Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
ON THE WAY TO TUSCANY, 14 APRIL 1985
LUCREZIA
The landscape ran away from me through the train window, until night fell and all I could see was my reflection in the glass. I travelled in the dark across the Alps, and it was as if crossing the mountains meant crossing an enormous gate, on the other side of which was Italy.
The sky lightened slowly, and I saw the first dawn in my own country after all these years. The last time I’d been a girl of twelve, driven into Switzerland and away from home – and now I was a woman of twenty-four, returning to Italy.
A woman exhausted, with purple shadows under her eyes, I had to admit as I tried to apply some make-up on the layers of tiredness; I’d been too excited to sleep for more than two, maybe three hours. I bought a coffee from the trolley and sipped it, drinking in the landscape that became more and more familiar, sweeter and sweeter to my eyes and to my heart.
Finally the hills of Tuscany, crested with cypress trees and dotted with stone farms and hamlets, appeared. The beauty and gentleness of the landscape filled me whole and took all weariness away – weariness of the body and of the heart both. It felt like I’d never left… everything was so familiar, everything spoke of home. My flesh was moulded from this soil and my bones carved out of these stones: the hills called my name.
I opened a window and closed my eyes to the wind – the scent of laurel and oregano and juniper, of sunbaked grass and perfumed thickets, filled every receptor of my mind.
I was going home at last. There was no Fosco Falconeri there any more, nobody to bully me and punish me. I was free.
Santa Maria Novella, Florence’s train station, was covered with glass panels that let the sun stream through. Could it be that the sun of home shone more golden than that in Paris?
I stepped outside, my head spinning a little from the lack of sleep and being seated for so long. Just like I’d planned, nobody was there, waiting for me. Bianca knew that I was coming home, but I didn’t tell her when: I needed to be alone to have the time to compose myself. I found a taxi, and my voice was a little shaky when I said to the driver with a hint of a French accent: ‘I’m going to Casalta, please.’
Casalta was both the name of my home and of the tiny village at the foot of the hill. Once upon a time, the owners of Casalta were the local squires. My family were squires no more, of course – but something in the ancient system, when the powerful families ruled the land, had certainly remained. My father and his friends and associates had woven a web of power over the territory.
‘You going to the funeral of the Falconeri boss?’ the taxi driver asked. At the mention of my father’s name, my heart began to gallop. The old reflexes of fear and dread.
Boss . I wasn’t sure I liked that word. But it probably described my father accurately.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, sorry,’ I said, and thankfully the driver let it go.
It occurred to me that my hair wouldn’t go unnoticed in tiny Casalta, that I’d be recognised or mistaken for Bianca. And I wasn’t ready to speak to anyone until I saw my sisters again. So I slipped on my sunglasses and tied my hair back with a silk scarf – it was the best I could do.
There was a little over an hour’s driving between Florence and Casalta – I knew every inch of that road, every street sign, every house we drove past. I asked the driver to leave me at the foot of the hill, right in front of the village; I paid quickly and watched the car disappear, until I was alone. The early morning had turned into the fullness of noon, and the warm spring air enveloped me. I would have liked to make my way through the narrow, winding roads to the square, and see the village I’d left long ago and pictured so many times in my mind.
Was it crazy? I hoped against hope that Vanni would materialise from somewhere… But I had no idea where he was now, what he was doing – he might have moved away, he might have got married. He certainly wouldn’t be here now, by some bizarre, serendipitous coincidence…
My gaze followed the alley in between two rows of houses, to the church steps – where we’d spoken for the first time…
‘Excuse me?’
I jumped out of my skin – I turned around and saw a tall man, his face darkened for a moment, against the glare.
‘You forgot this,’ the taxi driver said, and handed me the leather ticket holder I’d used on the journey.
I almost couldn’t articulate a thank you – really, for a moment I’d thought it was him…
Enough – the lack of sleep and excitement were playing tricks on me – he wasn’t there, he couldn’t be there, he’d likely forgotten all about me, and I had a lot more to worry about.
