The House of Serenades

by Lina Simoni

  Though sympathetic towards Ivano’s distress, Caterina spent most of her time with her mother. The two often sat in the blue parlor, looking at each other like two accomplices sharing the weight of sins and secrets. At times they took walks along Corso Solferino, enjoying the beauty of the city down below.

  One night, after dinner, Matilda announced she would retire to her bedroom for the night. Alone, Caterina went outside, to the belvedere, where she stood breathless at the sight of the city at night. The glow of the streetlights rose towards the sky in a yellow smoke and the moon cast its golden reflection on the sea. Seated alone on a south-facing bench, wrapped in the peace of the night, she thought about her mother, the reclusive life she was now living, the long years she had spent enslaved to her husband, her struggle with her weakness. Then she thought about her own struggles, the long years at the convent, the escape, and everything that had happened since she had returned to town. She tried to imagine what her and her mother’s lives would be had she not met Ivano on that rainy day and had her father not fallen ill and then died. Her heart went cold when she thought of the mysterious person who had sent the anonymous letters and hung the dead cat on the door. Who was he? What wrong had her father done to this person to provoke so hateful a reaction? How many people had her father hurt in his life? She looked out, towards the water, slowly shifting her gaze back and forth over the cityscape, wondering where the writer of the anonymous letters might be, which of the hundreds of houses that lay beneath her eyes he called home, what he looked like, how old he was. Then she thought about Ivano, the colder mood that had set between them recently. Breathing the warm air of early summer, she asked herself whether she still loved him or she held on to him simply because she felt alone. It was past midnight when she returned home. She crossed the foyer, where a sconce of alabaster cast a tremulous shadow on the walls. She walked up the marble staircase, cutting the silence with the swish of her clothes. She undressed in the dark and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  The sun was shining when she awoke. Matilda was already in the blue parlor, embroidering a new set of handkerchiefs.

  Caterina said, “Good morning, Mother.”

  Matilda lifted her head. “Good morning, darling. Are you going out? You are so well dressed.”

  “I’m meeting Ivano downtown. I’ll be back soon.” She leaned towards her mother and kissed her on the cheek.

  She was surprised to see Ivano waiting for her across the street rather than at the café by the port they had chosen as their meeting place.

  “Caterina, we must talk,” he said.

  She was struck by the expression of misery in his eyes. She said, “I’m listening.”

  “I can’t go on like this. I love you, and you are colder towards me every day. I don’t want to lose you after what I went through to find you. You’re the only woman I ever loved. Tell me why you don’t love me anymore.”

  “Things are not as they used to be,” Caterina said. “I still love you, but the tragedies that unsettled my family affected me as well. I’m not the same person, Ivano. My heart is not the same.”

  “You must set yourself free from the past,” Ivano insisted. “Your return to your parents’ home was necessary, I know, but it’s not necessary for you to remain here. Why do you insist on staying in this big empty house filled with sad memories? These memories are keeping you away from me. They are pushing us apart, don’t you see?”

  “You may be right, Ivano,” Caterina said, “but I can’t leave my mother alone.”

  “Why?” Ivano exclaimed. “She left you alone for over two years! How can you feel obliged towards the mother who imprisoned you in that convent?”

  “My father was responsible,” Caterina stated. “My mother did what he told her to do.”

  “That’s no excuse. How can you sacrifice your happiness to hers? You already sacrificed so much of your life! Don’t you think it’s time for you to be happy?”

  “What would make me happy, in your opinion?” Caterina asked.

  “Being with me.” He looked straight into her eyes. “Caterina, I wish to marry you. I am asking you, right here, right now. Be my bride. Leave that house of sorrow. Let’s start our lives over.”

  With her fingers, Caterina grazed his cheek. “My place is with my mother at this time. The time will come for us to be together, I promise. Please, understand. There have been so many changes in my life and in the lives of others in such a short time. I caused a tempest in my family with my return. I need to see the tempest off before I can devote myself to you.”

  “Don’t do this,” Ivano begged as Caterina turned away from him.

  “I told you how I feel, Ivano,” Caterina said, reentering the house. “I won’t change my mind.”

  The tempest Caterina had alluded to was far from over. One day, somehow, the tale of Giuseppe’s love affair reached Matilda’s ears, despite Caterina’s efforts to spare her mother the embarrassment and the pain. Perhaps Viola and Guglielmo had talked to each other too loudly, or perhaps one of Matilda’s former lady friends had visited and told her everything, unable to pass up the opportunity to hurt her. On the evening Matilda learned that her poorly-born husband had also been Francesca Barone’s lover of a lifetime and that the two had likely conceived a child, she said to her daughter, “I love you, Caterina. Goodbye.” Caterina waved at her without seeing the hidden meaning in her mother’s words, interpreting them as a different way of saying good night. Without turning back, Matilda climbed the staircase to the second floor, the hem of her long silvery dress gliding over the steps as she walked. In the morning, Viola opened her mistress’s bedroom door and, as usual, placed a tray with coffee and milk on the bedside table.

