'There was so much stuff blocking the window that they decided to break the door down with an axe. I was here in our flat then, trying to cover the broken window before it went dark. It was raining again. I heard the noise of them breaking down the door but I didn't know what they were doing until my husband came up for me.
'"Can you come down a minute? It's Anna. I've called an ambulance but I'd rather you came down ..."
'"You surely don't mean she's alive?"
'"She's alive, but. . . Come down with me, will you?"
'When we got there, the men who had helped him were still standing looking, not knowing what to do. Anna was there in her little kitchen which had had to serve them as dining- and sitting-room too. The place was more than knee-deep in mud and the furniture was all overturned in it. When I got past the men and saw Anna she was bending over to fish something out of the mess. It was a piece of broken cup with the handle still attached. When she straightened up I saw that she was covered in mud herself, even her hair, and she was almost unrecognizable. She had a mud-soaked rag in her other hand and I saw her begin very slowly and carefully wiping the bit of cup with the air of somebody doing a perfectly normal bit of washing up. Then she set the piece on a shelf attached to the wall, balancing it very carefully so that it didn't fall off.
'"Anna.'
'She didn't answer me, and I soon realized that she was quite oblivious of our presence. She just went on picking up bits of debris, wiping them, and setting them on any surface that was still more or less horizontal. Her face was quite expressionless but I saw that her eyes were unnaturally bright as though she had fever.
'"Try and get her to speak," my husband whispered to me.
'I did go on trying but it was quite hopeless. I never heard her speak again.
'When the ambulance men arrived she was sweeping very slowly at the surface of the mud with an equally muddy sweeping brush. Despite our fears to the contrary, she went with them without protest, neither knowing nor caring why she was being taken away in a tank along with other injured people.'
'Did they take her to Santa Maria Nuova?'
'I think so. At least, that's where she was when I next saw her, but there was so much confusion in those first days that she might well have been taken somewhere else first. The hospitals were so overcrowded. That was the reason why I put off going there myself for some days, but then I decided I'd better because the worst of the cuts from that window there was looking rather bad. It ought to have been stitched and it was looking a bit septic. It's left me with quite a scar, as you can see.' She turned up her elbow to show him the broad white mark.
'I can't say for sure what day I finally went to the First Aid department at Santa Maria Nuova. It may have been the Sunday or the Monday but those first few days all run into each other in my memory, I'm afraid.'
'I understand. The day isn't important. Did you see Anna?'
It was strange to be calling her that, but they seemed to be talking about quite a separate person who hadn't yet become Clementina.
'I saw her, but only for a moment. Once my arm had been dressed—they said it was too late to stitch it—I made inquiries and was told that she was there on the women's medical ward. I went up there and spoke to the sister in charge but I only got a brief glimpse of Anna. I'd been right about the fever. She had pneumonia and was in an oxygen tent. Nevertheless, the sister said she thought she'd pull through.'
It only needed the mention of the hospital. Would they say that of Bruno? 'He'll pull through . . .' They might have operated by now . . .
Perhaps Signora Santoli had noticed his attention wandering and misunderstood.
'I'm afraid I'm not telling you the sort of thing you want to know but I'm just telling you what I remember as I remember it.'
'No, no. Please go on. These are exactly the things I want to know. I'm already beginning to understand a lot about Clementina's strangeness.'
'How funny you should call her that. I didn't even know she had another name.'
'I imagine that if she didn't speak for so long, the people in the asylum took to calling her that rather than Anna.'
'I suppose that's the explanation but it makes her sound like another person.'
'She was another person, in many ways, by then.'
'Well, it's no wonder, is it? She lost everything, husband, child, income, property, even the beginnings of the place they were building. All washed away. That was what I was thinking as I came away from the hospital that day, of what she would have to face when she came round from her illness.'
'She never did face it.'
'I don't wonder. After all, you have to have something, any one little thing to hang on to, to make you keep going. She had nothing at all. Not even her broken bits of belongings and ruined clothes that were all sucked away with the mud. That was what I was thinking as I walked back through what was left of the city that day. All around me people were trying to put their lives back together. It looked hopeless but they were trying. I remember all the shopkeepers trying to salvage clothes, pictures, furniture, from under all that mud and sewage and oil, working away by themselves without complaint. It was still difficult even to walk—I was looking for the place they'd told me to go to at the hospital, where a pharmacy had been set up outdoors and where I had to buy antibiotics and more bandages. I remember some soldiers heaving the carcase of a cow on to the back of a truck with ropes and a man tramping through the mud carrying a statue in his arms as though it were a dead person, and I was still thinking about Anna. What could she salvage? I decided then that when I got home I'd go into her flat and see if there wasn't some little thing left there that I could take to her—up to then we'd been too busy working in the cellar trying to free the boiler. I suppose I was hoping to retrieve some keepsake, something to take to her in the hospital. It was a foolish enough idea but I didn't know what else to do for her.'
'It wasn't a foolish idea at all. Tell me, did you hope to find anything in particular?'
