The House of Serenades (16 page)

Five minutes later three nuns arrived, their faces covered by black veils. One of them unlocked the gate with a rusty skeleton key. Giuseppe nodded, returned to the coach, and opened the door. “Get off,” he ordered.

Caterina obeyed without resistance as from inside the coach a teary Matilda waved her good-bye. Meanwhile, the coachman had unloaded a trunk holding Caterina’s personal belongings and set it inside the gate on the wet ground. Giuseppe placed a hand on Caterina’s shoulder and pushed her past the gate, sitting her on the trunk like a puppet. Then he took an envelope from of his coat pocket and handed it to a nun. The envelope contained banknotes: they were the sum he had agreed to pay so the nuns would keep his daughter. He would send that same amount regularly, once a year. Smiling with satisfaction, without saying a word to Caterina or looking at her in any way, he turned around, walked back to the coach, and got in. The same nun who had opened the gate closed it and locked it with three loud turns of the key.

Seated on the trunk, hair and clothes soaked from the heavy rain, Caterina continued to keep silent. At the moment she saw the coachman regain his seat behind the horses, she was hit by the realization that she was being abandoned in that desperate, solitary corner of the world, where she would die. She ran up to the locked gate, grabbing the posts with both hands. She screamed, “Stop, stop!”

Matilda opened the coach door.

“Do you want to know who? Do you?” Caterina shouted. “Raimondo did it! Do you understand, father? Your son Raimondo did it! My brother!”

Matilda’s eyes widened as shock flooded her face. “What are you saying …” she whispered then said nothing else, muted with disbelief.

Giuseppe looked at Caterina with disgust. “She’s insane,” he murmured. “She must be.” He waved to the coachman, and the horse trotted away.

Upon his return home, Giuseppe informed Raimondo, Umberto, the rest of his relatives, and the servants that Caterina had been transported to a sanatorium in the mountains because she had fallen ill with a lung disease. No family member had witnessed either Caterina’s bedroom reclusion or her departure from home. Raimondo and Umberto were no longer living in the parental home. During that week in particular, both brothers had traveled to Bologna to attend seminars at the university by three luminaries of law. Surprisingly, Eugenia had limited her visits to the
palazzina
to one during those critical days, and it had been easy to divert her attention away from the fact that Caterina, locked in her bedroom, was not at the lunch table. Giuseppe saw no need to tell his relatives the truth, as, in his mind, the less people knew about Caterina’s shameful affair, the safer he was. He restated to Matilda that she should keep the secret or he would disgrace her publicly in a heartbeat.

The servants, however, knew that something wasn’t right. Guglielmo, faithful to Giuseppe as no one else was, pretended not to know, but Viola, the cook, and the chambermaids voiced to each other their disbelief. Lavinia, who had departed in a hurry from the
palazzina
so she wouldn’t be forced to say things that would endanger Caterina more, hadn’t stopped thinking of her. She returned to the
palazzina
one evening, in the dark, using the servants’ entrance in the back of the house, and snuck up to the third floor where she found Viola and the cook in the corridor in their nightgowns. From them, she heard the strange story of Caterina’s reclusion, sudden illness, and admission to some sanatorium in the mountains. She didn’t believe a word of that story and, as she left the
palazzina
that night, swore she would find Caterina and prove to the world that her illness was a lie. The following morning she went looking for Ivano at the bakery.

He was standing in front of the store, dressed in his best suit, ready to go knocking again on the
palazzina’
s door. He was ecstatic to see Lavinia and immediately asked for her help in rejoining him with Caterina.

“It’s more complicated than you think,” Lavinia said. With all the tact she was capable of, she shared with Ivano everything she had heard the night before. Ivano’s reaction to the tale of Caterina’s illness was the same as Lavinia’s and the maids’: disbelief.

“The only way to find out what happened to Caterina is to force her father or her mother to speak,” he said. “I will find a way.”

“Don’t do anything stupid, my boy,” Lavinia said. “I, too, want to find Caterina, but we must act cleverly, not out of passion or rage. I have contacts inside the Berillis’ house that can prove useful for our investigation. I’ll be back in three days and let you know if I have learned anything new. Meanwhile, keep knocking on that door. It’ll be pointless, but at least you’ll distract Mister Berilli and Madame from what I’m doing.”

