The Bishop's Bedroom

by Chiara, Piero; Foulston, Jill;

  When everything was arranged, I got ready to retire with Charlotte. I wished Orimbelli good night and asked him to be sure the mooring was secure when he went to sleep at the port.

  “So,” I said, “everyone in the boat at nine tomorrow morning!”

  But when I went to the kitchen next morning to make a coffee, I found him in the hallway in his underwear. He stood there like a thief caught in the act, his head lowered, shoulders hanging.

  “The flesh is weak!” he said.

  I cheered him up, saying it wasn’t weakness but strength, and that one wouldn’t have expected less from an old veteran of the African war, like him. He went back into Germaine’s room feeling brighter.

  At nine all four of us were at the port ready to set sail; Orimbelli had carried his friend’s heavy suitcase for her.

  “Faithful friends! To the islands!”

  The women were happy since they’d never been to the Borromean Islands. We were able to get to customs at Poggio Valmara on the last puff of the tramontana. After the formalities, we sailed slowly toward Maccagno, waiting for the inverna. As soon as we were in the open and out of sight of the Guardie di Finanza, the women took off their clothes to get an all-over tan. They came and went from below deck where they were making lunch, so we got a good front and rear view.

  Orimbelli was beaming from his seat at the foot of the mast. “Wow, this is crazy! This is the life! Bliss!”

  Halfway across the lake, a rare wind—the munscendrintook us by surprise. Every two or three years, it comes up from the glaciers hidden behind the Levantina Valley in the Ceneri Mountains, and blows southward.

  By this time Orimbelli felt he was an expert on winds and he queried my identification. “It’s the tramontana,” he said. “Nothing but the tramontana.”

  In any case it was a favorable wind, and we used it to sail on, dropping anchor between the two Castelli di Cannero a little after midday. There was no one around, and we disembarked for a picnic lunch with our naked Swiss women, to whoops of enthusiasm from Orimbelli. He was white as a plucked chicken in his swimming trunks, jumping over the grass, getting into the water and trying to climb up walls, while the women started a fire under a spit. The smell of roasting brought him back to the group quickly, and with his hearty appetite, he was the first to start eating.

  He held his cutlet by the bone like a barbarian and bit into it. “It’s been nearly a year since I’ve eaten meat.” And he winked and nodded at Germaine, who was leaning against his side, dangling a Swiss sausage—a white one, made of veal, bratwurst—between her teeth.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know a thing or two where women are concerned,” I said to him.

  “Believe me, no,” he declared, and he stopped chewing. “Since I came back from the south, I’ve practically fasted. I’m not saying it was like that before. On the contrary! But at Oggebbio, with my wife constantly watching me? Can you believe, she’s even forbidden Martina, the gardener’s daughter, to clean my room! Lenin tidies it. My wife has always considered me a weakling, someone who sees a woman and loses his head … She’s jealous, obsessed and convinced that all women fall at my feet. A good thing you arrived to set me free! Long live the Tinca!” And he winked again to show me what he meant by tinca.

  Sitting on the grass beside me a little later, he told me that following the arrival of some anonymous letters from Naples, she’d initially persuaded herself that he’d got a second family down there, complete with wife and children. Then she’d ended up thinking he was keeping a young lover in a little flat at Intra where he’d visit her once a week. And all this was based on the fact that now and again he went to Intra to buy things such as tobacco, illustrated papers and some books.

  “Complete fabrications,” he said. “But I’m not saying I haven’t been well loved in my life. Sometimes when I think about the love of which I’ve been, and actually still am the object, I realize I couldn’t live without this kind of nourishment. Do you know the salamander?”

  “Of course I do—the little yellow and black crocodile-like animal that appears on paths after rain.”

  “Right. I’ve studied the salamander, and it’s an animal that needs water almost more than the fish do. Try catching one and putting it in the garden. It’ll die, all dried up. In order to live it needs to stay in the water, in brooks or streams. If you keep it in the garden, it shrivels up, goes flat, loses its color and dies in no time. Without love—and I mean love, not sex—I’m like a salamander on land.”

