That Summer in Sicily Page 17

  “We’ve come to the borghetto not to welcome home the peasants as much as to prepare them for what they will find. For what is no longer here. Surely they will smell the smoke, see the black smudges swirling about the twilight. There has been a fire. Skillfully set and left to rage while the peasants were away. The borghetto left to burn. From the palace veranda where we went to sit with our coffee this morning, Leo and I saw the flames leaping from the buildings. Men from the palace household had seen them before we did, were already on their way, Cosimo among them. We’d telephoned several of the villages. More help arrived. Onto the bed of a truck we’d thrown garden tools. We’d joined the line, hurtled shovels of earth, relayed water from the well in feed buckets. Chaste weapons to stay the beast. Even as it tired. Even in its last throes. The sleeping quarters are least damaged. The mensa, the kitchens, the chapel are all stone shells heaped with smouldering ash. We know, perhaps everyone knows, this fire is a calling card. The clan is a persevering suitor. Inventive, unpredictable, compelling.

  “Yet the next day officials, summoned by Leo from Enna, investigate the site with the thoroughness of archaeologists. The fire was not set. No indication of arson is established. The fire was not the work of the clan but of simple distraction. The bakers’ distraction. Once the oven was hot enough to shovel in the risen loaves, the bakers—as they do always—swept the oven floor clean of the piles of white-hot embers, heaved pailsful of the live ash behind the bakehouse. But this morning, in their rush to join the departing wagons on their way to the river, they were careless. The undampened embers fell upon dry grasses. Too close to the woodpile. The dry grasses were like tinder, the embers caught the wood. The fire seethed, spread. When it reached the containers of cooking gas in the mensa, it exploded. Rather than giving himself over to relief that the fire was accidental, Leo resists believing the authorities. Might not someone have instructed them to call it ‘spontaneous’? Who can be certain? After all, have we Sicilians not cultivated secrecy to a fine art? Every last one of us? Far more than what had become his usual expressions of quixotic terror, it was this incident of the fire and Leo’s refusal to accept its innocent source that showed me the force of his ravings. And against those ravings, logic is feeble as the trickle of water that could not stop the blaze.’ ”

  “ ‘One evening during this long epoch of our siege, Leo came to my rooms. Agata opened the door to his knock. Seated at the pianoforte, a silvery-brown tea gown puffed up about me on the little bench, I was trying to play Saint-Saëns. Still trying. Still working on Le Cygne. Leo arranged himself on the divanetto.

  “I began to silently mouth the words even before he could say them aloud.

  “ ‘It’s a swan, Tosca. The music was composed to give the impression of a swan. There is no indication that an elephant approaches. Piano. Piano, amore mio.’

  “ ‘But I’m so big and these keys are so small. What do I do with all my strength?’

  “ ‘Strange, but it’s precisely your strength about which I’d like to speak this evening.’

  “I rise from the bench, go to him to receive his demure double kiss, and he pulls me down to perch on the edge of the small hassock in front of where he sits. Without overture, he says, ‘Essentially I have no heir. I am the last one, the last to be born of this noble, ignoble lineage of mine. I have no sons. Only those two twittering, rustling reflections of their mother, save their souls. Simona has raised them as her personal pets. I have given them only my name. It’s as though she somehow separated and replaced even the blood in them that was mine, though God knows, it was my very blood for which she married me. But I’ll get to that. I tell you once again, I have no heir. I am concerned not at all for Simona’s material comforts since she owns more land and more grand edifices than she’s had time or will to look upon. Our marriage was motivated not only by my father’s debts but by her father’s wiliness. Her father offered no dowry, you see. An unheard-of display of arrogance. He wanted his daughter’s wealth to stay with her, not to be drunk or whored or gamed by some blackguard. Certainly a husband would have the peripheral benefits of her wealth, but he would have access to only that part which Simona, herself, deemed worthy to share. Had Simona been lovely or talented or simply kind, simply tender, she might have attracted suitors even under those hostile conditions. That she was none of these had its effect. By the time my father presented the idea of my marriage to her, she was dangerously near to twenty-five—the official age when a never-married woman becomes la zitella, a spinster—and her father had softened, if only slightly. The two men had been lifelong friends. My father, Laurent, needed help. And if only to save face, Federico’s daughter needed a husband. It was all accomplished with grace. Dutiful and correct in my liaison with Simona, I also kept certain elements of my former life uninterrupted. I was eighteen years old, Tosca. Not much more than a boy. A boy sent off to do his duty for his family. Not unlike being sent off to war. From the rich zitella’s bed, you will provide salvation for us all, my son. The compromise worked for everyone. Or so I’d believed until I fell in love with you. All this is to tell you that you are my family, Tosca. You and Cosimo and the peasants. And all I have will be yours. Cosimo and I are seeing to that.’

