Little Fortress

by Laisha Rosnau

  I held the glass without drinking.

  “You know, the first – some might say the real – Duchess Caetani di Sermoneta still comes to visit me, as well. Doesn’t purchase any of my designs, as though they’re beneath her – she is a bit dowdy, quite horsey really, so I’m not sure they would suit her. But do you know why she comes?”

  “No.”

  “She comes to attempt to track the duke and his new family’s whereabouts.” I had nothing to say to this. “You do know that the duke won’t be able to return to Italy, don’t you?”

  Again, I stayed quiet. It didn’t seem as though Coco needed any input from me in any case.

  “The real duchess is quite loyal to Mussolini, as is most of Italy. It seems Italy, and all of Europe, really, is moving beyond the duke’s outmoded ideas of nobility as gentle benefactor. Following Russia’s lead, perhaps, now everyone is talking about the people.” Coco tossed back her head and scraped the hair away from her face with her red nails. “The people, Miss Jüül! I dare say, you too are one of the people!” She took another drink of her wine, this one slower, then wiped her mouth in a way that seemed crude. The entire evening was off-kilter, not right. “Does Ofelia’s duke honestly believe that he can live as common folk in America? One amongst the corrupt Jews and savage Indians, I suppose.”

  A man emerged from somewhere in the studio, a dapper young thing wearing nearly the same outfit as Miss Chanel, his trousers slimmer, his hair long and floppy, quite like hers as well. “Coco!” he said. “Come, come!” He put his arm around her waist and seemed to dance her out of the room.

  I let out a long exhalation when they left, not aware that I’d been holding my breath.

  “I am so sorry,” one of the shopgirls said as she showed me out. “Please, don’t mention anything to the duchess.”

  “No, no, of course not.” I wouldn’t say anything to Ofelia. The whole incident had been so odd to me.

  * * *

  After Paris, we went to London, where we stayed in Mayfair with relatives on the duke’s mother’s side. Ofelia, Sveva and I were left to drink milky tea and eat crumbling biscuits with Duchess Ada’s cousins while the duke went to visit his colleagues at the universities. It was October 1929 and the days were grey, grainy with heavy fog and lowered voices. Ofelia and I understood that something had gone wrong with the stock market. Women made references to men speaking about it. Though we tried not to worry, the men’s mouths were tight, their hands balled in fists and then released, clenched and released. Men rubbed their foreheads and their eyes, and they looked so tired. One late-night conversation between Ofelia and the duke slipped under a door as I walked down a hall. “No one knows for sure, of course, but word is it’s all going to come down.”

  I stopped, held my body still, breath shallow, and heard Ofelia ask, “What will this mean?”

  “We don’t yet know, but it probably won’t be good.”

  “Leone, we can’t lose any more.”

  There was a pause and some movement, then the duke: “We may not have a choice.” It sounded as though he was moving closer to the door, so I stepped away as lightly as I could.

  * * *

  We were in England long enough for the market to react. The initial hit in London reverberated to Wall Street and back. It was no longer conjecture between men but known by everyone – the entire market was felled. The duke had left most of his wealth in Italy. There hadn’t been much option; most of it was the kind that can’t be carried – land and property and family – though he insisted none but the latter meant anything to him.

  Ofelia and I kept to ourselves in our rooms. One evening, she called me to her. A girl stoked the fire as I came in, and Ofelia was lying in bed. I nodded at the girl and she left. At Ofelia’s bedside, despite the sound of crackling wood from across the room, heat was more of an idea than a sensation. Cold and damp crept through the walls as the fire roared. Ofelia didn’t rouse or turn to me. “Miss Jüül, I want to go –” home, I heard in my mind, although we had no home, as she knew “– back.”

  “I know.” I sat on the bed, considered reaching out to her but didn’t.

