by Sara Faring
“Not concerned about her prince mingling with the commoners?” I say. “I received the warning, you know. Steer clear of him or suffer death by firing squad.”
“No, no. There’s only room for one such beloved in a family. I have it on good authority from a maid that he spends his days smoking hashish in his room. He’s gone through several dozen grams. At least, that’s the running estimate based on ash collected by the staff.”
“No!”
We burst out laughing.
She wipes the tip of her nose with a grave expression. “It’s troubling for a perfectionist like Carmela.”
“What happened to her husband?” I ask. “I haven’t heard much of him, only that he died.”
“Oh,” says Molina, waving a hand. “He was a five. Speedboat accident in the Côte d’Azur. A rudder cut his head right off—apparently, the coroner said he only felt a tickle on the back of his neck.”
I swallow a lump of tomato caught in my throat.
* * *
After lunch, I read the girls’ essays, gleaning strange little tidbits about their lives:
My name is Diana, and I grew up in Uruguay, then London, which makes for an exciting existence I should be most happy about, or so my father says. My father is an ambassador, and my mother was an actress, but not a very good one, or so my father also says …
I’m Silvina. My family is German, and they moved here in the 1900s, long before World War I and even World War II, in case you are thinking that we were Nazis. But we aren’t Jews, either, God forbid. We live in Recoleta, in the large stone house at the end of the square facing the …
My parents named me Gisella after the opera about the woman who dies of a broken heart and is summoned back to kill …
Mariella Garibaldi is twelve years old and wishes she were still on the yacht off of Sardinia, where her family has a country home, instead of this heinous place …
Michelle was also my mom’s name, and her mom’s name, and her mom’s. My father was French, and even though the Beatles are British, he liked to sing to me, “Michelle, ma belle…” Now they are both gone, and I live with my aunt, who takes her meals alone. She asks her maid to deposit a fresh can in my room each night for dinner. We eat only canned foods because she thinks fresh foods are tainted by the guerrillas or the military. I’m not sure which—it depends on the day. I’m happy to be here. So happy that sometimes I hear my soul sing when I’m brushing my teeth … It wants to spread itself out of my head like warm light.
And so it is settled: Michelle is no relation of the Falcone girl. Their resemblance falls to chance, and Michelle is simply a lost soul like me, which is why I’ve taken an interest in her. I breathe easier when my brain boxes this up and stores it away.
When I’ve finished reading, I draft lesson plans—more specifically, I rack my brain for a single shred of wisdom to impart as I wait for Carmela or Morency or some hybridized monster composed of them both to find me in my cottage and chastise me for being unprofessional and unprepared. I rustle up an old copy of The Catcher in the Rye and decide to plunge into it with the girls. It’s creative, but I’m creative. Or so Mole said number sevens are.
No one comes to the cottage all afternoon but for Lamb, who comes bearing a scone and a thermos of tea, like a blessed angel. Dusk falls, and with it comes a prickling feeling along my scalp. Scratching at the panes of the cottage is only the scratching of overgrown vines; footsteps here and there are only Lamb and—in all likelihood—mice. But I buy into it already: the danger of dusk here. So be it. I will abide by the rules. I hurry back to the house to wash up for dinner and follow Yesi to the dining room, where someone has set the grand table for a lavish sit-down dinner.
Lit candles line the sides of the room, flames bobbing. Every bit of finery glimmers on the table: crystal goblets, silver candlesticks, and gilded plates that look one hundred years old. Fingers of steam curl from the overflowing platters of mouthwatering sliced meats drizzled in jus and grilled vegetables with char marks.
I tidy my hair and my skirt before draping a lace-edged napkin across my lap. “Has every dinner been like this?” I ask Yesi in a whisper.
She nods. “Eventually it will have to end. If they keep this up, Vaccaro School will be bankrupt in its first semester.” She raises her chalice of grape juice to mine—per Carmela, no drinking among the staff, even though everyone surreptitiously tipples, or so says Lamb. “Cheers to draining the Vaccaro coffers with elaborate feasting.”
