The House of Serenades

6



THE SHADOWS WERE LENGTHENING when Lavinia, holding a silver tray with all the tea fixings, began looking for Caterina. Her first stop was the family living room, where Caterina liked to spend time in the afternoon. There were two living rooms at the palazzina. The largest one, furnished with many sofas and chandeliers, was reserved for parties and receptions. Located in the front of the house, easily accessible from the foyer, it was never open unless a social event was on the schedule for the week. The second living room, smaller and more intimate, located in the back of the house, was reserved for the family members. Lavinia entered it surefooted, certain that Caterina would be there. But she wasn’t. Perplexed, Lavinia placed the tray on a coffee table and moved on to the blue parlor, where she knew Madame was entertaining two lady friends. Perhaps, she thought, Caterina had joined them, now that she was no longer a child but a young woman soon to be introduced to society. The door of the blue parlor was ajar, so Lavinia peeked in: Madame was seated on the loveseat, and her two friends on the armchairs, facing her. They were sipping tea, likely served earlier by Viola, and conversing peacefully. No trace of Caterina. Next, Lavinia went upstairs, to Caterina’s bedroom, which was deserted. After exploring the kitchen, the dining room, the reading room, the laundry room, and the guest quarters, she scratched her head. Not for a minute did she think of entering the social living room, as no party was planned for the next several days. The curtains were drawn, the shutters closed tightly. That room often reminded Lavinia of a tomb. The only place left on Lavinia’s mental list was the garden, where Caterina occasionally groomed the hydrangeas. She was still musing over the girl’s untimely disappearance when she opened the palazzina’s front door and stood on the steps, from where she had a good view of the flower beds and the street. She saw no trace of Caterina but noticed that one of the social-living-room shutters was open. At once, she descended the steps to the garden, walked to the open shutter and looked inside. By the window, seated in an armchair, charcoal in hand, Caterina was tracing lines on a sheet of paper, her eyes squeezed tightly in the effort.

“What in the world are you doing there?” Lavinia exclaimed.

With a small jerk, Caterina lifted her head from the paper. She hadn’t expected to see a face peering in at her from the garden.

“Don’t move,” Lavinia said, pulling away. “I don’t know what to do with this girl,” she murmured as she reentered the palazzina in a hurry. A moment later she was standing in front of Caterina’s armchair, in a large room that smelled of naphthalene balls and was mostly dark and uninviting, other than for the sunlight hovering over Caterina.

She asked, “Would you care to explain? You know better than I that you are not supposed to be here. This room is closed. If your mother sees you …”

“What?” Caterina said in a defiant tone. Then her voice softened. She whispered, “I wanted to be alone.” She gazed at the sheet of paper on her lap.

Drawing was a passion she had developed in childhood, as soon as she had begun elementary school. Everyone had quickly discovered that she was a talented artist, capable of capturing the essence of a subject with minimal strokes. Her teachers had noticed and praised the girl with big words and awards and even a one-person show at her high school. Her father had refused to attended, scoffing and labeling Caterina’s artistic endeavors a waste of time. But Matilda had participated, always encouraging Caterina and telling her she should be proud of her accomplishments, no matter what her father said. In fact she had framed two of Caterina’s best drawings and hung them in the blue parlor, above the fireplace, where her lady friends could see them. Their compliments about the freshness and originality of the compositions made her gloat every time.

“Alone? Why?” Lavinia asked, taking a step forward and glancing at the paper. She expected to see one of the girl’s two favorite subjects: Madame’s face or a flower composition. But what she saw was no Madame or flowers. On the white paper was a sketch of a mandolin next to two dark, gentle eyes.

“What is wrong with you?” she said, snatching the drawing out of Caterina’s hands.

Caterina looked away, out the window, in the distance, her expression forlorn, her eyes melancholic.

Lavinia spoke with disbelief. “Are you still thinking about that baker?”

Caterina didn’t answer.

Lavinia’s eyes widened as she spoke with a deeper, worried voice. “Stop thinking about him at once. He’s a baker, for Christ sake, a baker!”

Caterina shook her head. “I can’t. I have been thinking about him ever since we left his bakery this morning.”

Lavinia rolled her eyes. “God help us,” she whispered.

With a sudden energy in her movements, Caterina turned to her chaperone. “I want to see him again. Please, arrange an encounter. Tomorrow. Please …”

“Certainly not,” Lavinia stated. Your father would kill me.”

Undaunted, Caterina clasped her hands as if in a prayer and gave Lavinia the most innocent look she was capable of producing. “Please …”

“No,” Lavinia stated. “And stop drawing mandolins and sweet, drooping eyes. There’s no way you’ll see your baker friend again.”

