Standing in the kitchen, Serafina breathed in the fragrance of Renata’s cuisine-oregano, tomato, olive oil, the sweetness of a cooling cassata on the counter. She spied the barrel of olives sitting in the corner beneath dried garlic and parsley. How she’d missed this kitchen. She scooped up a ladle full of olives and offered some to Teo. He declined, walked toward the parlor, stopping to smooth the brochure he’d brought for Maria. She wondered where Vicenzu was. No note from Renata. But of course, they weren’t expected until tomorrow. Fair winds had driven them early to an empty homecoming.
Teo stood in the doorway of the parlor, hesitating for a moment. He breathed in and closed his eyes. Yes, he must wait until she finished the piece.
When the music stopped, he cleared his throat. “I bought this for you from the workroom of Sebastien Erard.”
Maria lifted her face. “I know all about him, the inventor of the double escapement action.”
He held it out, a pamphlet about Erard’s harps and pianos. It had photographs of some of the grand pianos in the collection at the museum with a description and the prices underneath. “One day I shall buy two or three Erard pianos for you. Would you like brown or black?”
Maria smirked. “You’re a boot boy. Where will you get the money to pay for them?”
He ran a tongue around his lips. “We saw them in the Chateau de la Muette.”
“I should have been there. Mama was wrong not to take me to Paris. It has hurt my career. I have been cursed. The wrong parent died and now I’m surrounded by those who don’t care a fig about music.”
Teo said nothing.
“But at least you thought of me.” She smiled.
Teo blushed. His forehead prickled with sweat and he rubbed his hands on his pantaloons.
“Are you going to sit or not? You’re distracting me. And I think I want two browns and one black.”
“We just got home. The ship was faster on the return trip. Only took a day and a half from Marseille. Favorable winds.” He told her that her mother married in Aix, the day before they left for Marseille.
“I heard. That count person?”
He nodded.
“He’s all right, I guess. At least he appreciates my playing. He likes Brahms.”
“The house seems empty. My baby brother’s all right?”
She shrugged. “I guess so, I never go up to the nursery. But sometimes I hear the nurse singing to him. What would you like to hear?”
Teo felt the new stubble on his upper lip. His hands trembled so he shoved them in his pocket. He hoped his voice sounded deep. “Whatever you want to play.”
“Don’t say that. Tell me the name of a piece or give me the name of a composer. Anyone will do.”
“Debussy.”
“I don’t bother with his work.”
“I’m teasing. He’s our age and attends the Paris Conservatory. He played at a party we went to. Three waltzes by Charles Marie Widor.”
She made a face. “Who?”
“The organist at St. Sulpice. And Debussy’s piano was unique. Not as good as yours, but you’d have enjoyed it, I think.”
“I knew Mama should have taken me. I would have played Brahms. They’d have been enchanted.”
“But the audience was French and Brahms is German.” He shouldn’t have said that. He looked at her in alarm.
She didn’t seem to notice. She pushed her spectacles up and tossed her curls.
He saw that Maria’s hair was a bit stringy, but he didn’t say anything. He’d never say anything that would hurt her. Ever. “That’s what I want to hear, the piece you would have played at the salon.”
The opening chords of the Brahms third piano sonata resounded. Then slowly, softly, the piano rumbled distant thunder, and Teo was home.
Serafina turned around and more of her children appeared, Renata, Vicenzu, and Toto. Hugs, kisses, laughter. In a flash, Toto went in search of Teo, something to do with knucklebones. She sniffed the air. Smoke?
Renata hugged her. “Welcome home, Mama. We didn’t think you’d be here until tomorrow,” she began. “I planned a simple meal for this evening and a feast for tomorrow.”
“No matter, let me look at you.”
“And Vicenzu.” But he hung back. “Sorry I’ve been rooting through the rubble.” He wiped his hands, shoved fists into his pocket, his face red, his fear and stiffness filling the room.
Of course. She knew what rubble smelled like, the memory hadn’t left of the fire at La Maternite. Her son smelled of smoking embers.
“What’s this I hear? Assunta told me you were ‘rooting through the rubble,’ her words. Was there a fire?”
“Carmela didn’t tell you? We wired her.” He stopped.
She shook her head and felt her heart pound. “Not a word.”
“Papa’s drugstore burned to the ground. It’s gone, destroyed.”
At first she thought she’d misheard, or perhaps they were joking. Her temples started to pound and the room seemed to shift.
“The whole-”
Vicenzu nodded. “There’s nothing left.” His face reddened.
She didn’t know what to do, what to say, but she felt Vicenzu’s terror and she hugged him. She remembered holding him after he was born and sixteen years later, after the accident that changed his life forever. He told her of the bleating horns, the shouts of fire from the men, the bells ringing in the Duomo, the mules who should have been pulling the water refusing to move. He spoke of watching the flames, the smell of the smoke that still hung in the air.
“It happened so early in the morning. The sound of the bells woke me. By the time I arrived, the store was gone. Now I have nothing to do but search for scraps of paper, something, anything to remind me of Papa. I’m glad he’s dead so he’d never have to see this.”
He began pacing while she cried for the end of Giorgio and his legacy. She raked her mind for images of Giorgio on their wedding night, their honeymoon, remembered him sitting on the chaise and reading his apothecary catalogue. In the end she felt his presence as a young man. She could almost touch him.
“When did it happen?” she asked. About a month ago, he told her. The date? April 29th, a Wednesday, and Carmela lived with the news and didn’t tell her. She was in the midst of the investigation then, she remembered. She pulled the notebook out of her pocket and searched for the date of her encounter with Don Tigro’s men. It was the day before the fire.
“And our finances? Tell me everything, Vicenzu. Don’t hide the truth.”
“We owe nothing. We have a thousand lire in the bank.”
“Cash in the house?”
“About two thousand.”
“Tell me the exact amount.”
He went to the locked box they kept under a stone near the hearth and counted, eighteen hundred and fifty. She emptied her reticule and pockets. They counted five thousand in all, not including the coins and the ten thousand lire note she hadn’t cashed. She suspected there’d be a bonus inside Busacca’s letter, the one she hadn’t opened. More than enough.
“Keep it all in the locked box,” she instructed.
“Not the bank?”
She shook her head. She asked about any large expenses still outstanding and watched him thinking, waited while he looked in the ledger. She reminded him again that she needed the truth.
“Carlo’s tuition for next semester is due in two weeks.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred fifty lire.”
“Pay it now. We’ll decide our next moves tonight. I know who burned the apothecary shop. We must leave this town. We must make a new life.”
“Leave Oltramari?” he asked.
She felt her heart sink and rise again, sticking into the side of her throat. She saw Renata standing in the kitchen wringing a towel. She asked about Carlo. Renata said he might come tomorrow, she wasn’t sure.
“Must we leave?” Renata asked. She wrung her apron.
“I saw in Paris what we’d become in Oltramari. We must wire Carlo. Do that too, would you, Vicenzu?”