The House of Serenades

10



ALL WAS QUIET AT THE PALAZZINA following the turmoil the dead cat had caused and the departure of Antonio Sobrero. On the second floor, in his bed, out of the corner of his eye, Giuseppe saw Matilda approaching.

“Where’s everybody?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

“They all left but Costanza,” Matilda replied. “Umberto drove Eugenia and Doctor Sciaccaluga home. He’ll be back shortly. He and Costanza will spend the night here. How are you feeling?”

“Horribly,” Giuseppe said. “I have no strength. It’s him, you know, I’m sure.”

“Rest,” Matilda said. “Close your eyes and don’t worry about anything. Damiano will be here first thing in the morning. You’ll feel better by then, you’ll see.”

For once, Giuseppe did what Matilda said. He closed his eyes, and to purge his thoughts of Ivano, the horse, the letters, and the dead cat on the door, he reenacted in his head his favorite and most successful legal cases. It was a trick he had learned from his father, who had always been a promoter of the idea that the best way to free the mind from negative thoughts was to concentrate on professional successes.

Eugenia, on the other hand, could think of nothing but the letters and the dead cat on the door. She was at that point in Umberto’s car, ensconced on the passenger’s seat. Umberto was at the wheel, and in the back sat a rigid Damiano. The atmosphere inside the car was strained and nervy, filled with awkward half sentences and uncomfortable silences. Throughout the first half of the trip Eugenia hardly spoke, concentrating more on overcoming her fear of automobiles than on making conversation. Damiano, too, was in no mood for chit chat. The bizarre cat incident had upset him beyond anyone’s imagination. And the unexpected arrival of Antonio Sobrero at the palazzina had only added to his worries. Antonio would investigate—no question. Would he interrogate everyone present? Would he ask him questions? Could the dead cat be bad omen? With jittery hands, he loosened the tie around his neck, as if he needed extra air.

At some point Eugenia turned around and said, “Doctor, I heard about your nurse’s death this morning. I was told that her funeral is going to be held in the cathedral. I find it queer. Don’t you, Umberto?”

Umberto hummed as Damiano held his breath for a moment.

“Yes,” Damiano said edgily, “the funeral is set for day after tomorrow at five.”

“Will you be attending?” Eugenia asked.

Damiano cleared his throat. “Of course,” he said.

Umberto decided it’d be courteous to take part in the conversation. He hadn’t heard about Palmira Bevilacqua’s death, so he asked, “When did your nurse die? How?”

Damiano coughed repeatedly before saying, “Influenza. It’s a terrible illness to catch these days.”

“I heard it was a sudden death,” Eugenia went on. “And if you ask me, it’s not right that she should have her funeral in the cathedral. Not right at all.”

Damiano changed positions on the seat.

Umberto said, “It’s unusual, I agree. Did you make the arrangements, Doctor?”

“No,” Damiano was quick to say. “She was my nurse, not a relative.” There was a long, thorny silence. “You can let me out here,” Damiano said. “I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“Good night, Doctor Sciaccaluga,” Eugenia said with a pout.

Damiano got off, waved, and rushed across the street.

“What your father sees in that man escapes me,” Eugenia said as Umberto pulled away from the curb.

“I have been wondering about him many times,” Umberto said pensively. “Someday perhaps we’ll figure out what father’s interest in this man is all about.”

By the time Umberto stopped the car on Via San Lorenzo, it was past eleven o’clock. Politely, Eugenia took leave of her nephew and climbed the staircase to the second floor. The first thing she did once inside her apartment was close the door and slide the bolts all the way. Then she went straight to the living room, where she dropped on one of three linen-upholstered sofas. Her face was burning, as if she had coals buried in her cheeks.

“Liars,” she said between her teeth. “I belong to a family of liars.”

Even Giuseppe, her own brother, had lied to her. She had always trusted him and now knew she had been mistaken. He’d have a million excuses ready for her the next time they’d meet. He’d say he had lied to protect her. Nonsense. Certainly Giuseppe had lied about the threatening letters because Matilda had asked him to do so. That Torinese. Always trying to keep her ignorant of the family affairs. It was all her fault, as always. Eugenia felt a sting in her stomach.

“Everybody knew about the letters,” she said, “except me.”

