The Garden of the Villa Mollini

by Rose Tremain

  They could see, however, that Pappavincente was in despair. They comforted him. ‘You’re adding to the fame of this region with your wonderful garden,’ they told him, ‘and a lake will make it even better. You must put swans on it, Pappavincente, and graceful boats.’

  So Pappavincente walked back up to the Villa with not one villager standing with him, shoulder to shoulder. He thought he would sell his cottage and take his wife and sons and leave Mollini for ever. But then he let himself into the garden by a side gate and stood and stared at one of the new fountains and at the water lilies he’d planted at its base and thought of all the work still to be done, and he knew that, if he left the garden, he’d regret it till he died. It was his one work of art.

  Mollini had understood the look of agony on Pappavincente’s face. He was relieved he’d thought up the idea of taking water to the villagers in containers, because he knew that if La Dusa wanted a lake, he would have to give her a lake. He was much too afraid of losing her to deny her anything. Indeed, he begged her, begged her on his knees with his arms round her thighs to ask of him whatever she wanted, no matter how costly, no matter how perverse. All he longed to do was to give, to give.

  She laughed at him. He adored her laugh, It made him tremble with delight. ‘You can give me a wedding ring, Antonio!’ she giggled.

  He’d thought, after burying Rosa, that he would wait six months before marrying Verena. It seemed right to wait. But it was clear to him as the summer advanced that La Dusa would insist on being married before new opera commitments began for them both in September. Hardly a day went by now without her asking, ‘Will it be August, Antonio?’

  So he decided he wouldn’t wait six months. He set a date: August 17th. He wanted the dam completed by then and a chapel built at the lake’s edge, where the wedding would take place. More builders were hired. The same priest who had written to Mollini on Rosa’s behalf was now given money to consecrate the ground on which the chapel was going to stand. An order was sent to Lake Trasimeno for forty-two swans. A fat ruby, encircled with diamonds, was placed on La Dusa’s finger. Invitations went out to all the important people in the opera world – patrons and practitioners, both – and rooms booked for them in every inn and hostelry for miles around.

  Then in July, as the dam was finished and the river went dry and the first containers of water rolled in on carts to the village, Mollini fell ill. He started vomiting. Pain in his bowel made him curse in agony. He had a terrible fever.

  The doctor came. He took off his tail coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves and gave Mollini an enema. The contents of the bowel were putrified, he noticed, greenish and foul. ‘Advanced colonic infection,’ he diagnosed and arranged for Mollini to be taken that night to a hospital in Siena.

  La Dusa travelled in the carriage with him. His face, normally ruddy and healthy, looked grey. He was suffering. La Dusa wiped his forehead with a little lace handkerchief. She was petrified. Supposing he died before the wedding?

  When they reached the hospital, Mollini appeared to be delirious, not knowing where he was. As they went in through a heavy, iron-studded door, La Dusa held her lace handkerchief to her nostrils. The stench of the place was appalling. Every breath she breathed seemed to her to be full of poison. And though it was night-time, it was a stupidly rowdy place. Doors slammed, nurses marched up and down the echoing corridors in stalwart shoes, patients cried out, gas lamps hissed, cleaning women in filthy aprons pushed iron slop buckets forward on the stone floors with their mops.

  La Dusa felt sick. How could anyone be made well in such a place? As Mollini was carried in, they passed a flight of stairs leading downwards. TO THE MORGUE, said a sign. The sign was accompanied by a drawing of a hand with a pointing finger. La Dusa couldn’t help noticing that the drawing of the hand was very fine, like a drawing by da Vinci or Michelangelo. This must be where their talents lie, she thought – in the direction of death.

  Mollini was put into an iron bed in the middle of a long ward. La Dusa protested, but no one listened and they were left quite alone. All along the row, men were groaning and sighing. A nurse came in. She passed briskly down the line of groaning patients, barely glancing at any of them. La Dusa stood up. She took her handkerchief away from her nose, drew in a breath and then let out a high F Sharp with extraordinary force.

