“Silvana! Let go now!” Raffaele said.
Silvana giggled and released her captive. “He likes it. Don’t you? You probably don’t get much, do you?” I could see that Bruno was disgusted. I was embarrassed and humiliated. What else will Silvana do before the evening is over? I thought.
Raffaele put one arm around Bruno and the other around me. “She’s not in control,” he said quietly. Raffaele always tried to make people feel more comfortable, especially in difficult situations.
Silvana took a long sip of wine. “Maybe I am just a tiny bit drunk, but I won’t let you talk about me behind my back.” She stared into her wine as if she were looking over a precipice and sniffed. “Did they get this garbage from us?” She raised her glass. “Let’s celebrate! We’re here and papà isn’t.” She mimed laughter and drank all of the wine in her glass at once.
“Paolo has invited us to his restaurant,” Raffaele said.
Silvana sighed. “Do we have to?” Raffaele gave her a warning look. She put her hand over her mouth. “Don’t worry. Silvana will be a good girl.” She signaled to the concierge to refill her glass. “I’m so thirsty.” Beckoning me to come closer, she pointed at the other guests sitting near us. “Everyone wants to know what we’re talking about,” she confided in a stage whisper. She put her index finger to her lips. “Let’s not tell them!” She threw her head back and laughed loudly. Abruptly, she turned to me once more. “What did papà say when you told him you were going to university?”
“Probably ‘no,’” Raffaele said.
I tried to smile. “Something like that,” I said. Bruno shifted in his seat and tapped his foot on the floor; it sounded like drumbeats. I drank some wine. “But after he made Bruno his partner, papà was more willing for me to go.”
“Partner?” Silvana dropped her glass. It shattered. The room grew silent. “Oh, no! All that lovely wine is on the floor now!” She shook her head and looked at Raffaele with false innocence. “Silvana is a bad girl tonight, isn’t she?” A maid appeared with a mop.
“Papà needed help with the work,” I said, keeping my voice low, “and Bruno has been the manager for several years, so….”
“You’re probably concerned about your inheritances,” Bruno said. “Let me be as honest as I can with you. I have a commitment to the business and the new vintage. I believe we’ll all prosper.”
Silvana squinted at Bruno. “So, let me understand. There are two of you,” she said holding her index fingers together, “but just one each of Raffaele and me.” She separated her fingers. “So your share will be half and ours a fourth each. What do you think, Fina? Is that fair?”
“For God’s sake, Silvana,” Raffaele said. “Bruno and Fina will be doing all of the work. Besides, our fortunes in Orvieto dimmed long before Bruno came along. They were sealed when mamma died.”
Silvana shook her head. “I think Fina has made quite a nice arrangement for herself, don’t you?”
“Papà made Bruno a half owner with him,” I said.
The concierge gave Silvana another glass of wine. She took a large gulp. “So, when do you two plan to marry?”
“We have no plans right now,” Bruno said. “Are you enjoying the wine?”
“Mmmm. Delicious,” Silvana said. She licked her lips and glared at Bruno. “It’s also delicious that you get half of our inheritance whether you marry our sister or not. Would you like anything else?” She held out her glass to Bruno. “Wine perhaps?” The wine in her glass spilled on the rug.
“Sometimes we forget our manners,” Raffaele said. He blotted the spots with his handkerchief. “Please excuse us.” Bruno merely nodded. He didn’t look angry or offended. At least, not then. Silvana grunted and emptied her entire glass, then took out a black cigarette from a case, lit it with a plastic lighter the color of an orange, and exhaled, allowing the smoke to pour out slowly, shrouding us in a haze. Raffaele waved the smoke away. Silvana exhaled again.
“Our father can only do what he does,” Raffaele said to Bruno. “Silvana has always felt he favored Fina. She was born after Etto died, after our mother’s affair, and you could say that Fina helped them recover that time before…before they suffered so much grief.”
