Nun (9781609459109) (28 page)

As many had predicted, the uprising of Messina in September 1847 was not the only one. Still, no one could have ever imagined the strength and the popular support of the revolt in Palermo on January 12, 1848—the first uprising in the year of the revolutions that swept Europe—nor the sheer violence of the king's reaction. From shouts for the restoration of the 1812 Constitution it was only a short step to angry demands for the independence of Sicily, and from there to the immediate, cruel, and disproportionate repression visited upon Palermo by the fleet of the kingdom, bombarding the city from the sea, killing and destroying, and stiffening the spines of the Sicilian revolutionaries, hardening a resistance that lasted sixteen months in conditions of partial independence.

In his haste to get Agata safely away from Naples, and not only because of his fear of political unrest in the capital, the cardinal had committed a gross error of political analysis. After the failure of the bombardment of Palermo, the king acceded with indecorous swiftness to the demands of the riotous Neapolitans by promising them a new constitution on January 26, thus restoring a provisional calm. The Sicilian uprising, in contrast, proved to be much more violent and stubborn, a genuine revolution. Communications between Naples and Sicily were interrupted, and the Sanctuary of Chiana was no longer safe.

 

The sole intermediaries between the illegal Sicilian government and the Bourbon administration were the British diplomats. James Garson assisted Lord Pinto, the British consul in Naples, and both of them shuttled between Naples and Palermo. Garson's ships were among the very few vessels that set sail from Malta and passed through the Strait of Messina, undisturbed by either the rebels or the royal garrison that subjected the city to daily bombardments from the Messina presidio, which overlooked the Strait.

James was able to learn that Agata had gone to stay with her mother in Sicily, but the trail went cold after her stay with the Cecconis. One of his informers had said “too much” to a man who was close to the cardinal. Worried that he risked becoming
persona non grata
, James temporarily suspended his investigations of Agata's whereabouts. The strategy of doing nothing had borne fruit: at the end of February the cardinal turned to him and asked him to help bring Agata back to Naples. James plunged into the work of preparing for the trip.

One evening after Compline, Agata found a Bible on her chair. Pressed between the pages of the Pslams was a dried camellia petal. She glimpsed a faint, small J alongside the words of Psalm 119: “I am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies.” And she waited, trusting.

 

T
he carriage conveying Agata to the loading docks of Licata rattled through the almond groves. It was a day of sirocco wind, murderous for the blossoming trees. With every gust of hot wind, the petals tumbled from the branches, fluttering and then falling to earth or lodging in the low stone walls. A wave of wind rushed through the open carriage window. A coat of pink and white petals covered her habit and veil: a promise of a wedding, soon.

 

It had happened all at once. The week previous, the abbess had received a visit from “important” people. She had cleared the parlor especially for this meeting, a place where two or three visits were normally going on at any one time. Then she had summoned Agata to her little drawing room. “They tell me that you speak English, is that true?” she asked her, torn between disgust for the language of the heretics and admiration. Agata confirmed that she did. Then the abbess wished to know if she would be willing to talk with the British consul at Girgenti, in English, in her presence, and Agata said that she would. Then the abbess told her that Cardinal Padellani had summoned her to return to Naples, but the English captain who would convey her there had requested proof of her identity and free will: the abbess's word was not enough for him. “He wants to have this talk in English,” she muttered, the corners of her mouth downturned in indignation at such shamelessness. The convent of the Santissimo Sacramento was all abuzz; they wanted to knew where, when, and why Agata had learned English and all the rest. She explained the honest truth. Familiarity eliminated their mutual distrust and the few days that remained went by in an atmosphere of affectionate support. Exceptionally, the English consul, Mr. Stephenson, had been received in the parlor. The abbess sat behind the grate to monitor the conversation; next to her, an employee from the consulate was acting as her interpreter. Agata walked into the parlor, uncertainly, her face covered by her veil. “I would like to ask you two questions,” the consul began, in some embarrassment. “The first is this: do you own a volume of John Keats?” Keats was a forbidden author. Agata hesitated; she'd have to think quickly. Was this a trap? The silence was intolerable. Then she raised her head and, looking him in the eye through her veil, declaimed, in a clear voice: “
Dry your eyes, o dry your eyes, For I was taught in Paradise To ease my breast of melodies.
”

“What did she say?” the abbess asked her interpreter.

