The Secret Legacy

by Sara Alexander

  I silenced the answer.

  Paolino reached the table and traced a nervous finger along it. The Major’s head appeared around one of the trees flanking the vegetable patch.

  ‘Paolino is here to see you,’ I called, hearing myself shout across him. Paolino twisted around to me, as surprised at my delivery as I was.

  The Major strode across the garden toward us, trowel in hand, a smear of earth across his cheek that wasn’t there before. He’d painted on the mask of gardener whilst I’d spoken with Paolino at the door and wore it with impeccable grace. I envied him that. He caught my eye over Paolino’s shoulder. The tingle of my lips, a kiss away from his, the feel of the sunset upon our faces, these pictures swayed before me like the spiral of delicate shells on a mobile in the wind.

  ‘I pay my bill at the end of the month, Santina,’ he said, without a trace of anything other than the matter of fact breeze he blew over Paolino and the like.

  ‘Yes, signore,’ Paolino interrupted. I’d never heard him speak English in this house. ‘I, come . . . message, sir.’ He retrieved a letter from his pocket and waved it by his cheek. ‘Per piacere, we talk? One moment,’ his fingers came alive, searching to pluck the words from the air, ‘poco minuti, signore.’

  The Major’s expression crushed into a brief frown. ‘Very well,’ he sighed, ‘sit down, Paolino, out with it, and be quick. I’ve had a very long day and I loathe visits at this hour.’

  Paolino shot me a pleading look.

  ‘You’ve got a hard head,’ I said. ‘I’ll be in the garden if you need saving.’

  ‘What a woman,’ he replied under his breath. ‘Not sure if that means you think I can’t deal with this Viking soldier or that you’re more in love with me than I thought.’

  I smiled. It helped me ignore the thudding in my chest. Or the way the last rays caught the fierce blue of the Major’s eyes. I hid away in the kitchen for a moment longer than I needed to, gazing at the bouquet stuffed into the first vase I could find, feeling like I was being drawn out to sea. I left the darkened safety of the room, lured out by the need to know what mischief Paolino was concocting with the Major. I walked past the table.

  Paolino placed the envelope at the center of it.

  The Major reached for it.

  I returned to the spot I’d escaped a moment ago. The Major had cleared away the cans and finished the watering. He had wiped away all evidence of where we had stood, what we had thought, or failed to. The ground no longer bore witness. I couldn’t shake the sensation that perhaps it hadn’t happened at all. My feet traced an idle line, trying to catch the frayed ends of the conversation just out of earshot. I was behaving like an adolescent and chastised myself for it. But most of all, I resented the desire I felt to shunt time back to a moment ago. I floated to the memory of the quiet space between us. I crouched down to weed the cleared earth, sending useless twists of a trowel beneath the tomato plants, making vain attempts to bury the roots of my conflicted emotions. Their fruit and foliage was a camouflage to everything but my renegade thoughts. I craned my head at an obscure angle to see the Major reaching the end of the note.

  He stood to attention. Paolino lifted out of his seat. I could see the Major saying something, which gave Paolino a great deal of joy. He shook the Major’s hand with too much enthusiasm. The Major signalled for him to leave. He turned, looked as if he were about to call me, then thought better of it and stepped out onto the street. The Major shut the door. I could hear him climb the first few steps up to his room. I stayed till dusk threw its purple veil over the garden. The Major didn’t return for supper, nor his evening drink. I could have retired myself. I could have read or written, but my mind wouldn’t settle, the thoughts whizzed through me, moth-like tangents of doubt and embarrassment, flitting in and out of sense. Beyond these twists of half-sense, the golden memory of what might have happened if Paolino had not appeared.

  I sat and peeled an apple, the course of the knife against the skin the loudest sound in the whole villa now. I wanted the day to be over and never end. I chewed the fruit, trying to swallow the truth with it. I rinsed the knife, dried it and placed it back in the drawer. I clung to the banal order of everything in this room, but it refused to ground me the way I longed for. I flicked the light switch. The darkness enfolded me, but it couldn’t blot out my thoughts.

