by Lina Simoni
He leaned back, letting his body sink into the leather. His head ached, pounding like a hammer on a sheet of iron, and his mouth was dry, as if he were drowning in sand. “Why me?” he whined as he laid a hand on his hurt shoulder and massaged it in slow circular motions. He recalled how his mother used to say that bad things always happen in three, and she was right. After the horse accident he had received two frightening letters. Would there be more? Wearily, he reached for a carafe of solid silver set on a round end table. He poured water into a stem glass, filling it to the brim. As he drank, gulp after gulp, without pausing to breathe, he rejoiced in the freshness that filled his throat. His appeasement, however, was short-lived: no sooner had he swallowed the last drop than his mouth turned dustier than before. Baffled, he set the glass back on the table. There was no point refilling it, he realized, for his was not the kind of thirst water could quench. It was an inner thirst—fueled by fear.
It was unheard of that Giuseppe Berilli could be overtaken by fear. He had been the epitome of self-confidence and determination since prevailing, barely out of law school, over a team of experienced prosecutors in a legal battle that had rocked the town. The case concerned allegations of fraud against a conservative political leader, Massimiliano Zappa, accused by the opposition of having used tax funds to purchase a home on the Riviera. He was acquitted, thanks to Giuseppe and his father, though he resigned his post immediately and moved to Switzerland, his name having been tarnished forever. It was the young Giuseppe who found the legal loophole that saved Massimiliano Zappa, and he again who wrote and delivered the closing arguments, impressing judges and lawyers with the eloquence of his statements and the power of his words. The courtrooms during his trials had been filled with spectators ever since. There were colleagues, law students, and magistrates, as well as common people in awe of his pugnacity and speeches. His victories became topics of conversation inside the courthouse and outside, throughout the city’s social circles and at balls, theater intermissions, and dinner parties. When the sudden death of his father placed him at the head of Berilli e Figli, Giuseppe took charge of the firm with the charisma of a seasoned leader. Not even the unsightliness of his physique had hindered his ascent to power—he was short, with a round, protruding belly that kept growing steadily year after year, making Francesco Roccatagliata, his tailor, the happiest man alive when every January he had to redo the lawyer’s wardrobe from A to Z.
The sense of vulnerability and the confusion that had dawned upon him in the past days had thus caught Giuseppe by surprise. He wondered what his father would do were he still alive. He’d be in that same room, for sure, and, in all likelihood, seated on that same armchair. To Giuseppe, no other room in the house had the solemn yet tranquil and inspiring atmosphere of the reading room. It had been his father’s private sanctuary before becoming his, and he had faithfully preserved its layout and decor: the hand-carved marble fireplace still towered in the center of the north wall; the bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes covered, floor-to-ceiling, the west wall; and the four-pane Palladian window opened to the east, onto the rose garden. Even the leather armchairs and the antique mahogany desk had been his father’s, and he had taken great care not to alter their original placement in the room: the armchairs were still facing each other on the two sides of the fireplace, and the desk was still slightly off-center, close to the bookcases. The only two additions Giuseppe had made to the decor were a photograph of Italy’s current king, Vittorio Emanuele III, and a brand-new electric table lamp with a translucent ivory shade—a luxury unique in town.
He crossed his stocky legs and stared at the pink veins of the marble floor, wondering why he felt the urge to look at the letters one more time. By now, he knew every word by heart. Was he hoping he had given those words the wrong meaning? A thin hope, he admitted, but worth a try. So he rose from the armchair and waddled to the mahogany desk, belly shaking as he walked. As he sat, back to the bookcases, the sheets glared at him from the open drawer. For a moment, he was still. When he reached, his arm felt disconnected from his body, moving on its own. A shiver ran through him while he placed the letters on the desktop. In whispers, beneath the warm light shed by the ivory shade, he read the text of letter number one.
Shame on you, Giuseppe Berilli,
and on your household of sin.
The time has come for you to stand
in front of the Supreme Judge.
