The House of Serenades

by Lina Simoni

  “I’m sorry if I upset you, Miss Berilli.”

  “Mister Sobrero,” Caterina asked with a broken voice, “what else do you know about Ivano that I don’t? I’m engaged to him, and we’ll marry soon. This is the time for me to find out all there’s to know about him.”

  Antonio, who had been unaware of the engagement up until that moment, concealed his disapproval. He had no idea the two had kept seeing each other socially after Caterina’s return. There was a lot, he thought, that Caterina didn’t know about her man, such as his outings to Caffe’ del Gambero and his nights at Taverna del Marinaio. He had never liked Ivano, even though, he had to admit, the young man had been correct in suspecting foul play at the palazzina. The news that Caterina was about to marry him, he realized, disturbed him. He was struck by the thought that he had come to like Caterina himself and that he was, perhaps, jealous. He tried his best to maintain his professional attitude.

  “I had no idea, Miss Berilli,” he said, “that you and Mister Bo were still close. Had I known, I wouldn’t have spoken about him in that way. You shouldn’t take what I told you too seriously, Ivano threatening your father, because that’s your father’s version of the facts, and your father, as you know, told everyone a great many lies.”

  “Thank you for your words, Mister Sobrero,” Caterina murmured. “They make me feel better.”

  “Go home, Miss Berilli,” Antonio said, “and stop thinking about the past. Look ahead. There can still be happiness for you. Call me if you need me. Anytime.”

  Antonio’s kind words couldn’t brush away Caterina doubts about Ivano. She had confided in him completely and had assumed he had done the same. The fact that Ivano had never spoken about Antonio’s interrogation or told her of his arrest was perplexing. Surely, he must have good reasons for keeping all that from her. Perhaps he had been a victim of the circumstances and hadn’t spoken in order not to hurt her more. She had no reason to question his love. He had been so solicitous to her when she had fallen sick after her mother’s death, so persistent in his quest to find her at the convent, and so faithful to her since they had met. He was a good-hearted, kind, loving man, Caterina knew, attractive and full of life, and she wanted to marry him soon. The best course of action, she decided, was to share her concerns with him openly, in order to avoid misunderstandings. Outside the police headquarters she boarded a carriage and directed the driver to take her to Piazza della Nunziata.

  When Ivano saw Caterina entering the bakery, he rushed to her, excitement brimming from his every pore. His joy faded when Caterina explained to him the reason for her visit. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were on the suspects list for threatening my father and that Antonio questioned you in that regard?” she asked. “You were also arrested for shouting threats at my father, Antonio told me. Why did you do that?”

  Ivano coughed and swallowed as he searched for a reply. “I never talked to you about those events because they are part of a past I want you to forget. If you really want to know, I was upset at your father when you disappeared, so in a moment of rage I screamed a few threats at him. And I was questioned because Mister Sobrero walked around for days talking to all the people who had reasons to dislike your father. That must have kept him busier than a bee, because your father, we all know, was disliked by many.”

  Caterina said, “I’ve been thinking about the person who sent the anonymous letters,” she said. “It’s partly because of him that my family no longer exists. It’s his fault if I’ll have none of my people at my wedding. He has affected me so much, and yet I don’t know him. I’ve been wondering about his face, his home, his age, and the reasons he did what he did. I think about him almost every day. I try not to, but I can’t help it. I know the only way to get him off my mind is for me to find out who he is. Antonio won’t help me find him. Will you?”

  Ivano waved for Caterina to wait while he helped a customer. It was a welcome break from that conversation, a lapse of time for him to put order in his thoughts. He knew how stubborn she was: she’d search until she had all the answers. Of course he was able to provide her with every answer she wanted, but how would she react to the truth?

  The customer left and he returned to her. “The police investigated at length,” he said. “They found no trace of the scoundrel. What makes you think we’ll be able to do better?” He had said that in the hope that Caterina would desist, but she didn’t, and he had to promise he’d help in her quest for the truth. Then he said, “Let’s set a date for our wedding, darling. What do you think of October? I know fall is your favorite season.”

