The Battle of the Villa Fiorita

by Rumer Godden

‘Non velenoso. Nicht schlim,’ she yelled encouragingly to Caddie; but she ran and got a broomstick and killed the snake with the handle. If it was not poisonous why did she want to kill it? It seemed so insensately cruel that Caddie, in her foodless state, burst out crying like a baby; Rob heard her upstairs and shouted, ‘Stop that bloody din.’

  He was too worried that morning to be kind. Fanny’s face haunted him and he could not concentrate. Besides he had reached a stage on Saladin when he needed a typist, a secretary. ‘And nobody seems to speak English, let alone type it, round this confounded lake,’ he said. He could have asked Renato to send a secretary out from Milan, but, ‘How can we import a secretary here when every available inch is taken up by children?’

  ‘She can stay over at the hotel, the Lydia,’ said Fanny, ‘and work on the dining-room table. We can eat on the terrace.’

  ‘In this heat? Middle day? Anyway, I can’t work. The house is pervaded by children, and need they be so abominably noisy?’

  ‘Rob, be fair. They are not usually noisy.’

  ‘They are today. Caddie bellowing on the terrace and Pia singing like a hypnotizing dervish.’

  ‘I know. It goes right through one’s head.’

  ‘Then why don’t you stop her?’

  ‘Because she is Pia. I have to be careful.’

  ‘Do we have to be so bloody delicate with one another’s children?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Fanny wearily. Her headache was worse; she had a backache as well, a dragging pain that made her thin-skinned, and she snapped out, ‘You know nothing at all about children.’

  ‘I do. I have been a child.’

  Hugh, bored with Pia’s impersonality, began to fiddle with the knobs of the old radio and a wave of violent jazz swept through the house. ‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!’ shouted Rob.

  Over everything else lay the dread of what he would do at lunch.

  ‘Do you think they will send for Doctor Isella?’ asked Caddie.

  ‘No, but they may beat us,’ said Pia.

  In Pia’s missal she had a picture of Saint Agnes with her lamb. ‘She was killed,’ said Pia, ‘and she wasn’t much older than we are.’

  Lunch began with tagliatelle alla Bolognese, fine ribbons of pasta in tomato sauce, with minced meat. Giulietta, as usual, handed it as they sat round the table. Fanny took some; Hugh, sitting next to her, helped himself, keeping his eyes down. Caddie shook her head. Rob took his and Giulietta came to Pia. Pia, her hair brushed, her hands and face washed, her napkin unfolded on her knee, sat quietly though she was breathing in strange little snorts down her nose. Caddie felt cold with apprehension. Giulietta held the dish. Pia shook her head. Giulietta was taking it away when, ‘Un momento, Giulietta,’ said Rob. He reached across Pia and helped her himself. ‘Give some to Signorina Caddie.’

  ‘Servo la signorina?’ asked Giulietta, startled.

  ‘Si.’

  ‘Permesso,’ said Giulietta to Caddie and put some on her plate. Rob sprinkled cheese for them both and, ‘Eat it,’ he said.

  Nobody moved. Pia and Caddie looked straight in front of them.

  ‘I said eat it,’ said Rob. He took a spoon, chopped some of the tagliatelle and held it to Pia’s mouth. Pia kept her lips shut and breathed through her nose. ‘Eat it.’ With his other hand Rob gave Pia a sharp slap on the back of her head. It sent her forward against the spoon with such a jerk that she opened her mouth. The spoon went in. As Rob took it away he too was breathing hard. ‘Now swallow.’

  Pia looked at him with her small black eyes and spat out the tagliatelle. As with everything she did, the spit was direct and it landed on the tablecloth in a stain of tomato and gravy. Caddie gave a little hiss of terror, and Rob lost his temper.

  He jerked Pia out of her chair and, in a second, she was face downwards across his knee. He turned up her skirt, showing her little rump outlined in snowy white briefs edged with lace. ‘You asked for it; you shall have it,’ said Rob, and, before all their eyes, he gave her a good spanking.

  Hugh and Caddie sat too shocked to speak; Fanny was white to the lips, only Giulietta watched with amusement in her eyes as if this were entirely natural. At last the sound of slaps ceased and Rob lifted Pia off that powerful knee.

