The Grey Beginning, page 2
I told him to hold my room, that I’d be back. I left my suitcase. If, against all my expectations, she asked me to stay, I would politely decline. This was not a sentimental journey or an attempt to forge lasting ties. It was a dirty job that had to be done before I could get on with my life.
I made one detour before I left Florence. It had stopped raining, but the skies were still a muddy gray, and in the dull light the building looked more like a prison than a palazzo. It presented a frowning face to the passerby; the stones of the wall were rough-hewn rectangles, the windows on the street level were barred by iron grilles. Hard to imagine anyone actually living there—eating and drinking, sweeping floors, playing…. It was now a bank. I wasn’t tempted to go in. I double-parked for a few minutes, ignoring the infuriated bleats of cars trying to get around me in the narrow street, remembering what Bart had said.
“The palazzo was sold years ago, along with practically everything else that could be turned into cash. If you married me for my money, cara, you made a bad mistake. The only thing my profligate grandfather managed to hang on to was the villa. That’s where I grew up—an innocent little nobleman in the hills of Tuscany.”
And that is where I was going now—to the Villa Morandini in the Tuscan hills where Bart had spent his childhood, to tell his grandmother he was dead.
III
After my pilgrimage to the former Palazzo Morandini I headed out of town. I made several wrong turns, not because Angelo’s directions were faulty, but because I kept finding myself in situations where I couldn’t follow them, blocked into the wrong lane by streaming traffic. It took a long time to get out of the city, whose ancient boundaries had now stretched far out into the valley and up the surrounding hills. The outskirts were as unsightly as those of any American city—rows of drab little houses and cheap shops, industrial areas, garages and warehouses. Even after I passed Fiesole and headed north toward the mountains the view was less than inspiring. Patchy fog blurred the higher peaks, and the slopes were bleak and bare. It was a far cry from the sunny, pastoral landscape described in the guidebooks. No teams of white oxen moving in slow dignity across the plowed fields, no vines spreading green ribbons along the curve of the hills, not even a castle crowning a ridge. Bart had warned me; I remembered his snort of contemptuous laughter when I read one of the more fulsome passages aloud. “Better rid yourself of those romantic illusions. You’ll see more television antennas than medieval towers and more cheap houses than castles.”
The weather matched my state of mind, and my state of mind reflected the weather: gray, all gray, without a ray of light. On the seat beside me was my purse, a brown plastic shoulder bag, shabby and worn like everything else I owned, including my thoughts. Under my raincoat I was wearing the only new outfit I had bought in months—a tailored brown suit whose only virtue was the fact that it didn’t hang as loosely on me as my other clothes. The color was all wrong—not the soft, warm russet that matched my eyes, but a drab, dead gray-brown that stripped the color from my face. It was my grudging version of mourning, my halfhearted concession to what she would consider proper. Unsatisfactory, like most compromises; I might as well have bought black and been done with it.
In my purse was a magic potion that could brighten the clouds, and cast a rosy glow of false serenity over the dullness of my thoughts. I had sworn I wasn’t going to take any more tranquilizers. Better cigarettes than Valium, I told Baldwin. If cigarettes kill me, at least I’ll know I’m dying. I had brought the medication with me, though. If the interview was as painful as I expected, I might succumb. Cheer up, I told myself. It can’t be any worse than you expect. Forewarned is forearmed.
I have a sizable collection of tired old clichés. I should have remembered another one: The worst is yet to come.
When I reached the little village of Sanseverino I stopped to ask directions, as Angelo had suggested. The villa was only a few miles away, but he had not been certain of its precise location. The village was very small. It was the first place I had seen since leaving Florence that resembled my idea of a picturesque Italian town. Small stone houses, a central plaza with a sculptured fountain, now dry except for the drizzling rain—and those inevitable signs of modern life, a red sign admonishing the reader to “bevete Coca-Cola,” and a garage with two gas pumps.
