Little Fortress

by Laisha Rosnau

  I let ten minutes pass, fifteen, then I woke her. “Ofelia, darling, it’s time for your medication.”

  She rubbed at her mouth, at her eyes without opening them. “Hmmm?”

  “I’m sorry, Ofelia, I know you’re asleep, but you need to take these now and then you can fall right back asleep.” She opened her eyes for a moment, looked toward me with hooded lids. I moved her so she was more upright on the pillow, opened her mouth and placed two more pills there, tipped water past her lips, held her chin closed. When she’d swallowed those, I added four different pills. I left the bottle of painkillers, the lid screwed off, on the bedside table beside a full glass of water.

  I heard Sveva coming up the stairs. I went out of Ofelia’s room and closed the door behind me. “She’s asleep.”

  “So will I be soon. No ringing in the new year for this old girl.” Sveva spoke with forced cheer, her voiced edged in sarcasm.

  “Sleep in your own room tonight, won’t you, Sveva? You need a proper night’s rest. I’ll stay in here.” I pointed to the small room beside Ofelia’s. “I’ll be able to hear if she needs anything.”

  I kept myself awake until shortly before midnight, then went back into Ofelia’s room. Moonlight smattered across her bed; the shadows of trees shook on the blankets. Ofelia’s breath was laboured and slow. I woke her as I had before, though it took longer to rouse her this time. Her body folded against mine as I tried to prop her up. I held her like a child over my lap, head cradled against the crook of my arm, placed more pills in her mouth, more water. Again, I held her mouth closed and though she bucked against me, eventually she spasmed and made a muffled yelp as she swallowed. Ofelia reared up and coughed some water onto my lap, but the pills seemed to have gone down. I settled her back onto the pillow, smoothed the hair from her face, folded and straightened the sheet under her chin, along her shoulders. I held my hand against her forehead for a moment, as though checking a child’s temperature, then ran my fingers along her cheekbone, over her nose, cupped her chin. I leaned to kiss her on the forehead. “Goodnight, Ofelia.”

  Fifty-Nine

  Victoria, 1972

  I walk down our street, then follow worn narrow paths in the grass through the cemetery to cross the road to the water’s edge. The wind roughs up the shore, a ragged, moving hem, and I watch tugboats and tankers move, their slow, measured pace. Emerging from the other side of the peninsula is the ferry that takes people across the strait to America. The steady movement of the boats reminds me that there are lines of travel being cut and sewn all around us.

  With me I have the photograph of Hermann and I together. I am not sure what I’ll do with it. I run my fingertip along each edge and look at us both. Neither of us looks directly at the camera, our eyes diverted slightly to the left. From under his black hood, the photographer had instructed we do this so we wouldn’t be temporarily blinded. For a moment, I can hear the flare of the flash going off, the crackling sound that followed. I slip the photo back into the pocket of my dress.

  The ladies are sure to pester me to reveal more when I return. I’ve told my story, lived with it long enough. I want more for Sveva. Happiness. Love. I could not have it for myself and I’ve kept it from Sveva for so long. I want to be better to her than I was to her mother. I failed Ofelia. I won’t do the same to her daughter. I’ve done my part. For everything I’ve kept from Sveva, I have tried to give her more. I want no one to tell her whom she can love, how or when. Her story will continue without me. And mine? It won’t really end. Time moves through us as much as we move through it. It shapes us in memories that shift as we try to recall them. I watch as a pulsing flock of gulls obscures the sky then disappears, leaving nothing but a wash of pale, high blue. There is nothing to me but passing time, a faded photograph in my pocket. I’ve imagined my future and my past until they both seem like so many layered clouds changing shape. What we leave is all we ever had – our love, as bright as the sun and the other stars. This, you can remember. It’s no longer my own story but yours. For all we are, and all we will be remembered as, time will keep changing the ending. The sea hurls itself against our puny shore, and I watch children fly their kites, shuddering in the air.

