“No, wait, Mommy: I invited Vale to come with us.”
“You invited Vale? To come where? Sunday’s a holiday, and we’re leaving tonight to go and stay three days with Grandma.”
“In fact I told her that if she stays the night with us tonight and part of tomorrow, we’ll take her to Gravedona ourselves.”
“Gravedona?”
“That’s where her grandparents live.”
“Naturally. Couldn’t you have told me this before? Just to let me know? Is her mother okay with this, at least?”
“Of course. We called her and she said it was okay with her if it was okay with you. Could we lend Vale some of my pajamas?”
“So you’re not coming with me to Tata Lucia’s tonight?”
“But Tata Lucia’s such a bore, Mommy! She always asks me the same things: How old are you? What grade are you in? How’s your grandma doing? Anyway, she’s so deaf she won’t even notice.”
“She may be deaf, but she can see just fine, and she’ll be sorry not to see you. Anyway, I think she has a present for you.”
“No problem, Mommy. She can give it to you to give to me. All right?”
Stefania started laughing.
“Okay, okay. Just be sure the two of you are ready by five. We’ll be leaving right away, because there’ll be traffic.”
“Bye, Mommy.”
Stefania looked at her watch: it was almost two thirty. At three there would be the annual office party at the commissioner’s, as usual a few days before the actual holiday. She had barely enough time to change into her uniform.
“Marino!” she called over the internal line. “Come upstairs for a minute, would you? I want to give you something, and I need somebody to make the knot in my tie.”
The cell phone rang again. GIULIO ALLEVI, read the display.
“Hi, Giulio. Of course I’m coming. As if I had the option to turn down the invitation. Okay, you can tell me everything later. No, I’m not in a bad mood. Maybe it’s because of the hors d’oeuvres. You know I can’t stand them.”
The lobby was mobbed. After meting out handshakes and smiles, she’d almost made it to the other end of the hall, where she could nonchalantly position herself right next to the emergency exit. By now she was familiar with the ceremony and knew well that once the commissioner had made his speech of greeting, most of her colleagues would throng around him to pay their respects. The rest of the crowd, however, preferred taking up positions around the buffet table. Stefania was hoping to seize the right moment to get out of there as quickly as possible.
She felt someone take her by the arm.
“Ciao, Inspector, you look quite fetching in uniform. You should wear it more often.”
Giulio did it on purpose, knowing full well that Stefania couldn’t stand wearing a uniform.
“You’re right: I look good in blue, and it’s so comfortable.”
“Have you looked at the program I sent you of the course?”
“Looks nice. And Amalfi must be glorious in spring.”
“But you’re not coming.”
“What am I supposed to do, drop everything, my daughter included?”
“Is it that you can’t or you won’t?”
At that moment the commissioner appeared. Stefania made a sign to Giulio.
Good, she thought. The moment has come.
Then, before her colleague could resume the discussion, she slipped behind a couple of other coworkers.
Happy Easter, dear Giulio.
She dashed back to her office to change. Luckily she didn’t run into anyone. At that moment she saw a huge bouquet of orange roses. Giulio’s card, unsigned, said only: Happy Easter. I’ll wait for you. In Amalfi or somewhere else.
Why do you do this, Giulio?
You make everything more difficult.
The lake road was more unpredictable than the London weather.
To travel the distance from her house in Como to Ossuccio, where her mother and three aunts lived, it could take Stefania anywhere from thirty-five minutes to an hour and a half, especially if she got stuck behind a truck or camper or bus at one of the narrow points in the road.
That day everything went quite smoothly. They left at five thirty sharp and got to Ossuccio at seven, having made a long stop for hot chocolate and maritozzi for the girls at the Pasticceria Manzoni in Menaggio and then backtracking.
After dropping off the girls, the cat, and the luggage at her mother’s, she headed off for her tata’s house.
The timetable at Tata Lucia’s house had been a very rigid one for at least the past sixty years: dinner at seven o’clock sharp in summer and six thirty in winter. Everything had to be washed and put away—dishes, pots, and pans—by nine thirty, because by ten o’clock the three sisters were already in bed, after reciting a decade of the rosary.
Their home was in the center of town, inside an intricate labyrinth of little streets and densely packed houses. Stefania headed up the steep cobblestone streets on foot, laden with parcels and victuals of every sort.
Every time she went to see her former nanny she felt like she was going back in time: the same stone walls, the same inner courtyards paved in gray flagstones, the little cellar windows with cross-shaped iron bars, and the smell of must, mildew, and dampness that reminded her of the places of her childhood.
For years she’d been in the habit of always giving the same presents: Chicco d’Oro coffee beans, felt slippers, floral-print aprons, helanca stockings, Virginia-brand amaretti, rhubarb candies, hairnets, and barrettes. All things that you could no longer find at the supermarket.
Sliding open the bolt of the little gate, she went into the courtyard and headed for the kitchen, which was on the ground floor. It was all open, as usual, as it had always been. When, in the spring, the sisters worked in the garden behind the house, the kitchen would remain closed, but the key was always there, over the door.