She set her hands on her hips, expecting Caterina to make a scene. Instead, Caterina stood up and whispered, “I love him, and there’s nothing anyone can do to change how I feel.”

Lavinia took a step back. Love? What did Caterina know about love? Surely nothing. She was raving, raving under the influence of that silly music she had heard. Damn rain. Had it stayed sunny all morning, none of this nonsense would be happening. She cleared her throat to give herself time to come up with a plan. She considered giving Caterina a lecture about the appropriate and inappropriate behavior of upper-class girls, but on second thought decided to drop the subject. Perhaps the best course of action was to cut the conversation short. All Caterina needed was time, a day or two of distraction, and then the mandolin player would be forgotten. He was a whim, like many others Caterina had. She should take her to the port, to see the transatlantic ships docking and unloading passengers; or to the theater, to see an opera matinee.

“Let’s go get your tea tray,” Lavinia said casually. “I left it in the family living room, where you should have been in the first place. I bet the tea is cold by now. We’ll warm it up. Come on.”

Surprisingly, Caterina followed Lavinia without arguing. Once they reached the kitchen, however, and Lavinia placed the teapot on the stove, Caterina clasped Lavinia’s arm.

“I want to see him again,” she said with a determined voice, “and you know all too well that I won’t stop annoying you until I do.”

Lavinia nodded. She knew how stubborn Caterina could be, and it came to her as no surprise that in the case of her sudden passion for a sweet-eyed, mandolin-plucking fellow the girl wouldn’t take no for an answer. She was nonetheless determined to impede any further contact between her charge and the baker.

“I will not let my affection cloud my judgment,” she mumbled to herself as she turned away from Caterina to place the teapot back on the tray. And with that, she headed back towards the family living room.

Caterina tagged along, begging and begging, explaining how she had often wondered what falling in love might mean and how she’d feel when it would happen, and how she had discussed those topics over and over with her schoolmates, who were as ignorant of that matter as she was, but as eager to find out. “Now I know,” she said with a trembling voice. “I’m in love, Lavinia. This won’t go away.”

It was a fact that Lavinia, who had not been blessed with children of her own, had a weakness for Caterina she struggled to control. She had loved the girl from the day she had been hired to work at the palazzina, when Caterina was five, and the large amount of time she spent with her daily had only strengthened the affection. Consequently, Lavinia’s initial determination to put an end to the queer idea of loving a baker weakened under her mistress’s continued and passionate begging for an encounter. It took Caterina exactly one hour to bend Lavinia’s will.

“Fine. I’ll set up a meeting,” Lavinia said, exhausted from the long quarrel. “But only one. And the only reason I’m doing it, so you know, is so you can see for yourself what kind of low-class, ignorant man your mandolin player is. I’m certain that after talking to him for three minutes you’ll want to shove him out of your life forever.”

“Yes!” Caterina shouted, giving Lavinia a heartfelt hug. Then she ran off to her room, where she lay on her bed and stared a long time at the ceiling.

She had never experienced so deep an unsettlement before. Her breathing was shallow and fast, her mouth dry, and she had the impression that her bones were melting into the bed sheets. She was lost in visions of Ivano’s angelic eyes, his beautifully sculpted body, and his skilled hands caressing the strings of the mandolin. The music was playing in her ears, note after note after note, as if she had known that tune all her life. It was inside her, flowing along the blood in her veins. She was brimming with Ivano’s images, with his smell, with his sounds. She stood up a half hour later to take a ream of white of paper and three pieces of charcoal out of a drawer. Over the two hours that followed she did nothing other than draw Ivano: his mouth, eyes, brow, hair, hands, nose, and of course his mandolin. To Caterina, the instrument was part of Ivano’s body. The way he had played it, so naturally, so fluidly, it had seemed an extension of his arms—and of his heart. She stopped sketching only around dinner time, when Lavinia came to her room to fetch her. By then, she had filled twenty-three sheets.

The following morning, in the twilight, when everyone was still asleep, Lavinia snuck out of the palazzina and headed downhill at a speedy gait. She arrived at the bakery at six, when Piazza della Nunziata was quiet and its sidewalks deserted. The front door of the bakery was locked, but a light was on inside, so Lavinia kept knocking until Corrado, Ivano’s father, came to the door, saying, “We open in half an hour. Come back later.”

“I don’t want bread,” Lavinia explained. “I’m here to see the mandolin player regarding a private matter. Is he here?”

Corrado let her in. “He’s baking,” he said, pointing to a half-open door. “Go ahead.”

