The House of Serenades

16



IT TOOK THE POLICE TIME and patience to build a complete case against Doctor Sciaccaluga. In the end all the loose ends came together. First, Antonio had a notice published in Il Secolo XIX asking anyone with information on the whereabouts of three women named Teresa Percato, Wanda Martelli, and Marcella Benassi to come forward. Those, according to Palmira’s documents, were the names of the biological mothers of the three babies Damiano Sciaccaluga had sold. A young woman named Clarissa came forward right away.

“Teresa was my friend,” she said. “We worked together at Caffe’ del Gambero. I entertained customers, she cleaned. Then she became pregnant and, all of a sudden, very sick. She could no longer work. So she went to Doctor Sciaccaluga to get rid of the baby, but Doctor Sciaccaluga told her, ‘Why don’t you deliver the baby instead? I’ll pay you well.’ Teresa said yes. With the money the doctor gave her she left her cleaning job at Caffe’ del Gambero and moved to Benevento, the town where she was born. She started a business there, selling notions. Teresa is Francesca Barone’s daughter, sir, but Miss Barone treated her like a servant. No special consideration.”

Asked about her daughter, Francesca Barone shrugged. “She’s a troublemaker. She’s been trouble since the day she was born. I’m glad she left town.”

“We were told your daughter was born in Benevento,” Antonio insisted. “That’s way south. Can you explain?”

“I chose that city at random,” Francesca explained. “I traveled to Benevento alone when I could no longer disguise the pregnancy with clothes. I didn’t want anyone to know. And I wanted to give birth in a place where no one knew me. And I made up a last name.”

Antonio frowned. “Why?”

“Mister Sobrero, I have no idea who the father is. I wanted no witnesses to the birth and a last name for my daughter that was as different as possible from mine.” She paused and shook her head. “I guess now the whole town will know.”

Antonio nodded. “Your daughter is part of an ongoing investigation. There’s little I can keep secret.”

That same afternoon Antonio telegraphed the Benevento police, asking them to interrogate Teresa Percato about her baby. Teresa confirmed every word Clarissa had said, so providing the first firm piece of evidence of Damiano Sciaccaluga’s direct involvement in the child sales. In addition, two adoptive parents came forward to tell their stories, and soon Antonio had collected enough evidence to prove that the sales described in Palmira’s copies were real. As the story of Teresa’s sold child found its way to the newspaper’s pages together with the information that Francesca Barone was her mother, the Genoese began to murmur that perhaps Teresa was none other than Giuseppe Berilli’s illegitimate daughter.

“It’s possible,” Francesca Barone admitted in front of a crowd that included Antonio and two reporters, “but I don’t know for sure. At the time I became pregnant I was sleeping with several men besides Giuseppe. It was only later that we became … exclusive.” She paused a moment, gazing blankly at the ceiling. “She looks like Giuseppe, I must say. She’s thin, but her facial features, the shape of her nose, the round eyes, the thin lips … I saw Giuseppe every time I looked at her.”

As Francesca pointed out, there was no way of knowing, but the mere possibility was good enough for those who wanted more gossip about the Berillis and their secrets. Soon Giuseppe’s fourth offspring became the new talk of the town.

On his way to the city jail to inform Damiano that a number of new charges would be filed against him, Antonio wondered if the doctor was by any chance hiding more secrets. The more he thought about that sinister little man, the more he believed that might be the case. The sudden death of his nurse, for example, only days after she had discovered and copied the child-sale documents, was a puzzling coincidence. Of course, he didn’t have a shred of proof that the nurse hadn’t died of natural causes. Perhaps he could bluff, he thought as he walked through the thick door of the jail. He checked in with the warden and was promptly escorted along a dark corridor to the area where the perpetrators of minor crimes served their time. At that point, Doctor Sciaccaluga, accused only of falsifying a death certificate, was not yet considered a dangerous inmate. Concentrating on the questions he was going to ask, Antonio entered a private visiting room. Doctor Sciaccaluga arrived shortly, wearing shackles.

“Untie him,” Antonio ordered, and the guard let the doctor loose. “Good afternoon, Doctor,” Antonio said, pointing at a chair across from his. A worn-out, dusty table stood between them.

Slowly, Damiano sat down.

“How are you liking your new home?” Antonio asked, smiling.

