The Sonnet Lover

by Carol Goodman

  I only wish that I could make the torn threads of my own life into something half as lovely, but as the bus climbs the hill to the villa and my thoughts turn from Ginevra’s story to my own, I can’t imagine that anything good will come of what I’ve done. If Daisy has told my story to the police—and I don’t see her procrastinating—Orlando and Claudia will already have been taken into custody and Bruno will know it’s my doing. That I’ve proved that Robin didn’t kill himself, as I set out to do, gives me curiously little satisfaction. Instead, the burden of my actions feels as heavy and oppressive as the rain clouds I glimpse over the villa’s gate as I get off the bus.

  As I make my way down the viale, there’s still a sliver of sun beneath a layer of blue-green clouds that turns the silver leaves of the olive trees in the groves below golden. A stiff wind stirs the cypresses, turning them into writhing flames. Behind me the little villa, the original Convent of Santa Catalina, is alive with light and noise. I remember that tonight’s performance is in the old chapel. Everyone must already be there, gone early to beat the approaching storm. The main villa, on the other hand, looks sadly deserted. When I open the front door I stand in the ingresso for a moment, listening. The rotunda appears to be empty, as hollow as the shell it’s always reminded me of, but when I start up the stairs I’m arrested by the sound of my own name.

  I turn around and see Bruno standing at the entrance to the library. When I arrived here three days ago, Bruno had looked much as I remembered him from twenty years ago, but now he seems to have aged a decade for each of the days I’ve been here. The fact that it only makes me love him more does nothing to relieve my guilt at what I’ve done to him. I can’t even wish these last three days undone, because I can’t, in truth, unwish last night.

  “So, you’re back from the convent,” he says with a ghastly smile. “Find anything interesting? I’d hate to think you came to Italy for nothing—”

  “Bruno—”

  “—nothing but the purpose of destroying my son.”

  “It’s the last thing I wanted to do,” I say, “but I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Didn’t you? Did you have to sneak back into my apartment to spy on my son? Did you have to steal his costume? As if his having a button that belonged to his dead lover means he killed him! But you must have known that he’d break down at the sight of it. That cold-blooded lawyer had Orlando hauled out of here before lunchtime. When I asked her where you’d gone, she told me you were off hunting for your precious poems. You didn’t even have the decency to stay and watch my son be dragged out of the house by the police.” His voice, angrier than I’ve ever heard it, echoes in the rotunda. If I’d needed any further proof that the house was empty, I’d know it from the fact that no one appears to watch this scene. It’s no solace, though, that there are no witnesses. The reproach in Bruno’s eyes is worse than a hundred judges pronouncing sentence.

  “You’re right,” I say. “It was cowardly not to be here and cowardly not to tell you myself. I tried—”

  “Oh, really? I don’t recall you trying so hard last night when you came to my apartment. Did you want to make sure you got in a little va-cation fling before I found out that you were turning in my son to the police, or did you just want to make your boyfriend jealous?”

  “Bruno, you know it wasn’t like that—”

  “I don’t know anything where you are concerned, Dr. Asher. I don’t believe I ever really knew you at all.” Having uttered these words as coldly as he can, he starts to turn back into the library.

  “Wait—” I cry, and then, when he turns back to me, I try desperately to think of anything to keep him from going, not with those as his last words to me ever. But there’s nothing I can say that can make up for what I’ve done to him, and by the time the echo of my “wait” has faded from the rotunda, he’s gone.

  I feel as though I barely have the strength to make it to the top of the long, winding staircase. My legs feel as heavy as marble, like they may buckle under me at any moment. I imagine myself sprawled out on the steps, flattened by despair, becoming part of the pietre dure pattern in the marble. Somehow, though, I make it to my room. When I open the door, the figures in the paintings all seem to be smirking at me. Didn’t we explain the price of forsaking true love? I imagine them saying. You think having to disembowel your beloved over and over again is bad, wait…. You’re going to feel like your own insides have been scooped outof you for the rest of your life.

  The yellow eyes of the owls on the east wall seem to follow me as I approach the tapestry beside the bed. The certainty I’d felt riding the bus back from the Valdarno has evaporated. What’s worse, I think, is if I was right and the poems were there but aren’t anymore. I stand frozen in front of the tapestry, staring at the figures on it—the young man holding a rose out, the lady’s fingers extended to take it but still inches away. The red flower seems to tremble in the air between them, frozen in the moment, like the moment just before a first kiss. I touch my hand to the weave and notice for the first time that someone has embroidered two intertwined initials around the rose. The stitches are so fine, they’re hard to make out, but then I recognize a G and a W.

  There could be many, many people with those initials, I remind myself as I slide my hand around behind the back of the tapestry, my heart pounding. The silk backing is heavy and so old that it crinkles under my touch. Unless it’s the paper underneath that makes it crinkle. I run my hands all along the edges looking for an opening in the stitching, barely restraining the urge to rip the fabric backing off. When I can’t find an opening, I lift the whole tapestry off the wall and lay it facedown on the bed.