Promptly, Ivano went to the
palazzina
and knocked. As usual, no one came to the door. The following day, Ivano returned to Corso Solferino with his mandolin and began playing it in front of the Berillis’ gate. He had played for almost an hour when Guglielmo came out.

“Please stop,” he said. “You’re annoying everybody.”

“Good,” Ivano said. “At least I obtained something. You came looking for me and spoke to me instead of hiding behind that door.”

Guglielmo said nothing.

Ivano went on, “Tell your master that I won’t stop playing until he receives me and tells me what he did to Caterina.”

“It will never happen, I’m afraid,” Guglielmo said.

“Then your master will have to keep listening to my mandolin,” Ivano stated, picking up the instrument and plucking away.

Without another word, Guglielmo returned inside, where Giuseppe shouted at him, “How come he’s still playing?”

“He won’t stop, sir,” Guglielmo said calmly, “unless you talk to him.”

“Talk to him? No way! I’ll call the police,” Giuseppe said, infuriated.

“There’s no law, sir,” Guglielmo stated, “forbidding Mister Bo to play his instrument in the street.”

“Aaah!” Giuseppe screamed, cupping his hands on his ears.

Three days went by, during which Ivano kept playing for several hours each day in front of the
palazzina
, driving Giuseppe crazy, but achieving nothing as far as talking to Giuseppe or discovering something new about Caterina.

At the end of the third day, a dejected Lavinia met with Ivano at the bakery. “Nothing,” she said. “I found nothing at all about Caterina.”

That same evening, Giuseppe summoned his wife, his two sons, and his sister to the reading room.

“I have bad news,” he said, holding a letter in his hands. With a broken voice, he informed them that Caterina had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and no one was allowed to visit her as her illness was deadly and highly contagious. “She’s so sick, the doctors tell me, we wouldn’t be able to recognize her. Sad as it may be,” he added, “it’s better if no one even knows where she is and if we forget about her as fast as we can, as there is no chance she could possibly survive.”

There were whispers, shouts, tears. Then Eugenia spoke up. “I want to know where she is. I want to visit her while she’s still breathing.”

Gently, Giuseppe placed an arm across her shoulders. “I understand how you feel, Eugenia.” he said in a soothing voice. “And, believe me, there’s nothing I’d like more than to rush to my daughter’s bedside. But the doctors have spoken. She’s contagious. We can’t see her. In a month or so, maybe.” He turned to everyone in the room. “I promise to keep you informed as to the progress of Caterina’s illness. God help her soul.”

One month passed, with Giuseppe artfully dodging questions and inquiries from family and friends. One day, out of the blue, he gathered the family and announced that Caterina was in the hands of God.

“She’s at peace,” he sobbed, “and no longer suffering. Her coffin will arrive soon.”

The family reacted with incredulity at first, then with wails of anguish, including Matilda, who was stunned by her own ability to fake grief. A short three days after the announcement, a sealed white coffin was delivered at the
palazzina
together with a death certificate signed by a doctor from the clinic where Caterina had supposedly died. No one but Giuseppe knew that the coffin had been provided by Mercantino Barbieri, an eighty-three-year-old drunkard who survived on illicit activities and contraband. The false death certificate, instead, had been prepared in secret, upon Giuseppe’s request, by Doctor Sciaccaluga in exchange for something the doctor had wanted desperately every minute of his adult life.

Damiano was the son of Federico Sciaccaluga, a well-respected family doctor who years earlier had become sick with an incurable liver disease. During the illness Damiano spent long hours at his father’s bedside, staring at the ashen-hued face sunken into the pillow, powerless in front of the unyielding progress the illness seemed to make.

One night, his father told him in his weak, raucous voice, “Close the door, son. I want to talk to you in private.” When he was certain no one could hear him, Federico Sciaccaluga said, “I must tell you things I never told anyone before. They’ll sound odd to you, but I’m sure that with time you’ll understand. Don’t be put off. I did what I did for a good cause and for the good of the people of this town.”

