Page 53 of Daughter of Genoa
‘No, thank you. I’d rather not—’
‘Drink,’ the commendatore orders, and he lifts the flask to his lips. The alcohol hits the back of his throat and his stomach churns; he bucks forward and vomits up thin green bile, narrowly missing his father’s right shoe.
‘Damn it to hell,’ his father barks, ‘what’s wrong with you?’
Beneath the weakness and the confusion and the layers of deep-instilled, reflexive fear, something in Vittorio snaps. He takes a cautious sip of the brandy – it stings his throat, but it goes down this time, and stays down, and fills him with a spreading warmth.
‘I’m dying,’ he says. ‘That’s what’s wrong with me.’
His father is staring at him – Vittorio can feel his eyes boring into the side of his face. He takes another sip of brandy and looks ahead, at the horizon.
‘What d’you mean, you’re dying?’ the commendatore splutters. ‘Dying how? Of what?’
‘Tuberculosis, probably.’ There’s a strange delight in being casual, in dropping these words so they hang in the air between them. ‘Or it could be cancer, or heart failure. But it’s most likely TB. I had it before.’
‘I know you had it before. I got you the best doctors, the best treatments. You cost me a bloody fortune and they all assured me that you were better.’
‘I’m sure I was, at the time. It can’t be cured, though,’ Vittorio says. ‘It can only go dormant. It did, obviously, and now it’s back. I’m surprised your doctors didn’t tell you that,’ he adds.
He knows his father won’t dare explode at him. He’s far too conscious of his reputation to unleash his anger in public; and the city is waking up now, cars and trucks filtering past on the road behind them. But he’s still surprised when the commendatore shakes his head and says softly: ‘That’s terrible. Christ, son, you could have told us. Your poor mother.’
Vittorio hangs his head. It’s always painful to think of his mother: his sweet, vague mother who never did anything wrong, though as a boy he’d sometimes longed for her to speak up, to intervene when he was the one being terrorised. But then he grew up and left her.
His father puts a hand on his forearm. ‘How long have you…’ The commendatore clears his throat. ‘How long have you got? Have they told you?’
‘I don’t know. Not long.’
‘What does that mean? Months, weeks?’
‘Weeks,’ Vittorio says, but he knows it might be days.
The commendatore swears under his breath. His hand is heavy, a manacle on Vittorio’s arm. ‘You’ll come home, then. You’ll come home and you’ll… we’ll look after you there. You’ll be comfortable,’ he says, and his voice trembles so that Vittorio has to look away. ‘We’ll make sure of it, your mother and I. Your brothers and sister will want to see you, too. You won’t deny them that.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘I’m not asking,’ his father says, and there’s a touch of the old steel. ‘I’m not leaving you like this. You’re coming home. I’ve got the car and I’ll take you there now.’
Say no, Vittorio urges himself.Pull yourself together and say no. But there’s something so tempting about the idea: dying in a soft bed in his family’s villa at Albaro, perhaps in his old bedroom with the high ceiling and the trees outside the window. No more lies, no more deception, no more obligations left unfulfilled. And there’s a part of him – the part that’s still a wounded little boy – that thrills to the tremor in his father’s voice. He wants to be loved. He wants to be looked after. He wants, for a dizzying moment, to forget everything.
But there’s so much he’d have to forget. Can he really bring himself to pardon this man for every terror he’s inflicted, every spirit he’s broken, every underhand thing he’s done? Can he pardon him for what he did to Marta? He sees her as he first saw her, curled up terrified and alone in the shelter at Galliera, and love drives its thorns into his heart.
‘Come on, son.’ The commendatore leans towards him. ‘Let bygones be bygones, eh? I know it’s been difficult between us in the past, but you mustn’t worry about that. I’m quite prepared to forgive you.’
*
Vittorio arrives at the community house weak and winded. The adrenaline that propelled him along – away from the vanished shipyard, away from his father – is running out and he’s nauseated again, his heartbeat pulsing unpleasantly in his temples and dark spots floating before his eyes. The elevator doors close behind him and he leans against the wall, trying to collect himself; but soon they open again and there is don Francesco, hurrying along the corridor.
‘Father Vittorio! Where on earth have you been? Oh, you look terrible, terrible. Come on,’ he says, ushering Vittorio towards the parlour where they usually meet. ‘I was watching for you, I must confess. Brother Carlo took your breakfast up this morning and you weren’t in your room. I couldn’t find you anywhere. Do you need water? Food? Shall I send to the infirmary for—’
‘No,’ Vittorio says. He swallows, tastes bile. ‘No, I’m all right. But I do need to speak to you.’
‘Well, if you’re sure.’ Don Francesco opens the parlour door and waves him through. ‘But you must tell me if you want anything. I’m expecting Mr X shortly, just to let you know – hopefully we shall be done before he arrives.’
Vittorio sits at the table. ‘I think perhaps… I think he needs to know this, too. But if I could talk to you first, in confidence…’
‘Of course you can.’ Don Francesco sits down opposite and smiles at him, his hands clasped together. ‘You can tell me anything.’
And so Vittorio takes a deep breath and he tells don Francesco the whole story. Well, not thewholestory. He can’t bring himself to tell this earnest young priest that he has fallen in love, abandoned his discipline, lost sight of his vocation. In this more acceptable version, Marta is his dear friend – that, for a Jesuit, is quite bad enough – but the rest is true, at least in outline. It was affection, he says; pure, chaste, foolish affection that drove him to conceal the state of his health for so long. (And his dedication to DELASEM, he almost adds, but something tells him that don Francesco would take that badly; he’d fret about it, and he’s visibly distressed already.)
