Chapter 45 Loretta
L ORETTA
The pain in Loretta’s fingers is almost too much to bear. She rubs cream into her swollen, misshapen joints. Alberto keeps buying this lavender cream for her from the Rialto. She’s convinced it does nothing to help, but the jar sits on her bedside table so she uses it anyway.
Alberto watches her from his side of the bed, where they’ve come for an afternoon rest. ‘Ezio makes very good dough. Let Rocco bring some back for you next time you want to make pizza. All this kneading is too much for you.’
‘Listen to me, Alberto, don’t ever talk to me about Ezio and his dough again. If I have to hear one more time how good Ezio’s dough is, I swear on Santa Maria, I’ll throw myself off the balcony.’
She knows he’s right. Ezio Tricholli has a reputation throughout Venice for his delicious pizza bases, parbaked overnight and sold at the market every morning.
Loretta’s been making pizza in the restaurant less and less over the last two years as osteoarthritis has ravaged her. But this morning she wanted to show Sophie how she makes it, to share with the readers of her magazine. Now she’s paying the price. She takes a painkiller, then another.
The pain is worse than usual. Is God punishing her for what she did yesterday? Thou shalt not commit adultery. She deserves this pain and more. Regardless, she can’t bring herself to regret it. Those stolen moments with Flavia will be treasured forever. If only the nosy old Americans hadn’t ruined everything.
Loretta was convinced Signore Dawson would tell Alberto or, God forbid, post about it on social media. But it’s been over twenty-four hours since he caught her, and it appears that so far he’s kept quiet.
‘At least let one of the boys do the kneading part for you.’ Alberto pulls her from her thoughts. ‘Your hands are so red.’
Alberto’s right. Rocco and Salvatore are more than capable. It isn’t exactly a fine art.
‘People like it my way.’
‘Why are you this stubborn?’ he complains.
Loretta’s nonna taught her how to knead. One of her earliest memories is of standing on a stool in the kitchen, her hands deep in the warm mixture of flour, yeast, oil and salted water, with Nonna right beside her.
‘I’ve been making dough my whole life,’ she replies. ‘I’m not ready for that part of me to die yet.’
Alberto doesn’t answer. His eyes are closed and he’s breathing deeply. Men! Where are their thoughts when they lie down? Do they even have any?
She puts the lid back on the jar of cream and examines her hands, ugly and weathered. These hands have created food for decades, they’ve nursed and loved two babies. These hands have also loved in other ways, they’ve stroked and teased. They were once beautiful hands, with smooth skin and long lean fingers. Now her wedding rings don’t fit over her inflamed knuckles, so she wears them on a chain instead, along with the pendant of the Madonna and the ruby ring from a long time ago. The ruby is a constant reminder of the life she once lived with Flavia, of the love that once sustained her.
She reads the message on her phone for what feels like the hundredth time today. Each time it’s aroused her more and more.
I’m leaving the rectory tomorrow.
I told them I have a cousin to stay with, but I’m booking into Hotel Mondo.
Come! We have three days before I leave for the Vatican.
Once Flavia leaves, Loretta will go back to being the dutiful wife and mother and hotel owner everyone depends on. Before that, for a precious few days, she’ll let herself experience the love she’s fantasised about for decades.
Careful to move quietly, she leaves the bedroom and walks into the lounge, where the wall unit stands. The antique piece of furniture, fully restored by Alberto, belonged to her great-grandparents. At the back of the second drawer in the wall unit, she finds what she’s looking for: an old cloth-bound album. She sits the album on her lap and takes her time with each page. The black and white photos are faded but the memories are there. Time has done nothing to dim them. She touches each photo, her fingers lingering over them.
How different would her life have been if Flavia hadn’t left? She would never have become a mother, never become Signora Bianchi. She can’t wish away those things. And despite his innate ability to drive her completely crazy simply by breathing, she loves her husband. She could never wish him away from her life either.
‘What are you doing?’ Alberto’s voice makes her jump.
‘I thought you were sleeping,’ she says.
He moves closer and sees the album open to a photo of Flavia, in a fitted paisley shirt and flared jeans, her wavy hair falling to her waist, laughing at something out of view.
