Behind a closed door, Alexei thought he heard the murmur of girlish voices. He paused. And then, just as he had lost all hope of seeing her, the door opened a fraction and from shadowy depths he felt those eyes blazing at him once more.
When Enrico didn’t engage him in forays around the island, Alexei took to strolling slowly in front of the Bagheri house or along that stretch of orchard where the two families’ properties adjoined. He didn’t know quite what drove him to it, but whatever it was, it was strong enough to withstand Enrico’s teasing.
One sultry afternoon after siesta, he was rewarded by the sight of the three girls sitting at a short distance in the cool of the olive grove. They were embroidering, their hands and voices lively over the chatter of the cicadas. One of them turned at the rustle of his footsteps. Alexei lost as to a form of greeting after his long wait, simply nodded and walked on. There was silence from the girls and then a rush of giggling. He perched himself a little higher up the slope where he could see them quite clearly, if not in detail, and listened. Their talk wafted over to him with the fluttering of the sea breeze. From what he could hear he was certain they couldn’t see him. He felt like a spy. But he kept his ground.
They were talking about Giulia’s forthcoming wedding. How many pillows and sheets there still were to embroider, the guests who would come to the party. And then one of them asked, he wasn’t sure which, ‘And do you think old Novellone can still do it? He’s almost as ancient as Papa.’ A spatter of giggling. Alexei flushed. He heard the tones of a reprimand, from Giulia, he imagined, and then another giggle. ‘He’s probably all shrivelled, a prune. You’ll have to dance for him, like Susannah before the elders.’
He was certain, though he had never heard it, that the voice was Francesca’s. The words startled him. So girls, too, proper girls, thought about these things. A kaleidoscope of possibilities invaded him. He lay back, closed his eyes, saw Francesca’s sleek head bent demurely in prayer, the hot flash of her look. He felt himself stirring.
‘Ale-e-e-xei,’ Enrico’s call brought him back. He stumbled up, sensed with a tinge of shame the girls’ startled looks, rushed towards his friend.
‘We’re off to Palermo for the evening. Have you forgotten?’
‘No, no, just dozing,’ Alexei mumbled. ‘It’s the heat.’
Enrico looked at him a little skeptically.
The next day the girls were there again. This time, it was Francesca who sat facing the Mazzocchi property. He recognized the classical modelling of her face instantly, the secret heat of those hooded eyes as they rested on him for a moment, before again returning to their work. Today he made his way unobtrusively, silently, to a slightly different spot above the girls. He didn’t know what it was that imposed his stealth, but he knew he didn’t want to be noticed by the others. He sat resting on the twisted grey bark of an olive tree and watched the picture the girls made in the distance. The breeze today had changed direction and he could only hear the indistinct murmur of their voices. To his right, a little further up the hill on Bagheri’s land, a tethered goat rhythmically munched at strands of straw, wisps of herb..
Suddenly, he saw Francesca rise and saunter up the hill. Nervously, he watched the slow movement of her hips in the full skirt. She seemed to be coming directly towards him. He sat transfixed, not daring to move. Could she see him? When she was almost abreast of him, she reached into her pocket and with a casual gesture threw something over the tumbling rock terrace which divided the two properties. Then without raising her eyes, she carried on up the hill, her pace unbroken, towards the goat. From her pocket, she now brought a clothful of potato peels and apple cores and laid them on the ground.
Alexei didn’t dare to breathe. He still didn’t know whether she had seen him. It was only when she had completed her meandering trajectory and rejoined her sisters that his eyes chanced on the object which she had thrown over the terrace. A stone, odd in its whiteness. Alexei picked it up. Paper. Paper wrapped around the stone. His heart leapt. He uncurled it carefully. A message in miniscule writing. ‘Tonight at midnight, in the goat shed.’
He wanted to jump up and shout his glee. It was so unexpected. So unbelievable. He would be able to talk to her, to see her, perhaps, his throat caught, even to touch her.