'I thought perhaps a photo of little Elena.'
'Ah . . .' said the Marshal, satisfied, 'exactly. But you didn't find one?'
'No. And unfortunately I didn't have a photo of her myself, which I regretted very much then and do now. I'm afraid I didn't find anything and the whole thing turned out very embarrassing because I was in there searching about when who should walk in but Anna's sister. You can picture my embarrassment, knowing how it must look . . . Still, she must have accepted my explanation since she came up to my flat and stayed some time confiding in me. It was she who told me that little Elena's body had been found in the cellar of a house two streets away. She'd just been to identify her.'
'And the husband?'
'It was some days more before they recovered his body which had been carried much further away. I didn't mention him since I couldn't be sure how much she knew and she was already very upset. I soon realized that it was Anna she was most upset about rather than the child, whose death she seemed to accept philosophically. Of course she wasn't so close to the child even as I was. She didn't visit all that often. Anna once mentioned to me that she had a very difficult life with her husband and that they didn't see each other as often as they would have liked because of him. It seems the sister was quite the business woman. According to Anna, she took after their father. I could well imagine it was true. That day was the first time I'd seen her and despite what she'd gone through, I still got the impression of a very strong character who knew what she wanted. Not a bit like Anna who was very delicate. She was well dressed, too—like everyone else in those days she'd had to come through the streets in Wellingtons but she had a very good fur coat on. I can't afford good clothes myself but I have an eye for them. She was a very well-bred woman, not the sort to confide in people too easily, but no doubt she was glad of a friendly stranger to unburden herself to that day.
' "If there's one thing I've always been terrified of," she told me, "it was something like this happening to Anna. I'm a very di
fferent character and goodness knows my life hasn't been easy, but I can take it. I don't know how well you knew her but, believe me, the smallest mishap was enough to unbalance her."
'I said I'd realized that.
'"But you perhaps don't know the cause of it. My sister and I were born into a very comfortably-off family but we had an unfortunate childhood. My mother died when we were quite small. I was nine and Anna was only five. That in itself is enough to cause insecurity in any child, of course, though no one really considered such things in those days as they do now. But, unfortunately, Anna was alone in the room with her mother when it happened. A heart attack, quite sudden. We don't know whether Anna called for help but we do know that she stayed there, standing beside her mother's body until my father arrived home and walked into the room. Anna wasn't crying, she was just standing there very white and still. Of course, it may be that she had called for help, because as it happened there was no servant within hearing distance. It was only the day after that I was informed of my mother's death. We were kept apart, we children. I suppose somebody thought it best. Since there was no female relative available or willing to take on the responsibility of two small girls we were sent to a convent. Because I was the elder, Anna relied on me as she would on a mother, though I still wasn't ten years old. In my opinion, she never really recovered. Perhaps she should have had professional help but it wasn't the fashion then and the nuns were more strict than kind. From that day to this I've always feared for Anna, always known she couldn't face even the smallest of life's crises. When she met Chiari and wanted to marry him my father was very much against it. An artisan, you can imagine ... I was the one who convinced him. Chiari was such a steady, calm person, just what Anna needed. With the problems she had, that was all that mattered in my opinion, and I never regretted having supported her. Now this . . . she'll never recover from this. But whatever happens, she'll always have me. As long as I'm alive she'll never be alone and she'll never want for anything, I swear that before God."
'I never saw her again.'
'And Anna?'
'It was a very long time before I saw Anna. Very shortly after that I was obliged to go to Switzerland where my father had been taken seriously ill. I stayed there for some months until he died. When I got back life had returned to normal here. It was wonderful the way help poured in from all over the world. Nevertheless, it was the fact that life was normal again that made me feel the loss of little Elena, that was when it really hit me for the first time. I suppose that was because there had been too much turmoil before. It was a small thing that brought it home to me. I was queuing in the fish shop downstairs one Friday morning and one of the women was recounting the story of some terrible tragedy, I think it was in Wales. I didn't hear the whole story so I don't know the details but apparently all the children in a village were killed. It must have happened around the time of the flood because this woman was saying that the parents had sent all their now unwanted toys over here for the children of Florence. I was on the point of opening my mouth to say "Then perhaps little Elena ..." I stopped and said to myself "She's dead."
'That night, I confess, I had a little weep. The next day I made inquiries about Anna.'
'Had she been transferred by then?'
'Yes, she had. It seems she'd recovered her health but, as her sister had feared, not her senses. I asked for her at Santa Maria Nuova. They said she'd never spoken but that on a number of occasions she had tried to throw herself from a window, always just as it was going dark. It had been decided that she should be transferred to San Salvi, but her transfer had been delayed for some time because she still needed hospital treatment.'
'To her skin, by any chance?'
'Yes. You knew that? It all came off, you see, because of her being in that contaminated water for so many hours. There were all sorts of chemicals in it. They said her skin came off in ribbons but that it grew again quite satisfactorily without any lasting ill-effects. Then they transferred her.'
