Death of a Serpent (7 page)

She retrieved a cigarette holder wedged down her front. From her pocket she drew out paper and tobacco and began rolling a weed. “I suppose you want to know about the murders?”

“Not interested in the madam or her murders. I’m a midwife, not a sleuth. But I’d like to know for certain if the person who looks so much like me, according to Gioconda, is my daughter.”

“Well, her name is Carmela, and she was here for a year, maybe more, and she looks exactly like you. Same eyes, a light jade, I’d say. Doesn’t have your wrinkles or crooked nose.”

Serafina felt her cheeks crimson. “Rosa’s told me a little about you. Said you were from Enna. How long have you been here?”

Lola laughed. “From Enna? Rosa invents new histories for us. Been here five or six years. I’m sure she’s told you all about me. You’re good friends. You must discuss everything.”

“Only what Rosa wants me to hear, and that’s precious little. And you’re right, she molds the truth into a pleasant fantasy. But she speaks highly of you. I’m curious. Your accent is not Sicilian.”

“Born in Lombardy, in the hills. Poor my family. My father was a shepherd.”

“How was it you traveled all the way to Sicily?” Serafina asked.

She looked out the window, not at the rocks or sea, but at something half-formed, like the shard of a memory. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Perhaps not. Hard for me to understand why a woman would want your profession. The work is hard, no?”

“Tell me, dear lady, have you ever delivered a child and then removed that child from his mother?”

“Several times. Women die giving birth.”

She frowned. “Not that.”

“Taken the child from its mother you mean?” Serafina asked.

She nodded.

“Never. I would never do such a thing, no, despite what the state says are the laws now. They say if the mother is a criminal or dying, the child should become a ward of the state. That’s talk from Turin. Some women, one or two, maybe, unmarried, don’t want their children, but even in those cases, I would not take the child from the mother, unless the mother was a wild one. And thank the Madonna, I’ve not run into that mother, not yet. Not Sicilian to take a child from its mother. Against our blood.”

Lola rubbed an eyelash. “I wish you’d been my midwife.”

Serafina stretched an arm around Lola’s shoulders. “And the father?”

“A man of learning. He wanted the child raised by the monks, so they took him from me.”

“How did you happen to meet this man?”

“After my mother died, my father brought us to the orphanage. All right for a while, until the mother superior died. Not so good then, so I left. Found work at the university.”

“Teaching?”

She shook her head. “I cleaned the lecture halls, the library. Good, honest labor. No pay. Worked for my keep. Backbreaking. Not like this profession, mind, but hard. One day I opened the door to a professor’s office. He was in the room reading some papers. I excused myself, but he said, ‘No, wait.’ He began to talk to me. Talked to me as if I were a man, you know, someone worthy of his words. Fascinating talk it was, about the oceans, the rivers of the world, the ebb and flow of tides, of ideas, of religious fervor and upheaval. The next week I came back. He was there. We talked again. It began that way. Nine months later, I gave birth to his son.”

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen.”

Serafina shuddered.

“Unless you’ve had a child taken from your arms, you’ll never understand, never. I walked until I came to a land that looked foreign to me. A new land, a new life. Stayed with a family near Naples. They fed me, gave me work, but something happened. Too long ago to matter. Ran away. Fishermen brought me here. I worked in Palermo, but the girls talk, you know, and Villa Rosa, well, it has a reputation. I was fifteen when I knocked on Rosa’s door.”

Shadows covered Lola’s face. She blinked several times. Her mood changed. “But you have to make your life, don’t you? You have to heave the past, just chuck it out and move on. My good fortune to find Rosa. Bad times, these. If I can help her in any way, please let me know.”

“You can help me right now. Tell Gusti I’ll talk to her another time.”

The Fight

S
erafina stormed into the office. “Was my daughter here?”

The madam looked up from her ledger, still whispering numbers. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Carmela. Was she here?”

Rosa bit her lip.

“Say something. My daughter. Did she come here four years ago? Did you let her in? She worked here? You didn’t tell me?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Never mind. Answer my question: did my daughter work here as a prostitute?”

“Fina, that was long ago. Only a few months she stayed. She had no roof over her head after you made her leave.”

