by Judy Nunn
He’d dropped the towel and taken her in his arms, and the frock dilemma had been forgotten.
‘I love you, Pietro,’ she said afterwards as they lay side by side on the crumpled bed. It had hurt a little to start with, but she’d known it would, and he’d been gentle. She’d heard that the first time was never any good, and she’d expected to be disappointed. But she hadn’t been. Sex agreed with Violet. It was everything she could have hoped for – and more.
‘I love you also, Violetta. I love you with the whole of my life.’
She wasn’t sure whether he meant with the whole of his heart or for the whole of his life, but it didn’t matter, it was the way he said it. She had never heard anything so romantic, not even in Casablanca.
They ordered room service – mountains of toasted sandwiches which they ate naked in bed, and chocolate milkshakes which they slurped noisily through their straws when they got to the bottom of the glass. Then they ordered two more. Violet thought it was all wonderfully worldly and decadent.
And they talked. They talked endlessly. About when they’d first met, how he’d come to Hallidays store just to look at her, and how he’d been so shy that she’d had to make the first move.
‘I bet you thought I was forward,’ she said. ‘Go on, I bet you did. I was one of those easy girls, that’s what you thought.’
‘No, no,’ he insisted, ‘I think that I cannot believe it. Already I am in love with this beautiful girl, and she wishes to walk with me? I am amaze.’
‘Amazed.’ She corrected him automatically, forgetting the schoolteacher voice.
‘Yes. I am amazed.’
‘That was the day I fell in love with you,’ Violet solemnly declared; she had decided that it was. ‘It was the way you said my name that did it.’
‘Violetta.’
‘I swooned.’ She put a melodramatic hand on her heart, and to emphasise the point dropped back on the bed, arms wide, in a mock faint, and he laughed. But then, whimsy quickly discarded, she sat bolt upright and said in deadly earnest, ‘It’s true, Pietro, I nearly did swoon, honest. It was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard. Until now,’ she added.
They talked of their first kiss, by the Snowy River at Dalgety, and the conversation took a more serious turn.
‘You’re very experienced, Pietro. How many women have you had?’ It was a direct question, but she felt as his wife she now had the right to ask.
‘I am no experience,’ he laughed, and she didn’t correct him. ‘I am near a virgin. I am with one prostitute in Milano, my friends they take me to her. I am no good,’ he smiled, ‘she is nice, she try to teach me, lento, lento, this mean slowly, but it is over,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘just like that.’
Then Violet found herself telling him about Craig McCauley, how she’d been repulsed by his mauling her behind the pavilion, but how she’d wanted to know what it would be like. How, when Pietro had kissed her by the river, she’d wanted him to go further. No topic was sacred to Violet now; she wanted him to know everything about her, and she wanted to know everything about him. She told him about her father, and the confrontation she’d overheard between him and Maureen.
‘He called you a Dago, Pietro,’ she said.
‘It is no matter.’ He cuddled her to him; she seemed upset. ‘I am called Dago many times. It is just a word, I pay no heed.’
‘And he said he’d kill you if I kept seeing you.’
It was difficult, Pietro thought, to pay no heed to a man who threatened murder, but he pretended to shrug it off and continued to comfort her.
‘It is words, Violetta, nothing more. Your father, he does not mean them.’
‘Yes, that’s what Auntie Maureen said. She said he’s just being protective.’
Pietro was relieved to hear it. ‘Of course that is so. He is a man and you are his daughter.’
‘I hate him.’
‘It is wrong to hate your father.’
‘Well, I do,’ she said rebelliously. Then, feeling much better at having unburdened herself, she decided it was Pietro’s turn. Apart from the convent, she knew nothing about his childhood, and Violet didn’t like mysteries. Besides, she thought, there should be no secrets between a husband and wife.
‘How old were you when your parents were killed in the war?’ she asked tentatively, hoping she wasn’t being insensitive.
‘I do not know exactly,’ he shrugged. ‘I think perhaps I am eleven.’
