At first Connor and I were very nervous at these gatherings. We greeted each other politely but tended not to talk—rather too conspicuously, as he pointed out when we were alone together. I knew he was probably right but saw no other solution; I couldn’t bring myself to put on an act with him.
It was at one of Harold Troye’s parties that I met Robert Marshall and his wife, Flora, for the first time in more than ten years. I had been too young to remember much about them when they lived in Florence but Pritchett certainly did. They had had many of the same clients, wealthy Englishmen who relied on them for good advice, and Pritchett felt that Marshall took advantage of them at every opportunity. At one point Pritchett apparently confronted Marshall who, forced to lower the price of a painting, retaliated by undermining Pritchett, criticizing his work behind his back and recommending other architects to his clientele. Or so I was told, not by Pritchett, but by my mother. At any rate, here was Marshall with his beautiful wife at Harold Troye’s party, affable and jovial. This was in the autumn of 1940—in October, if I remember right. I had traveled down by train from Chianciano earlier that day; it was late so I didn’t arrive at the party until nearly eight. I hadn’t seen Connor since the summer and remember how impatient I was and how difficult I found it to do no more than shake his hand. But that’s all I did, I simply greeted him as I greeted everyone, taking care that our handshake should be no longer or shorter, firmer or looser than any other. Then I waited for the evening to pass and for us to leave—he first, then I. The party was no different from any other. Perhaps our eyes strayed to each other more often than usual, that’s possible, but otherwise nothing was any different. So it’s always been a mystery to me how Robert Marshall guessed the nature of my relationship with Connor. I have often gone over that evening in my mind—the conversation before dinner when we were drinking champagne in the library, the long meal, the farewells—but I cannot remember a single moment that can have given him pause for thought. Yet even so, he noticed something that no one else did and was quick to grasp the situation.
He got in touch with me the following day and asked me to meet him. I was nervous, although I had no reason to be, and I didn’t ask him what it was about when he suggested we meet by the Trevi Fountain. I arrived before him and was watching a group of young Fascists in black shirts throwing coins in the fountain when he touched me on the shoulder. I jumped slightly and he apologized, then came straight to the point.
He had known my late father, he said, and always felt he owed him a debt of gratitude for assisting him when he first arrived in Italy.
“It was a pleasant evening,” he then said. “Troye’s parties always are. But you should be careful.”
I said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
“It’s nobody’s business how you live your life, not mine or anyone else’s, but you’ll both have to be more careful if you want to keep your affair with Connor under wraps.”
He broke off and looked at me as if to gauge my reaction. I was too shocked to respond, too devastated to look him in the eye. What does he want? I asked myself. Why is he telling me that he can ruin my life in this almost fatherly manner, his voice so smooth, his smile so carefully cultivated?
I reached into my purse for a handkerchief but my fingers came up with a coin instead which I somehow managed to throw into the fountain.
“Connor’s a good chap,” he said, “but a little sensitive. That’s why I decided to speak to you instead, though we don’t know each other.”
Smiling, he added, “Though I’m not sure that this is how your father would have wanted me to repay his kindness.”
That was it, and I said nothing more before we parted, though I looked at him for a moment, at those deep-set eyes that saw what others missed.
Over the next three years, we met at numerous social gatherings, but never again in private. He didn’t refer to what had passed between us and nor did I, though I always sensed that it was very much on his mind. I didn’t tell Connor either; it would only have caused him unbearable anxiety. He was sensitive as Marshall had said, often unnecessarily so.
Of course I realized at once that something more than kind concern had motivated his meeting with me. Yet I knew he would tell no one about his discovery, whether from a slip of the tongue or deliberately, because if he did, he would no longer have any hold over me. I think I must always have known that he would eventually demand repayment.
From this time on he behaved toward me as if we were old friends. I received several invitations from him and his wife; their dinner parties used to be lively affairs. When Marshall invited Connor to these dinner parties, I felt as if he had us under a microscope. On one occasion he sat us side by side at dinner, the next time we could not have been placed farther apart. On the first occasion he said to Connor, “You know each other, don’t you?” And smiled when Connor stammered, “Yes, since we were children in Florence.” “Of course,” he said, “silly me.”
By the time I attended my last dinner party at the Marshalls’, Giovanni was already ill. It had started with vomiting, mouth ulcers, and a high temperature. The doctor from Chianciano thought at first that he had food poisoning but when Giovanni did not improve over the next few days, he retracted this diagnosis. I had a long-scheduled appointment in Rome with my mother who was staying there with friends for a week, but I postponed the trip and sat with my son for the next few days. Little by little he improved and began to recover his appetite, and I remember my relief when the fever left his eyes and he started sitting up in bed and talking to me. By the time I finally left for Rome, his temperature had returned to normal.
I sat on the edge of his bed to say good-bye.
“What shall I buy you in Rome?” I asked, stroking his forehead. “What do you want more than anything?”
He looked at me for a long time before answering. I assumed he was trying to make up his mind.
“Don’t go, Mummy,” he said at last.