“Come, it’s all ready,” said Zia Pina, standing at the stove. “Look who’s here, Milin, it’s Stefania. You go out now,” she said to the old house cat.
Zia Ermellina, whom they called Milin, could hardly see and was almost always seated beside the fireplace, reciting litanies or listening to Radio Maria. On rare occasions one saw her in the courtyard under the pergola, with the cat, from whom she was never far apart.
Stefania took a long glance at the old house, then looked over at her aunts. She wished she could freeze that moment so she could come back to that haven of peace whenever she wanted.
“So, Stefania, how are you?” Zia Pina began. “And how old’s your little girl now? What grade is she in?”
After the perch risotto, they would inevitably have cheese from the local mountain farms, some steamed vegetables, and stewed pears.
“Did you make me stewed fruit?”
Zia Pina nodded, smiling through her wrinkles.
After dinner she helped her aunts unwrap presents and then sat down beside the fire. Milin was dozing off. Tata Lucia’s hearing aid was screeching a little.
“Tata, look at this photograph. Can you tell me who these people are? I don’t know them,” said Stefania, showing her the photo she’d taken from Raffaella’s desk.
Lucia put her glasses on, looked carefully, and exclaimed: “Ossignur de Còmm!” Then she started naming them one by one.
“These are the sciuri Cappelletti! This is Caterina, the mother, who died after the war from a heart attack. This is poor Remo, her husband. This instead is Margherita, the youngest daughter. Look how pretty she is, she was still wearing braids and woolen stockings. And this one in the back is Giovanni, the son, Margherita’s brother, before he married the francesa.”
“And who are the others?” Stefania asked, starting to take notes in a small agenda.
“This is Battista, the other son. Poor thing, he wasn’t completely normal. He had
the falling sickness, but he never hurt anyone. And this, I think, is Maria, the eldest daughter, the one who never married.
“How many children did they have in all?”
“Well, things certainly weren’t the way they are now. Caterina had made six or seven, but some of them died, and even I lost track. Remo would stay away for months at a time and when he came home, you know how it is, the boys and girls would come as fast as the good Lord could send ’em.”
“And they all lived at Villa Regina?”
“No, Caterina didn’t want to stay at the villa because she said it was jinxed. She was always up in the old house with Battista, who nobody wanted at the villa because he yelled when he talked. The daughter-in-law, the francesa, used to say he should be put in an asylum, but Caterina wouldn’t allow it. She loved Battista.”
“Why did she say it was jinxed?”
“Because of the girl who died there, Margherita. After that happened, Remo was never the same again. Poor Caterina, she saw her own daughter and husband die and then died herself from grief.”
“What happened to Margherita? She was still young.”
“She wasn’t yet twenty-two when she died. She was the only one who got along with the French girl because they were about the same age. During the years Giovanni was engaged to her, the francesa would come and spend summers at the villa, and the two girls, Margherita and the francesa, would always be together. The young lady taught her how to curl her hair and wear silk stockings and tight skirts like her.”
Whenever Zia Lucia would say “the young lady” or the “francesa” or the “French girl” she would wrinkle her nose and gesticulate.
“I guess you never liked the francesa, eh?”
“I was just there to iron clothes and keep to myself. But it’s true, the young lady used to give herself such airs with her silk undies and her embroidered linen sheets. . . . Nothing was ever good enough for her.”
“In what sense?”
“On the day her dowry arrived from France, they needed three porters to unload the truck. She had just got there and already she wanted to change the curtains, the wallpaper, everything. A week later she called the Bargna people to have them build a personal bathroom for her in her bedroom.”
“But the house wasn’t hers yet.”
“I’m telling you, that girl was born to give orders. And to think there was even a moment when it seemed like the marriage was going to go up in smoke!”
“What happened?” Stefania asked, curious.
Her auntie lowered her voice as if there were someone around who might hear them. Milin, meanwhile, was sleeping on the ottoman and gently snoring, while Pina was still busy washing the dishes rigorously by hand.
“Look, nobody ever told me anything. But when Margherita died people started talking a lot in town. You know the type, the ones who want to make trouble at all costs, envious people. It was wartime and there were other things to think about. But those ones always had time to speak ill of others.”
Stefania waited for Zia Lucia to finish her little rant and get to the point.
“In short, there was sort of a scandal, and the young lady didn’t come that summer. Her excuse was that the roads weren’t safe. A pack of lies, I say—she just wanted to wait and see how things settled down before marrying into the family.”
A brief pause before continuing.
“But the stuff was there,” she said, rubbing her index and middle fingers against her thumb, “enough to tempt even a snob like her.”
“How did Margherita die?”
Her aunt lowered her voice.
“They never really found out. They brought her home in a closed coffin, and nobody was ever allowed to see her, not even the town doctor. They said the sight was too awful. Poor Margherita, she was so beautiful!”
Stefania started to grow impatient.
“But what happened to her?”