  “I don’t know, Ivano,” Caterina said. “I’m so confused. What I just learned about you is unsettling me. It’s as if I saw you today for the first time, and the mysterious writer is so much on my mind. Help me find him, Ivano. Then I’ll marry you, any month of the year.”

  Ivano spent the night wrestling with frightening dreams. In every one of them, he lost Caterina. In the first dream, Caterina fell into a bottomless precipice. He wanted to jump after her, but his ankles were tied to the ground with chains. In a different one, he shot her with a gun over and over. In the last dream before he awoke, Caterina was sick, pale, and breathing with difficulty. She died in his arms turning immediately into a dove.

  Around two in the morning, he got out of bed dripping sweat. He opened the window, stared at the darkness outside, and pondered the advantages and disadvantages of telling Caterina the truth. When he realized he was unable to make a decision, he decided to seek advice. His first thought was to confide in Francesca Barone. Over time, during his many visits to Caffé del Gambero, he had had many conversation with her, personal ones, even some intimate discussions about his life. He had developed trust towards her for some reason, perhaps because of her no-nonsense approach to life. Plus, he reasoned, a woman might have a better understanding of Caterina’s thought process. After a moment of reflection, however, he discarded the idea: Francesca had been Giuseppe Berilli’s lover, he recalled. She might not be pleased to hear that he had been the cause, though indirect, of the lawyer’s illness and subsequent death. The only other person he trusted was his father. So he went to Corrado’s bedroom, where he was sound asleep. Gently, he shook him.

  “Father, wake up. I need to talk to you.”

  When Corrado was fully awake, Ivano explained to him his dilemma. He told him that Caterina wanted to know the truth about the threats that had caused her father’s death and wouldn’t marry him until she found out who the culprit was.

  “I’m the culprit,” he said. “If I tell Caterina what she wants to know, I could lose her forever.” He sighed. “I’m scared. I’ll lose her if I talk, and I’ll lose her if I don’t. What am I to do?”

  Corrado, who up till then had had no idea that his son was the one responsible for the threatening letters and the dead cat on the door, threw his hands in the air.

  “How did it ever cross your mind, son, to do such a thing? You’re now paying the consequences of your ruthless acts.”

  “I don’t need a sermon, father. I need advice. What should I do? Should I tell Caterina the truth? Or should I pretend I know nothing and hope she’ll change her mind about wanting to know the identity of the anonymous writer?”

  Corrado kept silent a moment. Then he said, “Let’s assume for a moment that you tell Caterina the truth. Have you considered what her reaction might be? What if she decides to turn you in? She could call the police and have you jailed for what you did. That’s how rich people are: attached to their family prestige more than to anything else, no matter how despicably their relatives behave.”

  “Not Caterina,” Ivano said with confidence. “She’s different. I don’t believe her capable of sending me to jail. She loves me, this I know. I’d never send to jail someone I love, no matter what that person did.”

  “That’s you, Ivano,” Corrado refuted. “She’s a woman. One never knows what crosses women’s minds. They’re unpredictable, capricious. Believe me, it’s be
tter if you keep quiet. She’ll get tired of searching and she’ll marry you. Take her out to nice places, restaurants, theaters. Buy her a beautiful engagement ring. You can use my savings for that. The ring will be my wedding present. Engagement rings have a great effect on women, so you know. I remember how your mother reacted when I slipped a ruby engagement ring on her finger. She coughed, her cheeks turned redder than peppers, and she couldn’t speak a word for several minutes. She tripped on the hem of her clothes, she was so excited. Besides, Caterina is alone now. She has no one to love but you. Women can’t live without love.”

  Ivano said, “I don’t know if I can spend the rest of my life with this secret standing between Caterina and me. I’ll have to look her in the eyes for many years to come, knowing that I’m a liar and that when she asked me for help, I let her down.” He paused, meditated a moment. “After I helped her escape from the convent, I explained to her that her father had staged her funeral. She didn’t believe me, so I said, ‘I would never, ever lie to you, especially on a matter of this magnitude.’ How can I lie to her now? And what if she finds out the truth on her own? Then I’ll lose her for sure.”

