Tuscan Rose (19 page)

The woman stared at Rosa. ‘Oh, there are rooms free,’ she said. ‘But not for sluts and their
bastardi.’

The insult stung Rosa as violently as if the woman had physically slapped her. She ran out onto the street, tears burning her eyes. She didn’t care what people said about her…but Sibilla! This is exactly how Signora Cherubini said it would be, she thought. What was she to do? She couldn’t sleep on the street with her baby.

She sat on a doorstep and tried to gather her thoughts. She had pushed herself for Sibilla’s sake, but she was more worn out by the birth than she had thought. She was hungry and weak. She realised that she had one place to go, but whether they would accept her she did not know.

It took Rosa several minutes before she could summon the courage to ring the bell of the Convent of Santo Spirito. The portress nun who answered the door was not one that Rosa recognised. She must be new. Rosa asked to see Suor Maddalena and was led to the parlour. She waited for an hour and when the wooden shutter behind the grille opened, it was not Suor Maddalena who sat there but the Badessa.

‘Did you go to confession before coming here?’ she asked Rosa.

Rosa’s mouth turned dry. The Badessa’s manner was courteous as usual, but there was a coldness in her stare that chilled her.

‘There was no time,’ Rosa explained, holding up Sibilla. ‘I have just been released and I have nowhere to stay with my baby.’

The Badessa looked at the sleeping infant and raised her hand. For one terrifying moment, Rosa thought she was going to close the shutter again. She hurriedly explained that she did not want Sibilla sent to a foundling home and that she needed to obtain her birth registration. She also told the Badessa why she had not explained her innocence to Don Marzoli. But she did not mention the rape. If the Badessa knew how her daughter had been conceived, she might insist it was better for Rosa to give her up.

The Badessa shook her head. ‘What became of you, Rosa? What happened to the girl who showed so much promise?’

Rosa was stung. The Badessa must have thought her guilty for so long that she hadn’t heard a word of her explanation. Rosa’s
heart was too heavy to protest her blamelessness further. She had done that for months and it had not got her anywhere. She saw that it would be easier not to resist when people spoke down to her.

The Badessa rose from her seat. ‘I will give you a place to stay here tonight,’ she said. ‘But, let me make this very clear. This is the last time you will ever be accepted into this convent. You must go tomorrow morning and never return.’

Rosa trembled. Weak and tired, she was no match for the Badessa’s stern words. ‘Doesn’t God forgive our sins?’ she asked.

The Badessa looked at her with weary eyes. ‘If God can forgive you, then I can forgive you,’ she said. ‘But I am thinking of Suor Maddalena’s welfare. She suffered a breakdown after Don Marzoli spoke to you in prison. I won’t let you hurt her any more with your wayward behaviour.’

Rosa could bear all that had happened to her, but not to have hurt Suor Maddalena. She felt a dark void opening up inside her and started to succumb to despair. Sibilla wailed and the sound yanked her back. Her breasts were growing moist and if she didn’t feed Sibilla soon the milk would leak through her dress.

The Badessa signalled to the portress nun who indicated that Rosa should follow her. She was taken to a room in the bowels of the convent, far away from the others. Rosa sank onto the bed, so exhausted she could barely keep her eyes open. She unbuttoned her dress so that Sibilla could nurse.

‘I’ll bring you some supper,’ the portress nun said, retiring from the room.

Only after the nun had departed did Rosa let her tears fall. ‘Poor Suor Maddalena,’ she wept. ‘My dear Suor Maddalena.’ She could not bear to think that the woman who had raised her had suffered over her. Rosa was cursed, she was sure of it. The only reason she had to keep living was Sibilla. Otherwise, she would have thrown herself into the Arno.

T
he next morning, the portress nun brought Rosa milk and bread. She gave her a dress similar to the one Rosa had worn when she left the convent: black cotton with a Peter Pan collar. There was also a layette for Sibilla. Rosa thanked the nun for the convent’s generosity. Following the Badessa’s cold reception, it was unexpected.

‘I also have your flute,’ the nun said, handing Rosa the case.