“Nothing, nonsense. True Christians don't engage in chitchat, because they have been taught that Paradise is in the sacred music.”

“
Brava
, Maria Ninfa,
bravissima
. You teach this heretic what it means to be a servant to God!”

The second question was in Italian: “Are you ready to leave?”

“Yes, if that is my Lord's will.”

“Good girl, this young nun!” exclaimed the abbess, stroking the crucifix on her breast. Now that she had passed the test, the consul explained that Donna Maria Ninfa would board a sailing ship and depart Licata for Siracusa, where she could catch the steamship that was en route from Malta to Naples.

 

At the loading dock in Licata, Agata was entrusted to two sister nuns from home, who like her were departing for Naples to go stay with their brother, an official of the kingdom. Together they boarded a tartan that was smaller than the one she had arrived in, and which alternated fishing with the coasting trade between Licata and Siracusa, with a stop at Pozzillo. The voyage lasted six days. The tartan was packed with passengers who, like them, were leaving Sicily because of the revolution. Agata and the two women were forced to share a cabin, which was nothing more than a cramped little closet with some pallets and a chamber pot. Her travelling companions were intolerable; they didn't get along and each of them tried to draw Agata over to her side. When she could, Agata went up on deck, alone. On the fifth day, the tartan rounded Cape Passero, then passed Marzamemi and finally Pachino. After sailing around Cape Murro di Porco the ship slowed down to swing around into the grand harbor of Siracusa at seven the following morning. The English ship, in contrast, was immense. It was brand new and gleaming with brass fittings. It had twenty cabins. The crew wore new, crisply ironed uniforms. When the two nuns learned that a cabin had been reserved only for Agata, and that the two of them were expected to bunk down in a women's dormitory down below, they clung to Agata and wore her out with their lamentations and exclamations until she finally agreed to take them into her cabin. Agata had no idea of what had been happening in Naples, nor what the outcome had been of the revolt in Sicily, and she lunged at the pile of old newspapers, English and from the kingdom, pamphlets and scraps of local gazettes that she knew had been put there for her by the express orders of James himself. As she pored over the news, the two nuns, exhausted by the voyage, recited their rosaries. Only then did she realize that the revolution had swept through the entire kingdom and all of Europe as well: after the insurrection in Palermo and the city's staunch resistance to both the army and the shelling from the sea by the royal navy of Naples and Sicily, all Sicily had revolted against the sovereign, leaving only a presidio in Messina. In the meanwhile, in Naples the king had promised a constitution. She was reading eagerly and as she read she grew to understand that the change Tommaso spoke of had become a possibility. Perhaps a reality. Then she thought about James and searched for faint J's in those newspapers, but there were none. The two women tiptoed over to her. They wanted to know what she was reading and why: Agata explained, but the two of them, intrusively, refused to go away. “A game of cards?” and the younger of the two pulled out a deck. Agata had no interest in playing cards. Offended, the woman swept all the newspapers off the little table, shouting that she'd suffered through the voyage in the stinking tartan and now she had a right to a distraction. Agata gathered the newspapers up off the floor and smoothed them out, one by one. Then she laid them on the table. The nun snatched them up and clutched them to her chest. “Now we're going to play cards!” she cried, with a smirk on her hairy face. Agata offered to let the two of them use the table to play cards. No, they had to play cards together, all three of them. Agata wanted her newspapers. The woman snickered and refused to hand them over. Agata made a grab for them and the nun jumped out of the way. A page was torn. That was when Agata yanked the bell pull and ordered the stewards to remove the unwanted guests from her cabin. The staff complied with her request immediately—a clear sign that James was behind all this.

 

The sea was glittering and the sun had almost vanished below the horizon; the afternoon clamor of voices had subsided. The few passengers on deck were knots of foreign travelers who looked like refugees. They had crates and suitcases heaped around them, and the frightened gaze of people with no idea of what lies in store for them. Agata lifted her gaze, eyes weary from reading, and looked out the window.

In the silence, she heard a voice singing:

 

Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement's.

You owe me five farthings, say the bells of St. Martin's
.

 

The song was repeated; it was a man's voice:

 

Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement's.

You owe me five farthings, say the bells of St. Martin's
.