The car was waiting for me outside; I had my coat on and my bag on my lap. At that moment Schwester Marie came into the room.
“Look who’s here,” I said.
He didn’t answer, just laid his head back on the pillow and looked away. I put my arms around him and kissed him again and again, telling him I wouldn’t be away for long.
“I’ll bring you back a lovely surprise,” I said.
I felt awful during the drive to Chianciano and even worse on the train to Rome. I phoned home as soon as I got there and was relieved when you reported that Giovanni had eaten his supper and was asleep. He’s better, I assured myself. Thank God, he’s better. Shortly afterward I was at the Piazza Tor Sanguigna.
The Marshalls’ dinner party was the following evening. I had phoned home that morning and talked to Schwester Marie, who said that Giovanni was still improving, but I was on edge all day and when I arrived at the party, I suddenly felt overcome. I was about to turn back when Marshall, who was standing on the landing in front of the apartment, seized me by the hand and led me inside to where people were dancing. Count Ciano invited me to dance the moment he spotted me, and I tried to hold my head high as we floated around the floor, focusing on stopping my knees from buckling. The Count began to whisper in my ear about the painting Marshall had for sale, which was hanging on the wall in the dining room, but I did not respond. I looked over at Connor and tried to signal my distress to him, but he didn’t pick up on it.
I escaped as soon as I could. The party was crowded and I managed to disappear without anyone but Connor noticing. He followed me and we stopped at the bottom of the stairs. There was no one in sight so I put my arms around him and held him tight.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
I was about to answer when a young woman suddenly came running down the stairs. She was wearing a yellow dress and must have been at the party, though I hadn’t noticed her. I released Connor immediately and must have inadvertently moved farther away than I meant to because she bumped into me
on her way past. My bag fell to the floor, and Connor bent down to pick it up. As she begged my pardon and hurried out, I saw that she was crying.
That evening we broke our rules and went back to his apartment together. We made love and stayed awake all night, but I felt the whole time as if I was saying good-bye to him. I had convinced myself that Giovanni’s illness was a punishment for my behavior and that I had no choice. I didn’t tell this to Connor because I knew how foolish it sounded. I sensed that the illness was serious. I think I had sensed it from the first day.
At dawn we took a walk, crossing the Tiber to the Vatican. When we saw a group of monks intoning their matins in an open square, we stopped and listened. It started to rain and we sought shelter by a wall while they continued their prayers. Their voices merged with the hissing of the rain and gradually they disappeared from sight into the grayness, together with the buildings on the other side of the square, and it was as though we were standing outside everything, isolated, with no hope of receiving grace.
HOW STRANGE IT WAS TO COME HOME ON THAT beautiful day and see the roses reaching up to the sun and the dolphins sending a jet of water into the fountain and to hear the laughter of the children as they came down the drive with their teacher. Everything was so at odds with the darkness in my soul. And then to go into his room where death had already set its mark on him, though we wouldn’t let ourselves admit it, and to see that the fever had returned to those eyes that I had expected to brighten on seeing me, but that did not.
I stayed with him from morning to night. I had bought him a canary in Rome and we set up the cage on the bookcase where he could easily see it. I was pleased at the way he instantly took to the bird, and we spent a long time debating what to call it. The final decision was Petro and he asked me to make up stories about his new friend; they all began with his escaping from the cage, whereupon he got into all kinds of scrapes before returning to Giovanni, who was waiting for him.
The first specialist diagnosed paratyphoid fever. You didn’t trust him, however, and the doctor you got to call a week later wondered if it could be appendicitis. We took him to Montepulciano for an X-ray and his condition deteriorated during the journey. He whimpered all the way home, crying that he missed his canary. Over the next few days he had spells of delirium during which he was convinced that the bird had flown away and was now in danger. I regretted having made up the stories and you couldn’t restrain yourself from muttering that I should stop telling them. I reacted badly to this remark and we didn’t speak again that day.
We started giving him oxygen every two hours and with that he perked up and recovered his appetite. We were overjoyed, and he slept better and woke up hungry. I saw that he was growing stronger and one morning he woke up and asked if he could get out of bed. We were of two minds about whether this was a good idea and hastily phoned the doctor to make sure it was safe. We helped him out of bed together and led him to the window and all I could think about was how wasted his body was from the illness. He was like a little sparrow and I bent and took him in my arms and held him by the open window. He was so light and his flesh so emaciated that I felt as if the heart that pounded in his chest was no more than a hairs-breadth beneath the skin. He held out a thin arm and pointed at the hillside with his finger.
“That’s where Petro flies when he’s having an adventure,” he said. “Over there and then up to the stars.”
“Yes,” I said, “but he always comes back to you.”
By the next day, one side of his face was paralyzed and he could no longer sit up in bed. We took him to Rome where he was admitted to hospital. The doctor quickly diagnosed meningitis but stressed that it would have been harder to identify the disease in its early stages.