“Some people said the partisans killed her, up in the mountains. Others said it was the Germans. Who’ll ever know? But from that day on, Remo, who was the head of the family, went insane, talking to himself, going up the mountain and calling Margherita’s name, and he always went around in his shirtsleeves, rain or shine. He seemed crazier than Battista. And then one night he fell. . . . The bad luck of that man . . .”
Lucia wiped away a tear.
“Starting the very next day, the young lady took control of everything, even though the house belonged to the Cappellettis. Giovanni had a heart of gold and let her give the orders. She had Battista put in an asylum when his mother, Caterina, was already hospitalized, and they never even told her. Then Caterina died. And not even a year after Remo died, they got married. You tell me if there’s any respect for the dead anymore.”
Zia Pina called out from the kitchen:
“Stefanina, would you like some coffee?”
This was the signal that the evening was drawing to a close, because anise-flavored coffee always represented the official ending of their social encounters.
Stefania took advantage of the final moments to explore a question that had caught her attention.
“You said Remo fell, if I understood correctly.”
“Yes. With him always roaming about up the mountain, day and night, in the rain and in the snow, one morning they brought him home dead. He’d slipped down the cliffside to the torrent. Maybe he hit his head, I don’t know. But when we dressed him up his head was all wrapped. He was a great big man who’d withered to skin and bones.”
“I wrote you a note, Stefanina,” said Zia Pina, taking away the espresso cups.
“What about, Pina?”
“Didn’t you ask me for the Cappellettis’ telephone number? You should call Armando, who’s the caretaker, and make arrangements with him. But call him early in the morning, because by six thirty he’s already outside.”
“Before six thirty on a holiday?”
Pina gave her a reproachful look.
“The cows have to be milked every day, including Easter,” she said, setting down a small chocolate bunny with a bell. “This is for your little girl,” she added, holding out a packet of Lindor chocolate as well, “and this is for your mother.”
She headed off for her parents’ house, where her mother was waiting for her in front of the TV set. The girls were still playing with the cat, for whom they’d built a sort of little house out of a cardboard box. The only problem was that Ron didn’t want to hear about going inside it.
Feeling overwhelmed with fatigue, she went out on the terrace. It was pitch-black outside. A very fine freezing rain was falling. It felt almost like melted snow.
She turned up her jacket collar and, shuddering, went back inside.
She thought about the evening she’d just had.
On the way back from her visit with her aunts she’d driven along one side of the park of Villa Regina.
On that side, which jutted out a bit with respect to the main entrance, there was a small iron gate that she couldn’t remember ever having seen open, not even when she was a child. In autumn she and the other children in town used to pass by often. They would go there after a strong wind had been blowing, because there was a chance they would find hazelnuts and chestnuts fallen from the centuries-old trees inside the park.
She looked out her window again: the rain was still coming down, inexorably.
An image came back to her, of a man wandering in the rain oblivious to the fact that he was soaked and chilled, a man who could think only of his Margherita. He looked for her everywhere, but she was gone, and that great house seemed more and more hostile to him with each passing day.
Till tomorrow, Villa Regina, she said to herself before getting into bed.
6
The following morning, voice still hoarse with sleep, she remembered Tata Lucia’s recommendation: to call Armando. She felt u
neasy: she wasn’t in the habit of importuning people at that hour.
Summoning her courage, she decided to try anyway. It was seven A.M.
When somebody finally picked up at the other end, she felt as if she’d tapped into an anthill at rush hour. In very quick succession her call was passed on to first the greenhouse, and then the stables.
“Armando was here, but he’s over with the horses now. Try again later.”
A booming voice then emerged from the background.
Stefania looked at her watch, feeling the need for a coffee.
“Hello, Signor Armando, my name is Stefania Valenti—yes, Pina’s niece, the one who works for the police.”
“What do you need, signora?” the man asked brusquely.
“I would like to meet with Signora Cappelletti, Germaine Cappelletti, for an informal chat.”
“The signora will be coming to see the horses this morning at nine. I’ll tell her myself. I give you an answer this afternoon. Call me around two, at this other number.”
“You’re very kind, thank you.”
After taking down the man’s cell phone number, Stefania lay back down in bed for a spell. But she was no longer sleepy. In the end she got up, went into the kitchen, and made coffee.
The scent filled the whole house. Her mother was still asleep. Stefania would never admit it, not even if tortured, but she was tense.
She looked out the window.
It was already getting light. The sun had just popped out from behind the Legnone. The lake looked calm, the mountains dark in the background. A light fog was floating just above the surface of the water, and there was deep silence all around. A clear sky, cleansed by the rain, promised a beautiful day.
The girls were also still asleep. They would be allowed to stay in bed as long as they wanted that day, to play and chatter.
She put on an old pair of jeans and a cable-knit sweater, small boots, and a striped scarf. She left a note for her mother saying I’ll be back soon, and went out.
Twenty minutes later, after passing through Ossuccio, she was at the Sport Bar of Lenno, a beautiful café with tables outside, right on the lakefront. You could smell the scent of freshly made pastries from the street. She sat outside, with the Corriere di Como folded on her lap, distractedly watching the early tourists strolling along the lakeshore.
Shadows on the Lake Page 7
