Tuscan Rose (23 page)

‘They are exhausted. Sometimes they say stupid things.’ Rosa looked up to see Luciano standing in front of her. ‘Benedetto didn’t mean anything by it,’ he said.

Rosa nodded but couldn’t bring herself to speak. Luciano sat down next to her. He took Sibilla and bounced her on his knee. The baby laughed with delight. Luciano gazed at Rosa with a mingled expression of pity and admiration.

‘Orietta is right,’ he said. ‘It’s because you are a good mother that you can’t believe others could be such poor ones.’

‘Thank you,’ said Rosa. ‘I try to be a good mother but I think you know that I was never married.’

She watched his face, expecting disapproval, but his expression was undisturbed. ‘Ah, I see,’ he said.

Rosa felt a fleeting moment of anxiety and wondered if she had said too much. They sat in silence for a while looking at the stars, each lost in their own thoughts. A soft light lingered in the sky.

‘Well, now you know what there is to know about me,’ said Rosa.

Luciano leaned back on his elbow and sighed. ‘My mother was a saint,’ he said. ‘Despite the terrible thing my father did, she would never say a bad word about him.’

Rosa was taken aback by Luciano’s sudden intimacy. Hadn’t Donatella said that he never spoke about his father? She was finding herself more and more curious about him.

‘We lived in a house on Via della Vigna Vecchia with parquet floors and tapestries on the walls,’ Luciano continued. ‘We had two cats and three dogs. I remember my father singing while he dressed to go to work in his store on Via Tornabuoni. His grandfather had started as a humble tailor in Turin and by the time my father inherited the business the family was already wealthy. He moved the store to Florence and his reputation as the finest tailor in the city grew.’

Rosa saw that Luciano’s shoulders sank with the weight of his own story. The pain the memory caused him was evident on his face.

‘When my father came home from work,’ Luciano told her, ‘he spent hours playing hand puppets with us and telling us stories. Life was as good as we could wish for, but my father wasn’t happy with that. He was envious of his excessively rich clients. He wanted to be like them. He took our money and invested it in a shipping scheme, which might have gone well if the fleet hadn’t sunk.’

Rosa felt a crushing sadness. ‘That’s terrible!’ she said.

Luciano shook his head. ‘It took a while to go into complete decline. It was a drawn-out slide. Then, before the creditors had
taken everything except the clothes off our backs, my father decided to clear out of our lives.’

Rosa was unable to meet Luciano’s pain-filled eyes. ‘And your mother? She became sick?’

He hesitated before answering. ‘“I’m not strong,” my mother would say on the mornings she couldn’t get out of bed. “Don’t marry a weak woman, Luciano. Marry someone strong.” But it wasn’t my mother who was weak.’

Rosa found Luciano’s story shocking. She had always fantasised what it would be like to have grown up with a family. She’d pictured a warm home, everyone gathered around the table at meal times, and someone to kiss her goodnight. But having parents didn’t guarantee the security and love Rosa had imagined it would. It certainly hadn’t for Luciano and his family.

‘Is your father still alive?’ she asked.

Luciano shrugged. ‘I suppose so. When our mother became gravely ill, he sent my uncle money for the hospital and to take care of us. But he never came back to see us.’

Rosa closed her eyes and imagined a young Luciano standing near the door of his uncle’s house and looking expectantly at the street. She saw every detail of the boy, from his sailor suit to the curl that flopped over his forehead. A pain jabbed her heart. She opened her eyes and studied the hard line of Luciano’s jaw. She understood that he had waited every day for his father until one day he finally gave up.

T
he troupe toured the towns and villages along the Arno, and also briefly toured Siena where they tried
Les Misérables
again and it was well received. Their last stop was Lucca, the birthplace of Puccini. The town’s Roman origins lingered in the grid pattern of its streets, and the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro retained the circular shape of an ancient amphitheatre. The weather was boiling. The men erected the tent while the women sheltered in the shade with Sibilla and Dante. Donatella and Orietta repaired the costumes while Rosa sewed pillowcases for the troupe. The only accommodation they could afford was a hotel near Via Sant’Andrea. One look at it and Rosa knew it was a haven for vermin. She didn’t intend to catch lice again.

