Tuscan Rose (16 page)

‘I’m glad you do,’ he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. Rosa cringed. Something about Osvaldo revolted her, but she couldn’t say what.

Rosa was more genuinely appreciative of Suor Gabriella who, she had discovered, was in charge of the exercise yard timetables. Rosa and Sibilla had been caught talking more than once, but they were still put in the exercise yard together twice a week. Suor Gabriella was obviously turning a blind eye. Could such kindness exist in a place like this? Rosa’s snatched conversations with Sibilla, now imbued with French phrases and mathematical questions, were what was keeping her mind alive. She was sure she would not have survived prison for a year without Sibilla’s friendship.

Late one night, long after lights out, Rosa was tossing in her bed from a bad dream when she heard the latch on her cell door click open. She sat up and saw Osvaldo in the light from the corridor. He closed the door behind him.

‘What is it?’ Rosa asked, rubbing the sleep from her face.

Osvaldo put his finger to his lips. He sat next to her on the bunk. His close proximity made her uncomfortable. She shifted.

‘I have a letter for you from Don Marzoli,’ he said.

Rosa’s groggy mind pulled in several directions. ‘A letter?’ She swung her legs to the floor and stood up. ‘May I see it?’

Osvaldo passed her his torch and she switched it on. He didn’t have any letter in his hands. In the dim light Rosa could see that his eyes were bloodshot. He reeked of alcohol.

‘Let me see it?’ she pleaded. ‘I’ve waited for a year.’

Osvaldo raised his hand and placed it on Rosa’s hip. Her blood turned cold and she yanked herself free.

‘Let me touch you,’ he whispered.

‘No,’ said Rosa, backing away. She didn’t understand what Osvaldo wanted but she knew something was wrong. Every nerve in her body was charged. She would have run for the door if it wasn’t locked.

‘Don’t tease me,’ he said, standing up. ‘After the way you’ve been making eyes at me. Let me touch you.’

‘No!’ Rosa said again, trying not to cry. Making eyes at him? What did he mean? She couldn’t get the air in and out of her lungs fast enough—the room seemed to be spinning.

Osvaldo lunged at her and crushed her to his chest, his fingers travelling down her back. Rosa shoved him away and he staggered off balance. He lurched at her again, this time grabbing her more fiercely.

‘Don’t struggle,’ he said, his breathing agitated.

‘Please, leave me alone,’ Rosa begged.

Osvaldo pressed his mouth hard against hers. His tongue rubbed against her teeth. It revolted her so much she thought she might be sick. She writhed in an attempt to free herself but Osvaldo was too strong. He grabbed her by the arm and flung her on the bunk. She fell on her stomach and tried to get up but he pinned her down with one hand, leaning his weight on her back. With his other hand he pulled Rosa’s tunic up to her waist and tore at her underwear. Rosa remembered Don Marzoli’s sermon about a woman who lost her modesty losing everything. Was this what he had meant? She felt Osvaldo push himself against her and began to weep.

‘Don’t make a sound,’ Osvaldo said, clamping his hand over her mouth. ‘Don’t be scared. I’ve been patient enough, waiting all this time for you. Now you’re sixteen, you can take it.’

Pain pierced Rosa between the thighs and she knew something terrible had happened. Her mouth opened in a mute scream. Osvaldo thrust into her so forcefully that she passed out from the pain. When she regained consciousness he had turned her over and was thrusting from the front. His twisted face panting and
sweating over her made Rosa cry out but the sound was muffled by his hand on her mouth. She felt that she was being torn in two.

Then it was over. Osvaldo sat back and tugged up his pants.

‘Next time it won’t hurt so much,’ he said to her.

He tried to kiss her again but she turned away from him, curling into a ball. She heard him lock the door behind him when he left. Something sticky and hot leaked from the raw spot between her legs. She remembered Maria and wondered if her insides were coming out. In that case, she hoped she would die quickly—or at least that she would never see the morning.

A few hours later, she heard a voice and felt a hand touching her shoulder. She opened her eyes, terrified that Osvaldo had returned. The cell was full of light. Sunlight was streaming through the bars of the window. Suor Gabriella was standing over her.

‘Good gracious,’ she said, looking Rosa over and covering her with the blanket. ‘Good gracious.’