  He winked again at Germaine, who was speaking German with Charlotte.

  “It’s not that I’d turn down a gift from God,” he added, “but I can do without certain things if I have to. Without love, no.”

  IV

  THE INVERNA WAS RISING, and in the clear watery mirror in the middle of the lake, between Laveno and Intra, a big dark blot could be seen approaching from the south. It was the usual afternoon wind, low and tense, rippling the water without stirring it up, and touching it with myriad points of light.

  The Tinca wasn’t made for sailing close-hauled, against the wind, but we were aiming for Stresa and we needed to leave. With three wide tacks the prow was approaching Oggebbio.

  Orimbelli pointed his binoculars at Villa Cleofe. “I don’t see anyone, but maybe it would be a good idea to ask the women to go below deck. There aren’t any other binoculars at home, but we’re getting a bit too close, and Cavallini is always on the lookout.”

  I agreed. “Yes, and if we want to skirt the tip of Laveno with a single tack, we’ll have to get pretty close to land.”

  “We’re passing close to the town our friend lives in,” I told the two women. “It’d be better if you two went down to take a nap.”

  They wondered if they couldn’t just put on their swimsuits, but I persuaded them to make themselves scarce. I turned at the dock at Villa Cleofe, about thirty meters from the wall.

  When we’d sailed almost as far as the fort at Cerro in the Gulf of Laveno, I cried out, “Sailors on deck!” Charlotte and Germaine emerged, now dressed, and spied the Borromean archipelago, its profile silhouetted against the Ossola Valleys.

  We stopped first at Isola Bella and then Isola Pescatori, and at sunset we went to drop anchor in the port of Stresa. We had to say good-bye to Germaine that night since she was returning to Berne, so we marked the occasion by booking two large rooms at the Hotel des Iles Borromées and dining like royalty in the restaurant.

  The next day we were at the station around ten. Germaine wouldn’t stop talking about how short her stay in Stresa had been, and how she’d liked the room she’d spent the night in. “This morning when I opened the balcony windows and saw the lake colored like mother-of-pearl and the fogbound islands slowly taking shape as they do in a Chinese or Japanese watercolor, it seemed like a dream …”

  Orimbelli, finding himself omitted from the list, didn’t think much of his friend’s romantic description of the marvels of the place. He stood on the pavement in his white safari jacket, holding his linen hat and looking melancholy, and waiting for the kiss Germaine blew to him at last from the train when it started moving.

  “Take heart!” I said to him as soon as the Orient Express had gone. “For each one who leaves, ten more arrive.”

  “Isn’t that the truth!” he exclaimed, and all at once he perked up.

  You could do anything with this fellow. So I decided to play a trick on him.

  During our midday meal in a waterfront restaurant, I went to the telephone several times, explaining that I was working on a deal and had to follow it through. When I came back to the table the second time, I told him I’d unfortunately have to go to Milan that afternoon to meet some people for dinner so I could wrap the matter up the following morning. I was sure to be back by noon the next day.

  When it was just him and me, I said, “I’ll leave the Tinca and Charlotte in your care. Keep an eye on the boat and keep the lady company. You’re a gentleman, and I’d trust you with my life.” />
  “Don’t mention it!” he exclaimed. “I’m a soldier and I know the meaning of friendship and loyalty.”

  I didn’t go to Milan but, as I’d arranged with the two phone calls I’d made in the restaurant, I took a boat instead to the Isola Pescatori to stay at the Albergo Verbano, where an acquaintance of mine from Milan was on vacation.

  The following day I returned to Stresa on the first crossing, and went to knock at the door to Charlotte’s room. She opened up to me in pajamas and pointed to Orimbelli, lying naked and asleep in the middle of the bed.

  “At bedtime last night, he started begging me not to leave him alone … I ended up giving in to him. I hope you won’t take it badly,” she said.

  “No, no. Certainly not!”

  “Ok, then I’ll wake him up and let’s see what spin he’ll put on it.”

