Remembrance Page 4

  She found herself walking along one of the grassy paths for strollers along the edge of the park, watching bicyclists hurrying along, or women walking dogs, and here and there children playing. It was late for them to be out, but it was summer and a balmy evening, the war was over, and there was no school the next day. Serena noticed for the first time that there was a kind of holiday atmosphere everywhere, people were smiling, young girls were laughing, and everywhere, as they were all over Europe, the young GI's were walking in groups, or with their girl friends, chatting, laughing, and trying to make friends with passing young women, waving candy bars and silk stockings and cigarettes, half laughing at themselves and half serious, and almost always getting a laughing response or an invitation. Even the refusals were kind ones, except Serena's. When two GI's approached her, her face turned to stone and her eyes were angry as she answered in Italian and told them to leave her alone.

  “Leave her alone, Mike. You heard the lady.”

  “Yeah, but did you see her?” The shorter of the two whistled as Serena rapidly made her way toward the Via Véneto and got lost in the crowd. But the attempts to pick her up were all harmless. She was a pretty girl, and the soldiers were lonely, and this was Rome.

  “Cigarettes, signorina?” Another cluster of uniforms waved a pack almost in her face. They were everywhere, and this time she only shook her head. She didn't want to see them all over the city. She didn't want to see any uniforms. She wanted it to be as it had been before the war. But it wasn't. That much she could see now. There were scars. There were differences. There were still remnants of signs in German, and now American ones posted over them. They were occupied once again.

  It made her sad as she remembered back to when she had been a child … when she had come to the Borghese Gardens to play. It was a rare treat to do that with her mother. Usually they went everywhere by car. But now and then there had been wondrous adventures, just she and her mother—the beauty with the tinkling laughter, the big hats, the huge laughing eyes. Serena suddenly dropped her face into her hands in the darkness. She didn't want to remember anymore. She didn't want to remember what had happened, how it had happened, what was no more. But it was as though whatever she did now that she had come back here there was no way to run from the memories anymore. The ghosts that had haunted her for seven years now didn't have to go far to find her. She had come home to find them.

  Without thinking, she wandered in the direction of the Fontana di Trevi, and stood there mesmerized by it, as she had been as a little girl. She sat quietly for a few minutes, hunched against a wall, watching, and feeling refreshed by the breeze that came off the water. Then slowly, approaching the fountain, she tossed a coin quietly into the water, and then smiled to herself as she wandered in the direction of the Palazzo del Quirinale and then into the Via del Tritone. She came rapidly to the Triton's Fountain, and then to the Piazza Barberini, where she stood for a long moment wondering where to go next. It was almost eleven o'clock now and she was suddenly exhausted as she realized that she had nowhere to spend the night. She had to find a hotel room, a pensione, a convent, some place, but as she enumerated the possibilities in her head, her feet seemed to follow their own direction, and then suddenly she realized where she was going and caught her breath, knowing what had happened, what she was doing, and not wanting to continue or turn back. It was for this that she had left the peaceful convent on the Hudson, crossed the Atlantic, and taken the train from France.

  A tiny part of her told her to wait until morning, until she was rested and her head was clear. It had been a long trying day, first in Venice and now here, with hours on the train, but it suddenly didn't matter, and Serena stopped letting her feet wander and stopped pretending to herself, that she had nowhere to go. She did have somewhere to go, a place she wanted to go to desperately, no matter how tired she was … and her feet moved relentlessly toward the familiar address on the Via Guilia. She had to see it, just to stand there for a moment, before she turned her back on the past forever and began the rest of her life. As she turned the last corner she could feel her heart beat faster, and suddenly her pace quickened as she could feel the building before it even came into view. And then suddenly … suddenly … under the street lamps, just past the trees, was the gleaming expanse of white marble, with the long French windows, the balconies, the lower floors hidden by tall hedges, and the long marble steps just inside the front gate, the whole of it surrounded by a border of flower beds and lawn.