And Umberto, so kind and apologetic in the car. Aunt Eugenia here, Aunt Eugenia there. He had a dirty conscience too. To add scorn to scorn, she hadn’t even been able to learn more about Palmira Bevilacqua’s death and funeral because in the car the doctor had given her only evasive replies. And Giuseppe was half dead in his room. “What a night,” she moaned. She stood up, poured herself a shot of Sambuca, and swallowed the liquor in one gulp. She’d never be able to fall asleep, not with the knot she had in her throat.

“Relax, Eugenia,” she said then breathed heavily in and out.

Five blocks over, Doctor Sciaccaluga was undressing for the night. He was still shaking from the conversation he had been forced to entertain in Umberto’s car. “Damn spinster,” he mumbled. That curious, gossipy, old woman almost gave him a heart attack with her questions. Did she suspect? Had she shared her suspicions with other people? No, Damiano concluded, Eugenia knew absolutely nothing: her questions were prompted by her eagerness to learn stories she could turn into fresh gossip. Still, he should keep an eye on her until the funeral was done and over. Once Palmira was under a meter of dirt, for sure Eugenia and her café friends would forget about her and her funeral and turn their attention to newer and juicier matters. He slipped under the covers, where he tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. An hour later, exhausted, he got up. To pass time, he dipped his shaving brush in foam and smeared the white lather on his cheeks. His hand trembled when he brought the razor to his face, cutting himself the moment he attempted to shave. He stared into the mirror and saw the rivulet of blood trickling down his cheek. Fear clutched every bone in his body. He was on the edge, exactly as he had been during the last days of Palmira’s life.

Palmira Bevilacqua, a naive woman in her late fifties with gray hair, thick glasses, and a disproportionately large nose, had worked as a nurse for Doctor Sciaccaluga for over three years. One evening, on her way home after work, she realized she had left her umbrella behind. Noticing the menacing clouds in the sky, she turned on her heels and retraced her steps to Doctor Sciaccaluga’s office. Darkness was already enveloping the downtown streets. When she walked into the office, she noticed light filtering beneath the door of Doctor Sciaccaluga’s room. That surprised her: even on the busiest days the doctor never stayed past seven PM. She thought an intruder may be there, so she tiptoed to the door, kneeled, and set an eye against the keyhole. She saw Doctor Sciaccaluga seated at his desk, absorbed in writing. Relieved, she was about to stand up and knock when she noticed something that kept her on her knees: the doctor was tying a string around a cardboard box and was doing it with extreme care, as if he were handling gold. Perplexed, she continued to watch as her employer placed the box on the bookshelf and pushed it behind a large volume, which, the nurse knew, was a medicine manual. At that, Palmira stood up, took the umbrella, and left the office without a sound.

The following morning she was at work at eight, as usual. When Doctor Sciaccaluga left at noon for his lunch break, she went to his room, pushed the medicine manual aside, found the box, opened it, and began to read. She saw names, dates, financial statements. It took her a while to figure out what those papers described. When she understood, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing: child sales. Three sheets showed Damiano Sciaccaluga as the doctor involved, the remaining ones had to do with his father. She examined the papers carefully, but most names meant nothing to her. At a certain point, however, she saw something that sent her heart racing. One sale, carried out by Federico Sciaccaluga and dated 1841, described the sale of a baby born to Mercalia Parenti. The adoptive parents were Filiberto and Giulia Berilli. Palmira knew exactly who they were: the dead parents of Eugenia and Giuseppe Berilli. That was some news, that Eugenia and Giuseppe weren’t truly brother and sister. She laughed between her teeth, for she was well aware of how stuck-up and proud of their family traditions the Berillis were. She skimmed through the rest of the documents in a hurry, hoping her employer wouldn’t return to work earlier than usual. She glanced once more at the three most recent transactions, those carried out by Damiano. She saw nothing particularly interesting in them, other than for the fact that they confirmed that Doctor Sciaccaluga was still actively conducting child sales and, contrary to his father, earning large amounts of money from them. Finished browsing, Palmira replaced the documents in the box, and the box behind the medicine manual.

