The Silent Duchess (33 page)

She could marry Giacomo Camal@eo: although she is not in love with him, she finds him attractive. And it is the second time he has asked her. But if she doesn't have the courage

to seize hold of a love made of precious stones, will she ever be satisfied with one of glass? What is she to do with herself? At her age many of her acquaintances are already dead and buried, or have become hunchbacked and shrivelled and go about in closed carriages with a thousand precautions, surrounded by cushions and embroidered covers, reduced to a state of half-blindness by a veil that hangs down over their eyes, driven mad by too much suffering, made cruel and frustrated from waiting too long. She sees them shaking their plump fingers festooned with rings that can no longer be removed from their enlarged knuckles, but which, once they are dead, will be surreptitiously cut off by heirs and heiresses impatient to grab possession of those magnificent Chinese pearls, Egyptian rubies, and turquoises from the Dead Sea.

Hands that have never held a book for longer than two minutes, hands that have had to learn the art of embroidery or how to play the spinet, but even then have never been permitted to dedicate themselves with any real seriousness: the hands of noblewomen, fated to be idle. They are hands that, although they have held gold and silver, have never known how it came to them. Hands that have never experienced the weight of a saucepan, or of a jug, or of a bowl, or even a duster. Possibly familiar with the beads of a rosary, mother-of-pearl or silver filigree, but entirely ignorant about the shape of their own bodies buried beneath a vast array of kerchiefs and camisoles and bodices and undervests and petticoats, considered by priests and pedagogues as sinful by nature. They have caressed, those hands, the heads of new-born babies, but they have never been immersed in their own ordure. They may have some time lingered over the wounds of Christ on the Cross, but they have never explored the naked body of a man, knowing that it would be considered as indecent by him as it would be by themselves. They have rested inert in their own laps, not knowing where to hide or what to do, because any movement, any action was considered risky and undesirable for a girl of noble family.

With them, Marianna has eaten the same food and drunk the same soothing herbal teas. Since her hands have touched a lover's body, have explored its length and its breadth, she accepts them as friends and accomplices. But now she must cut them off and throw them on to the rubbish tip, Marianna tells herself, as she stands stiffly by the shuttered window. But

a draught of air warns her that someone is approaching behind her.

It is Innocenza, carrying a candlestick with two branches. Looking up, Marianna sees the face of the cook very close to hers. She draws back in irritation but Innocenza continues to scrutinise her thoughtfully. She is aware that the Duchess is not well, and is trying to guess what is the matter. She places her plump hand, with its wholesome smell of rosemary mixed with soap, on her ladyship's shoulders and shakes her gently as if to liberate her from her prickly thoughts. Fortunately Innocenza does not know how to read so there is no necessity to write lies to her: a gesture is sufficient to reassure her.

The smell of fish that rises from Innocenza's apron helps Marianna to come out of her state of frozen torpor. The cook shakes her mistress with a rough impulse that is also full of good sense. They have known each other for years and believe they know everything about one another. Marianna believes she knows Innocenza through the intuitive sorcery that enables her to read other people's thoughts as if she could see them written on paper. In her turn Innocenza, having served her for so many years and listened to what others say about her, believes that Marianna does not have any secrets from her.

Now they look at each other, both curious about the other's curiosity. Again and again Innocenza wipes her oily hands on her cloth apron with red and white stripes. Marianna plays mechanically with her writing implements: the little folding table, the little silver ink bottle, the goose quill with its nib stained black. Innocenza takes her by the hand and leads her as if she were a small child who has been shut away as a punishment for too long and is now being taken back to be comforted and to join the others at the table. Marianna lets herself be led down the stone staircase, through the big yellow room, brushing past the spinet with its open keyboard, passing by the Roman dioscuri of streaked marble, beneath the secretive winking eyes of the chimeras.

