The House in Amalfi (33 page)

“Jon-Boy’s relationship with Isabella had been going on for a couple of years,” Lorenzo said. “She was a lovely girl, simple, sweet, earthy like him. She came from a poverty-stricken background and she expected nothing beyond his love and attention. She worked in the bakery in Rome where he went every day to pick up a slice of white pizza—”

“It was his favorite,” I interrupted, smiling, as I remembered us walking through the Campo de’ Fiori together, with the hot pizza—more like focaccia crust sprinkled simply with olive oil and salt—burning our hands and our tongues. We could never wait long enough for it to cool before we ate it.

“Isabella moved into Jon-Boy’s Rome apartment,” Lorenzo said, “but she still kept her job at the bakery, going off very early every morning, leaving him alone in bed. She told me her father was a true peasant of the old school. She said he’d probably kill Jon-Boy if he knew about them. That’s the reason she kept her job, as a sort of sop to her conscience; that way at least she kept her independence. And she never took money from Jon-Boy. Not a cent.”

“Was she beautiful?” I asked wistfully, wishing I had known the woman who loved my father so much.

He thought about it. “Not in the way Cassandra is beautiful, but she had great charm, and yes, she was quite lovely in a softer, rounder way. She reminded me of the old Federico
Fellini movie stars Claudia Cardinale, Sophia Loren, Monica Vitti—those lovely, earthy, gutsy women. She was a pleasure to know.”

Hands shoved deep in his pockets, head down, he began to prowl the room. “It’s important you know about her because of what happened later,” he said, and I nodded; I understood.

He stopped and looked at me. “Their relationship was drifting; Jon-Boy told me he felt pressured by his inability to work, and by Isabella’s desire to be loved. And then he met Cassandra and he became a changed man.

“Jon-Boy thought of nothing but her. He no longer cared about his talent or his work, or even Isabella. He was a man deeply, tragically, in love with a woman who wasn’t worth it. She drove him crazy and he took it.”

Lorenzo stopped his prowling and came to stand in front of me. Looking down at me, he said, “Of course Cassandra knew about Isabella and she had her out of Jon-Boy’s life so fast the poor girl hardly knew what hit her. Without Jon-Boy knowing, she moved Isabella’s clothes out of his apartment, changed the locks, told her she was no longer wanted and that she should go back to her peasant family in Liguria.

“Cassandra kept guard over Jon-Boy like a pit bull. She allowed no one near him. She fancied herself his muse; she wanted to be the one who would guide his new novel, then present him to society as the world’s most famous writer and her ‘trophy.’

“Isabella called me, begging for my help. Of course I did what I could. I talked with Jon-Boy, but he was like a man in a dream. ‘I love Cassandra, Lorenzo,’ he said to me. ‘There’s nothing I can do about it, except send Isabella some money.’ I was angry with him for treating her like that and told him that sending money would only add insult to injury. Of course, I sent money myself, trying to help her out, and she
was grateful. But what none of us knew was that Isabella was pregnant.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. He came to sit next to me and took my hand in his.

“Lamour, this is what happened that night,” he said. “It will be painful for you to hear, but it’s the truth.” And looking into my eyes, holding tightly on to my hand, he began to tell me.

“The storm had been brewing since morning,” Lorenzo said. “Giant cumulus clouds crowded the sky, like ships under tight sail, scudding before the wind blowing in from the northeast. The sea was sullen, with little whitecaps, nothing important, but still I was uneasy. I told myself it was only October, too early for anything serious. Nico was just seven years old. He was home from school because of an epidemic of measles and I took him down to the cove with me to check on the boats.

“Nico had been a sailor almost since birth, when I held him on my knee at the helm of my old fishing boat as a baby. He was as at home on the ocean as he was on land, and right then his ambition was to be a speedboat racer.

“Down at the jetty, I tightened the lines on the three boats: a twenty-foot Chris-Craft; my fishing boat; and the small yellow tender with the outboard motor my wife used when she went shopping in Pirata or Amalfi.

