Abroad (21 page)

“So just one family owns this?” I asked.

Samuel looked pained. “Yes.”

“May I ask who else is here?” Anna asked.

“My son, Ben, and a couple of his friends from school. A business associate of mine named Roberto. He’s quite a jolly one. As I said, my wife, unfortunately, is in Lazio.”

He paused for a moment, regarding us as if we should say something to this fact.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I would have liked to have met her.”

Samuel looked at me as if he hadn’t noticed me before, which was probably true. “Would you have, dear? I’m sure the feeling is mutual. My Elena simply loves ingénues, as do all middle-aged women.”

Professor Korloff shouted with uneasy laughter. “Jesus, Samuel! Don’t terrify us.”

“Ah, yes. Still young enough to be properly frightened.”

“I was talking about
me
,” the professor said.

Samuel laughed shortly. “How wonderful you are. That New York sense of humor. I’d almost forgotten. All right, let’s get you little chickens settled.”

Samuel led us to the right of the castle, then up a white stone pathway that threaded through a stone arch. Here, we found another lawn, where there was a charming, long wooden table for dining alfresco. “The dining hall is through there,” he said, pointing to one of the low buildings. “It used to be in the main castle, but now we’ve moved it to be near the kitchen. The castle itself is dreadfully uncomfortable. But you’ll see. Fabrizio!”

The old man emerged, his face purple.

“For God’s sake, get the cook to help you,” Samuel said. “I can’t have you dead during a house party. Take the girls up, will you? Make yourselves at home, if you can. We’ll have drinks in the main hall at five, though the boys will start earlier. Dinner dress, I’m afraid. You have something?”

“Yes,” Anna said.

“My wife insists on the tradition, and even though she’s abdicated, she’ll be livid if she hears otherwise. All right, Arthur, let’s look at those pieces.”

“I’ll be right there. Anna, a moment?”

Samuel gave a jaunty wave and disappeared through one of the doors in the old stable. Anna stayed behind with Arthur, while the rest of us followed Fabrizio around the side of the building, then through another thick archway and into the castle’s dark belly, pausing on the landing to study the coat of arms.

“Ask how long the Websters have owned it,” Jenny instructed me.

“Eight years,” Fabrizio answered when I translated. “But really, of course, the city of Gubbio owns it. The viscount built it for Italy, not to own. Hundreds of people lived here then, a whole town.”

“Any ghosts?”

Fabrizio sighed, as if tired of being irritated by tourists. “There is a story of a dead nun.”

He took us up the wide, cold stairs, pointing out the main hall—large, dark, and grim, with twenty-foot ceilings, red polished stone floors, and a dusty chandelier that threatened to fall at any moment. The music room, housing a neglected piano and harp. A library, also with walls that climbed seemingly impossible heights to the ceiling, with bookshelves so tall they required long ladders to access. Down a long, unassuming hall was a chapel—the only cheerful room in the fortress. We could look at it from the bell balcony, but could not enter because of the danger from earthquake damage. A cat had crawled behind the altar last year and been crushed, Fabrizio said.

We climbed higher and higher, past the ladies’ salon, the men’s salon, the upper kitchen (added for the last owner, who did not like to go all the way outside for snacks), the “television room”—surprisingly opulent, with gilded, French rococo furniture, mirrors and sofas with high backs. Then we pressed on even more, up a winding narrow staircase to a covered outdoor passageway on the very top of the long walls, once patrolled by guards in case of attack.

“Here we are,” he said, opening two locked doors with the keys attached to his belt. Each chamber was the same: two hard-looking single beds, one window facing the inner courtyard, a dresser, a sink, and a writing desk.

“What are we, fucking monks?” Jenny said, throwing her purse down.

“Maybe this is where that nun died,” Luka said.

“Thank you so much, Fabrizio,” I managed. The Italian retreated; as soon as the door closed Luka unzipped her suitcase and pulled out a bottle of scotch.

“So what then?” Jenny said. “Why’ve they stuck us up here in the servants’ hall? And do you think Mr. Webster is looking for a girlfriend?”

“Ew, Jenny,” Luka said. “He’s ancient.”

“He’s not bad, and think of the private planes to Paris and Rome.”