There must have been someone in Sanseverino who spoke English but he wasn’t working at the garage. The young man who filled my gas tank and tried to tell me where I was going was dressed like an American teenager, in tight jeans and a crumpled khaki shirt. A combination of vigorous gestures, sketches on the back of my map, and a miscellaneous assortment of unconnected words finally got the idea across—at least I thought so, until I drove off and he began yelling and waving his arms, pointing in the opposite direction.
That difficulty having been overcome and the village having been left behind, I looked for the side road the young man had mentioned. Tre chilometri past the last house…. I almost missed it. The road hardly looked wide enough for two cars, even Fiats, and the entrance was overhung by an enormous oak. The branches scraped taloned twigs across the top of the car as I made a sharp right turn into the lane.
Trees and shrubs on either side cut off my view, but I could tell I was climbing at a steep angle, with abrupt curves to complicate steering. After a while the road’s surface dropped, with steep banks on either side. Through the tangle of vines and brush I caught occasional glimpses of brick walls, barriers no more impenetrable than the thorny tangle that had almost enveloped them. If these were the walls of the grounds belonging to the villa, the estate was more extensive than I had supposed from Bart’s casual references to the declining family fortunes.
The road was paved, but the surface had deteriorated badly and I was forced to shift down. After a while the steep slope leveled out and the brush on the right-hand side of the road became sparser. The wall was so high I could see nothing above it except clouds and fog, but I thought I must be approaching the entrance. Before long a gatepost emerged from the mist. It was surmounted by a lump of stone that might once have been a sculptured heraldic figure. Beyond it was a pair of ornate wrought-iron gates.
There was enough space in front of the gates for me to pull off the road. The small building beyond them must be the porter’s lodge; half hidden by overgrown rhododendron and the branches of overhanging trees, it resembled the witch’s cottage in a German fairy tale. The witch did not appear to be at home. A graveled drive curved away from the gates and to all intents and purposes disappeared ten feet away; it was closely lined on both sides by the tall, elegant spires of cypresses, alternating with a lower, shrubbier deciduous tree.
I got out of the car. The gates were immovable. They didn’t even creak when I pushed at them. The only visible means of communication with the regions beyond was a rusted button which, when pressed, gave off no sound whatever. I tried yelling. “Hey! Anybody home?” I sounded the horn. I banged on the smaller gate, designed for pedestrians.
There was no response, no sound at all except the drip of water from the branches and the muted chirping of a bird high in one of the cypresses. I got back in the car and lit a cigarette while I considered my next move. I couldn’t go through this again. It was now or never, and I wanted it to be now.
It might be never, though, if the villa was as empty of occupation as it appeared to be. Just because it still belonged to the Morandinis didn’t mean any of the family were in residence. Bart had not mentioned brothers or sisters, cousins, aunts or uncles; my impression was that he and his grandmother were the last of the family. An old woman might not want to stay in such a remote place. She might be in a nursing home or a hospital. That would explain why she had never answered my letters.
I was on the verge of abandoning the quest when I heard someone coming. Footsteps crunched on gravel beyond the point where the drive curved out of sight. The humid, hushed air distorted the sound in a peculiar fashion, suggesting the approach of something extraordinarily large and heavy, a wild animal rather than a human being. Which was nonsense, of course. I got out of the car and went to the gate.
A man came into view between the trees. He was big enough, over six feet tall and built like a fullback—thick-bodied and muscular, with shoulders like matching boulders and a bullet head sitting squarely on them, with no sign of a neck. He wore dark, shabby clothing and a cap pulled down over his forehead; he carried a thick stick, with which he slashed at branches and weeds as he walked. It was not until he came out from under the trees, into the open space beyond the gates, that I could see his features clearly. They only increased the impression of brutal, formidable strength. His nose looked as if it had been broken and improperly set; it sprawled sideways, overshadowing his coarse lips.
