But the memory did not lessen her emotion. She pounded her fist on the top of the dressing table. “Why, why, why, Carmela? And you, why did you have to die? Why?”
Renata restrained Carlo from going to Serafina. She whispered something to him. The two, brother and sister, stood there unheeding Serafina’s words.
Nothing for it but to lift her head. Her crying subsided. Carlo looked up from his watch and nodded to his sister. Renata tiptoed over to the dressing table and handed Serafina a linen.
She looked at her daughter and smiled.
A knock.
Carlo sprang to open the door.
“Just in time, my sweet Assunta,” Serafina said, her voice thick. “Do something please with this tangled mane of mine.”
Ride to Villa Subiaco
Serafina wished she had not arranged to visit Elisabetta today, but when she discussed the possibility of canceling the trip with her older children, they told her that the drive would do them all good, even in this afternoon’s wet weather. Carlo seemed almost glad to be going, saying, “Good for us to get out, see the country, even in this foul weather. Help our heads.” Strange, even Vicenzu looked forward to the ride. “We’ll stay, Carlo and I, in the stables. I want to see their system of tending to the beasts.”
And Serafina? Except for the day of Giorgio’s sudden death, she couldn’t remember a time when life has been so full of misery. A devastation it was, seeing Gusti’s body, the violated form so unlike the woman bursting with life just a few days ago. So far she, Serafina, had failed Rosa, her oldest, dearest friend, now faced with losing her business, one prostitute at a time.
As the coach made its way to Don Tigro’s estate, a rolling fog crept over the land, shrouding the hills as if they were ghosts. Serafina and Maria sat on one side, facing Renata and Giulia. Vicenzu and Carlo rode outside-Carlo holding the reins, Vicenzu, a shotgun. Enough protection; after all they were on the road to visit the don’s wife. What could happen to them?
Serafina tapped on her bag containing herbs and special drinks for Elisabetta. Her toes were frozen. She felt each rut in the road as the mules strained upward pulling their load. She compared their carriage-old and patched in places-with Rosa’s, and the brisk, cushiony ride they’d had to Palermo last month.
She smeared fog off the window, stared at the dripping almond branches, and tried to imagine how they would look in spring, heavy with blossoms against a backdrop of lush fields. But today, most of the crimson and gold leaves that gave the landscape such mighty color a few weeks ago lay in soaking heaps upon the rocky ground, or hung in ones and twos from twigs, dripping and desolate. Did the soul of Gusti hover over them as she made her solitary way to eternity?
Renata clutched the basket of dolci she’d packed for Elisabetta. “Horrible, the weather,” she said, her face as bleak as the day.
Serafina patted her knee. “You miss your routine, I know you, my sweetest girl. You like to stay at home, cooking our meals. Your kitchen keeps us healthy and together.”
“Not all of us,” Renata said.
“Carmela may be home soon. I feel it. Carlo saw her today. And I begin my plan, but it’s too early to talk about it. Shhh, not a word to-” She pointed upward.
Renata and Giulia shared wide-eyed looks.
Maria pushed up her glasses and, rolling with the movement of the coach, studied a score. “Carmela? She wouldn’t even look at you the other day, Mama. What makes you think she’ll come home?”
“Study your score, precious. Complicated, the ways of the heart.”
They stopped for sheep blocking the way. As they started up again, Serafina said, “Giulia, the day dress Elisabetta wore on Friday when I saw her-the fabric was stunning, but the stitching, not so well finished as ours. Two more years to wear this black.”
Maria said, “Some women wear it all their lives. Others, for six months.”
“How would you know? You’re only eight,” Giulia said. “Some of the widows in Rome don’t wear black at all, not even the first year. The baroness told me.”
“First time we’re wearing colors in public. Doesn’t feel right with Papa not even six months in his grave,” Renata said.
“Nothing feels right to you today, sweetness. But your father would want you to wear colors. You look splendid.”
Serafina took Giulia to Palermo last month to buy the silk for the outfits they wore today. She created dresses for each of them with skirts not too full, trimmed in lace and thin satin ribbon; Renata’s in French blue, Giulia’s in muted green, both gathered slightly at the waist and pulled to the back, giving them a touch of padding. In addition to a loose-fitting dress with long sleeves in midnight blue for Maria, she made a smock for her to wear over it. And when they were buying shoes for the season, the cobbler found a piece of cordovan that Maria fancied, the leather fine and light, large enough to make a pair of boots in her size, but at a cost well over Serafina’s budget.
Giulia noticed the costumes of aristocratic women, especially the wardrobe of Baroness Lanza, a friend ever since Serafina delivered her children. The baroness told Giulia about Worth amp; Bobergh in Paris. ‘Last time I was there, I saw the Empress Eugénie disappear into a fitting room, and now everyone-I mean just everyone-goes to Worth’s.’
Baroness Lanza talked too much, Serafina had told Rosa, filling Giulia’s head with ideas of Paris, telling her about Sarah Bernhardt, ‘that expensive tart who calls herself an actress. The French idolize her. Well, they would.’ All this bother of Bernhardt and Paris and poor Giulia would be doomed. But it wouldn’t hurt for her to see Elisabetta’s French gowns today. She could copy them, perhaps make a dress for Carmela, something remarkable with an indefinite waist.
“Glad I wore my cape today,” Giulia said.
“Me too,” said Renata.
Serafina held out the front of her cape, looking at her gold braids. Just like Maria Sophie’s. Her gloved hand brushed off a piece of lint.
Maria said nothing.
Renata elbowed Giulia. They giggled.
Maria looked at them, frowned, reached up, and knocked on the ceiling. “Carlo, stop this carriage,” she yelled.
Of all her children, Maria surprised Serafina the most. She played Aunt Giuseppina’s piano at two, the marvel of it vivid in Serafina’s memory. The child asked unpredictable questions, had adult responses, and all her life, all she wanted was her piano. So serious, not at all like the rest of the family. For instance, Maria asked Giulia to embroider the bodice of her new dress. “Make gold and silver stars in the night sky: it will help my audience remember me,” she had said. Serafina pictured her youngest daughter at the keyboard, alone, without her or the rest of the family, in a strange part of the world, wearing her midnight blue dress, reaching for the pedals with feet clad in soft cordovan.
The carriage stopped and Carlo opened the door.
“Why aren’t we there yet?” Maria asked.
“You stopped the carriage for that?” he asked. “Who made you the reigning queen?”
They laughed.
“But since you want to know, little sister, the road is not very good today. It’s damp and soft. The wheels dig into the earth more than on a dry day and the mules have a heavy load. In addition, Villa Subiaco is in the mountains and we’re going up a steep hill to reach it. The journey home will be faster.” He made a sled with his hand and drove it downward, whistling to show how fast they’d travel on the return trip.
Maria listened, holding her lower lip with her teeth. She nodded her head while Renata and Giulia snickered.
“What’s so funny? I’m sitting here trying to catch the killer of Rosa’s women,” Serafina pointed at Maria, “and you ask your brother to stop the carriage while you two prickly pears laugh. As if we were watching the clowns at Li Morti.” Her remarks made Renata and Giulia laugh even harder. They slapped their skirts, held their stomachs.