  The nurse stopped in her tracks and stared at her with a look of utter incredulity. Several of the patients woke from sleep and raised their heads.

  La Dusa heard herself shout at the nurse, ‘Do you know who this is? This is Antonio Mollini! Why has he been put here?’

  ‘This is the Men’s Ward, Signora.’

  ‘And why is there no surgeon? Is this what you do to your patients – put them in a line and forget them?’

  ‘Of course we don’t forget them.’

  ‘I want Signor Mollini moved to a quiet room and I want a surgeon called now!’

  The nurse gave La Dusa a dirty look and stomped out of the ward. La Dusa returned to Mollini’s bed and stared at him. His eyes were closed and his breathing shallow. She was glad, in a way, that he couldn’t see the terrible ward or hear or smell the sufferings of the other men. She stroked his hand. ‘I will fight for you, my love,’ she said.

  After half an hour, the nurse returned. ‘There is no surgeon here at the moment,’ she said sourly. ‘Surgeons need rest, you know. But if you can pay, we can have Signor Mollini moved to a more secluded room.’

  ‘Pay?’ said La Dusa, ‘Of course we can pay!’

  Mollini was lifted onto a stretcher and carried out of the ward. He was put into another iron bed in a tiny room, like a cell. A chair was brought to La Dusa and she sat down. They told her that one of the surgeons had woken up and would come and look at Mollini as soon as he had cleaned his teeth.

  The door of the little cell was shut. Alone with Mollini’s sufferings, La Dusa felt so frightened that she began to cry. Her tears were very bright and copious and the little lace handkerchief was soon saturated with them.

  When the surgeon arrived, she was still weeping. The surgeon wore a silk cravat. He shook her hand, that was wet from holding the handkerchief. She gave him a scribbled note from Mollini’s doctor. When he’d read it, he lifted up the covers and began to prod Mollini’s belly.

  The surgeon’s hand on his bowel caused terrible pain. Mollini’s eyes opened and rolled about and he choked in agony. The face of the surgeon became grave. La Dusa wiped her wet hand on her skirt and knelt by Mollini, holding him and kissing his face as the surgeon’s fingers probed.

  The surgeon replaced Mollini’s covers and put his hands together in a kind of steeple under his chin. ‘We must open him up,’ he said.

  He was taken away. La Dusa was told to wait in the tiny room. She lay on the bed and tried to doze, but her own anxiety and the unceasing noise of the hospital prevented sleep. The short night passed and a grey light seeped in through the tiny window.

  At seven, Mollini was brought in on a stretcher and put back into the bed. He was unconscious and pale as death. The surgeon, too, looked pale and there was sweat on his top lip. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘the decay of the large intestine was far advanced. We have done the only thing possible to save his life: we have cut the putrified section and joined the bowel together where the tissue was healthy. We believe he will survive.’

  La Dusa knew that Mollini’s convalescence would be long. She rented a house in a nearby street, so that she could come at any hour of the day or night to visit her love.

  In the days following the operation, Mollini seemed, very slowly, to be getting well and La Dusa was full of praise for the surgeon who had saved his life. But then, on the fifth day, the wound became infected. Mollini’s temperature soared and pain returned. For the first time, the nurses became attentive and La Dusa thought again of the beautiful hand pointing downwards to the morgue and became convinced that Mollini was going to die.

  She had dreams of her lost wedding. In them, the forty-two s
wans Mollini had ordered were black. She made a decision. She would not let Mollini die before they were joined in marriage. She asked for the priest to be sent. He arrived with his candle and his holy water, thinking he was needed to administer the last rites. But no, La Dusa told him, she wanted him to marry them. The priest looked at Mollini and shook his head. He couldn’t marry them if the groom was too ill to speak, he told her, and went away, giving La Dusa a strange and suspicious look.

  She was in despair. She sat and watched her lover’s life ebb.

  But Mollini didn’t die. His body’s own magnificent healing powers surprised even the surgeon by fighting the infection till it was finally vanquished. He sat up. He began to eat, to laugh, to hold Verena’s hand in a strong grip.