“Please,” Anna said, entering the room. “This is serious. Arthur is my mentor. No preying on the married host. And absolutely no sales. To anyone.”

“What did Professor Korloff want?” I asked.

“He’s worried one of us will tempt Samuel to … misbehave. Apparently without his wife he’s a bit of a drinker. Arthur asks that we keep our heads.”

“Scotch me, Luka,” Jenny said. “Well, the quarters are Spartan, but the place is interesting. You can’t laugh at all those centuries of rich people. I’m glad to have to dress for dinner, anyway. It’s a good sign.”

“I think I’ll go down to that library,” Anna said. “And later, Arthur said Samuel might let us look at his Etruscan pieces.”

“Sexy,” Luka said. Jenny laughed.

“I’m serious about what he said.” Anna gave Jenny a pleading look. “It was embarrassing for him to bring it up. Please let’s behave.”

“Of course, of course.”

Anna took a breath. “Taz? You want to come to the library?”

“I’m going for a walk.” Since we’d stepped into the castle’s walls, I’d felt trapped, as if the very air were crowded with souls.

The others declined to join, so I hurriedly slipped on my trainers and made my way down through the gloomy hallways. I ran down the stairs to the courtyard, giving in to an impulse to jump down the stairs into the gravel. Tiny stones sprayed out from my feet. I had the sudden feeling of being watched, and looked up. There, in the window, was the crow-faced woman in black I’d seen in Grifonia while wandering the streets in the heat. When I glimpsed her, I had that feeling of recognition, the same sort as when I’d see a friend at school with another acquaintance, without previously understanding their connection.

Of course you’re here.

I blinked and squinted, trying to get a clearer look, but my efforts were futile: the woman had either moved from view or vanished altogether.

Lucretia, 13th century AD

Lucretia wasn’t a nun. She was a servant. Her duties were to clean the church after Sunday Mass. The
castello
wasn’t a convent, so no nuns ever lived there, but there were services every Sunday, for which a cardinal would ride up on his horse. He would arrive on Saturday, attend dinner in the great hall, then perform the Mass in the morning. The cardinal’s weekly visit was an important mark of status to the Rivaldis; as a token, they had a portrait commissioned of the clergyman holding his favorite horse in his hand.

The cardinal’s name was Ignatio. Lucretia was the daughter of the cobbler. She was a pale creature, meek with pleasant gold hair and papery skin. Her father had many children, some by his dead wife, some by her replacement. Lucretia was quiet. She faded into the din.

One day after the service, while Lucretia was wiping the mud from the pews left by the boots of the horsemen, the cardinal grabbed her by the hair. She didn’t fight. She told herself she was doing it for God. She didn’t fight the next time, or the next time either.

Eventually she started to swell. She told no one, but the cardinal noticed. No one else did. She was nothing in the castle to anyone and she knew it. Even her family had trouble keeping track of her.

The cardinal didn’t say anything on the last day. He took her as he usually did, but would not look at her during it. Afterward, he slapped her and hurried out.

A servant impregnated by a cardinal. There was only one way this could end. She would be cast out. She would die alone in the snow.

The Compagnia was contacted. A nameless noble came in the night with a sharpened dagger. When Lucretia saw the blade at her neck, to her surprise she was flooded with relief.

Her body was carried out in the dark morning. She wasn’t missed in the castle for days.

In the ledger, the death was noted but no one claimed the privilege. The act was simply credited as a service to God.

Lucretia di Bologna, seventeen years old, 13th century AD

16

I took my time getting back. It was cool but sunny—almost mid-October. Winter was approaching; these were the last days of walking without a jumper or a coat. As I made my way back toward the castle on the dirt road, I could hear what sounded like bottled laughter. Staying close to the wall, I went closer and peeked around the garden gate.

A group of men lounged under the awning in cycling gear on the lawn. There were five of them, only one of whom looked especially correct in spandex. Not wanting to meet them alone, I darted into the courtyard and ran up the stairs, where Anna was reading a booklet about the castle, and Luka and Jenny were napping next to empty glasses rimmed on the bottom with the brown sticky remnants of scotch.

