Belladonna

by Anbara Salam

  Sister Teresa paused at the door and turned to her. She gave Isabella a thoughtful look. “Perhaps it takes practice to get used to it,” she said, opening the door so Isabella could go through.

  “Wow.” Isabella’s voice echoed from inside the building.

  The room was large, with pine panels and sprung wooden floors. The wallpaper was a faded fleur-de-lis print in lilac. Above us hung a chandelier, its crystals coated in thick layers of dust. It looked precarious, and I took a cautious step from underneath it. The front windows facing out to the lake were boarded, but even with the paltry light from the back of the building, it was clear it had once been a grand room. On the left-hand side was a huge mirror with a gilded frame. Our three figures wavered in the tarnished glass, obscured by clouds of rust-colored speckles. Underneath the mirror was a monstrously large fireplace, its wooden shelf carved in whorling apples.

  “This is the ballroom,” Sister Teresa said. “Over there—” She pointed to a wooden staircase that became a gallery. “That is the”—she scrunched up her eyes as she searched for the word—“the balustrade,” she said finally, her face relaxing.

  I turned to Isabella, and as she caught my eye, a flicker of amusement passed between us.

  “We can go up there.” Sister Teresa walked toward the staircase, and Isabella drew closer to me, so we processed in single file. I could smell her scent, Soir de Paris, and cigarette smoke.

  “The horror flick begins,” she whispered. “Virgin sacrifices—get ready.” The cool weight of her hair settled on my shoulder.

  “Quit it,” I said, batting her away. Still, I was pleased she remembered our joke. The afternoon we swam naked in the lake had the shining quality of a dream.

  We followed Sister Teresa up the stairs and onto the gallery, where we paused to survey the ballroom.

  “Wait,” Isabella said, putting her hand on the banister. “Why’s there even a ballroom here at all? Did the invalids have parties?”

  I pictured a crowd of men wrapped in bandages, like mummies from a bad movie, dancing around the room in a stiff embrace.

  “Yes and no,” said Sister Teresa. “It was considered good therapy for patients to dance, and both men and women were stationed here.”

  “Oh,” we said in unison.

  “But weren’t they horribly injured?” I said.

  Sister Teresa paused. “No, the sanitarium was quite popular. The patients enjoyed the view and fresh air. To restore their health. Only later was it a hospital for tuberculosis.”

  “You don’t think there’s still tuberculosis in here?” Isabella said, wrinkling her nose as if the disease lingered in the wooden panels.

  “No.” Sister Teresa laughed her schoolgirl laugh again. As she walked along the upstairs corridor, she opened the doors to reveal the old hotel rooms. They were bare, with black-and-white marble floors and large shuttered windows. “There used to be more furniture here, but it was stolen after the fire. If you look carefully”—she smiled wryly—“you may see ashtrays stamped ‘Hotel Reale’ in front rooms all around the lake.”

  “And is it safe? Is the building safe?” I said, placing each foot tentatively on the wood like it might collapse at any moment.

  “Quite safe. We often come to sweep here.”

  “But why?” The question was out of my mouth before I had time to censor myself. It sounded like a terrible waste of time, to be sweeping an empty building.

  “The Sisters of Pentila were gifted the building by Signor John Henry. In time we hope to repair the fire damage, but for now we care for its condition.”

  I nodded. Isabella was biting her thumbnail.

  We walked down a narrow back staircase and along the front of the building.

  “This was Signor Henry’s chamber.” Sister Teresa pushed one of the doors open. It was a small room with faded, peeling wallpaper and a set of glass doors that opened onto the patio. The doors were boarded only halfway, and through the gap at the bottom I could see someone had snipped a clearing in the weeds to chalk a gloating message about Arnaldo the cuckold. I tried to imagine the room as it must have been, with wildflowers in a vase on the mantelpiece, a crackling fire in the grate.

  “He was brought here in 1917 and stayed for six months.”

  “Why did he get a private room?” I said.

  “I’m not sure,” Sister Teresa said. “But perhaps it’s fortunate he did.”