The obese nun, Suor Chiara, was standing in the doorway. ‘Go tell the Madre Superiora,’ Suor Gabriella said to her. ‘We have to take her to the infirmary.’

‘What’s happened to her?’ Suor Chiara asked. ‘Why has she torn her clothes?’

‘Go tell the Madre Superiora now!’ Suor Gabriella hissed between her teeth. ‘This poor girl needs help. She’s been violated.’

R
osa never saw Osvaldo again. The Madre Superiora had him removed from the prison when she learned what had happened. Rosa thought she might die of the shame. Her world, already dark after being put in prison, grew darker. She stopped eating. Suor Gabriella brought her food not available to the other prisoners to tempt her to eat again: roasted aubergines and tomatoes, cucumbers and pears. But Rosa barely touched them. No matter how many times she washed herself she couldn’t get rid of the musky stink of Osvaldo. He had raped her so violently that a week after the attack she still bled when she urinated. Rumours were running rife in the prison, and Rosa was kept out of sight. She wasn’t taken to the workroom any more or to the exercise yard, although the person she yearned to see most was Sibilla.

One morning, several weeks after the attack, Suor Chiara arrived at Rosa’s cell and told her to get up. Rosa thought she was being sent to the infirmary because, now she was eating again, she was throwing up her food. But instead she was taken to a room with bars running down the centre of it. On either side of the bars were chairs. When they entered the room, Rosa saw someone dressed in black rise to meet her.

‘Rosa?’

It was Don Marzoli.

In other circumstances the sight of the priest would have filled her with joy. Instead, when Rosa saw the shock on his face, she felt only humiliation. She understood how she must appear to him—emaciated, her hair cut short…soiled. She was no longer the bright young woman he had sent to be a governess at the Villa Scarfiotti.

‘It’s taken me all this time to find out where you were,’ Don Marzoli said, after he had recovered himself. ‘Otherwise I would have come straightaway. When Suor Maddalena raised her concerns that you hadn’t come to visit, we contacted the Villa Scarfiotti and they said they didn’t know where you were. That you had simply left.’

Rosa blinked. ‘You didn’t get my letters?’ she asked. ‘Didn’t the Madre Superiora contact you?’

Don Marzoli shook his head.

Rosa felt nauseated. Osvaldo had lied. For getting her hopes up for nothing, he may as well have raped her again.

Don Marzoli glanced at his hands before turning back to Rosa. ‘My child, the prison director says you are here because…because you helped a woman lose her baby. Rosa, this can’t be true. You know that the murder of an infant is a terrible crime against God.’

The questioning look in his eyes hurt Rosa. He was searching in her face for her innocence, something of the former Rosa to take back to Suor Maddalena. She tried to find some emotion inside herself. For so long it had not mattered that she was innocent.

‘Rosa?’

She stared at her lap, trying to think. She saw things differently now from how she had when she’d thought Osvaldo was helping her. If she told Don Marzoli she was innocent, he would move heaven and earth to get her out of prison. He might even approach the Pope. But Mussolini himself was involved in her imprisonment. If Don Marzoli tried to free Rosa, it could cause trouble for the
convent. God forbid, they might even put Suor Maddalena and the others in prison. Rosa shivered and bit her lip. A terrible image of Suor Maddalena enduring what Osvaldo had performed on her sprang into her mind. She almost cried out.

‘Rosa?’ Don Marzoli implored her with his eyes.

It took the last piece of hope Rosa had left in her to do it, but she realised it was better if Don Marzoli and Suor Maddalena believed she was guilty. They would pray for her, but they wouldn’t try to get her out of prison. It would be up to God alone then to decide when she had suffered enough.

‘I only wanted to help her,’ Rosa said.

Don Marzoli’s face collapsed. He bowed his head and twisted his hands. It was a few moments before he could look at Rosa again. ‘You don’t repent of it?’

Rosa hesitated then shook her head.

Don Marzoli stood up, unsteady on his feet. ‘Then I am sorry for you, child. You are lost,’ he said. The next moment he was gone.

One day, Rosa was finishing the bread she had been given for breakfast when she realised that she’d lost track of time. The air through the window was growing cool but her monthly period hadn’t arrived. When had she last had it? Perhaps it’s because I stopped eating for a while, she thought. She had a sudden urge to urinate but after doing so she felt heavier not lighter. Her breasts were swollen and sore and her tunic was tight across her stomach. After all that had happened, how could she have put on weight? She slumped down on her bunk. Something was wrong with her body. Maybe Osvaldo had injured her so badly inside that now she was dying.

