Early One Morning

by Virginia Baily

  ‘Yes, you do,’ she says, ‘quite like her, except she had curlier hair.’ He doesn’t seem to notice the past tense. ‘Your eyes,’ she says quickly, ‘your eyes are very like hers.’

  ‘But her hair is like this,’ he says, twisting to look at Chiara, drawing around his head with his hands the shape of a short, straight-cut bob. The shape of Chiara’s own hair.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Curlier than that.’

  He turns away. The rain tumbles down in front of them out of a thunderously dark sky. They can’t see even as far as the fence five metres away. Daniele stares into the blinding rain.

  Chiara thinks of his mother as she was that day, the dark green coat and the way her hat sat on the back of her head, the earrings. But this is her memory of the woman, not his.

  ‘You do look like her. That’s why you are so handsome,’ she says. She looks at him sideways. She might as well be talking to the statue.

  Now, she thinks. It is time.

  ‘Hold this,’ she says, nudging him, and she passes him the umbrella.

  She moves down to the step below and kneels at his feet, looking up into his face. For a moment his eyes meet hers, and then he looks beyond again, over her shoulder, blankly. The rain is beating down on the backs of her legs, filling her shoes. She puts a hand on his knees, bunching them in her palm. Still he doesn’t look at her. She reaches farther and takes his chin in her other hand.

  ‘Natalia Ferrara Levi,’ she says, ‘your mother, was the bravest woman I have ever met.’

  The feel of his knees like hard fruit, like apples bunched in her hand.

  ‘She loved you more than life.’

  The squeeze of his cheeks, the delicate line of his jaw, the dark eyes.

  ‘She is not coming back,’ she says.

  The swell of her heart.

  ‘Davide Levi’–his father–‘Giuseppina Levi, Enrichetta Levi’–his two sisters, ‘they are not coming back.’

  She lifts her hand from his face and touches it to her own breast. She swallows.

  ‘Chiara Ravello,’ she says, ‘not going anywhere. Ever.’ She waits.

  Then he seems to fall forward and into her arms.

  TWENTY-THREE

  ‘There won’t be anyone in,’ Assunta said to her grandson. ‘But we’ll ring the bell just to make sure.’

  Maria answered, sounding sleepy. ‘Assunta!’ she said through the intercom. ‘I didn’t know you were coming today. Have you forgotten your key?’

  ‘I’ve brought Marco,’ Assunta explained, ‘my grandson. He’s going to clear some furniture for the signora.’

  ‘She shouldn’t be home,’ she said to Marco. ‘She should be at school.’

  Then Assunta concentrated her energy on hauling herself up the stairs. They weren’t getting any easier.

  The girl stood at the door, rubbing her eyes. Her hair was tousled, her big creamy breasts spilling out of the top of her low-cut nightie.

  ‘Oh,’ she said when she saw Assunta wasn’t alone. ‘I wasn’t feeling very well,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a headache. So I didn’t go to school today.’

  Marco had blushed beetroot red.

  ‘Marco has come to clear the ripostiglio and see what furniture can be got rid of,’ Assunta said.

  ‘Ripostiglio?’ Maria said.

  Assunta explained what it was but could tell the girl didn’t understand. Her Italian was improving fast, but still she didn’t get everything. Assunta fetched the key from a jar in a kitchen cupboard, came back out to the hallway and lifted the hanging that concealed the junk-room door. Maria was making little surprised noises and comments in her own language. The door bulged outwards, as if something heavy was pushing against it from the other side. Assunta put the key in the lock. It was stiff and wouldn’t turn.

  ‘Let me,’ Marco said.

  She moved out of the way down the hallway, the girl by her side. Marco leant his weight against the door, pushing it back in. They heard a noise, a tinny musical note. He held the door in place, turned the key and leapt smartly out of the way as the door burst open. Out shot the pianola, crashing into the opposite wall, followed by various debris, all with a tremendous clatter.

  The pianola was entirely blocking the hallway, Assunta and Maria on one side and Marco the other.