“I made her leave? Not on your life. Giorgio and I told her she had to finish school. Women of our class do, you know.”

“Women of your class? Putting on airs, is it?” Fists in her armpits she cocked her elbows and strutted with her torso like a clown. “ ‘Women of our class!’ Well, women of my class never talk to our children the way you talked to her. Mean, snarly words you used to your flesh and blood. Sicilian I am and proud of it, not ‘pretend noble.’ Nasty they are to their offspring, shipping them off to school barely weaned. We love our children. Ashamed, you should be.”

“What would you know about children?” Serafina asked.

Rosa stood. “
Strega
!” She stabbed the air with a finger. “I fought for my child. Flesh and blood? No. But I’m the mother, she’s mine. Ever in my heart, she is.”

“I take it back.”

Silence.

“I take back the part about Tessa. But you believed my daughter’s story. You never asked for my side. Worse, you took her in to work in your…your bordello, and never came to me. Never told me, even though I was here. Whenever you summoned, I dropped everything in the middle of the night, cared for your prostitutes as if they were my own clients. Saved them after they’d taken the
strega’s
evil draughts to rid themselves of their baby. And all the time, Carmela was right here, under your roof working on her back and not a word out of your lips about her. A child came to your door, not yet fifteen, and you took her in!”

“Take this handkerchief. I hate it when you cry. And sit down.”

“Keep your damn linen! Running around with boys, Carmela. When I saw her in the public gardens with that soldier, half undressed she was, I became incensed, yes. Mad. Wild. Perhaps I used words.”

The madam snorted. “Perhaps?”

“You know nothing, you shrew. Carmela found school ‘boring.’ Said she knew more than the teachers. ‘Only children attend’ and ‘I’m a woman now.’ We insisted she finish school, Giorgio and I. She refused. We told her, ‘Follow our rules while you live under our roof,’ never suspecting, never dreaming that she’d leave. She packed.”

“Did you try to stop her?”

“Of course we tried! Giorgio and I pleaded with her, so did Carlo. But no, she left, running down the steps one horrific night. Haven’t seen her since.”

“And you looked for her?”

“What a question to ask! Of course we did. And she was here, right under our noses, and you didn’t tell me!”

“Not here long.”

“Over a year.”

“Who said?”

“Gioconda.”

“What does she know?”

“Lola, too.”

The madam was silent.

“And she doesn’t know about the deaths of her grandmother and her father. You had the chance to send for me when she knocked on your door. And what did you do? You saw a child. You saw coins, the coins you think I know nothing about, and you never told me. You groomed her, ate off her earnings. You slut!”

Serafina slowed her breathing. “You never told me. Fine. You can get yourself another detective. You can find yourself another friend.”

The Discovery

Tuesday, October 16, 1866

T
he next few days were a blur. When she wasn’t delivering babies, Serafina helped her children with their schoolwork, accompanied Renata to market, went with Maria to her lessons, or watched Giulia sew their garments. Evenings, she spent in her mother’s room on the third floor. She read, thought, frowned up at the stars.

Despite her best attempts to banish it from her mind, Serafina could not forget her behavior the other day. Vicenzu had berated her for spending too much money on fabric. Her face flushed as he showed her the ledger. While he chattered on about red ink, Renata clattered in the kitchen. The domestic shuffled. Maria played her scales. Totò raced around the table like a wild specter.

Something inside her snapped. “Enough!” she yelled, slamming a platter to the floor. Shards of porcelain flew all over the kitchen. She saw fear in her children’s faces. It must never happen again, never.

The following morning she traipsed around the Duomo and piazza, climbed up to the promenade, wound down to the sea. The sun bounced off waves. Gulls cried. Sitting on the edge of the arena between the remains of two Greek pillars, she breathed in the salt air, glimpsed shards of porcelain in her mind, watched fishermen leaving with the tide. In the distance a steamer plowed the waves.

She decided to walk on. Where she was headed, she did not know, maybe as far away as Cefalù, maybe farther. She wanted to be on that steamer unfurling her sails and kissing the waves. The stones bit into her boots. The wind tore at her clothes, but she continued walking, past a platoon of boats heading out to claim their catch, past the cove on the edge of town, past citrus groves now picked clean of fruit.

