The Silent Duchess (7 page)

She kept up a correspondence with her uncle the Sun King and listened discerningly to his advice, but when she had to say no she said it--and how forthrightly too! The elder statesmen were nonplussed in the face of her political intelligence; the people adored her.

When the defeat of the Spanish army became known, the young Maria Louisa set an example by selling all her jewels and going from the richest to the poorest to collect money to put the army back on its feet. At that time she had had her first son, the Prince of Asturia, and she announced that if she were needed she would go to the front on horseback with her small son in her arms. And everyone knew she was capable of doing just that.

When the news came of the victories of Brihuega and Villaviciosa her joy was so great that she went out into the street, mingling with the crowds, dancing and skipping with the people.

She had a second son, who, however, died after only a week. Then she was struck by an infection of the glands in her neck. She never

complained about it and tried to cover the swellings with a lace collar. She gave birth to another son, Ferdinando Pietro Gabriele, who had the good fortune to survive. However, her illness worsened. The doctors said it was a case of phthisis. Meanwhile the Dauphin, father of Philip Very, died, and immediately afterwards her sister Maria Adelaide died of smallpox, together with her husband and their eldest son.

Two years later she realised that the time had come for her to die too. She confessed, took the Holy Sacrament, bade goodbye to her sons and to her husband with a serenity that filled everyone with admiration, and drew her last breath at the age of twenty-four, without having uttered a single word of complaint.

Then one day one of Peppino Geraci's sons became ill with smallpox and the whole tribe of relations took to their heels. Once more--smallpox in Bagheria! It was the second time since Marianna had begun to transform the lodge into a villa. In the first epidemic there were many deaths, among them Ciccio Cal@o's mother and the small son of the Cuffa family, who was their only child; since then his wife Severina has suffered from headaches that are so devastating she always has to have her temples bound with bandages soaked in herbal vinegar dei sette ladre, and everywhere she goes she is preceded by a pungent smell of acid.

During this second epidemic two of

Peppino Geraci's four remaining sons died.

A girl betrothed to Peppe Cannarota's son also died; she was a beautiful girl from Bagheria, who was a servant in the Palagonia household. Two cooks from the Butera household also died, as did the old Princess Spedalotto, who only a short time ago had moved into a new villa not far from them.

Even Aunt Manina, who had arrived all wrapped in woollen shawls and supported by two footmen and had held the little Mariano in her skeletal arms, has died. But no one knows if this was because of smallpox. The fact is, she died there in the Villa Ucr@ia all on her own and nobody knew a thing about it. They only found her two days later, lying on her bed like a small bird with ruffled feathers, her head so light that Marianna's father the Duke had written that "she

weighed as much as a worm-eaten nut".

When she was young Aunt Manina had been "much sought-after". She was small-featured and had the body of a siren. Her eyes were so vivacious and her hair so glossy that Great-grandfather Signoretto was forced to change his mind about making her a nun so as not to disappoint her suitors. The Prince of Cut@o wanted to marry her and also the Duke of Altavilla, Baron of San

Giacomo, and even the Count of Patan`e,

Baron of San Martino.

"But she preferred to stay single at home with her father. To remain unmarried she had to feign illness for years." So said Marianna's father the Duke. "So much so that she became really ill, but no one knew the cause. She used to bend double, coughing; all her hair fell out and she grew thinner and thinner and more and more fragile."

In spite of her illness Aunt Manina lived to be nearly eighty, and everybody wanted her at their festivities because she was such an acute observer and an accomplished mimic of both old and young, men and women, much to the delight of her friends and relations. Marianna used to join in the laughter, though she could not hear what Aunt Manina was saying. It was enough to watch her, small and nimble, manipulating her conjuror's hands, assuming the contrite expression of one person, the foolish expression of another, the foppish look of a third, to be completely overcome.

