The Silent Duchess (19 page)

extinguished sizzling in the black water.

The day before yesterday a festival for the coronation of Victor Amadeus of Savoy, yesterday illuminations for the ascent to the throne of Charles VI of Hapsburg, today the birth of a son to the Bourbon Charles III ... the same merry-making, the same pot-pourri: on the first day a solemn mass in the cathedral, on the second a fight between a lion and a horse, on the third musicians in the Marble Theatre, then a ball at the palace of the Senate, horse races, processions and fireworks at the Marina ... what endless boredom. ...

For Marianna a look from uncle husband is sufficient for her to know what he is brooding over. Of late he has become transparent to her: neither his faded eyes nor his balding forehead can any longer hide the thoughts that until now have been closely guarded. It is as if he has lost the patience to dissimulate. For years he has prided himself on it. No one could penetrate beyond those eyebrows, beyond that bare, stern forehead. Now it seems that this skill has become too easy and consequently is no longer of interest.

It's we who are always bowing and scraping ... that Victor Amadeus, let him be, he wanted to turn Palermo into another Turin. God help us! The waste of time, the duties, the garrisons ... Does Your Majesty want to put a tax on illness, on hunger? Our jasmine-scented sores, my Emperor, it is only we who understand them, thanks be to God. The Treaty of Utrecht, another wretched business: the morsels have all been divided up, one to me, one to you ... and that harlot Elizabetta Farnese displays herself all over the island, she wants a throne for that son of hers ... and Cardinal Alberoni is her accomplice, and Philip Very, he lends a hand as well. ...

At Capo Passero the English forced that big fool Philip to drink vinegar but Elizabetta doesn't give a cuss, she's a mother who's prepared to be patient .... Then the Austrians are defeated in Poland and they turn their backs on Naples and Sicily, so her son got the best deal in the end. ... They're on our backs and God knows when they'll leave. ...

That silent voice refuses to stop. The Lord has given her this gift, to be able to enter into other people's heads. But once the door is shut she

starts breathing in stale air, where words take on a musty smell.

Two hands come down on the Duchess's shoulders, lifting the shawl on her neck, arranging her hair. Marianna turns to thank Fila and finds herself face to face with the free and easy countenance of Saro.

Later, while she is admiring the rise and fall of the green and yellow lights flowering against the sky, she is again aware of the presence of the boy at her shoulders. Gentle fingers have moved the shawl aside and brush against the line of her hair. Marianna is about to push them away but an exhaustion, a dumb weariness, keeps her glued to her seat. Now the youth goes with feline grace to the prow and raises his arm to the sky. It is clear he has gone there to be admired. He stands upright on the convex triangle, precariously balanced to show off his tall slim body, his handsome face suddenly lighted up by flying sparks.

Everyone is looking upwards, following the explosions of the fireworks. He is the only one looking elsewhere, in the direction of the ducal seat placed in the centre of the boat. In the flashes of light that flood the sky with colour Marianna sees the young man's eyes fixed on her. His eyes are happy, amorous, tinged with arrogance, but there is no slyness in them. Marianna regards them for a second time and then abruptly withdraws her glance. Yet a moment later she can only return to admiring him: that neck, those legs, that mouth seem to exist only to attract and disquiet her.

XXIII

Whether she is in the garden reading a book, in the yellow room doing the accounts with Raffaele Cuffa, or in the library studying English, she is always coming across Saro, springing up from nowhere and a moment later disappearing back to nowhere--always there to stare at her with soft bright eyes that beg for a response. Marianna is amazed at his persistence; he becomes more ardent and pressing with every passing day.

Uncle husband has taken him under his wing and has had a livery made to measure for him in the ducal colours, blue and gold. The pigtail no longer dances about behind his ears, shrivelled up like a rat's tail. A lock of dark gleaming

hair clings to his forehead and he smooths it back with a seductive, carefree sweep of his hand.

