The Secret Price of History. Gayle Ridinger
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I remember that during the party he promised me that if he became president he would certainly do what he could for the Italian national cause. What a pity that at present he seems to be looking to become Emperor Napoleon III. He needs the Pope's support for that. Now he's the one we are to fight."
Outside the hospital, they ran directly into two rather dusty- looking young men, one blond and trim and the other brown and round-faced.
"Princess!" stammered the second, halting in his tracks.
"Do I know you?"
Goffredo felt his heart drop. What had possessed him to address her in such a familiar way?
"Oh yes," said Cristina briskly after a second. "You're the man who helped us out with the carriage this morning."
He was relieved that she had consented to the conversation. "I'm a cheesemonger from Piedmont, Princess." Now, what else can I say? "I –I have heard that your field workers all have warm places to sleep in the winter."
"Ah," replied Cristina wonderingly.
"But is it true, Princess, that you're the richest woman in all of Italy?"
He felt Sandor poke him for his brazenness.
He didn't care. He would carry this frank conversation forward. It wasn't going badly, actually. And then there was the fact that the second woman, who was not as handsome as the princess, didn't—or couldn't—take her eyes off him.
"That was before the Austrians seized my assets," Cristina retorted. "Right now, I don't think I have a lira. I was told that the Austrians have even ransacked my house in Milan." Then abruptly, her tone softened. "I must say it gives me pleasure to hear someone using the word 'Italy' to indicate more than the peninsula—more than the 'geographical coincidence, as intellectuals say. You see a nation."
The compliment left Goffredo pleasantly flustered.
At this point Sandor bowed and introduced himself in French. He too was here for Italia, he said.
The two women asked him the usual polite questions. Neither gave much importance to his declaration that he was Hungarian. Rather, Margaret found him to be the incarnation of the Garibaldi hero as she described him in an article two weeks before: an athletic figure, handsome face and determined expression, no sign of fatigue from his adventures and hardships. Cristina found him right for the project at hand.
"We expect many wounded. I need two strong men to help set up camp beds," she said. "The young woman who is supervising the job now is the courtyard to left of San Bartolomeo. I believe she hasn't finished yet for the day," here Cristina glanced at Margaret, who nodded, "and also that she needs help."
Sandor poked Goffredo in the back.
"Right, Princess," said Goffredo.
"Mesdames." Sandor's hand rolled from his forehead to his waist in a fancy salutation.
"Her name is El-e-o-nor-a!" Margaret called after them.
It is after sunset and the moon has risen. Eleonora Serlupi, Sandor Kemenj and Goffredo Morelli have moved every unloaded cot into the second ward. Tomorrow Eleonora will cover the beds with the sheets that the women from the nearby Ghetto have delivered in two chests. The morning will be a hectic one, for her at least. But her life has been bursting at the seams with things to do for the last year, ever since she left her hiding place with the Anglicans up in the hills. In the fall, she attended James Freeman and Augusta's wedding in Florence and returned to Rome with them, living adventurously for months but glad to be back. Until last week she slept at the houses of Luigi's closest friends—the married ones—and by day she helped Freeman's friend Margaret Fuller manage her correspondence in Italian. Now the pending war has changed all that. At this hospital Margaret and Cristina Belgioioso have set up, she knows she will see awful things. But leaving things the way they are would be worse.
She sits amicably with her two strangely-had but welcome helpers on the stone wall, dangling her legs too over the water and brambles twenty feet below, and knowing enough not to enquire too much about their tomorrow. They are volunteer soldiers after all, and soon they will be risking their lives.
The east bridge is visible and several of the closest domes shine in the moonlight. There had been a night like this five years ago, she had been with Luigi…. But she doesn't want to allow that memory to envelope her and she stops it by closing her eyes a brief moment and acknowledging the normal black void. The three of them talk about the crowds in the squares for Garibaldi, and she likes their enthusiasm. In general, she is getting a very favourable impression of these two young men. First, because they are young like her. Second, because there are two of them; sitting here with just one would be embarrassing and unnatural on such a night. Third, because they complement each other. The one so clearly a man of the earth and unsure about how to act with women; the other—Hungarian he says he is, so handsome a smiler and upright in his close-fitting red shirt.
"It's still early," she says. "I know where there's a jug of wine. I've happened on the monks' wine cellar."
With their wondering approval, she goes off for it. When she returns, Sandor and Goffredo are tossing pebbles into the river below, and Goffredo is asking all sorts of questions. They throw her a friendly glance but don't interrupt their conversation. She listens, not fathoming what they are talking about precisely.
"What did it look like the next day?" asks Goffredo.
And then: "Did that happen first of second?"
And then an equally practical question like: "But how did he do it exactly?"
"You really want to know?" rebuts Sandor.
"Yes."
"Really? Really?"
"Yes!" Goffredo insists.
His eyes brimming with good-humour, Sandor gives a series of comic demonstrations of possible answers to the unknown preposition. They are silly and even bawdy gestures, senseless really, only then suddenly Eleonora understands! Sandor is pantomiming someone burning himself and treating the burn, and he does that by putting a hand between his legs and hopped around as if on now on fire himself, then pulling free his 'extinguished' hand.
"Good. That's very good," she laughs. "And now the wine." She retrieves the jug from the wall ledge.
After they have all had their swig, she gets the urge to perform something herself.
"Do you know much about the night that the Pope had fled Rome?"
"Not really," says Sandor. "Do you?"
"Why yes," she replies with breathless pleasure. "Now I will show you."
Gesturing at them to stay by the wall, she occupies a bit of moonlit courtyard like a stage.
"It was evening," she begins in a hushed voice, of the sort she's heard actors and actresses use. "In front of the Quirinale where the Pope lived, there were bonfires." Eleonora points here and there in the twilight around her. "I was with an American painter named Freeman. Some women with baskets were selling fruit, some people were sleeping on the ground, there were groups having agitated debates, and a musician was strolling around with his mandolin.
"At a certain point some boys started throwing stones at the windows. And under one of the windows of Palazzo Quirinale a man started yelling from a piece of paper." Eleonora assumes the man's pose and scowls, pushing her honey-red hair from her eyes. "The man spoke in the name of the people of Rome. He dictated our demands for peace are these: the election of a democratic cabinet of ministers, a constituent assembly, a declaration of war against Austria, and the court-marital of the Swiss Guards who last week fired on and wounded the citizenry!"
"At his words, a prelate appeared on a second floor balcony. He said in Latin, Non possumus—'we cannot.' The crowd began heckling and pushing, and I could see that Freeman, my friend, was in a state of extreme agitation. And then suddenly I almost got run over by a carriage full of priests flying out of the side entrance at top speed. I managed a look inside as it turned and the curtains swayed. 'It's the Pope!' I began yelling." Eleonora