“Put this on the Puccinis’ account,” she said, with self-conscious pride. “The signora needs it.” It felt grand to say that again.
The chemist was a round, balding man who wore thick glasses and always had ink and chemical stains on his hands and the cotton coat he wore over his vest. He frowned over the disinfectant, and pushed his glasses higher up his nose. “This is corrosive sublimate,” he said. “Chloride of mercury.”
“She asked for it particularly,” Doria said. “For mold, I expect. Could you hurry, please? She’s waiting for me.”
He lowered his glasses again to peer doubtfully at her. “It’s all right, signore,” she said. “I have her note. Would you like to see it?”
He hesitated, but he shook his head. “No, no. I know you. Doria Manfredi, isn’t it?”
“Sì, signore!” Doria bounced impatiently on her toes. “Could you wrap it? And hurry, please. I don’t want to keep Signora Puccini waiting.”
“Hmph,” he said, and she supposed he, too, had heard the stories of Elvira’s behavior. “Va bene.” He took the bottle of tablets, wound a strip of brown paper around it, and tied the whole with a bit of string. He held it out to Doria across the counter. As she took it, he said, “This is dangerous, you know. Be careful with it.”
“Sì, signore!” Doria smiled, dropped a curtsy, and scurried out of the shop and down the lane toward the lake and her beloved maestro’s golden tower.
Old Zita met her at the back door. Doria threw her arms around her, making Zita say, “Hah! About time you cheered up, Doria mia.”
“The signora sent for me, Zita! When the note came, I thought perhaps it was from Signor Puccini, sent from Roma, but—” Doria hurried in through the pantry, unbuttoning her coat as she went, unpinning her hat. “But I think a note from the signora is just as good, don’t you? She even asked me to run to the chemist’s for her.” She kept the package under her arm as she hung her hat and coat on the rack. “Should I put on an apron, do you think? Or should I wait until she offers me my job back?”
“Is that what the note said?” Zita asked. “That she wants you back?”
“Well—not exactly, at least not yet. She says—” Doria stepped into the kitchen, and stopped, staring around her. “Mamma mia, what have you been doing?” Things were stacked everywhere, lamps and books and ashtrays and empty picture frames.
“She’s cleaning,” Zita said sourly. “She says when the signore returns, everything must sparkle. All these things”—she waved one wrinkled hand—“all of these have to go down to the church to be given away. A fresh start in Villa Puccini, she says. A new broom sweeps clean! She’s ordered all sorts of new things from Milano.” She dropped her voice. “She says she’s getting rid of everything that ever troubled her.”
“I don’t know if the signore will like that. Some of these things are his.”
“Lo so, lo so, but it’s not my problem. She’ll have to explain to him.” Zita tapped her temple and rolled her eyes. “Pazza,” she whispered. “Worse than ever.”
“Where is she now?”
For answer, Zita pointed her finger up at the ceiling. Doria nodded. “I’ll take her some tea,” she said. “Oh, and her package.” She took it from under her arm and set it on the counter next to a jumble of things she had dusted many times. She wouldn’t mind a few of them going away, really. So many little gifts from people all over, given to Puccini in appreciation! They did take up a lot of space and gather an impressive amount of dust.
She filled the kettle and began to gather the tea things, fill the creamer, set a tray with a pretty cup and saucer from the breakfront in the dining room. At the last moment she decided the apron was a good idea. Zita lent her one of hers, and though it was a little short, it was clean and pressed.
She put the package on the tray next to the teacup, and carried everything up the narrow stairs. She stopped outside the bedroom door, and called in her most polite voice, “Signora Puccini? It’s Doria. I came as you asked me to, and I have the package from the chemist’s.”
The door flew open with a bang, making Doria start, and the tray tilt in her hands. She stared at Elvira Puccini, hardly recognizing her as the same strong woman who had assaulted her on the church steps on Christmas Day.
The roots of Elvira’s hair showed shockingly gray. Her cheeks were sallow, and her eyes glittered so that Doria wondered if she had taken opium. Her shirtwaist was stained across the bosom, and the hem of her skirt had come loose to drag unevenly on the floor. She had an enormous black shawl around her shoulders. She looked, indeed, like a madwoman.
