The Italian Wife

by Kate Furnivall

  ‘Roberto,’ she whispered.

  She heard his laugh. In her head she heard his laugh, clear and enticing.

  ‘Roberto,’ she howled.

  He had dragged her out of the safe numb state that she had wrapped around herself like a shell, he had cracked it wide open and brought her gasping into his warm, sensitive and passionate world, but she had not been prepared for this version of love. For the craving in her body for him. For the violence of it. For the way it could stop her heart.

  Colonnello Sepe stood in the cell doorway, the heel of one black boot drumming on the floor. He had thrown open the metal door with such force that it slammed back against the wall, cracking a row of tiles. Isabella had the feeling that he had hoped to catch her behind it.

  ‘Signora Berotti, it has been decided that you can leave.’

  She stood her ground in the middle of the floor. ‘It has been decided by whom?’

  ‘That is not important.’

  ‘It is to me.’

  He stared down at the spray of vomit spread out in front of her and wrinkled his nose in disgust. The silver braid on his bicorn hat and the gaudy display of medals on his bird-like chest did not distract Isabella from an awareness of the anger in him. Whoever had made this decision, it certainly wasn’t him.

  Relief started small, just a trickle through her veins, but within seconds it was a torrent raging through her, deafening her ears.

  ‘Was it my father, Dr Cantini? she asked. ‘Was it his request for my release that —’

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘I knew he would not stand for your —’

  ‘Get out!’

  Isabella hesitated no longer. As she strode past him his sharp hawk’s nose thrust forward as if it could barely resist tearing strips of skin off her.

  Don’t limp. She raised her damaged hand and rested it on her chest, but it was her leg she was cursing. Don’t you dare limp.

  The van spilled Isabella on to the pavement outside the apartment block where she lived. She had been bundled like laundry into the black van waiting in the yard at the rear of the police station and then dumped with no explanation or even any attempt at politeness.

  She was surprised by the sky. It was a vast swath of lilac, shot through by vivid slashes of gold and an astonishing deep purple as the sun slid into the sea to the west of the plain. Isabella had no idea it was so late in the day. Her jailers had removed her watch and there was no window in the cell, so her only sense of time had been the one that existed in her head. As she walked into the courtyard of the apartment her elongated shadow hobbled ahead of her as though in a hurry to get indoors.

  When she unlocked the door she found the rooms silent and eerily lit by pools of misty lilac light from outside, but no lamps were on in the apartment.

  ‘Papa?’ she said softly.

  She didn’t shout. She could hear a distinct clicking sound and knew immediately what it was – a gramophone record had come to the end and was still turning. Quickly she hurried into the living room.

  ‘Papa?’ she said again.

  Her father was slumped with his head on the table. His spectacles had fallen off his nose and hung crookedly from one ear, and gripped in one hand was the photograph of his wife. Isabella hurried to his side and her fingers felt for his pulse, the way she’d seen him do a thousand times to his patients. His skin was warm, not ice cold. She touched his slack unshaven cheek and was greeted with a contented snore. She laughed. It burst from her in a loud rush of relief, as the tension she’d been holding so tight inside suddenly broke free, and she shook her father’s shoulder. He grunted, startled, and fought to open his eyes a slit.

  ‘Papa!’

  Clearly he’d been working at the hospital day and night as he struggled to put bones and body parts back together, but Isabella could not let him sleep now. She needed to thank him. Had to press her cheek to his, had to let him know how grateful she was for the fact that he must have begged Grassi on bended knee to release his daughter.

  ‘Grazie,’ she said simply.

  He blinked as he came back to life and pushed himself up on his elbows. His face was creased with exhaustion.

  ‘Isabella! Where on earth have you been? I’ve been worried. Don’t you know there’s a curfew?’

  ‘A curfew?’

  ‘Yes, no one’s allowed on the streets after dark.’ He put on his spectacles and inspected her with a frown. ‘You don’t look good. What have you been doing?’

  He didn’t know. Her father had been at the hospital for the last twenty-four hours and had no idea that his daughter had been in a prison cell. Quickly she poured him a drink and placed it in front of him without answering his question.

  ‘Papa, you must go to bed. You need sleep.’

  He reached for the wine.

  ‘How bad is it at the hospital?’ she asked.

  ‘Bad enough.’ He drank half the wine.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I thought you might have come back there today to help.’

  ‘I couldn’t, Papa. Not today.’

  Something in her voice gave her away. He pushed himself to his feet and examined her with a professional medical gaze. She saw it dawn on his weary brain that she was still in the same torn green dress as yesterday, but his gaze fixed on her swollen hand.

  ‘What happened, Isabella?’

  ‘I was arrested.’

  A groan escaped him, but that was all. He fetched his medical bag, sat her down and gently examined her hand, then bandaged it with quick efficient care.

