Remembrance Read online

  “I will write to you, Serena. I promise. Every day. And when Italy is a nice place again, you will come back here and live with me. I promise you that, my darling. I promise.…”In spite of her strength the principessa had choked on the last words as she held Serena close to her, this last bit of her own flesh, this last link she had to her firstborn. She would have no one now when Serena went away. But there was no choice. It was too dangerous for the child to stay. Three times in the last two months the soldiers in the Piazza San Marco had accosted Serena. Even in plain, ugly clothes, the child was too beautiful, too tall, too womanly, even at fourteen. The last one had followed her home from school and grabbed her roughly by the arms and kissed her, pressed against a wall, his body crushed against hers. One of the servants had seen them there, Serena panting and frightened, wide eyed with terror yet silent, afraid that this time they would take her, or her grandmother, away. She had been terrified of the soldiers' faces and their laughter and their eyes. And the older woman knew each day that there was danger for Serena, that letting her out of the house at all was dangerous for the child. There was no way to control the soldiers, no way to protect Serena from the madness that seemed to run wild. Any day a nightmare could befall them, and before it happened Alicia di San Tibaldo knew that she had to save the child. It had taken several weeks to find the solution, but when the bishop quietly suggested it to her, she knew that she had no choice. Quietly, that night, after dinner, she had told Serena about the plan. The child had cried at first, and begged her, pleaded not to send her away, and surely not so far away as that. She could go to the farm in Umbria, she could hide there, she could cut off her hair, wear ugly dresses, she could work in the fields … she could do anything, but please, Norma … please.… Her heart-wrenching sobs were to no avail. To let her stay in Italy was to destroy her, was to risk her daily, to walk a constant tightrope, knowing that she could be killed, or hurt or raped. The only thing left for her grandmother to do for her was to send her away, until the end of the war. And they both knew, as they stood inside the Swiss border, that it could be for a very long time.

  “You will be back soon, Serena. And I will be here, my darling. No matter what.” She prayed that she wasn't lying as rivers of tears flowed from the young girl's eyes, and the slender shoulders shook in her hands.

  “Me lo prometti?” Do you promise me? She could barely choke out the words.

  The old woman nodded silently and kissed Serena one last time, and then, nodding to the two women and the nuns, she stepped gracefully backward and the nuns put their arms around Serena and began to lead her away. She would walk for several miles that night to their convent. The next day they would take her with a group of other children to their sister house by bus some hundred miles away. From there she would be passed on to another group and eventually taken out of Switzerland. Their goal was London, and from there, the States. It would be a long and difficult journey, and there was always the danger of a bombing in London, or at sea. The route that Alicia had chosen for her grandchild was one of possible danger and an even greater chance for safety and survival. To stay in Italy would have meant certain disaster, in one way or another, and she would have died before she would have let them touch Serena. She owed Graziella and Umberto that much, after what Sergio had done. She had no one now, except Serena … a tiny speck of dark brown, her pale gold hair shoved into a dark knitted hat … as they reached the last knoll and then turned, with a last wave from Serena, and then they disappeared.

  For Serena it had been a long and terrifying journey, complete with five days and nights in air-raid shelters in London, and at last they had fled to the countryside, and left on a freighter out of Dover. The crossing to the States had been grim, and Serena had said not a word for days. She spoke no English. Several of the nuns accompanying them spoke French, as did Serena, but she had no wish to speak to anyone at all. She had lost everyone now. Everyone and everything. Her parents, her uncle, her grandmother, her home, and at last her country. There was nothing left. She had stood on deck, a solitary figure in brown and gray, with the wind whipping the long sheets of pale blond hair around her head. The nuns had watched her, saying nothing at all. At first they had been afraid that she might do something desperate, but in time they came to understand her. You could learn a lot about the child simply from watching her. She had an extraordinary sort of dignity about her. One sensed her strength and her pride and at the same time her sorrow and her loss. There were others in the group of children going to the States who had suffered losses similar to Serena's, two of the children had lost both parents and all their brothers and sisters in air raids, several had lost at least one parent, all had lost beloved friends. But Serena had lost something more. When she learned of her uncle's betrayal of her father, she had lost her faith and trust in people as well. The only person she had trusted in the past two years was her grandmother. She trusted no one else. Not the servants, not the soldiers, not the government. No one. And now the one person she could count on was nowhere near. When one looked into the deep green eyes, one saw a bottomless sorrow that tore at one's heart, a grief beyond measure, a despair visible in children's eyes only in times of war.

  In time the look of sorrow was less apparent. Once at the convent in Upstate New York, she laughed, though rarely. She was usually serious, intense, quiet, and in every spare moment she wrote to her grandmother, asking a thousand questions, telling her each detail of every day.