  “My God.…”It was the merest whisper. In the darkness it was easy to delude oneself that there had been no changes, that everything was as it had once been. That at any moment a familiar face would appear at a window, or her father would step outside with a cigar, for some air. Serena's mother had hated it at night when he had smoked cigars in the bedroom, and once in a while he had gone for a walk in the garden. When Serena awoke at night, as a little girl, sometimes she saw him there. Unconsciously she found herself looking for him now. But she saw no one, and like the house in Venice, it was shuttered. Only now she imagined her uncle sleeping here and even though he might be inside, she had lost the urge to see him—to fight him. What difference now?

  She stood in front of her home for what seemed an endless time, unable to take her eyes from it, unable to go closer, and unwilling to try. This was as far as the dream had brought her. She would go no closer. She had no need to. The dream was all over now.

  And then, as she turned slowly, her eyes filling with tears, her head held high, her suitcase still in her hand, she saw the copious form of an old woman, standing, watching her, a shawl around her corpulent shoulders, her hair pulled into a bun, as she continued to stare at Serena, as though wondering what this girl was doing here, with a suitcase, gaping at the Palazzo Tibaldo in the middle of the night. As Serena continued down the street with a determined step, the old woman suddenly rushed toward her, with a piercing shriek and a wail, both arms extended, as the shawl fell from her shoulders into the street, and she suddenly stood before Serena, her whole body trembling, her eyes streaming as she held out her arms to the girl. Serena made as though to step backward, stunned by the old woman, and then suddenly she looked into the heavily lined face and she gave a gasp of astonishment and then she too was sobbing softly as she reached out and held the old woman to her. It was Marcella, her grandmother's last remaining servant in Venice … and now suddenly she was here … at their old house in Rome. The old woman and the young one stood there, holding tightly to each other for what seemed like forever, unable to let go of each other, or the memories they shared. They stood there together, for a very long time.

  “Bambino …ah, Dio … bambino mia … ma che fai? What are you doing here?”

  “How did she die?” It was all Serena could think of as she clung to the old woman.

  “In her sleep.” Marcella sniffed deeply and stood back to get a good look at Serena. “She was getting so old.” She gazed into Serena's eyes and shook her head. It was remarkable how much the girl looked like her mother. For a moment, as she had stood there in the street, watching her, Marcella had thought she was seeing a ghost.

  “Why didn't anyone tell me?”

  Marcella shrugged in embarrassment and then looked away. “I thought he … that your uncle … but he didn't have time before …” She realized something then. Serena knew nothing at all of what had happened since her grandmother's death. “No one wrote to you, cara?”

  “Nessuno.” No one. And then, gently, “Why didn't you?”

  This time the old woman looked at her squarely. The girl had a right to know why she hadn't written to her. “I couldn't.”

  “Why?” Serena looked puzzled as they stood there in the lamplight.

  Marcella smiled shyly. “I can't write, Serena … your grandmother always told me that I should learn, ma …” She shrugged in a helpless gesture as Serena smiled in answer.

  “Va bene.” It's all right. But how easily said after two terror-filled years. How much an
xiety she would have been spared if the old woman had at least been able to write and tell her of her grandmother's death. “And …” She hated to say his name, even now. “Sergio?”

  There was a moment's pause and Marcella took a careful breath. “He's gone, Serena.”

  “Where?” Her eyes searched the old woman's. She had come four thousand miles and two and a half years for this news. “Where is he?”

  “Dead.”

  “Sergio?” This time Serena looked, shocked. “Why?” For an instant there was a flash of satisfaction. Perhaps in the end they had killed him too.

