Nun (9781609459109) (29 page)

I
n the carriage, the woman had kept her eyes focused on Agata, studying her. The coachman let them out on the outskirts of Naples, alongside a road leading into a fishing village. Agata stretched her legs and looked around, expecting to see James at any minute. The seagulls skimmed low over the water; then they veered away, soaring up and turning toward the coast, arcing through the sky in broad loops before turning down to the sea again. Moving quickly, the woman stepped over the ditch that ran alongside the road and walked into a cultivated field. She walked a short distance, stooped down, and grabbed a handful of mud. She went back to where Agata was standing and without a word smeared mud on her shoes and the hem of her skirt. Then she seized both of Agata's hands with her own filthy hands and massaged them, making sure that dirt got under her fingernails. Agata's lovely delicate hands had now been transformed into the hands of a peasant woman.

They ate bread and onion while they waited, speaking no more than was necessary. Not a word was said about James. Then the cart arrived, with other passengers and baskets full of hens. The two women climbed aboard after haggling over the price, and only then did Agata learn that they were going to Salerno. That night they slept in a roadside inn, sharing a cot crawling with lice, and in the morning they boarded another cart. Even then, the woman spoke as little as possible. Agata assumed that this was all necessary and was done according to James's instructions, and was calm.

Since the thirteenth century, there had been a garden in Salerno, built atop the city's Longobard walls, with six terraces, a seventeenth-century staircase running up the side of the massive walls, and a handsome portico protecting the staircase from the blazing sun. Famous for its anise and simple herbs, the Garden of Minerva had belonged to a single family for many centuries, the same family that, in the fourteenth century, had created there the forerunner of all the botanical gardens in Europe. The two women had struggled up the steps of Salerno: Agata had insisted on carrying the heavy bundle of books, letting the other woman carry the lighter bag with her linen and a few possessions of sentimental value. She felt as if she were climbing the stairs of heaven, and that at the top she would find James. She began to have some doubts when, finally arriving in the garden, she saw not a trace of a house or a habitation of any kind.

Meanwhile, two women clumsily dressed in dark-colored secular clothing were coming down the steps; on their heads they wore the veils of the pious old bigot. Angiola Maria came bounding down the last flight, taking the stairs two-by-two. With a “How pretty you are!” she wrapped Agata in her arms, and she was immediately followed by Checchina. Agata couldn't understand. James had told her about his contacts in the Curia, but she had no idea that he knew Angiola Maria. Agata immediately asked for an explanation of what had happened, but Angiola Maria refused to tell her, at least not until Agata satisfied her curiosity: where had she been? how was the conservatory? what did she think of the abbess? why had she gone to Sicily? how had she managed to get back?

 

The two women showed her the garden before offering her bread and water. On the first, lowest, and broadest terrace, there was a fishpond. The water ran down from the hill, and every one of the other terraces had its own pond and its own little fountain. The shed roof over the steps was covered with grapevines, and on the uppermost terrace there was a pillared loggia from which it was possible to look out over the sea and the surrounding mountains, to the accompaniment of the burbling sound of a fountain that ran constantly, fed by water springing from the wall. There were two fig trees and two bitter orange trees; it was said that this bitter orange tree was a descendant of the original bitter orange that stood in the garden when it was first planted, during the time of Longobard occupation. Behind the loggia were two small cabins in which the two women lived.

Angiola Maria liked to tell the story of her succession of triumphs. She had redeemed the garden from the descendants of the original owners with money that her mother had left her and the money she had earned in the convent. She and Checchina were the owners and in the time since they left the convent they'd both worked hard to fix the place up. Now they sold herbs and herbal teas, and they had a number of loyal customers. Angiola Maria explained to Agata that at San Giorgio Stilita she had at first worked with the sister pharmacist. The pharmacist was a young chorister whose sisters, back home waiting to be married, were dying like flies. When the last of her sisters passed away, the sister pharmacist's father and mother forced her to quit the veil and take a husband. Her brother the canon took care of the details; he also bought the potions that the two of them made in the pharmacy, even those that were slightly dangerous. The sister pharmacist married and had children. She and Angiola Maria had remained friends and she came from time to visit Angiola Maria in the parlor. Through her and her brother the canon, Angiola Maria had kept track of the cardinal's schemes and plans—here she cocked an eyebrow, placed a finger on her lip, and rolled her eyes, making it clear that she would never say a word.

“They told me that the cardinal wanted to bring you back from Sicily by convincing you and everyone else that he'd send you to the conservatory of Smirne, which is apparently a place you liked. In fact, however, he meant to send you to the Refuge in Capua, where the most shameless hussies of the entire kingdom are sent, genuine sluts who receive clients inside the walls of the Refuge. Just a pandemonium. Why it is I couldn't say, but the cardinal clearly has it in for you. So I had you abducted and brought here by a good friend of mine. You must remain hidden, the cardinal is sure to report your abduction to the police. This is serious business.”

