Basil’s warning accompanied me on my hike to the portrait gallery, his words making me doubt Zimmer for the first time. Until then, I had trusted what the estate had told me, not only about Zimmer’s return, but about everything from the DNA test to the state of the Montebianco finances to Dolores’s illness. The thought crossed my mind that I should have been a bit more wary before climbing into a helicopter and flying to God knows where without an escape route. And yet, I told myself, nothing had happened to make me doubt Zimmer’s honesty. Basil was most likely exaggerating, and Zimmer would be back in six days.
All thought of Zimmer disappeared as I passed through the enormous double doors of the Montebianco portrait gallery. Basil had been right: it was an incredible collection. From the ceiling lush with trompe l’oeil clouds to the panels of oil paintings on the walls, it seemed to glisten and refract with light. I walked through the long, narrow room, the gleaming parquet floor reflecting the gilded frames of oil paintings, dozens upon dozens of family portraits, all hanging side by side.
I found Dolores asleep in her wheelchair at the center of the hall, her wool blanket slipping down to her ankles. I pulled it up around her waist and tucked it in, taking a good look at my great-aunt. Time and illness had ravaged Dolores, leaving her thin and frail. Her weakness was even more exaggerated when compared to the vibrant portraits. These men—because only men stared down from the frames—were exemplars of fortitude, perfect specimens of strength. The wealth and breeding of each Montebianco count—the hunting trophies, the battle scars, the beautiful wives, the palaces—had given him the bold confidence of an emperor. In fact, one of my ancestors—Heinrich XII, Count of Montebianco—had been painted standing on a chariot before a Roman aqueduct, as if he had conquered the world.
And yet, despite their grandeur, something had gone terribly wrong. All their wealth and power had been unable to sustain their dynasty. Whatever had caused their diminishment—whether it was bad luck or, as Nonna had said, some taint in their blood—time had brought them the same fate as the rest of humanity: obsolescence, death, and obscurity. I wondered what they would have thought, to see the world now, centuries after their deaths. How they would have balked at the idea that a young woman from another part of the world, without the culture or noble bearing of the Montebianco family, was all that remained. Their power and fecundity had dwindled, and now there was nothing left but me.
Dolores awoke suddenly, blinking as she tried to recognize me. “Push,” she said at last, pointing a bony finger forward, her voice hoarse, little more than a croak.
I wheeled Dolores past the glossy, dark-hued oil portraits, the sleeves of the mink coat draping over the metal handles. The silence of the gallery was pristine, so clear that the squeaking rubber of the wheels on the floor carried through the space, resounding like a chime in a church. Small brass plates were affixed to each frame, presenting the name of each Montebianco. I strained to read them as we passed, feeling an eerie sense of recognition. Large blue eyes, flat noses, heavy brows that made them look grumpy even when they smiled—there was such continuity in their traits that they seemed like one man, dressed in different uniforms perhaps, sitting before different scenes, but all variations of an ancient original. I had never known any of them, and probably wouldn’t have liked them much if I had. And yet I carried them inside me. I found, in the shape of a chin or the mold of a cheek, a reflection of myself. Their genetic predispositions were my genetic predispositions. This, I realized, was the definition of family in the twenty-first century.
“There,” Dolores said, as we rolled by a portrait. “Your grandfather Giovanni next to his brother, my Guillaume.”
The picture showed Giovanni as a young man. He was pale and stocky, with blue eyes and white-blond hair. A defiant smile gave me a shock of recognition. I remembered his face as an old man, how he had smiled in the same manner, as if daring the world to show him something new and unexpected. I remembered how my parents had always noted the cleft in my chin had come from him. I touched it then, feeling the proof of my unoriginality.
In the portrait, Giovanni wore a military jacket and stood near a horse, a gun in hand. Although the portrait must have been painted just before he left Nevenero, I had a hard time imagining this man, who appeared so similar to the other Montebiancos, leaving the castle and traveling to New York City with the villagers of Nevenero. How had he related to people who were so very different? He must have had trouble finding his place among them. The military uniform, the horse, and the look of steely confidence in his expression—he had changed so much by the time I knew him.
“He looks just like the rest of them,” I said at last.
“Well, he should. Giovanni was raised to carry the family forward. Lessons in comportment, elocution, French and German, etiquette, horses—his formation was extensive, his father made certain of that. The same went for Guillaume.” Dolores twisted the rings on her fingers. “After Giovanni left, the family title went to Guillaume. Being a younger son was a problem, of course. But not as big a problem as having no heir at all.”
I shifted my gaze to a nearly identical portrait of my grandfather’s brother, Guillaume. “Did something happen between Giovanni and Guillaume?”
“If you consider abandoning one’s family something, then yes, something happened between them. Something irreparable.”
“He must have had a good reason to leave,” I ventured.
“Good reason?” Dolores gripped the arms of her wheelchair. “He was weak. Weak and afraid. That was his reason.”
My grandfather stared from his portrait, his eyes trained on Dolores, and for a moment I imagined him stepping down and joining our conversation to defend himself. He would tell me the real story, rather than Dolores’s bitter version.
Dolores tapped my arm and pointed ahead. I pushed her forward.
