The Sonnet Lover

by Carol Goodman

  “Not here,” he says, glancing around the rotunda. At the very center of the house—open to all the main public rooms on the first floor and the hallways of the second—the rotunda is indeed the worst place in which to have a private conversation.

  “Where?” I ask, half afraid he’ll suggest my room—or his apartment.

  “In the garden in half an hour, at the fountain. Can you find it?”

  “I think so,” I say, “but why can’t we just go now?”

  “I have to find Orlando first,” he says, “but I promise I’ll be there in half an hour. You should put on something warmer. As lovely as you look in that dress…” His eyes linger over my dress and I blush.

  “Okay,” I say, “half an hour, then.”

  “Oh, and Rose, that poem you quoted at dinner tonight about the blood in the rotunda”—we both look down at the rose-petal pattern on the floor swirling around the impluvium—“is that one of the poems in Robin’s screenplay or have you found something?”

  Looking into his eyes, I find myself unable to lie. “It’s a poem I found—or rather that someone gave me last night. I don’t know who.”

  He nods. “Did it come with a note?” he asks. When I nod he asks me to bring it with me.

  “Okay,” I say. It seems little enough to give him in return for destroying his life. “I’ll bring it.”

  I turn around then and go up the stairs. It’s not until I get to the top that I hear his footsteps echoing in the rotunda and I know that he watched my ascent.

  When I get back to my room, I quickly retrieve the poem I was given last night and the other original poems I have so far—the one Robin gave me in New York and the one I found in the cassone—from my book bag. Then I pick up the embroidered shawl I wore around my waist last night and turn it over. I’d noticed that the black silk lining has come unstitched along one side, creating a sort of pocket that’s just the right size for the poems. I slip them into the lining and then arrange the shawl so that the poems are close to my body and the black lining faces out. Then I change my high-heeled shoes for the flat Tibetan sandals Chihiro gave me, wondering whether she imagined me using them for clandestine night journeys. I wish, for a moment, that she was here instead of in England so I could go over with her everything that’s happened in the short time I’ve been here, but then I realize that if she were here she’d probably be telling me that sneaking off to the garden in the middle of the night to meet the father of the man who killed Robin is not the smartest move I could make.

  Although I’m ready, it’s still too early to go. I sit down on the bed, facing the painting of Nastagio degli Onesti wandering through the woods. I’ve left only the night light on, so the room is too dark to make out much of the painting, but the shadows only seem to bring out the lurid yellow eyes of the owls in the trees tracking Nastagio’s progress through the woods. I can’t help wondering whether Barbagianni had these eyes added to the wall painting for the benefit of his new bride so that she would know that wherever she went, he, Barbagianni the owl, would be watching her. It’s a creepy thought and makes sitting here all the more unbearable until I remember that I have another place to wait. I get up, open the door, and cross into the plain little cell I lived in twenty years ago. My little convent room. I’d almost forgotten about it.

  In the moonlight its whitewashed walls have a nacreous glow—like the inside of a pearl. I sit down at the desk by the open window without turning on a light. There’s no need. A full moon has risen over the hills of Valdarno, silvering a path through the river valley to the rooftop of the limonaia, which, I notice, is still dark inside. The bust on the corner eave seems to be looking directly toward the path of moonlight. I always felt that she was waiting for someone to appear at the crest of the hill, and now that I’ve read Ginevra’s poems I imagine that she felt that way, too, that she sat in this very room—her only escape from Barbagianni’s paintings—penning the poems that would bring her lover across the Alps to her. Who could resist such invitations? I certainly hadn’t.

  But did he come? The three poems that I’ve found so far are all by a woman asking her beloved to visit her. The fact that these poems are here at all is not a good sign. They might be copies of the poems she sent, or maybe she never sent them at all. And if she did send them, did he ever respond? Did he heed her summons and come to La Civetta? And if he did, what happened? When Ginevra left this house it wasn’t on the arm of her lover. It was alone, in a threadbare shift, and she didn’t flee to England; she followed the river thirty miles to the east—a path that would have closely followed the path of moonlight I can see now—to the Convent of Santa Catalina, where she lived out the rest of her life in a cell that was probably even smaller and colder than this one. What went wrong? Did her English lover never come? Or did he come only to find that it was impossible to revive their lost love? To forget their history of betrayal?

