She felt a rivulet of something wet crawling down one cheek, toward her lips. She parted her lips and then tasted the salty tear. She was still alive.
Images swirled lazily in her mind, magically becoming fragments of her life . . .
She was a child, tightening her lips purposefully as she carefully and ever so slowly walked beside her mother, who carried her father's ashes . . .
She was a child, running breathlessly up the stairs, clutching her report card proudly . . .
She was half-girl, half-woman, laughing hysterically, the tears running down her cheeks as her best friend, Gina, mimicked the flirtatious walk of a society lady . . .
She was a sober young woman standing on the deck of the Ile de France, on her way to boarding school in Italy, the stone canyons of Manhattan slipping slowly past along the shore . . .
New York . . . home . . .
Slowly she closed her eyes, the lids flickering. She was so tired. She didn't want to be under water any more. She didn't want to be here, wherever she was. All she wanted was to go back, to long ago. To another world, another time.
The Principessa di Fontanesi, the richest woman in all Italy, born Charlotte-Anne Hale in a small town in Texas and raised in New York, wanted to go back home, where everything had been sane, and warm, and safe, and sound.
Her mind swirled as it reached back to the beginnings of her memory, and her life was a dream rushing upon her, flashing from long ago to the present, a whirlwind of memories, what seemed like a millennium crammed into a few short minutes.
And lost among the moans and cries of the hundreds of mortally wounded lying all around her, there came yet another sound, higher pitched, and more angry, but no less afraid.
It was the cry of her child.
Her baby, who she had left buried in the shelter underground while she had crawled through the raging battle in order to bring it food and water, so that it might live . . .
19
'Help me. Somebody please help me.'
Her cries echoed like thunder in a canyon, bouncing back and forth with decreasing audibility. A radiating heat seemed to burst outward, then contract, then flare again somewhere deep in her right side.
'Help me, please. . . '
The two stretcher bearers, their white armbands with the red crosses on them splattered with blood, stopped and looked down at her.
'It is a woman!' exclaimed one of them in surprise. He dropped his end of the stretcher and got down on one knee beside her, placing a hand on her forehead. He looked up at his partner. 'She is cold as ice.'
'Is she badly hurt?'
He examined her side. The moment he saw the pool of gelatinous blood in which she lay, he shrugged impassively. 'Everyone is badly hurt.'
'There are so many wounded. Do we take her to the hospital now? Or does she wait for her turn? We were told to-'
The man leaning over her tightened his lips. 'At sea, it is always the women and children first. I think in battle also. We take her now to the Sisters of Mercy.'
Gently, they took hold of her and rolled her onto the stretcher. She moaned with the pain, but they seemed oblivious to it. When they lifted the stretcher, each step they took seemed to jolt her insides, causing the pain to flash ever more violently. She screamed and screamed in agony, but she was the only one who seemed to hear it.
After they had gone a few yards, the man leading the way stopped and looked back over his shoulder. 'She is so quiet. Is she still alive?'
The other man looked down at her. He nodded. 'She is still alive. But she is in great pain. She does not have long, I think.'
'Sometimes it is better this way,' his partner replied philosophically as he continued walking. 'At least in death she will sleep in peace. She will not feel her misery.'
She stared up at the bouncing, roiling plumes of black smoke. 'You're wrong,' she shouted soundlessly. 'Everyone is wrong. Dying is cold and wet and painful. No matter what anyone tells you, it's goddamn hell.'
Everything everybody had ever told her was a bold-faced lie.
She knew that now.
She had not been quite four years old then, and she had been sitting on her father's lap, listening carefully to the fairy tale. The moment he closed the book, she stirred restlessly and looked up at him. 'That's all there is?' she asked in disappointment.
Her father smiled and put the book aside. I'm afraid it is.'
'But what happens after it says 'and they lived happily ever after'?'
'It means just what it says. They were happy for the rest of their lives. '
Charlotte-Anne nodded slowly. 'But when she bit into the apple she died, didn't she?'
'Yes. . . 'her father said carefully.