  She turned toward me, her eyes closed. “We could make our way back into Italy.” Her eyes opened, looked from one side of my face to the other. “We can live quietly and simply at one of the Caetani properties and wait out Mussolini.” She pushed herself up onto her elbows, settled back onto the pillows in a seated position and looked toward the fire. “It could be Ninfa or any one of the country properties. You know me, I don’t need to go out much, certainly don’t need to be at any society functions. Back in Italy with Leone and Sveva – all we would need would be a small staff, including you, of course.” She livened at the prospect, her face softening.

  I didn’t want to break the spell. It would be easier, even for a couple of days, to have Ofelia believing that we could return to Italy, imagining herself hidden in the fortress above the family gardens in Ninfa, but after that, it would be so much more difficult to pull her back. “We can’t, Ofelia. You know that we can’t.”

  Her eyes snapped back to me, her mouth firming into a tight line. “I don’t know this, and neither do you.”

  “The duke’s opposition to Mussolini has been too vocal, too documented. He’ll be targeted, Ofelia – you and Sveva might be in danger. We can’t go back.”

  Something flashed across Ofelia’s face then, a flare of anger that I thought might rupture, and just as quickly both of her hands were on my arms, her grip stronger than I thought possible.

  My arms burned under her hold. “Ofelia, that hurts.”

  She let go, pushed the pillows away and fell back onto the bed, face to the ceiling. “Oh, I know it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.” She tossed her head from side to side, clamped her fists against the bones of her hips. I sat beside her and watched as her whole body tensed and pushed up from the mattress, tendons ridged against her neck, chest flushed, face pale, mouth clenched. I wanted to reach out to comfort her, but her body was coiled and I knew she might strike back in misaimed defense.

  I stood from the bed, said in a low, steady voice, “It’s all right, Ofelia, it’s all right. I’ll go get Leone, I’ll go get him.” As I left the room, I heard a suppressed scream pushed against her throat, the choke of a sob breaking at the end of it.

  Twenty-One

  We returned to Vernon the following February. Clouds smothered the valley and the snow melted a little each day until any brightness was gone and all we were left with was grey and brown. We attempted to cheer Ofelia, Sveva with her plays and theatrics, piano and voice recitals, but it was the duke who succeeded most often in bolstering her. Sometimes he would sit her on his lap like a girl while they played cards. Other times, he would stroke her hair while she sat in front of the fire. Once, when we were all in the parlour, he pretended that his large hand was a kitten; he raised his voice into a feminine mew and moved his hand in quick, skittish movements, alighting on Ofelia and leaping off again and again until she collapsed into giggles, her mouth arced open, body shaking. Sveva stood up, panicked. “Daddy, stop it!”

  “Oh, Sveva, darling donetta.” The duke held out his arms as though to encompass Sveva as well, but she moved away from him. “Let your dear Mau have some fun!”

  I overheard some of the other ways the duke comforted Ofelia, a different kind of mewing and caterwauling. I would feel myself blushing on my own on a landing, and then I would carry on. We would meet for dinner that night or breakfast the next day, Sveva and I both pretending we’d heard nothing at all. Ofelia’s eyes would be cloudy, empty again, and the duke so awkward and formal with both of us. At times when they thought they were alone, I would see him reach for Ofelia, how he held her while she cried.

  * * *

  During this time, Earl Fumer kept writing to me. I responded to his letters but was careful to write nothing about going to Jasper, heading off into
the mountains with him. When he came back that spring to collect his car on his way to Vancouver, his eyes lit with expectation, his hands kept rising from his sides as though he wanted to hold something, which I imagine he did. He had dinner with the family, as he had each time he’d come through Vernon, but this time the mood was less jovial. “I suppose we’ve all taken quite a hit,” he started. Talking about money at dinner had been considered impolite – talking about money at all had been – but now it seemed it had become appropriate for conversation, the crash pulling down previous mores as well as everything else.

  “Yes, I suppose we have,” the duke responded. He would know better than most. “You’ll be able to keep the roadster, though?”

