The Watercolourist (43 page)

‘He says we should pray for acceptance,’ she says. ‘That the Lord sometimes does things that we can’t understand. Things that not even he understands.’

The four of them quietly make their way back towards the villa. What is there left to say? Afterwards, the pall-bearers are given a glass of wine in the kitchen. They recount the devastating
story of the cemetery. The tomb, which already houses the children Bernocchi spoke of that Donna Julie has lost – Battista, Andreina, and Vittorio: which makes three, not two as Bernocchi had
suggested – had been opened to make room for the small coffin. Donna Clara gasping with tears and Donna Julie and Don Titta’s frightening silence. The good-hearted maids cry when they
hear this. The image of the little one, her habits and her fixations, is all too clear in their minds.

‘She loved my almond pudding so much,’ sighs the cook. ‘She could have lived off it. She ate barely anything else, poor babe.’

‘Do you remember when she didn’t want us to break the chicken’s neck? Remember how she tied a bow around it and looked after it as if it were a puppy?’

‘And what about when she asked me if I would make a dress for her dolly that was identical to hers?’

Children’s fancies are different, and yet all the same. Bianca walks out then and sits on the steps, her elbows on her knees, and looks at the garden and its unresponsive beauty. A small
cloud hovers alone above the sycamore tree.

‘What are we going to do?’ she asks Innes, who in the meantime has sat down next to her.

‘I don’t know. We will keep on, I suppose. He has his novel, and thank goodness for that. A big world to fill his mind. She will become all the more apprehensive, poor thing. And
Donna Clara . . . well, she will reclaim her post at the rudder. It will come easily to her. It’s a big estate – there is so much to watch over and debts to oversee. She will put on her
accounting gloves and her owl eyeglasses. That will be her distraction.’

Bianca wishes she could smile. She tries to but she feels as though her lips would crack. So she stops.

‘And what about you?’ she asks.

‘Let’s talk about you. Are you all right?’ he says, changing the subject. Bianca feels him staring at her. She knows his gaze well. Without waiting for an answer, he continues.
‘Sometimes the best way to confront grief is to stand still and wait for it to subside. To agitate oneself, to flee, is not worth it; it doesn’t get rid of grief. It is better to give
oneself time. Often, time can cure a wound that reason can’t bring back to health. Seneca said that, not me,’ he concludes and then looks straight ahead.

What if it really was that way? What if we could go back to our previous lives, to our habits, and to the natural rhythm of things, and let the tears slowly dry?
In that very moment,
Bianca wants only for nothing else to change. She wants her world to freeze, to be held still under a sheet of glass, like her leaves and flowers. The two of them look at each other. Perhaps he
understands. Maybe not. He must be thinking back to her first question.

‘I think that it would be a bad idea if I left now. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a bad idea in itself

Ah, here we go.
Bianca knew it.

‘You will be the first to know my decision, if this is indeed the case,’ he concludes. ‘We are fortunate: we can leave when we like, if we want to. This isn’t our life.
Turning our backs on all of this will be painful. But possible.’

He takes her hand and squeezes it. She does not pull away. She loves this tall, long-limbed man with his tumultuous thoughts and distracted gaze. She loves him and she trusts him more than any
other man in this world.

Zeno, her adorable little brother with eyes as bright as the buttons on his uniform, left the night of the party, avoiding the tragedy. Nittis, with eyes like spilled ink, promising and elusive,
left with him. Perhaps soldiers are all like that: they grab what they can find, take it with them, and run away. They are forgivable thieves, aware that sooner or later a bullet could catch them.
We have to let them go. Innes, too, is a soldier, only he is in a dress shirt. He won’t flee though; he is heading towards something that he desires, that still does not exist but which is
possible. That is the difference. And Don Titta, so carefully drawn to his own standards, can go nowhere.

Bianca recalls a fragment of a conversation that took place one spring afternoon in the living room when all the windows were open.

‘A writer or a poet possesses words, and for this reason he also possesses the things his words define,’ Tommaso said, pressing the fingertips of his hands together in
concentration.

‘Correct,’ Don Titta replied. ‘If to possess is to know, then we who work with words understand and possess the world, or at least we make this ambition our daily goal. But to
give things a name, my friend, makes us neither wise nor happy. If anything, it only makes us more aware.’

‘You don’t really think that we are put on this earth to be happy?’ Tommaso asked almost scornfully.

‘Every so often,’ Don Titta replied, staring at his children as they ran on the gravel path. ‘Every so often I like to deceive myself that it is so.’

‘But if your happiness depends on others,’ Tommaso countered, following his gaze, ‘then you have little chance of preserving it.’

‘What are you suggesting? That’s it’s sufficient for a stylite on top of a column to be happy? Or a monk in his hermitage? I want to be happy in the world,’ Don Titta
said.

‘I on the other hand, am content with the small world that is my study,’ Tommaso replied.