In the kitchen Innocenza pushes her down into a chair in front of the lighted stove; she puts a glass in her hand, takes a bottle of sweet wine down from the shelf and pours out two measures. Then, taking advantage of the deafness and distracted state of mind of her mistress, she lifts the

bottle to her mouth. Marianna pretends not to notice so that she does not have to rebuke her. But then she thinks again: why should she rebuke her anyway? With the impulsiveness of a little girl she takes the bottle from the cook's hands and presses it to her mouth. Servant and mistress smile at each other. They pass the bottle between them, one seated, her fair hair arranged over a broad perspiring forehead, her light-blue eyes growing wider and wider, the other standing up, her large belly hidden under her stained apron, her strong arms, her handsome round face rippling into a beatific smile.

Now it is easier for Marianna to come to a decision, even if it is a cruel one. Innocenza will help her, without knowing it, by keeping her a prisoner in the safe, everyday world. She can already feel on her neck Innocenza's two hands, stained by smoke, scarred with cuts, burns and deep wrinkles.

She must get away on tiptoe and she needs a push that only a hand used to counting money can give her. Meanwhile the kitchen door has opened in the mysterious way in which doors do open in Marianna's eyes, without warning, with a slow movement, heavy with surprises. It is Felice who stands on the threshold, the little sapphire cross on her chest. Beside her is Cousin Olivo, in his redingote the colour of a turtle-dove, his long face looking greatly upset.

"Your sister-in-law Donna Domitilla has broken her foot. I spent the morning with her", reads Marianna on a curled piece of paper her daughter hands her.

"Don Vincenzino Alagna has shot himself to escape his debts but his wife is not putting on mourning. No one could stand that blockhead, that prickly pear. Their little daughter had erysipelas last year and I cured her myself."

"I've brought Olivo. He is begging me for a remedy that will cure him of being in love. What do you say, Mamma, should I give it to him?"

"At the Leprosi they won't let me in any more. They say I bring disruption there. All because I cured a woman with sores when the doctor had given her up for dead. But Mamma, what's wrong with you?" ...

XL

The brigantine moves along, scarcely swaying on the green water. In front, like a fan, is the city of Palermo, a line of grey- and ochre-coloured palaces, grey and white churches, hovels painted pink, shops with green striped awnings, streets of cobblestones cut in half by rivulets of dirty water. Behind the city, beneath the continuous gusting of dense cloud, lie the craggy rocks of Monte Cuccio, the green woods of Mezzo Monreale and of San Martino delle Scale, the gradual descent of steep cliffs shifting from dark to less dark, between which nestles the violet light of the sunset.

Marianna's eyes focus on the high windows of the Vicaria. To the left of the prison, behind a small terrace of houses, the irregular rectangle of the Piazza Marina widens out. In the middle of the empty piazza is the dark platform of the gallows. A sign that someone will be strung up tomorrow. Like that gallows to which her father the Duke dragged her out of love in an attempt to cure her dumbness. She would never have imagined that her father the Duke and uncle husband shared the same secret concerning her; and that they were in alliance to keep quiet about the wound inflicted on her child's body.

Now the brigantine is shaken by slow nervous jolts. The sails have been hoisted; the prow steers directly for the open sea. Marianna leans with both hands against the painted railings while Palermo fades into the distance with its afternoon lights, its palm trees, its refuse blown about by the wind, its gallows, its carriages. A part of her will remain there in those streets splashed with mud, in that warmth smelling of sugar-sweet jasmine and horse dung.

Her thoughts veer to Saro and the times she held him close, even though she has made the decision not to see him any more. A hand grasped beneath the table, an arm held out behind a door, a kiss snatched in the kitchen during the hours of sleep. They were delights to which she abandoned herself with her heart turning somersaults. And it did not matter to her that Innocenza had guessed and looked at her with displeasure, and that the children gossiped about her, her brothers threatened to kill that "boorish upstart", and Peppinedda spied on her with hostile eyes.

Meanwhile Camal@eo was assiduous. He

came to visit her almost every day in his gig drawn by the dappled grey, and talked to her of love and books. He told her she was becoming luminous like the lights on a fishing boat. And the mirror told her it was true: her skin had become clear and firm, her eyes shone, her hair fluffed up round her neck as if it had been leavened with yeast. No bonnet or ribbon could contain it, it exploded and fell back, scintillating and unruly about her happy face.