We kept vigil over him during those last days. He slept for the most part and when he woke up he turned his head and stared at us in silence. I held his hand; his fingers were limp and I stroked them constantly as if I thought I could massage some strength into them. He liked the feeling and gave a low moan every time I let them go. I didn’t stop until his eyes closed once more and he drifted off to sleep.
When he was asleep, you and I took turns getting fresh air or something to eat. We were never away for long. The days were warm with cloudless skies, and I found it hard to adjust to the glare of the sunlight when I emerged into the street where life carried on as usual and everyone seemed so oddly cheerful. There was a small public garden across the street with a fountain and a bench by the fountain, where I sat and watched the water, my mind empty. Never for long, ten minutes at most.
I had just crossed the road when I saw Connor. He had been waiting a little way off and did not follow me into the garden until he was sure I was alone. It was growing dark and I nearly jumped out of my skin when he put his hand on my shoulder.
“Sorry,” he said. “Your mother told me.”
I’d been fighting to keep my feelings under control but now I began to shake all over, and the tears came without my being able to do anything to stop them. He put his arms around me and led me farther into the garden where we would not be seen. We said nothing, nothing I remember, but he held me, waiting for me to calm down. We must have stood there for quite a while. It was late in the day; darkness fell in the garden, the streetlights came on and the noise of the city grew muffled. He asked me how Giovanni was and I told him. He kissed me on the brow in parting and I clasped his hands before I left.
I had no sooner entered the lobby than one of the nurses who had been caring for Giovanni hurried up to me.
“We’ve been looking for you,” she said. “I hope it’s not too late.”
I ran up the stairs and along the corridor to Giovanni’s room. I couldn’t feel my feet, couldn’t feel anything, it was as if the corridor was rushing toward me while I stood still.
Someone had turned on the overhead light and the brightness hurt my eyes. The doctor was standing by the door. You knelt by the bed, holding Giovanni’s hand. You didn’t look at me. Bowing his head, the doctor left the room.
Giovanni’s eyes were closed and when I sat down on the bed, took him in my arms and pressed him against me, it was like holding a small sack of flour. I groped for where his heart used to pound just under his skin but could feel nothing.
I sat with him in my arms, humming a lullaby to him in farewell. Ran my fingers through his hair, stroked his cheeks as they grew cold. You did not move, until eventually you stood up, very slowly, and said, “He asked where you were. Again and again.”
Then you left the room and I sat on with our son in my arms in the merciless glare of the overhead light.
HE WAS DRESSED IN WHITE BEFORE BEING LAID IN HIS coffin. Signorina Harris and I dressed him together; at first I didn’t think I could do it but then I pulled myself together, fetched the clothes from his cupboard and slid his arms into the sleeves while she held him up. I picked white tulips and Canary Bird Roses in the garden and arranged them by the coffin along with the bluebells that he used to think so pretty. The coffin stood open all day in the chapel and I sat beside him while the local people came to pay their respects. They started arriving just after ten o’clock and from then on there was a steady stream of mourners until dusk. The priest stayed with me for most of the morning but left when, seeing how tired he was, I suggested he take a nap. Everyone needed comforting, children and adults, men and women, and I did my best. It gave me strength to repeat my words of consolation again and again, “He’ll always be with us . . .”
The priest returned after everyone had gone. We lit candles and he said a prayer before closing the coffin. You and I were alone with him and stood on either side of the coffin, looking at the candlelight on his face but not at each other. In the soft glow he looked as if he were sleeping, with color in his cheeks after a long day of running around in the hot sunshine. I said it aloud; I said: “He looks as if he’s sleeping,” and only then noticed that you had started to cry. You wept in silence and did not try to stop the tears from running down y
our cheeks until I held out my hand to you. Then you wiped your eyes rather than take it.
The funeral was held in the church because the chapel was too small. Friends and family came from Florence and Rome and the country people turned up to a man, the children too, which meant the most to me. You complained about the sea of flowers—gardenias, lilies, and roses inside, wreaths of lavender and cypress around the grave—not to me but to Pritchett. To me you said little. It was a beautiful service and when it was over, you, Pritchett, Melchiorre, and the fattore carried the coffin to the cemetery.
That evening you came into my room when I was getting ready for bed. You had taken to sleeping in another room when Giovanni was ill and continued to do so after we returned from Rome. I had spent a long time in Giovanni’s room before going to bed, touching one object after another, talking to him as I used to before he went to sleep. The strength I had been able to summon was gone and my words of consolation sounded hollow when I tried to repeat them to myself. I crouched down in the corner, holding his pillow, shaking with unbearable pain.
I don’t know how long this lasted. I tried to get up a few times but couldn’t. I heard footsteps outside in the passage and sensed more than once that someone was outside the door, about to come in. I assumed it was you but had neither the will nor the energy to find out.
Eventually I managed to get up and go back to my room. It was almost midnight. I drew the curtains and sat down on my bed. Minutes later, you tapped on my door and opened it without waiting for an answer.
You did not speak. I still had Giovanni’s pillow in my hands and for whatever reason suddenly felt guilty about it.
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