So, that’s why papà wanted the letters: even Raffaele and Silvana don’t know that mamma’s affair continued until last year. Papà doesn’t want any of us to know. Perhaps he isn’t sure himself. I knew Bruno was watching me. I looked down at my lap. What must he think? I folded and refolded the corners of my napkin. Bruno put his arm across the back of my chair. I recalled my conversation with Signora Lucarelli and Signora Santori after mamma’s funeral. Do they know, too? I remembered other things people had said to me. Was it only that they remembered that when she was young, she had come to visit papà and his family without a chaperone?
“Papà has such a colossal ego,” Silvana said. “He’s always thought mamma would never want anyone else but him.” She laughed. I knew that Silvana was wrong, that papà had known about mamma’s betrayal and couldn’t bear it.
“I’m sure you’re mistaken,” Bruno said. I felt grateful.
“Well, we don’t keep any secrets,” Silvana said to Bruno. “You know what you’re getting into, right?” Bruno didn’t respond. “You’ve always known, haven’t you?”
“Gossip, you mean?” Bruno said.
“Che boiate!” Silvana exhaled. “More likely, you know an opportunity when you see one.”
“Silvana, that’s uncalled for,” I said. I knew Bruno wasn’t trying to use me.
“Despite what Silvana says, Fina kept our parents together,” Raffaele told Bruno.
Silvana took another drag on her cigarette and pushed her glass toward Bruno for him to refill. “So, maybe you can keep us together now,” she said to Bruno, stubbing out her cigarette on the bottom of one of her shoes, “but I doubt it.” Ashes fell on the carpet.
“Silvana, none of this is Fina’s fault,” Bruno said.
“Why does she have to be such a simp, then?”
I was enraged.
Bruno rose from his seat. “I won’t allow you to treat Fina this way. Apologize!” Bruno was a gentleman.
“Siediti, ragazzo.” Sit down, boy. Silvana signaled the concierge for more wine and snorted. “Just because you’ve stolen my inheritance doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do.”
“I think it’s time to go home,” Raffaele said. He helped Silvana to her feet. “My apologies.”
“Please forgive all of us,” I said to Bruno after they left. “I’m so sorry.”
“Let’s go out and start over together.”
In the Piazza del Carmine a large poster advertised the final performance of Rigoletto at the opera house nearby. Vespers had just ended, and parishoners streamed out of Santa Maria del Carmine into the violet twilight. As we entered the emptied church, Bruno dropped coins into the candle box. We lit our candles and then entered a pew. On my knees, I prayed that I would have the strength to set aside my anger and shame and forgive Silvana. I prayed that papà would be able to forgive me. As we left, Bruno and I paused together in front of the fresco of Adam and Eve fleeing from the Garden of Eden into an uncertain future. I felt a chill.
Outside in the Piazza, Bruno nodded toward the poster. “It’s almost curtain time. Do you want to go?”
Firenze’s opera house had suffered extensive damage two years before in 1966 when the Arno had flooded much of the historic center of the city, destroying many important sites and art works. During reconstruction the opera company held its performances in a former warehouse. The production had an informal character: plain sets, wooden seats, raw floors. Patrons dressed simply too. As soon as we sat down, a faded curtain rose on the Duke’s court as the Duke sang of the pleasures he hoped to enjoy with Gilda, Rigoletto’s daughter. The cast wore shabby, ill-fitting costumes, but sang very well, and their acting was so entirely professional that instead of seeing the ragged assembly before me, I saw a palace and a lavishly dressed court.
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I knew the story and the melodies well: Rigoletto, the hunchbacked jester, pondered the curse on his life. The feckless Duke may have truly loved Gilda, Rigoletto’s beautiful daughter, as much as she loved him. Gilda’s Caro nome aria swept me up in her love for him so that even his name called up her deepest feelings. Does Bruno’s name sweep me away with love in the same way? I asked myself. Perhaps a little. Perhaps when I write “Signora Orsini” on slips of paper. But is that enough? At the end of Gilda’s aria, the audience rose to its feet shouting, “Brava! Bravo!” It was several minutes before the production could continue. Love has its own way of growing and expressing itself, too. Real love will carry me away with its power and enable me to do extraordinary things, just as Gilda chose to die for the Duke. Surely, a test of real love is whether one is willing to sacrifice life itself for the beloved.
