The House of Serenades

by Lina Simoni

  “The only way to find out what happened to Caterina is to force her father or her mother to speak,” he said. “I will find a way.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid, my boy,” Lavinia said. “I, too, want to find Caterina, but we must act cleverly, not out of passion or rage. I have contacts inside the Berillis’ house that can prove useful for our investigation. I’ll be back in three days and let you know if I have learned anything new. Meanwhile, keep knocking on that door. It’ll be pointless, but at least you’ll distract Mister Berilli and Madame from what I’m doing.”

  Promptly, Ivano went to the palazzina and knocked. As usual, no one came to the door. The following day, Ivano returned to Corso Solferino with his mandolin and began playing it in front of the Berillis’ gate. He had played for almost an hour when Guglielmo came out.

  “Please stop,” he said. “You’re annoying everybody.”

  “Good,” Ivano said. “At least I obtained something. You came looking for me and spoke to me instead of hiding behind that door.”

  Guglielmo said nothing.

  Ivano went on, “Tell your master that I won’t stop playing until he receives me and tells me what he did to Caterina.”

  “It will never happen, I’m afraid,” Guglielmo said.

  “Then your master will have to keep listening to my mandolin,” Ivano stated, picking up the instrument and plucking away.

  Without another word, Guglielmo returned inside, where Giuseppe shouted at him, “How come he’s still playing?”

  “He won’t stop, sir,” Guglielmo said calmly, “unless you talk to him.”

  “Talk to him? No way! I’ll call the police,” Giuseppe said, infuriated.

  “There’s no law, sir,” Guglielmo stated, “forbidding Mister Bo to play his instrument in the street.”

  “Aaah!” Giuseppe screamed, cupping his hands on his ears.

  Three days went by, during which Ivano kept playing for several hours each day in front of the palazzina, driving Giuseppe crazy, but achieving nothing as far as talking to Giuseppe or discovering something new about Caterina.

  At the end of the third day, a dejected Lavinia met with Ivano at the bakery. “Nothing,” she said. “I found nothing at all about Caterina.”

  That same evening, Giuseppe summoned his wife, his two sons, and his sister to the reading room.

  “I have bad news,” he said, holding a letter in his hands. With a broken voice, he informed them that Caterina had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and no one was allowed to visit her as her illness was deadly and highly contagious. “She’s so sick, the doctors tell me, we wouldn’t be able to recognize her. Sad as it may be,” he added, “it’s better if no one even knows where she is and if we forget about her as fast as we can, as there is no chance she could possibly survive.”

  There were whispers, shouts, tears. Then Eugenia spoke up. “I want to know where she is. I want to visit her while she’s still breathing.”

  Gently, Giuseppe placed an arm across her shoulders. “I understand how you feel, Eugenia.” he said in a soothing voice. “And, believe me, there’s nothing I’d like more than to rush to my daughter’s bedside. But the doctors have spoken. She’s contagious. We can’t see her. In a month or so, maybe.” He turned to everyone in the room. “I promise to keep you informed as to the progress of Caterina’s illness. God help her soul.”

  One month passed, with Giuseppe artfully dodging questions and inquiries from family and friends. One day, out of the blue, he gathered the family and announced that Caterina was in the hands of God.

  “She’s at peace,” he sobbed, “and no longer suffering. Her coffin will arrive soon.”

  The family reacted with incredulity at first, then with wails of anguish, including Matilda, who was stunned by her own ability to fake grief. A short three days after the announcement, a sealed white coffin was delivered at the palazzina together with a death certificate signed by a doctor from the clinic where Caterina had supposedly died. No one but Giuseppe knew that the coffin had been provided by Mercantino Barbieri, an eighty-three-year-old drunkard who survived on illicit activities and contraband. The false death certificate, instead, had been prepared in secret, upon Giuseppe’s request, by Doctor Sciaccaluga in exchange for something the doctor had wanted desperately every minute of his adult life.