'And so you went to see her in San Salvi?'
'Only twice, I'm afraid. She didn't seem to recognize me and she never spoke. One of the nuns told me she'd taken to sweeping the place all day long. There had been more attempts to throw herself from the window towards dusk. I didn't have the courage to go a third time, besides which, not long after my second visit, my mother-in-law began to sicken and she moved in here with us.
'The last time I had news of Anna was on the second anniversary of the flood. Seeing the old news reels on TV, I got to thinking about her and I called San Salvi. They told me very kindly that it was pointless my feeling guilty about not going to see her since she recognized no one, not even her sister. It seems she'd begun to speak again but that her language was aggressive and obscene, especially to the nuns. I thought I could understand that, though I said nothing. I wondered how the sister was taking it. I'm sure that if she hadn't had problems with her husband she'd have had Anna at home, no matter what her behaviour. Well, I suppose she must have recovered to some extent if they eventually let her out. I wonder what happened to the sister? It said in the paper Anna was living alone when she died.'
'Alone, yes. And in great poverty.'
'In poverty? I'm surprised at that, after what her sister said to me that day.'
'In view of what you've just told me, it is surprising. She may have had money hidden that we haven't been able to find.'
The Marshal got to his feet. All of a sudden he'd had enough of sitting in this dark, tidy room. He wanted to telephone the hospital and he felt a need to be on his own and think over all that Signora Santoli had just told him. Even with all his other preoccupations, he was aware that this dignified and lonely woman was sorry to see him ready to leave.
'If you don't mind my asking,' she said, 'when is the funeral to be?'
'I don't know, to be honest, but I can telephone you when I do, if you like.'
'Thank you.' They went out into the hall and she wrote her number for him on the neat, empty pad by the telephone.
'I'd appreciate it very much,' she said as he buttoned the slip of paper into his top pocket. 'I'd like to go to the funeral. After all, she was once part of my life. One clings to small things as time goes on.'
'Yes,' the Marshal said, 'you're right. I think that's why it struck me so forcibly when I didn't find a single snapshot or memento in her flat, what you tried to find for her after the disaster and couldn't.'
'It's true, her whole past had been wiped out. She did have one thing, though; you've reminded me of it, though she may not have kept it. The second time I went to San Salvi I took her the article from the paper that told her story. I thought it might shock her into speaking. After all, how can we ever be quite sure that the mind is wandering in darkness all the time? It's what I feel about my mother-in-law. How do I know that at some fleeting moment she isn't aware, aware of what's happening to her and aware that I'm here and caring for her? It's often only that that keeps me going. It had no immediate effect on Anna, that page from the paper, but I left it with her because you never know.'
'Did it have the sister's name and address on it, by any chance?'
'I'm certain it did, but I can't remember it, I'm sorry.'
'That's all right. I can get it from the newspaper's archives. I don't think Anna did throw it away,' he added, 'but it's gone now.'
'I'm afraid I haven't been much help to you.'
'You've been a great deal of help. I'll let you know about the funeral.'
When she had shut the door after him he heard her saying very gently, 'AH right. It's all right. I'll come and sit with you for a while now.'
He walked down the stairs and out into the heat. He had an idea now who the man he was looking for might be and it wasn't a man with a limp. The only thing that still puzzled him was how had Clementina found out?
CHAPTER 10
It was dark in Clementina's tiny kitchen. Perhaps there was going to be another storm. The room was so close after being shut up so long
in the heat that the Marshal opened the small window, letting in some damp air and the smell of approaching rain. That didn't make it much lighter and pressing the light switch produced nothing. They must already have sent someone from the electricity board to disconnect the power until the next tenant signed on. The Marshal wondered who the next tenant would be. They could hardly expect to rent the flat out in its present condition. The gloom was a nuisance, though he had little enough to do. He opened the table drawer which had once puzzled him and now puzzled him no longer. He opened it to its fullest extent but he didn't touch anything. The sheet of newspaper from the back had gone, as he expected. Why she had kept it there all those years was not so clear. On that question turned the point of just how crazy she really was. Had she, as Linda Rossi had said and Signora Santoli suspected, had periods of lucidity when she remembered her past and could compare it with her present? It was more comfortable to think of her as completely crazy, and so oblivious. Perhaps it had been more comfortable for her, too, to let herself sink into madness during her years in the asylum so that it became a habit. Nevertheless, she had kept that page from the newspaper for twenty years almost. That and the photo of her in her madness, brandishing her sweeping brush for a young reporter. Somebody had taicen away the wrong cutting after killing her, removing her present instead of her past by mistake. A mistake that hadn't much mattered as long as her death was reported as a suicide.
Anna Franci and crazy Clementina . . . He'd phoned Galli as soon as he'd got back from Santa Croce to ask for the page from the archives.
'I'll see to it for you. I know just where to lay my hands on it because I dug it out the night I wrote that first piece on her.'
The Marshal and the Madwoman Page 18
