We sat down and the waiter came over and flapped our napkins in the air before spreading them over our laps. They were so starched and clean they cracked like whips, and the waiter smiled with satisfaction.
‘Allora,’ he said, rubbing his hands together, ‘freezing outside, eh? What will you two ragazzi have to warm you up?’
I let Angelica order for me, and I poured our mineral water from the fat carafe on the table.
Our spaghetti came almost immediately and it was delicious. The rich red sauce was thick and spicy, and I realised how hungry I was. After a few mouthfuls I said, ‘You know, there’s nowhere I’d rather be in the world than right here,’ and then I thought how rarely I’d felt that. I was always wishing I was somewhere else, that I was someone else, that tomorrow would come now, and be different. But I wouldn’t have changed anything that moment, not even my skinny legs (or hers).
I wanted to do something to celebrate and as I looked into my plate, I imagined each strand of spaghetti waking up and curling around my fork. I concentrated, lifting each buttery bit with my mind, back and forth and back and forth, and the more I did it the easier it became. It was like finding a rhythm that I’d always heard tapping away in the back of my head, and I hauled it up to full blast and my fork was loaded with live spaghetti curling like little worms around the prongs.
‘Go on, let’s see if you can eat them!’ laughed Angelica, and she sat back and clapped her hands. ‘That’s pretty good for a beginner. Now watch this.’
She stared at the carafe of water and I saw her eyes growing big and luminous until the bubbles of water seemed to be reflecting in her pupils. And then, in the belly of the carafe, a golden shadow was hardening in the centre. It grew fins and a tail and then a tiny goldfish like a drop of sunlight was swimming in the water.
‘That’s wonderful,’ I cried. ‘How did you do it?’ Angelica shrugged and smiled and I said, ‘Oh there’s so much to learn! How will I learn it all? I don’t know what I can do yet, everyone’s been so busy trying to stop me before I even begin. There ought to be a school for witches!’
Angelica pushed back her plate and said, ‘Oh no, I think it’s much more personal than that. The power comes from deep inside us, it’s connected to our earliest memories. No school could teach you who you really are – there are techniques, tricks, but that’s just surface magicking, and it’s blind. Blind as Nonno.’
She grinned and tapped the glass of the carafe. The fish began to fade, slowly, like the sun disappearing behind a cloud, and then it was gone. Angelica poured some water into her glass, and drank.
‘When you know yourself,’ she said, ‘when you remember who you really are, you can see the outside world more sharply. And your imagination grows. Take that fish, for instance. You know what it’s like to be immersed in water, way back in your mother’s womb. You feel the wetness gliding over your skin, breathing water in and out through your gills. You imagine yourself as the fish, at home in the water, your skin wet and smooth, your eyes knowing the dark.’ Angelica’s eyes were shining.
‘You can do that, remember back that far, imagine things so clearly?’
‘Some things, yes. I’ve had to.’ She looked down at her napkin, folding it and refolding it over the edge of the table. ‘I’ve had to use my imagination, really use it, to understand how my mother let her baby daughter go.’
I didn’t need to look at Angelica’s face to know how she felt. The sadness seeped out of her, like the cold in the church, invisible but heavy, and it bled into my own skin until I didn’t know which was my sadness and which was hers.
We sat for a while in silence and drank our coffee when the waiter brought it. There was nothing I wanted to say, nothing that seemed worthy, really. So we both just sat on, connected like fish in the same pond, with our feelings moving like water in and out of our bodies. I thought about the science lesson we’d had this term, where we’d learnt about fluids, how they can diffuse through a membrane until there is equal concentration on either side. Osmosis. There seemed nothing more than a membrane separating us now.
‘Do you think, Angelica, that your memories could sort of diffuse into me?’
‘No,’ said Angelica. ‘That is your job. Only you can do it.’
‘You know, for the first time I’ve really felt that I’m waking up, ever since the Indian lady, and the fire.’ I was trying to explain, but it wasn’t easy. ‘I don’t know, it’s as if all my childhood was a dream that I’ve forgotten. Why can’t I remember?’
