Tuscan Rose (29 page)

Roberto remained with the troupe but his attitude towards Rosa was cool. She no longer bothered talking to him. Once she overheard him saying to Luciano, ‘Are you sure Rosa is the right woman for you? I could introduce you to my sister. Now, she’s a fighter.’ A split lip from Luciano meant that Roberto never made the mistake of making a comment like that again.

While Rosa was organising the music for the first performance in Montecatini Terme, she caught a glimpse of the program. Roberto was back on in the variety acts. Her mind spun. Had Luciano put Roberto back on the program to appease him? If so, it would be a betrayal of Rosa’s trust in him. She felt she was in a tug of war with Roberto over Luciano’s loyalty.

Rosa did her best to play well for Carlo’s and Donatella’s acts but she had difficulty concentrating. When Roberto appeared on stage, she glanced at Luciano but he did not look in her direction. Roberto was wearing a white shirt instead of a black one. This time he didn’t swagger like Mussolini. He stretched his hands out to the audience beseechingly.

‘An Appointment with Pegasus,’
he said.

Rosa held her breath. It didn’t sound like something Mussolini would say, but she couldn’t be sure with Roberto. To her amazement, what followed was a lyrical poem about the winged horse from Greek mythology—wherever his hoof struck the earth, a spring burst forth. The audience was moved by the beauty of the imagery and the idea of a majestic creature bringing freedom to the people of the earth.

As the poem continued, Rosa began to read the underlying meaning. It was the disguised story of Lauro de Bosis, a young intellectual from Rome who had flown over the city and dropped
leaflets urging the Italian people to throw off the rule of the fascists. Afterwards, he and his plane,
Pegasus,
were lost at sea.

‘You live in a prison and pity those who are free,’ said Roberto.

Roberto was treading a fine line. As well as tourists, the audience contained schoolteachers, notaries, pharmacists and doctors—people who may or may not be enthusiastic fascists. And yet this time Rosa could not be angry. Her conscience was pricked. If she had suffered, how many more thousands of innocent people were continuing to suffer?

Rosa was unable to sleep after the performance. She tucked Sibilla under Orietta’s arm and went outside the tent for some fresh air. She was surprised when she saw Luciano standing a few yards away looking at the sky.

‘You had the same idea?’ he said, turning to face her. ‘It’s too hot to sleep.’

‘Let’s walk for a bit,’ suggested Rosa.

Luciano took her hand and they strolled down a path and into a grove of trees.

‘The poem Roberto recited was beautiful,’ Rosa said.

‘So you are not angry at me for letting him perform it?’

Rosa shook her head. ‘Not everyone will understand the double meaning, although it is still treading on dangerous ground.’

They walked on in silence.

‘Luciano,’ Rosa said, touching his arm, ‘I wouldn’t object to Roberto’s anti-fascist messages if I didn’t have Sibilla to think about.’

‘I know,’ said Luciano. ‘I think of her too.’

Rosa stopped and turned to him. ‘I’m also concerned about you.’

Luciano shook his head. ‘I’ve never been able to live only for myself,’ he said. ‘It’s never been in me. I’m not like your Antonio Parigi, able to keep a Fascist Party card in my drawer and even wear a black shirt on occasion so I can keep my business.’

‘He’s part Jewish,’ Rosa tried to explain. ‘He has an elderly father to support.’

‘It’s everyone thinking about themselves that has brought about the downfall of Italy,’ Luciano replied. ‘To be a great nation, we need to have visionaries and great thinkers. Not to be focused on what clothes we wear or how finely we furnish our houses.’

A shiver passed over Rosa. She thought of de Bosis flying over the dark ocean and realised that he had thought the same thing. His death had been noble. But Rosa didn’t want to be mourning a noble man; she wanted to be caressing a living one.

‘Luciano,’ she said, seized by a sudden panic, ‘promise me you won’t do anything reckless. I don’t know what I would do without you.’

Luciano turned his gaze to the stars and didn’t reply. Rosa could feel him slipping away from her.

‘Make love to me,’ she said.

He stared at her. ‘Are you sure? Here?’

Rosa nodded. She undid the buttons of her dress, slipped it over her shoulders and down her hips. She removed her chemise and underwear and stood naked before Luciano in the night air. He drank her in with his eyes before removing his shirt and pants. He picked up Rosa’s dress and put their clothes together on the ground, making a cover for them to lie on. Rosa did not think of Osvaldo this time. She only thought how beautiful Luciano looked in the moonlight.