  Afterword

  Sveva Caetani returned to Vernon in May 1972 and became a secondary school teacher of art, history and social studies. She was admired and loved, a favourite teacher to many students. She died in April 1994 at age seventy­-seven. Sveva Caetani bequeathed her home to become an arts and cultural centre and artist residence, now known as the Caetani Cultural Centre, in Vernon, British Columbia.

  In 1978, while driving to work, Sveva conceived of a series of paintings that would depict her life story. She spent the next twelve years of her life completing this project. Toward the end of the series, Sveva’s sight and physical health were failing, and Joan Heriot was of great help to her in completing her vision. There are fifty-six large paintings in the series, Recapitulation. The Alberta Foundation for the Arts in Edmonton, Alberta, now holds the Recapitulation series in its entirety.

  Inger-Marie Jüül died in April 1973 at age eighty-eight. She spent fifty-six years of her life with the Caetani family and never returned to Denmark. The last known contact she had with Mr. Brandt was in letters from 1916. Her personal correspondence and papers were donated, along with the Caetani family’s, to the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives. She was laid to rest in Vernon, BC, at the foot of the Caetani family plot in the Pleasant Valley Cemetery on Pleasant Valley Road, a little more than a kilometre from the house in which the three women spent so much of their lives.

  Notes and Acknowledgements

  Little Fortress is a work of fiction based on the real lives of three women: Inger-Marie Jüül (1886–1973), Ofelia Fabiani (1892–1960) and Sveva Caetani (1917–1994). I am grateful to each of these extraordinary women and have strived to honour the legacy of their remarkable stories.

  I grew up a kilometre and a half up the hill from the house where the women secluded themselves on Pleasant Valley Road, walking by it countless times as a child and teen. It wasn’t until I was at university that I discovered Heidi Thompson’s collection of Sveva Caetani’s art and writing, Recapitulation: A Journey (Coldstream Press, 1995). Published the year after Sveva passed away, it was my first introduction to her story, and I referred back to it again and again as I wrote this novel.

  My major source materials in researching this novel were the personal papers and archives of Miss Jüül and the Caetani family, left to the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives by Sveva Caetani’s estate. Thank you to Barbara Bell, Liz Ellison, Jean Manifold and the staff who provided a warm, welcoming space to read through file upon file, box upon box of Caetani archives left in their care. Joanne Georgeson’s enthusiasm, in particular, was unflagging as I returned year over year.

  Hélène Morgan translated much of Miss Jüül’s correspondence and journals from Danish into English for the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives. Had it not been for her, I would not have had access to the stories and thoughts that lay within those papers in Marie’s own words. My gratitude to Hélène for volunteering her time and skill in translation, and for meeting with me to talk about her first homeland, Denmark.

  Other material that was invaluable to my research was Caetani di Sermoneta: An Italian Family in Vernon, 1921–1994, edited by Catherine Harding, with essays by Karen Avery, Melissa Larkin, Sarah Milligan and Carla Yarish (Greater Vernon Museum and Archives/Vernon Public Art Gallery, 2003); and Jim Elderton’s film Sveva: Prisoner of Vernon. I had fascinating conversations with Daphne Marlatt on our literary projects based on the Caetani archives. Marlatt’s own process led to the powerful collection Reading Sveva (Talonbooks, 2016).

  I spoke with two women who had close friendships with Marie Jüül: Joan Heriot (1911–2012) and Kay Bartholemew (1920–2018). Each shared memories of their time with Sveva and Marie with love, warmth and humour. I feel fortunate to have
been able to meet these amazing women and to have been offered a glimpse into their own remarkable lives, as well.

  Several people were generous with their time and willingness to share their memories and stories of the Caetani family and the three women: Jude Clarke, Jason Dewinetz, Sharon Lawrence, Christine Pilgrim, Murray Sasges, Andrea Schemel, Peter Shostak, Sue Steinke and Larry Thompson. My sincere thanks to each of them for entrusting their own stories to me. Several other Vernon residents offered anecdotes and observations on the family – I am grateful for every snippet and story shared.