  “No. Let him sleep. Let’s pretend nothing happened. I’m going to breakfast and I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

  On my way to the little salon where breakfast was served, I asked myself what pretty young women from good families could possibly see in Orimbelli. He was forty and looked fifty, with an egg-shaped body and short arms and legs. His teeth were crooked and he was beginning to go bald. Nor was he a poet or an actor. He didn’t have aristocratic manners and in common with all former officers, he was barely chivalrous. And yet …

  I came to the bitter conclusion that men often undervalue their rivals and that women see things differently. It’s a bit like the Chinese—they can tell one another apart perfectly well and find one another more or less beautiful, even though they all look the same to us.

  Around noon, as we were heading for Ascona, I asked Orimbelli how he’d spent the night.

  “Very well,” he replied. But he immediately became suspicious and looked at Charlotte, who was turning her face toward the lake in order not to give it away. He understood everything. Lowering his head, he said forlornly, “The flesh is weak!”

  We’d gotten as far as Oggebbio, but we were in the middle of the lake. From a distance, I looked toward Villa Cleofe—indistinguishable between the white dots on the coast—and asked myself what this man could have been doing all those years, between Africa and Italy, wherever he’d set foot. And there, too, on the grounds of the villa, in the bishop’s bedroom, the kitchen, the greenhouse, even at the dock. Orimbelli was surely one of those devils who stir things up wherever they go, who lack respect or a shred of principle, a well-mannered monster, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  I was banking on arriving at Ascona with the montive, the little winds that spring up from the valleys along the lake at nightfall, and die down close to the shore. In the meantime, we went with the last breath of the inverna—or rather with those mysterious breezes that come from who knows where, sudden small flurries that dimple a short stretch of the lake and then disappear, only to reappear a little later from another direction, like sprites or jesters. If you know how to catch them and keep an eye on the wind gauge, they’re enough to keep the boat moving and gliding lightly through the water. An almost imperceptible rippling follows the stern, and is immediately reabsorbed by the still surface of the lake.

  To catch these puffs, I’d fixed some strips of very thin gauze to the rigging, and higher up, some birds’ feathers tied to a silk thread. It’s a refinement, the hobby of someone who spends his days on the water, and it’s almost a point of honor to be able to glide along without taking out the oars or starting the motor.

  We got as far as Maccagno on these bare hints of wind, half an hour after the sun went down. We were about to skirt a section of the lake between Maccagno and Ronco Scigolino, which may be the most sinister of the entire Verbano area— that is, after the one opposite Feriolo, where they say a whole town was submerged. That’s where, at some point during the night of January 8, 1896—it’s never been possible to pinpoint the time—twelve men sank in the Guardie di Finanza’s torpedo boat. And the lake has surrendered not a single beret.

  I told Orimbelli the story just as a few light puffs arrived, one after another. They seemed to be coming from the depths of the lake; the air was so still, and the water as smooth and shiny as marble.

  “The souls of twelve sailors surely lie beneath us in the seaweed at the bottom,” I said.

  At these words, Orimbelli begged me never to refer, now or in the future, to tragic events—or even merely sad ones. “It’s not superstition,” he said, though he made the superstitious sign of the horns with his fingers in the direction of the wreck. “It’s a precaution. You never know. It’s best never to bring up or recall any ill-omened event, even one that happened long ago or far away.”

  Meanwhile, the light gusts and first fannings of the land breezes brought us to the customs point. Having passed through, we began to fly with the wind toward the lights of Ascona.

  The Tinca passed between the Brissago Islands and the coast, slipped into the shadow of the mountains and then dented a vast watery mirror silvered by the moon, which had just come out behind Gambarogno. Silently, it entered the little port at Ascona before midnight.

  At my request, Orimbelli took Charlotte to her house. He then returned to the boat, which I’d meanwhile docked and prepared for the night. He smoked a cigar and stretched out on his couchette, but before going to sleep he wanted to make sure I wasn’t put out by his behavior of the night before. Sufficiently reassured, he pulled the sheet up to his head and fell into a deep sleep, just like a soldier from Africa, broken by fatigue.