  Damiano was the son of Federico Sciaccaluga, a well-respected family doctor who years earlier had become sick with an incurable liver disease. During the illness Damiano spent long hours at his father’s bedside, staring at the ashen-hued face sunken into the pillow, powerless in front of the unyielding progress the illness seemed to make.

  One night, his father told him in his weak, raucous voice, “Close the door, son. I want to talk to you in private.” When he was certain no one could hear him, Federico Sciaccaluga said, “I must tell you things I never told anyone before. They’ll sound odd to you, but I’m sure that with time you’ll understand. Don’t be put off. I did what I did for a good cause and for the good of the people of this town.”

  “Father—”

  Federico waved his hand. “Let me speak while I still can. You must know that on many occasions I helped young girls with unwanted children. They were mostly poor women, maids, or lavenders, or brothel girls. They came to me asking if I’d please interrupt their pregnancies because they didn’t have the means to provide for a child from birth all the way to his or her working age.”

  Damiano held his breath for a moment. Interrupting pregnancies, he knew, could cost a doctor his license in those days. Furthermore, abortion was uncharted territory: its techniques were controversial and unreliable.

  Federico noticed his son’s edginess. “Let me explain.” He took Damiano’s hand. “I talked to the girls a great deal about life and death,” Federico went on, “and often persuaded them to deliver their babies and give them to families who wanted children but couldn’t have children of their own. I promised the girls to compensate them handsomely. Sometimes the girls liked the idea of their own child living in loving families and agreed to bring their pregnancies to completion. Some girls did it only for the money, but it didn’t matter to me, because all I cared for was the happiness of people.” A fit of coughing shook his body. He waited a moment. “Where was I? The girls, yes,” he continued. “They delivered in my office, which I closed on those days with excuses of sickness. I kept the newborn under observation for several days to ensure he or she was in good health. When I was certain the newborn would do well without my care, I informed the adoptive parents that their baby was ready to go home.” He stopped, as if to allow his son to digest the revelation.

  “What about … documents?” Damiano asked.

  Federico took a deep breath. “For every child, I prepared a birth certificate showing the names of the adoptive parents as the birth parents of the child. I registered the certificate with the city authorities and gave a copy of it to the adoptive parents at the time they picked up the baby. I made sure they never saw the real mother and the real mother never saw them, so they’d all preserve anonymity and avoid complications in the future. I charged the adoptive parents a significant sum of money for my services, but kept to myself only the portion that covered my expenses for the delivery and care of the baby. I never kept one lira for myself, you can be sure. I gave most of the money to the mothers, who in most cases were poor and needy.” He paused. “I helped a large number of people in my life—troubled young girls in difficult situations and unhappy couples fulfill their dreams of parenthood.”

  Damiano looked at his father in silence. Then he spoke, faltering. “I am stunned. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything, son. I’m not looking for your approval or absolution. I always felt right doing what I did. It gave me so much joy to see the babies live and join good families who could take care of them and love them and give them support. Every time I helped deliver one of those babies, I felt as if I had been born again. Many a time I told myself, Feder
ico, as long as you keep saving those babies, you’ll never grow old. See, I thought that when I’d die, I wouldn’t be truly dead. I’d be living inside all my babies, growing with them and with their children and the children of their children. Now that my time has come, I’m not afraid. My body will die, but my spirit will live on.” He lowered his eyelids. “If I close my eyes, I can see them all, my babies. I can see them standing like pretty flowers in a field, and every flower is a dream come true.” He opened his eyes. “Do you know what I used to call myself in those days?”

  “What?”

  “The doctor of dreams.”

  Damiano gazed at his father’s gaunt face, painted with the color of death. “What made you decide to tell me this?” he asked. “Why now?”

