against Caterina had become public domain. To upset him even more, the words Antonio had read from Federico Sciaccaluga’s birth document echoed in his head without respite. He felt like crying, screaming or kicking his sheets, but he could do none of that because he no longer had control over his body. He began to breathe fast and make deep noises with his throat. Those were all the sounds he’d able to utter for several days, until his paralysis would worsen and he’d become still and silent, as if petrified.

The press, meanwhile, had been busy. Over a few days,
Il Secolo XIX
published several special editions in a row, filled with what details the reporters had been able to gather about Caterina, her time at the convent, the mock funeral, Giuseppe’s plot, and the complicity of Doctor Sciaccaluga. Then the reporters found out that Giuseppe was not a real Berilli after all. An angered Antonio had mercilessly made public that information after ascertaining that a woman named Mercalia Parenti had indeed lived in Genoa years earlier and that her birthdate was appropriate for her to be Giuseppe’s mother. Furthermore, the investigators confirmed that the handwriting in the document was Federico Sciaccaluga’s. Immediately, all the firm’s clients tore up their contracts with
Berilli e Figli
, placing the care of their legal matters with lawyers who met their standards for social status and respectability. And the talk of the town became even louder:

“I always said it that there was something wrong with that Giuseppe.”

“I never liked him in the first place.”

“How could we have not guessed the truth? Eugenia is twenty centimeters taller than him, and her waist is one third the size of his. I’ve never seen two siblings more different from each other.”

“He looks like a peasant. So fat. So bald.”

“You know how it is with men of that ancestry. They can dress up all they want but they remain villains.”

Raimondo and Umberto, in particular, became the target of pointed fingers, whispers, and laughs:

“And those sons of his, what are they?”

“They are
mezzo sangue
: a crossbreed between aristocracy and plebs.”

The gossip raged on for days. When the outrage and the jokes seemed to have subsided, Francesca Barone, the owner of Caffe’ del Gambero, came forward to reignite them. Proudly, she showed everyone a pearl necklace Giuseppe had given her in recognition of their long-lasting relationship.

“We were lovers for twenty years,” Francesca explained, “and we remained lovers until the day Giuseppe fell sick. We met once a week in a small apartment on Vico del Ferro,” she said, “only a few blocks away from
Berilli e Figli
. Giuseppe bought that apartment for me. It’s time for the world to know about us,” she continued, “because a love this long and strong is a miracle.”

Everyone was stunned at how that might have happened without anyone knowing about it in a city where even the color of one’s pajamas was discussed at the cafés tables.

The principal reason Francesca Barone had decided to share her secret, Antonio found out, was a paper she had. The paper was handwritten and signed by Giuseppe and stated that he left the apartment on Vico del Ferro to Francesca together with the sum of five thousand liras.

“I want to be sure I get what’s mine,” Francesca told Antonio with a cold smile. “I don’t trust Giuseppe’s family members.”

Caterina was the one who took charge to give Francesca her dues, even though Giuseppe was technically still alive. She did so calmly one week later, despite the protests of her brothers. Her calm and poise were, however, only a carefully constructed façade. On the day the rumors about Francesca Barone had spread, Caterina had been overcome by an intestinal rage that kept her in bed for many hours, feverish and fighting cramping pains. It was only when she rose from her bed the following morning that she was lucid enough to piece together the sad truth: the man who had sacrificed her and locked her in a convent for two years in order to save appearances and his social status was in fact the lover of a famous prostitute and of even lower lineage than Ivano, who was at least the son of an honest and successful merchant. Rage caught her again from inside. Without a word, she walked to the dining room, opened a cabinet, and smashed all the china in it, one piece at a time. She left the
palazzina
when the cabinet was empty and the floor covered with debris, under the stunned eyes of Viola, Guglielmo, and Matilda, who had all rushed to the living room attracted by the noise of the broken china and couldn’t think of a single reason for Caterina’s suddenly violent behavior. Of course they all remembered the temper tantrums of Caterina’s childhood, but even so they couldn’t imagine what had brought back a behavior everyone considered a thing of the past.

A flustered Caterina wandered all day in the old town: up and down the
carrugi
, along the waterline, and then amidst the loud traffic of Piazza De Ferrari and Via Carlo Felice. When at eight in the evening she returned home, tired and covered in dust from head to toe, her rage had given way to a subdued sadness. She apologized to her mother for the damage to the family china and explained how she had acted in a moment of frustration. Matilda, who hadn’t yet heard about her husband’s long-lasting extramarital affair as she no longer read the newspapers or received visitors, caressed her daughter’s cheek and returned to the blue parlor to embroider handkerchiefs.

To shelter her, Caterina ordered Guglielmo and the rest of the staff not to talk to Matilda or to each other about the relationship between Francesca Barone and her father.

“We must make sure my mother never finds out,” she said. “We should also keep an eye on visitors and ensure no stranger is ever left alone with her.”

