Nun (9781609459109) (25 page)

A
gata wasn't about to give up. The
brevi
stated that Father Cuoco had the right to approve visits from her relatives, but there had been no sign of her confessor. In response to her repeated requests, the abbess had insisted that he was in the Salento with his sick mother; then, seeing that she looked anxious and wan, she had promptly “brought him home again.”

Agata knew that the cardinal had appointed him as her confessor because he was under the cardinal's control. She avoided all mention of her encounter with James, even though the questions he asked made her think that he must know something, and she told him that she wished to visit with her sister Sandra. Father Cuoco was forced to inform her that the cardinal had taken it solely upon himself to decide whether or not she could receive or make any visits—once again, Agata had her back to the wall.

In the meanwhile, the cardinal had returned to Naples but there had been no sign of him. Then, without warning, she was ordered to go to the episcopal palace; Agata refused, giving her uncertain health as an excuse. She had remained steadfast on that point, even when the abbess intervened and made it clear to her that by insisting on that point she would make the cardinal furious. Which is what happened: the cardinal stopped payment of her stipend entirely. Agata had no money: this was war.

At that point, she shook herself out of the lethargy into which she had fallen: she began to do the calisthenics that Miss Wainwright had taught her, to restore vigor to her weakened muscles; she sang psalms, she repeated this admonition to herself: “
First keep peace with yourself; then you will be able to bring peace to others. A peaceful man does more good than a learned man.
”

 

The abbess had been given orders to keep an eye on her, and she came to visit her every day. She watched her eat her meal and sometimes she brought her extra bread and butter or cheese. Agata had been stung by a horsefly, and the bite had suppurated. She had treated the bite with a plaster of herbs that she had brought with her from San Giorgio Stilita. The abbess noticed the box with
Infirmary
written on it, and she asked what it continued. One day the abbess asked Agata to help her: she had a very painful abscess on her groin. Agata offered to heal it for her, but only on the condition that she be allowed to send and receive letters. At first, she flew into a rage and refused, then, as the pain worsened, she gave in. Agata lanced the boil and medicated it properly. In her gratitude, the abbess became more tractable and gave her permission to receive packages as well. Sandra immediately sent her biscotti and a book. From James, nothing.

After that, the abbess began to ask Agata for help with sick nuns and oblates. An orphan girl was in great pain in the aftermath of a badly managed abortion and the abbess insisted that Agata treat her; for the first time, she showed that she had feelings. “They're pitiable. They don't do it on purpose: they're tricked into it or they're forced into it.” Agata considered abortion to be a form of murder and, tortured by the memories of her experience with Donna Maria Celeste, she didn't want to have anything to do with the girl. But the abbess insisted and insisted until Agata reluctantly agreed. In exchange, she was allowed to go secretly up onto the belvedere of the cloister during the rigorous silence, when the other nuns were in their cells for the night. The abbess also procured medical textbooks for her and a copy of an old edition of Matthaeus Silvaticus'
Pandectae Medicinae,
which she'd found in a crate—it was a medieval lexicon on simples.

Soon Agata had many patients. Some of the women gave her gifts and others paid her what they were able; little as it was, that money helped to alleviate her financial straits: she certainly had no other way of meeting her obligations. From one of the women she learned that there had been an uprising in Messina in early September, and that it had been put down with great bloodshed. Agata was afraid that her brother-in-law and her sister had been involved in it, but she had no way of finding out for sure.

 

She was intensely anxious. She was waiting for James to answer the note that she had sent him, as in the past, care of the Detken bookstore in the Piazza del Plebiscito; she thanked him for the poems by Keats and wrote her comments, as she had always done in the past. Moreover, she informed him that she could also now receive newspapers. A slim volume by Leopardi arrived, without the note from him that Agata had so hoped for. She leafed through the book with trepidation, thinking to herself that James's white hands had caressed the pages before giving it to the bookseller:

 

Vive quel foco ancor, vive l'affetto,

Spira nel pensier mio la bella imago,

Da cui, se non celeste, altro diletto

 

Giammai non ebbi, e sol di lei m'appago.
3

 

Next to it was a very faint
J
; the same
J
was repeated elsewhere. And so, from then on, James began to communicate with Agata through faint
J
's on the outer margin of the page, but never a single line of writing.

So many books, from James, in those days of late autumn. And so very many
J
's.

 

Her mother and the cardinal, on the other hand, had begun a busy and not entirely friendly correspondence, that concluded with a concession of
brevi
for a one-month visit to Palermo for Agata, beginning on December 12. When Agata found out about it, she was devastated: she would be forced to break off her exchange of books and letters with James. She hurled herself face down on her bed and burst into sobs, weeping until she had no more tears. Late at night, she stealthily made her way upstairs to the belvedere: she felt as if he were close to her there and she hoped that they could see each other; up there the sluts and fallen women who were her patients sent and received messages by gestures. It was a dark night. It had rained and the sky was covered with clouds. The moisture bathed her hair and weighed down the wool of her habit. Agata leaned out in the hopes of seeing him. But there was no sign of James, or of anyone else—the neighborhood, which at that time of night was sleepy but still awake, seemed deserted. The roar of distant thunder. A flash of lightning illuminated the silhouette of the volcano against the blackness—then it all went dark.