Agata was speechless: so James had had nothing to do with it. Her turmoil was soon over; she felt certain that James would find her soon; in any case, she would send a note to Detken's bookstore as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, she would stay with Angiola Maria and Checchina and work with them, which was something she didn't mind at all.

 

The two lay sisters lived in two one-room cabins, joined by a shed-roof, up on the seventh level, the highest terrace in the garden, which offered a view of the gulf below. Angiola Maria had whitewashed the exterior, and she showed Agata where she would be sleeping: on the dirt floor, in the room that served as their herbal laboratory and workshop. Then she took her into the other room, where they cooked and ate—in one corner was the cot that she shared with Checchina. Agata looked at the cot, pensively. Angiola Maria noticed and took her aside: “Listen, everything they've told you about me and other women is true, it's just the way I am. The friend that brought you here is one of them, she's trusted. But my own flesh and blood, no one can touch that. That pig of a father of mine came here to buy an aloe pomade that had the effect of keeping men young; he took advantage of my mother, and she had two daughters by him. Here, you are the mistress, and you will be protected. We'll just tell them the truth, that you're my niece. You have to behave like a peasant woman and speak the local dialect. Until you learn it, it would be better for you to stay here in the garden. Be careful: don't set foot in the convents, and do your best to stay away from the churches: the king's spies are everywhere, and so are the cardinal's.” With that, she put an end to Agata's hopes of getting in touch with James.

 

Once again a prisoner and bitterly disappointed, Agata threw herself into her work: cataloguing the dried herbs and packaging them for sale, each with its own handwritten label, and preparing sachets of seeds for plasters and poultices. Angiola Maria taught her to make beauty creams and ointments, according to ancient recipes. Aside from the workshop, Agata was in charge of the garden and the stall where they displayed their products for sale. People came to smell and buy the things that the women grew and produced, as well as the things that Angiola Maria simply purchased and then palmed off as her own production. Angiola Maria went out every day; she made the rounds of the markets and had created a network of contacts; she found books and recipes of all kinds; Agata leafed through them, looking for finds. Checchina never left the garden; she did the housework and was the assistant gardener.

Different from one another though they were, the two sisters got along well and loved each other. Checchina followed, in her manner, and with a simple religious spirit, the order of prayers from the convent; in her case, that was limited to the rosary and the
Credo
. Angiola Maria, on the other hand, said the rosary with them every evening, impatiently, eager to plunge into her nightly reading of the
Gazzetta
. Since she'd left the convent, Angiola Maria had learned to read from a schoolteacher in Salerno, and now she followed with keen interest the political developments of the kingdom, the French, and the Papal State—the rest of the world was of no interest to her. Besides the
Gazzetta
, she read the
Amicus Veritatis
and the
Arlecchino
, satirical newspapers that had sprung up in the wake of the recent conquest of freedom of the press; she struggled to sound out the hard words or the words in Latin; when she managed to get a joke or a witticism, she burst into a belly laugh that shook her whole body, as well as the chair she was sitting on, until her hilarity died out in a gurgle. Checchina watched her out of the corner of her eye, perplexed, then looked up at the small icon of Christ with the crown of thorns glued to the wall and went on stitching the sachets for the lavender.

Agata had just turned twenty-two; she was a person who “felt” more than she “reasoned.” For that reason, her mood, her inclinations, and her thoughts were constantly swinging between her vocation and the outside world, between the marriage forced upon her by her mother and the chastity of the cloistered life, between prayer for the good of others and a concrete demonstration of her commitment to the humble and the needy, between the comfort of the cloistered life and the challenges faced by a poor girl in living and making her way in world created by and for men. Now Agata knew that she belonged to the world. She had loved. She felt grown up and she had finally learned to how break away from the two people who had given her life. She felt no sense of guilt, no resentment. It was clear to her by now that each of the two wanted to force her into a life designed not for her good, but in order to purge her of her sins.
Ora et labora
.
Ora et labora
. Work had redeemed her. Agata no longer vacillated between two opposites. Checchina's simple hard work and religious spirit did not contrast with the worldly nature and carnal desires of Angiola Maria. The faith and love that God had lavished upon her gave Agata the certainty that she was right to love James. But if James were to suddenly vanish from her life, she would go on working and do her best to preserve her own tranquil contentment. Perhaps, like Mazzini, Agata would educate the children of the poor, help them to grow up straight and deep-rooted, the way she did with seedlings. Her wild seesawing between states of mind, from the source of her torment, had gently subsided into a mild back and forth.