She was known for her waspish tongue and everyone tried to be on good terms with her for fear of what she might say behind their backs. But just as she did not let herself be hypnotised by adulation, she would not hesitate to make fun of people when she saw them behaving foolishly. It was not gossip itself that attracted her but the excesses indulged in by various characters such as the miserly, the vain, the weak, the thoughtless. Sometimes her thrusts hit it off so well that they became proverbial, as for instance when she said of the Prince of Rau that "he despised money, but treasured coins like sisters", or when she had said of the Prince Des Puches, who was waiting for his wife to give birth (the Prince was known for his small stature), "he will be in a state of agitation, walking up and down nervously under the bed", or when she described the little Marquis of Palagonia as a "stake without a stake in life". And so on and so on, to everyone's amusement.

About Mariano she mumbled that he was a "small mouse disguised as a lion disguised as a small mouse" and she looked round her with her eyes sparkling, anticipating the laughter. By then she was like an actress on stage: she would not have given up her audience for anything in the world.

"When I die I shall go to hell," she once said. And then she added, "But what's hell? Palermo without any cake shops. And, anyway, I don't like cakes all that much." And then a moment later: "Come to that, it will be better than that ballroom where the saints spend all their time doing tapestry--that's paradise for you!"

She died without troubling a soul, all alone. And no one wept for her. But her witticisms continued to circulate, as salty and piquant as anchovies in brine.

It

Duke Pietro Ucr@ia has never discussed one iota of what his wife has been gradually planning for the villa. He only digs his toes in when a small "coffee house", as he calls it, springs up in the garden, built of wrought iron, with a domed ceiling, white and blue tiles on the floor, and a view over the sea.

Nevertheless, it was built, or rather it will be built, because although the wrought iron is all ready, the skilled workmen who will erect it are missing. At this time in Bagheria dozens of villas are being built, and craftsmen and bricklayers are hard to come by. Uncle husband often says that the lodge was more convenient, particularly for hunting. But it's a mystery why he keeps saying this, considering that he never hunts. He hates game and he hates guns, although he has a collection of them. What he really likes most are books on heraldry, and playing whist, when he isn't walking in the countryside among the lemon trees, whose grafting he attends to himself.

He knows everything about his ancestors and the origins of the Ucr@ia family of

Fontanasalsa and Campo Spagnolo, their orders of precedence, their rank, their decorations. In his study he has a big copper engraving of the martyrdom of Saint Signoretto. Beneath, incised in copper plate: "Blessed

Signoretto Ucr@ia of Fontanasalsa and

Campo Spagnolo, born in Pisa in

1269." In smaller writing is the life of the blessed saint, telling how he arrived in Palermo and dedicated himself to pious works, "frequenting hospitals and succouring the many poor people who infested the city". At the age of thirty he retreated to a "most barren desert by the edge of the sea". But where was this "most barren desert"? Did he end up on the North African coast? In the "desert bordering on the sea" Signoretto was "martyred by the Saracens" but it is not known why he was martyred, the engraving does not give us any clue. Why was he beatified? But no, how foolish, of course he was beatified much later, after he was dead. It is said that one of the Blessed Signoretto's arms is in the possession of the Dominican friars, who venerate it as a relic. Uncle husband has done all he can to recover this family relic but up to now he hasn't had any success. The Dominicans say they have ceded it to a convent of Carmelite nuns, and the Carmelites say they have passed it on as a gift to the Poor Clares, who maintain that they have never seen it.

In the picture the sea is dark--a brown boat is moored by the shore; it is empty, its sails furled. In the foreground a ray of light is slanting down from the left as if someone were holding a flaming torch just outside the picture frame. An old man--but wasn't he only thirty?--is being manhandled by two robust youths with naked torsos. At the top to the right, three flying angels are lifting up a crown of thorns.

For Duke Pietro the history of the family, however full of myth and fantasy, is more real than the tales told by the priests. For him God is "far away and couldn't care a dried fig". Christ, "if he were truly the son of God, was, to put it mildly, quite stupid", and as for the Madonna "if she had been a woman of noble birth she would never have conducted herself so thoughtlessly, carrying that poor little fellow among the wolves, leaving him to roam around the whole blessed day long, and giving him to believe he was invincible when everyone knows the end he came to".

