Vita had been so ill when I left that I half expected to find the northeast tower empty upon my return. But when I arrived, a fire smoldered in the fireplace, and Greta stood by Vita’s bedside, pouring one of Bernadette’s herbal remedies into a spoon.
“Madame!” Greta said, looking from me to Isabelle wrapped in a blanket in my arms.
“Is that Alberta?” Vita said. Her voice was weak, and she didn’t have the strength to lift herself up in bed, but it wasn’t too late: she was alive. “Alberta? Is that you?”
“There’s someone I would like you to meet,” I said. Walking close to the bed, I held Isabelle before Vita. “This is Isabelle. Aki’s daughter. She is a descendant of Leopold.”
“What a beauty,” Vita said, her eyes alight with pride.
Greta looked at the baby, startled, and turned to go, but I stopped her. “Wait a minute, Greta,” I said, feeling all the sadness of what I was about to tell her. “There is something you need to know.”
“What is it, madame?”
I pulled out the green Kindertheaterfestival T-shirt I had found in the village and gave it to her. She gasped with recognition. “He wore this the day he went missing,” she said. “Where did you find it, madame?”
“In the mountains,” I said softly.
“The mountains,” Greta echoed, scrunching the T-shirt into a ball in her hands. “Where in the mountains?”
“Far from here,” I said, tears coming to my eyes as I watched her take in the meaning of this, her expression changing from hope to despair.
“Joseph is not coming back,” she said, “is he?”
Isabelle shifted in my arms, opened her eyes long enough to see that I was there, and fell back to sleep. “No, he’s not,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
Greta sat on the bench near the fire and sobbed, and I found myself crying, too, crying for Joseph and Anna, crying for my own sweet Isabelle, who would never know her mother and father, crying for Luca, who would never meet my child. Greta was overcome by sorrow, but she wasn’t alone in her sadness. It was all of ours to bear.
“I’m going to be leaving the castle with Isabelle,” I said at last. “I’ll need help. Can you come with me?”
Greta looked to Vita. “But what about my work here?”
“Your work here is done,” Vita said. “Bernadette will tend to me.”
“Then I will go,” Greta said, her voice unsteady and her eyes red from crying. “Gladly.”
“I plan to leave as soon as possible,” I said, giving Vita a challenging look, daring her to stop me. “If you could pack our things, I will ask Sal to drive us down the mountain today.”
“Yes, madame,” Greta said, turning to the door.
As she passed the fireplace, Vita said, “Bring me that box on the mantel before you leave.” Greta lifted a wooden box with copper trim and carried it to Vita. “Thank you, Greta,” she said, raising her eyes. “For everything.”
“Pleasure, madame,” Greta whispered, and hurried from the room.
I had intended to confront Vita after Greta left. My anger about Joseph’s death and the lies she told about the children the Icemen had taken had enraged me. But when we were alone, I found that all my anger and indignation had drained away, leaving nothing but sadness.
“You are upset with me,” Vita said, watching me with narrowed eyes.
“I’m devastated,” I said. “All those children, Vita. They were not strong enough to survive the cold. It was all for nothing.”
“I didn’t know they took Joseph,” she said, lowering her eyes. “They had access to the castle, and they must have taken him. But I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“I won’t let anything happen to Isabelle,” I said. “That is for sure.”
“Ah, then you have become a kryschia after all,” she said, smiling weakly. “There is something you must see before you leave.”
Vita opened the wooden box. Inside, there were notes of currency, bundles and bundles of francs and liras held together with string, outdated currency that she would never be able to spend. Digging below a stack of franc notes, she removed an envelope and gave it to me. The letter was addressed to Vittoria Montebianco and had been postmarked from Milton, New York. The name and return address was that of my grandfather, Giovanni Montebianco.
May 14, 1957
Chere Maman,
Marta has urged me to write a letter of reconciliation. She believes that, if nothing else, such a gesture will relieve the pain of our final unhappy encounter. She sees that I suffer from our altercation and, quite honestly, she is correct. I am alone, so very alone, in this foreign place. Losing my fortune, my birthright, my home, my mother and my brother, has left me bereft. And while I hold no illusion that a single missive can heal what has transpired, I do believe that there is the chance you will listen to me and alter the terrible commitment you have made to our ancestors.
When I think of what the creatures have done to the people of Nevenero, what they did to my Marta, I am utterly at sea. Anger seizes me, gripping my heart, and I am unable to forgive. How do you live, Maman, with the knowledge of what you are doing? Assisting these creatures to survive is one thing, but condoning their crimes is unforgivable. You accused me of abandoning my family, but you were wrong. I have not abandoned you, but them, and all they represent. If I am an orphan, it is they who have made me such.
The immigrants from Nevenero are strangers to me, and seem to hate me for my name and history, but it is they who have become my only connection to home. I will never see our mountains again, my children and their children will never know them, and I thank heaven for that. There is nothing but evil in our black mountains. Nothing but ice and snow and secrets.
Dearest Maman, we are not prisoners to our ancestors. We must resist our biology and be happy. There is still hope for you and for Guillaume. Abandon the castle, sell everything, and come to New York. I am here, waiting. There are ships every week. I beg you to break this monstrous chain holding us to the past. We are tainted, but our dark lineage can be left behind.
Yours,
Giovanni
I put the letter down and looked at Vita. She stared at me with an intensity that I had seen just once, just minutes before she had poisoned Dolores.
“When I felt they were old enough to know the truth,” Vita said, “I took the boys to the village of the Icemen. I had hoped that, when they were older, they would work together to help our ancestors. But Giovanni found Marta in the village, and that was the end of everything.”
I stared at her, astonished. “My grandmother was one of them?”
“Not by birth, but by integration. She had been taken as a girl from Nevenero and raised among them. She spoke their language and understood their customs. I believe she would have been a great asset to them, a strong peasant girl like Marta. But Giovanni took her from the Icemen. She, in turn, stole him from the Montebianco family. Together, they took my dreams with them.”
I held Isabelle close, her smell filling me with tenderness, so that I almost felt, as I listened to Vita, capable of forgiving everything. But whatever sadness Vita carried, whatever disappointments and mistakes marred her life, I could not remedy them. I had made a commitment to Isabelle. I was not her mother, I was not even part of her tribe, but I would be her family. Gathering the baby up in my arms, I stood to leave, knowing that I would not see Vita again.
“One more thing before you go,” Vita said. “You see from my son’s letter that he wanted me to come to America. I don’t know if you can imagine what a terrifying proposition it was, to leave these mountains. I considered it, seriously considered it, for years, all the while hoping to find the courage to do what my son did so naturally: defy my lineage and be free. Finally, I wrote to Giovanni at the address on that letter in Milton, New York. He never responded, and thus I was not sure that my letter had ever made it to him. Not, that is, until you arrived.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I never mentioned a letter.”
“You didn’t have to,” Vita said. “You told me that Giovanni killed himself in July nineteen ninety-three. I sent my letter some weeks before, in June, telling him I would leave the castle to come to America. His response was suicide.”