  ‘I’ll get this out of the way,’ Marco called. ‘Hang on. It will only take me a minute.’

  Assunta and Maria went into the signora’s room to wait. It was either that or the bathroom. They sat on the bed.

  ‘I didn’t even know there was a junk room,’ Maria said.

  ‘Mmh,’ Assunta said.

  She wasn’t entirely comfortable sitting on the signora’s bed. She never came in unless she was cleaning.

  ‘I’ve got a new picture for you. St Crisogono,’ Maria said.

  Assunta thought for a moment. Crisogono.

  ‘Beheaded,’ she said. ‘Thrown into the sea to feed the fishes. But his body was washed ashore, and an old priest found him and gave him a proper burial.’

  ‘Amazing,’ Maria said. ‘You know them all, don’t you?’

  Assunta felt as though she should do a bit of tidying now but she had been the day before, and nothing needed doing. And it wasn’t one of her days.

  The girl was fiddling with something on the bedside table. She swivelled back to Assunta and laid in her lap a photo of a young man.

  ‘Do you know who this is?’ she said.

  Assunta examined him. ‘No,’ she said. ‘But I’ve seen that jacket before. I’ll show you.’

  By now Marco had pushed the pianola into the salon out of the way. Assunta picked her way along the hallway over the bits of broken furniture and sewing machines strewn about, Maria following.

  ‘Some of these pieces, the big ones, I mean, like the pianola and that big cupboard thing, will have to be lowered out of the front window,’ Marco said, emerging from the salon. ‘I’m going to run round to that antique shop in Via di Monserrato and see if he might give some advice. Because if they’re going to be junked, then I can smash them up here and cart them out myself, but if there’s anything that has a value… ’

  He was a good boy.

  ‘See you in a minute then,’ Assunta said. ‘I won’t stay long myself. I’ve got some shopping to do for the little ones’ tea but I’ll wait for you to come back.’

  She was thinking she had better encourage Maria to make herself decent before she left the two of them together. He was a good boy, but easily distracted.

  Once he had gone, she rummaged through the coats hanging in the hallway and there, right at the bottom of them all, with its sleeves pushed inside the sleeves of another coat, was a leather jacket identical to the one in the photograph.

  ‘Oh,’ Maria said. ‘What does that mean?’

  Assunta didn’t say anything. She didn’t know how a jacket was supposed to mean something.

  The girl put the jacket on over her nightie. It was a man’s jacket. Much too big. She was still holding the photograph.

  There was the sound of a key in the lock, and the signora walked in. All the colour went out of her face and she looked at them as if she had seen a pair of ghosts. It couldn’t be the sight of her, of Assunta, on a Friday rather than a Thursday that had shocked her so.

  Instinctively, Assunta stepped forward in between the signora and the girl.

  Stricken, that’s what she’d call it.

  ‘Signora,’ Assunta said. ‘Can I have a word with you? Excuse us, Maria.’

  She tugged at her employer’s sleeve, led her into the kitchen and pulled the door to.

  The signora stood in the middle of the kitchen. She picked up the wonky trivet on which she always put the coffee pot and held it as if someone might be going to snatch it away. Assunta took out the book of saints. She saw that it was the feast day of St Barnabas, who was nicknamed ‘son of encouragement’ because he encouraged others to live their lives bravely. She pondered that.

  ‘Signora,’ she said.
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  She did not feel it was her place to tell the signora that she needed to face whatever she feared with courage. She saw, though, that the signora was waiting for her to speak and wanted to be given guidance.

  Assunta ran her finger down the page, looking for wiser words than her own. She read out loud, ‘If you are silent, be silent out of love. If you speak, speak out of love.’

  The relevance of these words to the present predicament, and even what the predicament was, remained a mystery.

  ‘St Augustine said that,’ she added.

  ‘Thank you, Assunta,’ the signora said. ‘Out of love. You are right.’

  She put the trivet back on the table, patted Assunta’s hand twice and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Assunta stayed where she was, reading some more of Augustine’s maxims. She discovered that only to those whose hearts were crushed did the Lord draw close. For a minute she worried that her heart might be insufficiently crushed, but then she remembered her dear Federico passing, and how hard it had been to raise the children alone, and she thought it might be enough.