'And then, when the prince kissed her, she woke up again?'
He nodded.
'What would have happened if he hadn't kissed her?'
'I suppose she would have gone on sleeping forever and ever.' Her father smiled reassuringly. 'But don't worry about that. The prince came and woke her up, just like it said he did.'
'Daddy?'
'Yes, dear?'
'I'm not going to eat any more apples.'
He laughed. 'Oh, I wouldn't go so far as that, if I were you. It was only a fairy story. Things like that don't happen in real life. I'm not so sure people even know how to poison apples.'
'Oh.' Charlotte-Anne paused. 'But people die, don't they?'
'Yes.' Her father's voice was soft. 'We will all die one day. But you needn't worry about that, either. It's a long, long way off. Why, you were just born.'
'But when we die, does a prince come around and kiss us awake? When Billy's mother died, no prince came, and she's still gone.'
'What happens, Charlotte-Anne, is that when we've outlived our time, we die.'
'Does it hurt?'
I don't think so. '
'And what happens after that?'
'Then a prince comes and wakes us. Only he isn't really a prince. He's God. He wakes up our souls, and if we've lived good lives, then we go to heaven and join Him and live happily ever after.'
What do we do once we get there?'
'Oh, I don't know. Whatever makes us happy, I suppose.'
'Like baking cookies?' Charlotte-Anne asked eagerly.
'Like baking cookies.' He laughed again and kissed her affectionately.
'But. . . God does wake us up? We don't keep on sleeping and sleeping? He doesn't forget about us?'
'No. He never forgets,' her father said warmly, enfolding the tiny, inquisitive body in his arms. 'God comes and wakes us all up. He's our real prince.'
20
The Convent of Our Lady of Peace was built high on a terraced hilltop overlooking the countryside. Only a fluke of military strategy and its proximity to an even higher, more strategically important hill - where the Palladian palazzo of the di Fontanesis, which was now a smoldering ruin sat - had spared the convent from destruction. The battle had raged for eight days, and now the sweeping view of the countryside through the arched loggias was a vision of hell.
The ancient foundations of the convent dated back to the twelfth century, and it was surrounded by thick stone walls which shut out the world. Inside, the enormous groin- vaulted main hall was filled with cots pushed closely against each other and spilling out into the hall and dormitory. The ancient ceilings and loggias echoed with the screams of the wounded, the murmured litanies of prayer, and a thousand tumultuous, foreign sounds. The stench of urine and feces mingled with the copper smell of blood. It was late afternoon, and the steady stream of wounded being carried in had still not slacked off, bringing even more noise and chaos into the usually hushed halls.
Sister Maria Theresa sat on the edge of a cot, sponging the caked blood off the chest of the young soldier. She had not set eyes upon a man for years, and never in her life had she seen one naked until now. She kept her eyes studiously averted, working by feel and the tell-tale moans of the soldier, rather than by sight. Behind her, stretcher bearers
were bringing in yet more wounded.
'I don't know where we're going to put them all,' a female voice whispered from Sister Maria Theresa's right. 'They're carrying in more. There must be hundreds.'
Sister Maria Theresa turned and locked eyes with Sister Magdalena. Despite the din, Sister Maria Theresa too spoke in a whisper. For seventeen years, she had scrupulously kept her vow of silence, and now that it had been temporarily lifted, the sound of her own voice was hoarse and foreign to her ears. 'We ran out of food and medicine hours ago,' she hissed. 'Most of the water is contaminated. What are we going to do?'
'We shall pray, Sisters,' a steady voice intoned from behind them.
Both nuns looked up to see the Mother Superior, standing staunchly erect, her inner strength glowing despite her weariness of body and soul.
'A cigarette,' croaked the injured soldier whose chest Sister Maria Theresa had been sponging. 'A cigarette? Please?'
Sister Maria Theresa looked around helplessly.
Wordlessly, the Mother Superior looked down at the soldier. Her eyes hid the compassion within her. She knew he was only a child, seventeen, perhaps. And he was another who would not last the night.