But the words she spoke were just the ones Doria wanted to hear.
“Doria, good,” she said. Her voice was not the crow’s caw, but a hoarse whisper that was almost inaudible. “You’re back. Come in.” She turned, and waved her hand at a cluttered dressing table. “Put it there, and sit down.”
Doria’s knees felt weak as water, and though she meant to demur—she knew very well the housemaid did not sit down to have tea with the mistress—she thought if she did not set the tray down quickly, she would drop it. With her elbow, she moved the clutter of perfume and lotion bottles aside enough to make room. She could see the signora truly had need of her. The bedroom was a mess, bed unmade, curtains wrinkled and dusty, everything in need of a good scrub. The room smelled sour, as if something had been spilled and not cleaned up. The new broom, it seemed, had not yet reached Elvira’s bedroom.
With the tray safely settled, she turned, linking her trembling hands in front of her. “Buon giorno, signora,” she said carefully. “I was very glad to get your note.” She had decided, as she scurried toward the villa, that she would not expect an apology. Surely Elvira was humiliated enough, especially if the signore had ordered her to take Doria back.
Elvira sank onto the chaise longue. Her corset shifted when she did, and Doria was sure it was fastened wrong. “Sit, sit,” Elvira said, pointing at the stool before the dressing table. Her hand shook, and there was a tremor in her head Doria had never seen before.
Doria said gently, “Oh, no, signora, but thank you. I’ve brought you some tea—and your package from the chemist’s.”
“I want you to have tea with me,” Elvira said. “And I will tell you what Giacomo has written from Roma.”
Doria bit her lip in an agony of confusion. A housemaid did not sit down with her mistress. But Elvira looked so ill! And Puccini would want Doria, his own nurse, to look after his wife, wouldn’t he?
Again, Elvira pointed a wavering finger at the dressing table stool with its lacy flounce and padded seat. Her lips parted, and Doria saw with a shudder that they were wet, that her teeth were not clean. “Signora,” she faltered. “There—there is only one teacup. I didn’t think—”
Elvira forced her lips into a parody of a smile. “Go get another,” she said. Her gaze skittered away from Doria, around the untidy room, but it seemed to Doria she saw nothing. She had a letter in her hand, a much-creased envelope with a sheet of paper half out. Doria wanted to take it from her, to see if it had the crest of the Hotel Quirinale at the top. Perhaps it was this very letter that had forced Elvira to send for her!
She backed toward the door. Elvira half rose from the chaise, but Doria waved a hand to stop her. “Please, just sit, signora. I’ll be right back.” She dashed down to the kitchen for another cup and saucer. She and Zita didn’t speak, though Zita raised questioning eyebrows. Doria shrugged, rolled her eyes, and hastened up the stairs once again.
She knocked on the half-open door, and went in. Elvira was on the chaise, her arms folded tightly around her, as if she were cold. She was staring at the dressing table, her lips working as if she were talking to herself. Or praying.
Doria said, “Signora?”
Elvira started. “Oh! Doria!” She stared at her for a moment, her eyes wild. “Tea, good. Yes, tea. I—” She pointed a ragged fingernail at the dressing table. “You see, I’ve already poured you a cup. Give me that one, and I�
��ll—” She struggled to rise, unfolding her arms and pushing herself up from the chaise. “I’ll pour for myself,” she said, crossing the room on unsteady feet. She took the fresh teacup, and placed the other one, half full, into Doria’s hands.
Doria wanted to protest, to tell the signora to let her do the serving, but a tingle had begun in her toes, a prickling that spread up her ankles and calves. Her fé.
She held the half-full teacup, bemused by the sensation in her legs. Elvira poured tea for herself and carried it back to the chaise. Elvira lifted the teacup to her lips, then produced another ghastly smile. Her eyes had gone flat, like those of one of the water snakes that squirmed among the marsh grasses at the edge of the lake. They made Doria shiver. “Drink your tea,” Elvira insisted, her voice rasping as if she were the heavy smoker and not her husband. “Do sit down, Doria, and drink your tea.”