  ‘Your forefinger is broken in two places,’ he announced. ‘Several of the metacarpals of your hand could be broken too. I suspect they are but it’s impossible to be certain without an X-ray because of the swelling.’ He gave her a couple of tablets for the pain.

  ‘Thank you, Papa.’

  His cheeks were a dangerous crimson but he didn’t raise his voice. ‘Who did this?’

  ‘I’m sure they’re arresting a lot of people. It was bound to happen.’ She gave him a tight smile. ‘I’m one of the lucky ones – I’ve been released.’

  ‘Did they arrest you because of Rosa?’

  ‘Partly. But you know what they’re like, Papa. They don’t need a reason.’

  Dr Cantini knocked back the last of his wine and gently folded his arms around his daughter, holding her tight. He smelled of medicines and blood and pain. Isabella knew he needed to come home to rest, not to find more pain waiting for him in a torn green dress. She kissed his rough cheek.

  ‘Papa, I am glad you are my father.’

  He blinked and pulled his head back to look at her with surprise. His blue eyes were embarrassed.

  ‘Good,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘Now go to bed.’

  She walked him to his bedroom door and he shook his head in despair. ‘If someone doesn’t fight back, there’s no hope for Italy. That pilot sacrificed himself and others yesterday, but if he’d succeeded… just think of it, Isabella. An Italy without Mussolini.’ With a deep sigh he kissed her forehead. ‘Take care of your hand. Buonanotte. Sleep well.’

  ‘Thank you, Papa. I’m all right.’

  As soon as his door closed, Isabella tore off her dress one-handed and pulled on a jumper and skirt. She snatched her coat from the hall and bolted out into the night under the last dregs of the lilac sky.

  The green door opened the moment she knocked. Had he been standing there? Hour after hour, waiting for her?

  Did he know she would come?

  Roberto drew her in and held her close without a word. Held her so close, it was as if he were trying to fuse her body to his, and all she could hear was the violent beating of his heart. She could feel his hand stroking her hair, pushing back its dark tangles from her face. She was acutely aware of the lightness of his touch, of the heaviness of his breath. All thought of everything else vanished into oblivion, and for a long time they stood there in the dimly lit hallway until, bit by bit, the world slowly came ba
ck to her. Fragile at first, but growing more solid with each breath she took.

  She lifted her head from his shoulder. ‘Thank you, Roberto,’ she whispered against his lips.

  Reluctantly his arms unwound and he stepped back to look at her. In the shadows it seemed as if his features had shifted, their lines altered in some indefinable way in the last eighteen hours, and she wondered whether hers had done the same.

  ‘What did they do to you?’ His voice was flat.

  ‘Nothing much. Asked some questions.’

  His eyes rested on the bandage on her hand. He said nothing but his mouth tightened and he examined her face intently, watching every flicker of an eyelid. She wanted to stretch her good hand across the short space and touch him again, but he walked over to the door and opened it a crack.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ he said. ‘Now I’ll drive you home quickly before it is totally dark. There’s a curfew.’

  Her heart was crashing around her chest, appalled by his dismissal of her.

  ‘No, Roberto.’

  He hugged her fiercely. Briefly. ‘We must be quick,’ he said and opened the door.

  ‘No, Roberto.’ She kicked the door shut. ‘I will stay.’

  The silent rage that he had been holding back suddenly flooded the hall, thickening the air, and she felt the full force of it.

  ‘You should not have to pay with your hand for —’ he started, but she placed her bandaged fingers over his lips.

  ‘Don’t, Roberto. My hand will heal. Forget these men.’

  ‘Look at you, Isabella. Look at what they’ve done to you.’ He was cradling her hand but staring at her face, not at the bandages.

  ‘They can’t hurt me, Roberto. Only you can hurt me.’

  He lifted her hand swaddled in the bandages to his lips and kissed it, as though saying goodbye.

  ‘I am staying,’ she stated.

  Immediately his strong arm encircled her waist and his eyes were full of the hunger she had been waiting for. ‘Say it again, Isabella.’

  ‘I am staying.’

  30

  Desire breathed through her lips. It seeped from her skin. It wove itself into the sounds that came out of her mouth, into the laughter and the moans and the strange unfamiliar whimpers of pleasure that she didn’t recognise as her own.

  The objects in the room vanished into a vague veiled world that held no meaning for her, because all that existed right now was this. Him and her. Roberto and Isabella. Everywhere he touched her he left a fingerprint on her skin, and everywhere her lips caressed him the taste of him unleashed something fierce inside her.

  When he led her upstairs she unfastened his shirt buttons with no thought but her need to touch him, to slide her hands over the broad muscles of his chest and feel the dense bristle of dark hairs and the strong unyielding cage of his ribs. He kissed her as though he would consume her. The breath tearing in and out of her throat was hot, as his hands drew her body tight against his, her breasts crushed to his naked chest. She was not prepared for the way parts of her seemed to leap into life, parts that had been numb and cold, untouched for so long.