The Mother Superior reached into the blood-caked folds of her once-white gown, now a stiff russet, and sought one of the packets of American cigarettes one of the liberators had given to her. She handed it to Sister Maria Theresa, who took it reluctantly.
'Light one for him,' the Mother Superior said gently.
'Yes, Reverend Mother,' Sister Maria Theresa answered. She tightened her lips and fished a cigarette out of the pack, then took the matches the Reverend Mother handed her. Then she sat still in confusion.
'Well, Sister? Put one in your mouth, inhale as you light it, and then let him have little puffs.'
'Yes, Reverend Mother.' With shaking fingers, Sister Maria Theresa did as she was told. As she lit the cigarette, she broke out in a spasm of coughing. Then she held the cigarette to the soldier's lips. He took grateful puffs.
Sister Maria Theresa handed the pack back to the Mother Superior.
The Reverend Mother shook her head. 'No, you keep it. When you run out, see me. I have more. Give one to any of the wounded who request it. If they do not have lung wounds.' The Mother Superior handed another packet and a box of matches to Sister Magdalena.
The Mother Superior stood there for a moment, watching the two nuns and the soldier. She knew that this was a time of trial, a moment when her faith was being tested as never before. She, too, was confused and horrified by the sights which assailed her, but she knew that she could not succumb to weakness. But there was so little she could understand, so little real comfort she could give. She had devoted her entire life to God and, through Him, to man. Ever since she could remember, she had been filled with a deep faith. When she had looked about her in calm times, she had seen God everywhere. In His birds, His heavens, on the very earth she humbly trod. As a young novitiate, she was certain that God had things well in hand and was winning. But now she was old, her face parched and creased, her sagging jowls squeezed tight by the wimple which framed her face, the white gown and veil covering her soaked with blood. And now it occurred to her, although she tried to suppress the blasphemous thought, that God was no longer in control, and evil ruled the world.
She turned away wearily as two stretcher bearers approached her. 'Where can we put her?' one of them asked.
The Mother Superior sucked in her breath at the sight of the pale woman, badly wounded and only half-conscious, who lay on the stretcher. She immediately recognized Charlotte-Anne as the Principessa di Fontanesi, daughter- in-law to the family that had always been so generous to the convent. She lifted the sheet which draped the Principessa's body and winced at the sight of the shattered arm. Then she noticed the wound in the Principessa's side. The kidneys, she thought with despair. Involuntarily she let the sheet drop.
Turning back to Sister Maria Theresa, she said, 'Go, show them to the dormitory. Have them put her in my room. In my bed. Do not leave her side, Sister.' The Reverend Mother turned. 'Sister Magdalena, find one of the doctors and send him upstairs to see to the Principessa. And hurry.'
She struggled to open her eyes. Lifting her head slightly from the pillow, she peered faintly through the gauze of her eyelashes. How heavy her lids were. Whiteness was all she saw, and the dim white blur of a figure moving with the disembodied slowness of an apparition. Out of the whiteness came the dull rumble of murmured voices, distant and muted, like the sea on a lonely shore.
Then sleep rose once more, darkening the whiteness. Her bee's-winged eyes folded to black and the sounds faded from her mind.
It was a world of white satin and soft acoustics, and she was a princess lying in a huge soft bed. Cut crystal sparkled and flashed fire and ice. Through a white-draped doorway floated her satin prince, coming to wake her with his kiss. She was dead, sleeping her fairy tale death of a hundred years, and he was finally coming closer and closer, growing in size as he approached. His face drew near. Asleep, dead, dead, asleep, she seemed to sense the lips which would awaken her, and she responded, her mouth seeming to float up through satin air. She smelled his sweet breath, could visualize those narrow pale lips, his white satin doublet with the puffy sleeves, his legs encased in the soft satin riding breeches of the fascists, and tucked into white boots. His skin was smooth and she could see his shiny teeth inside his hollow mouth. She could feel her own lips as they rose and pursed, but before his lips could touch hers, he began to recede as mysteriously as he had appeared, and she felt his life-giving power draining away. He became even smaller and more distant, and then began to whirl faster and faster as he was sucked into the vortex of a swirling satin dream.
