‘It worries me seeing you hanging around this well. I told you, I pulled two of them out myself, with my own arms.’
His anxiety showed me I was right on the mark. He wouldn’t let me out of his sight again, not for a moment. My eyes rolling, the pallor increasing as my nails dug into my palms, I stood up, lurching so that he had to hold me up.
‘Don’t worry, Mimmo, it was the sun and the dampness. You were right. Good thing you woke me. Although now … Maybe it would have been a blessing for me to get acute double pneumonia and go to be with God … Thank you, Mimmo. Goodbye.’
Without looking back, I set off toward the convent with an unsteady step, as they say in novels. Behind me I sensed him standing stock-still, frozen by his concern, and I almost felt pity for him. The urge to turn around and run to reassure him was so strong that I staggered for real. Yet this was no time for pity. It was time to act.
13
But acting did not turn out to be as easy as I’d thought. For days and days, masses of clouds raced over the convent like the immense wings of crazed birds, and I was afraid. I went to the well, I stared into its depths, but there too, the cloud masses flapped their dark wings against the slippery walls, only to end up being sucked under by the stagnant water at the bottom. I was shivering with cold. Mimmo was certainly always around now, like a sentinel, and this assured me that his concern was ever vigilant. But he did not approach me again. Surely his apprehension had overcome his relish for chatting with someone, which always did him good. He himself had once told me:
‘Forgive me, Voscenza, if I don’t talk today, princess. It’s just that I’m gripped by thoughts that kill my appetite and my desire to talk.’
And coward that I am, I couldn’t make up my mind to take the leap that would have liberated both him and me. How could I? I didn’t even dare think of those lava walls that slid round and round all the way down to the invisible depths. By day I pounded my head and chest, accusing myself of being cowardly. At night the well’s eye never left me, staring at me from the dark corners of the cell, keeping me awake and clinging to the sheets for fear of falling in. I could never do it. It was hopeless. If only I’d known how to swim! If only Tuzzu had taken me to see the sea and taught me to swim! He said it was easy even for a silly ninny, a scemuzza, like me.
‘First you have to learn to do the dead-man’s float: you just lie on the water like you lie on the grass, on your back, confident, and spread your arms and legs. If you’re not afraid, then the water holds you up just like the earth does now.’
The dark grass parted under the weight of my dead body, dragging me off to slap against the convent’s outer wall, while the sun’s fiery globe succumbed and went smiling into the lava arms of La Certa. The sun was lying: he knew he would never die …
No, I would never have done it if the sign of God’s forgiveness had not come from Sister Costanza’s toothless mouth.
‘God has forgiven you. Here is a suitcase. Gather your things: sweaters, skirts, stockings, a change of sheets and pillowcases, a blanket and all your personal items, including the gold rosary with mother-of-pearl beads that Mother Leonora gave you. Prayer books too, of course, but not the others. You will not have the opportunity to study where you are going, but in return you will have the privilege of learning a skill. You will choose it yourself: seamstress, embroiderer, cook. You will choose among these humble skills that are the only suitable ones for a woman. Studying is a luxury that corrupts, as our Superior from Turin used to say. I have never opened a book that was not a prayer book. And when, God willing, I become the leader of this community, there will be an end to this waste of time and money. In two or three days, when the next coach comes by, you will go to the orphanage in Pietraperzia, which is well known for its strictness and discipline.10 Mother Leonora herself will assume the responsibility of paying the monthly fee. And so that you may be aware of her magnanimity and adopt it as a model, you should know that — provided your conduct improves over the years — you will not have to worry about your future when you come of age and find yourself back in the world. Because she has remembered you in her will. She is very ill.
‘I see that you are not rejoicing at the good news that I have brought you. And that tells me, contrary to what Mother Leonora insisted — she is always too good, much too good to keep a firm hold on the reins of this convent — that the isolation of these past months was not enough to take you down a peg or two and make you realize how many sins of pride you have committed during these years. Not to mention other sins I don’t know about and don’t want to know about. It was of no use at all. We, the older ones, have never been wrong: our decision was the right one. Where you are going you will learn humility and abnegation, the only disciplines that can lead to the soul’s salvation. We elders thought only of this: saving your soul.
‘Goodbye for now, Modesta. We will say our farewells properly before you leave this house. You have been granted permission to bid us all adieu in a formal ceremony. First, so that your departure may be impressed more deeply in your mind, and then to provide an example to the other young women, so that they may know what is lost by being sinfully arrogant. Have you nothing to say?’
‘Will Mother Leonora be there? Will I…’
‘No.’
And with that she vanished, the door closing behind her, burying the one faint hope that had appeared in that avalanche of words. If I could only see her! She couldn’t be so uncaring toward me if she had remembered me in her will. I had to see her! I had to die to see her again: there was no other way. Or had I been dreaming? No, the suitcase lying on the bed was real, and it was filling up with small dark creatures: bedbugs. I knew all about bedbugs. Soon they would infest the white walls and drive me out. Without realizing it, I found myself clinging to the bars of the window. Fortunately, the sun was still high.
If the sun was out, Mimmo had to be out there too. Rigid with apprehension, Mimmo would be in his place keeping watch … There he was, among the trees. He must have spotted me, because with a little leap he went and hid behind a bigger trunk. I ran, so I wouldn’t get cold feet, and tried not to think about the well’s gaping mouth. Sister Costanza’s voice spurred me on: ‘No books where you’re going … they won’t be of any use where you’re going … you’ll learn a skill … humility…’
My sweaty hands slipped on the polished stone. Twice I fell to the ground and got back up, but eventually I was standing on the brink. So Mimmo could see me clearly … And maybe because I had run so hard, or because Sister Costanza’s voice echoing in my head made me lose my balance, or because the edge of the well was smooth and slippery, I slid down without even having to summon the courage I had so anxiously sought for so long.
14
I’d like to tell you how it felt to plunge into that dark bottomless pit but I can’t, because for the first and last time in my life I fainted — for real, not on purpose as I had always done. So neither you nor I will ever know anything about it. What I learned was that Mimmo saved me. And that while I wasn’t hurt, except for some scrapes and a few small cuts on my face and legs, Mimmo broke his arm. I was a bit remorseful, but since he went around telling anyone who pitied him, ‘It’s nothing! Nothing serious. A broken arm can be reset, but there’s no way to recall a soul once it leaves a body!’, if he’s happy, I’m happy.
As for me, lying between the lily-white sheets of my reclaimed bed, with my eyes closed so no one could see my joy, I was happier than God Himself in His paradise, as they say.11 I listened to Mother Leonora’s voice as she spoke, though it was not her earlier voice. Her voice had faded a little, as though worn out. Nevertheless, it was still her voice, at last. She said that everyone in the convent was moved — about time! — and that even though I had fallen into mortal sin by attempting to take my own life, there was no denying that it was also a sign: that I should remain there, with them, within those walls. Together we would pray to cleanse ourselves (what an ugly word, I thought) of this sin as well. If she kept me there and let me study like before, I would gladly pray. Night and day I would pray, and I would truly repent my naivety and imprudence.