‘What are you doing?’

Rosa looked up to see Luciano standing before her. He was naked to the waist. The spicy smell of his perspiration tickled her nostrils. She turned away. There was something about his muscled torso and sun-bronzed skin that unsettled her.

‘I’m making pillowcases for everyone,’ she replied.

‘I told you to help repair the costumes for this evening.’

Luciano’s tone was sharp. Rosa flinched but the memory of the humiliation she had suffered at the Agarossi home helped her to hold her ground.

‘It’s the small things that can ruin your life,’ she told him. ‘Do you think people will come and see us perform if we give them lice?’

‘What?’

Rosa sensed that Luciano was looking at her but kept her gaze lowered.

Donatella and Orietta giggled. ‘Tell him the story,’ Donatella urged Rosa.

Luciano let out an exasperated breath. ‘I don’t have time for this chatter. You can tell me later, Rosa. The performance is in a few hours and we are only half-ready.’

‘Come on, Luciano,’ said Donatella. ‘Why are you being so serious? Do you have heatstroke? Rosa lost her engagement as a music teacher because the place she was staying was riddled with lice. That’s what happened before you found her sitting by the Arno. It’s why she wouldn’t come and see us that night.’

Rosa blushed and fell into a mortified silence. She hadn’t expected Donatella to repeat the story to Luciano. She should have known better than to tell her in the first place.

‘Well, I hadn’t thought of that,’ Luciano said. ‘It’s not a bad idea. I was attacked by mites last summer and it was terrible. The last thing we want is to be itching and scratching on stage.’

Rosa dared to raise her eyes. Luciano was still frowning but she could see from the way his lips twitched that he was resisting a grin. Something in her stirred and she couldn’t help smiling. They both quickly looked away from each other. Rosa was sure that her face must be as red as tomato paste.

‘Luciano!’ Benedetto called. ‘Come on!’

The tent was sagging in the middle. Luciano ran towards the men. ‘Quick, pull the ropes!’ he shouted. ‘It’s going to collapse!’

Orietta glanced at Rosa. ‘My brother can come across as a hard nut,’ she said. ‘But he has a soft centre.’

‘Nilda used to call Luciano the “Amaretti biscuit”,’ said Donatella.

Orietta flashed Donatella a displeased look.

‘Who is Nilda?’ Rosa asked.

Donatella opened her mouth, about to pour out a story, but Orietta jabbed her in the ribs. ‘We have to work,’ she said. ‘You heard Luciano. The performance is in a few hours.’

Rosa wanted to know about Nilda, but Orietta and Donatella went on with their sewing and said nothing more.

Later, when the tent was up, the women fetched water from the cistern to give to the men. Carlo and Piero looked beaten and sat with their heads hanging on their chests. Benedetto lay down on his back while Dante licked his face. Rosa handed a cup to Luciano who was perched on a stool, rolling a cigarette. He received the water with a nod and took a sip.

‘I suppose I have to be grateful to lice,’ he said. ‘If it wasn’t for them, you wouldn’t be with us. You’d be teaching some brats in Florence.’

Something about the way that Luciano looked at her when he spoke both pleased Rosa and made her afraid. But she couldn’t explain her reasons for either emotion.

The hour before a show was always a rush, with the performers dressing and applying their make-up while undertaking a multitude of other tasks. The first night in Lucca was no exception. Donatella ran around in her petticoat, holding ladders for Piero and Carlo so they could adjust lights. Orietta, with curlers in her hair, fixed a rip in the curtains while Benedetto, dressed as a policeman, hammered a loose board on the stage into place. Rosa would have helped but she had to time Sibilla’s feeding and nappy changes so that her cries wouldn’t interrupt the performance.

When Sibilla was finished nursing, Rosa laid her in the basket. She asked Orietta to keep an eye on her while she went to the toilet. Rather than make her way to the tent entrance, Rosa slid under the back of the tent to make her trip shorter. She straightened up and bumped into a woman who was standing there.

‘Excuse me, signorina,’ Rosa said.