There is only one place he may not enter and that is the principal bedchamber; it is there she takes refuge more and more often with her books, beneath the enigmatic eyes of the chimeras asking themselves whether he will dare to continue pursuing her. But every so often she finds herself looking down into the courtyard, waiting for his appearance. It is enough for her to see him pass with his relaxed walk to put her in a good humour.

So as to avoid encountering him she has even decided to go and stay for a while in Palermo in the house in the Via Alloro. But one morning she sees him arrive on her husband's carriage, standing on the small running-board at the back, his face beaming. He is smartly dressed with a tricorn hat on top of his black curls and a pair of brilliantly polished shoes ornamented with brass buckles. Fila says he has begun to study. She has told Innocenza, who has blurted it out to Sister Felice, who has written a note to her mother: "He is learning to write so he can talk to your ladyship." It is not clear whether this was said out of spite or in admiration.

Today it is raining and the landscape is veiled. Each bush, each tree is drenched with water. The silence imprisons her: it seems harder to bear than her isolation. A profound longing for sounds that match this view of sparkling branches, this countryside teeming with life, catches her throat. How does the song of the nightingale sound? She has read of it so often in books, how it is so unimaginably sweet, how it resonates in the heart. But how?

The door opens just as it does in certain nightmares, as if pushed by an unknown hand. Marianna watches it slowly moving, ignorant of what is going to emerge: will it be joy or pain, the face of a friend or the face of a foe?

It is Fila. She comes in holding a lighted candelabra. As usual she is barefoot and Marianna realises that this reflects her wilful rebelliousness, a sign of revolt against the demands of her master and mistress. But at the same time she relies on Marianna's forbearance, which she thinks is due not so much to tolerance as to some uneasy secret that binds them

together beyond the difference in their ages, fortunes and social position.

What does she want of her? Why does she plant her naked dirty feet on the precious rugs with such relish? Why does she walk in such an offhand manner, not caring that her skirt lifts up to reveal her blotched calloused heels? Marianna knows that the only way to re-establish a proper distance between them would be to raise her hand in a slap. Just a light one. That is what she is accustomed to. But it is enough for Marianna to look at her face with its gentle features, so like that other, masculine face with features a little more sharply delineated, for any desire to hit her to vanish.

Marianna lifts her hand to the collar of her dress, where it chafes at her throat. Her fleecy bodice is rough against her sweating back; it feels as if it were made of thorns. Making a sign with her finger she dismisses Fila. The girl goes out swinging her full skirt of red cloth. Near the door she bows stiffly and distorts her face in a simpering expression.

Left alone Marianna kneels in front of a small ivory crucifix that Felice gave her. She tries to pray: "Oh Lord, grant that I do not betray myself in my own eyes, grant that I know how to be loyal to the integrity of my heart." Her eyes rest on the crucifix: it seems to her that Christ too has a derisive expression. Like Fila He seems to be laughing at her. Marianna rises. She goes and lies down on the bed, putting an arm over her eyes.

She turns on her side. She reaches out for the Bible her brother the Abbot Carlo gave her when Mariano was born. She opens it and reads:

My spirit is consumed, my days are extinct, surely there are mockers with me, and mine eyes abideth in their provocation. Give me now a pledge, a surety for me with

thyself.

It is as if the words of Job are there to remind her of some crime. But what crime? Thinking the sort of thoughts provoked by Mr Hume? Or allowing herself to be tempted by dangerous hidden desires? Without doubt her days too are failing. Little by little the lights of her body are

going out, but who will save her from the mockers?

The door starts to move again, swinging open, throwing a square shadow on to the floor. What will follow? What body, what expression? Perhaps that of a youth who looks about twelve but is actually nineteen.

This time it is Giuseppa with her little boy who has come to see her. How fat she has become! Her clothes strain to throttle her flesh, her face is pale, her expression lifeless. She enters with a resolute step and sits on the edge of the bed; she takes off her shoes, which are cramping her feet, and, stretching her legs out on the floor, looks at her mother and bursts into tears.

Marianna moves over to her affectionately and holds her close, but her daughter, far from calming down, abandons herself to sobbing while the little boy crawls on all fours underneath the bed.

