Nun (9781609459109) (7 page)

D
onna Gesuela had entered a phase of frantic activity. With the help of Tommaso Aviello, she had completed in record time the procedures involved in paying Anna Carolina's dowry and she had set the date for the wedding on the first day compatible with the liturgical calendar, immediately after Easter, in Naples. It was necessary to make sure that there was no way for the Carnevale family to wriggle out of its commitment, and with a view to nailing them down securely, she decided to take the promised bride to Messina immediately and to stay there right up to the eve of the wedding. Agata could go and stay with Aunt Orsola, who had generously asked her stepson Michele to let them use the chapel and the drawing rooms of Palazzo Padellani to hold the religious function and the wedding reception.

 

Agata wasn't thinking about anything other than her wedding, and she was happy to go stay with her aunt. Spring had come early and in the mornings her aunt took her by carriage down to the Marina, the Naples waterfront where she treated Agata to pastries and ice cream. In the afternoons, she was permitted to sit at a corner of the table where her aunt unfailingly played cards every day. The Princess of Opiri was under the spell of cards: along with religion and opera, cards were her guiding passion. Her Wednesdays were devoted to whist.

James Garson, who was likewise on the verge of being married, was a frequent visitor to the Princess's salons.

Agata listened to the conversations at the card tables and during refreshments and absorbed everything she heard like a sponge: through the assortment of gossip and the occasional anecdote, she was able to get glimpses of a larger political, commercial, and artistic world. She was burning with the desire to have her say, but she was ashamed to speak out. Once, Admiral Pietraperciata, noticing a gleam in her eye, asked her to express her view—they had been talking about the fact that Jane Austen published her entire body of work anonymously. Agata blushed, then looked around at the others sitting at the table: Aunt Orsola was studying her cards; Aunt Clementina, caught off guard, shot a glare at the admiral and then focused at her hand of cards; James Garson in contrast was waiting for her to speak, his eyes looking straight into hers. Once again, that gaze made Agata hesitant, but then she spoke with growing confidence.

 

That night Agata was euphoric when she went to bed, her cheeks burning and her heart pounding furiously. The conversation had been stimulating that evening, and for the first time she had savored the pleasure of meeting minds and comparing views with refined, educated people. After saying her prayers, her thoughts turned to Giacomo. She felt as if she could see his dark handsome face, his fleshy lips, and she realized that in Messina a conversation of that kind and on that level would have been unthinkable, especially in the Lepre household. With a faint sigh, she resolved that there was no alternative but to follow her beloved to Sicily, so that's what she would do. She fell asleep trying to guess who her aunt's partners at cards would be the next day.

 

Her aunt allowed her to visit with Sandra, even though her mother had fought with her again over money. Tommaso Aviello claimed that his mother-in-law had been more generous with Amalia and Giulia, when she'd dismantled the family home in Messina, because they were married to men of whom she approved, while he was merely useful to her in taking care of her business. Sandra took her husband's side in the argument.

At their home, Agata met young men who were quivering with passion for the Italian cause. She listened to them in admiration and did her best to understand what had lit that flame in their eyes, what made them willing to sacrifice themselves. Then, when she was alone, she knew that she had no desire to emulate them, she would be unwilling to sacrifice her life for anyone but Giacomo.

The months of February and March, which she spent in her aunt Orsola's home, were perhaps the most peaceful period in Agata's life.

 

Her mother and Anna Carolina had returned from Messina with Carmela and Annuzza at the beginning of April, three weeks before the wedding. They astonished Agata with their decision to stay at the Aviello apartment—Donna Gesuela had made peace with them now—leaving Agata with her aunt. Agata's feelings were hurt; she wished that she could stay with her sisters, especially with Carmela to whom she had been a sort of substitute mother in the past. Then she decided not to take it personally: after Anna Carolina's wedding, it would be her turn.

 

Her fond hopes however were soon cruelly dashed. Amalia sent her mother a letter to say that there had been a furious quarrel in the Lepre home, and that all Messina had known about it immediately because of the sheer volume of the shouting. Giacomo had been the loser in that fight: shortly after Easter he would be engaged to the heiress that the family had already chosen for him. Simultaneously, another letter arrived from Giacomo, addressed to Donna Gesuela, assuring her that he had no intention of giving up. He greatly preferred to live in poverty with Agata and he implored her to consent to their wedding, now that he had come of legal age.

Agata was crocheting, tatting a simple cotton lace for a hand towel. Her mother burst into the room and stood furiously in front of her, waving the two letters in her face: “Read them!”

