The Sonnet Lover (34 page)

If you lost someone you loved, would reading something about him—or by him—lessen the loss one iota? Wouldn’t you trade all the poems and all the plays in all the world for just five minutes with him again?

Wouldn’t I?

I grasp my shawl closer to me and hear the crackle of paper. Isn’t that what I’m doing right now? Carrying Ginevra de Laura’s poems to Bruno as an offering for…what? As compensation for what I’m about to tell him about Orlando? As if some old poems could make up for the loss of his son?

I shake my head, trying to shake free of the morbid turn my thoughts have taken. It’s Cyril’s fault. Cyril the poisoner. He’s poured his evil thoughts into my ear while pouring bitter wormwood into my cup. The motion does nothing but make my ears ring—a tinny, jangling sound that’s maddening and growing louder by the minute. Just when I think the absinthe has produced auditory delusions along with the visual ones I’ve been suffering, two figures appear on the other side of the statue accompanied by the sound of bells and laughter.

I really am hallucinating, I think, staring at the diaphanous belltrimmed wings fluttering around them and their crowns of tangled branches—or else the gardens of La Civetta really do possess fairies and sprites. One of the fairies pirouettes in front of the statue and recites:

“You spotted snakes with double tongue,

Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen,

Newts and blind-worms…

Shit, how did the rest go?”

Her companion answers, “Newt and blind-worms do no wrong, / Come not near our fairy queen.”

“Yeah,” she spins again, wobbling a little, and curtseys in front of the statue.

“Come on, let’s find our Puck,” the boy says. “Zoe said he went into the garden.”

The two drama students evaporate into the shadows without seeing me, taking the path back to the
teatrino.
Hopefully that means Orlando’s in that direction and not in the rose garden, which I head into now.

I hadn’t noticed when I was here yesterday how close together the rosebushes had grown, so close that they brush against my arms, thorny branches catching at my shawl. I pull it tighter to me, the paper crackling in the lining, and think immediately of the yellow eyes in the painted woods, of the talons waiting to strike. When I peer into the thick bushes, which are speckled with white flecks of moonlight, I can see long hooked thorns gleaming in the silvery light. It’s as if the rosebushes had mated with owls and sprouted talons. A breeze moves through the garden, stirring the foliage. The whole garden seems to be breathing, coming to life, a green monster with eyes the color of absinthe and claws wrought of silver. The Green Muse, indeed—not the muse as a winsome girl in floating drapery, but an angry winged harpy riding its prey to ground and then devouring it.

I come to a place where two paths cross and realize I have no idea which way to go. The paths in the rose garden are laid out like a labyrinth. Even in the daylight they’re difficult to navigate. I could be wandering in here for hours. Why in the world had I told Bruno that I’d be able to find the fountain? And why had he picked such a difficult spot to meet? If it was to ensure privacy, he picked the wrong night. Several times I hear laughter and whispering—more students, I imagine, frolicking through the garden as if it were their private enchanted wood.

I can’t say I blame them. I remember my days and nights here at La Civetta like a gilded dream, a stage set designed especially for my ro-mance with Bruno. I think that up until the end I’d believed that we were characters in a story. I didn’t necessarily expect a happy ending, but I thought that whatever the conclusion to our drama, it would be a beautiful work of art—something I’d treasure like the watercolors I brought home and put on my walls or the brightly covered pieces of pottery that now sit on my shelves. Souvenirs. I didn’t realize I’d spend the rest of my life missing what I’d lost here.

Which is what I’ve done, I realize now as I walk in aimless circles on these paths carved out of another woman’s longing for her lost beloved. I’ve never allowed myself to love anyone else. What I’d valued most of all in Mark was the distance he let me keep from him. It’s Bruno I’ve loved all along. I only hope that I can find him in this maze and that he hasn’t given up waiting for me.

I walk faster—practically running now—my heart hammering against my hands where I’m clutching the poems to my body. My dowry. Not all the poems and all the plays in all the world, but just these three poems. My breath grows ragged, choking on the heavy air, which is perfumed with roses and marijuana and something else—a richer and more complex aroma. Cuban tobacco.

