Danielle Steel: Remembrance

“Smoke?” A hand reached out suddenly toward Serena, crossing her field of vision in spite of the way she had turned her back, and startled, she shook her head and hunched her shoulders, as though to protect herself further from what had happened, from what had been. One had a sense of something hurt about Serena; even in all her powerful young beauty, one sensed that there was something broken, something damaged, and perhaps forever spoiled, as though she were carrying some terrible burden, or existing in spite of an almost intolerable pain.

Yet there was nothing on her surface to show that. Her eyes were clear, her face unlined. In spite of the ugly, wrinkled clothes she wore, she was striking. And yet, if one looked beyond that first glance, one could not help but see pain. One of the GI's had noticed it as he watched her, and now as he took a last drag on his cigarette and dropped it on the platform, he found his eyes drawn toward her again. Christ, she was pretty. That white-blond hair peeking out from under the dark green cotton scarf she wore tied around her head, as though she were a peasant woman. But it was unconvincing. Serena could not pass for a peasant, no matter what she wore; Her carriage gave her away almost instantly, the way she moved, the way she turned her head, like a young gazelle, bounding with grace. There was something almost too beautiful about Serena. It almost hurt to look at her for too long a time. Just seeing her in the drab clothes she wore was troublesome. One wanted to tap her on the shoulder and ask why—why are you dressed that way and what are you doing pressed amongst the dregs of humanity on this overcrowded train? And more questions: Where had she come from? Where was she going? And why was there that faraway look in her eyes?

As she stood on the platform in the warm summer darkness, she offered no answers. She only stood there. Very straight, very tall, very slim, and so young, in the crumpled cotton dress. She looked down at the deep creases in the cheap fabric and smoothed the skirt with a long delicate hand as her mind seemed to snag on a memory, a gesture … her mother doing the same thing … her perfectly manicured hand smoothing the skirt of a dress … a white silk dress … at a party in the garden of the palazzo.… Serena squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, forcing the memory back. She had to do that often. But the memories still came.

One of the GI's was watching her as she opened her eyes again and walked quickly down the platform to reboard the train. She looked as though she were running away from something, and he wondered what it was, as she put a foot on the steps up to the train and swung herself gracefully aboard again, as though she had just mounted a Thoroughbred and was about to ride off into the night. He watched her closely for a long moment, the tall thin frame, the elegantly squared shoulders. She had an extraordinary grace about her. As though she were someone important. And she was.

“Scusi,” she whispered again softly as she made her way down the aisle and back into her seat, where she let out a soft sigh and leaned her head back again, but this time she did not close her eyes. There was no point. She was bone tired, but she wasn't sleepy. How could she sleep now? With only a few more hours before they arrived. Only a few more hours … a few more hours … a few more.… The train began moving and picked up the refrain of her thoughts again, as she gazed out into the darkness, feeling in her heart, her soul, her very bones, that whatever happened, at least she had come home. Even the sound of Italian being spoken around her was a relief now.

The countryside outside the train window was so familiar, so comfortable, so much a part of her, even now, after four years of living with the nuns in the convent in Upstate New York. Getting there four years before had been another endless journey. First, making her way across the border into the Ticino with her grandmother and Flavio, one of the few servants they had left. Once into the Italian part of Switzerland they had been secretly met by two women carrying weapons, and two nuns. It was there that she had left her grandmother, with rivers of tears pouring down the young girl's cheeks, holding tightly to the old lady for a last time, wanting to clutch her, to beg her not to send her away. She had already lost so much in Rome two years before, when— She couldn't bear to think of it as she stood in the chill air of the Italian Alps, locked in her grandmother's firm embrace for a last time.…

“You'll go with them, Serena, and you'll be safe there.” The plans had been carefully laid for almost a month now. There was America. So terribly far away. “And when it is over, you'll come home.” When it is over … but when would it be over? As they had stood there, Serena felt that it had already gone on for a lifetime, ten lifetimes. At fourteen she had already lived through two years of war and loss and fear. Not so much her own fear as everyone else's. The adults had lived with constant terror of Mussolini. The children had tried at first to pretend that they didn't care. But one had to care. Sooner or later, events made you care. Sooner or later it all grabbed you by the throat and throttled you until you thought you would die.

She remembered the feeling, still … of watching her father dragged away by Mussolini's men … watching him try not to scream, to look brave as he tried, helplessly, with his eyes to protect his wife. And then the horrible sounds of what they had done to him in the courtyard of the palazzo, and the terrible noises he had made at last. They hadn't killed him then though. They had waited until the next day, and shot him along with half a dozen others in the courtyard of the Palazzo Venezia, where Mussolini was headquartered. Serena's mother had been there when they shot him, begging, pleading, screaming, crying, while the soldiers laughed. The Principessa di San Tibaldo crawling as she begged them, as the men in uniform taunted her, teased her. One had grabbed her by the hair, kissed her roughly, and then spat and threw her to the ground. And it was all over moments later. Serena's father had hung limply from the post where they had tied him. Her mother ran to him, sobbing, and held him for a last moment before, almost as a matter of amusement, they shot her too. And all for what? Because they were aristocrats. Because her father hated Mussolini. Italy had been sick with a special kind of poison then. A poison based on hatred and paranoia and greed and fear. A horror that had turned brother against brother, and sometimes husband against wife. It had turned Serena's uncle against her father, with a kind of passion Serena couldn't understand. Her father thought that Mussolini was a savage, a buffoon, a fool, and said so, but his brother had been unable to accept their differences. Sergio di San Tibaldo had become Mussolini's lapdog at the beginning of the war. It was Sergio who turned Umberto in, who insisted that Umberto was dangerous and half mad, that he was involved with the Allies when in fact he was not. The truth was, Sergio stood to gain a great deal if he could dispose of Umberto, and he had. As the younger son he had inherited almost nothing from their father, only the farm in Umbría, which he had hated even as a boy. And he couldn't even sell that. He had it for the use of his lifetime, and then he was obliged to leave it to his children, or Umberto's if he had none. As far as Sergio was concerned, his older brother had it all, the title, the money, the looks, the palazzo that had been in the family for seven generations, the artwork, the importance, the charm, and Graziella, of course, which had been the final spark to ignite his hatred for his older brother.

He hated her father most for possessing Graziella, the golden fairy queen with the incredible green eyes and spun-gold hair. She had been exquisite, and he had loved her since he had been a boy. He had loved her always … always … when they all spent their summers together in Umbria or San Remo or at Rapallo, when she was a little girl. But she had always loved Umberto. Everyone had loved Umberto … everyone … especially Graziella.