Agata inserted the crochet hook into the ball of fine cotton yarn and took the letters. First she read the letter from her sister. Then she opened the letter from Giacomo. It was very short: not a word to her. She looked up at her mother, dry-eyed but aghast.

“Do you understand what that miserable scoundrel has done to you?!” her mother spat out.

“He wants to marry me.” Agata's voice was trembling.

“Oh, certainly, he wants to marry you, but how does he expect to support you? Who'll pay for rent, groceries, and servants? What about your children, how would he feed them?” By asking Donna Gesuela for an impossible marriage, Giacomo had offended both her and her daughter. She inveighed against him: he was cunning, dimwitted, childish, and wrong-headed. Agata defended him and there ensued a scene that came close to deteriorating into an actual brawl. Agata's entire body was trembling as she sat in a pool of silent tears; her mother, leaning over her, continued to upbraid her, lifting Agata's chin so that she could spit the harsh truth into her face.

 

The next day, a package arrived for Agata. Inside it was a little gold box, inscribed on the inside with her and Giacomo's initials. Along with the box was a card made of glossy paper, its edges perforated like a piece of lace, and decorated with little red hearts, tiny colorful flowers, golden leaves, and a gleaming ribbon; at the center, a rosette with two robin redbreasts, their beaks joined in a kiss. Giacomo wrote exactly what he had written to her mother: they would be married, provided that Agata would wait for him and remain faithful to him. Agata believed him.

A few days before the wedding, Donna Gesuela was invited to lunch with her sister-in-law; she arrived early, and Orsola had not yet returned home. She was in a good mood, she seemed years younger, and she gathered Agata up in an impetuous hug. Shortly thereafter, the footman announced a visitor for Signorina Agata.

A woman in servant's clothing entered the room hesitantly with a large pastry tray in her hands: “Are you Signorina Agata?” When Agata nodded, she stood straight and recited, word for word, the message that she had memorized: “Madame Abbess, Donna Maria Crocifissa, your aunt, sends you her best wishes and wishes to inform you that the Chapter of the Benedictine convent of San Giorgio Stilita has voted unanimously in favor of your admission.” At that point, she stopped, visibly satisfied, and then went on with the easier part of the message: “Please come, then, to say thanks to the nuns and to set the day for your entry.”

This was Nina, the chambermaid of the other aunt who lived in that convent, Donna Maria Brigida. She extended the pastry tray with a broad smile. Agata accepted the tray uncertainly; she was about to venture a “you must be mistaken,” when her mother burst in vehemently: “Please thank Madame Abbess on my part and on behalf of my daughter. Tell her that the young sister will be conveyed to the convent this very afternoon.” She gestured with one arm for the woman to leave by the front door, and she shut that door firmly behind her with her own hands after she left, before the eyes of the astonished footman and a petrified Agata. Then, with a chilly hand, she seized her daughter's arm and dragged Agata, against her will, into her bedroom.

 

Sprawled across the sofa at the foot of the bed, Agata was wailing in despair, until her voice grew hoarse and raucous. The footmen buzzed around in the adjoining rooms and outside the door, unsure whether they should intervene. Agata begged not to be forced into the nunnery. Standing in front of her, Donna Gesuela was implacable. Then she glanced at the clock: it was almost time for lunch, her sister-in-law was about to return home. She wiped her daughter's eyes with her handkerchief and explained that the family's straitened finances and her behavior with Giacomo—she had learned of the gift of the little box with their initials—left her no alternative: Agata must become a nun. Admiral Pietraperciata would help her to find the money for her monastic dowry.

“Life is good in the convent, you'll be with the crème de la crème of the nobility, and you'll never go hungry. In the meanwhile, I want to entrust you to your aunts, while I hunt for other pensions. They'll coddle you, and the cloistered life will calm your heart.” Between sobs, Agata continued to beg her to change her mind. Her mother grew tense. She told Agata that her father had left her without a dowry, without even a guardian, and that she was responsible for her fate and the fate of her sisters: “The laws of man and God demand obedience, and obey me you will.” Agata fell silent. Gesuela seemed to grow gentler; she promised Agata that if she still didn't like the convent after two months, she'd take her back home to live with her. For the moment, she couldn't refuse to go, not after the vote of the full Chapter, which had been a great honor. Agata was aghast.