Perhaps Gilda’s tragedy should have caused me to question further my beliefs about love, but even the wrenching scene with the deformed Rigoletto holding his daughter’s lifeless body in his arms did not impress me as an emblem of the destructive power of love and betrayal. Instead, I felt my heart opening to all of the new experiences ahead of me. Especially love. By the time we left the theater, I had forgotten about Silvana and her insults. It seemed entirely natural to me to lean into the curve of Bruno’s arm as we walked together. I felt safe and protected.
“Shall we have something to eat now?” Bruno said.
“I feel full.”
“That’s your heart speaking.” He took my hand in his. “My heart is full, too.”
We stopped for drinks, perhaps because our suppressed physical longing had seized us, perhaps because we were inexperienced and waited for the other to express our implicit wish. I wasn’t thinking so much of what would come next, but I felt a change in myself in relation to Bruno, one I couldn’t define except to experience the difference as a feeling of a power of which I was both the center and the orbit. I found this feeling pleasurable without as yet fully recognizing its significance or understanding its consequences. It was as if from far at sea a raft pushed by a wave carried us toward an unknown shore.
“Grappa for la signorina and espresso for me,” Bruno said to the waiter. It was my favorite liqueur. This small courtesy and also the great courtesy he had shown earlier that evening affirmed how much he cared about me. In a way of speaking, I knew that I wanted him to take the tiller of our little craft and guide us beyond our hesitations.
“Gilda’s coloratura was excellent,” Bruno said. He ate most of his biscotto in one bite. “But the tenor lacked passion.”
“I think he was very passionate and restrained himself.”
“That’s true, but I wanted him to express more instead of holding back,” he said.
“I think he held back purposely. Not because he lacked feeling, but because of his nature.”
“You’re defending him,” Bruno said.
“I feel sympathy for him, even though he was unfaithful.”
“Why don’t you feel sympathy for me then when I am utterly faithful to you?” Bruno said. “Can’t you see that I, too, restrain myself? I love you with all my heart, but I must restrain myself until you say you return my love.” I was quiet. “Do you restrain yourself by leaving me?” Uncertain of the consequences of a definite yes or no, I waited to be carried beyond the moment. “You know that we would be happy together. Always.”
“Let’s be happy together now.” Bruno got up and kissed me. We finished our drinks and strolled hand in hand along the streets. When we returned to our pensione, the concierge gave us our keys and a handwritten note from Raffaele:
Dear Fina and Bruno,
Please accept my humble apologies. I deeply regret the ugly behavior you both endured this evening. I’m sorry to tell you that Silvana cannot help herself any more. Forgive her.
I gave the note to Bruno. He read it, crumpled it in his fist, and dropped it on the desk. I didn’t want him to act so harshly, especially not right then. “Raffaele is trying to make amends for Silvana and repair our relationship.”
Bruno folded his arms across his chest, a gesture that reminded me of papà. “How would that be possible? I’m not un finocchio.” A fag. Perhaps I should have noticed something unforgiving and unkind in Bruno’s nature then, but at that moment I wanted to avoid the complications of real relationships and to be brought willing, but without my own conscious responsibility, into the new life ahead of me. Inexplicably, I chose Bruno to lead me, though he wanted only to return me to my previous life. Perhaps he was available. Perhaps I didn’t know what I wanted or needed. Perhaps, like so many important passages, mine was less a matter of choice than of la fortuna.
“Vin santo, please,’ Bruno said to the concierge.
I looked at my watch. “Our train leaves early.”
“We have time.” He led me into the salotto, to the carved sofa with its red brocade upholstery. We sat down together. On the wall opposite us hung a tapestry depicting an Olympian frolic, a prodigious revel involving men, women and beasts. The concierge returned with our wine and a plate of biscotti.
“Espresso, too?” Bruno said to me.
“No, thank you.”
