Remembrance (3 page)

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 her 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.

“Beautiful, eh,
signorina?”
The gondolier glanced at San Marco with pride, and then back at her. But she only nodded. It was extraordinary to be back after so many years, yet nothing had changed here. The rest of the world had been turned upside down, but even the war had not touched Venice. Bombs had fallen nearby, but miraculously, Venice itself had remained untouched. He swept slowly under the Ponte di Paglia then, and rapidly under the illustrious Ponte dei Sospiri, the Bridge of Sighs, and then drifted into the maze of smaller canals, past other less important palazzi and ancient statues carved into the magnificent facades. There were balconies and tiny piazzas and everywhere the ornate splendor that had drawn people to Venice for a thousand years.

But now Serena was no longer fascinated by the architecture. Ever since they had turned into the maze of smaller canals, her face had been tense, and her brow furrowed as she watched familiar landmarks begin to slide by. They were coming closer now, and the answers to the questions that had tormented her for two years now were within reach.

The gondolier turned to confirm the address with her, and then, having seen her face, he said nothing more. He knew. Others had come home before her. Soldiers mostly. Some had been prisoners of war, and come home to find their mothers and their lovers and their wives. He wondered who his young beauty could be looking for and where she had been. Whatever she was looking for, he hoped she found it. They were only a few hundred feet from the house now, and Serena had already sighted it. She saw the shutters falling from their hinges, boards over a few of the windows, and the narrow canal lapping at the stone steps just beneath the iron grille on the landing. As the gondolier approached the building Serena stood up.

“You want me to ring the bell for you?” There was a big old-fashioned bell and a knocker, but Serena was quick to shake her head. He held her arm to steady her as she stepped carefully onto the landing, and for an instant she looked up at the darkened windows, knowing only too well the tale they told.

She hesitated for an endless moment, and then quickly pulled the chain on the bell and closed her eyes as she waited, thinking back to all the other times her hand had touched that bell … waiting … counting the moments until one of the old familiar faces would appear, her grandmother just behind them, smiling, waiting to embrace Serena and run laughingly up the steps with her to the main salon … the tapestries, the rich brocades … the statues … the tiny miniatures of the exquisite golden copper horses of San Marco at the head of the stairs … and this time only silence and the sounds of the canal behind her. As she stood there Serena knew that there would be no answer to the bell.

“Non, c'è nessuno, signorina?”
the gondolier inquired. But it was a useless question. No, of course there was no one home, and hadn't been in years. For a moment Serena's eyes rested on the knocker, wanting to try that too, to urge someone from the familiar depths within, to
make
them open the door, to make them roll back the clock for her.

“Eh! … Eh!” It was an insistent sound behind her, almost an aggressive one, and she turned to see a vegetable merchant drifting past in his boat, watching her suspiciously. “Can't you see there's no one there?”

“Do you know where they are?” Serena called across the other boats, relishing the sound of her own language again. It was as though she had never left. The four years in the States did not exist.

The vegetable man shrugged. “Who knows?” And then, philosophically, “The war … a lot of people moved away.”

“Do you know what happened to the woman who lived here?” An edge of franticness was moving back into Serena's voice and the gondolier watched her face, as a mailman on a barge came slowly by, looking at Serena with interest.

“The house was sold,
signorina”
The postman answered the question for her.

“To whom? When?” Serena looked suddenly shocked. Sold? The house had been sold? She had never contemplated that. But why would her grandmother have sold the house? Had she been short of money? It was a possibility that had never occurred to Serena before.

“It was sold last year, when the war was still on. Some people from Milano bought it. They said that when the war was over they would retire and move to Venice … fix up the house.…”He shrugged and Serena felt herself bridle. “Fix up the house.” What the hell did he mean? What did they mean? Fix what up? The bronzes? The priceless antiques, the marble floors? The impeccable gardens behind the house? What was there to fix? As he watched her the mailman understood her pain. He pulled his boat close to the landing and looked up into her face. “Was she a friend of yours … the old lady?” Serena nodded slowly, not daring to say more.
“Ècco. Capisco allora.”
He only thought he understood, but he didn't. “She died, you know. Two years ago. In the spring.”

“Of what?” Serena felt her whole body grow limp, as though suddenly someone had pulled all of the bones out of her. She thought for a moment that she might faint. They were the words she had expected, the words she had feared, but now she had heard them and they cut through her like a knife. She wanted him to be wrong, but as she looked at the kind old face she knew that he wasn't. Her grandmother was gone.

“She was very old, you know,
signorina.
Almost ninety.”

Serena shook her head almost absentmindedly and spoke softly. “No, she turned eighty that spring.”

“Ah.” He spoke gently, wanting to offer comfort but not sure how. “Her son came from Rome, but only for two days. He had everything sent to Rome, I heard later. Everything, all her things. But he put the house up for sale right away. Still, it took them a year to sell it.”