‘Come on,’ said Suor Gabriella, unlocking her cell door.

Rosa looked up. ‘Where am I going?’ she asked.

Suor Gabriella smiled. ‘To the exercise yard.’

When Rosa saw Sibilla waiting for her in the exercise yard, she was so relieved that she almost forgot everything. Sibilla gave a cry
of surprise. ‘I’ve been so worried,’ she said, clutching Rosa in her arms. Suor Gabriella made no attempt to stop the women from speaking to each other.

Sibilla turned Rosa’s face to hers. ‘What happened?’ she asked, her eyes full of anguish. ‘Nobody would tell me where you were.’

Rosa swallowed and tried to speak but couldn’t answer. She could not take her eyes from Sibilla’s face.

‘You’re so pale! When did you last see the sun?’ Sibilla asked. ‘I thought that they’d changed the schedule. Now I can see something terrible has happened!’

Rosa’s legs nearly gave way beneath her. Sibilla helped her to the bench. She did not take her eyes off Rosa when she told her, in halting sentences, about the rape. It was a few moments before Sibilla could move or speak.

‘May that monster burn in hell!’ she muttered finally. She clasped Rosa’s hands in her own. ‘He’s not here any more, is he? I haven’t seen him. They’ve got rid of him?’

Rosa nodded.

‘Thank God!’ she said, clutching Rosa to her again. ‘You must never think of him again. You must put this terrible thing behind you.’

‘I can’t,’ Rosa said, her voice breaking. ‘He’s made me sick. I think I’m going to die here and never see the outside world again.’

‘Sick?’

Rosa stared at the ground and recounted her symptoms: tender breasts, dizziness and nausea. The disappearance of her monthly periods. Sibilla brought her hand to her face. Rosa’s heart skipped a beat. She truly feared the worst now. Sibilla was a mature woman; she knew what was wrong with her.

‘Rosa, do you understand how babies are made?’ Sibilla asked.

Rosa was puzzled by the question. ‘They come after a man and woman spend lots of time together.’

That was all she knew. She had gathered that it was because Maria had spent a lot of time with Vittorio that she had become pregnant. She sensed that something happened between men and
women to create children, but she hadn’t been able to piece everything together.

Sibilla looked at her askance. ‘Tell Suor Gabriella that you must see the nurse.’

Rosa stared at Sibilla, not comprehending.

Sibilla sighed. ‘I don’t see to what purpose the Church keeps young women ignorant,’ she said. ‘Rosa, when Osvaldo put his organ inside you, he might have made you pregnant.’

‘His organ?’ Rosa shuddered. She remembered the terrible pain between her thighs. She couldn’t contemplate that such a horrific act could make a child. ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘That can’t be true! I’m too young! I’m not married!’

Sibilla took Rosa’s hand and considered her with pity. She said nothing more.

Rosa spent the next few days willing her period to come. She clung to the illusion that it was all a nightmare and she would wake up. But her period didn’t come and she only grew fatter. She realised with a heavy heart that she had no choice but to see the nurse.

The prison infirmary was icy. The hissing steam heater in the corner failed to warm it. Rosa changed into the examination gown and followed the nurse barefoot across the chipped tiled floor. She stood on the scales as instructed. The nurse was a different one from the nurse who had treated Rosa after the rape. She was a colourless woman with cold hands and an even colder manner.

‘You’ve been here since July 1930?’ the nurse said. It was a rhetorical question because the information was on the sheet of paper she was checking off.

She told Rosa to lie down on the bench and listened unsympathetically to her answers to questions about symptoms. She felt Rosa’s stomach and took her temperature. Then she made Rosa go behind a curtain and urinate into a bottle.

‘The urine test will confirm it,’ said the nurse, scribbling on her notepad. ‘But it’s quite obvious that you are pregnant.’

The confirmation was like a lightning strike. Was God punishing her? Any child of Osvaldo’s would be a monster! Rosa remembered Maria. Sometimes Rosa hated her because of all the trouble the maid’s stupidity had caused her. But today she couldn’t hate her. She understood the desperation that she had felt.

‘What will happen?’ she asked.

The nurse clucked her tongue. ‘Will the father recognise the child?’