Damiano snorted, “You can’t keep me here. I just spoke to my lawyer. I’ll be out before you know it, Mister Chief.”

“I don’t think so,” Antonio quipped. “We found more evidence against you.”

Damiano squinted his ferret eyes. “You are making this up. Are you trying to trick me?”

Antonio shook his head. “Tricking people is not my favorite pastime.” He spread Palmira’s copies on the table. “Take a look at these.”

Damiano’s face turned the color of alabaster. “What …”

“What are they? Copies made by your nurse. And we have proof that they tell the truth. We know everything about your and your father’s scheme.”

Damiano said nothing, his face frozen in a quiet stupor.

Patiently, Antonio let a half minute go by. “You wouldn’t have,” he paused, “murdered your nurse by any chance?”

Without looking at Antonio, he said, “No.”

“You should rethink your answer, doctor,” Antonio said, judging that the time for his bluff had come. By some stroke of inspiration, he added, “We exhumed her body this morning.” He leaned forward, his face only a breath away from Damiano’s. He whispered, “We know.”

Damiano grabbed the edge of the table with both hands.

Antonio knew he had hit the jackpot. He leaned back. “Was it hard? Was it easy?”

Damiano began to sweat. His lower lip quivered.

Antonio didn’t let up. “Did you plan the murder? Or did you do it on the spur of the moment? Did she know she was going to die?” He raised his voice. “Was she in pain? How much did she hurt? Were you sneaky? Were you fast?” He shouted. “How fast were you, doctor? How fast?”

Damiano sprung from his seat, knocking over the chair. “Very, very fast!” he screamed. “Faster than you can imagine, Mister Sobrero. So fast she had no idea! And then she was dead. Dead as a stone!”

When the guards took Damiano back to his cell, he was in a panic. He shouted and kicked the air, and after the guards closed the door on him he slammed his head against the bars till he bled from his nose and forehead. Antonio didn’t hesitate to take advantage. He posed question after question, giving the prisoner no respite. Crying and shivering, Damiano gave Antonio all the details of Palmira Bevilacqua’s poisoning, including the fact that he had used a concentrated dose of belladonna.

He said, “She knew, you understand? I had to kill her. I couldn’t trust her.” He broke into hysterical laughter. “She always went to church. Women who go to church can’t be trusted.” He spoke louder. “Did you know that? They can’t be trusted!”

Three weeks after his confession, a special tribunal sentenced Damiano to life in prison. He sat through the trial in silence, with droopy shoulders and eyes staring blankly at the floor. At the end, after listening to the sentence, he lifted his eyes and looked at the judge.

“Do you know who I am?” he said.

The judge remained silent.

“I’m the doctor of dreams,” Damiano said in a whisper, and those were his last words to the world, for he was taken back to jail where he spent the remainder of his days in isolation.

The reporters were quick to get hold of the stories of the twenty-five children and Palmira Bevilacqua’s cruel murder by belladonna. Eugenia, who after her return to Corso Solferino had resumed full swing her social life and hadn’t paid the hospitalized Giuseppe a single visit, went to Klainguti’s every afternoon to chat with her friends about the unbelievable racket run by Doctor Sciaccaluga and his father. The poor nurse’s untimely death was also a favorite topic of discussion, as were the effects of various poisons commonly found in medical offices and clinics.

“The next time we go for a checkup,” Eugenia said over and over to her friends, “we should keep an eye on our doctors. Who knows what they’ll slip in our syrups while we look the other way.”

On a rainy Sunday, seated in the reading room in front of the fireplace, Eugenia decided it was time for her to open the doors of the palazzina to Genoa’s society. After carefully consulting the newspaper to figure out on which days there would be no benefits or theater performances or balls, she concluded that the perfect day for her opening gala would be ten days later, on a Friday. Seated at Giuseppe’s favorite desk, she wrote by hand thirty dinner invitations. When the ink was dry, she placed the invitations in envelopes and consulted her personal book for the addresses. Her heart raced in excitement as she handwrote the envelopes. She was in charge again. She was the lady of the house, and she would see to it that no one would again make the mistake of assuming Matilda was the one who ran the palazzina. Never mind the arthritis that made the fingers of her right hand swell at the joints and hurt when she held the pen. Perhaps, she brooded, staring at her inflamed knuckles, she should hire a personal assistant for future events. She’d need one, because she would host dinner parties at least once a month. She’d assign the parties themes, such as Venetian Masks or Witchcraft. It’d be Christmas soon, then New Year. And Carnival in February would demand a special celebration. She couldn’t do without a social secretary. Her good friend, the Countess Marina Passaggi, would gladly help her with the selection process. It was difficult to find trustworthy help nowadays.