  “So that after my death you’ll think of me the way I truly was,” Federico replied. “And also because I want you to do something for me. There’s a box hidden in my safe. The box contains detailed records of all the child sales: the names of the mothers and occasionally those of the fathers, the sex of the babies, their height and weight at birth, and the names of the couples who bought the babies. I always meant to burn that box. I should have burnt that box a long time ago, but I didn’t. I couldn’t find the courage to destroy history, and that was a mistake I regret with all my heart. I never thought of my death as imminent, you see. Now I have only a short time left to live and no longer the strength to leave this bed and do what must be done. I’m asking you to do it on my behalf. Open my safe. You’ll find a cardboard box at the very back of it, kept closed by a string. You can’t miss it. Burn the box. Don’t read its contents. The truth should die with me.” He looked Damiano in the eyes. “Promise me you’ll do what I ask, and I’ll die in peace.”

  “I promise, father. Your secret will be safe.”

  “God bless you, son,” Federico heaved. “I’ll always be with you.”

  8

  FOR SEVERAL DAYS DAMIANO lived in confusion. What his father had done was unquestionably illegal, but he had done it for a greater good and to help people, and for that he felt respect and admiration. On the other hand, he, Damiano Sciaccaluga, had taken an oath when he had become a doctor. By keeping his father’s actions secret and burning the birth records he’d be betraying that oath, which was the foundation of the profession he had chosen. It was a conundrum, one that troubled him even in his sleep.

  One morning Federico died. Watching his father lying immobile on the white sheets, hands crossed on his chest, Damiano realized he couldn’t betray him. He rushed to Federico’s medical office and opened the safe. The box was in the very back, as Federico had said. Damiano’s hands trembled as he held it, for he knew he was holding the legacy of his father. He brought the box to his own home, where he started the wood stove. With no hesitation, he lifted the stove lid and placed the box over the opening, ready to toss it into the flames. It was then that he began to wonder what the box contained. Papers? How many? Names, for sure. Someone he knew? He shook the box. So many secrets … I’ll look once, he said to himself, and then I’ll burn the box and forget it ever existed. What ill can it do if I take a quick look, it’ll be a moment then the box will turn to ashes. “Don’t read its contents …” he heard in his head. “The truth should die with me …” He stared at the red of the flames, watching his curiosity eat the voice of his father. He walked away from the stove, sat at the kitchen table, and untied the string. His heart raced as he began to skim through the handwritten papers. Each sheet contained information related to one child sale, beginning with the parents’ names—biological and adoptive—followed by the child’s data: birth date, sex, weight and length at birth. In the bottom right corner numbers indicated how much the adoptive parents had paid and how that amount had been divided between Federico and the birth mother. Looking at those numbers, Damiano realized it was true that his father had never gained any money from those sales. Emotion and guilt grew and fought inside him so strongly he had to stop reading. What should he do with those sheets? Should he look for the parents? For the children? It was a difficult decision, one he should not make hastily or while he was at the mercy of his emotions. One thing he knew for sure: he wouldn’t destroy the box—he would keep it. Those papers were a connection between him and Federico, the only tangible link left after his death. So he replaced the documents inside the box, closed it, tied the string around it, and went to sleep. The following day, he took the box to his own office and placed it on a bookshelf, behind a large medicine manual. That’s where the box stayed, clear of everyone’s eyes, for half a year.

  One day, a young girl arrived at Doctor Sciaccaluga’s office. She was dressed in modest oversize clothes, which hung from her shoulders over her gaunt body like an empty potato sack. Damiano had never seen her before.

  “How may I help you?” he asked.

  Eyes to the floor, the girl whispered, “I’m in trouble, Doctor. I need your help.”

  “What kind of trouble are you in?”

  The girl touched her belly. “Baby trouble.”

  “Are you pregnant?” Damiano asked.

  She nodded.

  “Are you feeling sick?”

  She nodded again.

  “Let me visit you then. I have medicines that will ease your discomfort.”

  She shook her head. “Please make the baby go away.”

  Damiano froze for a moment then knitted his brow. “What makes you think I’d be willing to do such a thing?