  “I have been listening to him as to a fable. Yes, as to a strange, sad fable. And so when he said, ‘To seal the pact, I want you to have this,’ I was startled. Even though I’d already known, if not in such cold detail, much of what he’d been telling me, hearing it all in a piece like that caused grief in me and something akin to anger.

  “ ‘Your father was as cruel as mine,’ I tell him.

  “He shakes his head in defense of his father. He fumbles trying to unbutton the vest pocket of his rumpled suede riding coat, which, though he hasn’t mounted a horse in three years, he wears almost exclusively. His long, thick fingers tremble as he tries to grasp something tucked away there. He pulls out a small purse shaped like an envelope. Made of quilted silk in a burnt brown color. Leo opens its clasp and takes out a necklace. A square-cut emerald hangs from a short braided chain of rose-gold. In his open palm, he holds it out to me. Says, ‘I have always imagined that this, hanging from my mother’s neck above my crib as she sang to me, must have been the first object I saw. It’s not likely true, but it hardly matters. Until the night she died, I don’t recall ever having seen my mother without this. If we were to have been married, this would have been my wedding gift to you.’

  “I don’t take the necklace; I hardly look at it, but rather at him. Trying to tell him that it’s not an emerald that I want or need. Not even his mother’s emerald. I try to say that I would have loved to have been his bride but that I am content being who I am to him. Even though, until now, I’ve never been certain of who that might be. Surely I don’t want to be his heir. I say all of this, I say more than this, and he hears me. Puts the necklace back in its burnt-brown purse.

  “ ‘My mother was called Isotta. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that.’

  “ ‘You have,’ I tell him.

  “ ‘Have I ever told you how she died?’

  “ ‘No.’

  “ ‘May I tell you that story, the end of her story, right now?”

  “ ‘Of course.’ ”

  “ ‘Signora Isotta, you cannot do this,’ the nurses told her.

  “ ‘Try and stop me and I’ll have you smothered in your beds. Send Leo to me at once.’

  “ ‘The two nurses had entered her room thinking to prepare her for sleep. My mother had a different idea about how she would spend her evening. I’d been waiting nearby. Waiting for Isotta to send a nurse to fetch me or for one of them to come tell me that she had died. I’d been pacing and sleeping and smoking in the little parlor down the hall from her room for days and nights by then. Permitted to sit by her bed, to stroke her fine old head for a few moments whenever the nurses deemed her peaceful enough to bear such excitement as my silent presence would cause. But now, there she was, standing by the bed. A broad smile upon her w
onderful face.’

  “ ‘Ah, Leo, how I love you. Surely I’ve told you hundreds of times, but I’ll tell you once again how honored I am to be your mother.’

  “ ‘She walked toward me, reached out to hold my cheek in her hand, then rushed past me and to the window, thrusting it open, inviting the cold February afternoon in upon the death-smelling room. It was her first breath of good air since she’d been rushed, dying, to the hospital nearly a week earlier. The curtains, limp and gray, went wild, flapping in what seemed like joy. She called for pillows, demanded pillows.’

  “ ‘Two, no four.’

  “ ‘Divesting them of their white slips, she unfolded her own lovelier ones pulled from her case along with her nightgown, a matching satin jacket with deep cuffs of lace. She sprayed the room with neroli. She sprayed more in her hair, gathering it up then, fastening it on top of her head in a wild pastiche and pulling out wisps, which fell in ringlets down her cheeks. Her hair had been blond like mine and most of it was still. She was beautiful. She announced she was going to bathe and so she did. Over her arm she held the satin gown and the satin jacket, a towel big as a sheet and monogrammed in gold thread with her single bold I. In her hand, she held soap in a flowered tin. She came back then, her hair arranged even more artfully, and, as though dinner guests were expected momentarily, she lit candles, poured whiskey out into two good glasses.