The gas streetlamps illuminated the pale facades of the
palazzi
, covered by a grey patina, a mysterious slush blended of dust and rain. She was tired of waiting, of hiding, tired of the constant fear that by now had become a part of her life. Agata looked at the steeple in the center of a small square upon which three streets converged. Dizzyingly tall and pointed, it looked like a dagger whose handle had swollen into scrollwork, garlands, festoons, fish, dolphins, fruit, and flowers, wrapping the long blade until only the razor-sharp tip plunged into the sky was left bare. It began raining again in powerful noisy gusts. Agata kept her ears alert, in case by chance James called her, but instead she heard the calls of animals: a few dogs, the braying of a donkey. She squinted to see better through the rain: black, empty forms—she couldn't tell if they were creatures of her imagination or living things—walked along, brushing close to the walls. She jumped with a start: something was rubbing against her legs. A rain-drenched cat had wriggled under her habit and now was squeezing against her to rid itself of the detested water. They looked at one another. The animal, as unfortunate as she was, emitted an arid meow and looked up at her with blank eyes, filled with unspoken supplication. She felt as if she were losing her mind.

T
he brigantine sailed placidly into the gulf. Agata, with her servingwoman-jailor standing next to her, looked out from the bridge. Palermo looked out upon its half-moon bay, at the foot of Mt. Pellegrino, at the westernmost edge. Dark blue and pink, dotted with a maquis of maritime pines nestled between boulders, rooted in tiny patches of earth, the promontory thrust up, then plunged down and surrendered to the arms of the sea. The day of the departure she had fainted, which she interpreted as a sign from the Lord that she should stay in Naples. In vain: two lay sisters had helped her to get up and get dressed and they had carried her aboard the ship on a stretcher. The servingwoman wouldn't even let her look out the porthole as the steamer chugged out of the harbor. During the crossing she never left her side. Agata felt hope dying: the cardinal knew all about James and was sending her away from Naples.

Palermo, built on a water-rich plain and enclosed by a semicircle of hills, overlooked the Tyrrhenian Sea just as Naples did, and just as regally. Just as proudly. The city lay spread out before Agata's eyes in a cascading succession of terra-cotta tile roofs of noble
palazzi
, cupolas of convents, monasteries, churches, and oratories, creating a phantasmagoria of colors—many of those domes were covered in majolica tiles, green and white, dark blue and white, yellow and green; some of them, red as a faded cherry, were rounded and clearly of Islamic influence; others were Baroque, made of golden stone and set atop colonnades. Here and there stood the rare medieval tower, incorporated into Baroque
palazzi
and thus saved from the ravaging wave of eighteenth-century modernization.

The ship entered Palermo's harbor and anchored across from Castellammare, at the southernmost tip of the bay: a forest of mainmasts with furled sails and trawlers, small and large, boats with lateen rigs, polacres, feluccas, sardine boats, and fishing dinghies, pitching and yawing at anchor alongside tartans and xebecs. To the north, the waterfront was a rampart of paved ashlars interrupted here and there by terraced half-moons. Then there was a clearing of pounded earth along the walls of the city, incorporated in the
palazzi
of the aristocracy. It was sunset, time for the evening outing. Shiny and black, the carriages rolled along at walking speed, lined up like so many lazy ants. They passed one another, halting to exchange greetings, and lingering outside cafés.

 

The Cecconis lived in an eighteenth-century
palazzo
that had been burned during the revolt of 1820. The façade was pockmarked by hurled stones and bullets, like a face ravaged by smallpox. Inside, however, the apartment was beautifully restored. Her mother had furnished it with inlaid furniture and bronze decorations, which clashed with her husband's Neoclassical furniture, simplicity in comparison.

 

Agata was hoping to see Nora and Annuzza, and she was disappointed when she was told that they had remained in Messina, in service to Carmela, now the wife of the Cavaliere d'Anna. General Cecconi concealed beneath rigid courtesy his annoyance at having his wife's daughter, a nun, as a houseguest; nor was there any joy in her mother's welcome. Agata had the sensation that she was a guest unwanted by both her host and hostess, even when her mother presented her with a bowl of her favorite dessert, chocolate rice, similar to the
cuccìa
that is made in Sicily in December, for the feast day of St. Lucy. The rice is boiled in cinnamon- and clove-scented milk with a pat of butter, a spoonful of semolina and another heaping spoonful of sugar, then covered with chocolate cream and garnished with peeled, finely chopped pistachios: it was a treat to be eaten warm, in tiny scoops on the tip of the spoon, slowly, varying the proportions between the white cream and the chocolate cream. But Agata wasn't allowed to savor the dish the way she liked it. Donna Gesuela wanted her to gobble down spoonful after spoonful and then hurry off to change into a clean, neatly ironed habit for a visit from her uncle, the Baron Aspidi. “Behave nicely with him, my brother is the only one who has helped us out with money when things were bad,” she told her. And that's how it always was in Palermo. The
brevi
put Agata under her mother's control, and Donna Gesuela wanted her at home, available at all times to see relatives, without any advance warning.