Both Viola and Guglielmo were moved by Caterina’s protective attitude towards a mother who hadn’t protected her at all when she most needed it.

That night, on her way to her bedroom, Caterina looked at herself in the large mirror set at the top of the staircase and was frightened by what she saw: a tired face scarred by grief and two small colorless eyes. She turned away from that image and told herself that the past was past and no matter what she thought or did and who her father had been, the time she had spent in the convent would not be returned to her, ever.

“I will no longer feel sorry for myself,” she said aloud. “My father ruined twenty-five months of my life, but there’s no reason I should allow him to ruin everything.”

On that note, she resolved to live a normal life, a life with friends and shopping outings in the
carrugi
and love, and not to give her father, the press, or the gossips another thought.

The following afternoon she went to the bakery and in the penumbra of the oven room told Ivano what he had wanted to hear all along.

“I’m done thinking about my family,” she said. “All I want to think about from now on is you.” They embraced, and an ecstatic Ivano caressed her and kissed her with a sensuous tenderness that skillfully masked his long-suppressed lust for her.

Over the following weeks, Caterina and Ivano saw each other every day. They went for long walks, talking at length about their future. With him at her side, Caterina felt confident and more and more indifferent to the scandal that was still rocking her family and especially her father. Her intimacy with Ivano was growing. One day Ivano took her in his arms with such vehemence that her body shook with the memories of Raimondo’s games, played night after night until she had turned thirteen and threatened her brother to reveal their secret. She excused herself and went home, leaving Ivano puzzled and fearful of having lost Caterina once more. It took her several more encounters to overcome her fears, to feel less torn between past and future. She never explained to Ivano why she had retreated, and he never asked for a reason. Slowly, she became accustomed to Ivano’s touches and smell, the soft texture of his skin, his tender kisses, increasingly distancing herself from the memories of Raimondo’s games until the connection between the acts of her brother and those of her lover became weak and then altogether disappeared, as if the two men existed in worlds that couldn’t touch each other.

Umberto was horrified by his sister’s public display of affection for the baker, but said nothing, hoping it’d be a temporary matter while Caterina adjusted to her new life. Bigger issues worried him, concerning his relationship with his mother. Ever since his sister’s sudden return, Umberto had looked upon Matilda with mistrust. While he understood her difficult position—everyone was familiar with Giuseppe’s bad temper and capricious disposition—down deep he declared her guilty of having concealed the truth about Caterina. Had she spoken, he argued, the family would have been able to talk reason to Giuseppe and perhaps persuade him to deal with Caterina’s infatuation in a more rational way. He had always loved his mother dearly, and now he felt betrayed. He felt that all his life he had loved a different woman, a woman who only after Caterina’s return had appeared to him in all her ineptitude and cowardice. His visits to Corso Solferino became rare and short, until they eventually stopped altogether.

Out of his catatonic condition, Raimondo found all sort of excuses to stay away from the
palazzina
, for he couldn’t bear to look into his sister’s eyes. He drowned into his dissolute life more deeply than ever and avoided all visits and encounters with his family for fear that eventually Caterina would start talking about the past and share the secrets of her youth.

As for Eugenia, who was recovering at the hospital at the end of the second week, she didn’t miss a single occasion to make mincemeat of her sister-in-law. “I always said it, wives and oxen from your land. She buried her daughter alive, that
Torinese
, and told us nothing. That girl is
my
niece. How dare that Matilda keep such a momentous secret to herself? How?”

When the Countess Marina Passaggi during one her hospital visits pointed out to Eugenia that it had been Giuseppe’s idea, not Matilda’s, to declare his daughter dead, Eugenia heard no reason. “It’s a mother’s duty to take care of her children,” she said. “I don’t want to see that
Torinese
again for as long as I live.”

As it turned out, Eugenia saw Matilda shortly afterwards, because the first thing she did upon her discharge from the hospital was rush to the
palazzina
. She entered the blue parlor like a storm, catching Matilda by surprise.

“Time to set a few matters straight,” she barked. “From now on I’ll live here. And I’m taking charge of this household.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Matilda shouted. “This is my home!”

“I don’t think so,” Eugenia said calmly. “I’ll hire a lawyer to prove that this house is mine. Until then you can stay, as long as you don’t interfere with what I do or say.”

Mouth agape, Matilda remained in her seat, unable to gather enough strength to stand up and fight Eugenia and her newly-found air of superiority.

Promptly, Eugenia dispensed new instructions to the staff, making sure the new house rules would be as different as possible from the ones Matilda had enforced for thirty-one years. She paid special attention to picking schedules and routines that would give Matilda the most aggravation, such as cleaning the floors of the blue parlor with alcohol twice a day. On her first evening as the lady of the house, Eugenia walked into the reading room, lit the fireplace, and poured herself a large glass of Sambuca. She raised her glass. “Damn you, Giuseppe,” she said, “and your whore mother.”