  She had arched against him, her wounded hand propped on his shoulder, when she felt Roberto’s fingertips slide under her jumper. He found the delicate curves of her back and brushed softly over her skin until they were melting into each other, and a powerful ache for him almost blinded her mind to what was happening.

  ‘No, Roberto.’ She twisted away out of his arms. ‘Not my back.’

  ‘I won’t hurt it, I promise.’

  ‘No. It’s…’ She stopped.

  ‘It’s what?’

  When she didn’t answer, he moved closer again, towering over her, and for one fleeting second she remembered Luigi doing the same.

  ‘I know it’s scarred, Isabella.’

  ‘It’s…’ She took a breath and felt colour flood her cheeks. ‘It’s ugly.’

  ‘Nothing about you is ugly, Isabella. Now show me.’

  She froze.

  His gaze fixed on her face. She could see a pulse flickering at the base of his throat.

  ‘What is it, Isabella? Do you think I won’t understand, is that it? That a blemish in your creamy skin will repulse me and send me screaming down the stairs.’ He dragged a hand through her hair as if he would drag the idea out of her head if he could. ‘Do you think so little of me?’

  Isabella shook her head. Mute.

  ‘What then?’

  Her words were hard to push out. ‘The scars on my back are ugly, believe me, they are. But it’s the scars inside that I’m afraid you’ll see.’

  ‘Oh, Isabella, I won’t —’

  ‘Don’t.’ She pushed his hand away. ‘I changed after the shooting, Roberto. I fought my way back through operation after operation, then battled tooth and claw for a place at the university of Rome to study architecture. No one wanted me. Because I was a woman. But I wasn’t going to lie down and let them deny me it. I showed them what a woman can do.’

  A slow grin crept across his face. ‘I bet you did.’

  ‘But I had to protect myself, Roberto. I had to construct high walls. Not just in my buildings, but in myself. They are too deep. Chasms inside me. Irreparable. So I keep them hidden.’ She turned her head away. ‘If I allowed you to see them,’ she muttered in a low voice that was heavy with regret, ‘you would be behind my defence wall. I would be… exposed.’

  ‘Isabella, look at me.’

  At first, she refused. If she let her eyes feast on this man, she would not be able to look away. But he waited patiently, minute after minute, and finally she turned.

  He was smiling at her. She wanted him to stop.

  ‘Isabella, the first time I saw you, you had a blasted chicken stuck under your arm and an ancient vecchia clinging to you for dear life, almost toppling you over. All around there was noise and confusion and the greyness of uncertainty. Fear was stamped on everyone’s face. But you, with your chicken and your old woman and your smile, were like a shaft of sunlight on that station platform.’ He let his words drift across the space that divided them. ‘I loved you then, Isabella, and I love you now.’

  Slowly, deliberately, without hesitation, she lifted the hem of her sweater with her good hand and pulled it over her head.

  She didn’t know it would be like this. So – she struggled for a word that came close – so awakening.

  As if everything had been asleep. The nerves of her skin, the blood in her veins, the thoughts in her head. It was as though the old Isabella had been sleepwalking through her life. Suddenly she understood clearly why her father’s eyes had always looked at her with such concern and why he fussed over her as if she were still an invalid in need of help.

  She had been half dead and didn’t even know it.

  New sounds came from her. New whispers and sighs, new moans and cries. Strange undreamed-of tastes in her mouth, wild contortions of her heart. Roberto’s kisses and caresses breathed new life into her. She discovered a salty scent to him as if he were some powerful creature who had risen from the sea and she craved what she could smell under his skin. She found scars on him, marks that life had engraved on him, and she kissed them, as he kissed hers.

  She brushed her lips hungrily across his chest and downwards over his hard flat stomach, getting to know his body, each bone and muscle of it, her heartbeat thudding in her ears. An ache flared throughout her and she rubbed her skin against his in a pulsating rhythm, melting her flesh into his, moulding perfectly together.

  ‘Roberto.’

  She whispered his name. Greedily.

  His hand swept up her pale thigh, and his lips on her breast sent this new rapacious blood of hers coursing through her veins. Limbs entangled, fused to each other. And as she felt the weight of him on her, moving against her, and the strength of him inside her, her moans broke free and he kissed her mouth to devour them.

  When they both finally shuddered, gripping each other, they subsided with gasps together.
Roberto laid his head on her naked shoulder, his broad back glistening with sweat, and laced his fingers with hers, holding her close.

  ‘Isabella,’ he murmured into the hollow of her neck, his breath burning her skin, ‘don’t go to Rome.’

  She kissed his hair in place of an answer. She would sleep with Roberto’s arms around her and know that no dreams would dare come for her tonight.