  ‘Now, are you going to eat it?’ But Pia, her face contorted so that once again she looked like that ugly monkey, had made for the stairs. On the third step she paused and loosed a flood of invective at Rob. It was Italian so that Fanny, Hugh, and Caddie could not understand, but they heard Giulietta give a gasp.

  ‘Vigliacco, cattivo, ti odio.’

  ‘No! No! Santo Cielo,’ cried Giulietta in horror and ran up to silence Pia, but Pia shook her off.

  ‘Mostro, non ti posso vedere.’ Her face was curiously patched as if the slaps had landed there, her cambric blouse was pulled sideways, her hair ruffled, but there was not a tear. ‘Cattivo, vigliaceo.’ Then she turned to Fanny. ‘Anche te, strega.’

  ‘Taci, taci, vergongati,’ screamed Giulietta again.

  Suddenly Pia remembered, thought Caddie, remembered she was Pia. She put her blouse straight, shook out her skirt and smoothed her hair. Then she drew herself up, and spoke to Rob in English with immeasurable scorn. ‘I will ask God to forgive you,’ she said, opened the brocade door and went upstairs.

  ‘Caddie, do you want the same?’

  Caddie stared at Rob, her eyes as full of horror as if she were trapped.

  ‘Then eat your lunch, or, in spite of your mother, you will be spanked as well.’

  ‘Caddie, eat it. You must.’

  With her eyes on Rob, Caddie picked up her fork, lifted a piece of tagliatelle. It had grown cold and felt slimy. The memory of the mangled snake came back. Caddie made a loud retching noise and was sick.

  ‘Nessuno ha toccato cibo,’ reported Giulietta in the kitchen. ‘This time nobody ate a thing.’

  ‘God above!’ Rob had shouted, standing up and sending his chair back with a push that knocked it over. ‘Do your children perpetually have to vomit?’

  ‘That’s not fair.’ Fanny sprang up too. ‘They are not used to seeing people hit.’

  ‘Hit! I didn’t hit Pia. I gave her a spanking where she needed it.’

  ‘You used force.’

  ‘Of course. What else could I use?’

  ‘It’s never fair.’

  ‘Fair! This isn’t a case of being fair. It’s discipline.’

  ‘Discipline shouldn’t humiliate.’

  ‘I see,’ said Rob at white heat. ‘You think I oughtn’t to have beaten Pia. That I should allow anything these little rats choose to do.’

  ‘They are not little rats. They are people. People.’ And Fanny said, ‘We have never beaten Hugh or Caddie.’

  That ‘we’ seemed to ring out and, ‘I didn’t mean …’ Fanny sat down suddenly among the litter of plates and dishes and put her hand across her eyes.

  ‘If they had been beaten,’ said Rob, and now he was quiet, ‘they probably would not be here. They would be obedient. Come,’ he said. ‘We can’t lunch here now. Let’s get out and clear the air. I will take you to San Vigilio.’

  ‘I couldn’t eat any lunch.’

  ‘We will have a drink then. Come.’

  ‘Caddie …’

  ‘Hugh, take Caddie upstairs, then get Celestina. She will look after her,’ but Giulietta had already brought a pail and cloth and was mopping Caddie up.

  ‘Poverina, povera anima innocente,’ Celestina followed and guided Caddie upstairs. Fanny got up, hesitated, then went after Rob; Hugh, finding himself alone with Giulietta, jumped up as if he had been scalded and ran down to the jetty. When Giulietta had cleaned the floor she began to clear away the untouched tagliatelle.

  13

  Pia had changed from her skirt and blouse into a cherry-coloured linen dress banded with white. Now elegant again, she was sitting on her bed, her eyes shut, her lips moving. The eyes flew open when she heard Caddie come in from the bathroom. Celestina had told Caddie
to lie down.

  ‘Did they make you eat?’

  ‘I was sick,’ and Caddie felt bound to say, ‘I think you are brave, Pia, much braver than I am, especially when you are so empty. I … I …’ ‘Perpetually howling,’ Hugh said of Caddie these days. The tears were brimming now and she hastily changed the subject: ‘Are you asking God to forgive Rob?’

  ‘Yes, and you might help,’ said Pia. ‘Ask Him to send your mother back to England.’

  ‘I have asked and asked,’ said Caddie. ‘And He doesn’t take the slightest notice. I wish I was a Catholic,’ she said.

  ‘I wish your mother was.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Catholic mothers don’t go marrying other people’s fathers when their husbands are alive.’