The woman was statuesque with ebony hair. She carried a kitbag in her hand, and hurried away as soon as she saw Rosa. The woman’s odd behaviour made her wonder if she was a fascist spy. There was nothing subversive in the troupe’s repertoire, but if someone in the town had found out that she was an ‘enemy of the state’, they might be planning to make trouble. Rosa crept around the side of the tent and spotted the woman talking with Luciano. After a brief embrace, Luciano took the case from the woman, who then walked away towards the piazza.

Rosa returned to the dressing area in time to see Luciano slip the bag under a blanket. Neither Orietta nor Donatella, who were changing behind the ladies’ modesty curtain, saw what Luciano had done. Rosa pretended not to notice.

‘There’s a crowd already,’ Carlo said, rushing into the dressing area.

‘Come,’ Luciano said to Rosa. ‘You start playing and I’ll sell the tickets.’

That night’s performance was the largest audience the troupe had attracted on the tour. They were also the most appreciative, clapping for all the tricks and laughing and crying in the right places for
Les Misérables.
Rosa played well but all the time her thoughts were about the woman and the bag. Why had Luciano hidden it from even his sister? Rosa knew it didn’t contain the takings; Luciano kept those in a pouch tucked under his shirt. And the beautiful woman—who was she? Rosa pursed her lips, convinced she must be the Nilda that Donatella had mentioned. Was she Luciano’s lover? Rosa experienced something she had never felt before: a strange combination of disappointment, fear, rage and yearning. It was her first attack of jealousy.

When the performance was over, the troupe packed up and prepared to go to the hotel. All except Benedetto. The men had agreed one of them would stay in the tent each night to guard the equipment. Although she was exhausted, Rosa could not quell her desire to know what was in the bag. Carlo and Luciano led the
way down the street with the women following behind. Rosa slipped her chain from her neck and hid it in her pocket.

‘Oh,’ she said, feeling her neck. ‘I left my chain on the dressing table.’

‘I thought you were wearing it during the performance,’ said Orietta, looking concerned.

Carlo and Luciano stopped and turned around to see what was happening.

‘You go ahead,’ Rosa told them, handing Sibilla’s basket to Orietta. ‘I’ll only be a minute. I know where it is.’

Luciano frowned at her. Rosa was glad it was dark because she was sure her face was red. ‘Ask Benedetto for the torch,’ he said. ‘We’ll wait here.’

Rosa rushed back to the tent with the Church’s teachings against being a busybody ringing around her head. She remembered Don Marzoli reading from the book of Peter that those who meddled in the affairs of others were as bad as murderers, thieves and other evildoers. Still, Rosa could not help herself. She found Benedetto dozing off at the entrance and slipped the torch from under his seat before running to the dressing area. Luciano would not wait more than a few minutes so she had to hurry. She moved the blanket and was relieved to see that the bag was still there. She undid the catch and opened it, shining the torch into the interior. There were papers, hundreds of them, all folded the same way. Rosa pulled one out and opened it. The words
fascismo
and
liberazione
jumped out at her. Written in bold type across the sheet was the appeal:
Don’t destroy this pamphlet. Pass it on to sympathetic friends or leave it where others might find it.

‘I knew you were lying!’

Rosa spun around to see Luciano standing behind her. He switched on a light. His body was trembling with rage.

‘What are these?’ she asked in a low voice. ‘Anti-fascist pamphlets?’

Luciano clenched his fists. ‘I should not have trusted you!’

‘Not trusted me?’ cried Rosa. ‘Don’t you know that this sort of material puts the whole troupe in danger?’

‘That’s why none of the others know about them, except Piero!’ Luciano retorted. ‘What the hell are you doing snooping through my things?’

Rosa’s heart thumped in her chest. She had expected to discover some secret about Luciano’s lover, not to find out about his covert anti-fascist activities. ‘I’m not a fascist, Luciano,’ she told him. ‘Believe me. But my friend…she was executed for her involvement with Giustizia e Libertà.’

Luciano’s eyes grew wide with Rosa’s mention of the organisation. ‘The only way to fight the fascists is to expose their lies,’ he said in a calmer tone. ‘This is the way I do it. Who was your friend?’

‘Sibilla Ciruzzi. I named Sibilla after her.’

Luciano stepped towards Rosa. ‘You knew Sibilla Ciruzzi?’ He peered at her as if he was reassessing his opinion of her.