Gingerly, Lavinia walked into a room that was darker and much warmer than the storefront and smelled strongly of butter and baked dough. A bulky table and two chairs occupied the center of the room; shelves storing loaves lined the left wall; and on the right wall two large wood ovens were at work. Next to the ovens, Ivano was buttering a large baking pan. “Good morning,” Lavinia said.

He started at the sound of a woman’s voice. “You are the blonde lady’s friend!” he exclaimed, staring at the unexpected visitor.

“I’m her chaperone, not her friend,” Lavinia specified. In a few words she explained the reason for her visit.

When Ivano heard that the blonde girl wanted to see him again, his surprise grew even stronger. He had flirted with her without imagining even for a moment that such a beautiful, elegant young woman, clearly out of his reach, would give his flirtation more than a superficial thought. As Lavinia went on explaining that the appointment was set for Sunday at four in the afternoon in the gardens of San Nicolo’, he felt a pang in his belly and his breath became quick in his throat. Lavinia noticed his emotion.

“Don’t get too excited, young man. I’ll be there, watching you like a hawk.”

He nodded, “Of course.”

“Is this a yes?” Lavinia asked.

“It is,” he babbled. “Four o’clock. San Nicolo’.”

“What’s your first name?” Lavinia asked as she headed for the door.

“Ivano,” he replied. “What’s hers? And her family name?”

“Her name is Caterina, and for the time being it’s all you need to know.”

On Sunday, following Lavinia’s instructions, Ivano waited for Caterina in the most secluded section of the gardens. He had brought his mandolin along. The instrument had a calming, soothing effect on him, and it had been that way ever since he had held it in his hands as a child. He squeezed it as he wondered if the meeting had been prompted by an attraction the young lady had for him or it was the pastime of a bored upper-class girl with nothing better to do on a tedious January Sunday. Despite the comfort of the mandolin, his hands were shaking with doubt and fear of being deceived.

Caterina arrived shortly, followed at close distance by Lavinia. She walked up to him in small steps, slowing her gait as she approached. A few inches from him, she opened her face in the sweetest smile. Looking into her glittering green eyes, at the glossy blonde hair dancing on her shoulders, at the fullness of the heart-shaped lips, and at the watery grace of her gestures, Ivano understood in an instant that he was in love. He took her hand, thin and shaky, and felt a flow of heat enter his flesh and spread inside his bones. She blushed at his touch, and they both stood there a long time, he unable to let go of her, she incapable of taking her eyes off his, both helpless and powerless and without the strength to move or speak.

They snapped out of their trance when Lavinia cleared her throat. Then they strolled hand in hand along a path until they reached a rotunda shaded by tall trees. There, without having said a word to one another, they stopped, looked into each other’s eyes, and fell tenderly into each other’s arms.

Lavinia approached them and broke up the embrace. “Watch yourself, young man,” she said in a piercing voice, “or this will be the last you see of my mistress.”

He smiled. “If this were the last I’m allowed to see of Caterina,” he said, keeping his eyes on her, “I’d have little reason to keep living.”

It was the first time he had pronounced her name, and the effect on Caterina was disastrous. If she had had any doubt about her feelings for him, any concern about his social place, hearing him pronounce her name cleared her mind of questions and misgivings. She lowered her eyes.

“I want to see you every day,” she murmured. “And I want to hear you play the mandolin again. Your music is amazing. I love the piece you played at the bakery.”

“What you heard at the bakery wasn’t my music,” Ivano said. “It was Mozart’s. But this piece is mine, music and words.” He leaned against the back of a bench and played a ballad he had composed a year earlier on a night he hadn’t been able to sleep. He sang along, and it was so that Caterina and Lavinia discovered that Ivano was also a composer and a gifted singer with a deep, endearing voice.

“Have you composed many pieces?” Caterina asked at the end of Ivano’s performance, her voice dampened by emotion.

He nodded. “There’s a place at the top of this hill where I go when I want to be alone. That’s where I compose most of my pieces. It’s a beautiful spot, with views of the whole city. I’ll take you there some day.”

Lavinia made her opinion clear. “Don’t even think about it.” She took Caterina’s hand. “Time to go home.”

Incapable of moving even the tiniest muscle in his body, Ivano watched Caterina walk away alongside her chaperone. He remained in the gardens a long time, occasionally grazing the strings of the mandolin. He had courted several women before, but not one of them had made him feel so lost, so out of control, so moonstruck.

As for Caterina, she kept silent all the way back to Corso Solferino. “Thank you,” she said to Lavinia as they were entering the palazzina. “I’ll always be grateful to you for what you did today.”