“One, then.” I dipped the biscotto into the vin santo and bit off the soaked portion, pressed it against the roof of my mouth with my tongue. The sweet wine warmed me. Hoping to recapture our earlier closeness, I edged nearer to Bruno and put my head on his shoulder. He reached into his pocket. “I want you to have this.” He handed me a small box covered in black velvet. Inside was a ring set with a circle of mother-of-pearl and a tiny diamond mounted on top surrounded by waves of gold filigree. It reminded me of a miniscule cake. “My father gave it to my mother on their honeymoon.”
I hesitated. Was it an engagement ring? “Bruno, I don’t….”
“I want you to keep it to remind you to come home to me. That’s all. You don’t have to say that you’ll marry me now. I just want you to remember that I’m ready to marry you and because of my partnership in Vino Marcheschi & Orsini, I have the means to do it.” I put the ring on. He took my hand. “Are you still so uncertain?’
“It’s not that I don’t care about you, but if I don’t go to university now, I’ll never know what I could have done.” He played his fingers over mine.
“But what else could you want to be when you’re already everything you need to be with me?”
“I wish I wanted only you, only my life in Orvieto, only what I already know,” I said.
Bruno seemed reassured. “So, you would marry me then?”
“Yes,” I said, believing it was so.
He smiled at me. “I think you’ll come back very soon once you see what is not at your university.” He put his arms around me and kissed me. “Let’s not think about tomorrow. Just tonight.” With desire and restraint, we went upstairs to my room. I turned the key in the lock and went in.
Bruno hesitated and then followed me, closing the door behind him. “Do you want to spend our last night together?”
“Yes.” We set our wine glasses on the table next to the old bed. Its large frame lent a sense of solidity to our frail desires. Bruno kissed me again. Then, as if we had always known what to do, we pulled the white coverlet back. The mattress had a hollow in the center. With his back to me, Bruno took off his clothes. I undressed, too, and laid my clothes on a nearby chair. I took off the corno and put it on the dresser. Without its protection our evening would have been much worse, I thought. We got into the bed, he from one side, I from the other, pulled the covers over us, and lay next to one another naked. This is exactly what the nuns told us not to do. Bruno turned toward me and took my hand. It was delicious to be next to Bruno, his bare skin touching mine. I thought of Gilda.
“I am as virgin as you are, Fina.” Bruno’s confession surprised and pleased me. He isn’t a seducer like the Duke. Does Bruno know what kind of sin it is to do what is wrong, to know that one is doing it, and to make no effort to stop? I wasn�
�t sure myself. The next time I go to confession I’ll ask the priest. Slowly, we made excursions of discovery of one another’s bodies, both of us learning quickly the rhythm and pleasure of the other. At school the nuns never mentioned that making love would be pleasurable, but I had heard other girls talk, and they had said it was. I was surprised that something I had heard so much about in whispered conversations and about which there were so many rules was, in fact, so uncomplicated. That night, neither of us found the awkwardness of too many knees and elbows a distraction when the moment came for Bruno to enter me.
“You’re sure it’s okay?”
“Yes,” I said, uncertain of the right answer. I felt a quick, sharp pain as Bruno moved above me. I had expected that making love would be much more difficult, more dramatic, more about love. Why else would it be forbidden until one had a husband who knew about such things? Bruno knew nothing at all, and we weren’t even married. Bruno gasped and then he rolled away from me. Perhaps the nuns were so mistaken because they had promised never to make love. I had always assumed that they didn’t make love because it was too difficult for them, even more difficult than giving their lives to Jesus. Priests, too. I was puzzled. Making love is easy. And very nice, too. And it hurt only a little. Maria had told me it was even easier the second time.
“Are you okay?” Bruno said. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No.” The nuns had told us that making love was very dangerous. Yet, here I was, safe with Bruno and still Fina Marcheschi. Could this be all? I wondered. If Bruno were more experienced, would it make a difference? I was eager to find out how I had changed.
“Do you want me to stay?” Bruno said.
“Yes.” I moved closer to him and put my head in the crook of his arm.
He kissed me. “I love you very much, Fina.”
“I love you, too.”
After Bruno fell asleep, I remained awake for a long time thinking about the future, about the stars outside my window in Orvieto, about whether I had changed. Did Gilda feel the same way I do? Had Silvana?
The Train to Orvieto Page 32