Rosa nodded. ‘Did you know her too?’

Luciano shook his head. ‘Only as a brave woman. Her husband is a leading member of Giustizia e Libertà.’

Rosa looked at the pamphlets. ‘You distribute these? Then you are courageous yourself.’

She admired Luciano for what he was doing. The fascists had broken her.

‘I won’t say anything,’ she told him. ‘And you
are
right. It’s better for the others that they don’t know anything. But ignorance won’t necessarily protect them. The fascists put innocent people in prison too.’

Luciano frowned. ‘You sound as though you are speaking from experience?’

Rosa shrugged. One day she might tell him what had happened, but not tonight. She was too shaken by her discovery.

Luciano studied her. ‘What were you doing looking through the bag anyway?’

Rosa knew that she’d made a fool of herself. How could she save the situation? ‘Curiosity trapped the bird in the net,’ she grinned sheepishly, quoting the Italian proverb.

‘Ha!’ laughed Luciano, his gaze settling on Rosa’s lips. ‘Well, if that’s the case, the bird died nobly.’

The final evening of their stint in Lucca was stifling hot. After the performance, Rosa lay awake in the room she shared with Orietta and Donatella, fanning Sibilla. The heat had reduced her milk flow and she was worried Sibilla could become dehydrated. When things had not cooled down by three o’clock in the morning, Rosa could stand it no longer. The hotel had a courtyard and she crept down the stairs with Sibilla, hoping for some relief in the cooler air. She placed Sibilla’s basket on the stones and sang softly to the baby so that she wouldn’t start crying. She found a wooden tub propped against the wall and filled it with water from the cistern. She dabbed Sibilla’s face and chest to soothe her. After a while she decided to try feeding her again. She pulled her nightdress down and splashed water on her breasts. She heard someone behind her and spun around.

‘Who’s there?’

Luciano stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing his pants with the braces hanging down and a singlet. At first Rosa didn’t cover herself. Luciano had seen her breasts before when she had been feeding Sibilla. Rosa had lost the modesty the nuns had attempted to instil in her about her body and behaved as most Italian mothers did—except for the very rich who were concerned about their figures. Her breasts were for feeding her baby. But this time Luciano’s gaze was different and she sensed it. Her skin prickled with goose bumps.

‘It was too hot to sleep,’ she said, pulling her nightdress back up and buttoning it. ‘I was worried about Sibilla.’

Luciano crouched near the basket and felt Sibilla’s face. ‘She is warm. Has she been wetting her nappy?’

‘Yes,’ said Rosa. ‘But I’m not sure she is getting enough milk from me.’

Luciano unknotted the cotton scarf he was wearing around his neck and soaked it under the cistern. He squeezed it out and gently patted it on Sibilla’s feet.

‘She’ll be fine as long as you keep drinking water,’ he said to Rosa. ‘Tomorrow I will rise early and buy some fresh milk. My mother used to say drinking two cups of milk over a sink would make breast milk plentiful.’

‘Thank you,’ Rosa said.

‘Why don’t you sleep out here?’ Luciano offered. ‘I’ll bring a mattress.’

‘Orietta said there are rats.’

‘I’ll watch over you while you sleep.’

Luciano disappeared then returned with the bedding as promised. He propped himself up against one of the courtyard’s pillars and lit a cigarette. Rosa lay down on the mattress with Sibilla. Her body felt weighted with exhaustion. Her eyelids drooped but she couldn’t sleep. She was taken with a desire she couldn’t yet fathom: for Luciano to lie next to her and hold her in his arms.

‘Luciano?’ she said softly.

‘Yes?’

‘Who is Nilda? Is she your lover?’

Luciano stared at the sky and blew out a long puff of cigarette smoke. ‘Go to sleep, Rosa,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about Nilda. Poor Nilda is dead.’

Luciano left the hotel early the following morning to purchase milk for Rosa. When he returned, he collected the troupe’s equipment and organised transport to the railway station. Once they were on the train, Luciano lay his head back and instructed Piero not to let him sleep more than a couple of hours. ‘We are stopping briefly at Pistoia,’ he told him. ‘I want to see if the theatre there is free next August.’