“I am not so sure this was the right thing to do,” Lavinia commented, holding back a smile, “but I know for a fact that I’ve never seen you this happy before.”

Doubts and remorse kept hunting Lavinia on a daily basis. Caterina’s showings of happiness, however, infected her, weakening her remorse for being an accomplice in an adventure the girl was not supposed to have. It was a different Caterina she was seeing. Before meeting Ivano, Caterina had been, in everyone’s opinion, a happy girl. Her childhood tantrums had subsided, replaced by a polite stubbornness everyone seemed to accept as an intrinsic part of her being. She was courteous and kind, with big smiles for everyone. Nevertheless, Lavinia had often asked herself if Caterina was truly as happy as everyone—her parents, her brothers, and the house guests—seemed to believe. Something about her outgoing attitude seemed forced, unreal, as if Caterina’s enticing smiles were a device meant to cover up a second reality, perhaps a tragic secret. Lavinia never mentioned her thoughts to anybody, because she couldn’t have explained them rationally and because she had no proof whatsoever that her suspicions were real. But after the meeting at the gardens of San Nicolo’, for the first time Lavinia saw Caterina express a true happiness, genuine and unhindered. The difference was astounding. Lavinia knew then that Caterina’s happy life up to that point had been in all probability a lie. She asked the girl one day if something unpleasant had happened to her and if she wanted to talk about it. Caterina reacted with rudeness and sarcasm at first, then with indifference, as if Lavinia had brought up the evening menu or a new store opening in town.

“Since when do you ask personal questions?” she said dryly. “I thought my father hired you to keep me company, not to pry.” Then she went on to talk about the weather and the hydrangeas needing fertilizer and more water.

Looking past the sarcasm, the rudeness, and the idle conversation, Lavinia noticed how Caterina hadn’t found the question unusual or asked why Lavinia had formulated it or come up with such a thought. Caterina had skillfully dodged the topic, confirming Lavinia’s suspicions that something in the girl’s life was not as it seemed.

Lavinia nurtured Caterina and Ivano’s love story for two and a half months. The faithfulness to her employer she had paraded on so many occasions was forgotten, her affection for Caterina being only one of the reasons. The other was Ivano’s music. It had put a spell on Lavinia as well. It was a different kind of spell than the one he had bestowed upon Caterina—it was the enchantment an older woman feels in the presence of a young artist’s display of skills. In all her life Lavinia had never been exposed to classical music or to popular music performed by its composer. She had always thought those forms of art were the prerogative of the rich, not of a working woman. Ever since Ivano’s first performance at the bakery during the rain storm, she had secretly felt thankful for the opportunity to listen to such an extraordinary artiste, and from then on had looked at Ivano’s music as a special treat life was finally giving her after many years of hard work. When he played, she observed his facial expressions and the movements of his hands in wonder, as a baby watches an event for the first time. She marveled at the speed of his right hand and the precision of the left one, registering the tilt of his head, the patterns of his breathing, and the stretching of his vocal chords when he sang. She knew, of course, that he wasn’t playing for her and that he would rather be alone with Caterina, but none of that mattered to her. Every time she heard him play or sing, she was transported to another world.

The encounters between Ivano and Caterina, which couldn’t possibly occur in public venues, took place in the bakery’s oven room, in the afternoon, when Corrado had left for the day and customers were rare. Tony, the hired help, dozed off on a cot behind the counter, awaking briefly when the occasional shopper came in. Of the two entrances to the oven room, one was off the bakery and one off a blind alley bordering the rear of the building. The alley ended with a wall, against which stood several boxes utilized by the local stores to dispose of their garbage. Several times a week Lavinia and Caterina entered the oven room through the alley door and, unseen by customers or passersby, met Ivano. In the privacy of those four walls, Caterina and Ivano talked about their lives and their dreams, he played the mandolin and she listened with her heart racing. She often brought paper and charcoal along, and while he played she drew him, over and over and over. The drawings cast a spell on Ivano, as much as his music cast a spell on Caterina. He looked at the lines and the shadows in amazement, incredulous of the fact that anyone, especially such a young girl, could so faithfully reproduce his features and expressions.

“I’m composing a special song,” Ivano told Caterina one day, during one of their clandestine visits. “I’ll play it on the day your family will accept our love and we’ll begin our life together.”

Caterina turned to Lavinia. “Should I talk to my father?”

Lavinia shook her head, horrified. “Not unless you want your friend banned from this town,” she said, half seriously, half jokingly.

Caterina looked at Ivano with eyes full of sadness.

“Don’t be sad,” Ivano told her, caressing her hair. “I’ll find the way for us to be together.”