So it was Sergio again, Serena thought to herself as she stood there. Sergio.
He
had everything sent to Rome. “And her letters?” She sounded angry now, as though within her there was something slowly beginning to burn. “Where did her mail go? Was it sent to him?”

The mailman nodded. “Except the letters for the servants. He told me to send those back.”

Then, Sergio had got all of her letters. Why hadn't he told her? Why hadn't someone written to her to tell her? For more than two years she had gone crazy, waiting, wondering, asking questions that no one could answer. But he could have answered, the bastard.

“Signorina?”
The mailman and the gondolier waited.
“Va bene?”
She nodded slowly.

“
Sí … sí… grazie
… I was just …” She had been about to offer an explanation but her eyes filled with tears instead. She turned away and the two men exchanged a glance.

“I'm sorry,
signorina.”
She nodded, her back still turned, and the mailman moved on. Only her gondolier waited.

In a moment, after a last look at the rusting hinges on the gate, she fingered the bellpull one last time, as though making contact with some piece of her, some tangible part of the past, as though by touching something that her grandmother had touched she could become part of her again, and then slowly she came back to the gondola, feeling as though some vital part of her had died. So Sergio finally had what he wanted now—the title. She hated him. She wanted him to choke on his title, to rot in his own blood, to die a far more horrible death than her father, to …

“Signorina?”
The gondolier had watched her face contort with anger and anguish, and he wondered what agony had seized her soul to make someone so young look so tormented. “Where would you like to go now?”

She hesitated for a moment, not sure. Should she go back to the train station? She wasn't ready. Not yet. There was something she had to do first. She turned slowly to the gondolier, remembering the little church perfectly. It was exquisite, and perhaps someone there would know more. “Take me please to the Campo Santa Maria Nuova.”

“Maria dei Miracoli?” he asked her, naming the church where she wanted to go. She nodded, and he helped her back into the gondola and pushed slowly away from the landing, as her eyes held interminably to the facade she would always remember and never come back to see again. This would be her last journey to Venice. She knew that now. She had no reason to come back. Not anymore.

She found Santa Maria dei Miracoli as she remembered it, almost hidden by high walls, and as simple externally as she recalled. It was inside that Mary of the Miracles showed her wonders, inside that the marble inlays and delicate carvings startled the newcomer with its beauty and still entranced those who knew it well after seeing it for dozens of years. Serena stood there for a moment, feeling her grandmother beside her, as she had every Sunday when they had come to Mass. She stood silently for a few moments and then walked slowly toward the altar, kneeling there, and trying desperately not to think … of what to do now … of where to go.…

Dwelling on her loss wouldn't help her. But still, the reality of it was almost intolerable and two lone tears traveled down her cheeks to the delicately carved chin. She stood up a moment later and went into the office at the back of the church, to attempt to find the priest. There was an old man in a priest's robe sitting there when she entered. He sat at a simple desk, reading from a frayed leather book of prayer.

“Father?” He looked up slowly from what he was reading, gazing directly into Serena's green eyes. He was new to the parish, she suspected. She did not remember him from before she left. “I wonder if you could help me. I am looking for some information about my grandmother.”

The old man in the cassock sighed and stood up slowly. There had been so many inquiries like this since the end of the war. People had died, moved away, got lost. It was unlikely that he would be able to help her. “I don't know. I will check the records for you. Her name?”

“La Principessa Alicia di San Tibaldo.” She said it softly, not meaning to impress anyone, but nonetheless his manner changed. He became more alert, more interested, more helpful, and in spite of herself, Serena was annoyed. Did the title mean so much, then? Was that what would make the difference? Why? It all seemed so unimportant now. Titles, names, rank, money. All that mattered to Serena was that her grandmother was dead.

He was whispering softly to himself as he shuffled through drawers of papers, and then checked a large ledger for what seemed like an interminable time, until at last, he nodded his head and looked up at Serena again. “Yes.” He turned the book toward her. “It is here. April ninth, 1943. The cause of death was natural. A priest from this church administered last rites. She is buried outside in the garden. Would you like to see?” Serena nodded and followed him solemnly out of the office, through the church, and out a narrow door, into a brightly sunlit little garden, filled with flowers and small ancient tombstones, and surrounded by small trees. He walked carefully toward a back corner where there were only a few tombstones, and all of them seemed to be new. He gestured gently toward the small white marble stone, watched Serena for a moment, and then turned and left as she stood there, looking stunned. The search was over, the answers had come. She was here, then, beneath the trees, hidden by the walls at Santa Maria dei Miracoli, she had been here all along as Serena wrote her letter after letter, praying that her grandmother was still alive. Serena wanted to be angry as she stood there, she wanted to hate someone, to fight back. But there was no one to hate, no fight left. It was all over, in this peaceful garden, and all that Serena felt was sad.