‘Then you must remember them.’ She was pleased that he didn’t seem to mind her asking, and she wanted to picture him as a little boy with his mother and father. ‘What were they like?’ she asked ingenuously. ‘I bet your dad was handsome like you – Italian men are so good-looking. And your mum probably looked like Gina Lollobrigida.’
‘I do not know what they look like. I cannot remember them.’
Then Pietro told her his story; he, too, believed there should be no secrets between a husband and wife. But there was so little to tell, he said, he only wished he could share more of his past with her.
Violet huddled on the bed, spellbound and incredulous. It was incomprehensible to her that Pietro had no memory of his early childhood.
‘That’s terrible,’ she said. ‘So you don’t even know if you have brothers and sisters?’
‘No. I know nothing. I wish that I did.’
‘You said there was a farm,’ she reminded him. ‘You told me that once. “Before Milano there was a farm”, that’s what you said.’
‘Yes, I remember the farm. Only a little. I cannot remember the house where I live, but I remember the mountains. So big.’ He looked up at the ceiling and gave one of his extravagant and all-encompassing gestures. ‘So big, more big than the Snowies. And I remember the pine forests in the valley and the flowers in spring. And in winter, all covered in snow. And I remember the river, and, near the river, my goats.’
Pietro felt no fear in recalling the goats – he was too eager to share whatever remnants of his childhood he could remember with Violet, who was listening, enthralled.
‘I love my goats,’ he said. ‘And I am good with them,’ he added proudly. He had been too – he could remember how they’d come to his call. ‘My goats they love me also. They stand very still when I milk them.’ His hands curled into gentle fists: he could see and feel the rubbery teats in his fingers.
It was the dangerously vivid image which had often, in the past, preceded a seizure, but Pietro felt no threat. He’d been meticulous in taking his medication each morning and evening and he’d had no warning signs for months now. He no longer wore the strip of leather hanging from its string around his neck, although he always kept it in his pocket. Whether as a safeguard, or because it had simply become a part of his life, he wasn’t sure.
Now, as he allowed himself to dwell on the images of the goats, smelling their rich animal odour, hearing their milk squirt against the side of the pail, he felt nothing but comfort in the memory.
‘I have a special goat, she is my favourite.’ He could see her, dun-coloured, gentle. Rosa was not mean-spirited as the others sometimes were. ‘Her name is Rosa. I deliver her baby.’ He saw his bloodied hand sliding out of the animal, the kid slithering along with it. But the image did not upset him. He heard Rosa bleating with the pain, he saw her raising her head off the ground, a further cry of relief, then the look of gratitude in her eyes as she lay back, exhausted. Rosa knew that he had helped her.
‘Violetta,’ he said excitedly. ‘I remember Rosa.’
‘Yes, you just said. She was your favourite, you delivered her baby.’
‘No, no, you do not understand. Never before do I remember Rosa. Is just now, here with you, that I remember her.’ Pietro was elated. ‘Is you, Violetta. Is you have done this.’
She didn’t know exactly what it was she had done, but she was happy that he seemed so excited by it.
‘Do you not see? I wish to share my past with you, and it is because of this that I remember Rosa.’
The significance suddenly dawned on Violet.
‘I will help you, Pietro,’ she said, and she hugged him with all the passion of her newborn purpose. ‘I will help you remember.’
Genuine as Violet’s fervour was, she couldn’t help imagining the scene as it would look on the screen. She would devote her life to helping her husband regain his past; it was the noblest cause imaginable. For a moment she was Bette Davis.
Pietro was unsure of the main source of his elation, whether it was the fragment of returned memory or the non-threatening image of the goats. But he related the two. He was free from his fits, he thought. He was free to remember without risking the onslaught of a seizure.
That was the one thing he had not shared with Violet. He had not told her about his epilepsy. He had felt wrong in not admitting to his illness before their marriage, but he had worried that Violet might not wish to marry him if she knew of it. Now a huge weight was lifted from his shoulders. He was not ill any more. His epilepsy was a thing of the past.
The next morning they’d walked down to Circular Quay and caught a ferry to Manly. Violet had categorically declared that there was nowhere in the world as beautiful as Sydney Harbour.