Angelica nodded and laced her fingers for a moment in mine. But she didn’t say anything, she just looked at me as if I already knew the answer.
‘It’s as if I’ve got this tremendous block, as if a part of my brain is knocked out cold, and still sleeping while the rest of me is jumping around.’
‘We’ve been separated a long time,’ Angelica said softly. ‘It’s going to take a while. The only thing is, I don’t know how much time we’ve got.’
She hesitated, drawing in her breath, and then she said in a rush, ‘We are connected, Roberto, and together our power is greater than the power either of us has, alone. That’s the way it works with twins. We need each other to grow, and you have to remember for me as well as for you.’ More slowly, then, she said, ‘You have to remember for Lucrezia, too, and for all of us. Because we’re going to need our power, if I’m right about the way things are heading.’
The waiter came over then and put our bill on the table. Nonna once said it’s a maddening fact that no matter where you are in the world, waiters always come at the wrong time. I saw it was growing dark outside. Angelica took her coat from the back of the chair and began putting it on.
‘We’d better be going,’ she said, ‘if we’re to be in time for dinner.’
I began to protest and she said, ‘We’ll talk on the bus. Come on.’
If I’d had an inkling that afternoon of what I know now, I might never have asked another question of Angelica. It’s hard to know how much courage you have before you really need it.
chapter 8
LUCREZIA 1967, Winter in Limone
In the end it was me who had to bury the old lady. Minna died the same day. I think she had only been waiting for her mistress. The old lady had told me a long time ago about a sister she’d had, but I couldn’t find her address and it didn’t seem as if there were any other living relatives. She never had any children.
I hope her heart didn’t fail because of that snake she found in the bread box. She’d fainted, and I’d put her to bed before I went to work. Still, she’d seemed all right when I got home that night and she’d sniped at me in her usual way when I overcooked the pasta.
It was such an effort going to the funeral parlour and talking to people and meeting undertakers. I hardly see anybody these days.
I found her one morning lying all neat like a very old doll under the bedclothes. Her mouth was open but her eyes were shut. She was so pale, I can’t forget how pale she was. You could really see how life had just left her, just blown away like the end of a day, leaving the dry old shell.
It was terrible, the silence of her death. No one crying, or talking or reminiscing. I suppose that was partly my fault – after the funeral I couldn’t face anyone in the village of Limone. Not just yet.
When I found her will, I felt sad for the first time. She had left the house to me, and all her savings. She’d never asked me any questions, but she’d known me, I realise now, known that we were both alike. Two cats in the gutter.
I buried Minna near the chestnut tree. On the other side from the little box, with the ring. I saw the roots of the trees spreading out deep in the earth, touching Minna, touching the ring. The roots would wind around them both with time, hugging them, and next spring the chestnuts would bud again. Holding life and death in their small brown faces.
The night she died I started a portrait of her. I paint quite often now. It’s strange, but the more I learn about my power, the better my painting is. I paint my dreams,
and as I paint the shapes and colours move again as if I’m still asleep. But like the magic, the paintings stay buried here with me in this cold stone house.
I don’t notice the cold much any more. I hardly need to collect wood for the fire. Sometimes I imagine my insides iced over like the tap outside in the garden, white and slippery and hard. Maybe I’ll paint them that way.
chapter 9
ROBERTO
It was the hour of the passeggiata, where people stroll the streets and window shop, but I hardly noticed anyone as we walked. The air was dense with cold, and it began to numb all the teeming thoughts in my head. As we rushed toward the bus, away from San Gimignano and its towers, my ears began to ache and soon all I could think of was getting inside the bus and feeling warm again.
I found a seat near the back and Angelica huddled next to me, her teeth chattering. Dusk, with the sun setting over the hills, was surely the chilliest time of the day.
‘So,’ I said when the bus started up and our faces had thawed, ‘you were saying? You can’t run away now. We have an hour and a half together and we’re sharing a very small bus seat. Will you tell me what Lucrezia has to do with us and our power?’