  She had the little grandchildren coming after school today for tea and she was going to make them apricot tart. She took out of the book of saints the piece of paper with the recipe and unfolded it. It was printed in big black letters but still unmistakably the signora’s handwriting. She ran her finger slowly down the list of ingredients. It was the vanilla sugar that she needed. She closed the book and put it away.

  She stuck her head around the door of the salon, which, she noted with a pang, was in turmoil again. It didn’t take much. The pianola had rucked up the carpet. Half the contents of the junk room were piled up next to the window. They were sitting opposite each other, the signora and Maria, and the signora was holding both the girl’s hands in hers.

  They looked up at her. They had both been crying, she saw. She blinked at them.

  ‘Assunta,’ Maria said. She freed one of her hands and held up the photo. ‘This is my babbo.’ She smiled at Assunta through her tears. ‘And the signora is my nonna.’ They put her in mind of sunshine after the rain, the two of them. ‘She’s told me the whole story.’

  ‘Oh,’ Assunta said, wondering what story that might be. The signora had never mentioned that she had a son. ‘That’s nice,’ she said.

  She should probably mind her own business. Vanilla sugar, she thought.

  ‘I was just coming to say to let Marco in when he gets back, and I’ll be off now.’

  ‘Marco?’ the signora said.

  ‘You remember? My grandson. We arranged for him to come and sort out the old furniture.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ the signora said. ‘Marco.’ And she beamed at Assunta.

  The doorbell rang.

  ‘That’ll be him now,’ Assunta said. Speaking into the intercom, she told Marco, ‘It might be better to come back another time. There’s a lot going on here.’

  ‘Assunta,’ a woman’s loud, ringing voice exclaimed. ‘Are you trying to send me away as if I’m the bailiff?’

  ‘Oh, Madame Simone. Excuse me!’ Assunta said.

  When Simone appeared at the top of the stairs, huffing and puffing, Assunta said, ‘The signora is in the salon. With Maria.’

  ‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘Have they started without me? Could you be a darling and put this in the freezer section?’

  Simone swept past Assunta into the salon, leaving her standing in the vestibule, holding a box of strawberry ice cream.

  ‘Oh God, you do look like him! Exactly like him. Oh my word and so beautiful,’ Assunta heard Madame Simone say.

  She was never one to think twice about taking the Lord’s name in vain, Madame Simone. She wondered what Maria would think of her. They had something in common to be getting on with, both wearing their nightdresses in the middle of the day.

  She took the ice cream to the kitchen and put it away.

  The doorbell rang again. ‘Hello,’ she said suspiciously into the intercom.

  ‘Nonna.’

  ‘Oh, Marco,’ she said. ‘I think you’d better come back another time. I’ll check with the signora when would be convenient. There’s all sorts going on in here, and we’d best keep out of the way.’

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Shall I wait for you?’

  ‘Wait for me in that bar on Vicolo di Gallo,’ she said. ‘I’ll buy you a coffee.’

  She went back into the salon. Madame Simone was standing with her back to the window, her loops of honey hair silhouetted against the light. The other two were where they had been before, but, if anything, closer together.

  ‘Assunta,’ Simone called out. ‘Would you be an angel and make us a cup of coffee?’

  She looked at the three of them. It was her day off and she had her grandson to meet, as well as a tart to make. For some reason, she thought of rainbows and of what someone had told her once: that even on a dull day, up above the clouds, the sky was blue.

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  She went back to the kitchen, reached the big pot down out of the cupboard and filled the bottom part with water. She tapped the coffee into the filter and screwed it all back together. She lit the gas.

  The doorbell rang. ‘I’ll be ten minutes,’ she said into the intercom.

  ‘It’s Father Antonio,’ a man’s voice said, ‘I’m expected.’

  She pressed the buzzer. It was like Termini station in here today.