Luciano took Rosa in his arms and pressed his lips to her neck. His hand lingered over her breasts. ‘Touch me,’ she whispered, lying back on the clothes. She sighed when he caressed her breasts, then brushed his tongue over her nipples. His hand swept down her stomach to her thighs. She shuddered with pleasure as he pressed his lips to her sex and gripped his shoulders when a sensation like dozens of electric shocks burst over her body. She squeezed her eyes shut, struggling to catch her breath.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw Luciano lingering over her. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘It’s all right.’ She saw the stars twinkling in the sky behind him. There was no pain, only a tingling pleasure that made her moan and dig her fingers into his back. She
wrapped her legs around his waist wanting to cling to him like that forever. Luciano’s breathing quickened.

After a few moments, they lay side by side and nestled into each other. Luciano fell asleep with his hand resting on Rosa’s thigh. She told herself that she would forever associate the stars with this night and with Luciano.

W
hen the tour was finished Rosa returned to work in Antonio’s shop. Luciano told her that she didn’t need to work but Rosa wanted to save money. She had ambitions of sending Sibilla to a convent school as a
paying
student, and Luciano had promised that he would set aside money from the communal tin for that purpose.

One morning at Antonio’s shop, Rosa was sitting at the front desk thinking over her fears about Luciano’s activities. She wanted things to go back to how they were before Roberto appeared, when Luciano was going to defeat fascism with his pamphlets and protect her and Sibilla.

Antonio returned from visiting a customer. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Rosa. She realised she must have looked miserable.

‘You’re deep in thought,’ he said. ‘Were you contemplating the new piece that arrived yesterday?’ Antonio rested his hand on an oak dresser with a candle stand over the centre leg. ‘What do you make of it?’

Rosa knew Antonio was trying to cheer her up but she wasn’t in the mood for attempting a reading on the dresser, especially when he didn’t believe in her powers to see the origins of things. She asked after his father instead.

Antonio lowered his eyes. ‘He declined over the summer,’ he said. ‘It’s difficult to witness. He used to be so strong. When I was a boy I’d watch him strutting along with several bags of plaster on his head.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Rosa.

Antonio grimaced. ‘I don’t have any brothers and sisters. My cousins are all in Venice. So…’

He didn’t finish the sentence but Rosa knew what he was trying to say. He was lonely. She realised that Signora Visconti had taken away more than his chance at marital happiness. She had stopped him enjoying children of his own. If his father passed away, Antonio would be all alone.

‘Would you like me to visit him when you go back for lunch today?’ she asked.

Antonio brightened. ‘That’s kind of you, Rosa. He often asks after you.’

Rosa could tell there was something weighing on Antonio’s mind. Something he wanted to tell her. But he seemed to be having trouble raising the courage to come out with it.

‘Why don’t we take Allegra and Ambrosio to stay with him?’ she said. ‘They will be good company.’

At lunchtime, Antonio and Rosa walked to the apartment, with Ambrosio on a lead beside Antonio and Rosa carrying Allegra in a cane basket.

‘Ah, what beautiful children you have,’ called out a florist.

Antonio and Rosa looked at each other and laughed.

‘Well, Allegra is pretty like you,’ said Antonio. ‘But I don’t lift my leg at every statue and planter.’

Rosa was shocked to see how frail Nonno had become since she had visited him last. When Giuseppina ushered her and Antonio into Nonno’s room, he could barely lift his head off the pillow. He smiled when he saw the animals. ‘They are much better than people,’ he said, rubbing Allegra under the chin. ‘They give so much and only ask for kindness in return.’ The effort of talking tired him. There would be no swearing today.

‘How about a card game?’ Antonio asked his father.

Nonno laughed weakly. ‘You only want to play me now because you think you’ll win.’

‘I brought my flute,’ Rosa told him. ‘Antonio says you don’t listen to music much, but I think you might like this.’

She assembled her flute and played Saint-Saëns’s
The Swan.
She chose it because it was a tranquil piece that conjured perfectly the image of a swan gliding on water. Antonio sat down next to his father to listen. The door opened and Giuseppina and Ylenia peered inside. When they saw that Rosa was playing, they entered the room and stood either side of the bed.

‘Did that please you?’ Rosa asked Nonno when she had finished.

‘It pleased me very much,’ he said, closing his eyes. ‘It eased the pain. Play me something else.’

Antonio glanced at Rosa admiringly. ‘I didn’t realise you were so proficient,’ he said. ‘You’re obviously classically trained.’

Rosa played several more pieces until Nonno fell asleep. Then she and Antonio walked back to the shop in silence. It was sad seeing Nonno so feeble, like watching a great lion taking its last breaths.