  I was so alone.

  Rosalia’s brother’s funeral the following morning drew the crowds of a carnival. From the entrance to the main Chiesa Nuova, a sea of Positanese flowed up the surrounding alleys. The piazza in front of the church was filled with familiar faces. Most of them cried, clung to one another, prayed between tears. The coffin was carried out. The applause began, rippling from the entrance to the church and spreading like an echo through the throng to the farthest person high up on the steps. The patter of sad hands, like a wave, was drawn into a unifying rhythm till we clapped as one, the sound ricocheting against the stone surrounding us and lifting up against the hard grey rock beyond. As the coffin slid into the hearse, a silence fell, like the thick humidity before a summer storm. When the door was slammed shut the applause rose again, defiant now, as if we alone could augur his ascent to the heavens, the sound of each palm golden cobbles to lead his way to peace. The car performed a complicated maneuver, bodies crushing against one another now to allow it through. As it left the piazza, people started the pilgrimage to the cemetery. Some sang, their notes floating down from the front, a lament, the tune strung along a minor line, frayed sails on a fishing boat’s mast. Beneath the melody the constant drone of a warbled rosary, murmured and lifting, dipping like the rhythmic tumble of small waves lapping the shore.

  A hand slipped into mine. I started.

  ‘Has the Major spoken to you, Santina?’ Paolino whispered in my ear with a kiss I did not invite.

  ‘Paolino! Not here…’

  ‘Did he talk to you?’

  The wailers beside me crashed over his words. I looked at his animated face, trying to interpret the sense of where he was headed, but to no avail.

  I felt his hand tighten. The hot bodies of my neighbors pressed in as the river of people flooded into the narrow vicoli. We huffed and puffed up the incline now, the older women ahead stopping every now and again to rest, slowing the flow of those behind them, who navigated around the human dam on our Via Dolorosa. No one paid mind to the tourists; an official day of mourning had been declared by the Mayor. It left me wondering whether the friction between the rival groups had permeated our town more than I would have at first believed. How naive I felt all of a sudden, living in my small English bubble, watching the world around me now, the sounds a muffle of confusion from underwater.

  At last, the cemetery loomed ahead of us, a resting point in more ways than before. Rosalia, her siblings and their parents stood by the gates, receiving incessant trickles of hands, tears and embraces. I held my friend to my heart. She was pale. It was our turn to cry now. The family were translucent with grief, standing with much effort. Only family and close friends would go to the grave itself. Even with the combined ingenuity of all the Positanese, there would be no hope of squeezing the entire town inside the gates without further casualties. Rosalia would not let go of me.

  ‘I want you with me, Santina,’ she whispered, her voice a scratch.

  ‘Of course, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘Please.’

  We walked through the gates. Marco wasn’t inside his hut just beyond. He would be at the grave now. We reached the plot, higher up the hill above the older graves. Two dozen of us clambered around the hole. My brother appeared. I felt an oblique ripple of pride. It was an honor to see him at this precious time, ushering a family toward the belly of their grief. Then I felt a whisper of morbid embarrassment followed by the sting of self-reproach. The reality of my brother’s job came crashing into focus. Perhaps there was more truth in the words he’d said in haste over the supper table? Was I becoming the sister who would look down on her brother? Co
uld he sense these thoughts even before I became aware of them? The idea sent a shiver down my spine.

  I heard the scatter of earth upon the tomb. Rosalia’s mother fell to her knees. Even three of her brothers wrenching her up would not lift her away from the son she looked down at. Rosalia bent down and wrapped her arm around her mother. I crouched on the other side. I rocked with the women. I felt her tears wet the side of my hair. I heard her muttered prayers spatter in my ear. Together, Rosalia and I eased her back to standing. It was a while before the group trickled away from the grave. I held back, caught between them and my brother. He waited for them to clear out of sight before he began covering the body in earnest. He worked without tiring, shunting the shovel deep into the pile of earth with smooth strokes. All of a sudden he stopped, caught in my gaze.

  ‘You never see someone dig before?’