‘I know I haven’t actually been to other places,’ she’d said defensively, although he’d made no query, ‘but I’ve seen them at the pictures. I’ve seen Rome and Paris and London at the pictures, and I’ve seen New York too. And Sydney Harbour’s much prettier.’
At Violet’s insistence they’d visited Taronga Park Zoo and, on their return to the Quay, they’d explored The Rocks where, at a souvenir shop, Pietro had bought her a miniature statuette of the Harbour Bridge and a tiny stuffed koala like the ones she’d seen at the zoo. Violet had gawked in awe at the Harbour Bridge. ‘It’s even bigger than it is in the postcards,’ she’d said incongruously, but he’d known what she meant. The bridge had had much the same effect upon him when he’d first laid eyes on it. How long ago that seemed, he’d thought. And yet it wasn’t really. It was barely eleven months since he’d arrived in Sydney, and three weeks later he’d been on the train to Cooma. And now here he was, earning more money than he thought he’d see in a lifetime and married to the most beautiful girl in the world. Australia was most certainly the land of opportunity.
Upon his return to Spring Hill, many noted a change in young Pietro Toscanini. The boy had become a man. He was no longer withdrawn and there was an assurance in his manner. Several of his mates who knew that he’d spent the weekend in Sydney, made ribald comments about what he’d got up to in the big smoke. Pietro said nothing, but grinned good-humouredly.
‘Marriage suits you, Pietro,’ Lucky commented out of earshot of the others. ‘You’re a new man.’
‘Violetta, she has changed my life.’
Pietro said nothing to Lucky of the other factor that had changed his life, for he knew that if he told Lucky he was no longer ill, Lucky would insist he visit Maarten Vanpoucke, and Pietro had decided that there would be no more doctors. There would be no more pills either, he’d decided, and he stopped taking his medication – there was no need for it. He was healthy now, as normal as the next man, and he wanted no reminders of the illness and the shame that he’d put behind him.
Having refused Maarten’s offer of port with his coffee, Lucky was relieved that the evening was finally drawing to its conclusion. He’d conquered the fruit flan, although he now felt bloated, and he’d steered the conversation away from Pietro’s love life to an interesting discussion about the American contractors. Maarten had agreed that Kaiser would have an immense impact upon the region.
But now, draining his glass, the Dutchman again reverted to the topic of Pietro.
‘I am glad that young Pietro is happy in his personal life,’ he said, ‘it will help keep anxiety at bay and avoid triggers which could lead to a seizure. But I worry that he is perhaps being slack with his medication. I will check my records, but I’m sure he’s due for another script.’ He was about to reach for the port decanter.
‘I’ll have a word with him, I promise.’ Lucky rose from the table, it was time to make his escape. Maarten was labouring the point, determined to get drunk and eke out the evening. ‘Now, if you’ll forgive me, I really must go.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ The Dutchman looked at the clock on the mantelpiece as he stood. ‘My goodness, I didn’t realise how late it was.’
As they stepped out onto the first-floor landing, they found Mrs Hodgeman’s son, Kevin, loitering uncertainly by the door. The housekeeper had retired, as she usually did when the doctor stayed up late, and it was invariably Kevin who cleared and washed the dishes.
The Dutchman nodded briskly. ‘You may clear the table.’
‘Goodnight, Kevin,’ Lucky said, and the gauche young man gave his bashful smile, a mixture of self-consciousness and pleasure.
The two men walked down the main staircase to the hall and shook hands at the front door.
‘Thank you, Maarten, for a most delightful evening.’
‘My pleasure indeed, we must do it again soon.’
‘And do thank Mrs Hodgeman for me. The food was magnificent.’
‘She’ll be delighted to hear it.’
As soon as the Dutchman had closed the door, Lucky took off at a sprint for Peggy’s house only several blocks away, where she lay dozing and dreaming and waiting for him.
Maarten Vanpoucke returned upstairs to the dining room.