  They returned to the Villa Mollini. The chapel was finished. Rain had come and the lake was brimming. In September, Verena Dusa and Antonio Mollini were married. The bride wore white satin and swans’ feathers in her hair.

  In the years that followed, all the original plans made by Mollini and Pappavincente for the garden were implemented. Every statue, every shrub, every rockery and fountain was in place. ‘All we can do now, Master,’ said Pappavincente, ‘is to wait for everything to grow.’ But Mollini, whose fame and wealth had already grown to giant proportions, began to conceive the idea of buying land beyond the forest, of making pathways through the forest in order to extend his garden to the other side of it. He liked what had been achieved so far. He was especially proud of the winding maze that led down to the lake, but there were no surprises for him in the garden any more. As he turned each corner, he knew exactly what he was going to see.

  The land on the other side of the wood was common land, used by the villagers as pasture for their animals. Pappavincente was told to go down to the village and inform the farmers that ten hectares of pastureland were going to be fenced off. He refused to go. He was ageing and growing stubborn as he aged. ‘Very well,’ said Mollini, ‘I shall go myself.’

  He didn’t often visit the village now. He had long ago stopped making his list of the names of the villagers’ children and he couldn’t, in fact, remember the surnames of many of the villagers themselves. He knew, however, that the oldest man of the village, Emilio Verri, had recently died. So Mollini decided to go straight to the house of his widow, allegedly to offer his condolences.

  Signora Verri was an old, old woman. ‘I lost a husband, and you, Signor Mollini, you lost your beloved wife,’ she said as the great man bent over her and put his hand on her bony shoulders. Mollini straightened up. He couldn’t stand it when anyone mentioned Rosa’s death. ‘That was long ago, Signora,’ he said, ‘and anyway, I have some good news to cheer you up. My wife, Verena, is expecting a child.’

  The old crone lifted her face.

  ‘A child, Signor Mollini?’

  ‘Yes. In the spring.’

  Signora Verri’s eyes were wet. To her, a new child was still a miracle of God.

  ‘God bless the child, Sir.’

  ‘Yes. He will be blessed, I’m sure. And I wanted to tell you something else. I am going to buy from the village – at a price that will keep you all in clover for many months – a little land, about twelve hectares north of my forest. And on this land, do you know what I’m going to make?’

  ‘No, Signor.’

  ‘A child’s garden.’

  ‘Ah. A child’s garden?’

  ‘Yes. It will be full of wonders. There will be peacocks and guinea fowl and rabbits and doves and goldfish and little houses in the trees and an aviary and a secret cave and hundreds of thousands of flowers.’

  Signora Verri went to the door of her house and called her sons. There were three of them. Their handshakes were hard and their teeth yellowed from pipe tobacco. They demanded at once to know what price Mollini would pay for the land, explaining that a loss of twelve hectares would mean a reduction in livestock.

  ‘A fair price,’ said Mollini. ‘What’s more, I will buy all the livestock you have to slaughter and put the carcasses in my ice house till my son is born, and then there will be a huge feast and everyone in the village will be invited.’

  He got away as quickly as he could. He looked back and saw the men of the village standing about in little groups, talking anxiously. But he wasn’t worried. They’d get used to the idea of the loss of their pasture just as they’d got used to getting their water supply from containers and not from the river. They know, he told himself, that the only thing, apart from their children, which brings honour into their miserable lives is my fame. People of this calibre will sacrifice a lot to keep their dignity.

  He was able to tell Pappavincente that the fencing of the land could begin straight away. ‘No, Master,’ said Pappavincente, ‘the ground is much too hard. We shall have to wait till the frosts are over.’

  Mollini agreed reluctantly. It was a very cold winter. Parts of the lake were frozen. Irritatingly, quite a few of the evergreens in the garden had died and the camellias were showing signs of winter damage. All of these would have to be torn out and replaced.

  Mollini walked in the forest with his wife and showed her which ways the paths would go. They would zig-zag and cross each other, he explained. Then, little Pietro would be able to play games of tracking and hide-and-seek.