“And cheers to adventure.” I look around the table as I sip.
Carmela sits at the head, draped in ivory silk, with Domenico to her right and black-sacked Morency scowling to her left. The few of us teachers dot the sides, and the girls sit at the end, chattering among themselves, looking old-fashioned and darling in deceptively sweet, matching white button-down dresses with pearl buttons. Mariella holds eye contact with me and winks before I look away. Gladly, I’ve Yesi on one side, Lamb on the other. I clink my glass with his.
He grins. “Ah, yes, chin-chin, my dear! ¡Salud! What a glorious house. What a magical evening. May they all be like this.”
I ogle the plate of juicy steaks before me, wondering when I can serve myself, but Carmela rises and the table hushes. I catch Domenico staring at me, and he looks away, heavy-lidded eyes bored. I think of that bit in Pride and Prejudice—Lizzy overhearing Darcy say that she is tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt him.
“Welcome, all,” Carmela says, spreading her arms wide. She, or a hidden makeup artist, has applied a symmetrical cat-eye to her lids. “I am so pleased to have all my staff and students here together for our first meal en famille.”
Yesi coughs away a laugh at her French pretension, and Morency glares at us both.
“Vaccaro School is unique to all the world—many rich traditions are kept alive here. The first De Vaccaros made their life here after emigrating from northern Italy. Indeed, it was on this hill that they built a fort of unparalleled quality to protect themselves from the Zapuche Indians in the area, a fiercely territorial group who would, per my grandmother Domenica, peel the soles off the feet of foreign women they kidnapped so that they would not be able to run.”
Yesi elbows me, and Mole, across the table, clears her throat. I glance at the girls, who do not seem to have registered Carmela’s controversial statement. Gisella hurls a ball of rolled-up bread at Michelle.
“You sit inside that fort,” Carmela adds with a wide smile, showing her animal-sharp incisors. “But it is so much more than that. It became a place of spiritual rediscovery for my family—imbued with hill magic, populated by wise presences from the world over that the Zapuche believed to be fundamental to their existence.”
I frown. How did outsiders like Carmela and her family transform from despised colonial menaces to fundamental parts of the Zapuche’s existence?
“It became a place where generations of my family learned how to adapt to the new world—how to reconnect with each other,” she says, taking Domenico’s hand, which sits on the table beside her. He blinks at her, as if realizing he is not alone. “There’s an infinite, magnetic wisdom to this immortal rock—it is ultimately a place of inspiration, of healing. Our nine-month term here could bear the sort of fruit one might associate with a century-long golden age. Rest assured: You made the right choice in coming here. The school will bestow great gifts on us all. We must simply give it all that we can first.”
I swallow and look around the table at the crooked half smiles and lifted chins and fiddling fingers. I expected more from Carmela’s speech than oblique reassurance—more to rally us, more specificity to inspire us and give us a sense of her mission. I sense that most of us did.
“Can we eat?” I hear Diana whisper to Mariella from under her unruly fringe of hair.
Sara whispers to Mole across the table. Carmela notices and snaps.
“What is it, Dr. Molina?”
Mole hesitates. “It’s nothing.”
“Do speak
up, Doctor,” says Morency, her horseface sour.
“Sara asked me what happened to the family and the school that used to be here.” She clears her throat. “Your family and their school.”
Carmela’s smile does not melt from her face as I might have expected. The table is silent, all of those seated riveted, despite the food cooling before us, untouched.
“You may have heard rumors of what happened to my family here,” she says, dabbing at her right cat-eye with a crooked finger. “I will tell you the truth now, so to stop them. A virus affected the family and household staff some sixty years ago, sending them away.”
“Did the students die?” asks Sara, eyes shining for the first time. Silvina elbows her, hard, and Sara ignores her.
“The school was closed until the property was deemed safe again,” says Carmela without a waver. “I am pleased to share that we have passed every inspection with flying colors. The Vaccaro School will be named a site of historical significance by the government this year.” The mention of the government sends the slightest collective ripple through the diners. Carmela raises a glass, her fixed jaw straining against taut skin.