When he saw me, the scowl that had darkened his face changed to an expression I liked even less. He tossed the stick aside. I stepped back as he came toward me, his walk now a slow, sensual swagger. His eyes moved from my face to my feet and back again. I didn’t understand what he said. The words might have been in another language than Italian, a harsher, more guttural tongue.
I had prepared a few phrases. “La contessa Morandini—è a casa?”
“Sì.” I knew that word. It was accompanied by the universal affirmative nod and by a grimace that might have been a smile. But instead of moving to open the gate he just stood there staring at me.
I tried again, with phrase number two. “Io desidererei vederla.”
The sentence came out of an old Italian phrase book, and I’m sure my pronunciation was all wrong; but he knew what I wanted. His smile became even more offensive. He shook his head, and his lifted forefinger, slowly from side to side. “No, signorina. La contessa—no. Would you like to see me? Would you like…”
He spoke slowly and simply, as if to a child, using the same words I had used. The only word whose meaning I didn’t know was the verb of the last sentence; but his gesture made it perfectly clear.
Every woman, young or old, homely or pretty, who has lived in a large city for any length of time has heard suggestions of that nature. You never really get used to them. You never get over wishing you could reply by heaving a rock at the appropriate part of the speaker’s anatomy. But you soon learn that an indignant response only invites more of the same, as in an obscene phone call, and you cultivate an appearance, at least, of cold indifference.
I had not expected it here. The man was a servant in the contessa’s employ. What sort of household was this, where the porter felt free to insult his mistress’s visitors? I felt the hot color rising to my cheeks. The man laughed hoarsely and embellished his invitation with graphic gestures.
When he started toward the small side gate, I retreated with more haste than dignity and got into the car. I couldn’t believe he would actually do anything—but he had already behaved in a way I wouldn’t have believed possible, and it was a lonely spot. As I backed out, I saw he was leaning against the gate, convulsed with laughter.
I was so furious and so anxious to get away that I drove blindly on, in the direction in which I’d been going. Another half mile or so brought me to the top of the hill or ridge I had ascended, and, as my temper cooled, I realized I should have gone back the way I came. I had seen no houses or driveways. If this was a private road, leading to a dead end, I would have to turn around.
Before long, however, the road began to descend and a series of tight curves brought me out of the trees. Below lay a valley dotted with houses and farms. It was a through road. I could get directions in the village a few miles ahead.
But I didn’t. As soon as I reached a place where I could turn I went back.
I had to give it one more try. Surely the contessa was unaware of her servant’s behavior. He had said she was there. Was she alone, with only that animal to care for her? I had heard of old people, friendless and neglected, who were victimized by unscrupulous servants. Could that be the case here?
Over the months a picture of Bart’s grandmother had taken shape in my imagination. From his comments about her I got the impression of a dignified aristocrat who commanded his respect as well as his love. She thought of herself as a strict disciplinarian, but as Bart had laughingly admitted, she spoiled him badly. He could always wheedle her out of the punishments she devised.
Another part of my mental picture was created by the word itself. My grandmother had a passion for aerobic dancing and for pizza (the correlation should be obvious), and her hair ranged from bright orange to jet-black, depending on her mood and her hairdresser; yet the Whistlerian image persisted when I thought of the Contessa Morandini. Recent developments had done nothing to dispel that image—a frail, white-haired old woman, swathed in black bombazine and widow’s veils. I could see her sitting in her lonely room, rocking, while the slow, senile tears of old age dripped down on the knitting in her gnarled hands.
As I drove back along the rutted road I could feel it coming over me—the impulse my father described, with awful sarcasm, as “Saint Kathleen’s holy mission of the week.” He was a fine one to criticize, always handing out money to drunks and beggars, bringing home strays, both animal and human, if he thought they looked hungry…. All right, Pa, all right, I thought. But I can’t just leave her there, until I’m sure she’s safe.