‘Ah, Loretta.’ His voice is soft. ‘Why do you sit here and cry instead of resting your eyes?’
She wipes her tears away. ‘I don’t know.’
He gently takes the album from her. She doesn’t resist. Without a word, he puts it back in the drawer. ‘Shall we go for our walk? I’ve had enough sleep.’ He holds his hand out.
She nods and lets him help her off the couch. ‘Stay there,’ he says. ‘I’ll get your things.’
He comes back into the room with her coat and gloves. He walks to her and takes both of her hands in his, lifting them up to his lips, and he plants warm kisses on her sore fingers.
She puts on her gloves, knowing she’ll never deserve him. ‘Let’s go and look at the drowning woman,’ she says.
Together, they stroll to the piazza. Alberto hums as they walk.
‘Is it even worth me arguing with you today about going back to hospital for the surgery you need?’ Loretta asks.
‘Look at this. Is this a man who needs his heart operated on?’ He lets go of her hand, jogs a few steps ahead of her, then jumps off to the side, clicking his heels together. It’s a less than graceful movement and he lands clumsily, but the fact he even managed such a trick at his age impresses her.
‘Idioto.’ She laughs for the first time today.
She keeps her head down as they make their way to Piazza San Marco, avoiding eye contact with the shopkeepers and cafe owners she knows, ignoring the tourists who fill the streets. The only person she’s interested in seeing is the woman in the tank. Magdalena makes her feel understood, like she can see into her soul.
The crowd around the artist is huge today, but when Loretta stands near the pillar on the stairs of the piazza, Magdalena finds her almost instantly and holds her hand up to the glass. The water reaches her chest and her once-white dress is now a filthy grey. Loretta holds her hand up for a few seconds. It’s become their language.
Alberto snorts, bemused, and pulls out a cigarette.
The people around Magdalena are in a frenzy. The piazza is heaving. There are camera crews, and people jostle each other to get closer.
‘Excuse me, do you know what is happening over there?’ Loretta asks a woman standing on the step below her.
‘George and Amal Clooney are here,’ the woman replies. ‘See them, over on the left there?’ She points and then whips her head back around to Loretta, her eyes widening. ‘Wait! Are you Signora Bianchi? Oh my God! ’
‘No, but I get mistaken for her often.’ Loretta’s not in the mood for selfies.
The woman turns back to gawk at the movie stars.
Loretta sees them. They’re standing a short distance away from the tank, with their backs to Magdalena and microphones in their faces. George looks older than he does on the screen and is shorter than she imagined him to be. Amal is staggeringly beautiful. Even from a distance, and dressed casually in jeans and sweaters, the pair exudes star power.
She remembers the euphoria when George and Amal were married in Venice. The buzz in the air is no less now than it was then. Alberto stands on his toes to get a better look at them. Loretta should be excited too – Hollywood is here to bring attention to Venice’s plight.
But she can’t get excited, because there’s an anguished look in Magdalena’s eyes. Even though the chaos around her is the exact thing she set out to achieve, the days of standing for hours on end in the dirty, cold water are clearly taking their toll on her. And she’s only halfway through her performance. Affogando.
Loretta wants to help her. But what can she do? Nothing. So she offers Magdalena support the only way she can, by holding her hand up in the air again. Magdalena does the same and the two women stand apart but together, pretending to touch. Their connection transcends the crowd and the distance between them, transporting Loretta back to when she first saw Magdalena in this very square, twenty years ago.
Already world-famous by then, Magdalena Jansen had left her home in Amsterdam and moved to the northern Italian town of Budrio. That year, she opened a new exhibition in San Marco. The exhibition’s proximity to the basilica was causing all kinds of controversy, considering its theme – confession.
Magdalena had set up a confessional in a small tent in the middle of the piazza. The tent was bare inside apart from two whitewashed wooden chairs facing each other. Magdalena sat on one chair and visitors to the exhibition were invited to enter one at a time to sit on the other. The exhibit was titled ‘The Keeper of Secrets’, the concept being that Magdalena would listen to each person’s confession without handing out any penance in the way Catholic priests did. The idea was that the act of confessing, in and of itself, was enough. Magdalena silently sat on her chair, with a promise to keep the sinful secrets of those who paid the twenty-five euro entry for five minutes alone with her.