They passed by the clock shop and Rosa’s heart jumped when she recognised Signora Visconti through the window. Antonio’s mistress was admiring gold watches with a man Rosa assumed was her husband. He was not as handsome as Antonio and much older. Antonio noticed her too. Signora Visconti saw Antonio but they didn’t acknowledge each other. Rosa, however, could feel the charge of energy that passed between them when they locked eyes.

They walked on, Antonio noticeably unnerved. Rosa wondered why Signora Visconti had kept coming to see him after she had married someone else. If she really loved him, she would have left him alone to carry on with his life.

‘Why don’t you bring Sibilla to the shop with you any more?’ Antonio suddenly asked Rosa. ‘With Ambrosio and Allegra keeping my father company, it’s going to be quiet.’

‘She’s very active,’ explained Rosa. ‘I’m afraid she might damage something.’

‘Not in the backroom,’ he answered. ‘I can put locks on the cupboard doors and a gate into the shop and then Sibilla—and the furniture—should be quite safe. I miss her happy face.’

‘That’s kind of you,’ Rosa told him.

She was grateful for his offer. Orietta was having difficulty obtaining sufficient sewing work since returning from tour. She had been offered a job in a patisserie and this way she would be able to take it.

They continued walking. Before they reached the shop, Antonio turned to Rosa. ‘Listen, I don’t want to pry into your private life but I’m worried about you,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what sort of provision your late husband left for you, but if you are working I assume it wasn’t enough. If you ever need anything, please ask me.’

Rosa was touched and ashamed at the same time. Antonio was a kind man and she had never confessed the truth to him that she was not a widow. If she hadn’t known how deeply in love he was with Signora Visconti, she might have mistaken his generosity for something else.

The troupe had one more engagement before the winter set in: to play music together at the Festa della Rificolona. Rosa’s flute was in need of maintenance and she took it to Signor Morelli at the music store. She was grateful that he remembered her from the time she’d had her flute repaired before seeing the Agarossi family but not from the time she’d been a governess at the Villa Scarfiotti. Signor Morelli had aged. He was greyer and more stooped than when she had last seen him, but just as cheerful.

‘Things didn’t work out with the Agarossi family, eh?’ he said. ‘Never mind, they are difficult children. It seems you have found a niche with the Montagnani family? I saw
The Count of Monte Cristo
in the summer and recognised you at the piano.’

‘The season went well for us,’ Rosa said.

Signor Morelli cocked his head. ‘You’re a good musician, Signora Bellocchi. I could find you work playing for weddings.’

Rosa thanked him. She was happy selling furniture but it was good to know she could do something else if she needed extra money.

‘You do know the Montagnanis are the children of a famous Florentine tailor?’ Signor Morelli asked Rosa.

She wasn’t in the mood for hearing the tragic story over again. Anything that hurt Luciano hurt her too. But there were no other customers in the store and Signor Morelli was intent on telling it.

‘Their father was tailor to the rich and famous of Florence,’ said Signor Morelli. ‘He used to buy his children’s instruments from this store.’

‘Truly?’ said Rosa. A faint tingle started in her fingers and toes. It was the same feeling she experienced whenever she was about to see the origin of an object. ‘I was brought up in a convent,’ she explained. ‘I had never heard of a famous tailor called Montagnani.’

Signor Morelli raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh, his name wasn’t Montagnani,’ he said. ‘That was the name of their uncle. They took his name when he adopted them…after their father had left.’

The tingling in Rosa’s fingers and toes grew stronger. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.

‘No,’ said Signor Morelli. ‘His name was Taviani. Giovanni Taviani.’

Rosa didn’t breathe for a few seconds. ‘Giovanni Taviani? The gatekeeper at the Villa Scarfiotti?’

Signor Morelli was surprised that Rosa knew of the villa. ‘Yes. Well, he originally went there as the estate manager. The Old Marchese was fond of him. They served together in the cavalry in Africa. Giovanni Taviani had saved the Old Marchese’s life. But of course it was a far fall from the existence he’d been leading in Florence.’

Rosa suddenly understood the vision she had experienced the first time she had played with the Montagnani family. She walked
back to the apartment in such deep thought that she took a false turn and found herself on the wrong street. All she could see before her was the image of Giovanni Taviani. She remembered his wild grey hair, his upright posture and his cultured voice. He was Luciano’s father! She thought of the eviction she had witnessed in Via della Pergola and how Giovanni Taviani had gone a step further and deserted his family. Then she thought of the Weimaraner puppy and the other animals he had saved. Was it his way of trying to make amends—if not with his children then with God?

