A Winter's Night (29 page)

Floti

She hardly ever saw her brother-in-law, but Rosina was always there trying to console her. Don't think I was any different, she'd say, at first I felt the same way you're feeling now but then I got used to it and I learned to like the city. It's really wonderful, she'd say, trying to cheer her up. Everyone speaks Italian here, you know, not like up by us where only the fancy folk speak Italian and the poor ones speak dialect.

As time passed things did get a little better, especially after she started getting letters from Fonso. It took her a while to read them because she had only gone as far as fifth grade at school, but she didn't want anyone to help her because what her fiancée wrote her was her own affair; it was just between the two of them.

Rosina began by taking her to the market so they could do the shopping. The first time left her speechless. There every day was like the Festa della Madonna back at home, a long row of stalls decked out in every color of the rainbow that stretched all the way around the square and sold absolutely everything: bolts of cloth, ladies' bags and blouses, jackets and trousers, underwear and an amazing array of fruits and vegetables. There wasn't a pear or an apple with a single blemish; they were all perfect and exactly alike. And then the two sisters went for a walk in the big square where there were marble men as tall as a house and naked as the day they were born. Maria looked away because she was embarrassed, but Rosina teased her: “What are you doing, silly? They're just pieces of marble, not real men!”

“Why don't they put pants on them?” asked Maria. Rosina started to laugh and a lady who was passing by commented out loud in her Florentine accent: “Oh will you listen to this one, she wants to put pants on Michelangelo's David!”

Rosina tried to explain to Maria that if the great artists wanted to make those statues naked, there must be a reason, and that they'd look absolutely ridiculous with pants on, but Maria wasn't convinced. A little at a time, though, she was beginning to understand that this was a place like no other and that there was something magical in those streets and towers and belfries. And that river! In the evenings the lights of the houses above would be mirrored on the waves, quivering and glittering like precious stones. Sometimes the two girls would take a stroll at dusk, or else at night to see the moon and the stars and to listen to the bells that chimed all together, like a chorus, playing the Ave Maria.

Rosina had also taken her to see the cathedral, which was the most important church in the city. But even there, there were paintings with naked men and women that seemed scandalous inside a church.

“When you go before God, you go naked like the day you were born. How would they look with underpants on?” replied her sister. “And anyway, those up there are already damned, they're in hell, look! See that woman up there with the devil who's sticking a burning firebrand in her female parts? That's because she acted like a whore when she was alive. And that other devil that's sticking it in the rear end of that man there? Just a little to the right; he must have been one of those who . . . ” But her words dropped off there; Maria probably wouldn't have understood anyway.

But Maria had understood perfectly: that the people who went to mass, looking around and seeing what would happen to them if they ended up in hell, would get scared and try to behave well. She also thought of how many stories she'd have to tell when she went back home. She realized that, little by little, she was taking up the habits of a city-bred lady and she didn't mind that at all. For example, the fact that her shoes were polished and that every day she changed her clothes. A different blouse and skirt every day, and sometimes even a shawl.

But the moment she most looked forward to was when a letter would come from Fonso. Not too often, stamps were expensive! Postal cards of a light gray color with the king's head on the stamp. She even learned to like the king!

Things did not always go well at her sister's house. Her Sicilian brother-in-law was often cross and quarreled with Rosina; it was as if Maria didn't exist. Although once she had had put her ear to the bedroom door and had overheard them arguing about her. He was saying: “That sister of yours, when is she going home? She eats and drinks and I pay.”

Rosina had answered: “But she's my sister and she helps me in the house: she does the washing and the ironing, makes the beds and sometimes she even cooks . . . ” but that didn't shut him up. He went on saying that a wife should stay at home, and not take walks around the town while he was at work. Once Maria even thought she heard him slapping Rosina and the next day her face was bruised.

“Was it him?” she asked. “Did you husband hit you?”

Rosina said nothing but her eyes welled up with tears. It didn't take Maria long to understand what was at the root of all their quarrels. Rosina was as beautiful as the sun, while he was small and ugly with whiskers like a mouse's under his nose. He was crazy jealous, that's what he was, he knew that men turned to take another look when Rosina passed. He didn't want her wearing tight dresses, or low-necked blouses; she wasn't allowed to wear lipstick or makeup, and he accused her of blackening her eyelashes. What was worse, they had no children, and where he came from, that was considered humiliating because it was like being impotent. But who knew who was to blame there; maybe it wasn't Rosina at all!

“You know?” Rosina told her once. “In the south of Italy they think that all the women up north are whores because we like pretty clothes and wearing lipstick and going for a walk around town. What's wrong with that? For example, I like the theatre and he doesn't. It's not like I go alone, I always go with a lady friend, but does he believe me? No, he's always only thinking of one thing. Do you like the theatre, Maria?”

“Oh yes, I love puppets.”

“Puppets! What are you on about! Tomorrow night at the Verdi Theatre they're putting on Mascagni's
Cavalleria Rusticana
.”

“What's that?”

“Opera. It's like a comedy, but it makes you cry, too, and instead of talking, they sing. They all wear beautiful costumes and the women warble like nightingales.”

One night Rosina decided to take her sister to see
La Cavalleria Rusticana
. They dressed up and fixed their hair. Rosina wore something she'd made herself: a clingy dress in organza that rustled when she walked and a little hat with feathers that was gorgeous. She wanted Maria to remember the evening for the rest of her life, and she even called a landau to pick them up. The city was all lit up and people were strolling up and down the streets and Maria felt like a real lady, in a beautiful dark dress with a bow on her behind and new shoes that squeaked as she walked.

