Chapter Eight

Convent living was not hard. Not for Rosa. Yes, it was cold at night; yes, the meals were only scraps to feed a starling; and yes, some of the girls were spiteful. But she had moved around from place to place so many times that she had learned how to make new friends quickly. And how to leave them just as quickly, too.

What was hard was the nuns. With their angry eyes and their crepey cheeks and the ruler ever ready in their hands to smack down on soft young knuckles or to clip across the back of calves, stinging like a snakebite. The one good thing Rosa had to say for her own mother was that she never hit her, so these sudden casual physical attacks left her speechless with rage and misery.

Rosa liked mathematics, liked the symmetry of it, and she was in the middle of an arithmetic lesson with Sister Agatha when Sister Consolata stuck her cheery head around the door. Her cheeks were bunched into a smile that was at odds with her sour black habit and stiff white headdress. Sister Consolata was the exception among the nuns, a beam of sunlight in a dark and thwarted world. All the girls wanted to be in her sewing class because there were no rulers there and she would sing to them in her pure soprano voice while they worked.

“May I borrow Rosa Bianchi for a while? Reverend Mother wishes to speak to her.”

Sister Agatha, a stout woman who preferred cold baths to children, frowned to demonstrate her disapproval but could not gainsay the orders of the Reverend Mother.

“Very well, Rosa. You may be excused.”

“Thank you, Sister Agatha.”

Rosa had learned that much, to thank them for every tiny sliver of mercy if she wanted to keep the skin on her knuckles. She glanced with lowered eyes at her friend Carmela, sitting next to her, a pale-faced Venetian with unholy Titian curls, legs like stilts, and carrying the stigma of being born out of wedlock. Carmela tried to give her a tiny smile of encouragement, but her eyes were huge with concern. Why? What did the Reverend Mother do? Whip you? Make you pay for your sins? Rosa shuddered; she knew she carried around a whole heap of sins.

“Hurry up, girl,” Sister Agatha snapped.

“We don’t want to keep Reverend Mother waiting,” Sister Consolata added gently.

Rosa hurried to the door and down the stark corridor, scurrying behind the long black robe that moved surprisingly fast. She yearned to grasp one of its musky folds, to smell it, to let its incense drift into her head, to hold on to it. To hold on to something.

“Rosa, dear child, let’s tidy you up.”

Sister Consolata had come to a halt in front of a large oak door carved with the image of Christ on the cross. Rosa lowered her eyes and was taken by surprise when the nun started attacking her hair with a hairbrush that appeared like magic from the folds of the black habit.

“You have such lovely curls,” the nun laughed, “and we don’t want Reverend Mother cutting them off, do we?”

“No, Sister,” Rosa whispered, appalled.

She submitted mutely to the tidying process, to being patted and pressed and brushed down, but her fingers managed to creep into one of the black folds where they nestled quietly for a few seconds. When finally satisfied, Sister Consolata rested a blue-veined hand heavily on Rosa’s head and closed her eyes in silent prayer. Rosa watched the way the soft layers of her face settled into stillness like ripples in a pond and the way the scarlet flares on her cheeks faded. She stared up at the nun for a long moment and wondered what she’d look like if she were dead.

“Now, little one”—Sister Consolata popped open her eyes—“the good Lord has brought you a visitor today.”

The nun’s words made the world outside—on which Rosa had slammed the doors tight to keep it out of her head—come sweeping back to her, but now it had changed. It was bent and twisted at the edges. Suddenly she felt as if she were drowning; something dark and heavy flooded her chest and she had to squeeze her eyes shut to keep tears away. Once again the memory of her mother’s stiff and savaged body on the cold slab flared up inside her head. She started shaking.

“Courage, Rosa. Our dear Lord in Heaven is with you and knows all that is in your heart. Call on Him for strength.”

Sister Consolata patted Rosa’s chest right on the spot where her heart was hammering so hard she feared it would crack open her ribs and spill a crimson flood onto the clean scrubbed floor under her feet.