Her mother reached out and took one of her braids in her hand, stroking it, while she explained the benefits of the monastic life to her: it was an oasis of health, uncontaminated by the squalor of ordinary life, and every generation of Padellanis had given a number of nuns to San Giorgio Stilita. Agata would win honors, she would be revered, and without doubt in time they would elect her abbess. At these words, the girl only began sobbing harder. Her mother shook the braid as if it were a noose, then pulled Agata toward her, lifted her chin, and gazed into her eyes: they were bloodshot. She couldn't take her to the convent in that state.

Stung, she shoved her roughly away from her, warning her not to come down for meals or dare to sniff out another tear: “Look out! If I find you in the same state tomorrow, I'll take you anyway, and I'll introduce you to all the nuns as the little ingrate that you are.”

 

Agata spent the rest of the day in her bedroom. She hoped that her aunt Orsola might pay a call on her, but not even she, in compliance with her mother's orders, dared to knock on her niece's door. She sent lunch and dinner up to her on a tray; Agata noticed that on a little dish on the side were her favorite almond biscotti. That's when she understood that there was nothing left to be done—no one would take up for her against her mother.

E
arly the next morning, mother and daughter left Palazzo Padellani for the convent of San Giorgio Stilita. Aunt Orsola had ordered the most sumptuous carriage to be brought out, the one painted blue with the pure gold Padellani coat of arms on both doors and on the back. Donna Gesuela had ordered ice packs to be placed on Agata's eyes and cheeks; the swelling of her face had visibly diminished. “Just a short visit, then you can come home,” she said encouragingly, “and remember to thank them for the pastries. Oh, you'll have plenty of pastries to eat in the convent.” Then she repeated the promise to her once again: if she didn't like the monastic life, she could leave the convent two months after she entered it, which would be immediately after Anna Carolina's wedding.

 

The entrance to the convent was through a wooden door that stood at the bottom of a long staircase, designed to be accessible to sedan chairs. Agata took her time climbing the stairs. Every one of the thirty-three steps in volcanic piperno stone, broad and low though they were, seemed dauntingly high, and she had difficulty lifting her feet. Still, she had to go on, and go on she did, her mother's hand gripping her shoulder like a vise grip. She was already a prisoner. On her left stood the outer walls of the convent—high, double, and blank. On her right, the wall covered with delicate eighteenth-century frescoes of faux colonnades and coiling leaves, which she'd found so pleasing on previous visits, now instilled terror in her. She thought that she could detect amidst the fronds the pale and faded figures of Basilian nuns, flickering like ghosts, ready to cast a spell on her.

They reached the vestibule. There wasn't a living soul in sight. The nun at the door told them to wait. The bronze wheel right in front of Agata looked like a mouth bristling with teeth, ready to devour her. Slowly, the majestic carved walnut portal swung open and her aunt the abbess emerged to welcome her. Through the grilles in the convent parlor, Agata had been unable to form any idea of her face, and now she turned pale at the sight: her aunt had her father's exact features and even the same wart on the chin. The abbess embraced her and kissed her heartily, then she pushed her into the cloistered section of the convent through a little hidden door, camouflaged by other frescoes of leaves and columns. They walked into a spacious second vestibule with vast wall paintings, where thirty or so nuns were waiting for them, standing in a semicircle. Other nuns were assembling in the large room—all eyes were on Agata, motionless before them, at the center of the semicircle.

“Thank the sisters for the favor they have shown by voting for you to become their companion,” the abbess spoke sternly to her.

Donna Gesuela thanked the sisters on Agata's behalf, explaining that her daughter was emotionally overwrought with gratitude. Agata could barely restrain her sobs. In the meanwhile, other nuns arrived in the hall and lined up in rows of two or three. They were quite different from the nuns of the Collegio di Maria where Agata had gone to school. Sumptuously dressed in black, with a pleated white wimple and two veils, a white one beneath a black one, impeccably ironed, they had an air of superiority that terrified Agata. The novices entered, the
monachelle
or little nuns: some of them stood on chairs to get a better look at her, and while her mother and the abbess were talking with the most important nuns, they did nothing but make comments on Agata, who had good hearing and understood everything they said—some thought she was short, some pretty, some ugly, and some unlikable. Until then, she had followed her mother like a puppet, looking straight ahead of her; when she heard those opinions, she lowered her eyes and felt as if she were going to faint. Her mother explained to all the new arrivals that her daughter was very sad because her father had died and she had been separated from her family. Then she turned to look at Agata with an imperious glare, ordering her to speak. But she couldn't.