“No mistake here,” Giuseppe grunted. That was definitely a threat, a subtle one, which made the message all the more daunting. To make matters more abstruse, below the fourth line, in black ink, the writer had drawn a horse galloping with its mane in the wind. What the drawing meant, Giuseppe had no idea, but he shuddered at the thought that perhaps his horse accident had not been an accident after all but part of the writer’s scheme. As for the second letter, there was no subtlety in its text at all:
Before you know it, Giuseppe Berilli,
you will roast in Hell.
Your home will burn with you
in the flames of eternal damnation.
No drawing accompanied this letter. He stared at the handwriting in silence then clenched his fists, causing the edges of the paper to crumble. “Damn it,” he hissed, angry at himself for allowing those two letters to upset him to the point of insomnia. They were only letters, were they not? So why was he so agitated? Why was he taking those words so literally? Perhaps the letters were a prank, he thought, the joke of youngsters trying to kill their boredom, and he should burn them and forget they ever arrived. Horse accidents happened practically every day in the jungle of the downtown traffic, Giuseppe knew. What happened to him could have happened to any passerby. It happened to him though, and one day before a letter with the drawing of a horse on it had arrived. What if the writer was a dangerous man, someone with a sick mind?
“I’ve got to do something,” he said, “or I’ll drive myself crazy.”
Lots of people, of course, had reasons to dislike him. He was a visible man, with scores of bitter enemies, all envious of his social and professional standings and of the wealth his family had preserved and grown for generations. Perhaps the letters had been written by members of the labor unions, he thought, men of low extraction looking to make a statement against the class the Berillis belonged to. Many a time, he was aware, fingers had been pointed at him with accusations of being an outdated defender of privilege and a promoter of social injustice. He had dismissed the charges without blinking.
“I will not be intimidated by some cheap, demagogic Socialist propaganda,” he had told Raimondo and Umberto, his sons, on the day a group of longshoremen had surrounded the building that hosted Berilli e Figli. For hours the port workers had stood in the street, voicing their anger in repetitive, chant-like slogans. The target of their wrath was Umberto, who earlier that day had represented the shipowners association in a dispute over the longshoremen’s right to a guaranteed minimum number of working hours. Umberto had won the case, causing the longshoremen’s right to be repealed.
But the longer Giuseppe looked at the words the anonymous writer had chosen, the more those words seemed to him the product of fanaticism rather than the rational thought of a political opponent. If that was the case, he had every reason to be concerned about his safety and that of the rest of his household. Frowning, he brought the tips of his fingers to his throbbing temples. Should he call the police? With some luck, the police could find the culprit and put a halt to the harassment, but there would be negative publicity coming from the investigation. Should he show the letters to the police, he’d be forced to discuss his personal
and professional affairs with the officers in charge of the case, and there was plenty he didn’t care to discuss with strangers. There were, nonetheless, other considerations: What if someone got hurt because he had kept the letters to himself? What if he should die at the hand of a mad stranger? Suddenly, Giuseppe was hit by the thought that this might be the last day of his life. He swallowe
d twice, then took a pill from his pocket and thrust it into his mouth. He knew he had to act immediately, or he would have a heart attack for sure. It was at such trying time that he needed all his stamina and control. He remembered one of his father’s favorite sayings, God bless his soul: “Always think rationally, never out of fear, for he who lets fear be the captain of his ship will suffer shipwreck and will be lost in the waves.”
Easier said than done, he muttered between his teeth as he put the letters back in the drawer. He breathed in then hummed the air out of his shiny nose. A moment later, on the north wall, next to unlit fireplace, the grandfather clock struck noon. With firm gestures, he took a steel-nibbed pen from a pewter tray and plunged it into an inkwell. As always before using fine parchment paper, he tapped the wet nib on the edge of the well and waited for a drop of ink to fall. Three lines were all he wrote to make his point. Finished, he rang the table bell. Guglielmo appeared at the door within the minute.
