That Summer in Sicily (11 page)

“She put me in to soak and, meanwhile, scrubbed my hair with French soap, rinsed it with cold water and white vinegar and lemon juice, and then rubbed every centimeter of me with a tulle bag stuffed with crushed almond shells. Wrapped in a towel, I sat while she brushed my hair, twisted hanks of it up into strips torn from an old sheet. She rubbed me all over with neroli oil, burnishing my skin with a piece of linen until I shone like satin in the firelight, and I slept then. A cold cloth across my eyes, I slept while Agata sat beside my bed, transforming an organdy skirt into a nightdress, trimming it with lace she’d removed from a pair of Simona’s pillowcases. Then, Agata slept, too, with the nightdress across her lap, and she was sleeping still when I awoke and slipped from the bed into the dressing room to look at my naked self in the big yellow-framed mirror.

“Gangly and long where she’d been plump and hard, I struck the same pose the peach-skinned girl had struck. One leg bent, resting upon the other, arms reaching out in a half circle, neck stretched, chin up, I lacked only the old man with the mouth harp to get me started. I tried a turn. Fell back halfway onto my bony derrière, re-struck the pose. Agata had come to the doorway but, rapt as I was in pursuit of the peach-skinned girl’s twirls, I hadn’t noticed. When she could no longer keep her laughter to herself, she threw off her dress, her slip, her camisole and culottes and joined me in front of the mirror. She would show me how. A less likely ballerina than even I, we left off the dancing in favor of the rose-petal kiss. A kiss like the one Roseannette gave to Frédéric in
Education Sentimentale.

“I told Agata how Roseannette had held a rose petal between her front teeth, inviting Frédéric to nibble it, an
aperitif
before her lips. We practiced. Yes, that would work. Agata dressed herself, disappeared out the door, and when she returned, pulled a tiny gold pot from the inside pocket of her dress. Simona’s tiny gold pot. Simona’s pillowcases. Simona’s husband. She rouged my nipples, then the soft, fleshy part of my lower lip, told me she’d bring me some dinner, and was off to her chores. Agata had done some reading of her own, I’d thought. I lay down and reviewed the plan.

“I was to rest until the household was quiet, until Agata came to my door to tell me that Leo had gone to his rooms. She would busy herself in his wing for thirty minutes longer, determine that he
remained
in his rooms. That he was alone. She would then come back to take the rags from my hair, brush it loose, button the nightdress, and send me on my way to him. A rose petal between my teeth.

“But what would Leo think as I stood before him? What would the prince do about the rose petal? About me?

“It was true that I had grown taller than I had grown full but it was also true that my nubility had flowered. I’d seen the recognition of it in Simona’s eyes. In the eyes of the princesses and of the young priest who’d come to help Cosimo, and in the eyes and the blushes of the adolescent males from the
borghetto
who I’d seen throwing coins to determine which of them would bring the firewood to the schoolroom or who would saddle my horse and, for a half second, hold me about the waist as I mounted. Nearly everyone’s gaze reflected the changes in me except Leo’s gaze.

“Truth was, I’d been slowly falling in love with the prince since I was nine years old. I liked everything about him. I liked his voice and the shape of his jaw and the rough feel of his coat brushing my shoulders when he adjusted my chair at table. For months, years, I’d lived in constant expectation of seeing him, if only as he passed the door to the music room, or of hearing him in discourse with Cosimo or one of the overseers or some attorney or local politician as I raced by one
salone
or another. How many errands and duties had I contrived only to put myself in his way?

“As I lay there waiting for the time to pass, I wondered about things that, before now, I’d always tried to push away. Why did Leo bring me to the palace? Why did people whisper as I left a room, or stop whispering when I entered one? Was my sense of exile—of belonging nowhere and to no one—was it real, or was it an empty husk I cherished, proof that I was once the savage motherless child? Proof that perhaps I was still? I lay there with my hard little rouged nipples and my silky skin and my lemon-smelling hair tied up in rags and, as though some phantom inquisitor had entered my rooms and made himself comfortable at the foot of my bed, I was assaulted with questions. Who was I to be contemplating another woman’s husband? Were the whisperers right? Was I, among other perhaps more noble reasons, brought to the palace to be the prince’s whore? And, on this first day of what I thought to be my newborn adulthood, was I behaving with the passion of a woman or only with the wantonness of a hell-bent child? I did not know.

“I heard every mournful clang of the chapel bells, my thoughts advancing and retreating with each quarter hour from four in the afternoon until nearly midnight, my heart shuddering at every stroke, the shame in me keeping time with the excitement.