“You’re breathing too fast, Rosa. Slow breaths. That’s better. Stand up straight now.”

Rosa took slow breaths. She stood up straight. She stared blindly at the door.

Sister Consolata tapped timidly on its oak surface and put her ear to it, her face tense within the tight circle of her wimple. A murmur came from the other side. With a bright smile pinned on her lips, the nun opened the door.

Dislike. It hung in the room, as gray as mist; the air was drenched with it. That was what hit Rosa first when she stepped over the threshold of the large, high-ceilinged room. The woman in this room disliked her intensely. And Rosa knew why. Sister Agatha had spelled it out to her. Reverend Mother was pure of heart. She talked to God every day. She read His Word every day. Whereas Rosa was nothing but the tainted offspring of a wicked woman who had condemned her own soul to eternal damnation in the fires of hell. That was what Sister Agatha said. Tainted blood in her veins. Did she bear a mark on her forehead too, like the evil Cain in the Bible? One that others could see but Rosa couldn’t?

“Here’s Rosa Bianchi, Reverend Mother.”

When Rosa didn’t move, Sister Consolata placed a firm hand against her back and launched her across the expanse of Persian rug. Vast oil paintings on the walls featured old men decked out in violent red or gaudy purple robes, and she cowered under their critical gazes.

“Come here, girl.”

Rosa warily approached the figure in black who was seated near the log fire. The room was far warmer than the corridor or the classrooms. Mother Domenica sat stiff as a poker in a carved chair that looked very old and extremely grand. She wasn’t tall, but she reminded Rosa of a giraffe because of her long skinny neck and pointed face. Her tongue kept flashing across her lips, but otherwise she remained totally still, hands folded like pieces of bleached paper on her lap. Then a movement in the chair opposite on the other side of the fire caught Rosa’s attention, and for a second her feet froze. Paralyzed with hope.

It was the architect.

Rosa could not take her eyes off her visitor. She was sitting in a smaller carved chair and seemed to glow in the amber light of the fire. Her dark hair hung wet and shiny to her shoulders and her skirt, the soft color of mushrooms, was speckled by raindrops like a bird’s egg.

“Signora Berotti has generously come to visit you, Rosa, to inquire after your welfare.”

Rosa didn’t know what to say. She nodded.

“Don’t be sullen, girl. Come and sit here.”

Mother Domenica jutted her pointy chin toward a small pine stool placed beside her own chair. Rosa wanted to pick it up and carry it over to place it beside the architect’s chair, but she didn’t want her knuckles skinned in front of her visitor, so she did as she was told and sat on the stool. Sister Consolata backed out of the room and shut the door quietly, leaving Rosa alone with the gray mist of dislike.

Rosa had thought a lot about the architect since she’d been brought to the chill corridors of the convent. Signora Berotti was different. And she had that way of looking at you. Isabella, she’d said her name was. An architect with a dead husband and a bullet hole in her back. Rosa wondered what the bullet hole looked like. What she did know was that Signora Berotti wasn’t like other people. No one else had ever talked to her about pilasters or symmetry. No one else would ever think she would care.

“Tell me about your day, Rosa,” the architect prompted gently. “Mother Domenica tells me that you had French and mathematics lessons this morning and a good lunch of lasagne.”

Then Mother Domenica is a liar.

Rosa nodded. She could smell the lies in the black material that hung its holy disguise on the woman in the big carved chair. The lies smelled like rotten grapes. Sour in her nostrils. When Rosa lifted her gaze to the pointed face, the Reverend Mother was smiling at her, but Rosa didn’t smile back. She stared straight at the nun’s sharp black eyes.

“Do you enjoy learning French?” the architect asked when the staring had gone on long enough.

“Oui,” Rosa muttered.