  “I need it for business, really. I don’t know about Europe, but rail travel isn’t what it used to be here – trains are becoming overrun by vagrants, riff-raff jumping on and off boxcars like vermin. Travelling by car sends the right message. Sometimes we have to make it look as though business is doing fine, even if it’s not quite, just now, isn’t that right?”

  “Certainly is.”

  I wondered what the duke knew of business.

  Ofelia excused herself early from dinner and looked at me long enough that I did as well. We rose from the table and she paused before we left the room. “Sveva, come up soon, please.”

  “Yes, Mother, just a few more minutes.” As we left, I saw how Sveva leaned toward the conversation at the table. I knew that she would find a way to speak more once we’d left the room. While Ofelia insisted on decorum, especially with company, the duke indulged her. He would let Sveva go on about world politics as though she were well informed, and I suppose she was in comparison to most girls her age.

  As I looked at Sveva, I felt Earl watching me. I turned to say good evening. “You’ll join us later, won’t you, Miss Jüül?”

  Ofelia cleared her throat in the landing. Instead of implicating myself either way, I nodded. I met his eyes once, briefly, before turning.

  When we were in her room, Ofelia said, “If she’s not up soon, you’ll go get her, Miss Jüül. It’s not right for a young girl to be up late on her own with adults.”

  I was glad to hear the stairs a few minutes later. Sveva came slouching into the room with a pout. “Daddy sent me up.”

  “Good, it’s time to get ready for bed.”

  “Why? It’s not like we have a busy day tomorrow, Mau. It’s not like we ever have a busy day here. We could sleep all day and no one would even notice.”

  “That doesn’t matter. We’ve no reason to sleep all day if we get a good night’s rest.”

  “A good night’s rest, a good night’s rest – as though it’s a virtue!”

  “Rest is a virtue, especially for a growing girl.”

  “Conversation, discourse, knowledge – those are also virtues!”

  “Knowledge, perhaps, but I wouldn’t put too much store into conversation. As often as not, it devolves into rumour and conjecture.”

  “Not with Daddy! It’s not fair. Mr. Fumer wants Miss Jüül to come back down to talk with him and Daddy – and it’s not even like Miss Jüül knows any more about world finances than I do. Much less, I’d imagine!”

  She spoke as though I wasn’t there. I’d been with Sveva her entire life, increasingly more like a family member than staff, and yet I knew she saw me as something other, something less than herself and the parents she idolized. I reminded myself she was still a child in many ways, to be easy on her.

  “Sveva, that’s enough. Miss Jüül is a grown woman, and a lady. I’m sure she’s not going to talk about finances.” Ofelia turned to me. “And I’m sure she won’t be downstairs long at all, will you, Miss Jüül?”

  I understood that Ofelia was instructing me, rather than asking. “No, of course not.”

  The men were smoking cigars when I came back down. They both put them out and stood when I came in the room. “No, no.” I gave a slight wave of my hand as if to say don’t mind me. Pretend that I’m not even here.

  When Earl sat back down, the duke remained standing and turned to me. “Miss Jüül, I’ll need some help finding the Armagnac that we brought back. You don’t mind, do you, Mr. Fumer?”

  “No, not at all. Take your time.” It seemed a shame that he’d put out his cigar. He could have continued to smoke while the duke and I went looking for the brandy, which I suspected was a bit of a ruse.

  In the dining room, after I’d located the liquor easily, the duke stopped me. “I suspect I know what Mr. Fumer may ask of you.” His voice was kind, not accusatory. “I know he’d like some time alone with you.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “And I think it would be fine, I really do, but with Sveva – and Ofelia’s condition –” Here he paused. “It may be hard for her if you’re not here. She’s come to depend on you.”

  “Yes, she has.”

  “As I said, I think we’d be fine – especially for a week or two – Ofelia seems a little better these days, and I’m here to take care of my family!” He laughed at this, as though it were a joke or a novelty. He was quiet for a moment, hand across his chin. When he looked at me, he stretched a forced smile across his face. “It may do us all some good, to be on our own. It may. Please, make your own decision. Don’t let thoughts of Ofelia influence you either way.”