I pull up short on the path because I can hear voices around the next bend. There’s no place to go but into the thorny rosebushes, and I’m not about to ruin my new dress to hide. Why should I? I’ve done nothing wrong. I hold my ground, but the voices, which I recognize now as Leo Balthasar’s and Orlando’s, don’t come closer.

“You made a deal,” Balthasar is saying. “You can’t back out of it now.”

“But Mrs. Silverman knows what happened and is going to tell—”

“Don’t worry about Mrs. Silverman. I’ve got that situation under control.”

Orlando says something I can’t make out, and Leo replies, “Just stick to your end of the bargain and find those poems—”

“You’ll get the poems,” Orlando says. “Robin showed them to me. They’re somewhere in the villa. If Robin could find them, I can. I just need a little more time.”

“Alas, I’m afraid that the amount of time you have depends on Mrs. Silverman…”

I miss the rest of what Balthasar says because they’ve started walking away from me. I consider following them to hear more, but I’m so disgusted by their machinations that I turn around and head in the opposite direction. I don’t want to hear what bribe they’ll come up with to buy Mara’s silence. I can’t imagine it will have to be much. Then I’ll be alone claiming that Orlando pushed Robin. I won’t be able, though, to say I saw it myself.

I walk more slowly now, no longer in a rush to reach Bruno. It
is
too late, I realize, whether he’s waiting for me at the fountain or not. When I tell him what I know about his son and what I intend to do with the information, I’ll effectively put an end to any possibility of a future together. The only good thing I could hope for from the encounter is that I might finally admit that it’s over and get on with my life.

I’ve all but given up on ever even finding the fountain when the dark path suddenly opens into a wide bowl filled with light, an open glade into which the moonlight has poured itself as though into a cup, the dry fountain at its center brimming over with silver light. I’ll never know whether Bruno would forgive me for betraying his son, though, because the glade is empty. I stand still for a few moments, willing myself to breathe in the silence and accept that whatever future I might have imagined for me and Bruno is as empty as this silver fountain. I’ve just begun to accept that truth when a voice breaks the silence.

“I thought you’d decided not to come.”

The words so mirror my own thoughts that for a moment I think they’re another illusion brought on by absinthe and garden magic. Even when I turn and see Bruno standing in the shadows at the edge of the glade, I still think he’s a vision I’ve conjured. Then he steps forward out of the shadows into the moonlight and his face—creased with time and worry—is all too real. I can read in every line of it what he’s been through in the last twenty years. What had Claudia said in the church? That he’d spent the last twenty years punishing himself for our affair.

“I got lost,” I say, and it seems the most truthful thing I’ve said in a while.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you to meet me here. It was sentimental of me.”

“I thought it was so we’d have privacy, but I think half the residents of La Civetta are wandering through the garden tonight.”

“Yes,” he says, coming closer, “that’s why I stepped out of the moonlight while I was waiting for you. I saw Mara Silverman wandering through here a few minutes ago.”

“Mara? She’s still loose?” I laugh because I’ve made her sound like a stray cat. “I saw her run out of the
pomerino
earlier, but I didn’t think she’d last outside too long. She’s afraid of the dark.”

“Perhaps I should have spoken to her, but I was afraid of scaring her. She’s not too fond of my son.”

“You saw that scene in the
pomerino
earlier?”

“Yes, from my apartment window. I can’t imagine what she has against Orlando. He’s usually very charming.”

“It must run in the family,” I say and then instantly regret it when Bruno smiles and steps toward me. What am I doing flirting with him when he’s just given me the perfect opportunity to explain exactly what Mara has against Orlando?

“I think I know why Mara was so upset with Orlando,” I say, drawing my shawl closer around me.

“Are you cold, Rose?” Bruno asks, stepping even closer and putting his arm around my shoulders. “You’re shivering.”