  My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of voices rising from the pomerino.

  “I’m not crazy. I know what’s right.”

  It’s Mara’s voice. I lean closer to the window to look out and I see Gene and Ned standing by Mara in the center of the walled garden. Leo Balthasar is a little ways off on a marble bench, smoking his cigar and looking impassively on as the two men try to calm Mara.

  “Mom,” Ned says, extending his hand to Mara, “we can go inside and talk about it. You know how you always say that talking about things makes them better.”

  Even from here I can see Mara’s face soften. “Neddy,” she says, taking his hand, “that’s absolutely right. Let’s go inside and talk. Let me tell you what your father wants me to do—”

  I see Gene and Leo exchange a look, and a second later Gene has Mara by the shoulders and is pulling her away from Ned and into the library. “I think your mother is too upset to talk right now, Ned. I’d better get her into bed, and you…I’m sure you’d rather be with your friends…”

  A burst of laughter comes from the opposite side of the pomerino, from inside the limonaia, and a boy and girl come tumbling out in a little cloud of marijuana smoke, which I can smell from here.

  “There—isn’t that the girl you like, Chloe?” It’s a mark of how desperate Gene is to keep his son away from Mara—and from what she might tell him—that he’d rather send him off to smoke pot.

  “Zoe,” Ned corrects his father. His face looks suddenly wistful and I see why. Zoe is with the handsome Orlando. I guess they’ve made up the argument they were having in New York—or now that Robin is gone, Zoe’s seeking solace in her former suitor. “And Orlando.”

  The two teenagers stop short when they see the group of adults in the pomerino. Zoe erupts in a fit of giggles, but Orlando looks serious. He straightens up and walks across the walled garden, his posture and stance reminding me forcibly of his father. He’s walking straight toward Ned.

  “We were looking for you—” he begins, but Mara hurls herself between the two boys, snarling at Orlando. “Stay away from him. Haven’t you caused enough trouble?”

  It takes Leo and Gene both to hold Mara back from scratching Orlando’s face. She struggles for a moment and then collapses between the two men, sinking to the graveled pathway.

  Orlando holds out his arms and looks toward Ned. “I don’t understand,” he says.

  “I think you’d better leave, son,” Leo says. “In fact, why don’t you come with me.” He lays a hand on Orlando’s shoulder, but Orlando shrugs it off and with a last parting glance in Ned’s direction leaves the pomerino by the side gate leading onto the lemon walk.

  “I’d better follow him,” Leo says. “Can you handle her?”

  “Sure,” Gene says, bending down to help Mara up. Mara, though, suddenly springs to life.

  “I don’t want to be handled,” she spits at Gene, and then, before either man can stop her, she runs out of the pomerino, taking the same side gate that Orlando walked through a minute ago. Ned tries to follow, but Leo grabs his arm. “I think it’s better that
I talk to your mother right now. She seems to be angry about your…relationships. Let me talk to her. I’ve had some experience with these things.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about—” Ned says to Leo’s retreating back, but the producer’s already through the side gate.

  “Son, we should go inside,” Gene says, looking up at the villa as if suddenly aware that there are windows facing onto the pomerino. I move back a few inches into my darkened room, hoping Gene hasn’t seen me. “It’s nobody’s business—”

  “A minute ago you said I should go off with my friends,” Ned says defiantly. He moves over to Zoe, who’s been watching the whole scene goggled-eyed as if it were a reality TV show, and drapes his arm around her shoulders. He glares at his father as if daring him to intervene, and Gene throws up his arms in an exaggerated display of parental pique. “Fine—do whatever you like,” he says. He turns and goes into the library. Ned whispers something in Zoe’s ear that makes her giggle, and they head toward the limonaia, but before they reach it Zoe whispers something into Ned’s ear and they veer off to the side gate. I keep staring at the deserted pomerino as if waiting for the next act, but when no one else appears I realize I’m going to be late for my assignation with Bruno. I can only hope that all the people who have just headed off into the garden aren’t going in the direction of the fountain.