Morency mutters under her breath, and Carmela snaps. “What is it now?”
Morency folds her hands in her lap with a martyr’s wounded eyes.
“Ah,” says Carmela, as if this is a signal. “I am also pleased to have Morency here as de facto head of household staff. She will handle any further questions you might have. As far as I’m concerned, I trust her with my life. She has been my right hand for many years, ever since her mother served as my nurse, and her mother’s mother served as my own mother’s nurse.”
Morency blanches, nearly impossible to detect on her pasty skin. I suppose it wasn’t the introduction she wanted.
“That’s a lot of nursing,” whispers Yesi.
“Hearty woman,” I whisper back.
“She has Zapuche blood in her,” continues Carmela.
“I did have the refreshing sensation when we met that her love would not be the kind I could run from,” whispers Yesi, in an imitation of Carmela’s imperious drawl.
I clap a hand over my mouth.
“Yes, Luciana?” says Carmela. I look over and see that Luciana has raised her hand.
“Michelle wants to say something,” she says.
“Then Michelle should raise her hand and speak.”
Michelle blushes. “I just wanted to say—”
“Do speak up,” says Carmela.
She comes to her feet with a screech of the chair’s legs. “I wanted to say that I’m proud to be a pioneer,” she says. “I think we all are.”
And the hardened edges of my heart melt.
“Suck-up,” says Mariella with a cough, to chuckles.
“That’s enough,” interrupts Morency, standing. “Yes, the Vaccaro School was known around the world as a place of great learning of all types—a place where young women would emerge to be strong social players in a society that did not value them as it should have. Today, we will be our generation’s pioneers. We will tap into the”—she glances at Carmela—“spiritual significance of this place and help build strong, brilliant girls to lead our country out of this murkiness. It is our mandate, and it is our will. Men have torn apart this country with their shadowy violence. We women will take back our futures and press on into the light.”
Domenico scoffs and crosses his arms as Mr. Lamm claps.
“Brava!” he shouts.
And soon, the others clap, too. The girls giggle behind their hands. I have to say, I might warm to Morency yet—though my stomach turns at the mention of our country’s present violence.
I raise my hand tentatively, eager to change the subject and emboldened by the lift in the table’s spirits, to ask about the missing tenth student. Carmela nods at me.
“Should we be expecting a tenth student, Madame De Vaccaro?” I ask. “I was under the impression there were ten girls.”
Morency looks into her hands, and Carmela’s lips peel themselves back into a frightening smile. “She’s been taken ill,” Carmela says. “She will be here soon, God willing.”
I glance around at the girls and teachers, surprised to find their interest isn’t piqued. I can’t let the subject go.
“Can you tell us more about her?” I ask. “When can we expect her?”
Morency slams a hand against the wood of the table—everyone startles but Carmela, lost in thought.
“That is enough,” she says, eyes darting around. “The food is now cold because of these endless interruptions.” My trickle of newly formed compassion toward her evaporates. Fine. I’ll have to wait for this sickly girl to arrive to learn more about her. I catch Domenico’s eye, and he raises his brow at me in the half a second before I look away. I distract myself by inhaling several lamb chops and a hunk of rare beef, unsure of when I will eat this well again in my life.
Oh, right. Tomorrow. God bless this school.
* * *
The teachers linger after dinner to enjoy a bit of sobremesa. A vacant-eyed Carmela rises to lead the girls back to their rooms in the westernmost branch of the house. She rubs at a spot on her chest with the heel of her hand as she waits for the girls to line up behind her. Her off-key speech endures in my mind, as does Molina’s earlier story about her daughter’s death. It must be torturous for her, for Domenico, to be surrounded by so many little girls of her daughter’s age. Unless she inhabits a realm of enlightened reflection that’s so above and beyond me that I can’t recognize it.