  After thinking of his family’s needs for years, did he really believe I could set those aside and decide something based solely on my own desires? Ofelia always told me that the duke was childlike in his ideals. I’d protested this – he was such a learned man, a scholar of languages and religions; certainly he wasn’t naive. Now, I knew what she meant.

  We went back into the parlour, and the men raised glasses to good health and renewed fortune. It wasn’t long until the duke excused himself.

  “Now I can pour you a splash, yes, Miss Jüül?” Earl winked at me.

  I didn’t say yes or no and he poured me a drink. I held it in my hand and looked at the liquid, as round and gold as a large coin in the glass.

  “Come, sit with me.” He sat back down, motioned beside him. “Have you given it some thought? To Jasper?”

  I took a drink. To be away from here, from Vernon and the house on Pleasant Valley Road, the family. To be on my own in the world as I had once been. To be with a man again. It would be absurd to push away from the advances of one man in favour of someone who had sent me away more than a decade ago. My thoughts weren’t long with men, however. They doubled back to Ofelia, sobbing at night, raking at her neck and chest as though she couldn’t breathe. I thought of Sveva, and how someone would need to ensure that she would go to school now that it was unlikely the family could afford private tutors. “I couldn’t – the time it would take to travel there and back. I couldn’t.”

  Perhaps he could convince me.

  “I see how hard you work. A good holiday, two or three weeks away entirely, would make a new woman of you.”

  “Two or three weeks?” I had been thinking of a week, ten days at the very most. How did he think that the family could get on without me, one of the only staff members left, for that long? I had wanted him to convince me with reasonable means, not pipe dreams.

  “Yes, a complete rest and change – it would do you a world of good.”

  “Do I seem as though I need rest?” I raised an eyebrow and took another drink, looked at Earl over the rim of the glass.

  “No, you seem the very picture of good health, Miss Jüül – glowing with it, if you don’t mind me saying – but surely you’ve got some time off? You can’t always be working.”

  “Of course not. But my time off is spent – here. The Caetanis give me plenty of my own time throughout the week. I just, it wouldn’t be right – Ofelia, her health. I couldn’t just go for that length of time.” As I spoke, it seemed even more absurd to me. Imagine, me packing my luggage and donning a
travelling suit, then waving to the family as I was spirited out the door by Mr. Fumer. “Toodle-oo!” I’d toss over my shoulder. I nearly laughed at the thought. “If there was a way that I could accompany you for a shorter junket?”

  “A junket, that’s all you want with me?” He pulled me to him, took the glass from my hand and set it down. “You worry too much, I can tell. The Caetanis are so fortunate to have you, but you needn’t worry about them so much. They are adults. Why shouldn’t you have some time off? Why won’t you let me take you away?” He tilted his chin, raised his eyebrows in question. “I’ll bring you back, I promise.” He placed a finger on his lips.

  When I didn’t answer, he put the same finger on my mouth and traced it. As he did, I felt a shot of desire rend through me. He took me by the waist and pulled me close. I wanted to be with him then, I did, but we were in the wrong place, the family somewhere in the house around us. I pushed thoughts of them away from me as Earl Fumer pressed up against me. Then I heard the bell, faint at first and then more insistent.

  I put my hands on Earl Fumer’s chest and pushed away from him. “I have to go to her.” The bell rang on from Ofelia’s room. “I have to – you’ll excuse me. I’m sorry.” The yearning that I’d felt for him, the heat that had wrapped both my body and his together as I tried to cocoon myself away from the household, lifted as soon as I stood. All the drafts of the house slipped in, a shiver of cold rather than desire charged my skin, and I straightened and tucked in my clothes, rubbed at my arms to warm them. I turned back to Earl at the library door. “I may be able to slip back down in a few minutes.” I didn’t look at him, spoke quickly and quietly as I left the room.