The House of Serenades (37 page)

“Not Caterina,” Ivano said with confidence. “She’s different. I don’t believe her capable of sending me to jail. She loves me, this I know. I’d never send to jail someone I love, no matter what that person did.”

“That’s you, Ivano,” Corrado refuted. “She’s a woman. One never knows what crosses women’s minds. They’re unpredictable, capricious. Believe me, it’s better if you keep quiet. She’ll get tired of searching and she’ll marry you. Take her out to nice places, restaurants, theaters. Buy her a beautiful engagement ring. You can use my savings for that. The ring will be my wedding present. Engagement rings have a great effect on women, so you know. I remember how your mother reacted when I slipped a ruby engagement ring on her finger. She coughed, her cheeks turned redder than peppers, and she couldn’t speak a word for several minutes. She tripped on the hem of her clothes, she was so excited. Besides, Caterina is alone now. She has no one to love but you. Women can’t live without love.”

Ivano said, “I don’t know if I can spend the rest of my life with this secret standing between Caterina and me. I’ll have to look her in the eyes for many years to come, knowing that I’m a liar and that when she asked me for help, I let her down.” He paused, meditated a moment. “After I helped her escape from the convent, I explained to her that her father had staged her funeral. She didn’t believe me, so I said, ‘I would never, ever lie to you, especially on a matter of this magnitude.’ How can I lie to her now? And what if she finds out the truth on her own? Then I’ll lose her for sure.”

“You heard my opinion, son,” Corrado stated. “You acted wrongly in the past, but this is no reason for you to ruin your entire life. Forget what you did and make Caterina your bride.”

“She said she doesn’t want to be my bride unless she knows the name of the anonymous writer,” Ivano moaned.

“I don’t think she’ll insist on that much longer,” Corrado consoled him. “Not for the father she had. It’d be different if her father’s figure were still intact, but with everything that surfaced about him and with what he did to her, why would she be eager to find out more?”

Ivano thanked his father for his thoughtful help and went back to sleep. In the morning, he went to work as usual, his father’s words ringing in his ears:
She has no one to love but you … Buy her a beautiful engagement ring
… He urged himself to listen to those words, but deep inside he had this feeling that Caterina could see through him and sooner or later would understand. She already knew he had been a suspect. How long would it take her to put the facts together? Besides, he had faith in Caterina and the depth of her love.

“She’ll get over it,” he said, “if she truly loves me.”

By noon, he had made up his mind. He left the bakery and rushed to the
palazzina
, where he told Guglielmo he wished to see Miss Berilli at once. Guglielmo admitted him to the blue parlor and went looking for his mistress.

Caterina arrived shortly, wearing an elegant low-necked dress of white muslin.

“Ivano!” she exclaimed. “It so good to see you.” She approached him, her arms stretched towards him.

He took her hands in his. “Caterina, I must talk to you,” he said in a decisive voice. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth yesterday, when you asked me to help you find the man who wrote the threatening letters to your father. I came here today to correct that and ask for your forgiveness and understanding.”

She looked at Ivano quizzically, retracting her hands and stepping away from him. She spoke in a feeble voice, almost a whisper. “You didn’t tell me the truth? What is the truth, Ivano? I want to know.”

In the ten minutes that followed, he told her everything he had done. He explained how no one had believed him when he kept telling that she was alive. He told her about the threatening letters he had written with his left hand so as not to be recognized, about Clotilde Pereira, her black-magic tricks, and the meaning of the dead cat on the door.

“I did what I did,” he said, “because I was angry, frustrated, and desperate. I would have never done any of this had your parents behaved in a different way.” He caught his breath. “Now you know everything. There are no secrets between us anymore.”

Caterina, who had sat through Ivano’s confession in glacial silence, looked at him with mad eyes. “You!” she screamed with her finger pointed at his chest. “It was you! Liar! Murderer! You killed my father! And my mother! And all of us! Guglielmo! Guglielmo!”

When Guglielmo arrived, Caterina ordered him to take Ivano from the parlor and out of the house and to never, ever allow him on the premises again.

“I won’t tell the police what you did,” she told Ivano in the coldest tone of voice he had ever heard, “but from now on, you should forget I exist.”