“Guglielmo!” she called, smacking the table bell. “Mail these letters as soon as possible,” she ordered when the butler arrived. “And send me the head cook. We have a menu to plan.”

The head cook was a short, stocky middle-aged woman who had served the Berillis for a decade and was faithful to Matilda and her ways. She was not thrilled about Eugenia’s call.

“I am planning a dinner party,” Eugenia explained. “You will be in charge of the menu.” She looked at the head cook with hawk eyes. “Listen carefully, because I will not tolerate mistakes. There will be at least ten different courses,” she said, “each with its matching wine. Four will be meat dishes, four will be fish, and two will be vegetable tarts. Then you will prepare four different dessert to be served with French champagne and followed by the best coffee you can find. Start washing our best china and take out of the closets the large silver trays. Have Viola clean them until they shine.”

The head cook lowered her head in assent.

“Come back with a detailed list of recipes and ingredients,” Eugenia added. “Once I’ll approve, you will go shopping at the market and then begin the preparation.” She turned away. “You can go now.”

The first five replies to Eugenia’s invitations arrived three days later. Every single one of them was a regret—courteous, kindly written, but leaving no doubt. The twenty-five replies that followed read the same. Mute with stupefaction, staring at the pile of letters, Eugenia was struck by the realization that the recent events had forever changed her social standing within the town. She suddenly noticed how her friends had behaved coldly towards her in the past weeks. There had been no jokes told, no direct talking, and little gossip-sharing during her visits at Klainguti’s, all of which had been no accident but part of a deliberate attempt to cut her out.

“I’m finished,” she said aloud, then went to her bedroom to pack.

Later that evening, in the palazzina’s main hallway, with two curt sentences, Eugenia informed Caterina that she would be returning to Via San Lorenzo in the morning. When, through the blue parlor’s open door, Matilda overheard the conversation, she understood at once that Eugenia’s sudden departure had to do with the failed dinner party. The head cook had talked to her about the ten main courses and four desserts, asking for her opinion on the recipes. Stretching her lips in a sarcastic smile, Matilda joined Eugenia and Caterina in the hallway.

“I hear you’re having a ten-course dinner next Friday, Eugenia,” Matilda said in a sweet voice. “I’m sure it’ll be a huge success. What should I wear? Silk? Velvet?” She walked past Eugenia, towards the front door. “Please, do let me know what material you deem more appropriate for the occasion.”

As Matilda vanished from sight, next to Caterina, Eugenia stood in a dignified pose, swallowing bile.

In the morning, while Guglielmo prepared the car for the ride downtown, Caterina offered Eugenia to accompany her.

“As you wish,” Eugenia said, entering the car. As she ducked her head inside, she took a last long look at the palazzina, its wisteria—sprinkled stone walls, its manicured gardens. Suddenly, while she was still looking, those images disappeared, as if her vision had all of a sudden become impaired. She closed the car door as Caterina entered on the other side. She didn’t acknowledge her at all. Lifting her chin, she said to Guglielmo, “Let’s go.” She spoke no other word during the ten-minute ride.

On Via San Lorenzo, Caterina accompanied her aunt all the way up to the second floor, carrying her suitcase. In vain she offered to go shopping for food, help her unpack, and keep her company.

“I don’t need anything,” Eugenia said. Suitcase in hand, she entered the apartment, closed the door, and double-locked it, leaving Caterina on the landing.

Following her return to Via San Lorenzo, out of an embarrassment she was unable to overcome, incapable of coming to terms with a reality she couldn’t bear, Eugenia refused all visits, including those of her niece, the Mordiglias, and her former friends the Countess Marina Passaggi, Francesca Dodero, and Carlotta Defilla. It was perfectly clear to her that Grazia, Marina, Francesca, and Carlotta were no longer interested in her company as they had been before the scandal and that their rare visits were only motivated by pity and their desire to fuel gossip. She spent all her days alone, locked inside her apartment: life made no sense to her anymore. Her only contact with the external world was Ottavio, who came once a week to her door and picked up beneath it an envelope containing money and a handwritten list of food to buy. Punctually, he did the requested shopping and left the food on the second-floor landing, as Eugenia had instructed him to do on the day she had decided she no longer wanted to be part of the world and of the score of its inhabitants. When four months later, for two weeks in a row, Ottavio didn’t find the envelope in the usual place, he became worried and, accompanied by the Mordiglias, opened Eugenia’s door with his key.