The rest of the day went by slowly, with Palmira’s bewilderment growing stronger as evening approached. She was a passionate, dedicated nurse, and what Doctor Sciaccaluga and his father had done was a disgrace to the medical profession. Should she confront her employer? Would he fire her for meddling into his affairs? A bad word from a doctor, she knew, could easily compromise a nurse’s chances of getting jobs in that town. She wondered how long the box had been there and whether Doctor Sciaccaluga intended to keep it there much longer. Should he decide to take it elsewhere, she’d have no proof of his dishonest activities, no way to stop him. She should copy those documents, she told herself, and then perhaps have a talk with her employer. One hour of copying a day, she estimated, would allow her to reproduce the contents of the box in one week. “And God help me,” she said out loud, “should I ever get caught.”

She followed her plan meticulously, devoting herself to transcribing data daily, during Doctor Sciaccaluga’s lunch break. By the end of the week she had created an exact copy, which she stored in her apartment, in one of the kitchen drawers.

Later that month Palmira asked Doctor Sciaccaluga for a private meeting. With a shaky voice but looking straight into his eyes, she told him she knew all about the box and the sale of the babies.

“I haven’t spoken to anyone about what you and your father did,” she said, “and I have no intention of doing that in the future. And, rest assured, I’m not a blackmailer. All I want is for you to stop selling children and making money from the sales because it’s against the code of ethics of our profession.”

Damiano felt the earth quake beneath his feet. He saw his dream villa on the hill crumbling and his reputation destroyed. Babbling, he told Palmira he had found out about his father’s activities at his father’s deathbed and hadn’t had the courage to burn the documents as his old man had asked him to do.

“I had no intention of resuming the sales,” he said, “until a young girl contacted me for help. I did it only three times, and I won’t do it ever again.” He paused. “It’s time to let the past rest forever.” Under Palmira’s eyes, he took the box, placed it on the stone floor, and with the strike of a match set it on fire.

Palmira never told Doctor Sciaccaluga that she had copied the documents and taken the copies to her home. She had also no idea that the doctor had by then taken the Parenti document to his residence, so that the document describing the sale of a baby to Giulia and Filiberto Berilli was no longer inside the box that was burning on the office floor. As the flames subsided, Palmira told Doctor Sciaccaluga that she had read the contents of the box once.

“I noticed the Berilli’s name in one of the transactions,” she said gravely. “Do they know?”

“Oh, no! No one knows about the Berillis,” he exclaimed, and with a broken voice he begged Palmira to forget all about that document because what was in it would send one of the city’s most respected families into a turmoil.

Palmira nodded. “I realize that,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’ll pretend I never learned about that sale.”

“Good,” Damiano said then thanked Palmira for her honesty and trustworthiness with a significant pay raise.

That evening, in the peace of her home, Palmira wrote a letter. Finished, she put the letter and the copied documents in a large brown envelope and sealed it with red wax. The next morning, envelope in hand, she went to the cathedral, looking for Father Camillo. The two knew each other well, as Palmira volunteered at the cathedral during weekends and holidays, helping the neighborhood poor.

“Father,” she said when she found him in the sacristy, “this envelope contains documents that should be saved from destruction but I don’t want to keep. I want to you guard it and open it only after my and Doctor Damiano Sciaccaluga’s death. The envelope’s contents will help justice and families find their way.”

Father Camillo gave her a perplexed look. “Shouldn’t I know what the envelope contains?”

Palmira shook her head. “Please, Father, think of my request as my will and yourself as the will’s executor.”

Father Camillo took a moment to think then said, “All right.” He took the envelope, placed it in his own personal closet, and promised Palmira that no one would see its contents until both she and Damiano Sciaccaluga were dead. “Thank you,” Palmira said. “I know that the documents are in good hands now.”