 

Agata soon became accustomed to the routine of the Cecconi household. Every morning, while the house was still asleep, she went to the first mass at the Oratorio del Santissimo Salvatore, around the corner, with Rosalia, her mother's housekeeper. When the priest said
ite
. . . , even before he could get out the words
missa est
, Rosalia was already pushing her out of the pew and down the aisle toward the door, so that she could get home to make coffee and take it, with two biscottini, to the Generalessa, in bed. The general was leisurely in his morning ablutions and he spent time chatting with his barber; then he would go out and come home loaded down with papers and a jar of colorful candy. He retreated into his study and received visitors until lunchtime. Her mother tended to her own affairs and Agata followed her lead, performing the office according to the Rule and reading. In the afternoon, on the other hand, she joined them in the drawing room, in order to save on candles and coal: the general was extremely stingy when it came to daily household expenses. After leaving the army he had been given a few assignments by the king, but they were not at all well remunerated—at least that's what her mother told her, adding that he hoped to be given a position in the new financial institution, the Cassa di Sconto del Banco delle Due Sicilie. The women did their household chores and mostly read. Every so often he would offer them one of his candies, and for a while the silence was broken by the sound of sucking on the solid sugar surrounding the cinnamon center.

 

In Palermo, too, Agata was a prisoner. She could neither send nor receive letters. Her mother only took her out to pay calls on relatives who were nuns. After one or two visits to the convent of Sant'Anna, Donna Gesuela decided that she had had enough. “We have nothing to say to one another and these misers charge us for the pastries they serve us!” Agata felt that she was being watched by her mother, and soon enough she understood the reason why: the general, who was left a widower quite young, had been the administrator of his wife's estate, held in trust for his only son. When his son came of age, he had brought a lawsuit against his father, accusing him of having profited from the estate. Agata's mother told her that the case had dragged on for years, costing the general a vast sum, and that recently it had been decided in the son's favor. Gesuela was yet again in a precarious financial situation. Agata understood: her mother was counting on her, once she left the nunhood, to take care of her in her old age.

Mother and daughter were putting linen into the armoire with the help of Rosalia. “Did you know that Carmela is pregnant? Annuzza is overjoyed and every morning she makes her an egg yolk whipped with sugar!” her mother told her, smoothing out an embroidered sheet. Agata froze—a son by the Cavaliere d'Anna! “She seems happy, to judge from her letters. And to think that I expected this youngest daughter to remain a spinster so she could take care of me!” she commented. She ran her hand over the knotted fringework of the towels, shiny and stiff with starch, and added, pensively: “This one here's all I have left . . . if he lets me have her.” And she went back to counting the Flanders flax linen towels.

 

It was the beginning of January 1848. Agata was looking at the crack-ridden plaster of the façade across the way, a book open on her lap. She was meditating on the word “blemish,” noticing new aspects and dimensions of the word. Then she came back to reality: she felt estranged from her mother and couldn't wait to get back to the conservatory of Smirne, certain as she was that James would succeed in helping her win her dismissal from the monastic order.

The maid came to call her: the general and the Generalessa were waiting for her in the study.

“The cardinal has ordered you to enter the convent of Montereale di Chiana,” her mother said in a flat voice. She was clearly upset.

“What's happened? Where is it?”

The general broke in. “There is no time to waste. The cardinal, who is your relative, has received intelligence that there is going to be a revolt in Palermo, and I am in agreement. It's imminent. Tomorrow morning at dawn a lateen-rigged tartan will pass by the main harbor of Palermo, the Cala, carrying nuns directed toward a convent in Trapani. You will board the ship at the landing place of Sferracavallo; we'll have to set out at dawn in order to be there in time. The tartan will not stand in to tie up at the dock.” He added, imperiously: “You'll have to beat out to the ship in open water, aboard a fishing boat, and you won't whine about it!” Then he informed her that the Benedictine convent of Chiana, an old feudal village set on a salubrious hilltop in the ancient
comarca
of Naro, would be nothing but a first stage of her journey; the cardinal would decide when and in what convent she would ultimately be placed.

“Why can't I go back to Naples?”

“You are to obey.” Her mother's voice was harsh.

“Chiana is closer. You could even come back to stay with us, when things calm down. I've already told you that we're expecting a revolt, and so it is quite likely that there will be no ships leaving for Naples,” the general explained, barely able to contain his impatience.

“Not even an English ship?”

“What a question!” her mother promptly replied, beating her husband to the same exclamation.

“Like when my father died.” Agata gave her mother a cold, hard glare.

“Ah, of course, Captain Garson was there . . . ”

The general calmed down; he pricked up his ears and murmured under his breath: “An influential man . . . ”

Agata had heard. “Does he have influence with the cardinal?” she asked.

“The cardinal is keen to establish close ties with the highest ranks of the English Catholic community, and those contacts necessarily pass through the hands of Garson.”

And the general picked up the day's newspaper.