The moment they stepped in, the three were welcomed by a torrent of screams and slurs: “Get out of my house, you bastards. Vultures. Leave me alone, you blood-sucking parasites. Leeches. You came to suck my blood. Get out of here! Out!”

What they saw when they entered the living room, seated in an armchair, surrounded on the floor by a confused mass of objects that Grazia Mordiglia recognized as all of Eugenia’s personal belongings—clothes, hats, shoes, makeup, jewelry, paintings, books, china, silverware, ceramic statues, the table clock, and Caterina’s self-portrait—was a skeleton wrapped in a thin, wrinkled layer of skin and topped by a wild mass of tangled, fleecy white hair. The skeleton was Eugenia. She had shimmering big eyes that reminded everyone of the eyes of the devil, so that Ottavio, Grazia, and her husband ran out of the apartment, locked the door, and went to Ottavio’s dwelling to swallow several shots of Glenlivet, the single-malt whiskey that was Ottavio’s favorite companion.

The following day Ottavio came back with a doctor. Eugenia was still in the armchair, in the exact same position, staring absently and silently about the room, mouth half open. Stepping over the pile of objects that surrounded her, the doctor gazed at her for a long moment, letting his eyes explore her body up and down.

“She’s ill from malnutrition,” he said, shaking his head twice. “Her skin has a yellow hue, her mouth a foul odor. And she’s thinner than a grass blade. Soon, she’ll worsen, contracting pellagra or scurvy or both. I’m already seeing small skin lesions on her hands. In order to begin to recover, this woman must eat.”

Suddenly, Eugenia turned to the doctor, setting her shimmering eyes on him. Her pupils narrowed, and for a few moments she looked intently at the man before her, as if she were trying to recall who he was. Then she cried, and her cry was shrill and deafening, so loud it made the chandelier pendants jingle. When the cry died out, an avalanche of insults and slurs came out Eugenia’s mouth like a roll of thunder. Startled, the doctor stepped back and ran out of the apartment as fast as he could, vowing to never return.

From that day on, Ottavio entered Eugenia’s apartment once a week to check on her health and bring her food and water. Every time, he was welcomed by screams, insults, and cries that became wilder and more vulgar at every visit and by a stench of rotten flesh that became stronger with the passing of time. It wasn’t until one year later, on July 25th, 1911, that Ottavio walked into the apartment and heard no sound. He knew then with certainty that Eugenia had died.

While Eugenia was starving herself to death in her apartment, the Berilli family saga followed its course. Five days after Eugenia’s departure from the palazzina, in his hospital bed, Giuseppe began to breathe irregularly and in an agitated way. A nurse took his pulse and made a face. She rushed out of the room, calling for help. By the time she returned with a doctor, Giuseppe was no longer breathing. Antonio was the first to be informed; he was also the one who brought the news of Giuseppe’s death to the palazzina. In the blue parlor, Matilda and Caterina listened to his announcement and condolences with marmoreal faces.

“I decided not to press charges against you for the mock funeral,” Antonio told Matilda. “In theory you could be prosecuted because you knew the truth and didn’t speak, but given that it was obviously your husband’s idea and he’s dead, I’ll let go.”

“Thank you,” Caterina said.

“You are no longer under house arrest, Madame,” Antonio went on. “You can go out whenever you wish now.”

Matilda gave him a tired smile. “I don’t see any reason for me to leave this house,” she said. “There’s nothing for me out there anymore.”

The following day Il Secolo XIX published a small article about Giuseppe Berilli’s death, commenting also about the subdued funeral his family had decided to give him. The ceremony didn’t take place in the cathedral, where a Berilli would normally be celebrated with pomp and circumstance. It was carried out at the cemetery, in a small chapel where an old priest said lackluster masses for deceased men and women who were either poor, or unknown, or criminals. Matilda didn’t attend. Umberto had by then left town, unable to find the strength to ignore the gossips about him being a mezzo sangue and his father being a prostitute’s lover and possibly having fathered an illegitimate child. Crushed by the collapse of the law firm he always imagined one day would be his, he moved to Venice with the intent of rebuilding his professional life amidst people who had never heard the name Berilli and didn’t care who his father had been or what he had done. He left Genoa without ceremony and without saying good-bye to his mother. Costanza had left him days earlier. Her parents had come to Genoa to get her shortly after Caterina’s return home.