“Sir?”
Giuseppe dried the ink with the blotter and folded the sheet of paper. He slid it into an envelope, closed the envelope with the family wax seal, and said, “Have this letter hand-delivered at once to the Chief of Police. With discretion.”
Guglielmo took the letter from his master’s hands. “I’ll take care of it myself, sir.” He added, “Madame would like to know if you intend to have lunch with her today.”
“Yes, I’ll have lunch today,” Giuseppe said.
Guglielmo bowed. “Lunch will be served in fifteen minutes.” Outside, in front of the palazzina, Eugenia breathed the sweet perfumes of the breeze. She looked up and noticed that the sun was high. It must be close to noon, she thought, and Matilda hadn’t asked her to lunch. What else could one expect from that snob? Not that she looked forward to spending time with her sister-in-law. She had spent plenty of time with Matilda after the wedding, none of which had been a pleasure. With a shake of the head, she crossed the street and walked to the belvedere, a tree-lined lookout area from where one could enjoy wide-open views of the city. As she had done many times before, in her youth and in more recent years, she sat on a bench and watched the scenery in brooding silence: the horizon, the calm waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea, the port with its ships and docks. Behind the port, the city began, clawing the hill slopes in an irregular, multilevel topography of steep roads and unpredictable architectural arrangements. Then Eugenia turned to the hillside, and her eyes scanned the silhouettes of the villas, the shady gardens, the occasional palm and olive trees. North of the gardens, in a protective semicircle, the sharp hillcrests towered over people, houses, and sea as they had for centuries, since the time of Noah.
Nostalgia caught Eugenia by surprise as a warm longing gripped her heart. She longed for her childhood, her youth, and all the years prior to Matilda’s marrying Giuseppe and moving into the palazzina. It was heavenly back then, with her parents still alive. Her father, Filiberto Berilli, had been a tall, strong man with a raven handlebar mustache and a powerful look in his eyes. He had always stood out in a crowd. In contrast, his wife, Giulia, had been short and thin, with no noticeable features. What drew people to her was her remarkable musical talent. Eugenia’s nostalgia grew stronger as she recalled how her mother would spend hours fingering the melodies of Mozart and Beethoven on the piano, which she had learned to play as a child. And Eugenia and Giuseppe, close in age, only three years apart, were best friends growing up and were affectionate and supportive of each other. There was harmony in the family, and the home brimmed with happiness and peace. Then, on a freezing December morning, Matilda had joined the Berillis, and from one day to the next turmoil had swept the palazzina and its residents.
That year, 1868, the Pellettieris, an old aristocratic family from Turin, had decided to spend the winter in Genoa. They arrived in pomp and circumstance, with a butler, four maids, two cooks, and a caravan of three carriages drawn by champion horses. In the first carriage rode young Matilda, her mother, and two maids; in the last was Matilda’s father, the Marquis Telonio Pellettieri, accompanied by the butler; and in the middle carriage, cramped with the luggage, rode the rest of the servants. They took possession of an estate in the east hills comprised of a patrician house, a stable, a carriage home, and five acres of land. The Genoese took notice of their arrival. One week later, through a common acquaintance, the Pellettieris met the Berillis at the Carlo Felice Theater, during the opera-season premiere. The marriage between Giuseppe and Matilda was arranged by the two families shortly afterwards. Giuseppe was twenty-seven, Matilda twenty. Eugenia, thirty, was unattached. The wedding announcement stunned the town:
“The daughter of a Marquis marrying someone with no blue blood?”
“That’s unheard of. The aristocrats never marry outside their circles.”
“Especially the Piedmontese. They don’t even talk to those who don’t belong to their caste.”
“Why would the Pellettieris wed their beautiful daughter to someone without a title?”
“I have no idea. Those Berillis know their way up, that’s for sure.”
“They were full of themselves before. Can you imagine how they are going to act now?”
“I’d give my right hand to find out how they managed to arrange this marriage.”