I reached the orchards and vegetable gardens at the back of the village, where the path that climbed up the hill opened in between chestnut and hazelnut trees.
I’d taken that same path I’d walked so many times in my dreams, up and up the way towards… home . I could almost see the dream-me at every bend, sitting among the wildflowers, lying in the grass to watch the clouds and guess their shapes, stinging my hands on chestnut shells, gathering them to bring to Matilde.
Every step took me closer to home now – I took off my scarf, letting my hair flow free – and my sunglasses, so I could see all the colours. My suitcase felt light, almost weightless – the bends became sharper, until Casalta came into view – I almost ran, my heartbeat and breath fusing with the spring music, birdsong and buzzing of bees – until finally, I was there.
I set my suitcase down.
At last.
‘I’m back,’ I whispered to the dryads on their pillars.
I couldn’t believe I really was here. I really was home, the place I’d dreamed about when I was all alone. The place I’d grown to hate when I realised that nobody was coming to get me and bring me back. I loved it, I loathed it, I longed for it, a combination that pulled and tugged at my heart so violently, it left my head spinning. I couldn’t wait to see my sisters, and yet I wanted to take it all in by myself until I felt a little more composed, a little more myself.
For the first time, I saw Casalta with the eyes of an adult. Now more than ever, I realised what a thing of beauty it was.
The front was all straight lines and harmonic symmetry, in typical Renaissance style with its stone arches over the main entrance and evenly spaced windows. Everything was perfectly geometrical and elegantly arranged in an orderly, constant visual rhythm.
But the house was just like our family had been when I was growing up: perfect on the outside, chaotic behind the scenes. I lifted my bag again and made my way along the perimeter, on the carefully cut grass bordered with shrubbery tended just as carefully, until I reached the gardens.
The villa rested on a natural terrace, but at the back of it the ground crumpled, rising and falling in small hills and ridges, like velvet cloth thrown on a table. Here the remains of a castle built, destroyed and rebuilt in the Middle Ages were still visible: ghost walls had left traces everywhere, in small mounds of stone and marks on the land that seemed natural, but were man-built. A set of stairs with high, uneven stone steps leaned against the back of the house, all the way from the ground to the roof, with a small window opening on the second floor into my room.
It was here that Mum, Bianca and I sat to look at the stars. And just like the stairs rose up along the house, a web of cellars upon cellars opened underneath Casalta; we weren’t allowed there as children, except the main cellars where food and wine were kept, but it was said that a web of tunnels linked the castles in the area and extended to the city of Florence and all the way to the sea.
The gardens followed the uneven shape of the grounds. I stood on top of the flat, rocky steps that led to my mother’s rose garden, which was nestled in a small, round plateau paved with stones. The stone had that unique hue that went from brown to pink in different light and seasons – now it gave out an opaque, restrained glow as if absorbing the sunrays and giving them back alchemically transformed into something dense, almost solid. I sat on a stone bench among the roses. I knew it was just a matter of time until someone spotted me, so I closed my eyes for a second and breathed in this moment alone with my memories before facing whatever was ahead.
I could have opened the French doors to the hall that ran along the length of the house and made my way inside the house from its heart, springing my presence on my sisters like I belonged there, as if I had never left. But I chose a less dramatic entrance. I made my way around to the front again and entered the courtyard slowly, savouring every step, the same way I’d walked a thousand times as a child, running in after playing outside or back from school. I had this little ritual I followed every time I came home – I dipped my fingers in the fountain, its water cool in the winter and warm with sunshine in the spring and summer… And I did it this time too, twelve years after the last time, my fingers now long and with red painted nails, not a child’s chubby hand any more.
The kitchen door was open as always.
Just like I’d imagined, not much had changed. The same old photograph of Padre Pio and the blessed olive branch hung over the door; there was a pot simmering on the stove and carefully cut vegetables wrapped in kitchen towels on the marble slab.