“Father—”

Federico waved his hand. “Let me speak while I still can. You must know that on many occasions I helped young girls with unwanted children. They were mostly poor women, maids, or lavenders, or brothel girls. They came to me asking if I’d please interrupt their pregnancies because they didn’t have the means to provide for a child from birth all the way to his or her working age.”

Damiano held his breath for a moment. Interrupting pregnancies, he knew, could cost a doctor his license in those days. Furthermore, abortion was uncharted territory: its techniques were controversial and unreliable.

Federico noticed his son’s edginess. “Let me explain.” He took Damiano’s hand. “I talked to the girls a great deal about life and death,” Federico went on, “and often persuaded them to deliver their babies and give them to families who wanted children but couldn’t have children of their own. I promised the girls to compensate them handsomely. Sometimes the girls liked the idea of their own child living in loving families and agreed to bring their pregnancies to completion. Some girls did it only for the money, but it didn’t matter to me, because all I cared for was the happiness of people.” A fit of coughing shook his body. He waited a moment. “Where was I? The girls, yes,” he continued. “They delivered in my office, which I closed on those days with excuses of sickness. I kept the newborn under observation for several days to ensure he or she was in good health. When I was certain the newborn would do well without my care, I informed the adoptive parents that their baby was ready to go home.” He stopped, as if to allow his son to digest the revelation.

“What about … documents?” Damiano asked.

Federico took a deep breath. “For every child, I prepared a birth certificate showing the names of the adoptive parents as the birth parents of the child. I registered the certificate with the city authorities and gave a copy of it to the adoptive parents at the time they picked up the baby. I made sure they never saw the real mother and the real mother never saw them, so they’d all preserve anonymity and avoid complications in the future. I charged the adoptive parents a significant sum of money for my services, but kept to myself only the portion that covered my expenses for the delivery and care of the baby. I never kept one lira for myself, you can be sure. I gave most of the money to the mothers, who in most cases were poor and needy.” He paused. “I helped a large number of people in my life—troubled young girls in difficult situations and unhappy couples fulfill their dreams of parenthood.”

Damiano looked at his father in silence. Then he spoke, faltering. “I am stunned. I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything, son. I’m not looking for your approval or absolution. I always felt right doing what I did. It gave me so much joy to see the babies live and join good families who could take care of them and love them and give them support. Every time I helped deliver one of those babies, I felt as if I had been born again. Many a time I told myself, Federico, as long as you keep saving those babies, you’ll never grow old. See, I thought that when I’d die, I wouldn’t be truly dead. I’d be living inside all my babies, growing with them and with their children and the children of their children. Now that my time has come, I’m not afraid. My body will die, but my spirit will live on.” He lowered his eyelids. “If I close my eyes, I can see them all, my babies. I can see them standing like pretty flowers in a field, and every flower is a dream come true.” He opened his eyes. “Do you know what I used to call myself in those days?”

“What?”

“The doctor of dreams.”

Damiano gazed at his father’s gaunt face, painted with the color of death. “What made you decide to tell me this?” he asked. “Why now?”

“So that after my death you’ll think of me the way I truly was,” Federico replied. “And also because I want you to do something for me. There’s a box hidden in my safe. The box contains detailed records of all the child sales: the names of the mothers and occasionally those of the fathers, the sex of the babies, their height and weight at birth, and the names of the couples who bought the babies. I always meant to burn that box. I
should
have burnt that box a long time ago, but I didn’t. I couldn’t find the courage to destroy history, and that was a mistake I regret with all my heart. I never thought of my death as imminent, you see. Now I have only a short time left to live and no longer the strength to leave this bed and do what must be done. I’m asking you to do it on my behalf. Open my safe. You’ll find a cardboard box at the very back of it, kept closed by a string. You can’t miss it. Burn the box. Don’t read its contents. The truth should die with me.” He looked Damiano in the eyes. “Promise me you’ll do what I ask, and I’ll die in peace.”

“I promise, father. Your secret will be safe.”

“God bless you, son,” Federico heaved. “I’ll always be with you.”