Well before the appointed hour, Alexei slipped out of the Villa and trod as softly as he could over uneven ground to the meeting place. An ocean of stars lit his way and illumined the small shack which stood just a short distance over the terrace on Bagheri’s land. He perched on the dry earth and waited, imagining Francesca’s trajectory. She must, nervously now, be making certain that her sisters were asleep, slowly creeping down creaking stairs, carefully, silently, unbolting a door, then racing, racing towards him. He imagined her light-footed tread, the nimble motion of her body, the warm flush of her skin, her full reddened lips. Excitement suffused him. He waited.
He waited well past the appointed hour. As the air grew chill, he began to worry. Worry that she had been found out. That old Bagheri had caught her, punished her. That her elder sister had stopped her, talked her out of coming. Then his worry took on a tinge of suspicion, of anger. Perhaps it had all been a hoax. Perhaps she had never intended to come. Perhaps her sisters had put her up to it, to make fun of the alien. A gnawing disappointment succeeded the anger. She wasn’t interested in him. He had misinterpreted her look, misread the meaning in those eyes. The message might even have been for someone else. She had a secret beau. He had stumbled on the place where they left each other messages. His imagination ran riot. He envisaged her delicate body in another’s arms, her secret eyes warm in adoration on another’s face. He grew hot despite the chill of the night.
In that eternity of waiting, Alexei ran through a whole gamut of emotions he had never before experienced. They made up the primary repertoire of the man in love.
By the time the first chirrups of the dawn chorus had begun, his longing for Francesca had taken up the whole of his being. He wondered about her, wondered whether a girl like that, a girl who prayed in church, a girl whose family Signora Mazzocchi visited, might let him kiss her. He wondered what her father had meant by a vocation. Wondered about the note which nestled secretly in his pocket.
It was the first time that a woman had invaded the entirety of his imagination. He was no longer himself. He cursed the day’s plans which would take him with Enrico to Gela. He wanted only to see Francesca, to force her gaze to rest on him if only for a moment, to clasp her in his arms.
All that day’s sights and journeyings passed him by in a haze. The only palpable event was his waiting. He had already determined that he would return to the appointed spot that evening. Like a pendulum, his mood rhythmically moved from hopeful anticipation to despair.
That night a sliver of a moon dulled the stars, but lit the hump of the hills and cast a shadowy glow over the olive grove. Alexei took up his vigil at the side of the shed. He had promised himself he would only stay here an hour. More would be demeaning.
He didn’t have long to wait. A few moments past midnight she was there, a slight figure in a white shift weaving swiftly through the trees. Trapped in the weight of his imaginings, Alexei didn’t have words with which to greet her. He stared, trembling slightly, at the proximity of that profile which had haunted him, at the shadows her thick lashes cast on the purity of her cheeks.
Suddenly she looked straight up at him, ‘I’m glad you’ve come. I couldn’t make it last night,’ she said shyly, softly.
Joy rushed through him. He took her hand, so small in his, and led her behind the shed, where it seemed to him they were sheltered from the houses.
‘My name is Alexei,’ he said at last, unable to think of anything else.
‘I know,’ she smiled, showing tiny white teeth against the redness of her lips. ‘I’m Francesca.’
‘I know. Francesca.’ He tried the name for the first time on his lips, felt its weight. ‘Francesca,’ he repeated. He felt the pressure of her fin
gers and there seemed nothing else for him to do but to kiss those slightly parted lips. She smelled of orange blossom and wild thyme and as she pressed close to him, he was ashamed of the sudden surge of his body. Her lips were so innocent, so tentative, not like the women he had kissed before, been with. He wanted to protect her from himself. He let her go.
But she stayed close to him. Her fingers fluttered through his hair. ‘I saw you in church. You know, don’t you. I thought you looked like the picture of our Lord in the Cappella Palatina. I told my sister, Theresa,’ she said softly. Her words, coupled with the reverence in her eyes and the sensation of her touch confused him. He gazed at her, still not quite believing she was there.
‘I have to go now. They might find me out,’ she drew away from him.
‘No, please, not yet,’ he caught her hand, pulled her to him, kissed her passionately now in anticipation of her absence. When he let her go, she flitted down the path.
‘Will you come tomorrow?,’ he whispered after her breathlessly.
‘Perhaps. I’ll try,’ she threw him a dark look from brooding eyes.