Although I hadn’t thought I was cold, I feel suddenly drawn to his warmth, as though I’d been frozen. His arm tightens around me as he pulls me against his chest, where I rest my cheek. Just for a moment, I think, and then I’ll tell him. When I lift my head, though, his lips are there to meet mine, those full, curving lips I’ve never forgotten that feel like they fit the shape of my mouth. I feel his hand on the nape of my neck as I press my mouth against his, and as I lift my hand up to touch his face, my shawl flutters to the ground, releasing its cargo of old parchment.

“You’re molting,” he says. I can feel his lips smiling under mine, but he doesn’t let me go. It’s only after another long kiss that I break away and say, “I’d better get those.”

He’s faster than me. He kneels down on the ground to retrieve the three pages, holding each one up in the moonlight to read. I sit on the rim of the fountain and look up at the sky.

“Where—”

“Robin gave me the one about the
limonaia,
then someone put the one about the rose petals in my napkin ring last night, and I found the clothing one in the
cassone
in my room. You’ve never seen any of them?”

He shakes his head. “This one about the
limonaia
is very like the one my mother described to me. She said that Sir Lionel sent it to her.”

“If he gave it to her, how could Robin have found it?”

“She didn’t keep it. When she told me about it, of course I wanted to see it, but she said she no longer had it…was there anything with this poem?”

“A letter—” I begin.

He stands up abruptly. “Do you still have it?” he asks.

“Back in my room,” I answer, startled by his urgency. He hadn’t shown as much excitement about the poems. “But it’s just a note, really, from Robin, saying he left the rest of the poems where he found them and that I should come to La Civetta to see them—”

“Then I am thankful to Robin Weiss,” Bruno says, caressing my face, “for bringing you here.”

“In the note Robin said he was afraid that having the poems had put him in danger and then…then he died—”

“I think he was right,” Bruno says. “I don’t think you should keep these. Let me keep them for you.” He’s already rolling them up and slipping them underneath his shirt.

“Bruno,” I say laying my hand on his chest, as much to steady myself as to comfort him for what I’m about to tell him, but before I can say anything else we’re both startled by a sudden scream coming from the direction of the villa.

“It could be one of the students,” Bruno says, “playing one of their games.” But then we hear another scream and another. There’s nothing playful about them.

“Come on,” Bruno says, grabbing my arm, “I know the fastest way back.”

Bruno navigates the maze without a moment’s hesitation, steering me over broken statuary and holding back thorny branches. When the paths narrow he walks ahead of me, but I keep a hand on his elbow so I won’t lose him. We seem to be getting closer to the screams, which have not let up, only hoarsened. When we reach the bottom of the staircase, Bruno stops abruptly and holds his arm up to keep me from coming any farther. I can see around him to the steps, though, and I can’t understand what he’s keeping me from. They’re empty except for scattered rose petals, which gleam darkly in the moonlight.

“I think you should stay here, Rose,” he says. “Let me go up first.”

I look up the steps and see the broken statue on the landing, only she seems to have changed position. Instead of looking up the steps, she’s craned her head over the edge of the landing and is looking down. Ned is crouched by her side, wailing into the night. It’s then that I recognize Mara, her neck twisted like a broken branch, and realize that the rose petals on the steps are her blood.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

W
HEN
I
WAKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, THERE
’
S A SICKLY GREEN GLOW TO MY
room, an absinthe stain that seems to have permeated my eye sockets and seeped into the crevices of my brain. After a few minutes I realize that I’d hung my green dress over one of the half-opened shutters when I came in last night and it’s the light filtering through it that’s given the room a greenish cast. I stare at the dress, at its tattered hem and dark stains, and feel nausea rise as I remember what happened to ruin it. How I’d pushed back Bruno’s protective arm and rushed up the steps to kneel beside Ned, my knees scraping on broken marble, and leaned across Mara to feel for a pulse even though it was clear from the angle of her neck that it was broken. When I brought back my hand, it was covered with blood. Not only had the fall broken her neck, but she had also cracked her skull on the edge of the landing.

I had wiped the blood off on my dress so that Ned wouldn’t see it and put my arm around him. When Bruno reached us he knelt down, put his hand on Ned’s shoulder, and suggested we all go back up to the villa to call the police, but Ned had recoiled from him.