by JH Fletcher
5
As she had hoped, the media made much of what she’d said. She received hundreds of phone calls, letters, telegrams.
Otto protested. ‘I’ll need help!’
‘So find yourself an assistant.’
She attended meetings with lawyers, accountants, authorities and experts of various kinds. She made it plain that she intended to take an active role, which displeased some. She told them she was going to Europe; when all the preliminary work had been done, she would be back. A week later she flew out to London, Paris, Rome. She used her name and reputation to gain access to the powerful. She talked and talked, she appeared on radio and television, she made as much noise as she could. She got offers of help from volunteers by the thousand; she set them to lobbying politicians, industry, all those who could have helped years ago and had not. And who might be shamed into doing something constructive at last.
It worked; by the time she drew breath, it was hard to believe there was anyone on the planet who hadn’t heard of Lucia Visconti and her new crusade. She took a break and went to Siena.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
A week after her arrival Lucia walked onto the terrace of her villa and sat down in an easy chair. She had spent the day on the telephone, first to Australia, then Cambodia, finally to Milan. She had spoken to more lawyers, accountants, politicians, to Ruth Ballard and Somaly. She had argued, pleaded, screamed and performed. She had made progress.
She had been so afraid that life after opera would hold no purpose. Now, weary at the day’s end, she knew that was the least of her worries. The flame of her ambition burned brighter than ever: that the children of the world should be neglected no longer, that governments should be compelled by the force of adverse publicity to discharge the duty of care they had neglected so long. As she had expected, some governments had taken the criticism personally, making it a matter of national pride to deny the existence of what everyone knew was a worldwide problem. She had been warned to mind her own business. It was so foolish, because it was her business. Italy and Australia owned her blood, yet did not define the limits of her being. She was truly international in the same way that music transcended boundaries and nations. The children sleeping on streets and under bridges, sold, starved, wounded by landmines and the abuses sanctioned by unacceptable custom, were her children. She would do everything she could to ensure that those who had never heard her name or voice would be brought out of darkness.
Only the other day she had heard a German politician, slavering for votes, promise that never again would a child be in want or terror. Scenting a new concern among the voters, he had been willing to use both children and terror as stepping stones to the power that was his true desire. Yet children were children, terror remained terrible and words unbacked by deeds availed nothing.
She watched the upwelling darkness. Now she could see the stars, the distant clusters of farmhouse lights. Music welled in her, not of her voice but of silence. It spread across the landscape. It inundated the invisible hills, it rose to the stars. It brought peace.
She had a million things to do but knew that in a day or two she would find the time to pay another visit to her mother. True to her promise, Helena had said she would be in Paris for the foundation’s official launch. Ruth was already there, getting things organised. Ruth, who had become the true friend she had sought so long. As for her mother, time had buried their differences. She pictured Helena fleeing across the landscape of an earlier war, fearful for her own life, yet mustering the will and energy to save the life of a child whom it would have been so much easier to abandon. It was a fine, courageous thing to have done, more truly representative of her mother’s indomitable spirit than her tawdry and catastrophic affair with Eduardo Grandini. Yet that, too, had been done to save not only herself but Lucia.
What were the words in one of Bach’s Passions? The abyss swallows us completely. What terrible words. The abyss swallows us … Not if she could help it. She had given the world something of the spirit, of joy and fulfilment. She had been called a legend, yet music, important though it was, would never be enough. She would add to it, not to create another legend but as a practical bequest to complement the joy. There was movement in the house behind her. She turned her head, smiling. Jacques came to join her. He had flown in today. For the first time in twenty-five years he sat beside her on the terrace of La Tranquilla.
He was sixty and had just retired from his job at the newspaper. He could have stayed on but had chosen not to; it allowed him more time to visit her, to stay for a week or a month or for ever, however things worked out. It gave him the chance to help with the campaign. At the airport she had told him: ‘This is a wonderful, very brave thing you have done.’
Because he had confessed that his pension was not the best.
‘I said you’d give me courage. So you have.’
She dismissed his nonsense. ‘The places you’ve been, the dangers you’ve faced … What courage do you possibly need from me?’
‘The courage to live and dream. Even better, to put the dreams into practice. This business with the children … Even to attempt it took such courage. And you will succeed. I know it.’
She stretched out her hand to him.
‘Then we shall have succeeded together. We shall bring light into darkness. We, who have never had children of our own, shall do what we have to do to save all children.’
Gently he smoothed her fingers.
‘And in doing so,’ he said, ‘perhaps we shall save ourselves.’
She stood. Slowly she walked indoors. About her the house breathed quietly. It, too, was at peace. She switched on the lights and went to the record cabinet. She selected the LP she wanted and loaded it into the machine. She turned off the light again, went and put her arms around Jacques. The soprano voice, rich and glorious, filled the darkness. It was not herself but Teresa Sciotto. She could not visit her — Teresa had died a year ago — but, living or dead, it was time for that enmity, too, to be laid to rest. So much jealousy and misunderstanding. So much pain.
in dem wogenden Schwall
in dem tönenden Schall
in des Welt-Atems
wehendem all —
in the heaving swell,
in the resounding echoes
in the universal stream
of the world — breath —
Isolde’s death song filled the house. It spread across the firefly-lit hills, reaching outwards and upwards until earth and sky seemed to resonate with its serenity. At peace in her house nestled in the Siena countryside, Lucia Visconti stood with her head on the shoulder of her true love, her being cradled by memories of the past, the manifold promises of the future, while tears of both fulfilment and hope shone upon her cheeks.
About JH Fletcher
JH Fletcher is the author of eight romantic historical novels, published to both critical and popular acclaim. The author's plays for radio and television have been produced by the BBC and the South African Broadcasting Corporation, and many of this author's stories have been published in Australia and throughout the world.
JH Fletcher was educated in the UK and travelled and worked in France, Asia and Africa before emigrating to Australia in 1991. Home is now a house within sound of the sea in a small town on the South Australian coast.
Also by JH Fletcher
View from the Beach
Keepers of the House
Wings of the Storm
Fire in Summer
Sun in Splendour
The Cloud Forest
Eagle on the Hill
First published by HarperCollins Publishers Pty Ltd in 2005
This edition published in 2013 by Momentum
Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
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Copyright © JH Fletcher 2005
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Voice of Destiny
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