Читать книгу The Man from Tuscany - Catherine Spencer - Страница 9

F INALLY , we’re on our way. The seat belt sign is off, the aircraft is headed east, and it’s time for me to pick up my story from where I left it last week. I only have until tomorrow to convince Carly that I’m not some foolish old woman pinning all her hopes on yesterday, and Marco wasn’t a home-wrecker who came between me and her beloved grandpa.

“I phoned Marco again on Sunday, to tell him you’re coming with me,” I begin. “He’s a little concerned that you might not understand the part he’s played in my life.”

“I’m not sure I do, Gran,” she says.

“I know, darling.” I pat her hand. “But you will by the time we get to Florence.”

“And how does he feel about having me underfoot all summer?”

“He can’t wait for us to arrive.” In fact, his last words before we hung up were, Please hurry. I don’t want to be apart from you a day longer than necessary.

“I wonder if he remembers saying almost the exact same words to me, the first time we said goodbye,” I murmur. “Probably not. Men don’t usually recall such things, and so much has happened since then. But I remember the moment so vividly that I’m breaking out in goose bumps.”

“Well, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Gran,” Carly says.

“But I do,” I tell her. “How else can I make you understand?”

She shrugs, and I know she won’t easily forgive what she sees as a betrayal of her family. Steeling myself, I begin….

O N MY LAST NIGHT in Florence, he was waiting for me at our usual place, near the main door to Santa Maria Novella. A high summer moon glimmered over the black-and-white marble facade of the old church, and laid patterns of light on the deserted flagstones of the piazza.

Hearing my footsteps, he stepped out of the shadows and without a word took me in his arms. I sank against him, imprinting in my mind the solid feel of his body, the scent of his skin, the taste of his mouth on mine, because they were all I’d have to sustain me during the months we’d be apart.

In the morning, my aunt, cousin and I would board the train for Paris, on the first part of the long trip to Southampton, where the Queen Mary was scheduled to cross the Atlantic on August 30. “And not a moment too soon,” my aunt had fussed as she supervised the packing of our travel trunks. “The sooner we’re away from this benighted continent and all its troubles, the better.”

“How do I let you go, amore mio? ” Marco murmured, burying his face in my hair.

The tears I’d sworn I wouldn’t let fall clogged my voice. “It’s only for a little while.” For as long as it takes me to overcome my parents’ objections, I added silently, knowing they’d resist any idea of my marrying a foreigner, let alone one I’d known so briefly, but resolved that nothing would dissuade me from returning to Florence before year’s end. “I’ll write to you every day.”

“And I to you,” he promised. “Not an hour will pass that I won’t be thinking of you and preparing for our life together.”

After that, we wasted no more time talking. Clasping hands, we hurried along the darkened streets to our special place, the room he’d taken above a bookshop not far from the Ponte Vecchio. Although I’d done my best to brighten it with fresh flowers and candles, I suppose, to anyone else’s eyes, it didn’t have much to recommend it. But to us, living as we did for the hours when we could close the door on the rest of the world, it had the only things that really mattered—privacy and a bed intended for one, but shared by two.

I was not so naive that I hadn’t learned how babies were made and what children were called if their parents weren’t married. I knew the stigma such children bore throughout their lives. Yet even armed with all this information, I had given myself to Marco within a week of meeting him, so certain was I that our lives would be forever intertwined. Abandonment, deceit, acts of God or nature or mankind, lay so far outside our realm of possibility that they had no bearing on us.

As I explain that, Carly shakes her head incredulously. “And you never doubted him? It never occurred to you that once you’d left, he’d find someone else?”

“Never.”

We were touched with a special magic that lifted us above the rest. Convinced that ours was a love so powerful that nothing could destroy it, I had ventured so far beyond the boundaries of propriety that, had I been discovered, I’d have been ruined. A social outcast, ostracized by “nice” girls and their families.

That’s what we were in those days, I tell her. “Girls,” paraded before suitable young men and taken by the highest bidder. And our chastity, along with our bloodlines, determined how much we were worth. Not until we sent out engraved cards announcing that Mrs. Charles So-and-So is at home, followed by the date and a prestigious address, were we entitled to call ourselves “women.”

