The shutters were closed in the Grand Duke’s apartment, and it was much cooler than outside. After consulting with a Dutch engineer, he had built a number of circular recesses into the floor, which could be packed with ice and covered with iron lids. It was one of his more ingenious initiatives. Before my eyes could properly adjust, though, he was in front of me, and gripping my right hand in both of his.
‘Oh, it’s awful, just awful.’ He peered into my bewildered face. ‘You haven’t heard?’
There had been reports of a catastrophic earthquake in Sicily, he told me. The south-east, in particular, had suffered enormous devastation; whole towns had been razed to the ground. He had no details as yet, but he understood that the death toll was high.
‘It’s where you come from, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Your family are there.’
Objects swam slowly up out of the gloom. A moon-shaped marble table, a porcelain vase. A sprawling lead-grey hunting dog.
‘Yes,’ I said.
The earthquake wasn’t recent, he told me. It had happened some time ago; news had taken a while to filter through. Spanish troops had just arrived in the city, on their way from Messina to Milan. They would have the most up-to-date information. In the meantime, he insisted that I go to the chapel and pray with him.
Later that day, I walked down to the barracks where the Spaniards were billeted, but it was almost sunset before I could find a soldier who could tell me about Siracusa. He was drinking on his own in a tavern by the river. His wife’s family came from Noto, he said, and he confirmed what the Grand Duke had told me. Large sections of my city had been destroyed, and at least three quarters of the population had been killed. As for Noto, it had been flattened. Wiped out. There were no survivors. Augusta and Catania had disappeared too. Of the dead that had been recovered, most had been shovelled into vast holes in the ground. The fear of contagion was such that there had been no time for niceties. Blessings had only been said once the mass graves had been sealed.
‘I don’t suppose you know what happened to my family?’ I said.
I gave him my name, then told him where I was from.
Keeping his eyes on the table, he said that the part of Siracusa where I had grown up had been reduced to rubble.
‘My mother lived there,’ I said. ‘My aunt as well.’
The Spaniard rubbed at his whiskery cheeks with both hands, then shook his head. ‘I didn’t hear anything about them.’
‘And my brother, Jacopo? Any news of him?’
Was my brother was a military type? I nodded. If the Jacopo he was thinking of was the right one, the Spaniard said, he had built himself a villa out of town, on Plemmirio. During the earthquake, the sea had swept inland, annihilating everything in its path. Jacopo, his wife, and his three children were all missing, presumed dead.
‘Three children,’ I murmured.
‘Did your brother have children?’
‘I don’t know.’ I took a gulp of wine. ‘His wife was blonde. Ornella.’
The Spaniard looked at me steadily. ‘Is there anyone else you want to know about?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Nobody else.’
No matter how often I had imagined my return, it had never quite felt real. There had been a silvery, liquid edge to everything I saw, a heightened, almost supernatural quality, as if, deep down, I knew I was picturing a scene that could not occur. At the same time, I felt involved or even implicated in what had taken place: some kind of payment had been exacted on my behalf — some strange, disproportionate revenge …
‘I’m sorry,’ the Spanish soldier said.
‘Did you lose people too?’
He was staring down into his wine. ‘Everyone. Like you.’
It was after midnight. Though I was sure no one had seen me smuggle Faustina through the gate that led to my workshop — we had waited until the guards were off duty — I thought it safest if we sat in the dark. Faustina faced the open door, her bare arm stretched along the back of the chair, her hand dangling.
I had written her a note about the earthquake, and she had offered to come and keep me company. It seemed likely, I told her, that everybody in my family was dead. What I was saying sounded grandiose and hollow; though I was telling the truth, I had the odd feeling that I was exaggerating. Actually, I went on, the news made no sense to me. I had become so accustomed to the idea of never seeing my family again that it was hard to believe anything had changed.
She understood, she said. As a child, she had spent whole days trying to visualize her father. He would scale the village walls under cover of darkness. He would wear outlandish disguises. He would bring her presents from exotic places. His visits would be magical, and utterly compelling. So much so that on the rare occasions when he appeared in person he could never quite compete. It would all seem awkward. Understated. What was different about her story, though, was that she had wanted to see him. Longed to see him.
I rose to my feet and stood in the doorway. Outside the air shifted slowly, but with a kind of determination, like someone turning in a bed. I looked up into the sky. The soft summer darkness. The chalk dust of the stars.
‘Strange, isn’t it,’ I said, ‘how we’ve spent our lives imagining things that other people never even have to think about?’
‘I brought something to show you.’ Faustina reached for her goatskin bag and took out a notebook with a faded red cover. Dating from the years when Mimmo Righetti was her friend, it was a record of all the charms and potions she had invented. She leafed through page after page of spells that had been designed to conjure up her father. ‘None of them worked, of course.’
‘But he came. You told me.’
‘That was just coincidence.’
She turned the page again, and there was the flying spell. She had even drawn the ingredients — the rose-and-silver clove of garlic, the crooked splinters of the spider’s legs, the grey hair discovered by the altar. The book was detailed, conscientious, almost as though she had known she would one day work in an apothecary.
Later, when we were half-sitting, half-lying on the divan, her head against my shoulder, I asked if she had ever seen Mimmo again.
‘Two years ago,’ she said.
Since moving to Florence, she had only returned to the village once, and that was to visit Sabatino Vespi, who still worked the land below Ginevra’s house. One morning, Faustina had emerged from La Cura, the church Ginevra used to attend, and had run straight into her old friend coming up the street.
‘Mimmo! How are you?’ Her delight sounded shallow, artificial, but he had caught her unawares.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you know …’
He steadied himself on his crutches and looked at her, and all she could see in his face was a kind of slow pleasure. His gaze, though direct, made her feel valuable, and she found it far easier to be with him than she had imagined it would be, and suddenly regretted having avoided him for so many years.
‘You’re pretty good on those crutches,’ she said. ‘You almost knocked me over.’
‘Lucky escape.’ He smiled faintly.
‘I think you’re even quicker than I am.’
‘I’m used to them now. It gets sore, though. Under my arms.’
‘Is your leg sore too?’
He glanced down at the place where his leg once was. ‘Not too bad. It sort of aches sometimes.’
‘I’m sorry I never came to see you.’
‘You’re seeing me now.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘You didn’t want to upset yourself. I would have done the same.’