  Maybe he wasn’t a demon, I thought, but a poor man shaken up by the wars, someone who’d learned to take what life offered him from one moment to the next. One of those innocents who, providing they had them, would eat their own children if they were hungry, so convinced were they of their rightness—or rather, that the rules of right and wrong did not apply to them. I knew it wasn’t easy for him—or me, for that matter—to be any other way, or to be better. In recent years, we’d seen the world overturned. Between combat and prison, escapes and rescues, it had changed in our hands, without giving us time to understand the simple truth, which was that, having been present at these events and taken part in them—sometimes against our will—we had been enriched rather than damaged. We were convinced, instead, that we’d been robbed of our best years, and when the war was over we wanted to reinvent our youth. We wanted to recover, to make the most of our physical strength and our continuing youth. But perhaps it was a bit late, and time now to do other things.

  It must have been this deep, fellow feeling that bound me to Orimbelli, and made me go on these forays around the lake with him.

  It was during one of our stops at the Villa Cleofe that I tried to gather some information about him. These stops were made necessary by Orimbelli’s having to present himself to the local and provincial authorities armed with his law degree in order to obtain the requisite permits for carrying out the work of enlarging the lodge. While he chased documents and applications between Intra and Novara, I went to see Cavallini, the owner of the Ristorante Vittoria, and drew out of him everything he knew about Orimbelli. Part of his life, at least, began to come clear.

  I found out that he was the only child of an innkeeper from Milan who’d set him up to become a lawyer, or at least get a law degree, by offering his professors cheap meals. While still a student, the future graduate had begun taking handouts from his father, who must have earned plenty. The moment he turned twenty, he was darting through the streets of Milan in a red car. He turned up regularly at San Siro for race meetings and showed up in the brothels and whorehouses like someone with a season ticket. Raffish and greedy, he ended up charming the daughter of a wealthy silk merchant as soon as he’d completed his degree. He married her believing he’d be able to squander her fortune, but he soon realized he wasn’t going to fleece her so easily. Disillusioned, he volunteered for the war in Africa, and returned ten years later telling a string of yarns. As it happened, he’d lived in Naples after Africa; he’d also been in prison there. S
everal months ago, he’d turned up in Oggebbio, fresh as a daisy, to live with his wife. But he was rumored to have a young lover in Intra, someone he’d brought with him from Naples.

  “In prison for what?” I asked.

  “Don’t ask me that,” Cavallini replied. “I don’t want to speak ill of anyone. But they say that he was on the black market, and also a pimp.”

  “And how do you know all this?” I asked.

  “A restaurant is like a seaport,” he said. “Half the world passes through it, and if you know how to listen, you learn everything.”

  Cavallini had been a waiter for thirty years in London. He was a tall, fat man in his fifties with a big red face and curly black hair. He kept his wife in the kitchen, but he was always at the door of his restaurant, curious about everything and irritated by how little he was able to learn in a tiny place like Oggebbio. Still, his tentacles stretched over the whole of Verbano. There wasn’t anything going on at Intra, Laveno or Cannobio that he didn’t know about. He questioned all his clients, the boat captains and coach drivers, and made his own staff talk, too. And when he went shopping at Intra, he listened in cafes and at his suppliers.

  Before I left, I asked him about the women at the Villa Cleofe.

  “Real ladies, top-drawer people,” he affirmed, raising his hand to vouch for the truth of what he was saying.

  In fact, as if to confirm Signora Cleofe’s social status, her Puricelli cousins—known throughout Italy for the last fifty years as great manufacturers of hemp, linen and cotton—arrived that weekend for a visit from Milan: father, mother and two young girls. Signora Cleofe introduced me as a friend of her husband, a man of means and person of some standing, with a cutter at anchor in their dock. But it was easy to see how much weight a friend of Orimbelli had in the Puricellis’ eyes. So little, in fact, that the next day, when the two girls shyly requested a spin in the boat, they met with Commendatore Puricelli’s decisive refusal. Their mother had to intercede before the girls were permitted to board—and then for only half an hour, with my word that I’d stay within sight of the villa and not go more than a hundred meters beyond shore.