“Agata had not returned save to leave a supper tray. Leo must have had guests, or perhaps he was in the library. Perhaps he’d gone away, but no, if that were so, Agata would have come to tell me. Yes, she would have come to tell me, and surely she’d be here at any moment to say that all was well. To brush my hair. But, no. There was no Agata as the bells tolled midnight, nor when they began their remorseless counting all over again from one. With the edges of my blanket, I rubbed the rouge from my mouth and my nipples, and I slept.”

“I’d been sleeping for only moments when Agata came to wake me, to tell me it was time. Leo was in his rooms. The corridors were clear.

“
Hurry,
she kept repeating, as much to herself as to me. Fumbling with the rags and the brush and fastening the nightdress with two buttons wrong, she pushed me out into the hall, made the sign of the cross over me, and closed the door hard in my face. I began to run. At the first flight of stairs, I hesitated. No rose petals. No rouge. No shoes or slippers, and the stone was cold. Even in May, the stone was cold and I barely touched it, barely touched the banisters as I turned up the next flight. The next. I had never been to Leo’s rooms, not officially, though in my early reconnaissance of the palace, I’d gone up to find the prince’s apartment. To walk to and fro in front of the place where he slept. To stay, for a while, where he was. To listen at his door. Now I listened at his door. Nothing. I knocked.

“ ‘
Avanti.
Come in.’

“Frozen. Silent. I wait. I knock again.

“ ‘
Avanti, Cosimo. Sono ancora in piedi.
Come in, Cosimo. I’m still upright.’

“I open the door and, standing by the fire, his half-dressed figure seems a kilometer distant from me.

“ ‘
Tosca.
Are you ill? What is it?’

“He walks swiftly toward me, and I walk more swiftly to him. We are about to collide but I, daughter of a horse thief, bareback rider from the age of three, I, horsewoman superb, I leap at the prince, mount him, wrap my legs about his waist as I would a horse’s belly. His shock of yellow hair is a mane. I kiss the prince. With my un-rouged lips, I cover his face with kisses. His face, his head, his ears, his eyes. He is pulling at my arms, pushing my face away from his, and all the while I am kissing him. He pulls my body from his, drops me to the floor. With an open hand, he straightens his hair. Reaches for a red dressing gown. I rise. The door is still wide open and, tying the belt of the red dressing gown, he walks past me to it. Holds it wider. His eyes look somewhere beyond me. I walk to the door, halt before him. Look up at him, dare him to look back, and he does. At once vague and transfixing is his gaze, and it’s I who looks away first. I walk out the door, walk imperiously down the corridor as though two pages hold the exceedingly long train of my gown. He watches me. Surely he must be watching me, but no. I hear his door shut, and then I run.”

CHAPTER VI

“N
EXT MORNING NOTHING IS CHANGED
. I’
D KISSED
L
EO, EVEN IF
he hadn’t kissed me back. I’d calmed the envy in me over the peach-skinned girl, or pretended I had. Nothing is changed save that, dressed in one of Agata’s severe cotton work dresses, my hair braided into a single plait that hangs to my waist, I sit at breakfast ravening my way through enormous quantities of bread and butter and warm milk, asking politely for more. And more. Apart from these symbols of metamorphosis itself, nothing at all is changed.

“ ‘Tosca, is that one of Agata’s dresses you’re wearing?’ In my general direction and rather too brightly, Simona asks this.

“ ‘Yes. I’ve traded her some of my dresses,’ I say as though it was the most reasonable business.

“ ‘But if yours need adjusting, the
sarta
will take care of them for you. No need to wear Agata’s things.’

“ ‘No, it’s not that mine want adjusting but only that I prefer Agata’s clothes.’

“Leo says nothing. The princesses giggle. As she folds her napkin, slips it into the silver ring, Simona announces that I am never again to come to the table dressed in anything but my proper clothes. It is, of course, that very phrase that I’d hoped to elicit . . .
you are never again to come to the table dressed in anything but your proper clothes.
You see, I didn’t want to come to the table. Not this table.

“After tea, I ask for a word with Leo. We walk to the lemon groves, and there I begin to tell him of my desire to move to the
borghetto.
I thank him for the fine life he’s given me for six years, explain to him that I think it’s time for me to get to work in another way.

“ ‘I believe I’m better suited to work in the fields, to help in the kitchens, to care for the smaller children than I am to
this
life.’ I point in the direction of the palace. ‘Mine is not an impulsive request, sir. I’ve considered it for a long while now. In fact, I think that, somewhere in my mind, I’ve been considering it almost from the beginning.’ He thinks I am being false and that I want to leave the palace because he’s rebuffed me. He thinks I am embarrassed. I try to address the sentiments he’s yet to voice.

“ ‘My request has nothing at all to do with our meeting last evening.’