Alexei leaned heavily against the shed and watched her fleeting form. He didn’t move for a long time.
The next night took a decade to arrive. Alexei went through the gestures of conversation, the forms of enthusiasm for what he saw in Messina, but at every turn, Francesca invaded his thoughts. Enrico cast strange glances at him, but Alexei pretended not to notice.
It was Saturday. There were guests at the Villa and they took an eternity to depart. It had gone midnight before he was able to slip away. He rushed, a little recklessly to the appointed spot. She was already there.
‘I thought you might not be coming,’ she pouted at him, her eyes downcast.
‘I couldn’t get away sooner. I’ve thought of nothing but you all day,’ he looked at her wonderingly, not quite sure of her reality, that raven head which glowed in the moonlight, the pallor of her upturned face. He touched the shoulder which the shift left bare. So slight, so delicate.
She shivered, moved into the circle of his arms, gave him her lips. He was suddenly aware of the surprising fullness of the breasts pressed against him. Hesitantly he touched their curve. She took his hands and cupped them round that firm heaviness.
‘A perfect fit,’ her laugh trilled softly. Shining eyes darted at him. ‘Much better than my own.’
A train of imaginings rushed through him, making his loins bound. Her small fluttering hands on her own body, secret, alone, in the dark of night. Exploring. The pleasure of it. And then that face raised in innocent adoration. He drowned the images in the moisture of her mouth. She moaned, drew away, laughed.
‘Let me see it,’ she challenged him. ‘Let me. I’ve never seen one. A big one. A real one. Is it like a snake?’
Her words with their mixture of childish curiosity and longing startled him. He felt shy, but her fingers encouraged him.
‘Oh,’ she looked at his erect penis doubtfully. ‘No, that would never fit.’ She touched it tentatively.
Alexei drew in his breath, turned away from her.
‘Have I hurt you?’ her voice was all remorse. She wrapped her arms round him, buried her face in his back, snuggling against him. ‘I’ll let you touch me. I have a little snake too. He dances.’
He kissed her fiercely to cover words which made him dizzy. Her eyes wide, serious on his face she brought his hand to her mound. It was hot, so hot between her thighs. He rubbed that prickly softness, groaned. With a little cry she leapt away.
‘It’s Sunday. It’s not right.’ She shook her head so that her hair tumbled heavily over her face. From its midst, she frowned. ‘I must go,’ she said, but she lingered for a moment and he stepped towards her. ‘No,’ she avoided his arms, scrambled down the hill. Then, coltishly, she looked back at him, giggled. ‘But I won’t tell Father Paolo. No, that I won’t.’
The next day he set out for church, before Signora Mazzocchi and the new house guests, and with an alacrity which mystified Enrico.
‘Is this a case of a Sicilian conversion?’ his friend asked him wryly, as he matched his pace to Alexei’s rapid one.
Alexei shrugged, not trusting the reasons he might find.
The row they had sat in the previous week was already full and there was no sign of Francesca or her sisters. In his desperation to find her, Alexei moved against the flow of people, accidentally jostled against old Bagheri. The sisters were behind him.
‘Scusi, scusi, Signor,’ Alexei mumbled, hoping that his face didn’t show his embarrassment.
The man grunted.
Alexei scuttled into the first place he could find. Enrico, amusement tugging at his dimple was right behind him. ‘So now I know what brings you to church. Remember, I warned you. Watch your eyes,’ he murmured to Alexei.
Alexei paid no heed. He waited for a repetition of that look from Francesca. It never came. Her devotions as she knelt and prayed and intoned the mass seemed absolute. Not even, when it was over and Alexei lingered in the line of her gaze, did her eyes rest on him with a glimmer of recognition. He was distraught. He began to think that he had imagined those heated kisses of the previous night. He even went out of his way in the crowded square to pay his respects to Signor Bagheri, exchange a few words with him. But the girls, immersed in their own conversations, paid no attention to him.
Nor did Francesca appear at their midnight rendezvous or in the olive grove at all over the next few days. Alexei was beside himself. He almost turned to Enrico for advice, but he couldn’t find the words with which to do it.