Costanza’s parents, the Manginis, were a well-to-do family from Savona, a coastal town forty kilometers west of Genoa. When fifteen years earlier a young Umberto had told his parents he intended to marry Costanza, Matilda and Giuseppe had regarded the announcement with perplexity, as they had never heard of the Manginis before. In order to find out who they were, they had both traveled to Savona by coach. There they found a church down the street from the Manginis’ residence where they asked to see the parish priest. He was an older man by the name of Father Marcello, who was very eager to talk about the Manginis. He told Matilda and Giuseppe all he knew, that the Manginis were a good, old family—wealthy and respectable—and everyone in the parish thought very highly of them. He said that Costanza, in particular, was a wonderful young woman, serious and devoted to God, and he could vouch for that, for he had known Costanza since the day she had been born. At the priest’s flattering words, Matilda and Giuseppe felt comfortable with Umberto’s choice of spouse and gave him and Costanza their blessings. One Sunday, after Mass, Father Marcello related to the Manginis the conversation he had had with Matilda and Giuseppe, and the Manginis, who were as stuck up and proud of their family name as the Berillis were, voiced their resentment publicly and loudly:

“How dare they doubt our daughter’s suitability for marriage! How dare they investigate us and ask questions about us in our home town! Their son may be marrying our daughter, but we don’t have to talk to them or see them socially past the wedding day!”

For years there was little contact between the Berillis and the Manginis. The relationship changed when Caterina supposedly died. On the day of Caterina’s funeral, saddened by that horrific disgrace, the Manginis had decided to forgive Matilda and Giuseppe for the intrusion. From then on, for a little over two years, the two families entertained civilized conversations. The moment the Manginis got wind of the scandal surrounding Giuseppe and what he had done to Caterina, they asked their butler to drive them to Genoa and stormed into their daughter’s house.

“Pack your things!” Costanza’s mother shouted, and less than an hour later a teary Costanza and her parents were on their way to back Savona.

As for Raimondo, he had quietly vanished. A distraught Matilda couldn’t find the strength to worry about the whereabouts of her perennially-drunken son; and Caterina, who still felt uneasy in Raimondo’s presence and had hence pretended since her return to Genoa that her brother wasn’t there, didn’t notice his absence for some time. When she did notice, she decided to ignore it. In the end, no Berilli ever knew where Raimondo had decided to go or why. While the scandal raged, he had sold his apartment in Genoa and bought a shack on one acre east of town, on a stretch of rugged and solitary coastline, where he spent his days drinking, sleeping, and staring at the sky. What no one knew was that he was a full-fledged pedophile. In his lifetime, he had molested two young girls: the daughter of an employee and Caterina. The mere sight of children aroused him, forcing him to fight his darkest desires. Ever since puberty, his life had been a long, painful, nightmare. He knew his vice had no cure. He also knew that pedophiles were emarginated, classified as insane, and often locked in the asylum. So he fought the debilitating vice alone, with alcohol, brawls, and a lifestyle more suitable for a sailor than for a prominent lawyer. In the end, once the firm closed down and he no longer had a job to go to in the morning and keep him busy, he decided to remove himself from society or he would spend all his time and energy pursuing young girls. He would live in the solitary shack for eight years, returning to Genoa at a time when the Berilli saga was forgotten and no one could possibly recognize him. He was, indeed, unrecognizable. Once stocky, he was all bones, and his eyes were set deep into his face and cavernous. He looked like a walking skeleton wrapped in wrinkled skin and topped with wiry hair glinting like silver. He’d die two years later, his body found face down on a beach, lapped by the waves. Because he had no identification on him and no one ever claimed his body, the police assumed he was a traveler or perhaps a thug involved in some misdeed.

Oddly enough, Caterina was the only family member to attend Giuseppe’s burial ceremony. Ivano was at her side. They watched the casket being lowered into the ground—not in the family mausoleum—alongside the tombs of perfect strangers. They exchanged no words until the burial was completed.