What else could she say? She thought about saying: No, Signora Berotti. We stand in a row in the French class and Sister Maria fires a word at each of us that we have to shout back in French. If a girl gets it wrong, she has to kneel on the floor and the flat side of Sister Maria’s ruler slaps down on her head. She stays there until she gets a word right. I have never learned French. My head is sore. My knees hurt. Is that what you want to know?

Rosa lowered her eyes to the round table that stood at knee height between the two chairs. On it sat two cups of coffee. The Reverend Mother picked one up and raised it to her thin lips, its aroma drifting thick and heavy to the back of Rosa’s throat, making saliva spurt into her mouth. Beside the other cup stood a small silver jug of milk and a stubby glass of water. She could guess who the water was for. She sat in silence, listening to the logs crackle in the flames and feeling the coffee torment her empty stomach.

“Rosa.”

The architect drew her attention.

“Rosa, I’ve brought you something.”

Rosa’s gaze jumped to her face. The architect’s eyes were blue, not blue like a flower is blue, but blue like the sea, full of grays and purples and greens. They were smiling at her.

In the large carved chair the black robes rustled and the coffee cup was replaced on the table. “And what might that be, signora?” Mother Domenica asked.

“I’ve brought Rosa some torcetti.”

“Our girls are not allowed to eat between meals.”

“I’m sure you can make an exception in this case.”

Rosa became aware of the architect changing. When she’d first entered the room, Signora Berotti had seemed soft in the chair, her body curved, her head tilted on one side, her mouth rising at the edges in a smile. Now, Rosa could see that the signora’s limbs had grown spiky, her fingers straight, her shoulders back. Her eyes were no longer round when she looked at Mother Domenica but had a hard edge to them that had not been there before. From a canvas bag at her side she withdrew a small package wrapped in greaseproof paper and held it out to Rosa, offering it on the palm of her hand, the way you would tempt a nervous foal.

“Enjoy them,” she said.

Rosa’s hand was fast. Faster than the Reverend Mother’s. She snatched it onto her lap and started to rip open the paper, hunger driving her stomach to lurch and bile to shoot into her throat.

“Just one.”

The Reverend Mother’s stern voice barely reached her ears. All she could hear was the tearing of the paper. All she could smell was sugar. On her lap lay a nest of torcetti. Baked worms. That was what they looked like, worms with heads crossed over tails, sugar-crusted and crunchy. Rosa lifted one, sank her teeth in, bit it in half, and felt the sweetness and crispness explode on her tongue, making her dizzy. Immediately she pushed the rest of the pastry into her mouth.

Dimly she was aware of the architect talking, moving her hands through the air, laughing and shaking her head, telling a story it seemed. Something about a train. A brass band. A horse and a rabbit. But Rosa only caught snatches of it. She was too busy with the torcetti, her golden twisted worms, the crust of sugar gleaming like diamonds catching the firelight. Swiftly she started to cram them whole into her mouth, to stifle the voices inside her, to squeeze more and more down her throat until all the emptiness would be gone and all she would feel was full. Stuffed full. No more pain or . . .

“Rosa Bianchi, stop that at once!”

The Reverend Mother’s hand was reaching for what was left of the package. Vaguely Rosa was conscious of the architect rising to her feet, still narrating her story of people arriving on a train, still trying to distract the Reverend Mother’s attention from the appalling and repulsive sight of Rosa cramming food into her mouth.

“Enough!” Mother Domenica shouted.

The nun’s veinless hand seized a corner of the greaseproof paper.

“You are disgusting, girl.”

The hand started to remove the package, but Rosa clamped both her own hands tight around it. The Reverend Mother’s face distorted with disbelief and a shudder ran through her.

“Give it to me, Rosa Bianchi. At once.”

“No.”

A shocked silence made the room suddenly grow smaller, but Rosa dug her fingers in tighter.

“Let go, you undeserving child.”

“No.”

Crumbs spilled from her lips. She was suffocating in sugar. Air wouldn’t go in and out of her lungs.