When Rosa arrived at the Montagnanis’ apartment and found no-one there, she went down to the cellar. She was surprised to discover Luciano and Roberto speaking with a man she had never seen before. He had a malnourished look about him. His fringe hung over his eyes. The man was nervous and gave a start when Rosa appeared.

‘It’s all right,’ Roberto told him. ‘It’s only Rosa.’

Rosa’s eyes fell to a large trunk at the man’s feet and a suitcase next to it. She looked at Luciano. He took her by the arm and led her up the stairs. When they were in the Montagnanis’ apartment, he told her: ‘Roberto is moving into the cellar.’

‘What’s in the trunk?’ she asked.

‘Parts of a printing press. We’re going to produce our own anti-fascist newspaper. It’s become too dangerous to get everything through France.’

‘Here? In this building?’ Rosa’s eyes pleaded with Luciano to be more cautious. ‘But your family lives here.’

‘It’s perfect,’ he said. ‘The sound doesn’t travel to the hall. No-one will know it’s here.’

The apartment above the cellar was occupied by an elderly couple who were both half-deaf. Luciano was probably right that they wouldn’t hear the clack of the press through the solid walls and floors. The apartment next to the couple was occupied by a shifty-looking man who was possibly doing something illegal
himself and was unlikely to report anybody else for doing the same. Still, Rosa wished she hadn’t asked what Luciano and Roberto were planning. It was one more thing to worry about.

‘Rosa?’ Luciano grasped her hands. ‘The anti-fascist movement has almost disappeared. People have been terrorised into silence. We mustn’t cower now. We’ve heard that Mussolini is afraid of our small group.’

Rosa put her hand to Luciano’s cheek. If Mussolini was afraid of them, he would increase the number of spies he sent out to find them. But she didn’t say anything. There was nothing she could say that would stop Luciano.

‘We have to continue to fight,’ he told her, his eyes aflame with passion. ‘Mussolini is growing less friendly with Britain and closer to Hitler. Do you understand what such an association would mean for Italy?’

Rosa put her arms around Luciano’s neck and hugged him. It couldn’t have been easy to obtain the printing press. It looked like it was being delivered to them in parts. She didn’t want to spoil his triumph with her fears, so she hid what she felt.

‘I understand,’ she said.

Luciano peered into Rosa’s eyes. ‘I’m lucky to have you and Sibilla,’ he said. ‘I thank God for you every day. You give me the strength to fight.’

After Luciano had returned to the cellar, Rosa slumped into a chair in the kitchen. She admired his courage. She was the one who was weak. As much as she despised fascism, she longed for comfort and security. What she wanted most was a husband and a home, and yet every day that dream seemed to be slipping further from her. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t be anything but loyal to Luciano; he had saved her and Sibilla from the street and had been good to them. Her love for him was rooted deeply in her heart.

Rosa dried her tears and set about making supper. She thought of all the women who had loved great men: Joséphine and Napoleon; Anita Ribeiro and Garibaldi; Madame du Barry and
Louis XV. She wondered if they had felt the same heights of joy and depths of fear that she did.

Nonno’s health took a turn for the worse and Antonio had to spend more time at his apartment and less time at the shop. He left Rosa in charge most days. He had come to trust her judgement on furniture and if she went to an estate sale and found a piece she thought was good, he let her buy it without his checking it first.

At the same time, Luciano started writing and printing the first edition of his newspaper. The money promised by Giustizia e Libertà hadn’t come through so Rosa had let him use the money they had put aside for Sibilla’s education to cover the first few editions.

‘They are an honest organisation,’ Luciano assured her. ‘You’ll have the money in the next few months. The problem is, working through France.’

‘I’m not worried,’ Rosa told him.

She had no doubt that Giustizia e Libertà would pay if they could. Sibilla wasn’t going to school for some years yet, and Rosa was doing so well selling furniture that she would replenish the money herself within a few months, even if she wasn’t paid back. Rosa was proud that she could help the work of the anti-fascists in some way. The withering looks Roberto had been sending her grated on her nerves. She hadn’t forgotten what he’d said to Luciano about her not being a strong partner to him.

‘I’m glad to help. It makes me feel less of a coward,’ she told Luciano.

Luciano frowned. ‘Wherever did you get that idea?’ he asked. ‘I’ve told you I don’t want you directly involved in the cause. It’s too dangerous for you. But how can I honour the woman I love if I let her live in a country where the leadership is rotten to the core? I don’t want you to be anyone other than yourself. I love you.’