Still Doria hesitated, caught between the creeping sensation of her fé and Elvira’s strange behavior. Elvira snapped, “Oh, do as you’re told, girl!” For that moment, she sounded like herself, but she caught a noisy breath, as if she hadn’t meant to speak that way, and she held up the envelope. “From Giacomo. Drink your tea, now, and I’ll read it to you.”
At last Doria sat down, crossing her tingling ankles beneath the lacy stool. There was no time to think about what her fé was trying to tell her. Elvira pulled the letter from the envelope, but her eyes never left Doria until, obediently, Doria drank the tea.
She didn’t drink much. It tasted awful, though she had made it herself, and she wondered if it was too old, or if there had been mold on the leaves. She hadn’t noticed any, and surely Zita would not have moldy tea in her kitchen. Elvira sipped her own tea, and seemed not to notice anything amiss.
But then, Elvira Puccini had gone mad. Zita was right. The only thing to do now, Doria thought, was to humor her. And to get the signore home to see that she had proper care.
“Drink, drink!” Elvira said, and drained her own cup as if to demonstrate.
“I would like to hear the letter,” Doria demurred. She pretended to take another sip, but even where the liquid touched her lips there was a nasty sensation. She put the cup back on the tray, and folded her hands in her lap.
“Oh, the letter, the letter,” Elvira said irritably. “It’s just the usual, but I’ll read it to you.”
To Doria’s great disappointment the letter was, indeed, just the usual. The maestro wrote about struggling with Fanciulla, about the terribly wet, cold weather in Rome, about some people he and the signora both knew, whom Doria had never heard of. She listened closely through to the end. The letter wasn’t long. There was no mention, as she had so hoped, of herself.
So why had Elvira asked her to come? Surely not just to bring something from the chemist’s! Doria looked around for the bottle of disinfectant, but she didn’t see it. Elvira must have put it somewhere while she was in the kitchen.
While the signora was folding the letter back into its envelope, Doria rose. She gathered the teacups—her own still a quarter full—and lifted the tray to take it back downstairs. She waited a moment, hopeful Elvira would speak to her about her job. Elvira, however, seemed to have forgotten her. She gazed down at the envelope in her lap, smoothing it over and over with her fingers, her lips working again as if she were reciting what she had just read. Doria went to the door, and opened it with her elbow while she balanced the tray with both hands.
She paused in the open doorway. “Signora?” Elvira didn’t look up. “Signora!”
Finally, Elvira lifted her head, and fixed Doria with a vacant expression. “What is it?”
“You asked me to come here today, signora,” Doria said. As an afterthought, hoping it would help, she curtsied. “I thought perhaps you were going to give me my job back.”
Elvira’s eyes sharpened, focused, glared. “Your job back!” she said in a grating voice.
“Sì, signora,” Doria said. A sudden pain of nerves shot through her stomach, but she held her ground. “I want to come back, and I can see you need me.” She nodded at the turmoil of the bedroom.
“I don’t need you,” Elvira said, her voice rising, the black crow squawking. “A little whore like you? You’re never coming back here! Never! Do you hear me?”
Doria’s stomach clenched, and she thought she might be sick, right there in Elvira’s bedroom, right on her beautiful Turkish carpet. She clutched the tray against her, the cups and teapot clattering together, the tea she had not finished slopping over the surface. “Why did you ask me, then?” she demanded. “Did you send for me only to insult me one more time?”
“Esatto!” Elvira cried, leaping up with sudden energy. She threw up her arms, and her shawl flapped around her like great black wings. Crow’s wings. “One more time! One last time!” she shrieked. “Go home now, go back to your ignorant mother and your filthy hut! You will never bother me again!”
Doria didn’t move for one long, frozen moment. Then, with a deliberate gesture, she turned the tea tray over in her hands. The teapot, the painted cups and saucers, the creamer and the bowl of sugar fell to the floor with a gratifying crash. Porcelain, pottery, and glass shattered. Sugar flew everywhere, and the teapot burst into pieces as if it had been struck with a hammer.
“You,” Doria Manfredi said to Elvira Puccini in a loud, clear voice, “are truly the strega they say you are. I pity the signore that he has to suffer you. Thanks be to God I will never lay eyes on you again!”