“I checked the horizon, noting the black line that seemed to divide sea from the sky, and which I knew forecast trouble. Yet how bad could it be this early in the year? I thought about getting some men and beaching the boats but decided to take my chances.

“By afternoon the seas were swelling, great slow surges that slammed powerfully against the cliffs without breaking. The
wind had picked up and was blowing trees sideways, flattening the grasses and shrubs, sending all the small wild creatures scurrying for shelter. But I’d seen it all before and was confident everything was battened down and made secure. I wasn’t too concerned.

“By five o’clock the skies were already dark. I thought about Jon-Boy and how exposed his house was. I didn’t know if he was there, but anyhow, Mifune and I decided we’d better check everything was securely shuttered.

“We found Jon-Boy out on his terrace, admiring the turbulent sky and the surging sea. ‘Hi there,’ he shouted over the wind. ‘Have you ever seen anything like it? It’s like the end of the world is coming.’

“ ‘And it will, if you don’t come inside.’ Cassandra was at the open window. ‘Tell him he’s crazy, Lorenzo, and then come in and have a drink with us.’

“Mifune and I helped Jon-Boy close the shutters, latching them with the iron straps; then Mifune went off to check on the old cedar by the waterfall. The tree was his pride and joy and I knew he was praying it would be spared from the storm.

“Jon-Boy had lit a fire and now he threw on another log, then poured me a glass of wine. Cassandra was sitting on the sofa, smoldering with pent-up anger. Surprisingly, she was all dressed up in the red chiffon gown. I wondered why, because Jon-Boy was in his usual shorts and T-shirt. I assumed she had wanted to look glamorous and sexy for him. She got up to refill her glass and I thought how beautiful she looked. I also noticed that she was a little unsteady on her feet. She was drinking vodka neat and it was obvious this wasn’t her first. I had the uncomfortable feeling they’d been having a fight, and I was right, because then Cassandra started getting on Jon-Boy, goading him about him losing his talent. I decided I’d
better leave, but I now knew we were in for a big storm, and because the little house was so exposed I was worried for their safety. There might be a mudslide or a fallen tree, a broken chimney. Anything might happen.

“ ‘If this storm gets as bad as I now think it will, you’ll be safer staying with us at the Castello,’ I said, but Jon-Boy laughed and said they’d be fine.

“As I walked back up the steps, I was surprised to see a car at the end of the road. I couldn’t see who was driving because it backed up suddenly, made a quick turn, then took off. I thought nothing more about it and walked back up the hill to the Castello.

“When I told Marella about Cassandra, all dressed up in her red gown, drinking too much and needling Jon-Boy about his writing, or lack of it, she said she thought Cassandra was a fool. ‘Jon-Boy’s too in love with her,’ she said. ‘He’s given up a good woman for her and now she wants to turn him into her puppet. She wants to be the muse to the great writer so she can show him off at parties. She thinks nothing of the terrible hurt she’s done to poor Isabella, or to her own husband, the count.’

“I doubted if the count even knew what his wife was up to. Whenever I saw him socially there was never so much as a hint of a rift in his marriage. But Marella said that the fool’s ego was so big he would never stoop to think any woman could cheat on a member of a family as prestigious as the Birattas.

“Dinner was eaten to the accompaniment of the howling of the wind and the rattling of windows. Nico kept on about how we should have beached the boats and I knew my seven-year-old was right. I had to tell him it was too late to do anything about it now.” He smiled ruefully. “But you know Nico: he was never a boy to take no for an answer, especially
from me, and that Chris-Craft was the current love of his heart. He was determined not to let anything happen to her. After dinner he sneaked out of the house. Ten minutes later we discovered he was missing and I knew immediately where he’d gone. I went after him.

“By now the rain was torrential, mixed with hail, hard like nails, driven sideways by the wind so you could hardly see. Lightning lit the horizon and I was terrified thinking of Nico on those slippery
scalatinella
, terrified he would get swept off the jetty by a wave, terrified for my son. . . . And when I got down there, Nico was nowhere in sight.”