“Do as I say, girl!”

“They’re mine.”

“Release it at once.”

“No.”

The crucifix that hung around the nun’s neck rattled on its chain as the other veinless hand started to swing forward. Rosa was so fixated on the biscuit package that she didn’t see it coming. It hit her full across the face, sending slugs of half-chewed biscuit sailing out of her mouth over the table and into the milk jug. For no more than a second a numb silence ricocheted through Rosa’s head, but then came the bolt of pain and a roaring in her ears. For a moment her mind couldn’t recall where she was, but then the architect’s hands were lifting her to her feet, softly touching her hair, and it was the architect’s voice that hissed, “How dare you hit her?” at the figure in black.

“Apologize!”

The nun spat the word into the room. She moved stiffly out of her chair, raising herself to her full height, stretching her skinny white-bound neck to its full extent until she looked to Rosa like a crane on a riverbank preparing to strike a frog in the mud.

“Rosa, apologize to Signora Berotti and to myself. May God forgive you in His mercy. You should be ashamed of yourself. You are no better than your mother.”

That was when the shame came, thick and foul-tasting. It seeped under the door, dripped down the chimney, and squeezed under the window frames. Shame that was white-hot when it touched Rosa’s skin. It crawled up her legs, beat its way across her chest, drumming on her heart, and burned a path across her cheeks. She was consumed by shame.

She detached herself from the architect’s touch and backed away with eyes lowered.

“It’s all right, Rosa, there’s no need to apologize or—”

“I am sorry, Signora Berotti.” Rosa dragged air into her lungs. “I am sorry, Reverend Mother.”

“God in heaven is the One who sees a truly repentant heart,” the nun said in a brittle voice.

“The girl has done nothing to repent. Let me speak with her alone, Reverend Mother. Allow me to take her into the courtyard to—”

“You have done enough, grazie, Signora Berotti,” the nun said coldly. “Please leave now.”

There was a long hard silence in the room. Behind it Rosa’s ears could pick up faint whispers, as though the devil were laughing behind the paintings of the old men. The only movement came from the architect’s hands as they clenched and unclenched at her sides, long-fingered and restless, a tangle of fine bones that she was holding in check.

“Do you want me to leave, Rosa?” the architect asked quietly.

Rosa nodded. Shame scorched her throat.

“Very well. I’m sorry, Rosa. The torcetti were meant to bring you pleasure, not anguish.” She picked up her canvas bag. “Good afternoon to you both.”

“Good-bye, signora,” Mother Domenica said. “There’s no need to come again.”

Still Rosa could not bring herself to look at the architect’s face, and after a pause Signora Berotti swung away and limped across the Persian rug to the door. There she turned.

“Take care, Rosa. I am sorry about your mother. You know where I live if you need me.”

The door opened, then closed. She was gone. Rosa tried to call her back, but there were no words in her throat and no breath in her lungs. The Reverend Mother did not speak, but she seized Rosa’s wrist with her sinless fingers and hauled her across the room under the accusing eyes of the men in red and purple. She swept her down the corridor until she stopped in front of a door, and Rosa stood there, mute and obedient. The nun yanked open the door. It was a cupboard full of mops and buckets.

“Repent!” she commanded.

She thrust the sinner into the cupboard, slammed the door shut, and turned the key. Rosa uttered no sound but stood in total silence, shaking in the darkness.

The darkness kept moving. Shifting around her. It brushed itself against Rosa’s skin, cold and clammy, making her turn her head blindly again and again. It twisted through her hair and whispered in her ear sounds that sent her heart fleeing up into her throat. It crept deep into her lungs, squeezing out the air, while her small fingers clawed at the door. She dropped to her knees on the stone floor and begged. She hammered on the door with her clenched fists. With her head. With her feet. With a bucket.

No one came. Not even God.