I didn’t want to approach the gates again. There must be another entrance. I thought I remembered seeing a gap in the brush, at the point where the wall ended or turned. When I reached it I saw a rough, weedy track leading away from the road, paralleling another section of the wall.
I pulled into the track and parked. It might have been meant for service or farm vehicles, but it hadn’t been used recently; the sections that weren’t covered by weeds were solid mud. It struck off across a stretch of pasture studded with rocks like raisins in a pudding. A sharp wind rattled the dried stalks of last year’s weeds. I slung my purse over my shoulder and put my hands in my pockets. Who brings mittens to sunny Italy? Not me. Apparently yesterday’s lovely weather had been an unseasonable fluke.
I started slogging down the track. Before I had gone far my feet were soaking wet. Over the wall I could see the tops of trees, but there was no sound and no sign of life. I made a right-angle turn, still following the wall, before I found what I wanted—not a gate, but a section where the bricks had crumbled and fallen. They had fallen outward, forming a rough ramp, up which I scrambled.
At first all I could see was a jungle of tangled branches. I made more noise than I would have liked pushing through them, but in a way I was glad to hear some sound except my own breathing. The place felt like a cemetery. When I got out of the trees I found myself in an enclosed space that had once been a formal garden. I had a hard time finding the way out; if there had been paths or walks, they were buried under the sod. The next ex-garden was larger, and just as disheveled. The next—and the next….
I had only the vaguest idea of what the grounds of a big estate were supposed to look like; this wasn’t anything like any of my ideas. There were no sweeping terraces or pools or stretches of lawn, only a maze of enclosed spaces like ceilingless rooms. One had been a topiary garden, its shrubs clipped into the shapes of animals or mythological creatures. They had not been trimmed for a long time. Sometimes it was possible to guess at the original form; the distortions created by new growth made them appear even more monstrous than they had been at first.
At long last I located a gate leading to a space that was comparatively open. The graveled walks were weedy and the shrubs were overgrown, but compared to the jungles I had traversed this area showed signs of recent tending. The shrubs were azaleas and rhododendron; the fresh green of the new leaves pushed impatiently at the old, winter-browned foliage. I started down one of the paths and then froze as a voice cried out in sharp tones. Something whizzed through the air straight at me. Instinctively I put up my hands.
IV
What do you do when you see a big, brown, roughly spherical object hurtling toward you? There is only one sensible answer, especially if you are trespassing. You duck. But if you had two older brothers, both of whom aspired to be quarterbacks, you hear words echoing down the corridors of time—“Get out for that pass, Kathy!”—and you catch the thing.
It was a football. My old instincts had recognized it, even before my hands cradled it. It wasn’t until I actually held it that the full, Alice-in-Wonderland unlikelihood of the event struck me. I sat down with a thud, hugging the ball to my stomach. (“Don’t let go till you hear the whistle, dummy, the other guy’s gonna try and strip the ball….”)
A child emerged from behind a bush and trotted toward me. He could not have been more than ten, and he looked younger. He was trying not to grin, and not succeeding. “That was a hard one! If I saw you were only a girl I would not have throwed it so hard.”
I gaped at him. He wasn’t American, despite that semi-spiral pass. His English was stilted and accented, his clothes not just European but old-style European. The ubiquitous blue jeans have conquered the world; but this youngster wore gray flannel shorts, knee socks, and a gray pullover. He needed to wear brighter colors. His skin was sallow. He was too thin. But that wasn’t why I stared. He had tumbled dark hair, a thin, sensitive mouth—and eyes of pale silver-gray, the pupils theatrically dark against the irises—eyes fringed with lashes so long and thick and black he looked made up.
Bart’s eyes.
His smile faded. “Did I hurt you? You catched it good, for a girl.”
I got my breath back. “It was a hard throw. Wow!”
He squatted down beside me. “You have the good hands,” he said graciously, and then, with sudden anxiety, “It is right? The good hands?”