He paused and looked at Lamour. “I can’t tell you what went through my mind in those few minutes, looking at the empty jetty with the three boats lurching up and down on the swells, slamming into the pilings, and no sign of my son. A hundred different scenarios played through my brain, each more terrible than the last. . . . And then I heard his voice.

“ ‘Papa, Papa.’ He came running down the steps toward me. ‘Come quickly,’ he yelled. ‘Come quickly, Papa.’

“ ‘What is it?’ I grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘What’s wrong, Nico?’

“ ‘Come, come. Jon-Boy . . .’ He tugged frantically at my arm and I followed him back up the stairs to the Mistress’s House. He’d been there to ask Jon-Boy to help him with the boats, seeing what was happening.

“The door was open, slamming back and forth in the wind, sending the fire in the grate sparking and smoking. Cassandra, looking like a beautiful baleful devil in her red dress, was standing in front of a heavily pregnant Isabella. I had only a moment to think about it, but it seemed to me Isabella looked like a poor little waif, a child herself, soaking wet from the rain, her long hair straggling, and her huge belly . . .

“ ‘Get out of here, you cheap nothing woman,’ Cassandra was screaming at her, going on and on.

“Isabella ignored her. She spoke only to Jon-Boy. ‘I called you,’ she was saying in her sweet, low voice. ‘I left you messages, Jon-Boy. I tried to tell you about the baby. . . . I found where you were living, but they wouldn’t let me in. . . . You didn’t even try to find me; you didn’t want to know me anymore. . . . You didn’t want to know I was carrying your child. But she knew . . . and now I thought you should know, too, despite her. . . .’

“Cassandra slapped her face. Jon-Boy grabbed Cassandra. He hurled her away. He had eyes now only for Isabella. ‘I swear I didn’t know,’ he said. He was desperate. ‘I would never have left you alone. . . .’ He reached out for her.

“From the corner of my eye I saw Cassandra pick up the paper knife from Jon-Boy’s writing table. She hurtled across the room, but I grabbed her before she got to Isabella. ‘She’s lying,’ she screamed. ‘And anyway, Jon-Boy knew all along you were pregnant. He didn’t care. He knew it wasn’t his.’

“I twisted Cassandra’s arm, though it was her neck I really wanted to twist, and the knife dropped to the floor.

“Jon-Boy seemed afraid to take Isabella in his arms and comfort her. He held out his hands tentatively and for a long moment she stared into his face. Searching for what? I wondered. An answer, I suppose. . . . And she didn’t find it.”

Lorenzo turned to Lamour; he took her hand as he said, “I swear to you, Lamour, in that moment I saw that something inside Isabella had snapped. I saw it in her eyes. She grabbed the knife and rushed at Cassandra. I heard Nico yelling in the background and Jon-Boy shouting, ‘No, no.’ He caught the knife by the blade. Blood dripped from his wounded hand.

“For once Cassandra was silent. Isabella looked at the knife
as though she had never seen it before, then at the bleeding Jon-Boy. Her face contorted with pain. She held her hands over her belly and moaned.

“I spotted Mifune hovering in the doorway, saw Nico run to him and Mifune put his arms protectively around him. For seconds all was silent. The wind gusted through the house, sending the smoke curling from the fire. I said, ‘Isabella, let me help you. I’m going to take you to the Castello; we’ll get a doctor. Everything is going to be all right. You and Jon-Boy can talk about this later.’

“She looked at me with those big brown eyes, but I swear it was as though she wasn’t there. Suddenly, filled with a kind of furious energy, she pushed past Mifune, and she was out the door, running down the slippery flights of steps, heading for the cove.

“Jon-Boy ran after her, but Cassandra grabbed his arm and clung to him. He thrust her away. ‘I’ll never forgive you for this,’ he said, and then he was running down the steps after Isabella.

“Cassandra slumped into a chair. Tears ran down her face and she put up a hand to brush them away, leaving traces of Jon-Boy’s blood on her cheek. But I had no time or sympathy for her right then.

“ ‘Mifune, come with me,’ I yelled, heading after Jon-Boy. ‘Nico, you stay here; you’ll be safe now.’ But Nico ran after us, followed us down to the cove.