 

Her heart was racing: could that be James? It seemed a natural thing to sing her response:

 

When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey.

When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch
.

 

A broad-shouldered man with a dark mustache turned to look, but behind the glass he saw only Agata's dark, disappointed eyes.

 

Agata spent the rest of the voyage alone in her cabin; she prayed and worked on a
paperole
that was meant to have a gleaming white consecrated host at its center. She thought about James, and the words of Donna Maria Giovanna della Croce: “You were made to serve the Lord in the world.” Each time she tried to embroider the consecrated host, it transformed itself into a camellia; on the outer petals she wrote with tiny chain stitches verses taken from love poems; in the center, which she was supposed to cover with tiny round balls done with fill stitch, the needle seemed to have a will of its own, ruching the shiny silk into a mass of striated petal-shapes done in outline stitch with blood-red thread. In the middle, a chaotic profusion of stamens.

S
eagulls flew low, skimming over the choppy swells. The breakwater of the Angevin Fortress stood out against the sleeping city in the morning darkness. The steamship slid over the water and came to a halt alongside another steamship flying the British flag.

Dressed in her finest habit, Agata was waiting. She was repeating her paternosters, serenely. A peasant woman carrying a basket and a broad sack burst into her cabin. She commanded Agata to undress and put on the clothing that she had brought with her, and then to put only her bare necessities into the sack. They'd leave the rest, along with her habit, in the cabin.

“Tell me who sent you.” Agata had raised her voice. The woman looked out the window and answered her in a whisper: “Be quiet and be quick.”

Agata found herself removing her habit in front of that woman. Embarrassed, she dressed uncertainly in the kind of rough homespun, narrow-waisted clothing that she hadn't worn since she was fourteen. She insisted on carrying the basket full of books and, arm in arm with the other woman, they walked down the gangplank amidst all the other passengers. Before stepping into the carriage, Agata turned and thought she glimpsed James's golden beard in an enclosed carriage not far away. She brightened and waved. The woman grabbed her hand. She reddened in shame: that reckless gesture could have spoiled everything.

James climbed the gangplank. The captain and his steward were waiting for him, and together they went to knock at the door of Agata's cabin. There was no answer. They knocked again; then the steward pulled out his skeleton key and unlocked the door. There on the bunk, neatly folded, lay Agata's habit, tunic, and scapular. The white, finely pleated wimple contrasted with the black of the habit like a round meringue.

 

James sent the others away. Sitting on the bunk next to the habit, his fingers teased at the pleats of the wimple, and he thought. In early January he had been informed that in Palermo a Carbonaro was walking the streets of the city, announcing a revolt to take place on January 12, and that squads of field guards under the command of the pro-independence baronry and armed bands would join with the liberal bourgeoisie. The minute he learned that Agata was no longer at the Cecconi home, the vision of her torn from the house and subjected to the violence of the mob had tortured him, until the cardinal asked James to bring his niece back to Naples. Excited at the prospect of seeing her again soon, James was soon tormented by the fear that her mother had persuaded Agata to stay with her. He had to find out what Agata's feelings toward him were now. After the visit from the British consul at Girgenti to the convent, he had arranged to embark her on one of his steamships as soon as she set foot in Naples; he would send her to England, while he took the necessary steps with the Curia and the Pope to have her vows dissolved—an easy enough task, if conducted diplomatically. But now Agata's inexplicable disappearance from her cabin had thrown him into a coil of black despair.

The cardinal had sent Father Cuoco and two lay sisters down to the Naples waterfront, in an enclosed carriage, to convey Agata to Gaeta, and from there into a convent in the Papal State. The three of them waited for the last passengers to leave the boat before they went aboard. They were shocked when they found the cabin door blocked by the captain and crew: the nun had vanished; access to the cabin was forbidden.

James Garson's coach and six had just entered the courtyard of the cardinal's residence. The minute the cardinal received the note in which James informed him that he had information about Donna Maria Ninfa, he had agreed to see him.

The sweet scent of early-blooming jasmine filled the air—the odor of power, thought James, with irritation.

“I am distraught over what happened, and I hold myself personally responsible,” he began.