Rosa felt the weight of her beloved instrument. She had thought it was lost to her. Having the flute back in her possession was as miraculous to Rosa as Lazarus returning from the dead. She looked up at the nun.

‘A woman brought it here soon after you disappeared.’

Rosa opened the case and gazed at the flute. Ada must have retrieved it, she thought. Her heart warmed with the memory of the cook. She touched the key under her collar and saw flashes of images from that last day at the villa. Ada had wanted to warn her about the Marchesa Scarfiotti. Had she sensed that something terrible was going to happen that evening? Rosa sighed. She couldn’t think of any of that now. She must put all her mind towards survival.

‘Thank you,’ she said to the nun. ‘Please tell the Badessa that I am grateful.’

The nun stepped out of the way so that Rosa could move through the door with Sibilla and the layette, bundled in a blanket, in one arm and her flute in the other. When they reached the entrance door to the piazza, the nun blessed Rosa and Sibilla.

‘Please pray for us,’ Rosa said. ‘I never meant to hurt Suor Maddalena. That was the last thing I wanted.’

The nun nodded. ‘I’ll pray for you. Have courage. You must think of your daughter now.’

After arriving at the Comune di Firenze and obtaining Sibilla’s birth document, Rosa decided to also apply for OMNI’s allowance for unwed mothers. Her experience at the Santa Caterina hospital had made her suspicious of charity, but if she could not find accommodation for herself, she would have to try for a place in one of the state’s unwed mothers’ homes. She justified her change of mind by telling herself that if Mussolini had caused her to suffer so unfairly, he should pay for her re-entry into society. She was sure her friend Sibilla would have agreed.

Rosa took a number from a clerk and waited in the crowded reception area. She noticed the colour of her ticket was different from those of the other mothers with newborn infants in their laps. When two of them sent her disapproving looks, she understood her ticket signified her marital status.

‘They favour sluts like that over respectable married women like us,’ said one of the women, loudly enough for everyone else to hear. ‘We are poor too but they give them subsidies to feed their babies!’

‘It’s to stop them from abandoning them—or strangling them!’ the woman’s companion replied.

Most of the people waiting buried themselves deeper in their newspapers to avoid becoming part of the brewing dispute. But several looked up with interest.

‘They are building yet another special home for
them,’
a woman with a toddler added.

Rosa tried to hide herself by reading over her forms. But she could feel the eyes of the women boring into her. When she could
bear it no longer she stood up to leave, but at that moment one of the clerks called her number.

‘Come this way,’ the female clerk said to Rosa, leading her to a desk behind the counter.

Rosa waited in the seat opposite while the woman checked the various boxes on Rosa’s forms.

‘So you have some means of support?’ she asked Rosa, pushing back a stray lock of hair. ‘Please write down the amount here.’

Rosa took the pen and form offered to her and filled in the sum of money she had earned from sewing. She could tell from the way the clerk’s eyebrows lifted that it was meagre.

‘Our mothers’ home has a waiting list,’ the clerk told her sympathetically. ‘I will put your name on it. Meanwhile, I have heard that there is accommodation around the Palazzo Vecchio.’ The clerk leaned forward and whispered, ‘It might help if you…if you wear a wedding ring and pretend you are a widow.’

Rosa blushed for the shame but sensed that the clerk meant well. She was in her early twenties with teardrop-shaped eyes.

‘You’re entitled to a subsidy for nursing and accommodation,’ the woman said, returning to her normal tone. She signed off the forms. ‘We have a mothers’ kitchen around the corner. You can have lunch there.’

Rosa was surprised that the fascists were so generous towards unwed mothers when the rest of society despised them.

‘I need to have these approved by my supervisor,’ the clerk told her. ‘One moment, please.’

Rosa rocked Sibilla in her arms. Her courage had been strengthened. With some monetary help their lives would be easier. In her clean dress and with Sibilla’s new layette, Rosa felt nothing could stop her. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a man’s raised voice. She turned and saw the clerk talking with another official. He was pointing to something on Rosa’s documents. Her heart sank. What was it? Would she be rejected because of the
Figlia di Non Noto
that was written on her records? It didn’t look good, did it? She was a foundling
and
an unwed mother.

