The Bishop's Bedroom

by Chiara, Piero; Foulston, Jill;

  Orimbelli didn’t even bother to glance at her. When he did speak of her, nodding toward her without looking over, both out of respect for a guest and in an attempt to make amends for the women’s ungracious silence, it was to tell me that Signora Matilde could be considered a war widow. Her husband had disappeared during the battle of Lake Ascianghi. “Disappeared” was a polite euphemism used to indicate “unrecovered” or “unrecognized,” just as so many others who’d been hit by grenades or artillery bullets.

  The widow ate quietly, as if her brother-in-law were talking about things that didn’t concern her—or things she’d already heard too often. Now and again she looked at her sister-in-law beside her, who actually seemed angered by the discussion. Only toward the end of lunch did she glance at me to ask, “Coffee?”

  During coffee, which was served by a young woman who hadn’t appeared before, Signora Orimbelli spoke—revealing yellowed teeth—in order to complete or correct some of the information her husband thought he’d given me.

  “Yes,” she said, her neck stiffening like a turkey’s, “we spent ten years on our own, from ’41 in Milan and then the last five years here in this villa. It was my father’s; it’s now mine. This man here was away, in Puglia, Naples and who knows where else. My brother Angelo, poor thing, never came back—he disappeared down there, or died. Nothing was ever known about it. If he were still of this world, he’d have shown up by now.”

  Orimbelli kept silent. He lit a cigar and smoked it silently, his gaze wandering between the ceiling and the table.

  I deemed it the right moment to take my leave. Orimbelli wanted to go with me as far as the port but I wouldn’t let him. Promising to return soon, I followed the main road. At the time, few cars used it, especially at night.

  The Tinca was waiting for me, unmoving, in the still waters of the harbor. I slipped under the canvas without even lighting the kerosene lamp, and five minutes later I was asleep.

  The next day I hoisted the sails before eight. I glided past the Villa Cleofe on my way to the open water, and noticed that all the windows on the lake side were still shut.

  Who knows how often I’d sailed past that villa in my boat without noticing it, just as I’d gone past so many others, both large and small, surrounded by grounds that overlooked the lake on one shore or the other? Grand old houses, their gardens lush with greenery, their docks covered in wisteria or woodbine. All of them facing the lake, most of them shut up, silent. Think of all those love affairs, I mused, everything that goes on behind those stately facades. And I tacked, in order to catch the first breath of the tramontana, the cold north wind coming off the promontory at Cannero.

  II

  FOR FIVE DAYS I resisted the temptation to return to Oggebbio, where it seemed I’d scented one of the lake’s many hidden mysteries. But one afternoon, while I was on my way back to my home port, I moved out of the wind so I could pass within sight of the villa. I was three hundred meters offshore and moving beyond it when I noticed a signal from the terrace. Someone was waving a towel, or a large white handkerchief. I drew up and recognized Orimbelli on the lookout. There was nothing for me to do but lower the sails and coast into his dock.

  “I spotted you half an hour ago with my binoculars when you were abreast of Laveno,” he said from the edge of the terrace. “Come on in. You’re in time for tea.”

  The two women were in fact taking tea under the great copper beech that stood on the shady side of the villa. Matilde was serving, and she had the vague air of being happy to see me again. After tea, she was anxious to go down to the dock to inspect my boat with her brother-in-law. I showed them everything, from the rigging to the couchettes, even the little toilet I’d fixed up under the prow.

  “A veritable yacht!” Orimbelli exclaimed. “And to live on it, as you do, all summer long …”

  “A tub,” I said with false modesty. “Not much more than a rowboat or fishing boat.”

  It was understood that I’d stay for supper. Even the old serving maid, Lena, nicknamed Lenin, welcomed me with a lovely smile. I realized that my presence was actually necessary in order to breathe some fresh air into that atmosphere, and to make Signora Cleofe bearable. I noticed later that she retracted her claws only when I was around. Not only did she retract them, she sought to convince me that she didn’t have any, that she was a wounded spirit, aggrieved, yet full of resignation and tolerance.