He leaned towards her and slowly kissed her on the lips. She kissed him back. It was their first kiss, and after it Caterina felt more in love with Ivano than ever before. When she was not with him all she could do was relive in her mind every moment they had spent together and dream of the next time she’d see him and ease into in his arms. She often imagined how wonderful it would be if her love for Ivano could be made public and be accepted by their respective social milieus. They would go to the theater together, to dinners and balls, hand in hand and proud of each other. She would go to the hilltop with him, to his secret place, and she would watch him compose new music and sing it for her with his beautiful, warm voice.

“You know that this will have to end sooner or later,” Lavinia would tell her on occasion. “He’s from a different world. My world, not yours.”

“Don’t say that!” a terrified Caterina would exclaim. “Different worlds don’t need to be apart forever.”

“They do, my child,” Lavinia would nod. “It’s always been that way.”

“No,” Caterina would say. “The only difference between Ivano and me is that he needs to work to survive and I don’t. We were both born in the same town. Why would there be a problem?”

“You are so naïve, darling,” Lavinia would comment with a sad smile. “So innocent. I’ll hate it when you and Ivano will have to say goodbye.”

While Ivano and Caterina grew their love in the oven room, Lavinia answered Matilda’s and Giuseppe’s questions about where she and Caterina would go on their next outing or where they had been the day before with clever lies, inventing visits to new stores, parks, and museums, always adding to the list, always smiling. No one at the palazzina ever suspected that those reports were the fruit of Lavinia’s vivid imagination.

Despite their precautions, it wasn’t long before Caterina and Ivano became the victims of curious eyes. Over the course of several weeks, Tony, the hired help, an observant and greedy fellow, had noticed how Ivano left the bakery every other day always at the same time and returned one and a half hours later. Intrigued, he took advantage of a particularly slow day and followed Ivano outside, keeping a distance so Ivano wouldn’t notice him. It was with surprise that he saw Ivano turn the alley corner and enter the oven room. Why would Ivano leave the bakery and reenter it from the back door? Puzzled, Tony retraced his steps, returning to his post behind the counter. He sold bread to a woman, focaccia to a couple of kids. Alone again, he set his ear against the oven-room door. He heard muffled voices, then the sound of strings being plucked, and then voices once more. In a matter of moments he realized that Ivano’s companions, whoever they were, were female. He had no reason to enter the oven room as baking was not part of his duties. He also knew it would be inappropriate and counter effective for him to barge in with an excuse. So he waited until it was almost time for Ivano to return to the store front. Then he left the bakery again and again turned the alley corner, hiding behind one the garbage boxes. A few minutes went by before the oven-room door opened and a young lady came out, followed closely by an older woman. Perhaps an aunt, Tony thought, or a chaperone. Behind them, Ivano stepped into the alley as well, where he caressed the girl’s hair and kissed her on the forehead.

Tony did not return to the bakery that day, leaving Ivano perplexed as to the clerk’s absence. Instead, he followed Caterina and Lavinia home, and it was so that he found out that the young woman who spent time with Ivano in the oven room was none other than the daughter of Giuseppe Berilli, the famous lawyer. Considering the type of family the Berillis were, Tony was certain that Mister Berilli and his wife weren’t aware of their daughter’s escapades. Several days went by during which Tony kept wondering how he could profit from what he knew. Meanwhile, at the bakery Ivano and Corrado looked for a new employee, commenting occasionally on Tony’s mysterious disappearance, wondering if something might have happened to him and whether they should call the police. They did, in the end, file a police report, and, unknown to Tony, he became the object of an investigation.

One morning Tony made a decision. At 11 AM he entered the offices of Berilli e Figli and told the clerk he wanted to confer with Giuseppe Berilli in private. A half hour later, a second clerk approached Tony.

“Mister Berilli doesn’t know you and hence will not receive you,” he said. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Tell Mister Berilli,” Tony replied firmly, “that the matter I wish to discuss with him concerns his family, and I won’t leave this office until he meets with me. He should listen to what I have to say before it’s too late.”

At that, the clerk left to return ten minutes later. “This way,” he said, showing Tony to a conference room.

Giuseppe was there alone, seated at the head of a rectangular oak table. “Who are you?” he boomed. “And what do you have to say about my family?”

“Who I am is irrelevant,” a belligerent Tony said. “I came here to talk about your daughter.”

Giuseppe squinted his eyes. “My daughter? What about her?”

“So you know, sir,” Tony said stealthily, “in recent weeks she has been engaging in activities you and any father would find objectionable. I can take you to the site where these activities take place,” he added, “and you’ll be able to see with your own eyes.”