No pedestrian Mrs. for me, though. I would be Signora Marco Paretti, wife of the well-known, well-respected architect. I would live in Fiesole, the hilltop town north of Florence, in a house my husband had designed especially for us and our children.

All this and more comprised my future. For now, though, we had just this one night together in our secret hideaway, and then we’d have to say goodbye.

As soon as I stepped into the room, I saw that Marco had been there earlier. Freesias were arranged in the vase which, previously, had held daisies. Rose petals lay scattered over the bed. A bottle of Chianti and two glasses stood on the small table under the window.

“Tonight we make memories which will carry us through the coming weeks,” Marco whispered, content for the moment to hold my hands and look into my eyes.

I started to cry, the beauty of the moment, of his love for me, colliding horribly with the desolation filling my soul. He pulled me close. I realized then that he was crying, too. Great, silent, helpless shudders racked his body.

We clung to each other blindly, and the heat of desire fed on our emotions and burned away everything but the need to fuse our bodies, our hearts, our minds, to give to each other everything we were, everything we had.

We held back nothing. We simply loved each other, deeply, intimately. I heard myself moan and beg in ways that, before, would have left me too embarrassed ever to face him again.

But not that night. That night, I was shameless in my greed. Nothing lay beyond the pale for either of us. Touching, tasting, scrutinizing inch by inch, using words never uttered in polite society—such were the means by which we stitched together the love that had to be strong enough to survive separation.

Not that I share such intimate details with my granddaughter, of course. They belong to Marco and me.

Too soon, first light filtered through the open window. We dressed, fumbling with our clothes as if we could delay the inevitable. But there was no postponing time. A nearby church sounded five o’clock. In four hours, the taxi would come to take my aunt, my cousin and me to the train station. By the next afternoon, I would be in England; a week from then, in America, with over three thousand miles separating me from him.

At the door, I turned for one last glimpse of our hideaway. At the crushed rose petals and the tangle of sheets on the bed. At the half-empty bottle of Chianti. At the freesias perfuming the room with their scent. I knew then that I would never again smell roses or freesias, never again taste the red wine of Tuscany, and not be assailed by the poignant sadness of that moment.

When I returned to our pensione, Genevieve snuck down to let me in. “You’re cutting it fine,” she scolded. “Momma’s up already. You’re lucky she didn’t knock on our door to make sure we’re awake.” Then, seeing that I’d been crying, she hugged me and said, “Don’t mind me, Anna. You’re back now, and she’s none the wiser. Come and wash your face with cold water, or she’ll wonder why your eyes are so red.”

Her kindness started my tears flowing again. “It nearly killed me to leave him, Genevieve.”

“Don’t dwell on that,” she said briskly. “Instead concentrate on when you’ll see him again.”

“Months from now,” I wailed, stumbling over our luggage.

In fact, I saw him just a few hours later, at the railroad station. I was about to board our train when I felt a hand at my elbow. “ Posso aiutarla, signorina? May I help you?”

For a moment, I closed my eyes, afraid I was hallucinating. But the warmth in his voice, in his touch, were all too real and left me trembling. “Thank you,” I stammered. “Grazie.”

“Prego.” Marco squeezed my arm in secret intimacy, smiled into my eyes, and in a low voice added, “ Ti amo, la mia bella. Hurry back. I don’t want to be apart from you a day longer than necessary.”

“Thank you, young man. We can manage quite well,” my aunt declared, regarding him suspiciously from the top step into the train.

“Si, signora. Buon viaggio.”

“What was that about?” she sniffed, when we’d found our seats.

“He wished us a safe journey, that’s all,” Genevieve replied for me, because I couldn’t speak. I was too busy pressing my nose to the window and watching him fade into the distance as the train pulled out of the station.

Aunt Patricia hoisted her bosom into place. “Foreigners! I don’t trust them one iota. You girls might be sorry to leave Europe behind, but I can’t wait to set foot on American soil again.”

The grand tour had come to an end, and so had my idyll. As the train thundered north through Switzerland and into France, rumblings of war brought me back to a reality unlike anything I’d experienced before. Suddenly Marco’s political leanings, which he’d hinted at in passing and then casually, as if they were of no great consequence, assumed a frightening dimension.

