Kal (4 page)

Sarina had hoped that she might meet a prospective future husband at the tavern but, two years down the track, it did not seem at all likely. Potential lovers abounded and she succumbed to several (always married men to ensure discretion), but potential husbands were sadly lacking. Until Marcello De Cretico.

‘Marry me then, marry me. Become my wife.' Marcello's proposal was a last resort. But even as he said the words in a moment of distraction as she parted from his embrace and was closing her cottage door on him yet again, he wondered why he had not said them earlier. He loved her, he was convinced of it. Of course. Marriage. The perfect solution. ‘You are my life, Sarina, I love you.
Sei la mia vita. Ti amo sempre
. Marry me.'

Sarina's heart was pounding. Everything she had hoped for, prayed for, was it possible? She tried to curb her excitement. Marcello was very young, there was his family to consider. Surely they would never allow such a marriage. But try as she might, she could not extinguish an overwhelming surge of exhilaration.

‘I love you too, Marcello. And, yes, I would marry you. If it were at all possible I would marry you. But-'

Marcello kissed her deeply and she returned his kiss with equal fervour. As she did, she felt a surge of sexual desire. She longed to make love to him but she could not allow herself to give in. Sarina was fully aware that once the conquest had been made, Marcello's offer of
marriage might well be forgotten and she did not dare risk that.

As she had predicted, the family was most certainly opposed to the marriage. Mario and Luigi De Cretico themselves came to Santa Lena as soon as Marcello sent them word of his intentions. There was no invitation extended for Marcello to bring his fiancé to Milan or Bologna in order to meet the family.

Mario had been irritated by Marcello's extended stay in the village. A month should have sufficed to oversee both the Santa Lena properties and the winery, but Marcello had not even been to the vineyard. This affair with a local peasant girl explained the delay and Mario was angry.

‘Grow up, Marcello, grow up! You cannot marry the woman, she is a peasant.' He continued before Marcello could interrupt. ‘Even with all her fancy airs and graces. Can't you see that? She is a peasant bitch on heat. She is after your money and your position and your name.'

‘No, Mario, no she is not,' Marcello insisted. ‘She loves me and I love her, I swear it.' Marcello was by now utterly convinced of his deep and abiding love for Sarina.

‘You love her, sure. But with your
cazzo,
you fool. You love her with your cock. So take her. Have her. But do not marry her. I will not have you marry her. She will not become a member of this family,
capice?'

Mario, like most men, had immediately responded to Sarina's sexuality and that made her a harlot as far as he was concerned. There were women you took to bed and women you married and Sarina fell into the former category.

But Marcello was obsessed. ‘I am of age, Mario,' he said, when his brother's tirade was finally over, ‘and I will marry Sarina with or without the family's approval.'

 

M
ARCELLO AND
S
ARINA
were married at the Santa Lena church two months later. No member of the De Cretico family attended the wedding, but that was simply their way of voicing their disapproval. They did not disown Marcello or threaten to disinherit him. The De Cretico family always acknowledged their own.

The couple honeymooned in Paris. Then, whilst their magnificent house was being built on the hill, they planned an extended holiday. Rome, Florence, Venice. It was all beyond Sarina's wildest imaginings.

She loved Paris. She could live without love if life could be as exciting as this. She walked down the Champs Elysee, her ruffled taffeta petticoats rustling enticingly. She twirled her striped parasol as she marvelled at the formal gardens of Versailles, and she adjusted her ostrich-feathered bonnet as she gazed up awestruck at the brand-new Eiffel Tower.

The long-awaited sex with Marcello, however, was somewhat of a disappointment. It was neither the prolonged orgy of love-making Sarina had shared with Carlo nor the torrid bouts of coupling she had experienced with her lovers. The fact that Marcello seemed intent upon satisfying only his own desires grew to annoy Sarina. And she did not particularly like his body. It was too slim for her tastes. She liked a man to be sturdy, strong. Like Mario De Cretico.