She walked on as if walking would kill the lump in her throat, sinking into the soft soil, on and on until her legs hurt and her vision blurred. Soon she came to steep rocks jutting out almost to the water’s edge. Straight above her and some thirty meters from the edge stood a decrepit building, its lawns replaced by sand and clumps of grass, its gate rusted, its shutters askew. Guardian Angel Orphanage read the sign, Mother Concetta’s domain. As Serafina stood there staring up, she heard laughter, carefree, guileless. She smiled.

Something glinting near the rocks broke the moment. She walked over to the offender, lost or discarded in sea grass and picked it up. A reticule, brown velvet, with a gold chain and clasp. Inside she found Bella’s identity card, a fifty lire gold piece, a pair of yellow gloves, a rosary. She kissed the cross, dumped the articles back in the bag, and headed for home.

Shutting the gate behind her she saw the caretaker perched on a ladder pruning the bougainvillea. His shoulders bladed in and out as he cut. When Serafina waved to him, her skirt snagged on a prickly pear, and, yanking to free the silk, she pulled another thread. Her hem, wet from the sea, now puckered. She’d blame it on the goat.

Near the cactus bloomed the geranium her great-grandmother had planted, one of her mother’s favorites because of its acrid stench, its stem now the size of a man’s thigh. Serafina smelled its sourness, the bitter-sweetness of the soil.

The stone angel over the lintel smiled down at her. She glared back. Her stomach growled.

“Too early in the morning for you, Mama. Where were you?” Renata asked.

“Took a walk.”

“And what’s happened to your skirt?”

Before Serafina could reply, Giulia said, “The goat again.”

Maria played her scales or one of those Brahms pieces, Serafina couldn’t tell which.

“Vicenzu?”

“Left early for the shop.”

Renata said, “While you were gone, Rosa came in her shiny carriage. Surrounds herself with an army these days. First time she’s come to the house since Papa died.”

Serafina shrugged. She listened as Maria transitioned to Scarlatti.

“She brought us these,” Renata said, holding up a silver tray piled with dolci.

Serafina said nothing. She kissed her daughters.

“Beppe!” she yelled.

When he appeared she handed him the reticule and said, “Take this to Inspector Colonna. Tell him I found it on the shore. It belongs to one of Rosa’s deceased.”

Reconciliation

Sunday, October 21, 1866

F
rom her room, Serafina saw the madam’s carriage pull into the drive. She grabbed a book from Giorgio’s shelves, ran up the steps to the third floor, and curled up in her mother’s favorite chair.

“Donna Fina! La Signura to see you,” Assunta rasped.

Serafina imagined the domestic’s lips on the keyhole. “Put her in the parlor. Tell her I’ll be down in a while. There’s something I must finish. If she wants to wait, fine.”

Serafina shivered. She flipped the pages of
Moby Dick
, attempting to get beyond the first sentence. But she found the story boring, the English words, difficult. She turned up the wick, ranged over the floor, sat down with the book again at the sound of a knock.

Her daughter entered. “Rosa’s downstairs in the parlor.”

“So?”

“She’s your oldest friend,” Renata said. “What happened between you two?”

“I’ll be down after I finish this book.”

“She doesn’t look well. Lost weight. Her face is drawn.”

“Tell her I need to finish something. Perhaps she doesn’t need to know I’m reading. Tell her I’m straightening Giorgio’s papers. If she wants to wait, I’ll be down. I don’t know when.”

“I can’t imagine what words were exchanged, but—”

“She crossed the boundaries of friendship.” Serafina continued to read, but the words ran together.

Renata sat on the corner of the bed. “It’s going to take you a year to finish that book, especially with Giulia not here to translate every other word.”

“Nonsense. I do quite well in English.”

Silence.

“Rosa helped us during the war. Saved the apothecary shop, Papa said.”

“Since that time she’s hurt us, I can tell you that much. The disturbance between us, it has to do with your older sister. I’ll say no more.”

“She doesn’t look well. Her gait is slow, her color, pallid.”

“A fantasy she creates.” Serafina gazed at her daughter, saw the frown.