“Tell me.” And the cardinal listened with close attention to the details of Agata's voyage, beginning with the trip aboard the tartan from the loading docks in Licata. James drew out the little or nothing that he had to recount in the hope that the cardinal might inadvertently let slip his plans for Agata. He told the cardinal that the captain of the steamer had questioned the crew; it seemed certain that Agata had been in contact with no one, besides the two nuns that James had arranged to have sent aboard to care for her, and that she had asked to be given a cabin all to herself, a request that had been granted. “This morning, Donna Maria Ninfa ate a hearty breakfast and waited in her cabin to be taken away. She seemed very contented, and she even sang to herself.”

“She has a lovely voice,” the cardinal had sighed. Nodding agreement, James had betrayed himself. “You know her, don't you?” The cardinal's gaze was cutting.

“Certainly. It was I who offered passage to the Marescialla and her daughters, when the field marshal died, and I also met her at Palazzo Padellani before her simple profession.”

“I was forgetting.” A new thought filtered into the cardinal's mind: that it might all have been organized by Donna Gesuela, to keep from losing her daughter. “What about Palermo?”

The Sicilians were like so many drunks, James said, they did not seem to realize that governing is a difficult task. They talked about waging war, but they had no army—neither troops, nor officers, nor generals, munitions, or provisions. No money. No administrators. Neither roads nor fleets. The illustrious exiles who had returned to their homeland had been given offices for which they were ill suited. Take the case of Amari, who had been put in charge of the Ministry of Finance: he was personally penniless, and had lived off the kindness of his Sicilian friends during his years in exile in France: he knew less than nothing about finance. “These is no education, there is no tradition of political involvement.”

“I must agree with you. And how could it be any different: out of a hundred Sicilians, only eleven know how to read and write!” said the cardinal. “Perhaps you don't know that when the Jesuits came down here after the Council of Trent, they were speechless at the conditions in which the denizens of the two kingdoms lived—poor, uncouth, ignorant, and superstitious. In order to instill even a modicum of Christian conscience they were forced to employ instruments of persuasion that ranged from the gentle to the intrusive, striking fear, encouraging violent acts of penitence. In the late sixteenth century, the metaphor of the
indios de por açá
had become a commonplace.”

“Now you're going too far, Eminence. A remedy can be found. You are certainly on a par with the other peoples of Europe.”

“Leopardi was right: the Italians are the equals of more advanced nations save in two fundamental aspects: literacy, and a complete confusion of ideas.” He paused, and then spoke freely, as if he were alone: “People forget and become weary of the good and the evil done by others, of other people's lies and dishonesty, and treat both the good and the wicked with indifference, ignoring all moral and ethical values. Italians have empty lives, lives lived entirely in the present. But, being a social animal, the Italian cannot do without the esteem of his fellow man. And he obtains it, by working with what he possesses, that is vanity, of which however he has a complete understanding and utter scorn.

“The Italians laugh at life: they laugh at life far more heartily and with greater truth and intimate persuasion of their chilly scorn than any other nation on earth. Other nations laugh at things, not at individuals, as the Italian does. A society cannot remain unified if its people are busy mocking one another and continually expressing their utter contempt for their fellow man. In Italy, people take turns persecuting one another, they sting each other until the blood runs. If you do not respect your fellow man, you cannot in turn hope to be respected,” and here he paused. Then he resumed, slowly but inexorably, as if he were savoring James's impatience.

“The chief foundation of an individual's morality and of a people's morality is a constant and profound sense of self-respect and the effort taken to preserve that sense of self-respect, a sensitivity concerning one's honor. A man without self-respect can be neither just, nor honest, nor virtuous. Mazzini, an intelligent thinker—God and Fatherland, republican unity, equality of all citizens—is bound to fail. His vision will run aground as soon as it hits the
los indios de por açá–
the Indians on this side. An illiterate will not know what to make of his thoughts.”

“Why do you say that? It's a defeatist attitude.” James couldn't take any more. He wanted to know about Agata and nothing else.

“So that you, Captain Garson, will understand that the fewer the dealings you have with Italians, and with Donna Maria Ninfa in particular, the better it will be for everyone. Donna Maria Ninfa is safe and sound, wherever she may be. She has Padellani blood in her veins. And I'm here, worrying about her.” At that, the cardinal tugged his bell pull.

“So am I, Eminence.”

And James followed the cardinal's secretary, who was holding the door open for him.