‘And here,’ concluded Don Titta, ‘our thoughts diverge. Believe me, we are nothing without love. And I speak of pure love, not the love that asks or deceives, but the love that
gives and commits. We end up depending on it, it’s true. And it depends on us. It creates connections. And connections are complications. But I want to be complicated, and of this
world.’

He then stood up, opened the French window, and called out to Giulietta, who stopped what she was doing and ran into her father’s arms.

In ‘this world’ Don Titta is the master of words, but in love he isn’t any more a master of himself. He cannot go anywhere. Maybe he would like to, but his world is calling
him, holding him back – it needs him. And now that world is inhabited by one small shadow more.

Bianca leafs through her folders, prepares her charcoals, ties on her apron, and sits down at the table inside the greenhouse. Nobody has repaired the damage to the glass yet
and therefore it is still miraculously cool with currents of fresh air. But what is the point of portraying the lightness of the honeysuckle now? There are other things out there: the stain of
lichens on the stone cheek of a
putto
; the sick symmetry of mushrooms that crawl like insects on a severed trunk; the vibrations of a spider’s web, magnified and yet endangered by
droplets of rain. A dirty, fragile, poisonous kind of grace. She wished that nothing would change; instead everything has been transformed. Maybe it is her perspective, but suddenly she sees other,
darker things where before there was only the pure, mild grace of a garden, cultivated with love. Beauty does nothing but take risks.

It is strange how time ungoverned dilates and expands indifferently, stretching out and emptying the hours. Whereas before it was so important to fill time with rituals and
rhythms that are just and necessary, now nothing matters. There is no work, there are no errands to run. They wait.

It is too early for people to force themselves to forget; the grief is so fresh that one can only relive it, amazed by its everlasting energy. Days and weeks go by. Not one event can disturb the
surface of this void. What matters lies beneath and within, and it grows incessantly.

Then, one evening, something happens.

There is the sound of confusion at the front door but no one pays it any attention. Everyone has taken a seat: one here, one there. It is an empty shell of an evening, just like the others, but
Donna Clara has insisted and so they arrange themselves as directed. Only Donna Julie is missing, rightly excused from all obligations and formalities. Bianca looks towards the doorway. She thinks
she is the only one who sees Ruggiero peek in, but no. Innes jumps to his feet and approaches the butler, who delivers a message to him in a whisper.

‘We have visitors,’ Innes announces. He looks at Don Titta, who raises his head sluggishly, as if it is unbearably heavy, and then lowers it again in silence. ‘We need to get
ready.’

Tommaso rises, walks towards the closed window, and gently moves the curtain back. Donna Clara, hostile, watches him, as if it is his fault.

‘Visitors? We were very clear when we stated—’

‘I’m afraid these men won’t listen to your requests,’ Tommaso says, glancing back at the others. He is strangely vigilant, almost excited. He stands tall, with his hands
in his pockets. The door to the sitting room opens.

‘Lieutenant Colonel Steiner, of the Royal Imperial Army,’ Ruggiero announces, stepping aside to present a blond, fairly young official with blue eyes and a neat appearance.

The master of the house rises slowly. Instead of walking towards the visitor, he turns to Tommaso, who stands looking out the window still, his back to the scene.

‘May I help you?’ Donna Clara spits from her place on the sofa, looking the official up and down.

‘Good evening,’ he says. His accent is heavy. He articulates every word. It takes a long time to put together a full sentence. ‘In the name of his Majesty . . . information . .
. search . . . documents . . .’

Bianca hears the man’s speech emerge fragmented, with little meaning. She cannot tell if she is distracted or if the Colonel’s Italian is truly pitiful. She looks at Innes and then
at Tommaso: they both appear calm. Don Titta keeps his back turned, as if none of this concerns him. The moment feels long and drawn out, suspended in the air. Nothing happens. And then two
soldiers appear behind the official, awaiting their instructions. From the clinking noise in the foyer, it is clear that there are others, too. They will spread out through the house, open drawers,
throw books and flip over tables. It happened at the Maffei home, at the Confalonieris’, the Galleranis’, and even at Bernocchi’s country house. It is a vicious game of dominos:
search, discover, and condemn. It is both expected and unavoidable. Bianca feels herself grow cold. The slow chill wraps around her, starting at her legs and fixing her to the sofa.

And then, just before the soldiers start to move in, a figure dressed all in white and ignited by pure willpower appears among the soldiers. It is Donna Julie. She ignores the strangers and
walks straight past them, a tiny creature amid robust, meaty men.

‘Titta,’ she says. ‘The children need you.’

It is as if he doesn’t hear her.

‘Titta,’ she repeats, slightly louder this time. He finally turns and slowly walks towards his wife, puts an arm around her shoulder, and leads her away. The official stares at the
couple, speechless. Who do they think they are, ignoring him like that?

‘Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough,’ he says, then repeats his message. This time any hint of kindness has vanished from his voice. It is an error. It is Donna Clara’s turn
now to speak.