Angelica took a deep breath. ‘Don’t you feel this cold?’
I exploded. ‘Now we’re going to talk about the weather. The things people do to change the subject!’
‘No,’ said Angelica quietly. ‘If you listen you will see the connection. This cold, these freezing temperatures aren’t normal, Roberto.’
‘I know,’ I said impatiently, ‘Nonna’s told me all that. It’s a terrible year, the worst in history etc etc. It’s all anyone talks about.’
‘This is the worst winter ever in Italy,’ Angelica went on grimly. ‘Almost every day scientists come up with a new theory, about localised pressures and mini ice ages, but no one really understands what is happening. And if this cold continues, people will die.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘That is awful, and I wish I could do something to help, but really, what has this got to do with us?’
Angelica plugged on, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘If the cold continues, people will die, from the cold, from hunger, from lack of light.’
‘Soon it will be spring again, Angelica. No one can die from lack of sunlight in three months, except maybe for a few surfers I know.’
‘I don’t think spring is going to come this year.’ Angelica looked into my eyes. ‘Not to this part of the world.’
The way she was looking at me made me feel more chilled than I was already. I felt I was being drawn into some icy net of mystery, and it was spreading, beyond the family, into the world. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be entangled.
‘The cold began the day I heard you were coming to Italy.’ Angelica paused. I could feel a weight in her, and it scared me. ‘And that’s when the visits began, too.’
‘What visits? Who from?’
‘Lucrezia.’ Angelica’s face had grown so serious, she looked about ten years older.
‘Now you tell me,’ I burst out. ‘Where is she? Can we ring her?’
I was relieved to see Angelica smile. But what she said next made the uneasiness I felt before balloon into fear.
‘I don’t know where Lucrezia lives, but I’m sure she’s still alive. Lucrezia has been visiting me in my mind, Roberto, in my dreams.’
‘You mean she’s been . . . haunting you?’ I said slowly.
‘In a way. In the beginning she showed me scenes from her girlhood. From when she was quite young.’
‘How do you mean, “showed” you?’
‘Well, I was in my room, at my easel, and in the far corner of the painting I was finishing, at the end of the road, a girl appeared. She began doing tricks, making frogs jump out of this chocolate box. I just stood there and watched. It was like one of those video games where every time you push a button, the scene changes. Only I didn’t have to push a button. The painting just kept changing.
‘A boy appeared next on the road, and the girl ran to meet him, her arms outstretched. But then a man – could it have been Nonno? – came between them. He grabbed the girl and shut her up in a tower and he chased the boy away. And then there was just the girl on the road, standing alone. She was watching a burning house, and she was crying. She looked so small on that big road, with the flames lighting her face.’
Angelica seemed far away as she spoke, as if she were in another world. ‘Nearly every night,’ she drew another deep breath and went on, ‘until you arrived, I’ve dreamt of that painting. And in each dream the girl came closer along the road, until one night I could see her face.’
I felt a leap of fear. ‘Did she have black hair, and –’
Angelica nodded. ‘And her left eye was fringed in the corner with white lashes. Just like . . . her.’
I was quiet for a moment, and in my mind I saw again the old lady with the chestnuts, and the tramp. Somehow I didn’t want to tell Angelica about them, I didn’t want to have a part in this story anymore. But she was waiting, as if she knew.
So I told her about that day in Rome, about the church and the fire and the old lady, and the tramp.
Angelica sighed. ‘She’s been trying to contact you too. I knew it. She can feel your power and it’s stirring her own. But those old women you saw were only illusions she created, I think. She used them like signposts. She’s playing a game with us, Roberto. She’s getting closer and I don’t know what will happen. Ho paura davvero – I’m scared.’
The bus stopped then and a group of school kids came on, laughing and pushing. We had to move up and rearrange ourselves and for a moment I wished I was with those other kids, with nothing more to think about than the next game. A harmless game.