  A young man like me, in his thirties, free and well-off, if I really did have a yacht, one of only two or three of all the boats on the lake at that time … A serious person (and by now she was convinced I must be), who would go back to work in some bank or family business after the holidays. It was clear she didn’t dislike me at all, even if my way of life was somewhat perplexing. She went as far as asking me openly what sort of work I did.

  “So, are you in industry or business? Or maybe you’re a professional, an engineer, perhaps, like my poor brother?”

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t have any employment at the moment,” I replied. “Last summer I came back from Switzerland, where I was a refugee, as your husband will have told you. I’m still looking around for something to do, something suitable …”

  “If you wait much longer,” she retorted tactlessly, “you’ll end up like my husband. At forty he has yet to discover what work suits him.”

  So as not to disenchant her, I invented a story on the spot, telling her that come autumn I would begin work with a friend, a furrier and importer of hides. I’d end up in the leather business, a few days in the Milan office and a few at the tannery at Verolanuova in the province of Brescia. But I didn’t have any pressing need to earn, since I was from a good family and wasn’t—how could I put it?—exactly penniless. I explained. “I’ve got some little places inherited from my uncle, houses I’m going to renovate which rent fairly well.”

  Matilde was watching me unobtrusively. She’d changed for dinner, and had put on an iron-gray dress over a puffy, rose-colored blouse that ballooned over her bosom, making it look like an enormous carnation.

  Taking advantage of his wife’s exceptionally good mood, Orimbelli talked about the war in Africa. It seemed to obsess him. He’d been an officer in the Somalian mounted squadron under General Aimone Cat, had fought with honor and made a victorious entry at Gondar. His brother-in-law had also been at the front during one of the counterattacks that decided the war in the Lake Ascianghi region, but he hadn’t been seen or heard from since the 2nd of April 1936. Orimbelli passed over his brother-in-law to talk about the marches and the battles, about Addis Ababa, Badoglio and Graziani, but above all about Aimone Cat, who’d recommended him for a silver medal. It came to nothing, however, when it was discovered that Orimbelli was not an enlisted member of the Fascist party.

  During the discussion, it emerged that three months ago, they’d begun the process of filing papers at the Court of Assizes in Milan to have the poor engineer, Angelo, declared “presumed dead.” The requisite ten years had passed since he’d last been heard from alive.

  “We were married by proxy at the end of November ’35,” said Matilde, shaking her head.

  Signora Cleofe gave her a severe look, perhaps to shut her up on a subject unsuitable for discussion with strangers.

  “By proxy?” I asked.

  “Yes, by proxy,” Matilde went on, indifferent to her sister-in-law’s glare. “Poor man! It seemed he knew he wouldn’t be back. We should have been married before he left, but the papers weren’t ready, so our marriage was celebrated in absentia. He presented himself to the bishop of Asmara and four weeks later, when the papers came from Milan, I went to get married in my own parish. My husband’s proxy, Professor Ernesto Configliacchi, put the ring on my finger. He was my husband’s professor from the polytechnic. You’ll have heard of him as he’s a celebrated man.”

  “Of course!” I responded. “Who hasn’t heard of Professor Configliacchi!” even though the name was new to me, and faintly ridiculous. “So are you legally a wi
dow?” I continued.

  Orimbelli interrupted. “What does it matter? Proxy marriages become invalid if they’re not consummated within six months, and after six months he was no more … She’s wanted to consider herself married these ten years,” he nodded knowingly at Matilde, “out of devotion to the memory of the missing. But my wife has presented the application, and with the declaration of ‘missing, presumed dead,’ she’ll come into possession of the whole of the inheritance, which her father left undivided. As it should be, if you like.”

  “If you like, and even if you don’t, Mr. Lawyer!” his wife pointed out. When her husband had said he was a lawyer, or rather, a law graduate, she responded to the line with, “Graduate in law, or rather in nothing, since if a law graduate doesn’t practice as a lawyer or a notary, what good is the degree? It’s a piece of paper, an excuse for saying: I’ve made the effort, and now I have the right to take it easy for the rest of my life.”

