CHAPTER 12
"Whoever learns to fish at night no longer fears the dark." —Sicilian proverb
VALENTINA ROSSI
I got to Posillipo on Sunday at nine at night.
I hadn't told anyone the exact time. My father had put me on a domestic flight from Palermo to Naples, and for my part, I hadn't sent Luca a single message asking for a car.
I left the airport, took an ordinary taxi, paid cash, and arrived at the Villa Moretti gatehouse without any escort.
The guard at the gatehouse looked at me for three seconds before he recognized me.
"Signorina Rossi." He spoke into the radio, and I waited. The answer came in twenty seconds. "You can go in."
The cypress drive was dark; the low lamps in the side beds lit only the trunks. The taxi driver looked at me in the rearview mirror with the look of someone who wanted to ask something and gave up halfway.
I paid, got out, and carried my suitcase to the front steps myself. The main door opened before I reached it.
Raffaele.
"Cognatina. You don't let anyone know when you're coming back?"
"I let the gate guard know."
"Thirty seconds before you got here." He took the suitcase from my hand without asking. "My brother is furious. He's been furious for two days."
"What a shame."
He looked at me. That was when he smiled, quickly.
"You came back different."
"I came back the same."
"You didn't." He carried the suitcase through the door. "I've known you for three weeks and I can see it. Careful, bella. You're about to be dangerous in a way this house can't hold."
I didn't answer.
We crossed the salon and went up the west-wing stairs. He stopped at my bedroom door and set the suitcase inside, but didn't come in.
"My brother won't come down tonight." He gave me a sideways look. "Do me a favor: tomorrow, go to him before he comes down to you."
"Why?"
"Because a proud, hurt man is a man who does stupid things. And my brother has been proud and hurt since Friday morning."
"I didn't do anything."
"Cognatina." He sighed. "You disappeared for three days with your father. For any other man, that's a family trip. For Luca, it's a betrayal he's already cataloging."
He just said that and left without closing the door. I stood there with the suitcase at my feet.
A proud, hurt man.
That had warmed something in me, and I hated it.
I didn't go to Luca in the morning.
Out of pride. My own. Because if he was hurt, so was I—and I wasn't going to go up first. I showered and put on black pants, a white blouse, and pinned up my hair.
I went down to the breakfast room at eight. Donna Beatrice was there, supervising the table, with her steel-gray bun and the usual black apron.
"Good morning, signorina."
"Good morning, Donna Beatrice."
"Did you have a good trip?"
"I traveled."
I sat down, and she poured me black coffee, no sugar, and I looked at her.
"May I say something, signorina?"
"You may."
"Signora Varga came back yesterday."
I set the cup down slowly.
"She came back?"
"She came back, and she's staying three days. She asked for the blue room in the east wing."
"Did she ask, or did Don Luca invite her?"
Donna Beatrice looked at me, and her black eyes didn't blink.
"She asked, signorina."
"And Don Luca accepted."
"Don Luca neither accepted nor refused," the housekeeper said plainly. "Signora Varga is a longtime guest of the house. When she wants to stay, she stays."
I smiled for the first time that morning.
"Donna Beatrice. How long have you worked in this house?"
"Thirty-two years."
"So you've known Signora Varga forever?"
"Since she was sixteen."
"What did she first come to this house as?"
The housekeeper hesitated half a second. She brought her hands to her apron and smoothed a crease that wasn't there.
"Signora Varga first came to this house as a secretary, signorina. To Don Luca's father, Don Marco."
"A secretary..."
"For two years."
"And after that?"
"After that, signorina, she became an intimate of the family. Across several generations."
I looked at her, and she looked back at me, but said nothing more.
Across several generations.
Bianca Varga hadn't started with Luca. She'd started with Luca's father. And between the one and the other—across several generations—she must have passed through the family's associates.
Through allied capos. Through padrini. Through Salvatore Rossi.
I smiled at Donna Beatrice.
"Grazie."
"Prego, signorina."
She left the room with her apron impeccable, and I sat holding the coffee cup with both hands.
The housekeeper had thirty-two years in that house. And she had decided, that morning, to choose a side.
I found Bianca in the music room at eleven.
I knew she'd be there—Donna Beatrice had let it slip, with the calculated indifference of someone who'd worked thirty-two years for the family, that Signora Varga liked to read near the piano before lunch.
I went up to the west wing. I took my Calvino out of the suitcase and went down, crossing the east hallway. Then I pushed open the double doors.
Bianca was on the white sofa, legs crossed, reading Vogue Italia. A light-gray dress again, with a glass of sparkling wine on the table beside her, at eleven in the morning on a Monday.
She looked up when I came in, slightly surprised.
"Valentina!"
"Bianca."
"You came back."
"I came back."
"I thought you'd stay longer in Palermo."
"Bianca." I smiled and walked to the piano. Then I set the Calvino on the closed lid. "You used to think a lot of things."
She set the Vogue down.
"Excuse me?"
I sat down on the piano bench. I crossed my legs and looked at her from across the room, with all the calm in the world.
"Did you enjoy the engagement dinner?"
She hesitated half a second.
"Yes."
"I saw you watching my father during dinner."
"You're mistaken, bella."
"I'm not."
"You are."
"Bianca," I said slowly, without raising my voice, "I saw you watching my father. Twice. Once when he came into the room, and again when he left for the library with Acquaviva. Both times you held your breath. I notice these things—five years in a convent teaches you a lot."
She set the glass down very slowly.
"Bella mia."
"Don't call me bella mia, Bianca."
Her voice changed. The soprano with the Roman accent vanished, and the one that came was lower, older, far more tired.
"What do you want?"
"I want to know how long."
"How long what?"
"How long you've been my father's lover."
She looked at me but didn't answer for about ten seconds. When she did, it was almost a whisper:
"Since 2016."
"Seven months after my mother died."
"Sì."
"During your seven years with Luca, too?"
"Yes."
"When did it end?" I kept asking, sensing the vulnerability in her words.
"June."
"June of this year?"
"That's right."
"And do you still see each other?"
Then she went silent. It was the first time in fifteen minutes that she said nothing—she just picked the Vogue up off the table and pretended to leaf through it.
"Why are you asking me this, Valentina?"
"Because I found your letters in my father's office."
Bianca went pale. Truly pale. Her face powder was now a different color from her neck. I saw the small gesture: both her hands gripping the fabric of her dress over her thighs, hard.
"How many?" she asked.
"Twenty-three."
Silence.
I stood up and picked the Calvino up off the piano.
"I'm not going to tell Luca."
She looked at me, surprised.
"Why not?"
"Because I still don't know what I gain by telling."
"Bella…"
"Signora Varga." I smiled, without warmth. "I'm offering you a deal."
"What kind of deal?"
"You tell me everything you know about my father since 2015. Who he saw, what he said, who he drank with. Everything." I walked to the door and stopped in the doorway. "And in exchange, Luca never reads a word of those letters."
She sat frozen on the white sofa, her hands still gripping the dress, not answering.
"Think about it. I'll come back here tomorrow at eleven."
I left.
I crossed the east hallway, feeling my heart beat slowly for the first time in three weeks.