“How dare you!” Giuseppe shouted. “I know my daughter! She would never engage in something I wouldn’t approve of! Get out of here before I have you arrested!”

Calmly, Tony said, “As you wish, sir. But I’ll be back here tomorrow at the same time.” He cocked his head. “In case you should change your mind.”

Giuseppe spent a restless day, incapable of concentrating and bringing any matter to conclusion, followed by a sleepless night. Tony’s face glowed at him from the dark and his words rang ominously in his ear. As he tossed and turned, he kept wondering what those words might mean. Had Caterina truly done something outrageous? Something that could tarnish his reputation? In the morning, at the office, he kept busy with meetings and trial preparation, but all along couldn’t stop worrying. Would the young man return? Should he not return, would he be able to set his doubts aside and pretend their conversation never took place? He broke a pencil in two and threw the pieces against the wall. “Damn it,” he grumbled. “Never a moment of peace.”

As it turned out, Giuseppe’s anxiety was misplaced because Tony arrived at the office at 11 AM sharp, as he had promised. Contrary to the previous day, he was admitted to the conference room at once, where Giuseppe spoke without preambles. “Take me there.”

“Two hundred liras, sir,” Tony said coldly. “Right now.”

“Two hundred liras?” Giuseppe screamed. “Are you crazy?”

“No, sir. But if you think I’m crazy, I’ll leave. Good-bye.”

“Snake!” Giuseppe hissed. “One hundred liras,” he shouted as Tony was about to leave the room, “and nothing more.”

Tony accepted the offer without dispute. Giuseppe opened his safe and handed him the money in cash. Tony took the money, hid it in his shirt, and said, “Meet me on Piazza della Nunziata this afternoon at four-thirty. In front of the church.”

A fresh breeze was blowing from the north when, later that day, Giuseppe drove the family car down the hill, parking it in front of the Nunziata church. He stepped out and looked right and left several times. Then he paced the sidewalk, feeling uneasy and out of place. When ten minutes had passed, he began questioning his wisdom. He had handed a stranger a large sum of money and taken his word that he would meet him in front of that church. Perhaps the blackmailer had nothing to show and was now many kilometers away. What an imbecile he was. He was about to reenter his car and head home when a figure approached him from behind and whispered, “Follow me.”

Looking furtively about, Giuseppe followed Tony as he crossed the street amidst an intense traffic of cars, pedestrians, and horses. When Tony reached the opposite sidewalk, he looked back and waved. “Come on!”

Caught in the street traffic, Giuseppe had a moment of repentance. What was he doing, letting a blackmailer drag him all over town? He should turn around, go home, and forget about the money and the troubling story the young man and told him about his daughter. The thought that Caterina might be in a situation that required his paternal intervention overcame, however, his hesitation. He walked up to Tony and said, “Where’s my daughter?”

“This way,” Tony said. He headed towards the east end of the piazza, shortly turning into the blind alley that led to the bakery back door.

“Why are we here?” Giuseppe blurted. “What is this place?”

Without replying, Tony pushed the oven-room door open. As Giuseppe stood in the doorway, the greedy clerk ran away and was never seen again in that part of town. Three months later the police closed their investigation, labeling his disappearance an unsolved case.

At the moment the alley door opened, Lavinia, Ivano, and Caterina were seated at the table, engaged in a conversation. Ivano was holding Caterina’s hand. He sprung to his feet as he realized that someone was standing on the threshold, looking inside. Caterina clutched his arm. She murmured, “My father …”

Ivano froze as Lavinia’s eyes showed the depth of her fright.

“What’s going on here?” Giuseppe shouted, stepping in. He stared at Caterina, Lavinia, and the handsome young stranger standing next to his daughter. It took him one split second to figure out what the answer to his question was. A rush of rage sent his heart racing. He lunged towards Ivano, punching him in the stomach. “I’ll kill you, scum of the scum! I’ll kill you!”

Speechless, Ivano defended himself by grabbing the lawyer’s arms and pushing him away.

“Who are you?” Giuseppe screamed as he continued to throw punches. “And what is this dingy place?”

“This is my bakery,” Ivano said, fending off the punches, “and it’s not a dingy place!”

Suddenly the door that connected the oven room to the store swung open and Corrado, who knew nothing of his son’s secret encounters with Caterina, unexpectedly came in. He had returned to the bakery that afternoon looking for the hat he had left behind.

“What’s going on here?” he said. Then, seeing his own son caught in a fistfight with a stranger, he took a broom from a corner and delivered a sharp blow on the head of the intruder.