Although she knew he did not like her, Sarina had sensed Mario's lust and it had excited her. Now, when she and Marcello made love, she fantasised that it was really his brother who was grunting his passion on top of her.

Marcello never questioned whether his new wife was satisfied with their love-making. It would never have occurred to him to do so. All of his sexual experiences had been with high-class prostitutes—his brothers' associates always entertained the De Creticos well when
they were doing business. As a result Marcello was accustomed to using a woman's body rather than making love to it.

But it was a price Sarina was prepared to pay. After all, when they returned home she would rule the village. Marcello would be king, she would be his queen and together they would reign. Sarina did not know which excited her more—the travel and the shopping, or the prospect of being the wealthiest and most envied woman in Santa Lena. Yes, a loveless marriage was a price she was more than prepared to pay for her idyllic existence.

But six months after the couple's return to the village, Sarina discovered to her dismay that, far from wishing to reign alongside his beautiful queen, Marcello wanted to become one of the common herd.

Marcello had never known popularity. In the past he had always been ‘the young De Cretico'. The De Cretico name demanded respect, but the ‘young' had always been dismissive and Marcello knew he had only been accepted into the ruggedly masculine company he and his brothers kept because of Mario and Luigi. Even his brothers' wives and his two older sisters considered him weak.

Now, amongst the villagers and itinerant workers who ate and drank at the tavern, he had discovered a sense of belonging. Marcello was not a stupid man. He realised at the outset that Armando, the innkeeper, saw him as a business asset and that his drinking companions were attracted more by the copious quantities of mulled wine and chianti he bought than they were by his company. But after a while, Armando did appear to genuinely enjoy Marcello's company. With pride he introduced his new friend to all as ‘the boss'. ‘Come, meet
il padrone
. He is a good man. One of us,' he would boast.

As for the men who enjoyed the alcohol he paid for, it was not long before they realised that Marcello was
not merely buying their favour, he was genuinely interested in them. And they returned the compliment in kind. Of course they realised that Sarina wanted no part of them. But then Sarina never had, had she? Even when she had been one of them. And so Marcello was invited into their homes and their farms, and the closer the friendships he forged with the peasants, the greater the rift it created with his wife.

When, a year after their marriage, Marcello agreed to become godfather to a farmer's first son, Sarina was outraged. ‘Guiseppe Lorenzelli is one of the poorest farmers in the district,' she complained.

‘It is a great honour he bestows upon me,' Marcello insisted as he struggled with the stopper in a bottle. It was late, he had just returned from a night of camaraderie at the tavern and he'd had quite enough to drink, but these days he found himself needing several shots of schnapps to fortify himself against Sarina's nagging. ‘Guiseppe is a fine man, he has three daughters and this is his first son. It is a great honour.'

‘Guiseppe Lorenzelli is not a fine man at all. He is a lazy drunkard who drinks away the little he earns whilst his wife and daughters wear rags to church.'

‘That is enough, Sarina,' Marcello suddenly snapped. ‘It is my responsibility to befriend the local people. Mario has instructed me to do so.' He hoped that would keep her quiet, but he was not being altogether truthful.

‘It is good that the local people like you and trust you, Marcello,' Mario had said on one of his rare visits. ‘But there is no necessity to get drunk with them. You must retain their respect.'

Word had reached Mario of his younger brother's excessive drinking and, exasperating as it was, he resigned himself to it. He loved Marcello but the boy had always been weak and indulgent. He was not likely to
change. Perhaps it was for the best, after all, that Marcello had married his local peasant. It was convenient having him preside over the family's Santa Lena properties; his overseeing duties were simple and there was little harm he could come to way up here amongst the farmers and villagers. One aspect of the marriage, however, displeased Mario greatly.

‘You have been married nearly a whole year and Sarina is not yet with child. I trust there is nothing wrong.'

‘It is certainly not for want of trying, Mario, I can assure you,' Marcello grinned. ‘Do not concern yourself. It will happen.'