But the questions wouldn’t stop. I had to know.
‘What happened in the last dream you had?’
‘The girl changed into an older woman. There were mountains behind the road, and it was snowing. The sun went down behind the mountains and the painting grew darker and darker, the colours all merging into a greyish black. When I touched the painting, it was as cold as ice.’
I looked out of the window and saw stars pricking the sky above the hills. A boy pulled the window down a little, letting in a gust of freezing air. A reminder, like a sinister chorus in a song. It was always there outside, waiting. The cold.
‘She was telling me something, Roberto.’ Angelica shut her eyes, reliving it. ‘She’s telling me about the cold. Lucrezia is weaving a spell.’
‘What do you mean?’ I burst out. ‘That she is responsible for the cold? For all the tonnes of snow and ice and dark afternoons? But that’s ridiculous, it’s impossible! You’re off your head!’
Angelica was silent. ‘You sound just like Nonno. Open your mind, Roberto. Lucrezia’s power is strong, she’s been working at her magic all these years. It’s probably the only thing in her life. And she must be angry, so terribly, icily angry. Her magic is freezing us all.’
The bus was pulling into the terminal and in a rush Angelica said, ‘Think, Roberto. Think about Lucrezia and how Nonno separated her from the boy she loved. She never saw him again, never loved anyone again. Think how we were separated all these years. Think how it changed our world. Can’t you imagine the rage, eating away at you every day of your life? Thinking how things might have been?’
I had a sudden picture of the Indian lady and an alarm rang in my mind, insistent and frightening. But I didn’t want to think about it, I didn’t want to, and my brain felt numb.
‘Think, Roberto,’ Angelica said urgently. ‘You must try to remember how it was when we were little, together. Then you will feel the pain of what we’ve lost.’
‘Oh great, Angelica. Now you want to ruin my life! Why should I go looking for pain? Why should I? You must be mad!’
Angelica stood up and pulled me towards her as the people filed off the bus. She touched the dimple in my chin, gently.
‘Because only then will you understand yourself. And
only then will you know Lucrezia. You need that knowledge, Roberto, to build your power. And that’s the only way we will have enough power, together, to fight her.’
When we arrived home Nonna was serving up the pasta. She and Nonno pelted us with questions about our day, and Angelica answered them cheerfully, as if we’d just been on a normal little sightseeing tour.
I sat there marvelling at her. It was amazing how she could serve up little pieces of reality, like selecting dishes from a menu, and she recited just the right tidbits for the occasion.
I saw Nonno looking at me, and I tried to smile and get in on the conversation. But all the time I was trying to see him. Who he really was. He had this silk dressing gown on and matching slippers, and his face was all shiny and scrubbed. His moustache bobbed as he spoke, and he was rubbing his hands together, looking at our faces so eagerly, as if we were telling him the answer to the riddle of the universe. He was so damned eager to please.
How could he, this elderly kind-looking man, be the devil of the family? Did Lucrezia really hate him so much? Did she hate us so much? Somehow it got back to history again, and I started thinking how so often in books we only get to see the one side of things. As far as I could make out, Nonno had made a dreadful mess of things, but did that mean that everyone in the family had to go on making more mistakes?
Near the end of the meal Nonno turned to me and said, ‘There’s a letter for you, Roberto. From your mother.’
Great timing, I thought. That’s all I need. I just wanted to sit in front of the fire and be a vegetable.
But everyone was watching me as if this were the match of the season and I was the star player, so I took the letter and opened it.
Dear Roberto,
How are you? Are you eating well? (Typical). I miss you so much I’m watching all your favourite TV programs. (Holy Moly, is this my mother?) Dad can’t stand them so he has hidden the remote control, he says I’m not to be trusted. (That’s the understatement of the year!)
By now you will have met your twin sister. Oh, what can I say? Angelica. It is so strange to write that name, to you. Even though I know the shock you must have felt, I can’t help enjoying the picture I have of you two sitting there together. Where you belong.
Power to Burn Page 8