While Morency gives instructions to the kitchen staff, Domenico rises—presumably to go smoke—and I impulsively excuse myself to go to the restroom, with a sidelong look from Yesi. Of course, I end up following his fading form down the hall, away from the staff stairs, unsure of my motivation—perhaps I follow because I’ve been prohibited from doing so. Or I follow because some clue in his behavior might illuminate the underlying mystery of the house. Or I’m fulfilling a sad cliché and want to needle him because he’s melancholy and a bit frightening and ridiculously attractive in a way that seems impossible outside of fairy tales. I know he’s not stupid—he must smoke to deaden some part of himself. To pass the hours while stranded here. I’ll admit it—I’m not immune to the lure of the “complex” man, despite knowing I’d be better off with someone simpler, kinder. But … broad-shouldered and sure-footed as ever, he ambles down a route I’ve never explored, through the ballroom and down a hallway off the closet door I hid from Morency in with Yesi. I don’t yet know why a man in his prime from an elite family chooses this rock as his place of solace, besides its being the path of least resistance. My world of opportunity is a grain of sand in his.
He turns right down another corridor, yet to notice me. I’m watchful, sneaking backward glances. By some stroke of luck, no one else has followed. He climbs a short flight of creaking stairs I don’t dare to climb and stops in front of a doorway. He pushes open the door with a hand and pauses, as if he’s aware I’m behind him, snooping. As if he’s affording me this glimpse of his gorgeous royal-blue room with views of the ice—a startling white in the dark. There is a king-size canopy bed and a full sitting room. He lifts the half-zipped sweater over his head, offering a glimpse of a toned body beneath before his shirt falls into place. Flinging the fine wool like a rag onto a brocade sofa, he breathes in and out luxuriantly, the muscles of his back shifting beneath the paper-thin shirt and his skin.
“Don’t follow me. Don’t touch me.”
I splutter for words as he remains still.
He doesn’t turn to face me, and blessedly, I can’t be sure he’s speaking to me. He cracks his fingers, one by one, and my cheeks feel like hot coals.
“I know what you are, and you disgust me,” he says. “You’re hollow at the core. But having me won’t help you. I’m nothing but a bad memory given shape by a disgruntled God.”
And he shuts the door.
I sink to my heels around the bend. My hands tremble.
Does he know, then? Does he know what I am? The cowardly daughter of a hardened leftist, on the run? Having me won’t help you. As if I hoped to lure him in like a siren and use his family’s influence to protect myself. What a fool I am to flout the rules of this place on my second night here.
I slink back to the teachers’ residence hall, swearing not to follow him again. Promising to settle in quietly. But his final sentence lingers in my memory because I cannot make sense of it—those petulant, spooky words laid his loneliness and insecurity so bare. I hustle up the back stairs to my room, overwhelmed by the sense that the house’s mysteries live well inside that murky, unhealthy place that steals bits of your soul should you linger there too long.
* * *
I try to sleep after my strange encounter, but I’m restless. Falling straight asleep would be too simple, too prescribed. I knock on Yesi’s door beyond the pass-through, and after a few tries, she answers with a pen in hand, a smear of ink across her face.
“Go to sleep, Swampy dear. I’m working.” She shuts the door with a wink, and my sad little effort to waste some nighttime hours together is aborted.
I peek out into the staff hallway and find it quiet but for the purr of a radiator. Hand frozen on the knob, I consider wandering out again. But after a good minute of contemplation, I close my door. I huddle on the bed under the yellowing blanket and my coat. The room still freezes my fingers and toes into numbness. A space heater would be nice, nicer than those imagined chocolates on pillows. Without the light of day streaming through the bathroom skylight—without any moonlight, as the sky must be covered in clouds—the room becomes as solemn as a mausoleum.
What would my mother have said about tonight, with its crystal pitchers, its lace fineries, and Carmela herself, her words as false and decorative as the rest? She would’ve despised the De Vaccaros, I know that much—she would’ve railed at their brushing aside old crimes. She would’ve told me to dig up the whole truth and expose it to light, not long after reprimanding me for wanting to fit in and hide the tender pieces of myself.