  The house on Pleasant Valley Road was left by Sveva to become the Caetani Cultural Centre (www.caetani.org) in Vernon, BC. I wrote an early draft of this novel as writer-in-residence there and have returned several times to write, teach and attend cultural events. Thank you to Susan Brandoli, the staff and the board of directors for respecting Sveva’s vision in making her home an artistic and cultural hub in the Okanagan.

  Thank you to all who helped me take this research, obsessive interest and years of my life and make it into a book: the BC Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts for providing vital and appreciated funding for earlier drafts of this novel; Martha Magor Webb, more than a literary agent, an early editorial voice, as well as one of encouragement and persistence; Noelle Allen, Ashley Hisson and Paul Vermeersch and all those whose editorial, publishing and design acumen and expertise come together to make beautiful books at Wolsak & Wynn and the Buckrider imprint; Emily Dockrill Jones for thoughtful, spot-on copy-editing; and Jen Sookfong Lee, who was the perfect editor for this book – not only are her insight and intellect measured with humour and respect, but she loves these women as much as I do and knew how to guide me to tell their stories in the best way possible.

  My first splendid, intrepid readers – Natalie Appleton, Kerry Gilbert and Karen Wall; all the thoughtful, astute readers who followed – Marita Dachsel, Aaron Deans, Jason Dewinetz, Jennica Harper, Lorna Rosnau and Jill Wigmore; Nancy Lee, who went above and beyond and read three different versions of this novel; the spokes on my writing-community wheel who keep me going forward even when I backpedal – Hannah Calder, Michelle Doege, Kristin Froneman and Karen Meyer.

  My children, Jonah and Amalia, who cannot remember a time in their lives when I wasn’t researching, writing or rewriting this novel, and who keep me going with their humour and love; my parents, Lorne and Lorna Rosnau, who provided not only emotional support but very practical, hands-on child care support, taking the kids for countless hours over the years that I was writing this. As always, every imaginable kind of thanks to Aaron Deans, who has lived with Ofelia, Sveva and Marie for nearly a decade and has never doubted that I would bring their stories into the world in my own way.

  I write this from a desk in what was once Ofelia’s bedroom in the Caetani Cultural Centre. Late afternoon light streams through the bay windows. Two young deer bound across the front yard of the Caetani property, then walk out the front gate. Pleasant Valley Road is much busier than it was when the women first arrived in Vernon in 1921, and when Sveva and Miss Jüül emerged from seclusion in 1961. Car after car drives by, and the deer watch them, look both ways, then step out onto the sidewalk and walk gracefully away from the house. Some things you just can’t make up.

  Laisha Rosnau, Vernon, BC, 2019

  Laisha Rosnau is the author of the bestselling novel The Sudden Weight of Snow (McClelland & Stewart) and four critically acclaimed, award-winning collections of poetry. Her work has been nominated for several awards – including the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the CBC Poetry Prize (three times) – and has won the Dorothy Livesay Award and the Acorn-Plantos Award. Rosnau’s work has been published across Canada and in the US, UK and Australia. She teaches at UBC Okanagan’s Creative Writing program. Rosnau lives in Coldstream, BC, where she and her family are resident caretakers of Bishop Wild Bird Sanctuary. Visit her website at laisharosnau.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, places and events portrayed are used fictitiously. All dialogue is drawn from the author’s imagination and is not to be construed as real.

  ©Laisha Rosnau, 2019

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  Buckrider Books is an imprint of Wolsak and Wynn Publishers.

  Cover image: voyata/iStock

  Cover design by: Peter Cocking

  Interior design by: Jennifer Rawlinson

  Author photograph: Renee Leveille Biebly

  Typeset in Adobe Devanagari and Garamond

  Printed by Ball Media, Brantford, Canada

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Canada.

  Buckrider Books

  280 James Street North

  Hamilton, ON

  Canada L8R 2L3

  Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada.

  ISBN 978-1-928088-99-8 (print)

  ISBN 978-1-989496-01-5 (epub)

  ISBN 978-1-989496-02-2 (mobi)