  ‘I am proud of you, Marco.’

  He took a breath, wiped his brow.

  ‘I’m sorry about the other day,’ I offered, ‘you helped me so very much and then I made you feel awful.’

  ‘Already forgotten.’ He walked down toward me. ‘You’re my family, Santina. If we can’t quarrel and then forget it, what are we? Nothing more than these crazy men going around killing each other for no reason. Pride is ugly.’

  I looked up at him; all traces of that skinny boy racing ahead of me evaporated.

  ‘I’ll wait for you, yes?’ I asked, in no hurry to return home. I had no idea how to navigate communication with the Major and was stalling it as best I could. The mere thought of any impending conversation made my stomach tighten.

  ‘I’ll be a little while, but yes, of course.’

  The family had already begun their descent toward the house, where a small army of women would keep the family fed till the sun dipped and the tears ran dry. I took my time tracing the narrow walkways through the cemetery. I let myself linger for a moment on the stone bench where I had first spoken with my long-lost brother. I looked out to the sea, deep turquoise at this time of day. I let the salty breeze remind me that all was well in the world at large. The next time I saw the Major, if he did in fact ever descend from his room again, he would fix everything. He would iron away the impossible awkwardness with a deft sentence or two. He’d rationalize away our impulse. He’d rake through it all, knotting out the weedy roots of uncertainty like a skilled gardener. Everything would return to normality. We had been tired, overwrought with the emotional day, that was all. Elizabeth would return, my duties would resume, and Adeline would be discharged soon enough.

  I clung to these wisps of thought, but they flew beyond my grasp, dandelion seeds on the breeze.

  I headed for Marco’s little cabin by the gates. He would be finished soon enough. I took a seat on his wooden chair, from which he spied all entrants. He must know more about everybody’s lives than I had given credit. His shelves were a peculiar menagerie of religious artefacts and utilitarian aids. I would have expected a little more order, but here tools hung beside small plastic Madonnas, vases rose in precarious towers, some still with dried flowers decaying inside them. My eyes traced the noise of papers, a wide radio and a much-loved but ill-treated coffee pot.

  That’s when I saw it.

  The glint caught my eye first, its metallic shimmer the brightest thing in the room. The length of the blade was the next thing to sharpen my attention. I knew an excellent knife when I saw one. I don’t know why I picked it up, or read the initials burnt onto the leather handle. I don’t know why the ‘R’ would have interested me if not for the noticeable curl of the decorative flourish around it. The beautiful violence of the object was compelling. What on earth would Marco need a knife like this for? And why would he have that initial on it? The door swung open. I dropped the blade. It ricocheted on the stone, spun once and landed, facing Marco.

  ‘I’m so sorry!’ I uttered, reaching down for it.

  He grabbed my hand, a little too tight.

  ‘My God, Santina, do you know what harm you might have done to yourself? Christ, what were you thinking?’

  ‘Nothing! Nothing at all. I just . . .’

  ‘Just what?’

  I didn’t recognize his expression for a moment. He saw me note it and softened.

  ‘You gave me fright, oje ne,’ he soothed.

  ‘Sorry.’

  We looked at one another. He opened the top drawer of his desk, aching under the weight of a collection of more glass and paper, and placed the knife toward the back. Then he straightened and reached out his arms. I walked into them. I felt a great need to unload the strangeness of my day onto him. Perhaps, another day, I could paint Pompeii for him, take him on my travels, he could be my confessional. But as I lost my thoughts into the quiet of the embrace, I knew that would be impossible. I imagined the look on his face if I confided in him about the Major and me in the garden, standing a breath from one another, saved only by a knock at the door.

  He lifted my chin. ‘I love you, Santina. You’re the only person I have in this world now. Sometimes it makes me jumpy. I’m afraid of losing you all over again. I see people come in and out every day, mourning the empty space where their loved one stood. It breaks a person. Slowly. Like the sea lapping up to the rocks, you know, eating away the hard stone, so slowly no one notices. Then, one day, I find my sister, and the thought of losing you tears me apart.’

  ‘I love you, Marco. Nothing can change that. Ever.’

