Then one thing or another always intervened. For instance, as Alessia and I grew closer, Ben accused me of shifting allegiances from him to her. In a temper, he threw a book from our sunroom into the balcony where I’d retreated with a cup of tea. ‘You need to read this, Julia.’
I’d scooped the book off the floor ready to blast him for treating it carelessly when the title caught my eye. In English it translated to Making Marriage Work. ‘I prefer fiction,’ I said, thrusting it back into his hands.
‘Can’t you see what’s happening to us, Julia?’
‘Stop criticising. I need support.’
‘I give up.’
So, as Alessia clung to life, Ben and I entered choppier waters.
I trusted that the distance between us would diminish once we returned home. I thought we had all the time in the world. I didn’t know that Alessia was about to send us on to the rocks.
The doctor had given her a cannula, a permanent breathing device that hooked over her ears and extended into her nose, delivering oxygen to her lungs. No longer panicking for air, she turned her attention to ordinary matters.
I fell into the routine of taking coffee in her room as soon as Ernesto headed to his studio. On one occasion she was wriggling about trying to get comfortable. I got up to rearrange her pillows. As I sat down again, I glimpsed through the window a fish-scale sky and dark clouds bearing the promise of rain. ‘A change is coming.’
She bobbled her head in agreement. ‘Out there and in here.’
‘I believe so, Alessia.’
She shivered slightly.
‘I’ll be with you.’
She placed her hand on mine. ‘Open the bottom drawer of my bureau. There’s a key taped to the underside. Unlock the middle drawer at the top. Inside, you’ll find a wedding photograph of me and Sergio.’
Her voice broke. I couldn’t tell whether from emotion or the effort of delivering four sentences in a row. To give her a chance to settle I ran my hand along the wooden base and waited ten seconds before saying, ‘Ah, I have it.’
As instructed, I inserted the small silver key into the lock. Their happiness shone through the glass frame tucked between two negligees. Intent on finding out where she thought Sergio’s brutality had come from and what she believed resulted from circumstances and what from personality, I carried my questions and the photo over to her. In the quietness of the room, I became aware of the clicking of cicadas in the trees outside, the distant barking of empty-bellied dogs and the slip-slap of my sandals on the floor tiles. Lonely sounds.
Huddled in a nest of pillows, Alessia looked as if the slightest breeze could whisk her off. I wanted to peg her down as I would a tent.
She took the photograph from me, ran a finger around the frame and across the glass, pausing at Sergio’s mouth. As if narrating a dream, she spoke of their courtship, the wedding, and their modest house on the flat. ‘I could hear the sea through the walls.’ And of Ernesto’s birth: ‘I was the happiest woman alive.’
Her voice hardened when she talked of Benito Mussolini. Ilaria had told me of his 1919 election defeat and his entrance into Parliament two years later, but I wanted to hear Alessia’s account of the day-to-day realities. ‘What do you remember about his rule?’ I asked.
‘Everything,’ she said, her bottom lip quailing. ‘He sent the Blackshirts to break a strike in Milano.’ She began to pant. I moistened her lips with a muslin cloth I had dipped in water. ‘Then it was our turn. He used his converts to suppress the south.’
She cleared her throat, coughed. Colour drained from her face. Her chest bulged and dipped. I adjusted the pillows behind her. ‘That’s better.’ I wanted her comfortable, able to continue.
‘Sergio fell in with them.’ She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed on it a little. ‘He may not have intended to, but that’s how it turned out.’ She looked up at me with a face as troubled as that of Our Lady of Sorrow, whose image hung on the wall opposite her bed.
I rose from the chair and walked to the window. ‘We’re all flawed,’ I said.
‘Mussolini was unstable. He craved power.’
‘I heard he held rallies as often as diplomats hosted dinner parties,’ I said, repeating something Ilaria had told me. I sat beside her again. ‘I can picture him stirring an audience into a frenzy.’
She belched and proceeded in a subdued tone. ‘When he spoke, chandeliers trembled in the finest of homes. The hearts of dinner guests shook as well.’ She fumbled with the cannula. ‘More air,’ she said in a panic.