S
pring had already arrived; Agata had received no word from either James or anyone in her family. She was heartbroken for Sandra and Tommaso; she was worried about her sisters in Messina, under bombardment, and for her mother. Moreover, Agata had a hard time putting up with Checchina: when she wasn't reciting intentions, aspirations, and prayers, she chattered constantly and heaped Agata with affection when she would rather have spent time alone, in silence. Even reciting the rosary together was difficult because she had to keep up the other woman's pace.

 

Angiola Maria had felt duty-bound to take on the same protective role toward Agata as Donna Maria Crocifissa, and Agata liked it. But Angiola Maria was not up to the job because of her lack of culture, wisdom, and sensitivity. The two women were genuinely fond of one another, but Agata didn't confide in her—she never had before. Moreover, they saw very little of one another. Angiola Maria returned from her marketing in the early afternoon and ate whatever Checchina had cooked; then she remained seated at the table and read the day's newspapers before going out to do the heaviest work: plowing, hoeing, repairing the stone walls, pruning trees, chopping firewood. At night, she went to sleep before the others, who cleaned up after dinner.

Agata followed the divine office on her own; she put the ring of her solemn profession on the finger of her right hand—it was a ritual that she found comforting. Whenever Angiola Maria was present, Agata noticed her gaze of bafflement and almost of reproof.

“Why don't you get rid of it?” she asked Agata one day.

“I find it comforting.”

“If you want to know,” and here Angiola Maria's gaze turned stony, “I've seen a world of filthy tricks played in the name of Jesus Christ, and anyway I don't believe in all that. This garden is named after Minerva, who was the goddess of science and who, in my opinion, is much better than the Virgin Mary.”

Agata felt she'd been upbraided and was about to reply, but stopped herself. Seeing that her niece was on the verge of tears, Angiola Maria put a hand on her shoulder and apologized.

From then on, Angiola Maria looked after Agata attentively: she made sure that she got plenty to eat, but she didn't know how to distract her and how to chase the sadness from her niece's beautiful eyes. She bought her newspapers that she thought Agata would like to read. She started taking her with her when she went out, to show her the places where she could safely go on her own.

Meanwhile, James continued assisting Lord Pinto in his negotiations with the Sicilian rebels and maintained contacts with the Bourbons; it was crucial to be on the winning side if he wished to secure Agata's liberty; he believed that she had been taken to a convent outside of Naples. His spies in the Curia, however, were unable to discover the exact location. The cardinal was expecting news from Sicily and enjoined complete silence concerning the failure of Father Cuoco's mission: he even suspected that James might have taken her hostage, and had come to see him in order to ward off his suspicions.

The Sicilian rebels had halted the mails and Sicily was isolated from the mainland; it was not until late March that the cardinal managed to obtain confirmation that Agata had obeyed his order to take a steamship for Naples. At that point, he informed the intelligence services and the police that Agata had been kidnapped by unknown malefactors. James was told about this development by his own informers but he was unable to abandon the negotiations, which were interrupted on April 13, when the Sicilians declared an end to the Bourbon dynasty of Naples and offered the crown of the Kingdom of Sicily to Ferdinand of Savoy.

Now James set out to track down Agata. There was no time to waste. The cardinal was now his enemy; he had listed her among the missing, but he was ready to pounce like a hawk at the first clue. In the meanwhile, James had discovered that Angiola Maria was a blood relation of Agata's, family ties that the cardinal would have preferred to keep shrouded in silence. He was convinced that Agata had taken refuge with her, he could feel it.

In order to shake the secret police and the spies of the Curia off his tail, he took a party of English visitors for a sail down the Amalfi Coast. He moored his yacht at Salerno and decided to try his luck: he would go in person to the Garden of Minerva.

 

It was time to put the potted seedlings into the earth and the women went out to buy, barter, or beg little plants to put into pots or in the tiny patch of land in front of the house. Angiola Maria had put the plants that were to be sold next to the wall, near the entrance. Checchina was in charge of selling them to customers. The first customer knocked at the door: Checchina was expecting a woman and was disconcerted at the sight of the blond foreigner who spoke Neapolitan; she called Angiola Maria, who was just about to leave. It took Angiola Maria no more than a glance to understand that this one hadn't come looking for plants. She let him speak, then she explained one by one the properties and traits of each plant, luring him out along the wall, where he couldn't see their house.

“I must confess that I didn't come here to buy plants. I'm searching for Agata Padellani, Donna Maria Ninfa, whom you know. I know her too, and I care only about her well-being. I know that she lives here, with you. I have an important message to give her, in person.”

“If you know her as well as you say,” and at this point, Angiola Maria gestured with her hand and frowned, dubiously, “you should know that a lady of Donna Maria Ninfa's standing would never set foot in a place like this: a lovely garden, no doubt, but with nothing but a shack, a hovel that I share with my sister. After spending a night here, at best she would simply ask me to find her a place to stay that would be more befitting of her.”