  That’s how I got involved in their affairs that night, and when Orimbelli suggested I should sleep in the house, his wife showed not the least surprise.

  “Of course!” she said. “You wouldn’t want to send him to sleep in his boat in the dock!”

  “Then let’s put him in the bishop’s room,” he said. The evening ended with a Chartreuse, and he took me up to the first floor. He opened the third door on the right, turned on the light and ushered me into a room carpeted in red, with a canopy of gold-painted wood hanging from the ceiling. From the canopy and around the bed hung brocade curtains, the same red as the carpet. At the foot of the bed was a white trunk framed in metal. On its rounded lid the letters T.M.O. could be seen stamped in black.

  “The bishop?” I asked, indicating the three letters.

  “No, it’s my trunk. It’s gone everywhere with me since I went to university. It’s been all over Europe, and of course to Africa. My name is Temistocle Mario Orimbelli,” he said, pointing to the initials.

  “And the bishop? How does he come into it?”

  “Monsignor Alemanno Berlusconi, the bishop, was my wife’s great-uncle. He died in ’28, and until twenty years ago, he spent summers at this villa. My wife’s father decorated the best room for him in the manner suited to a prelate who’d been a papal legate in various parts of the world and part of the Congregation of Rights. At the time I wasn’t around to know him, but Cleofe remembers him well. As you can see, his prayer stool is still there, beside the bed. And here: look …”

  He went over to the large wardrobe and opened it. Up high, on a hanger, was a bishop’s cassock in red cloth, with buttons right down to the hem and an amice over the shoulders. Over the crook of the hanger you could see the skullcap positioned where the head might have been. Placed neatly together on the floor of the wardrobe below the vestments was a small pair of shriveled black shoes, the silver of the buckles so faded it looked like lead. Despite the odor of naphthalene issuing from the wardrobe, the bishop’s clothing seemed fairly moth-eaten.

  Orimbelli closed the doors again with a satisfied smile. He then opened a little door beside the bed which was concealed by a curtain. I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “The comfort room.”

  I looked in, spotted a sink and imagined the rest.

  With the air of having completed his duties as head of the house, my host made as if to retire discreetly. I said good night, thanked him and closed the door.

  Then, suspicious of the trunk—it seemed I’d heard a thud from within—I tried to open it, but found it secured with three locks and a padlock. So I opened the wardrobe again and looked at the bishop’s clothing. It was from there that the sound had come: beside the shoes, I spotted a sack of mothballs that must have fallen from within the vestments when the door was closed a few moments before.

  III

  IN THE MORNING, I set sail around eight as usual. Orimbelli and I breakfasted together before he went up to the terrace to wave me off. The two women were still in bed.

  It seemed a shame to be leaving there after such a delicious sleep in the bishop’s bedroom. I felt strongly that I was a part of that strange family after only two visits.

  Orimbelli yelled from the terrace above. “Remember your promise! You’re coming back the day after tomorrow!”

  Two days went by. After a stop at Ascona, where I had a girlfriend, I returned to Oggebbio. I hugged the shore, a morning tramontana on my right. Only a week before, that wind would have taken me all the way to the islands. I arrived at midday, which pleased Orimbelli; he’d thought I wouldn’t get there until evening.

  The meal, served by Lenin, found us all in great spirits, apart from Signora Cleofe, who was suffering an attack of trigeminal neuralgia. It was an illness she’d put up with intermittently for years, and for which she’d found no remedy.

  I asked who it could be in the kitchen, producing such exquisite and beautiful dishes. I thought Matilde might at least have inspired them. But I actually learned from her that Martina was the cook. She was the daughter of Lenin and Domenico, the gardener: a family of three serving another of three. Domenico, Lenin and Martina lived in the little gatekeeper’s lodge on the main road beside the entrance.

  Orimbelli could hardly have done better than this. You could see why he felt no desire to return to Milan and do any old job. At the villa, he had a soft bed, good food, balmy air, peace and comfort. Perhaps all that was missing was a woman or two, given that his wife was obviously out of the question. After the ten-year break in marital relations, she was officially off-limits, he’d confided in me that morning. He’d then asked discreetly how the visit to my friend at Ascona had gone.