“Caterina!” Ivano cried out as Guglielmo pushed him towards the door. “I did it for you, don’t you understand? Your father drove me crazy! It wasn’t my fault. It was his!”

Caterina shouted, “You killed a cat and hung it on our door! You’re sick! You’re horrible!”

“The cat was already dead!” Ivano shouted back as Guglielmo closed the door on him. “I didn’t kill it! It was bleeding when I found it! I would never hurt an animal! I wouldn’t hurt a fly! Caterina! Caterina!”

18

SHOCKED BY THE REALITY THAT the man she had loved and had been about to marry was also the man who had threatened her father, almost incapable of associating the man who had kissed her and caressed her and loved her so warmly with the hateful figure who had hung a dead cat on her door, shattered by the realization that she had lost everyone and everything she had ever cared for since the day she had been born, Caterina began a life in many aspects similar to the one she had lived in the convent of the Sorelle Addolorate. She entertained no visitors, she talked to no one. The only people she saw, her only companions, were Viola and Guglielmo, who acted like bastions between her and the outside world. Ivano made all sorts of attempts to breach the bastions, convinced that all he had to do for Caterina to forgive him was to meet with her again, talk to her, and explain once more his reasons. He spoke to Guglielmo and Viola every day, telling them how much he loved their mistress and how much their mistress needed him, and didn’t they remember it was because of his company that Miss Berilli had come out of her state of trance after Madame had committed suicide.

“Please let me in,” he begged. “I know she still loves me. She’s angry at me for something I did, and I want to ask her to forgive me. I know how to talk to her, how to make her feel better. I can help her in her distress. She has no one in this world but me.”

Viola and Guglielmo were puzzled. They didn’t know the reason for their mistress’s anger and couldn’t understand how the feelings of such a beautiful, kind, gentle young lady could go from love to hate in such a short time. They often wondered what the conversation in the blue parlor had been about, but never dared to ask. After many years in their profession, they knew better than to intrude in their employer’s affairs. They believed that Ivano was sincerely in love with Caterina and made therefore several attempts to persuade their mistress to receive him. Caterina, however, was immovable. She refused to see Ivano and had nothing else to say.

Baffled, Ivano turned to Father Camillo. “Please help me,” he begged. “I am so in love with Caterina, and she is ignoring me. Could you talk to her? Convince her that I’m worthy of her love?”

Father Camillo said, “I will intercede with Miss Berilli on your behalf only if you tell me why she’s so angry at you. I must know the whole truth before I become involved in your personal trouble.”

“I’ll tell you, Father,” Ivano said, “but under confession.”

Nodding, Father Camillo showed Ivano to a confessional. Ivano kneeled and began his tale. When he had finished, Father Camillo murmured through the grating, “I hope God in his benevolence will be willing to help you, son. I can’t, because your actions caused a death.”

Having seen all his chances to be admitted to Caterina’s presence fade, one night Ivano picked up his mandolin. He walked uphill to the
belvedere
and stood on a bench that allowed him a perfect view of the
palazzina
across the street. He began plucking the strings gently, with feathery touches, letting the intensity gradually increase. Soon, he was sustaining the notes of his songs for long periods of time by executing a perfect rapid tremolando with the heart-shaped plectrum. He sang with his best voice ever, clear, velvety, and flawless.

In her bedroom, Caterina was seated at the dressing table, looking into the mirror and braiding her long hair for the night when the first notes of the mandolin broke the silence that reigned inside the
palazzina
. She didn’t pay attention to those sounds at first, because she perceived them unconsciously, almost as a natural accompaniment to the precise movements of her fingers on the three strands of hair. It was only after she had threaded the braid’s last loop and tied a satin ribbon around it that she became aware of the mandolin notes and the melodious voice that sang along. At once, she knew it was Ivano playing, and for a short moment her mind drifted back to the past, the afternoons in the oven room, their first encounter. Then she cleared her throat and looked for her nightgown, determined to go to sleep and ignore the music altogether. Her curiosity, however, was aroused. Where was he? Why was he playing? On tiptoe, she left the bedroom, whose windows looked east and didn’t allow her a view of the street. She reached the top of the staircase and walked down. Guglielmo met her in the foyer.