  The girl said, “I wouldn’t know, sir, but I went to four doctors already, and nobody wants to help me. I live in this neighborhood, and I saw your sign out in the street, and someone I know told me you are a good man, a man who helps people. Please help me. I feel so sick …”

  Damiano swallowed twice. He didn’t like the tone of that conversation and had no desire of being involved in illegal practices that could compromise his career. So he told the girl how sorry he felt for her but he wouldn’t be able to help her, and she should leave now as he was very, very busy that day.

  She moaned, “Please don’t send me away.”

  Damiano showed the girl to the door. “Please leave,” he said, “and don’t come back.”

  Alone again, he went back to his business, which was to examine the health records of his next patient, Filomena Bregante, who was due in less than ten minutes. Thank god, he thought, no one had witnessed that encounter.

  Filomena Bregante, a middle-aged woman afflicted with chronic cold and asthma attacks, arrived at the office shortly. “Doctor,” she wheezed, “so you know, there’s a girl seated on the landing. She’s crying, and when I asked her what she was crying for, she said she has no reason to be alive and she’d be dead soon anyway because she’s no longer able to work. ‘It’s all the same,’ the girl added, ‘if I die soon and at my own hand.’”

  Damiano breathed deeply in and out. To reassure Filomena Bregante, so she’d go home without thinking about the girl and her trouble, he said, “She doesn’t truly mean that, don’t worry. I’ll take care of her as soon as I’m finished with you.”

  Indeed, after Filomena had left, he stepped outside. The girl was seated on the floor, back against the wall. She was pale, and her eyes were swollen with tears. Her shoulders twitched, shaken by her sobs. “Would you like to come back in for a short while?” the doctor asked.

  Nodding, the girl stood up and followed Damiano inside. Between sobs, she told him that her name was Teresa Percato and her age seventeen. “I don’t want to be pregnant, sir. I work for my mother in her establishment, cooking and cleaning, but I cannot work in this condition. Yesterday I felt so sick I couldn’t stand up. My mother doesn’t like me. She told me many times that if I can’t work I should leave. I have no one to look after me. If I lose that job, I lose my life.”

  Damiano scratched his head in puzzlement. He had never considered interrupting pregnancies before and didn’t like the idea of doing it because the Church was fiercely against that practice. Not that he cared about the Church�
��s wishes, but he knew how powerful the Church was in that town. Those high-level priests were politicians without scruples, especially the Archbishop and his court, and if the notion that he messed with pregnancies should spread and reach their ears, he could be in serious trouble. He could lose his practice at a snap of the Archbishop’s fingers, perhaps go to jail. The girl, nonetheless, was clearly in distress, and it was possible she’d do something inconsiderate out of despair, like take her own life, as she had already told Filomena Bregante she might do. He didn’t want to be responsible for the life of a girl he had never seen before. Looking across the desk at Teresa’s thin, emaciated figure and at the anxiety in her eyes, Damiano decided to buy himself some time. Kindly, he asked Teresa to return the following day at three for a consultation. Teresa kissed his hands and said, “Thank you, sir. I’ll always be grateful to you.”

  That night Damiano dreamed dead babies floating in the air and big black crows flying low, inches from his head. The crows had the faces of priests he knew–the Archbishop and Father Luigi and Father Mario—and clutched silver crosses in their beaks. Every so often the crows landed on his head and pecked at his skull with the crosses. He waved his hands to chase them away, and they flew up towards the ceiling and then back down towards him at full speed. At six AM, when he awoke, he had a pounding headache. He stood up and wobbled to an open window, breathing the clean air of dawn. He gazed at the pigeons huddled on the gutters, the swallows darting in the sky. He thought about his father, the cardboard box, and being the doctor of dreams. When he saw the sun disk rise beyond the roofs, he decided he’d do exactly what his father would have done in that situation. He remembered Lucia Ivaldi, a young woman from Turin he had visited two weeks earlier. Lucia was married and childless, and had come to Genoa to spend the winter so her health would improve with the sun and the air of the sea. During her last visit she had confided in him, as often women do with their doctors. She had spoken about her numerous attempts at becoming pregnant, the many doctors she had seen in Turin and Milan, the various cures she had tried, and how everything had failed.