  I turn around for a second because I feel as though someone is watching me, but it’s only the leer of Nastagio degli Onesti and the pleading eyes of his fiancée that meet my gaze. I retrieve a nail scissors from my toiletry case and begin carefully pulling out the thread around the edge of the tapestry. When I’ve loosened six or seven inches, I slide my hand in and my fingers touch paper. Then I make myself undo the entire backing. I’m afraid that if I try pulling the sheets out I might damage one. When I’ve loosened three sides, though, I realize I can turn the backing over like the cover of a book, and so I do, lifting it from the tapestry gently.

  At first I don’t see anything but red silk, but then I realize that there are two layers sewn together, stitched into a grid like a quilt. Each square is a pocket that holds a sheet of paper. Some hold two or three.

  A rose-scented breeze comes up from the garden that stirs the poems in their silk pockets, and they rustle like butterflies trying to break out of their chrysalises. I take them out, making a stack of them in my hands as if I’m afraid they’ll escape if I don’t hold on to them, as if the wind in the rose garden were calling to them to take flight. Before they can fly away I pick up the poem on top of the stack and read:

  The death of hope afflicts thee, my great love,

  For love’s a flower, come and gone by fall;

  But rose aroma lingers, essence of

  Our passion which for me still conquers all.

  Thy Will’s assaulted by the scythe of time,

  And bleeding, thou must cling to memory;

  But let my heart secrete its healing balm,

  To make thee whole and transport thee to me.

  Yes flowers die; sad winter’s bare; and spring,

  Though lush with color, resurrecteth not,

  For scarlet petals that green breezes bring

  are new as dawn; their predecessors rot.

  But our love’s never did, and so I plead,

  Do hurry to me at wind’s flashing speed.

  The use of flowers distilled into perfume as a metaphor for immortality is familiar, of course. It’s a sentiment expressed in Shakespeare’s sonnet number 5, not printed in England until 1609. Ginevra’s poem is dated 1593. She might well have come up with the image herself…or perhaps she had read Shakespeare’s sonnet in private distribution…or her lover—the
“Will” mentioned in the poem—borrowed the image from her. But did he heed her poems? Did he cross the mountains or turn back? And if he came, what happened? Were they able to renew their love, to forgive old betrayals—or did they let their last chance at love slip through their fingers as I have done? The answer may be in these poems, but I realize I can’t stay here to read them. I’ll go across the hall to the archive room and scan them into my laptop. I’ll leave the originals for Bruno—a parting gift—and then I’ll leave La Civetta—this time forever.

  Another breeze comes in through the open window, and the pages flutter in my hands like the wings of a trapped moth beating against a lamp. One page, lighter in weight than the others, escapes. It flutters to the ground, skitters across the floor toward the window, and flattens itself on the shutter. I chase after it, and when I’ve caught it I see that it’s a sheet of airmail stationery—the same kind that Robin used to write his note to me in New York. It’s not in Robin’s handwriting, though.

  “My dearest Benedetta,” it reads,

  I would like you to have this poem written by a woman who lived here at La Civetta hundreds of years ago. I found her poems not long after I took possession of the villa and read them all—at first with great excitement and then with growing sadness. What a tragic love affair between Ginevra and her English lover! It seemed a bad omen for our own love affair. I decided then to leave the poems where I had found them and tell no one about them—except for you, my beloved Benedetta, who has truly been a blessing to me. Over the years you have refused what little gifts I’ve tried to give to you, but now I want to give you a gift which I hope and pray you will accept—if not for your sake then for the sake of our son, Bruno.

  What is this gift? Read the poem. Ginevra wished to give her lover everything she had—the whole of La Civetta—and that’s what I would like to give to you and Bruno. Or at least, your share of it with Cyril, who will benefit, I believe, by sharing his responsibilities with his half brother. If you do not want this gift in your lifetime then I beg you to give this letter to Bruno so that he may know that I loved him and wanted him always to enjoy his birthright and make his home here at La Civetta.

  With all my love,

  Lionel

  This then is the letter that Sir Lionel gave to Benedetta Brunelli with the limonaia poem—only she had given it back to Lucy Graham in exchange for her agreement that Bruno always have a home here at La Civetta. That’s the only part of Sir Lionel’s gift she wanted to keep. But if Claudia knew about the existence of the letter—if Robin found it and showed it to Orlando and Orlando told his mother…No wonder Claudia sent Orlando to New York to get back the letter. If only she had known it had never left the villa, Robin and Mara would still be alive.

  For a second I have an urge to destroy the letter—because of how much trouble it has already caused—but then I decide that I don’t have the right to do that. Bruno deserves to see it—to hear the proof of his father’s love. I’ll leave it for him with the poems. One more parting gift.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  BEFORE I GO TO THE ARCHIVE ROOM TO SCAN THE POEMS, I PACK MY BAGS. I’M afraid that if I don’t do it now I’ll lose courage and not be able to leave later. I also check train timetables and reserve a seat on a morning train to London on my laptop. Then I e-mail Chihiro and ask whether she could put me up for a few days and tell her what time I’ll be arriving at the station in Lancaster.