But a further year later the situation remained the same and Mario grew to detest Sarina. The woman emanated sexuality like a brood mare and yet she was barren. What good was she to the family? He never accused her to her face but Sarina knew he blamed her for his younger brother's fruitless marriage. Of course it could not be Marcello's fault, could it? she thought bitterly. Of course the fertility of a De Cretico could never be questioned. But it had to be Marcello, did it not? She had born a son to Carlo all those years ago.

Sarina had attempted to defend herself. But only once. Mario and Luigi had brought their wives and children with them on this occasion and, although she had met the wives only twice, she could sense their hostility.

She had been playing with the two younger children on the front patio overlooking the valley below when a voice behind her had said, ‘Go to your mothers.' As the children ran inside, Sarina turned to see Mario standing by the main doors. She did not know how long he had been there. He walked slowly down the several steps leading to the patio and stood barely an arm's length from her. It was moments before he spoke.

‘The children like you,' he said, but it was not meant as a compliment.

‘I like children,' she answered.

‘Yet you have none of your own.' It was an accusation.

Sarina stood her ground. She felt herself flush, but with anger not fear.

‘I said, you have no children of your own.' Now there was menace in his voice.

‘I did once,' Sarina replied quietly.

She had told Marcello about her baby a year after they were married, but she knew he had never mentioned it to his brothers. He dismissed her failure to conceive, saying such things took time, the baby would come when it wished to. And he had spoken no more on the matter, refusing to believe his own fertility could be in doubt.

‘I had a child to my first husband. A son. He died when he was nine months old.'

Mario knew she was telling the truth. ‘You are saying my brother is not man enough?' He stepped closer to her until his breath fanned her cheek, but she did not flinch. Mario hated her more than ever because she was right-his brother was not man enough. He hated her for making him despise Marcello. He hated her because he wanted her. He could have her here, now, on the courtyard paving stones, and he knew that she would cry out her pleasure. ‘Is that what you are saying?' he repeated.

Still she was silent, but her eyes held a glint of triumph. Had she read his desire? Mario turned away from her. He would die before he would touch her; it was what the whore wanted, he knew it.

‘You will say nothing about your child, do you understand me? The fruitlessness of your marriage will be seen as God's will.' He turned back to her. ‘If you
say anything to the contrary I will kill you.'

Mario's jibes about his brother's childless marriage had ceased from that day on but his lust and loathing for Sarina remained undiminished.

As for Sarina, she took out her frustration and loneliness on Marcello, nagging him about his drinking and the company he kept. Slowly but surely, she drove him from her until, eventually, she found herself alone each evening with only the company of the servants while Marcello drank with his friends at the tavern.

The local chianti was no longer strong enough for Marcello and he developed a taste for the Bavarian schnapps which Armando purchased from a contact of his across the border. The harsh, rough liquor took its toll and in the early hours of many a morning, Marcello would stagger home in a state of complete inebriation. When he arrived, exhausted, he would invariably sit on the stone steps in the courtyard before climbing up to the bedrooms, and invariably it was there he would pass out and be found by one of the servants at dawn.

 

I
T HAPPENED NOT
long after Marcello and Sarina's third anniversary. On a fine day in late spring. It must have occurred just before dawn but the body was not discovered until mid-morning. It would have been found earlier-the road to the village was busy-but there had been a light snowfall during the night. It was only when the rays of the mid-morning sun had melted the fine white shroud of snow that Marcello's body could be seen sprawled face-down in the roadside gully.

He had not fallen far and the wound to his head was superficial, but in his drunken state he had lapsed into unconsciousness and exposure to the elements had killed him. There was no evidence of foul play. His purse and its contents remained intact in the breast pocket of
his waistcoat. An ignominious death. Sarina despised him all the more for it. And she became even more bitter. Was she destined to remain a widow forever?

It gave her no heart when the brothers promised to find her a husband. ‘Two years' mourning,' Mario told her and it was an order; there was no sympathy in his eyes. ‘Two years and then we will find a husband for you. But it must be the right man. A man who can control our interests in Santa Lena. A man to be trusted.'