  ‘Don’t they?’ Caddie digested this. ‘What happens if they fall in love?’

  This disconcerted Pia. She could not deny that Catholic mothers fell in love – one had only to go to the opera, the theatre, watch television. ‘They fall in love,’ she said, ‘but they don’t go upsetting everything.’

  ‘You mean if Mother were a Catholic she wouldn’t have done this?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Pia. ‘It would be sin.’

  If Caddie had not felt as sick and weak, her head aching, her legs feeling as if they were made of wet paper, she would not have been as naïve. She had, too, always been impressed by Pia’s certainty.

  For instance, on Sunday, there had been no question, as with the Claverings, as to whether Pia should or should not go to church. At a quarter to ten she had appeared in her white hat with the scarlet streamer, her coat, gloves, neat white socks and buckled shoes, carrying her purse and missal, and Rob had broken off his work to drive her to Mass in Malcesine, waiting in a cafe until it was over. ‘Won’t you come in?’ asked Pia as if she wanted him to, but Rob only smiled and said, ‘I’m a heathen; besides I want a coffee. Celestina will go with you.’ Celestina, Giulietta and the trattoria children had driven in with them.

  ‘Can I come?’ Caddie had asked.

  ‘Ask your mother,’ said Rob.

  ‘If you want to,’ Fanny had said. ‘But you won’t understand.’

  Yet, in a mysterious way, Caddie had understood. True, the Mass was for the greater part incomprehensible; a mixture of Italian and Latin, which later Pia had explained to her was the language of the Church; but Caddie had been struck by the way not only Pia, all the children, knew what to do. She had copied Pia’s genuflexions and knelt down, stood, sat as she did, though Celestina’s hard hand had impelled her to kneel each time the bells rang. Caddie had an impression of candles shining, the smell of incense, smoke, of chanting, mystery and great solemnity, yet everyone seemed quite at home. Towards the end, Celestina and Pia had gone up with a crowd of other people to the altar; it was a big crowd: old peasant women in black, old men, young men – all the men sat together on one side of the church, the women on the other – there were dressed-up young women, mothers with babies, boys and girls.

  ‘Where did you all go?’ asked Caddie afterwards.

  ‘Up to the rail for communion.’

  ‘Do you have communion?’

  ‘Of course. I am ten,’ said Pia, as if that were middle-aged. ‘I made my First Communion when I was eight.’

  ‘Like Beppino?’

  Beppino, the elder of the two trattoria children, was, Celestina told them, to make his First Communion on the third Sunday in May. He was to have a new grey suit, and a white bow with gold fringes tied round his arm.

  ‘Pia, did you have one of those beautiful long white dresses we saw in Riva?’

  ‘I should hope not,’ said Pia. ‘Mine came from Lavori Artigiani Femminili at the corner of the Via Condotti in Rome. Every tuck, every little insertion, was hand-made. I had a white veil, a circlet of white silk roses.’ Caddie could see the roses on Pia’s small black head, the long white dress.

  ‘You must have looked like a bride.’

  ‘I did. I had thirty presents.’

  There was no doubt in Caddie’s mind that Pia was an expert on religion and she asked trustfully, ‘How do people become Catholics?’

  ‘If they are not born one, they have to learn,’ said Pia.

  ‘How do they learn?’

  ‘I suppose they speak to a priest or nun.’

  Caddie could not imagine herself speaking to a nun, though she knew Pia’s teachers were all nuns, but she had seen the priests in Malcesine. There was one of whom Celestina talked reverently, Padre Rossi, the arciprete, Celestina called him, which seemed to make him very important, like an archangel, but, all the same, Caddie had made up her mind. She went to Hugh and asked, ‘Is there any Topaz money left?’

  ‘A little. I have been using some to buy bait. I thought you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘I want some,’ said Caddie.

  ‘How much?’ asked Hugh reluctantly. ‘I want to buy a rod. How much do you need?’

  ‘Enough for the bus into Malcesine.’

  ‘Why don’t you walk?’

  ‘I don’t think I could,’ said Caddie. ‘I feel queer.’ Reluctantly he gave her a hundred lire note. ‘Bring me the change if there is any.’ She must have looked white, because he asked, ‘Are you going alone?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Caddie quickly. She had a strong feeling that Hugh would not approve.