Kevin was methodically placing the dessert plates and glasses onto the silver tray, wary of the delicate bone china and crystal, each movement painstakingly slow. He picked up the decanter.
‘Leave the port,’ Maarten said as he sat.
Kevin did, setting it down very carefully.
‘And the glass.’
Kevin’s eyes flickered between the two port glasses on the tray. Fortunately he could pick the one that was the doctor’s, as Lucky had not drunk any port. He replaced the glass on the table and left.
Maarten poured himself another port. He took off his spectacles and placed them on the table, rubbing eyes which felt weary, then he leaned back in his chair. There was such a lot to think about.
His mind returned to the woman in the photograph. Was Ruth still alive? It was quite probable. If so, he wondered where she was.
As they drove through the suburban streets of Jerusalem, Ruth glanced at Moshe. He hadn’t spoken for the past several minutes and she presumed he was sulking.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly, ‘I didn’t mean to be so brusque.’
Yes she had, he thought – even her apology sounded stilted. But he forgave her.
‘It’s all right,’ he replied. ‘I can understand your nervousness.’
She felt another irrational surge of annoyance, but tried not to let it show. Everything Moshe did and said grated. He didn’t understand at all; if he did, he wouldn’t have insisted she go to the funeral. And dismissing her trepidation as ‘nervousness’ was infuriating, damn him – she was becoming more terrified by the moment. How would she react, coming face to face with her cousin? The last time she’d seen David he’d been knifing a woman to death. And what if Eli were there? Moshe didn’t understand. He never had. She knew that now.
Ruth had contacted Moshe Toledano a week after her return to Jerusalem, convinced that he was the only person in whom she could confide. They’d met at the King David Hotel and, distraught, she had poured out her story. From her indoctrination at Kibbutz Tsafona to her affair with Eli Mankowski and the massacre at Deir Yassin, she had spared no detail, however sordid or gruesome, and he’d listened, not once interjecting.
News of Deir Yassin had been published in the press and Moshe had followed the reports closely, also gleaning inside information from his powerful business associates. In a post-battle press statement Irgun and Lehi had claimed a great victory, but in truth it had been the Palmach troops, the elite fighting arm of the Haganah, who had quelled the Arab resistance, accomplishing in one hour what t
he guerrilla fighters had failed to do throughout the entire morning of their initial attack. But the guerrillas’ slaughter of innocents had continued for a further two days and, of the Arab dead, two-thirds had been women and children. The Jewish Agency in Tel Aviv had condemned the attack, but there were rumours that there would be no criminal prosecution or inquest by the British, whose final departure from Palestine was due in only a matter of weeks. The reason, Moshe had heard, was that, as the attack and subsequent massacre had been instigated by the Revisionist underground militia rather than by the official Zionist leaders, nothing more than a police investigation was required.
The massacre of Deir Yassin had confirmed Moshe’s worst fears. There would be no turning back now, he’d thought. Already, in direct retaliation, Arabs had ambushed a Jewish medical convoy and murdered over seventy people. The wheels of destruction had been set in motion and who knew where or when it would end.
But he’d made no comment as Ruth had told her story, and when she’d finished and stood before him, emotionally drained by the weight of her confession, he’d remained silent.
Ruth had expected his condemnation. She had been involved with the murder of innocent falachim, Arab peasants who’d simply been going about their lives, and guiltily she’d awaited his verdict, hoping for some kind of absolution. Moshe, with his sympathy for both sides, was the only person, she thought, who could possibly understand.
But Moshe had offered neither judgement nor absolution.
‘It is this senseless violence I had wished to save you from, Ruth,’ he’d said finally. ‘And I still do.’ Then he’d repeated his offer. As his wife, he could provide her with a peaceful life, he’d said, away from the horrors of the war that would devour Palestine.
Ruth had found his detachment extraordinary. Had her revelations of the hideous brutality she’d witnessed meant nothing more to him than a renewed opportunity? It seemed somehow obscene that, after hearing her story, he could discuss something as mundane as marriage. And yet the prospect of escape to a life of nothingness suddenly appeared irresistible to Ruth.