  “Good morning, Madame,” she murmured, pouring half a spoon of sugar in the espresso. And then she saw her, lying still amidst the disheveled linen sheets, white foam dripping from her mouth. A doctor was called, who explained that Matilda had committed suicide by ingesting a large quantity of rat poison she had likely taken from the kitchen during the night. She was buried in desecrated land, as the Church stated that suicides shouldn’t be awarded the privilege of Christian burial: no Mass, no Requiem Aeternam, no other prayer.

  17

  IF CATERINA HAD SHOWN ENOUGH strength and willpower to survive her reclusion and the discovery of her father’s true identity, her mother’s death sent her into an agony too strong for her to fight. She had become close to Matilda after her return. They had conversed often while strolling in the garden during the daytime or seated in the blue parlor in the evening while Matilda embroidered her handkerchiefs. In the solitude they had experienced after acquaintances and relatives had unanimously pronounced Matilda an accomplice in Giuseppe’s scheme and hence as guilty as he was of her daughter’s death charade, united by their roles of victims of the same tyrant, Caterina and Matilda had shared the parts of each other they didn’t know. Caterina had spoken at such length about her time in the convent and with such precision of detail that Matilda had felt as if she had lived there herself for two years. And Matilda had described so accurately for her daughter the life of the family and that of the city–the people, the theaters, the balls, the parties, and the political changes–that Caterina had had the impression that she had never left Genoa at all. It was as if the months mother and daughter had been apart had shrunk more with every day that went by, until they became intangible and one day ceased to exist.

  Now, with her mother dead, her father dead, her brothers vanished, and her aunt in voluntary reclusion, Caterina felt like a tree uprooted by a hurricane, surviving only because of an accident of nature. She lived her life mechanically and in the present moment, without giving a shred of thought to the past, close or far, or to the future. She ate, washed, slept, and nothing more. Guglielmo and Viola took care of her, and she let them dress her, feed her, and move her from room to room with the passivity of a stone.

  One evening, alone in her bedroom, Caterina resumed her imaginary drawings on the
wall. She straightened her index finger, touching the white surface with the tip of it, and then moved her hand about, slowly, accurately, never covering the same area twice. Whereas at the convent she had found comfort in drawing a variety of subjects that reminded her of her hometown, the only subject she drew now was her mother’s face. She drew it tirelessly, every night, at times small, the size of letter paper, at times as large as the wall allowed. She always began by drawing the eyes, taking time to include the details of the pupils, the eyelashes, and the brows. Then she moved on to Matilda’s small ears, French nose, and silvery hair. She could never bring herself to draw the mouth, for all she could remember about it was the white of the foam.

  Ivano came daily to the palazzina and spent hours playing the mandolin and talking to Caterina about various topics—the sun that was shining outside, the ships that had docked in the harbor, and the new stores that had opened in town. He held Caterina’s hand while he talked and caressed it with so deep an affection that Viola, who was always present during those visits, would occasionally burst into stifled sobs that increased in frequency with the buildup of her emotion. From behind the barrier she had built around herself since the day of her mother’s death, Caterina felt the touch of Ivano’s hand, saw the movements of his lips, heard the sound of his words and that of the mandolin, but didn’t grasp their meaning. Shattered by her silence, Ivano prayed silently to the God he had hardly ever prayed to that He see Caterina through her pain.

  A second visitor came to the palazzina daily: Father Camillo. Whereas Ivano tried to reach Caterina with his caresses, his music, and the colorful descriptions of the external world, Father Camillo talked to her about faith and hope and God and the Virgin Mary. He recited prayers in her presence, hoping that those sounds, which were so familiar to Caterina, would help her overcome her inner pain. It is unclear whether it was thanks to Ivano, his music, and his tales of the world or to Father Camillo’s prayers that she lowered, one day, her barrier. Perhaps she had needed both voices, or perhaps her condition had come naturally to the end of its course. Whatever the reason, a little over a month after her mother’s burial, Caterina snapped out of her apathy, much as she had returned to life from her near-death condition at the House of Hope: the ghosts of her past dimmed, her mother’s face became a blurred vision. Struggling, she resumed life. She devoted herself to charity, spending a considerable amount of the family money helping the poor and buying land and buildings she subsequently donated to the city for use as hospitals, schools, and shelters. She saw Ivano on a daily basis and began to feel for him an affection that, though different from the passion she had felt for him in the past, gave her reassurance. She clung to him as a shipwrecked sailor clings to wreckage that can keep her afloat. He was her anchor, her safety net. He was her only link to her roots, the only steady presence through her present and past life. He knew a great deal about her, what she had been before going to the convent, what she had become after her return, and what she had gone through during and after the scandal that had shattered her family and her heart.

  For his part, Ivano was a happy man, for he could see his dream of a lifetime coming within reach. He told his father to get ready for the wedding, as nothing stood in the way of it now that Caterina felt better and her family was no longer around to interfere. He even stopped by Francesca Barone’s establishment to let her know he’d no longer be a customer at Caffe’ del Gambero, as he was about to marry his true love and intended to spend every minute with her—for the rest of his life.

  Francesca Barone opened a bottle of Pommery to celebrate. “Finally some good news in this town,” she said, lifting her glass to the ceiling. “I wish you all the joy in the world, Ivano. I know that Caterina will make you a very happy man.”