“Mister Bo’s music is wonderful,” Gugliemo said, hoping to convince Caterina to accept the musical homage and let the young man back in her life. “Miss, wouldn’t you go with me to the garden? So we can hear him better. These songs, I’m certain, are for you.”

To Guglielmo’s soothing voice, Caterina approached the front door. For an instant she was moved by the music’s romantic melody and let her heart float with the pitch of the notes. The thoughts of her dead mother and dismembered family, however, brought her back to earth.

“Lock all doors and windows,” she ordered. Then she returned to her bedroom and went to sleep.

Ivano serenaded Caterina through the night. He left Corso Solferino when the silhouettes of the houses began to surface from the darkness under the first light of dawn.

“I’ve gone through worse moments in my quest for Caterina,” he said aloud as he walked downhill towards his home, exhausted from the many hours spent standing and singing. “It’s only a matter of time before she forgives me. My music will melt the cold in her heart, I know.”

From that day on, Ivano spent his days at the bakery and his evenings serenading the woman he loved. He arrived at the
belvedere
in the fading light of dusk and stood on a bench facing the
palazzina
. Mandolin held by a neck strap, he played and sang until the church bells rang midnight. Then he went home and slept till dawn, when he awoke and joined his father at the bakery. He worked diligently all day long, alternating between serving customers and baking in the oven room. Finished, he cleaned up, wore his best suit, and returned to the
belvedere
for another night of playing and singing. Not once did Caterina open her windows. Not once did she acknowledge Ivano’s presence or the beauty of his madrigals. Her days passed in repetitive, joyless occupations: she entertained charity officials, read books in the blue parlor, ate, bathed, undressed, and went to sleep, as if the sounds of Ivano’s mandolin were the fruit of her imagination.

For his part, Ivano wasn’t in the least discouraged by the indifference Caterina showed towards his music. His father’s words continued to echo in his mind:
She has no one to love but you … Women can’t live without love …

“She’ll forgive me for what I did, someday,” he told the curious who stopped by the bench to listen to his music. “On that day she’ll open her windows and fly out into the night, dressed like a bride.”

“What did you do that made her so angry?” a passerby asked.

Ivano sighed. “I acted badly in the name of our love.”

Night after night Ivano sang under the windows of the
palazzina
. By the time a month had passed, his serenades on Corso Solferino had become famous throughout the town and beyond. Their fame climbed the mountains and spread across the plains, reaching as far as Milan, Turin, and even Bologna when the newspapers began reporting on the stubborn man who sang every night for his lost love. The Genoese walked nightly up the hills to the
belvedere
and sat around him in awe of his warm, passionate voice. Mothers brought their children to be lulled by the notes of the mandolin and turned Ivano’s music into nursery songs and lullabies. Music lovers came to listen to his compositions and learn the art that made his serenades so moving. When the spectators became too numerous to find space on the benches, they brought their own chairs, filling the
belvedere
with rows of seats, like the floor of an open-air theater. Sometimes rain fell, and with all the umbrellas open, the
belvedere
resembled a crowded mushroom field. Soon, the Genoese began referring to Ivano as
l’uomo innamorato
, the enamored man, and the Berillis’ home was given a second nickname:
Villa Serenata
, the House of Serenades.

One evening a group of professional musicians joined the spectators and had long discussions with each other over the serenades’ style. Some saw in Ivano’s music the influence of Debussy whereas others saw in his melodies the romance of the
Notturni
by Chopin. In any case, they all marveled at the fact that a young man with no formal musical training could sing with such perfect pitch and have such enticing warmth in his voice. They were so struck by the beauty of the melodies and the lyrics’ poetic structure that they came to consider Ivano’s serenades a musical phenomenon worthy of being transmitted to posterity. They sat at the
belvedere
night after night, transcribing the music in pages and pages of scores and the lyrics in carefully catalogued
libretti
, which they would later archive at the Civico Istituto di Musica Nicolo’ Paganini in three thick leather-bound volumes titled
Suoni D’Amore
, Sounds of Love.