I checked to make sure it was functioning properly. Finding no fault, I took her hand. ‘Breathe with me,’ I said, searching for a compatible rhythm.
After a minute, Alessia indicated she was ready to carry on. I leaned forward to hear every word.
‘Mussolini dissolved the trade unions and crushed their leaders.’ The effort of speaking depleted her dwindling energy but she pushed on. ‘Next he demanded he rule the entire country. King Victor Emmanuel foolishly handed over power rather than risk civil war.’ She waggled her head up and down to stress the point. Reddish splotches budded on both cheeks.
‘You’re exhausted, Alessia. This can wait.’
‘No, Julia. I have kept it in here too long.’ She pressed a finger to her forehead.
‘OK, just a little more.’
‘Mussolini tricked officials into believing he would take only minor roles. Then he littered Parliament with traps.’ There was no sign of the befuddlement she’d exhibited in recent weeks.
‘Where was Sergio in all this?’ I asked.
Her voice rose in pitch. ‘Blinded by the oratory, he fell in with the Fascists. He courted them at the club, passed on information, supplied them with drink.’ She paused, regained her rhythm. ‘I sang there Saturday evenings. Ernesto slept on a mattress in the back room. Vast amounts of money passed from the thugs to Sergio. The more he received, the more he craved.’ Her eyes glinted. ‘He supplied them with younger and younger girls.’ Spittle settled on her cracked lips.
I thought of Ernesto at a tender age accepting this as normal. To hide my disgust, I poured Alessia a glass of water. One sip and she was off again.
‘He pimped the girls and bought this house with the proceeds. The first time I tackled Sergio about his behaviour, he sweet-talked me around. The second, he hit me on the jaw. The third, he forced himself upon me in front of a mob of drunken Fascists.’
My mouth fell open. Seeing her eyes narrow, I closed it.
‘Your husband was conceived that night on the club floor.’
A needle of pain drilled into my forehead. ‘I can’t believe what I’m hearing.’ She squinted at me and drew her eyebrows together. ‘I’m not doubting you, Alessia,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m shocked.’
Residual fury thickened her voice. ‘I had two choices. I decided it was better to live in a grand villa with a boot-licking bully than in a hovel selling my body to strangers.’
‘How did you survive?’
She didn’t respond.
I stumbled on. ‘What happened when he learned you were expecting? Poor you, poor Ben.’
Her voice dropped. ‘Sergio never came near me again. Whether he felt shame or disgust I cannot say.’
‘I’m so sorry this happened.’
She shut her eyes.
‘Tell Ben,’ I said. ‘Make your peace with him. He won’t judge you.’
‘Put me under the cover,’ Alessia said. ‘I’ll decide whether he needs to know. You must promise to stay silent. This is my secret to tell.’
‘Don’t leave it too long.’
Finally I knew the truth, but I wished I didn’t.
I eased her into bed, supporting her swollen ankles — a symptom, the doctor had explained, of lung disease. She was asleep before I finished tucking her in. I left to check on Matteo and Francesca, wondering as I stared in turn at their sweet faces what influences Ben and I were passing on to them.
Unable to face my husband I
avoided the drawing room where he was waiting for me to join him and headed to the kitchen, lifted the backdoor latch and stepped into a night as dark as my fears. I thought of the legacy Sergio had inflicted on his sons, and indirectly Matteo, Francesca and me. Coming around to the front of the villa I peered through a low window and glimpsed Ben stretched out on the sofa, hands behind his head, eyes closed, listening to music. Bathed in lamplight, he looked vulnerable. I wanted to cradle him as Ernesto had Alessia during her delirium, but as he opened his eyes and looked in my direction, I was reminded of the deeds of his father. In a panic I ran down the driveway. By the time I reached the gate I had to fight off the urge to keep running.
34
For days, I thought of the savagery that Sergio had inflicted on Alessia, and agonised over whether the trauma had entered Ben’s DNA. After much soul-searching, I tried to reclaim the tenderness I had felt towards him in Positano. I took his arm when we promenaded, cajoled him out of dark moods, turned to him in bed. We spoke of heading home before Christmas, starting afresh, though we agreed I would care for Alessia until she drew her last breath. Now that I knew what she had been through, I viewed her as being as much a victim as her second-born son. I didn’t think it was my job to tell Ben, though. Not then.