“I thought I’d feel nothing for him after what he did to me and to my mother,” she said, staring at the uneven, rippled soil covering her father’s remains. She wiped a few tears. “I was mistaken.”

“What will happen now?” Ivano asked. To break Caterina’s silence, he dared, “I know you have been through a lot, but I would like to ask that you consider leaving your parents’ house. We need to build our life in a different place, maybe away from Genoa and all the bad memories you have.”

“I need time, Ivano,” Caterina said. “My father just died, my mother lives like a recluse. My brothers are gone, and my aunt won’t come out of her apartment downtown. It’s all so confusing. Please be patient,” she begged him. “I want to have a life with you, believe me. But I also want time to sort everything out.”

“Of course,” Ivano said, hiding his impatience.

Within days of Giuseppe’s death, the palazzina became a gloomy place. Caterina and Matilda began a new life together, but a life that had little in common with the one they had lived before Caterina’s disappearance. No visits, no dinners, no entertaining. Day and night the palazzina was wrapped in silence. Matilda was never again invited to the parties and teas of the upper class, because she had been a Genoese only by marriage and because the story of the dead daughter who wasn’t dead had turned off the few who would have overlooked her husband’s inferior ancestry and lover and continued to ask her to their homes. In Turin, her relatives also found the story of Caterina’s false death despicable and told each other it was time to cut their ties to Matilda once and for all. It was so that Matilda became an internee in her own home, spending her days embroidering linens in the blue parlor. Of all the servants who worked at the palazzina, only Viola and Guglielmo remained plus a part-time helper in the kitchen. The other staff members were kindly asked to leave, as there was no reason for having all those maids and cooks now that people didn’t visit or stop by anymore. The only person who visited on a regular basis was Father Camillo, who came on Sundays to hear Matilda’s confession and offer Caterina comfort. Matilda took her relentless, irreversible isolation with courage.

“She was buried when I was alive,” she said of her daughter. “It’s now time for me to fade and let her live.”

Caterina, however, was not living as she had expected she would upon her return home. Saddened by her family’s annihilation, she began to feel responsible for the damage she had caused her own mother. Had she not left the convent with Ivano, she reasoned, had she stayed at the convent one more day and returned home with Matilda instead, the scandal would have played out in a very different way. Perhaps there wouldn’t have been a scandal. The family may have found the strength to overcome its problems. And Ivano, who all along had unquestionably acted out of love and concern for her, had made things worse by involving in her return home the Chief of Police. Had he not rushed to fetch Antonio Sobrero, perhaps her father’s true origins would be still a secret. She cursed herself and Ivano for having stirred the waters.

“It’s our fault,” she often said aloud, wishing she could go back in time and do things in a different way. As guilt took hold of her more and more each day, like her mother, she refrained from public life, although she met regularly with Ivano, who waited patiently for her to feel ready. Their encounters no longer had the same fervor of the early days. Ivano, whose love for Caterina had remained strong and unshaken by the course of events, was baffled. He had looked upon Giuseppe’s death as the last remaining obstacle to his union with Caterina, but soon discovered that the lawyer had created as large an obstacle with his death as when he had been alive. Shattered by Caterina’s increasingly cold detachment, he understood that unless he did something to change the state of things he was bound to lose her again—this time forever.

Though sympathetic towards Ivano’s distress, Caterina spent most of her time with her mother. The two often sat in the blue parlor, looking at each other like two accomplices sharing the weight of sins and secrets. At times they took walks along Corso Solferino, enjoying the beauty of the city down below.

One night, after dinner, Matilda announced she would retire to her bedroom for the night. Alone, Caterina went outside, to the belvedere, where she stood breathless at the sight of the city at night. The glow of the streetlights rose towards the sky in a yellow smoke and the moon cast its golden reflection on the sea. Seated alone on a south-facing bench, wrapped in the peace of the night, she thought about her mother, the reclusive life she was now living, the long years she had spent enslaved to her husband, her struggle with her weakness. Then she thought about her own struggles, the long years at the convent, the escape, and everything that had happened since she had returned to town. She tried to imagine what her and her mother’s lives would be had she not met Ivano on that rainy day and had her father not fallen ill and then died. Her heart went cold when she thought of the mysterious person who had sent the anonymous letters and hung the dead cat on the door. Who was he? What wrong had her father done to this person to provoke so hateful a reaction? How many people had her father hurt in his life? She looked out, towards the water, slowly shifting her gaze back and forth over the cityscape, wondering where the writer of the anonymous letters might be, which of the hundreds of houses that lay beneath her eyes he called home, what he looked like, how old he was. Then she thought about Ivano, the colder mood that had set between them recently. Breathing the warm air of early summer, she asked herself whether she still loved him or she held on to him simply because she felt alone. It was past midnight when she returned home. She crossed the foyer, where a sconce of alabaster cast a tremulous shadow on the walls. She walked up the marble staircase, cutting the silence with the swish of her clothes. She undressed in the dark and fell into a dreamless sleep.