“Do you know, this place is eight hundred years old,” she said, not looking up. “I tried to call my cousin to see about the Italian royal registry, but there’s no service up here. Samuel seems to be nobody special; I only know that because no self-respecting Englishman of class would buy a whole castle these days. It’s just a thing Internet people do.”

“Can you imagine being that rich?” I asked.

“Two hundred families lived here in the 1400s. They were attacked all the bloody time. There was a blacksmith, a stable, farming, a clergy staff … up to a thousand people right in these walls, it says. Pretty incredible. We must be in the servants’ quarters, or the soldiers’ barracks.” She glanced around. “They
could
have given us better rooms.”

“I suppose they wanted to keep us together.”

“Who is the son, I wonder?”

“I saw him, I think. And his friends. They were downstairs on the lawn in cycling clothes.”

“And?”

“I don’t know. They seemed all right.”

“Taz, come on. Were they attractive? Old? Rich?” I shrugged. “Did they look like the sort to show a girl a good time?”

“They seemed a little drunk.”

“Well, that’s something, anyway.”

We were late to cocktails, a move calculated by Jenny and, in the end, all wrong. At six, we entered, shimmering in our long dresses: Luka in gray backless satin, Anna in a somber column of black, Jenny in dark red, and me in my gold-and-black dress. Samuel and Professor Korloff were alone in the main hall with Pascal, who was lingering idly under a painting. The professor was sitting in a large leather chair with a glass of wine, clearly annoyed, and didn’t bother to rise when we came in. Fabrizio stood behind the bar, equally peeved.

“I know it seems strange, ducklings. But when I ask students to a party, I mean for people to show
up
.”

“I’m so sorry,” Anna said. She truly looked as if she might cry.

“We got so caught up in our preparations,” Jenny said grandly. “It’s Tabitha’s fault, actually. We were doing her hair.”

This was clearly a lie, as my hair was curly and loose, the same as it had been in the morning. In fact, the bathroom had been so thoroughly occupied I hadn’t even taken a shower.

“Which one of you is Tabitha?” Samuel asked.

“Me,” I said. Samuel looked at me for a long time, his eyes traveling up and down my body. I had never felt like a whore before that, even when my college boyfriend had treated me like one. I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Well, you look very nice,” he said finally.

“Yes, very respectable,” Professor Korloff said coolly. “You
all
look nice. Pascal! Come over here. Now, then. What can Fabrizio get you girls to drink?”

We anxiously accepted glasses of Lillet. After a few painful minutes, the voices I’d heard from the lawn traveled up the stairs, growing louder. The boys burst in, a glad sight to me in their dinner jackets, carrying with them that enviable, boisterous air of having just come from the most amusing party on earth.

“Where have you been?” Samuel asked.

“Down in Gubbio, then we had to dress.” He introduced himself cordially but disinterestedly as Ben, Samuel’s son. He was twenty-four and at university in Rome. He had three friends: Jean, Marc, and Raffie. There was also Roberto, who was older and portly, with a tan, likable face.

As soon as we spoke to these specimens of the opposite sex, it was instantly understood among Anna, Luka, Jenny, and me that Ben and his friends were gay. That Samuel seemed oblivious to this fact—the rest of the evening, he made references to our pairing off—could be nothing other than stubborn denial. The men other than Roberto talked of going on holiday together, of going to clubs, of their boyfriends. Ben was the most aloof, and, it must be said, he never himself admitted to having a gay lover. But it was more than understood, which is why, with much of the pressure off, we females began drinking with abandon—even Anna—and having rather a good time.

The night was unseasonably warm, so at Ben’s insistence we ate on the lawn, as the dining hall was “an absolute crypt.” The table had been dressed with a starched cloth and set with silver, an assortment of crystal, and several bouquets of herbs. The trellis had been strung with white lights, and tall candles flickered on silver candelabras. Someone had even taken the trouble to put out place cards, ensuring that the company was properly mixed. Anna was next to the professor. Jenny and Luka were placed in the center of the men. I was near the end, next to Samuel, who headed the table with solemn duty.

The servers came out immediately, silent and quick, averting their eyes from ours. Our wineglasses were filled to the brim with a sharp white. Samuel gave a grim toast to the legacy of academia and the common man. And then, before we could even put down our glasses, the food started to come.