Her eyes opened with less effort when she awoke again. Her leaden lids were lighter now, and the thin gauze of her eyelashes, which had veiled her vision, was drawn away. The whiteness had softened to yellow. She looked upwards, blankly beginning to register the flatness of the white ceiling above her.
Lying there she let her eyes wander. Her mind struggled to order what she saw - the flatness of white walls, a white ceiling and, suspended above her, an electric light, yellow and bright. The light bulb seemed to grow as she stared up at it, filling her vision. She was in a box with nothing in it but a great light bulb above her. It seemed to radiate an awesome heat.
A box? She blinked dreamily at the great yellow glow of the light. No, surely it couldn't be a box. Perhaps it was a square universe, and she was floating in it. Weightless and powerless, she might drift forever, basking in the warmth of this electric sun. She sighed soundlessly and the light grew tinier and tinier until it disappeared altogether.
She climbed slowly through the clouds, the wisps parting in front of her. The climb was an effort. She was not as strong as she used to be. But then the last of the fog's clinging fingers parted, and she was in a room.
The space was tiny, spare, and white. It was more like a cell than a room. The stone floor was bare, the narrow iron cot was covered with a thin, lumpy mattress, and a single wooden chair was pushed against one wall. Above the bed hung an old polychrome crucifix. There were no curtains at the tiny window. Consciousness came fleetingly and went, came again. Her eyes focused and she noticed a white apparition seated on the chair.
The apparition seemed to sense she was awake. It rose and drifted to her side. Charlotte-Anne stared up at it. It seemed to hover over her, huge and white. It was a beautiful angel.
Then her mind cleared. It was not an angel after all. It was a nun dressed all in white: only the pink hands and face, and the black rosary dangling from her middle disturbed the white of her veil, wimple, bid and gown. That, and the splatters of dried blood.
'You are safe, Principessa,' the nun said gently, but to Charlotte-Anne the voice sounded distant and hollow, somehow distorted. 'No one will hurt you now. The doctor has been to see you. We are doing everything we can.'
Something struck Charlotte-Anne as very funny,
and she wanted to laugh, but no sound would come forth. Her eyes looked at the nun with an expression of amusement. Why on earth did she need a doctor? She couldn't remember ever having felt better in her life. She was floating on a cotton candy cloud. Everything was soft and painless. She couldn't feel a thing.
'We ran out of medicine, but the Americans brought some more,' the nun explained. 'We have given you morphine.'
Charlotte-Anne didn't seem to hear her. She knew that there was something important she had to say, but her mind was dulled by the sweet, fuzzy cloud of well-being. Every time the thought drifted close it seemed to dance away playfully, just out of reach.
'You are going to be fine.' The nun smiled reassuringly and steepled her fingers. 'We have been praying for you, Principessa. All our prayers are with you.'
Charlotte-Anne tried to speak. Her mouth formed the words, but no sound would come. 'Do not pray for me,' she tried to say as the thought which had been skipping in and out of reach suddenly came close and revealed itself. A tear slipped out of the corner of one eye. 'I . . . don't . . . need . . . your . . . prayers . . . Sister. But . . . I know . . . someone . . . who . . . does.'
21
She drifted headlong out of the numb zone.
Despite the constant pain, the crashes of thunder, and the roar of lashing rain, she had managed to slip in and out of sleep. She had no idea how long she had been asleep. Long enough, she realized, to allow the clear sky she had remembered to cloud with a violent storm. The moment she gazed through the haze of her eyelashes, she moved her head slightly to one side. The nun seemed to be right over her, her white-framed, scrubbed-pink face glowing in the warm, yellow light. Charlotte-Anne smiled weakly up at her.
When the nun realized she was awake, she wiped the worried look off her face and tried to smile reassuringly. Charlotte-Anne's eyes moved past her. The doctor, who she was vaguely aware had examined her earlier, had his back turned to her. A priest was peering out the tiny window, trying to see through the rain-streaked darkness.
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