At that moment, the other aunt, Donna Maria Brigida, arrived in the room; two lay sisters were supporting her. Younger than the abbess, she was afflicted with infirmities of body and mind. She raised her weary pupils and stared at Agata. “You're the daughter of Pippineddu,” she mumbled, and reached out her arms to embrace her. The lay sisters carried her toward Agata and her mother pushed her toward her aunt; Donna Maria Brigida wrapped both arms around her neck, rasping her flesh with her hairy chin.

Agata trembled and felt a chill. She murmured words of gratitude. After coming to an agreement that she would enter the convent two days after Anna Carolina's wedding, mother and daughter left the cloistered section of the convent.

 

At Aunt Orsola's house, aunts and female cousins were waiting to congratulate her. When they saw her they were aghast.

Agata stayed in bed for a number of days, during which time she received visits from all the Padellani women, who were again interested in her—not in helping her, but in persuading her to accept her fate and then, later, to gossip viciously with the rest of the family about both mother and daughter.

Aunt Orsola, who had spent hours talking with her, was worried about Agata's health, because she had stopped eating. Agata, certain that she was ready for marriage and motherhood, explained to Aunt Orsola the repulsion she felt at the thought of the cloistered life, and she recalled her father's firm determination not to force any of his daughters into a nunnery. Once she heard this, and seeing the depression into which her niece had sunk, the elderly princess decided that Agata would never be willing to take the habit; she then devised a plan to marry her off to a widowed duke, a relation of hers, who would have accepted her even without a dowry. She mentioned the plan to her sister-in-law. Donna Gesuela had watched her various female relations paying visits and she had listened to their comments—both those spoken openly and those muttered under their breaths. She had always managed to contain her fury; only now did she vent her wrath against Orsola, accusing her and all the Padellanis with her of miserliness, hypocrisy, and even lack of Christian charity toward her and her daughters. She threw it in Orsola's face that, when she had asked her for financial assistance in order to secure dowries for her daughters, the Padellanis had refused. Every last one of them. Now that she had been forced to send one of her daughters into a nunnery, they criticized her—and still no one offered her so much as a ducat.

 

Anna Carolina had kept her distance from Agata. A few days before the wedding she went to see her and, after treating her like a perfect stranger, told Agata that even in Messina everyone was talking about how selfish and ungrateful it was not to be overjoyed at having been accepted into the most illustrious convent in the kingdom, and that this would certainly undermine her relations with her husband's family. None of the married sisters, including Sandra, offered an opinion or said a comforting word: they didn't want to interfere with their mother's will.

One day, Nora managed to smuggle her a letter from Giacomo. He had given it to Annuzza, who was not allowed to go to Palazzo Padellani because she was dressed as a commoner and not as a maidservant. It was a saint card of Our Lady of the Assumption with his signature and nothing more. Agata, during all this time, believed that Giacomo had forgotten about her; the feeling that he'd remembered her with that special message was enormously upsetting to her. She felt ill and a doctor had to be called.

Agata remembered when she sang for her father his favorite Bellini,
Qual Cor
Tradisti
,
Qual Cor Perdesti
, but now as in some delirium, it seemed as if she were hearing the reply of her Giacomo-Pollione:

 

Moriamo insieme, ah, sì, moriamo!

L'estremo accento sarà ch'io t'amo.
1

 

She was visibly wasting away. Aunt Orsola sent for Father Cuoco, her confessor, and after he had a conversation with Agata, she decided to talk it over with her brother. The two of them came up with a plan. The admiral spoke to Agata alone and made a suggestion without having discussed it first with Donna Gesuela. Agata would go to the convent for the two months agreed upon; if at the end of that period she still didn't want to become a nun, he would give her a thousand ducats, half of her dowry. All she had to do was ask. Agata could use the money for any purpose, provided that she explain clearly to him what she intended to do. Agata accepted.

Aunt Orsola thought that Agata would recover more quickly if she were far away from her mother. She therefore suggested to her sister-in-law that she leave her daughter with her and go back to Messina immediately after the wedding; Donna Gesuela accepted the proposal willingly. It was what she would have preferred in any case. Still, the princess had another objective in mind: to break up the growing intimacy between her sister-in-law and her brother the admiral. She suspected that in the past he had facilitated certain of Gesuela's escapades and she was afraid that now he wanted his part and might run afoul of her. Gesuela wanted a husband: she wanted a husband at all costs. Orsola did not know that the one limitation her brother had placed on his generous gift—that he be informed as to the use of the money, but only by Agata, not by her mother, who was excluded from the transaction—had resulted in a violent argument between the admiral and Donna Gesuela, and that from then on their friendship had never been the same.