How could Rosa say who the father was? She would never even utter his name. Never, so long as she lived. She shook her head.

The nurse’s mouth turned down. ‘You’ll have the child with you until it is two years old and then it will be given to an orphanage. You can claim the child after you are released.
If you are
released. Now get dressed.’

Rosa did as she was told. Before she left the infirmary, the nurse grabbed her by the arm and peered into her face. ‘So, you’ve been here for over a year and you are pregnant. What did the guard give you? A pack of cigarettes?’

Rosa did her best to hold back her tears. This was what she was now: human dirt. Anyone could abuse her. The nurse gave her a shove towards the door and called Suor Chiara to escort her back to her cell.

Before Suor Chiara arrived, the nurse glared at Rosa and said, ‘You whores are all the same. You never change. Even when they stick you in here you still can’t keep your legs together.’

I’m not a whore, thought Rosa. That’s not why I was put in prison. But for all that’s happened to me, I may as well be one.

The next time Rosa saw Sibilla a male guard was watching over them so they had to speak in snatches when they passed each other.

‘I’ll never love this child,’ Rosa wept.

Sibilla’s head snapped up. ‘You will love the baby!’

‘A child born of…born of
that?’

‘You won’t love it any less because of how it was conceived,’ Sibilla whispered. On the next pass, she added: ‘Each child is a
miracle, a slate yet to be written on. I might not have children of my own, but I have held my nieces and nephews.’

‘But the shame…’ cried Rosa.

‘Shame?’ exclaimed Sibilla. ‘There’s only one person who should feel shame and that’s not you or the baby. Rosa, you might be confused now, but trust me, you will love the baby.’

It rained for the next few weeks and Rosa had no chance to discuss her troubles further with Sibilla in the yard. Her friend was convinced that she wouldn’t love the baby any less because of how it was conceived. But Rosa was beginning to realise that how it was conceived was only one of the many troubles she faced. She was unmarried and in prison. Even if she was released, how would she support a child?

None of this would have happened if not for the Marchesa Scarfiotti, Rosa thought. She has ruined my life!

Rosa cried herself to sleep every night for a week.

The nuns knew how Rosa had become pregnant and when they explained the slur it was on the prison to the director he agreed to bend the rules and allow Rosa to attend chapel. She tried to find solace in God. Suor Gabriella gave her a Bible, the only book she had been given the whole time she had been in prison. Rosa looked up her favourite verse from Jeremiah, where God says his plans for his children are always for their ultimate good, not to cause them pain. But how can any good come of this? she wondered.

As time went on, Rosa found herself in a constant turmoil of love and hate: hate for Osvaldo; and, as Sibilla had predicted, love for the baby. Once she started to feel the child move inside her, Rosa decided she wasn’t going to punish an innocent life for something that it had played no role in creating. She would close her eyes and imagine the baby growing in her womb. She saw its pink form, the buds of its ears, its tiny hands and feet. It occurred to her that when the child was born, she would no longer be alone in the world. She would be connected by blood with another person. ‘A miracle’ Sibilla had called it. Was it possible that the
child was somehow
meant
to be? Rosa had thought that Osvaldo had destroyed all her chances for happiness, but when she placed her hands on her belly she began to wonder if that was true. She thought of the life inside her and found sparks of joy exploding in her heart. She began to reject the possibility that the child would have anything of Osvaldo in it. After all, it was growing inside
her.
It was her baby, not his!

‘Rosa, given that the nuns told you so little, forgive me if I am stating the obvious,’ Sibilla said to her one day when they were walking past each other in the yard. ‘But you do know that when the baby is born it will come out from between your legs?’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Rosa.

At some level she had understood this; she had seen what had happened to Maria. Still, Sibilla’s statement came as something of a shock. That night, Rosa placed her hand between her legs and wondered how the baby would get out. They must be tiny when they are born, she thought.

Rosa’s acceptance that she was bringing a child into the world woke her from the stupor that had enveloped her since she had been put in prison. She
had
to get out. She was allowed to return to the workroom to earn money for her child’s needs, and with renewed vigour she asked Suor Gabriella for an interview with the prison director. She needed to protest not her innocence, for that was a moot point, but her willingness never to approach the Scarfiotti family or even to mention them. Suor Gabriella promised her that she would pursue the matter.