  It was in the spring of 1943 that the letters from the principessa stopped coming. First Serena had been mildly worried, and then it became obvious that she was deeply concerned. Finally she had lain awake every night in terror, wondering, imagining, fearing, and then hating … it was Sergio again … he had come to Venice to kill her grandmother too. He had done it, she imagined, because her grandmother knew the truth about what he had done to his brother and he couldn't bear to have anyone know, so he had killed her, and one day he would try to kill Serena too. But let him try, she thought, the extraordinary green eyes narrowing with a viciousness even she hadn't known she had. Let him, I will kill him first, I will watch him die slowly, I will.…

  “Serena?” There had been a soft light in the corridor, and the Mother Superior had appeared at her door that night. “Is something wrong? Have you had bad news from home?”

  “No.” The walls had come up quickly, as Serena sat up in bed and shook her head, the green eyes instantly veiled.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, thank you, Mother. It is kind of you to ask.” She opened up to no one. Except her grandmother, in the daily letters, which had had no response now for almost two months. She stepped quickly to the cold floor and stood there in the simple cotton nightgown, a curtain of blond hair falling over her shoulders, her face a delicately chiseled marvel, worthy of a statue, and truly remarkable on a girl of just sixteen.

  “May I sit down?” The Mother Superior had looked gently at Serena.

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Mother Constance sat on the room's single wooden chair as Serena hovered for a moment and then sat back on the bed, feeling uncomfortable, and her own worries still showing in her eyes. “Is there nothing I can do for you, child?” The others had made a home here. The English, the Italians, the Dutch, the French. The convent had been filled for four years now with children brought over from Europe, most of whom would eventually go back, if their families survived the war. Serena was older than most of the others. Other than Serena the oldest child had been twelve when she had arrived, the others were mostly much younger children, five, six, seven, nine. But the others had acquired a kind of ease about them, as though they had come from nowhere more exotic than Poughkeepsie, as though they knew nothing of war and had no real fears. The fears were there, and at times, at night, there were nightmares, but on the whole they were an oddly happy-go-lucky group. No one would have believed the stories that had preceded their arrivals, and in most cases there were no visible signs of the stress of war. But
Serena had been different from the beginning. Only the Mother Superior and two other nuns were fully aware of her story, apprised of it in a letter from her grandmother that came shortly after she arrived. The principessa had felt that they should know the full story but they had heard nothing of it from Serena herself. Over the years she had never opened up to them. Not yet.

  “What's troubling you, my child? Do you not feel well?”

  “I'm fine.…” There had been only the fraction of a second of hesitation, as though for an instant she had considered opening a sacred door. It was the first time, and this time Mother Constance felt that she had to be persistent. Even if it was painful for Serena to reveal her feelings, it was obvious that the girl was in greater distress than she ever had been before. “I'm … it's only that—” Mother Constance said nothing, but her eyes reached out gently to Serena until she could resist no more. Tears suddenly filled her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. “I've had no letter from my grandmother in almost two months.”

  “I see.” Mother Constance nodded slowly. “You don't think she could be away?”

  Serena shook her head and brushed away the tears with one long graceful hand. “Where would she go?”

  “To Rome perhaps? On family business?”

  Serena's eyes grew instantly hard. “She has no business there anymore!”

  “I see.” She didn't wish to press the girl further. “It could just be that it's getting harder and harder to get the mail through. Even from London the mail is slow.” During her entire stay in New York the letters from her grandmother had reached her via an intricate network of underground and overseas channels. Getting the letters from Italy to the States had been no easy feat. But they had always come. Always.

  Serena gazed at her searchingly. “I don't think it's that.”

  “Is there anyone else you would write to?”

  “Only one.” There was only one old servant there now. Everyone else had had to leave. Mussolini wouldn't allow anyone of the old guard to keep as many servants as the principessa had been keeping. She was permitted one servant, and one only. Some of the others had wanted to stay on without pay, but it had not been approved. And the bishop had died the previous winter, so there was no one else she could write to. “I'll write to Marcella tomorrow.” She smiled for the first time since the nun had entered her room. “I should have thought of it earlier.”

  “I'm sure your grandmother's all right, Serena.”

  Serena nodded slowly. With her grandmother having just turned eighty, she was not quite as sure. But she had said nothing of being ill or not feeling well. There was really no reason to think that something was wrong. Except for the silence … which continued, unexplained. The letter to Marcella was returned to Serena four weeks after she wrote it, unopened and undelivered, with a scrawled note from the postman that Marcella Fabiani did not live at that address anymore. Had they gone to stay at the farm? Things must be worse in Venice. With a growing sense of panic, Serena grew ever more silent and strained. She wrote to her grandmother at the farm in Umbría then, but that letter came back too. She wrote to the foreman, and the letter came back marked “Deceased.” For the first weeks and then months, she had felt panic-stricken and desperate, but in time the terror ebbed into a dull pain. Something had happened, of that there was no doubt, but there seemed to be no way to get an explanation. There was no one left. No family except Sergio of course. And now, in her desperation, there was nowhere for Serena to turn. All she could do was wait until she could return to Italy to find out for herself.

  There was still enough money for her to do that. When Serena had left, her grandmother had pressed on her a fat roll of American bills. She had no idea how the old woman had got the American money, but it had amounted to a thousand dollars when Serena counted it out quietly, alone in the bathroom the next day. And the nuns had received another ten thousand through elaborate international channels, for her care and whatever she might need during her stay at the convent. Serena knew that there had to be a great deal of that left. And every night, as she lay in her bed, thinking, she planned to use the money to get back to Italy the moment the war was over. She would go straight to Venice and find out, and if something had happened to the old woman, because of Sergio, she would go directly to Rome immediately thereafter and kill him.