Another week drifted to a close. Matteo was chosen to replace an injured striker in the middle school’s football team. Francesca won first prize for a project on the habits of domestic pigs. On mornings when Alessia turned inwards and showed no interest in matters that didn’t affect her, I left her with Rosa and hived off to a nearby café for a quick espresso, one eye watching for a pipe-smoker in a blue hat. I was only my authentic self with Ilaria. Twice she had to haul out the statue and I changed course, heading to the Riviera de Chiaia, although I needed our talks.
I’m sure Ilaria benefited from them, too. For years, she had kept a secret. It surfaced the day I dropped a hint about the circumstances surrounding Ben’s birth. We were on the settee with our coffee. ‘What is it with brutish men?’ I asked. ‘They think they can do whatever they want to women and girls. In peacetime, and in war.’
‘They treat their bodies as temples and ours as bowls from which they gorge. They don’t see us as human beings. In their eyes, we’re inferior, incapable of autonomous thought. Nothing will change until we take control of our fertility and finances, and even then there’s no guarantee.’
‘You have an independent life, Ilaria. Did you plan to stay single?’
She looked through the window to the bakery across the road. ‘Yes. That is, until I met Richard.’ I pricked up my ears. ‘He was a British officer, an art historian in peacetime. His mother was from northern Italy, his father from Kent. In the spring of ’44, a Field Security Service employed him as a linguist to bridge the gap between the military and civilian populations. In his off-duty hours he came to the Biblioteca to study the work of Jean-Charles-Joseph Rémond, a French artist and lithographer. I assisted him with the research. Slowly we developed feelings …’
Her voice trailed off. She rose and went into the kitchenette. Through the flimsy curtain, I could see her silhouette hunched over the sink. ‘He was killed in an explosion from a delayed-action device buried under a municipal building,’ she said, her back still to me. ‘A parting gesture from the Germans forced to withdraw when the Americans headed south.’
I set my cup in its saucer and got to my feet. ‘I’m so sorry, Ilaria.’ A Vespa backfired outside. I jumped. ‘It’s an absolute tragedy. I don’t know what to say.’
‘It’s enough that you listen, Julia.’
She rejoined me, composed. We sat on the settee as before. I was relieved when she spoke again. ‘Before I met Richard, I barely tolerated foreigners hogging my work counter, demanding information, strangling Italian with their appalling pronunciations, flicking through phrase books.’ She smacked the back of her hand in a mocking style. ‘I welcome English speakers these days.’
I tracked a dust mote floating across the room. ‘I’m grateful. Really I am.’
‘We spent our last afternoon in the hills. It was almost dusk when I mustered the courage to tell him what happened to me during the invasion.’ She lowered her head. ‘I never discovered what was possible without force.’
I reached out to hug her. She rounded her shoulders, pulled back. Respectfully I withdrew. A fact I hadn’t meant to express aloud slipped out. ‘Some individuals may tell you otherwise, Ilaria, but with the right person making love is wonderful, full of emotion, exhilarating.’
‘I think this must be true,’ she said. ‘I felt desire when Richard kissed me.’ Her eyes grew dewy. ‘Next time you come I’ll show you a photograph I took of him under the clock on this wall.’ She waved an arm in the general direction.
So he had been here. ‘Do you have any of the two of you?’
‘Only a snap we took inside a coin-operated booth. I had it framed. It’s on my bedside table.’
She sounded dispirited. I didn’t want to leave her alone. ‘Come and collect Francesca with me,’ I said.
She tugged at a loose thread on a cushion. ‘Maybe halfway, for the fresh air.’
‘In that case we had better stay downwind from the butcher.’
‘And Signora Laurito with her twenty-seven cats.’ She went to the coatrack, took a scarf, draped it over her hair and knotted it under her chin. Her expression changed from stoic to troubled.
‘Second thoughts?’ I asked.
‘This might not be a good idea.’
‘I’ll tell Ben tonight that I come to your flat for lessons.’ I opened the door and tapped her on the arm. ‘Come on,’ I said in English. ‘Get cracking.’