  “I don't know all of it. He made terrible debts. He had to sell the house in Venice.” And then, almost apologetically, she waved at the white marble palazzo behind them. “He sold this … only two months after your grandmother died and he brought me back to Rome.” Her eyes sought Serena's then, looking for condemnation. She had come with Sergio, he who had betrayed her parents, whom even the principessa had come to hate. But she had come home to Rome with him. She had had nowhere else to go, Serena understood. Except for the elderly principessa, Marcella had been alone in the world. “I don't understand what happened. But they got angry with him. He drank. He was drunk all the time.” She looked knowingly at Serena. He had had good reason to be drunk all the time. He had had a lot to live with, the murder of his own brother, his brother's wife.… “He borrowed money from bad people, I think. They came here, to the palazzo, late at night. They shouted at him. He shouted back. And then … II Duce's men came here too. They were angry at him too … perhaps because of the other men. I don't know. One night I heard them threatening to kill him.…”

  “And they did?” Serena's eyes lit up with an ugly fire. Perhaps he had come by his just deserts after all.

  “No.” Marcella shook her head. Her voice was without pity in the summer night. “He killed himself, Serena. He shot himself in the garden, two months after the principessa died. He had no money left, he had nothing. Only debts. The lawyers told me that it took everything, the money from both houses and everything else, to pay his debts.” Then there was nothing left. It didn't matter. She hadn't come home for that.

  “And the house?” Serena looked at her strangely. “Who does it belong to now?”

  “I don't know. People I have never seen. They rent it to the Americans now since the end of the war. Before that, it was empty. I was here by myself. Every month the lawyer brings me my money. They wanted me to stay, to see that everything is all right. Once, the Germans almost took it over, but they never did.” She shrugged, looking embarrassed again. Serena had lost everything, and yet Marcella was still living here. How odd life was.

  “And the Americans live here now?”

  “Not yet. Until now they only worked here. Now … next week … they will move in. Before, they only used it for offices, but they came yesterday to tell me they will move in on Tuesday.” She shrugged, looking like the Marcella that Serena had known as a child. “For me, it makes no difference, they have all of their own people. And they told me yesterday that they will hire two girls to help me. So for me it changes nothing. Serena?” The old woman watched her closely. “E tu? Vai bene? What happened in all those years? You stayed with the nuns?”

  “I did.” She nodded slowly. “And I waited to come back.”

  “And now? Where are you staying?” Her eyes glanced down at the suitcase Serena had dropped at her feet. But Serena shrugged.

  “It doesn't matter.” She suddenly felt oddly, strangely, free, fettered to no place, no person, and no time. In the last twelve hours every tie that she had ever clung to had been severed. She was on her own now, and she knew that she would survive. “I was going to find a hotel, but I wanted to come here first. Just to see it.”

  Marcella searched her face, and then hung her head as tears filled her eyes again. “Principessa …” It was a word spoken so softly that Serena barely heard it, and when she did, it sent a gentle tremor up her spine. The very word conjured up the lost image of her grandmother … Principessa.… She felt a wave of loneliness wash over her again, as Marcella lifted her face and dried her eyes on the apron that she eternally wore, even now. She clung to Serena's hand then, and Serena gently touched it with her own. “All these years I am here … with your grandmother, and then here, in this house.” She waved vaguely toward the imposing building behind Serena. “I am here. In the palazzo. And you” —she waved disparagingly at the dismal little suitcase—”like a beggar child, in rags, looking for a hotel. No!” She said it emphatically, almost with anger as the corpulent body shook. “No! You do not go to a hotel!”

  “What do you suggest, Marcella?” Serena smiled gently. It was a voice and an expression on the old woman that she recognized from a dozen years before. “Are you suggesting that I move in with the Americans?”

  “Pazza, va!” She grinned. Crazy! “Not with the Americans. With me. Ècco.” As she spoke the last word she snatched the suitcase from the ground, took Serena's hand more firmly in her own, and began to walk toward the palazzo, but Serena stood where she was and shook her head.

  “I can't.” They stood there for a moment, neither moving, and Marcella searched the young girl's eyes. She knew all that she was thinking. She had had her own nightmares to overcome when she had first returned to Rome after the old lady's death. At first all she could remember here were the others … Umberto and Graziella … Serena as she had been, as a child … the other servants she had worked with, the butler she had once so desperately loved … Sergio when he had been younger and not yet rotten from within … the principessa in her prime.…

  “You can stay with me, Serena. You must. You cannot be alone in Rome.” And then, more gently, “You belong here. In your father's house.”