I recalled that he and his father were outspoken critics of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s Fascist dictator and that sometimes, on those evenings when he wasn’t with me, Marco attended partisan rallies. I might have been shielded from much of the news, but even I recognized that although the sun shone on Florence and turned the River Arno into a swath of blue silk flowing smoothly under the city’s bridges, a dark underbelly existed beneath the ancient calm of the Uffizi and Pitti Palace.

“Well, no need to make yourself sick over that,” Genevieve told me, as the boat train approached Southampton. “If you must find something to keep you awake at night, worry about Hitler.”

But optimist though she was, Genevieve couldn’t help noticing the subdued atmosphere aboard the Queen Mary any more than I could. The luxury remained intact, but the laughter flowed less freely, and the young men who’d previously flirted with us on the dance floor now assumed a more solemn bearing.

“It’s not very promising over there,” they said, referring to the way events were shaping up in Germany. “They’ll be up to their necks in it before much longer.”

Over there. Synonymous with Europe and war, the term was on everyone’s lips, echoing along the Promenade Deck and infiltrating such exclusive retreats as the Verandah Grill. She tried to hide it, but Genevieve wasn’t immune to its aura of foreboding. “Not that we have anything to worry about,” she insisted when the Statue of Liberty rose up against the skyline and the tugs towed our ship to its berth in New York harbor. “Regardless of what happens over there, America won’t be involved.”

But Italy might be, I thought fearfully.

My parents were waiting at the dock. “We’re so relieved to have you home,” my mother cried, enveloping me in a hug that squeezed the breath from my lungs. “Your father and I have been frantic these past few days. We were so afraid you’d be stranded in England.”

“That wouldn’t have happened,” Aunt Patricia said. “I kept our passports and tickets on my person at all times.”

“But you must have heard,” my father told us gravely. “This was likely the Queen Mary’ s final run as a commercial passenger ship. On September first, just a day after you set sail from Southampton, Germany invaded Poland. On the third, Great Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany.”

The news had reached us, but we hadn’t wanted to believe it. Unutterably dismayed, I asked, “How long before it’s over?”

He shook his head. “Who’s to say? It could be months—or years. It all depends on that madman, Hitler, and how soon they’re able to put a stop to him over there.”

Over there… Marco was over there, and I was here.

“You look faint, darling,” my mother said, stroking my face lovingly. “Were you seasick?”

“No,” I managed to say. “It’s the shock of hearing that countries we just visited are at war—except for Italy. It’s not involved, is it?”

“Not yet,” my father said. “But I suspect it will be, before long. Thank God you’re home safe is all I can say. For your mother and me, the worst is over.”

But it wasn’t over, not by a long shot. Although I couldn’t begin to guess its extent, the worst was yet to come….

“If talking about it upset you, Gran, you don’t have to go on,” Carly says urgently, but I shake my head, knowing I must because I’m caught up in a web of memories that won’t let me go.

“You have a letter from Italy, Anna,” my mother announced, one morning when I came down to breakfast. She flipped over the envelope, checking for a return address. “From an M. Paretti. Someone you met over there, obviously.”

“Yes,” I said, studiously avoiding her gaze. “A friend. We promised we’d keep in touch.”

I’d been home nearly two weeks. Although the skies remained clear, the days were growing shorter, the nights cooler and the maples turning color. Fall had always been my favorite season, until this year when each hour was a purgatory to be endured.

Every day, the news from Europe grew more ominous. On September 10, Canada had joined the Allies. The war had reached North American shores, after all. But Italy was still uninvolved, and the sight of that flimsy blue envelope with its foreign stamp, the first from Marco, sent such a wash of relief over me that I thought I might be sick.

My mother watched me, smiling. “Aren’t you going to read it?”

“Later.” I moved away, busying myself with the dishes our housekeeper had set on the sideboard in the breakfast room. “After I’ve eaten.”

But the bacon and hotcakes turned my stomach. “I hardly call that eating,” my father remarked, eyeing my slice of toast and cup of coffee as he rose from the table. “What happened to your appetite?”

“I’m not very hungry lately.”

“That’s not normal for a girl your age.” He paused long enough to drop a kiss on my head and another on my mother’s cheek. “Perhaps you should take her to see Dr. Grant, Isabelle. Could be she needs a tonic.”