“ ‘Our meeting? Yes. I mean, no. Of course, our meeting. I wouldn’t think you’d want to leave because of that.’ As he’d done the night before, he runs an open hand through his hair. ‘And what about your studies? You’ll have precious few hours to read and I’d dare say nothing of privacy if you live down there. And what about your riding? I think you are a very romantic young woman, Tosca. And I think you see everything and everyone in a romantic way. Life is not easy in the
borghetto.
’

“ ‘Nor do I find it so in the palace.’

“He laughs now. Really laughs. Sits on the stone bench where I’ve lain so many mornings to read. ‘Nor do
I
find it so in the palace.’ Is he only miming me, or could he be speaking for himself? He’s quiet then. Smiling a bit or trying not to, I think.

“ ‘You see, sir, when I first came to live here I admit that I was astonished by the palace and by all of you. I was astonished by everything. I loved swishing down the halls in my pretty dresses and I loved every ceremonious event of our days. But I want to tell you that, except when I was studying or reading, I soon began to feel as though I was playacting. You know, as if we were all reading parts from a long, long fable that didn’t seem to have an ending. Not a sad ending and not a happy ending, either. Over time this life has begun to feel less and less like a
real
life. I remember how I used to live before I came here, and those memories make me feel lonely. It’s not that I want to be poor again or hungry again but, strange as it might seem, I think I was happier then. Especially before my mother died. And especially when I had The Little Mafalda to care for. It was
my
life. For all these years since, I’ve been living someone else’s life. Yours and the princesses’ life. Pardon me, sir, but sometimes I don’t feel so grateful to you for taking me from my old life because all I’ve done is to trade one kind of poverty for another. You understand, don’t you, sir? About that poverty you can feel
inside
.’

“Leo is not smiling now but looking at me as though he has seen something new in my face. He studies me.

“ ‘Allow me some time. Perhaps there’s a way that you can have both the palace and the
borghetto.
’

“I nod my head, then curtsy and begin to walk back through the garden. I think that more than the palace and more even than the
borghetto,
what I really want is for him to love me.”

“For days, I think it might have been weeks even, I’d resumed my place in the schoolroom, the chapel, at table. I’d not worn any but my own clothes. I’d chosen to bide time gracefully. And then one late afternoon when I enter the library, Leo is there, as though awaiting me. No books are spread open; not even the abat-jour is switched on. I start as if to leave, as if I’ve interrupted him, but he invites me to take a chair next to him.

“ ‘I’ve been thinking about something that appears, now, to include you, and I believe it’s time, yes, it’s the right time for us to talk about it.’

“The words
something
and
it
he says with distastefulness, as though they signify something unpleasant. Or perhaps awkward. In any case, it seems strange to sit next to him with no chair between us as we usually sit. And with no pale yellow light and no books. The prince twirls a green and black fountain pen between his fingers and, in that short silence, I think I understand the nature of his intended talk. I smooth my skirts, sit straighter, hands clasped together and resting on my thighs. Leo is going to talk about sex.

“ ‘Do you know the meaning of the term
latifondo
?’

“Surely neither
Education Sentimentale
nor any of the other books I’d read ever addressed this
latifondo.
I consider the Latin roots and come up with ‘ample bed.’ I fear he is proposing some extraordinary act and so rise to leave.

“He seems not to notice my change in position and proceeds, ‘
Latifondo
is the term used to describe vast tracts of land. A person who owns these vast tracts of land is known as a
latifondista.
I am a
latifondista,
Tosca.’

“Well, at least he’s admitted it. That he’s a
latifondista.
Though I still don’t understand what his ownership of vast tracts of land have to do with his liking ‘ample beds.’ He is talking, twirling the fountain pen. I try to listen.

“ ‘I inherited lands from both my father and my uncle and, over these past eighteen years since the property has been totally under my care, I’ve done very little to make the best use of it. We plant only a relatively small portion of the fields, use some for grazing and let the rest lie fallow. The truth is that most of my land is abandoned. I’ve made no investments in equipment, irrigation systems. I haven’t built even the most modest of roads to facilitate the transportation of crops if there were any.’

“Certainly he is finding it difficult to get to his point.
Grazing, abandoned, irrigation
are three words that ring more loudly than the rest, but still I can’t find my place in what he is saying. I am looking intently at him, though, as if I understand completely. Sagely and with pursed lips, I nod every now and then. He continues.

“ ‘Many
latifondisti
are against the reforms that the State is beginning to set forth as solutions to the misery so many Sicilians are trying to survive. The devastation of the war will be insoluble without reforms, but Rome is damnably slow. It will be years yet until the laws are laid down and years after that before anyone will begin to yield to them. If anyone will ever yield to them. There is no State, there is no Italian government bent on the feeding of the poor. We who
have
must change things.’