  She allowed the door to swing closed. We went down the corridor and into a marble lobby, where a grand oak staircase led back up onto the landing.

  “Do you have any questions?” she said.

  “Can we see where the fire started?” Isabella said.

  Sister Teresa wrinkled her nose. “Really?”

  Isabella nodded. “Please?”

  “If you want.” Sister Teresa shrugged.

  She took us through an arched door under the staircase, then down a few steps and right, along a corridor. I could tell we were approaching the kitchens because over the lingering damp scent there was now a dark, chemical smell, like hot asphalt. Sister Teresa pushed on one of a set of swinging doors and stood aside to let us peer through. There were only narrow windows at the top of the room, and the light was poor, but even so, it was clear the room had been badly scorched. The left wall around the stove and half the ceiling were matte black with starbursts of gray. Twigs of calcified plastic hung from open shelves. The roof of the kitchen had been haphazardly boarded, and a bird’s nest was resting in a crook between two planks.

  “How sad.” I covered my mouth and nose with my sleeve. “And it goes all the way up?”

  “Yes, those rooms are quite ruined. Hard to believe this was all because of a steak,” Sister Teresa said with the faint trace of a smile. “Perhaps after all, the chef was too good at his flambé.”

  I watched the expression on her face, unsure if she was joking. She caught my eye and smiled wider. The oversize of her front teeth rather suited her, I thought. A subtle imperfection that somehow made her prettier.

  After our tour, Sister Teresa said she was going to stay to tidy the garden, which I supposed meant the graveyard. I hovered, expecting Isabella to offer to wait for her. But to my surprise, she gave her thanks and steered me away from the building.

  As she climbed through the gates, she shuddered, like a bird unfolding its wings. “Come on, Briddie, let’s get away from here; it’s giving me the creeps.” She lit a cigarette.

  The climb back to the academy was even hotter than earlier in the day. Cicadas rattled in the sun-blanched thistles. I plucked a stem of rosemary from a bush and rubbed the oil between my fingers. At first it had made me queasy to imagine such a beautiful building filled with coughing and sickness. But now I was glad the invalids had been hosted in such gorgeous surroundings. When Rhona was in the hospital, it didn’t seem like the kind of place anyone could recuperate. The ward was overheated and it smelled like bleach and sour milk.

  I pictured Rhona tucked under a yellow blanket, lying on a deck chair rolled out on the patio overlooking the water. She would drink mineral water and be put on a special float to paddle in the lake. I moved her into John Henry’s old room and furnished it with a chaise longue and a writing desk. And I would sneak a pet kitten into her room and she’d have to keep it hidden from the nurses. I would tell the girls I was volunteering, but secretly, I’d come down from the academy in the afternoons to visit her. We’d feed the kitten saucers of milk and sit by the lake and she could read her Civil War textbooks and I would study friezes from my art books.

  “So who’s that old guy?” Isabella said.

  With some effort I broke out of my reverie. “What?”

  “Mr. Henry. I stood there quite stupidly while you and Sister Teresa were talking about him.”

  I turned to her in disbelief. “But you must know who he is. There’s a whole section about hi
m in the welcome file. Didn’t you read it?”

  “No, Briddie.” She stuck out her tongue. “We’re not all boring little bookworms.”

  The insult burned my windpipe, but I kept my voice steady. “He was the patron. Or founder. But I’m sure Sister Teresa would know all the details.”

  We were quiet for a moment.

  “She’s so funny,” I said, taking a chance.

  Isabella watched me expectantly. “What do you mean?”

  “‘And there is the—um, I don’t know the word—balustrade.’”

  Isabella grinned. “And here I can’t even order a sandwich.”

  “Maybe she’s trying to use up all the words in the dictionary before her speaking time runs out,” I said tentatively. Was I straying too close to sarcasm?

  But Isabella hooted with laughter. “Good old Sister Vocabulary.”

  13.