She looked him right in the eye: “If you care about Donna Maria Ninfa's well-being, leave her in peace. She's not here, in any case. A nun as fine as her deserves a much better oasis of health than this!” Then, seeing that he was just wasting her time, she added: “If you want to buy plants, I'll send my sister down to see you. I have to go out.”

The minute he left the garden, James kicked himself for having turned down the offer.

 

Angiola Maria shot the bolt home behind the departing visitor and waited for his footsteps—and those of the two litter-bearers who had accompanied him with an empty litter, with drawn curtains—had faded away down the steps. Then she climbed up to the workshop and called Agata.

“We have to take care; the cardinal isn't satisfied with summoning me to the Curia. Now he's sending the English to look for you.” And she described James and his visit. Agata felt herself die inside. Angiola Maria understood that there was something special with the Englishman; she had to find a way of preventing her niece from winding up like her mother–seduced and, in this case, taken somewhere abroad and then abandoned–just when she had hopes that the three of them could create a full fledged manufactory and become rich. Her affection for Agata and her dynastic ambition, deeply intertwined, led her to refrain from pressing the young woman with questions and instead to head for cover.

Agata had learned enough of the dialect of Salerno to get by, and she liked going out, accompanied by Angiola Maria and, rarely, on her own. Promptly, Angiola Maria persuaded Agata to wash her hair with an herb that turned it light red; that dye would fool anyone who came looking for her. Now she sent Agata out on a series of errands. Agata, upset, had a hollow feeling in her stomach; she didn't know what she could do to get in touch with James. She went down to the harbor, but his steamship, the very same one that she'd come in on, was setting out to sea, the English flag barely visible in the distance. She swallowed her tears and went on walking. She had finished her errands, but she still couldn't return home: Angiola Maria had told her to stay out until lunchtime.

She wandered sadly through the center of Salerno, and suddenly found herself in front of the large Baroque portal of a hospice. It was an old convent that had been transformed into a hospital by the French and left the way it was after the Restoration. She managed to slip in under the concierge's nose and started wandering aimlessly, though with a confident step, to keep from being noticed. She emerged into a cloister; it wasn't beautiful, like the one in San Giorgio Stilita, but it was airy and spacious and did have a piperno-stone arcade; a burning wave of nostalgia for the monastic life swept over her. She wandered through the corridors on the second floor, above the arches of the cloister; crammed one next to the other, on chairs, cots, straw pallets, even piles of rags on the floor, were men, women, old people, young people, and infants, voiceless, slowly consuming themselves, like white butterflies with broken wings. Agata fled.

That night Angiola Maria asked Agata where she had gone. She listened carefully. “Excellent,” she praised her, “go out often, from now on. If they do come, it's better if they don't find you here. I've been told that the cardinal wants to come to Salerno.” She shot her a glance. “If he asks to see you, what should I tell him?”

“That I don't want to see him!” Agata blurted out. Angiola Maria took her hand and squeezed it.

“That's what I did too, when I was younger. They aren't worthy of us.”

 

James got in touch with his informers: Agata's trail had gone cold in Salerno. That's where she must be. He decided to make one more attempt and went back to Salerno. He took rooms in a hotel overlooking the main square, supposedly in order to gather information about the medical school of Salerno. One day he happened to spot Angiola Maria in the street, and he followed her: he saw her negotiate a fee and then board a cart heading out of town; he immediately took that opportunity to go to the Garden of Minerva. Checchina greeted him. James purchased two small rosemary plants, and then asked if he could see the bitter orange tree, which he had heard was quite ancient. “Wait, let me ask my niece, she knows more about these things than I do,” the woman replied, and then shouted to Agata: “There's someone here who wants to see the bitter orange tree, I'm sending him up to you!” Then she told James to climb up to the topmost terrace; the tree he wanted to see was there, right in front of the workshop.

James waited, impatiently. He peered into the workshop. Agata was praying in a corner, but the dazzling sunlight prevented him from seeing anything in the dim shadows; it looked as if the room were empty. He turned to observe the bitter orange tree.

Agata appeared at the door, her white smock knotted at the waist. She recognized him, even though his back was turned: it was him. She couldn't move. James didn't turn around; he was looking at the tree's graying bark. Then he heard the rustle of cloth behind him and asked, in a loud voice: “So is this the historic bitter orange tree?”

“James,” she whispered, slipping the ring off her finger, and this time it was he who lost his voice.

Checchina was weeding around the fishpond and every so often she looked up, keeping an eye on the two of them.

“I'm here,” she said, in English.

“Are you ready?” he asked her.

Together they walked down the stairs. As they went past the fishpond, Checchina asked Agata: “What are you doing?”

“I'm accompanying him.”

“Where?”

And James answered: “To the harbor.”

“All right,” said Checchina, and resumed her hoeing.