  Hugging the dark folds of the shawl close to me, I cross the hall and enter the top floor of the library. With a qualm I notice that Zoe has neatly arranged manuscript boxes and folios on the table by the window and remind myself that I’d better start sorting through them tomorrow. Not now, though. I descend the spiral staircase to the main floor of the library, glad to see that the room below me is dark. I should have brought the flashlight with me, but once I’m outside the moon will light my way. As soon as I reach the bottom of the stairs I can see the reflection of moonlight on the marble floors—a path leading to the doors to the garden. I’m almost there when a voice stops me.

  “Ah, Rose, I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist the garden on such a night. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  I turn slowly, careful to keep the shawl with its cargo of poems close against my body, and face Cyril, who’s sitting so far back in a velvet club chair that I can make out only the tips of his loafers and the long waxy fingers of his left hand lying on the arm of the chair.

  “You know me too well, Cyril. Who could resist the gardens of La Civetta under a full moon? I’m surprised you came in from the loggia.”

  “Even these warm summer nights are too chilly for my old bones,” he says. “I needed a little restorative to warm me up.” His right hand appears from the shadows cradling a silver goblet etched with spirals and set with opalescent stones. “Would you join me in a little nightcap?” he asks. I’m about to tell him that I’ve had more than enough to drink when he adds, “Unless, of course, you have some more pressing engagement?”

  Even without being able to make out his face, I can guess he’s smiling. I’m caught.

  “No, no engagement except with the gardens under the moonlight, and the moon’s just risen.” I sink into the chair opposite him, angled into the moonlight so that he can see me, while I still can’t see any more of him than his disembodied hands, which now lift a decanter, made of the same design as the cup, from a hammered silver tray on a pedestal table set beside his chair, and pour the liqueur into a silver goblet that’s set on the tray as if he’d been expecting me. He pours a little water from a ceramic pitcher and hands me the cup; his fingertips when they graze mine feel as cool as the metal. It’s impossible to tell the color of the liqueur, but when I sip it I taste licorice. Sambuco, perhaps, or any of the half dozen Italian liqueurs that are flavored with aniseed. The slight metallic aftertaste comes, I imagine, from the silver.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever drunk from a silver cup before,” I say. “I think I read somewhere of a wife poisoning her husband with ground-up silver.”

  He makes a dry sound that could be a laugh or a cough. “You’d need quite a bit more silver, my dear; it’s not like the lead cups that made the Romans mad, although”—he chuckles—“I have been having my after-dinner drink from these since a Turkish pasha presented them to me in 1956 as a thank-you for giving him some rose cuttings for his garden. Perhaps the silver has addled my brain.”

  “Your brain doesn’t seem the slightest bit addled,” I say. Cyril must have sat through the scene in the pomerino, quietly watching the drama from his dark corner. I wonder what he made of it. Does he know that Mark is blackmailing Claudia into dropping the lawsuit? I take another sip of the curiously warming liqueur. It feels like liquid silver slipping down my throat, like moonlight stealing under my skin. “You’ve come to a comfortable arrangement with Hudson College and now you’ve put together this movie deal. You seem quite on top of everything…except, I suppose, for the lawsuit.”

  Cyril steeples his long fingers in front of his shaded face. “I wouldn’t worry about the lawsuit, my dear. I’ve always got something up my sleeve.” For a second the moonlight hits his fingertips in a way that makes them look like claws, but then I blink and they’re just the yellowed, cracked fingernails of an old man again. An old man who’s willing to hide the truth of a boy’s death to protect his property, I’d wager.

  “Is it worth it, do you think?” I ask, taking another long sip of the liqueur for courage. Cyril’s not an opponent to take on lightly. “When you think about a young boy’s life—”

  “What’s one young life compared to all this?” Cyril asks, holding up his hands to indicate the villa. “My only aim has been to leave a legacy. To preserve La Civetta for posterity. If Claudia has her way, it would become a glorified Hilton, full of tourists sporting their dreadful soccer shirts and buying underwear emblazoned with David’s penis. My God, the last time I ventured into town during the tourist season I saw a vendor selling a calendar of penises. Famosi piselli. And the streets are full of Eastern Europeans dressed up as statues and gladiators—like at Disneyland! Claudia’s own son was romping about town last year with that American boy in see-through tights. Can you blame me if I want to preserve La Civetta for scholars instead of letting it fall to the Philistines?”