  October

  Over the course of three days, the sisters picked all the apples in the orchard until the boughs had a naked, startled look. As they worked in the avenues between the trees, snapping apples from the branches, it produced a rustling noise that swished through the corridors of the academy like the train of a wedding dress. Isabella and I watched them from our window and tried to distinguish nun from nun. Occasionally we saw Sister Teresa down in the orchard, smoking on the stone bench with Sister Luisa. Often, though, Sister Teresa’s “speaking” status meant she was sent to La Pentola or Brancorsi to stock up on Band-Aids or headache tablets or safety pins or any of the many other things the sisters couldn’t make for themselves.

  On the Sunday of St. Teresa’s festival, the bells began ringing at five a.m. We congregated on the stairs, pale and puffy-faced, our eyes beady with sleep. Donna Maria ushered us into the courtyard, and we stood blinking into the morning. It was a perfect autumn day. The breeze was sharp and the light was thin and golden like weak juice.

  As we stood yawning and stretching and adjusting our dresses, there came a strange murmur from the bottom of the hill.

  “Look,” Nancy said.

  A crowd of people from the village was slowly walking up toward the academy, humming a low dirge. At the head was Father Gavanto, holding aloft a cross decorated with paper leaves.

  “The Inquisition,” Isabella whispered in my ear. “I knew Donna Maria was a secret witch.” I snorted.

  The sisters filed out of the chapel, led by Sister Luisa. They crossed through the gate and walked through the double doors to join Father Gavanto. With a few words, he handed over the cross and Sister Luisa took it solemnly. I watched her face for any trace of emotion. Was she saying to herself Don’t drop it, don’t drop it, as any normal person would?

  Donna Maria appeared, smiling her gummy smile. She gestured for us to back up to the far side of the courtyard, and we pressed against the wall as people from La Pentola shuffled through. Donna Maria returned, holding a white candle burning inside a metal lantern. Around the base of the candle were twigs of applewood and silk roses. She approached me and, reaching out, tucked my hair behind my ears. I froze, thinking in a wild moment she was about to offer me a benediction. But instead, she handed me the lantern and pointed into the crowd, speaking in Italian.

  My hand shook so hard, the flame fluttered. “What do I do with this?” I said stupidly. “Nancy,” I hissed. “Nance, help.”

  After a brief conversation with Donna Maria, Nancy turned to me. “You’re supposed to walk at the front of the girls, after the sisters. Then you put the candle on the shrine.”

  A shiver ran through my jawline. “At the front?”

  “Yup.” Nancy smiled. “Just go at the front and walk.”

  I gulped, looking around. “Why me?”

  Nancy frowned. “Why not you?”

  I searched for Isabella, but she was talking to Sylvia and I couldn’t catch her attention. Swallowing, I squeezed through the crowd of girls and villagers from La Pentola, receiving a resplendent smile from Signora Bassi. The courtyard was crammed with people, humming, coughing, bemused-looking kids in their Sunday best. The lantern clattered against elbows and shoulder blades as I picked through the crowd. My stomach roiling, I took a place directly behind the sisters. I looked back for Isabella but instead caught Ruth’s eye. She was glowering at me from beside Donna Maria, her arms folded across her chest. In front of me I spotted Sister Teresa somewhere in the middle of the sisters. Like the other nuns, she had her mouth closed, her eyes focused on the ground.

  Sister Luisa raised the cross aloft, and our procession began to climb the hillside toward the shrine. The narrow path was choked now with brambles and so we walked in single file, incrementally slowly. The grass was wet underfoot and the earth pearly with dew. The air was spicy with that first scent of autumn—smoke from singed leaves and an inkling of mist. The path was steep but I enjoyed being pulled by the weft of the crowd, as if I were hardly making any effort to walk at all. Hawthorn berries hung so heavy along the path it looked as if red wax had been splattered over the trees.

  Father Gavanto began to sing, and the crowd from the village joined in, a low, atonal hymn. I couldn’t catch the words.

  When Sister Luisa reached the shrine, the father joined her at a dignified, slow pace. He looked through the crowd and motioned for me. I walked around the sisters toward him. Conscious that the eyes of all of La Pentola and all the girls were upon me, I tried to keep my face solemn and stately, but I felt illuminated, like I was floating in a beam of sunlight. The father said a blessing and then fell silent. The silence grew; it became a thing of itself. Birdsong called through the air. Down in La Pentola I could hear the bright strike of a hammer against metal. The sisters knelt in the long grass, staining their habits with green fingers.

