Rosa stopped. “How do you know that?”
Serafina gestured to her temple with a forefinger. “Couldn’t sleep one night. Conjured the truth from the facts, the many times I’d run into the ragpicker and his cart when he tried to shoot me or had an altercation in town or wounded my son on the road.”
Rosa and Carmela looked at each other and shook their heads.
Serafina said, “Lola, the actress. She costumed herself as a monk, as a mourner, as a ragpicker, shifting her shape to suit her situation.”
Serafina saw Arcangelo untying the mule. “All right, Arcangelo, we can’t stand to see the beast suffer any longer, either. Take him now to our stable.”
• • •
By the time Serafina and the madam reached Villa Rosa, it was after midnight. Mist rose from the sea.
“Not in her room, Rosalia,” Rosa said. They checked with the laundress and the cook, the upstairs maids, the downstairs maids.
They spoke with the other prostitutes, those who were free.
“Haven’t seen her all evening,” one of the women said.
In Scarpo’s absence, Rosa and Serafina went outside to speak with one of the guards. No sound, except for the waves and the wind.
“And you say she just disappeared?” Serafina asked.
A torch lit his face. He nodded. “Late morning it was. Out the front door she goes, the girl, all dressed up. Takes a side path, doubles back along the grass and down to the rocks. We follow, Orazio and I, sneaking so she doesn’t see. Scrambles down the rocks, she does. Walks on the shore a ways and, presto, disappears into a hole between two big rocks. So we wait for her to come out.”
“And you didn’t follow her inside?”
“Never. We don’t go inside nowheres. Work only the outside. Orders. So we wait. Hasn’t come out, the girl. Take turns, we do, keeping a safe watch. Orazio, he’s there now.”
“Did you see anyone else?”
The guard shook his head. “Only a beggar with his mule tripping on the rocks near the old house sitting high overhead. Late this afternoon it was.”
“A beggar?” Serafina asked.
The guard said, “Cart worn, mule, too.”
Serafina turned to the madam. “We can’t navigate those rocks tonight. Tomorrow morning’s soon enough, after I search the rooms of the two prostitutes. In the meantime, the guards should continue watching the cove.”
• • •
Wednesday, November 7, 1866
So peaceful here, as if nothing had happened, Serafina thought, riding up the next day through the length of Rosa’s park. The sun streamed through palm fronds. Men cut and raked and readied the earth for the winter. Beppe took Largo’s reins, helped Serafina down.
• • •
“I’d like to see Lola’s room,” Serafina said.
Serafina followed the madam to the second level. Rosa unlocked the first door to the right of the staircase.
“Stuffy in here,” Rosa said, lifting the sash and opening the shutters. Sunlight and a sea breeze flooded the room.
Serafina prowled around the room, large and rococo, similar to Bella’s, but without the sewing machine. Decorated in blues and greens, somehow soft but at the same time opulent, not what she expected to see. “So neat.”
“Surprised?” Rosa asked.
“Everything about Lola surprises me.”
Serafina lifted the spread. No bedding. She felt the cold grip her stomach.
Serafina walked around, opening desk drawers. Empty. One was stuck.
She opened the closets. They were filled with dresses, neatly arranged, matching shoes and bags underneath. In the bureau drawers her personal linen was folded and well-ordered.
Lifting the chair cushion, Serafina felt with her hands for anything, a scrap of paper, a note or letter. Nothing.
Returning to the desk, she pried the stuck drawer. Wedged in the back between the desk and the wall, was a leather-bound book. Serafina riffled the blank pages until she came to one with writing-scribbles, really. The hand was small and cramped, the pages scrawled with words that made no sense. Like Lola.
While the madam sat fanning herself with a linen and staring into space, Serafina lifted the bedspread, peered underneath the bed, and saw a box. She tried to pull it toward her, but it wouldn’t move. “Help me with this will you?”
They pulled together, she and the madam. At first it wouldn’t move. The box seemed to be packed with iron.
But slowly the box began to move. They slid it out from under the bed.
Rosa opened the box. “Gold!” She began to count, but shrugged.
“We’ll carry it to your desk,” Serafina said.
“Leave it. A job for Scarpo.”
Serafina held her lower lip. “This room tells me nothing. Difficult to understand how a person can inhabit a space and not leave it impressed with her presence.”
“Which presence? Many people, our Lola. Sometimes a strega, sometimes a lost soul, a snake, a clown, a friend, a killer. My enemy.”
• • •
Serafina sat in the office, watching Rosa count her coins when there was a knock.
“We’ve found Rosalia,” Scarpo said. “You’d better come. Easiest way is by mule.”
The sea wind blew up sand in swirls. It stung her face as Serafina, her skirt tucked beneath her, swayed on the back of a mule, led by a guard. The group moved slowly, picking their way down the face of steep rocks.
Ahead Scarpo led the madam, astride another beast. Three guards followed them carrying torches, pulling a mule and cart.
Outside, waves crashed the shore, their cadenced sound unceasing. The wind continued its howl.
By the light of the torch Serafina saw Rosa, a linen to her nose, shaking her head.
Rosalia lay on the ground near a heap of clothes. The dead prostitute was fully clothed for the evening, a knife stuck in her heart, her face cold to the touch, the mark of the serpent on her forehead.
In Prison
Thursday, November 8, 1866
Serafina wound down the stairwell leading to the dungeon’s lower level, her toes like yellow pods stuck into cold earth. The flame on her torch fouled the air. Moisture tightened her curls, seeped into her armpits. A dark form scurried past, perhaps the shade of some dead innocent, here to exact its revenge.
As she entered the visitors’ room, Lola, shackled, stared ahead. Her lips were cracked, her nails bleeding, her clothes rent. Serafina smelled a strong, ferrous stench. She handed her torch to a guard and sat.
“There,” one of the keepers barked to the inmate, indicating the stool opposite Serafina. Lola seemed not to comprehend, but stood motionless, until he pawed the prisoner’s shoulders, forcing her to sit. Then, as if waking from a dream, Lola’s eyes began to focus. “Good of you to visit,” she said.
“Brought cigarettes.” Serafina set them on the table in front of Lola.
“Here, none of that,” a guard said, reaching for the box.
“It’s all right. The inspector gave permission.”
The guard opened the box and examined the cigarettes. He looked at his companion who shrugged and flipped them back on the table.
Without removing her gaze from Serafina, Lola grabbed a cigarette, struck a match, and breathed in the weed. When she exhaled, yellow smoke encircled her, catching the light from the wall torches.
Serafina waited for Lola to finish the cigarette. She looks like a violated Madonna, chipped, spent.
Lola greedily sucked in and puffed out. Crushing the ember, she reached for another. Several more minutes passed in silence while the room filled with smoke. One guard shuffled his feet.