“He has my attention now. His voice is quiet, almost a whisper.

“ ‘Peasants from all parts of the island, from all parts of the
mezzogiorno,
the south, are rioting. They’re starving to death, they are watching their babies starve to death, and yet we—
they
—are surrounded by nothing but land. Fallow land. Rich fallow land from which more food could be grown than the peasants have ever dreamt of. Yet hunger is historical on this island, Tosca. Centuries of hunger were sometimes interrupted only by famine. And the so-called fortunate ones, the sharecroppers—like my sharecroppers—are hardly thriving.
Mezzadria
is a medieval scourge. More slaves they are than farmers, the sharecropping peasants are rarely allowed the half which, by its very meaning,
mezzadria
promises. Most landowners, most
latifondisti,
permit their peasants only enough to keep themselves upright. Only enough to keep themselves productive. The nobles feast, the peasants provide. I want the end of that. At least on my own land. My wife says I’m a zealot. I think Cosimo agrees with her.’

“I am surprised by this familiarity he uses in speaking of Simona. Not saying that she’s waiting in the chapel or that she will be late to table but something the two of them have discussed privately.

“ ‘I am not calling for the decline of the gentry but for the decline of my
own
exploitation—albeit unwittingly—of my
own
peasants. What other of my dispassionate class choose to do or not do, that will belong to them. If absolutism and repression suit them, so be it.’

“He repeats,
so be it.
Over and over.

“ ‘
Tosca, tu ricordi quel ragazzo che suonava il mandolino durante la festa vicino al fiume?
Do you recall that boy who played the mandolin during the party by the river?’

“ ‘Yes, I remember both of them,’ I tell him, thinking of their purloined tuxedo trousers.

“ ‘The one called Filiberto, do you know who I mean?’

“ ‘Yes,’ I repeat more emphatically.

“ ‘Well, a while back, I don’t know, perhaps two or three weeks ago, someone—I don’t know who—was walking about the
borghetto,
talking to several of the men. The boys. He was recruiting. He was looking for those who seemed the most desperate among the peasants. These recruiters know the signs. He settled on Filiberto. Filiberto, whose parents are both ill, whose brothers and sisters—all five of them—are always hungry. Yes, the recruiter settled on him. Desperation makes good desperadoes, you see. The recruiter offered food and medicine to Filiberto—food and medicine that I should have been providing, food and medicine that the boy was too proud to ask of me, to beg of me—in exchange for a simple deed. A few moments of work. But first he invited Filiberto to join him and his friends at a place somewhere in the hills, sat him down at his table where, together, they ate and drank and laughed and smoked cigars. Theirs was a complete seduction of the desperate Filiberto. He was being asked to be part of a
club;
he was being asked to
belong.
He would be doing men’s work. This felt good, felt right. After all, he’d be working for his family, wouldn’t he?

“ ‘I can hear them, Tosca. I know just what they said.
Lie quietly under the olive tree whose trunk is split in two,
they told him,
and when the man with the green shirt passes by, aim for his face. Yes, to destroy the face of a man is the greatest disrespect. Aim for the face. The moon will be bright, Filiberto. You’ll see the target clearly. You’ll be positioned directly in his path. Aim for his face. You do know how to shoot, Filiberto? Every good peasant can shoot. Here, this is your
lupara
, your shotgun. When the man in the green shirt crosses over the path that leads to the woods, that’s the moment. Pull the trigger. Wait five seconds. Listen. Pull it once again. Slip into the woods. Run home. Sleep. Tomorrow the sacks will be outside your door. Beans, rice, potatoes, sugar, coffee. Cigarettes. The medicine in a white box. Before dawn.’
”

“He’d risen from his chair to pace. He’d been shouting when he hadn’t been whispering. When he looks my way, he sees that I sit with my head down. He thinks that I’m weeping. I am weeping. Almost quietly swallowing the sobs.

“ ‘Tosca, forgive me. I didn’t mean to tell you all of this. I’d only wanted to talk with you about, about you. About you and the
borghetto.
’

“ ‘It’s okay that you told me.’ I sob without restraint now. ‘But Filiberto, what’s happened to him?’

“ ‘He’ll be buried tomorrow. There were no sacks outside his door yesterday before dawn, and when he went to try and find his way back to the place in the hills, someone shot him. Thrust him down at his mother’s door. A grotesque, faceless heap.’ And now the prince is weeping.

“ ‘Lord help me, why have I told you? No one from the palace knows or no one knows yet or perhaps they do, but this business belongs to the
borghetto.
They’ll deal with it alone, want nothing of me, of us. The pain is too great. The tragedy belongs to them alone.’