The supervisor approached her with the red-faced clerk in tow.

‘You see this number here,’ he said to Rosa, thrusting the forms into her lap and hitting Sibilla in the face with them. ‘You are an enemy of the state. And you have the gall to ask for help from it!’

The women in the waiting area raised their heads, keen to see what was happening.

The clerk tried to intervene. ‘She’s served her sentence.’

The supervisor raised his hand. ‘Once a bad seed always a bad seed.’

Sibilla was agitated by the raised voices and started to wail. Rosa picked up the birth registration documents but left the other ones on the chair. Without looking at the supervisor, she headed towards the door.

‘Wait!’ the clerk called after her. Despite the disapproving looks given to her by the women in the waiting area, the clerk reached under the counter and handed Rosa two boxes of baby cereal and a cloth nappy.

‘Thank you,’ Rosa said.

The clerk nodded. Rosa would have liked to have said something more but the stares of the people in the reception area were too much for her. She rushed out onto the street. Whatever hardship befell her, Rosa promised herself that she would never turn to charity or the state again.

After walking a few blocks, she began to recover from the shock of the scene at the
comune.
Perhaps things were not so hopeless. She had some money and her flute. The return of her instrument meant Rosa had a possible source of income other than cleaning or factory work. Once she found a place to stay and bought some decent clothes, she would advertise herself as a music teacher. She could go to the pupils’ homes and take Sibilla with her. If she fed her baby before each lesson, Sibilla would sleep for a couple of hours without crying.

The streets around the Palazzo Vecchio had no footpaths. It had rained that morning and streams of water ran along the central runnels in the cobblestoned roads. Rosa cringed whenever a car or
a van passed, afraid she would be splashed. She had seen rooms advertised in houses for only half a lire, but they were in the cellars and she would not take a chance on that. The city was prone to flooding and often the drains became choked and the overflow rushed into buildings. A room in a cellar could be a death trap.

Rosa introduced herself to the managers of the first two hotels she visited on Via dei Calzaiuoli as
Signora
Bellocchi, widow of the late Artemio Bellocchi, and implied that she was a music teacher, but they still refused her accommodation.

‘If I take your
bambina
in here all my other guests will leave,’ said the first manager. ‘They will complain about the noise.’

The response of the second manager was unexpected. ‘I can’t have a respectable mother stay here, signora,’ he whispered, staring at her with his soulful eyes. ‘This is not the place for a nicely-brought-up young lady.’

Rosa was about to protest. The desperation she had felt the previous day returned. Where else was she to go? Before she had a chance to say anything a door on the first-floor landing opened. A man wearing trousers and a singlet that barely covered his hairy paunch stepped out and lit a cigarette. A few moments later a woman in a red dress and feathered hat rushed out onto the landing and down the stairs. She wore as much make-up as the Marchesa Scarfiotti but the fabric of her dress was cheap. Rosa noticed the woman’s stockings were ripped. She rushed by the reception desk and Rosa caught a whiff of something that reminded her of Osvaldo.

‘No, perhaps not, signore,’ Rosa said, hastily withdrawing.

Around the corner and down a laneway, she found a narrow house advertising an attic room for rent. The paint was peeling from the walls and the window boxes were full of weeds. It was the most dilapidated of all the places she had seen so far but perhaps that meant the occupants wouldn’t be too choosy.

‘A
mali estremi, estremi rimedi,’
sighed Rosa. Desperate times need desperate measures.

There was a pile of rubbish by the doorstep. A thin ginger cat
was sniffing through it. Rosa knocked on the door. A baby started crying. She heard a woman shout something but no-one answered the door. She waited a few minutes, undecided whether she should knock again or walk away. She raised her hand to try again when the door swung open and she found herself face to face with a woman with unruly hair, prematurely grey around the temples. She held a baby to her breast. The woman had large hips but the rest of her was scrawny. Three small children gathered around her skirt. The youngest one was biting his thumb and scratching his head.