  She shook her head slowly, her eyes filling with tears. “It's not my father's house anymore.”

  More gently still, “It is my home now. Will you not come home with me?” She saw in those deep green eyes the agony that had been there on the morning of the death of her father and knew that she was not speaking to the woman, but the child. “It's all right, Serena. Come, my love.… Marcella will take care of you … everything will be all right.” She enfolded Serena in her arms then, and they stood as they had in the beginning, holding tightly across the empty years. “Andiamo, cara.” And for no reason she could understand, Serena allowed herself to follow the old woman. She had only come to see it, not to stay there. To stand and gaze and remember, not to try and step inside the memories again. That was too much for her, she couldn't bear it. But as the old woman led her gently toward the rear entrance, Serena felt exhaustion overwhelm her … it was as though her whole day was telescoping into one instant and she couldn't bear it any longer. All she wanted was to lie down somewhere and stop thinking, stop trying to sort it all out.

  Soon she stood at the back door of what had once been her parents' palazzo. Marcella quickly inserted the heavy key and turned it, and the door creaked, just as Serena had remembered it, and as the door swung open she found herself standing downstairs, in the servants' hall. The paint was yellowing, she saw as Marcella turned a light on; the curtains were the same, only they were no longer a bright blue but a faded gray; the wood floor was the same only a little duller, but there were fewer hands around now to wax it and Marcella had grown old. But nothing had really changed. Even the clock on the wall in the pantry was the same. Serena's eyes opened wide in amazement, and for the first time in years there was no anger and no pain. At last she had come home.

  She had come full circle, and there was no one left to share it with but Marcella, clucking like an old mother hen as she led her down a familiar hallway into a room that had once belonged to a woman named Teresa, who had been a young and pretty upstairs maid. Like the others, she was long gone now, and it was into her room that Marcella led Serena, grabbing old frayed sheets and a blanket from a cupboard as she went. Everything was old and growing shabby, but it was still clean, and every bit of it was familiar, Sere
na realized as she sat down in a chair and watched Marcella make the bed. She said nothing. She only sat and stared.

  “Vai bene, Serena?” The old woman glanced at her often, afraid that the shock of all she'd heard and seen and learned would be too much. She could neither read nor write, but she knew people, and she knew from the look in Serena's eyes that the girl had been through too much. “Take your clothes off, bambino mia. I'll wash them for you in the morning. And before you go to sleep, a little hot milk.” Milk was still hard to come by, but she had some, and on this precious child of hers she would have lavished all she had.

  Serena looked content to be where she was. It was as though suddenly all of her defenses had given way at the same time and she couldn't bear to stand up a moment longer. Coming home to Marcella was like being nine years old again, or five, or two.

  “I'll be back in two minutes with the hot milk. I promise!” She smiled gently at Serena, cozily tucked into the narrow bed in the simple room. The walls were white, the trim gray, there was a narrow faded curtain in the room, a small ancient rug that dated back to the days of Teresa and the others, and the walls were bare. But Serena didn't even see them. She lay back against the pillow, closed her eyes, and when Marcella returned a moment later with the precious warm milk and sugar, she found Serena fast asleep. The old woman stopped just inside the doorway, turned out the single bulb that lit the room, and stood in the darkness, watching the young woman in the light of the moonlight, remembering how she had looked as a child. Like this, she thought to herself, only so much smaller… and more peaceful.… How troubled Serena had looked to her that evening … how angry … and how hurt … and how afraid. It hurt her to think back on all that had happened to the child, and then suddenly she realized as she watched her that she was gazing at the last remaining principessa of the Tibaldos. Serena di San Tibaldo. Principessa Serena … asleep at last in the servants' quarters of her father's house.