“Your father’s right,” my mother observed after he’d gone. “Lately you’re not yourself at all, Anna. You’re pale and listless. I hope you didn’t pick up some sort of disease when you were away.”

For a moment, I was tempted to tell her that I had, and it was fatal—that I’d fallen desperately in love with a handsome Italian and was heartsick at being separated from him.

“Travel can be exhausting,” she continued sympathetically. “Your aunt Patricia remarked just yesterday that she’s still not back to normal. She mentioned, too, that you tired easily when you were away, even though you and Genevieve were never late getting to bed. I suppose, if the truth be known, the pair of you spent half the night talking when you should’ve been sleeping, and now it’s catching up with you.”

“That’s probably it,” I mumbled, ashamed not that I’d spent so many nights in Marco’s arms, but that I was lying about it and perhaps hiding an even bigger secret, one that would devastate her should my suspicions prove correct. “Don’t worry, Momma. There really isn’t anything wrong with me that time won’t cure.” In a fever of impatience to read my letter, I added with false cheer, “I’m sure you have a million things to do besides watching me eat toast, so don’t feel you have to keep me company.”

“Then I won’t, because you’re right. I do have a full day ahead. Will you be home for lunch?”

“No. I’m meeting Genevieve at the yacht club.”

“I’ll see you at dinner then. Have fun, honey, and give her a kiss for me.”

The door had barely closed behind her when I used my butter spreader to slit open the pale blue envelope. My pulse hammered erratically as I extracted the folded sheets of paper and smoothed them flat. Did he still love me? Had distance made his heart grow fonder, or was I fading in his mind now that I was out of sight?

I OPEN THE FOLDER on the table in front of me, extract the first page of the letter and show it to Carly. Then I begin to read:

Firenze

September 4, 1939

Anna, my love,

It has only been a few days since I watched the train to Paris take you away from me, but even in so short a time, the world as we knew it is forever changed. The war people have talked about for months has finally come to pass and I, who should fear for the future of my own country more than ever before, care only about you.

How glad I am, tesoro, that you are safe in America. Yet how lonely I am without you. I consider myself a brave enough man, prepared to fight for what I believe is right and just, but courage is no match for the desolation I feel at knowing we shall be apart much longer than we expected.

Adolf Hitler has changed the face of Europe. Even if it was possible, you must not think of returning to Italy until he and his Nazi thugs have been crushed. The danger is too great. To live without you a few months more than I expected will be difficult. To risk living without you forever, impossible. You have become my life, and I ask nothing more of God than for the day to come when I wake up beside you every morning, and hold you close in my arms each night.

The news here is disturbing, amore mio. Only the most naive among us believe that Mussolini has our country’s best interests at heart. He is corrupt and evil. If he can further his own ambitions by allying himself with Adolf Hitler, he will do so without a moment’s thought for the ultimate cost to Italy. Those opposed to his regime no longer have the right to voice their opinions openly. In the last week alone, one of our group here in Firenze was “interrogated” by government officials for eight hours. He is recovering in hospital. A second has been thrown in prison. Two others have disappeared. Consequently our partisan rallies now take place in secret.

I am desolate at what all this implies, but as long as you are safe, my memories of you will help me survive whatever restrictions or hardships I must face. If my English were more fluent, I might find it easier to express the depth of emotion you inspire in me. But it is not, and so all I can say is I love you, my Anna. I miss you. And I count the hours until we can be together again. Until then, know that I carry you deep in my heart. You are with me always.

Forever yours,

Marco

“I devoured every word that day, Carly,” I tell her, tracing my finger over each letter, as if, by doing so, I could touch him. “I realized I was crying when my tears blurred the ink and left great wet spots on the paper. Look, Carly.” I point at several places. “All these years later, you can see how faded some words are.”

She bends her head close to look. Nods. Touches the paper, ever so softly.

“I was so afraid for him,” I continue, “but I believed in him. He was brave and strong, he was alive, and most of all, he loved me still. I told myself that as long as those things remained constant, it would be enough.”

Carly covers my hand with hers. “But it wasn’t, was it, Gran?”

“No, it wasn’t, because nothing remains constant in war except death and destruction, not merely of cities and innocent men, women and children, but of the hopes and dreams of those who somehow manage to survive.”