On Wednesday evening, while he was changing for dinner, the maid came to Alexei and said Signora Mazzocchi would like to see him in her own sitting room for a few moments. He was taken aback by the unusual request, but he made haste and within minutes, he was knocking at her door.
She was arranging flowers in a bright ceramic bowl and she gestured him casually towards a cane chair.
‘Are you enjoying your stay here, Alexei?’ she asked as she clipped an inch of stem from a perfect crimson rose.
‘Very much, thank you,’ Alexei murmured.
Hazel eyes met his and studied him. ‘I had a visit from the Priest today, Father Paolo.’
Alexei grew warm at the mention of the name he had recently heard on other lips. ‘Oh yes,’ he mumbled, played with the button of his shirt. ‘I haven’t met him yet.’
Signora Mazzocchi left her flowers and perched on the table closer to him. ‘He told me you had been seeing the youngest Bagheri girl?’ It was a question which asked for confirmation.
Alexei shrugged uncomfortably, nodded.
Signora Mazzocchi tried a half smile and gazed at the youth. He was beautiful, she decided then, though it was not a word she usually applied to men. It was something to do with the serious set of those lips, the expression of those deep eyes. He would be capable of great passion some day. But not yet. She continued with her task, a delicate one.
‘You know in Sicily girls do not see young men unchaperoned. And even then… Francesca’s family is an honourable one.’
Alexei squirmed, said nothing.
‘I do not think your father would approve of your marrying or even being engaged so young,’ she plunged on.
Alexei leapt up. Those words, so formal, so definitive, belonged to another world. They had nothing to do with Francesca. With him. With what they felt.
‘I know. I know what you’re thinking,’ Signora Mazzocchi looked on him kindly. ‘In any event, Father Paolo confirmed old Bagheri’s hint that Francesca has a vocation. He doesn’t want her deflected from it by the chance appearance of a young man from the decadent North.’
‘What’s it to do with him? With them?’ Alexei’s growing anger crept into his voice.
‘Everything,’ Signora Mazzocchi laughed lightly. ‘Young girls are hardly free to make their own choices here. Or in Milan for that matter. Francesca is only eighteen.’
Alexei turned away from her,
but her voice stopped him on his way to the door. ‘Alexei I suggest you do not try to see Francesca again.’ It was said casually, but Alexei heard the sternness of the warning. Signora Mazzocchi put a hand on his arm, made him turn to her. ‘This weekend there is the Festa, that will take your mind off things. And then, soon after that, we go. You understand what I am saying.’
Alexei nodded. Not trusting his voice, he moved swiftly from the room. It wasn’t fair, he raged inwardly. Wasn’t right. He was being treated like a criminal. He had visions of Francesca being forcibly constrained. Kept from him. He rushed out of the house. Without thinking where he was going, he strode towards the olive grove.
They had done nothing wrong. Nothing that called for this form of adult intervention. He justified himself. Exonerated the two of them.
And yet Francesca must have spoken to the priest. Confessed to him. He remembered her promise not to tell Father Paolo. And yet she had. He must have wrung it out of her. She hadn’t met his eyes at church that Sunday. Hadn’t come to their rendezvous. He recalled for the hundredth time the details of their last meeting. She had been as eager as he was. He hadn’t forced her to anything. He didn’t understand. He must speak to her, see her.
Alexei found himself by the little hut which marked the site of their love. The goat was still tethered there tonight, its jaws engaged in endless motion. If only Francesca would come. Alexei threw himself down on the earth, breathed in its fragrance. Wild thyme, like Francesca. How could he reach her? Get past her father? Each scheme that presented itself to him, as he lay there, took on a note of added desperation.
His eyes fell again on the goat. It was nuzzling something white on the ground. A cloth. His mind raced. The cloth Francesca had brought the goat tidbits in. Could it be hers? Would she come to fetch it again? Could he leave her a note in it? If someone else found it, it would compromise her. But he had to take the chance. He located a smooth round stone, thought of a message which could be construed in a variety of ways, inscribed it on a small leaf he tore from his notebook, wrapped it round the stone, and placed that on the cloth.
Memory and Desire Page 47