  He kissed my forehead.

  ‘Go to your friend now,’ he soothed.

  ‘I think I will go home first and pick up some food I’ve made for them. Besides, the crowds will be there for a while yet. I want to go when I can be of some use.’

  ‘One day you will make a man a proud wife indeed.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Come see me, yes?’ he asked, squeezing my hand.

  ‘You can count on it,’ I replied.

  I stepped into the villa. The unaccustomed sound of a cello concerto wafted up from the lemon trees. At the far end of the garden I caught the back of the Major’s deck chair, the tip of his panama hat poking over the top. Beside him, a squat wooden table with a jug of lemon water. By his feet stood his gramophone, whirring out the seductive strings. The door closed heavy behind me. I walked across the terrace toward the kitchen. His voice stopped me halfway.

  ‘I have a glass for you here, Santina.’

  I stood still. He looked back at me over the side of the chair. His expression put me at ease.

  ‘I think we need to talk,’ he said.

  I walked toward him. He gestured for me to sit down on the deck chair beside him. As I sunk down on to the canvas I allowed myself to acknowledge how my legs ached. I realized I had been on my feet since early this morning. He filled a glass, handed it to me and watched me drink.

  At last he spoke.

  ‘Your gentleman friend,’ he began, ‘took great pains to meet with me.’

  I could feel embarrassment claw up my cheeks. I didn’t feel ready for what he might say. I wanted to wind our way out of this conversation before it began, stepping through sea thistles by the water’s edge.

  ‘I had no idea quite how serious your relationship was. You kept that a well-guarded secret. That much is overwhelmingly obvious.’

  My eyes lowered. I longed to summon the courage to be honest with him, with myself. Ours wasn’t a relationship. Ours was a dance. Paolino and I were brief partners, no more. I had followed his lead. When it had become serious escaped me. Why was the Major even having this conversation with me?

  ‘And choose, if you can, not to look as if I were speaking a language of which you have no understanding. I have been teaching you these past few years with what I considered deliberate dedication. With passion. Now I think my love of sharing all I know with you has been an utter waste. You are a bright student, Santina. Have the courage to not use the mask of stupidity as a frail device when you don’t want to confront something!’

  His voice was rising now.
I was back on the mountainside. I heard my mother pleading with my father. The crack of his belt, the sound of her falling, wailing, streaking the floorboards with blood. The pictures pummelled my mind. I cried stupid, fat tears.

  ‘I am a good student. You are a good teacher.’ I felt the warble of more sobs in my throat but clamped them down. ‘I don’t know why you speak like this.’

  His face fell. ‘Santina – forgive me.’ He stumbled over his words, tripped through his search for them. ‘Please. I shouldn’t . . . I didn’t mean that. I just . . .’ He let out a deep breath.

  We floated on this stilted silence, a row boat with its oars lifted. I longed for him to steer us back to normality and resist control at the same time. Perhaps we could stay on this watery expanse, nothing but the two of us and a sapphire horizon.

  My tears began to ebb. Our eyes met.

  I watched his fingers reach over to mine. I watched him trace a gentle line over my open palm. A wave of electricity raced up my arm. He lifted my wrist to his lips. The soaring resonance of the strings beside us scored through me. There was no afternoon breeze, no lap of the sea, no birdsong. He slid off his chair and lowered himself onto his knees before me. Our faces were level. I felt his hands cradle my face, gentle, craving permission. A sliver of light was between us now, no more. We held the complicit quiet. I wanted nothing more than the taste of his mouth on mine. I ached for the feel of him.

  But I pulled away.

  I shouldn’t hide in his arms.

  My tears weren’t an invitation.

  ‘We can’t do this.’

  His voice was a murmur. ‘You are right. Of course. I’m sorry.’

  He looked into me. I felt naked.

  He lowered back onto his heels. His gaze left me, fixing on a point on the horizon, beyond the inviting mountains of Capri, a place this garden begged you to linger on, rolling downhill toward the seascape, as if the answers to difficult questions lay in full view yet out of reach.