  Then I cross the hall to the archive room. I clear space to work on the table beneath the window, stacking the poems next to the scanner. I leave Sir Lionel’s letter to the left of the stack, weighted down with a fleur-de-lis-handled letter opener, because I don’t need a copy of the letter. From the window I have a good view of the little villa and the viale, so I’ll have ample warning when the play is done and the guests start back to the villa. No one will be venturing out too soon, I think, noticing the ominous clouds in the northern sky above the villa gates. Although it hasn’t started to rain yet, it’s only a matter of minutes now. I can hear the low rumble of thunder, and judging from the strange green tint in the sky I would guess it will be a quite a downpour. Smart of Mark to move the performance to the chapel and convenient for me. I’m glad to have the villa to myself to scan the poems. It’s not a job I can do quickly. Each page is fragile, and it’s hard to resist glancing at the poems as I place them on the glass plate and watch them appear on my laptop screen.

  When I’m finished, though, I feel like something’s missing. I look through the stack of poems, reading just the first lines, and realize what’s bothering me. The poem that I read last night on Robin’s Web site isn’t here. Perhaps it was one of the originals that he brought to New York along with the limonaia poem, but, then, where is it now? Did he still have it on him when he fell from the balcony?

  The image of what would have then become of that poem appears all too vividly in my mind. I can see the sidewalk outside the auditorium splattered with Robin’s blood, white petals drifting across the pavement. I remember how just before the film show I’d seen Robin, alive and happy, crossing the park with Zoe, walking through those white drifts as through a foamy surf. He had stooped to pick up a handful of petals to throw at Zoe, and then Orlando had kneeled on that same spot and slipped some of the petals into his pocket…. No. I replay thememory in my head like a reel of film and recall something glinting in the sun. Not petals. He had knelt to pick up a button that had come loose from Robin’s jacket when Zoe pulled at it. Then, as if someone had left the film running, I see Orlando approaching Mark.

  And then the reel stops. I’d gone into the auditorium, confident that Mark would take care of everything. What had Orlando told Mark? That Robin had stolen the poems? Or that he’d stolen a letter that proved that he, Orlando Brunelli, was the rightful heir to La Civetta?

  I slide Lionel’s letter to Benedetta out from under the letter opener and read it again. What would Mark have thought of Orlando’s claim? Would he have realized that everything he had worked for since he be-came president of Hudson College would evaporate once this boy proved that La Civetta belonged to him? He’d have wanted to see the letter, but surely he wouldn’t have deliberately hurt Robin to get a hold of it…But if he’d tried to take it from him on the balcony…?

  The terrible thought forms in my head with the same vivid clarity with which Robin’s blood on the pavement had appeared to me a moment ago. I try to shake it away—to replace it with the scenario I’ve so carefully built up of Orlando pushing Robin to his death—but instead I see Mark following Orlando out onto the balcony. The door closes in front of my vision, but in my imagination I open it and see Orlando rush toward Robin on the balcony with Mark close behind him—because he wants to get that letter first. If it had been Mark who tried to get the letter from Robin…

  A crack of lightning makes me jump, and the letter opener clatters to the floor. I stoop to pick it up and slip it into my pocket. When I stand up I see that a curtain of rain has fallen over the view of the little villa. No one will be venturing out of there too soon.

  If Mark believed Robin had the letter on him, he might have grabbed something else from him…one of Ginevra’s poems maybe. If so, he might still have it in his room. And if I want to look in Mark’s room, now would be the time to do it.

  I gather the poems and bring them back to my room, placing them in my book bag. The letter from Lionel Graham, though, I put in the pocket of my hiking shorts. Then I make my way down the hall toward Mark’s room. I’m not sure what I think I’ll find there, but I do have an idea of how to get in. When I was here twenty years ago, I learned that these old locks were easy to pick. Fortunately, Claudia’s home improvements haven’t extended to changing the locks. The sharp point of the letter opener does the trick in minutes.

  Mark’s room is surprisingly messy and, even more out of character, he’s left the bedside light on. His office and apartment in New York are always scrupulously neat, and he’s a stickler for t
urning off lights. He must be under a tremendous amount of pressure to have left such a mess and to forget about the villa’s electric bill. His desk is strewn with papers, which, I see when I go through them, all have to do with the lawsuit. I find here the agreement he’s drawn up with Claudia in which she relinquishes her claim to La Civetta for three hundred thousand euros. It’s a lot, but not as much as she’d get if the lawsuit went her way. Was she willing to settle for so much less than her stake in the villa because it had been Orlando who pushed Robin? Or was Mark paying her to keep Orlando quiet? But Orlando loved Robin. If he saw Mark push him, would any amount of money keep him quiet?

  No, I must have it wrong. Mark couldn’t have pushed Robin. Still, having gotten Orlando arrested I feel I owe it to him—and to Bruno—to do a thorough search. I open the closet and find Mark’s locked briefcase. That’s where he would keep anything really important. Fortunately, he once needed me to stop at his apartment to pick up some papers for him and he’d given me the combination.