  The father took the cross from Sister Luisa, and one by one, the sisters approached St. Teresa’s shrine, touching their hearts, their mouths, the cross at the top of the alcove. I was strangely moved by the gesture, having not much thought of nuns’ hearts until then. They all loved St. Teresa. I pictured her image from the tapestry in the hallway, her tongue and her heart pierced with a quill from heaven. Nuns weren’t really supposed to have personalities or opinions; I knew that much. But love was allowed. More than allowed—it was necessary.

  * * *

  Our whole procession retreated back along the path, through the academy, down the hill, into the village to the church, where the cross was leaned against the altar. There, I was ushered into a front pew, and Father Gavanto delivered a long speech in Italian. I understood it was something to do with silence, and patience, but the rest was lost to me. In the dim church, the lack of sleep and the incense stung my eyes and brewed into a sludgy headache. I turned to search for Isabella, who was some way toward the back, her posture unusually upright. She was squinting at the father, frowning in such a way that there was a single dash between her brows.

  When the bells tolled again, we stretched our stiff necks and joined the queue by the church door. Oak barrels of the convent’s hard cider had been rolled into the square, and laid out along two wooden benches were all manner of drinking implements: jelly jars, plastic beakers, even a pair of silver tankards I thought I recognized from the altar. Marco, the market greengrocer, gestured for me and, selecting a large tumbler, filled it to the top with cider. He winked at me. “Bravo,” he said, clinking my glass with his, spilling bubbles of amber liquid.

  Over the cobbles Signora Bassi pushed a wheelbarrow draped in dishcloths, which she removed with a flourish to reveal “lingua cakes”—essentially apple turnovers baked into a diamond shape. She selected a large one for me and pressed it into my hands. “Beautiful,” she said, gesturing over my figure.

  Isabella appeared on the other side of Signora Bassi’s wheelbarrow as I took a large, ungainly bite of the pastry.

  “Hi,” I said, swallowing so quickly a chunk of apple caught in my throat. “Where have you been?”<
br />
  “When?” The tip of her nose twitched.

  “Before—this morning. I was looking for you.”

  Isabella shrugged. “Around. You were probably distracted,” she said rather archly.

  I opened my mouth and shut it again. My eyes stung.

  Kids from La Pentola were pushing pudgy fingers into the cakes, and Signora Bassi chased them away with a volley of remonstrations. Isabella smiled at them deliberately. Indulgently, even. What had prompted her to smile at them but not at me? A flush of shame bristled over me. I’d made a fool out of myself; of course I had. All that attention. I’d overstepped. Embarrassed myself.

  Nancy tapped me on the arm, nibbling on a cake. “Good job this morning, Bridge.” She nudged me. “You’re a natural.”

  “Thanks,” I said, glancing at Isabella, who had been joined by Sylvia. They were kneeling to chat with a little boy dressed in a bow tie and knitted vest.

  “So. Was it heavy? The lantern?” Nancy put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Not so much,” I said, giving her a shallow smile and willing her to stop talking. If I was careful to be quiet, small, I might be able to revert Isabella’s mood. Father Gavanto began beating a cider barrel with a stick and Isabella grabbed hold of Sylvia’s arm as the little boy in the bow tie raced toward him, cheering.

  The father climbed onto one of the rickety benches and gave a speech punctuated with cheers and claps from the crowd. Greta put her arm through Nancy’s. “What’s he saying, Nance?”

  Nancy cocked her ear toward the father. “Something about a bonfire.”

  “Bridge, you did swell this morning,” Greta said, reaching in front of Nancy to grip my hand. “You looked just like Liz Taylor.”

  “Thanks.” I shot a glance at Isabella. She was helping Sylvia to light a cigarette but was laughing too much to keep the lighter steady. There was a grating thump in my chest. Why did she have to be so obtuse? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to punish me, when I hadn’t even asked to be given that lantern.