At the entrance to the theatre no one could help but take an appreciative glance at the two new arrivals, especially Rosina, who the men were eyeing openly as if their wives wouldn't notice.

“If you had lived here when you were a girl instead of in town,” Maria whispered to her sister, “you could have married a real gentleman; can't you see how they're all eating you up with their eyes? Why did you marry Rizzi in the first place?”

“We were so poor back then, and a man who brings home a steady salary every month wasn't someone to sneeze at. At least that's what our parents and our brothers thought. What should I have done? At least you have Fonso; he may not be that handsome but he's very well-built and he has that way of talking that would make any woman fall in love with him.”

They were walking up a staircase, as they chatted in this way, from one floor to the next, until they went through a door that ended up on a big balcony that circled around the theater. You could see everything from up there: the grand red curtains with their yellow fringe and a chandelier so huge and so heavy you couldn't understand what made it stay up.

“What if it falls?” asked Maria.

“It's not going to fall.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do!”

“Shh!” someone said at their left.

“We have to stop talking,” whispered Rosina, “because it's about to start. Look, the curtain is opening!”

The conductor raised his baton and the orchestra began playing the overture.

“Who's that man with the baton?” asked Maria, whispering this time.

“That's the maestro. He uses the baton to direct the musicians, otherwise everyone would be playing something different. But quiet now, we're annoying the others; they want to listen.”

Maria stopped talking and tried to understand what was happening but she soon grew weary of looking at those singers shrieking words that didn't make any sense. She leaned close to her sister and said: “I can't understand a thing; why don't we go see the puppets doing
Pia de' Tolomei
?”

Rosina glared at her and put her finger to her lips as if to say “shut up before someone hears you!”

Maria shut up and tried hard to figure out what was going on. She thought it had something to do with cuckolds but then she fell asleep on her chair and when the fateful cry exploded: “They have murdered Turiddu!” she opened one eye and said: “Who did they murder?”

“Never mind,” said Rosina, “let's go to bed.” And that was the end of their unforgettable evening.

The young Bruni's Florentine sojourn continued with its ups and downs, but at a certain point Rosina had to reveal to her husband the reason for her sister's prolonged stay: their brothers wanted her to forget a fiancé who wasn't to their liking.

“What do I have to do with any of that?” grumbled Rizzi, visibly irritated. “Let them take care of it!”

Rosina was a bit embarrassed because in truth, the situation had gone beyond any reasonable limits. Instead of helping around the house, her sister actually spent most of her time reading and rereading her boyfriend's letters and trying to answer them, which was quite an ordeal in itself. Between the ink spots she spattered the paper with, trying to get her thoughts written out, and copying them over again in her best handwriting, a good week would pass before she had a letter finished. Some were never even sent off. In any case, the strategy behind her Florentine exile was clearly being thwarted. Rosina had just about decided to take a pen in hand and write Floti to convince him to desist in his intent to keep the two lovers apart, when an epidemic of lethargic encephalitis broke out in the city. Maria fell ill and was immediately taken to hospital. The disease was better known as “sleeping sickness” and, in fact, she slept seven days and eight nights without ever waking up. A telegram was sent off to the Brunis with a few essential words:

 

Maria has sleeping sickness stop if she wakes up she will want to come home stop Rosina

 

Meanwhile, the sender of this message decided, against her husband's wishes, to pay for one of the most important professors in the city to examine Maria. Once he had seen her, the doctor announced that he could take no responsibility for the prognosis, but that it was reasonable to believe that the girl, being so young and of such good constitution, might snap out of it.

“I could have told you that myself, and for free,” commented Rizzi with considerable irritation, and you couldn't really fault him on that.

In the end, Maria did wake up, but she had been so weakened by the illness that her convalescence would certainly be lengthy, and Rosina informed her family back in town about this.

When the Brunis learned that their sister's life was at risk because of the epidemic that had struck the city of Florence, they became very worried. But while Clerice prayed to the Madonna and all the saints, the brothers quarreled because some of them believed it was Floti's fault for having capriciously sent her away from home.

Meanwhile, Maria was trying to regain her strength in Florence. Rosina brought cups of hot broth to her in bed with a glass of good Tuscan wine, sure to give her energy and put her in a good mood. As soon as the days began to get longer, she helped Maria outside into the garden and sat her under an umbrella that she'd bought especially so her sister could get some fresh air. As soon as she felt strong enough, Maria asked for paper and pen and wrote to her family and Fonso to tell them that what had happened to her was like a very long night without dreams and that she'd woken up weary and exhausted, as if she'd been working for days and days instead of sleeping!

Fonso replied:

 

Dearest Maria,

I am well and I hope you are too. Your letter was of great comfort to me. For the whole time I didn't hear from you, my life was like hell on earth. I thought of you from morning till night and I couldn't sleep. I hope that what has happened will convince your brother Floti that no one can go against destiny and that we should be married. At the edge of the town, workers' houses are being built and I've applied for one, so if we're married we will have a house to live in. I think of nothing but the day I'll see you. Take care of yourself and know that I still want you and I will always want you until the day I die.

Alfonso

 

Maria couldn't stop reading it, and each time she did she ended up crying. Neither Fonso nor her brothers had told her about the stable burning down, because they didn't want to worry her.

After Easter, Maria's convalescence drew to an end and her health seemed to be completely restored. The only symptom of the illness that stuck with her was an intense sleepiness that would come over her at about seven in the evening; it was so overpowering that she'd have to go and lie down. Rosina wrote to her mother that she thought the time had come for Maria to return home; perhaps getting back to town would help her to heal completely and restore her appetite. It had become a chore to get her to eat anything!