When she told Mariano she was leaving, he wrinkled his forehead with a comical grimace that was intended to show his disapproval, but which enabled her to guess his relief and satisfaction. He was not as good at dissimulating as his uncle Signoretto.

"But where are you going?"

"To Naples first of all; after that I don't know."

"You will be alone?"

"I shall be taking Fila with me." "Fila is mad. You can't trust her."

"I shall take her with me. She is well now." "A mad murderess and a disabled woman travelling together, really! What an idea! Do you want to make a laughing-stock of yourself?"

"No one will care."

"I presume that Don Camal@eo will be joining you. Is it your intention to bring discredit on the family?"

"Don Camal@eo will not be following me. I am going alone."

"And when do you return?"

"I do not know."

"And who will take care of your daughters?" "They are perfectly capable of looking after themselves. They are grown-up."

"It will cost you a fortune."

Marianna had rested her eyes on her son's head, still so handsome in spite of incipient baldness, while he bent over the paper, tightening his grip on the pen. His white knuckles spoke of an unbearable rancour; he could not stand being torn away from his world of fantasy to face questions he did not understand and which did not interest him. His only anxieties were: What will people in his circle say about such an irresponsible mother? Will she end up spending too much? Will she get into debt? Will she have to ask for help over money, maybe from Naples, forcing him to withdraw God

knows what sum?

"I shall not spend anything of yours", Marianna had written light-heartedly on the white paper. "I shall only spend my own money. Rest assured I will not bring dishonour to the family."

"You already have brought dishonour with your eccentricities. Since our father died you have continually brought nothing but scandal."

"What scandals are you referring to, may I ask?"

"You only wore mourning for a year instead offor ever, as is decreed by custom. Do you not remember? Three years for the death of a father, ten years for the death of a son and thirty for the death of a husband, that is to say for ever. And then you do not go to church when there is a solemn mass. And you go around with low-class people, that servant, that upstart, you have made him master here. You have brought into the house not only his wife, but his sister and his son."

"Actually, it was his sister who brought him. As for his wife, I myself gave her to him."

"Precisely. You put too much trust in people who are not of your rank. I do not recognise you, lady mother. Once you were gentle and acquiescent. Do you know that you risk an interdict?"

Marianna shakes her head. Why think about these disagreeable things? Yet there is something in what her son has written that she does not understand: a rancour that goes far beyond the alleged scandals, the preoccupation with money. He has always been generous, why should he now be in such a state about his mother spending anything? Could it still be his childhood jealousy, from which he does not want and doesn't know how to detach himself? Has he still not forgiven her for having so blatantly preferred her younger son Signoretto?

Marianna looks at Fila's bald head, which is right beside her on the bridge of the ship, and stares at the city as it recedes towards the horizon. Now they are surrounded by waves of curling water while the figure-head thrusts its naked breast through the sea.

It was Saro's look that made her decide to leave. An involuntary early-morning look when, the light already broadening on the bedroom floor, she had prised her mouth from his shoulder and pushed him to get up. A look of love, satiated and apprehensive. The fear that this joy could be suddenly snatched from him for some unforeseeable reason which he was unable to control. Not just her

body, but the elegant clothes, the whiteness of the linen, the essences of rose and myrrh, the pheasants cooked in wine, the lemon sorbets, the gremolate of strawberry grapes, the orange-flower water, the kindnesses, the silent tenderness, everything that was hers she found in Sarino's grey eyes, reflected splendours like those cities that can be seen in the noonday hours, turned upside down in the sea through the effect of a mirage, wet and shimmering with gauzy lights. Such mirages promised abundance, unending delights, only to vanish in the pale colourless glow of a summer sunset from across the sea. And she wanted to sweep away from the eyes of her lover the image of that happy city before it dissolved by itself in a shattering of broken mirrors.