Leaving the mess where it was, white cream blurring the red and green and purple design of the carpet, she spun about, and ran down the stairs to strip off Zita’s apron, seize her coat and hat, and dash out into the rain.
Her fury and resentment turned to pain with shocking swiftness. She stumbled as she navigated the muddy lane toward her home. She passed several people, but she didn’t speak to them, didn’t look at them. She knew they were staring at her, but she didn’t care. She only wanted to reach the sanctuary of her own house. It seemed to take hours to get there, though it could only have been minutes. By the time she finally staggered over the sill into her mother’s kitchen, her stomach felt like it was on fire.
Emilia met her at the door. “What happened? What did she say?” But Doria could only shake her head. She half fell into the house, still in her coat and hat, clutching her middle with her arms. “What is it?” her mother said, her voice shrill with anxiety. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t know,” Doria groaned. “My stomach hurts so much, Mamma! It’s awful!”
“But, Doria, you were fine when you left—what happened? Did you eat something?”
Doria shook her head, and collapsed onto a kitchen chair. A cramp seized her, and she gasped. Another followed, the pains so close in succession she could hardly draw a breath between them. Emilia said, “Tell me what happened!” but Doria couldn’t speak.
There was agony in her belly now, coming on so fast and so fiercely that it was beyond anything she had ever felt in her life. She pulled up her knees, groaning, twisting to find a position that didn’t hurt.
“The doctor! I’ll fetch the doctor!” her mother cried. In moments she was gone, hurrying down the lane with only a ragged umbrella to protect her from the rain.
Doria hardly knew she had gone. She gasped and shuddered under the onslaught of pain, a pain that writhed in her belly like a live thing, a live beast with teeth and claws. She fought it for a time, there on the chair, and then found herself on the floor, curled into a ball, without remembering how she had gotten there. She thought she cried out, but she wasn’t sure. In the midst of one particularly brutal spasm, the light faded around her, and for a time she knew nothing.
She woke again to a steady torment, and to the sounds of voices coming through the front door. Her mother. The doctor. She wanted to call to them, to beg for help, but all that came from her mouth was an agonizing grunt as her belly contracted, the live pain gripping her with devilish strength. She could barely see Dr. Giac
chi as he bent over her, or feel the pressure of his hands and her mother’s pulling her up, cradling her between them, maneuvering her into the bedroom. She knew what the doctor was spooning into her mouth, though, and she swallowed it greedily. The laudanum burned down her throat, but the sensation was nothing compared to the agony of her stomach, the bite of a flea contrasted with the bite of a tiger. Dr. Giacchi’s medicine reached down into her belly to soothe the beast there, to ease the cramping at least a little. She gave a sob of relief and slipped into unconsciousness.
Doria woke in darkness, roused by her own groans. The pain had returned with more strength than it had before, intensified by the respite she had gained. Her mother appeared at her side, to bathe her forehead with vinegar water and chafe her wrists, to weep over her daughter’s agony. Dr. Giacchi had left a dose of laudanum, and Emilia administered it, but this time it seemed to do little to help.
Emilia said, over and over, “Doria, what happened? In the name of God, what happened?” but Doria, writhing in misery, couldn’t tell her. She could barely remember, in truth. The all-consuming pain drove everything from her mind.
It went on and on, until the sun rose behind the thick rain clouds. Emilia kept the curtain drawn, but rain-tinged light illumined the bed on which Doria suffered, twisting and turning in search of surcease. Vaguely, she was aware of her brothers staring at her through the doorway, though Emilia wouldn’t let them come in. The doctor returned, and gave her a larger dose of laudanum, which helped a little. Zita came, and sat beside her bed for a long time, stroking her forehead, rubbing her back between spasms of pain.
Doria’s mind was foggy with laudanum, her thoughts blurred by pain. She knew Zita was there. She knew something had happened, something with the signora, but she couldn’t remember it. In the evening Dr. Giacchi came once again, with more laudanum, in a greater concentration. For a little while then she was better, the pain receding enough that she could listen to him telling Zita and Emilia that the chemist said Doria had bought poison at the farmacia. She heard the word as if from a great distance.
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