The Bottom of Your Heart (7 page)

What good is love, Rosine'? Can you tell me what good love is? Why be happy, if after happiness comes despair? What is a year worth, a miserable year of light, if after that you have to spend the rest of your life in darkness?

Do you remember when you told me, Rosine'? Do you remember how long it had been since the day at the church with the woman-headed dragon and the sun that shone in your face, since the night with the moonlight and tears of happiness? Two months, that's how long. Two months exactly.

And one night, when I came home from a day of hard work, so tired I could barely stand, you took my hand and you put it on your belly. And then you told me: this is what love's good for. I looked heaven right in the face. And I could hear my heart in my ears,
thump thump
thump
, like I had that night by the sea when I was fourteen, and that day in front of the church. But I'll never hear it again, my heart. My blood, yes.

Those months flew by. I felt like a god, and I said to myself: I can never die. I can never, ever die. Because I have to take care of my flesh and blood, and if I'm dead I can't do that. I can't do what my father did, when he went to sea one night to keep me from starving and never returned, and I, just a year old, never saw him and can't even remember him stroking my head, and I look at the one yellowing picture of him that I possess, with a round hat and a long mustache, standing next to the chair in which my
mammà
is sitting, no more than a girl, with me in her arms. I've devoured it, that portrait. I can never die, I told myself in those months.

Your labor pains began early, too early, a full month before your time had come. Your fear, my despair; I ran back and forth, I went to get the doctor, the one who comes down into the
vicoli
with his black bag in hand, and I took him by the collar: Dotto', tell me who the best one is, the best doctor in town. Tell me, or I swear as God is my witness I'll gut you like a fish. He saw in my eyes that I meant what I said. And quick as a flash, without taking a breath, he gave me the name of the doctor who was better than all the others, none other than the boss of all the doctors who teach at the university.

I waited outside his gate for two days. Two days, then I saw him, driving a black-and-cream car, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles. I stopped him. I talked to him. At first he snorted impatiently, he told me he didn't have the time. Then he too looked in my eyes and understood. Professo', I told him, there are no problems, no problems with money or anything else. But if you tell me no,
then
there are going to be problems, and they're all going to be yours.

Do you remember when he came to our home, Rosine'? All the people standing in silence outside our
basso
. His car could barely even make it through the
vicolo
. He said: everyone out, and I left the apartment and only my
mamma
and yours stayed behind with you. Then they called me, and I went back in.

He told me that the situation was difficult, but that it could be solved. He told me that he'd take care of things, but that it wouldn't be cheap. He gave me a figure, and it was a year's salary, but what the hell did I care? All right Professo', I told him. Do what you need to do.

I took you every day, Rosine', do you remember? Every day. I'd filled the inside of the van with straw and cotton, because the professor said it was important for you to lie down, that you should never get up. And then I carried you up the stairs in my arms; I'm strong, you know it, and you were light, even with the baby in your body you were light, Rosine', and pale, and still you smiled, and when you smiled you were like that time on the beach at Posillipo, and you made the sun come out, even in the middle of the night, Rosine'.

The professor would examine you in his office, on that reclining chair with stirrups. That room was the antechamber to hell, as far as I was concerned. He never said a word, he just shook his head no and said nothing. Nothing ever scared me in my life, Rosine', I'm Peppino the Wolf. But that white face, with the double chin and the spectacles—it terrified me.

Then one night, Rosine', the blood began to flow. Your blood, and so much of it, it seemed like liter after liter to me, and the bed was dripping blood onto the floor. I took you straight to the general hospital. I didn't want to leave you, so I sent two of my boys to get him, but the professor wasn't home. No one knew where he was. Your blood kept flowing, pouring down, and my boys turned the city upside down, and this worthless man was nowhere to be found. You were white as a sheet. You said to me: Peppi', my baby girl. Because you knew it was a girl. And you fell asleep.

They found the car up in Vomero, no less. Near the new apartment houses. It had been five hours since I took you there, to the general hospital. Five hours, and the doctor on duty, just a kid, didn't know what to do; he was sobbing with fear, because he could see my face, and he ran back and forth with armfuls of bandages.

He showed up in the end, his collar buttoned all askew, his double chin trembling. He was with his whore while you were falling asleep, you understand that, Rosine'? With his whore. If not for his new car, we'd never have found him at all.

After two hours he came out of the operating room, dripping with your blood. He looked down at the floor. He said nothing.

And behind him came the nurse, and she had the baby in her arms.

You know when you're losing your mind, Rosine'. You know it because the future vanishes from your head. You look ahead, and where there were once days and nights and months and years, now you see nothing. All it takes is an instant, and suddenly there's nothing. They say it's like dying, and maybe that's right. After all, what's death, if not when they take away your future?

For me it was like waking up in hell. And again I heard my heart in my ears,
thump thump thump
. Then it stopped. And it hasn't beaten since.

I don't remember what I did. Or what I said either, for that matter. They had to take her out of my arms, that much they told me, and it took two male nurses, an assistant, the custodian, and three of my own men to do it. I remember the little baby wailing. God, how I hated that baby. The baby and he, the professor, had taken my future away. They were in on it together, the devil himself had sent them both to carry me down to hell.

I went into the operating room.

The place looked like a slaughterhouse, there was blood everywhere. On the operating table were your flesh, your bones, but not you. If the moon had been out, maybe you would have stood up and smiled at me. But there was no moon that night, and there never will be again.

I swore an oath, Rosine'. I swore an oath. Foaming at the mouth, my eyes bulging out of their sockets, the veins standing out on my neck. I swore an oath, with all my body and all my soul, but without the heart that you'd taken away with you. You broke your oath, Rosine'. You swore that you would stay with me for the rest of our lives, that we'd grow old together. And you broke that promise.

