Rupert Thomson - Secrecy

‘Is something wrong?’ the signora asked.

‘I think it’s from Sicily.’

I broke the seal. The letter was dated March the twenty-seventh, more than two months after the earthquake, and it was signed by my mother.

I began to read.

She assumed I had heard of the dreadful catastrophe that had devastated Sicily. By a miracle, she and her sister Flaminia had escaped with their lives, she said, but God in his wisdom had taken Jacopo, Ornella, and their three beautiful sons. Her own house — and much of Siracusa — had been severely damaged, and she could not have stayed there, even if she had wanted to. She had found refuge in Palermo, which had survived more or less intact. While there, word had reached her that I was living in Florence, and that I had done well for myself. She was writing to tell me that Sicily was ruined for her, and that she was on her way to join me. She trusted I could find it in my heart to welcome her. She hoped she wouldn’t be too much of a burden.

Though I had often imagined people surfacing from the past, they were shadowy presences — strangers who knew my story, and wished me harm. I had imagined Jacopo as well, of course, brimming with self-righteousness and anger. Not once, though, not in all these years, had I imagined my mother.

The letter rambled, and the handwriting was so shaky it might have been written during the earthquake itself. My mother had been thirty-three when she gave birth to me. She would now be seventy. How would she manage the journey from Palermo? What would I do with her when she arrived? I lifted the letter to my nose, as if for guidance. It smelled of ash and vinegar.

‘Well?’ The signora’s dark eyes showed above her orange shawl.

‘My mother’s coming,’ I said. ‘I’m going to need a place of my own.’

I called on Lorenzo Borucher. Once I had listened to him boasting about his latest exploits — he had done this person’s hair, that person’s hair; the names rarely meant anything to me — I told him I had decided to take his advice and look for a property to rent. My timing was impeccable, he said. He happened to know of a four-storey palazzo just off Via de’ Serragli, only a short walk from the Grand Duke’s palace.

‘It’s not what you’d call ostentatious,’ he went on. ‘In fact, it’s rather plain. You’ll probably like it.’ His cheeks dimpled. ‘But what about the signora?’

Like Pampolini, Borucher thought there was more to my relationship with Signora de la Mar than I was letting on, and I had done nothing to disabuse him. Since arriving in Florence, I had been mindful of what Gracián had written — namely, that one should always try and transform one’s defects into ornaments. Throughout my life I had been dogged by rumours, but only recently had I realized that the trick was not to deny them or rail against them but to add to them. The more talk that surrounded me, the less credence any of it would have. It might even help to conceal the truth.

‘What about her?’ I said.

‘Is it over?’

I smiled, but made no comment.

He was right when he said I would like the palazzo, though. Its rooms were modest and austere, just as he had suggested, and there was a paved courtyard in the middle that recalled the one in the house where I had grown up. Situated on a dead-end street — in Siracusa we would have called it a ‘ronco’ — it was quiet too. If I missed the House of Shells — I had become so accustomed to Cuif’s nocturnal somersaults that I found it difficult to sleep at first — I also relished my new privacy.

Not long after the move, Fiore took me to the firework factory again. The biggest festival of the year — San Giovanni — was looming, and the Guazzi twins were rushed off their feet. Doffo explained how they had combined spirit of nitre with oil extracted from caraway seeds to create what they called ‘liquid gunpowder’. The dragon they were in the process of building would swoop across the river, he told me, on an invisible, greased wire. Once it had dived beneath the surface, spitting flame — that was where the liquid gunpowder came in — it would soar into the air again, to a great height, and then explode. Ambitious, I said. The two brothers looked at each other and burst out laughing. That’s us, they said.

On our way back through the city, a dreary, insistent rain began to fall, a rain more typical of January or February than June, and by the time we reached my workshop we were drenched. I lit a wood fire and hung our wet clothes over a rail. To keep Fiore happy while they dried, I gave her one of the smocks I wore when I was casting, a small lump of beeswax, and a few of my old tools. Some time later, I heard footsteps in the stable yard, and Stufa walked in.

I straightened up. ‘This is a surprise.’

Stufa wiped the rain off his face, then began to inspect the shelves that lined the walls.

‘I didn’t think you had any time for art,’ I said.

‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘Obsession fascinates me, though.’

He had stopped in front of my pigments, but I doubted it was the pots of mercuric sulphide and chrysocolla that had caught his eye. On the same shelf, at head-height, was the thick glass jar that contained the dead girl’s skin. In a desperate attempt to distract him I asked if he wanted me to show him round. Either he didn’t hear me, though, or he ignored the offer.

‘People tell me you’ve been working night and day,’ he said, his eyes still fastened on the floating piece of skin.

Fiore spoke from the corner of the room. ‘What’s obsession mean?’

Stufa glanced round. He had assumed we were alone, perhaps. Also, clearly, he wasn’t used to being interrupted, least of all by a child.

‘This, Fiore, is Padre Stufa,’ I said. ‘He’s a very important man.’

Fiore stared at him, her mouth ajar.

‘She doesn’t appear to have any manners,’ Stufa observed.

‘She’s shy,’ I said.

‘Witless too, by the look of it.’

I felt my stomach knot with fury. ‘If you’ve seen enough,’ I said, ‘maybe you’d be good enough to let us get on with our work.’

Fiore had edged closer, and was gazing up at Stufa, as if some aspect of his appearance mystified her. Brought up short by my dismissive tone, however, he hadn’t noticed. I watched as Fiore arrived at a conclusion.

‘You’re not very important,’ she said. ‘You’re not important at all.’

Stufa lashed out with the back of his hand and knocked her to the floor. She was so shocked that she forgot to cry. Instead, she stared at him, wide-eyed, as if he had just swallowed a sword or pulled a white dove from his sleeve. Then her mouth opened, and she let out a piteous wail. I crouched down. Put my arms round her.

‘I don’t think it’ll do her any harm.’ Stufa calmly adjusted the emerald he was wearing. ‘Actually, I’m more concerned about my ring. It was a gift from the Grand Duchess. It’s rather valuable.’ He held his hand away from his body, the better to admire the stone, then turned and walked out into the drizzle.

‘My face feels different,’ Fiore said.

A sharp-edged dark-blue mark had appeared on her right cheek, below her eye.

‘You’ll have a bruise,’ I said.

‘For ever?’

‘No. Just for a few days.’ I stood up. ‘Wait here.’

I ran across the stable yard and out into the gardens. Stufa was ahead of me, on a path that led back to the palace. He was moving at a slow, almost ceremonial pace, like somebody in church.

I was only a few yards away when he sensed my presence behind him. Startled, he backed up against a high laurel hedge.

‘You think you can do something like that and walk away?’ I said.

Stufa laughed, his laughter no louder than exhaled breath. ‘Of course.’