‘You want to crack nuts?’
No, it’s a saying.’
We were discussing the trickiness of mastering colloquialisms in languages other than our own when we came to an intersection. A flower-seller on the closest corner greeted Ilaria like a long-lost relative. I was admiring the blooms in a bucket when the two women slipped into street talk and used unfamiliar terms, excluding me.
Further on, out of the woman’s hearing, Ilaria said, ‘Sunday afternoons I buy flowers from her to put on Richard’s grave. Come with me next week if you like.’
I linked my arm through hers. ‘If I can slip off while the men and Francesca watch Matteo play football and Rosa sees to Alessia. I can’t promise, though.’ Suddenly aware that it was no longer normal to be free to meet up with a friend, I pressed my bare arm up against Ilaria’s. ‘Richard was fortunate to have known you.’
As we walked on, she spoke of him reaching for her hand in the bombed ruins of an ancient palazzo, searching for wild porcini, kissing in a woodland area, and agonising over the likelihood of an abrupt parting. ‘We talked about him returning to England,’ she said, ‘not dying.’
35
At a hairdressing salon I had a chance to test if I was making progress with the lessons. Instead of going to the usual place on the Vomero, I ducked into a flash joint in Chiaia and asked to have my hair cut and set. I paid for the privilege from my housekeeping allocation, intending to replace the amount afterwards from my store of secret cash. The assistant handed me the wrong change. I flipped my hand up and down to indicate she had overcharged me. ‘She saw through it,’ the assistant said in Napoletano to the head honcho. I slanted my head to the side, another gesture learned from Ilaria. They fussed over me then, couldn’t have been nicer, counted out the correct change, gave me a free can of hairspray. I left with a bounce in my step as well as my hair. This boost in confidence, and Ilaria confiding in me, strengthened my resolve to tell Ben I was learning his language at her flat, but he was in a lousy mood when we met on the front steps of the villa.
‘Ernesto was meant to be at a meeting,’ he said, biffing his car keys onto the sideboard in the entrance hall. ‘The shit didn’t show. He left me to placate a mob of fractious workers.’
‘What was the trouble?’
‘It’s too complicated to expl
ain.’
Another brush-off regarding work. ‘Have it out with him.’
‘That won’t achieve anything. He sees me as his patsy.’
I shivered as if he had tipped iced water down my spine. ‘Is what you do for him illegal?’
‘For God’s sake, Julia, stick to what you know. Make me a coffee.’
Reluctant to talk about Ilaria while he was het up, I did as he ordered. Afterwards, I realised that his bad mood was a blessing, because I had forgotten to think of what to say if he asked where the money had come from to pay her.
Monday week I persuaded Ilaria to come with me all the way to Francesca’s school. I had told the children that I’d met a librarian willing to answer any questions they had about Naples. Matteo agreed to meet me there after I promised to buy him a cake from his favourite café. While we waited for Frannie, he said his class was learning about Pompeii.
‘Does your schoolmaster make it exciting?’ Ilaria asked.
‘Not really. He reads out facts from books.’
Ilaria whipped her head backwards. ‘That’s a shame. There are stories written at the time, and later ones imagining what it was like for the poor people caught up in the eruption.’
Matteo looked at her with interest. ‘Are you an expert?’
‘In minor matters,’ she said.
His curiosity, and his chess-playing abilities, boded well for a career in law. It would be a shame if he were to limit himself to football. I’d be chuffed if he followed in Wiggin’s footsteps.
Matteo said, ‘Do you know what the kids were doing when the ash came?’
We were interrupted by Francesca sprinting towards us, calling at the top of her voice, ‘Mamma, Mattie, I’ve been chosen to lead the procession for a Festival of Pets!’
I introduced her to Ilaria, and we all marvelled at Francesca’s good fortune. As the excitement trailed off, Matteo repeated his question.
‘Ask your mamma if you can come with her to my workplace,’ Ilaria said. ‘I’ll hunt out old maps for you and Francesca to look at.’ She flapped her hands. ‘Better still, I could take a morning off work in the school holidays and we could go and see the exhibits from Pompeii and Herculaneum at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale. If we use my maps we could track what happened to a group of children.’
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