Susan Anderson - Death of a Serpent

“Born in Lombardy, in the hills. Poor my family. My father was a shepherd.”

“How was it you traveled all the way to Sicily?” Serafina asked.

She looked out the window, not at the rocks or sea, but at something half-formed, like the shard of a memory. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Perhaps not. Hard for me to understand why a woman would want your profession. The work is hard, no?”

“Tell me, dear lady, have you ever delivered a child and then removed that child from his mother?”

“Several times. Women die giving birth.”

She frowned. “Not that.”

“Taken the child from its mother you mean?” Serafina asked.

She nodded.

“Never. I would never do such a thing, no, despite what the state says are the laws now. They say if the mother is a criminal or dying, the child should become a ward of the state. That’s talk from Turin. Some women, one or two, maybe, unmarried, don’t want their children, but even in those cases, I would not take the child from the mother, unless the mother was a wild one. And thank the Madonna, I’ve not run into that mother, not yet. Not Sicilian to take a child from its mother. Against our blood.”

Lola rubbed an eyelash. “I wish you’d been my midwife.”

Serafina stretched an arm around Lola’s shoulders. “And the father?”

“A man of learning. He wanted the child raised by the monks, so they took him from me.”

“How did you happen to meet this man?”

“After my mother died, my father brought us to the orphanage. All right for a while, until the mother superior died. Not so good then, so I left. Found work at the university.”

“Teaching?”

She shook her head. “I cleaned the lecture halls, the library. Good, honest labor. No pay. Worked for my keep. Backbreaking. Not like this profession, mind, but hard. One day I opened the door to a professor’s office. He was in the room reading some papers. I excused myself, but he said, ‘No, wait.’ He began to talk to me. Talked to me as if I were a man, you know, someone worthy of his words. Fascinating talk it was, about the oceans, the rivers of the world, the ebb and flow of tides, of ideas, of religious fervor and upheaval. The next week I came back. He was there. We talked again. It began that way. Nine months later, I gave birth to his son.”

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen.”

Serafina shuddered.

“Unless you’ve had a child taken from your arms, you’ll never understand, never. I walked until I came to a land that looked foreign to me. A new land, a new life. Stayed with a family near Naples. They fed me, gave me work, but something happened. Too long ago to matter. Ran away. Fishermen brought me here. I worked in Palermo, but the girls talk, you know, and Villa Rosa, well, it has a reputation. I was fifteen when I knocked on Rosa’s door.”

Shadows covered Lola’s face. She blinked several times. Her mood changed. “But you have to make your life, don’t you? You have to heave the past, just chuck it out and move on. My good fortune to find Rosa. Bad times, these. If I can help her in any way, please let me know.”

“You can help me right now. Tell Gusti I’ll talk to her another time.”

Serafina stormed into the office. “Was my daughter here?”

The madam looked up from her ledger, still whispering numbers. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Carmela. Was she here?”

Rosa bit her lip.

“Say something. My daughter. Did she come here four years ago? Did you let her in? She worked here? You didn’t tell me?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Never mind. Answer my question: did my daughter work here as a prostitute?”

“Fina, that was long ago. Only a few months she stayed. She had no roof over her head after you made her leave.”

“I made her leave? Not on your life. Giorgio and I told her she had to finish school. Women of our class do, you know.”

“Women of your class? Putting on airs, is it?” Fists in her armpits she cocked her elbows and strutted with her torso like a clown. “ ‘Women of our class!’ Well, women of my class never talk to our children the way you talked to her. Mean, snarly words you used to your flesh and blood. Sicilian I am and proud of it, not ‘pretend noble.’ Nasty they are to their offspring, shipping them off to school barely weaned. We love our children. Ashamed, you should be.”

“What would you know about children?” Serafina asked.

Rosa stood. “ Strega !” She stabbed the air with a finger. “I fought for my child. Flesh and blood? No. But I’m the mother, she’s mine. Ever in my heart, she is.”

“I take it back.”

Silence.

“I take back the part about Tessa. But you believed my daughter’s story. You never asked for my side. Worse, you took her in to work in your…your bordello, and never came to me. Never told me, even though I was here. Whenever you summoned, I dropped everything in the middle of the night, cared for your prostitutes as if they were my own clients. Saved them after they’d taken the strega’s evil draughts to rid themselves of their baby. And all the time, Carmela was right here, under your roof working on her back and not a word out of your lips about her. A child came to your door, not yet fifteen, and you took her in!”

“Take this handkerchief. I hate it when you cry. And sit down.”

“Keep your damn linen! Running around with boys, Carmela. When I saw her in the public gardens with that soldier, half undressed she was, I became incensed, yes. Mad. Wild. Perhaps I used words.”

The madam snorted. “Perhaps?”

“You know nothing, you shrew. Carmela found school ‘boring.’ Said she knew more than the teachers. ‘Only children attend’ and ‘I’m a woman now.’ We insisted she finish school, Giorgio and I. She refused. We told her, ‘Follow our rules while you live under our roof,’ never suspecting, never dreaming that she’d leave. She packed.”

“Did you try to stop her?”

“Of course we tried! Giorgio and I pleaded with her, so did Carlo. But no, she left, running down the steps one horrific night. Haven’t seen her since.”

“And you looked for her?”

“What a question to ask! Of course we did. And she was here, right under our noses, and you didn’t tell me!”

“Not here long.”

“Over a year.”

“Who said?”

“Gioconda.”

“What does she know?”

“Lola, too.”

The madam was silent.

“And she doesn’t know about the deaths of her grandmother and her father. You had the chance to send for me when she knocked on your door. And what did you do? You saw a child. You saw coins, the coins you think I know nothing about, and you never told me. You groomed her, ate off her earnings. You slut!”

Serafina slowed her breathing. “You never told me. Fine. You can get yourself another detective. You can find yourself another friend.”

Tuesday, October 16, 1866

The next few days were a blur. When she wasn’t delivering babies, Serafina helped her children with their schoolwork, accompanied Renata to market, went with Maria to her lessons, or watched Giulia sew their garments. Evenings, she spent in her mother’s room on the third floor. She read, thought, frowned up at the stars.

Despite her best attempts to banish it from her mind, Serafina could not forget her behavior the other day. Vicenzu had berated her for spending too much money on fabric. Her face flushed as he showed her the ledger. While he chattered on about red ink, Renata clattered in the kitchen. The domestic shuffled. Maria played her scales. Totò raced around the table like a wild specter.