I spent two days locked indoors. Not sleeping, not eating, not even thinking. Two days, because the Wolf doesn't sleep or eat when he's thirsty for blood. And after two days I came out.

My mother was there. With the little girl. Outside the door, for two days, they'd never once stopped crying, grandmother and granddaughter. I came out. My mother knows me, and she took a step backward. She read the death in my face.

I went over to her. I don't know what I wanted to do, Rosine'; I reached out my hand. I touched her, and the little baby stopped crying.

She felt my hand on her swaddling cloth and she stopped crying.

The air outside stood still, not even a fly buzzed; you could hear Crazy Antonietta, you remember her, Rosine'? The one who sings all the time, even at night, who lives at the end of the
vicolo
. Hers was the only voice that could be heard. ‘
Dimme, dimme a chi pienze, assettàta
. . .'

I looked at her, Rosine'. Just once, I looked at her. She has a nose, a tiny little button of a nose, exactly like yours. Do you remember, Rosine', when I used to pretend I was hunting for your nose, that was so small I couldn't find it? The baby has a nose like yours. Just like yours.

You swore that oath, Rosine'. You made a promise and you broke it. I swore an oath, too. And oaths aren't something you break.

Her nose, Rosine'. You ought to see her. She has an adorable little button nose.

You ought to see her.

S
itting at her vanity, Livia was brushing her hair and absentmindedly singing

 

There once was a Vilia, a witch of the wood,

A hunter beheld her alone as she stood!

The spell of her beauty upon him was laid,

He looked and he longed for the magical maid!

 

There'd been a long period during which singing had been an important part of her life. From her earliest childhood, in the quiet city of Pesaro, Livia's voice had grown up with her, turning rich and nuanced. As her voice grew, so did her beauty. Her parents, wealthy aristocrats, quickly realized that, given the varied talents that had been bestowed upon their daughter, who seemed every day more like a princess in a fairy tale, the sleepy little city on the Adriatic coast would be too small for her; and so they packed her off to Rome to study under an aunt who was an opera singer.

It was then that singing became her passion and her profession. As a contralto, Livia toured the world, embarking on an extremely promising career. Then she met Arnaldo Vezzi, and she had sung no more.

Certain men, Livia thought to herself as she continued to brush her hair, burn everything they touch to the ground. They're like uncontrollable fires. Certain men cannot have anything but themselves in life. Vezzi was a genius, perhaps the greatest tenor of his time, and a genius's wife couldn't have a career of her own, or even a personality of her own. She had to be the wife of a genius and nothing more: smile, be beautiful, and keep her mouth shut.

But Vezzi's life had ended as perhaps he deserved, with his throat cut in a theater dressing room, there, in that city whose torrid heat was now pouring in through her open window. And it was in that same city that she had decided to live.

Of course that was strange, and she realized it. Some of her girlfriends, in the phone calls from Rome during which they updated her on the latest gossip from the highest social circles, circles in which Livia had once traveled and which she didn't miss in the slightest, had informed her that this decision of hers had generated its fair share of bafflement.

As she sang, she reconstructed the chain of ideas that had led her subconscious mind to select that aria:

 

For a sudden tremor ran,

Right thro' the love-bewilder'd man,

And he sigh'd as a hapless lover can

A never known shudder

Seized the young hunter,

Longingly he began quietly to sigh!

“Vilia, O Vilia! The witch of the wood,

Would I not die for you, dear, if I could!”

 

Not a romanza for a contralto, but for a soprano. And it wasn't from an opera, but an operetta. Sung by Hanna Glawari, Franz Lehár's
Merry Widow
, from the start of the second act.

“The Merry Widow.”

Livia knew perfectly well that that had become her nickname in the drawing rooms of her new city, where her arrival had caused an uproar. The fact that she had refused to dress in mourning, in spite of her recent loss, had caused a scandal.

The protocol of grief was a rigorous one. The first year, black dresses and hats, with no ornamentation of any kind, except for a horrible string of beads in dark wood, with the addition of a black veil for the first six months; no jewelry except for simple earrings, best if they were pearl; in the summer, white with black accessories; no luncheons or dinners, no theater, no movies, no concerts. In the second year, a few small concessions: tea was acceptable, and some color could be added to one's dress, provided it was relatively drab.

Livia thought it was awful that tradition should force a woman to sacrifice two years of her life just because her husband had gotten himself killed, and that it was unbelievable that the loss of a child wasn't treated in a similar way. When diphtheria had taken her infant son Carletto six years earlier, and she herself had felt as if she were dead inside, no one had expected her to wear black; the death of a newborn baby didn't call for mourning, perhaps because it was such a common occurance.

After Arnaldo's murder, she hadn't felt it necessary to observe the appalling local customs for even a day. After all, they hadn't been husband and wife for years. They were just two strangers bound by habit and convenience, by his prominent social standing and her beauty, which he showed off like a trophy. Thinking back, Livia was disgusted with herself, with her willingness to live like that.

The merry widow, then. With her fashionable clothes, her valuable jewelry, the elegance of her lithe, feline gait that caught so many eyes. The merry widow, whose entrance into her box in the Teatro San Carlo was greeted with an intense silence, followed by a sudden buzz of conversation that rose like a tide. The merry widow, who smiled at everyone but confided in no one.

Many men claimed, as they chatted in salons and foyers, that they had enjoyed her charms, but they were all considered braggarts because none of them had been seen out and about with her, and none of them could claim to have seen the interior of her lovely new apartment on Via Sant'Anna dei Lombardi.

But now someone claimed to have run into her on the arm of a strange fellow with green eyes. And that someone had investigated further, and the rumor had circulated through word of mouth, much as the flames might leap from a burning curtain to the wallpaper. The green-eyed fellow was a certain Commissario Ricciardi, an officer of public safety, no less.