“Money?”
“No, both families are as rich as Croesus.”
“What else then?”
“We’ll find out, sooner or later.”
No Genoese, however, would ever discover anything more about the reasons for that surprising, sudden marital arrangement. Only Filiberto, Giulia, and Giuseppe Berilli knew how they had succeeded. Even within the Pellettieri family, only Matilda’s parents knew the details of their daughter’s broken engagement to the Count Arnaldo Della Tessiera, the heir to a large empire of land in the southern part of Piedmont. Matilda had been eighteen years of age, close to nineteen, at the time of her engagement, and in order to abide to a condition imposed on the wedding by her fiancé’s parents, she underwent a physical examination by the Della Tessiera’s family doctor to assess her suitability to carry children. Arnaldo was the last descendant of the Della Tessiera’s stock and his parents wanted to be sure their breed would continue to populate the earth after their death. It was during that examination that the doctor discovered that Matilda’s hymen was not where it was supposed to be and reported his finding to the four parents.
“Impossible!” Telonio Pellettieri blurted out.
Osvaldo Della Tessiera, Arnaldo’s father, jumped to his feet. “Are you saying that our doctor is a liar?”
“If he’s not a liar,” Telonio said, “then he must be mistaken. Our Matilda is honest and god-fearing. She would never engage in such shameful acts.”
The doctor, however, insisted that the hymen wasn’t there. Furious, convinced that the doctor’s report about the hymen was part of some scheme the Della Tessieras had conceived to walk away from the wedding, Telonio requested that his daughter be examined by his own doctor and that he and his wife attend the visit. “This way,” he told Osvaldo, “we’ll certainly prove the incompetence of the doctor you chose.”
“Fine,” Osvaldo said, “but I want to be present as well. How do I know that you and your doctor won’t lie to save your daughter’s reputation?”
“We Pellettieris do not lie,” shouted Anna Pellettieri, Matilda’s mother.
“Neither do we, darling,” Elena Della Tessiera said. “Neither do we.”
When she awoke the next morning, Matilda saw her parents standing at the foot of her bed.
“Matilda,” her father said, “there’s something we need to do before we set a date for the wedding.”
Without further ado, he ordered his daughter to remain in bed and let a second doctor investigate the whereabouts of her hymen. Matilda was dumbfounded, but complied with her father’s request without arguing, for she had been taught since childhood that the wish of a father is like the wish of God. She lay on her bed in silence, with a big lump in her chest and thr
oat, and looked at her mother with the eyes of a lamb. Her mother looked the other way.
The doctor Telonio had chosen arrived shortly, carrying a square box wrapped in red velvet. Osvaldo and Elena Della Tessiera entered behind him.
“Good morning, Matilda,” the doctor said. “This will be only a moment.”
With the four parents standing by the bed and supervising the visit, the doctor set out to examining Matilda according to a protocol the four parents had devised and agreed upon ahead of time. He began by opening the box and gazing silently at its contents: a small painting brush, a portable inkwell, a bowl filled with a thick, transparent, greasy fluid, and a metallic object shaped like a phallus. With a flick of his wrist, he dipped the phallus in the bowl while saying to Matilda, “Bend your knees.” Then he lifted her nightgown and placed the phallus greased end against her vaginal opening, sliding it in with repeated pressing motions. When the phallus had penetrated Matilda as far as it could go, he moved aside so everyone could see. Osvaldo Della Tessiera said. “Proceed.”
Nodding, the doctor dipped the painting brush into the inkwell and drew a line around the phallus where it protruded from Matilda’s flesh. Next, he pulled the phallus out of Matilda, placing it under the observers’ curious eyes. Without difficulty, they all noticed that the phallus had penetrated Matilda a good twelve centimeters and come out clean, without the slightest trace of blood.
The Della Tessieras called off the engagement at once despite Matilda’s claim that she had never done anything that was against God’s commandments. “I am a virgin,” she protested, erupting into tears, but no one believed her.