  But his wife was the last person anyone would have taken account of. If you’d wanted to divine the secrets of the villa, you’d have had to consider Matilde, or possibly Martina, who was a large woman in her thirties—so long as you could, within those walls, escape the notice or suspicions of Signora Cleofe. And always supposing you could apply the usual rules to Orimbelli, and such a gentleman could be thought to want something more than rest and relaxation after such an adventurous life. That long, unbroken rest discharged soldiers seemed to long for as balm for their hidden injuries—a welcome daze, within which to conceal themselves for the rest of their lives.

  •

  At coffee after lunch, I turned to the ammazzacaffè, the little glass of grappa. Orimbelli asked if I’d be willing to take him on a short sailing trip—just for a couple of hours, so he could see what sailing had to recommend it.

  It could be that he came up with the idea of trying out the Tinca in order to detain me, to keep me around, eating and sleeping with them at the villa.

  That afternoon I took him on board. He’d never set foot on a sailing boat, but he found his feet perfectly. In less than an hour, he’d learned to let out the jib and fix it to the other side as we tacked. I even let him stay at the helm for a bit with the crosswind, so he could get a feel for the boat. I held to the inverna and covered the triangle between Oggebbio, Caldé and Ghiffa, letting him try some fast runs at the stern and sailing between Ghiffa and Oggebbio. After a couple of crossings he was full of enthusiasm. He actually asked if I’d take him aboard as a cabin boy starting the next morning.

  When Signora Cleofe heard that evening that her husband was playing sailor, she was almost happy. “At least he’ll get out of here,” she said with a sigh of relief.

  Orimbelli was up by seven. He’d taken some woolen vests from his wardrobe, shorts, tennis shoes, a sailing jacket, jumpers, bathing trunks (somewhat old-fashioned) and a white safari jacket, and slung his Zeiss binoculars across his shoulders. I advised him to take along a suitcase packed with a suit, a few shirts and a tie, since we’d be away for three days and might end up lunching in a hotel.

  He took his place at the prow between the rigging, ready to work the jib. He didn’t even ask me where I was headed. The wind was blowing from the north as it did every morning. I decided to catch it, and patiently, tack by tack, we passed the Castelli di Canner
o, islets in the middle of the lake. By midday we docked the Tinca in the little port of Sasso Carmine, where I knew a good osteria. During lunch, we agreed to sail into the Swiss part of the lake. By the afternoon, the tailwind, the inverna, would have died down; already we could see the signs in the small clouds blowing across the crest of the mountains.

  Before the wind fell we made it through border control, with its temporary import rules for the craft at Poggio Valmara, and were in the port of Ascona.

  Sailing comfortably with the wind behind us, I confided in him that the girl in Ascona whom I’d spoken about, Charlotte, was actually the wife of a physics professor at Aarau. She was spending a month in one of their vacation apartments while her husband was in England doing some research in a large laboratory.

  “I’m a man of the world,” he said, “and I understand these things perfectly well.”

  So I suggested, “I might stay overnight in her apartment. If I do, would it bother you to sleep on your own in the boat?”

  “Excuse me,” he answered, “you’re asking an old veteran of the African wars? I’ve slept under the stars countless times!”

  •

  Things turned out differently, because Charlotte had a friend from Berne staying with her, and Germaine rather liked Orimbelli.

  All of us ate together in a restaurant at the port before going back to the apartment to drink and listen to American records. Orimbelli must have been a great dancer in his day: he danced all the numbers with Germaine, frequently going out onto the terrace to whirl around in the dark.

  “What a shame!” he said, coming back into the room after one of these exits. “Germaine goes back to the Swiss mainland tomorrow! She’s really nice and so interesting.”

  Germaine was about twenty-five, and the crème de la crème as far as women go. She was bubbly and determined to take advantage of her youth and beauty, at least during the holidays. I suggested she put off her departure for one more day so we could enjoy her company a bit longer, and she agreed. She and Charlotte could accompany us in the boat as far as Stresa, where she could get the Orient Express to Briga and from Briga, a direct train to Berne.