“You may have noticed that there are no portraits of women in this gallery,” Dolores said. “You would think there were no Montebianco daughters, no wives, no matriarchs. Of course, this was not the case. The portraits of the women of the family are all hung in the salons, bedrooms, and sitting rooms—the domestic areas of the castle. There is just one exception. There, along the corridor.”
I pushed Dolores past innumerable sets of glistening eyes, to the far end of the room, where a curtain separated a chamber from the rest of the gallery. Pausing, I looked back over my shoulder, as if the great chorus of my ancestors might bolster me, then swept the curtain aside, revealing a small, enclosed space filled with candles, like a chapel. Two chairs sat at the center, positioned before an enormous oil painting framed in gold.
“You asked why Giovanni left,” she said. “This is your answer. She is why he left.”
I glanced at the copper tag: Vittoria Isabelle Alberta Eleanor Montebianco, 1931.
“Go on,” Dolores said. “Take a good look.”
I sat down and gazed up at a canvas almost entirely devoid of color. Vita wore a black silk dress, its fabric arranged around her in layer after folded layer, opening like a black rose around her hips. A hundred tiny onyx buttons climbed from waist to bosom, glossy as the backs of beetles, terminating at a high collar at her neck. Her hair and ears were covered by a black veil. Her skin was pale, almost deathly white, and the background was little more than a wash of gray.
I stared at the portrait, transfixed. Tall and wide-shouldered, she was as strong and commanding as any of the men in the gallery. This strange mixture of elegance and dominance found expression in a cool, supercilious gaze. There was something about the figure that held me captive. I couldn’t look away, even for a second. It was not the light glinting from the jewels in her white hair or the piercing, unearthly blue of her eyes that made my heart beat. It was the expression frozen upon her face, an expression of absolute power.
“She was beautiful,” I said.
“As a matter of fact, she was not beautiful,” Dolores said. “This painting looks nothing, nothing, like her. Nothing at all! Vita has always had a pale, frightening complexion and an overbearing appearance. She was just as awful when she was young as she was as an old lady. Despite various attempts to help her—experimental therapies and so on—she never did become presentable. This portrait is a work of fiction. The family hired an artist to create a flattering version. The eyes, the enormous Montebianco blues, those are Vita’s. The rest is propaganda.”
“But why?” I asked.
“The truth has never been an easy burden for the Montebiancos,” Dolores said. “With power comes pride. Better to hide a problematic child away than to let the world know how very damaged she—and thus the family—was.”
Suddenly, I remembered the woman in the tower. The flicker of the candlelight over her pale face. The way she had watched me. It had not been Bernadette in the tower.
“Ambrose, Vita’s father, had wanted to kill Vita, but her mother stopped him. I suspect she thought Vita would not survive long, and would take her tainted blood with her to the grave. But instead, Vita remained strong and vital. And, of course, her parents grew old and died, leaving Vita to the family like a cursed heirloom, one passed from generation to generation.”
“Vita is alive,” I said.
“She will be one hundred and two years old in March.”
“And she is the person in the northeast tower.”
“She has resided there all her life.”
“But I don’t understand,” I said, trying to work out the consequences of this information. “Why didn’t Vita inherit the title of countess?”
“Mon Dieu,” Dolores said. “Vita would never have been capable of running this place. She was deemed incapable of managing her own affairs and disinherited. The family records are in the library. I would suggest you acquaint yourself with them.”
I glanced up at the portrait of my ancestor, the oils gleaming in the flickering candlelight. “Can I meet her?” I asked.
She twisted a large ruby on her finger. “In time, yes. But not now. I’m in no condition for Vita today. She is not easy to stomach, even at her age.”
“What is wrong with her?” I asked, feeling a knot of anxiety tighten in my chest as I realized that Vita’s medical problems might explain my own troubles.
Dolores gave me a long, steely look.
“The Montebianco family is one that survives by traditions, Alberta. Traditions that have been passed down for many hundreds of years. These traditions might seem outdated to someone like you, coming from a place like America, where people do just as they please. But for us, they are essential. The suits my husband wore were sewn by the same haberdashery in London as his great-great-grandfather used. His shoes? We have a cobbler in Milan who knows the family feet intimately—the width, the length, the peculiarities of shape. I don’t imagine you have these kinds of traditions over there in America, but for us, certain practices are not questioned.”
She coughed again and, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket, wiped her lips.
“For the past hundred years, the most important tradition of your family has been to keep Vita. Keep her from harming herself, of course, but mostly to keep her from outsiders. That has not been an easy task. She is often her own worst enemy. And over the years, there have been instances of trouble. Stories. Rumors. When fear and superstition get hold of simple people, they turn violent. Have you heard the accounts of what happened to noble families during the revolution in France? Such violence has happened often throughout history. Frightened peasants surround a family, burn them out of their home, parade them through the streets, and execute them. They pillage and destroy everything of value. It is savagery. They would have killed us all if they’d got ahold of Vittoria.”
Dolores turned her wheelchair to face me, her green eyes suddenly ablaze.
“But now you are here, and there is a higher responsibility to uphold than protecting Vita.” Dolores gestured to my ancestors gazing down from their gilded frames. “The Montebianco family relies upon you, Alberta. It is their legacy, our legacy, that must be kept. And I will help you do it.”