  “You heard my opinion, son,” Corrado stated. “You acted wrongly in the past, but this is no reason for you to ruin your entire life. Forget what you did and make Caterina your bride.”

  “She said she doesn’t want to be my bride unless she knows the name of the anonymous writer,” Ivano moaned.

  “I don’t think she’ll insist on that much longer,” Corrado consoled him. “Not for the father she had. It’d be different if her father’s figure were still intact, but with everything that surfaced about him and with what he did to her, why would she be eager to find out more?”

  Ivano thanked his father for his thoughtful help and went back to sleep. In the morning, he went to work as usual, his father’s words ringing in his ears: She has no one to love but you … Buy her a beautiful engagement ring … He urged himself to listen to those words, but deep inside he had this feeling that Caterina could see through him and sooner or later would understand. She already knew he had been a suspect. How long would it take her to put the facts together? Besides, he had faith in Caterina and the depth of her love.

  “She’ll get over it,” he said, “if she truly loves me.”

  By noon, he had made up his mind. He left the bakery and rushed to the palazzina, where he told Guglielmo he wished to see Miss Berilli at once. Guglielmo admitted him to the blue parlor and went looking for his mistress.

  Caterina arrived shortly, wearing an elegant low-necked dress of white muslin.

  “Ivano!” she exclaimed. “It so good to see you.” She approached him, her arms stretched towards him.

  He took her hands in his. “Caterina, I must talk to you,” he said in a decisive voice. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth yesterday, when you asked me to help you find the man who wrote the threatening letters to your father. I came here today to correct that and ask for your forgiveness and understanding.”

  She looked at Ivano quizzically, retracting her hands and stepping away from him. She spoke in a feeble voice, almost a whisper. “You didn’t tell me the truth? What is the truth, Ivano? I want to know.”

  In the ten minutes that followed, he told her everything he had done. He explained how no one had believed him when he kept telling that she was alive. He told her about the threatening letters he had written with his left hand so as not to be recognized, about Clotilde Pereira, her black-magic tricks, and the meaning of the dead cat on the door.

  “I did what I did,” he said, “because I was angry, frustrated, and desperate. I would have never done any of this had your parents behaved in a different way.” He caught his breath. “Now you know everything. There are no secrets between us anymore.”

  Caterina, who had sat through Ivano’s confession in glacial silence, looked at him with mad eyes. “You!” she screamed with her finger pointed at his chest. “It was you! Liar! Murderer! You killed my father! And my mother! And all of us! Guglielmo! Guglielmo!”

  When Guglielmo arrived, Caterina ordered him to take Ivano from the parlor and out of the house and to never, ever allow him on the premises again.

  “I won’t tell the police what you did,” she told Ivano in the coldest tone of voice he had ever heard, “but from now on, you should forget I exist.”

  “Caterina!” Ivano cried out as Guglielmo pushed him towards the door. “I did it for you, don’t you understand? Your father drove me crazy! It wasn’t my fault. It was his!”

  Caterina shouted, “You killed a cat and hung it on our door! You’re sick! You’re horrible!”

  “The cat was already dead!” Ivano shouted back as Guglielmo closed the door on him. “I didn’t kill it! It was bleeding when I found it! I would never hurt an animal! I wouldn’t hurt a fly! Caterina! Caterina!”

