The Secret Price of History. Gayle Ridinger
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the hills, she passed the night in everything from the shop-floor cot offered by a Jewish family in the Ghetto whom Caterina knew to a stretch of grass among the ancient ruins (where she was never alone). Often, but especially during those fortunately mild nights among the Roman ruins and the sheep and goats, she thought intensely about Sandor and Goffredo. Perhaps they had laid their heads here, right where hers was, under this peasant's lean-to, similar to the one they'd told her about. With her eyes closed and her face nestled in the fold of her arms, she dedicated countless time to cherished details; she dwelt on the sight of Sandor's bare chest and on that look that came over him when he seemed ready to dare all; then, when she could no longer conjure these up, Goffredo's cheerful voice, in his nasal dialect with its proverbs, began to play in her mind. Nostalgia intoxicated her nightly. God only knew where they were now. Usually she tossed from one side to the other where she lay, finally finding peace by pressing her palms and knees together. Or sometimes that calm came from the pressure on her thigh of the largest of the objects in her deep skirt pocket—her pistol.
Of course there were nights when sleep didn't come because she had reason to think of the dead, and in that case she would pray. Though she hated priests she still believed in God, and when she heard of the death of someone she knew, she would talk to God and then also to herself. The night she learned that after a desperate ride in a wheel barrow, writhing with fever, Anita Garibaldi and her unborn child had died in a hut in the marshlands of the Po, she prayed for them. And after her prayer, with God's permission, other thoughts took over. Garibaldi—where is he now? Did he manage to bury his wife? Where is he fleeing to? A realization about herself suddenly came to the forefront: I am doing nothing to organize my own flight. She hadn't seen James Freeman, who had offered her an American passport, since the day the French had charged into the American Consulate. She had every reason to go back to him for it...so why was she lingering on? Was it in part Rome's fault? It was her home in every sense of the word; she had never truthfully imagined another. Hungry and dirty as she may be, she still stopped to gaze at the sunset bathing her city. It was too strong a tie, too rooted a pleasure. She was dismayed to know this about herself.
Rome took care of her every day. But of course this wasn't really true. It was Caterina, her nurse, who did this. It was too dangerous for Eleonora to live at the house with her, but from the day she had had to leave the hospital, Caterina had met her on the sly, bringing her food and clothes and occasionally news of her parents. In the past, Caterina had substituted her mother, who'd always been off attending balls or receptions, or else inflicting punishments on her for not having behaved to standard during this or that official function. When a punishment ended—most usually it was a day of forced fasting—her mother's tutors from the seminary school would reappear at the house to pound into her such useless things as Latin and religious doctrine. Heavens, the boredom she'd suffered. Caterina, on the other hand, had taught her about life, about how to appreciate good food and ballads about love. She had sat very near Caterina while she read; how much she'd liked the soapy smell of Caterina's hands, the contact of their forearms and elbows, the swallow Caterina made after reading the hero's declaration and announcing his kiss.
From Caterina she knew that her parents, like Pius IX, had not yet returned to Rome. And why would they, when the city was governed with an iron fist by a triumvirate, a board of three cardinals, who had not yet managed to rid Rome of all those citizens or clergy who had supported the Republic? This afternoon she was supposed to meet Caterina at five on the steps of Santa Maria Maggiore. But where was she? It wasn't like her to be late.
Eleonora sat on the steps and waited, the hood on her cape pulled low over her eyes so as not to call attention to herself. The clock tower bells chimed the half hour.
Maybe, Eleonora began to think, her not coming had to do with the Ghetto being isolated off by French troops; for the past three days, they'd been searching for its 'secret treasure.' She had heard that they'd found very little, that just a few necklaces and a bit of gold had thus far been confiscated ('for having been stolen from Papal premises during the short life of the Republic', even though there was no proof). But since Caterina was constantly going back and forth between the Serlupi palazzo and the Ghetto (where she bought her food in the poorest of the shops), she may have been stopped or simply unable to get out past the troops.
It seemed like a reasonable possibility, and Eleonora started walking in the direction of the Ghetto, where someone whom she could ask was bound to enter or exit sooner or later. Passing her family's palazzo and looking up at the third floor windows—where once there had been the nursery, she saw that a pot of flowers on one of the sills had been moved. It should have been in the center, like the others, but today it was way over on the left. That change was meaningful to her: a few years ago, when Luigi was still alive, it had been Caterina's signal that her parents were at home and so when she returned she should come in through the servants' entrance. It could be no coincidence that the flowerpot was in that position. It had to be a sign. Sweet God. If her parents were back, it could only mean danger of some other kind. She quietly used the old latch key Caterina had restored to her to open the service door at the back of the palazzo. The shuttered downstairs rooms were pitch dark. She proceeded cautiously to the main staircase. She thought she heard something, a moan, the sort made in a bad dream, only longer and unnaturally loud…from the second, no, from the second floor landing. She hunched down on the bottom step, so as to be less visible; her hands touched one, two, three sticky spots. She brought her fingers to her nose. Odorless. Strange Caterina should have left it there. She crept up the stairs, towards the sound, towards the dim candlelight coming from the second-storey hall. The door at the end was open—the door to Caterina's room. The moaning voice was Caterina's. Eleonora precipitated towards the voice and it guided her to the floor by the window. The old woman was lying naked with her knees raised in the air, blood running from her small mouth and smeared across her withered breasts and shrunken abdomen.
"Caterina!" Eleonora kneeled by her side.
Her nurse's eyes flashed with startled recognition and one of her hands clawed the floor at her side. After a second, Eleonora understood that she was groping for her clothes. Unspoken words came to her: You're dying, Caterina, and yet you're ashamed of your body? She bent over the old woman and asked, "What are you trying to tell me, my friend?"
The same rasping again. It could only be a name.
"Who? Who did this to you?"
It could only be a name but it was unpronounceable, incomprehensible, and so it was as if no name at all.
Eleonora kissed Caterina on the forehead, and then rose to her feet, for there were other noises in the house. She went back to the top of the stairs and understood they came from the cellar. Someone was moving barrels around. Him.
She descended to the ground floor on arch-tiptoe. The service stairs to the cellar were located next to the main flight. She could hear everything at this distance—the rapist had left the cellar door open. She kept listening: too many barrels and bottles moving at once; there had to be two of them. Suddenly she heard talk. Yes, two voices. She knew French, she knew that la fille meant daughter. They were looking for her. One called the other by name. 'DesMoulins.' They were looking for a hiding place in the cellar. She imagined that Caterina, under torture, had told them to look for Eleonora in the cellar in order to get them to leave the room, after which with the last of her dying strength she'd opened the window and moved the flowerpot.
Pistol drawn, she started down the cellar stairs, drawing back her hood as she went. With just one bullet, she'd have to choose who to kill or die with. This time they heard her and turned round. Neither was a soldier. The one dressed in civilian clothes held a large blazing torch; it hampered his movements and made it hard for her to distinguish his features. His hands were stained red—he was the one who had tortured Caterina. Far from being afraid of her, he seemed composed, a man thinking of a way to save himself. The other one in the black frock—the priest—lurched behind the torch.
"Out. Over here," she ordered the simpering bastard. He was afraid all right. Then she realized he was Monsignore, the one who had lifted her skirts and run his hands like rats over her body. He recognized her too and smiled with odious confidence.
No smile, you! She turned the pistol his way and fired at the forehead. Go to hell.
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