‘What do you want?’ the woman asked. ‘You’re not another nosy bitch from OMNI, are you? You can see my babies are well cared for. Look! I’ve got one on my breast!’

‘I’m looking for a room,’ Rosa responded before she had a chance to think. She wanted a room but did she want one in this house? The woman’s skirt had an iron burn on it; the children’s clothes were smeared with food and their hair was untidy. And, it seemed, the woman had had some trouble with OMNI herself.

The frown on the woman’s face relaxed. She looked Rosa up and down. ‘Two lire a night,’ she said. ‘Lunch included.’

Rosa was caught off guard. The woman had seen Sibilla sleeping in her arms and hadn’t turned her away. ‘May I see the room first?’ she asked. It was her last stab at dignity; she already knew that she’d have no choice but to take it.

The woman indicated for her to enter the house. The gloomy hallway was host to a wide range of odours, the strongest of which were stale coffee and dirty nappies. A man’s coat and Sunday hat hung on a stand, lopsided under the weight of various scarves and shawls. The kitchen was on the ground floor and Rosa caught sight of a girl about five years of age and a boy of about seven sitting at a table and eating polenta. The terracotta tiles were covered in crumbs. Unwashed pots and pans were piled up in the sink and over the countertops. The woman placed the baby in a basket by the fireplace and told the three children to join their brother and sister at the table. While the woman buttoned up her
blouse Rosa caught sight of her breasts. They sagged and were covered in red lines.

‘The room is on the third floor with a view,’ the woman told Rosa, leading her up the stairs.

The first and second levels were as unkempt as the ground floor, with unmade beds and toys and shoes strewn everywhere. The balustrade and doorframes were in need of new lacquer and the wallpaper was yellowing. The higher they rose, the narrower the stairs became. The heat was stifling. Rosa clutched the balustrade with one hand and Sibilla with the other, afraid she might faint.

The woman opened a door at the top of the stairs and ushered Rosa inside. Although the shutters were closed to keep out the sun, the air was oppressive. The heat seemed to be pouring down from the sloped ceiling. The room was tidier than the rest of the house but a film of dust covered the floor and bedhead. The armoire had mirrored doors and Rosa caught sight of herself. The reflection was different from the fresh-faced girl who had first seen herself at the Villa Scarfiotti. She looked tired, and, despite having recently given birth, she was thin. If Rosa had a choice of rooms, she would not have taken this one. But she had no choice. She would have to be vigilant that neither she nor Sibilla suffered heatstroke. She told the woman, who introduced herself as Signora Porretti, that she would take the room.

A wail started up downstairs followed by the sound of a toddler crying. Signora Porretti rushed down the stairs to see what had happened. Rosa sat on the bed and pressed Sibilla’s face to her own. A few minutes later, she heard Signora Porretti screaming at the children to clean up the mess they’d made. ‘How did you think of eating off the floor when you’ve got tables and chairs!’

Rosa kissed Sibilla on the top of her head. ‘At least she can’t complain when you cry.’

She took one of the drawers from the wardrobe and used the baby blanket to fashion it into a bed for Sibilla. She opened the window and shutters to see the view Signora Porretti had promised. She looked down into a courtyard full of rusty machine
parts and lines of washing. The view was disappointing but a sign hanging from the building beyond it caused Rosa to gasp. She slammed the shutters closed, wanting to block out the memory of the night her friend Sibilla was shot. The sign proclaimed the Fascist Party slogan:
Mussolini is always right!

‘No!’ said Rosa under her breath. ‘Mussolini is not always right. Mussolini is a devil.’

The following morning, Rosa counted out her money. Her rent included lunch so she had enough for the room as well as bread and some groceries for three weeks. Or she had enough until the end of the week if she bought a new dress and hat and had the pads on her flute replaced. She had examined her instrument the day before and noticed that the keys were sticking. Having a nice dress and keeping her flute in good repair would increase her chances of obtaining work teaching music, which she assumed would be better paid and less arduous than cleaning. She sighed and caressed Sibilla who was sleeping in her drawer-bed. ‘I have to make a good life for us,’ she whispered.