  “ ‘I packed for myself for this particular journey, she’d said, her laugh tinkling like a thin silver spoon bouncing along a marble floor.’

  “ ‘She settled herself in bed, made a long work of it, wished me good health and, if I had the stout heart she thought I had, she wished me great love. We sat there then, among the scent of the neroli and the candles and that clean February night, and I kept saying that I should close the window, that it was so cold, that she would catch her death, and then we both laughed and we both wept.’

  “ ‘I left it open so he wouldn’t have to knock,’ she said.

  “ ‘It was then that she asked me to take this purse from the inside pocket of her case. I did, passed it to her, but she folded her long fingers over my hand.’

  “ ‘It’s for you, Leo. To give to the woman you love. I trust that you understand I do not intend it for that fool grisette you married. I do not care a whit how you divide the rest of my treasures but I ask that you keep this one. Just in case you ever fall in love.’

  “ ‘She looked away then, staying quiet, twisting her wedding ring one way and then the other about her finger. As though trying to recall the numbers on a lock.’

  “ ‘I remain uncertain whether to wish you love or to wish that love never finds you. The pain is severe in either case. The emerald belonged to my mother and to her mother. I cannot tell you that it brings fortune or health or any such elusive gift. I can only say it has been my companion for all my days since I was fifteen years old. The weight of it ’round my neck has always been a comfort, a kind of ballast, I think. Will you keep the emerald safe for me, Leo? Keep it safe until you find her. She’ll understand what it’s meant to me. I know that she will. There is one more thing I want to tell you, Leo. You already know that I was and have remained contrary to your father’s misuse of your generosity. He asked too much of you when he asked you to marry into that gang of arrivistes. Federico had been your father’s gaming partner at the spas. He might very well have contributed to your father’s financial destruction; I have never known the whole truth. His asking you to save him, to pay his debts, to free our properties and our lands from the filthy clutches of the vultures who beat their wings about us for all those years, his asking you to do all that was what killed him. It was no accident that he died only weeks after all of it had been put into place. In the end, he asked you to save the patrimony for yourself. He was not a bad man, your father. But he was a weak man. A weak man whom I loved far too much.’

  “ ‘She laughed the silver laugh again. Laughed it quietly, like bells clinking in a fog. She pulled me to her, kissed my eyes, told me to leave her. She said that she would never leave me. In her own good time, in her own good way, she died that night. She died two days shy of a month before I’d come to take you to the palace and more than once I have thought that it was she who sent you to me. It’s only right that this be given to you. You are her son’s bride. It’s your wedding necklace, Tosca. I truly wish that you might have the wedding to go with it. You have a devoted husband in me. But you can have no wedding. If only I could change that truth! I am tormented sometimes that it’s only this half-life that I can offer you.’

  “Leo rises from the divanetto, pulls at his hair, paces the room.

  “ ‘I must find a way for us to be together in peace somewhere. Away from the threats, away from the pretense. And if I cannot, you must leave, Tosca. Yes, you must leave here, save yourself from all of us. From all of them.’

  “ ‘That’s the strangest dictum a husband ever gave his new wife. Telling her that she must leave and save herself. Don’t you understand, Leo? I’m already part of the pretense. I am already part of the us. And, maybe, after Isotta, I am the heroine of your story. Why would you want me to run away?’

  “He continues the pacing, and I say, ‘I’m not so fond of this part of you. When you play the tragic baroque prince I want to strike you or laugh at you. Don’t you have enough, Leo? Why must you always want more? With all her tendencies to unpleasantness, Simona has behaved admirably under the extraordinary circumstances that we’ve created in this household.’

  “He says, ‘Not for a moment has she ever considered me to be hers. It’s not as though she has, for the sake of gallantry, surrendered me to you. A wedding was what she wanted from me. That and legitimate children sired by noble stock. I’ve never been anything more than a legal and willing breeder. And since Charlotte’s birth, when Simona was warned by her doctors against further childbirth, she has never once responded to my, however insincerely proffered, advances. Certainly she has proffered none of her own. I find little to admire in Simona save the revival of her civility, her aesthete’s aloofness.’