  It was not, even for early afternoon, the hottest part of the day. The sky looked heavy, white-grey; Caddie was still squeamish and the bus smelled of hot rubber, hot oil, dust – and hot people, thought Caddie. She was glad to get off at Malcesine, but here too the white glare lay over the whole town.

  Caddie walked along the motor road until she came to the steps that led down to the church piazza where the heat came off the bricks. There were always people round the church, and now boys were playing football, women sat on the low balustrade under the trees, gossiping and knitting, while babies played and staggered at their feet.

  The women and boys stared at her, making her feel an intruder. She remembered having seen yesterday a side door into the church and she walked past the big front doors trying to whistle, her hands, though Pia would have reproved her, in the pockets of her caramel-coloured jerkin. Fanny had been right; the jerkin was far too hot for Italy and, I’m boiling, thought Caddie, but I couldn’t come and see an arciprete in a frock that crumples and is too short and tight. She wished she had a linen dress like Pia’s.

  At the side of the church, under an arch, was a courtyard with a stair leading up from it to a little house. Was that where Father Rossi lived? She stole through the courtyard to a small door covered in leather and slipped into the church.

  She stepped into a merciful coolness and dimness, even that short walk from the bus had made her sweat; in fact, she was feeling so giddy that she had to sit down and lean her head against the polished wood of a pew. I ought to kneel down, she thought, but her knees were too weak.

  A Catholic church, Rob had said, was never empty, and that seemed to be true. This was a Monday afternoon but candles were burning in front of the side altars of the big church – at least, they looked like altars; they were spread with lace-edged cloths and had vases of flowers. Pia had told her that candles were lit for requests or in thanks; evidently a great many people had been asking or thanking.

  The big candles were a hundred lire, the little ones fifty. Caddie wished she could light one, but her hundred lire note was only enough for the bus.

  People were praying. Some of the women had shopping bags or baskets, some were in slippers. An old man was having a comfortable nap. A woman came in carrying, with the utmost care and pride, a pot of arum lilies. In front of the high altar a red lamp burned, and Caddie saw, sitting in the front pew, a man dressed in black and reading a book. She tiptoed to an old woman, a cleaner with a box of spent candle-ends and a small whisk broom, tiptoed to her and pointed at the man.

  ‘Il prete?’ whispered Caddie.

  ‘Si, si, il prete, Padre Rossi, arciprete.’ It wo
uld be the arciprete, but the old woman nodded encouragingly. ‘Si, si,’ and went back to her candle-trays.

  Cautiously Caddie drew nearer. She saw a big man, with brushed brown hair, a fresh rosy face, his neck rising rosily from the narrow band of his soutane. He did not look very alarming and he was alone, but could she dare to disturb him when he was praying or reading a holy book?

  Then she remembered something that had impressed her yesterday. They had been far too early for the Mass. Celestina had said it was at ten but it was at half past, and while they waited a priest had been there, not the arciprete but an old man with white hair, kneeling, deep in prayer. A small girl had come in, a handkerchief over her head; the village children all wore handkerchiefs or head scarves, not hats like Pia. She had come walking in with small important steps, had gone straight up to the old priest and tapped him on the shoulder and he had stood up at once and, in his long soutane and black cloak, had gone to the door of what looked rather like a sentry-box at the side of the church, but a sentry-box hung with purple curtains. The little girl had gone round to the other side and knelt down behind the curtain – Caddie could see her legs.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ she had whispered to Pia.

  ‘Making her confession.’

  ‘She interrupted him.’

  ‘Of course. That’s what he’s there for,’ said Pia. ‘If he’s a good priest.’

  Father Rossi, Caddie knew, was a good priest. She had heard Rob and Fanny talk about him. Though he was not old he had been made arciprete and he was a scholar in Latin, Greek, Hebrew. He spoke German, French – many languages, said Celestina – Caddie prayed that he spoke English.

  But if I go and tap him, he will think I want to confess, and what shall I do then? thought Caddie. She longed for Pia. Pia, she knew, would not have hesitated, and if Pia can, I can, thought Caddie.

  She tapped so gingerly that at first he did not feel it. She had to give him a small thump. Though she did not know it, this was not a confession time and for a moment he looked displeased. ‘Was vollen sie? Ver sint sie?’

  He can see I am not Italian, so he thinks I’m German, thought Caddie. They all think English people are German. Perhaps he can’t speak any English, and her heart sank.