"For Heaven's sake, what on earth is the matter?" writes Marianna on her notepad. She thrusts it under her daughter's nose.

Giuseppa wipes her tears with the back of her hand, unable to restrain her sobs. She turns to embrace her mother and then seizes the edge of her cloak and blows her nose noisily. Only after much cajoling does Marianna succeed in putting the pen in her hand and getting her to write.

"Giulio is maltreating me. I want to leave him."

"What has he been doing, my little one?" "He's brought a bonnet-maker into our bed with the excuse that she is ill. Then, as she had no clothes, he gave her mine as well as all the French fans I had put away."

"I will tell your father."

"No, Mamma, I beg you, leave him out of it."

"But what can I do about it?"

"I want you to have him beaten up." "What on earth good would that do? We aren't still living in the time of your great-grandfather."

"I want revenge, a vendetta."

"What do you want with a vendetta?" "It's what I'd like. I've been hurt and I want to feel better."

"But why has he put this girl in your bed? I don't understand", Marianna writes quickly. Giuseppa's replies are taking longer and the

writing is all over the place.

"To dishonour me."

"But why should your husband want to dishonour you?" "He knows why."

A strange, incredible story. If her husband Giulio Carbonelli wants to have a bit of fun, surely he does not have to shove the bonnet-maker into his wife's bed? What can be behind this nonsensical action?

And now, little by little, with halting words and dialect phrases, more revelations emerge. Giuseppa has made friends with her aunt Domitilla, Signoretto's wife, who has introduced her to forbidden books of French philosophy, full of sacrilegious ideas and demands for freedom. Don Giulio Carbonelli hates these new ideas that are circulating among young people even more than Duke Pietro does, and has tried to prevent her taking a direction "absolutely unsuitable for a Carbonelli of the baronial estates of Scarapull`e". But his wife completely ignored him and so he found a devious and brutal way of showing her without wasting words that he was master of the house.

Now it is a question of convincing her daughter that vendettas only lead to more vendettas and that such a quarrel between husband and wife is unthinkable. Nor can she think of separating from him: she has a small son and cannot leave him without a father. What's more, a woman without a husband can only take refuge in a convent if she is not to be branded as a prostitute. She must find a way of making him respect her without either vendettas or reprisals. What can be done?

While she is reflecting Marianna writes, "But what are these French fans?"

"They have bedroom scenes painted between the spokes", her daughter writes impatiently. Marianna nods, embarrassed.

"You must win his respect", she insists, but she is finding it difficult to keep her handwriting composed and firm.

"We fight like cat and dog."

"It was you who were so determined to have him. If you had married your uncle Antonio as your father proposed. ..."

"I'd rather be dead. Uncle Antonio is an old stick-in-the-mud with the eyes of a hen. I'd rather have Giulio with his bonnet-maker. It was only because of your wretched dumbness that you had to marry your

uncle, my boorish father. ... If I told Mariano, do you think he'd know how to avenge me?"

"Get that idea right out of your head, Giuseppa."

"They could wait for him outside the door and beat him up. ... That's what I want, Mamma."

Marianna turns towards her daughter with a dark look. The girl makes an angry face and bites her lip. But her mother still has some power over her, and confronted with the severe expression in her eyes, Giuseppa withdraws and gives up the idea of a vendetta.

XXIV

The curtains are drawn. The velvet hangs in wide folds. The vaulted ceiling gathers up the shadows. A few gleams of light penetrate the curtains and dissolve on to the floor, forming bright pools of dust.

There is a smell of camphor in the stale air. Water is boiling in a saucepan placed on top of the stove. The bed is so big that it takes up one whole wall of the room. At the corners above it rest four columns of carved wood and between them hang embroidered curtains with silken cords.

Beneath the crumpled sheet is Manina's sweating body. For days and days she has lain still with her eyes closed. No one can tell whether she is going to survive. The same smells as when Signoretto was dying, the same gelatinous consistency, the same fevered heat with its cloying sickly taste.