  “ ‘I’m not suggesting that we venerate her, Leo. No matter what the circumstances of your marriage or its subsequent events, you are husband and wife living together in this palace with your children. And with your ward, who has become your lover. Isn’t that enough compromise and complication without trying to scheme for more? It’s when we want more from a person or even from an idea or from a thing, it’s then that we get into trouble. It’s that little bit more that, in the end, foils all the rest. Maybe it’s because I began with so much less than you that I can be so content with this life, grateful for it despite its curious or painful moments.’

  “He takes his former place on the divanetto, half reclines, closes his eyes.

  “ ‘I suppose it is enough. I suppose it is, Tosca. Perhaps all will remain as it is for a long time. But perhaps it won’t. And now I am speaking not of Simona, you understand.’

  “He lifts me from the hassock, settles me against him, along the length of the little sofa, my breast to his. He speaks in a whisper, his chin resting on the top of my head.

  “ ‘If, for any reason at all, I am no longer here you must promise me that you will leave the palace. Promise me that you will leave without delay. Don’t think that you can continue to live here midst this cloisteral serenity if I’m not here to insure it.’

  “I pull away from Leo.

  “ ‘What do you mean when you say if I’m no longer here? Are you going to tell me that you have lands to partition and disperse somewhere in France or Spain? There was a branch of your family somewhere in Andalusia, wasn’t there?’

  “As I did on the first day I knew Leo and as I will do always, I act out fear with sarcasm. Now it’s I who pace. Close by a scream, I ask, ‘And where am I supposed to go if this mythical event of your disappearance should occur? Have you decided that, too?’

  “ ‘You’re no longer a child. Or as you’ve told me often enough, you’v
e never been a child, though in many ways you have been protected as one. But you’re strong, Tosca. You can arrange your life to suit you, most especially if you are not without funds. The remainder of your wedding gifts are in Cosimo’s care. I’ve left him instructions, provisions. Wherever you decide to go, you must keep him informed. Should the time come, he’ll help you to find your way.’

  “In a quieter voice I say, ‘I understand nothing of this. You’re running in circles. Are you talking about the eventuality of your death?’

  “ ‘No. Yes, but not just that.’

  “ ‘Is the eventuality of your death part of the reason why you are proceeding with your intentions to parcel the land here? Is it part of the reason why you talk about sending the children to village schools, dismantling the infirmary and trucking the children into Enna for checkups, arranging for the older peasants to be transferred to nursing homes? Just when things seemed to be going so well, you propose yet more change. Do you think you’re going to die? Is that it? And like the land to the peasants, now you’re parceling off jewels and money to me. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re preparing for some sort of departure, aren’t you? But I don’t think it’s your death. You’re going to run away. Is that it? The clan, your wife, your daughters, your peasants, your lover, your ideals, history, propriety, passion, beauty, treachery. I know the maze, Leo. I have known it longer and I may know it better than you.’

  “ ‘I don’t doubt that. And I am not preparing for escape.’

  “ ‘Are you preparing for suicide? For the love of God, explain all of this to me.’

  “ ‘I can’t explain it to you because I don’t yet understand it myself. I just want you to be expectant. Vigilant, as I am trying to be. That’s the first thing I’d wanted to tell you. And the second is that, even considering your fine attitude about how fortunate we are, how we should be content, I don’t believe that I can—at least not for all the rest of my life—continue to live only moments at a time in freedom. I am a strange one to speak of morals and yet I shall do just that. I find it immoral for us to continue as we are. I never counted on falling in love with little Tosca. And it’s because I love you so purely that I am trying to prepare you for a life without me. You may well know some things better than I do, yet I believe I am an expert in my understanding of the nature of our race. I know that if we take a fiutino—a little flight—and go away together, if we do that, sooner or later there will come a time when you will be crushed with guilt. That the guilt would be unfounded won’t make it less painful. You will feel responsible for taking me away from my life, however meaningless it had been before you and would be without you. And without our work together. You will feel the villainess. The freedom we will gain by running off, we will lose in the imposed separateness from society that we’d be forced to keep. Out in the world, we would live in yet another kind of estrangement. Out in the world we would be judged and reminded, even if subtly, of our indiscretions. If, in the past, you have been distressed by the whisperers, you would be crushed by what you would hear should we ever go away from here together.’