“Stop!” Caterina exclaimed. “He’s my father!”

The fight stopped and everyone was silent for a moment.

Giuseppe broke the silence. “You’re dead!” he growled at Ivano.

“Just a minute,” Corrado intervened. He looked at Giuseppe with angry eyes. “Who are you? And why are you threatening my son?”

Giuseppe lifted his chin. “I am Giuseppe Berilli, the lawyer. Your son, or whoever this bandit is, lured my daughter into this room and kept her here. That’s why I’m threatening him. Isn’t it obvious?”

Caterina spoke softly. “Ivano didn’t lure me here. I came of my own will. I love him.”

Giuseppe stared at his daughter with mad eyes. “You what?”

“You heard her, Mister Lawyer,” Corrado snapped. “My son is not a bandit. And he doesn’t lure women into anything unless the women themselves agree in the first place.”

“I love him,” Caterina repeated.

“Silence!” Giuseppe barked. With a swift move, he clasped Caterina’s arm and pulled her close. “Shame on you!” he hissed. “You’ve disgraced our family and our name!”

Ivano stepped forward. “I love your daughter,” he said, “and I intend to marry her.”

“Stay away from her,” Giuseppe screamed, “or I’ll have you jailed! And you,” he continued, glaring at Lavinia, “collect your personal belongings and leave our home at once. You are fired!”

For a long moment, he stared at the people standing in front of him, lips trembling. Then, red-faced, he marched out of the oven room, dragging Caterina along.

They exchanged no words on the way home, as Giuseppe drove uphill at maximum speed and with no regard for other vehicles on the road. At the palazzina, he pushed Caterina up the stairs and into her bedroom, closing the door once they were both inside. “Are you a virgin?” he asked.

Caterina looked at him without talking. She stood still in the middle of her room, as if paralyzed.

“Are you a virgin, I said!”

She didn’t speak.

“Do you think you can lie to me?” he shouted. “I can call Doctor Sciaccaluga and have him visit you and find out! Are you a virgin, yes or no?”

Caterina looked the other way.

“We’ll continue this later,” Giuseppe grunted. With an angry frown, he walked from the bedroom, locking the door behind him and dropping the key in his pocket. Next, he stormed into the servant quarters on the third floor, something he had never done before. In the hallway, two startled chambermaids gasped and moved aside as he rushed past them and barged into the bedroom that for over fifty years had been assigned to the butler on duty.

“Guglielmo,” he ordered, “tell everyone on the staff that Caterina is sick, is to remain in her room, and cannot receive visits. And find my wife, wherever she is.”

Without giving Guglielmo time to speak, he rushed back downstairs, to the reading room, where he poured himself a brandy. When, ten minutes later, Matilda arrived, Giuseppe was on his third glass of liquor and felt as if he had drunk plain water.

“You are going to need brandy, too,” he said, then explained to Matilda in great detail what had happened on Piazza della Nunziata.

When Matilda recovered from the shocking news, she and Giuseppe went back to their daughter’s room, where they conducted a thorough interrogation. Through sobs and tears and scanty words, Caterina confessed to having seen Ivano for the past two and a half months, with Lavinia covering up their secret encounters with tales of strolls in the carrugi and visits to stores the two of them had never even approached.

“I can’t believe Lavinia betrayed us,” Matilda told Giuseppe later that evening at the dinner table. “What a dreadful woman.”

“Yes, dreadful.” Giuseppe concurred. “As dreadful as that baker Caterina has been seeing. I wonder how she even met him.”

How Caterina Berilli, the daughter of an illustrious lawyer, and Ivano Bo, the son of a humble baker, had become acquainted and fallen in love remained a mystery Giuseppe and Matilda would never able to solve. The only one who knew, Lavinia, had left the palazzina in a hurry, before anyone could question her about Caterina’s secret.

“I asked Caterina if she’s a virgin,” Giuseppe told Matilda with a smirk on his face as he tasted the dessert, “and she didn’t reply.”

Matilda’s voice trembled. “You’re not thinking … She wouldn’t. I know Caterina.”

“Why are you so surprised? You did it when you were her age.”

Matilda stood up in a rage. “I did not!”

Giuseppe continued with a calm voice. “We need to find out if she’s still a virgin. I will ask Doctor Sciaccaluga to visit her first thing in the morning.”

“You can’t be serious,” Matilda murmured.

“Watch me,” Giuseppe said, standing up and walking away. As he headed for the reading room, he decided there was no reason for the examination to wait.