According to uncle husband the first of the Ucr@ias was no less than a king of the sixth century BC, namely King of Lidia. From that inaccessible land, still according to him, the Ucr@ias migrated to Rome, where they became senators of the Republic. Finally

they became Christians under Constantine. When Marianna writes to him jokingly that some of these Ucr@ias were nothing but turncoats who went along with whoever was top dog, he scowls and refuses to look at her for several days. It is not proper to joke about the family patriarchs. On the other hand, if she asks him to tell her about some of the large pictures stacked in the yellow drawing-room, waiting to be hung when the house is eventually finished, he rushes for the pen to write to her about the Bishop Ucr@ia, who fought against the Turks, and that other Senator Ucr@ia, who made a famous speech to defend the right of primogeniture.

What she replies is unimportant. He seldom reads what his wife writes to him, even though he admires her quick, neat handwriting. The fact that she haunts the library disconcerts him, but he dare not oppose it. He knows that for Marianna reading is a necessity. He himself avoids books because they are "all lies" and the imagination is itself unaccountable. For Duke Pietro reality consists of a series of immutable and eternal rules, which no sensible person can fail to conform to.

Only when a visit has to be made to a mother after the birth of her child, as is the custom in Palermo, or to attend some official function, does he expect his wife to get dressed up and to fix the diamond brooch that belonged to Grandmother Ucr@ia di Scannatura on her chest and accompany him into town.

If ever he decides to remain in Bagheria he always arranges to have company at the table of the Villa Ucr@ia. Sometimes he might invite Raffaele Cuffa, who acts as his bailiff, caretaker and secretary, but never his wife. Or he may ask his lawyer Mangiapesce over from Palermo, or else he sends the sedan-chair for Aunt Teresa, Prioress with the Clarissa nuns, or he may send a rider on horseback with an invitation to one of his cousins, Alliata di Valguarnera.

He likes the lawyer best of all because with him he can stay silent. There is no need to stand on ceremony, for the "young pundit", as Duke Pietro calls him, does all the talking.

He is someone who revels in holding forth on subtle points of law; he is very well up on the latest affairs in city politics and he

doesn't miss a jot of gossip about the important families of Palermo. When

Aunt Teresa is there it is more difficult for the lawyer to hold his own, because she takes the words out of his mouth, and as far as town gossip is concerned she is far better informed than he is.

Of all his relations, Marianna's aunt Teresa, sister of her father the Duke, is the one Duke Pietro likes best. With her he sometimes even talks with enthusiasm. They exchange news of the family. They exchange presents: reliquaries, rosaries that have been blessed, and family heirlooms. From the convent she brings little pastries filled with ricotta mixed with sugar and fennel seeds, which are a great delicacy. Duke Pietro guzzles them ten at a time, twitching his nose like a greedy mole.

Marianna watches him chewing and thinks to herself that uncle husband's brain is in many ways not unlike the contents of his mouth: mixed up, chewed up, minced up, ground up, gobbled up. But he retains almost nothing of the food he gulps down, which may account for why he is so skinny. He puts so much concentration into chewing up his thoughts that nothing remains in his body but hot air. As soon as he swallows them he is consumed with haste to eliminate the dross which it seems to him is too worthless to remain in the body of a nobleman.

For many of the noblemen of his age, who grew up and lived in the previous century, logical thought has something ignoble, even vulgar about it. To confront other minds, other ideas, is considered in principle an act of perfidy. The common people, with their crowd mentality, behave like flocks of sheep; only the nobleman stands alone, and out of this aloofness come his glory and his daring.

Marianna knows he does not think of her as an equal, although he respects her as a wife. For him, his wife is the child of a new century, incomprehensible, with something trivial in her passion for change, for action, for building. All action is an aberration--dangerous, futile, false: so declare his melancholy eyes as they watch her going busily about the courtyard, still littered with bricks and bags of lime. Action is choice and choice arises out of necessity. To give shape to the unknown, to render it familiar, known, means leaving less to the freedom of chance, to the divine principle of idleness that only a