Matilde was there. Her hair was shorter, and she was a little thicker around the middle, an apron tied around her waist as always. It was like a glitch in time, and I was transported back to when a younger me sat at the kitchen table, with Matilde standing at the stove, both waiting for the master of the house to summon me…
Matilde’s voice brought me back to the present, as a young man in boots appeared at the door, carrying a fruit box full of yellow pears.
‘You can leave it there, thank you, Paolo!’ Matilde called, still stirring the pot.
It was then that she saw me. She hesitated for a moment, her eyes wide, wondering, maybe, if I was Bianca, or a product of her imagination. ‘Oh, Signore mio … is it really you? Is it really you… Lulu ?’
Her cool hands, smelling faintly of cut vegetables and hand cream, were on my cheeks. Her eyes filled with tears, and she held me to her, her head coming barely to my chest. ‘Oh, Lucrezia! We’ve all dreamed of this moment! You’ve returned !’
A hairline crack appeared in the wall I’d built around my heart – it was almost a physical sensation – and all the pain wound up in a knot inside me began to unravel.
‘Father is dead,’ I said simply, because after all, it was that that summed it all up.
‘Yes. The funeral is tomorrow. You’ll be able to say goodbye, to be there with your sisters. Oh, Lulu! It’s been so long , bambina mia ! But it doesn’t matter, it’s all in the past. You’re here now! Bianca will be so happy, she missed you so, everyone missed you so…’
If everyone missed me so, then why did nobody try to keep me home? Why did nobody try to defend me and stand up to Father, when he sent me away?
Yes, it did matter, and no, it wasn’t all in the past. Everything that had happened was very much present, in my very soul, in every aspect of my life.
‘You’re bellissima , Lulu! Look at your dress, it’s like you’re an actress out of the TV! But then you were a beautiful child! And your mamma was like a Botticelli, with that hair of hers,’ Matilde said. The mention of my mum threatened to break my barriers, here in this kitchen, in this house, where memories of her were everywhere.
‘Thank you,’ I said in a low voice.
Matilde slipped her hand into mine. ‘I thought of you every day, bambina . But now here you are, this house is free, and you’re back.’
‘It will never be free of the memories…’
‘Ah, but there were so many good ones, Lulu. Before…’
Her voice trailed away.
Before .
‘Are my sisters home?’
‘They are. Come,’ she said, Matilde’s hands going to her wet cheeks, to her hair, to compose herself. She took the apron off, as if I were a visitor to be welcomed formally.
I followed her down the corridor that led to the living room, passing a wall of family portraits, and finally the antique mirror across from the living room door; in the glass I saw a twelve-year-old girl in a pink top and denim shorts, waiting for her dad to take her home…
Breathe. Lucrezia, breathe.
A voice rose, sweet, delicate. I would have recognised it among a million voices. My sister Bianca was there, and suddenly I found my body frozen, incapable of deciding whether to run in and hold her to my heart, or run away. The flood of emotion was drowning me.
Matilde was behind me, and I turned around to see that she was looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to step inside the room.
And I did.
The room was empty, but for a young woman in a blue dress sitting by the window. She had my features, my build, my same hair colour, albeit lighter – it was like being in two places at the same time.
I was blind to everything except her, as if the sun was in my eyes and only she moved against the light.
My twin, my other half.
Bianca, Bianca, Bianca .
My heart howled in longing and abandonment and grief of all those years apart – I just wanted to hold her and feel her close – but the wave of love was too strong, it was drowning me – my frozen heart couldn’t take it without shattering into a million pieces and so I closed it, and swallowed back my tears.
A moment when she raised her face and saw me – a blink, and she was running towards me, her arms open – I stood cold and rigid as she held me – I tried to remain so, distant – I never wanted to be hurt again – but in an instant I was clutching her back, breathing in her scent of roses, her scent of Bianca and of me. Of home.