  Although she tried not to show it, it saddened Verena that she was going to have to call her son Pietro. She liked the name Giuseppe, which was her father’s name. But she was relieved to be pregnant at last. She was thirty-nine. Mollini had been nagging her for four years, ever since their first passionate year of love was over, to conceive. She’d tried very hard. She’d pampered herself with mounds of nutritious food. She’d even turned down an engagement to sing Lucia di Lammermoor in London, in order to follow Mollini to Vienna, so that he could make love to her at the right time of the month. She’d begun to fear that she would never conceive and she thought that if she didn’t, it was possible that Mollini would leave her. My love is unquenchable, his is not, she told herself.

  When her breasts began to swell and the time for her period had passed, she sent for the doctor. It was the same doctor who had given Mollini his enema and seen the slime in his bowel. He rolled up his sleeves. He inserted two icy fingers into Verena’s vagina and pressed on her belly with the palm of the other hand. ‘Well,’ he said at last, as he disinfected his hands, ‘your husband’s wish has been granted.’

  She decked herself in fussy, voluptuous gowns. Her bosom became gargantuan and she liked to show it off with lace frills and little cheeky ribbons. She didn’t mind that she was getting ridiculously fat. She revelled in it. And Mollini too, from the moment he knew she was expecting his child, seemed to fall in love with her all over again. Even in public, he often couldn’t refrain from fondling her breasts and whispering deliciously dirty suggestions in her ear. She giggled and screeched. She was delirious with happiness.

  Several rooms in the Villa Mollini were being prepared for the baby. Nurses were interviewed and two engaged for the end of April. In March, the weather grew warmer. The fencing off of the twelve hectares was completed. Nine bullocks were slaughtered and stored in the ice house. In the forest, trees were felled to make way for the paths, wire for the aviary was ordered from Florence and a million bulbs came by cart from Holland.

  Then, on the night of April 1st, a cold, relentless wind began to blow from the north. This wind terrified Verena. She liked Nature to be quiet. She put her head under her coverlet and encircled her unborn baby with her hands. An hour later, her waters broke.

  The midwife came stumbling through the wind, holding her shawl round her chin. In the Villa Mollini, all the lamps were lit and the servants woken from sleep. Mollini stared at the midwife scuttling about with her towels and her basins and thought of all the births that had occurred in the village since he’d built his dam. Children were alive in the village who had never seen the river.

  He went, feeling anxious, and sat on his own in his music room. Upstairs, Verena
was behaving like a courageous rower, pushing with the tides. The seas were stormy. The pain tore at Verena’s body and the wind tore at the garden, disturbing its order.

  At dawn, the baby was born. It was a boy. It weighed less than two kilogrammes. Its first cry was feeble because, despite its magnificent parentage, its lungs were not properly formed. It gasped and gasped, like a little slithery eel, for air, and died within two hours.

  Verena screamed till she was sick. The wind, blowing in the direction of the village, carried her screams to the ears of the villagers as the women made coffee and the men put on their working clothes.

  It was strange. A few days after the baby died, Mollini sent for Pappavincente to tell him to redesign the child’s garden, and then he changed his mind. Although there was now no son to inhabit the garden, Mollini realised that he still wanted it made, exactly as he’d planned it.

  ‘Master,’ said Pappavincente, ‘you will never bear to walk in it.’

  ‘Then someone else will.’

  ‘Who, Sir?’

  ‘We shall see.’

  Verena, huge in the bed, her breasts full of milk, announced: ‘I never want to sing again. I’m going to cancel all my contracts.’

  In May, Mollini left for Paris, where he was to sing Lensky in Eugene Onegin. Before leaving, he looked at his fat wife. She nourished herself, he decided, her own greedy flesh, not the baby’s. She was still ridiculously gross and the baby, his poor little Pietro, was a tiny, sickly fish.

  Verena didn’t want Mollini to go to Paris. ‘This world,’ she said, ‘this world we inhabit of roles and costumes and competition and money isn’t worth a thing.’ And she held Mollini so tightly to her that he felt himself suffocating. For the first time since he met her, he longed to be away from her, miles and miles away.