When the thought hit him that his nurse had to die, Damiano ran to the washroom and vomited a green bitter liquid into his urinal until his guts were dry. Then he staggered to his desk, cringing under the weight of that realization. Death was no stranger to him, given his profession. He had, however, never induced one before. Was there another way? Two weeks had gone by since Palmira had informed him that she had read the child-sale documents, and he hadn’t slept since. His nurse had become a different person. She looked at him in ways he found suspicious: she often gave him sideways glances, when they were at the office and out visiting patients; and she spoke less than usual, as if she were tangled up in thoughts she couldn’t chase from her mind. Every morning of the past week he had gone to the office expecting to see the police waiting at the door. Even if the documents no longer existed, their story properly told by his nurse might prompt a police investigation, and some of the adoptive parents might speak. It hadn’t happened yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. Palmira couldn’t be trusted. She was a very conscientious nurse, in love with her profession and obliging to its ethics, and in the situation at hand that was a hindrance. Furthermore she was, by nature, a talker. More than once Damiano had to ask her to cut down on chitchatting with the patients, their relatives, or whoever came to the office on any day. And she was religious, more so than anyone else Doctor Sciaccaluga knew. She attended Mass every morning before work and after work she was back in church to help the priests take care of business. Plus, she sang in church choirs all over town, and it was well known that religious women are often clutched by guilt, as the Church took excellent care of instilling that sentiment in the hearts of its followers. Guilt, Doctor Sciaccaluga knew, could cause certain dangerous thoughts to take shape in the minds of people otherwise harmless and well-meaning. Sooner or later, he was certain, Palmira would talk—out of religious fervor if not out of professional allegiance.

“I can’t spend the rest of my life like this,” he whined. “It’s like having a hammer hanging over my head, ready to fall. Except I don’t know when it’ll fall. Today, tomorrow, next month …”

Eyes fixed on the ceiling, he had visions of himself being publicly arrested and taken to the city jail. He saw the crowd talking and shaking their heads at the newspapers headlines:

“RENOWNED DOCTOR ARRESTED FOR BABY TRAFFICKING”

“DAMIANO SCIACCALUGA FOUND GUILTY AND SENT TO JAIL”

“DOCTOR SCIACCALUGA WILL NEVER SEE ANOTHER PATIENT”

He felt sick to his bones. He had worked hard to maintain and enlarge his practice and become the doctor of many wealthy households, and wasn’t ready to give all that up. He wanted his villa in the hills. He was so close to having enough money to move up. He couldn’t let a nurse ruin his plans. “It’s not right,” he said aloud, then told himself once more that Palmira’s death was the only option he had to preserve his license, his image, his clientele, and all his dreams. In silence, he began to plot the murder.

It took him only a few moments to decide he should kill Palmira with belladonna, a potent poisonous herb he kept in his office to cure patients with asthma and colic. Medicinal belladonna existed in many forms, including a thin powder made from the herb’s roots, berries, and dried leaves. Unless properly diluted, that powder was lethal, Doctor Sciaccaluga knew, even in small doses. It was sugary to the taste, because the belladonna berries were sweet. When he remembered having seen Palmira drink tea regularly in the morning, he concluded that tea was the perfect vehicle for the poison to reach its destination.

The following morning, as the bells of the nearby church struck eleven, Doctor Sciaccaluga asked Palmira if she would care for a cup of tea.

She said, “Yes, Doctor, I’d like that very much. I’ll make the tea in ten minutes, as soon as I’m finished with this report.”

“Never mind,” Damiano said. “I’ll make the tea. You finish your report.”

He placed a water-filled pot on the wood stove that warmed the reception room. While the water warmed, he casually examined a medical record, turning its pages back and forth, glancing from time to time at Palmira for signs of her suspicion. He was pleased to see no indication that the nurse was aware of his intention: she was peacefully seated at her desk, scribbling on a sheet of paper.

Soon the water came to a boil. Gingerly, Doctor Sciaccaluga removed the pot from the stove and dropped in it the tea leaves, waiting for the liquid to take on color. Two minutes later, he poured the tea into two cups, adding sugar to one cup, belladonna powder to the other. “Here,” he said, handing Palmira the cup with the poison. “Your tea is ready.”

She thanked him for his kindness and drank all the tea in small sips, taking time to taste its flavor and inhale its pleasurable aroma.

Around one o’clock, Palmira said, “If you don’t mind, Doctor, I’d like to go home early today. I don’t feel well. My head is heavy, and I have a sensation of tiredness all over my body.”

“Sure,” Damiano said. “Go home and rest. Call me if you need anything.”

Through his office open door, he watched his nurse remove her white coat and leave, knowing that was the last he was seeing of Palmira Bevilacqua on her feet.

At three o’clock a man came running into the office and introduced himself as Marco Santagata, Palmira’s neighbor.