  I take a long draught of my drink to give me time to think of an answer. Of course, I want to see La Civetta preserved as a place for scholars to study instead of as a playground for rich tourists, but I’m remembering the students today with their David boxers and picturing the fairies dressed in tights and troubadours dressed in doublet and hose for last night’s performance. I’m not sure, really, how far Cyril and Mark’s vision of La Civetta is from Claudia’s. Not enough of a difference, really, to justify hiding the truth of a boy’s death.

  “Maybe there’s another way to settle it. Maybe all Claudia wants is an acknowledgment that Orlando belongs to your family,” I say, thinking that such an acknowledgment will be little enough once Orlando’s part in Robin’s death is revealed.

  Cyril leans forward, his face, rising out of the gloom, alarmingly yel-low, his eyes bloodshot. He looks like a drowned man surfacing out of the dark water. “What that bitch wants is to make us all suffer. You tell your friend President Abrams that there’s not enough money under the sun to buy her off. She’ll take my last chance at happiness and yours, Rose, just like she did twenty years ago. We can’t sit around waiting for her to give us what we want; we have to take it—” Cyril’s invective is interrupted by a coughing fit. I get up to pour him a glass of water from the ceramic pitcher and nearly lose my balance. The room seems to slide a bit, the moonlit surfaces as slippery as glass.

  “Here,” I say, handing Cyril the glass and steadying myself on the arm of his chair. “Calm down. I’m sure you’ll come to some sort of arrangement with Claudia…and as for what happened between Bruno and me…well, I can hardly blame her for that. She got pregnant—”

  “Do you think that was an accident? She knew she was going to lose Bruno to you and that the onl
y reason he’d stay was if she were carrying his child. Or at least if she made him believe it was his child.”

  “That may be,” I say, “but she couldn’t very well have made him believe it was his if he hadn’t slept with her, and no one forced him to do that.” I pour myself some more of the liqueur, which, I notice, looks cloudy in the silver cup, and take another long drink. This isn’t what I want to be reminded of on my way to meet Bruno.

  “It’s a lapse I’m sure he’s had occasion to regret. Personally I’ve always suspected that she drugged him.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” I try to laugh, but the sound I make comes out tinny and my mouth is suddenly full of the bitter taste of metal. I finish the rest of my drink and put the silver goblet down on the tray, metal ringing against metal like a bell tolling. “She’s not Lucrezia Borgia. And even if he had been drugged, that’s no excuse.”

  I gather up my shawl, and the poems in the lining crackle angrily. I see Cyril’s ears actually twitch at the sound. His hand shoots out and grabs my arm, the long, yellowed nails pressing into my skin. I imagine he’s going to rip the poems from their hiding place, but instead he stretches his mouth into a wide, lupine smile. “You’re a strong woman, Rose—not everybody has your strength of character—but we all have our weaknesses.” He lets my arm go and grasps the edge of the shawl, rubbing the material between his fingertips. “I hope this will keep you warm enough. Don’t stay out too late. The gardens grow damp after midnight.”

  I nod. “I’m only going to take a short stroll,” I say, pulling the shawl around me as if its blackness could make me invisible from him. “Thanks for the drink.”

  “You’re most welcome,” he says, holding up his cup and inhaling the aroma of the liqueur. Although it’s probably just a trick of the moonlight, I imagine for a moment that the cloudy liquid casts a greenish light on his face. “It’s difficult to find the real stuff nowadays, but there’s an order of Benedictine monks in the Val-de-Travers where it was invented by a French doctor who had fled the Terror…” He must notice the look of confusion on my face. “Oh, I thought you knew. Artemisia absinthium. Or as some call it, the Green Muse. It’s my personal weakness.”