  She wasn’t used to seeing Father Antonio outside of church, where she did the flowers and cleaned the sacristy. She thought he was looking rather sickly.

  ‘Assunta,’ he said, when he saw her, ‘what on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘I work for Signora Ravello,’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘They’re all in the salon,’ she said. ‘And I’m just making them coffee. Would you like one too?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ he said. ‘I know my way.’

  It would be hard not to know your way from the front door to the salon, Assunta thought, seeing it was only two paces.

  She went back into the kitchen, got down the best cups and saucers with the gold rims, and put four of each on a tray. She didn’t know why but she felt it was some sort of an occasion. The girl liked milk in her coffee, even when it wasn’t breakfast time, so she put some milk in a little jug. She thought biscuits would be nice, but the signora wasn’t one for biscuits, so she didn’t bother looking. When the coffee was ready, she placed it on the tray to carry through.

  Father Antonio was still standing in the hall outside the salon door, turning his hat round and round in his hands. He had a haunted look.

  There was laughter now coming from the salon. It sounded as though someone was doing an impression of a chicken.

  ‘Are you all right, Father?’ Assunta said.

  ‘It might be better,’ he said, ‘if I just slip quietly away.’

  ‘But isn’t the signora expecting you?’ she said.

  He nodded, then shook his head. He didn’t seem to know what he was doing. ‘I’ve never had a child of my own, you see,’ he said.

  ‘I should think not,’ Assunta said.

  The priest didn’t move. He was looking at her appealingly.

  She rested the tray on the hall table and fished out her book. What a day this was turning into. She thumbed through to the passage she’d read out to the signora earlier. The recipe was there as a bookmark.

  ‘Those are wonderful words, Assunta,’ Father Antonio said. ‘Yes, love and silence. Of course. It would be kinder not to say anything, wouldn’t it?’

  Priests were only men, she reflected.

  ‘I don’t know, Father,’ she said, ‘but I do know that the truth never hurts as much as the lies.’ She had heard that on the radio.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, and he put his hand to his heart. ‘It wasn’t a lie. Not exactly a lie. It was more that I didn’t… ’ He shook his head and blew out his cheeks.

  She took the hat
from his other hand and hung it on the stand.

  ‘Come on, Father,’ she said and, picking up the tray, she led the way into the salon. ‘Father Antonio is here,’ she announced.

  There were introductions and exclamations and hand-shakings, and somehow Assunta found herself squeezed on the little sofa next to Maria. That was where she sat while the priest made his speech.

  It seemed that the signora’s son had got into bad ways, and Father Antonio had sent him away, but that then–unbeknownst to the signora or anyone except the priest himself, because he had kept it a secret–the priest had helped him. He had gone on helping him, and the son, Daniele, had been living just down the road in Ostia. And every time Daniele went off the rails, the priest would go and sort him out. And he went on going off the rails. The way Father Antonio told it, he sounded as though he had something of the saint about him. Assunta tried to give him a look to remind him about truth and lies, but he avoided her eyes.

  He was still talking when the signora suddenly jumped to her feet and clapped her hands together.

  ‘What are you saying? That Daniele is in Ostia? Ostia!’ she cried. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘What is it?’ Maria was saying. ‘What does that mean?’ And she swung her head about, looking from one to the other.

  The signora was staring at the priest with such an imploring, expectant sort of expression that it gave Assunta a peculiar sensation. She had never been in an aeroplane but she thought this was how take-off might feel.

  ‘No, no, no,’ the priest said in a squeaky voice and cleared his throat. ‘No, I’m sorry, Chiara, no.’ He shook his head, holding both hands up, palms outward, at chest height. They shook too. ‘He’s not there any more. I’ve been looking for him ever since you told me about Maria.’

  He turned away from Chiara to look at Maria, letting his flapping hands fall to his sides and giving Maria a sorrowful smile. ‘I don’t know what happened to him,’ he said. ‘We lost contact.’

  The signora sat down again and put her face in her hands.

  ‘I am sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings,’ the priest said, his voice returning to normal. ‘But I fear that Daniele took up with drugs again.’