“Palmira is very sick, Doctor,” Marco said. “Sick like I’ve never seen anyone before. I was at home this afternoon, with my wife, when we heard knocks on the door, and when my wife went to see who it was, she saw Palmira in a very bad state. She could barely stand, and she babbled that she had blurred vision and her mouth was dry and she wanted to vomit but couldn’t. Then I went to the door myself and saw that Palmira was as pale as the whitewash on my walls. And her eyes … They were big. Open wide, as if she had seen a ghost. She’s the one who asked me to come here. She needs you, Doctor. Come. I’ll show you the way.”

Congratulating himself that the afternoon was unfolding according to plans, Doctor Sciaccaluga followed Marco Santagata to the building where both he and Palmira and the Santagatas lived. He found Palmira in bed, unconscious and moaning in pain, changing positions at every other breath, occasionally falling prey to convulsions. Her pulse was rapid, her pupils dilated.

“Stay away from her,” he told Marco and his wife, “for she could have contracted influenza.”

The Santagatas left the bedroom in a hurry, signing themselves and asking God and the Virgin Mary to protect them from the horrors of that illness. They rushed to their own apartment to fetch from a chest an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe while Doctor Sciaccaluga remained in Palmira’s bedroom, waiting patiently for the poison to follow its course.

Twenty minutes later, Palmira was in a coma. Doctor Sciaccaluga went knocking on the Santagatas’ door. “We should prepare for the worst,” he said. “Palmira has a very strong and unusual form of influenza, and there’s nothing I can do to help her. She’s fighting it, but she may not be strong enough to win the fight.”

The Santagatas signed themselves again and asked, “Are we in danger? Are we going to die too?”

Doctor Sciaccaluga explained he had no way of knowing if they had contracted the illness. “Only time will tell,” he murmured. Then he asked, “Are you aware of anyone who should be informed of Palmira’s condition?”

The Santagatas shook their head. “She has a big family,” Marco said, “but no one in town. All her relatives are in America, near Chicago. We have their addresses, if you want them. In Genoa, the only persons Palmira is close to are us and Father Camillo, the new priest assigned to the cathedral.” He paused then lowered his voice. “Should we ask him to give Palmira the last rites?”

Doctor Sciaccaluga nodded. “Can you take care of that, Mister Santagata?”

Marco said, “Certainly, doctor.”

At five, Doctor Sciaccaluga pronounced Palmira dead. Ten minutes later, Marco rushed in with Father Camillo to find his wife in tears and Doctor Sciaccaluga scribbling on a piece of paper. It was a death certificate, and on it Doctor Sciaccaluga had listed influenza as the cause of death. Father Camillo approached the bed where Palmira lay still, face covered by a light white sheet. Gently, he lifted the sheet and traced the sign of the cross on the dead woman’s forehead. He recited a Requiem Aeternam. Finished, he turned to Doctor Sciaccaluga. “She’s with God,” he said, “and God will take good care of her, for she was a good, generous woman.”

“She was,” Damiano said. “Her death is a loss.”

“I’ll take care of the funeral,” Father Camillo continued. “The ceremony will be in the cathedral, as Palmira wanted. I’ll ring the bells for her tomorrow morning.” He noticed the surprised faces. “I don’t care what the snobbish people of this town think.” He raised his voice. “To me, the cathedral is everyone’s church.”

Damiano coughed. The last thing he wanted was drawing unnecessary attention to Palmira’s death. He said, “I’m sure there’s a parish church she belongs to …”

“Perhaps so,” Father Camillo said. “But the cathedral was a second home to Palmira. And that’s where we’ll say goodbye to her.”

Damiano thought prudent to drop the subject. “And so we will,” he said. “Thank you, Father, for all your help. I’ll contact her relatives in Chicago to inform them of her death. And you,” he added, turning to the Santagatas, “should watch your health for one full week and call me immediately should you experience any unusual symptoms, such as fever, headache, and nausea.” Wide-eyed, the Santagatas nodded many times, hands shaking from fear.

That night, before going to bed, Damiano drank two glasses of red wine and after that concoction of chamomile and valerian roots. His body relaxed, and he fell slowly into the conscious abandonment that precedes sleep. He felt good. No one had reason to suspect that Palmira’s death had not been caused by influenza. No one would question his diagnosis. His nurse would soon be buried, and he was safe.