The hours ticked past. She made herself lie quietly on the hard floor, curling her body into a tight ball, knees up under her nose, but the blackness grew too heavy. It was bruising her ribs, crushing them, so she groped for one of the buckets, turned it upside down, and sat on it instead. She paraded through her head those moments that she’d spent walking through Bellina’s streets with the architect, opening her eyes to the buildings, but they were forced out by other images that stalked the darkness. Taking up space. Cracking open her skull. Gnawing at her feet. She cried out once to her mother, but only once.

Don’t let me die. Please, don’t let me die.

The door was thrown open and light streaked inside, making Rosa screw up her eyes. She was startled to see it was morning. She had been in the cupboard eighteen hours and had peed in one of the buckets with no shame.

But she was not the same Rosa when she emerged from the cupboard. She knew that. She could feel it. A part of her was missing—the part that wanted to be with people. It had spilled onto the floor in the cupboard, alongside the stinking mops and the rat poison, and made her feel lonelier than ever before.

Sister Agatha was the one who opened the door and stood there with a black Bible in her hand. She made Rosa kneel in the soulless corridor right outside the cupboard, and she prayed over the small sinner’s bent head for thirty long minutes. At the end, Rosa asked for forgiveness. But as she trailed behind the shapeless black figure on her way back to her classroom, Rosa knew she had gained something too. She hugged it to herself.

Rosa knew now that whatever they did to her, these devils in black robes, she would come out of it alive.

Not like her mother.

Rosa had refused to let herself die in the cupboard because she had promised her father that she would keep going. Until he came for her.

“Where did you live in Rome?”

It was Colonnello Sepe asking the questions this time. He didn’t frighten Rosa, not anymore. She knew now what it meant to be frightened, and Colonnello Sepe didn’t come close. She was in the Reverend Mother’s high-ceilinged room once more, watched by the critical eyes on the wall, and the police colonel was trying but failing to make his thin face appear kindly. He was seated behind Mother Domenica’s oak desk, and Rosa was perched in front of it on the edge of a hard chair. The room was too warm. The nun was pretending to read the Bible in her carved chair over by the fire but couldn’t resist glancing across at Rosa each time she spoke.

“I don’t know the addresses where we stayed,” Rosa insisted, fighting to keep herself from snatching the heavy brass inkwell from the leather desktop and hurling it at the Reverend Mother. She had even picked out the spot on her white left temple where she wanted it to land. “We moved around so often,” she explained. “Rome, Milan, Padua, Naples.” She shrugged the bony tip of one shoulder. “We stayed in a shepherd’s hut in the mountains one year. I liked it up there.”

Rosa made herself meet his eyes and blink in a childish stupid way. He had to believe her and leave her alone.

“Were you not educated? Didn’t you go to school?”

“Mamma taught me to read and write.”

“What did she live on?”

Rosa lowered her eyes; her lashes fluttered with nerves. “She used to go out in the evening. Sometimes.” Her mouth grew dry.

“To do what?”

“Whoring.”

She heard his intake of breath. Felt the nun’s disgust slither across the floor. Whoring was a dirty word. Rosa was ashamed to say it, even though her mother had made her promise to use it if she was interrogated. She flicked her tongue over her lips to clean them.

“Some nights,” she added, staring at the policeman’s long brown shoes under the desk, “she came back smelling of beer and cigarettes.” She felt a flush rise to her cheeks.

“Why did she keep moving from place to place?” the policeman demanded.

“I don’t know. She never explained. I think it was because . . .” She paused and recalled the exact words her mother had made her learn. “Because she was running away.”

Colonnello Sepe leaned forward, elbows on the desk, eyes sharp with expectation. Rosa could see that he wanted to grab her by the scruff and shake the words out of her, but he was good at control, this man. Almost as good as she was.

“What was she running away from?” He squeezed out half a smile.

“From herself. That’s what she told me.”

“And you believed her?”

“Yes.” Rosa looked at him with wide innocent eyes. “Why wouldn’t I?”