At that point in time the friendship between Giuseppe and Damiano Sciaccaluga had not yet flourished, and the relationship between the two men was strictly a professional one. Damiano was hence greatly surprised when Guglielmo picked him up in the Berillis’ automobile shortly past nine in the evening and when upon his arrival at the palazzina fifteen minutes later Giuseppe informed him that no one was sick.

“I asked you here tonight,” Giuseppe explained, “because I want you to find out if my daughter is still a virgin.”

Damiano’s surprise turned to bewilderment. He had known Caterina since she had been a child and continued to think of her as a child even though she was now close to turning eighteen.

“Do you have reasons to suspect that Caterina has been engaging in sexual activities?” he asked, not believing he had just uttered those words.

“I do,” Giuseppe stated. “Please follow me upstairs. Needless to say, you will keep the outcome of this visit confidential, as if the visit never took place.”

More and more puzzled, Damiano followed Giuseppe to Caterina’s bedroom. Matilda was already there. She and Caterina were seated on the bed next to each other, holding hands. The moment Matilda saw the two men entering the bedroom, she stood up and spoke with determination. “You will not embarrass our daughter with this silly exam,” she stated.

“I will,” Giuseppe said coldly. “And you’d better get out of the way.”

“No,” Matilda said firmly.

Damiano began to feel uneasy. He turned to Giuseppe. “Perhaps you and your wife should discuss this privately. I’ll wait outside.”

“There’s nothing to wait for,” Giuseppe said. “Matilda, leave the bedside or I will make you.”

Silent all along, Caterina grabbed Matilda’s arm.

Matilda changed tactics. “Have you any idea how hard this is going to be on our daughter? After what she’s been through today?”

“No, I don’t,” Giuseppe said sarcastically. “You, on the other hand, must be an expert on this matter. Right?”

Matilda’s cheeks turned redder than fire. “How dare you make such comments in the presence of Caterina and a perfect stranger?” Her voice broke up, and Caterina began to sob uncontrollably.

“Go ahead,” Giuseppe told Damiano. Hesitantly, Damiano approached the bed.

“Don’t come any closer!” Matilda screamed, reliving every moment of the shameful vaginal examination she had been subjected to in her youth. “Why can’t you leave her alone?” she begged. “Perhaps in a day or two she’ll be keen on telling us what happened.”

“I need to know the truth now,” Giuseppe said. He nodded at Damiano, who had meanwhile opened his medical bag.

“I am not a virgin,” Caterina murmured.

Wide-eyed, Matilda stared at her daughter.

Giuseppe said, “What?”

“I am not a virgin,” Caterina repeated.

In a fury, Giuseppe walked up to the bed and grabbed Caterina’s hair, pulling her down. “You … whore! You gave away your virginity to a stupid baker?”

“He’s not stupid! I love him!” Caterina cried. Matilda took a step back and continued to stare at Caterina as if she were seeing her for the first time.

Meanwhile, bag in hand, Damiano had retreated to a corner and was quietly observing the scene.

“When did it happen?” Giuseppe shouted, pulling on the hair harder and forcing Caterina to bend her neck all the way.

“You are hurting me…” Caterina moaned.

“When did you lose your virginity?” he boomed, pulling so hard now Caterina was bending sideways.

“Let her go,” Matilda intervened. “Caterina,” she continued once Giuseppe had loosened the grip on Caterina’s hair, “talk to me. Tell me what happened. And when.”

Caterina whispered, “Long ago.”

“Long ago!” Giuseppe exclaimed. “You are seventeen! Is this baker of yours a sick man who seduces children?”

Caterina looked Giuseppe in the eyes. “He’s not a sick man!”

“Yes, he is!” Giuseppe insisted. “I’ll call the police and have him arrested. Men who seduce children belong in jail!”

“Don’t!” Caterina said. She paused then spoke faintly. “It wasn’t him. There was someone else, long before I met Ivano.”

“Someone else?!” Giuseppe shouted. “Are you running a whorehouse? Tell me who he was! Tell me at once!”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t.”

“Say his name!”

She sobbed, “Don’t ask me to tell …”

Giuseppe turned to the silent Damiano. “Please leave the room.”

“And the house as well,” Matilda ordered. Her voice sweetened when she addressed her daughter. “Caterina,” she said once Doctor Sciaccaluga had left, “please tell us what happened. Are you telling the truth? Have you been intimate with a man long ago, when you were still a child? I don’t believe you …”

Giuseppe grabbed Caterina by the shoulders. “Tell me who he is right now!”

Caterina shook her head.

“Speak!”

Caterina shook her head again.

Giuseppe slapped her on the face. Then he turned to Matilda. “I’m going to the reading room to think this over and make plans.”