  It was a thought she had cherished now for almost two years. The war had ended in Europe in May of 1945, and from the very moment it ended she began making plans to go back. Some of the others were still waiting to hear from their parents that things were ready for their return, but Serena had nothing to wait for, except her ticket, her papers. She didn't even need the permission of the nuns. She was over eighteen, and she turned nineteen on V-J Day on the train. It had seemed to take forever to get passage over, but at last she had.

  Mother Constance had taken her to the ship in New York. She had held Serena close for a long time. “Remember, my child, that whatever happened, you cannot change it. Not now. And you couldn't have then. You were where she wanted you to be. And it was right for you to be here, with us.”

  Serena pulled away from her then, and the elderly nun saw that the tears were pouring down the delicate cheeks and flooding the huge green eyes that seemed brighter than any emerald, as the girl stood there, torn between affection and terror, grief and regret. “You've been so good to me all these years, Mother. Thank you.” She hugged Mother Constance once more, the boat horn sounded again, this time more insistently, and the stately nun left the cabin. Her last words to Serena were “Go with God,” and Serena had watched her wave from the dock as she waved frantically from the ship, this time with a smile on her face.

  That had been only nine days before. The memories of Mother Constance seemed to fill her mind as Serena glanced out the window and saw that the dawn had come as they sped along on the train. She stared at the pink and gray sky in amazement as they raced through fields that had not been harvested in years and that showed signs of the bombs, and her heart broke for her country, for her people, for those who had suffered while she was safe in the States. She felt as though she owed them all something, a piece of herself, of her heart, of her life. While she had eaten roast turkey and ice cream on the Hudson they had suffered and struggled and died. And now, here they were, together, the survivors, at the dawn of a new era, a new life. She felt her heart rise within her as the train continued on its journey, and she watched the sun ride up in the early morning sky. The day had come at last. She was home.

  Half an hour later they rolled into Santa Lucia Station, and slowly, almost breathlessly, she stepped from the train, behind the old ladies, the children, the toothless old men, the soldiers, and she stood there, at the bleak back door of Venice, looking at the same scene she had seen twice a year as a child when she and her parents had come to visit from Rome. But they were gone now, and this was not an Easter vacation. This was a new world, and a new life, and as she walked slowly away from the station she stared at the bright sunlight shining on the ancient buildings and shimmering on the water of the grand canal. A few gondolas bobbed at the landing, and a fleet of random boats hovered near the quay, drivers shouted to prospective passengers, and suddenly everything was in frantic motion around her, and as she watched it Serena smiled for the first time in days. It was a smile she hadn't felt in her heart for years.

  Nothing had changed and everything had. War had come and gone, a holocaust had happened, she had lost everyone, and so had countless others, and yet here it was as it had been for centuries, in all its golden splendor, Venice. Serena smiled to herself, and then as she hurried along with the others, she laughed softly. She had come of age, in that one final moment, and now she was home.

  “Signorina!” A gondolier was shouting, staring admiringly at her long graceful legs. “Signorina!”

  “Sí… gondola, perpiacere.” They were words she had said a thousand times before. Her parents had always let her pick the one she wanted.

  “Ècco.” He swept h
er a low bow, helped her to her seat, stowed her single, battered suitcase, and she gave him the address and sat back in her seat, as deftly the gondolier sped into the swirling traffic of boats on the Grand Canal.

  2

  As the gondolier made his way slowly down the Grand Canal, Serena sat back and watched with awe as the memories unfolded, memories she had barely dared to indulge herself in for four years, and suddenly here it all was. With the sunlight shining on his gilded body the Guardian Spirit of the Customs seemed to watch her as they passed majestically below, the gondola moving in the familiar rhythm that she had all but forgotten and that had enchanted her so extravagantly as a child. And just as they had remained unchanged in centuries of Italian history, the landmarks of Venice continued to roll into sight with a beauty that still took her breath away, the Ca' d'Oro in all its splendor, and the Ca' Pesaro, and tiny piazzas and small bridges and suddenly the Ponte di Rialto as they glided slowly beneath it, and on farther into the Grand Canal, past endless palazzi: Grimani, Papadopoli, Pisani, Mocenigo, Contarini, Grassi, Rezzonico, all the most splendid and visible palaces of Venice, until suddenly they were swept gently under the Ponte dell'Accademia, past the Franchetti Palace Gardens and the Palazzo Dario, and the church of Santa Maria delta Salute standing gracefully by on the right, as the gondola suddenly drifted in front of the Doges' Palace and the Campanile, and was almost instantly poised before the Piazza San Marco. He slowed there and Serena gazed at it in wonder, its devastating beauty leaving her speechless as they paused. She felt as the ancient Venetians must have, after their endless journeys to foreign ports, only to return to rediscover with wonder and enchantment what they had left behind.