The sun was shining when she awoke. Matilda was already in the blue parlor, embroidering a new set of handkerchiefs.

Caterina said, “Good morning, Mother.”

Matilda lifted her head. “Good morning, darling. Are you going out? You are so well dressed.”

“I’m meeting Ivano downtown. I’ll be back soon.” She leaned towards her mother and kissed her on the cheek.

She was surprised to see Ivano waiting for her across the street rather than at the café by the port they had chosen as their meeting place.

“Caterina, we must talk,” he said.

She was struck by the expression of misery in his eyes. She said, “I’m listening.”

“I can’t go on like this. I love you, and you are colder towards me every day. I don’t want to lose you after what I went through to find you. You’re the only woman I ever loved. Tell me why you don’t love me anymore.”

“Things are not as they used to be,” Caterina said. “I still love you, but the tragedies that unsettled my family affected me as well. I’m not the same person, Ivano. My heart is not the same.”

“You must set yourself free from the past,” Ivano insisted. “Your return to your parents’ home was necessary, I know, but it’s not necessary for you to remain here. Why do you insist on staying in this big empty house filled with sad memories? These memories are keeping you away from me. They are pushing us apart, don’t you see?”

“You may be right, Ivano,” Caterina said, “but I can’t leave my mother alone.”

“Why?” Ivano exclaimed. “She left you alone for over two years! How can you feel obliged towards the mother who imprisoned you in that convent?”

“My father was responsible,” Caterina stated. “My mother did what he told her to do.”

“That’s no excuse. How can you sacrifice your happiness to hers? You already sacrificed so much of your life! Don’t you think it’s time for you to be happy?”

“What would make me happy, in your opinion?” Caterina asked.

“Being with me.” He looked straight into her eyes. “Caterina, I wish to marry you. I am asking you, right here, right now. Be my bride. Leave that house of sorrow. Let’s start our lives over.”

With her fingers, Caterina grazed his cheek. “My place is with my mother at this time. The time will come for us to be together, I promise. Please, understand. There have been so many changes in my life and in the lives of others in such a short time. I caused a tempest in my family with my return. I need to see the tempest off before I can devote myself to you.”

“Don’t do this,” Ivano begged as Caterina turned away from him.

“I told you how I feel, Ivano,” Caterina said, reentering the house. “I won’t change my mind.”

The tempest Caterina had alluded to was far from over. One day, somehow, the tale of Giuseppe’s love affair reached Matilda’s ears, despite Caterina’s efforts to spare her mother the embarrassment and the pain. Perhaps Viola and Guglielmo had talked to each other too loudly, or perhaps one of Matilda’s former lady friends had visited and told her everything, unable to pass up the opportunity to hurt her. On the evening Matilda learned that her poorly-born husband had also been Francesca Barone’s lover of a lifetime and that the two had likely conceived a child, she said to her daughter, “I love you, Caterina. Goodbye.” Caterina waved at her without seeing the hidden meaning in her mother’s words, interpreting them as a different way of saying good night. Without turning back, Matilda climbed the staircase to the second floor, the hem of her long silvery dress gliding over the steps as she walked. In the morning, Viola opened her mistress’s bedroom door and, as usual, placed a tray with coffee and milk on the bedside table.

“Good morning, Madame,” she murmured, pouring half a spoon of sugar in the espresso. And then she saw her, lying still amidst the disheveled linen sheets, white foam dripping from her mouth. A doctor was called, who explained that Matilda had committed suicide by ingesting a large quantity of rat poison she had likely taken from the kitchen during the night. She was buried in desecrated land, as the Church stated that suicides shouldn’t be awarded the privilege of Christian burial: no Mass, no Requiem Aeternam, no other prayer.