  18

  SHOCKED BY THE REALITY THAT the man she had loved and had been about to marry was also the man who had threatened her father, almost incapable of associating the man who had kissed her and caressed her and loved her so warmly with the hateful figure who had hung a dead cat on her door, shattered by the realization that she had lost everyone and everything she had ever cared for since the day she had been born, Caterina began a life in many aspects similar to the one she had lived in the convent of the Sorelle Addolorate. She entertained no visitors, she talked to no one. The only people she saw, her only companions, were Viola and Guglielmo, who acted like bastions between her and the outside world. Ivano made all sorts of attempts to breach the bastions, convinced that all he had to do for Caterina to forgive him was to meet with her again, talk to her, and explain once more his reasons. He spoke to Guglielmo and Viola every day, telling them how much he loved their mistress and how much their mistress needed him, and didn’t they remember it was because of his company that Miss Berilli had come out of her state of trance after Madame had committed suicide.

  “Please let me in,” he begged. “I know she still loves me. She’s angry at me for something I did, and I want to ask her to forgive me. I know how to talk to her, how to make her feel better. I can help her in her distress. She has no one in this world but me.”

  Viola and Guglielmo were puzzled. They didn’t know the reason for their mistress’s anger and couldn’t understand how the feelings of such a beautiful, kind, gentle young lady could go from love to hate in such a short time. They often wondered what the conversation in the blue parlor had been about, but never dared to ask. After many years in their profession, they knew better than to intrude in their employer’s affairs. They believed that Ivano was sincerely in love with Caterina and made therefore several attempts to persuade their mistress to receive him. Caterina, however, was immovable. She refused to see Ivano and had nothing else to say.

  Baffled, Ivano turned to Father Camillo. “Please help me,” he begged. “I am so in love with Caterina, and she is ignoring me. Could you talk to her? Convince her that I’m worthy of her love?”

  Father Camillo said, “I will intercede with Miss Berilli on your behalf only if you tell me why she’s so angry at you. I must know the whole truth before I become involved in your personal trouble.”

  “I’ll tell you, Father,” Ivano said, “but under confession.”

  Nodding, Father Camillo showed Ivano to a confessional. Ivano kneeled and began his tale. When he had finished, Father Camillo murmured through the grating, “I hope God in his benevolence will be willing to help you, son. I can’t, because your actions caused a death.”

  Having seen all his chances to be admitted to Caterina’s presence fade, one night Ivano picked up his mandolin. He walked uphill to the belvedere and stood on a bench that allowed him a perfect view of the palazzina across the street. He began plucking the strings gently, with feathery touches, letting the intensity gradually increase. Soon, he was sustaining the notes of his songs for long periods of time by executing a perfect rapid tremolando with the heart-shaped plectrum. He sang wit
h his best voice ever, clear, velvety, and flawless.

  In her bedroom, Caterina was seated at the dressing table, looking into the mirror and braiding her long hair for the night when the first notes of the mandolin broke the silence that reigned inside the palazzina. She didn’t pay attention to those sounds at first, because she perceived them unconsciously, almost as a natural accompaniment to the precise movements of her fingers on the three strands of hair. It was only after she had threaded the braid’s last loop and tied a satin ribbon around it that she became aware of the mandolin notes and the melodious voice that sang along. At once, she knew it was Ivano playing, and for a short moment her mind drifted back to the past, the afternoons in the oven room, their first encounter. Then she cleared her throat and looked for her nightgown, determined to go to sleep and ignore the music altogether. Her curiosity, however, was aroused. Where was he? Why was he playing? On tiptoe, she left the bedroom, whose windows looked east and didn’t allow her a view of the street. She reached the top of the staircase and walked down. Guglielmo met her in the foyer.

  “Mister Bo’s music is wonderful,” Gugliemo said, hoping to convince Caterina to accept the musical homage and let the young man back in her life. “Miss, wouldn’t you go with me to the garden? So we can hear him better. These songs, I’m certain, are for you.”

  To Guglielmo’s soothing voice, Caterina approached the front door. For an instant she was moved by the music’s romantic melody and let her heart float with the pitch of the notes. The thoughts of her dead mother and dismembered family, however, brought her back to earth.

  “Lock all doors and windows,” she ordered. Then she returned to her bedroom and went to sleep.

  Ivano serenaded Caterina through the night. He left Corso Solferino when the silhouettes of the houses began to surface from the darkness under the first light of dawn.