  The following day, Ivano went to the palazzina carrying in hand a magnificent bouquet of red roses. When Caterina came to the foyer to meet him, he handed her the roses and said, “Caterina, my love, do you wish to be my bride?”

  Caterina smiled her beautiful smile and said, “Yes, Ivano, I wish to be your bride.”

  They hugged, they kissed, and then Ivano rushed home to give the wonderful news to his father. Corrado was so thrilled by the announcement that he shed his first tears in twenty-eight years. He had shed his previous ones on the day his wife had died giving birth to their child.

  As for Caterina, she went looking for Father Camillo at the cathedral. In a thrilling voice, she asked him to officiate at the wedding ceremony. She looked like the happy girl she had been before the convent reclusion: her green eyes sparkled, her hair was lustrous and shiny, and the girlish expression that captivated everybody was back on her face.

  “I shall be honored to celebrate your happiness beneath the eyes of God,” Father Camillo said. Enthusiastically, he gave Caterina his blessing.

  That night, incapable of falling asleep, Caterina took her usual walk to the belvedere and sat on the bench to enjoy the fresh air and the perfumes of the land and the sea. She thought about Ivano and the perseverance with which he had stayed at her side and felt lucky to have him and be marrying him soon. She imagined the ceremony, the dress, the flowers, and her and Ivano’s happiness on that day, after so much tribulation. She was saddened by the thought that no member of her family would be attending the wedding. There would be no one to help her get ready, no one to take her to the altar, no one to kiss her good-bye. Not even Lavinia would be with her, as all attempts to track her down had failed. She had asked Viola, Guglielmo, the cook, the gardener, and even Antonio Sobrero, but no one knew anything of her beloved chaperone’s whereabouts. She had visions of the empty church and felt scared. She cursed herself again for having left the convent with Ivano rather than with her mother. And she wondered once more about the person who had contributed to the death of her father. Had that person not sent the anonymous letters and hung the cat on the door of the palazzina, she reasoned, her life would be very different today. Antonio Sobrero wouldn’t have become involved in her family affairs. Her father wouldn’t have fallen sick in the first place and would probably be still alive. Doctor Sciaccaluga wouldn’t have perhaps revealed what he knew about her father’s birth parents. Father Camillo wouldn’t have opened Palmira’s envelope, and the child trade would have been discovered only much later. Francesca Barone would have kept quiet. Her mother wouldn’t have killed herself, her brothers wouldn’t have fled town, and her family, or part of it at least, would have perhaps found a way to stay together. A wave of hate rose inside her, almost by surprise. Who was this person? she asked herself again. Why had he wanted to scare her father? Where was he now? Still in Genoa? Or many kilometers away?

  “Come here!” she shouted, feeling an urge to come face to face with the villain, an eagerness to look him in the eyes and tell him what a coward he was to have acted the way he had. She stood from the bench and paced the belvedere back and forth, her golden hair shimmering under the light of the stars.

  It was a brilliant, clear morning when Caterina entered the police headquarters, asking a young recruit to see Antonio Sobrero.

  Shortly, Antonio welcomed her to his office. “What brings you here, Miss Berilli?” he asked, surprised.

  Shyly, Caterina described to him her curiosity about the identity of the anonymous writer, her feelings of hate, her distress. “I can’t get him out of my mind, Mister Sobrero. He’s haunting me day and night. I must find out who he is. Please, help me find him. Reopen the case. Resume the investigation.”

  “I understand your affliction, Miss Berilli,” Antonio said, “and if I could see a way to put an end to it, I would act without delay. There’s nothing, however, I can do at this time. You must know that I and several of my men investigated the matter thoroughly at the time your father fell sick. Based on certain stories your father told me, I personally questioned a number of suspects, but discovered nothing. All the suspects had alibis I couldn’t prove false. And now, with your father dead, it makes no sense to continue prying.”


  “What stories did my father tell you?” Caterina inquired.

  “He singled out several individuals who had reason to hate him,” Antonio explained. “I interviewed them all without result.”

  “Who are these individuals?” Caterina asked.

  Antonio leaned back in his chair. He thought a moment. “Well,” he said, “one was a lawyer your father had fired, a certain Roberto Passalacqua, but he was with the Mayor that night. Then there was Guido Orengo, a renowned smuggler of alcohol your father had helped us catch and send to jail, but he was in prison at the time, and I was never able to find out if he had given his men the order to threaten your father. Then your father mentioned Ivano Bo.”

  Caterina moved to the edge of her seat. She spoke with a faint voice. “Ivano Bo? Why?”

  “Apparently, Ivano deemed your father responsible for your … death. He told me that himself, when I questioned him on the night of the dead cat. He thought you had let yourself die because your father had taken you from him. He shouted threats at your father at the time your death was announced. Your father had him arrested. That’s why I included him in the list of suspects. But Corrado Bo, his father, told me that Ivano was at the bakery at the time the dead cat was placed on the door, and that got him off the hook.”

  Caterina stared at Antonio with stunned eyes. She said, “I can’t believe what you’re telling me, Mister Sobrero. Ivano never said one word to me about all this …”