Loretta was of course outraged at the blasphemy of it. But she was also fascinated. On a warm June afternoon, when the children were at school – this was before the hotel had a restaurant, when she had more free time – she went to the piazza and waited in line for almost an hour until it was her turn to confess.
She walked into the tent thinking that if she told the artist she still loved Flavia despite having been married to Alberto for fifteen years by then, if she got that off her chest, the guilt might abate, even just a little, enough to finally start feeling settled in the life she’d chosen.
The tent curtain closed behind Loretta, and she and Magdalena were alone. It was warm in there, too warm. A pedestal fan in the corner pushed the hot air around. Magdalena motioned for Loretta to sit, so she did, feeling herself blush. She gave Magdalena a questioning look. ‘Do I start?’ she asked in Italian.
Magdalena smiled without showing her teeth, tilting her head slightly. Her eyes were a deep dark brown and her skin was pale. Her waist-length straight hair had to be dyed white, as she was too young to have greyed naturally back then; she couldn’t have been over twenty-five. She was thin and tall, and her posture was regal, legs crossed at the ankles, hands clasped in her lap. She had on a flowing white dress, her trademark look, which reached the floor. No jewellery. Neither her fingernails nor toenails were painted. A barefaced, barefoot angel, waiting to hear Loretta’s secrets.
So Loretta told her about the woman she loved who ran away to the convent and left her heartbroken. She told her about the arranged marriage to a fun-loving, gentle man who loved her, and the gorgeous twins who filled her days with light. She told her how much she still ached for the nun and how guilty it made her feel.
She watched Magdalena’s face as she spoke, expecting her to react, but her expression didn’t change. Her serene smile stayed fixed. Loretta was both unnerved and encouraged by her silence, and she found herself telling Magdalena things she hadn’t even admitted to herself before.
‘It’s only out of duty that I attend Mass. It tears me up inside every time I have Holy Communion. I’m not worthy of receiving the body of Christ. The eucharist is for those who go to confession, but of course I can’t bring myself to go. Can you imagine me telling a priest any of this?’
Magdalena kept smiling.
Loretta continued. ‘Whenever I enter a church these days there’s a sick churning in my stomach. Church used to be my place of solace, but that’s ruined now. Loving her has ruined everything.’ Her eyes began to sting. ‘And what’s killing me is that no matter how much I love my children and my husband, part of me always dreams of escaping, of going to find her. Of course, I’d never do that. I’d never abandon my family, but I wish I was satisfied with the life I have instead of always pining for another.’ Her voice broke.
A bell rang outside the tent. Loretta’s time with Magdalena was up.
Magdalena’s performance was billed as silent, but just before Loretta exited the tent, Magdalena cleared her throat. ‘Be true to yourself, signora.’ Her voice was soft and clear, her accent foreign.
Loretta turned. ‘What do you mean? What are you suggesting?’
But Magdalena shut her mouth and smiled her serene smile again. A security guard held the door of the tent open for Loretta to step back out into the sun.
Now, all these years later, Magdalena watches Loretta standing in the same piazza, with her husband by her side. Magdalena’s presence in Venice the very same week as Flavia’s return can’t be coincidental. Loretta’s certain it was preordained. This is how it was always meant to be.
Yesterday, Loretta left Flavia in the church in a frantic rush, determined to be back at the hotel before Signore Dawson could get to Alberto. Who knows where her kisses with Flavia would have led to if they hadn’t been interrupted. Would she, the devout Catholic that she is, actually have had sex with a nun in a sacristy of all places? Surely not. But, oh, how the idea of it makes her stomach tighten with pleasure.
George and Amal Clooney have left now. The crowd around Magdalena disperses a little. Alberto cocks his arm for Loretta and together they walk back to the hotel, Alberto singing Etta James’ ‘At Last’ to himself and Loretta dreaming about Flavia.